Page 2 of The Silent Sister

CASSIA

The air was thick as Cassia walked back from the centre of Argostoli.

The place was silent, wearing a cloak of fear, with a real sense of foreboding.

The pewter-grey sky resembled one threatening a thunderstorm at dusk rather than one approaching midday when the sun was at its highest in the sky.

Despite being drenched in perspiration, Cassia shivered.

Something was very wrong. Glad to have reached her house, sitting halfway along the street leading out of Argostoli, Cassia dismissed the ominous feeling by making herself busy.

First, she unpacked her shopping. She went to put the vegetables away in the small outhouse when the whole building shook.

Crockery, pots and pans fell with a crash to the floor.

The shaking and shuddering increased in intensity before there was an almighty deafening bang.

A huge gaping crack tore from floor to ceiling down the opposite wall.

Cassia screamed. The floor underneath her continued to move violently.

She grabbed onto a kitchen chair that toppled over and took her with it.

The chair shielded her head as another crack above dropped large chunks of masonry on top of her.

She yelled out in pain. Coughing and spluttering, Cassia found it hard to breathe as the room filled with grey dust. She struggled to free herself when a wooden rafter crashed from the ceiling, pinning her to the floor.

Excruciating pain shot through her whole body.

She tried to push herself free. Outside she heard shouting, yelling, haunting cries.

The sound of crumbling masonry, wood snapping. It was the last thing she remembered.

* * *

‘She’s in here. She’s alive. I need help to free her.’

There was urgency and panic in the voice.

To Cassia, it seemed distant, yet the man was close.

Another person scrambled over the rubble blocking the doorway to join him.

Together, they lifted the heavy wooden beam off her.

Cassia tried to open her eyes and became aware of a stabbing pain in her lower leg. She cried out.

‘You’re safe now.’ The older of the two men, neither of whom she’d seen before, smiled at her. ‘We’re going to lift you out. Is it just your leg that hurts?’

Cassia nodded. She looked down to the source of her pain and saw a wound encrusted with dried blood and grey dust.

Once outside, the two men placed Cassia down to sit on the ground. ‘It looks nasty, but I think it’s just superficial,’ the man said. ‘Are you all right if we leave you to go and help some of your neighbours? This street is one of the worst affected.’

‘Yes, please go! Efcharistó. Thank you to you both.’

Cassia had not been prepared for the devastation she saw in front of her.

Not one of the houses stood unscathed. A gaping crack zigzagged the length of the street.

Some buildings were completely flattened, while others had single walls intact.

Some people wandered around aimlessly, while others held loved ones in their arms as they sobbed or dug through heaps of stones to get to the people buried underneath.

Cassia knew she was lucky. The pain in her leg was already easing, now it was free from the weight of the ceiling rafter.

It was then the tears fell. Bereft and alone, her whole body wracked with sobs. If only Nikos were still alive.

A soft voice she knew so well interrupted her thoughts.

‘Oh, Cassia. Are you hurt? I’m so pleased to see you are safe.’ Cassia looked up at the weathered, wrinkled face of her dear neighbour, Sophia. ‘Your house was so badly hit, I was afraid...’ — she stifled a sob — ‘it had taken you, too.’

Cassia managed to get to her feet without putting too much weight on her injured leg and flung her arms around the old woman who had been so caring when the news of Nikos’s death had come.

‘I’m all right. Oh, Sophia. Isn’t it terrible?

We knew it was coming, but not as awful as this.

It’s a bad one. What about you?’ Cassia looked across at Sophia’s house.

The roof and one side of the house had completely disintegrated.

Tears streamed down the old woman’s face.

‘Everything’s gone. My photographs of dear Vasilis, the children, the grandchildren.

All buried in a heap of rubble. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where to go.

’ Sophia paced up and down the road in front of her house, confused and disorientated.

Cassia begged her to stop. Eventually her neighbour fell to her knees, letting out a piercing wail.

Cassia crouched down beside her. ‘It will be all right.’ She took Sophia’s hand in hers, stroking the papery skin and looking into her frightened eyes.

‘We’ll get through this, Sophia. We’re both lucky.

Let’s see if we can find out what’s going on.

It’s been hours since it happened. Someone will know where we can get shelter from this awful heat. I’ll go and find out.’

Cassia helped Sophia to her feet and in spite of being in pain, moved along the street to find someone to ask.

By this time, crowds of people were milling around the end of the street where piles of rubble and large blocks of masonry were the only remnants of the houses.

Some of the men were digging through the chaos with their bare hands.

‘They’ve got someone out!’ shouted a woman, pushing through the crowd trying to see who it was.

The man carrying a body shook his head, his face ashen behind the grime of the earthquake dust. ‘He’s gone.

’ A howl from someone who was watching and waiting broke the grim silence that had descended on the crowd.

The man walked over to where a pile of bodies lay and placed the latest victim down. Cassia looked away.

‘Where is everyone going?’ she asked anyone who would listen.

‘They’re setting up shelters in the park.

The Red Cross has arrived, so anyone who is injured should go to Maitland Square, where they’re erecting tents,’ Demosthenes, another of Cassia’s neighbours, answered her.

Just as he’d finished speaking, a loud crash from the last wall to collapse made everyone jump and hide their heads in their hands.

‘It isn’t safe here. Go to the open space of the park. ’

Cassia thanked him and hung her head as another body was recovered, alongside one more wail of recognition from a bystander.

She went back to get Sophia and led her up the street.

It was now full of people, all walking in the same direction.

Some carried crying children, others items of bedding, even chairs.

Many clutched icons of Mary Theotokos, the mother of Jesus, retrieved from the ruins of their homes, all making their way in the direction of the park.

When they approached the house where the desperate rescue was happening, another body was carried out.

This time it was a woman dressed in a blue floral dress, caked in dust. Strands of long black hair obscured part of her face, but Sophia grabbed Cassia’s arm, her face distorted. ‘I know her. She’s got a little girl.’

She broke loose from Cassia and rushed up to one of the rescuers. ‘A little girl. About three. That’s her mother. Please, have you brought her out?’ She pulled on the man’s arm. ‘Please. Tell me.’

The man shook his head.

Sophia became hysterical. ‘She must still be in there. Her name is Eléni.’