Stone and Honey

by Christina Zempi

Genres: General Fiction; Holiday Romance

Synopsis

Odysseas Anastasakos has spent the past 17 years living in exile in Boston. A fatal accident when he was 15 years old forced him to denounce his Grecian birthplace and led him in pursuit of a new life where he could escape the demons of his past. But on his first return to Greece in 17 years, Odysseas is confronted by a passionate love that will change everything. Two summers seventeen years apart; a past and a present that will determine the future of all those involved. A beautiful novel, vibrant with Greek flavours that captures one person's dilemma when deciding between honour and love, this story is universal and at the same time a deeply personal tale of a love that surpasses distance, dissolves differences and survives time.

Release date: July 18, 2016

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 582

Sample

Abandoned Towers

‘Some people find these abandoned towers depressing, but I like them,’ said Effie.

As fitting symbols of human vanity, I like them too. A tower on four floors, turned into a crow's nest. I hope it collapses into a heap of stones for snakes and lizards to live in and maybe provide jobs for archaeologists sometime in the future. My mother bores me rigid with the history of that bloody house and the moiroloy – laments – she collects religiously wherever she can find them. From books, old magazines, local newspapers. She records them at village funerals with a microphone tucked in her bag. Old women in black, droning on endlessly like the crows in the ruined towers. ‘The moiroloy frighten me,’ my mum admitted. ‘It's the truth those pursed lips keep locked away until the pain of death brings it out.’

I like old towers. You can take a girl you fancy to those deserted houses and no one would ever think of looking for you there. So you can get on with whatever you want to do in peace, petting, kissing, and if you’re lucky, shagging. It's the only glory there is left to these buildings. I often thought of doing it before, but never dared to. Because of my mother always telling me to ‘be careful, be careful’ and I don’t like to upset her when I’m down here. She has enough worries, she stresses about me when I’m in Athens and she doesn’t want any more problems here, the old ones are enough, she says, though for some people problems are in their character, their system attracts them and I am one of those people. Everyone knows it. Mothers advise their precious sons to stay away from me, because I’m ‘bad company’, and their daughters not to take ‘risks’. I am dangerous, and I’m proud of it. Any boy who comes near me will risk smoking weed, popping pills and shooting up, despite the fact that I’ve never tried those things myself, and girls risk losing their virginity prematurely, even though I haven’t yet lost mine. With a reputation like mine, it was a big deal getting Effie to come and meet me alone here, and even more of a big deal that she trusted me, and let me touch her.

We clamp our mouths together and seek out the smooth skin under our T-shirts and we both go too far. She flouts her mother and father, and it isn’t easy to flout Mitsikoyiánnis, a civil engineer with an office in Areopolis, a local councillor in the municipality of Oetilus, a local bigwig and sworn enemy of my mother. Hardly likely to take kindly to my making out with his daughter! And in his own friend's house what's more … Me! The bastard! And yet again I have disobeyed my mother, the ‘general’. She made me promise to stay away from the girls in the village and in particular Mitsikoyiánnis's daughter. I couldn’t care less if I never got within a mile of the others, I could always find a willing summer tourist, pert nipples peeping through T-shirts, suntanned legs strolling lazily along the cobbled streets, calves, thighs, knees naked in the sun, but I knew the instant I made that promise to my mum that I would never keep it.

I read somewhere that smoking is genetic and though I’m not an expert I agree, because nicotine doesn’t suit me at all. I hate it as much as my mother does. But I like the conspiratorial, secret side of it, and it suits my purposes right now. Effie has already tried it and given up, but I never did. I have to live up to my bad reputation somehow, and to find an excuse to hide with her behind walls and ruined buildings, of which there are plenty, luckily, where we live. I bought a packet, and that was the excuse for our first time alone together. Our first touch was behind the church wall, when, to hide my nervousness, I offered her a cigarette and lit it for her – I had practised earlier, obviously – as politely as an English lord, and more so. It was windy and we had to find shelter, so we got pretty close. Her girly scent wrapped itself around me, her hair tickled my nose and although I was terrified, I knew from that moment that I wanted to lose my virginity with her. And they could all go and stuff themselves, Mitsikoyiánnis and my mother and everyone else.

For a whole year Dimitris, my mate from Athens, had been bugging me to go along with him for my ‘baptism of fire’. He had already done it many times, and there's no denying it, experience is everything. Pappoú told me directly that it was high time, that he would give me the cash, and not to tell my mother. I said no. Don’t ask me why. Why should I have to prove my manhood in the arms of poor foreigners called Anoushka or Gabriella or Vanessa, who tell you they were medical students back home, and will now sell you a fuck cheaper than a bottle of olive oil – which has gone right down in price by the way, even in the Mani which produces the best in the world. I have absolutely no desire for it and I’m not sure I could rise to the occasion.

Mitsikoyiánnis's daughter is no walkover. Her friend Soula would be more up for it and I know that; she ‘seems as one long since prepared’, as Cavafy, peeping out from my mother's books, would say. My evil reputation draws her like a magnet. Her virginity has become an unbearable burden to her, and she wants to get shot of it as quickly as possible and move on, but I don’t feel like helping her with that, so I suggested it to my friend Vassilis: ‘Don’t be a wanker, go for it,’ I said. He's considering it.

I’m crazy about Mitsikoyiánnis's Effie … I think of her and start to sweat, I long to see her, to touch her. Because of her, I fear nothing and nobody except my inexperience, but I’m encouraged by the thought of Adam and Eve. They were totally inexperienced, and yet they managed an original sin, and so what if it cost them their paradise. I don’t care what it costs me, no price is too high where she's concerned, and what's the use of a paradise if you don’t even want to be in it?

So as I said, I love old towers, and in particular this one here, standing alone, still upright, scary in the silence, with its own little ghost, like all self-respecting old houses. And I’m not referring to myself, though I am about to turn into a ghost, standing in here waiting for Effie with a hard-on, like an ancient satyr on a postcard rack outside a kiosk. Okay, maybe not quite so well endowed! Old people and children in the village talk about a strange light appearing every so often through its little windows. The light goes up the four floors of the tower, one by one, they say, to carry up the rocks and boiling oil, perhaps. Probably illicit lovers, or an illegal immigrant finding refuge, and it has set people's imagination going. Whoever it was, I owe them a favour, because it means that Effie and I are completely safe. It's unlikely that anyone will come here. Mitsikoyiánnis is far away in bed, and my mother, even if she was suspicious, is afraid of the house for her own reasons, which have nothing to do with ghosts. Only the moon, like a large orange ball, watches me kiss Effie – tracing the circumference of her face – her eyes, wide open as she looks deep into mine, and then closed in expectation. I like the way we take it step by step, exploring and discovering one another, preparing ourselves for the inevitable. She may not have completely comprehended it, but I feel sure – I’m plucking up my courage for what's about to happen, and it's coming closer by the hour.

This tower has a long history. It was built on the highest point in the village, eight minutes’ fast walk from my mother's and an awesome rival to our house, which guards both the entrance to the village and the pass, in both directions, from Sparta and from Areopolis. The two towers keep a lookout over the entire region, and above all they keep an eye on each other. The floor we’re on and the first two floors of this monster here were built around 1700, but its two top floors were built much more recently, when the war with the Anastasakaíoi was at its peak. First they raised it up a floor to equal ours, and then they built another level to make it taller, and leaving absolutely no doubt that they intended to defend what they owned: basically olive oil and water. Generations back we used to kill each other over a single olive tree, a strip of turf, a spring with barely a drop of water. But this was an open threat. According to the unwritten rules of our region, my clan gave their enemies fair warning: If they didn’t scale down the height of their tower along with their ambitions, there would be war. The others replied, like true Spartans: ‘Molon lavé’ – if you want it come and get it. They didn’t use those words exactly but their meaning was plain enough.

My people started the murders: they ambushed and killed the doctor, Piéro Anastasákos, on his way to the priest's sickbed. It was a set-up, naturally. Then the elders of the clan met, here in this house, and decided on the best way to wash away their shame and satisfy the women of the family, who were baying for blood. As a result Spyros Haritákos was sentenced to death and killed in his field, next to Ay’ Ilía's church, while he was napping under an olive tree in the afternoon heat. He wasn’t actually the one who started the killings, but they decided on him instead of his father, Vassilis, who was a lazy good-for-nothing. By contrast Spyros was a man known for his discretion, and well respected throughout the length and breadth of the Mani, and the Anastasakaíoi wanted to hit at the Haritakaíoi where it really hurt. But they underestimated us. The wife of the murdered man demanded vengeance; she refused to come out of her house until the black mark of shame besmirching her honour and self-respect had been removed. If the men of the family didn’t have the balls for it, she would do it herself, with her own bare hands. The Haritakaíoi wouldn’t stand an insult like that. There followed more of the same, from both sides, until all that was left of the warring clans were the two towers, symbols of their power and greed. Due to the latter, we lost the former. It is difficult to work and make your land flourish if you’re hemmed in by gunslits, expecting death to strike you at any moment, and trying to be invisible, like the lizards who nest in the stones. The survival of their men was the women's only concern, while they worked like dogs to bring in the food for their families. What an irony! To owe everything, even the food on your plate, to women, busily weaving your destruction on the loom of fate, and whose only concern was the death of the enemy!

How proud they were

the men of our clan

now they’re yours for the taking

Traitors and cowards

ruins washed down the river by the first flood.

That moiroloy wasn’t sung for us, or for the Anastasakaíoi. But it fits us like a glove. There was hardly anything left, and I don’t just mean stone ruins. Faced with the threat of extinction, the elders of the two families, three generations back, were forced to capitulate. A psychikó, a truce, was agreed with the intervention of the Nikolakaíoi, a good family, whom both sides trusted and respected. They didn’t quite fall into one another's arms, but it had become clear that if our feud continued there would soon be none of us left. We had the same number of dead on each side, the same number of graves, no one looked weaker than the other, less worthy, more cowardly. My great-grandfather made a truce with Anastasákos's grandfather, they shook hands, and for a generation we were at peace, without any loss of dignity; more likely they all felt relieved. For one generation only. The dance of death, as my grandfather used to say, is ever with us, and it will always find a way to start its bloody game again from the beginning.

Effie and I were lying on the millstone, while the first stars of the Mani night winked at us over the house of our old enemies, and the moon gave us its blessing to get on with it, and do what women and men have always done, since the beginning of time, when they’re alone together. I was certain that the time had come, she wasn’t resisting, the stone was hurting our backs but neither of us minded. I took off her top and touched her naked skin. She shivered, like the sea beneath the wind's caress.

And then suddenly a stranger appeared at the door of the tower, silent as a ghost. I couldn’t see him properly in the dusk; I only noticed that he was tall, with short hair, wearing jeans and a dark shirt. The moon lit up his grim face, completely unknown to me.

I was terrified. I had heard about weirdos who steal up on couples, rape the girl, rob, and sometimes kill them. Not here in the Mani, obviously, but you never know. Effie was my first concern – to protect her from the stranger and get her to run back home to safety.

‘Having a party, are we?’

The guy was xénos, a foreigner, you could tell by his accent, the way he said the word ‘party’. He must be a homeless immigrant, working somewhere nearby and using the house to sleep in. He didn’t look Albanian, they aren’t that tall, maybe Bulgarian or Romanian. He kept his distance, which was just as well. By God I would have gone for him if he had tried to touch Effie. I would have hit him, though he was no pushover – huge, with wide shoulders and hands like sledgehammers. But he didn’t move a muscle; he gave me time to tell Effie to get dressed and go, and to convince her that I’d be all right. She went down the path by the millstone. I only breathed again when I was sure she was safe. I looked more closely at the stranger, who for some unknown reason, despite his stern expression, seemed amused.

The only thing that worried me was that if he was from around here he might shop us, and if anyone blabbed to Mitsikoyiánnis, my mother would find out, and then there would be a fuss. Effie would be in for it, and who knew when I would see her again. I tried to play it cool. I had managed to button up my trousers and swallow my frustration after the almighty let-down.

‘Who are you? Don’t you know that this is private property?’ I said, in a pathetic attempt to scare him off.

‘That's what I thought,’ he said, as if I had no more right to be there than he did.

It was an awkward situation. He evidently wasn’t going to be scared away by a kid. So I changed tack.

‘Look, buddy,’ I said gently, ‘it doesn’t bother me you being here, and I won’t tell anyone. You can stay as long as you like, no one ever comes here. Only do me a favour …’

I was overcome by the strange notion that he was able to read my thoughts. He actually smiled. He was laughing at me and the blood rushed to my head, but I didn’t want to play tough – the guy had the upper hand. There were two people who might object to his being in the tower: one was Uncle Nikifóros, but he was away in Athens with his wife critically ill in hospital. The other was Effie's father, Mitsikoyiánnis, and if he were to find out, there would be no hole small enough for us to hide in. So I swallowed my anger and tried to think.

‘Don’t tell anyone you saw us here. I don’t care about myself but I care about the girl. So please …’ I pleaded, like an idiot. I even dug my hand into my pocket and offered him what was left of yesterday's wages. Twenty euros. He didn’t take it. He just smiled wearily and rubbed his eyes.

‘I don’t care what you do,’ he said. ‘Only don’t come back here until I’ve gone, I need some peace and quiet.’

He promised not to say anything to anyone. He didn’t care about the place; he was just passing through. What concerned him, he went on, was that I seemed to be getting on pretty well with her, meaning Effie, and that in his opinion I was asking for trouble. He put his hand into his pocket and took out a box of condoms, which he handed to me.

‘Never go into battle without your shield,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you seen the statue of Leonidas in Sparta? Sword unsheathed, but shield firmly in position.’

I admit I was so stupid I didn’t even think why a Romanian would know about Leonidas. Something else struck me: Get a load of these refugees! They have nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep, and yet they don’t go anywhere without their condoms! I spent the whole of that evening thinking about it. We parted like two friends who had shared a secret, we even shook hands, which made me thank my lucky stars I didn’t have to fight him – he had an iron grip. And if I hadn’t been freaked out by what he said at the end, I might even have liked him. But just as I was about to jump out of the tower, he called me back.

‘Hey kiddo!’ I turned round, clutching the condoms. ‘How old are you?’ I told him I would be sixteen in November and he smiled oddly.

‘She's sweet, your bird,’ he remarked, ‘but she's not right for you. Forgive me for saying so, but you need someone older for what you’re after.’

It pissed me off that he had an opinion about everything. About me, and about Effie, and about what exactly we were doing together. I told him to bugger off, and jumped off the roof of the old chicken house and on to the mound outside the tower.

It was hot and my T-shirt was clinging to my skin. There was no breeze at all, which is pretty rare in our wild and windy part of the world. Not a breath was stirring, and that does your head in. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry to talk to Effie and reassure her, I would probably have noticed the unusual activity in old Dimákos's house. I didn’t notice anything, I only thought of her, mad with worry, waiting for a call or a text. The moon had risen further, lighting up the lines of rock that merged into the distant coastline, and I just managed by the light of it to send her four words: ‘Don’t worry, all fine.’ I didn’t dare phone her, I didn’t know who was with her or how she would explain the call. I would wait till she had a chance to phone me.

There was no point in hurrying back home; Pappoú knew I was never home before one or sometimes two o’clock. I usually hung around with Vassilis and the others outside the church, bantering and fooling about. They would probably be there still, but I didn’t fancy seeing them. I would have to explain where I’d been, and somebody was bound to have noticed my being away with Mitsikoyiánnis's daughter the same time every day. Definitely Andreas, Kosmas's son, who misses nothing, and who has inherited his father's peculiar talent for being insatiably curious about other people's affairs. If he even got the smallest hint of what we were up to, we were done for. He would have no qualms in giving us away. He's never forgotten how I threw a stone at him and cracked his skull five years ago, when I was ten and he was thirteen. He is a complete loser, which is why he made the mistake of underestimating me because of my size. But none of that counts when the other guy is a shit, and you’re driven mad with fury, and at that moment I wasn’t frightened of anything. He was lucky to get away with just a broken skull, three people had to hold me down. If anyone says a word against Marináki I go crazy, and he had the cheek to call my mother a whore in front of everyone. He, of all people. They all had a go at me after that. And who got the blame? I did. The bastard, who else?

Obviously, no one dared mention Marináki's name after that. And whatever my mother says, Pappoú, my Grandad Haritákos, with the wisdom of a man who's been in prison, said I did the right thing. Because you either have the balls and show it, or you just sit there and let people fuck you over.

I like walking at night here in the Mani. The darkness gently covers the sharp lines of the rocks, the sun that scorches you all day long has gone, the air, even when there's no breeze, like tonight, brings down sweet scents from Taygetus. It clears your head, you see things as they are, you can dream, despite the stress you’re under. I went back home and waited for the telephone to ring. Pappoú had cooked aubergines imam and they were delicious, but I had no appetite, not until I’d spoken to Effie and made sure that everything was okay. Pappoú wasn’t yet back from the kafeneíon. Their card game was probably dragging on, and so much the better – the last thing I wanted at that moment was people asking questions.

The phone rang just as I turned on the television to get the sports news on NET – not much of it, since it was summer. I grabbed my mobile from the kitchen table. Effie's voice, frightened, sobbing. She was trying to tell me something, talking so quietly that I couldn’t make it out. She obviously didn’t want to be overheard and we weren’t getting anywhere, so I cut her off quickly.

‘I’m coming over, go out into the back garden.’

We met and she told me that when she got back home she had found her mother in a state, annoyed with her for having disappeared all afternoon, and asking where she’d been, so insistently that at first she thought she must know. But it turned out not to be about her. Effie's father has a small construction company, which relies on people coming back to the village to do up their old family houses. They might build a couple of rooms on a small piece of land or maybe renovate an abandoned tower. But who wants a holiday house when they can barely afford to live? Her father had counted on building a new hotel, using some of the old village towers. It would be a big asset to the neighbourhood, and though his company is small, they do an exceptional job in restoration, and he has the experience. He renovated the Anastasákos's tower, where I’ve been meeting Effie. But the construction industry is going through a crisis right now, the big companies from Athens smelled money and came down on the hotel project like crows. A French company got in on the act and it was they who eventually got the job.

As I said, I’m not too fond of Mitsikoyiánnis, but I do admire him for staying put in the Mani, when it would have been so much easier to leave. He loves this place a lot and he is the best at restoring the towers, because the history of the Mani is his passion. A romantic at heart, stubborn. And honourable, despite the difficulties. If it had been anyone else, he would have oiled every wheel in the municipality instead of keeping well out of it for ethical reasons. He has the old-fashioned, straight way of thinking: the truth is the truth and a lie is a lie, black and white sorted out, children should be born after their parents get married and so on. And he doesn’t think much of bastards with unknown fathers like yours truly.

So Mitsikoyiánnis had missed his chance with the hotel. And Effie's mother, who did the interior design for her husband's business, was upset about that. Despite the lecture, Effie was relieved that her secret was still a secret. Then her father came home and they were all sitting at supper when his phone rang, and the bomb dropped.

The person on the phone was Odysséas Anastasákos, Mitsikoyiánnis's best friend, who had left years ago for America. The last remaining member of the ‘enemy’ family. The stranger in the tower house! As Effie told me this piece of news, the church bell started to toll mournfully, but I hardly noticed it then. It's nothing unusual in a place where there are only old people left.

The moon had risen fully, a gentle breeze blew Effie's hair back to reveal her face. At last, a breeze! She had tears in her eyes and was frantically looking at me for help. She had a point; the man in the tower house was no stranger after all. He would probably be in and out of their house and be invited for meals, and might even stay with them till he’d cleared the cobwebs out of his own house. There was nowhere to hide, the guy would talk, and probably with great satisfaction as soon as he found out who I was.

Far away on the horizon you could make out the dark sea. People would be strolling about the alleyways of Areopolis and settling down for a drink at the Xemóni. Up here it was silent except for the sounds of the night, an evening like any other, broken only by the tolling bell. Effie told me that Odysséas Anastasákos had proved everyone wrong and had finally come back in time for his aunt's funeral! There had been talk of his arrival for over two weeks. When his aunt went into hospital the rumours multiplied: ‘He has to come now,’ they all said. I didn’t think so, because if he had really wanted to come he would have caught the first plane back as soon as he heard Dimákaina was ill. That's what you do for the people you love. What's the point of kissing a corpse? They said he delayed it because he was up to his eyes in work, as if the old lady would wait till he was free before throwing in the towel.

Dimákaina never expected him to come back. Whenever they talked about him the tears came to her eyes and she would sigh ‘my poor lost boy’ as if he were dead. And when she heard his voice on the telephone: ‘I can hardly tell if it's him any more,’ she would say to my mother, and I would leave the room as fast as I could. I didn’t want to hear about him, I didn’t want to feel sorry for him, I couldn’t. How can you bear it, Marináki, how do you still have time for him, even now? That evening was when I first told her to get married, while she was correcting her Ancient Greek papers with a red pen and putting marks with a ring round them at the top of the page.

‘Why don’t you get married, Mamá?’

If you think of all that's been written about the full moon, from ancient times till today, and how much it apparently influences people's lives, then it's hardly by chance that Anastasákos chose to come back on the night of the full moon. The breeze had dropped as suddenly as it had started, my clothes were sticking to my body, my brain froze and there was no way out. I had to act fast, this very evening, because tomorrow the creep would see us both at the funeral and there would be hell to pay for Effie, and all because of me. I told her not to worry, to have faith in me and that I would sort it all out. She very much wanted to believe me, and convinced herself it was all okay. If only I could have done the same.

‘But how are you going to talk to him, Alexi, at the funeral with all those people around you?’

She was right. The house would be packed with people, it wouldn’t be at all easy to get him alone, but I didn’t let my uncertainty show. Girls, my grandad says, are like the tender shoots on the olive tree; they get easily broken.

‘If I have to, I’ll put it in a moiroloy,’ and I started up:

Poor old Anastasáko

with your great big tower

and your shedloads of dollars

why did you come back here

just as my sweetheart

was giving me a kiss

on your old millstone?

You should have stayed in xenitiá

eating and drinking and getting smashed

and living it up with all that cash

instead of coming over here

to smash our …

I emphasised what I meant with the familiar hand gesture and, despite being worried, we both laughed. We risked a quick kiss.

‘Don’t be afraid, I’m not leaving you,’ I whispered into her parted lips.

And it's true, she shouldn’t be afraid. I didn’t know how, but I would sort everything out. I had no choice, or I would never see her again. Her father wouldn’t allow it. I went off to Dimákos's house. I felt my feet dragging as I got nearer and my optimism vanished. Why should the guy keep our secret? And how could I ask him such a thing amongst all those people. What would I say to him?

***

The wooden gate to Dimákos's garden was wide open, as was the front door. The familiar scene of the wake, with the men outside and the sound of the women's lament coming from within. In the front yard the foreigner stood out from all the others and now that it was light I could see his features clearly. So this was Odysséas Anastasákos! His grey hair made him look older than he was, but he was well preserved and impressive, mainly due to his height and build. Broad shoulders, enormous hands. Fiery black eyes in a face that reminded me of hermits on the icons in church. I laughed inwardly at the thought. Who had ever heard of a hermit with condoms ready to hand? He was having a fine old time, the creep, even on a day like today! He was surrounded by a group of men in the garden, and why wouldn’t he be, after so long abroad. Mitsikoyiánnis, his best friend when they were boys, Effie's mum's brother, Pantelis Leoúsis, Pavlákos the former cop, Kosmás the café owner, also known as ‘the antenna’ because he always had the gossip, and a few other old men. The foreigner looked ill, he was rubbing his eyes again, like he’d done up at the tower, and he wouldn’t leave his old man's side.

I went up to offer my condolences to old Nikifóros. A cicada was energetically rubbing its wings together in all the glory of the Maniot summer, which increased my embarrassment. What was I supposed to say to the old man who had lost his wife and was left alone, with no children, and his nearest relative living in Boston? I stammered the usual clichés and went in to pay my respects to the dead, surrounded by village women dressed in black, in the certain knowledge that I belonged nowhere. I was too young to sit outside with the men and obviously I wasn’t going to stay inside with the women. For a moment I thought of phoning my friend Vassilis, but I banished the thought, because then I would have had to explain my meeting with Anastasákos at the tower and to admit to my secret meetings with Effie. Not that he isn’t okay, but when two people have a secret it's a secret. Tha