The Years That Followed Read online

  Pilar nods. “Yes. I’d like to contact her.”

  Enrica begins to speak more quickly. “Sister Florencia has left the order—there was a big scandal here about a year, year and a half ago.”

  “A scandal?” Pilar is dubious.

  “She ran away,” Enrica says. “Sister Florencia did. With a man, a doctor here . . .” She glances over her shoulder again, clearly nervous.

  “Who?” Pilar is alert now. “What doctor?”

  “Dr. Antonio Suárez; he worked here for about five years. They left together. That’s all I know. I have to go now.”

  “Wait!” Pilar says. “Do you know anything else about him—or about her, her real name?”

  Enrica shakes her head. “No, that’s all. I really have to go or I will be in trouble. Dr. Suárez is from San Sebastián—that’s all I know. He used to talk about going back there.”

  Through the small pane of glass in the clinic door, Pilar sees the elderly nun approach the hatch. “Go, Enrica—she’s back. Thank you. Take care of yourself.”

  Enrica’s face fills with surprise. “How do you know my name?”

  Pilar smiles. “I remember you, too. You were kind to me. You brought me my lunch on a tray and held my hand while I cried. You and Florencia. I have never forgotten.”

  Enrica nods. “I’m glad,” she says. “Such a small thing. There is not enough kindness here.”

  And then she is gone, back through the door that leads to the waiting room.

  Slowly, Pilar steps out onto the street. She has a man’s name now. And even more important, she has a profession. And she has a city.

  The next step is Telefónica. She will consult all of the directories for San Sebastián. If that doesn’t work, then Pilar will consider going north herself. She will visit all the doctors’ surgeries she can find in the city and in its surroundings.

  And if that isn’t possible, she will hire a private detective.

  Resolute again, Pilar makes her way towards the Metro and home. No matter how little, progress is being made, step-by-step, bit by bit, day by day.

  She will never give up.

  calista

  London, 1974

  * * *

  Shortly after her arrival from Cyprus, Aristides took Calista to see his gallery in Mayfair. The name, in both Greek and Roman letters, was painted above the large, plate-glass window in a bright cerulean blue. Aphrodite, it read.

  Calista was startled when she saw the name. Alexandros had told her a story in Limassol once: the ancient myth of Aphrodite and Adonis. Aphrodite, married to Mars, the god of war, had betrayed her husband. She gave herself, secretly, to the most beautiful of all human men, Adonis.

  “To punish his unfaithful wife,” Alexandros continued, “Mars changed himself into a wild boar. He chased Adonis and killed him—right here, on the island of Cyprus. Adonis’s blood was spilled all over the field, and wherever the drops fell, Aphrodite made poppies bloom.”

  Calista remembered that scarlet image, and Alexandros’s passion in the retelling of the story.

  “That’s why there are still so many poppies all over Cyprus,” Alexandros went on. The way he looked at Calista as he spoke had chilled her. She knew he was telling her something other than a story. “You do know, don’t you, that Aphrodite spent the rest of her life weeping for her lover? And everywhere her tears fell, anemones grew.”

  “Calista, are you all right?” Aristides had taken her arm on that morning, concerned at her sudden reaction. She realized that she had unconsciously taken a step back away from the door, almost stumbling on the curb.

  “Sorry, yes—it’s nothing.” She turned to him and smiled. “What a beautiful gallery.”

  Aristides inclined his head in thanks and held open the door for her. “Wait until you see inside.” His voice was filled with pride.

  Calista stepped into a large, hushed space. Polished cedarwood floors, white walls: a whole ocean of serenity. She saw large, vibrant canvases displayed everywhere. There were pieces of sculpture by artists still unknown to her, but she felt the intensity of their impact. They drew Calista towards them; she wanted to reach out and touch their textured strangeness. “It’s lovely, Aristides,” she said. “Such a strong sense of tranquillity. You must be so proud.”

  He nodded, pleased. “My life’s work,” he said simply. “Come with me. I want to show you my newest venture. Anne insisted on it a few years back. She believes that photography is the next big thing.” He looked at Calista, his gaze shrewd. “You have told me of your own keen interest. My hope is that we can work together. I need this aspect of the business to grow, now more than ever.”

  “Why now more than ever?” Calista felt the tingle of anticipation. This could mean real work for her, significant work. She followed Aristides up the stairs.

  He paused as they entered the upper story. “Because all profits from this gallery will now be repatriated.” His voice faltered. “Anne and I, we have enough. We are fortunate. I can retire soon. Whatever we make from now on will go back to Cyprus. To help all those families who have lost everything in the war.”

  Calista touched his sleeve. His words moved her. “I promise you I will work hard to make that a reality. I will do my very best.”

  He nodded. “I trust you, as my oldest friend trusts you. I have never known Yiannis to be wrong in his judgment of people.” He waved Calista inside. “Come and look,” he said. “Anne is convinced that these photographers show great talent. I agree.” He walked into the room. “As yet, it is not too expensive to buy from these artists—they are mostly unknowns. But they are already achieving an excellent price among some of the collectors I deal with.”

  Calista followed him towards an entire wall of black-and-white portraits. There, among the work of six up-and-coming photographers, Calista saw the name of Katerina Pontikou. She stopped. The air around her seemed to still.

  “Do you like the work? Do you think highly of it?” Aristides was at her shoulder at once, and Calista found it hard to speak.

  “Yes, very,” she managed at last, not able to take her eyes off the images. These portraits were her work: her own stark, narrative-­fueled portraits of fishermen. Of lace makers. Of barefoot children and their mothers. She remembered all the mornings she had spent with Anastasios: his patient lessons, the way the developing photographs acquired a ghostly life of their own.

  At that moment, Calista knew what she was going to do. She would tell Aristides, of course; not now, but later, once she had carried out her plans. She listened as he deconstructed the images before them, one by one. She absorbed his praise, the accuracy of his eye, the subtlety of his insight.

  She felt like a drowning woman able to reach upwards at last, to punch through the surface of her life.

  * * *

  In October 1974, Calista is ready. Anne and Aristides are curious. Calista has asked for some space in Aphrodite for a temporary exhibition that she would like them to see.

  “I don’t want to give you any detail,” she said. “I want to see how you respond to the work. I’ve promised the photographer that I will report back faithfully.” And that is all she will say.

  She’s been here since five this morning, arranging the portraits and the lighting as Aristides has already taught her to do. She’s taken Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man” as her theme, and she is exhilarated by the powerful black-and-white images that now hang on the gallery wall.

  Calista has spent weeks among the Irish immigrant communities of Kilburn and Cricklewood. She has gotten to know their community centers, their churches, their schools. She’s spent Saturday nights with them in the dance halls they frequent with such enthusiasm: the Galtymore, the Round Tower, the Garryowen. The names are all redolent of the Irish landscape these men and women have left behind. Their sense of loss is stitched awkwardly into the fabric of a new and uncomfo
rtable life.

  Like a badly fitting suit, Calista thinks. She is reminded of her own going-away outfit, the blue suit that made her feel ill at ease, just like her new life.

  Calista is surprised at how readily these men and women have agreed to be photographed; her Irishness has made her one of them without question. So many of the faces she sees are as rugged and impenetrable as the west of Ireland from whence they come.

  And there is a vulnerability to all of them that Calista soon learns to recognize. It is, above all, the longing for home. She has attended christenings and weddings at Quex Road, the huge congregations spilling out onto the church grounds afterwards. She has learned to sense the complex mix of community and displacement that is a silent presence among them.

  Once, a nine-year-old boy in short trousers had posed happily for her, his satchel slung over one shoulder as he waited, scowling, outside his school gates. Calista had captured him as the morning light glanced across one side of his face, giving him a strange, luminous beauty.

  And then there are the hands that fascinate her: hands that build roads and bridges; hands that bake cakes and soothe children; hands that care for the elderly.

  She is nervous now as Aristides and Anne make their way around the room. The waiting is unbearable. Calista can hear them murmur to each other as they move from image to image, but she cannot make out what they are saying.

  Finally, Aristides approaches. Anne, she notices, is still studying the final portrait, gazing at it intently.

  “Calista, these are superb. I don’t believe I have ever seen anything quite like them. Is the photographer known to you?”

  “Yes.”

  Aristides gestures over one shoulder. “They tell the entire story of a community. Some of them are almost painfully intimate.”

  “Particularly The Wake.” Anne is back now by her husband’s side. “The tenderness of the women as they prepare the old man’s body is quite extraordinary. Where did you get them?”

  It takes Calista a moment before she can speak.

  The silence is intense. It fills with sudden understanding.

  “They’re yours, aren’t they?” Anne says.

  Calista nods. “I’m sorry for the secrecy, but I needed your gut response. This is no time for politeness.”

  Aristides looks from Calista to his wife and back again. “Your work?” he says, excitement colliding with disbelief. “This is you?”

  Calista smiles. “The photographer is Kate McNeill, otherwise known as Katerina Pontikou.”

  “Calista Demitriades in a past life,” Anne says. She takes Calista’s hands in hers and looks archly at her husband. “You’re promoted,” she says. “Gallery manager and contributing artist. Congratulations!”

  Aristides can’t stop smiling. “Champagne,” he says. “This calls for a celebration!”

  Thank you, Anastasios Papadopoulos, Calista thinks as she and Anne and Aristides discuss their plans over dinner. Thank you.

  Somehow, the knowledge that her work is good fills Calista with a new and powerful sense of optimism. She can do anything; she can work, she can survive, and, despite what Alexandros says, she now feels she can win. She will get her children back, and soon.

  * * *

  “Come as early as you can,” Maroulla said over the phone. “I will keep Imogen home from school. No one must know you are coming. Limassol is still in turmoil—so many refugees. With any luck, that will mean you can come and go unnoticed.”

  And now Calista is there, and she is careful. When she arrives at the airport in Limassol in early January 1975, she puts on a long blond wig and her Jackie Onassis sunglasses. Her jeans are old, her blouse shapeless. She has slung a well-worn rucksack carelessly over one shoulder. She glances at her reflection in the mirror of the ladies’ room and hardly recognizes herself. Calista steps out into the arrivals area and walks briskly towards the exit. Nobody gives her a second look.

  She takes a taxi to the outskirts of the city. When she speaks to the driver, she speaks Greek haltingly, with a British accent. She makes all the usual grammar mistakes of the hesitant learner—mistakes she had struggled so hard to overcome all those years ago. They come in handy now.

  She pays for her moped in cash, tucks her hair into a scarf, and makes her way by the most indirect route possible towards Maroulla’s house.

  “I’ve told Imogen I have a surprise for her,” Maroulla had said, “and that she won’t be going to school. I’ve bought her some new books that she’s asked for, in case you can’t make it. Please be careful, won’t you?”

  Calista hides the moped as best she can, in between two oleander bushes. The sudden memory of their pink, fragrant blossoms makes her breath catch. Pink: Imogen’s favorite color—the color of her childhood, of safety, of family. Calista turns away and walks the couple of streets back to Maroulla’s house. She makes her way there quickly, her hands stuffed into her jeans pockets, her eyes looking straight ahead.

  Maroulla opens the door before she knocks. She puts a finger to her lips.

  “Omiros isn’t here, is he?” Calista whispers in alarm.

  Maroulla shakes her head. “I told Eleni to take him away for the day.” She points to the kitchen door. “Go,” she says. “Your daughter is waiting.”

  Calista opens the door quietly. Imogen is standing at the window, looking out over the garden. Calista wonders what she sees. Out of nowhere, she remembers the day when Imogen played with her boats, surrounded by sand castles. She’d pushed tiny Cypriot flags into their crenellations, and an entire fortified city lay at her feet. Calista had watched as her daughter sailed her fleet away, her small hands making the toy boats rise and fall, rise and fall on the sea’s invisible swell.

  “Imogen,” she says softly.

  The child turns. When she sees her mother, her mouth opens in that huge O that reminds Calista of the night at the airport. The memory of it bruises her, and despite herself, she sobs. She runs towards her daughter, now, her arms open wide, her face streaked with tears. “Sweetheart, darling girl,” she says, over and over again.

  “Mummy!” The child’s voice is high and clear, terrified by joy.

  Calista pulls her daughter to her, rocking her back and forth, back and forth.

  Imogen pulls away for a moment; her eyes search Calista’s face as though she cannot believe what she is seeing. She brushes the tears away, pinching her mother’s cheeks to see whether she is waking-time real: really real, not just dream-time real. She strokes Calista’s hair the same way Aiya strokes hers, kisses her, and nestles into the warm, downy comfort of Calista’s neck, breathing in the scent that is as familiar to her as daylight.

  “Mummy,” she whispers, over and over again. “Mummy.”

  “We don’t have all that much time,” Aiya is saying. “I’ve phoned the airline, and the next plane is due in at four. I’ve told Iliada to take her time, to go and see her mother after she does the shopping. But I can’t be certain when she’ll be back. It’s almost eleven now, Calista; you need to be gone by three, just to be on the safe side.”

  Calista stretches out her hand. “Thank you, Maroulla. Thank you so much,” she says.

  Maroulla pats the back of Calista’s hand. “I’ll leave you alone.” Then she frowns. “Did you come by taxi?”

  Calista shakes her head. “No, I hired a moped—and I paid for it with cash. I’ve hidden it a couple of hundred meters up from the main road, a few streets from here. I was careful. I spoke to no one.” She gestures towards the table where her sunglasses sit, along with the wig and the brightly colored scarf.

  Imogen is puzzled. The wig looks like a small, discarded animal. And the scarf has none of the colors Mummy likes.

  “And I covered up.”

  “Thank you.” Maroulla looks at her and pauses for a moment. Calista can see her struggle with something. “Alexandros is my
son. And his father is my husband. I don’t need to tell you what will happen if—”

  Calista raises one hand. “I understand, Maroulla. And Imogen understands, too. This is our secret. It will not be shared with anyone, I promise. You have my word.”

  “And I promise, too,” Imogen says. She is eager to be a grown-up. “I won’t tell anyone. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  Calista hugs her. “Don’t say that,” she whispers. “Don’t ever say that. A promise on its own is good enough.”

  Aiya says: “We must all try to do what we believe to be right.” And she turns and walks away slowly, pulling the door closed behind her.

  * * *

  Calista sits on the kitchen chair and pulls her daughter onto her knee. She puts both arms around her and holds her close. Then, remembering, she cups Imogen’s chin in one hand and says, smiling: “I almost forgot.” She reaches into a big green rucksack and pulls out something dark and furry. Imogen recognizes it instantly, and her face lights up.

  “It’s Monkey!” she says.

  Calista laughs. “Monkey and I have become very good friends,” she says. “Look—I even bought him a new jacket and bow tie. I wanted him to look smart when we came to visit.”

  Imogen rubs Monkey’s soft fur against her cheek. “Aiya said that he would look after you,” she begins. “Did he?”

  “Absolutely. We looked after each other.” Calista pauses. “I’ll have to take him away with me again, but I’ll bring him back the next time I come to see you.”

  Imogen is dismayed. “Can’t you stay?”

  Calista shakes her head.

  Imogen is afraid that she—that both of them, she and Mummy—are going to cry again.

  “No, darling, not this time. I can’t. But I really, really want to. Do you believe me?”

  Imogen nods. “Is it because of the misunderstanding with Papa?”