To the south where the valley reached out towards the sea, the exit to the outer world was limited to short trips in small fishing boats. The diminutive cove did not have a respectable harbor to receive larger vessels and give the town a chance to develop.
The townspeople had become used to their isolation. Many of them had never gone beyond the rock border while the older ones among them had no desire to do so. Most learned what was going on from those who bought two-day-old newspapers or from the radio at the café, or at the house of some citizen fortunate enough to be able to afford a wireless set. Their favourite pastime was learning about the lives of others. They wanted to know every detail about what was happening in their neighbours’ houses; their curiosity focused primarily on gossip and only rarely was there a real interest in the troubles of their fellow villagers.
Whenever a scandal, according to their concept of one, became known, and before news of it had travelled as far as the café, it had already become a monstrous issue. Tongues wagged, analyzing the incident at length, dissecting with their criticism the person who was unfortunate enough not to have effectively protected their personal affairs. But how could anyone do this when everyone’s eyes and ears were focused on everyone else, and no voice, no whisper, no movement was able to escape the attention of someone, anyone, who, with newly acquired information in hand immediately rushed to broadcast the news to an audience voraciously standing by to receive and spread the word? Thus every situation was common knowledge even though some people had the illusion that the armour they wore over their personal life was without chinks and leaks.
The bell sounded at the old primary school, breaking the total silence that reigned in its classrooms. The pupils jumped up, as if on springs, and poured noisily out into the schoolyard. The pupils in Grade Six who had just finished the February written exam did the same. Several of them went out with an expression of intense dissatisfaction, two or three were crying because they had been unable to respond to the demands of the exam and were shivering in fear at the prospect of their parents’ reaction, but for some others, their small faces glowed happily. They had managed to once again do well in the difficult last term exam.
A group of children broke away from the crowd and sat on a stone ledge. They were children who had been friends from their first year at primary school and who were always together at every juncture of their lives, good or bad. Urania, Mary, Sofia, Paulina, Dina, Iakovos, Melina and Sarantos.
Urania, the headmaster’s daughter, was a dark, precociously developed girl whose interests were school, church and Sunday school. She never left her home alone and her friends had to visit her when her strict father allowed it only at her house. Paulina, the daughter of a nurse, had lost her father when she was five, and her mother struggled to support her and her two younger sisters. Melina, with chestnut hair and huge marsh-green eyes, skinny as a rake from privations caused by her cart-driver father being unable to earn a daily living wage, now shivered as usual because of the cold; her hand-knit woolen pullover unable to warm her. Her family did not have enough money at home to buy overcoats or even a long warm cardigan.
The young girl tried to warm herself by rubbing her hands together, but this was not sufficient to stop icy tremors from running up her spine or to stop her teeth chattering. She looked with a measure of envy at Urania’s snug coat and the other girls’ long thick jackets and wished that she too could have had something similar to wear. The boy sitting next to her, Sarantos, took off his old windcheater and tried to put it over her shoulders, but Melina, reacting with pride, gave it back saying she did not want it because she was not cold, an excuse that was patently false and foolish. Everyone could see that she was frozen to the bone.
Sarantos was a tall, thin lad, with thick dark blond hair and large melancholic eyes. His father too had difficulty feeding his family with the produce from his field. His meager peasant farm income was eroded first by floods, then by frost, and finally by drought. If it hadn’t been for the olive trees that took care of their annual requirement for oil and olives, taking care of a small part of their living expenses, the family would surely have died of starvation.
Sarantos’ friend, Iakovos, short and bow-legged, chestnut haired, with a wild unruly mop that reminded one of a bush, twittered, as always, with a permanent smile on his lips, as if life had given him all the bounty in the world. Cunning and mentally agile, in spite of his young age, he would always find a way round any obstacle. His father’s humble hole-in-the-wall shop and its penurious income were never enough to suppress his optimism. Only from time to time would one discern an occasional shadow passing over his eyes to reflect some new worry gnawing at his entrails. He usually drove these thoughts away quickly by uttering some nonsensical comment or by teasing the girls present so that the others would not notice his inner pain.
Dina, dark-complexioned as a gypsy, was an exotic beauty with her almond-shaped eyes and raven black hair; she was taciturn, only taking part in the children’s conversation when it was absolutely necessary. Her father’s taxi managed, to date, to support the family by being on hire even during winter’s cutbacks when customers became few and far between owing to the bitter cold.
Mary, red-haired, with pretty features, already had the makings of a future beauty. Sweet-mannered and retiring, but only superficially so, was well-dressed because her aunt who had emigrated to America sent clothes for her sister’s children. Her elegant and confident bearing made her stand out from the other primary school children. Her father who was the owner of the provincial town’s only pharmacy managed better than his fellow citizens because of the dollars sent every month without fail by his sweet-natured and generous sister-in-law.
The members of the young group were the elite of their school’s class since all of them were top students. The rest of the class had nicknamed them ‘the Gang’ because whatever they did they always did it together, whether this was to achieve distinction in their exams, winning at sports or even when indulging in just some minor mischief as if there was a contract that bound them to act as one.
Today, in a difficult math’s exam, they had perfect scores as they discovered when cross-referencing their answers after leaving their classroom.
“What a pity that these weren’t June’s exams!” said Iakovos. “We would be done, and in four months we would be in high school!”
“Mind you, the four months remaining until the school year is over will be gone before you know it!” said Melina, and the others agreed.
“Let’s go home and have a bite to eat!” suggested Urania whose appetite was legendary. “I’m starving!”
They started off home, dropping off their fellow schoolmates at their houses, one by one. Sarantos was last since his house was on the edge of town in an isolated spot. When the children referred to high school he felt his stomach tighten. He didn’t know how his father would take it if he mentioned that he too wanted to attend since his father kept telling Sarantos he needed hands to help in the fields and that education, for them, was a superfluous luxury because they could not afford to pay labourers to help them in the field. He would have to talk to his father, to prepare him from now and tell him he wanted to go to high school and later to university. He trembled at the thought of his father’s reaction, knowing his views on the subject, but Sarantos was determined to face up to him, come Hell or High Water. He opened the outer gate whose rusted hinges screeched like the angry cry of a cat and he went in.
“Each time he says he will fix the hinges but he does nothing!” the young boy thought, angry at his father for his negligence. The smell of oregano, mint and lavender that his mother had planted in the pots placed in the protected lee of the whitewashed garden wall filled his nostrils. He enjoyed being welcomed by the mixed herb scents because