‘That old man, he was looking at me wasn’t he?’ Alex asked. I admitted that it had appeared that way. She searched through her bag until she found what looked like a diary. From inside the back cover she took out some photographs and handed one to me. It was of an old woman with iron-grey hair.
‘My grandmother. It was taken just before she became ill.’
Despite the difference in their ages the resemblance was clear, especially since they both shared the same strikingly pale green eyes. She handed me another picture, this one much older and taken in black-and-white. The image wasn’t as clear, but the resemblance was even more obvious.
‘That was taken when she was a year or two older than I am now. I wonder if that old man mistook me for Nana.’
I supposed it was possible. ‘You think he might have known her?’
‘Perhaps. She left here after the Second World War. I never knew that until she was moved to a hospice for the last few months before she died. She started telling me stories about the village where she grew up. I’d never heard any of it before. She talked about her parents and about her brother who I never even knew existed. It was incredible. She was dying and I suddenly realised I didn’t know anything about her.’
‘Is that why you came to Ithaca?’
Alex hesitated. ‘Partly.’ I had the feeling she was trying to decide how much to reveal of herself. ‘I wanted to know more about her life. And about my grandfather.’
‘Was he from here as well?’
She shook her head. ‘You remember I said earlier that nobody ever talked about him? The first time I heard him mentioned was when Nana was dying. I went to see her one evening. They were giving her a lot of morphine. I think she was a bit confused. She seemed to think she was back here again and she talked about this man that she fell in love with. His name was Stefan.’
‘Stefan? That’s German isn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘I didn’t find out any more until after she died. When I asked my mother she told me that her father was a German soldier. That’s why nobody ever talked about him. When Nana left Ithaca she was pregnant. Her family name was Zannas. They had lived here for generations, but after the war, the family disowned her and forced her to leave. They said she was a traitor.’
I began to understand what Alex had meant when she had talked earlier about not knowing who she was, and why she’d wondered if the old man in the village had recognised her. ‘Do you know what happened to your grandfather?’
‘No. That’s partly why I’m here. My mother told me that she went through a phase once of wanting to find out everything she could about him. Even if he was dead, she thought he must have family. She wondered if she had half-brothers and sisters somewhere. She was an only child, so I suppose it was important to her. For a long time Nana wouldn’t tell her, but in the end she gave in. I think she was afraid that if she didn’t my mother would find out some other way, which would have been worse.’
‘Because he was an enemy soldier?’
‘Not just that. There was more to it. Have you noticed how many churches there are here?’
I said that I had. ‘The Orthodox Church is still a big part of life for many Greeks. Especially in places like Ithaca.’
‘Nana went to one in North London all her life. Her flat was full of those little icons of the saints. You see them all over the place here. When she grew up, her life was dominated by her family and by the church. In those days it was unthinkable for a girl to get pregnant before she was married. She told my mother that she was raped. I don’t think she actually used that term, but it’s what she meant.’
‘But didn’t you say she told you she was in love with this soldier?’
‘Yes. I think she might have told my mother she was raped to put her off looking for his family.’
‘That’s a hell of a thing to say if it wasn’t true isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but it worked. Maybe she did it because he was already married. Anyway, after that my mother didn’t want to know any more.’
‘But you do?’
‘Yes. I think back then the war was still recent enough that Nana thought she was doing the best thing. I don’t know why. Perhaps to protect his family. But it is a long time ago now. I want to know the truth. There’s so much I don’t know. When I discovered all this I also found that I had a whole set of relatives in London. Nana’s estranged brother and his family. They own a restaurant in Camden. My mother told me that when she was little Nana was ill once and hadn’t been able to work so she went to ask her brother for help. My mother never even knew about them before then. A man came to the door and Nana spoke to him in Greek. He looked at them both for a long time and he didn’t say anything. But my mother said she never forgot his eyes. How full of hate they were. In the end he slammed the door on them. Nana never mentioned him again.’
‘Nice guy.’
Alex made a face. ‘He’s still alive actually. And he’s still horrible. His name is Kostas. I think after that Nana decided it would be better for my mother not to know about her Greek side. She brought her up as English, and my mother brought us up the same way. I suppose we all have different ways of dealing with these things. My mother’s was to bury it all. When I knew that I had relatives I hadn’t even heard of I wanted to meet them, though my mother tried to persuade me not to.’
‘I gather it didn’t work out.’
‘No. They still own the restaurant and so, of course, I went there. That’s where I met Dimitri.’
‘Dimitri?’ I thought she was referring to some relative or other.
‘He was working there. He’s from Ithaca. He’s the other reason I’m here.’ She paused and looked out across the bay for a few moments. After a while she turned back to me and smiled ruefully. ‘Anyway, things haven’t worked out in that department either. But since I’m here, I want to try to find out more about my family.’
I was curious about Dimitri, but I didn’t want to ask any more questions. I assumed that he was the cause of her unhappiness. It was clear when she mentioned his name that the wounds were still raw, but it was getting late by then, and Alex reminded me that she had to get back to the place where she had rented her scooter so, after I’d paid the bill, we left.
During the drive back to Vathy she was quiet, though she asked me a little about myself. I told her my father lived on the island and that I had come to see him, and she was interested when I said that he was an archaeologist. I didn’t tell her that he had died because I didn’t want to introduce a maudlin note. Instead we talked a little about Homer, whose work she had read when she was at school. She knew the story of the Odyssey much better than I did. She was surprised when I told her that my father had spent the past twenty-five years or so looking for Aphrodite’s Temple.
‘I didn’t know Odysseus really lived,’ she said. ‘I always thought he was a mythological figure. Our teacher taught us the Odyssey was a metaphor for life. She said Odysseus’s travels and struggles to return home were a search for the truth about what was really important. Family, home and so on.’
‘Maybe Homer blended fact and fiction,’ I said. ‘But some experts believe Odysseus really existed.’
When we arrived back in Vathy I drove her to the rental shop tucked away in a narrow street behind the main square and I waited outside while she went in to talk to the owner. I could see her through the window. I gathered the owner’s English wasn’t that good and she was having difficulty getting him to understand where she had left the scooter. He kept scratching his head and shrugging. Eventually she drew him a map and he smiled and nodded