The Eagle of Spinalonga Read online

  The Eagle

  of

  Spinalonga

  Copyright © Nike Azoros 2013

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN – 13:978-1477686386

  Copyright © 2013 – The Eagle of Spinalonga

  Printed in the United States of America. No part of this work may be used or reproduced, transmitted, stored or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, tapping, Web distribution, information networks or information storage and retrieval systems, or in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission.

  A Wisdom Workshops Publication.

  For further information contact, [email protected]

  For Elektra and Joshua

  Also by the same author

  Greek Funeral Traditions

  getting to Know Thyself

  This is a work of fiction, inspired by the real life achievements of Epaminondas Remoundakis, patient of Spinalonga, and the priest who ministered to the lost souls. This book also acknowledges the heroic actions of the people of Greece during the Nazi occupation.

  The Eagle of Spinalonga

  Nike Azoros

  Table of Contents

  Glossary

  Chapter 1: The Funeral of Nikos Lambrakis.

  Chapter 2: Dante’s Gate

  Chapter 3: The Call of Manoussos

  Chapter 4: Alikhan

  Chapter 5: The Hand of God

  Chapter 6: The Fourth Divine Good

  Chapter 7: Pavlos

  Chapter 8: Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt.

  Chapter 9: Flying Fish

  Chapter 10: Clerical Correspondence

  Chapter 11: The Ministry of Health

  Chapter 12: The Man with the Carbine.

  Chapter 13: The Brotherhood of Spinalonga.

  Chapter 14: The Minister’s Visit.

  Chapter 15: Getting Things Done.

  Chapter 16: Lyras and his Horse

  Chapter 17: Holy Communion

  Chapter 18: Angela

  Chapter19: Theodora

  Chapter 20: Operation Mercury.

  Chapter 21: Operation Cyclops

  Chapter 22: Healing

  Chapter 23: Vincent Barry

  Chapter 24: The Departure

  Glossary

  Aman

  Mercy (Turkish)

  Charon

  Ferryman to the Underworld

  Chum

  Cut up chunks of meat used as fishing bait.

  Dakos

  Crisp Barley Rusks

  Endaxi

  Alright, Okay

  Epitrachileon

  Richly Embroidered Stole of priests of the Greek Orthodox Church

  Esperinos

  Vespers, Evening prayers

  Hansenite

  Leper, named after Gerhard Hansen the Norwegian physician who discovered leprosy was caused by a bacterium and not hereditary

  Kakomiris

  Ill fated

  Kalé

  My dear

  Kali mera

  Good day

  Kalitsounia

  Cretan Cheese pies

  Kamilavkion

  Tall, black, flat topped hat worn by Greek Orthodox priests

  Kapetan

  Captain

  Kataifi

  Shredded pastry

  Koukla

  Doll

  Koulouri

  Circular bread roll covered with sesame seeds

  Koumbaro

  Best man

  Kyrie Elaison

  Lord have Mercy

  Loukoumathes

  Fried pastry puffs like donuts but without a hole, usually served drizzled with honey

  Loustro

  Shoe shine boy

  Malaka

  Wanker, tosser

  Meze

  Snacks, Appetizers

  Mirologia

  Lamentations, Songs of Mourning

  Panayia

  The Virgin Mary

  Pantokrator

  Ikon of Christ the Almighty, always situated in the central dome of the church

  Pater

  Father

  Platia

  Town square

  Rassos

  Priests black robes

  Simpethera

  In laws

  Tsikoudia

  Clear high alcohol content spirit drink similar to Raki, Tsipouro or French Marc

  Volta

  Promenade, Evening Stroll

  Zut

  Shush

  Chapter 1: The Funeral of Nikos Lambrakis.

  The priest placed a small bell on a table in the church and turned to motion to Nikos to move away, he took two steps further back. So did the priest - just in case. He opened his book of liturgical texts and began to recite the funeral service starting with the Trisagion prayer and going all the way through to the burial prayers ending as they all did with, ‘you were dust and to dust you shall return.’ The priest snapped the book shut and waved the sign of the cross at Nikos.

  ‘Am I dead now?’

  ‘Yes, you no longer belong to the living.’

  Nikos did the sign of the cross in the traditional Greek Orthodox manner, using the right hand with forefinger and middle finger pressed to the thumb. He slowly brought his hand to his forehead then to his solar plexus, to his right shoulder then to the left. He did this three times, his gaze never wavering from the priest until he began to bend to kiss the ikon of Christ.

  ‘No! No my child, please think of the others.’

  ‘Forgive me Father, I do it from habit.’ Instead of turning to leave he stood firm and challenged the priest, ‘what about my kiss Father, don’t I have a right to the kiss of peace like everybody else?’

  The priest pursed his lips as he rocked on the spot and looked up at the ceiling. Ah that Nikos always was sharp, he’d remembered the kiss of peace, the obligatory kissing of the body to send it on its journey in love and peace. Father Manoussos was standing directly beneath the ikon of the Pantokrator, The Almighty, who looked back down at him commanding him to follow the tradition, but the priest did not move.

  Layman and clergyman stood in awkward silence until sounds from outside informed them it was time for Nikos to leave.

  ‘Be well Nikos.’

  ‘But I’m not well Father, and never will be again. Give me better last words than the useless be well.’

  ‘Safe journey Nikos.’ The priest did not extend his hand.

  ’I’d hoped to walk out of this church one day as a bridegroom not as a living corpse,’ Nikos said as he picked up the bell by its rope and placed it around his own neck. He straightened up a little as his manner became more formal.

  ‘Please remember to tell the widow Kalliope her pension was approved and tell old Kostas we won the case, he will be recompensed for the loss of his grapes. And Father your electoral forms must be posted tomorrow, I’ve filled them in for you and left them on your desk.’ Nikos turned to leave the church for the last time but turned around.

  ‘Oh, I also got Thanos the goatherd accepted into school. He learnt how to read very quickly, amazing for a boy of seventeen. He is a good student. He knows all his numbers and can tell the time both ways, by the sun and with a clock. Would you please ensure the boy gets to the school, he deserves the opportunity. He could do very good things.’

  Father Manoussos was still nodding. He was inwardly marveling at the young man, professional right to the end, even now that his own life had ended he was considering others. Nikos walked out of the church, he stopped to straighten the slightly askew notices on the noticeboard before he stepped out into the town square, the little bell around his neck tolled for him as
he went down the steps.

  The square was empty, there was no koulouri seller, the loustro was not in his usual place by the fountain and the corn roaster too was absent. The shops all had their doors closed. He knew they would reopen as soon as he left. Nikos scanned each doorway, there was not one of the shopkeepers he had not helped in some way and now not one of them was visible to repay him with the one thing he wanted to see more than anything, a smile. A calendar was visible in the window of the Council chambers, he’d lost track of days since he had been diagnosed and declared a Hansenite. The calendar was a souvenir edition for the Olympic Games scheduled for that year; a large bold 1936 was entwined through the Olympic rings. Nikos knew the window belonged to the room where the social registry was kept. He’d gone in there seven months earlier with his sister Maria, just before her funeral service, to declare her infection. He’d had to hold her up when her knees buckled under her as she watched the clerk locate her name on the social register, place his ruler across it and with his pen sliced a line right through it like an executioner’s sword through a delicate neck. It had been a Friday then too, the day of crucifixions.

  That day the clerk could not look at the young woman he had once considered a potential bride. He had often looked out of the window and watched her take strong steps across the square as she helped her lawyer brother with his duties. Her purposeful strides made her hips move in a mesmerising rhythm and he had often thought to himself that a woman who could walk around like that and still look like a lady would be very lively where it counts, pity.

  Nikos saw movement at the window. The lace curtain parted. The clerk looked down on him and nodded three times. A Holy Trinity of meaning, one nod for greeting, one to inform that he too had been struck off the register and one for farewell. He knew their weary mother had to, for a second time, wail her mirologia not by a graveside but at a bedside. Again she had been forced to watch her pride and joy walk to church for his funeral, to be declared dead while still alive. Back in the church Father Manoussos kissed the ikon of Christ on behalf of Nikos. It was the least he could do, but peace did not come. He had always found the funeral service to be elegant. He found comfort in soothing those left behind after sending the departed onto the next world in the natural cycle of life. There had been nothing natural in what had just happened, he had not laid anyone to rest, he had just sent a soul to hell. The Pantokrator’s large open eyes, designed to be portrayed that way exactly for the purpose of looking into the soul, were scorching him, burning right through his kamilavkion. The priest bowed in humility, and shame, and rushed outside to catch Nikos. To his relief he was still there but was about to climb onto the dray that had come for him.

  ‘Nikos, let me help you for a change.’ Father Manoussos went to lift one of his suitcases. ‘Aman! What are taking with you, stones?’

  ‘Books, I will need companionship, logic and order so I take with me the greatest of the wisdoms of our ancestors. My eyes are stinging. They might be the first to go, so I will have to read fast.

  ‘Have courage Nikos, and faith.’ ‘I won’t need courage there, just patience as I wait to rot. And as for faith, yes I have faith. Leprosy is very faithful, unlike people and even God, it never abandons me. We walk together every day. It has become my greatest teacher. It has made me a better philosopher than I ever thought I could be, we sit together every night and every morning there is some little surprise to remind me of how strong its faith in me is. It is the most faithful of all things. I have plenty of faith.’

  Nikos looked around at his town for the last time. He took in the dressmaker’s shop where his mother had worked so she could send him to Athens to become the first person in their family to go to university. He saw the normally well populated taverna where his father had invited the entire town to celebrate his son’s graduation from law school. His only thoughts now were that he could not let their efforts be wasted.

  ‘The state has declared me dead, the church has buried me, my future has been murdered and death is tapping his watch at me, yet I feel so alive.’ Nikos shrugged, ‘The Fates must have chosen me for their amusement and this pleases me much, at least I am making someone smile.’ The priest could see a copy of Plato’s The Republic lying next to a copy of Menander’s One Verse Maxims one of which popped into his mind immediately, ‘Whom the gods love die young.’

  ‘Did you pack a Bible my child?’

  ‘No Father, I am now only interested in logic. Now tell me what you want? You came running out as if you were being chased by demons.’ The driver yelled out ‘We’re off!’ The dray lurched and started moving away.

  ‘I just wanted to say go with God Nikos.’

  ‘God doesn’t go to Spinalonga. The only way God will ever go there is if you bring him yourself.’

  Nikos lay down on the dray and his thoughts went to his mother, Theodora Lambrakis. Her anguished words upon learning her remaining child was also stricken with the curse of leprosy had never stopped haunting him.

  ‘My son, I can’t live without my family.’ She kept trying to embrace him and he kept stepping back for fear of touching her, his deliberate avoidance only wounding her maternal soul even more.

  ‘Stop trying to keep away, I do not fear the disease. Life without my children, my family, is worse than death.’ Nikos relented slightly because he was wearing gloves. He faced his mother and placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘Mama, please guard your health, we need you to pray for us but I promise you that one day you will have a family again.’ He did not step back as Theodora took his face in her hands and stepped up to kiss his forehead. Mother and son stayed like that for a moment until Nikos gently stepped back and left his home for ever. Theodora did not have to watch her son walk away from her for the last time because her eyes were blinded by her tears.

  Nikos thought he might as well stay lying down, like a corpse on its hearse, until the dray reached the harbor. Along the way he had removed the bell from around his neck and tossed it into an olive grove where someone would eventually find it and melt it down to make nails. At least it would serve as something more useful than a siren of sorrow. He only had a few more kilometers to go before he would be where he had to be and there was no need for a bell there.

  The boat was waiting, there were a few other travelers, mostly peasants going about their business. The boatman helped everybody board but Nikos did not take his hand when it was extended to him, he jumped on board instead. The boatman greeted everyone with the usual kali mera, to which everyone always responded kali mera Kapetan as they paid their one drachma price to be ferried to their destinations. He reached Nikos and studied the well dressed, well groomed young man with the height of a Corinthian column and the face of Apollo. ‘Kali mera Charon, here is your coin.’ Nikos, with gloved hand, placed the coin into the boatman’s leather pouch and seated himself at the stern, away from all. The sea breeze soothed as they sailed, sky and sea were the exact same hue of cobalt. Waves breaking into froth around them and some streaky clouds lining the air made the journey feel as if they were wrapped in the Greek flag. As each little harbor came into view the boatman would ask if anyone needed to stop at any of them but today all were travelling to Elounda, all except one. The island had come into view some time ago and now it loomed over them. A couple of the women crossed themselves, one uttered, ‘God protect us.’ One man was wearing an unusual hat for that time of year. It was made of the fur of a hare. He had been chatting away the entire time about how good the hunting was with his new carbine but he had fallen silent. His cousin had been sent to Spinalonga but it had been kept secret, the family had never told a soul, instead they just said that Ikaros had gone off on the ships. It was a common way to explain a sudden disappearance usually connected to a crime or to avoid an unwelcomed arranged marriage. Relatives of lepers were often treated like lepers as well.

  The boatman went to the island at least once a week to take supplies and the occasional new resident which was how he knew the meaning of
the stranger’s greeting. As soon as the man had called him Charon, the name of the ferryman of dead souls to the underworld of the ancient days, he knew he had a visit to the island coming up. He also was certain this must be the Lambrakis boy. He was the image of his late father whom he had often ferried.

  The father had been full of pride for his educated son and would call Nikos his eagle. The father of Nikos would often watch the golden eagles hovering above them over the sea and comment that his son was just like them, not only because he was sharp and quick but like an eagle he knew that to soar to great heights one mustn’t flap around but ride the wind. Thank the gods the man got to see him graduate before his heart attack. Ah some families are just ill-fated he reckoned to himself. The boatman stared straight ahead and asked his question with the perfect amount of nonchalance, ‘Anyone for Spinalonga?’

  In an equally nonchalant voice Nikos replied, ‘Yes.’

  One of the men tried to reduce the instant panic that gripped the passengers.

  ‘I have a nephew in America, he says they have an island like that there too, it’s called Alcatraz. They use it as a prison.’

  ‘What do you think Spinalonga is, a playground?’ snapped the man with the new carbine. ‘Oh pardon my outburst but it can’t be easy for those poor ill-fated ones.’ The man with the new carbine grunted his appeasement. It was his guilt that had caused him to snap. He had only been able to have the new carbine because his cousin had given him everything he owned before he left for Spinalonga. The pangs of shame stung him for he hadn’t sent him anything as thanks, not even a letter.