Friday, 4 May 1945
Dear Diary, months have passed since my last entry. There has been little to write about, except that I am heavy with child and not much use to anyone. We have not heard news of my family, or the other Jews that were taken from here ten months ago, but every day I hope.
I’m still living in the hut on Mount Filerimos with Josie and Tassos. This morning, as I gathered our second crop of tomatoes from the plot Evangelisa had started, I heard Josie scream. My heart seemed to leap into my throat, and I waddled cautiously back to the hut, afraid of what I might find.
Josie and Tassos were hugging each other. They both grinned at me.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘I have it on good authority from the Andartes in Crete that the war will end within the next three days,’ Tassos said.
‘We can go home, Dora!’ Josie cried. She was already stuffing things into a bag.
We had been together through winter and spring, and each of us longed to return to our homes. With the glorious news, we planned to part company the following morning. Tassos, who was also a shepherd, agreed to take Kopay and Irini’s mule, and keep them on form until Giovanni returned. Josie took Zeus as she was a competent rider and I felt I owed her so much. In my advanced condition, I was safer on my own two feet.
Saturday, 5 May 1945
Once my friends had gone, I sat alone in the sparse room, thinking about all that had happened since my family boarded that rusty ship. Heavy with child and afraid of giving birth, I walked through the forest, wanting to see the cinnamon tree before I left.
Undisturbed for six months, the place had grown lush, the path hidden. The white flowers of wild cyclamen hung their heads like shamed virgins in the deep shadows of surrounding trees. In the clearing, grass had risen calf-high. My mind was full of Giovanni, the only man I have loved.
I waded through the vegetation and reached out to touch the tree. ‘Hello, old friend,’ I whispered. ‘Remember me?’ I rested my forehead against the bark, my fingers tracing the rectangle where Giovanni had taken a piece of her heart.
‘He stole my heart too. I hope your wound’s not as painful as mine, dear tree.’ Tears rolled down my cheeks. ‘He doesn’t even know I’m having his baby. I pray God keeps him safe, for his child’s sake.’ I stroked the bark, remembering the first time I collected cinnamon with Giovanni’s hand covering mine. Earlier memories flooded back: how I had watched him singing in the choir while my darling family believed I was doing schoolwork.
I lifted the penknife from my pocket and cut the outline of a heart into the bark. Inside, I engraved our initials. I smiled to think of him, and gently sliced the arrow of Eros right through the heart. ‘Make sure he sees this when he returns from the war, dear tree, and send him to find us.’
I wiped my eyes, patted my belly, and returned to the cabin. I started packing for my return to Paradissi. Quite unexpectedly, I felt energised and had an urge to clean the hut before I left. I folded the bedding, polished the windows and swept the floor. Mama would be pleased. With my few belongings stuffed into a net bag, I wondered where my duffel bag was at that moment. About to leave, I noticed some fabric poking from the junk cupboard.
I climbed on the mattress and yanked the door open. Evangelisa’s clothes tumbled out. Unbalanced, I fell back onto the bed. I couldn’t deal with it. That I had shot my own sister. I had blocked her and the appalling event from my mind. I carefully folded the pretty dresses, remembering her in each of them, twirling, holding the sides out, curtsying, tap-dancing, which she was very good at. She had loved looking beautiful.
I’m so sorry, Evangelisa. So sorry.
My family were gone; my best friend had been tortured to death; I’d killed my own sister; and the man I married had left me. Why was all this happening? Racked by remorse, I didn’t want to leave the place. I lay on the bed crying for all the people I’d loved and lost, until dusk eventually fell. I got up and lit the fire, boiled the last of the rice and greens, and decided to sleep in the hut for one last night.
Saturday, 6 May 1945
I was ready to leave when my attention was drawn to the cinders in the grate. If a strong wind caught the chimney, the ashes would blow all over the hut, my hard work wasted. Using our home-made besom and the shovel, I cleaned the hearth.
Outside, I noticed the scent of charcoal. I sniffed. There it was again, the smell of woodsmoke. A distant glow above the trees caught my attention and the sickening reality hit me. I hugged my enormous belly. A forest fire raged uphill, heading straight for me and my baby.
In the centre of the Filerimos forest, the hut offered no protection against fire. I had to escape, and quickly. I grabbed my bag and waddled as fast as possible down the track.
The smoke became thicker, my eyes stung and the back of my throat burned, but there was no other way off the mountain. I prayed I’d get past the fire before it reached the road. I hurried on. Flames licked the trees on my right, they seemed to leap from one to the other, following me like a pack of blazing wolves, waiting for a moment to pounce. I tried to run, but found it impossible. The wind shifted, parting the smoke. Down the hillside, heading my way, a row of soldiers beat the smouldering vegetation.
Where could I go? I turned, but knew I would not make it back up the mountain. The wind changed again. Smoke enveloped me. A tree, only metres away, cracked open with an explosion of flames. ‘Help me!’ I screamed, falling on my knees onto the road, sure the flames would reach me any moment. Heat rolled over me in suffocating waves. My throat burned raw with each breath, and my eyes stung so badly I couldn’t see where I was going.
I gave up the struggle and lay on the road.
Moments later, I became aware of strong arms lifting me and running, German voices, distant, shouting. Water on my face. Someone patting my cheeks, then everything rushed away.
I resurfaced prostrate on a blanket at the side of the road. A young German soldier I recognised instantly lifted my head and held a cantina to my lips.
‘Drink, drink,’ Gustave said.
I gulped the sweet water.
Someone called him. ‘Leave here as soon as you can. Do you understand?’ he whispered.
I nodded, an odd feeling that Nathanial was looking down and smiling. A life for a life. ‘Thank you, sir,’ I whispered.
As soon as Gustave returned to his troop, I got to my feet. My legs were shaky. My baby seemed heavier than ever and I walked in a most ungainly way. I had to escape before someone asked for my ID.
I continued down the hill, hiding in roadside shrubbery whenever a vehicle approached. Nearing the village, my back ached so badly my knees buckled and I had to squat until the pain eased.
The journey seemed endless. I arrived in Paradissi Village in the early hours. Spartili Street lay in darkness, deathly quiet. Our home was boarded over and that broke my heart. The house was the symbol of my beloved family even though they were all gone. I sensed the essence of them, lingering there to comfort me. In reality, I found only shutters and eerie silence.
Fumbling blindly, I tried to remove the planks, but they were firmly nailed down.
A door across the street opened and I recognised the priest’s voice. ‘Who’s there!’ he called.
I cowered, but there was nowhere to hide and in my condition running wasn’t an option.
‘It’s me, Pandora Cohen,’ I said as loud as I dared.
The papas scurried over.
‘Child! Oh, glory to God! I thought you’d been taken to Auschwitz with the others. Where’s your family?’
‘They’re gone but I escaped. I want to go home, please, that’s all. I won’t be any trouble.’ My heart was breaking with sorrow. To be so close to our home and my bed, and be thwarted.
The priest sighed. ‘Sorry, child, the house is closed. I did it myself to keep the vultures out. I hoped one day somebody would return.’ He hugged me and, in doing so, recognised my condition.
‘Oh, Dora.’
I broke down right there in his arms. He held me for a while, muttering ‘It will be all right. Don’t fret now. Trust in God; He’ll take care of you.’ When I regained control, he steered me across the street into his own house.
As I stood in the priest’s living room, his wife, Mrs Spanaki, came downstairs in her flannelette nightgown and a hand-knitted cardigan that was buttoned up wrong. Her long grey hair, plaited, hung down her back. She was a homely woman with a kind face.
Mrs Spanaki and the priest seemed to have aged a lot since I’d left Spartili Street. Her eyes flicked down to my expanded belly. ‘Oh, my poor child, let’s take care of you.’
She fussed, making me drink mountain tea and eat her homemade bread drizzled with olive oil, which was so delicious it satiated my hunger.
‘Sleep on our sofa tonight, Dora,’ the priest said. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll sort out your house. Good night, God keep you safe.’
‘When’s your confinement, Dora?’ Mrs Spanaki asked.
I shrugged, ‘I hope it’s soon. The walk down the mountain has given me a dreadful backache.’
‘Goodness me. You look engaged and about to drop the baby. Do you have anything ready for the mite?’
I shook my head. ‘It’s been difficult, hiding all these months.’ I leaned forward and rubbed my lower back. ‘The Andartes told me the armistice will be announced in the next day or two, so I thought I’d take a chance and come home.’
‘You did right.’ She paused and stared at me. ‘Is that really true? Peace at last?’
I nodded, winced and rocked forward again.
‘I’ll get the midwife at first light.’ She pulled cushions off her sofa and piled them on the stone floor. ‘Kneel over those,’ she said, taking off her woollen slippers. ‘Put these under your knees for a bit of comfort.’
I did, and the pain eased immediately. ‘Thank you, that’s much better. Such a relief.’
‘Mmm, takes the pressure off your spine,’ she said.
A weight lifted from my mind too. Mrs Spanaki was caring, and seemed to know about childbirth. I knew nothing, except I had seen a lamb being born once.
‘I’m sorry about this,’ Mrs Spanaki said. ‘But I’m afraid if your waters break, you’ll ruin my sofa.’ She pulled an oilcloth off the table and spread it over her settee.
‘Waters?’ I asked.
She stopped making my bed. ‘How old are you, Dora?’
‘Sixteen.’
Mrs Spanaki straightened and crossed herself. ‘Oh dear. It’s going to be a long night.’
The next day, the priest and his wife helped me move back into my Paradissi home. It had changed little since our move to my father’s shop in the city. I wondered if the choirmaster and his wife were still living there, in our town house behind the shop, but to be honest I didn’t care. With the onset of labour, I had enough to think about.
*
Peace was announced the next day: 8 May, 1945. That evening, in my own home, I gave birth to Sonia Phoenix Cohen. She rose from the ashes of war. A new life that came into the free world with the sound of a fanfare.
Outside, Paradissi erupted with joy. Church bells rang. Someone blew a tuneless trumpet. Music blared. People shouted, ‘No more war! It’s over!’ I heard laughter and the explosion of firecrackers. A jubilant accompaniment to the moment was when the midwife placed Sonia Phoenix Cohen in my arms.
My beautiful baby girl was born into a safer place, our planet free of conflict. A place of peace and harmony where we’d accept people of different religions and cultures. A perfect world.
With her little clenched fists, Sonia Phoenix Cohen boxed an invisible foe, and pride welled up inside me. This was my child! A born fighter, a survivor, the same as her mother. I called her Sonia after my grandmother who, like my father, always told me to follow my dreams. Also, I knew the name ‘Sonia’ came from the Greek for wisdom.
I imagined Papa’s homecoming. Run, little rabbit. And I would, right into his arms. I could feel that first hug. Then, I would present him with his granddaughter, Sonia Phoenix Cohen. How I loved the sound of her name.
These thoughts tumbled through my mind as I held my tiny baby. What sort of life would she have without her father? Perhaps Giovanni would come back now the war was over. Just one look, that’s all the shepherd boy would need, and he would commit to being the best father in the world. He hadn’t meant all those things he said. Like me, he was upset, shocked.
Sonia’s life would be perfect; of that I was sure. I swore an oath; ‘I will protect you, Sonia Phoenix Cohen, from harm for all the days of my life.’
‘She’s tired. Let’s swaddle her and let her sleep.’ The midwife took Sonia from me.
I waited for news of my family, my parents and my brothers. They’d been gone for ten months. Surely the war had ended in time to save them. I’d done my best, and like me they were fighters, survivors.
I learned our Jewish friends and families on the three ships were taken to the concentration camp of Auschwitz. Rumours trickled back. We heard how some prisoners endured the most horrific circumstances, yet survived. Those people were held in Italy, until they were strong enough to travel. Awful pictures appeared in the newspapers of living skeletons staring bleakly ahead, too horrible to believe.
Sonia was two months old when I tied her onto my back and walked to the monastery. I came across a grave bearing only a date and the name ‘Evangelisa’. In the shade of a nearby oak, I spread the blanket and put Sonia down. She was no trouble, content to feed and sleep her days away. As she lay gurgling and boxing, I picked wild flowers and laid them on Evangelisa’s grave.
Remorseful that I hadn’t been a better sister, I cried. All she wanted was to be like me. Why did her life have to end that way – with a bullet from my own gun? I fell to my knees, sorrow exploding in my heart once again.
Evangelisa would have loved Sonia and made a wonderful aunt. Why shouldn’t she have a kiss from Giovanni? I had so much from him. I thought about the shepherd boy every day, praying he’d come back and find me. I hoped he would come to accept that shooting Evangelisa was an awful accident, and forgive me. I went to bed each night with a broken heart, and woke each morning filled with hope for Giovanni’s return.