Even as Andreas was unfurling his napkin and spreading it across his lap, Manolis held his breath. He knew what his cousin was going to say.
‘It seems they have made progress at last!’ Andreas announced. ‘They’re going to start sending the lepers home. A few of them have been cured.’
Although she had not yet touched her food, Anna began to choke. It gave her the perfect excuse to leave the table.
Andreas followed his wife from the room and was gone for ten minutes.
‘She’ll be fine,’ he reassured everyone when he eventually strode back in. He vainly attempted a smile.
‘It must be quite a shock to find out your sister is coming home after all this time,’ said Alexandros.
‘A nice surprise, you mean?’ queried Kyría Eleftheria. ‘Surely she’s pleased, Andreas?’
‘I am sure their reunion will be a very happy occasion,’ Manolis chipped in blandly.
‘Just imagine how their father must be feeling,’ Eleftheria continued, clasping her hands together with pleasure.
Eleftheria had always felt mildly ashamed that they had not been more welcoming to Giorgos Petrakis at Sofia’s baptism, but fear of her husband’s disapproval had been enough to deter her from being overfriendly. Alexandros Vandoulakis’s concern at the distant family connection to Spinalonga was as strong as it had ever been. Now perhaps things would start to change.
When Andreas returned from checking on his wife again, he told everyone that she was feeling better now and would be downstairs again in a moment. As soon as the gliká tou koutalioú, sweet spoon desserts, were set on the table and there had been another chorus of ‘Xrónia Pollá’ to toast Olga, Manolis made an excuse to leave. He claimed a touch of heat stroke and exhaustion from a long day in the fields, but the real reason was that he had no wish to stay around if Anna was not in the room. He would need to see her again very soon, to press upon her once more that Maria’s return would not affect his love for her.
By the next day, the heat had intensified and a lethargy settled over the Vandoulakis estate. Everyone worked at half-pace, and for three hours, when the temperature was at its highest, the men dozed beneath the trees. There was no point making them return to work when both limbs and lids were heavy with heat. These were important weeks of preparation for the beginning of the grape harvest, and Andreas demanded that everyone work long hours, and after the sun went down, but he could not ban their siesta.
Manolis knew Anna was expecting him that afternoon, but he sat down for a moment and sleep seduced him just as it had the others. He worked as hard as any of them. He played an indispensable role on the estate these days, acting as a bridge between the owner of these vast and productive acreages of vineyards, olive groves and agricultural land and everyone who worked on them.
He had arrived six years earlier, after a decade of wandering about in Europe squandering a huge sum left to him by his grandfather. Manolis’s late father had been the eldest of two brothers and the heir to the great estate, but he had died young and the land had passed to Alexandros Vandoulakis instead. In due course, it would pass to Andreas. Manolis harboured no resentment, and in any case he loved his life just as it was.
‘If the gods had wished it, history would be different,’ he once said to his friend Antonis. Antonis found Manolis’s acceptance of his lot and his lack of bitterness about it incomprehensible.
It had been Manolis’s own choice to spend the previous years travelling and womanising and exploring the very lengths and depths of hedonism. He did not regret a single moment. In fact, he pitied anyone who had never lived in Paris, Rome or Barcelona as he had done.
He had returned to Crete with nothing but a lyra that he had treasured since childhood. During his travels, this precious possession had not only been used to entertain, but had often earned him enough to survive. In many cities in France and Austria, no one had ever heard such a pure singing voice as his, nor the mellow tones of an instrument so puzzlingly like, and yet unlike, a violin. Along with the language that few even recognised, people were enthralled by the music he made.
Although he had not a single drachma in his pocket, he did bring back with him a skill that was lacking in the rest of the Vandoulakis family: an ability to engage with anyone, regardless of age, wealth or education. People loved this man. Even animals were drawn to him. It was said that wild goats gathered round him if he whistled, and there was often a trail of eager stray dogs behind him.
Manolis’s mother had died in childbirth, and after his father’s death when he was five, Alexandros and Eleftheria Vandoulakis had brought him up as their own son. Despite this, when he first arrived back on the estate, Alexandros had decided to test his seriousness about wanting to work there. In his view, the family name alone did not automatically entitle him to a role. He set his nephew the same tasks as he would for any new employee. Manolis must prove himself.
He was shown a piece of neglected land – and on this sprawling estate there were still plenty of uncultivated corners – and told to make what he could of it. Within the space of a few days, he had demonstrated his physical strength and stamina in clearing it. What impressed his uncle most, though, was the way in which he recruited others to assist him. People willingly did him favours. There was no monetary value that could be put on such rare charisma.
Within a short time, Manolis was managing the workforce on the estate. He engaged in hard physical labour alongside them, not only because it motivated them, but because he enjoyed it too.
Anna did not understand why he insisted on working the same long hours as his men. Surely he was their boss? That day she did not care to excuse him for his non-appearance. He should be there with her. She was becoming increasingly irrational, and as the days went by and Manolis missed more of their usual lunchtime meetings, she did not hide her anger.
The atmosphere in the Elounda home was tense. Even though the simple explanation was Andreas’s instruction for everyone to work overtime, Manolis’s continued absence unhinged her. Nothing tempted her to dress or to eat, and she could not even be coaxed into taking an interest in her little daughter. Naturally she offered no explanation to her husband, and increasingly took to her bed.
Andreas telephoned his mother to cancel a dinner engagement with his parents, and Eleftheria Vandoulakis shared her suspicions with her husband.
‘Don’t you remember how off-colour she was the first time?’
Alexandros was only half listening.
‘Is she ill?’
‘A baby, Alexandros!’ Eleftheria cried in frustration. ‘I think she might be pregnant!’
‘Oh!’ responded Alexandros, with more interest now. ‘I do hope it’s a boy this time.’
Eleftheria shook her head despairingly.
‘I am sure she’ll tell us when she’s ready,’ she said. ‘But at least it would explain her behaviour.’
Manolis had a few late nights with Antonis in the kafeneío that week. The two men lost themselves in games of távli and carafe after carafe of raki, and one evening they played music until the sun came up. When Manolis picked up his lyra, time lost all meaning. With the encouragement of an appreciative audience, Antonis on the thiáboli and very often the company of a laoúto, he could play and sing for hours.