We had four children. Manolis, Savvas, Evgnosia, and Violeta. Another two died on me, twins. I light candles for them on the Day of Lights, I learned that from my mother. I fill a basin with sand, stick the candles for the dead in there, so there’s a light to show my little birds the way. I lost them before they even tasted milk. You people here don’t know that tradition. You don’t bring your dead into the house.
My husband, Stathis, worked in the fields. A farmer. Nineteen years old, what could he know, you’ll say, of running a household, a beardless child himself. Quick to anger, and to punish the children. He never lifted a hand against them the way other fathers did, who hit their boys with belts. You could hear the screams from the street. Stathis just furrowed his brow and stared at us with that look of his, like a bull. It made our knees quake. He used to shut the littlest, Violeta, up in the barn with the animals, and left Manolis there to make sure she didn’t sneak out. My little girl never ate much, even as a baby. All she wanted was eggs, she couldn’t stand the sight of bean soup. He would let her go hungry and that imp still wouldn’t open her mouth to let a bite go down.
My boys were more obedient, especially Manolis. They had respect. Stathis wanted to send them to school. He wanted to make them into men, that’s what he used to say. We may go hungry, wife, but our children will go to school, he would shout, mostly for his mother to hear, who had other ideas. He would raise his hand and point toward the Greek school of Trabzon. We have fine schools here, and my sons are going to learn their letters, they’re going to make something of themselves.
We made plans. We had no idea that the Turks were sharpening their knives.
My Pontus is gone, is gone, is gone.
They took my Pontus away.
Mothers fleeing with babes, stunned and dazed.
They burned my village, smoke and fire.
Where is my husband, my brother, dead with no grave.
We mourn, we mourn, with souls in our mouths we cry.
Don’t ask me how we made it to Greece. The children hear the stories adults tell and think they remember. But only Manolis remembers. I had no husband by my side, so he became the man in the family, a boy of eight. He helped with the little ones, he took charge. I was a widow with four children. Try to imagine that.
Later on they’d come and say, You folks were rich, you had money. You came with gold coins sewn into the hems of your dresses, whole fortunes. Whoever hasn’t lived the life of a refugee has easy words to speak.
When they brought us to Salonica, I didn’t care about the hunger or about how filthy we were, after days on boats. I looked at the city and said to Manolis, This is where we’ll live. The sea was a comfort to me.
I grabbed the girls in my arms, the boys clung to my skirts. Hold tight, I told them, and walked as fast as my legs would carry me. I didn’t want to lose courage. I couldn’t get sick, either. I had children to care for.
I bought our first eggs from a local woman at the port. She looked at my hands, hoping for rings or bracelets, but I gave her coins. The dirty thing spat on the ground. You’ve come to eat our bread, she muttered, tucking the money into her dress. She wanted more, for a pot with a hole in the bottom, but I pushed her away.
At the church of Agia Sophia I pulled the key to our house in Trabzon out of my apron. A big wrought iron key. I set an egg in the hole, it fit perfectly. I crossed myself and cooked it over the candles burning as offerings. I fed my children in the churchyard. Violeta laughed. Mama, it’s nice here, she said, clapping her hands.
Manolis spent two years at the Papafeio orphanage learning to be a carpenter. One day a teacher came to the house and told me about the American School, said my child should study there, he’d do well. I remembered Stathis. He would’ve cursed me from the grave if he knew his child was an apprentice carpenter. I was ashamed before Manolis, too. His heart leapt at the teacher’s words, but he just sat in the corner and didn’t speak. That child never asked for a thing.
— A boy’s studies, Kyra-Maria, the teacher said, are the golden bracelet on his wrist. You’re from the Pontus, you understand, he added to butter me up.
That night when the other children were asleep, Manolis came and stood at the head of my bed.
— Mother, he said, touching my arm.
— You’re barefoot, son, you’ll freeze, I scolded him.
There was a cold like poison that night.
— Mother, Manolis said again. If I study, I’ll be able to take care of the little ones.
Ai, let me take pride in my dear boy.
That’s what he called them, little ones, though he was just two years older than Savvas. But Manolis was old from birth. What a serious child, others said, impressed. Sometimes even I forgot he was a child and spoke to him as if he really were the man of the house. Because Manolis took charge of things. He placed orders with the butcher, helped his siblings with their meals, with their studies. He scolded them, yelled at them if he felt the need. And they looked up to him, Violeta most of all. She’d run to him with her drawings, or in tears if something went wrong. He was the only one who could get her to eat, she would clean her plate for him.
May lightning strike me, there’s not a bad word I can say about my son. He finished the American School, found work. As a reporter. He knew English, that helped. We all took a deep breath. I thought we’d been saved. I thought our worries were over. Our sadness had brought joy.
My mind couldn’t even imagine.
I sent two children off to war, but only one came home. Years passed, the tears dried in my eyes. I still think about Savvas every day. I light a candle, I pray for his soul to be as light as a feather. And I don’t fear death as I used to. When the time comes, my boy will come to lead me away. I’ll hold him in my arms. I’ll get my fill of him, my second son, the son who felt neglected.
— Mother, he used to say, you’ve only got the one child, Manolis.
I’d get mad, lash out at him.
Not a year had passed since he died when he came and found me in my sleep.
I opened my arms and waited. He was wearing his good white shirt, the one I’d sewn for him. The dead don’t speak in dreams, that’s what my mother used to say. But Savvas had a bone to pick.
— Mother, he asked. If you had to choose, who would you choose?
Oi, oi.… I woke in a sweat, sobbing. The ceiling struck my chest like iron. My soul ached. My heart stung, deep in pain.
Woe to me, such a great evil I never saw.
— Which son would you give to Hades, mother?
I knew the answer.
And my Savvas knew it, too.
I’d told them I loved them all the same. We would lie together in bed, and the little ones would ask:
— Who do you love best, Mama? Tell us, Mama!
It was their game. Only Manolis never asked. I would raise my hand, show them my fingers.
— Look here, at my fingers. Each one is different, none like the next. But whichever one I cut off, I’d hurt just the same.
Lies. I told them lies.
They would fall asleep amid laughter, kisses and caresses. Lullabies, songs about the sea at Trabzon.
I climbed up the hill of Poz Tepe
And saw Trapezounta below
The tears in my poor eyes