A SONG TO FIND MY MOTHER

A SONG TO FIND MY MOTHER

As far as I remember, it was our meeting with a mute witness from the war that led us to find her. We were very happy when we found my aunt Filevitsa on the island Makronisos. She was there in the sixties, after the war. Even that late there were several women still roaming the island camps living off the fruit. She greeted us with special joy of course, but then everything changed in our lives...

After that my aunt became somewhat disgruntled. She had a sick look about her eyes, as if her pupils were filled with the dead, reflecting crowds of people passing in front of her that were not there.

After we brought her here from the camp she continued to talk to herself for an entire year, just like she had on the island. But even in moments like that the villagers still respected her and always greeted her calling her by her loving name “Filevitsa” after my uncle Filip or by her given name “Bisera”!

She was always lost in her own thoughts, always looking ahead, keeping her secrets to herself; looking for something not achieved, something lost in life, but it was obvious that hope was smouldering deep in her heart… she was going to find what she was looking for, she was going to speak to people again… but sometimes that hope only scratched the scabs of her physiological wounds…

It was the same thing every day. We watched her face getting noticeably paler. Her words spoken to herself sounded more like a prayer. Of course there was some secret in that prayer… there never is lamentation without a reason. And again she was silent like a lonely rock in a field. I followed her thoughts… I followed her pain. Why would you want such a life when the secret you are carrying has turned it into a black dot? There are three of us living with this misfortune. For years those thoughts have been a shadow across the old fractures. And through me my Uncle Filip’s looks, sickly hammering away on what looks like a battered boulder, beaten by the bullets of the war… Not even from him do I get a friendly look. Both he and my aunt seem to fear the living, and carry the thought in

this house of ours that it is “better to be alone in this world, without hope, without longing and fervour and without the bitter truth...”

For years she thought she was a shadow. But now she has stopped walking barefoot and lately appears to be quieter. She has changed her chanting… she now sounds like she is trying to ask questions, looking with curiosity at Uncle Filip, at me, inside the house… She has been rearranging her wedding garments and her step has been increasingly upbeat. This is how she spends her time now and increasingly so by going out in solitude stepping over the worn out threshold of our home’s entrance.

This damn house is slowly waking up and my aunt wants to watch Uncle Filip carve things with his axe. But still there remains something languishing in her soul which will not go away… day in and day out wilting her life away.

He too, day in and day out, has been wandering around the yard after he returned from Tashkent as a former soldier of the Greek Civil War. He was shot by a bullet in the spine in his lower back. Ever since then he has not been able to walk much or work, so all he does now is work with wood, smoothing the planks on the floor, carving objects, etc., just to pass his time. He does not want to talk about the past… he hates it and gets angry yelling: “The ruins of our life are like the dust that is settling on forgotten items.” But it is safe to say that my aunt’s situation has deeply shaken him. Up to now he has not said a single word to me about her. He lives with a strong passion that some day we will return to life from this rubble but sometimes, from his unreliable expressions, he is exasperated and feels guilty. He was a participant in the worst parts of the struggle. Among the partisans he was a handsome and fearless hero, as our neighbours would say, and perhaps my aunt remembers him that way. My cousin Pavle and I were too small to remember him. I only remember my Uncle Filip from when he came to our house, after he returned from Tashkent.

He was wearing a Russian leather coat and a thick “Uzbek Forashka”. That’s what he called it. He even sounded a little ridiculous when he hugged me and said: “Vnuchko! Dorogoi moi. Oh ti kakoi molodets. You have already grown up. Now you are

now my son.” He then squeezed me in his arms and whispered something like: “May God forgive your father and your mother...” and I felt hot tears drip on my head. When I looked at him, he turned away, wanting to hide his face from me but could not find the strength, so he hugged me again. I could see pain in his eyes… a pain he had for my father. For my father and mother, who I now found out had perished in the battles of Gramos. I grew up in the camps and lived with only one desire; to return home, I thought that when the war was over I would again see my mother and father. I felt Uncle Filip sigh through his leather coat. Perhaps he was thinking of my father again. This time he squeezed me even harder and gave me courage saying: “Now I will find your aunt and Pavle.”

I remember very little about Pavle. At that time my aunt was looking after us, the rest were partisans, but that only lasted a short time. With our aunt gone, they gathered us all in the camps by order of Queen Frederica. Pavle and I were very young and when we were separated we lost contact. He is probably still alive, but... I carry this guilt about him and only my aunt knows why… Perhaps that’s why she does not speak to me. I hope Pavle has forgiven me for the sinister game we played when I slammed the door on him and cut off two of the fingers on his right hand. He was running after me so I slammed the door to stop him from catching me. Aunt suffered the most but kept it a secret from Uncle Filip. To this day he does not know but still feels terrible about it.

Now there are only the three of us in this house, Uncle Filip, my aunt and I.

We live together now, maybe our luck will change, but we feel that way less and less. Uncle Filip often looks at my aunt when he is carving something; seeming like they are in love. She too sometimes looks at him with a shy look on her face. His many wrinkles run deep between his cheek bones making his anguished face look merciful.

His creased face has an incredible network of wrinkles as he studies us all with his gaze.

One day, after Uncle Filip smiled at her, my aunt spoke. Surprised Uncle Filip smiled back even more and spoke to her, asking her: “Tell me something, Bisera! Speak to me; I am not guilty of everything... I too long for Pavle as much as you do… all of us do...” At this point she mentioned me and that I was very happy about it. She even noticed my happiness.

With great sadness and astonishment Aunt Bisera, almost in awe, moved her head. At that very moment I saw Uncle Philip Kalinev light up. But Aunt Bisera quickly dropped her head back down and went silent again.

There was fear in her ash coloured face, covered by a few bunches of colourless strands of hair, as she mumbled on and on about her bitterness… about the sounds of the sea… about the smell of salt… about the strong winds that blew… about the prisoners… about Commander Tsirimokos with a bottle of beer, singing with his large lips covered with foam… about whose madness no one knew why. She remembered when he spoke to the prisoners, yelling: “You!” when he spoke to them and to her and would not take his eyes away from them… And they looked back with dull eyes. Perhaps she still fears the stare of his eyes.

One day my aunt abruptly, with a distressed tone in her voice and with tears in her eyes, began to tell her story… she began to unfold her fate... Before things began to take place in the spring of 1948 she was very religious and did not want to join any atheist organizations, but because of my Uncle Filip, she participated in the women’s organization as an illegal worker. Later she was personally invited by Naumka Kameniarski to join the AFZH. Unfortunately I found it hard to follow her narrative because as she was telling her story, she was constantly crying. She found it difficult to speak about her past without remembering the women crying as their children were taken away from them and then remembering that the same children were being dressed in military uniforms and sent to Markos’s army. She was very troubled by that especially since the people, their mothers, did not know about it.

One day in the spring of 1948 when she was in her garden she heard a voice saying:

“Bisera, listen to me very carefully and tell the people what I am about to tell you. Bisera stiffened and remained rigid as she listened. The voice began: “The children who you have taken from the arms of their mothers, is the greatest sin of mankind and of this fatherland. Bisera you must know that people will never voluntarily abandon their homeland, but that which you and the AFZH are doing will push them to leave their homeland. It has been written in the Scriptures, that no fatherland will ever abandon its people... but our people will abandon ours…”

She returned back inside the house and was unable to overcome her anguish. She told no one about this. She wasn’t sure if she even believed it… was it possible that she had actually heard this? She wanted to tell Naumka Kameniarski with whom, the next day, she was expected to meet and deliver the next group of seized children to Markos’s army in the free territory.

She stopped talking. Then later in a cold tone of voice she continued. “It was about midnight on the third day of Easter 1948, when there was a loud bang on the door which forced it open. A number of bearded gendarmes entered the house with their guns pointed at us. The children pushed against me and shook like leaves in a storm… not knowing what would happen. They did not give us time to realize what was happening before they pushed the children against the wall and began to hit me with their fists and rifle butts. I was hit on the head, on my back and on my entire body… then they pushed me out of my house to the yard and took me to the village square. There were many women there. Not much later they loaded us on a truck and in the morning took us to Lerin.”

She raised her eyebrows and continued:

“Oh my God, I saw things that I could not imagine possible. This was on the island Giura. This is where they tortured us women and tried to frighten us. They asked us to give up our husbands. To give you up Filip...” she said while looking at us as if seeking approval.

“I saw things which in my entire life I could not erase from my memory...” she said and continued. “And those who tortured us

called this place ‘Greek paradise’. I saw women being put in a flour bag and lowered into the sea. These women I later found out refused to carry the dead from the camp to the cemetery. I was afraid of dying tied in sack so I did not know what I would do if I were forced to carry dead bodies. One time Tsirimokos ordered me to carry a half-dead person, an almost dead woman, but I did not know what I was carrying...” she said.

My aunt at this point, instead of continuing to tell her story, swallowed hard and stopped talking. But then, as if having driven a terrifying evil out of her, continued:

“She was a white-haired woman. She had large curls in her hair. She was not too old or shabby. Her face was long and tired looking. She had a long nose. I took her to the ‘cemetery’ but then she regained consciousness on the way there... I dropped her on the ground and after that I don’t know what happened to her. That woman was Numeitsa Ristuichina...” she concluded. Uncle Filip, listening to my aunt telling the story, made a facial expression of aggressiveness and revenge. My aunt saw that and no longer wanted to speak about her past.

“It was war Filip…” she said, “but we were left alive. Your brother Alex and his wife Angelina unfortunately are rotting in Gramos.”

My aunt then came over to me, touched me on my face and began to tell me things about my youth and about my mother and father. Finally our lives were beginning to return to normal. She even wanted to talk to me about happy things and how much she loved me.

Many times she said to me: “You are now our only son! We only have you now...”

After the war ended all camps were closed. Those serving in them were anxious to return to their homes and join their relatives there. They were happy that their ordeal was over. These were children of horror who in time slowly began to return to normal life and erase the traces of war out of themselves. Even my aunt now wanted to attend prayer and made her wishes known that she wanted to attend

a wedding and watch a wedding ceremony take place… she was like an old apple tree blossoming again.

My Uncle Filip too, as if she gave him some sort of life spark, began to illuminate his dark spaces bringing his soul out of darkness.

“What a beautiful day this is…” exclaimed my aunt while listening to the noises on the street. It was Easter and, as she had done many times in the past, today too she baked bread. After that we went outside to the village square, together, and stayed there until it was dark. We watched children and young people sing familiar songs… a beautiful repertoire of folk songs. I particularly focused my eyes on the singer who was illuminated by a beam of light. I was stunned. My heart was beating hard and I stopped breathing when I heard the song he was singing. I wanted to call out encouraging words but the loud music kept drowning me out. He was magnificent in singing the song, my song: “A song to find my mother...”

The people were irresistibly applauding with much love… coming directly from their souls… some were even weeping. I then looked at his hand holding the microphone.

At that point my aunt looked at me and noticed the unnatural anxiety on my face but thought it was from the excitement of listening to the song... I then screamed as loud as I could:

“Pavle…!!! My brother…!”

He turned towards the spotlight; I could see him better now. “It is him,” I said to myself now convinced that it was him because after I yelled he took a step towards us. My aunt stood up straight and so did Uncle Filip. I could not help but notice my aunt’s green eyes open wide and light up. She lost her handkerchief as she ran behind me. I could hear my aunt’s trembling voice on top of the music yelling:

“Pavle…!!! My son…!!! I am here! Pavle my son…!”

The mother’s love in her was rising, emphasized by her calls for her long lost son.

There was wholesome joy on her face and tears running down her cheeks. She clenched Pavle to her bosom. I don’t remember if Uncle Filip or I hugged Pavle. At that moment we wanted Aunt Bisera to have all the joy. But I do remember and I want to mention that it was the music, the song and the words “mother, your son is looking for you everywhere...” that led us to Pavle. Pavle stopped singing and left the stage. His song turned to joyful tears, staring at us and hugging Aunt Bisera.

She in turn grabbed his hand with the missing fingers and squeezed it and, without her handkerchief, smiled and stood upright proud like an old veteran. Of all the evil that had encompassed my aunt the only thing that was left on her face now were her burn scars.