My mother’s sin-1
My mother’s sin
We didn’t have any other sister, only Annió.
She was the darling of our small family, and we all loved her; but the one who loved her most of all was our mother. At the table our mother always seated Annió next to her and from whatever food we had she always gave her the best; and while our mother dressed us in the clothes of our late father, she usually bought new ones for her.
Furthermore, our mother didn’t force Annió to go to school, she went to school if she wanted to; if she didn’t she stayed at home. This was something that we ourselves were not allowed to do under any circumstances.
Naturally such exceptions should create jealousy among children, especially little ones, as my two brothers and I were at the time when these events took place. But we knew that the innermost love of our mother was impartial and equal to all her children. We were certain that her actions were simply external displays of extra care and compassion towards the only daughter in the house. And not only did we tolerate her kind treatment towards Annió without complaining, but we also contributed to it as much as we could. Because Annió, apart from being our only sister, had, unfortunately, always been weak and sickly from birth. Even the last born, who was born after the death of our father and who had the most right to receive our mother’s caresses, gave up his rights to our sister very happily, as she was neither assertive nor arrogant. On the contrary, Annió was very sweet to us and she loved us all with great affection and, strangely, her tenderness towards us, instead of diminishing over the course of her illness, increased.
I remember Annió’s large dark eyes and her dark, arched eyebrows, which seemed to become even darker as her face grew paler. Her face was by nature pensive and melancholy, and only became cheerful when she saw us all gathered around her.
Usually Annió kept any fruit that the neighbours had brought her under her pillow, as a restorative, and she shared them with us when we returned from school. But she always did it secretly because our mother would get cross and wouldn’t allow us to devour whatever her sick daughter wished to taste.
However, Annió’s sickness continually worsened and so our mother’s caring increased.
Since our father’s death, our mother hadn’t left the house because she had become widowed very young and she was ashamed to make use of her freedom, which, even in Turkey, was acceptable for every mother of many children. But from the day Annió fell seriously ill and was confined to bed, our mother put shame to one side.
Once when a man had a similar illness, my mother had rushed to ask him how he had been cured. And if she heard that somewhere an old lady had herbs with amazing medicinal powers, she hurried to buy some; if she met a peculiarly dressed stranger who looked knowledgeable, our mother didn’t hesitate to seek his advice, as the people knowledable in magic, according to the common people, know everything. Mysterious beings full of supernatural powers are sometimes hidden under the guise of a poor traveller.
The fat barber in the neighbourhood used to visit us, self-invited and by right. He was the only “official” doctor in our area. When I saw him, I had to run to the grocer because he would not go near any patient before he had swallowed at least fifty drams of raki.
“I am an old man, my dear,” he used to say to my impatient mother. “I am an old man and if I don’t drink a bit, my eyes cannot see well.”
And it appeared that he didn’t lie. Because the more he drank, the more he was able to see the fattest chicken in our yard, which he would catch when he was leaving.
My mother, although she stopped using his medicines, still paid him regularly and didn’t complain. On the one hand this was so as not to displease him, on the other hand this was because she often used to say that he maintained, by way of consoling her, that the course of the disease, following his diagnosis, was good and was going exactly according to science.
The latter was unfortunately very true. Annió’s condition deteriorated slowly and was barely noticeable. And this prolonged continuation of the sickness drove my mother out of her mind.
Every unknown disease, if it is to be considered natural by the people, must either yield to fundamental medical knowledge or, after a short while, bring about death. As soon as an illness became prolonged, it was attributed to supernatural causes like an evil spirit. For example, the patient must have sat in a bad place; she passed a river at night when the invisible Nereids, the sea nymphs, were performing their rituals; she stepped over a black cat that must have been truly the devil in disguise.
My mother was religious rather than superstitious, and from the beginning she detested such diagnoses and refused to apply the suggested charms, frightened in case she sinned. Besides, the priest had already read exorcisms against every type of evil over the sick girl.
But soon our mother changed her opinion.
Annió’s condition worsened, and the maternal love overcame the fear of sin. Religion should be reconciled with superstition.
Next to the cross on Annió’s chest she hung a charm bearing mysterious Arabic words. The sprinkling of holy water was followed by magic charms, and after the priest’s prayer books came the witches’ spells.
But all of them were in vain.
Annió deteriorated and our mother was becoming completely unrecognisable. You would have thought that she had forgotten that she had other children as well.
Who fed us? Who washed us? Who mended our clothes? She didn’t want to know about these things at all.
An old woman from the nearby village of Sofides, who for many years used to live in our house, looked after us as much as she could, and as long as her Methuselah-like age allowed.
Sometimes we didn’t see our mother for days.
Sometimes she would go and tie a strip from Annió’s dress in a place where a miracle had been reported to have happened, with the hope that the evil would be bound far away from the sufferer. Sometimes she went to nearby churches where they were celebrating a saint’s day, and she would carry a tall candle of yellow wax which she had made with her own hands and which was exactly the same height as her sick child. But all these things were of no benefit, the illness of our poor sister was incurable.
When all these methods had been exhausted and after all the medicines had been tried, then as in similar circumstances we arrived at the last resort.
My mother lifted her wasted girl in her arms and brought her to the church. My eldest brother and I carried the mattresses and followed her, and then on the damp and cold marbles, in front of the icon of the Holy Mary, we put them down and we laid down to sleep the sweetest object of our cares, our one and only sister.
Everyone kept saying that Annió was possessed by an evil spirit. Our mother did not doubt this any more and even the sufferer, Annió, started to believe it.
So Annió had to stay for forty days and nights in the church in front of the Sanctuary, before the icon of the Mother of our Saviour, believing that only their mercy and compassion could save her from the evil affliction that was nestled within her and which was so brutally grinding away the tender tree of her life.
Forty days and forty nights! Because they believed that for this period of time Annió could withstand the terrible persistence of the demons in the invisible war between the demons and the Divine Grace.
After this period of time the evil is defeated and retreats weakened. Also there are a number of folk stories in which the sufferers feel in their bodies the terrible shaking of the final battle and they see their enemy leaving in a strange form, especially at the moment when the Sacraments are passing by or when “Let us stand with fear” is proclaimed by the priest.
The sufferers are lucky if they have enough strength to withstand the struggle. The weak are often crushed by the process of the miraculous healing that takes place in them. But they do not regret this because if they lose their lives at least they will gain the most precious prize; they will save their souls.
Also, such a scenario created great worries for our mother who, as soon as we placed Annió in the church, anxiously started to ask her how she felt.
The holiness of the place, the sight of the icons, the scent of the incense, it seems all acted favourably on her melancholy spirit, because immediately after the first moments she became lively and started to joke with us.
“Which one of the two do you want to play with?” our mother asked her tenderly. “Christákis or Yoryís?”
Annió glanced sideways at her mother, but expressively, and as if reprimanding her for her indifference towards us, Annió answered her slowly and prudently:
“Which one of the two do I want? I don’t want one without the other. I want all of my brothers as many as I have.”
My mother withdrew inside herself and remained silent.
After a while she brought our youngest brother to the church but only for that first day. In the evening she sent the other two brothers away and she kept only me with her.
I still remember how that first night in the church fired my childhood imagination.
The dim light of the lamps in front of the icons, just enough to light them and the marble steps in front of them, made the darkness around us even more suspicious and more frightening than if we were all completely in the dark.
When the little flame of a lamp flickered it seemed to me as if the Saint in the opposite icon had come to life and moved, trying to detach himself from his wooden board and get down to the ground with his wide red clothes, a halo around his head and with staring eyes on his pale and impassive face.
Whenever the cold wind whistled through the tall windows, noisily shaking their small panes around the church, I thought that the dead were climbing up the walls and were trying to get in. And trembling with fright, I now and then saw a skeleton in front of me, who was stretching its fleshless hands to warm them over a brazier which was burning in front of us.
And yet I didn’t even dare show the smallest amount of anxiety. Because I loved my sister and I greatly preferred to always be near her and near my mother, who, without further ado, would send me back home as soon as she suspected that I was afraid.
So during the following nights, I suffered those terrors with compulsory stoicism, and I carried out my duties willingly, trying to become more and more likeable as much as I could. When it was a weekday, I lit a fire, brought water and swept the church. On holy days and on Sundays at Matins, I led my sister by the hand to stand under the Gospel which was being read by the priest at the Beautiful Gate. During the service I would lay down the woollen blanket on which Annió laid face down for the Sacraments to be passed over her. After the service had ended, I brought her pillow and placed it in front of the left door of the Sanctuary in order for her to kneel on it while the priest placed his stole over her head and made the sign of the cross over her face with the Holy Lance, whispering: “Through your crucifixion, Oh Christ, the tyranny is destroyed, the strength of the enemy is crushed…”
My poor sister watched me do all these things with her pale and melancholy face, and she moved slowly with hesitant steps, attracting the compassion of the congregation and causing them to pray for her recovery; a recovery which, unfortunately, was slow in coming.
On the contrary, the dampness and the unusual chill and, yes, the horrors of passing the nights in the church, were not slow in acting harmfully upon Annió whose condition now started to realise our worst fears.
