Between Piraeus and Naples

My mother’s sin-4

But I had imagined this sister to be beautiful and sympathetic, developed and clever, educated, skilled at needlework, and generally with all the virtues shown by the girls of the countries where I had been living until then. But instead of all these things, what did I find? Exactly the opposite. My adopted sister was still small, sickly, badly developed, ill tempered and, above all, unintelligent, so unintelligent that from the start I felt a dislike towards her.

“Give Katerinió back” I said one day to my mother. “Give her back, if you love me. This time I am telling you in earnest! I will bring you another daughter from Constantinople! A beautiful girl, a clever one, who one day will be a credit to our house.”

Later I described in most vivid colours, a girl who was an orphan, and whom I would bring home in the future and how much I would love her.

When I raised my eyes towards my mother, I saw to my astonishment that large tears were rolling slowly on her pale cheeks, while her humiliated eyes expressed an indescribable grief.

“Oh!” she said in a desperate voice. “I thought that you would love Katerinió more than the others, but I was deceived! They don’t want a sister at all and you want a different one. And it’s not the poor little one’s fault, she is as God made her. If you had an ugly sister with a poor brain, would you throw her out into the road, in order to take another one, very beautiful and intelligent?”

“No mother! Of course not!” I replied. “But she would be your child like I am. While this one is nothing to you. She is a complete stranger to us.”

“No!” exclaimed my mother through her crying. “No! The child is not a stranger! She is mine! I took her at three months from the dead body of her mother; and as she was crying I put her mouth to my breast in order to delude her; and I wrapped her in your swaddling clothes and I laid her to sleep in your cot. She is my own child and she is your sister!”

After these words which she uttered forcefully and in an imposing way, she raised her head and fixed her eyes on me.

She waited defiantly for my reply. But I didn’t dare utter a word. Then, she lowered her eyes again and went on in a weak and sad voice:

“Eh? What will happen? And I too wanted a better child but my sin, you see… I haven’t been absolved from it yet. And God has made it so, in order to try my patience and to forgive me. Oh thank you, Lord!”

And having said this, she laid her right hand on her breast, raised her eyes full of tears towards heaven, and she remained like that for several minutes in silence.

“You have something in your heart mother?” I said to her timidly. “Don’t be angry.”

And taking her very cold hand I kissed it in order to appease her.

“Yes,” she said decisively. “I have something heavy inside, very heavy, my child. Up until now, only God and my priest know it. You are well-read and sometimes you talk like the priest himself or even better. Get up, shut the door, and sit down, and I’ll tell you. Perhaps you will console me a little, perhaps you will feel sorry for me and will love Katerinió as your own sister.”

These words and the way she stressed them put my heart in great turmoil. What did my mother want to confide in me away from my brothers? She had told me all her miseries that she had undergone during my absence. I knew all her earlier life just as if it were a fairy-tale. So what was it that she had kept hidden from us until now, that she didn’t dare to disclose to anyone except God and her confessor?

When I went to sit near her, my knees trembled from an inexplicable and strong fear.

My mother hung her head, as if she was a condemned person standing before the judge with a full awareness of one who had committed a terrible crime.

“Do you remember our Annió?” she asked after some moments of oppressive silence.

“Yes, mother! How could I not remember her! She was our only sister and she died in front of my eyes.”

“Yes!” she said to me, sighing deeply, “but she wasn’t my only daughter! You are four years younger than Christákis. One year after I had him I gave birth to my first daughter.

“It was around the time that Photís Mylonás was getting married. Your late father delayed their wedding until I had passed my forty days after giving birth, in order for both of us to be best man and matron of honour. He wanted to take me out to see people and to be happy as a married couple, because your grandmother had denied me life’s enjoyments as a young girl.

“In the morning we married them and in the evening the guests were at their house; and the violins were playing and everyone was eating in the yard and the jug of wine was being passed from hand to hand. And your father was in good spirits as he loved entertainment, and he threw me his handkerchief to get up and dance. When I saw him dance it made me want to dance as well, and as young as I was, I also loved dancing. And so we danced and then the others joined us. But we danced the best and the longest.

“As midnight approached, I took your father aside and said to him:

“ ‘Husband, I have our child in the cot and I can’t stay away any longer. She is hungry and I am full of milk. How can I feed her in front of all these people and in my best clothes! You stay here if you want to enjoy yourself a little longer. I will take the baby and go home.’

“ ‘Very well, my dear’, said your father, God bless his soul, and he patted me on my shoulder. ‘Come on, dance this next dance with me and then we’ll both go. The wine has begun to go to my head which is a reason for me to leave as well.’

“As soon as we finished that dance, we took to the road.

“The bridegroom sent the musicians who accompanied us halfway home. But we still had a long way to go to our house because the wedding was in Karsimahalá. The servant was going in front with the torch. Your father carried our baby and he also held me by the hand.

“ ‘I see you are tired, my dear.’

“ ‘Yes, Michaliós, I am tired.’

“ ‘Come on, have a little bit more strength until we arrive home. I’ll make up the beds by myself. I am sorry I made you dance so much.’

“ ‘Never mind, husband,’ I said to him. ‘I did it to please you. Tomorrow I’ll rest again.’

“So we arrived home. I swaddled and breastfed the child and your father made the bed. Christákis was asleep and so was Venetiá whom I had left to look after him. In a little while we lay down to sleep as well.

“There, in my sleep it seemed to me as if the baby cried. ‘The poor thing!’ I said, ‘She didn’t eat enough today.’ And I leaned over her cot so I could feed her. But I was very tired and I was unable to remain for long in that position. So I lifted her out, and placed her next to me, in our bed, and put her mouth to one of my n*****s. Then I fell asleep again.

“I don’t know how many hours it was until the morning, but when I felt dawn was breaking, I thought to myself that I must put the child back in its place.

“But when I went to pick her up, what did I see! The child didn’t move! I woke up your father; we removed the swaddling clothes, we warmed her, we rubbed her little nose, nothing!

“She was dead!

“ ‘You rolled on my child, wife!’ shouted your father and started to cry.

“Then I started to cry too, very loudly and I began to scream. But your father placed his hand over my mouth and said, ‘Shush! Why do you shout like that, you ox?’ That’s what he said to me, God forgive him! Three years we had been married and he didn’t utter a bad word to me. And at that moment he said to me! ‘Eh? Why do you shout like that? Do you want to wake up the neighbourhood, for the people to say that you got drunk and rolled on your child?’

“And he was right, blessed be the earth that he lies in. Because if people heard of it, I should have had to have dug my own grave.

“But what could I do? Sin is sin.

“After we had buried the child and had returned from the church, then the real grief started. Then I didn’t cry in secret any more. ‘You are young and you will have others,’ people told me. However, time passed, and God didn’t give us another child. ‘There!’ I would say to myself, ‘God is punishing me, because I was not able to protect the child which He gave me!’ And I was ashamed to face other people and I was frightened of your father, because for all of that first year he pretended he wasn’t sad and he comforted me in order to give me courage. But later he became sluggish and thoughtful.

“Three years passed and in that time I didn’t enjoy a single morsal of bread that I ate. And after these three years you were born - imagine how many thank-offerings I made to the church!

“When I gave birth to you my heart was quietened, but I didn’t become calm.

“Your father had wanted you to have been a girl and one day he said to me:

“ ‘This child is welcome Despinió; but I wanted it to have been a girl.’

“When your grandmother went to the Holy Sepulchre, I gave her twelve shirts and three gold coins to take with her in order for me to receive absolution. And, lo and behold! The exact same month that your grandmother returned from Jerusalem with the absolution was the month that I began to have morning sickness with Annió.

“Every so often I would call for the midwife. ‘Please come here, madam, to have a look. Is it a girl?’

“ ‘Yes, daughter’ said the midwife, ‘a girl. Can’t you see? You are far too big for your clothes!’ And I had never been so happy as when I heard this!

“When I gave birth to the child and it was indeed a girl, then my heart came back to its right position. We named her Annió, the same name as the child who had died, so that it didn’t appear as if someone was absent from our house. ‘Thank you, my God!’ I was saying night and day. ‘I thank you, I the sinner, for removing my shame and for absolving me of my sin! …’

“And Annió was as precious to us as our eyes. But you grew jealous and you almost died from your envy. Your father called you ‘his wronged little one’ because I stopped breastfeeding you very early on and he sometimes scolded me because I neglected you. And for me, my heart broke when I saw you getting weaker, but I couldn’t let Annió out of my hands! Every moment I was afraid that something would happen to her. And your late father, the more he scolded me, the more he too wanted to look after her and protect her.

“But that blessed child, the more we caressed and cared for her, the less healthy she became …

“You could say that God regretted giving her to us. You were rosy-cheeked, and lively and frisky. She was quiet, slow and sickly. When I saw she was very pale, I thought about our child who had died, and about my belief that I had killed her and again the grief started to overcome me, until the day that the second one died!

“Whoever has not gone through such a grief on his own my child, does not know what a bitter cup it was. My hope to have another daughter was no more. Your father had died. If a parent couldn’t be found to offer me her little girl, I would have taken to the mountains.

“It is true that she didn’t turn out very good natured. But as long as I had her I cared for her and cuddled her, and I believed that she was my own and it made me forget about the ones that I had lost, and my conscience was appeased.

“As the old saying goes, ‘someone else’s child is a torture.’ But for me this torture is a comfort and a relief. Because the more I suffer and grieve, God will punish me less and less for the child that I killed. Therefore - may you have my blessing - don’t ask me to get rid of Katerinió in order to take a good hearted and diligent child.”

“No, no, mother!” I cried out, interrupting her uncontrollably. “I’m not asking for anything. After what you have told me I am asking for your forgiveness for my hard heartedness. I promise you that I will love Katerinió as my sister and not say anything unpleasant to her again.”

“May you have the blessing of Christ and the Holy Mary!” said my mother to me relieved. “Because you see my heart felt pity for her, the poor thing, and I don’t want anybody to speak badly of her. And, of course, how was I to know? Was it fate? Was it from God? As bad and incapable as she is, I am to be blamed and that’s it.”

This revelation made a very deep impression on me. Now my eyes had been opened and I understood many of my mother’s actions, which had sometimes seemed to me to be superstitions, and sometimes the results of a real obsession. That terrible accident had influenced the whole of her life so much, as my mother was an unsophisticated, virtuous and God-fearing woman. The feeling of sin, the moral need of purification and the impossibility of obtaining purification from this sin –– what a frightful and unutterable hell! For twenty-eight years now the poor woman had not been able to control her conscience, either in bad times or in good!

From the moment that I learnt of her sad story, I focussed all my attention as to how I could comfort her heart; on the one hand I tried to persuade her that her ‘sin’ was un-premeditated and accidental, on the other hand I tried to convince her of the infinite mercy of God and his justice which doesn’t punish like for like, but judges us according to our thoughts and intentions. And there was a time when I believed that my efforts were successful.

However, after two years of a new absence, my mother came to see me in Constantinople, and I considered it right to do something more impressive on her behalf.

At that time I was staying as a guest at the most prestigious mansion of Constantinople where I had the good fortune to become acquainted with Patriarch Joachim the Second.

One day while both of us were walking in the deep shade of the garden I mentioned my mother’s story to him and I appealed for his help. His supreme position, his remarkable authority, with which every religious pronouncement of his is surrounded, would undoubtedly inspire my mother with the belief in the remission of her sin.

That old man of blessed memory, praising my zeal concerning religious affairs, promised me his eager cooperation.

So, I, after a while, led my mother to the Patriarch’s residence to confess to his Holiness.

The confession lasted a long time and from the nodding and words of the Patriarch I understood that he needed to have at his disposal all the power of his simple and clear rhetoric in order to bring about the desired result.

My joy was indescribable. My mother said goodbye to the venerable Patriarch and expressed her sincere gratitude and she left his residence so pleased, so light hearted as if a large millstone had been lifted from her heart.

When we arrived back at her lodgings, she took out the cross from her bosom, a present from his Holiness, kissed it and started to examine it, little by little sinking into deep thought.

“This Patriarch is a good man” I said to her. “There you are. Now I firmly believe that your heart is back in its right place.”

My mother didn’t reply.

“You are not saying anything, mother?” I asked her with some hesitation.

“What can I tell you, my child!” she answered thoughtfully; “the Patriarch is a wise and holy man. He knows all the thoughts and the will of God and forgives the sins of all the people. But, what can I say? He is a monk. He has never had children so he is not able to understand what it means for someone to kill his own child!”

Her eyes filled with tears and I remained silent.