Matoula's Echo

1

1There were no women in Metsovo, only men. This had been a source of amusement for countless generations among the neighboring villagers high in the Southern Alps of central Greece. Of course it wasn’t true. All the men who lived in this region known as Epirus were forced by the long, cruel winters to drive their flocks down to more mild elevations for most of the year, but it was only the men of Metsovo who left their women and children behind to do the strenuous work necessary for their survival. And it was precisely for survival’s sake that strength in the women of Metsovo became the measure of beauty, and it was also the reason Maria Christina Triantafyllou, an aspen among sycamores, was considered the least attractive girl in the village. Moreover, in a community where you were considered a near spinster at fifteen, she was already seventeen and not one suitor had appeared, not even a rumor of one. And yet, it was the furthest thing from her mind this morning in October of 1940, as she sat on a small bench in front of a fire in the family’s gray stone cottage. In the last few weeks she had found it impossible to concentrate on anything but Mussolini’s army amassing on the border not eighteen hours from their village, which was the only western route into Greece.

“A cup of my tea, my soul,” came a low hoarse voice from the large platform next to the fireplace, breaking the oppressive silence.

“Right away, Pappou.”

It was comforting for her to pour warm water from a kettle into a cup filled with his special herbal mixture, then swirl the liquid and carefully add two drops of paregoric. She lit a lamp and set it on the low round table in front of the fireplace. It was always dark in the winter room. The two windows and the door to the room were covered in thick wool weavings to help the room retain as much heat as possible. The only daylight was from a small window beneath the hearth.

Lying in his sickbed, her grandfather spoke with difficulty, “How you look like your grandmother just now. So beautiful.”

As he took the cup, Maria Christina leaned into the stubble of beard and softly kissed his cheek. Having been aware of her quiet suffering these years, the old man had decided his gift to her would be that of hope. He would teach her to dream. To that end he plied her with stories of his beloved wife, her namesake, who had died from tuberculosis when Maria Christina was only three. And whenever he described his bride, tall and thin, with long chestnut hair and eyes like sapphires, her skin the color of a fresh white peach and her tiny waist, it was as if he was describing Maria Christina herself.

“She was the most beautiful woman in all of Bucharest. And may I be spitting in God’s eye if they aren’t the most beautiful in the world! And I’ve been everywhere!”

Of course she stopped hoping and dreaming and believing him years ago, although she continued pretending to him that it must be so. Still, his stories made her feel melancholic, knowing he felt compelled to lie to her because no man would ever find her acceptable as a bride.

His cheek felt warm. As he sipped the tea, he talked about the last day of October 1912. “I was alone in a remote village in the Rodope Mountains in Bulgaria. I don’t remember the name now. I was carving an altar screen when I heard from a peddler that the Turkish rule over Metsovo had finally ended. After five hundred years. And I had no one to celebrate.”

She had heard all of this before but listened attentively as he then spoke about his three sons, one of whom he had lost in the First Balkan War against the Turks and then his other two in the war that was to end all wars. How tired he was of war. And as he continued, he spoke again about his wife and his voice became softer and slower.

“How we used to laugh... So smart, my Maria. Like you. Like...” his voice trailed off.

Maria Christina took his cup and placed it in a niche in the wall, then leaned into him and gently combed his hair with her fingers. Her hand was cool. He stopped frowning and smiled as he looked up at her. Then he closed his eyes, let out a small sigh, and turned his face into his pillow. After a moment he let out another small sigh.

When she thought he had fallen asleep, she took his eyeglasses from his lap and put them in their case and was placing them beside the cup when he stopped her with a sharp gesture and a renewed burst of life:

“You keep them for me, my blood and heart.”

The old man smiled at her as he settled back into his pillows. It was her grandfather who first noticed they had the same severe astigmatism when at three years old she was looking at her thumb an inch from her right eye. Her father insisted it be kept a secret if she ever hoped to have a husband. Pappou felt responsible, having passed on this handicap to his favourite granddaughter, and discreetly shared his round tortoise shell glasses with her when they were alone in the house.

As he lay peacefully smiling up at her, Maria Christina quickly dismissed the thought of life without him. He was old and unwell but surely not near death. It was the anticipation of war that tired him so. She wiped perspiration from his forehead with her apron and softly kissed his nose. Then she rose and returned to the bench, running her hand along a beautifully woven tapestry which wrapped around the curved white chimney just above the fireplace. It was the last of the chimney aprons her mother had woven, and it was becoming dry and brittle from the heat and would soon have to be replaced. She put her cheek to it. Over the years so much of the evidence of her mother’s life had disappeared, and the slow deterioration of the fabric only served to deepen the longing for the ghost who died shortly after giving birth to her. Feeling alone and frightened once again, she clutched the glasses to her breast and sat back down on the bench and rocked back and forth a moment. Closing one eye and squinting with the other, she could see huge snow crystals swirling in the wind outside the small window at the base of the hearth, as if they, too, were anxiously awaiting the inevitable sound of war.