CASSIA
Three weeks earlier
‘An airmail letter addressed to you, Mamá. Strange Eléni has sent it to you and not to me and Baba, as well. Doesn’t look like her handwriting, mind.’ Bronwen handed her mother the translucent blue envelope. ‘I’m off out. See you later.’
It was the second letter with a Greek stamp that had arrived in the past week. Eugenia had written to tell her sister all about Eléni’s visit. It was the olive branch that Cassia herself should have made, but she had been afraid to. She noticed from the return address that Eugenia was back living in their family home and wondered how Eléni had found her, since the address she’d given her daughter was for the smallholding just outside Fiscardo. Her sister also told her that Maia was married with a little girl, and was living in Patras now.
Cassia’s hand shook as she slid her nail under the seal of the new letter and unfolded the paper. The address was from a house in New Farsa, wherever that was. She knew where Farsa was — it was a small village just outside Argostoli, where she and Nikos had first looked for somewhere to live when they’d left Fiscardo.
AgapitíKyría Beynon,
My name is Kostas Koulouris, the uncle of Iôánna Mouzakis, the young woman you know as Eléni.
‘No!’ Cassia threw the letter on the table, not able to read any more. Her pulse raced. It was the moment she’d dreaded for the last twenty years.
Tom rushed into the kitchen. ‘Whatever’s happened?’ Cassia, unable to get her words out, pointed at the letter. He picked it up. ‘I can’t understand this. You know I can’t read Greek.’ His face turned ashen and his voice broke. ‘It’s not Eléni, is it?’ He sat beside his wife. ‘Cassia, tell me. What’s happened? Has she been in an accident?’
‘No, it’s fromhim,the uncle. I can’t read it.’
Tom let out a big sigh. ‘Thank God. You panicked me then. I had visions of Eléni being in another accident or worse.’ He picked up the letter and handed it to Cassia. ‘I can’t read it for you, but I can be here with you as you read it. There’s not going to be anything he can do from over two thousand miles away, is there?’
He pulled up a chair to sit beside her.
‘I’m sorry I frightened you about Eléni, but him catching up with us is what I’ve always dreaded.’
She started to read, translating each line to Tom.
Dear Mrs Beynon,
My name is Kostas Koulouris, the uncle of Iôánna Mouzakis, the young woman you know as Eléni. I returned to Kefalonia early in 1955 to find my whole family had perished in the earthquake. Or so I thought. I learned my young niece may have survived and so I made a promise to my sister that if she was alive, I would find her and bring her up as my own.
Cassia stopped reading. She was afraid of what would be written next. Tom patted her hand. ‘Go on,cariad.’
I heard from a reporter that she may have been taken to Fiscardo, where I tracked down your sister. But then you know that. You werealready in Wales by then. The reporter even put an advert for her as a missing child in his newspaper. You did a good job at hiding her. But I never gave up hope.
‘Rhodri Jones. Remember he questioned us when we were leaving for Fiscardo and we told him we were taking her to the farm to look at the animals,’ said Tom.
Cassia’s skin prickled with goosebumps, afraid to turn the next page. She read on.
How could someone do that?
Cassia’s eyes blurred with guilty tears. Her throat tightened.
But last week a miracle happened. My lovely niece found me. She is the image of her mamá, my sister, Dimitra. At first, I was angry you and your husband had denied me almost twenty years of knowing her. You took her away from her homeland, away from where her mamá and baba, her yiayiá and pappoú lie in their resting places.
‘This was what I feared when I heard he was looking for us. This is why I didn’t want Eléni to go there.’
Tom pulled Cassia into a tight hug. ‘Maybe you should have told me... So Eléni’s done what she set out to do. I wonder how she tracked him down. I can’t wait for her to come home and to hear all about her trip.’
But my feelings have changed. There is no point in being bitter. This letter is to thank you. Eléni told me what a happy childhood you gave her. I believe her when she explained yougenuinely thought there was no one left to look after her and you stopped her from being sent to an orphanage. By the time I could get back to Kefalonia, she would probably not have been on the island anyway, but in a children’s home on the mainland. Eléni has made me see that.
‘There you are. All our lovely Eléni wanted was to find out about her birth family. She doesn’t love us any less.’
Your daughter has grown into a wonderful young woman and it is down to you and your husband. I have been able to give her photographs of the family. She may look like her mamá, but she takes after her baba with her artistic talents.
I understand from Eléni you have never been back to the island. You would not recognise it! I would very much like to meet you and thank you in person, so I hope one day you will return for a holiday.
Thank you again from the bottom of my heart.
