Smyrna, Asia Minor
July 1921 A.D.
Smyrna was one of the wealthiest cities in the Mediterranean. Its port was a constant hive of activity with cargo travelling between East and West. Trading was the blood that ran through the city’s veins and was at the root of its success.
It was the Greeks that formed the majority of the city’s population and dominated its economic, cultural and political life.
Smyrna’s commercial and cultural life rivalled Alexandria’s, which also boasted a powerful and dominant Greek community amongst its many thriving foreign communities. Greek, Italian, Jewish, French diaspora; they were all there.
However, Smyrna’s residents were oblivious or chose to ignore the ever-increasing dark clouds for an impending doom. This would come a few months later in 1922; an event that would lead Smyrna to be burned to the ground by the troops of Kemal Ataturk.
All of that excitement, though, was still to come. Life continued to roll along its normal buzzing rhythms, with trade and business, glorious balls and performances by world-renowned sopranos, the most wonderful fairs and celebrations and religious festivals, all forming part of a charmed life; a life that would prove short lived. It would only amount to a few decades of flourishing culture; just like the Golden Age of Athens in the first half of the 5 ^th century B.C.
On this day the sky was clear of clouds. The sun drenched the city in a stifling heat. Zozo was sitting on the edge of the waterfront gazing at the glorious riot of colours and flags of the world’s trading ships and fishing and military vessels dotted around the harbour.
Nearby, children were playing. Three of those were her brothers, Iakovos and Spyros and her sister Eleonora. Zozo was the eldest and her father’s favourite. Zozo’s father was Antonios Symitzis, one of the most prominent businessmen in the city.
The family originally hailed from Constantinople, what was throughout most of the Middle Ages the largest and wealthiest city in Europe, the Queen of Cities or as was known in Greek: Vasilevousa.
The family left the city amid the ensuing chaos, after it fell to the Ottomans in 1453 A.D. They found refuge in Smyrna, already a part of the Ottoman Empire, the first stop of the last ship that left Constantinople, the fallen city which was the last remnant of the Byzantine Empire that had been left standing until the fall that wiped it out.
It was there in Smyrna that the Symitzis ancestors settled and flourished with every subsequent generation adding to the family’s wealth, prestige and privilege. But Constantinople was their home and occupying a central place in their hearts, the vacuum left by its loss too big to fill.
They were part of a species that was becoming extinct in its native home due to the occasional persecutions by erstwhile mobs fired up by formerly unassuming but suddenly inspiring Ottoman figures proclaiming a hypocritically patriotic zeal mixed with a dose of religious fervour and intolerance.
Greeks were from time to time blamed for certain catastrophes, a convenient way for certain Ottoman rulers to direct the people’s anger away from themselves and their autocratic rule.
However, many Sultans were enlightened rulers who not only allowed their subjects, including the Greeks, to carry on with their lives as before, as long as they were paying their taxes, just as the Persians did two thousand years earlier, but bestowed certain commercial privileges on them.
As a result of this policy of benign rule, many of the occupied peoples, especially Greeks, came to dominate the commercial life of the Ottoman Empire. That domination was at the heart of the Greeks becoming targets in 1922 when the overstepping of the Greek King’s responsibility to his people, following his surrender to his very own selfish motives, brought the intervention of foreign powers on Kemal Ataturk’s side, thus condemning the Greeks for their arrogance and intransigence.
The prelude to the catastrophe of 1922 was the Greek King’s greed and misplaced ambitious vision. The end of the First World War brought territorial gains for Greece, which was on the side of the Allies, against the Ottoman Empire, which was on the side of Germany.
During the war the Greek King was at loggerheads with the Prime Minister over which of the sides to ally Greece to. The King was a Germanophile and, naturally, wished Greece to ally herself with Germany. But the Prime Minister was an anglophile and could not let that happen.
The two most powerful political leaders of Greece agreed to disagree and compromised by keeping Greece neutral and out of the war altogether. But the Allies needed Greece on their side for its strategic position.
They decided to take the Greeks’ decision for them. They landed troops in Thessaloniki in 1916 and their action forced Greece’s hand and sealed the issue once and for all. Greece exited the safety of neutrality for the hand of the Allies.
But for the Greek King those gains that came after the end of the war were not enough. He carried delusions of Byzantine glory and grandeur. Against the advice of his then Prime Minister Venizelos, the King took steps to make those deluded dreams a reality.
He landed troops in Smyrna to what would later prove a misguided hero’s and liberator’s welcome and started a campaign of further conquest on a march to Ankara and beyond.
The King was, by his own hand alone, fooled into believing that he would have the support of the foreign great powers. How wrong that assumption proved to be. What arrogant wishful thinking.
The result was defeat, the loss of everything that was gained from the First World War and about a million refugees bound for the welcoming embrace of the mother country, Greece. What shattered idea that hoped-for warm welcome proved to be. But that’s another story.
Kemal Ataturk was an inspirational figure and a very capable military mind. He used that anger against the Greeks that had been brewing for generations into firing up a potent force bent on punishment. There would be no prisoners this time.
It was death or nothing. The Greeks knew it; they knew that they had no chance, because the foreign powers would not deign to help them even at this desperate hour and with Smyrna in flames.
The foreign ships in the harbour sat idle, turning a deaf ear to the calls for help. That was the indictment against the greed of the King. But all that was still months away.
Zozo was nineteen years old, a bright, generous and independent girl with big plans for herself, her family and her people. Zozo loved her father. Antonios had been a good father to her and her brothers and sister. He had done a good job out of very difficult circumstances. Their mother had died suddenly soon after the birth of her youngest child.
But Antonios was not alone in this task. He shared the burden of the children’s upbringing with Manto, his housekeeper, who became the mother the children had for only a short time. Manto was about the same age as their mother and she fell into the role naturally.
It was a pleasure to see them grow and to observe with amusement and interest their individual personalities coming out. Antonios had no doubt about their good character. He saw evidence of it every day and that gave him enormous satisfaction. But he had made sure of that good character from the beginning. He was certain in his heart that would not change with time, as they grew up and matured.
But Zozo was his favourite. He saw so much of himself in her. She was becoming very important to him. She certainly was a fast learner. She absorbed like a sponge.
Even as a little girl she would sneak into his office at work or his study at home, sometimes sitting under the desk, other times hiding behind a curtain or under a chair, and listen, hungry to witness everything revolving around her father’s life. She hung onto his and his guests’ every word.
Zozo had already shown her abilities to her father who was constantly testing her and grooming her to succeed him. Even at this early age she was being involved in many of his ventures and charities. She had shown creativity and brilliance and had been turning her hand to new commercial initiatives, be it in business or for charity.
It was for the promise Zozo showed that Antonios was considering whether the time was right for initiating her into the Order of Vlachernae.
Zozo was looking at the ships dotted around the harbour when a blinding light caught her attention.
Standing apart from the other naval vessels in the harbour was an impressive yacht with its purple and gold sails reflecting the sunlight and appearing like a shining beacon or a lighthouse, even in the daylight visible from a great distance. Those were the colours of the House of Vendis, a prominent Greek family from Alexandria.
Zozo saw a launch speeding away from the yacht coming towards the shore. Inside the launch, unable to sit down, Kostas Vendis was standing proud, like the head of an invading force looking at his prize, at the city spreading in front of him, anxious to get to his meeting with Antonios; a crucial meeting for the fate of the Order of Vlachernae and their respective and partly shared business interests.
Kostas Vendis was one of those people who was constantly underestimated, because he was short and stocky and had a gentle, innocent face, but one that belied the steely determination and sharpness of mind that lay underneath that calm veneer. His enormous presence was impossible to ignore. You underestimated him at your peril.
Kostas was a master of understatement. His uncanny ability to second-guess and outwit his rivals was second to none; combined with his ability to move seemingly immovable obstacles and make things happen proved to be an unbeatable combination, an indispensible ally. Kostas was only thirty-two years old, but he had incredible wealth and power, the gilded legacy of generations of brilliant ancestors.
Zozo saw the launch reach the waterfront. Her father expected her to be at the meeting. She had to get back. She got up and started to gather her things. She hated to stop the children from their games. They seemed to be having fun. Their laugh and teasing rang far and loud.
‘Come on, it’s time to go back.’
None of the children made any attempt to gather their things and pleaded with her to let them stay.
‘Please, Zozo. Can’t we stay a bit longer?’
‘We’ll be back tomorrow. I promise.’
The children lowered their eyes, and, reluctantly, began to carelessly throw their things in their bags, disappointment disfiguring their normally carefree faces.
Nikitas knocked on the door of the Symitzis house in the St. George Quarter of the city near the harbour. He was looking forward to the wide smile and hug of Mrs Manto, Antonios’ housekeeper, nanny, cook and a multitude of other things, too numerous to name.
The door opened and Mrs Manto upon seeing Nikitas could not contain her excitement, her clothes evidently straining and ready to burst at the seams. A huge smile broke across her face and she squeezed him in a big hug and held him there for a while.
She had raised him, and his two brothers, Manuel and Stephanos, and they were all three like sons to her. It was tough times then when their mother, Zoe, was striving to survive and establish herself in a maledominated world.
Zoe was the matriarch of the family, another strong woman in a long line of strong women at the helm of the Symitzis clan. Besieged by a weakened but still powerful Sultan sitting in Constantinople and distributing rough and unpredictable justice through his loyal advisors, and carefully sidestepping attempts by other ambitious members of the Pallanians to trip her, spurred as they were by their often ancient traditions and perceptions frozen in stone, her life was full of constant excitement. But she stood strong and coped with it all with remarkable determination and grace.
She was a fiercely loyal person to her family and those around her who she thought deserved it. She was a fearsome businesswoman of great intelligence and pragmatism who always carried herself with an innate elegance and quiet but steely confidence.
She had to combine the roles of head of the Symitzis family businesses, head of the Order of Vlachernae and mother during the few free precious minutes left to her.
She succeeded beyond her wildest dreams and the low expectations of many of her conservative rival contemporaries who, initially, saw her as a nuisance, an upstart, just for being a woman, but who were soon relieved of any such delusions.
They started to have a growing respect, if not love or fondness for her, helped, no doubt, by the fact that they were fearful of her power. Even they were also soon to succumb to her power, be added to her list of, if not to the extreme of being hard-lined ardent fans, then at least admirers, and accept her as their leader.
However, even during all that upheaval and the constant challenges to her authority (always easily stamped out with common sense and a dose of necessary ruthlessness), she spent time with her sons who did not grow to resent her for her flying visits and often assumed indifference. They all adored her and respected her and looked up to her throughout their lives.
But Smyrna and her brother Antonios’ home was the safest place for them to call home, at least in their early years. Later they would not have a home at all. The places of their campaigns and travels would each be their temporary home.
Mrs Manto had as big a place in Nikitas’ heart as his biological mother, Zoe. He remembered her sitting him down on the floor or on her lap telling him stories of extraordinary adventures. Mrs Manto released Nikitas, stood back and took a long hard look at him, admiring the man he had become, her love for him animating her face and emanating a mother’s warmth.
‘My dear boy, I have pourekia for you in the kitchen, fresh out of the oven. Antonios is out in the garden tending to his precious roses. You can take him some pourekia and have a chat before Kostas arrives. His yacht has been spotted in the harbour.’
Nikitas lost no time and gave his feet wings on his way to the kitchen. The intoxicating smell of the freshly-baked pourekia was already pulling him by the nose. Mrs Manto followed and observed him hungrily gobble down a few pourekia, smiling to herself.
He then rushed for a glass of water before he put a few in a small plate and made his way back to the entrance hall, all the while his thoughts turning to the indomitable and irreplaceable Mrs Manto.
Mrs Manto was a treasure. She exuded such warmth, drama and excitement that you could not help but be swept away into that particular rollercoaster. How could anyone dare ignore her, and not succumb to her vocal, but, more often than not, silent demand for attention, a demand which was not the result of arrogance or vanity but of the best intention, as she always had the best interests of those she cared for at heart. She filled any room she entered with her presence, an effect born of the impression of a permanently animated appearance, of perpetual motion, even when she was standing still, her eyes contantly watchful, missing nothing.
She had strong opinions about everything and would immediately take charge. It was not an arrogant thing with her. She was decisive and never dithered. She would never shy away from responsibility and it was a result of her loyalty and willingness to resolve any issue troubling her family.
When she was present, others involuntarily deferred to her, a dominance born of her strong character as well as her actual physical presence. She was a generously-built woman with strong arms from all the manual work she had undertaken throughout her hard life. The air her bulk displaced choked the breath out of you. Funnily, it made you think that you had done something wrong. But she soon after filled your lungs to bursting with love and warmth.
She was big in stature and big at heart. Her heart was a big enough place not only for her family but the world at large.
Mrs Manto had a strong maternal instinct. She watched like a hawk over the people she loved, over her family. When necessary she would bare claws and teeth to protect them, like a tigress with her cubs. She had dedicated her life to looking after this family, spoiling her dear ones rotten.
There was proper tough love there though. They would fight a losing battle against her obstinacy and immovability. But her advice would always without fail be sound.
Yet her loved ones would not admit it to her face; how could they endanger her soul and massage her ego, how could they resist the temptation to make her perspire a little, just for the fun of it? But she would never be fooled. She always saw through these pitiable little schemes.
She was a master of dry wit. Complements would receive a smile and with a raised eyebrow would be instantly demolished by a self-deprecating comment. Any expectation of her being puffed up by sweet words would fall on deaf ears and soon deflate. She had seen too much in her life to be taken in by the magic of such words.
Nikitas walked across the entrance hall and out onto the patio, hungrily and contentedly munching on a delicious poureki. God, that woman was a miracle-worker. He wanted to plant a million kisses on those precious hands that had given them all so much over the years.
He stood on the steps leading down the patio to the garden and let himself drown in the riot of colours and smells besieging his senses. He was paralysed on the spot feasting on this vision of paradise on earth. He had no wish to let this dreamlike state go. He closed his eyes to prolong the good feeling.
The disc of the sun was high above in the clear blue sky, shining bright and hot, and drenching all below in a vibrant hew that brought to life even the dullest of flower and leaf, the humblest of petal and grass.
He saw Antonios engrossed in his roses. Nikitas broke his reverie and started to walk towards Antonios.
Suddenly, as if sensing something, Antonios got up and came face to face with a vision he had not seen for some time. He stood there for a moment in disbelief. “It must be a mirage, an illusion. I’ve been standing in the sun for far too long”, he thought out loud, but got no reply.
Nikitas waited. Antonios shifted focus, but the vision was still there. He wondered whether this was the first sign of the onset of senility or cataracts, the cursed or blessed gift of old age.
His face broke into a smile and he gathered Nikitas tightly into his arms and then released him.
‘Nikitas, how long have you been standing there? Have you been spying on me? Come and have a look. Tell me what you think. You know, I planted these after you last left and just look at them now. They’ve only just began blooming, as if to welcome you back home.’
‘You’ve always been a magician of nature. I don’t think they just did it by themselves.’
‘Lazy people find mystery and complexity where there is none. Now, tell me. How’s your mother and how is her Alexandrian journey going?’
‘She’s well. She’s pleased with progress. And Alexandria is one of her favourite cities. She’s thrilled to have been able to combine business with pleasure. She’ll be back next week. She sends her love. Antonios, why are you still wasting your time on those roses? You know as well as I do that soon this city and your beloved roses will turn to ashes. You should get out whilst there’s time. I wish I could say you should warn others, but I don’t think that’s feasible. They’ll think you are mad and try to lock you up.’
‘Don’t worry. Everything has been arranged. We will be out in time.’
Displaced for a second time, Antonios thought. Forever condemned to be nomads. And we are again at the same juncture. Another place. Another home. For how long, he wondered, this time.
‘I will not ask where you will be going, because the fewer people know the better. Antonios, you know you cannot take the children with you. You have to take this opportunity and split the family to confuse the scent for our enemies.’
‘Yes.’ Antonios had another reason for wanting to go his own way. The protection of the explosive information he had in his possession and for which he was the last guardian. He had to be careful not to end up taking that secret to a premature grave.
Here the account, the echo of almost ninety years ago, stopped abruptly. The page looked as if it had been violently torn. Elli felt disappointed at the fatally wounded account. She turned to the next page. What she did not know was that the missing part was hidden well away in the possession of her brother Iraklios.
Across town, Iraklios was by a weird coincidence staring at that torn page. The Cappadocian discovery had triggered the memory and led him back to re-read the document away from prying eyes. His memory somehow was not enough and wanted to be shaken into revealing its solid form, in words at least.