Free The Island by Victoria Hislop Page B

small clock, a gift from her parents on her wedding day. She placed it in the centre of the mantelpiece and a gentle tick-tock now filled the long silences. It struck on the hour, and at precisely three o’clock, before the chimes had quite died away, there was a gentle knock on the door.
     
    Eleni opened the door wide to admit her visitor, a small, round-faced woman with flecks of silver in her hair.
     
    ‘ Kalispera ,’ said Eleni. ‘Kyrios Kontomaris told me to expect your visit. Please come in.’
     
    ‘This must be Dimitri,’ said the woman immediately, walking over to the boy, who remained seated, his head resting in his hands. ‘Come,’ she said, holding out her hand to him. ‘I am going to show you round. My name is Elpida Kontomaris, but please call me Elpida.’
     
    There was a note of forced jollity in her voice and the kind of enthusiasm you would summon up if you were taking a terrified child to have a tooth pulled. They emerged from the gloom of the house into the late afternoon light and turned right.
     
    ‘The most important thing is the water supply,’ she began, her matter-of-fact tone betraying that she had taken new arrivals on a tour of the island many times before. Whenever a woman arrived, her husband would dispatch Elpida to welcome her. This was the first time that she had given her talk with a child present, so she knew she would have to modify some of the information she usually imparted. She would certainly have to control the vitriol that rose up inside her when she was describing the island’s facilities.
     
    ‘This,’ she said brightly, pointing to a huge cistern at the foot of the hill, ‘is where we collect our water. It’s a sociable place and we all spend plenty of time here chatting and catching up with each other’s news.’
     
    In truth, the fact that they had to trudge several hundred metres downhill to fetch water and then all the way back with it angered her beyond words. She could cope, but there were others more crippled than her who could barely lift an empty vessel let alone one that brimmed with water. Before she lived on Spinalonga she had rarely lifted more than a glassful of water, but now carrying bucketfuls was part of life’s daily grind. It had taken her several years to get used to this. Things had perhaps changed more drastically for Elpida than for many. Coming from a wealthy family in Hania, she had been a stranger to manual work until she arrived in Spinalonga ten years earlier; the hardest assignment she had ever undertaken prior to that was to embroider a bedspread.
     
    As usual, Elpida put on a brave front for her introduction to the island and presented only the positive aspects of it all. She showed Eleni Petrakis the few shops as though they were the finest in Iraklion, pointed out where the bi-weekly market was held and where they did their laundry. She also took her to the pharmacy, which for many was the most important building of all. She told her the times when the baker’s oven was lit and where the kafenion was situated, tucked away down a little side street. The priest would call on her later, but meanwhile she indicated where he lived and took them to the church. She enthused to the boy about the puppet shows which were put on for the children once a week in the town hall and finally she pointed out the schoolhouse, which stood empty today, but on three mornings each week contained the island’s small population of children.
     
    She told Dimitri about other children of his own age and attempted to prise a smile out of him by describing the fun and games they had together, but no matter how hard she tried, his face remained impassive.
     
    What she refrained from speaking of today, especially in front of the boy, was the restlessness that was brewing on Spinalonga. Though many of the lepers were initially grateful for the sanctuary that the island provided, they became disenchanted after a while and believed themselves