Free The Fig Tree by Arnold Zable Page B

many guises, and he published two books.
    The books are the culmination of a life-long romance. There are descriptions of wedding rituals and burial rites, the lyrics of funeral dirges and travellers’ laments. There are songs of the sea and Ionian ballads, lovers’ serenades and peasant chants. There are lists of proverbs and sayings, home remedies for ailments, and recipes for festival days. The pages are illustrated with photos of wine and olive presses, grinding stones, wooden cartwheels, and countless other artefacts of the Ionian past.
    Andreas lives off the main road that runs through the northern villages. An unpaved path descends to his stone cottage. It squats in a hollow, a cool grove beneath the heights. Outside, sheep graze in darkened paddocks, while dogs howl at the approach of an inquisitive stranger.
    This is when I love to visit him, late at night. He can always be found then, bent over a book, or listening to a Schubert sonata, a Mozart concerto. He serves me tea and Metaxa brandy, and shows me his latest photograph, or yet another rare book. Or he imparts another piece of information: ‘Do you know that the first taxi on Ithaca, a model-T Ford, appeared in 1926? Do you know there have been snowstorms on Ithaca? I have photos of them. Have I told you that the windmills of the Ionian Islands have eight sails, while elsewhere they may have ten?’
    Andreas has transformed his nostalgia into knowledge, and his house into a museum. The rooms are filled with period furniture, and the shelves are stacked with books. He sees Odysseus as his first ancestor and Homer as his mentor. He attends conferences on the works of the poet, and keeps a zealous eye on the excavations that continue to sift the Ithacan earth for evidence of its Mycenaean past.
    As for Melbourne, it remains on the wall, in the form of framed photos and lithographs, and in an extensive collection of shells. The shells remind him of the bayside beaches along which he once strolled. ‘It will always be a part of me. But finally I had to choose. And I chose home.’
    There are countless reasons why people migrate, and why they return. On the island of Ithaca, there are many ageing voyagers who once lived in Australian cities or outback towns for a year, a decade, a half-century or more. Ithaca was one of three islands, with Kythera and Kastellorizo, from which many of the earliest Greek immigrants made their way to Australian shores. They left to escape their impoverished villages, or the lingering effects of war.
    On Ithaca, Cassie’s mother worked as a young girl in lime kilns. She sweated in room-size ovens fuelled by wood fires. Perhaps this is why she felt an aversion towards the island. Others were driven by a sense of adventure, or a desire for independence. Some were obliged to fulfil their family duty and to join relatives in far-flung lands.
    Yet little seems to be known about the phenomenon of return migration. Each period of economic downturn—the 1890s recession, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the recession of the 1990s—has seen more migrants come home to Ithaca than leave. Others were driven by nationalist sentiment, and sailed back to Greece to fight in the Balkan wars of 1912–13. In recent years, many Ithacans have been drawn back by a desire to live out their twilight years in their childhood homes. And some have returned hoping to re-establish a sense of community, only to find they are condemned to remain in permanent limbo.
    But not so Sugar. He continues to live in the moment, to revel in his fading dream. I catch sight of him at the village dance on Christmas Eve. He is one of the first to arrive, and cannot wait for the live music to begin. He sways about the dance floor, rehearsing his moves, until, finally, the band strikes up the first number, a tango, and he moves off over the floorboards with Maria.
    He is of the old school, firmly in control. He guides his partners, many of whom