The Aegean breeze, gentle yet insistent, cooled my scalp through thinning hair. Waves of heat danced over the pumice shore. The resulting undulations evoked visions of ancient Athenian warriors weary from the Peloponnesian War, their swords dripping with the blood of island men. The downfall of these prideful islanders who would neither pay tribute nor surrender was so complete that their lineage teetered on the brink of extinction, save for the women and children spared only to be enslaved. The sorrow of these survivors weighed heavily upon me. Milos.
“Milos! I can’t believe we’re actually here!” Katie ran to me from behind and vigorously shook my shoulders with both hands.
“Stop! My head’s coming off.” The protest was earnest. I was still suffering from jetlag.
“Can you believe these rock formations? They’re pure white.” Katie darted back and forth on the volcanic moonscape of Sarakiniko and took in everything she saw until she resembled a puffed-up frigatebird with her chest about to explode.
“Breathe. We have a whole week to explore.”
Katie could not be contained. She ran up one mound and down the next. I tried to distract her.
“Hey, look!” I shouted. It was early morning so there were very few people around.
I motioned with my head toward a bent old woman on a nearby hill wearing a long black dress and kerchief that sharply contrasted with the chalk white cliffs. She was walking in the brush between the outcroppings, rhythmically bending over, grabbing vegetation, and placing handfuls in a straw bag.
“Didn’t you say there might be snakes in the brush?” Katie had been terrified when she’d heard of the venomous creatures that inhabited the island.
“I guess she didn’t get the memo about sticking to the walking paths,” I shrugged. “She seems to know her way around.”
“Where do people go if they’re bitten? There’s no emergency room. Just that tiny clinic in town.” Katie’s enthusiasm, brought to a boil by the Milos sun, was now reduced to a slow simmer.
“These snakes are peculiar.” I was grateful to finally have Katie’s attention. “You’re not supposed to suck out the poison or apply a tourniquet.”
“How do you happen to know this, Dr. Herpetologist?”
“World Wide Web. I looked up information about the island after arranging the trip.” Unfortunately, my newfound knowledge had come just minutes after pushing the “complete booking” button on Expedia. I wasn’t crazy about killer snakes either.
“Then what the hell are you supposed to do if one bites you?” Katie’s voice had moved up half an octave.
The woman in black must have heard because she stopped harvesting and turned to look at us. As soon as I waved, she looked away.
“Something about an elastic band around the limb, but not a full tourniquet. Relax. You remember what the car rental guy said. ‘Just stay on the walking paths.’” And with that, Katie and I walked back on the path to our car.
Katie and I had been together for twenty years. It was because of my parents that we never married. They were neither observant nor did they believe in God, but it would have broken their hearts had I married outside the faith. They liked Katie as much as they could, but an Irish Catholic daughter-in-law was of little use to them.
“Get rid of her,” my mother commanded in a thick Yiddish accent. Never known for her loquaciousness, this proclamation was especially curt. “Katie is fine,” she said another time, “just not for you.” My father, sitting within earshot, kept reading his Yiddish Forward.
After visiting the beach, Katie and I returned to our rental house perched on a bluff overlooking the sea. It was the kind of place where you couldn’t tell whether you were inside or outside. Magnificent lounge chairs bejeweled the deck. Each had an enormous, blue-and-white striped, terry-tufted pillow that swallowed you up so completely you neither could move nor wanted to.
“You look like you’re ready for my famous raspberry ouzo slush,” Katie offered, wearing only her capris.
“You think you’re the Venus de Milo?” I stared directly at her bare breasts.
“Who cares? It’s hot and no one can see us.” Katie’s defiance of convention always excited me. Her platinum blonde hair and blue head scarf fluttered in the breeze, resembling the Greek flag through my squinting eyes.
“Are we going to visit the site where the Venus was found?” Katie asked as she glided to the outdoor kitchen and began to prepare her alcohol concoction.
“If you want. I read there’s nothing much there to see.”
My eyes were still drawn to Katie’s breasts.
“Eyes up.”
“You only have yourself to blame,” I turned and sank into the terry covered pillows.
“Here. Drink this. It’ll cool you off.” Katie handed me a tall glass filled with a ruby liquid and tiny beads of ice.
“Delicious.” So glad I didn’t get rid of her.
A gentle northerly picked up overnight and coaxed my eyelids open the next morning. My jet lag was gone; I had not felt so relaxed in years.
“Ancient or modern?” Katie asked, thumbing through her Fodor’s Guide to the Cyclades. Today was going to be a museum day. “Actually, never mind. The archeological museum is closed. The war museum looks kind of interesting. It’s in a converted German bunker.”
“Terrific. That would satisfy my quota for a daily Holocaust reminder.”
Katie smiled disapprovingly. How could I get rid of someone who understood me so well?
“War museum it is!”
We drove along a narrow road to Plaka. An English language sign beckoned us down a flight of concrete steps leading to two steel doors built into the side of the hill. There was no one around.
We sat on a weathered bench outside one of the doors. After half an hour, an overweight, middle-aged woman wearing a day dress and slippers lumbered down the steps. She was smoking a thin cigarette and wheezing as she rushed toward us.
“Are you here for the museum?” she asked.
“We weren’t sure you were open.”
“Three Euros. Each.”
“You, ok?” Katie asked as we walked a long narrow tunnel-like hallway. She knew I leaned toward claustrophobic.
“Fine,” I lied.
The entrance hallway led to a group of large rooms with vaulted ceilings. The walls were lined with photographs telling the story of Milos during the German occupation which lasted exactly four years and three hours, according to a sign, from May 9, 1941, to May 9, 1945.
“Who knew there was so much fighting here? It feels like Milos is in the middle of nowhere,” Katie whispered.
“Hey, come look.” It was a black cardboard exhibit with the photographs of fourteen young Greek men.
She read the poster.
“Allied planes torpedoed a German merchant ship moored in the harbor, it said. Fourteen German sailors died. The islanders were starving and gathered anything that drifted onto the beaches. Fuel, clothing, food.”
“Oh my God,” said Katie. “The commander of the Milos forces, Hans Kawelmacher, punished the locals for stealing by executing fourteen Melians on Alyki beach.”
“German symmetry,” I remarked to Katie. I tried to ignore the old tightness in my chest. “Let’s get out of here.” The smell of cigarette smoke grew stronger as we approached the open door, and we were met outside by the woman in the day dress and slippers. I was glad to be outside and feeling better.
“What did you think?” she asked.
The question was surprising. The emphysemic toll collector now sounded more like a docent.
“I didn’t know about the executions. Those were war crimes.”
She exhaled smoke in a satisfied sigh. “The martyrs were never buried,” she said. “They were burned so nothing should remain. Whatever was left of them was eventually placed in a shrine across from the beach where they were shot.”
“The German commander. What happened to him?”
“You mean Hans Kawelmacher. He never paid for his crimes. Died an old man surrounded by family and friends. And he was a barbarian even before he got here. While he was in Latvia he did all he could to kill Jews.”
The tightness in my chest returned.
“He didn’t kill Jews himself. He just ordered more troops from Germany so the exterminations could go faster.”
I needed to change the subject.
“Were you related to any of the executed men?” I began to suspect her museum duty reflected a personal connection.
“Of course. Everyone in Milos is related.”
“It’s not my fault we can’t find that damn taverna. It’s supposed to be somewhere around here.” I was exhausted by the rutted boulder fields that passed for roads. It was beginning to get dark.
“I’m not blaming you,” Katie said.
Suddenly a figure emerged right in front of us, smack in the middle of the road. Although I was driving very slowly, I barely avoided hitting her.
The startled woman momentarily froze. I frantically fumbled with the door handle, but inadvertently pressed the lock button instead. By the time I was able to push open the door, she was gone.
“I think that was the woman we saw the other day on the hill with the snakes,” I told Katie. My heart was still racing.
“The old woman in black?”
“Exactly.” I was fairly certain. Same hunched posture, same black clothes, same straw bag.
“She went off that way.” Katie pointed to a dirt trail that intersected the road.
We followed a few steps down the trail and could see it led into a ravine where a house stood in the distance. A single illuminated light fixture marked its threshold.
“Let’s go. Little old ladies in black make me nervous,” Katie said.
We resumed our drive. Both my hands tightly gripped the wheel.
“There it is. Finally.” I pulled into a parking space in front of the taverna. “The guidebook said it had the best pitarakia, crunchy crescents of dough stuffed with manouri cheese and local herbs. I sure hope so, after all this.”
The waiter seated us and brought bread and tzatziki for the table.
“Do you happen to know an old woman who dresses in black?” I asked him as he poured our water. “She seems to live just down the road. We encountered her a few times since coming to Milos.” I thought it best not to share the details of our latest meeting.
The waiter smiled. “Everyone on Milos knows her.” I expected him to continue, but he stopped.
“Can you tell us?”
“Yes, of course.” Again, he paused, like a water pump that suddenly went dry. “It’s…very sad.”
Katie and I looked at each other, then up at him. Finally, he continued. “Her name is Maria Delis. Maybe seventy-five, maybe older. She is not good in the head.”
“Not good in the head?” I asked. I had suspected something was off about her.
“She became…trelos…mad…during the war.”
I took a shot in the dark. “Did she have a relative among the men executed by the Germans for taking things from the destroyed ship?”
“You know the story? No, not executed.”
“Despina, come here. These people want to know about Maria. Despina, she’s the owner, can tell you better.”
Despina appeared to be about the same age as the woman in black. While our waiter stood by, she took an empty chair at our table.
“Maria and I were schoolgirls together. Like sisters. She married just before the Germans invaded. I had known her husband Georgios too, a long time. Strong, handsome. A fisherman like his father and brothers. He and Maria were sweethearts.” She seemed practiced in recounting these facts.
Katie moved her chair closer to the small round table, her chin supported by folded hands.
“The morning after the attack on the German ship Georgios went to the beach together with his three brothers and many people from the town. The people gathered the things that floated in from the sea. Not the first time this happened. The Germans never did anything about it.”
“Until this time,” our waiter chimed in.
“Until this time,” Despina repeated in a snarly tone, looking side-eyed at the waiter. “Maybe they were angry because the war was not going well. Who knows. This time they made arrests.”
I knew all this from our bunker tour. “And what happened to Georgios?” I was listening so intently my feet were nailed to the floor.
“He was detained…along with his youngest brother, Nicholas. Nicky was only twenty.”
One of my feet broke loose and began to tap uncontrollably.
“Maria was frantic. She heard there would be executions. She went to the German commander to plead for mercy for her husband.”
I felt Katie’s hand on my knee, squeezing harder with each of Despina’s revelations.
“You can imagine what happened. Maria was a beauty. The commander did not hesitate to take advantage. They say he insisted that Maria must do it willingly and with affection. Can you conceive of such cruelty? Maria did what she had to do.” Despina slapped one palm against the other in alternating fashion, as if she were removing filth from her hands.
“Then what happened?” Katie blurted out.
“Georgios, as promised, was spared. But Nicholas, God rest his soul, was not. Georgios pleaded with the Germans to shoot him instead of his young brother and could not understand why his pleas were not heard. He later learned the truth. Milos is a small island.”
“I can’t imagine how guilty he felt,” I said.
“And angry. He could forgive neither the Germans nor Maria. He was a prideful man and though his wife had saved him, she had also brought him shame. They fought bitterly. He called her a ‘Nazi whore.’ At the end of the war, he left both Maria and Milos.” Despina paused. She stared blankly across the room at a painting of the Virgin Mary with Child.
“And what happened to Maria?” Katie asked.
Our waiter took over. “Like I said. She became mad. She kept to herself and started dressing in black.”
“We saw her working in the bushes near a beach the other day. Doesn’t she worry about the snakes?” That was Katie.
“Snakes?”
“The vipers. They bite and are very poisonous.”
“Ah…ochia! Yes, very dangerous. They say she has been bitten so many times she is…like vaccine…”
“Immune?”
“Yes, immune. But not immune from crazy. Maybe from sadness, maybe from snakes, maybe both. Have you decided what you want to eat?”
“I want to go to the beach,” I told Katie the following morning.
“Sure. That was our plan,” Katie responded, taking a final sip of her coffee. She was already wearing her bathing suit.
“No. I mean the beach.”
“Oh, I see. I don’t think it’s very far.”
We drove past what were now familiar landmarks—downtown Adamantas, the Milos Mining Museum, the airport. There, on the left, stood a small white building with a cross atop the angled roof. A plaque in front listed the names of the martyrs, just as we had seen at the War Museum, along with their dates of birth and death. They were all in their twenties and thirties. Alyki beach stood directly across. The jade-colored Aegean washed over the shoreline, nudging grains of sand up to a sheer rock face some six meters high.
Katie and I stood staring in silence. The silence was broken only by the sound of the stiff breeze, the lapping of the ocean, and the passing of occasional cars.
“They were innocent.” A voice emerged from the shrine. A woman walked from behind the building, matches in one hand, a memorial candle in the other. It was the woman in black.
“You are Maria,” I said.
“Someone told you. I am famous here on Milos. ‘The crazy old woman.’”
“You don’t seem crazy to us,” Katie responded. She had no basis for that assessment beyond politeness.
Maria looked toward the ocean. “The children laugh and call me ‘Old Medusa.’ They even make up silly songs about how I can turn them to stone with my stare. I love children, but they can be unkind.”
“Yes,” Katie said. “Not only children.”
“Actually, the children have it backwards,” Maria said. “It is others looking at us that can turn our hearts to stone.”
Katie and I looked at each other.
“The children are not entirely wrong. I have good days and bad days. I come here at least once a week. It helps clear my mind. My niece brings me in her car.” Maria paused before the plaque and softly uttered a prayer. At the end, she made the sign of the cross three times, her hand closed in the traditional Orthodox manner.
“We heard the story of what happened to you during the war.” I took a chance she would not be offended.
“Yes. I am hoping for a Homer to come along and create a real Greek myth about me! So much more reliable than stories passed down orally.”
Self-deprecating sarcasm and a sense of humor. A woman after my own heart.
“Maria, how do you get along?” Katie asked. I loved her compassion.
“I harvest medicinal herbs. There is a good market for them in the cosmetic industry. I sell what I collect to a man who sells to companies. I don’t know what they do with them, but they say the herbs make the skin look younger. Picking them, as you can see, has no effect.” She pointed to her deeply wrinkled face.
Katie and I hesitated, then laughed.
“Follow me.” Maria crossed the road, looking left, then right, for traffic. She led us down a path along an embankment to the beach. “This is where it happened.”
I imagined myself blindfolded, standing against the rock wall. Better to face front or back? My heart began to race.
“Maria, you and I have things in common,” I said, uncertain how this would be received.
Katie fired an incredulous look at me. Maria looked puzzled.
“Hans…the German commander…”
Maria’s face blanched. “The Milos Viper.” She spoke in an undertone barely louder than her prayer.
“That’s what you called him?” Katie shuddered at the mention of the snake.
“That’s what he was. We all called him that and worse.” Maria turned to me. “You said we have something in common.”
“Yes. We learned yesterday that the Viper arrived in Milos from Latvia, where he hastened the murder of tens of thousands of Jews. My father was from there. He was the only survivor from his family.” I was shaking.
“I am very sorry for you and your family.”
I saw the anguish in Maria’s face. She took a few steps toward me and the anguish turned to calm.
“There is an ancient Greek expression: ’Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.’ Truly, I went mad. There were times I thought I would fulfill the will of the gods and end my life.”
Maria’s words landed hard.
“Time heals nothing, I learned,” she continued. “But scars protect. Enough to go on.”
“You wear black.” Katie pressed.
“I mourn for them, not me. I am here.” Maria again turned to me. “You and I are here.”
My eyes welled up. I wished to be turned to stone.
“Do you have a name?” Maria asked as though she were my teacher on the first day of school.
“Simon. Named for my father’s brother.”
She nodded. “You are not mad, Simon, nor are you destroyed.”
“No, Maria. Our families were. And through them, you, and me.”
“We are not destroyed,” Maria insistently retorted.
I looked away.
“You seem unconvinced, Simon. Tell me, what brought you to Milos?”
I had never thought about what brought me anywhere. I looked at Katie. “She did. I wanted to make her happy.”
“She looks happy enough. And you, Simon?”
I could not raise the corners of my mouth, not even a little.
The northerly wind picked up. The sand on the beach began to blow in all directions, pummeling the rock face where the prisoners stood. We offered to drive Maria home.
“No. My niece is coming soon,” she said. She led us up the embankment path toward the road. I heard the crunching sound of pebbles underfoot.
“Stop!” Maria commanded, raising her hand. A thick golden-red serpent, its diamond-etched scales radiant under the Melian sun, slowly slithered across the path in front of us, then paused. It was three feet long and its eye was as white as a pearl. “Not a sound.”
Katie stood paralyzed, motionless except for her trembling lower lip. The viper’s broad, triangular head bobbed up and down and from side to side signaling danger. Its tongue protruded and retreated, sparingly taking in scents from the intermittent gusts of wind. Maria stood directly in front of the viper. She maneuvered her hands like an orchestra conductor, first matching the movements of the snake’s head, then slowing her hands until the snake’s motion stopped.
“This should not be happening,” Katie whimpered in a futile protest.
The viper turned its head toward me and opened its mouth, revealing its deadly fangs. I stared the snake in the eye.
“Let it pass,” Maria said. She lowered her hands.
The viper continued across the path and disappeared in the thorny brush along the rock wall. The Aegean northerly, now blowing my hair straight back, swept the shores of Milos, stroking ash and rock.//
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Russ is a psychiatrist in Westchester County, New York. He was born in Cuba, the son of Holocaust survivors. He has contributed to the psychiatric literature throughout his career and has recently begun to publish short stories and nonfiction pieces. His work has appeared in The Jewish Writing Project, The Minison Project, Jewishfiction.net, The Concrete Desert Review, Literally Stories, Fig Tree Lit, Of the book, and Sortes.
About the Author
