Byron cast his eyes wearily over the assembled crowd but then remembered that he must live up to their expectations and put on the performance they hoped for, elegantly smiling and waving.
The journey from Kephalonia had not been an easy one, and he had been unwell for some time. The roughness of the crossing had not helped. Happily, he was now on dry land and it was just a short walk from where he disembarked to the house that had been prepared for his stay.
‘It’s almost as if he is crippled,’ said a woman standing next to Eirini Dimotsis, watching the famous poet move awkwardly towards them. ‘Is he limping?’
‘I believe he is,’ Eirini replied. He was not at all as she had imagined him. Not at all.
Her daughters were not listening to this conversation. The excitement of the day, the colour and pageantry of the occasion, were not to be spoiled for them.
As he approached, and the crowd parted to let him through, the girls realised he was looking their way. In a striking red military jacket, with golden epaulettes, Lord Byron was even more dashing than they had expected.
Despina was not the only female in the crowd staring at him in admiration. Byron was accustomed to being the centre of attention and having the eyes of thousands devouring him. He encouraged it, basking in it and welcoming the adulation.
He liked to make a big impression. If this were not the case, he would not have dressed up as he did, would not have worn exotic headdresses or commissioned extravagant helmets in the style of great Greek warriors.
Byron loved to be loved, but even more important for him was to have an object for his love. He did not feel alive unless he had a place to focus this driving force of his. Even when he was confronted by a large crowd, he would single out an individual. Women had been known to faint simply from feeling the power of his brief attention.
His eyes, encircled with their dark lashes, darted around the crowd until they met Despina’s. They rested on hers with a lascivious curiosity that he made no attempt to conceal.
As his entourage processed closer to where the women stood, Despina saw two limpid pools of light. In the background, the Mediterranean stretched out into infinity, and the eyes that locked with hers were equally fathomless. She found herself drowning in a mixture of blue and grey with splashes of violet. Byron’s eyes were like a spring sky on a stormy day, in all its beauty, variety and passion. She did not look away but boldly stared back.
He drank in the sight of the creamy skin that had always been hidden from the sun, her tiny waist, the slight flush on her cheeks, which he knew was the result of his momentary focus on her. She reminded him fleetingly of his ‘maid of Athens’, a young girl with whom he had enjoyed a brief flirtation, and he feasted his eyes on her childish neck and tiny ears and nose.
The mind of Despina’s younger sister had already wandered elsewhere. A short distance behind Lord Byron, Fotini noticed a slim, dark-haired boy. His expression was sullen, and it was hard to discern from his demeanour whether he was friend or servant. The teenager, who was carrying some bags, was in fact acting as Byron’s valet. Though he was grateful for the charity that the English aristocrat had shown his family back in Zakynthos, he had begun to feel uncomfortable about being the object of Byron’s relentless, amorous attention.
‘Look! Look, Despina!’ said Fotini, tugging on her sister’s sleeve. ‘Look at that boy!’
Despina only had eyes for the older man.
‘His mouth,’ she giggled, ignoring her younger sister. ‘It says “Kiss me”.’
Byron’s shapely mouth was as remarkable as his eyes.
‘Girls! Keep your voices down, please,’ said their mother.
Even their maid seemed embarrassed by their comments. In such a public place, they were not decent.
Fotini had no interest now in the older man with streaks of silver in his hair and a slight limp. She was still staring at the beautiful, sulky boy who trailed along at the back of the party.
As Byron progressed towards his new home, he glanced over his shoulder to look at Despina again; he knew that she would still be staring. This time, her dark and treacly look penetrated him like an electric shock. He felt it still burning in the back of his neck as they walked away.
Was it that very moment? Was it that specific ‘look’ of admiration from Despina that cast a spell on Byron and was the turning point, the beginning of his end?
Fotini soon forgot about the ‘little princeling’, as she had nicknamed Byron’s valet, Loukas, but Despina could not get the image of Lord Byron out of her head. For many days she languished, unable to sleep or eat, incapable of freeing her mind or body from the grip of a childish crush.
‘Come on, Despina,’ coaxed the maid. ‘You must try to eat something.’
Not far away, Byron, too, was lying in bed, tossing and turning. He had himself fallen into a fever, with fits and faints that began to weaken him by the day.
‘It’s the eye,’ one of the servants darkly commented, as doctors fretted and frowned at his bedside. ‘Someone has cast the evil eye!’
‘But nobody here wishes Lord Byron evil,’ snapped one of the foreign doctors who was desperately trying to save the ailing Byron. ‘Only the Turks would wish anything bad on him!’
The servant held her tongue. An English doctor was not going to listen to an uneducated Greek woman. As far as he was concerned, casting the evil eye was always a matter of jealousy, or of willing bad on someone. It was a simple curse, easy to comprehend. He knew well enough that Byron had even mentioned it in his poetry (‘I know him by the evil eye, That aids his envious treachery’). What was unknown to him was that the mati, the eye, was not only cast by an envious or malicious look.
‘It’s all the adulation, you fool,’ she muttered under her breath. What the doctors and most of Byron’s entourage did not understand was that it could also be admiration that opened a door for the devil. When the doctors were out of the room, she took the small glass of water that was by the poet’s bedside and put into it a drop of oil. It sank immediately, confirming what she already knew. The evil eye was there.
During March, Byron was in pain, with constant headaches and sweats. The doctors attending him were in despair and could think of no other way to treat him than with frequent bloodletting. This weakened him further and, as his condition worsened, panic, argument and ineptitude did little to improve matters.
Each day during these awful weeks Despina sat at her window, hoping and waiting. She once glimpsed Lord Byron in the distance, on horseback, but she yearned for another sighting of him. Rumours that a delirium was keeping him bed-bound kept her awake at night.
One afternoon, in April, when both sea and sky were slate-grey and rain was beating violently at her window, she was in a frenzy of agitation. A gale whined and howled outside and seemed to penetrate the walls themselves. She paced the room, unable to settle either at reading or embroidery. An earthquake the previous month, and now this unsettled weather, created a sense of apocalyptic doom. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning cracked across the sky and into the sea.
When Byron’s death was announced the following day, it shocked the entire city. Perhaps the person who suffered more than anyone was Despina. She had never experienced such loss, such emptiness.
For the third time in her life, she set eyes on her idol. This time he was lying in the church of Agios Nikolaos, inside his coffin. Once again, he was surrounded by a crowd, though now they were mourning his departure rather than celebrating his arrival. His closed eyes could no longer charm.
Grief swept through Messalonghi. Guns were fired from the fortress, Easter Week celebrations were cancelled, shops and public offices were closed and three weeks of mourning declared. On the intended day of the funeral, it was as though the heavens wept. Torrential rain meant that it had to be postponed. When it took place on the following day, thousands lined the streets to say farewell.
No one shed more tears than Despina. Her eyes were swollen with weeping, oblivious to th
e damage they had done. In the years that followed, there would be talk of Lyme disease, malaria, epilepsy, or simply the excessive use of leeches. The theories proliferated and were endlessly argued over.
Byron’s maid maintained for the rest of her life that it was the power of the mati, but nobody would ever blame the innocent Despina. It had never occurred to anyone that such a ‘look’ had come from her, so she would never carry the burden of a crime.
‘If they had let me do the xematiasma, to cast out the evil eye,’ the maid said, ‘our lovely lord might still be with us.’
If only they had listened.
I’m not sure that I believe in curses but the idea of the ‘eye’ as a form of protection appeals to me. It crosses various religions and several continents and cultures, and nowadays I always carry one on a keyring. Just in case.
I read a lot about Byron during my time in Messalonghi, and by the end of my stay I felt only profound pity and sadness for him. It was easy for him to get women to fall in love with him (he had an animal magnetism that few could resist), but his deepest emotions were saved for men, who often did not return his love. The last few months of his life were spent not just in a state of delirium and sickness; he was also torn apart by his passion for a teenage boy, a desperate love that was never requited.
Byron’s breaking heart led him to thoughts of death. In past weeks, I have felt this tendency in myself and I am unashamed to admit that there have been moments when I did not want to live.
Byron wrote this in January 1824 and it was to be his last poem:
’Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of Love are gone;
The worm – the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!
Byron died three months after writing this. It was his valediction to love and life. I wonder if his foolish love for an adolescent boy weakened him to the point of dying. Who knows? But it definitely caused him terrible unhappiness as his life ebbed away. I thought about how love can give us so much joy but, when unrequited, delivers misery in much greater measure. Would I let rejection destroy me, as I believe it helped destroy Byron?
The hotel I stayed in during my weeks there was almost inspirationally seedy. It had been built during the military dictatorship and had not been touched since 1970. I moved the desk towards the balcony windows to get a view of the sea as I wrote, and there was no television to bother me. The towels were like sandpaper and the sheets grey, but at least they were changed each day. In a perverse way, I grew to love it. What more would anyone expect for twenty euros a night? The main benefit of this enormous place, where only ten per cent of the rooms were occupied, was the absence of anything to do with Christmas (no mechanical singing Father Christmas, no baubles and no piped carols). There was just a pretty model of a ship made out of lights that stood in reception. In many places, this karavaki takes the place of a Christmas tree.
It was unsettling to spend Christmas Day itself alone. I rang my brother and could hear his children singing ‘Jingle Bells’ in the background. I felt so isolated. It was the one moment when I almost flew home and put an end to these travels. Fortunately for me, Christmas does not drag on in Greece in the way it does in England. For most people it’s just a day off, and life goes back to normal soon after. Overall, my days in Messalonghi were productive enough, and I got plenty of writing done, glancing up every so often to look through the dirty windows at the sea.
It was the last day of December when I left Messalonghi. I ended up that night in a place I don’t even want to name. New Year’s Eve is an evening I detest even when life is good, but I managed to choose somewhere where even the birds did not sing. However low my mood, the world had been spinning towards another new year, and within a few days I knew that I too had reached a turning point.
A few days later, after a detour to the lovely town of Arta, I arrived in Preveza. It was late when I checked into my hotel, and the town was quiet, as are most places out of season. The following day, though, the place was transformed.
That morning, I was woken at dawn by the tolling of bells. They continued for some time and, when they finally stopped, a voice took over. It was a priest broadcasting the liturgy. I opened my shutters and saw the belltower just opposite my window and, fixed to its roof, a pair of huge, old-fashioned loudspeakers. Realising that there was no chance of going back to sleep, I dressed, wandered downstairs and went out into the square.
It was impossible to get inside the church. It was crammed, with hundreds of people outside, craning their heads to see what was happening within.
Needing a coffee, I wandered towards the sea to find a café. As I turned from the narrow, shadowy street, I felt an unexpectedly warm breath on my skin, and saw that sunshine was making the sea sparkle. Most of Greece had seen snow in past days, but in this little harbour town a warm west wind had brought a sudden rise in temperature. These are known in Greece as ‘halcyon days’, and in January no Greek is surprised when they are given this tantalising glimpse of spring which can disappear as fast as it arrives.
What a beautiful day it was. The crowd was not just in church; there were hundreds at the water’s edge, too, gathering as if a big event was about to take place. Everyone had made an effort. Some men were in suits (though many had removed their jackets), and women had dressed to impress their friends. Only the fishermen seemed to carry on as normal, selling the previous night’s catch straight off their boats.
It was 6 January, a public holiday throughout the country, and in the entire row of cafés along the seafront there wasn’t one free table. I asked a couple if I could share and, though they were a little hesitant, they agreed. Once I had ordered my coffee, I asked them what was happening.
‘It’s the Theophania,’ answered the woman, as if I should know.
‘Like Epiphany?’ I suggested. ‘When the wise men came?’
‘In the Greek Orthodox Church, we’re celebrating a different event,’ she said. ‘We believe that it was when Christ was baptised. It was his first appearance as God. And today the priest blesses the water by throwing a cross into the sea.’
Seeing that I was genuinely interested, she continued to explain.
‘And they say that, during the Christmas period, there are goblins, the kallikantzaroi, who stir everything up and generally make trouble. Today, we clear the seas of them so that sailing can begin again.’
‘The sea is of supreme importance to us, with all our coastline and islands,’ added her husband sentimentally. ‘It’s in our souls, you know.’
As I looked across, there was growing activity on the esplanade.
‘And what’s going on by the water right now?’
‘Leonidas will tell you,’ said the woman, laughing. ‘When he was young and handsome, he participated in this ceremony.’
She rubbed his fat stomach affectionately.
‘I would sink like a stone now!’ he joked. ‘She cooks too well, my wife.’
I took a great liking to this couple. They seemed like equals, very easy in each other’s company, and with a love that seemed alive.
Leonidas was a local lawyer, and eager to give me chapter and verse on the ritual. His wife, Dora, had been a teacher, and was retired now.
‘Quite soon, the priest will throw a cross into the sea, and those boys over there will jump in and try to find it.’
‘So it’s like a religious swimming competition?’ I asked.
‘Yes, it is,’ he said. ‘I took part in my younger days! Just the once. And so did my best friend from school, Giorgos.’
‘Leonidas … do you have to tell this story?’ said his wife, putting a restraining hand on his arm.
‘Why not, agapi mou? It does have a happy ending, one way and another.’
She gave him a kind but l
ong-suffering glance.
‘Look, matia mou!’ said Leonidas. ‘He’s there! Can you see him?’
‘Yes,’ she said, pointing him out for me. ‘In a black cap.’
A little way off, I could see a man looking out over the water.
‘Poor old Giorgos,’ she said.
The young men of the town were getting ready to plunge into the sea.
HOLY WATER
It was 6 January 2010, and Giorgos Ziras was hovering near the entrance to the church. He could see past the dozens of heads to the far end of the aisle, where priests dressed in fine brocade and tall hats studded with jewels recited the ancient words. He had known the two older ones since schooldays and, even now, in spite of the long robes and frizzy beards, he saw them as boys. It seemed only a moment since they were all kicking a ball in the dust.
He watched young fathers enter the vestibule of the church, kiss the icon and then lift small children to do the same. Then they took candles from the box, lit them and planted them in a tray of sand, where they burned with a hundred others. There was standing room only in the church on that day. Only small children could weave their way between the plantation of adult legs to get to the front.
Outside the church loitered a small group of adolescent boys in ceremonial orange brocade. Scuffed trainers protruding from beneath hems and splashes of acne made them look less sacred and more profane. They were waiting for the moment when it would be time to bear the precious cross to the sea, but until then they kicked a stone around in the paved area outside. Nearer the water, a group of young men was waiting, ready to brave the waves.
On the same occasion, one year in the late 1970s, the church had also been overflowing. Everything was taking place as it always did, according to the rhythm and pace of the liturgy.
Giorgos had been into church earlier that morning to light a candle, his swimming trunks beneath his clothes. Now he stood outside, wrapped in a towel, waiting, shivering, along with his fellow competitors.