Katerina - The Neighbour Who Welcomed Us In...

In memory of: Αικατερίνης Σταυρ. Κουτουλάκη

Photographs courtesy of Peer Moore-Friis

Katerina: She was a bundle of mischief, trussed up in demure clothes - gold drop earrings winking at her ears. No widow’s black for Katerina. She never married. Never fitted into the shape of anyone else’s life, except her own – and ours...

The ‘γιαγιά’ - grandmother - of the street - never missing anything. Sharp-eyed and generous. Dispensing tiny cheese pies drizzled with honey, and scented meat stews in chipped pink enamel dishes, as if they were healing charms. Don’t disappoint her by refusing her generosity. She will shake her head and consider you gravely. (We only baulked at the snails!)

…But when she’s on a roll with her stories, and you discover you’re following her machine-gun delivery in Greek – just about – she will weave tales of her childhood and her two sisters, who stare, dark-eyed, from the photographs between icons on the walls.

She will tell you about the shops that were once across the street. “This one sold just potatoes and peppers – that one, clothes…” Eight years old when the Battle of Crete began, she won’t tell you anything about fighting or soldiers in the village - but she will tell you that she never learned to read and write, because the teacher went away, and there was never another for her....

She will tell you that food was ‘difficult’ – that she ate ‘apples from Katharo’ – as if the fruit from the Katharo Plateau were from The Garden of Eden – and these are the gifts that you must treasure most. When you bring her boxes of Cadbury’s Roses or Quality Street in return, she will eat the chocolates as she washes at the stone sink on her rough, brick balcony, scattering rainbow-shiny wrappers to the birds like confetti.

Katerina, whose age changed every time we visited her, and not always by the same amount of time we had been away. Whose moods could flash from laughter to tears as quickly as a storm can roll over the mountain ridge from Kroustas. Whose long hair, once released from the tight braids that had been wound around her crown, tumbled in unsuspected curls before someone cut it short at the hospital that one time...

Whose pounding at our door was always with a stick, and never a hand. She liked to sit, thigh to thigh, on our high, front doorstep and gossip about the neighbours - who has been here for years and never learned Greek – who is a good person – who is generous – and she would nudge, and laugh and cajole. And then sometimes, she’d grin and say ‘What’s your name again?”

“Claire”, I’d say, every time. “It means bright and shining. Φωτεινή - Foteini. Like light - Φώς- Fos”.

“Yes,” she says. “I like light”

Mischievous Puck spirit, we will look for you every time we enter our street.

Καλό Παράδεισο, ‘Good Paradise’ - and as you always said when we left you - “στο καλό”.

Katerina: Remembered on the anniversary of her death - 28th May 2024 – Aged 91.

All photographs used in Claire in Crete are the property of the author, unless otherwise indicated.

If you enjoyed Claire in Crete, you may also like my short story, Ann Hilder - a mystery inspired by the work of the artist LS Lowry and his shadowy muse. Ann Hilder is available as a paperback and ebook on Amazon at https://amzn.eu/d/bMidwmh

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