The Island by Victoria Hislop Read Free Book Online

such an important link with the past.’
     
    ‘I had no idea she used to write to you,’ said Alexis, feeling as though she should apologise on her mother’s behalf.
     
    ‘The very beginning of her life was difficult,’ continued Fotini, ‘but we all tried, we really did, to make her happy and to do our best for her.’
     
    Looking at Alexis’s slightly puzzled expression, Fotini realised that she had to slow her pace. She poured them both another cup of coffee, giving herself a moment to think about where to start. It seemed she would have to go back even further than she had originally imagined would be necessary.
     
    ‘I could say, “I’ll begin at the beginning”, but there is no real beginning here,’ she said. ‘Your mother’s story is your grandmother’s story, and it is also your great-grandmother’s story. It’s your great-aunt’s story too. Their lives were intertwined, and that’s what we really mean when we talk about fate in Greece. Our so-called fate is largely ordained by our ancestors, not by the stars. When we talk about ancient history here we always refer to destiny - but we don’t really mean the uncontrollable. Of course events seem to take place out of the blue that change the course of our lives, but what really determines what happens to us are the actions of those around us now and those who came before us.’
     
    Alexis began to feel slightly edgy. The impregnable safe of her mother’s past, which had been so resolutely locked for her entire life, was now to be opened. All the secrets would come spilling out, and she found herself questioning whether she really wanted that. She stared out across the sea at the pale outline of Spinalonga and remembered her solitary afternoon there, already with nostalgia. Pandora regretted opening her box. Would it be the same for her?
     
    Fotini spotted the direction of her gaze.
     
    ‘Your great-grandmother lived on that island,’ she said. ‘She was a leper.’ She didn’t expect her words to sound quite so blunt, quite so heartless, and she saw straightaway that they had made Alexis wince.
     
    ‘A leper ?’ Alexis asked in a voice that was almost choked with shock. She was repelled by this thought even though she knew her reaction was probably irrational, and found it difficult to hide her feelings. She had learned that the old boatman had been a leper and had seen for herself that he was not visibly disfigured. Nevertheless, she was horrified to hear that her own flesh and blood had been leprous. That was entirely different, and she felt strangely disgusted.
     
    For Fotini, who had grown up in the shadow of the colony, leprosy had always been a fact of life. She had seen more lepers arrive in Plaka to cross over the water to Spinalonga than she could count. She had also seen the varied states of the victims of the disease: some cripplingly disfigured, others apparently untouched. Untouchable had, in fact, been the last thing they seemed. But she understood Alexis’s reaction. It was the natural response for someone whose knowledge of leprosy came from Old Testament stories and the image of a bell-swinging sufferer crying, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’
     
    ‘Let me explain more,’ she offered. ‘I know what you imagine leprosy to be like, but it’s important that you know the truth of it, otherwise you will never understand the real Spinalonga, the Spinalonga that was home to so many good people.’
     
    Alexis continued to gaze at the little island across the shimmering water. Her visit there yesterday had seemed so full of conflicting images: the remains of elegant Italianate villas, gardens and even shops, and overshadowing them all the spectre of a disease which she had seen portrayed in epic films as a living death. She took another gulp of the thick coffee.
     
    ‘I know it’s not fatal in every case,’ she said, almost defensively, ‘but it is always horribly disfiguring, isn’t it?’
     
    ‘Not to the extent that