The house on the cliff

As a schoolboy of 15, another victim of the Great Schism, he stood by his Venizélist grandfather, Siór Márkos, and during the ugly clashes of the November Events in Athens, held the old man in his arms as he drew his last breath, soaked in blood, on the steps of his Amalías Avenue mansion. At 18, as a young volunteer with the Greek Army, he marched through cheering crowds in Smyrna, where they were greeted as saviours in a rain of flung flowers, with the bells ringing in celebration. This was the same army that found itself, two years later, far from the familiar Aegean shore, retreating exhausted, defeated and in disarray, in a state of high agitation after political upheavals in its leadership. They had been stranded inland, taking part in disorganised sorties against the now forewarned and increasingly disciplined forces of the Young Turks. In 1922, betrayed by the cowardice of their commanding officer, his unit was captured, and Konstantínos spent the next four years on a hard labour work gang in a Turkish prison camp. During his years as a prisoner of war, news reached him of the court-martial and execution of the leaders of the disastrous Asia Minor campaign, but it was not until he returned to Athens, years later, that he learned of the near contemporaneous suicide of his father. He found himself in Athens alone, adrift. It was then that he had been found, sitting on a bench in Kánigos square, by the wise and kindly doctor who was to have his surgery in our building. In those years, his sister Eléni had been long established in London, while Loxándra and little Víctor lived with grandmother Velíssaris in Corfu town. When Konstantínos tried to get in touch, the brat had rebuffed him, replying that he wanted no contact with traitors. On his return to Athens, he had been greeted also with the news that successive disasters and the sinking of numerous ships and their cargo during the war had led his grandfather’s leaderless business, Voriás and Sons, into bankruptcy. The fortune he had relied on since he was born was no more. The houses - in Alexandria, Athens, Kifissiá, and Chíos - had been liquidated by the banks against the company’s debt. The house in Smyrna had burned down of course, along with the warehouses and the office. All that was left was Villa Ánthimi in Corfu, which was in his own name, and the 85 acres of vineyards and olive groves that belonged to it. Archángelos, left homeless by the sale of the Tower on Chios, was looking after the place as arranged by Loxándra. That, more or less, was how things stood when we arrived in exile on Corfu after Daddy’s house arrest. I have a photograph of him from around then, taken during the grape harvest. He’s in an old pair of riding breeches, worn threadbare, standing between two grapevines loaded with ripe, heavy fruit. He’s shirtless, tanned, laughing proudly. He looks happy. It occurs to me again that if it had been up to him, that’s the life he would have chosen - gentleman farmer.