The Island Read Online Free PDF

she had finished preparing today’s dishes. He suggested meanwhile that he bring her a selection of local specialities so that she didn’t have to bother with a menu. With a glass of chilled retsina in her hand and some coarse bread on the table in front of her to sate her immediate hunger, Alexis felt a wave of contentment pass over her. She had derived great pleasure from her day of solitude and relished this moment of freedom and independence. She looked across at Spinalonga. Freedom was not something any of the lepers would ever have enjoyed, she thought, but had they gained something else instead?
     
    Stephanos returned with a series of small white plates stacked up his arm, each one charged with a tiny portion of something tasty and freshly prepared from his kitchen - prawns, stuffed zucchini flowers, tzatziki and miniature cheese pies. Alexis wondered if she had ever felt such hunger or been presented with such delicious-looking food.
     
    As he approached her table Stephanos had noticed her gazing out towards the island. He was intrigued by this lone English-woman who had, as Andriana, Gerasimo’s wife, explained, spent the afternoon alone on Spinalonga. In high summer several boatloads of tourists a day were ferried across - but most of them only stayed for half an hour at most and then were driven back by coach to one of the big resorts further down the coast. The majority only came out of ghoulish curiosity, and judging by the snatches of conversation he sometimes overheard if they ever bothered to stop in Plaka for a meal, they were usually disappointed. It seemed that they expected to see more than a few derelict houses and a boarded-up church. What did they want? he was always tempted to ask. Bodies? Abandoned crutches? Their insensitivity never failed to arouse his irritation. But this woman was not like them.
     
    ‘What did you think of the island?’ he asked.
     
    ‘It surprised me,’ she replied. ‘I expected it to be terribly melancholy - and it was - but there was much more to it than that. It was obvious that the people who lived there did more than just sit around feeling sorry for themselves. At least that’s how it seemed to me.’
     
    This was not at all the usual reaction from visitors to Spinalonga, but the young woman had obviously spent more time there than most. Alexis was happy to make conversation, and since Stephanos was always keen to practise his English he was not going to discourage her.
     
    ‘I don’t really know why I think that - but am I right?’ she asked.
     
    ‘May I sit down?’ asked Stephanos, not waiting for an answer before scraping a chair across the floor and perching on it. He felt instinctively that this woman was open to the magic of Spinalonga. ‘My wife had a friend who used to live there,’ he said. ‘She is one of the few people round here who still has any connections at all with the island. Everyone else went as far away as possible once the cure had been found. Apart from old Gerasimo, of course.’
     
    ‘Gerasimo . . . was a leper?’ asked Alexis, slightly aghast. It would certainly explain his haste to get away from the island once he had dropped her off there. Her curiosity was fully aroused now. ‘And your wife, did she ever visit the island?’
     
    ‘Many, many times,’ replied Stephanos. ‘She knows more about it than anyone else around here.’
     
    By now, other customers were arriving, and Stephanos got up from the wicker-seated chair to show them to their tables and present them with menus. The sun had now fallen below the horizon and the sky had turned a deep pink. Swallows dived and swooped, catching insects on the rapidly cooling air. What seemed like an age went by. Alexis had eaten everything that Stephanos had put in front of her but she was still hungry.
     
    Just as she was wondering whether to go into the kitchen to choose what to have next, as was perfectly acceptable for customers in Crete, her main course