Passage of No Return

By Helen Zervopoulos

Passage of No Return is based on the author’s own story, cleverly written as a piece of fiction. After her mother’s death, Maria Velizanos finds a box of old photos that evoke vivid memories of people and events in her past, giving the reader an insight into her struggle to break with the traditions of her cultural heritage, her ambition to become an artist and the impact that her mental instability has on her marriage.
It is an immersive and emotive portrayal of the fragility of the human condition and our complex relationships. Memorable characters are vividly drawn and include a relentless Greek chorus that passes judgement and won’t hold its tongue.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jul 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781528912228

Helen Zervopoulos

At the age of three, Helen’s parents emigrated to Australia from Greece on a government assisted passage. Her first days at school were disorienting as she did not speak English. Growing up in Australia in the 50s and 60s was not easy for someone who’s upbringing was at odds with to the dominant culture. Multiculturalism was not espoused as a cultural alternative to assimilation, until 1975. Helen graduated from Melbourne University with a major in Fine Arts and Classical studies. She was an English as a Second Language teacher for a short time and then ditched teaching to pursue a short-lived career in acting. She lives in Melbourne Australia.

Book preview

About the Author

At the age of three, Helen’s parents emigrated to Australia from Greece on a government assisted passage. Her first days at school were disorienting as she did not speak English. Growing up in Australia in the 50s and 60s was not easy for someone who’s upbringing was at odds with to the dominant culture. Multiculturalism was not espoused as a cultural alternative to assimilation, until 1975. Helen graduated from Melbourne University with a major in Fine Arts and Classical studies. She was an English as a Second Language teacher for a short time and then ditched teaching to pursue a short-lived career in acting. She lives in Melbourne Australia.

Dedication

For my mother, Panagiota.

Copyright Information ©

Helen Zervopoulos (2021)

The right of Helen Zervopoulos to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528912211 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528912228 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2021)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge Kathrine Watson who read the first draft and gave me the necessary feedback and encouragement to continue. Tricia Dearborn who said that it was a really good book. My husband, Christopher Eastman-Nagle for believing in me and giving unstinting support and enthusiasm. My daughter, Natasha for giving me hope.

Synopsis

Sophia Velizanos has finally died. Her daughter, Maria Velizanos, who nursed her through dementia, is now free to reinvent her life as an artist. She finds a box of family photographs that brings her past into sharp focus.

The family migrated to Australia, in the early fifties. Stavros and Sophia worked in factories to send a dowry back to Greece to marry off Stavros’s younger sister.

Growing up in the sixties, Maria and her sister Anastasia resent the cultural constraints of their heritage and crave to be as free as the Aussie girls.

In high school, Maria befriends Olympia and they skip classes to go home and watch the midday movie. They smoke cigarettes and lust over the heroes of the silver screen.

The girlfriends eventually leave the working-class suburb of Heidelberg West and go to college to study art. It’s the early seventies and they live in Carlton, on the bohemian fringe mixing with artists, poets, drug addicts and social misfits. As she strives to reinvent her persona and become an artist, Maria also battles with manic depression.

In her thirties, she marries Peter, a left-wing academic, with whom she has a son. After the birth, she plunges into a severe postnatal depression which mystifies her parents who are ecstatic that she’s finally come to her senses and given them a grandson.

At her mother’s funeral, Maria realises that her family and cultural heritage can’t be escaped.

Her father was right all along.

‘Your family is the most important thing in your life.’

Stavros never left room for dispute.

Chapter 1

Maria Velizanos sat alone in her waterfront home, enjoying the solitude of the evening and savouring her newfound freedom. Beyond the glass of the sliding doors, the ragged trunks of the paperbarks were dark silhouettes against the blue and orange canvas created by the setting sun. The image abstracted itself in her mind’s eye; bold black vertical lines dominating the foreground against a bold canvas of tangerine and turquoise blue. The changing chromatics of sea and sky as the sun slipped beyond the horizon, held her focus and stimulated her creativity: providing inspiration for the series of works she planned to start once the funeral was over and everything settled back into some semblance of routine and normality.

Through the scrubby tea-tree, the sea was still and as calm as an inland lake The tide was high and small waves slapped and broke against the low sea wall.

The black and white photo with the white crease cutting diagonally across its glossy surface lay in her lap, the image dimming in the fading light. Maria had found it in the wooden box on top of the wardrobe. She had been looking for a copy of her mother’s will when she came across the box of family photos. She knew there was a will because she’d helped the solicitor draft it before Sophia got dementia and completely lost her grip on reality. In the will, Sophia gave her daughters an equal share of her earthly belongings.

After the numerous hospitalisations and the constant winging about her ailing health, nobody had expected Sophia Velizanos to live to ninety-six. She outlived her husband by twenty-nine years and lived with her daughter, Maria, for twenty-six years.

The burden of being her daily carer, especially when the dementia worsened and Sophia could no longer dress or shower herself, had bred a deep resentment in Maria, and her patience was often tested. She cursed the bloody-mindedness that kept her mother alive and prevented her from getting on with her own life, which was moving inexorably towards the decline of old age.

Before going to the nursing home, Sophia spent her declining days sitting alone in her bedroom waiting to die. Slumped back in her recliner, she slept with the room plunged in darkness as if rehearsing for impending entombment. When she wasn’t asleep, she was lost in half-remembered memories, fragments of a receding past.

‘Why are you sitting in the dark, Mum?’ Maria asked as she raised the blinds to let in the light.

‘I like sitting in the dark. It’s comforting.’

All concept of day and night had vanished and her mother’s disjointed attempts at staying connected with the present were clear indicators she was slipping into the mental twilight zone of la-la land.

It was getting dark and Maria was preparing the evening meal in the kitchen. Sophia was sitting opposite, on the couch in the living area. She had started moaning again. ‘Why do you keep moaning Mum? Are you in any pain?’ The groaning and moaning had become constant and were as torturous as a dripping tap. The horrible noise only stopped when Sophia attempted to engage in disjointed conversation or when she nodded off, her head lolling in an uncomfortable slump on the arm of the couch.

‘No. I’m not in any pain. I’m just very sick, that’s all.’ It was an automatic response. Sophia had been sick and dying since she was in her sixties. Yet here she was, still sick and dying in her mid-nineties, more stooped and corps like with the passage of time.

‘You’re not sick, Mum. You’ve had all the blood tests. The results were excellent.’

‘Well, what’s wrong with me then?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just old.’

Sophia wasn’t interested in the truth; she knew she was sick and believed that her daughter was lying. She changed the subject.

‘What time is it?’

‘It’s six o’clock.’

‘In the morning?’

‘No Mum, in the evening.’

‘In the evening? How can it be?’

Maria gave the pot a stir and turned down the heat. ‘It’s almost dinner time. Are you hungry? Dinner’s nearly ready.’

‘Dinner? No. I’ve already had dinner.’

Maria rolled her eyes and took a deep breath.

‘When is your father getting back?’

‘Dad’s been dead for a long time, Mum.’

‘Has he really? How was I supposed to know? Nobody tells me anything. What about my mother, is she still alive?’ Sophia was determined to engage in conversation, convinced she was in charge of its direction. Maria didn’t feel like talking. They’d had this conversation before; it had become her mother’s mantra. She refused to respond.

The old woman leaned forward to inspect the scratches on the coffee table and rubbed at the rough surface with her finger trying to smooth it over. After a welcome silence, she suddenly sat up and said, ‘Are you married? Do you have any children?’

‘Yes, Mum. I was married to Peter and Jason is your grandson. Remember Jason?’

‘Ah yes, my darling little Jason! How old is the baby now?’

‘He’s twenty-five, the same as yesterday.’

‘Is he really that old? What’s the matter with me? I don’t remember anything anymore.’ At least she acknowledged that much.

Maria left the room and went into her mother’s bedroom to turn down the bed. When she returned, Sophia had lost interest in the scratches on the table and was doubled over, picking at the specks of fluff and crumbs on the carpet next to her feet. Her bony shoulders protruded through the synthetic fabric of her dressing gown. She had become so very frail, it bought tears to Maria’s eyes.

She went to the fridge and pulled out some vegetables and began stringing the beans. Sophia suddenly sat up as if she’d had a flash of inspiration.

‘When I get better, I’ll go to Greece and visit my mother,’ she announced.

One, two, three, Maria counted; the clock on the piano ticked out the seconds filling the silence. She wanted to scream. She wanted to shake her mother by the throat. She steadied her voice and took another deep breath.

‘I think you’re too old to travel now Mum.’

‘Really? How old am I then?’ Maria ignored her and wiped down the sink.

‘I’m a hundred,’ Sophia would cheerfully announce to the nurses who regularly came to pay her a visit. She would say the same to the cleaner who came on Tuesdays to tidy her room.

‘Are you really, you’re doing well for a hundred, Sophia.’ Janice would humour her as she stripped back the bed.

‘Not really, I’m a very sick woman, my dear. Anyway, what you are doing here?’

Janice would reintroduce herself. ‘I’m here to clean your room, Sophia. I come every Tuesday.’

‘I not remember, my dear. I’m Sophia, pleased to meeting you. Well, you better do your job now. Too much talk no good.’ The old woman still pulling rank as if the cleaner had been wasting her time.

Maria did her duty like a good Greek daughter. Dressing, showering, medicating her mother and tucking her into bed at night. The roles now reversed; she the mother and her mother the child.

The day Sophia thought her daughter was an intruder, decided Maria to put her into a nursing home. The abrupt change of environment and the loss of a familiar routine gave Sophia the cue to let go. A week later, she died.

Chapter 2

Maria reached for her glasses and looked closely at the damaged photo. It was taken in 1954 on the windswept pier of Port Melbourne. The ship had docked and their journey had finally come to an end. After a long and restless wait, the gangway was finally lowered and the passengers charged forward calling out to waiting friends and relatives. There were lots of people calling out and waving on the dock but the Velizanos family had no one waiting for them.

The six weeks of anxiety and stomach-churning had come to an end. They had finally arrived in the land of opportunity on the one-way government-assisted passage to start their new life.

Before boarding the ship at the port of Piraeus, they had been stripped naked and checked for head lice and fleas then ordered to take a shower. The women and children were marched off to a concrete amenities block and the men were sent to another part of the complex. Sophia was worried at being separated from her husband and held her children tightly by the hand fearing they too, might be taken away from her.

‘It was just like a concentration camp,’ she reflected bitterly whenever she told the story of their arduous journey to the alien land. ‘We were herded together like animals and made to stand naked in front of the children. It was so humiliating. I could have died from the embarrassment.’

Their clothes were taken away and fumigated. The female officers had openly pointed and snickered, making rude remarks about the women’s bodies. Sophia had choked back her tears as she scrubbed and soaped her daughters’ fragile bodies. The little girls absorbed their mother’s fear and discomfort. For them, it was all part of the upheaval brought about by the decision to emigrate and leave the security of the familiar behind. They did as they were told, clinging to Sophia’s vulnerable thighs so as not to slip on the soapy surface. Their mother’s pale skin was cold to touch and reminded Maria of the white marble chopping board that Yiayia used to sever the heads of protesting chickens.

In the photo, they stand shivering on the Port Melbourne Pier, the looming hull of the ship is in the background. A copy of the photograph will be sent back home as proof of their safe arrival.

The long and turbulent voyage was a jumble of sensations in Maria’s mind. The unpalatable food was still one of her strongest memories. The unfamiliar aromas of the foreign cuisine had made her gag and she had chewed on a piece of bread to calm the nausea. The kitchen staff had tried to accommodate the passengers’ foreign tastes, assuming that all Mediterranean menus were interchangeable. Greek, Italian, all the same, both Mediterranean, no difference. The adults had not readily taken to the unfamiliar menu either but they ate what they were given to keep up their strength and to set a good example for the children. Unlike her husband, who ate the food and tried to keep up their morale, Sophia refused to be grateful for the free meals they were given.

‘If they call this food, then God help us all!’ She urged her children to eat more bread and drink more milk. The girls survived on a diet of bread, milk and hard-boiled eggs, foods they were familiar with.

Maria had spent a few days in the ship’s hospital ward with an ear infection. Anastasia, who had always been a fussy eater, had been a constant source of concern to her parents, who worried about how much thinner their daughter was becoming.

The long journey had been an unsettling experience for all of them but especially for Sophia. The uncertainty of their future had crystallised into a frightening reality during the trip and she had become increasingly anxious, obsessing over the possible hardships and deprivation they were bound to endure. When she wasn’t vomiting or berating her husband for the predicament, he had put them in, she stayed in their cabin and cried, bemoaning their fate.

The photo was a testament to the fact that they had arrived safely and, despite the food and the nausea, they were in good health. For that they should be grateful, Stavros had said.

‘Our lives were completely at the mercy of fate. It was a terrible experience, which I’ll never forget; but Glory be to God in his infinite mercy, we managed to survive.’ This was always Sophia’s refrain whenever the subject of their voyage to the alien land came up in conversation.

In the photo Stavros stands erect, almost defiant, staring directly into the lens. Sophia looks past the camera, her face taut with uncertainty. She holds Anastasia by the hand. Her fixed gaze betrays the knowledge that there is no turning back. The grim reality of a future among complete strangers overwhelms her. You can see it in her face.

Anastasia is the eldest. Her hair is braided into two long plaits tied at the ends with oversized bows which frame her scowling face. She is sulking about something; her eyes betray a rebellious, stubborn nature. She clutches a limp rag doll to her chest. It’s the only toy the girls have between them. It was given to them by Yiayia Maria, Sophia’s mother, just before they boarded the train which took them from the village in the south to the capital city. In Athens, they had taken the train to the port of Piraeus, where they boarded the ship called the Anna Salen with the many other hopeful emigrants. They were all looking to change their lives by venturing forth to the land of opportunity where there were fortunes to be made and where no one went hungry. That’s what Yiayia Maria had told them as they sat at the railway station waiting for the train.

They had spent their last night in Greece with Sophia’s mother, who lived close to the station just outside of Kalamata from where they were to catch the train to Athens. Their grandfather had kissed them goodbye in the morning and gone off to work with tears in his eyes. As they walked to the station, Yiayia Maria sobbed and wiped away her tears with the ends of the black kerchief tied under her chin.

‘Don’t forget me, my dearest daughter. Write to me often. I know I won’t ever see you or my granddaughters again, and my heart breaks.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense, Mamma. Of course, I will never forget you or my father. I’ll write every week and tell you everything about our new life.’

Stavros led the way, carrying their suitcase and holding Anastasia by the hand.

As they sat on a bench to wait for the train, Yiayia took a limp handmade doll out of her bag. It had black buttons for eyes a stitched nose and mouth and hair made from wool. She held it out to Anastasia. ‘Here you are, my darling. You must share it with your little sister.’ Their grandmother’s voice was always gentle and cajoling when she spoke to the girls. Her small, beady eyes were deeply set into her crinkled, leathery skin. They held your gaze and made it difficult to tell a lie. Anastasia had nodded, her eyes downcast, not daring to look Yiayia in the face. She had already resolved that the doll would be hers. She didn’t want to share it with her little sister, who she’d resented from the day she was born.

‘Here is something for you too, my little darling.’ Yiayia handed Maria a small white handkerchief embroidered with tiny pink rosebuds and green leaves. ‘Waive it goodbye out of the window. I will be watching out for it.’

When the train finally pulled into the station, Yiayia hugged them all again, crying and sobbing, and bid them a safe journey. They found an empty carriage and Maria sat at the window looking out for her grandmother. She wanted to wave as she’d promised, but as the train pulled away from the station, Stavros slammed the window shut and the child couldn’t keep her promise to her grandmother. Maria was upset and started to cry. She would never forgive her father for the barrier he’d placed between her and the grandmother she loved.

In the photo, the sky is overcast and grey. Anastasia’s short coat, worn over a flimsy summer frock, barely protects her legs from the cold.

The white crease in the photograph cuts across their father’s youthful features, distorting one eye. Stavros holds Maria in the crook of his arm. She is three and a half but still the baby of the family. Something beyond the camera has caught the child’s attention and she points a pudgy finger. Stavros grips the battered suit-case in his left hand. It’s held together with a frayed leather strap. The suitcase holds all their worldly belongings, a change of clothes and the 8,000 drachmas. Their grandmother’s life savings.

Yiayia had insisted that her son-in-law take it. ‘Take it for the sake of the children, Stavros, you can pay me back later when you find work. I’m an old woman. It’s of no use to me now.’ She had pressed the embroidered silk pouch firmly into the palm of his hand. She was adamant and refused to take no for an answer.

‘You have a wife and children to feed. You need the money more than I do.’ Yiayia wasn’t one to be argued with.

His pride yielded and Stavros acknowledged the generosity of her gift.

‘For the sake of the children, Sophia,’ was how he too had broached the subject of migration with his young wife. It had come as a complete shock to her at the time. Though life hadn’t been easy in the village she had been prepared to make ends meet with the little they had. Sophia had strongly objected and dismissed the idea as nonsense. When Stavros persisted, she had put up a fight. Migration had never entered Sophia’s head as a possible option, but her husband said that the opportunity of a free Government Passage might never be offered again. He sympathised with her point of view and said he understood that it was a lot to ask of his wife. To leave the security of her home and the love of her family for a leap into the unknown required courage and a sense of adventure. Sophia was a simple woman who liked certainty and routine; adventure was not something she had been prepared to consider. But in the end, after a lot of persuasions, she had to concede that emigrating to a place that promised them work, would give their children opportunities that she and her husband never had. A good education would give their daughters the chance to make something of themselves and give them choices they wouldn’t have in Greece. Sophia couldn’t deny her children the prospect of a better life.

After they were married, Stavros had looked for a job but there was no work to be had in the nearby town of Kalamata. He took the train to Athens, hoping to find something there. Athens was still reeling from the deprivations of the war. People had literally starved from the lack of food. Work was even more scarce in Athens than in the regional towns.

After she married, Sophia had gone to live in her mother-in-law’s house. Apart from the goat, which provided them with milk, they relied on the produce they grew in the garden and her mother-in-law’s meagre government pension which was paid as compensation to all the widows in the village whose husbands had been slaughtered in the terrible carnage of the civil uprising of 1944.

Maria remembered the adults talking about the horrific events which haunted the collective memory of the village.

It was at the end of the German-Italian occupation, a time of political upheaval and civil unrest. The Greek People’s Liberation Army, ELAS, aggressively sought to recruit civilian support. They massacred over 1000 men for refusing to join their ranks. Maria’s grandfather was one of them. His body was dumped with the others, into the well at Meligalas, which ironically translates as ‘milk and honey.’

The political uprising pitted neighbour against neighbour and tore feuding families apart. Maria remembered the bitterness with which the adults talked about the horrific event and her young heart absorbed the collective anger and pain and she was saddened by the loss of her grandfather. A man she was never to know.

Stavros had heard that the left-wing was coming and escaped the carnage by fleeing to Athens. His father had no interest in politics and, assuming he was safe, stayed on in the village to protect his wife and daughters. When the rebels demanded to know where Stavros had gone, his father refused to betray his son, so the rebels slaughtered the old man instead.

Stavros never forgave the communists for killing his father. In Australia, he was a staunch Liberal voter for the rest of his life, convinced that the Labour Party was just a bunch of left-wing communists pretending to represent the working classes.

In the photo, Sophia’s hair is parted in the middle with two long tresses pulled back off her forehead and pinned firmly into tight curls at the top of her head. The style is decidedly of another era, harking back to the coiffures of the glamorous thirties film stars she had admired in the cheap romance magazines she poured over as a young woman. A few hairs have escaped from their pins and whip across her stony face.

Stavros has his thick black hair slicked back with the sweet scent of Californian Poppy. He sports a thick Stalin moustache which makes him look older than his years. He is the very image of a handsome young dictator. He wears a suit jacket which doesn’t match his trousers and a white shirt unbuttoned at the neck.

Their only link to the new land is