We were leaving Skafi
beach when Mum and I noticed lifejackets strewn on the pebbles.
All sorts of things
wash up on Skafi; visitors make shelters out of driftwood and artworks out of
old shoes, and clothes are sometimes hung across the cave at the far end to scare
the goats away when the farmer, Menelaus, doesn’t want them drinking seawater.
The lifejackets were
odd, though. They seemed expensive and new, and I wondered if they’d
inadvertently been lost from a charter yacht. This is the season for yachts to
be mishandled by holidaymakers, and in fact during these days at the start of
July, one was just about to enter the harbour at Livadia in an ill-advised way
during a storm, and sink Nikos the fisherman’s little varka.
Closer inspection
revealed the floatation devices were different sizes, including a few for small
children. Alongside were items of clothing. Hours later we learned
there’d been a new arrival of Syrian refugees, and I guessed they must have
arrived at Skafi.
This month, Tilos
became a dropping-off point of choice for people smugglers. Not for the
first time, this fairly empty bit of rock with its deserted coves just a few
miles from Turkey has become a convenient place to leave people who’ve paid to
escape a war-torn country for a new life in Europe.
The next day, though it
was very hot, Mum and I walked with Lisa to Politissa, the ‘monastery’ in the
hills above Livadia that’s only used once a year for the celebration of the
Holy Virgin in August, or for the occasional wedding. It’s recently become a
useful spot to house the refugees, and their friendly faces lit up to see Lisa
cooling off in some flowing water.
It encouraged us to
walk up and say hello, which is how we met a young woman speaking excellent
English who’d just a day earlier been washed ashore in an unknown land with her
children. They’d arrived at Skafi in the dark of night, and been told the boat
had a problem and they must get out at once, taking nothing with them. Several
of the children – shy, wide-eyed, now gleefully stroking Lisa and clutching their toys – were very
young, while over in the corner a smiling man held a baby only a few months
old. It must have been terrifying as they jumped ashore on a wild beach
surrounded by rugged hills, with no lights visible. They lit a fire, and in the
morning they saw a path and the young men walked to see where it led.
For now, they were
safe, although the mother found it hard to explain to her kids why they
couldn’t go for a swim in that lovely blue sea down the valley (they’d been
told, as their papers were processed, that they could go for a walk in the early evening). They could sleep in peace and make
food and had been given clean clothes, and it was sad to think that these were
probably the best days they’d have for a while, before they were shipped off to
a holding centre somewhere.
Later, we swam, feeling
grateful, and when we drove back to Livadia in the evening we went back to
Politissa. A young man greeted us cautiously and asked what we wanted. We
showed him a picture book and some finger-puppets for the kids – perhaps
something to keep them entertained on the long ferry journey to come. He
smiled. ‘You have one more for me?’ Beema had taken the kids for a walk down to
the sea, and he asked if we wanted to wait but we expected they’d be a while,
and I had a dance class to go to. We danced outside the church, in the cool of
the evening.
A few days later, Mum
and I went back to Skafi one morning, watching eagles circling above; having
awoken early to the sound of cicadas and crows and bees, and set out swiftly, we
had the beach to ourselves at just after nine, and the water was a perfect
topaz blue.
At first, the
lifejackets seemed to have been removed, but Mum figured out that the windstorm
might have blown them in to shore, and sure enough we found them all in the
scrub bushes. Fearing they’d be scorched by the sun and left as rubbish, we
gathered them up and carried them towards home. As we stood in the shade of a
tree near Menelaus’ enclosure on the way back to the village, tourists passed
us on their way down to the beach, and I laughed, realising we looked like we
were selling our armfuls of lifejackets; perhaps we’d do better business down
in Livadia...
As we neared Megalo
Horio, we looked down into the valley and saw people at the little chapel of
Ayia Paraskevi. Only later did we find out it was Anna Parliara, the
Silversmith jewellery maker, along with her partner and son, celebrating her
birthday by painting her chapel.
A couple of days after
Mum left, I went back to Skafi on my own one day with Lisa. The weather had
turned strangely grey with clouds, though the beach was still colourful with
brick-red sand, and the bay empty except for a yacht.
I swam around with a
mask and snorkel and watched the fish: the loners with the rough,
chocolate-brown downward stripes and a flash of blue on the side, which hide in
the shadow of rocks when they see you; skaros, purple-brown with big scales
like armour, and comical yellow eyes that look up at you anxiously; and the
tiny ones with the forked black tails and white bellies, curious and bold, that
swim right up to you.
When I got out and lay
on the beach, I felt something strange – tiny drops of rain, just a few, lovely
in the soft, warm afternoon air. On the walk back home, I saw a green-blue
roller fly across the valley as I reached the top of the hill. And I noticed
more lifejackets, and empty water bottles, and wondered if there had been more
refugees.
It was true. Back in
the village, Marios told me proudly that he was up all the night before. He’d
been working on his car (as always) when he heard a voice in the dark, ‘My
friend, I want water.’ He ended up walking up from Skafi with that group,
helping them find their way. ‘I like Syrians. Is good people.’
Later, I was taking
Lisa out for her final walk of the evening around midnight, when I saw Maria
whispering over the wall to Marios.
‘More refugees!’ she
said. ‘Kristoforos call me. They arrive now at Skafi.’ The two policemen had
gone to Menelaus’ enclosure to try to find them. We joked that Tilos would
become Syrian at this rate – after all, there are only 300 residents of Tilos,
and if the Syrians keep coming every few days… ‘We give them Mikro Horio,’
joked Marios, referring to the abandoned village. Suddenly, we heard voices.
‘What’s that?’ But it was just the sound of a private party in the village.
