Antimachia

Antimachia

Freedom tastes like frozen Ouzo shots at 4am, with no one to tell you it’s a bad idea.

I found that out myself the summer I went to Greece with my friends.   We learned a lot that summer, but only one experience would alter my life forever.

Lisa and Cheryl had been my best friends since the first week of school. Our mum’s met at a school fundraiser, bonded over a bottle of wine and the weekly play dates began.  Our birthdays were within a week of each other and after our joint fifth birthday party in my back garden, we became an inseparable unit.

Over the years we’d shared every milestone, mistake and heartbreak and after a gruelling final year at school, we needed something to look forward to.  We agreed that for our eighteenth birthday’s all we wanted was to have our first girl’s holiday.

Six months prior to our birthday’s, the strategy kicked off to convince our parents to let us go abroad.  We did chores without being asked, avoided getting into trouble and ensured we got good grades on our exams.   We picked up extra shifts at our part time jobs and saved enough for a small apartment and spending money for our dream week in the sun.  We only needed our parents to gift us plane tickets.  

The plan worked perfectly and now here we are casting off the costumes of responsibility, downing shots at 4am on our apartment balcony, waiting for the sun to rise over Kos harbour.

I’d suggested Greece, convincing the girls the Greek isles were a more cultured choice than Ibiza or Magaluf.  From what I’d heard they were full of English pubs, half naked British guys throwing up in the street and spending twenty-five Euro on vodka in a super club. Not what I wanted from my first holiday. Apart from the cost, that described a typical Saturday night at home.

Kos offered historical sites, architectural ruins, churches dotted on the hillside, azure skies, palm trees, fabulous food and silken white sandy beaches. Cheryl planned to study Art History at university, so it didn’t take much for her to be enamoured with Greece. Lisa hadn’t decided on a course yet, her heart was set on a gap year to backpack around the world.  She’d had a vision of fire dancing on the beach in Koh Samui, so was disappointed we couldn’t afford Thailand.  

Four days into our week and we’d mixed a cocktail of cultural tours, sunbathing and lazing on the beach reading the must have summer novels. We hadn’t lost anything, been pickpocketed, or harassed by men. After the first day Lisa fell in love with Kos, and stopped repeating the details of her fire dancing dream.    

Even now, struggling to keep my grainy drunken eyes open for the promise of a spectacular sunrise, I was smug my choice of Greece had worked out so well.  Clearly I was gifted in choosing safe places to visit and my choice to study Travel and Tourism next year was wise.  The power of our privilege and freedom, fuelled the fake fires of invincibility. Fires that would soon turn to ash.

We woke on the balcony to the late morning sun burning the sides of our faces. I couldn’t remember if we’d witnessed the sunrise or not, I only knew my head wanted to split open and stomach needed to evacuate it’s contents.  Lesson learned. Ouzo at 4am is not a good idea.

Desperate for food, we dragged our protesting bodies to the nearest café.  Sitting in a British pub eating a full English breakfast, my need for carbs and grease satisfied, but I drowned in hypocrisy watching the British flag flutter in the scant breeze.   This was not a moment I intended to brag about on Instagram.

Needing to atone for my cultural sins, I convinced the girls to hire mopeds and drive into the hills to visit Antimachia.  Immersing ourselves in an authentic Greek experience, far away from the English pub, would surely cleanse me of my shame.  I could never have known there was more to be found in the hills.

The dusty barren countryside offered no landmarks other than a couple of skinny goats, scratching around looking for a green shoot of grass to eat. Olive groves appeared on every corner of the winding road and it was easy to imagine the smell of the fruits being pressed into thick golden oil.

Our mopeds struggled up the serpentine roads, but our bodies welcomed the more frequent gusts of wind.   The cool mountain air soothed the core heat of my suffering body.   With my strawberry blonde hair and porcelain white skin, I’d barely tolerated the Greek heat. I came close to heat stroke on the first day and spent the afternoon in bed. So pathetic.

The buildings in Antimachia were painted either white or tan, making them picturesque against the ever azure sky. The colours of the flowers blooming around the windows, were so vibrant they didn’t look natural.  Listening to Cheryl’s lecture about the Greek’s influence on the evolution of western art, I forgave myself the sin of breakfast. 

After a lunch of fresh bread, feta and stuffed vine leaves dipped in olive oil, we toured the castle ruins. We snapped shots of the spectacular view for our Instagram feeds, trying to capture how the sea shone like a puddle of glittering cerulean sequins. We tried to spot our apartment, but precision proved impossible at this distance.  The white buildings looked like Lego houses, randomly scattered by a child along the coastline.

Lisa urged us to visit a bright white little church sitting proudly atop the hill, as if God had placed it there himself. Her beloved cocker spaniel, Wilson, crossed the rainbow bridge six months before our trip and lighting a candle would help her gain closure for her tragic loss. 

Or whatever she said, I didn’t listen.  I was trying to figure out why a wave of dread washed over me, as we stepped into the tiny church.

The priest consumed most of the space, spoke only Greek, and darkness prevented us from distinguishing any of his features or facial expressions. My urge to turn around and leave was so strong, but before I had a chance to talk Lisa out of the church, she dropped a coin in the priest's bulky palm and set about striking a match. 

Cheryl joined Lisa at the altar, leaving me frozen to the threshold. The faint glow from the candle’s flicker began to dance on the stone walls of the cave like church.  Allowing me to make out the shadowy shapes of Lisa and Cheryl tending to the candle’s flame like it possessed spiritual power. Like it meant something more than paying to strike a match for a dead dog. 

Praying their homage would be over soon, I remained stuck to the threshold, trying to make sense of the fear inexplicably fermenting in my heart.  I only became aware of the priest moving beside me, when his arm snaked around my waist. 

I tried to scream ‘get off,’ but my throat was sealed shut.  I wanted to squirm away from him, but his fingers dug into my rib cage. I could only stand there, rigid, as he clung to me like a limpet on a rock. 

I glared at the back of Lisa and Cheryl’s heads, willing them to turn around with a supernatural force I didn’t possess. We’d always been so in tune with each other. Couldn’t they sense something was wrong? Didn’t they wonder why I wasn’t with them at the altar?

As thick soggy fingers creeped toward the front of my bra,  my voice raged in my head:

Why can I not move? 

Why am I not saying anything out loud? 

How can my friends not see what’s happening? 

How do I get this to stop? 

He’s a priest for God’s sake!

The force of my internal screaming tore through my hardened muscles, and I managed a sharp step to the right.  Freed from his clutches his eyes bored holes in the side of my face, like he dared me to say something.  

I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I stood there. I did nothing, said nothing. I waited. Like a faithful friend, a good girl.  I stayed in the church and waited for Lisa and Cheryl to finish their ridiculous ritual.

Their hearts full of love and a tender shared moment, they turned to me with reverent faces wet with tears.   I followed them out of the church as they held hands and chattered softly. Neither of them detected my stunned silence and I found myself wondering if this was the moment our inseparable group of three, cracked in two.

Winding our mopeds down the hillside, for the first time I was glad of the searing Greek heat. It soothed my taught muscles and sizzled my skin where I’d forgotten to reapply sunscreen. I thanked the sun for scorching the priest’s touch from my flesh.  

As we rounded the last corner of the hillside, I glanced back at the church.  It’s spiritual significance sullied, it now stood out like an adolescent’s persistent pimple that refused to pop. Unable to contain a wave of nausea, I left my partially digested lunch on the side of the hill.

After returning our mopeds to the rental company, I ignored Lisa and Cheryl’s suggestion of having a disco nap before heading into a club in town. Throwing them a dismissive wave over my shoulder, I walked toward the beach and straight into the ocean.

Plunged into the cleansing saltiness of the underwater world, hidden and safe,  I wanted to peel my skin off and turn it inside out to make a fresh untarnished layer. I wanted to scrub myself clean. I wanted to forget.

I opened my eyes to stare up at the broken, jagged clouds through the waves. The crushed cries of the ocean and wounded whale song, served as white noise for the screaming in my head.  The warmth of the water a hug from nature, assuring my safety.

I stayed submerged for as long as my lungs allowed, then burst through the waves, leaving the experience in Antimachia on the ocean floor.  

I feigned sun stroke for the last few days of our holiday and never ventured further than the apartment complex’s swimming pool. The girls seemed content to spend their time, shopping, drinking and clubbing. It felt like they’d forgotten I existed.

Next year when Lisa and Cheryl suggest another girl’s holiday, I’ll fabricate an excuse.  

I won’t start my Travel and Tourism course next year, I’ll choose Psychology instead. The girls will tell me I’ve changed, I’m not the same since Greece and they’ll push me for an explanation.  But I’ll never tell anyone about the priest.

Of my time in Greece, I’ll say it was the first time I’d visited, and it would be my last. I’d experienced everything Greece had to offer.