One August Night by Victoria Hislop

Author:Victoria Hislop [Hislop, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472278401
Google: JAuXzQEACAAJ
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2020-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

SOMETHING THAT ANTONIS’S letters never even alluded to were Maria’s visits to Andreas. Whenever he was writing to Manolis, the temptation was great, but a promise to his sister was unbreakable.

Maria now went to the prison in Neapoli once a month. After that first time she took the earliest bus, which left Agios Nikolaos at six, so that she was nearer to the front of the line when she arrived. This allowed her a little longer with Andreas.

Visits had not become less of an ordeal. The heat of the summer brought even more pungent smells of excrement, sweat and drains, and like most other visitors, she now held a handkerchief to her nose when she went in. She always folded some herbs into it, believing it might reduce the smell as well as alleviate the chances of picking up any infection.

Each visit began with an encounter with the same officer, who always put on an act of false joviality, and she soon came to realise that a bribe of some kind was expected. Ostensibly, the two hundred drachma she handed over was to purchase a privilege of some kind for Andreas – additional bread, a clean shirt twice a week rather than once, and so on – but she suspected that this money went straight into the officer’s pocket. Andreas’s abject state was evidence of this. He had the same stains on his shirt from month to month and looked more emaciated each visit.

Several visits in, the prison officer greeted her with his usual false bonhomie and she smiled back blandly, knowing this was the expected response. Nothing seemed to be different and she was expecting to be taken through to the visitors room as soon as he had made a note in Andreas’s file.

‘Kyría Kyritsis,’ said the officer, clearing his throat. ‘When a visitor comes as regularly as you, I am obliged to make spot checks. You understand that sometimes we discover goods are smuggled into this prison, and the only possible conduit is through the visitors.’

Maria knew that she had nothing to hide, but nevertheless she felt a strong sense of unease. What did he mean, ‘spot checks’? She held out her handbag to him. He was more than welcome to take a look.

He ignored the gesture.

‘Get up, please, and take off your coat.’

Perhaps he was going to check her pockets too. She followed his instruction, standing up and placing her coat over the back of a chair.

‘Arms out . . .’

She stood there, dumbfounded. It was obvious that she was carrying nothing in her clothes. Her skirt did not even have pockets.

To her astonishment and disgust, the officer began to run his hands over her body, first of all patting her down, then moving them over her breasts and belly and towards her thighs. He squeezed her buttocks gently at first, then more aggressively, all the while breathing his foul breath into her face.

Then he lifted her skirt and slid a hand between her legs. Maria froze.

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