Malta Short Let: Cozy Stay in Gzira
Sliema Area Modern Designer Finished 2 Bedrooms + Games Room. First floor with Maltese Balcony Large back Terrace with swinging sofa Fully Airconditioned + Full Kitchen 3 TVs, including 65” with backlight.
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UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG

I watched him grow.

Manwel Attard, barefoot on the stones of Marsa, his dark eyes squinting at the British flags that rippled above Grand Harbour. A boy of fire and hunger, with hands already calloused at seventeen. He would throw pebbles at gulls, then apologize when they scattered. This contradiction lived in him—defiance and tenderness, like twin currents in the same stream.

Maria Grech was quieter. She moved through the narrow streets of Marsa like a thought—quick, purposeful, leaving little trace. At fifteen, she already carried books while other girls carried water. Her father worked as a clerk for the British administration, and so their home had glass in the windows and occasional meat on Sundays.

I have watched a thousand children grow on these shores. Most blur into the limestone like rainwater. But some leave marks. Some I remember.

They were friends before anything else. Childhood companions who raced along the harbor walls and collected sea glass after storms. The space between them was comfortable, worn smooth like a prayer stone. Until it wasn’t.

That summer evening in 1910, the air hung heavy with salt and jasmine. Manwel sat on the low wall outside the Grech family home, waiting for Maria to finish her lessons. His shirt was patched at the elbows but clean. He had combed his hair back with water.

“She’s still with her tutor,” Maria’s mother told him, a knowing smile playing at her lips.

When Maria finally emerged, she carried a small book wrapped in cloth.

“English grammar,” she said, answering his unasked question. “Father says I must learn it properly if I’m to work for the British offices someday.”

Manwel nodded, swallowing the words that rose in his throat—that she was already too good for Marsa, for Malta, for him.

Later, they walked toward the harbor, shoulders nearly touching. The evening lanterns were being lit, casting long shadows across the stone streets. British naval officers in white uniforms strode past, tipping their caps occasionally to ladies but looking through the Maltese as if they were merely part of the architecture.

“My father says they respect us now,” Maria said quietly. “That’s why they’re teaching Maltese children English. So we can rise.”

Manwel’s jaw tightened. “My father says they gave us roads, and they took our name.”

At the harbor’s edge, they watched as British warships glided past merchant vessels. Metal giants that had replaced the wooden galleys of the Knights. The empire’s modern navy—all steel and steam and precision.

Iron monsters floating on my waters. I felt them above me. The weight of their anchors. The hum of their engines. Their compass needles wavering slightly when, they passed over certain ancient stones, where my presence flowed stronger.

“Will you work for them too?” Maria asked suddenly, turning to study Manwel’s face in the fading light.

He shrugged, picking up a flat stone and skipping it across the harbor water. “I’ll work for whoever pays. But I won’t forget who I am.”

She smiled then, and it transformed her face—no longer the serious student but simply a girl of fifteen, with salt in her hair and dreams still taking shape behind her eyes.

“And who are you, Manwel Attard?”

“A son of Malta,” he said simply. “Like my father. And his father before him.”

They were not lovers yet. But love was the stone in both their shoes.

Stone paths diverge
Young hearts beating different drums
Empire stands between

THE LIEUTENANT ARRIVES

The British officers’ club in Valletta gleamed with polished wood and brass. Crystal glasses caught the late afternoon light, scattering it like diamonds across white tablecloths. Lieutenant Charles Barnham sat alone, his spine military-straight despite the casual setting, a newspaper folded precisely beside his teacup.

At twenty-six, Barnham carried himself with the easy confidence of empire. Oxford educated, with family connections in London’s diplomatic circles, his posting to Malta was meant to be brief—a stepping stone to more prestigious assignments. He found the island “charming but provincial,” as he wrote to his sister back in Kent.

In 1913, Malta bustled under British rule. The Grand Harbour had become a vital coaling station for ships traversing the Mediterranean, and Valletta’s streets echoed with languages from across the empire. Union Jacks fluttered from government buildings, and British military personnel moved through the city with the unquestioned authority of those who knew they belonged everywhere they went.

I watched them all. The governors with their proclamations. The admirals with their charts. The merchants counting profits. The soldiers with their loneliness barely hidden beneath pressed uniforms. Each of them certain they understood Malta better than the Maltese themselves.

Maria Grech, now eighteen, worked as a translator for the Barrington Shipping Company, a British firm with offices near the waterfront. Her English was nearly perfect, her penmanship admired by the clerks, her memory for details invaluable to the overworked office manager.

It was there that Lieutenant Barnham first saw her, bent over a ledger, her dark hair pulled back severely, her fingers ink-stained. He had come to inquire about a shipment for the officers’ mess.

“Remarkable,” he said later to his fellow officers, “to find such refinement in a local girl. Almost like one of our own.”

By spring, their paths crossed regularly. He would stop by the shipping office with queries that could have been handled by any clerk. She would answer precisely, professionally—but her cheeks betrayed her with a flush of color that spread like watercolor on paper.

He showed her letters from London, written on paper so fine it seemed to float between her fingers. He spoke of Kensington Gardens, of Paris in the rain, of Lisbon’s ancient streets. He made her world larger with each conversation.

And Maria laughed—a sound like church bells, clear and carrying far.

I felt her slipping away from the limestone. From the salt. From the rhythms that had shaped her ancestors. Not her fault. Not anyone’s. Just the way of things when worlds collide and one shines brighter.

Meanwhile, Manwel hauled crates at the docks, his shoulders broadening, his hands hardening further. At twenty, his face had lost its boyhood softness, replaced by angles and the beginning of lines around his eyes—marks left by squinting into Mediterranean glare day after day.

He earned enough to help his family. His younger sister had shoes now. His mother no longer took in washing. Small victories that cost him daylight hours and left his body aching each night.

One afternoon, he saw Maria walking near the harbor, a portfolio of papers clutched to her chest. Her dress was simple but well-made, her hair arranged in the latest style favored by British ladies.

“Maria!” he called, wiping his hands hastily on his trousers.

She turned, startled, then smiled with recognition. “Manwel. How are you?”

Their conversation was brief, cordial. She asked about his family. He asked about her work. Neither mentioned the growing distance between them—a gulf wider than class or education, though filled with both.

“I should go,” she said finally. “I’m busy now.”

He watched her walk away, her steps quick and purposeful on the cobblestones. The way she moved had changed—more confident now, as if she knew exactly where she was going. And perhaps she did.

I tried to reach her. To remind her of the salt in her blood. The limestone in her bones. But what could I offer against the promise of a wider world? I was only Malta. Only memory. Only stone.

That evening, Manwel sat with his father and uncles in their small home near the docks. The men drank rough wine and debated the British presence as they always did—some grateful for the stability and employment the empire brought, others resentful of their second-class status in their own homeland.

“They need us,” his father insisted, gesturing with his glass. “Without Maltese labor, their mighty ships would sit idle.”

“We need them more,” countered his uncle. “Without British coin, our children would starve.”

Manwel said nothing, but his thoughts were of Maria—of how quickly she had become something else, someone else. Someone with prospects beyond Marsa’s narrow streets.

Later, alone on the roof where he sometimes slept on hot nights, he stared at the stars and wondered if they looked different over London. From his pocket, he withdrew a small object and held it up to the moonlight—a simple silver Maltese cross on a thin chain. He had saved for months to buy it, working extra hours at the docks whenever ships needed unloading after sunset.

He had planned to give it to Maria tomorrow, had rehearsed the words he would say. Not a proposal—he had no right to offer that yet—but a promise. A token that said: I am still here. I am still waiting. I am still yours.

The silver gleamed between his fingers, catching starlight.

I felt it even then—that small piece of metal cradled in his palm. The potential energy of love shaped into silver. I could not have known how that cross would travel through time, through lives, carrying memory when words failed.

Dreams drift like clouds
Two paths never to merge
Empire's shadow falls

WAR AND HUNGER

The Great War changed everything. Though Malta saw no fighting on its shores, the island trembled with the echoes of distant battles. British warships crowded the harbors, many bearing wounded soldiers bound for the military hospital at Cottonera. Supply ships came less frequently as German U-boats prowled the Mediterranean, and food prices climbed weekly.

By 1917, Manwel’s family felt the pinch acutely. His youngest brother had tuberculosis, coughing through the night in their crowded home. The middle brother had been caught stealing bread and spent thirty days in jail. Manwel worked longer hours, taking any job available at the docks, but money seemed to evaporate before it reached his pocket.

The British administration imposed strict rationing. Rice, flour, and sugar became precious commodities, distributed in quantities that never quite satisfied hunger. Meanwhile, British officers still dined well, their tables set with imported delicacies and wines from France.

I felt it in the streets. A current of resentment, flowing beneath polite exchanges and deferential nods. My people had endured sieges before. But there is a special bitterness in starving while others feast.

Maria’s world had narrowed too, though differently. With the war effort consuming resources, the shipping company reduced its operations. She now worked directly for the British administration as a translator and filing clerk. Her English accent had improved further, and she had learned to take tea like an Englishwoman, with just a splash of milk and no sugar.

Lieutenant Howarth, now Captain Barnham, had been briefly deployed to Egypt but returned to Malta with a slight limp and new medals on his chest. His attention to Maria had become a courtship of sorts—discreet, conducted primarily through chaperoned walks and carefully worded letters, but a courtship nonetheless.

Her parents were cautiously proud. A British officer was beyond their wildest hopes for their daughter. But they also worried—such relationships rarely led to marriage, and what would become of their Maria if she were abandoned with a ruined reputation?

One rainy afternoon in November 1917, Manwel encountered Maria in the small covered market near St. John’s Co-Cathedral. She was selecting vegetables, counting coins carefully in her palm. He noticed her coat was new, but her shoes were worn.

“Manwel,” she said, startled but composed. “It’s been some time.”

“Too long,” he agreed.

They stepped aside, allowing other shoppers to pass. For a moment, their old ease returned—two children from Marsa who had skipped stones together in the harbor.

“How is your family?” she asked.

“Surviving,” he answered honestly. “And yours?”

“The same.”

A silence stretched between them, filled with unspoken words. Finally, Maria spoke, her voice lowered.

“Walk with me? Just for a moment.”

They moved away from the market, finding shelter from the rain beneath the arched colonnade of a nearby building. There, with the sound of raindrops pounding stone, Maria’s composure cracked slightly.

“I still think of you,” she confessed. “More than I should.”

Manwel’s heart hammered in his chest. “Then why—”

“You know why,” she interrupted. “This war… everything is uncertain. My family depends on me.”

“And the Englishman? Do you love him?”

She looked away. “He can offer security. A future.”

“And I cannot,” Manwel said, a statement rather than a question.

Maria touched his arm, her fingers light against the rough fabric of his jacket.

“In another life, perhaps…”

He caught her hand, held it between both of his. “This is the only life we have, Maria.”

I felt the current between them—stronger than the pull I could exert on metal, more powerful than lightning. Human hearts have their own magnetism that even I cannot influence.

That evening, they did not part. Instead, they found their way to a small room Manwel’s friend had offered—a space with a narrow bed and a window that looked out on nothing but a stone wall. There, they rediscovered each other, and for a few hours, the war and hunger and class divisions receded.

Maria left before dawn, straightening her clothes, pinning her hair back into its severe style. Manwel watched her transform back into the proper young woman who worked for the British.

“Will you tell him?” he asked.

“There’s nothing to tell,” she answered. “This cannot happen again.”

But her eyes said differently, and three weeks later, they met again in the same room. And again two weeks after that. Each time promising it would be the last. Each time knowing they lied.

One evening after their secret meeting, Manwel finally gave Maria the silver Maltese cross he had carried for so long. “It’s not much,” he said, fastening it around her neck with trembling fingers. “But when you wear it, remember there are some things the British cannot buy.”

She had worn it beneath her clothes, hidden from Captain Howarth’s eyes, touching it when doubts crept in.

By spring 1918, Maria knew she was pregnant. She told no one—not her parents, not Captain Howarth, and especially not Manwel. The child would be born in December. By then, she would need to have made her choice.

I tried to help. In my way. Limited as I am. I knew of treasures beneath the earth—coins from ancient times, metal that could be exchanged for food, for medicine, for passage away from poverty. Metal that would make Manwel rich.

Near Manwel’s family home stood an old fig tree, its roots pushing up through cobblestones. Beneath it lay a small cache of Phoenician coins, buried centuries ago and forgotten. I could sense them.

One evening, I concentrated my energy on that spot as Manwel walked past. I made the coins shift slightly, causing a subtle disturbance in the soil. I fluttered the fig leaves unnaturally, drawing attention downward.

I made the fig leaf flutter. I shifted the roots. He looked down—and walked on.

He felt something, perhaps—a prickling at the back of his neck, a momentary pause—but hunger and fatigue drove him homeward. The treasure remained buried, and with it, perhaps his chance for a different future.

In July, Maria accepted Captain Barnham’s proposal of marriage. Her parents wept with joy and relief. The wedding would take place in September, before her condition became visible.

She wrote Manwel a letter she never sent. Tore it to pieces. Wrote another. Burned it.

In the end, she said nothing. Did nothing. Let the tide of events carry her forward into a life she had not imagined but could not refuse.

She chose safety. She chose survival. This is not sin. It is mathematics.

Secret meetings end
A child grows in silence now
Two futures divide

THE RIOTS BEGIN

June 7, 1919, dawned hot and clear in Valletta. The war had been over for seven months, but Malta’s hardships had only intensified. Food remained scarce, prices astronomical. British troops returning home had priority on shipping, while Maltese goods sat rotting on docks. Unemployment rose as wartime industries scaled back.

Manwel woke early, as always, and walked to the harbor seeking work. His father had fallen ill, and now the entire family depended on Manwel’s wages. But the dockmaster turned him away—no ships to unload, no cargo to move.

He stood for a moment, staring out at the water glittering under the morning sun. British vessels still dominated the harbor—sleek, powerful, well-maintained. Their presence once inspired awe. Now, increasingly, resentment.

By midday, a crowd had gathered near the Cassar Torregiani grain stores. What began as grumbling about bread prices swelled into something more organized, more purposeful. Students from the university joined dockworkers and shopkeepers. Someone produced a Maltese flag—rarely seen since British rule began.

Manwel found himself caught in the flow of people moving toward the Strada Reale. The energy of the crowd both frightened and exhilarated him—hundreds of voices merging into one, speaking the frustration he had swallowed for years.

“Enough!” they chanted. “We are hungry! We are Malta!”

I felt them above me. The weight of their anger. The surge of their hope. The vibration of their footsteps transmitted through limestone, reaching me deep below. Something was changing. The air itself seemed charged, as it does before lightning strikes.

As the crowd approached the Royal Opera House, British troops appeared, forming a line across the street. They stood stiffly, rifles held diagonally across their chests, faces impassive beneath their helmets.

A young student pushed forward, waving a handwritten list of demands—fair prices, Maltese representation in government, an end to arbitrary arrests. The British officer in charge refused to accept the paper.

What happened next would be reported differently by every witness. Some said a stone was thrown from the crowd. Others claimed a British soldier shoved an elderly man. Perhaps both were true.

Within moments, the situation exploded. More stones flew. A shop window shattered. The British troops raised their rifles.

“Back!” the officer shouted. “Disperse immediately!”

The crowd surged instead. Manwel found himself pushed forward by the mass of bodies behind him. He tried to maintain his footing on the smooth stones of the street.

In that moment, I felt it—the metallic click of rifle mechanisms being engaged. Five soldiers in the front line, their fingers tensing on triggers. I pushed with all my strength, with all the electromagnetic force I could summon, into those firing pins and springs.

Four rifles jammed instantly—the metal components refusing to slide, to connect, to spark. Four soldiers looked down in confusion at weapons that suddenly felt dead in their hands.

But the fifth—a young private whose rifle had not yet been raised to firing position—slipped through my grasp. His movements were too quick, his weapon already in motion as I reached for it.

A shot cracked the air—whether warning or targeted, no one could say. Then another. And another.

Near the Strada Forni, Manwel felt a sudden pressure in his chest. Not pain, not at first. Just a dull impact, as if someone had punched him firmly.

He looked down, confused by the spreading darkness on his shirt.

I felt him falling. One more body among many that had fallen on these stones over centuries. But this one—this one I knew. This one I had watched grow from a boy who apologized to seagulls into a man who simply wanted enough bread for his family.

As he collapsed, his hand clutched reflexively at his chest. His fingers touched metal—a small cross on a thin chain, hidden beneath his shirt. A gift from his mother, blessed at St. Paul’s Church.

I reached for that metal. Wrapped my consciousness around it. Tried to pull life back into him through that silver connection. But my power over metal cannot stop blood, cannot mend flesh, cannot hold a human soul.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

Around him, the riot intensified. Four more would die that day. Dozens would be wounded. The date—Sette Giugno, the Seventh of June—would later be marked as a crucial moment in Malta’s long journey toward self-determination.

But Manwel Attard would not see it. His journey had ended on the stones of Valletta, beneath the same flag he had thrown pebbles at as a boy.

A shot splits the air
One man falls on ancient stones
Nation stirs awake

THE BRITISH APARTMENT

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked precisely, marking seconds that fell into the silence like pebbles into still water. Maria sat in a high-backed chair, her hands folded over the slight swell of her stomach, hidden beneath the folds of her dress. Captain Charles Barnham stood by the window of their apartment near the Upper Barrakka Gardens, watching the harbor through a pair of binoculars.

The rooms they occupied were comfortable by wartime standards—polished wood furniture, carpets from India, a tea service of fine china. The walls were hung with watercolors of English countryside scenes that Charles’s mother had sent from Kent. Nothing of Malta in these rooms except the view and the woman who sat so still.

“There’s unrest in the city,” Charles said, lowering the binoculars. “Some sort of native demonstration. The regiment has been called out.”

Maria nodded but said nothing. Since their marriage nine months earlier, she had learned when Charles expected responses and when he simply wished to narrate his observations.

“Bad business,” he continued. “Though hardly surprising. These people don’t understand that rationing must continue even after the armistice. The empire’s resources are stretched thin.”

These people. Never her people, though she had been born among them, though her blood carried the same salt, the same history.

The radio on the side table crackled suddenly to life—an official broadcast interrupting the usual afternoon music program.

“Attention. This is an emergency notification. Civil disturbance has been reported in Valletta. All British personnel and their families are advised to remain indoors until further notice. Military police are responding to restore order.”

Charles crossed to the radio, turning the volume higher.

“Reports indicate several casualties. One confirmed fatality—a male Maltese civilian near Strada Forni. Identification pending.”

A tear formed at the corner of Maria’s eye. She brushed it away—quietly, carefully, without letting it fall. To cry would require explanation. To explain would shatter everything.

Suddenly, her unborn child kicked violently within her, as if responding to the radio’s words. She placed her hand on her swollen belly, feeling the fierce movement beneath her palm.

“Are you all right, darling?” Charles called from the window, noticing her sudden movement.

“Yes,” she lied. “Just the baby.”

The child within her stirred again, restless, agitated, as if somehow sensing the loss that had just occurred on Valletta’s stones. Maria closed her eyes, pressing her fingers against the gold cross at her throat—a wedding gift from Charles that had replaced the silver Maltese cross Manwel had given her years ago. That precious memento now lay hidden in a small box beneath her undergarments, the only piece of her past she had dared to bring into this new life.

She had made her choice months ago. Security over passion. Future over past. Her unborn son would have food, education, opportunity. England itself.

She chose survival. This is not sin. It is mathematics.

From the harbor came the sound of a ship’s horn, deep and mournful. The afternoon light slanted through the window, catching dust motes in its beam. Maria closed her eyes briefly, remembering another light—morning sun on the harbor walls where she and Manwel had once sat dangling their legs above the water, planning lives they would never live.

When she opened her eyes, she was still in the British apartment with its English watercolors and imported carpets. She stood, smoothed her dress, and moved to the kitchen to prepare tea. The ritual of it—heating water, measuring leaves, arranging cups—gave her hands purpose while her mind went numb.

Charles remained by the window, watching as his world maintained its order through the disciplined application of force.

Neither spoke of what was happening beyond their walls. Neither acknowledged the widening gulf between them—a gulf made of blood and stone and history.

Golden handcuffs gleam
Safety purchased with silence
Heart beats in exile

THE RAIN-SOAKED FUNERAL

Three days later, the bells of St. Gregory’s Church rang slow, like the breath of an old man.

Rain fell in sheets across Sliema, drumming against cobblestones and streaming from the eaves of buildings. The kind of rain that seems to wash everything away—dirt, blood, memory itself.

But the crowd that gathered outside the small church refused to be washed away. They stood shoulder to shoulder, heads bowed against the downpour. Workers from the dockyards. Shopkeepers from Valletta. University students with armbands bearing the Maltese cross. Women in black, holding children close.

The rain soaked everything—coats, cuffs, rifles, carnations. But the crowd did not leave.

Manwel Attard was not buried in silence. He was laid into the earth with chants, fists clenched, and mothers weeping as if they’d lost their own sons.

A simple headstone. a wooden cross, and a name already fading in the ink of the newsprint that reported his death as a “regrettable incident during necessary crowd control measures.”

British police watched from a distance, hands resting on their truncheons. They made no move to disperse the gathering—perhaps sensing that to do so would spark more violence than Malta’s narrow streets had seen in centuries.

I stretched my awareness through the earth, feeling each drop of rain as it struck stone and soil. Feeling the weight of the simple pine coffin as it was lowered into the ground. Feeling the rhythm of hearts beating with grief and anger and determination. I failed Manuwel. I failed that boy. I failed Malta

Among the mourners stood a man in a worn suit, holding the hand of a little girl. Censa Calleja, age three. Her boots were too big. Her coat swallowed her whole.

She clutched her father’s fingers and stared at the hole in the ground where they had put the box with the man inside. The man her father had called cousin. The man who had once given her a carved wooden bird that still sat on the shelf above her bed.

She did not cry. She only watched—dark eyes taking in everything, missing nothing. The rain on her face. The mud on her boots. The way the adults spoke in whispers that sometimes rose to shouts. The way the British policemen stood apart, watching.

She did not understand death—but she felt the silence. A silence too deep for words, surrounding the noise of grief like stone surrounds a tomb.

Her father lifted her suddenly, settling her on his hip so she could see over the heads of the crowd. “Look,” he whispered in her ear. “Remember this day. Remember who was here and who was not. Remember what THEY did to your cousin Manwel.”

Censa nodded solemnly, though the full meaning of his words would not reach her for years. What she understood was simpler—something had been taken. Something would not be returned.

As the first shovelful of earth struck the coffin lid, a murmur passed through the crowd. It began as a prayer, then transformed into something else—a force within the crowd; song, low and defiant.

The police shifted uncomfortably, hands tightening on their weapons. But they did not interfere. Perhaps they recognized that some moments cannot be controlled by force, that some feelings run too deep for fear.

When the grave was filled, the crowd did not immediately disperse. They stood in the rain, hundreds of them, heads bowed not in submission but in communion. For a brief moment, they were not dock workers or students or shopkeepers—they were Malta itself, ancient and enduring.

Censa felt it too, though she had no words for it. Something important had happened—not just the death of her cousin, but something larger, something that would shape the island long after this day of rain and mud and whispered defiance.

Another life, born witnessing pain. Another child shaped by the collision of empires and islands. I had watched a thousand such children grow on these shores. Most blur into the limestone like rainwater. But some leave marks. Some I remember.

And this one—this solemn girl with rain in her hair and questions in her eyes—would also leave marks.

As the crowd finally began to thin, Censa’s father carried her away from the gravesite. She looked back over his shoulder, watching until the wooden cross disappeared from view.

“Papa,” she said suddenly, her small voice clear despite the rain. “Why did they put Cousin Manwel in the ground?”

Her father was silent for several steps. Then, “Because he loved Malta too much, little one. And some loves are dangerous.”

She considered this, her brow furrowed in concentration.

“Do I love Malta too much?”

He held her tighter, his voice breaking slightly. “Never too much, Censa. Never too much.”

I could only watch as others shaped history with their blood. I care for these people—these brief, brilliant lives that flared and faded while I endured in these lands for millennia. That would be my undoing, this caring. But I could not stop now, any more than the sea could stop kissing these shores.

I reached out one last time—not to the girl, whom I could not touch, but to the metal buttons on her coat. I made them warm briefly, a small comfort against the chill of the rain. It was all I could offer. A guardian who feels too much, too late.

Rain falls on fresh earth
A nation awakens slow
Blood feeds freedom's roots

THE LIMESTONE’S MEMORY

The summer rains ceased. The streets dried. Life in Malta continued under the British flag.

Captain Barnham received a promotion and transfer back to England in late 1919. Maria accompanied him, seven months pregnant, to a tidy house in Surrey where neighbors commented on her “exotic” beauty and “charming” accent. She would bear a son on British soil—a child who would grow up speaking English first, Maltese as a secret language shared only with his mother. Denis Barnham, who would one day return to Malta’s skies, unaware of the true blood that flowed in his veins.

In Valletta, the Sette Giugno became a rallying point. British authorities made concessions—a new constitution in 1921 granted Malta limited self-government for the first time in its long history of foreign rule. Not independence, but a step toward it. A seed planted in soil watered with the blood of Manwel Attard and others like him.

Censa Calleja grew. At six, she stood on tiptoes to watch the first Maltese parliament convene. At twelve, she wrote passionate school essays about nationhood that worried her teachers. At eighteen, she joined the emerging Maltese language movement, fighting to preserve words shaped by Phoenician, Arabic, Italian, and now threatened by English dominance.

But those are stories for another time.

I remained. As I always have. As I always will. Beneath the limestone. Within the salt. Between the layers of earth that hold countless civilizations in their silent embrace.

I felt the island changing above me—telegraph wires spreading like veins across the land, carrying messages I could sense but not quite understand. Electricity flowing through copper lines, creating fields that brushed against my awareness like fingertips against skin.

The modern world was creating new forms of metal, new currents, new connections. And with them, perhaps, new possibilities for what I might become.

But that too is a story for another time.

For now, let me leave you with this: in 1927, a woman visited Malta from England. She wore fine clothes and spoke with a careful accent, but her eyes knew these streets. Though only in her early thirties, sorrow had etched lines around her eyes that made her appear older than her years. She walked slowly through Marsa, past a small house where she had once lived. Past a harbor wall where children now played as she once had.

She stopped at a simple grave in a small cemetery. Left flowers. Touched the weathered wooden cross that still marked the place where Manwel Attard had been laid to rest.

No one recognized her. No one knew that beneath her proper English exterior beat the heart of a girl who had once collected sea glass after storms. A woman who had made her choice and lived with it. A mother who had named her son Denis, a name that could pass in English society while secretly honoring his father’s middle name, Dionisju.

She returned to England the next day. Never came back to Malta. But sometimes, in her Surrey garden, she would pause while pruning roses, close her eyes, and breathe deeply—searching for the scent of salt and jasmine that never quite reached her there.

I felt her visit. The metal of her wedding ring. The coins in her purse. The buttons on her coat. For a moment, our connection strengthened—as if time and distance had been an illusion all along.

She whispered something at Manwel’s grave. Words too soft for human ears to catch. But I heard them, carried through stone and soil.

“Forgive me,” she said. And then, “I never stopped.”

Empires rise and fall
Love endures like limestone caves
Malta remembers