Cave of Silence

by Kostas Krommydas

  Eleni set off feeling the world collapse in on her. A few minutes later, she turned around and saw Alexander’s car disappear down the bend. She changed direction and strode toward the path that led to Kryfó in steely determination.

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  The sun was now high in the sky, its rays gently stroking the green slopes of the island. Eleni walked rapidly, constantly looking around to make sure no one was following her. She had not stopped crying ever since she saw the burning houses. Once again, her life was in ruins, from one moment to the next.

  She had been so happy Manolis had returned. They had dreamt of their future, their marriage, their freedom, and just when that future seemed so real it had been snatched from their grasp. What furies were pursuing them, tormenting them at every step?

  She was near Kryfó when she spied Manolis and Nikos astride Karme, riding toward her. She wiped her eyes and sprinted in their direction as fast as her feet could carry her.

  With a jump, Manolis landed on the ground and they fell in each other’s arms, holding onto one another in heart-breaking desperation. She tried to speak but choked, violent sobs shaking her body.

  He held her tightly and stroked her hair, trying to soothe her. His face was expressionless, frozen. He had thought Eleni had been captured along with the others.

  Nikos watched them, tears soaking his bruised cheeks. A trickle of blood ran down his nose. He had told his uncle everything that had happened and Manolis had made up his mind.

  Eleni’s sobs slowly subsided into silent tears. “Please don’t go, my love,” she begged him.

  Manolis looked away, trying not to break down himself. He was trying to keep composed, to be strong. “At least you got away,” he said. “How did you manage to escape?”

  “Alexander saved me. He came to the house before the soldiers arrived and smuggled me away from the village. He told me to hide until it was over and promised to do everything he could to save your life if you turned yourself in with that radio. I don’t believe him, I don’t believe anyone. We’ve been betrayed, Manolis. The Germans know everything and they want you to surrender, otherwise they’ll kill everyone... everyone!”

  Manolis already knew everything except that the German officer had saved Eleni. He wondered why. From the little Eleni had told him about Alexander he had realized that the German liked her, but he hadn’t expected him to go to such lengths. Was it a ploy? Did he hope that Eleni would then come find him and lead the Germans to him? In any case, he would end up in the Nazis’ hands, he had no other choice. If he did not show up with the radio by noon he would be responsible for so many deaths. His torment was unspeakable. Five long years away from the woman he loved and now that they were finally together they would be parted once again. Forever. He led her to a large rock and sat her down.

  “Listen to me, Eleni. I have been longing for the moment when we could finally be together more than anything I’ve ever longed for. My love for you has kept me alive all these years. But my life is at its end. I don’t think they will let me live. And I don’t think I’ll be the only one to pay the price. You must swear to do as I tell you.”

  “I’ll come with you,” she interrupted. “I don’t care what happens to me. I’d rather die than live without you.”

  Gathering all his strength, he spoke, his voice tense. “We always believed in the twists of fate. Fate reunited us after such a long time. The German officer saved you today for a reason. So you could live. That is your fate. And I need you to swear that you’ll do that. You’ll live the life we dreamed of. You won’t waste a single day. You will marry, have children, grow old, and tell your children our story, like a fairytale. Look at all the beauty in the world around you. If you insist on coming with me, I won’t go and I’ll let the chips fall where they may.”

  This was the first time she’d heard him talk like this. She looked at him helplessly, unable to decide. Manolis left her no room for thought. “You’ll hide out with Nikos for a few days. The war is ending. The Germans will leave soon. Then you’ll both be free.”

  Eleni, in a last, desperate attempt to dissuade him fell at his feet. “But I cannot live without you!”

  He bent down and lifted her in his arms. He held her like this, sobbing into his chest, and placed her on her feet when she seemed calmer. He cupped her face in his hands and gingerly placed a kiss on her lips. “You can and you will, my love. If you truly love me, you will live. It’s time to go. You hide here. The Germans will not come to this place.”

  Eleni still resisted. She was ready to die with him if that was to be the fate of the man she loved. Realizing he was not going to back down, she played for time. “At least let me come with you until the mill,” she pleaded. “Please. And when we get there, we’ll see what we’ll do.”

  Seeing the tears in her eyes, Manolis swallowed hard, trying not to cry. He acquiesced with a nod, saying “Come with me to the mill, but promise that you’ll then leave and hide; that you’ll try with all your might to live a beautiful life. If you promise me that, then yes, you can come.”

  She dried her tears and looked up at him. The mild breeze blew her hair in her eyes and Manolis brushed them away tenderly.

  They started walking toward the mill. Eleni wrapped her arms around Manolis’ waist and fell into step beside him, clinging to him. Her tears were the only sound that could be heard in the silent fields. She kept thinking that this was the last time she would hold him in her arms. Nikos followed behind astride Karme, stifling his sobs.

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  Agathe drank a sip of water from the glass before her, prolonging our anxious wait. Anita sat forward, chin cupped in her palms, like a child listening to a fairytale. Agathe placed the glass on the table with a trembling hand and turned toward us. No one had uttered a word, all hanging from her lips. “What I am about to tell you is very painful, my child,” she said. “I will not leave anything out, I remember it all.

  “Your grandfather and Manolis were planning to attack the Germans that day, with a group of men from the village. They had a stash of weapons and they were planning an assault on the German headquarters and the barracks. There were fewer German soldiers on the island at that time. Many had left the previous week and the rumor was that everyone else would be leaving the following day. It didn’t matter; there were still enough of them left to unleash the hounds of hell. They packed up and left the following day. But God punished them for their sins. The English sank their ship and they all drowned, may their bones rot at the bottom of the sea for all eternity!

  “My father and my brother had also joined the Resistance, ready to fight. But they were betrayed before they had a chance by some of the locals… and that woman, who did not think anything of dishonoring her engagement to Manolis or causing so many deaths. And I’ll tell you something else you may not know. She was your mother’s godmother.”

  Another person in this story I had never heard of. Did my mother know any of this? I felt the burning need to ask more about her, but I did not want to interrupt Agathe, who seemed to have drifted off into another time, staring blankly at us.

  “At dawn, the Germans came. They rounded us up and took us to the square, then split us up, women and children to one side, men to the other. They had already arrested your grandfather and your uncle with the weapons. Thankfully, they let the child go afterward. We never understood why.

  “They knew Manolis had the radio and they threatened to kill everyone, even the women and children, if he did not surrender by noon and bring the radio with him. And that’s when it all started. They caught him outside the village, at his family’s mill. They set fire to the mill and burned it down. That woman I told you, she led him there and handed him over to the Germans. She betrayed everyone else. I saw her when it was all over, leaving in the arms of her German lover.

  “Manolis was brought to the square, nearly unconscious. He had been badly beaten. When he came round, they made him kneel and tied him up with
a rope in the center of the square. They ordered us all to group up, facing him. We knew they would execute him.

  A truck drove up, the truck bed filled with stones. They made us unload them onto the square, into a pile. We obeyed, having no idea what they wanted to do with them. Their commander went up to Manolis and smacked his face with his whip, shouting something in German. The soldiers surrounded us, training their guns on us. A traitor began to translate what the commander had been saying.” She paused again and turned to face the sea, tears spilling from her eyes, but her face remaining expressionless, lost in the tragic tale she was recounting.

  She seemed reluctant to continue, so I touched her hand and said gently, “What happened next, Mrs. Agathe? Please tell us.”

  She looked at me as if waking up from a bad dream, and taking a deep breath, spoke with great difficulty. “Few know what I’m about to tell you, my child. And when you hear it, you will understand why. It is our secret. But the time has come to tell it, because guilt is a vulture that will not stop pecking away at your heart. He ordered us to do something unheard of, inhuman. He ordered that all of us, men, women, children, pick up the stones and kill Manolis.”

  A sob shook the old woman’s shoulders and Thekla, who sat beside her, handed her a handkerchief to wipe her tears.

  The images from the newscast of the previous day flashed before my eyes, the stoning of that poor woman, and I felt nauseous. Disgust flooded through me, fighting the curiosity that was driving me to find out what happened next. For a moment I thought it might be better if Anita was spared all this, but I saw that she was as gripped as I was, so I said nothing. She squeezed my hand in sympathy.

  The old woman seemed to recover, and fixed her gaze on me. “When I look at you it’s like I’m looking into his eyes. He gave us the same disbelieving look when he heard what the commander had said. I remember he smiled at first, as if he thought it was a prank. We didn’t believe it either. But we soon realized that man was the devil himself and he was not joking.

  “When that German officer, the one who later left with Manolis’ fiancée, walked up to him and told him something, he pushed him away and started screaming that if we did not obey he would kill everyone. Even after that, we stood still, no one bending down to pick a stone and throw it.

  “The commander ordered that they bring your grandfather forward, next to Manolis. He took out his gun and without another word, bang! shot him in the head. We all started screaming, but the Germans were still aiming their guns at us and we did not dare move. Manolis was cursing at the Germans; Anna, your grandmother, still holding your mother in her arms, was wailing and tearing her hair out. Still, no one bent down to pick a stone.

  “The commander turned red, furious, and screamed that they would be next if we did not obey. Manolis then started shouting at us to pick up the stones and kill him, to save the lives of Anna and his niece. Still, no one moved, as if we thought that somehow the German would change his mind and spare us from this hell.

  “Seeing us stand there immobile, he grabbed your mother from Anna’s arms and set her down on the ground. Maria was screaming. I can still hear her cry for her mother. He shot Anna in the chest. Two people he killed, in front of us, and he never blinked once. That’s what they were like. They were animals, filming everything that was happening, as if it were a movie. That officer never stopped turning the handle until…” She paused to catch her breath, and then carried on. “Manolis was begging us to kill him. When the commander aimed his gun at Maria, we realized there was nothing else we could do. He was ready to shoot the child. He would have… We picked up the stones with trembling hands, sobbing. When he saw us move, he lowered his gun and waited.”

  She paused once more, dissolving into tears. I felt sorry she was reliving this, tormented by the dreadful memories and as much as I yearned to know the rest, I did not ask her to continue. Her daughter hugged her and gave me a look that said, “That’s enough.” She lifted her up with Thomas’s help and tried to lead her inside the house. But the old lady stopped, turned back toward me, and showed me her palms, sobbing. “With these hands, with these very hands… I’m so sorry, my son. Forgive us. There was nothing else we could have done.”

  The Island, April 1945

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  Time seemed to be standing still in the square, everyone frozen as if under a spell. On one side, the locals, stones in their hands; on the other, the Germans, guns raised. In the middle of the square, Manolis knelt down, bloodied and bruised, with a piece of cardboard hanging around his neck. On it, a single word had been crudely scribbled: TRAITOR. On the ground before him, Yiannis and Maria lay dead. Nearby, their daughter was crying out for her parents, unaware of the gun that the German commander was pointing at her.

  The Commander nodded to Alexander, who brought his camera and set the tripod up. He started filming the scene with shaky hands.

  “The Fuhrer will see what you barbarians are capable of,” the Commander hollered. His voice seemed to break the spell and time sprang forward once again.

  Manolis straightened his body as far as his bonds would allow and looked toward his fellow countrymen, as if he wanted to show them what to do. He saw the first hand rise and the stone fly toward him. It tore through the cardboard sign and hit him on the chest. A cry of pain escaped his lips. He looked at the crowd. Slowly, one by one, they all raised their hands, ready to cast their stones. A mortal shower rained upon him, but his screams made everyone stop. Lying on the ground covered in blood, his breath came short and raspy. Like a wounded animal, he refused to die, moaning and twisting in agony on the ground.

  The Commander had not had enough. He fired a round in the air and then pointed at Manolis, showing them they were not done. As if guided by a subtle internal voice, they all decided to put an end to Manolis’ torment. Frantically, men, women, and children flung as many stones as they could as fast as they could. Not to kill him, but to set him free.

  He now lay still on the ground, his shredded clothes barely covering the red mass of flesh. The women lamented and cursed as the German Commander walked up to Manolis and fired a single shot into the back of his neck. He then turned to Alexander and indicated that the young officer was to keep on filming. It was not over, yet.

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  At the small chapel behind the port, a pair of terrified eyes watched the unfolding scenes. Nikos, hidden behind some bushes, had seen the German kill both his parents in cold blood and his uncle die in a rain of stones flung by the very people he’d known his whole life.

  He had followed Manolis and Eleni when they’d set off for the mill, but when the Germans had sprung up before them he’d run away on Karme. He’d abandoned the horse in the fields and returned on foot. He had no idea what had happened to Eleni. He tried to spot her in the crowd herded at the port, but failed.

  His body trembled from the violent shock. The Germans were separating the men from the women once again and he knew what would happen next.

  Suddenly, he heard the cries of his sister. A German soldier had picked her up in his arms as she’d drifted off into the narrow, winding streets of the neighborhood behind the port. Nikos carefully got up and started to walk down in the direction of the soldier. The houses were built amphitheatrically, each level separated from the one below by low, stone walls. Nikos hid behind such a wall as the German walked toward him on the street below.

  Right beneath the spot where Nikos was hiding, he placed the toddler on the ground and tried to shrug his gun from his shoulder. The strap seemed to have caught on his uniform and he was struggling. He seemed annoyed, mumbling a string of oaths. Without wasting any time and afraid that the soldier would kill his sister, Nikos grabbed a large rock and flung it at the German with all his strength. It hit him on the head. Were it not for his helmet, the rock would have cracked it open.

  The soldier cried out and fell, concussed. Nikos jumped over the low wall and landed behind him, landing him a furious kick in the stomach
. He grabbed Maria and sprinted back toward the chapel. From there, he would make his way to the mountains.

  Feeling her brother’s arms around her, Maria stopped crying and smiled at him. Behind him, the soldier dizzily got to his feet and stumbled toward the port.

  A little later, gunfire and screams rang out from the square. Nikos turned to look, alarmed, knowing what must be happening. He saw the soldier he had hit stumble into the square and gesture frantically. The Germans started firing at the women and children, who dispersed in despair, trying to escape. One by one the men fell dead, the Commander dispatching the injured with a shot to the head.

  Another massacre was taking place before the boy’s eyes and Nikos stood frozen in shock. One of the Germans spotted him and pointed in his direction. They turned their weapons on him and fired.

  Bullets whistling around his head and hitting the rocks and the walls of the church, he raced up the path that led to the mountain, running as fast as he could, his sister in his arms. He could hear the voices of the soldiers giving chase, but managed to escape.

  Soon, he arrived at the shore on the other side of the mountain, a small cove with a makeshift pier that served the local fishermen. A boat was tied to one of the poles. Without even thinking about it, he placed Maria inside the boat and hastily untied the ropes. Pulling on the oars as hard as he could, he pushed away from the shore. His chest was about to burst from the exertion.

  Sometime later, the boat turned around the small peninsula and, heading east, disappeared from view.

  An hour earlier

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  Manolis and Eleni arrived at the mill, where their paths would separate. Forever. Nikos, astride Karme, discretely kept some distance, waiting for Eleni to say goodbye. It was getting late and they would have to hurry if Manolis was to appear with the radio before the time expired. He did not want anyone else to die.