KOSTAS KROMMYDAS
Dominion
of the Moon
*Ouranoessa
With the kind support of
REALIZE
Via Donizetti 3, 22060 Figino Serenza (Como), Italy
Phone: +39 0315481104
More beautiful, the rays where you pass without stepping
Unbeaten like the goddess of Samothrace
atop the sea’s hills
Like so I have seen you
And that will suffice
for all time to be exonerated
Odysseas Elytis, Monogram
The story you are about to read was inspired by real facts. However, all names, locations, and dates have deliberately been changed and any similarities are totally coincidental. The real heroes mentioned in the acknowledgments simply formed the inspiration for the writing of this book, and in no way is their real life depicted here.
Ouranoessa is dedicated to the archaeologists who have worked and still work in Greece, bringing to light all that has been hidden in the dark for centuries, sacrificing on occasion everything—even their own lives—to do so. It is especially dedicated to some who have inspired a great part of the story you are about to read:
Andreas Vavritsa, Elbeth B. Dusenbery, Karl Lehmann, and Phyllis Williams Lehmann, who worked for many years at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods in Samothrace.
And to Marina and Vaya, who fill my daily life with inspiration—and more.
*Ouranoessa
is another name for the island of Samothrace. The name refers to a woman filled with sky and is often likened to the famous statue of Victory of Samothrace, currently found in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.
Contents
* * *
Contents
1944, Macedonia, Northern Greece
Three years later, Thessaloniki
October 1948, Komotini
1948, Samothrace
Summer 1949, Samothrace
Present Day
Buenos Aires. Present Day
Acknowledgements
About the author
More Books
1944, Macedonia, Northern Greece
* * *
As the remaining German troops haphazardly withdrew, an eerie silence descended over the ruins. A dense cloud of yellow dust raised by the speeding tires settled over the hamlet, blurring the outlines of the damaged buildings. By the church, a small truck waited for the few remaining soldiers to depart. When the last of the motorcycles had disappeared down an alley, a German soldier climbed on its back. He grabbed the mounted machine gun and turned it to face the rear, worried about a possible attack even at this final moment.
The vehicle sped away until it was a small puff of dust in the distance. The air began to clear, unveiling the full scale of the devastation. Bullet-riddled walls bulged dangerously under the weight of unsupported plaster, and smashed windows gaped open. Here and there, the embers of a fire still glowed red. Plumes of grey smoke wafted up to the sky in the stillness of the wind, whispered prayers carrying messages of destruction. Muffled explosions and bursts of gunfire rang out in the distance.
The figure of a woman timidly raising her head over a low garden wall broke the deathly stillness. She wore a long white dress that clashed with the dark hair spilling down her back. It gave her an otherworldly appearance as she glided over the fallen stones from the collapsed buildings, as if defying the laws of gravity. She planted her feet firmly on the ground and, fixed to the spot, shielded her eyes as she scanned the alley. Tense, she tilted her body in the direction of the departing troops, her heart quaking with fear that the Germans would return at any moment.
Once certain they would not be coming back, she ran to the church. The bell tower was the only building in the hamlet to have escaped unscathed. For some reason, bullets and shells had refused to injure the stones and the wooden beams that covered its weatherworn surface. She hurriedly grabbed the rough rope of the church bell and pulled back with all her strength, trying to coax the metal tongue against the bronze walls of the bell.
Her arms were not strong enough. The bell made a soft, hollow sound. With steely determination, she turned her back to the tower, brought the rope over her shoulder like a yoked horse, and pulled with all the strength left in her famished body. This time her efforts bore fruit and the first metallic peel rang out, as if the bell were clumsily trying to remember the long-forgotten tune of good news.
The heavy bell pulled her up in the air. Without resisting, she let the swaying rope guide her, the bell ringing louder with each swing. Her feet sprang up, and then touched the ground, back up, back down, up, down, her body dancing to the happiest tune to have sounded over the land in the three years since the war started. As if suddenly borne of the ruins and lifeless stones, villagers timorously crept out and approached the square where the woman swung in a frenzied dance.
Fear still etched on their faces, they looked toward the alley and all around them, checking that the Germans were gone. Some held small children in their arms; frightened, their young eyes followed the glances of their elders. It was the height of autumn, but their exposed limbs were milky white, as if they spent their days hiding from the sun.
The first whispers broke out, faint-hearted at first but slowly gathering strength, growing louder, turning into fragmented, confused sentences and laughter. The words became questions.
“Is the war over?” some asked.
“Are they gone?” shouted others.
Laughter mingled with tears of joy, and only then did the exhausted woman let go of the rope and run to them, ecstatically announcing the end of the war and the departure of the occupiers.
Skinny as scarecrows, they summoned up all the strength buried deep inside them and broke into a dance with no rhythm and no music, skipping to the sound of their own improvised singing. They rejoiced in the village square, flinging their clothes and belongings in the air as if exorcising the heavy burden that had been crushing their souls.
The breathless cries of a man running down the hill startled them. “Soldiers! Soldiers are heading our way!”
A chill descended over the square at the sound of his words, and icy fear gripped their hearts once again.
The ensuing silence was broken by bursts of gunfire near the road winding down the hill to the village square. The sound of spinning tires struggling to climb over the hilltop sent most of the villagers scurrying amongst the ruins and the crumbling houses. Only ten men, and the woman in white, stayed behind; she ignored their entreaties to go hide and stood stubbornly beside them, waiting for the unwelcome visitors.
Seconds later, a truck appeared at the top of the hill, its bed filled with men, their guns hanging like oars over the side. A hundred more walked behind the truck, taking cover against a potential attack behind the moving mass of steel. Their features became clearer as they neared. Most had not shaved in days, and beards obscured their faces. They wore army camouflage with bullet belts across their chests, and it was hard to tell whether they were the remnants of the defeated regular army or guerilla fighters, continuing the fight.
The first man to reach them appeared to be their leader. He stopped a couple of yards away and let his eyes wander over them, sizing them up. He then moved toward the woman, his hard features barely containing his rage. “How long since they left?” he asked, spitting insolently close to the frightened villagers’ feet.
For a few seconds nobody replied. The memories of the last time they had provided this kind of information were still raw. They had paid a dear price for that act, the Nazis executing ten men and setting most of the village on fire.
The brave woman spoke up, and her voice rang clear among the silent men surroun
ding her. “They left about an hour ago.”
The leader gave her a look of suspicion, slinging his gun from his shoulder. With soft, familiar movements, his fingers armed the rifle and the bullet slotted into the chamber. He raised it slowly and aimed it at the face of one of the villagers, who began shaking with fear. With menacing slowness, he moved toward the man and whispered in his ear, “How long ago?”
“Fifteen minutes at most,” the villager replied, quaking under the guerilla’s cold gaze.
The guerilla leader removed his side cap. His hair was drenched in sweat and coated with dust; his eyes were those of a snake ready to strike. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, deep in thought, while everyone around him held their breath. A large sword and a revolver in a leather case hung from his waist. The weight of the guns and the ammunition did not seem to bother him in the least.
“An hour ago, eh?” he screamed, the stench of his breath hot against the woman’s face.
She did not even flinch, refusing to be intimidated by his strutting ferociousness. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said calmly. “Whatever you’re planning to do, do it quickly. Then you can catch up with them.”
Stunned by her manner, he faltered for a moment. Then he threw his head back and laughed, mostly to disguise his unease before the woman’s courage. Still cackling, he turned back to his men and shouted sarcastically, “Where is the rookie?”
As if they had turned to stone, no one moved. His scream tore through the air. “Where is the rookie, I said!”
Only then did one of the men, one of the few not to sport a long beard, timidly step up. With a look of rage, the leader gestured that he should approach. Having no choice, the young man went and stood beside him.
A couple of steps were all it took for me to reach him. My hands shook as I tried to hold onto my rifle. I sensed that the leader’s intentions could not be anything other than evil. Barely two days had passed since I had been forced to join them. Ever since, all I could think about was how to escape. Wearing the clothes they had given me, unshaven, I looked like a typical guerilla. I could always feel someone’s eyes on me, watching me. Having witnessed the savagery with which they treated both Nazis and Greeks, I was afraid to make a move.
In the two days I had spent in their company, I had witnessed unimaginable horrors, which instilled in me the unshakeable belief that the wildest, most bloodthirsty beasts on this planet were humans. The occupiers were finally running away, and instead of us coming together, a vicious circle of hatred and inexplicable vengeance was forming, a race to see who would grab power first after the end of the war.
I had waited as patiently as I could for the madness of the war to be over. Now, all signs pointed to the fighting continuing after the departure of the occupiers. Instead of peace, the hardest of all wars would begin: a Civil war. It would pit those who had spent the last few years fighting for a common cause—to free their country—against each other. This village had already suffered enough.
On the way here, someone had been saying the guerrillas would burn the village down as reprisal for collaborating with the Germans. However, there was nothing left to burn. Destruction lay everywhere. Over the years, I had become familiar with this smell. It clung to my skin like an invisible hand gripping my throat, suffocating me. I knew it well. It was the smell of death. Like fog, it had settled over the country and taken lives without paying heed to age, gender, or nationality.
One quick glance at the ragged band of villagers standing before me had been enough to make me wonder how any of them could be seen as friends of the Germans. Skeletal and filthy, they all stood stooped, their bodies ravaged by hardship … except for the woman standing at the edge of the group of men in her white dress.
I could not take my eyes off her as I walked toward them, trying to decide whether she was of this world. She glowed with defiant bravery, in sharp contrast to the wide-eyed terror of the men around her. Her sunken cheeks highlighted her black eyes, and her pale face belonged on one of the ancient amphorae that had been discovered on my home island just before the war.
I froze when I felt the barrel of the leader’s gun against my chest. For a moment that felt like an eternity, I waited for him to pull the trigger; I had no idea what he was planning to do. He held out his own, new rifle and barked, “Take her behind the church and send her to meet her traitor comrades.”
He paused, and I thought I had misheard. A sinister bellow confirmed his nightmarish orders. “Take my gun; your piece of junk won’t do the job properly. Here you are. This is your chance to show us whether or not you are a true patriot. Kill the traitor.”
I cannot even recall how his rifle ended up in my hands. I stared at him, trying to find the right words to refuse. He sensed my reluctance and spoke before I had a chance to say anything. “Execute her, or I execute her, everyone else—you included. What would you rather? Choose!”
I thought I would collapse under the strain. I could not believe he had picked me to carry out his sick orders. Against all reason, I hoped he would burst out laughing and tell me it was all some macabre prank. His sadistic voice crushed my hopes. “If you don’t make up your mind now, I’ll just go ahead and execute you all anyway. Hurry up! Don’t you want to go home and dig up all that ancient stuff? Τhe sooner you do this, the sooner that will happen.”
All eyes were on me except hers. Shoulders defiantly thrown back, she stared ahead, indifferent as to what my choice would be. It was impossible to decide. I could never raise a gun and shoot another human being, let alone a woman whose only crime had been a lie about when the Germans had left. On the other hand, if I disobeyed, he would kill us all. I had no doubt he would carry out his threats; the past two days had shown me he was capable of anything.
I summoned up all my strength but could not take a single step. As if they had a mind of their own, my feet refused to budge. The leader took a few steps back and the others, used to reading his signals, raised their guns against us. I felt the woman dash like the wind and stand beside me. As I turned to look at her, she clumsily struck my face. Without losing any time, she grabbed my shirt, signaling that I should obey and follow her behind the church to carry out his orders. Caught in a trance, the guerillas’ laughter ringing in my ears like a nightmare, I blindly followed her.
Once outside their hearing range, she whispered, “Do as he said so the others can live. If you don’t, he’ll kill us all.”
High up on her shoulder, a small spot of blood had tinted her dress red, as if something had scratched her delicate skin. I heard the guerilla leader order one of his men to follow us. If I disobeyed, he was to kill us both. I stumbled through the ruins. I walked as slowly as I could, hoping that something would happen to stop our march toward death. I would not be raising my gun against her. She pulled me by the hand and I struggled to think of a way out, but the clock was ticking against us. I could not come up with a plan that would save us, that would save her.
She did not look a day over twenty. What was she doing in this place, all alone? None of the men had tried to protect her. They had all kept quiet, heads bowed, trying to make themselves invisible.
Passing by the bell tower, I saw the bloodied bell rope and turned to look at her shoulder again. I now noticed the line the rope had left on the cloth and her skin. When we arrived behind the crumbling walls of the church, she turned to me and our eyes met, hers moist but not afraid. On a fallen piece of plaster behind us, remnants of an icon of the Virgin Mary bore witness to the sin about to be committed. I looked around, weighing up what I was about to do. The guerilla following us was still some distance away. I hurriedly whispered in her ear, “Stand in front of me so he can’t see you, and I’ll pretend to shoot you. Fall in the gap between the ruins over there and I’ll keep firing beside you. Lie low until I walk away, and then run. Run, and hide wherever you can. Save yourself!”
I could tell she sensed my determination, but I did not detect the slightest fear in her eyes. On the
contrary, she obeyed as if she were doing it for my sake. She lowered her eyes for a second, then cast me a look of gratitude. This was the only chance we would get; I could hear the guerilla’s footsteps getting closer. Any minute now, he would be too close and see through our ruse.
I pulled her by the hair and pushed her to the spot that would give us the best chance to execute our escape plan. She did not turn to look at me once. She stood on the edge and I quickly raised my rifle. I aimed it toward her but not at her. I was unfamiliar with guns, so I pulled the trigger as carefully as I could. The blast and the force of the kickback knocked me back, and a cloud of smoke obscured her for a moment. She jerked, pretending to be injured. She then fell clumsily between two large rocks and rolled downhill, until she was out of sight.
My heart thumped as if it were trying to escape my chest and the agony that had descended upon me. Before the guerilla could reach me, I moved to where she had been standing and looked down. I froze. She had tumbled down a steep and rocky slope. I could not see what lay behind the ledge when I had picked the spot. Now, I stood aghast, staring at the sharp rocks that rose like deadly fingers waiting to shred whatever fell their way.
A sharp pang pierced my heart when I spotted the decomposing corpses that lay among the rocks, flung down the cliff and abandoned. Seized with terror, I looked for her body, but could not spot the white dress. All that remained were the wisps of settling dust where she had rolled downhill just moments before.
The guerilla came and stood beside me. He cast an indifferent glance at the rotting corpses. Having made sure I had carried out my orders, he smirked. “Well done. I didn’t think you had the guts. I was getting ready to shoot you both, but now I see you’ve got it in you. Come on, let’s go. Everyone is waiting for us.”
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