‘Panos, keep your voice down.’
‘But, Themis, you know their aim. To crush us! To stop us having any power. And after all we’ve done to kick out the Germans . . .’
Themis well understood the situation. She put her hands on her brother’s shaking shoulders and told him to be calm.
‘There is nothing we can do at this moment,’ she said.
The moon had come up and Themis noticed the glint of tears in her brother’s eyes. She handed him her handkerchief.
Margarita went with her friend Marina to see the several thousand-strong government brigades march through the streets of the city.
‘They were so handsome,’ she whispered to her grandmother later. ‘At least there is someone to keep us safe, in case the communists attack.’
‘Agápi mou, don’t speak like that. They won’t attack us.’
‘Don’t be so sure, Yiayiá. Didn’t you hear how they killed anyone who didn’t support them? They’re cruel, the communists. Worse than the Germans.’
‘Keep your voice down, Margarita. Don’t let Panos or Themis hear you say these things.’
‘But it’s true, Yiayiá. And I’m glad there are soldiers in Athens, whatever anyone says.’
Panos spent most of his days sitting at home. His sole outing each day was a short walk to buy the only newspaper he trusted, Rizospastis. He read it cover to cover and then left it on the kitchen table to provoke his brother. It never failed to infuriate Thanasis, who made a great show of putting it in the bin as soon as he returned home.
‘Your problem is that you just sit around all day reading, thinking you know everything, when you know nothing,’ he said scornfully. ‘You should try and get out there a bit more.’
Panos was eager to do just this and, towards the end of October, as the hours of daylight decreased, his energy increased and from time to time he ventured out into the square. He looked at people and wondered. Even over the past months, he had never really known who were his friends. There was not always a uniform to make it clear.
Themis had time on her hands now that the soup kitchen had closed and went with Panos for slightly longer walks. One morning, not far from the centre, they both came to an abrupt halt. As they turned a corner they saw, just up ahead, a group of soldiers. They were not Greek.
‘British,’ said Panos under his breath. The khaki uniform was unmistakable.
‘Everyone said they were coming,’ said Themis.
As she said this, a convoy of trucks went by, in each of which were similarly uniformed men. They counted.
‘Thirteen,’ said Panos. ‘Fifty in each.’
‘Six hundred and fifty,’ said Themis.
‘Well done, little sister,’ teased Panos.
‘And I suppose that’s not all,’ she replied. ‘There are rumours that Churchill is sending thousands.’
They kept walking and soon came level with the soldiers on the pavement.
One of them looked up and smiled at Themis and she immediately felt her brother bristle.
‘Do you have a light?’ asked an English voice.
Panos did not understand the words, but the gesture was clear enough. He got his treasured lighter from his pocket and the whole group leaned in to share the flame. The oldest of the men then produced a packet of cigarettes, an American brand, and offered one to Panos, who took it gratefully and with a smile.
He took the first puff while he was standing there with him. He had never tasted such sweet tobacco.
‘Efcharistó,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
‘Ef-harry . . . stow,’ one or two of them said, attempting their first Greek. ‘Ef-harry . . . stow! Ef-harry-stow!’
Panos took his sister’s arm and steered her round the laughing men. They took a long route home so that they would not pass them again.
‘They seemed friendly enough,’ Themis said.
‘Don’t be deceived,’ said Panos. ‘They’re here because Churchill hates communists. And that’s what they’ve come for. To help this government get rid of us.’
‘How do you know that?’ objected Themis.
‘It’s obvious, Themis. Churchill detests fascists but some say he loathes communists even more.’
With such a large military presence, normality had in no sense returned to the city, but over the next days Themis began to notice a few ‘Position Vacant’ signs in shop windows. She needed something to do so she began to stop and read them.
One day, on a stroll with Panos, she saw an advertisement in the window of a city-centre pharmacy and went inside to enquire. She had very sound knowledge of science and mathematics, and the owner, Kýrios Dimitriadis, could see that she was willing to work hard. In the first week of November she began.
From the moment she entered each morning, Themis walked into another world. The flawless symmetry of the rows of glass flasks, the neatly stacked boxes, the pattern of black and white floor tiles gave her a sense of calm. The pharmacy was spotless and the service meticulous.
One of her jobs was to keep the glass fronts of the big wooden cabinets free of fingerprints and to polish the dark mahogany frames. It was also her responsibility to take down the larger porcelain jars and refill them.
‘They’re almost as big as you,’ smiled the pharmacist’s son, who always seemed to be present when she had to climb the old wooden ladder to reach the higher shelves, sometimes holding her ankles ‘to steady her’, as he described it.
Themis felt very uncomfortable. His motive became even clearer when he trapped her in the shadowy storeroom and barred her exit, until she kissed him. She was angry and repulsed, not merely by the sweaty body pressed up against her, but by the abuse of power. He well knew how much she needed this job.
As essential drugs became more available over the following weeks and Themis learnt how to mix remedies for common illnesses, she also became expert at dealing with the Dimitriadis boy’s unwanted attentions. Eventually he gave up his clumsy attempts at seduction and ignored her completely instead.
In exchange for her diligent work, the kindly father helped her to make ointments to calm Panos’ scars and a mixture for her grandmother’s persistent cough. Themis was almost sorry when the hour came each day to hang up her white coat behind the laboratory door. In the pharmacy everything was in its place, unlike in her home, where there was little harmony.
Thanasis was also working hard: his days at the station were long, his duties arduous and he and his colleagues were on constant alert. Towards the end of November, there was a rally attended by thousands to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party and he was assigned to attend. It sickened him to stand and listen to the speeches. If they were going to disband ELAS, insisted the speakers, then they should also demobilise the government army units.
Thanasis brought his fury home.
‘We can’t have these bloody communists making demands and wanting to take power. So the Prime Minister has to take control,’ he said, banging the table.
‘Thanasis!’ said Kyría Koralis, wincing at the violence of his outburst. She was depressed. It was only weeks since the enemy troops had gone and already another conflict seemed to be brewing.
‘Maybe it’s not that simple,’ said Themis. ‘Not everyone agrees with his plans.’
Margarita sighed. ‘Why don’t you ever just accept things as they are, Themis?’
‘Because, Margarita, some of us don’t like it when things are unfair,’ she said quietly. ‘We put up a fight.’
Margarita pouted.
‘I didn’t notice you protesting,’ she retorted.
‘You were too busy making friends with Nazis to notice anything,’ said Themis.
Margarita lunged at her sister and slapped her hard across the face.
‘You little bitch! Take that back. Now.’
Themis was reeling from the blow, holding the side of her face.
Thanasis held Margarita’s arms to restrain her.
‘Thanasis, let
me go! Let me go! How dare she?’
It was not the accusation that she objected to, but the fact that Themis seemed to be making light of her love affair.
‘Calm down, Margarita. Please.’
‘She’s a little bitch. She doesn’t understand. She’ll never find love. Nobody will ever want to marry her.’
The hatred that poured out of Margarita shocked them all. Even Kyría Koralis. Thanasis led his sister to her bedroom and the murmurs of their voices could be heard for some time. Themis remained in the kitchen and held a cold cloth to her swelling face.
Not long after this, the Prime Minister, Georgios Papandreou, issued a deadline for the communist resistance forces to report for demobilisation. Twenty thousand of them outside Athens went on alert and refused to give up their weapons. The six ministers in the government who supported ELAS resigned in protest at Papandreou’s order and called for a demonstration.
Thanasis’ hours were increased in preparation. A protest was expected.
On 3 December, he did not return home at the expected time. A meal waited for him on the table. The others had started. Margarita sat there absent-mindedly stirring her soup round and round without lifting the spoon to her mouth.
‘He’ll be back soon,’ she said. ‘You told him you were making kléftiko and I’m sure he won’t miss his favourite dish.’
Panos was almost silent. He was annoyed with himself for not having the energy to go down to the centre, but the weather had turned cold and his fever seemed to come and go. He still needed a stick to walk any distance. If there was any kind of demonstration, he wanted to be there, especially now he suspected that Thanasis was there witnessing it. A copy of Rizospastis lay on the kitchen table and its headline, summoning supporters on the left to join the planned demonstration, seemed to reproach him.
Although her conscience had urged her to show solidarity, Themis had chosen to spend the day at home with Panos. She knew how much he would hate not to be part of the action, and used the excuse that it was a Sunday.
‘I’ve worked so hard this week,’ she said. ‘I just want to rest.’
Not long after they had begun to eat, they heard a great commotion in the street. Themis leapt up.
Panos pulled himself out of his chair too.
Themis ran to open the balcony doors. A group of people were talking excitedly in the square below. Then they all heard a familiar sound.
‘Gunfire . . .’ said Panos, quietly. ‘It’s a long way off. But I’m sure that’s what it is.’
‘Well, we don’t know who is shooting who,’ said Kyría Koralis. ‘So we mustn’t jump to any conclusions.’
As they stood looking over the balcony, a neighbour ran into the square. He spotted them looking over the railings.
‘There’s been a killing,’ he shouted. ‘In Syntagma. They’ve fired on the protesters! The police just shot at them. It’s mayhem down there!’
The neighbour was a known leftist, but he looked keen to get home and away from the trouble.
The four of them on the balcony looked at each other, with expressions of fear, horror and confusion. Themis ran inside to turn on the radio, but music was playing as normal and it was not broadcasting any reports.
‘I don’t want any of you going down there, do you understand? You are all to stay at home.’
Their grandmother’s uncharacteristic sternness left no room for argument. It seemed that the best course of action now was to wait for Thanasis. He would know everything.
Around ten that night, as pale as a ghost and almost as soundless, Thanasis came through the door. He drew out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down.
As the others gathered all around him, Kyría Koralis served up a plate of kléftiko and put it down in front of him. Thanasis pushed it away.
He put his head in his hands for a moment, before looking up.
‘Do you know what happened?’ he asked his grandmother.
‘We heard a few things. But you were there,’ said Kyría Koralis. ‘So tell us.’
Thanasis began hesitantly, reliving events he wished to forget. His words came breathlessly, sometimes incomprehensibly.
‘We had shut off the streets to Syntagma. That was early on. But some of them got through . . . And gradually more and more . . . There were tens of thousands of them. Children and women . . . not just men. And we were supposed to keep them away. They were converging on the police station!’
‘But what were they doing?’
‘Shouting at us! Waving banners . . .’ he said, looking down at his hands, which rested on the table, ‘. . . and screaming at us, as though we were the enemy. Then they started attacking us, thrashing at us with their banners, and lashing out with their fists. And more and more of them joined in. It was terrifying. So we fired a few blanks to dispel them.’
‘You were terrified of women?’ asked Themis with disbelief. ‘And children?’
Thanasis continued as though he had not heard her.
‘They had broken through the cordons and were pouring into the square—’
‘But how did people get killed? Because that’s what they’re saying . . .’ pressed Themis.
‘Someone – I don’t know who – someone replaced their blanks with live ammunition.’
‘Theé mou!’ exclaimed Kyría Koralis, repeatedly making the sign of the cross over her breast.
‘People began to fall. Ten? Twenty? No one knows.’
‘But it can’t have been one person firing at them,’ said Panos. ‘It must have been several of you.’
‘Not me, Panos, maybe several of them, but not me. Not me!’
Thanasis’ words were defensive. He seemed determined to separate himself from these deaths. For the first time he looked up from his own hands, and into his brother’s face.
‘I did not kill anyone.’
Several moments passed before anyone spoke.
‘So was that the end of it?’ Themis asked.
‘No. A massive crowd surged into the square, more and more of them, and round the police station. We locked ourselves in. It was chaos. I could see from the top window . . . One of the officers was trapped outside and he was kicked to death. There was nothing we could do. They started trying to get in, screaming and shouting and throwing things at the windows.’
By now Thanasis was crying like a child in his grandmother’s arms, his whole body shaking with shock. Kyría Koralis was stroking his hair, rocking him and muttering words of comfort.
Panos turned away, disgusted by his brother’s complicity in these events. In Panos’ view, Thanasis had always supported violence against honest people, but it appeared that he had never had to confront the reality. He looked at his brother with disdain.
What kind of coward was he, weeping as if the events had nothing to do with him? Had he not stood and let them happen?
They listened to the radio that night and heard Papandreou laying the blame squarely at the feet of ELAS, stating that they were leading the country to civil war, accusing them of ‘stabbing their country in the heart’. Panos quietly withdrew to his room.
The others stayed up, trying to make sense of it. Even the official reports were confused. Nobody seemed to know what had happened, who had fired the shots, who was culpable, how many had died. Some reports said two dozen. Some only half a dozen. It was the same for the numbers of wounded. Nobody was sure.
Eventually everyone retired. There was nothing more to be said that night.
The magnitude of these events meant that the police were on high alert and Thanasis had been told to report for duty early the following morning. His eyelids were heavy, but each time he allowed them to close, he saw a crowd closing in on him. Even on this cold night, his sheets were ice-cold with sweat. He slept for no longer than an hour or two.
He rose before dawn, his fingers trembling as he buttoned his heavy grey jacket. Thanasis had always been so proud of this uniform but today was aware that it made him a target. With great trepida
tion he emerged into the dark of the day and set off in the direction of the city centre.
At five in the morning, the streets were silent save for the sound of his own metal-capped heels. At one point he heard a long, low, eerie howling and quickened his pace. He did not want to face some stranger’s grief. When a black shape darted out in front of him, he realised his mistake. It was a cat on heat.
Halfway through his journey, a small delivery van slowed down as it passed. The driver had lowered his window and Thanasis felt the man’s eyes on him. He turned his head to encounter a look of hate and accusation.
‘Murderer!’ shouted the driver, spitting out of the window before driving off.
Although the mood at the police station was sombre, he was relieved to arrive at his destination.
Thanasis was immediately dispatched to man a post on the other side of Syntagma. It was only a fifteen-minute walk but his legs shook with anxiety as he set off. He had never felt more vulnerable but kept his head high and his eyes straight ahead. Fear must never show on a policeman’s face, he told himself.
Around mid-morning, in spite of their grandmother’s protests, both Panos and Themis got ready to leave the apartment.
‘You aren’t well enough,’ Kyría Koralis pleaded to Panos.
‘I want to pay my respects to the dead,’ he answered.
‘It matters, Yiayiá . . .’ Themis tried to explain.
‘But you don’t know the deceased,’ insisted the old lady. ‘You don’t even know their names.’
Panos and Themis exchanged a glance. Any ELAS comrade, dead or alive, was their friend.
Linking arms, they set off down Patission Avenue towards Omonia Square. Their pace was slow, with Panos leaning heavily on his stick, and by the time they reached the city centre, they found themselves at the tail end of a long procession.
They could not see much, but reports of what was happening at the front circulated among the crowd. Apparently there were twenty-four coffins in the cortège.
‘The police are telling people they’re full of stones,’ said a woman. ‘But they’re not.’
‘Each one of them has a body,’ said another. ‘The body of an innocent.’
Those Who Are Loved Page 14