‘Will you tidy it up a bit around my ears?’ she asked Katerina, trying to hold back her tears.
Silently, Katerina did as she was asked and then stood back.
‘It suits you,’ she said, smiling. ‘You look a bit like a boy, though.’
Themis was not the only one to have cast aside her femininity. All of those who had chopped off their hair looked more masculine now, more like soldiers.
‘My hat fits much better,’ said Themis, planting her cap firmly back on her head. ‘It won’t fall off now.’
There was no mirror so she could not see herself. Vanity was not encouraged in this camp and she noticed that night that the dress under her bed was gone.
At five thirty the following morning, they were woken by a siren. Themis leapt out of bed. It was still dark.
Two hundred women dressed mechanically. It had been bitterly cold the night before so Themis had not taken off her uniform. January in Yugoslavia was the coldest month. Even the biting winter when Fotini died had been nothing like this.
Everyone filed outside, and Themis, Despina, Katerina and Maria followed the group of other new recruits. There were fifty or so, slightly more men than women, and they immediately formed two lines and marched in step for five kilometres until the ‘town’ was no longer in sight.
Themis was glad of the solidity of her boots, but by the time they reached the training ground, the unforgiving leather had left her with blisters on both heels. The recruits were instructed to queue outside a hut and she felt a mixture of fear and excitement when she glimpsed the neat stacks of rifles inside.
Once given hers, she followed the example of those in front and passed it across her shoulder. She was surprised by its weight and could not imagine lifting it to her shoulder and being steady enough to aim. The dark grey metal was so very cold and the mechanism looked complicated. Themis suddenly felt out of her depth.
In the next hut, she was handed an ammunition belt. There were fifty bullets in all and she clipped it proudly round her middle. What would Margarita make of how she looked? Themis imagined her horror and scorn.
All that day they were trained in how to clean, load and fire their weapons, but Themis was not a natural. When she pulled the trigger, the rifle butt ricocheted against her and bruised her bony shoulder.
She concentrated hard, but was not unaware that one of the soldiers training them seemed to spend more time helping her than the others.
‘Like this,’ he said, showing her with his own rifle, and then seizing her weapon from behind and holding it up to her shoulder in the correct position.
‘You will never succeed unless you do it properly, and do so right from the start.’
His manner was firm but patient and Themis found herself wanting to please him.
All that day and the following ones, he was always somewhere close by. There were hundreds of other soldiers but he was the only one she would recognise in a crowd, as if all other faces were out of focus except for his. The most striking thing about him were his profuse dark curls (he had more hair than Themis). His eyes were dark and his face chiselled, and when he bent in towards her to demonstrate something there was a sweetness about the way he smelled. They did not exchange either first or family names. It was neither relevant nor permitted.
She said nothing to her friends. Maria had her own concerns to deal with. She could scarcely lift her gun and punctuated the day with bouts of crying that she was obliged to hide from the soldiers who were teaching them.
When the four women lay in their beds that night, her quiet sobs were audible above the gentle snoring around them. Themis could not sleep. She felt protective towards the younger girl, who had clearly not expected these harsh conditions.
‘I am sure it all gets easier,’ she said comfortingly. ‘Most things are difficult at the start.’
‘But I wanted to be a nurse,’ Maria whimpered.
‘I think we have to train with a gun first. Then you must ask them. I am sure they need nurses too.’
‘Or I could help look after the children here,’ continued Maria.
Themis fell asleep to the sounds of Maria’s snivels. The day had been exhausting and it would not be long until they had to get up again. Her night was filled with dreams. Margarita, dressed glamorously, had returned from Berlin and was in the Patissia apartment. Thanasis and Kyría Koralis and her sister were all sitting at the table, at the centre of which there was a revolver. Evidently they were waiting for someone. Margarita was radiant, her hair lustrous. She was back to her old self, in a mustard-yellow dress that showed off her cleavage and at her neck was a diamond and pearl choker. Her hand rested on the gun. It was she, Themis, whom they were expecting.
Unlike the previous night when she had shivered with cold, Themis woke bathed in sweat. The dream had been so real, somehow so close to possibility.
She tried to find a comfortable position. How could one family have been split in this way? Fragmented, torn. Where was her mother now? Her father? Without doubt, he had forgotten them all. Panos? His whereabouts were unknown, but she hoped that he might be somewhere close to her in the north of Greece. Margarita, who had gone to Berlin, was a stranger now.
As she tried to settle back to sleep, she heard a girl’s voice.
‘You had a bad dream?’
The words gave Themis a start.
‘Yes. I did. I’m so sorry if I woke you,’ she replied.
It was the girl in the bed to her right. Until now she had avoided eye contact with Themis, and her pale expressionless face never changed. They were in the same training group and Themis was puzzled by her very evident unhappiness. Most of the women there were excited to be acquiring new skills hitherto thought to be the preserve of men. Some of the boys, many of them not much more than sixteen years old, struggled just as much as the women to master the weaponry but everyone took what they were doing seriously, and most smiled from time to time.
Tonight it seemed that she wanted to talk.
‘I try not to go to sleep at all,’ she said. ‘Because if I do, I have nightmares like you.’
Themis could tell from her nasal tone that the girl had been crying.
‘You should try and think of something nice before you go to sleep,’ she advised her.
‘But there is nothing nice.’
‘There must be something . . .’ said Themis brightly.
‘There isn’t,’ the girl replied. ‘There was nothing left.’
She was muttering almost incoherently now and Themis had to lean towards her so that she could hear.
‘They came to our village in the mountains. They hanged my father. I saw it. In front of my eyes they hanged him.’
A few moments passed before she continued, ‘I tried to find my mother. I was with the other kids from our village and we were told to wait in the square. Then they set fire to all the houses and made us walk away from the village. I thought it was to keep us safe from the flames. But we didn’t stop walking. We walked for days. I wasn’t wearing my coat when they came and they wouldn’t let me go back for it. And then I started bleeding. I didn’t know what it was . . .’
The girl was sobbing. Now Themis understood why this girl looked so haunted. She could not think what to say, but she instinctively rested her hand on the girl’s head to comfort her and stroked her hair.
They both lay awake until daybreak, exchanging names and then their stories to pass the hours. As they dressed, Frosso asked Themis a question. There were no tears in her eyes now.
‘Do you understand now, Themis? I was forced to come here. And they expect me to fight next to the people who murdered my family!’
Her voice became steadily louder as she spoke and once again she was close to tears.
Now that she knew her story, Themis appreciated why this skeletal girl looked so sullen. It also explained the blank expressions of some other faces in this camp. Themis was here because she wanted to fight for a cause, but there were many for whom it had n
ot been a choice.
‘I am a prisoner here,’ Frosso whispered in her ear. ‘And one day I will turn my gun on these people.’
Only Themis heard her, but the words chilled the air around them.
A siren was going off and most of the women had already filed out into the chilly air. Themis’ neighbour fixed her eyes straight ahead. Her face was expressionless, as usual, but now Themis knew what lay behind it: grief for her losses and fury against the perpetrators.
Before going out through the door, they reached up to take a rifle from the row of hooks.
That day, they were training on different equipment and Themis found herself watching Frosso. She noticed her fierce concentration. Nothing would betray what thoughts lay behind her expression but Themis did not doubt that at some moment in the future she would take revenge.
They were out on the hillside for several days and then for one day practised manoeuvres in the forest. Women were treated exactly as men and no concessions were made for any differential in their strength. In the second week they were put into groups and taught how to use a field gun. The soldier with the curls was there again, in charge of Themis’ small group. She scolded herself for doing her best only in order to impress him, embarrassed at the impurity of her motivation. He did not seem to treat her any differently from the others, but she looked up once or twice and found him staring at her.
Over the next few weeks she caught herself looking out for him again. On some days she did not see him at all. On others she would catch sight of him in the distance, perhaps queuing for food or marching at the head of a column of new recruits being taken for training. She told herself to stop thinking about this stranger because there was no purpose in it, but she could not keep him out of her dreams.
In the final week of training, the recruits were shown how to lay a mine. Themis’ hands shook with fear. If she did not kill someone, she might be killed herself. When her courage failed her, she thought of Fotini and how uncomplaining and brave her friend had been about the hardships she had endured. It helped Themis to overcome her anxiety.
Finally, Themis and her group were taught the hit-and-run tactics that the communist army were using against the government army. This strategy was allowing them to stage attacks on villages with great success and to keep ahead of an army whose main problem was a lack of mobility.
Soon they had grasped the basic principles of guerrilla warfare and before long they would have to use their skills not just in practice manoeuvres but against their enemy.
On their last night, the hundreds of recruits who had trained together in the past weeks were gathered in the camp’s theatre. They were addressed by a visiting general who exhorted them to go forward with courage and optimism. They would be fighting for the noblest cause, for freedom, for justice, for equality. They should hold nothing back! Their country depended on them! The shadow of fascism should be banished for ever! The speech was rousing and Themis, appointed to be a flag bearer, waved it with enthusiasm, entirely caught up in the euphoria that had infected the crowd.
When she looked around, she caught the eye of the soldier who had trained her. He was smiling at her but she did her best to pretend she had not noticed and turned away. As she did so, her attention was drawn to someone else. Across the sea of heads, she saw that a lone figure had climbed on to a chair. It took Themis only a second to recognise the distinctively gaunt figure of Frosso.
Before anyone had time to pull her down, she screamed out at the general who was making the speech. ‘Bastard! Murderer!’ Then there was the glint of a handgun as she lifted it to fire in his direction.
There was an immediate commotion when those that were closest wrestled her to the ground. Then came the crack of gunshots and it was unclear from where they came.
Proceedings came to a temporary halt and Themis tried to see what had happened to Frosso. Everyone else was trying to do the same and Themis was not tall enough to get a decent view. Within ten minutes, they were all instructed to be seated again as the speech must be continued. A body had been taken from the tent.
The general cleared his throat and recommenced proceedings, announcing first of all that a comrade had betrayed them, and had therefore suffered the severest consequences of her actions. Themis remembered her first conversation with Frosso and shuddered. She was shocked by what had happened. Brutality had bred brutality. Now the life of this frail-looking young woman was gone. It was an inevitable end to her act of revenge and the ceremony moved forward without further pause. Themis had to put aside any emotion.
In groups of ten, they now stood before the general to swear the communist army oath.
Many of the words matched beliefs that had been hers since childhood. With body and soul, Themis wished to rid Greece of fascism and to defend democracy and honour. She spoke the words with conviction.
I promise:
To fight with gun in hand, to shed my blood, and even to die in order to rid my country of the last foreign occupier.
To banish fascism. To secure the independence and integrity of my motherland.
To defend the democracy, honour and progress of my people.
To be a brave and disciplined soldier, to obey orders, to observe regulations, and keep the secrets of the Democratic Army of Greece.
To be a good example, to encourage unity and reconciliation, and to avoid any action that dishonours me.
My goal is a free and strong democratic Greece and the progress and prosperity of the people. And in the pursuit of this goal, I offer my gun and my life.
Themis was bursting with pride as she read but when she reached the final clause, she hesitated. It seemed to her full of venom.
If I ever break my oath, may the vengeful hand of the nation and the hate and scorn of the people fall upon me without mercy.
The phrase was full of cruelty and spite, and she found herself lowering her voice. She remembered how she and Fotini would mime words at EON meetings if they did not believe in them, and she did a similar thing now.
Once her turn for this public declaration was over and she had returned to her seat, she wondered how those who had been forcibly recruited, such as Frosso, could pledge everlasting loyalty. Evidently some of them did, simply to stay alive.
Themis was sitting with Despina and Katerina. She asked herself if her two friends shared these doubts about the malevolence of these words. If only Panos was somewhere close, she could ask him if he had believed each and every line of the oath. Perhaps during the next weeks or months, their destinies might bring them closer. Then she began to wonder about the views of the soldier who was sitting a few rows behind, whose eyes, even now, she could feel on her back. It was time to file out and Themis’ group went directly to the meal tent.
Maria was absent. After two days of high fever, she had needed medical attention.
‘She always wanted to be in the hospital,’ said Despina, with a hint of sarcasm.
The schoolteacher had never been sympathetic to Maria’s constant complaints and tears.
‘She should never have come here. A woman like that is a liability,’ chipped in one of the boys in their group. ‘Think what she’d be like up in the mountains. She’d be dead in a day.’
There were murmurs of agreement from some other men.
‘I can’t see the point of having women with us,’ muttered another.
The two men who had spoken were overheard by one of the captains and reprimanded. The rules were simple. There was to be no discrimination, either with words or actions.
Another inviolable rule was that there should be no relations between men and women. This would undermine morale, endanger fellow soldiers’ lives and create tensions within the groups. Any individual found deviating from this would be punished or expelled. Communist leaders could behave as brutally with their own soldiers as with anyone they fought against.
In the communist army, women were given the same chances as the men, but they had to prove themselves. During the mo
nths since she had left Athens, Themis felt that she had become a different person. Physically she had gained in strength. Beneath her trousers, her calf muscles bulged and the weight of the rifle no longer bothered her. The only discomfort she had suffered were the blisters on her feet but, thanks to Eleni, who had insisted she take a pot of beeswax ointment with her, the lesions on her feet were already healed and her skin was hardening. She felt strong, purposeful, excited, ready.
Their group of fifty had been divided and subdivided. There were no concessions made for any friendships that might have formed. The terrain they had instructions to capture was extensive and they were being sent off to different parts of it. Despina was going to the Peloponnese with a well-established unit and Maria had been promised a job in the camp orphanage. She had shown herself incapable of aiming a rifle.
Themis was happy to discover that she and Katerina would be staying together, but it was with feelings of turmoil and confusion that she overheard a conversation between one of the officers and the soldier who haunted her waking hours and dream-filled nights. She heard the name, Makris, for the first time and understood that he had been appointed second in command of their unit.
Chapter Thirteen
IN THE WARM spring sunshine, thirty of them bumped along in an open lorry: ten women and twenty men whose uniforms were the same. Already Themis could not imagine wearing anything but trousers. Generous patch pockets at the front and sides had space for almost everything she possessed, and she loved how freely they allowed her to move.
As they travelled south towards Greece, she sat next to a man whose face was almost entirely hidden by a copious brown beard. With his long, straggly hair he resembled a wild animal, perhaps one of the bears that were reputed to roam the mountain range that lay ahead. He seemed to have no inhibitions as he laughed and chatted to her, leaning in if she could not hear something above the noise of the engine.
At one point he rolled a cigarette and held it out to her. Although she declined he insisted on her taking a puff.
Those Who Are Loved Page 18