The twenty-odd children ranged in age from three to fourteen. The two “escorts” who would accompany them into Albania from Tsamanta were slightly older village children, self-consciously wearing guerrilla uniforms. As they marched along, singing Communist songs, someone played a clarinet. Spiro Skevis, Lia’s most famous guerrilla, strode at the head of the procession. A flock of weeping women followed behind, one or another occasionally trying to embrace a lagging child. Eleni wept too as the procession of children filed by and Nikola stared, imagining himself among them. The rumor spread that another group would be collected and sent away within days. Everyone began to understand that whether they volunteered or not, Lia would soon be a village without children.
Among the parents who rebelled at the thought were Calliope and Tassi Mitros. Old Tassi’s mill, at the top of the Perivoli, was the only one still operating. The guerrillas kept his family working long hours every day to grind the flour needed for their forces. Tassi’s seventeen-year-old son Gakis had been conscripted as an andarte, but had managed to obtain a temporary release because of a back injury. Now the miller learned that the boy was to be the escort for the next group of children, and would probably be conscripted again once he reached Albania. Furthermore, Tassi’s younger son Niko, twelve, the former hero and tormentor of Nikola Gatzoyiannis, was scheduled to be taken with the next group.
The husky, balding, sun-grizzled miller had always considered life a bad joke to be endured with cynical humor, but when it became clear that he was going to lose both his sons, Tassi stopped joking about his miseries and hunted for a way to save his boys. He confided in his brother-in-law Lukas Ziaras, who, when he heard that Tassi was searching for a way to get his children out of Lia, spilled out all the details of his two failed escape attempts.
“You’re lucky they failed!” Tassi exploded. “You’re an idiot to lead them down the ravine! Where it levels out, you would have to cross fields that have just been harvested, and the lookouts would be sure to see you.”
Lukas bristled. “Where do you suggest we leave from, the town square?” he retorted. “Tell me, so that in my ignorance I may learn.”
“From your own house!” the miller replied.
“But we’re fifty yards from the main lookout post. Two dozen people walking out under their noses? Be serious!”
“I was hunting those foothills with Foto Gatzoyiannis before you were born,” Tassi countered. “Directly below your house is a patch of underbrush with gullies in it. And below that is a wheat field that hasn’t been cut yet. Once you’re past that, you’re practically in the forest. And then you’re out of sight and rifle range. I’ll bring my family with you the next time and show you exactly how to do it.”
Lukas had an uneasy feeling that the reins were being wrested from his grip, but he had to admit that Tassi’s plan sounded better than his own.
While the two men worked out the details of the new strategy, Soula Ziaras was sent to inform Eleni that they could wait no longer for Glykeria’s return. They had to leave in three days. Next Sunday, June 20, there would be a waning moon and the weather would no longer be a problem. The wheat was high and golden in the summer sun and it hadn’t rained since the end of May.
When Soula found her in the bean field and whispered the date for the new escape, Eleni turned to stare at her. “We can’t leave without Glykeria!” she whispered.
“Do you want to lose all of the children?” Soula replied. “Lukas heard they’re going to take them within the week.”
Eleni’s hands shook so that she dropped the beans she was picking. Like every mother, she had a special love for the child who was the most troublesome. She couldn’t bear to leave her behind, to be beaten, imprisoned or sent to fight in the front lines in retaliation for their act. Glykeria lacked the strength or endurance to be a guerrilla, Eleni thought. She had been spoiled all her life.
“Are you coming or not?” Soula demanded. “We’ve got to leave on Sunday!”
Eleni didn’t trust herself to speak, but nodded her head.
“Good!” Soula breathed. “There’s a new plan. We’re leaving from our house instead of going down the ravine. Send your family two at a time as soon as it gets dark.”
“That’s too risky!” Eleni said, surprised.
“Don’t worry,” Soula said, turning away. “Lukas has everything worked out.”
During the next two days, while Eleni desperately searched the mountain peaks for a sign of her daughter returning, the Ziaras and Mitros families made preparations. Gakis Mitros was a close schoolfriend of the young guerrilla Andreas Michopoulos and he paid a visit to the lookout post at the Church of the Virgin one evening to see him. “It must be tough,” Gakis said to Andreas, “spending all night combing the foothills for fascists.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” Andreas replied, shifting his rifle importantly. “Most nights we just send one patrol down the ravine and another down from Parayianni, and as far as the area in between, it’s so steep we could hear and see the bastards coming from miles away. Anyway, the mines would probably get them first. So we usually just sit here and keep our eyes open.”
Soula Ziaras, too, paid a visit to the guerrilla lookout post, carrying the baby Alexi in her arms. She told the commanding sergeant that she was worried about mines. “Have you put any near my fields?” she asked. “You know that my babies play all around there.”
“Don’t be afraid, Kyria Soula,” the man said. “It’s clean all the way down to the wheatfields.”
Early on Saturday morning, the day before the escape, Soula and her daughter Marianthe went carefully along the path the group would follow down through their fields. They cleared away every stone or branch that might cause someone to trip or make a noise. When they returned to the house, jittery at the thought of what tomorrow held, they found two guerrillas waiting for them.
That same morning, as Eleni was despairing of ever seeing Glykeria again, there was a knock on the door, filling her with hope. But she opened it to find the town crier back again, grinning vacantly. “I’m sorry to tell you, Kyria Eleni, that we need another woman from your household,” he said. The guerrillas were demanding forty more women for the threshing fields, half from Lia, half from Babouri. “The Liotes have to go today,” he concluded.
Fear shot through Eleni to her fingertips. Her mind began to spin. If she could stall him, they could move the departure up to tonight. “Please, Petros,” she said, “I’m not feeling well; I have a fever. But I could go with the Babouriotes tomorrow. I’m certain I could be ready.”
“It has to be today, whomever you send,” he said, and then, smiling, he repeated his familiar rhyme: “Put a loaf in your pack and to Venetis’ house make track!”
Eleni closed the door and collapsed in a chair. She tried to clear away the mist of fear that blurred her thoughts. Another person had to be sacrificed. If she chose carefully, perhaps it might improve Glykeria’s chances of fleeing. She called the family together, and as soon as the children saw their mother’s face they knew something had gone very wrong.
Eleni told them about the new order from the guerrillas and turned to Nitsa. “You’ll have to go this time, sister,” she said. “If I send Olga or Kanta they’ll make her an andartina, but in your condition they won’t touch you. And you can find Glykeria and escape from the threshing fields.”
Nitsa began to screech. “You have five children! If you lose one or two, what does it matter? You want to sacrifice me and the child in my womb to save your own family! You’ve always had it easier than me.”
Anger washed over Eleni like a convulsion, making the squat figure in front of her seem out of focus. She had bottled up her resentment of her lazy, selfish older sister for too long and now it burst out. “Easier!” she screamed. “I refused to go to America with my husband in order to stay here with you and our parents! My children and I have suffered for the last ten years because I made that choice, and now you want me to sacrifice another child so th
at you won’t be inconvenienced!”
“Eleni, your sister’s right,” Megali scolded in her quavering voice. “Nitsa doesn’t have your strength or your cleverness. She’d never have the courage to take Glykeria and escape.”
Eleni bowed her head. All her life she had been expected to be the strong one, and she was tired of it. Her greatest mistake had been her loyalty to her sister and her parents. The ties that had bound her to them, bonds of love, weakness and need, had become chains that were going to destroy her and her children. After a long silence Eleni turned to Olga. “I’ll go to Glykeria,” she said dully. “You take Nikola and your sisters and go with Lukas Ziaras.” She did not look at Nitsa.
All the children began crying. “We won’t go without you!” Olga protested. “We’ll stay here and wait until you get back.”
“Then this family won’t survive,” Eleni retorted. “They’ll take Nikola and Fotini for the pedomasoma and conscript you and Kanta.”
“We’ll face those risks like everyone else in the village,” Kanta insisted.
“I won’t see my family destroyed!” Eleni said very slowly and firmly. “If you won’t go, I’ll tell them what we’ve been planning and they’ll kill me right before your eyes.”
No one could meet her gaze. Nikola saw his mother’s face contorted with agony, pale as a bone except for two circles of red burning on her cheeks.
“Now go away,” she said. “I want to be alone to think.”
Once the decision was made, Eleni felt an unexpected peace come over her. She no longer had to torture herself, wondering what to do. Like a stream flowing down the mountain, she had no control over her path. But her last responsibility, before she surrendered herself to fate, was to advise the children as best she could in the minutes she had left.
Eleni was icily calm now. She had to think of all the eventualities. First she took Olga aside, into the good chamber. As the eldest, now nearly twenty-one, she would have the responsibility for the other four children. Eleni looked into the girl’s large brown eyes, wide with fear, and wished that she were a bit more serious, a shade cleverer and less innocent in the ways of the world. But she knew Olga would protect the younger ones like a mother hen.
“Before you leave tomorrow night,” Eleni told her, “You must write me a letter and leave it in the niche by the fireplace, where the andartes will be sure to find it. Write that Lukas and Megali forced you to go, that they did it to get money from your father, that you didn’t want to leave and I mustn’t worry about you but you had no choice. Write anything that you can think of to make them believe you’ve left without me knowing.”
She paused and thought for a moment, then added, “Tomorrow, when you’re certain that you’re going, find one of the women they’re bringing through here from Babouri, someone you can trust, and send word to me with her. If you say, The wheat is ready to cut,’ then I’ll know you’re going that night and I’ll try to escape with Glykeria. If you say, The wheat is not ready,’ then I’ll know you’ve postponed it and I’ll wait.”
“I can’t go without you, Mana!” Olga cried. “How will we ever find you again?”
“Don’t be foolish,” Eleni said. “Glykeria and I will get out easily. The Kalamas is much shallower there and we can wade across. We’ll find you in Filiates. As a sign that you’ve reached the soldiers, when you get to the Great Ridge, light a big fire and I’ll be able to see the smoke from Vatsounia. Then I’ll know that you’ve made it to the other side.”
She looked away. “But if we don’t come to Filiates after a few days, I want you to telegraph your father and tell him to get you out to America as soon as possible. Don’t say anything to anyone on the other side about the guerrillas or what’s going on here that could leak back and get us into worse trouble. You must go on to Igoumenitsa or Yannina to wait for your papers, because the guerrillas may attack Filiates, and I want you to be safe.”
She reached out and turned Olga’s face toward her, willing her own common sense to flow into the girl. “Your grandfather will try to talk you into staying behind,” she said. “Don’t let him trick you or Kanta into marrying someone from Filiates or Igoumenitsa. All the men will be after you because you have a father in America; don’t let them use you by appealing to your vanity. My parents only want someone to stay in Greece and care for them in their old age. But whether I’m living or dead, I won’t rest until you’re all in America and safe.”
Olga nodded, frightened by her mother’s intensity.
Eleni fell silent, thinking. Had she forgotten anything? “Tomorrow, while you’re waiting for the sun to set,” she added, “go to your grandfather’s fields by the mill. Cut some of the wheat, because it’s ready and if you don’t tend to it, someone might become suspicious.”
She couldn’t think of anything else. She searched Olga’s face, trying to find reassurance there. “The other children are now your, responsibility until you hand them over to your father,” she said. “I’m hanging them around your neck.”
Olga began to cry.
While Eleni was saying farewell to her children, a similar scene was going on in the Ziaras house at the bottom of the village. The two guerrillas had arrived at the door to announce that a woman was required at once for the threshing field.
Soula began trembling so at the sight of the uniformed men that she could hardly stand. As soon as the door closed behind them, she turned and looked at Lukas, who was pacing like a caged animal. Things had been going too well, he told himself. Now this! Truly God had stacked the deck against him.
Soula forced herself to speak calmly. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll go to the harvest and you take the children tomorrow as we planned.”
Lukas exploded. He would never admit it, even to himself, but it was inconceivable to him to risk the escape without the quiet, solid presence of his wife beside him.
“Yes, that’s right, you go!” he sputtered. “And when we get to the other side, who’s going to look after all these mewling children? You want to make me a wet nurse, don’t you? I won’t stand for it! Marianthe will go to the threshing fields. She’s young and strong and smart enough to escape on her own.”
Marianthe stiffened angrily. She had spent her life caring for the endless parade of babies, working as hard as her mother, and now her father was discarding her as if she was worthless. But she knew it would be fruitless to argue. He would only lash out at her because he felt guilty. Sullenly she began to gather up some things for the journey to the harvest.
Lukas decided to escort his daughter to the guerrillas’ commissary. As they passed by the Haidis house he stopped and knocked at the gate. Eleni hurried out distractedly to meet him. Looking at Lukas’ and Marianthe’s stricken faces, Eleni said, “They came to your house too?”
He nodded. “Marianthe’s going,” he said. “God protect her!”
“So am I!” said Eleni. “My worthless sister has refused to go. But Glykeria and I hope to escape on our own from there. Of course, I’ll take Marianthe too. If we can’t get away, I’ll look after her, Lukas. But you must take the rest as we planned.”
Eleni looked at the small, nervous man who would have to lead her children through a hundred dangers, and her heart faltered. She tried to think of something to say that would lend him wisdom and courage, but all she said, in a voice so low he had to lean forward to hear, was, “I’m turning my children over to you, Lukas, and I’ll ask you for an accounting, if not in this life, then in the next.”
Eleni realized that she had only a few minutes left with her children. She used a few of them to braid Fotini’s honey-brown hair for the last time. Nitsa was seated cross-legged in a corner, watching her, but Eleni would not acknowledge her presence.
When she had finished both braids, Eleni hugged Fotini fiercely, making the girl squirm. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” she said. “Glykeria and I will get out and soon we’ll all be together in Filiates, on our way to America.”
“No, you won�
�t, Mother,” the ten-year-old replied without emotion. “We’re all going to leave, but you’ll always be here.”
Megali gasped and spoke for the first time since the argument between Eleni and Nitsa. “Bite your tongue, you wicked child!” she said. The old woman put her apron over her head and began to keen a lament.
Eleni told Kanta and Nikola to come up to the commissary with her, to stay with her until the last moment. Olga and Fotini were to remain in the house and act as if nothing was wrong. “We can’t all go up there in a parade,” she said. “It would make everyone suspicious. We’ll say goodbye here.”
Suddenly there was no more time. With numb fingers Eleni removed her apron and took down her long black sleeveless tunic with two red vertical stripes. She put it on over her brown wool dress, faded from washing. Not looking into their eyes, she gave Fotini, Olga and Megali a last kiss, then quickly wound her black kerchief around her face.
Eleni left her sister without a farewell, just as her father had done to her. Megali’s keening increased in volume as Nitsa turned toward the wall. Fotini and Olga trailed their mother outside, reaching out to touch her. As Eleni started out the gate, Olga grabbed her arm, crying “Wait, Mana! I want to kiss you again!” Eleni pulled away and averted her face, hidden in the folds of her kerchief. Olga reached up and pulled down the kerchief, seeing the tears that she had tried to hide. Neither spoke as Olga rose on tiptoe and kissed her mother for the last time.
As Eleni and the two children continued on up the path toward the Perivoli, Olga’s sobbing brought their curious neighbor, Vasilena Karapano, out of her house. She trotted up to take a close look at Olga. “Why on earth are you carrying on like that, child?” she asked. “Your mother’s only going to the wheat fields! What’s the matter with you?”
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