Orthokostá

by Thanassis Valtinos

  —No. I didn’t go. Papadóngonas told us, Any of you who are with us, who don’t have a questionable record, you can stay. We’ve signed an agreement, they won’t bother you. And I believed what he said, so I stayed.

  —Then you were there when Kanellópoulos arrived with Aris.

  —Kanellópoulos and Aris. Yes, I was there. They spoke from a hotel, in the main square.

  —From the Maínalon.

  —The Maínalon, yes. And me in particular, for a while, until we surrendered our arms and all that, Dr. Panagákos covered for me. Not only for me, for other men from Kastrí too. He took us to the house of a relative of his. He had left us there. He brought us food until the ELAS men finally arrived. Then a rebel came there, to the house where we were staying. He says, You have to come and surrender your weapons. So the doctor, who’s now deceased, loaded up our weapons. Along with Kóstas Yiorghoulís, also deceased. Kóstas was a sergeant.

  —How many of you were there?

  —About twelve of us. They got our weapons, they took them to the barracks. They surrendered them. But then they asked for us. So the doctor comes back with another rebel. He says, Line up, you’re going to give yourselves up. And we went and gave ourselves up. They put us in a room. Someone from Megalópolis arrived, a kapetánios. He talked to us. He told us that they could kill us and all that. But ELAS was sparing us, and we should join in the struggle. And so on. So they let us go free.

  —And you went back to Kastrí?

  —From the barracks I went down to the square. To the square just when Kanellópoulos was speaking. Well, just then Thodorís Kalamís arrives. I was sitting on the steps of the courthouse. Thodorís Kalamís, from Voúrvoura, comes over and gets hold of me. Are you Anghelináras? I am. Follow me. I followed him. I knew that Kalamís fellow. He used to sing and play the lute at the fairs. He was in Barbátsainas’s band of musicians. Before the war, all this. And those same men killed Barbátsainas. So I followed him. And he was leading me down toward Halalás’s place. Almost the last house after the grove. But as soon as I saw that I stopped. I ask him, What do you want? Where are you taking me? He says, You’re going to tell me where the Galaxýdis brothers have my flock. Let’s go back, I tell him. Because if that’s what this is about I don’t know anything. He scared me for a minute. He grabbed me by the ear. I tell him, Get your hands off me, or you’ll have others to answer to. In the meantime, I had Nikotsáras backing me. I’d seen him in the barracks. I knew he was in Trípolis.

  —Which Nikotsáras?

  —My mother’s brother. He was with the rebels. I tell him, You’ll have others to answer to. Like Nikotsáras. Dimítrios Selákos was his name. The minute he heard Nikotsáras’s name, he says, How do you know him? Go and ask him, I tell him. That’s exactly what I said. Now I was getting my courage back. Go and ask him and stop bothering me.

  —Had the Galaxýdis brothers taken his sheep?

  —Of course they had. Who took them from him? Was it the Galaxýdis brothers? Back during all that unrest, in the middle of all that unrest? Anyone who had the chance would swipe whatever he could. Everyone swiped things from everyone else. I went back. We went back together. And what a coincidence, right there on the steps of the courthouse again, there was Nikotsáras. With Thanásis Fotiás. And as soon as he saw me, he started in. Swearing at me of course. What are you doing with those bums, and on and on he went. I tell him, Now you can explain things to Kapetán Thodorís. And he turns to him and tells him, What do you think you’re doing with my nephew? And after that they left me alone. I wanted to come to Kastrí but I was afraid. Nikotsáras gets me, he takes me upstairs. To what used to be the 2nd Civilian Intelligence Bureau. That’s where Aris was stationed now.

  —In what building?

  —In the courthouse. Inside. He takes me upstairs to the 2nd Bureau. He hands me a permit. They fixed that permit for me, stamped it, and I could circulate freely with it. With that permit I saved Panayótis Kouroúnis from a beating.

  —Where did they capture him?

  —In Hoúria. We were coming down, Vrastós, my uncle, Nikotsáras’s brother, me, and Kouroúnis. Not the younger one. Not Tákis. Panayótis. And they mistook him for the other one. As soon as we got to Hoúria. In Hoúria there was a guardhouse. As for me, they saw my permit, there was someone, was it Lyritzís? I don’t remember now. Anyhow, he was from Messinía. A major. Or something. At any rate. They let me go. They took Kouroúnis upstairs to the old police headquarters. They started in on him. They had taken Vrastós there too. So I walk into the office, I walk in. I tell them, Who are you beating, Selákos? Nikotsáras’s brother. They knew Nikotsáras. They say, How come one’s on our side and the other’s on theirs? And they let Vrastós go downstairs. Then we hear Panayótis. They were beating him. They had just started. Nephew, Vrastós shouts. Go up and explain to them. I go upstairs, I tell them, You’re barking up the wrong tree. The Kouroúnis you’re looking for is someone else. He’s young, he’s my age. See, it’s like this. This one here is a family man, he has children. And with that they finally let him go. And that was the end of it. We went on our way. Continued on foot. I was barefoot. I’d forgotten that. On my way from Trípolis, just before Ayios Sóstis. At the roadside shrine they had a guardhouse. They stopped us, they took my boots away. They asked for my permit. They saw my army boots. They were in good shape, almost new, they tell me, Take them off. And they left me barefoot. After that we came here. They greeted us with insults. The worst ones from Eléni, Karadímas’s wife. And listen to this. Five years later they brought her to me. Five or six years. Tried to arrange a marriage between us. I said no. More swearing. You bums, you this, you that. We didn’t answer her. My folks were in Másklina, they hadn’t come back. We went down there with Vrastós, found our house burned down. We went to the marketplace. Another kind of welcome there. From up on Mángas’s balcony. ETA1 had taken it over, they hadn’t burned that place down. Chrysoúlis Aryiríou. Nicknamed Kaílas. You dogs, you traitors, what did you think? We’ll teach you a lesson, we’ll show you.

  —Were there any others?

  —Mmm, Panayótis Gagás. But it’s the other one I remember. Aryiríou. He spit at us.

  —And you stayed here.

  —Yes, I did. I stayed here. Then they arrested me, they took me to Ayios Pétros. They turned me in, they said I was looting. That I’d taken a sewing machine that belonged to Yfantís. Nonsense. So they hauled me in for interrogation. Still at Mángas’s house. It was still their headquarters. There was a man called Yiánnis Spyrópoulos from Parthéni. He asked me about the sewing machine. I tell him, I’ve no idea. Since you have no idea you’re going to Ayios Pétros. There was a superior command there. There were still some prisoners there. Three or four rebels come and get us. They take us to Ayios Pétros. Just ten days after we came back. They keep us there for about a month.

  —That long?

  —Twenty-nine days. They took us outside, we did chores. We had swept the square of Ayios Pétros. Me, Yiánnis Haloúlos, Achilléas Koútselas. He’s dead now. We would go for water. Over at their fountain.

  —What did they give you to eat?

  —Whatever our relatives brought us.

  —Did they come every day?

  —Every day. I had my grandmother. She came whenever she could. And she would bring me something—what could she bring me? We had nothing. A potato or two, a cabbage. That’s what she brought. Twenty-nine days. Till the twenty-eighth of October.

  —That was in the fall of 1944.

  —In the fall, yes. It was—I was released that day. My other grandmother came, Nikotsáras’s mother. They would let her in. She says, so the others can’t hear, Listen child, listen here. Your father says to tell you that some pact was signed that’s good for you men. It was the Várkiza Treaty. That’s when I was released. When the Várkiza Treaty was signed. They called me upstairs. They asked me some stupid questions. About things I didn’t know. There was someone named Petsaloúdas there. From here
, from Ayiórghis. He recognized me. He knew I was Nikotsáras’s nephew. Anghelináras, he says to me, okay, go. Yes. He does me that good turn, he says, You can go. And I left. I left as soon as they gave me my permit. My grandmother was still there. I came here. And I stayed here. I left here again in 1948.

  —Did you go to Trípolis?

  —I went to Athens. Straight to Athens.

  —When did they attack Ayios Pétros? When did they attack the gendarmes?

  —That was in 1946. Early on. When the second rebel movement was starting up. Don’t ask me for dates. But yes, I went there, and I went there after Trípolis. With everyone from Kastrí.

  —When they attacked them, how many gendarmes were there?

  —They said ten or twelve.

  —Who was police chief then?

  —I’m not sure.

  —Did they attack during the day or at night?

  —At dawn. They killed them at dawn.

  —Did they kill them all?

  —Not all of them. I remember three bodies. Up on Réppas’s truck. Three bodies on his truck.

  —And they’d cut off their privates?

  —They’d slashed them there, they didn’t cut anything off. They slashed them up, all around their privates.

  —With bayonets.

  —With bayonets. Or with knives, I don’t know. Just as they were, in their undershorts.

  —In their sleep?

  —Yes.

  —They caught them asleep?

  —They caught them asleep. And if it wasn’t for some man named Katsís, Háris Katsís, from the Battalions, he was right-wing. He gave the signal for the others to leave.

  —And they got away.

  —They got away and they were saved. Some of them. First of all, their officer. A first sergeant, I think—but people were saying things about him.

  —What do you mean?

  —That he was the one who’d betrayed them.

  —I see.

  —The gendarmes. Now how true that is, no one knows.

  —And they took the dead men to Trípolis.

  —Yes, we took them there. A lot of us from Kastrí went to Ayios Pétros. And we got them and took them to Trípolis. Because we were still holding up. So we all went down to Trípolis.

  —And you tore the place up.

  —Yes, we went to Trípolis.

  —How many of you went down there?

  —A lot of us. Three hundred. Or maybe one hundred.

  —Do you remember any names?

  —Where should I start. With Yiórghis Réppas? With Kóstas Goúlas? With Vasílis Papayiorghíou? With Yiannoúkos Haloúlos? All deceased. Mítsos Kokkiniás, Kóstas Boutsikákis? Whose names should I give you? Which ones? Anghelos Katrinákis. There were so many of us. So many.

  —And you went down there with clubs?

  —We went down there angry. And we got to where we knew the Communists were. We nabbed someone named Babakiás at Panayotópoulos’s bakeshop. Up in the attic. Next to Xagás’s tailor’s shop.

  —Down near Ayía Varvára.

  —No, at Evanghelismós. It’s a museum now.

  —Yes it is.

  —Panayotópoulos’s bakeshop was just behind it. And Kóstas Goúlas had hidden up in his attic.

  —Uh-huh.

  —Do you remember Old Man Kóstas with the mustache?

  —Uh-huh.

  —Well, he went up there and grabbed Babakiás by the hair.

  —Where was he from, Babakiás?

  —From Dolianá. He was a captain. A real captain. Not like Kapetán Thódoros or Kapetán Nikotsáras.

  —Babakiás.

  —That’s right. He grabbed him and dragged him down the stairs. There they started in on him with an automobile crank. There were these imported motorcars back then, they had cranks two meters long. Sarrís and Dimítris Prásinos went to work on him. They put him through the mill. He couldn’t move for weeks. Mmm, after that I don’t know what happened to him. We were young then. We wanted revenge. After that I left. I came here to the village. I worked until 1948. In ’48 I left, on the twenty-eighth of October. A date not easily forgotten, we might say.2

  —In the meantime the rebels were wreaking havoc everywhere.

  —Wreaking havoc all over. Not so much in the day. They were afraid of Kastrí. But back then we would hide. We didn’t sleep at our houses.

  —Where did you hole up at night?

  —Outside. I hadn’t slept in my house in years. Not days, years.

  —Yes.

  —Like animals. We slept in any old hole. We’d fixed up underground hiding places. We had found caves—and we moved around. Right here, behind Houyiázos’s place there was one. We once had you stay there too.

  —Yiórgos did. I was away.

  —Yiórgos. One of you did. I remember. Usually four of us slept there. Liás Andrianákos, and Sofianós’s cousin, they’re in Australia now; Vasílis Patsiás and me. And whenever Liás didn’t come, Vanghélis Koútselas did. He’s deceased now. There was a hollow rock. We’d squeeze under it like snakes. That kind of thing. There’s no end to the stories. In 1948 I left. I went to Athens. The two girls stayed behind. Maria, born in 1942. In 1948 she was six. And Chrysoúla, a little older. Fourteen, fifteen. Yeorghía was in Athens, the older girl. Yiánnis was in Athens, Kóstas was in Athens. Our uncle tells us. He had flour mills. He owned the Amyla flour mill. He tells us, his nephews and nieces. We were all working there. He tells us, You left something behind for the rebels too. Their portion of the spoils. He meant Chrysoúla. There was no transportation back then. There were no telephones and things. I found someone, and I sent a letter to the old man. I think it was Yiannoúkos Haloúlos I found. Someone, at any rate. At that time there were trucks that went back and forth between Athens and Kastrí. The Galaxýdis trucks. So I wrote that letter to the old man and told him to send Chrysoúla to us. By airplane. There was a Dakota at the time that flew between Trípolis and Athens. You must remember that.

  —No, I was away.

  —You were away. It was the twenty-fifth of November, the Feast of Saint Catherine. The day the recruits of ’47 reported for duty. Everyone was going there, and in Dragoúni the bus stopped. Down near Zoúbas’s fields. The rebels stopped it, they had set up an ambush. And they sent them back. You must know about that.

  —No, who was in it?

  —All the recruits of ’47. From Kastrí there was Liás Andrianákos, Grigóris Sítelis, and lots of others. All the recruits in my class. I was away. I was in Athens. I said that. But Chrysoúla was on the bus. With all the others. She was going to Trípolis to catch the airplane. And they sent them back. When they arrived at the square it was covered in snow. Thirty or forty centimeters of snow.

  —The twenty-fifth of November?

  —The twenty-fifth of November. On the Feast of Saint Catherine. There all the recruits who were able to ran away. Réppas’s wife took my sister. And she helped her get away. Took her off the bus. Quiet-like.

  —All that happened in 1948.

  —In ’48. Réppas’s wife knew someone. I don’t know who. And she managed to get her out. In the meantime the bus started out for Ayios Pétros. To take the recruits there. The driver was Mitsouliás. It arrived in Doúmos. Just before the bridge he runs the bus off the road. Says it skidded on the snow. On the ice. He pretended to be trying to get it out of the ditch, nothing. Get it out, he says to them, and I’ll take you wherever you want. So they took some of the passengers and they left. On foot. Where they went I don’t know. Four days later Chrysoúla went to Athens. The old man took her to Trípolis on foot. And he sent her on the airplane. We came back from Athens in 1949. By then the rebel insurrection was over. April 1949. It was over for good.

  Chapter 31

  Someone from Plátanos showed up. He says, Is your name Aryiríou? In Koubíla again. I say yes. He’d come to see about the shepherds. We had shepherds from Plátanos back then. He says, Have anything to do with Kléarhos Aryiríou? We�
��re relatives, I say. You on good terms? We are. I didn’t want to be giving out information to anyone from Plátanos. Oh, come on, you’re not on good terms, he tells me. You’re not leveling with me. I am. Say whatever you want, I don’t believe you. I’m sure you’re not on good terms. Kléarhos was alive then. He died maybe a year or so later. I’m going to tell you something to tell him, he says to me. I’m called Dimóyiorgas. My name’s Dimóyiorgas. If you see him, tell him Dimóyiorgas told you this: I was seventeen and he gave me a pistol, one to me and one to another man, and he told us, Finish your food then go to such and such a house in Koubíla. The key will be under the roof tiles. You’ll empty the house, you’ll take the mules, and you’ll take any men you find there with their women and bring them here to be tried. And have us all killed, in other words. And he was telling me this after so many years. And tell him something else too: When we got here we looked all over, but we didn’t find anything. Just a rooster pecking down on the threshing floor. We gave it a whack, and we killed it, and it rolled way down there, and we went and got it. And we took it to Kapetán Kléarhos and he said, So those bastards got away, did they? And that was all—he’d sent us there and that’s all we found. That’s all he said: So those bastards got away, did they?

  Chapter 32

  That’s who arrested me, local men, from here. Tóyias and Kléarhos. Vasílis Tóyias and Kapetán Kléarhos. They took me to Kastrí. And then they took me to Loukoú.

  —To Loukoú or Orthokostá?

  —To Loukoú. They put me down in the basement and started in on me. First they just slapped me around. Confess. Hey, I tell them, I never went in the army. And truth is I was a deserter back then. In 1920. 1922. When they were going to Asia Minor.

  —What was your year to enlist?

  —1922. And I deserted then and there. When the army came and the central government was back I joined up. That’s when I went and enlisted. I went all the way to Thessaloníki. So there I was now in Loukoú. They put me in the basement, a filthy old basement. The next day they make me lie down, and they loop the strap from one of their rifles around my ankles, with me lying on my back. With my legs up high, bent. And they would beat me with some sticks and say, Confess.