“I’m helping Zola.”
“I don’t need your help,” Zola said.
Petros sighed. The problem of being the younger brother was the older brother.
A couple of hours later, when Papa returned, he told them Panayoti’s family had gone during the night. Many other families had gone, but the village would miss businesspeople most. The ice factory before, now the shoemaker, the dry goods store, the ironworker.
“Who will bake?” Mama wanted to know.
“The Basilises’ girls will go into business for themselves,” Papa said.
“How will people pay?”
“Anything you buy,” Papa said, “you must expect to offer an equal weight in paper money. Twenty ounces of bread, twenty ounces of drachmas.” Except for Mama, who drew in a breath, everyone around the table fell quiet.
“Where is Zola?” Papa asked.
“Sleeping,” Mama said, almost hungrily.
“The Germans?” Old Mario asked finally.
“No one knows,” Papa said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mama said. “We have to rest.”
Everyone headed for their beds. Today even Petros wanted to sleep.
Zola was curled in the middle of his bed, snoring.
The entire floor shone from polishing. Zola had moved his bed over the trapdoor to the cellar, and the rug to the other end of the room. If the Germans came, they’d see the rug, flip it up, and find nothing.
Petros fell onto his bed, asleep before his head hit the pillow.
chapter 12
When the family got up that evening, still as quiet as sleepwalkers, Elia was already waiting for Petros on the veranda. “We could watch the road.”
Petros woke up. “We’ll see the Germans coming.” They pelted toward the mulberry tree, Fifi trotting along behind them.
Stavros walked out from the village to join them. “There’s no one at the bakery except those two Medusas making bread.”
They climbed, daring each other to go higher. The danger of this inspired them to screaming and laughter and ever greater feats of bravery. They stuffed themselves on the berries, purple juice staining their lips and fingers.
As it grew dark, Old Mario walked to the pump house and flipped the switch on. The diesel motor started with a putt-putt-putt before settling into an effortless hum. Likewise, the belt screamed, then shifted into a fading whine as it started to crank. The buckets sprang into motion, clanking softly as they were carried down to fill with water and rise again. In a few minutes, water would course through tile gutters to water the
The boys settled on sturdier branches and made a game of trying to throw mulberries into Fifi’s open mouth, like dropping pebbles into a jar.
The American teacher came bicycling along the road.
The boys hid among the leaves, shushing each other but also making enough noise to be noticed. The goat stood with forefeet propped high on the tree trunk, begging for more mulberries, but even this sight failed to interest the teacher.
It was a little disappointing.
Zola came out to ask them to fill a can with berries for him. His dog looked up, but not like Fifi, as if they had anything of value up there.
“What do you want them for?” Petros asked as Elia dropped berries. Fifi ate them as fast as Zola could reach for them, and he got nipped twice to gain a handful of berries.
He went back to the house, complaining about the goat.
“He’s up to something,” Petros said when he realized Zola had not answered him. Stavros shrugged in a way that clearly meant he cared about nothing Zola would be up to.
Elia said, “We’re up to something too.” He tucked himself into the branches with the thickest clumps of leaves, where he couldn’t be seen.
The Russian family slowly approached. They’d loaded a wheelbarrow with their belongings, or at least as much as they could carry. Blanket rolls were tied around their waists.
“Are you boys playing a game?” the husband asked them as they reached the tree.
“We’re watching the road,” Petros said.
“See anything worth telling?”
Elia came out of his hiding place. “Not yet.”
The wife asked if Petros and his family were leaving. “They’re Greek,” Stavros said. To this the couple said nothing. They kept going.
But a little ways off, the husband shook his head. Petros couldn’t remember living anywhere but Greece. Being American felt as real to him as the looming German army. In fact, the war felt more real. He had blisters now.
Shortly after that, an English family, the Walkers, came down the road. The parents were on foot but the children rode bicycles. One of the girls had been a classmate a month ago. She waved when she saw the boys jump down to meet them.
Each bicycle carried bundles in the basket in front and a bedroll on the back fender. The parents were also bundled. This family had lived in Amphissa as long as Petros. Their Greek was excellent.
“Why is everyone going now? Why not sooner?” Stavros asked.
“We thought Amphissa would remain safe,” Mr. Walker said without stopping. He had something to do with old relics, always digging, then sitting outside brushing away the dirt. His face was browned, his hair as light as any German’s.
Mrs. Walker said, “What’s here? No boats, no bridges. Who thought of the mountains?”
Papa, Petros thought. Papa knew right away their army would hide in the mountains. It gave him a little thrill, remembering. But also a nagging feeling.
Mr. Walker said, “Petros, is your family staying?”
The concern on the Englishman’s face bothered Petros. Elia too, because he said, “They’ve hidden everything not Greek.”
“Good luck to you,” Mr. Walker said, hurrying his family along.
Fifi followed them a little way, nibbling on the corner of Mr. Walker’s pack. “Where can they go?” Elia said.
“With enough money, away,” Stavros said.
Petros said, “They can’t go north where the Germans are. Zola says in Crete people book passage to Egypt. From there, they hope to get home.”
“Crete will sink with the weight of so many people,” Stavros said, his eyebrows drawn together. “I’m going home.”
Petros thought his cousin had begun to worry about his mother and brother. He wouldn’t even know when they’d reached safety.
The parade slowed to a trickle of passersby as night fell and Fifi curled up at the gate to sleep. Twice more Petros was asked when he would go. Elia spoke on his behalf, saying, “He’s Greek.”
The more Elia made this claim, the less Greek Petros felt.
When Elia was called home later in the evening, Petros wondered what fate had befallen Zola. He found his brother in their room and learned why he’d wanted the berries.
chapter 13
The room smelled of rebellion.
The dog sat on Petros’s bed, watching Zola.
Zola didn’t hear Petros coming. He nearly tipped over the ink bottle. “Shah! Don’t you know to make a little noise when you come in?”
Zola had mashed the berries. He dipped his pen in the juice and wrote. Petros said, “Why not just use ink?”
“Did you see the stains on Lambros’s fingers? Mulberry juice. The fruit sustained him. This ink is symbolic.”
Petros rolled his eyes. A romantic, Mama said, when his brother got like this. Petros asked, “What will you do with it?”
“I can print secret messages,” Zola said.
This sounded interesting. However, Petros didn’t want to say so. He sat down on the end of his bed, where Zola’s dog shouldn’t have been. Both were patient as Zola wrote a word, dipped his pen, and wrote another.
Zola looked at Petros from the corner of his eye. “The berries don’t make as much juice as I thought.”
Petros ignored that. Zola had found some clean white paper that looked very good with mulberry juice on it. “Where did you get such paper?”
Zola h
eld out the finished product. It said Germans lose battle to British in North Africa. The dog looked impressed, but Petros said, “Everyone knows this already.”
“Already people want war news,” Zola said. “We can tell it.”
“We don’t listen to the radio anymore,” Petros pointed out.
“Papa will, once the Germans set up camp and settle in like the Italians,” Zola said, going back to writing as he talked. “He hid the radio, he didn’t bury it. Besides, this is only the first message.”
Petros didn’t care for Zola’s know-it-all tone. “Even a first message should tell people something they don’t already know,” he said. “The war could be over before we can have the radio back.”
“Will a man ask his neighbor on one side, who’s a German sympathizer, what he’s heard?” Zola asked him. “Or will he go to the neighbor on his other side, the one who’s only hungry? The one who might lie to the German soldiers in return for a meal?”
Petros said nothing. Surely neighbors could be trusted.
Zola sighed in a world-weary way. “People talked last month. They disagreed but still they spoke up. This month neighbors are divided by those words. Each disagreement is a gate locked against them.”
This kind of talk troubled Petros. He couldn’t help thinking of Elia’s father. But then he thought of Grandfather Lemos, who never agreed with Elia’s father either, and yet they lived in the same house.
Petros said, “Still, people talk to each other.”
“People used to talk. Now they whisper. They read notes,” Zola said. He appeared to grow bored. “Aren’t you supposed to be going to sleep?”
Petros didn’t like Zola’s tone. “You can’t leave all this in the house,” he said, waving a hand over the ink and notes. “If Mama finds it, I’ll get blamed too.”
Zola got up fast and knocked Petros back onto his bed. The dog jumped off. “You’re not to say one word to anyone,” Zola whispered fiercely. “Do you hear?”
Petros pulled his legs up hard, thumping Zola in the ribs with his knees. Zola leaped away.
“Just be quiet,” he said.
Petros got under the sheet. If Zola needed more mulberries, he would have to climb the tree and get them himself.
chapter 14
By the next morning, Zola had printed his messages.
He stepped up on the end of Petros’s bed over and over, until Petros woke from a dream of earthquakes. He got up to avoid being stepped on.
Outside, the sky was a deep purple. The only dim light in the room came from the desk lamp, covered with a towel. The birds were trying out a few peeps before beginning the morning song.
Zola was hiding his notes on the upper shelves, moving two at a time. He could leave them to dry there while the morning’s work was done. “They dry slowly,” he said.
Petros came to life.
He saw a great many pieces of that white paper strewn around on the desk and a low bookcase that now held only a few books. Again, Petros wondered where Zola had gotten such excellent paper.
“Once the Germans come, you and Elia can help,” Zola offered graciously. “I’m going to need a lot of mulberries.”
It was on the tip of Petros’s tongue to tell his brother to take a big bucket, but he saw the notes looked like a young child had written them very neatly. He said, “These look strange.”
The wording remained the same: Germans lose battle to British in North Africa. Not exactly news. But so many notes looked like a secret. An important secret. This might be the best sport Zola had ever suggested.
“I must make the lettering plain, very plain,” Zola said, “so the soldiers can’t ask me to write something and say, see, these letters are written by the same hand.”
Petros nodded, although he didn’t care for the sound of anyone guessing Zola had written these notes. He handed them up to Zola, who stood on the bed. “How will you deliver them?”
“Carefully,” Zola said in a self-important way. “Enemies are everywhere.”
This was true. Even now, the enemy of these notes slept just down the hall. “So. In secret, then?” Petros said, as if there were ever any doubt.
“Yes. I’ll go this afternoon when everyone is napping.”
Petros tried to look like he was thinking very hard. “Perhaps Elia and I should deliver them. Perhaps Stavros.”
“Why is that?”
“Soldiers won’t pay any attention to us. We’re only boys.”
This reasoning could have tipped the scale either way. Petros saw it on Zola’s face. “It protects you, Zola,” Petros hurried to say. “What if you got arrested?”
“If you get arrested, Mama will kill me. And I’ll kill you.”
“So we won’t get arrested,” Petros said, closing the deal.
* * *
Petros ate his breakfast of bread and olives quickly, eager to get on to his garden. It wasn’t long before he spotted Elia working across the road. He ran over and arranged for Elia to meet him at the well when the Lemos family lay down for a nap.
“What are we doing?” Elia wanted to know.
“Something dangerous,” Petros said. Elia’s eyes lit up as if he’d said, Something fun.
People carrying their belongings continued to pass the house throughout the morning and made Petros feel a little sick. Perhaps anyone who could was leaving. Those who didn’t have good farms or sure businesses and were often hungry figured things would only get worse.
After the midday meal, Mama lay down for a nap. Sophie read a book. Papa and Old Mario sat on the porch smoking, and Zola joined them.
Petros met Elia at the well and told him what Zola had in mind. Elia said, “Why do we need Stavros?”
“We’ll make it look like a game. Someone watching will be interested in the boy throwing, or the boy catching. Who’ll see the third boy drop a piece of paper?”
Zola peeked around the corner of the house and waved them over. Elia ambled over to Zola, making it clear that he wasn’t going to be bossed around.
Zola waved a harder come on. “Are you ready?” he whispered impatiently when the boys stood in front of him.
Zola’s printed messages were wadded to make tight little balls. A folded piece of paper might tempt the wrong people to pick it up—what proud soldier would pick up a piece of wadded paper out of mere curiosity?
On the way to town, Elia and Petros decided Zola’s plan was excellent. They agreed not to tell him they thought so.
Petros expected Stavros to pretend a lack of interest at first. Instead, Stavros acted like he’d been in charge all along and made them practice. They stood in the corners of his room, tossing a small cloth bag of sand around as they chanted, “Throw, catch, drop.”
Auntie looked in once, saw boys playing ball, and asked them no questions. In only a few minutes they got the rhythm of it down. Each one of them put notes in his pockets and left the house.
Italian soldiers were everywhere in clusters, more than ever before. Lounging on doorsteps. Having a coffee at an open café. Strolling. All around the soldiers, the village moved on in its usual way.
A boy only a little older than Zola stood at a windowsill, flirting with a girl. Old men played cards at a table in a garden. Women bustled from shop to shop, carrying boxes of paper money, their fingers hooked under the heavy twine. There were soldiers in the village, but everyone had learned to live with this.
Elia, Stavros, and Petros ran through the village, calling to each other, tossing the sand ball back and forth. Boys at play didn’t look disciplined. Hot, and panting whenever they stopped moving for a moment, how could they hold secrets? The soldiers hardly noticed them, and after a few throws, the boys relaxed.
They ran into yards and into doorways where they shouldn’t go. Once, a soldier caught the sand ball, then threw it onward to Stavros. With the soldier’s easy smile upon them, war seemed only a game everyone was playing.
Zola had fallen asleep on the veranda, and they found him there when t
hey got back home. Papa and Old Mario had already gone back to work. “Be careful,” Zola said after they described their adventure. “The Germans are playing to win.”
Petros knew how to read his brother. He agreed with Stavros and Elia. It had gone well. But Elia said, “We’re careful and smart.”
“You have to be both,” Zola said, frowning. “You have to be everything but too sure of yourself.”
At bedtime, Zola sat in the darkness, waiting for the household to sleep. He planned to write his next message.
Petros asked, “What will you write?”
“You’ll see tomorrow,” Zola said.
Petros rolled onto his side, glad he, at least, could sleep through the night. Also, Petros knew Zola would soon talk about anything he did well.
“I might deliver these messages myself,” Zola said.
Petros pretended to be asleep for a few moments before he really was.
chapter 15
Petros woke with one thought already in mind. The Germans haven’t come. He knew this was best for everyone, and yet it was as if he, having tripped over a rake, was still waiting to fall.
His next thought had to do with Zola’s notes. He wanted to play this game with Elia and Stavros again. He was brave and he was bold—that felt good. More, he’d put a proud gleam in his brother’s eyes.
Zola’d dragged himself off his pillow as Petros sat up. Already the skin between Zola’s eyebrows looked knotted with a fight between the desire to keep the secret of his new message and the need to tell it.
“I guess you want to know what I wrote.” Sleep slurred the words.
Petros did, but it was necessary not to look too eager. He headed out of the room. “Food first.”
In the kitchen, Sophie asked, “Why are the Germans taking so long?”
Mama made the usual annoyed click of her tongue. “You’re impatient for them to get here?”
“It’s only because this waiting is so hard.”
“Be glad we don’t live in a city like Athens or a port like Piraeus, or even too close to the railways,” Mama said to her. It was said in the village that the Germans took those cities first.
War Games Page 5