War Games

by Audrey Couloumbis

  Zola said, “Auntie told us Aunt Hypatia is sometimes here, sometimes in the mountains.”

  “Stavros never said anything,” Petros said.

  “That’s what he should say,” Zola said. “Nothing.”

  He was in the mood for a fight, but Petros didn’t give it to him. “What about the notes?”

  “Auntie forgives me.”

  “Forgives you?”

  “Papa blames me,” Zola complained. “Papa’s old, and afraid someone might tell them about us. He doesn’t care about victory. He wants to be safe.”

  Petros kept silent. Much of the time he felt exactly that way. He wanted life to go back to the way it had been before the Germans invaded, even before the Greeks were at war with the Italians. It was good.

  And now things were changed. No one knew yet what it would mean.

  “It’s not fair,” Zola said. “Lambros was captured before I had written anything about him.”

  “Where did those four men go?” Petros asked.

  “Papa told them how to find old Mr. Katzen’s house,” Zola said. “No one goes up there now. It’s too far from the village. The weeds hide it.”

  “Why is that?”

  “He’s gone,” Zola said. “The Germans came and he was gone.”

  Petros sometimes thought of Mr. Katzen as he tended his peppers. But there were many things to think about once he’d left the peppers behind, and he’d forgotten to wonder why he hadn’t seen the old man lately. He cringed from knowing this, but there it was.

  chapter 30

  Working in his garden that afternoon, Petros began to protect that pepper plant, putting a bit of gauze over it to keep the bugs off. When the fruit was ready, he’d save the seeds for next year. He’d remember Mr. Katzen.

  During the afternoon rest, when even Zola slept—since missing so much sleep, he seemed to appreciate it more—Petros went to the arbor and cut a long vine. He stripped it of leaves and tiny green grapes. He broke the stem to shape a hexagon. The shape of his kite.

  He wished, momentarily, that he’d told Zola. It seemed selfish to keep something so fine to himself. Perhaps he should have told Stavros and Elia too, but it wasn’t their feelings that weighed on him.

  The division of big brother/little brother always made Petros unhappy. Perhaps it even made Zola unhappy. Now and again Petros wanted to do things differently.

  He struggled with many such discomforts lately, from wanting to do things so he felt right about them and then having to do them in a way that felt wrong. The kite was one of these things. If he thought the matter through, he might find a compromise. He could do that later. He would.

  But this hour couldn’t be wasted.

  Working carefully, he strengthened the corners of the kite with thinner tendrils of the vine. He climbed the arbor, set the frame on top of the thick ceiling of grape vines, and left it to dry stiff and strong in the sun.

  Petros carried the wilted branches and scraps of grape leaves to the goats. All the evidence of his labor was gone in minutes. He let Fifi out of the pen, still thinking of how to get the string he had in mind.

  The next morning, Papa made his marketing trip to the village. Mama and Sophie were already waiting in the truck, having packed cheese and eggs for Auntie.

  Petros waited only until the truck was out of sight before leaving his garden. A better time for the tedious work of gluing the paper to the frame could not have been arranged.

  Old Mario and Zola were on the far side of the garden. They believed Petros to be working in his. He retrieved the paper flag, being careful not to squeeze creases into it, and carried the frame in his other hand.

  Sophie’s cat lay curled on the doorstep, a sleeping guardian. Everything was as he’d hoped. The quiet of the house was almost like being in a cave.

  Petros took all his materials to his room to work on the kite. The paste wouldn’t pick up dust and leafy debris as it would if he worked in the shelter of the arbor, and he could hide the finished kite under his bed until it dried.

  There was no one to scold when he spilled a little flour on the floor. He wiped it up before going on to the next step, adding the water a little at a time, stirring the paste with a knife.

  Petros loved the rattle of paper, the stickiness of paste. He loved the kite, now becoming more than a dream he watched in his mind’s eye. The paper still wanted to curl as he flattened it, but this made it easier to glue to the grapevine frame. The scissors, only last year just a little too big for his hands, worked smoothly, without fraying the edges where he cut. It was as if he were singing a song of kite making, and all the notes were perfect.

  He wiped his sticky fingers on his shirt again and again as he folded the edges of the paper flag to the frame. The strong blue and white could be seen on the backs of his eyelids when he blinked. Every minute flew by so fast, he didn’t know how much time had passed.

  The thought came to him to show Zola the kite before it was quite finished. His brother might be angry for a moment, for an hour even, but then the kite would win him over. He imagined he and Zola would work on it together, tying up each corner of the frame with the blue silk, light enough for the kite to carry it, strong enough to hold the kite captive, and of a color that would fade from the eye so the kite would seem to fly as freely as a bird.

  The kite would take a while to dry—this was a worry. Petros was so intent on making this kite of all kites that he heard nothing until he heard Zola’s breath, drawn in fast. “I knew it,” Zola said in a voice held low and—this pleased Petros—excited. Not angry.

  “I didn’t mean—” to keep it from Zola, not really. He meant to protect it. From Mama, Sophie, all of them. That’s what he wanted to say.

  But Zola interrupted him. “Shah. Hide it. Papa’s coming in.”

  “They’re back?” Petros hadn’t heard the truck.

  “Just Papa. Mama and Sophie are sitting with Auntie for a while.”

  He helped Petros slide the kite carefully under his bed. It was still wet in places but already sturdy as it disappeared into the shadows.

  Papa and Old Mario entered the kitchen, disagreeing about something. Zola said, “Change your shirt. Clean up this mess.” And then he hurried out of the room so fast his shirt-tail fluttered.

  After a panicky look around, Petros shoved the cup of paste under Zola’s bed. Paper scraps and the scissors went under the rug. He yanked off his shirt and wiped up the bits of paste drying on the floor.

  Wearing a clean shirt, he looked into the small mirror on the dresser to be sure he didn’t have paste in his hair. He put an innocent look on his face.

  In the kitchen, there was talk of buying a donkey and cart. Papa was slicing tomatoes that were still warm from the sun, Old Mario sprinkling oil and oregano on chunks of dried bread.

  Zola had taken a view that didn’t agree with Papa or Old Mario, a useful distraction. His dog had curled under the table like a dollop of soft cheese. No one took particular notice of Petros as he joined them.

  While they ate, whenever he looked at his brother, Zola wore an expression of deep thought. Petros knew his brother was thinking of the kite. Petros thought he was angry after all.

  But when they went to their room later, Zola’s eyes flashed with something like joy. “It’s a fine effort,” he said admiringly.

  “It’s mine.”

  “It’s ours.”

  Petros thought this over. Wasn’t this exactly what he’d hoped they might do? Share the kite? But the work was his. And the work wasn’t done. “It’s not ready to fly.”

  “No,” Zola agreed. “But someday we’ll fly it.”

  Petros said, “When I get the string, we’ll fly it.”

  “Where will you find string?”

  “I won’t tell you,” Petros said. “The kite is—the making of it is mine.”

  “Very well,” Zola said. “But the hiding of it is something we must do together. We can’t leave it under the bed. The roof!”

 
; Petros shook his head. “Papa might go up there.”

  “I didn’t say we’ll leave it in plain sight,” Zola said, a little of the sneering big brother creeping into his voice. “We’ll put it on the roof of the stairwell.”

  “A plane could see it,” Petros said, happy to spot the flaw in Zola’s planning. “Or it might blow away. It’s a kite, after all.”

  Zola looked stymied for a minute. Then he said, “The back wall of the stairwell is inches from the breakfall. The space is little more than a crevice.”

  “True,” Petros said. “The trellis covers that wall. No one will look there.” The trellis started at the ground but had been built up to cover the structure of the stairwell with vines.

  “We’ll put it between the wall and the breakfall, hidden by the trellis.”

  This was a good plan. Petros might not have thought of it himself, although he didn’t say so. Instead, he said, “Even the commander couldn’t find it there.”

  chapter 31

  While the afternoon sun baked the soil, Petros worked in his garden. He wanted to make up the time lost working on the kite.

  When it was about time the others would be waking up, he washed his hands in a small bucket beside the well. Fifi butted against him, hoping for an extra treat—a bit of carrot or a leaf from a pepper plant. “You were lucky today,” Petros said, holding a frothy green fringe of sweet fennel in front of her nose. “I broke this small branch.”

  Fifi snatched it from him and chewed.

  “Hssst! Petros!”

  Petros heard this whisper like it came out of the air over his head, and he looked up.

  “It’s me, Lambros.”

  This time the whisper could be felt like a breath on his neck.

  “Are you a ghost?”

  When Lambros laughed, the sound echoed out of the well. “Not yet, small cousin. Not yet.”

  But when Petros leaned over the well to look inside, and saw Lambros lying in one of the water buckets, he still wouldn’t have known him.

  Lambros’s face was bruised and cut over the eyebrow and on the cheekbone. He held his left hand to his chest, and one finger stuck out at an odd angle. Petros’s stomach turned over.

  “I’ll get Papa,” he said.

  “Wait,” Lambros said. “He’ll come soon enough. Tell me who else is around. Any Germans?”

  “Not yet,” Petros said. “Perhaps tomorrow. There were other men here yesterday, looking for you.”

  “Gestapo?”

  “No, no. Like you.”

  Lambros nodded. Petros thought the news heartened him.

  “Old Mario’s coming,” Petros said, seeing him out of the corner of his eye.

  “Don’t let him turn on the well or I’ll drown for sure.”

  Petros went straight to Old Mario and said everything right into his hairy left ear, which was the one that heard best.

  “Bless him,” Old Mario said. He hurried over to the well, looked down, and said, “Bless you, boy. No one has escaped them but you.”

  “Let us hope I continue to be so blessed,” Lambros said. “And you along with me. I hope it’s all right I came here.”

  Petros and Old Mario looked up to see Papa coming toward them, carrying a small bucket of tomatoes, and probably asking himself why they were looking into the well.

  “Is there trouble?” he called to them.

  Petros signaled with his head, no, then realized it was indeed trouble. It was only not the trouble Papa meant.

  When Papa reached them and looked down the well, he didn’t speak right away. When finally he did, he said, “I’m glad you aren’t killed.”

  Lambros laughed a little. “Some of this damage I did to myself. I caught a ride on the fender of a truck, but when it hit a bump, I was thrown off.”

  “We’ll get you out of there,” Papa said.

  “Uncle, I’m sorry,” Lambros said. “When my grandfather built his house and set up his loom on such a busy thoroughfare, he didn’t anticipate how hard it would be to get through the village when it’s overrun with an occupying army.”

  “He knew you could come here,” Papa said.

  Old Mario said, “Lemos likes a cup of coffee after his nap, but the family may be in the garden by now.”

  Papa yanked on a rope and pulled up a sack from inside the well. He said, “The season’s first artichokes. Petros, take them to the Lemos kitchen. If the family’s all there, stay ten minutes, visiting. If not, hurry back so we’ll know to wait till dark.”

  Lambros’s cuts were tended to most easily, washed with vinegar and a stitch taken by the time Petros returned. Papa decided the finger wasn’t exactly broken. He yanked on it to make it take its proper place in the joint. It was over quickly and Lambros didn’t make a sound. It was hunger and exhaustion that took the greatest toll on him.

  “We heard you were captured,” Papa said when he’d finished being the doctor.

  “They left me alone in a room,” Lambros said. “It was deep inside the building, no windows.”

  Old Mario set a bowl of lentil soup in front of Lambros. He asked, “How did you get away?”

  “The Germans grow overconfident. Once I was alone, I counted to five and opened the door. A washerwoman was there, mopping the floor. She said nothing but pointed to a hallway, then made a motion with her hands. Right, left, right.”

  Papa and Old Mario grinned.

  “I went down the hall, then right, left, right,” Lambros said. “Out the door and into a crowd of fellow Greeks, informers all. They thought me to be one of them and nodded as I passed by. I turned a corner and made myself look like someone with a place to go. Then I came home.”

  “Where else would you go?” Old Mario asked him when Lambros couldn’t say more.

  “I see we’ve been invaded since I was here last,” Lambros said in a near whisper. “I’ve put you in grave danger, Uncle.”

  “Not if we hide you well enough,” Papa said.

  “The roof?” Old Mario asked.

  “For tonight, perhaps. We’ll put you back in the well for now,” Papa said. “The third tunnel as you climb down, it’s mostly dry.”

  “Thank you, Uncle.”

  Papa shook his head. He didn’t like to be thanked.

  “You must get a message to Uncle Spiro,” Lambros said. “He’ll know if there’s someone I might travel with. Another soldier.”

  Papa said, “Spiro?”

  “Yes, Uncle. If I could have made it the rest of the way, I wouldn’t trouble you.”

  “Petros, make up a sack for your uncle,” Papa said. “Something he likes and may have in short supply. A jar of honey. Coffee. Bread. Tell your uncle Spiro of our visitor.”

  “Yes, Papa.” Petros was careful not to sound too pleased.

  chapter 32

  Petros thought of a dozen things he wanted to tell Uncle Spiro, on his way to the other farm. He could hardly keep his mind on one bit of news before his thoughts turned as if blown on the wind he imagined for the kite.

  He would tell Uncle Spiro Lambros was safe, of course. He’d say there were two valuables in the well. The glass marble. Uncle Spiro should know what a fine shooter it was.

  And Lambros.

  His spirits were excellent up to that point. After all, most of what he had to tell was good news. Only the end of the war felt uncertain, something to be waited for with a kind of dread, like the German commander.

  But he’d also tell about the Georges, an interesting story Uncle Spiro would know nothing about. He told it to himself a couple of times as he trudged along. He’d come to the border of the farm when Uncle Spiro called his name.

  Uncle Spiro sat at the top of a knoll, and Lump stood beside him, munching grass. When the little goat saw Petros, he came bucketing down the hill like a rocking horse. He butted Petros playfully.

  “You teach your goats bad manners, Uncle Spiro,” he said, laughing. He climbed the hill to sit beside his uncle. “I’ve come with news.”

  Un
cle Spiro offered a crust pulled out of his roomy pants pocket. “You look pale, boy. Are you hungry?”

  “A little. I brought honey.”

  Uncle Spiro looked into Petros’s sack. “It’s very poor bread we buy now. I could bake it for myself, but wheat is scarce—no one will trade it.” He shook his head as if the situation dizzied him.

  “Perhaps you could talk to Papa,” Petros said, a little smile in his heart. “He grows wheat.”

  “You’re a sly boy,” Uncle Spiro said, opening the jar of honey.

  Patient until now, Petros’s stomach growled as loudly as an animal wanting to be fed. They shared the bread, dipping it into the honey.

  It took only a minute to tell Uncle Spiro everything of great importance. “He said—I think he said you would know of any soldiers he could travel with.” Only now did Petros question why Lambros thought Uncle Spiro would be the one to know.

  “Those four who came to your house,” Uncle Spiro said. “In what direction did they travel?”

  Petros told him about Mr. Katzen, that the house stood empty so far as anyone knew. But also there was no certainty these men stopped there.

  “No, but it’s a place to start looking,” Uncle Spiro said. “Tell your papa he’ll have to manage for a couple of days.”

  Petros nodded. “Then what?”

  “Nothing is certain.”

  When Petros returned home, Lambros had been hidden in the well. This he knew because everyone had returned to work. Except Papa, who was staying close to the house.

  He stopped chasing Fifi long enough to complain that she’d broken into the shed and filled her belly with chicken feed. That much grain could kill a goat. “Get her up every time you see her lie down,” he told Petros. “Don’t let her rest until she’s digested that feed.”

  Old Mario had driven into the village and returned with Mama and Sophie. They weeded around the bushy mounds of bitter dandelion. Mama called out requests for odd jobs and little repairs, glad to have Papa so nearby.

  Otherwise, the ordinary work of late in the day had begun.

  Old Mario started the well. The belt whined overhead, the buckets rose and fell, the water spilled. In the heat of the day, the squash leaves drooped as if the plants were dying, but in the cool of the evening, every evening, they recovered.