Beyond the Olive Grove: An absolutely gripping and heartbreaking WW2 historical novel

by Kate Hewitt

  “There are still a few men in the village,” Sophia protested. She could not be so bold as to name one in particular, but surely certain names would come to mind? Agisilaos, whose father had a farm similar in size to her own. Admittedly, Agisilaos was not the most handsome man: he was stout and squat and missing a front tooth. But still, in these times, he was a man, he had the prospect of a farm and a good living, and he was healthy.

  “Sophia, I cannot marry off a girl of eighteen,” Andra told her sharply. “It would cause talk—”

  “Only about how clever she is,” Sophia protested. If a girl managed to snag a husband, no matter what the reason, she was lauded. Only a stupid girl ended up alone, or worse, shamed.

  “And what of the other girls in this village, girls who are twenty or nearing thirty, and have no husbands? What about my own daughters? Should Angelika step in front of them all and demand a man for herself? She’s little more than a child.”

  “She’s eighteen, not—”

  “A child,” Andra stated flatly. “And she acts as one, too. Carousing about, making eyes at the boys, avoiding her work. Shameless, although I would never say such a thing.”

  You just did, Sophia thought, but stayed silent. She could not argue with her aunt.

  “And,” Andra continued, sounding almost angry, “you are as foolish as your mother was, for coming here and thinking I would help you with such a thing.”

  Sophia bit her lip. Her aunt was right; it had been foolish to come here; she saw that now. Even if Andra had agreed to consider opening negotiations with another family, Angelika wouldn’t. Angelika would never agree to marry a man like Agisilaos. As for Dimitrios, he would not consider marriage for another five or ten years at least. His father would not allow him, and if not marriage, then what? She shuddered to think.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, rising from the table. “You’re right, this was foolishness. I only want to see Angelika well settled. I am concerned for her.”

  Andra waved a hand dismissively. “Settle her at your own hearth, then. Let her become a woman who works her own garden, her own home. What man wants a woman who flutters about doing nothing? When she’s learned some responsibility, then you can marry her off, as long as there is still a man left with a pair of eyes, two legs and what goes between!” She let out a loud guffaw at her own coarse humor. Sophia blushed and said nothing. “And you should think of your own marriage,” Andra continued in a slightly softer tone. “Surely there is someone you have looked at, at least? You are almost of an age.”

  Quickly she shook her head. “I am too busy, Thia Andra. And I am happy at home.”

  Andra shrugged her acceptance. She’d never bothered herself overmuch with either Sophia or Angelika, not even after Katerina had died. She certainly wouldn’t now.

  That night Sophia washed trays of dirty glasses in the back room of the coffeehouse, the heat causing her blouse to stick to her back and large patches of sweat to dampen the thin cotton under her arms. She wiped her forehead, longing only for the safety and stillness of home. Surely Angelika would not get up to more mischief, with these absurd claims of fetching water under the cover of darkness. Once Sophia had glanced into the crowded, smoky front room and she had not seen Dimitrios. She had not heard his loud, braying laugh, either, and if he was not here, then where was he? He was not, Sophia knew, the type of man to stay safely at home when he could be out boasting at the taverna. Please God he was not dallying with Angelika and bringing shame to their family.

  She had been stupid, she saw that now, to go to her aunt. Stupid and blind, to do something so publicly. Now everyone would talk, whisper about little Sophia thinking of catching herself a man. The men at the coffeehouse would make remarks. Perhaps people would guess she was worried about Angelika, and that would make things worse. And in any case it had all been completely pointless, because just as her sister had proudly told her, things were changing. The old ways were crumbling under the pressures of war, giving way to this new and different life Sophia didn’t want. And when the war was over—whenever that distant day might be—who knew what life would be like then? What would still remain?

  A guffaw of hard laughter came from the front room, louder than usual. All evening Sophia had sensed a tense male energy she didn’t like. News had come from Athens that afternoon, of a village on the outskirts of the city that had been burned to the ground for hiding andartes. Men had been led from their homes, trussed like chickens, and shot in front of their wives and children. Some women, too, had died, and even little ones. It was horrifying, unbelievable, and yet Sophia knew it to be true. She could imagine it: the misery, the blood, the children’s lifeless limbs splayed out like spent matchsticks. And it could happen here, to her, to Angelika, especially if her sister persisted in this innocent yet dangerous fascination with Dimitrios.

  What if he enlisted her foolish aid for the communists, the ELAS men led by Velouchiotis that he bragged about being a part of? Sophia had kept a sharp eye at home on the little larder, counting tomatoes and dried corn, making sure a loaf of psomi didn’t go missing. She knew there were other women in the village who brought food to the andartes. They wrapped a loaf in cloth and left it in the base of a stone wall, in the cleft of a rock. Silently, secretly, under the cover of night someone came and took it. No one spoke of it; no one watched, and yet somehow everyone knew.

  Sophia knew her own unwillingness to do the same could be a source of unspoken shame if it were known. Perhaps it already was, and she was being silently judged, yet she would not even consider it, not for a moment. Her life for a loaf of bread? Her sister’s or her father’s? And she did not believe these andartes, for all their courageous ways, were men to be admired. They swaggered and shot their rifles and talked of killing. They were not so different from the Italians or even the Nazis; they just didn’t wear a proper uniform. Some of them had ridden into villages already, demanded food and supplies and beaten or even shot those who did not give it readily. No, she thought grimly, not different at all.

  And if Dimitrios really was one of them…

  The soapy glass she was holding suddenly slid from her hands, shattering as it hit the edge of the basin, the jagged pieces scattering over the floor of packed earth.

  “Sophia! It is not like you to be clumsy.”

  Sophia turned to see Kristina standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips. She didn’t sound particularly angry, but Sophia felt a fierce stab of regret all the same. A glass was a glass, and not easily replaced. “I’m sorry. It is the news from that village that has upset me—you heard?”

  “Of course I heard.” Kristina pursed her lips. “Pigs,” she said under her breath. “Poutanas gioi.” Sophia stiffened at the surprising curse word. Sons of bitches.

  “It is terrible,” she said inadequately, wanting to fill the awkward silence Kristina’s cursing had caused. “If only something could be done.”

  Kristina gave her a hard stare, that strange little smile on her lips once more. A ripple of unease, cold despite the stifling heat of the kitchen, snaked down Sophia’s spine. She didn’t like that smile of Kristina’s. “If only,” Kristina said, and turned to leave the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway, one hand on the wall. Sophia watched her uneasily, sensing the same coiled tension in the widow that she’d felt from the men in the front room. “Go fetch more water,” Kristina called over her shoulder. “From the barrel. There could be broken glass in that basin, and I do not wish you to cut your fingers.”

  Obediently Sophia heaved the basin to the back patch of garden and dumped the dirty water into the weeds. She was just reaching for the pail to fetch some fresh water from the barrel when a strong hand suddenly clasped her wrist.

  Sophia could not think to scream. She stared at that hand, so unfamiliar and yet holding her so surely—when had a man touched her bare skin?—and her mind completely emptied out, like water onto the parched earth. In an instant it was gone.

  “Parakalo,” a voice whispered
in her ear. Please. “Do not be afraid, and do not make any noise. It will be bad for us both.”

  Sophia said nothing, but when the man still didn’t release her, she gave a short nod to indicate she’d understood. Slowly he took his hand from her arm; she could see a red mark all around her wrist. She clutched her arm to her chest as if it were broken, as if he had crushed it with that firm grasp, and spun around to face her assailant.

  He smiled, a neat, narrow-faced man, not much taller than she was. “I am not here to hurt you,” he said.

  She glanced down at her arm. “No?”

  He gave a little huff of laughter. “No.”

  Sophia stared at the stranger, fear licking at her belly and fraying her nerves. He gazed back at her with dark, fathomless eyes, and Sophia could not think what he wanted. Had he been waiting for her here, in this dark patch of weeds? How had he known she would be out here? Had Kristina sent her for this very reason—but why?

  “Sophia. I have heard good things of you.”

  She licked her lips and found her voice. “How could you have heard of me?”

  He smiled faintly. “There are ways. You are not like your sister.”

  Dread pooled coldly inside her. This was about Angelika. Of course. She should have said something earlier, warned her. “My sister is silly,” she told the man quickly, tripping over her words. “Harmless, though, truly. She never means anything by what she does. She can’t keep her tongue in her head, that is all, but I will speak to her.” And please God, Angelika would finally see sense.

  “No, indeed, she cannot.” The man folded his arms, his eyes narrowing. “But you can.”

  Sophia swallowed. “What do you want?” she whispered. She was amazed that no one had called for her, that Kristina or Spiro hadn’t seen her out here with a strange man and called out—unless Kristina really did know. But why…? And, she acknowledged numbly, she had thought Angelika might be ruined. Her very life, never mind her reputation, was in this man’s power.

  “Someone wants to talk to you,” the man said quietly. “Midnight, tomorrow, in the Lethikos olive grove, twenty minutes’ walk from the village. You know it?”

  “Yes, but—” Sophia licked her lips again. Her throat was so very dry and her heart beat with hard, painful thuds. Was she in trouble? What could she have done? Or was it still about Angelika? Questions fluttered through her mind like birds scattering at the sound of an animal, the sight of a beast. Trying to flee, wings beating in rapid fear. “I don’t know anything,” she said, choking on the words. “I just work and keep my head down. That’s all I ever want to do.”

  “Which makes you suitable for our purpose,” the man replied calmly. He leaned forward so his voice was no more than a hiss, a breath. “But this war will not be won by keeping your head down. We must act. Quickly, quietly. There are those already at work, doing things you cannot even imagine.”

  And then, of course, she knew who this man was, or at least whom he worked for. She had, in some part of her, known who he was from the moment his hand had circled her wrist. He worked for the Resistance. She shook her head, the movement one of violent instinct.

  “No—”

  “You must do your duty, Sophia.”

  “You are a communist,” she choked and he shook his head.

  “No. I do not work for those animals.”

  So he was a republican. His calm, precise manner spoke of military organization, not the wild, uncontrolled tactics of the guerrillas. He must work under General Zervas for EDES, the republican Resistance group that clashed with men like Velouchiotis and his troop of bloodthirsty men, creating yet more violence. Yet did it even matter that much? Both groups demanded action, violence. Both groups promised danger, or even death.

  “I can’t—”

  “Twelve o’clock, in Lethikos’s grove,” the man cut across her swiftly. Sophia just shook her head, helpless now. Could she not refuse?

  “There are others,” she began, “who want—”

  “We need you.”

  “Why?”

  He smiled, no more than a glint of teeth in the darkness. “The reasons do not matter. Do you want this war to be won, Sophia? Do you want it to be over?”

  “Yes, of course I do,” she whispered, because there was no other answer. She just didn’t want to be involved in such danger. To risk not just her own life, but her father’s and Angelika’s, the safety she’d tried so hard to hoard, like the drachmas in the tin above the hearth. Yet you could not cling to such things; you could not count them like coins. In a moment they were snatched away, as if they’d never been at all.

  “Please—” she tried again, but she might as well have been speaking to a stone.

  “You will answer to a man named Perseus. He will be waiting for you.” And with that he was gone, his presence marked only by a dusty boot print in the dirt.

  Sophia sagged against the wall, her whole body trembling with the aftershocks of the encounter. Why—and how—had a man in the Resistance found her? Recruited her? Surely she was unsuitable. She was afraid. Didn’t that make her a risk? And yet already she might know too much. Already her fear made her a liability, and if they saw it, it could mean her death. The Resistance groups did not scruple to kill someone who was a threat to them, whether they were German, Italian—or Greek.

  “All I wanted was to stay safe,” she whispered, although whether she was talking to herself or to God, she could not say. How could she fault God for bringing her to this when so many more terrible things were happening to others? And yet it had seemed such a small, simple request. Safety. She would surrender other dreams—frail hopes of marriage, children, even this elusive fun Angelika went on about. Just safety. Life itself. A beating heart, a breath, a bit of food to eat. That was all she’d asked for, all she wanted. Yet such things, Sophia recognized with a shudder, were now as much a foolish hope as the others. In this new and terrible world, safety was no more than a helpless yearning, a troubadour’s song.

  7

  Now

  Greek Independence Day dawned cool and clear, with a hard, bright blue sky. Ava sat outside on the warm slab of stone that was her back stoop and listened to the sounds of the village coming to life; she could almost feel the energy pulsating in the usually sleepy streets. According to Eleni, everyone came out for the celebrations, the church service and picnic afterwards, dancing and even a parade. Ava realized that despite her earlier trepidation she was looking forward to being a part of it, no matter how small.

  She’d been living in her grandmother’s house for nearly a week, and most of that time had been spent sorting out her furniture and making a dusty, unused farmhouse a home, at least of sorts. She’d gone to Lamia again and bought some rugs and colorful throws and pillows, and with her few pieces of furniture it looked fairly decent, if a little sparse. Wandering through the few rooms, she often wondered what it had looked like in her grandmother’s day, yet she could imagine very little. The details of her grandmother’s life remained frustratingly elusive.

  In the last week she’d shared several meals with Eleni, and although she’d wanted to ask Parthenope more questions, she’d held her tongue. Whenever Eleni’s mother joined them, Eleni gave Ava a sharp warning glance that couldn’t be misunderstood. Conversation about the past was still strictly off limits. In any case, Parthenope seemed to have forgotten her emotional outburst from when she’d first met Ava. She never apologized again, and Ava’s presence seemed a matter of indifferent acceptance. Ava wondered whether the precious memories of her grandmother were locked away forever.

  In the last week Simon hadn’t rung again. Ava kept checking her phone, staring at its blank screen as if it held the answers to the universe. Or at least her world, which was ridiculous because she wasn’t even sure she wanted to speak to Simon. She did know that she wanted him to ring, and she was afraid to ask herself why. Her marriage might not be definitively over, but it was on its last breath. A year of taut silences and sudden angry outbur
sts was surely a testament to that.

  She had talked to her mother, keeping the conversation safely on practicalities and descriptions of the village and house. Her mother had followed her lead and not asked any questions about Simon.

  Her best friend, Julie, had been another matter. Ava, Julie, and Simon had all been friends since their university days. In fact, Julie had been Simon’s friend first, both of them in the sailing club, and Ava had become friends with her when she’d started dating Simon. The dynamics had never bothered her, not once, in the nearly twenty years they’d known each other, yet when she talked to Julie now, they suddenly did.

  “Do you want to hear about Simon?” her friend had asked bluntly, and Ava had felt suddenly breathless with shock and pain. Of course Julie was still in touch with Simon. Ava and Simon’s separation didn’t mean Julie had stopped being friends with him. It was obvious, and yet unpalatable. Was Simon moaning to Julie about how over the top and absurd Ava was being, haring off to Greece? Was he crying on her shoulder?

  But no, Simon never moaned or cried. He had the emotional sensitivity of a rock, even if he denied it. In one of their last arguments Ava, enraged by his unflappable calm after their baby’s stillbirth, had screamed, “Did you even care about our daughter, Simon? Do you miss her at all?”

  Simon had stared at her with that impossibly expressionless look. How could you be married to someone for over ten years and still not know what he was thinking? “I can’t miss her, because I never knew her,” he said, and Ava let out a choked sob.

  “I can’t believe you said that.”

  “You asked.”

  “Do you feel anything,” she had demanded in a raw voice, “at all?”

  Still expressionless, mouth compressed and eyes narrowed, he’d simply said, “I’m not a stone.”

  He’d felt like one to her. On the phone she’d told Julie, quite firmly, that she did not want to hear about Simon. She didn’t want to think about Simon, and yet he invaded her thoughts, and in too many moments she caught herself imagining what he would think of things, the house, the grim-faced café owner Ava visited every morning for her cup of syrupy sludge, the skinny cat she’d started feeding from her back stoop.