by Kate Hewitt
“Yes. They are not interested until it has been twenty-four hours.”
Which, Ava knew, had to feel like a lifetime to Andreas. She knew all about that, the endless waiting, just wanting it to be over even as you desperately wished for it never to have begun.
This is not about you. She closed her eyes, willed herself to focus. “Would you like me to take a look around the village?” Ava asked. “Or I could drive to Lamia—”
“I wondered whether she might come to you,” Andreas admitted in a low voice.
“Me?” Ava could not hide her surprise. She thought it had been fairly obvious that she and Kalista hadn’t hit it off the few times they’d met together.
“You are young and glamorous,” Andreas said, and Ava bit her lip to keep from laughing outright. She was thirty-six years old and far from glamorous in her own estimation. “She admires you.”
That had most definitely not been apparent to Ava. “I’ll look in the village,” she said. “I’ll go out right now; it’s not even dark yet. And I’ll ring you as soon as I’ve had a look round.”
“Thank you,” Andreas said, his voice ragged and heartfelt. “I am very grateful.”
Ava rung off, slipped her aching feet once more into her shoes, and retrieved her coat and a torch in case she was out late. Then she opened the front door and almost tripped over the rather forlorn figure huddling on the stoop.
It was Kalista.
21
October 1942
Execute them.
Velouchiotis had barely given his men the order before they were pushing the SOE agents and Sophia along, clearly intent on carrying out his orders as quickly as possible. Sophia felt the butt of a rifle in her back and a disbelieving panic rose in her in an icy, unstoppable tide. She bit her lips to keep from crying out, felt the metallic tang of blood on her tongue.
The worst was happening. The thing she’d dreaded and feared was taking place right now, and everything in her sought to deny it.
She turned to Alex, as if he could help her now, when he was being prodded along with the others, his face set in lines of resignation. He caught her wild glance and smiled sorrowfully; it felt like a farewell.
Everything in Sophia rose up in an angry howl, a defiant refusal to believe that it could end so abruptly, so awfully.
“Wait!” The word burst from her lungs like a bullet, shattered the taut stillness of the forest.
No one paid any attention to her, of course. The guerrillas barely looked at her, and Velouchiotis was already turning away. He’d just ordered a mass execution and he couldn’t even be bothered to watch it being carried out.
Driven by a force and strength she’d never felt before, Sophia lurched forward and grabbed the ragged hem of Velouchiotis’s coat, falling to her knees. “Parakalo.” Please.
He kicked her in the stomach with his boot, and she felt the breath leave her body in a painful rush as she doubled over. “So you, little maid, are going to defend your king on your way to your death?” He sounded only scornfully amused. “Porni.” Whore. He spat in her face and Sophia blinked the gob of spittle away, still clutching his hem.
“I know nothing of a king, and neither do these men.” Her voice came out in something between a gasp and a whisper. She could feel Velouchiotis’s spittle trickling towards her mouth. “They’ve come here to perform an act of sabotage against the Nazis and blackshirts—they want to work with you.”
A small, cruel smile played about Velouchiotis’s mouth. “You mean they want to use my men as fodder. I know how those British bastards work.” He spat again, smiling when it hit her full in the face.
Tears threatened and she blinked them back, furious with herself that she could succumb to crying when everything was so urgent, so important.
“No, Major,” she said, purposely using his title in a reckless appeal to his vanity. “They want your help. They were brought here to ask you for help.” She didn’t know that precisely, but her mind was scrambling for sense even as words spilled from her in a thoughtless, desperate rush. “This man,” she pointed at Alex, who she saw was looking at her with an almost blazing light in his eyes, “works in explosives. He is going to make bombs that will blow the Nazis to the other side of the Gorgopotamos!” As soon as she said the words, Sophia thought of course. They must be planning to blow up the Gorgopotamos viaduct. As the main railway link to Athens, it was surely the most strategic target in the area.
Velouchiotis must have been thinking similarly, for after an endless moment when he stared at Sophia with eyes as black as pits, he raised his hand. “Lower your guns.”
Sophia let go of his coat and eased back on her heels. She was shaking so badly that she nearly keeled over, and Alex reached out to steady her, his uninjured hand reassuringly warm and firm on her elbow.
“Amazing,” he whispered in her ear, his voice low and heartfelt. “You are a very, very brave young woman.”
Sophia let out a strangled laugh, halfway to hysteria. Her—brave? She was always so afraid, so afraid that she’d never wanted any of this.
And yet here she was.
Velouchiotis summoned Dimitrios and Alex’s commander with an arrogant jerk of his thumb, and Sophia watched them disappear into a derelict shed, its stone walls crumbling. The guerrillas herded the rest of them to a stand of pine trees, the ground patchy with snow, and Sophia sank onto it, heedless of the cold or wet. She rested her head on her knees, her stomach churning with nerves, the aftereffects of her heedless confrontation of Velouchiotis. Alex handed her his canteen.
“Water.”
She looked up in surprise. “You need—”
“No,” he said wryly, his eyes crinkling, “you need it. Take it.”
After a moment, awkwardly, Sophia took the canteen and unscrewed the lid. She drank thirstily, for her throat was parched and her stomach empty. She was conscious of Alex’s gaze resting on her, and she thought, bizarrely, of the fact that she was putting her mouth where he had once put his. Embarrassed now, she lowered the canteen and handed it back to Alex. “Efharisto.”
He smiled, and for a moment Sophia wanted to say something else, something more, but she didn’t know what. In any case she did not have the English; perhaps she didn’t even have the Greek for the feelings churning inside her. Exhausted in more ways than one, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the tree. Eventually she fell into a doze, despite all the fear and uncertainty that bubbled inside her. She was startled awake some time later, dizzy and disoriented, by the return of Dimitrios and the SOE commander, as well as Major Velouchiotis. Sophia waited, tension coiled in every muscle and tendon of her body. They could very well, she knew, still be executed.
Dimitrios didn’t look at her as he spoke to the British SOE agents. “We take you to another shelter,” he said in hesitant, disjointed English. “Better for the target. We leave soon.” He turned on his heel, going to join the other ELAS men with an obvious swagger. Sophia watched him, felt a weary derision at his childish behavior. Her outspokenness might have saved the SOE agents, but Dimitrios was clearly going to take the credit. She hardly cared about such things even in the best of times, and so with a sigh she sank back against the tree. Alex crouched down next to her, his hand cradled against his chest.
“Saved,” he said softly, “for now. And it is thanks to you, Sophia.”
She smiled shyly, but his words echoed disturbingly in her head. For now… for now…
For how long?
22
Now
“Kalista…” Ava gazed down at the girl in surprise and more than a little concern. She was sitting on the stone slab that served as the stoop, her arms hugging her knees. Her hair was tangled in front of her face as she looked up at Ava with both hope and defiance, but she offered no explanation or apology for her presence. “Come in,” Ava finally said, opening the door wider. “You must be freezing.”
Kalista grabbed her rucksack and slouched inside. Ava closed the door and w
ondered wearily what on earth to do now. “Your father is very worried about you.”
“I don’t care.”
Not a great beginning, Ava thought. “I should call him—”
“Don’t!” Kalista whirled around to face her. “I came here because I thought you were the one person who wouldn’t call him.”
Ava stared at her in surprise. “Why would you think that?”
She hunched one shoulder. “You fought with him, out at the bridge. You’re the only person who has stood up to him.”
“I didn’t mean to stand up to him,” Ava said quietly. “Not like that. I just didn’t realize the topic was so volatile.”
Kalista looked at her sulkily. “I don’t know that word.”
“Difficult, then,” Ava said, and Kalista just shrugged. “Are you running away then?” she asked after a moment.
“I don’t know.” Kalista sat on her sofa, her skinny arms wrapped around her knees. “I just wanted to get away.”
“And go where?”
Kalista looked up at her, scowling. “I don’t know! I came here, didn’t I?”
Ava nodded, dropping down next to her on the sofa. “So you did. But perhaps you could have told him where you were going—”
“He wouldn’t have let me go.”
“Not even here?” Ava asked, trying to hit a teasing note. “All the way to Iousidous?”
“Probably not,” Kalista said sulkily, and Ava sighed. The girl was most likely right; Andreas didn’t seem to let her do much of anything, or go anywhere.
“Even so,” she said after a moment, “you need to tell him where you are. He just called me in an absolute panic. He’s already contacted the police.”
Kalista looked startled, her eyes widening and her mouth parting, and then, for a moment, scared. She masked it quickly, shrugging as if she didn’t care, but Ava had seen it and her heart twisted in both understanding and compassion.
She knew what it was like to be desperate to get away. To run away.
Was that what she had done? Run away from her marriage and her grief?
Just like Kalista, she needed to go back. The thought filled her with a fear similar, she suspected, to Kalista’s. How did you manage that? How did you try?
Awkwardly she patted the girl’s bony knee. “Kalista, I know things are difficult between you and your father. But running away and making him worry are hardly going to make him see you as someone responsible—responsible enough to live in Athens, as I believe you’ve wanted.”
Kalista hunched a shoulder. “I wasn’t thinking about that,” she mumbled. “I just wanted to be alone.”
Ava frowned. “Doesn’t your father give you time alone?”
“He always wants me to study, to go outside, to do this or do that.” Her mouth twisted, the words coming haltingly, her English broken, yet the sentiment all too understandable. “He thinks he can make me like it here, but I won’t. Never!” She buried her head on her knees, her thin shoulders shaking.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Ava pulled the girl into her arms, and Kalista came willingly, sobbing as she pressed her face against Ava’s shoulder. Ava could feel the girl’s shoulder blades under her sweater, as bony as chicken wings. Kalista’s dark hair streamed over her shoulders and Ava patted her back, clumsily, her own heart aching.
Andreas had a child, a beautiful daughter, and he was wrecking the relationship without even realizing.
A relationship, she acknowledged, that she had so desperately wanted. A relationship that had been taken from her. From her and Simon.
How would Simon have been with their daughter? Would he have been too strict, or would her blond curls and blue eyes—that was how Ava had always imagined her—have made him unbend? She pictured her daughter’s little face with tendrils of corn-silk hair and rosebud lips, and everything in her ached, but it was a different ache, a cleaner one somehow. Instead of the sprawling mess of grief, she felt the quiet pulse of sorrow and knew it was something she could live with. She would have to.
“Kalista,” she said after a moment, when the girl’s muffled sobs had turned to sniffles, “I do need to ring your father and let him know where you are. He really is worried.”
Kalista eased back from Ava and wiped her face with the ragged sleeve of her sweater. “Fine.”
Sighing, Ava reached for her phone. Andreas answered on the first ring.
“Ava? Have you learned anything?”
“Kalista is here with me, Andreas.”
She heard his breath come out in a long, ragged rush. “Thank God. I’ll be right over.” He severed the connection before Ava could suggest an alternative, although what that would be she didn’t know.
She turned back to Kalista, who eyed her anxiously. “Your father is on his way.”
“Now? I don’t—”
“Perhaps it will help if we all sit down and talk together,” Ava said, although she wasn’t sure it would. “In the meantime, let me get you something to eat.”
Kalista stared at her with wide eyes, and Ava knew she was dreading the confrontation with Andreas. “Look, it won’t be so bad,” she said, trying to smile. “And maybe this can help you two to talk more.”
Kalista looked rather doubtful, and with a sigh Ava went to the kitchen to find some bread and cheese.
They didn’t talk much in the twenty minutes it took Andreas to drive to Iousidous; Kalista was too busy wolfing down as much bread and cheese as she could manage, as if this was to be her last meal. The wash of headlights through the front window and the following sharp rap on the door made them both jump. Ava hurried to open it.
“Andreas—”
Andreas brushed past her to address his daughter quite furiously in Greek. Ava watched as Kalista shrank back, her eyes glittering with both tears and defiance. She couldn’t understand what Andreas was saying, but none of it sounded good. After several minutes of this incomprehensible diatribe, she laid a hand on his arm, the muscles tensing under her touch. “Andreas—perhaps we should all talk—”’
“All?” Andreas repeated, swinging around to face her, still furious. “She is my daughter, not yours.”
Stung, Ava snapped, “Then treat her like one.”
“Don’t tell me how to treat my own child,” Andreas retorted, his voice rising. “You don’t even have a child—”
He couldn’t know how much that hurt, Ava told herself. She blinked back angry tears and forced herself to stay calm. “No, I don’t, which is why I could be of help here. I can see you’ve had trouble talking to each other properly—”
“You know nothing about it,” Andreas answered shortly. “This is not your business, Ava. I appreciate Kalista came to you, but this is a family matter. And as I said, you know nothing of raising a child.”
Ava flinched under the onslaught of his words. She knew nothing. He was right; she didn’t. She’d held her daughter in her arms once, but that was all. That was nothing.
She wished, suddenly and fiercely, that Simon were there. He would have stood up to Andreas. He would have stayed calm, and so wonderfully firm. He would have told Andreas that Ava did know what it was to have a child, to love her.
“You’re right, Andreas,” Ava said stiffly when she trusted herself to speak. “I know nothing of raising a child. Perhaps you should take Kalista home and deal with the matter there, instead of in my living room.”
“I want to stay here.” Kalista’s voice was no more than a thread of sound, and Andreas turned to her sharply. Ava braced herself for another furious and foreign scolding, only to hear him sigh and see his shoulders sag.
He turned back to Ava, and she saw regret shadow his eyes and etch lines in his face. “I’m sorry. In my anger and fear I have behaved badly.” He shook his head. “Not as I would have wished.”
“It’s all right,” Ava said, her voice still stiff from his rebuke. You know nothing of raising a child. No, she didn’t. And God only knew how much she wished she did, that she’d had the opportunity.
No, not only God. Simon knew. He might not have seemed as if he understood, but he’d known.
“Your offer to talk is kind,” Andreas said after a moment, choosing the English words with stilted care. “Does it still stand?”
“Of course.”
He smiled at her, the curve of his lips both wry and sad, and then at his daughter. “Then perhaps we should talk. But not tonight. Tonight, Kalista, you come home with me. And tomorrow we will both talk with Ava.”
The next afternoon Ava went with Helena to the house of another war survivor, Agathe Boulos. The elderly woman lived alone in a small house at the top of the village, a neat garden out in front and three baleful-looking cats taking up residence in the sitting room.
She turfed one out of its chair before gesturing for Ava and Helena to sit down. Ava sat, watched as Agathe reached for a tin on a high shelf above the television stand, her arthritic fingers curling carefully around it.
Smiling in satisfaction, she opened the tin and offered them sweets of rosewater jelly. Ava accepted one diplomatically; she’d had them before and thought they tasted like soap. Yet she could hardly refuse Agathe’s hospitality, and in any case, the tin of sweets reminded her, rather poignantly, of how her grandmother would give her a sweet every time she visited her in Leeds.
“Sophia Paranoussis?” Agathe mused after she and Helena had chatted in Greek for half an hour. Ava sat up straight, her mouth still tasting of the soapy sweet.
Agathe leaned back in her rocking chair and surveyed both Helena and Ava with surprisingly shrewd eyes. “Yes,” she said after a moment in careful English, “I knew her.”
Hope leaped inside her and Ava leaned forward. “You did? How?”
Agathe glanced at Helena. “My English. It is not so good.”
Helena nodded in understanding; Ava waited eagerly as Agathe spoke and Helena translated into English. “‘Iousidous has always been a small place,’” she began. “‘Everyone has known everyone else, and all their business.’” Helena smiled wryly in acknowledgement, and Agathe grinned before resuming her story.