Stelios had started packing things up because those in the audience who hadn’t been questioned were leaving quietly. I went over to the sergeant after he’d finished talking to a young woman, but he didn’t recognize me. Those new curls! So I said Takis’s name to him and this he seemed to understand. He called to one of the policemen, who knew some English, to come translate for us. The policeman gave me a little bow and said he was glad to be of service to the young lady. No one had ever called me that before and I supposed it was the result of Yannoula’s efforts. His dark Greek looks with chiseled nose and chin were as striking as Sergeant Whitfield’s blondness. The sergeant said something to the policeman in English and he translated.
“He wants you to take this Takis away from the barracks, please. And the others, if you can help us to place them.”
There were about fifty war orphans there, the policeman explained, and the British were going to have to turn them all over to the International Red Cross if no one would claim them here. No one knew for sure what would happen to them, but they were likely to be placed in orphanages in other countries where the fighting had ended. These were the other boys he’d mentioned at the Zappeion, I supposed. But their situation had changed. The sergeant said something else and the policeman translated that there’d been complaints from residents near the barracks about Takis specifically.
“They found him naked,” the policeman said. “Wandering around their back gardens, talking to himself.” When he was brought back to the barracks, Takis said that the nearby trees had told him to take off his clothes. And the roots of the trees whispered about underground tunnels beneath the field of tents that made up the barracks.
Sergeant Whitfield twirled his finger beside his head. “Trellos,” the policeman said.
Running around naked certainly sounded crazy enough, but it was new behavior for Takis, as far as I knew. Talking to trees was more familiar ground. He’d once claimed the village pines wanted to teach him to fly. Was the sergeant certain it was Takis in question? He nodded.
“Tell the sergeant I’ll come talk to Takis,” I said. “But I don’t know what I can do.”
“Can’t you take him away? Find another place for him? He’s not a bad boy. Just, you know, trellos. He needs a doctor, treatment. We can’t take responsibility.”
I said again that I didn’t know what I could do. But I would try. The policeman told me to use Sergeant Whitfield’s name to get past the sentry. He apologized for ruining our performance.
Stelios and I walked home together; Yannoula had gone on ahead. Why had I been talking with the two military men? he asked. Didn’t I know that the police were known to have their own death squads just as bad as the People’s Committees? It was dangerous to come to the attention of either side.
“Someone,” he said, “one of the ancients, I don’t remember which, wrote, ‘When the buffalo fight in the marsh, it’s the frogs who pay.’ I think we frogs better stay out of the way. No more performances for now.”
I took a deep breath and told him that Takis might be sent to a foreign orphanage. We couldn’t let that happen to him.
“Why not?” he said. “It might be the best thing. He could have a new life.”
“A new life in an orphanage?”
“Maybe someone would adopt him.”
“He wouldn’t speak the language.”
“He’d learn it if he had to.”
A cold wind slapped into us and sent leaves chattering around our feet. It was already late November. The cold winter rains would be coming down on all of us before long, including those boys up in Kaisariani. “Look, Stelios,” I said, “Chrysoula took me in when I had no place to go. And you and your mother. Now we’re safe, but her son isn’t.”
Stelios didn’t say anything for a few minutes.
When he finally did answer me, he said, “Well, speaking of his mother and mine, have you so quickly put their deaths behind you?” He asked this calmly, but his voice was hard. “Don’t forget that when I asked Takis about his part in it, he answered by biting me. I mean, I still have the marks.” He touched his leg as we walked. “And then he ran away the next day. So what makes you think he’d want to be with us—and that’s what you want, isn’t it?—even if we wanted him too? And there’s also Yannoula to think of. Would she want Takis in the house? I’ve told her how it was he came to attack me.”
Stelios was right; there was no getting away from it. I said that of course I hadn’t forgotten any of what happened in the village. I could never forget. But in spite of everything, I needed to protect Takis, even if mostly from himself, for now, anyway. I owed that much to Chrysoula.
“I keep thinking that she’s watching us,” I said, “and watching Takis and . . .”
“You have a good heart, Aliki,” Stelios said, as we went through the gate into the courtyard in front of the house. “Take care that it doesn’t ruin you and the rest of us too.”
I started to say something. I can’t remember what because he stopped me with his mouth on mine. It happened quickly and was over just as fast. He stepped back, looking as if he’d surprised even himself, just as Yannoula opened the door. He hurried inside the house ahead of me, leaving me staring at Yannoula with the heat of his sudden kiss spread all over my face.
“Well,” Yannoula said. “Well.”
The next morning, a Sunday, I left the house early. Neither Stelios nor Yannoula was up so I made my way out of Kolonaki and across Vassilisis Sophias Avenue. The air was crisp and filled with the scent of chestnuts that vendors had been grilling on their street corner braziers the last few weeks. I hadn’t slept much the night before, trying to decide what to do. Stelios’s kiss had made me light-headed and, as I lay awake, it put Takis right out of my mind. I thought of what Chrysoula had said about men and I started to think about what married couples might likely do with each other at night. I’d flung the covers off, even though the room was cold. When I’d cooled down a bit, I was embarrassed by my thoughts and how I’d completely forgotten about Takis. I resolved to set out early the next morning.
In the street, I buttoned my coat, one of Yannoula’s old ones, and held my handbag close to me as I walked into the Pangrati section of the city. From a balcony above, I heard someone call down to me. I couldn’t make out the words, but he pointed in the direction I was going—a warning of some kind—but I couldn’t turn back, couldn’t risk losing Takis to a foreign orphanage. I wasn’t sure what neighborhoods in that area were controlled by which armed groups. But I went on. There was a street sign about a monastery and cemetery at Kaisariani, pointing uphill in the eastern foothills of Mt. Hymettus.
As I rounded a corner, I saw the street ahead was blocked by a barricade of wooden sawhorses. Behind it was a single man with a machine gun. He looked as if he hadn’t seen me yet. I stood still, wondering if I should run into one of the side streets. But he turned, saw me and ordered me to halt.
“I am halted,” I said.
“You can’t come into this area. What’s your business?”
“I’m looking for the monastery at Kaisariani.”
He came over to me. “And why would that be?” he asked, looking me up and down, grinning. He was just a boy with the faint trace of a mustache. He wore old army fatigues, but the insignias had been ripped off so there was no way of telling which group he was with. “You’re going to pray with the monks, I suppose?”
“There’s a cemetery there.”
“You visit the dead a lot, do you? I’ve never seen you through here before.” He took my handbag and rummaged in it. He asked me where I lived and when I’d told him, he stooped down and looked directly into my eyes, as if to find out if I was telling the truth. I didn’t flinch or look away. Then he gave back my handbag, but as I took it from him, he slipped his hand up under my skirt and tried to slide his fingers inside my underwear. I shrieked and jumped away. “My regards
to the dead!” he called after me as I raced up the hill, my face still aflame with anger.
The barracks turned out to be just a field of tents up above the monastery. I asked the sentry for Sergeant Whitfield and was told he wasn’t there so I said he’d asked me to visit the boy named Takis. The guard told me to wait. When he came out, Takis was still dressed in a British uniform too big for him.
“Aliki!” he said. He had an uncertain smile, which quickly disappeared. “You look different. What happened to your hair?”
“It’s changed.”
“I’ll say.”
There was an awkward silence, then I asked how he was and he said, “I probably look different too. Like a British soldier, right?” He snapped his right hand to his forehead in a smart salute.
“You look the same as you did at the Zappeion, a boy in a uniform too big for him.”
“And you still have that old-woman voice. I’d forgotten it. Say something else.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Oh?” He glanced around as if looking for a way out. Then he scraped his shoe along the ground and looked down at it. I said I’d talked with Sergeant Whitfield and he’d told me about the International Red Cross taking orphans away. Takis said he already knew all about that. But he liked it here and wasn’t going to leave.
“They can’t make me,” he said.
“I’m sure they can. It’s not just you. There are a lot of others, aren’t there? Where do you all live?”
“Tents. Over there.” He pointed at a rocky meadow to our right. I could see a group of boys kicking a soccer ball and yelling.
“Winter’s coming,” I said. “You can’t be outside in the rain and wind.”
“The soldiers are.”
“That’s different. They’re grown men. And they don’t want the responsibility for you all. You could get sick. Who’ll look after you?”
He shrugged and slumped his shoulders and looked at his shoe again. He’d lost the spark he’d had in the village, I thought. The lively, noisy boy he’d been there had been replaced by this sad, stubborn one who had no real place anywhere. I said he’d need a place to be if he was going to remain in Greece. What would he think about joining Stelios and me at his parents’ house?
“Stelios?” He frowned. “You’re living in his house?” I nodded and the frown became a sneer. “I guess he’s your boyfriend now.”
Ah, I thought, that old jealousy was still burning away. And was Stelios really my boyfriend? What did that mean? In the village, parents arranged everything for a young couple, who were never alone until their lives were planned out by their families. And here I was living in the same house with Stelios, who definitely wasn’t a relative. What would Chrysoula have thought?
“We’re not alone in the house,” I said. “There’s an older woman, a housekeeper who looks after us.” I blushed at having to justify myself to him. What did he know about these things anyway? I told him how to find the house and repeated that British soldiers were going to send him and the other boys away before long. He had to find somewhere to stay. If not with Stelios and me, then where?
“What do you care?” he asked.
“It’ll be safer for all of us if we stick together.”
He turned away from me, looking at a nearby mulberry tree as if expecting it to advise him.
I said, “I’m sure your mother would want that.”
He wheeled around. “Ah, now I know why you’re here. You want to talk about . . .” He broke off, maybe realizing how loud he’d become, and looked around. “Go away,” he said.
“Look, Takis . . .” I stepped toward him.
“Just go away.” He was nearly shouting. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“What wasn’t your fault?”
“Whatever happened.”
“And that was . . . ?”
“I can’t remember. I can’t get to it.”
“Do you remember the German colonel? How it was he came to the house that last night and . . . ?”
“Oh,” he said, sneering again, “I see what you want. You want to turn me in as a collaborator.”
“What?”
“Just because I talked to him sometimes. That German. But he couldn’t understand me. So what?” He spat on the ground, an adult gesture, something he’d picked up from the soldiers, no doubt. “You know what they do with collaborators.”
“But you’re not one.”
“I remember wanting to punish Stelios. His stupid play. And he was always talking to you.” He paused and seemed to wait for the effect of this on me. I thought maybe we were getting somewhere, though I wasn’t sure where that was and kept my face blank. Then he added, “When I get angry, the part of my brain that’s red takes over the part that’s white.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“I have a bad brain, that’s all.” He sucked in his breath, looked down at the ground and said, “You’d better leave me alone.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
“Go away. Don’t come back.” He started walking toward the boys who were kicking the ball in the meadow. I was losing him.
I called out, “Sergeant Whitfield says you walk around naked, and that you talk to trees. Do you think they’ll let that go on? Don’t you understand? They’ll put you away, Takis.”
He stopped and stood still. His shoulders were shaking slightly. I went over and put my arm around him. When he’d got control he said, “Can’t we go back, Aliki, back to the village to the way things were before? Before we left, even before Stelios and his mother came? It wasn’t so bad then, was it? Remember how you wrote notes all the time and wouldn’t speak? But I understood you and we played cards and . . .”
I held him until he stopped talking. He stood in my arms silently another moment then broke free and ran off toward the boys in the meadow. I started after him, then stopped. I watched until he joined them and I could no longer make out one from another, just boys running. I started after him, but something inside me said, Let him go. He’s dangerous. Standing there with one foot in front of the other, I felt stalled between my desire to save him from an orphanage and Stelios’s certainty that bringing him into the house was a dangerous idea. Most of what Takis had just said to me seemed to line up with Stelios’s point of view.
I turned back, divided and worried, so much so that I didn’t notice I wasn’t going down the hill the way I’d come up. I was on an unfamiliar, deserted street. Turning one way then another, I had little idea of where I was. At the curb, three scrawny dogs were nosing a pile of rags that might have been a person. I ran past and one dog chased after me. Running faster, I tripped and skidded to my knees on the cobblestone street. The dog stopped, baring its teeth. Then a pair of hands reached down, grabbed the dog by its neck and snapped it. It barely had time to yelp. My rescuer was tall with an enormous black beard and two belts of ammunition across his chest.
“What are you doing in this street?” he asked. “Visiting the British?” He was joined by another man, a smaller version of himself. They didn’t look at all like the one I’d met on the way up. I guessed they were another group entirely, maybe the sort that worked for the People’s Committees.
“No,” I lied. “I’m the cleaning girl for Mrs. Longos up the hill. Just trying to get home when that dog attacked.” I don’t know, even now, where that story came from. But I suppose it was the beginning of a reaction that would last me all my life: when in a corner, say or do something, anything.
“You’re not dressed like a cleaning girl,” he said, looking me over. “And there aren’t many around here who could afford one.”
He helped me to my feet. We were at the open end of a barricade made of furniture dragged out of houses. Sofas were stacked on top of beds and dining room tables. Rolled-up carpets had been thrown over a jumble of chairs. On t
op of a cabinet with smashed glass doors sat a painting of a three-masted ship in a harbor at sunset.
The first man asked the other if he knew anyone named Longos in the area. The man shrugged. I noticed a sign above a closed greengrocer’s shop across the street and said, “Her husband used to be the greengrocer. Over there.”
They looked at each other and said something I couldn’t catch. Then the big one turned back to me and said, “We think you’re carrying messages from the British base up there. Who would suspect a girl, yes? I think maybe we should shoot you.”
He smiled when he said it, but his eyes were flat, dead. My scraped knees started to shake. I tried to keep my voice steady. “I don’t know anything about that. My father’s waiting for me. He’s not well and I don’t want to worry him.”
I don’t know if this gained me much ground, but they took my handbag and told me to wait over by the barricade of furniture. My knees were shaking so badly I could barely stand so I pulled a chair off the pile, sat down and rubbed them. In the next half hour, several other men arrived and talked excitedly with the first two. They turned to look at me from time to time but seemed to lose interest as conversations became arguments with lots of shouting and hands slicing the air. It was hard to follow, with words I didn’t know, like proletariat class struggle or something like that. At least no one was paying attention to me. So finally I stood up and simply walked around the open end of the barricade. Looking back, I saw that they were all still arguing.
I ran down the hill and back to Kolonaki, where I realized that they hadn’t given back my handbag. But it seemed a small loss and as I slipped back into the house, I thought with relief that at least I’d escaped the buffalo in the marsh. For now.
My Last Lament Page 11