“You honor me with your offer, but I . . .”
“The honor would be mine. You can ask anyone about the matches I’ve made.” She waved her arm at the other women, who giggled like schoolgirls. Then she covered my right hand with her own, which was gnarled with arthritis, a claw. I didn’t like the direction of all this and took my hand away.
“You see, there’s already an understanding,” I said.
“Oh?” She drew back her own hand. “You should have said so.”
“I’m doing so now.”
Her tone grew sharper. “Well, I’m surprised. Your fiancé allows you to travel around the countryside with a merchant and only the old one as chaperone? And that boy? What sort of man would permit such behavior?”
I looked around for an escape from this conversation and was relieved to see Yannoula passing the window with a basket of greens. I called to her and rolled my eyes, nodding sideways at the old woman. Yannoula came inside at once, sized up my companion and said loudly that I must stop this work at once before I accidentally nicked or cut my hands, because then how would I work the puppets?
“Come look at the greens we’ve gathered,” she said, taking me by the arm and steering me out the door.
“They’re trying to marry me off,” I whispered.
“I know,” she said once we were outside. “The others were talking about it on the hillside over there. Apparently there’s a dim young man here that none of the village girls will have, so an outsider will do nicely. They actually said that though he’s not so bright and does drool a bit, he’ll inherit two fields and is said to have a big thing. Can you imagine?”
“I’d rather not.”
“And I think he’s provided the potatoes from one of his family’s fields. He hopes to impress you and put us under an obligation. As if potatoes would do it. In any case, we’re artistes. We pay with our art and nothing else.”
We walked over to watch the men basting the lambs as they sizzled and spat over the coals. The women had finished carrying the pans of potatoes in oil and lemon to the central clay oven fired with brushwood. The crone glared at us as she passed on her way back to the house. So Yannoula and I went to the meadow to watch the boys at their target practice. Taking turns with Vasili’s pistol, each fired at pinecones of various sizes tossed into the air one at a time by another boy. Those who could hit only the larger ones were jeered at by the others and lost their chance to shoot again. Takis was so excited that when Vasili’s gun was passed to him, he hopped around at first, causing the other boys to step back as if the gun might go off accidentally. But as cones of ever smaller sizes were thrown up, he picked off even the smallest. Yannoula and I looked at each other.
“This won’t end well,” she said.
“Well, but look, he has skill. If he could just find some other use for it. And he’s made some friends. I don’t think he’s ever had any before.”
I looked at him over there with the others taking on the swagger of those boys who, along with him, were the best shots. Takis and Mitso were acting like men, or at least like imitations of them. They had the walk, the bearing of fathers or older brothers but not their gravity. And especially not their faces full of deep lines etched there by bad times and sharp weather. And while I hated seeing Takis with a pistol, I hoped that, with friends, he was moving beyond the call of imagined voices. Beyond danger.
When the lambs were done, Vasili extracted them from their spits and carved them on a table the women had brought outside. We speared the meat from platters and spooned out the roasted potatoes and boiled greens. Takis and his new friends joined the crowd filling their plates. Vasili’s pistol was tucked into the sash around Takis’s waist. I tried to catch his eye, but he was talking excitedly with the others, telling them about Patroclus from The Iliad, I supposed, because he was saying, “. . . and he speared him just like a fish and flipped him out of his chariot!”
We all sat on sheepskins on the ground in a circle, washing the succulent meat down with strong retsina dipped from a pine cask. Across the circle I caught the glance of what must have been the young man with the two fields. His face looked as if it had slid down on one side, which I now know was probably a birth defect or the result of a slight stroke. Then, I knew from my own village that such a flaw was often taken as a result of the evil eye. Aside from his face, he was probably all right but doomed to be treated otherwise. He had a shy but steady gaze.
Yannoula followed the direction of my glance. “No matter what’s wrong with him,” she said, “if he owns two fields, sooner or later someone will have him.”
After the meal, one of the men took out a clarinet and played a wild and mournful melody while someone else thudded on a drum. Did we know the Cretan dances, Vasili called out, oh, never mind, he would teach us. We were pulled to our feet and into a line that included the whole village: crones and children, young housewives, men in their jackboots and sashes. The musicians led the way, followed by a young man holding a handkerchief, then Vasili, Thanasis, Yannoula and me and the rest of the village. Takis and the other boys were at the end.
The long line swayed forward and back, dipping suddenly as dancers made abrupt little jumps and skips. The steps were not so different from ones I’d learned from my father. The young man first in line leaped high enough to slap the heels of his boots in midair. He and the two musicians led us around the village lanes between the stone houses, beside the little church and out into the olive grove nearby. The musicians in front wove in and out of the olive trees as flocks of blackbirds swept up from the branches, cawing. At the edge of the grove we could see far down a craggy slope. Miles away, a valley opened out to the blue-green sea.
Through the grove and out the other side we danced. Those of us in the first half of the line had just danced back toward the church. As we approached the bed of still-glowing coals, we stopped suddenly at the sight of two strangers removing the remains of the roasted lambs from the table where they’d been carved. To one side were a half dozen others, bearded, in shaggy clothes, some with machine guns. As they saw us, they turned their guns in our direction. The music stopped. No one spoke for a moment.
“We only want the food,” one of them said, apparently the leader.
“It is ours to give, yours to take,” Vasili said, his voice controlled and calm. “Good Easter to you.”
“And to you.”
They could almost have been any two villagers exchanging greetings of the day but for the presence of the guns and the way the carcasses and leftover potatoes were being scooped into a burlap bag. The other guerrillas fanned out over our line, covering us all with their machine guns.
“What else do you have?” the leader asked. A woman farther back in our line moaned softly.
Vasili turned and said to those behind, “Take the children inside.”
“Don’t,” said the leader. “Everyone stays until you’ve given us what you can.”
“Sadly, we have little,” Vasili said. “Only our olives . . .”
“Oh? The smoke and smell of your feast traveled far. Even to our caves where we’ve nothing to eat but the blackbirds we shoot.”
He told some of his men to search the houses and take anything edible. They ran into those nearby and dragged out the bags of maize flour Thanasis had brought, along with sacks of lentils and beans, strings of braided onions and peppers, casks of wine and olive oil. While they were doing this, the other guerrillas kept their guns aimed at those of us still behind Vasili. Glancing back, I saw that the last part of the line had melted into the olive grove. Yannoula slipped her arm around my waist and I put mine around hers. We were both trembling. Any minute now they would take the food and go, I told myself. This would be over.
“Where’s Takis?” I whispered to Yannoula.
“I don’t know.”
Into the center of the village the guerrillas herded the villa
ge donkeys, including the one-eyed animal from the stable we’d been sharing. The donkeys stood quietly while the guerrillas began to load what they’d taken onto their backs. Vasili said that if they took all that, the village might well starve.
“We take it in return for your protection,” the leader said.
“Protection from what?” Vasili asked.
“The government militia.”
“They haven’t been in these parts.”
“Ah, there you see! From that you understand how well we do our jobs. Remember it was we who helped drive the Germans out of these mountains not so long ago. Now we scratch the earth for roots to eat.” He spat on the ground at his feet. “Now we fight the fascist militia and police, those collaborators! They hang us. They cut off a head, a hand.”
No one said anything for a moment. Then Vasili said, “There have been amnesties.”
“Lies, all lies. One of our comrades gave himself up. One from this very village. You would know his name. But days later someone cut his throat.”
He turned as if to call out something to his men but then suddenly stumbled and, with mouth still open, slumped to the ground. At first it didn’t register that the noise we’d heard—a single shot, which could as easily have been a shutter banging in the breeze—had anything to do with this. His men ran to him as a collective scream went up from some of the women in the line and we broke into flight in all directions. Many of the village men had been unarmed because it was Easter, and who needed a pistol then? But there were others never unarmed who were returning fire. Grabbing Yannoula’s hand, I pulled her away and back toward the olive grove, though how we made it there through the firing from both sides, I can’t explain.
We came to a tree with low branches so I was able to get a foot up to steady myself and then try to pull Yannoula up behind me. “I can’t,” she said. “My old knees . . .” I kept pulling her up, anxious that our legs not show below the tree branches. When I got her up beside me, I saw the blood on her right arm just below her shoulder.
“I didn’t feel anything,” she said. “Just a little burn.”
But there was quite a lot of blood now; it had soaked the sleeve of her blouse. Holding on to the trunk of the tree with one hand, I got her to give me a handkerchief and together, with her one free hand and mine, we managed to tie it above the bleeding. Then we clung to the tree and each other, looking back toward the village through branches and leaves. There was still sporadic shooting but single shots only, not machine gun fire. It looked as if the remaining guerrillas were pulling the food supplies off the donkeys and throwing them into the bed of Thanasis’s truck beside the church. The guerrillas evidently hadn’t noticed it before this. They half carried, half dragged the bodies of their dead and wounded and loaded them too.
Then we heard Thanasis himself, though we couldn’t see him. His voice was raised in argument about his truck with one of the men until a short burst from a machine gun brought silence. Yannoula and I looked at each other in horror. Was it possible? We were to find out that not only was it possible but that one of the guerrillas was rummaging through Thanasis’s pockets for his keys. In a few minutes, the truck coughed into life and, with a grinding of gears, drove off. Yannoula and I didn’t move for some time, unsure if they were really gone.
“Thanasis,” she said. “Thanasis, Thanasis.”
She let herself down to the ground, trembling and weeping, and began to make her way back toward the village, dripping blood as she went. I followed, full of dread as I tore a sleeve off my shirt, calling out to Yannoula to let me rewrap her arm. As we came out of the grove near the church, there were a half dozen villagers on the ground. I stepped forward to help and nearly tripped over Vasili’s body. Kneeling beside him, I could see that he was still breathing. His eyes were open but unfocused. Then Takis was standing over us. Where had he come from?
“Your pistol, Vasili,” he said proudly. “Did you see how well I shot?”
“He can’t hear you. Help me hold up his head.”
But it was too late. Vasili’s eyes had become fixed and a trickle of blood ran from his mouth.
“Is he . . . ?” Takis asked.
I nodded.
Takis knelt and touched Vasili’s face. “He can’t be,” he said.
“Well, he is, poor man.”
“But his eyes are still open. Vasili, can you see me? It’s me, Takis. I’ve brought your pistol back.” He put it down beside Vasili.
I stared at it and then the thought hit me. “It was you, wasn’t it? You who had the first shot? Where were you?”
“Over there.” He pointed to the church. “Just inside the door. They didn’t see us.” He and the other boys had been at the back of the line and had run off when they’d heard Vasili and the guerrilla leader talking.
“They might have left with just food,” I said, “if you hadn’t fired at them. Vasili might still be alive. And these others.”
Takis knelt beside me, astonished. “You mean I wasn’t supposed to shoot?” He put his face close to Vasili’s and said, “But you gave me your pistol. What’s a pistol for if not to shoot?”
With my hand, I closed Vasili’s eyes. By then the unharmed villagers had come running from their hiding places and were bending over the wounded and the dead, calling out to them, tearing strips from their clothing to bind wounds and stop the bleeding. The man with two fields was on the ground with the others. Someone ran to use the single village phone in Vasili’s house. Beside me, Takis stood up.
“I was just trying to help.”
I could see Yannoula, who’d gone to the place beside the church where Thanasis’s truck had been parked. She was standing motionless. As I stood to go to her, Takis said, “When they drove off, did you see . . . ?”
But I was running to Yannoula, who stood quite still, staring down at Thanasis lying on his face in the dirt. In death, he looked smaller. It seemed impossible that this ordinary figure on the ground had been a bear of a man with so much energy.
“Come away,” I told her. “We have to do something about your bleeding.”
“Bleeding,” she repeated, dazed.
I took her to the village well and helped her wash her wound, which looked as if a bullet had just grazed her. I was still carrying the sleeve I’d torn off my shirt and I used it to rewrap her wound and looped it into a makeshift sling. When I looked up from what I was doing, I saw again the bodies on the ground along with Vasili. And I remembered those in my own village, and Chrysoula and Sophia. My legs failed me and I sat down hard on the ground. Yannoula tried to pull me to my feet with her one good arm, but she couldn’t manage it and we both collapsed beside the well. A terrible noise came from her, choking and sobbing.
The old woman who’d wanted to marry me off rushed over to us, her arms full of what looked like bedsheets. She dumped them on us, telling us to tear them into strips for bandages. How long did we do this? It’s hard to say. No matter how many sheets we tore up, we were always given more. Time had slowed down and was measured out in bandages.
Eventually two Red Cross ambulances arrived, along with a truckload of militia. Some of them spread out beyond the village while others stayed behind and questioned individuals in front of the church. The boy Mitso said that he and Takis and the others had hidden in the church while Vasili was talking to the guerrilla leader. Mitso had seen Takis shoot Vasili’s pistol.
“He’s a hero,” Mitso said. “He killed that bastard.”
A hero? I thought. Vasili dead and Thanasis dead and all these others killed or wounded, and Takis was a hero? What about the other village men who’d shot some of the guerrillas? Mitso grabbed Takis’s hand and raised it in the air. Word went around among the militia that Takis had fired the first shot after only just learning how. There was much hand shaking and slapping of his back the rest of the day. But the surviving villagers and the doctors who�
��d come with the ambulances didn’t even look up as they went on helping the wounded.
As the darkness of evening came on, the bodies of Vasili and Thanasis and the others were brought into the big house and some of the women washed and prepared them for burial. Candles were put at head and foot and one of the women began to ululate and the others joined in. The eerie sound of their voices rose and fell as the mountain wind nosed around the outside of the house as if trying to get inside. Yannoula and I sat in a corner. She was still dazed and I felt myself driven by the high voices of the women into a kind of dream once again without really being asleep. My father was complaining again, saying the newly dead were always so much trouble. They don’t want to settle down, Aliki, with the rest of us. They won’t accept what’s happened to them and keep hearkening back. He fished his usual cigarette out of the shirt pocket near the bullet holes and lit up. Unfinished business lasts forever here so there’s no rush. By the way, did you ever find the ax I left in the woods, or that hammer . . . ?
Then I was again in the dark room with the light from behind the partly opened door. What was it; what did it mean? And what was this other sound so loud it had to be coming from my own mouth? It circled round inside me and formed words, something about trees and a river. Yannoula would tell me long after that it had gone something like this:
We are Thanasis and Vasili,
Trees brought down by lightning
Our limbs broken and burned, our leaves scattered
In the river,
Taken to the sea.
To the sea,
Taken away by the sea.
We are Thanasis and Vasili,
We are gone,
As smoke is gone,
As dust is gone,
Taken by a breeze,
Taken away by a breeze.
There was more to it than that, something about the wing of death. “Aliki, Aliki,” Yannoula said, gently shaking me with her good arm. I looked around and saw the villagers staring at me. “I didn’t know you could lament,” she said. “You never said so.”
My Last Lament Page 21