Eleni

by Nicholas Gage

  After the agony of waiting, it suddenly seemed there wasn’t time to get ready. Eleni sent Glykeria to tell Arete, who lived halfway up the Perivoli. Although Eleni had warned the children to take nothing, Olga began to put on layers of clothes: two slips, her best dress, an embroidered apron, another dress on top of that and her long embroidered sleeveless tunic. She stuffed her good red kerchief into her bosom and filled her sleeves with lace-edged handkerchiefs and underwear. “You look like a stuffed doll,” Kanta jeered. “How do you expect to walk like that?” But Olga was pulling on a second pair of knitted stockings. Nitsa rummaged through the kitchen, eating everything she could find. “No point in leaving good food behind,” she muttered now and then, with her mouth full. “After all, I have to eat for the baby too!” Fotini had all her plastic baubles spread out on the floor and examined them as she put them in a small sack, like a miser counting his gold. Megali huddled in a corner, moaning repeatedly that they should leave her behind; her old legs would never carry her. Nikola followed his mother around like a shadow, so close that he kept bumping into her.

  Eleni watched her family’s growing hysteria with irritation. They were about to set out on a journey that would require all their cunning just to stay alive, and they were acting like half-wits! The waiting, the inactivity, made her want to scream or shake someone, but she knew she had to remain calm as an example to the rest. She put out a pot of bread soaked in milk. No one wanted to eat it, but Eleni insisted; how did they expect to walk all night on an empty stomach? She dipped a large metal spoon into the pot to dish up the first portion and then jumped as the bowl of the spoon broke off, falling with a plop. The room grew silent, all eyes focused on her holding the spoon’s handle. Megali’s voice was like the squawk of a bird: “It’s a bad sign! A warning!”

  Megali and Nitsa both made spitting noises as Eleni glared. “Nonsense!” she snapped, reaching for another spoon. “Now eat!” She saw Kanta push back her plate untouched.

  Before the last light left the west, Eleni sent Olga to feed tender branches to the animals in the cellar, so they’d stay quiet all night. A few minutes later a great outburst of bleating assailed her ears and Olga reappeared, her forehead gleaming with perspiration. “It’s the goats, Mana!” she exclaimed. “The sheep took the food but the goats are trying to climb the gate. They’re crying as if they know we’re going!”

  Eleni rapidly discarded several desperate thoughts and decided they would just have to leave at once and hope that the goats would quiet down when they were out of sight. Hurriedly she sent Nitsa, Megali and Glykeria on ahead, to take the route through the bean field and down the ravine. As they disappeared into the chill, starlit night, Eleni could hear Megali’s soft moaning with every step. She silently counted to a hundred, then motioned for Kanta to start with Fotini. Eleni reached for Nikola’s hand and was surprised at how cold and small it felt. She glanced at him and he returned her look, calm but pale. Ignoring the braying animals, Eleni locked the door and set out toward the Petsis house, where they would follow the ravine from the opposite side.

  Her eyes quickly became accustomed to the darkness. On her left was the impenetrable black-green of the ravine; in front of her were patches of wan silver between the shadows of the trees, large enough to hide a man. Eleni had never realized how full of noises the night was. The mournful sound of the goats pursued her, the crackling and rustling of Kanta and Fotini in front sounded like a huge animal crashing through the underbrush. All her energy was concentrated in her eyes and her ears.

  When Eleni was nearly certain that they had lost their way, the huge square hulk of the Haidis mill loomed suddenly before them, rising out of the darkness. From the deepest part of the shadows Eleni heard a sound and gasped, then realized it was Arete, already there, waiting. The sound of Megali, Nitsa and Glykeria approaching from the other side was clearly audible. There was no way a guerrilla in the vicinity could help hearing them. Eleni sighed. It was in the hands of God.

  She pulled a large rusty key from her pocket and opened the door to the cellar of her father’s mill, herding her family inside. They huddled together in the darkness until there was a knock at the door—two loud and two soft. Soula came in first, the baby’s carrying pouch on her back, followed by the rest of her family. Lukas arrived last, still wearing his towel, fairly vibrating with nervous excitement.

  Eleni lighted a single kerosene lantern in the huge windowless space, revealing the frightened faces of the fugitives. The women and children gathered close together as Lukas lectured in a hoarse stage whisper about the importance of keeping silent once they went out the door. The first lap of the journey was the riskiest, he warned, because they were still in sight and hearing of the guerrilla lookout posts. Once down in the foothills, they had only the roving guerrilla patrols and the mines to worry about. At this Nitsa and Megali set up a duet of moans and Lukas glared at them. Running out of instructions, Lukas came to a halt and then glanced at Eleni, his uncertainty showing. She said nothing, only crossed herself, and the rest followed suit. They were ready.

  Lukas told Kanta and Marianthe Ziaras to go first, as far as the fields of Foto Gatoyiannis below, and then wait for the others. Because the two teen-aged girls had been trained as andartinas, he was sending them on ahead as scouts.

  The others waited a few minutes, then left the mill all together following in single file behind Lukas. The small sliver of moon had been wiped out by a cloud, and the night was dark and cold. As they descended the ravine from the mill, a gust of wind struck them, waking the baby Alexi. He let out a wail like a wounded cat.

  Eleni hurried forward and lifted the baby from the pouch. She tried to muffle his cries against her shoulder, feeling the soft warmth of him as he struggled, but he only screwed up his face and cried louder, pummeling her with his small fists. Soula took him from Eleni and tore at the buttons on her dress, trying to quiet him by offering him her breast, but he refused to be distracted, screaming louder with each breath. As the women and children stood around helplessly, Lukas rushed up to them, wheezing, his face a caricature of terror. “Shut his damn mouth, woman!” he sputtered.

  “I can’t!” Soula cried.

  “Put your hand over his mouth,” Lukas hissed. Soula did as she was told and there was sudden silence. They all expelled their breath and looked around, expecting to see guerrillas crashing through the trees. Soula was having trouble holding the baby; he writhed frantically. Gradually, his struggles became weaker as his face took on a blue tinge.

  “I can’t do it, he’s dying!” Soula sobbed, letting go. There was a moment of suspense before the baby got his wind back and let out a scream twice as loud as before, fear now replaced by outrage.

  “Back into the mill, quick!” gasped Lukas.

  They scampered up the ravine, expecting the guerrillas at their heels. When they re-entered the cellar, they lit the lantern and stood staring at the tiny piece of humanity who was destroying them. His face was purple with rage, tears coursed down his cheeks, mixing with the snot from his nose, and his fists and feet pumped furiously as he let out an ascending series of screams.

  “Give him to me, I’ll strangle him!” It was Lukas’ raspy voice. Everyone turned to look at him, thinking it was a bad joke, but they saw he was serious. Lukas had anticipated every mishap but this, and now his own son was going to rob him of everything: freedom, money and fame. He reached for the baby but Soula backed away, shielding Alexi, terrified by the distorted face of the man who had always been such a gentle father.

  Eleni grabbed his arm. “What are you saying?” she whispered.

  “We have to think of the rest!” Lukas muttered, close to tears. “What’s one life measured against fifteen?”

  “How could we go on living if we had the baby’s death on our souls?” Eleni asked. Then she spoke loud enough to be heard over his cries. “We’ll just have to go back,” she said firmly. “He’ll never stop crying now. Nothing’s lost as long as we can get home without a
nyone realizing we’ve been gone. We’ll leave again in a day or two, and next time we’ll give him something beforehand to make him sleep.”

  Her words broke the spell of fear that had paralyzed everyone. “Of course!” they all exclaimed, smiling. They’d go home and try again later. Lukas frowned like a ship’s captain who smells mutiny, but secretly he was as relieved as the rest to put the ordeal off until another day.

  For Nikola, the second escape attempt two weeks later was infinitely more frightening than the first. The terrors of that first time—the bad omen of the spoon, his grandmother’s moans, the cries of the goats, the screams of the baby and the contorted face of Lukas Ziaras reaching to strangle his own son—had all taken root in his soul and incubated there, growing into a nameless fear that now followed him around, lurking in corners and showing its face as he fell asleep. The threat of the guerrillas surprising them in the darkness had been frightening enough, but the panic of the adults and their helplessness infected him with a far greater sense of dread.

  The moment Nikola and his family slipped out of the house the second time, they realized the weather had turned. The air was chill and clammy, and a fog was rolling in from the foothills. Again the animals set up a terrific bleating as the family picked their way down the ravine, leaving from different spots. Just as they came together above the Haidis mill, they were stopped by what seemed the hand of God Himself. Nikola felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. Half of a huge plane tree had fallen, blocking the path, evidently struck by lightning. In the rising mist it loomed like a wall, the stump of the branch still smoldering sulfurously. Nitsa and Megali began to mewl in fright: “Another bad omen!”

  As they circled around the fallen tree, the mist lapped at their feet, curling up around their legs until it enveloped them completely, closing off all senses but touch. To Nikola the fog was the incarnation of the horror that was stalking him. It was worse than the sound of approaching footsteps, for it blanked out all sound; the world seemed wrapped in cotton. He clutched his mother’s hand as they stumbled down the ravine, blindly following the slope of the land. Eleni resembled a ghost, cloaked in white vapor, her hand extended in front of her. Finally they walked directly into the stone wall of the mill and felt their way gingerly around its circumference until they found the door.

  They were the first ones inside. There was a soft knock and swirling shapes appeared in the doorway, plumes of white vapor steaming from their clothing and hair. Lukas crept in, trailed by his wife and children. Arete was next. Nikola felt his mother tense and reach for him as still more figures materialized in the doorway; strangers who were not a part of their group. They braced themselves for the sight of guerrillas, but the newcomers were a middle-aged woman and two young girls who were both wailing with fear: “I’m frightened, Mana!” they whispered. “I want to go home! We’re going to die!” Their fears infected Nikola, who began to tremble as if he had a fever.

  “Plug up your traps or I’ll take a stick to you,” snarled the woman, whom Eleni recognized as Alexandra, the short-tempered wife of the tinker Nassios Drouboyiannis. Nikola saw the fury on his mother’s face as she snapped, “Lukas, I want a word with you outside!”

  They disappeared into the suffocating blanket of mist which filled their nostrils and lungs and Nikola followed. Lukas was a faceless silhouette as Eleni turned on him. “What are Alexandra and her daughters doing here?” she asked in a tight voice. “Didn’t you promise you would tell no one?” Nikola was more frightened by her anger than by the fog.

  Lukas wheezed with guilt. “Nassos is my best friend!” he whined. “We grew up on two sides of the same house; we shared one door. They’ve already taken his oldest daughter for an andartina and they want the other two for the pedomasoma. How could I face him if I left his family behind?”

  Eleni was silent for several beats, then she said in a voice that came disembodied out of the air, “You may have put us all in the grave. There’s no way we can go tonight in this fog. We’ve got to postpone it again. Alexandra’s got a daughter with the guerrillas; the other two are hysterical. Do you really think they can be trusted, knowing what they do?”

  To Nikola, Lukas’ form in the mist seemed to shrink. The defeat in his voice was like a death knell. “Perhaps we’re not meant to get away, Eleni,” he said. “Everything has gone wrong. All my life it’s been the same. It’s my damnable luck!”

  Nikola felt his throat closing. If the only man in the group was giving up, he thought, then they were lost. He began to tremble and Eleni felt his fear and pulled him closer.

  “You can stay or go as you wish,” she said, “but I’m going to keep trying until we’re either free or dead.”

  There was a long silence from Lukas, then a chastened voice said, “I agreed to lead you, Eleni, and I will.”

  “As you wish,” replied Eleni. “We have to set out again soon, before it’s too late. Next time don’t bring the Drouboyiannis women or even tell them that we’re going. You can see for yourself they’d ruin us before we got started.”

  Out of the white mist came Lukas’ reply: “I won’t tell them.”

  He went back into the mill to send the others home and Nikola and Eleni waited outside, wrapped in the fog. Eleni bent down and whispered to the boy, “We’ll make it next time, I promise!”

  He believed her. The phantoms in the mist couldn’t touch her, he had seen that. As he walked back up the ravine toward the house, his hand in hers, Nikola realized that the thing that had been stalking him for so many days was no longer beside him.

  Angeliki Botsaris came by the house early the next morning with the news that the young guerrilla they called Mermingas had been killed in the night. The guerrillas had taken advantage of the fog cover, Angeliki said, to send out half a dozen raiding parties to harass the nationalist soldiers. Eleni raised her eyes to the corner iconostasis. If they hadn’t turned back, she realized, they would surely have been intercepted. This must be a sign that God was protecting them. The third time would be the charm.

  A second visitor arrived at the gate about noon, the elderly, simple-minded town crier, Petros Papanikolas. With two guerrillas at his side, he cheerfully informed Eleni that the People’s Army required a woman from her household for a work detail. The village president, Spiro Micholpoulos, had called for forty women to go to Vatsounia to cut hay and wheat in the surrounding villages. The women were to report to the commissary within three hours.

  Eleni held on to the doorframe for support, fighting to hide her panic. “Why so quickly?” she asked. “We’re ready to harvest our own wheat, and whoever goes will need time to make ready. Isn’t tomorrow soon enough?”

  “Today,” said one of the guerrillas and watched her a moment before they turned to go.

  She fought down the wave of hysteria that was fogging her mind. There must be a solution, if she could just think fast enough.

  She called the family together and explained what had happened, looking from one grave face to the next. Her gaze stopped at the swollen figure of her sister. “If you go,” she said to Nitsa. “They’ll send you back as soon as they see your condition and we can still all leave together.”

  “Hah!” exploded Nitsa. “I’ve prayed twenty-five years for a child and in the autumn of my life God has granted me a miracle. I should risk my baby so you can save your children?” Overwhelmed by self-pity, Nitsa began weeping, her arms clutching her belly protectively.

  Eleni sighed and looked at her mother, who spread her hands in apology. “I’d go if I could,” Megali quavered, “but I’m too old to walk that far or swing the scythe, and if they got angry and beat me, I’d spit out the whole plan for the escape.”

  Eleni patted her arm wearily. “That’s all right, Mana.”

  “I’ll go!” It was Olga, who looked nearly as frightened as Megali. “My foot’s well now and I could escape alone from over there.”

  “Absolutely not!” Eleni snapped. “If you or Kanta go, they’ll never release
you. They’ll make you into andartinas as soon as the harvest’s over. Think what the guerrillas would do to you if we escaped!”

  Olga bowed her head under her mother’s logic. They all sat in silence, staring at Eleni, then a small voice piped up: “Send me, mother.”

  They turned to see fourteen-year-old Glykeria, her round cheeks nearly as red as the scarlet wool dress she was wearing. She returned their stares bravely.

  “I’m too young to be an andartina and too old for the pedomasoma,” Glykeria plunged on. “No guerrilla would want to rape me, and I can escape from over there alone, like Olga said.” She swallowed, remembering how she always fussed about helping with the threshing, complaining that the scythe gave her blisters. She felt tears gathering at the back of her throat and savored the delicious agony of martyrdom and self-pity.

  The rest were looking at the girl in astonishment, but Eleni realized it was true. Glykeria, scarcely five feet tall, was too young to tempt the guerrillas. She was so hopeless at manual labor that they would surely send her back as useless. Then they could all escape together. Eleni held out her arms to the daughter who had always caused her the most worry. “My child!” she cried. “It’s the best thing. You’re a brave girl! Don’t worry, we won’t go without you. We’ll wait until you come back.”

  Eleni immediately began to prepare her third daughter for the long journey. She combed her hair, braiding it into two golden plaits, and brushed the red homespun dress. The wool was too heavy for summer, she knew, but it was the only presentable dress Glykeria owned. Then Eleni gathered some food into a cloth bag, and, standing the girl in front of the iconostasis, sprinkled holy water on her. She prayed to St. Athanassios to bring her back quickly.

  Before the rest could adjust to Glykeria’s new status as a heroine rather than the family troublemaker, she was gone.

  During the first weeks of June, the threat of the pedomasoma became a reality to the people of Lia as the first group of children were taken away. One day when the mountainsides were gilded with crocuses, those who had been volunteered by their parents were led from the village in a colorful parade. It passed right above the door of the Haidis house as Eleni and her children watched in horror from the windows.