Eleni

by Nicholas Gage

  With Eleni gone, the Gatzoyiannis children scurried about like a flock of chicks without the hen, trying to prepare for the escape. Following their mother’s directions, Olga and Kanta set out early in the day to make a show of cutting the wheat in the family’s field, but they did more whispering than harvesting, and returned home early so that Olga could compose the letter she was supposed to leave behind. As neighbor women passed them on the path, the girls imagined suspicious looks and sinister undertones in every greeting. All day long they vacillated between fear that the escape would be canceled and hope that it would. Then Olga wrote with a pencil stub in her childish scrawl:

  Mana, we’re leaving. Lukas Ziaras and Grandmother are taking us to Filiates to send us on to Father in America. Don’t be upset—we didn’t want to leave you, but Lukas said we had to or he would write Father that we didn’t want to go to him. Forgive us.

  She studied the letter, weighing each word to see if it rang false. Then she hid the paper in the wall niche beside the fireplace, and worried aloud that the guerrillas wouldn’t find it.

  Eleni had explained the new procedure to them. In order for the whole family to assemble at Lukas Ziaras’ house without arousing suspicion, they would go at different times. Well before the sun set, Kanta would take Nikola and Fotini with her and lead the two milk goats to graze in the fields of their uncle Foto at the bottom of the village. After sundown they would abandon the goats and slip into the Ziaras house nearby, while Megali and Nitsa would start out from the Haidis house. Olga would come last because she had to wait until the family’s flock of sheep had been brought back from the pasture by the half-witted shepherdess, Vasilo Barka, who had been paid to take them for the day. Once the animals were securely locked in the cellar, Olga had to hurry to the Ziaras house and the exodus would begin.

  Distraught by the responsibility that rested on her shoulders, Olga hovered in the window, watching the sun, until she decided it was time to send off Kanta, Nikola and Fotini. Suddenly Fotini plunged the household into a crisis. The ten-year-old couldn’t find the precious sack that held her collection of hair bows, charms, tin rings, and baubles handed out by the guerrillas’ commissary head. When life seemed unjust to Fotini, as it did nearly every day, she displayed the histrionic range of a tragedienne. “That child started crying with her first breath and hasn’t stopped since,” Eleni often complained, clapping her hands over her ears. Now Fotini was screaming that without her treasures she wouldn’t set foot out the door. She was interrupted by a sharp knock that stunned everyone into silence.

  Olga hesitated, but the knocking became more insistent. She peeked out and saw Kostina Thanassis, their plump, grandmotherly neighbor from the Perivoli, whose home was a warehouse for guerrilla supplies.

  Kostina chirped that she had brought some marmalade as a treat for her favorite little boy. Nikola obediently let the old woman kiss and cuddle him while the rest watched tensely. “Poor child, with your mother off at the harvesting,” she crooned. “You must come up to Grandma Kostina’s house tomorrow. I’ll see if I can’t find you a chocolate somewhere.” The girls sucked in their breath, afraid Nikola would reply that tomorrow was too late, but he only nodded and stared at the floor.

  It was past the hour for Kanta and the youngest children to leave, but Kostina rattled on about the terrible things happening in their old neighborhood. While the girls gave each other desperate looks, Megali crept behind her and sprinkled a few precious grains of salt—the charm to make unwanted company leave. Finally Kostina stood up. As Olga held the door open, the old woman suddenly embraced Nikola and whispered, “My golden boy, may God protect you!” Then she was gone, leaving the rest to wonder how much she knew.

  The departure of Kostina Thanassis plunged the Gatzoyiannis family into frantic activity. Kanta ran to the cellar and tied the two milk goats on ropes, then went back for Fotini and Nikola. Fotini had renewed her wails over the lost sack of keepsakes, and Nikola stood inside the doorway, frowning with worry, holding his school bag—the brown-and-tan leather satchel that his father had sent from America. In it was a rusty Byzantine sword blade that the boy had unearthed at the spring outside his grandmother’s gate, along with the carefully ruled notebooks he had used in his two years at the village school. “What are you doing with that?” Kanta demanded.

  “If I don’t show them my lessons, they may make me take first and second grades over again when we get to America,” Nikola explained.

  “Nonsense!” Olga shrieked, her voice rising. “You can’t take that with you! They have better notebooks and school bags where we’re going.” She snatched the valise out of his hand and threw it behind the door, then shoved him out into the path, where Kanta handed him the lead of one of the goats.

  As Kanta dragged the two children down the path, Fotini uttered a shuddering sob and Nikola turned around for a last glimpse of the house. Although Olga, Nitsa and Megali were still inside, the place seemed sad and deserted to him in the vivid late-afternoon light, and he felt a pang of sympathy for the house and animals, abandoned so suddenly. They had left everything behind: his sword blade, two years of schoolwork. Even his mother’s good brown dress still hung on a hanger in the good chamber, like an echo of her presence.

  When the sun was balancing on the crest of the Great Ridge, Olga ordered Megali and Nitsa to set out, heading for the Ziaras house by a roundabout route, taking care not to arouse anyone’s suspicions. She could see that was a wasted warning; Megali was already sobbing and Nitsa’s last dramatic cry before she waddled out the door was, “This is the night I’m going to die! I can feel it!”

  Olga stared out the southern window at the setting sun, watching small pink-tinted clouds chasing one another across the sky. When twilight fell, Kanta would enter the Ziaras door with Nikola and Fotini, but Olga had to wait until Crazy Vasilo brought back the family’s flock, and she was afraid that the others would get impatient and leave without her. She couldn’t start before the animals came, because Vasilo would find the house empty and raise the alarm.

  The family of the miller Tassi Mitros also spent the day making preparations for their escape. They had to be especially careful because one of the guerrillas’ cooks, a crochety old man named Kyriakos, lived in their house.

  Tassi’s wife Calliope had been telling her neighbors for days that her sister Soula’s baby was gravely ill. She left early in the morning for the Ziaras house, saying to Kyriakos that the baby was dying. Her husband Tassi and her two sons, Niko, twelve, and Gakis, seventeen, planned to join her at dusk, using the same excuse. In the meantime the younger boy was sent with the family’s flock up to the pasture at the top of the Perivoli.

  Late in the afternoon a messenger from the guerrillas arrived at the Mitros house and told the shaken miller that he was summoned to appear before the village council to face charges that he had refused to go to Tsamanta to repair a mill. Out of earshot of the nosy guerrilla cook, Tassi told his elder son that he would try to get away from the hearing in time, but if he didn’t, Gakis should pick up Niko from the pasture and head for the Ziaras house without him.

  When the sun was low in the sky, Gakis climbed up to the pasture where Niko was grazing the sheep. There were two other children there with their families’ flocks, a girl of about nine and a boy even younger.

  “Come on, we’re going!” Gakis hissed to Niko. “Father’s not coming back in time.”

  “But what do I do with the animals?” Niko asked.

  “Leave them here!” Gakis ordered. As he pulled his brother down the path, they didn’t hear the other two children calling after them, “Where are you going? You forgot the animals!”

  The Gatzoyiannis family had worried that they might be betrayed by nosy neighbors, sharp-eyed guerrillas or even the bleating of their own sheep and goats, but nothing like that raised the alarm and set the Communists in pursuit; it was these two small children. Jealous of the way Niko walked off, leaving his animals behind, the little girl and boy did the
same and returned home empty-handed, making their astonished mothers so angry that one of the guerrillas came over to see what the commotion was about. When he learned of the odd behavior of the Mitros boys, he set out for the miller’s house, where he found no one but the perplexed guerrilla cook.

  Kanta, Nikola and Fotini arrived at the Ziaras house even before the sun set. In their eagerness they had turned the two goats loose to forage in Foto Gatzoyiannis’ precious fig tree and slipped away early.

  Kanta was startled to find Calliope Mitros there, bending with Soula Ziaras over the cradle of the baby. While Soula watched in alarm, Calliope was spooning tsipouro, the clear, fiery moonshine, into Alexi’s mouth. There was a wad of cotton soaked in the same spirits taped to his navel. The burning taste made the baby scream, and he spit out the liquor as fast as his aunt poured it in him while Soula cried, “Enough! You’re killing him!” Eventually Alexi stopped screaming and his eyelids began to close. Finally he fell silent and Calliope straightened up, her face gleaming with perspiration.

  Lukas was smoking nervously in a corner. Kanta went over to him and asked in an angry whisper what Calliope Mitros was doing there. Had he told her about the escape? The tinker stamped out his cigarette, avoiding her eyes, and shrugged. After all, he said, Calliope was his own wife’s sister and the guerrillas were threatening to take both her sons. Besides, he added, it was safer to have another man along, and Tassi Mitros—he cleared his throat self-consciously—knew the foothills nearly as well as he did himself.

  “You promised Mana not to tell anyone!” Kanta reproached him, wishing her mother were there to handle this new threat. But there was a soft knock at the door, and Lukas turned away. Angrily Kanta led Nikola and Fotini over to a corner to await the arrival of the others.

  Gakis and Niko Mitros came in out of breath and when they told their mother that Tassi hadn’t returned from the village council yet, Calliope wailed like a lost bird, “We can’t leave without him; they’ll hang him tomorrow!” Niko Mitros watched his mother’s outburst wide-eyed and pale. Nikola saw how frightened he was and wondered at the transformation of the tough “guerrilla captain” who had terrorized him and the other younger boys of the neighborhood.

  Shortly after sunset Megali and Nitsa arrived, preceded by the sound of their frightened moans. Their fear infected the others, and Kanta nearly shrieked when the door opened to admit three unexpected figures: a woman and two girls who crowded into the smoky room carrying sacks of belongings. Everyone recognized the tall, gray-haired amazon who towered a head above Lukas Ziaras as Chrysoula Drouboyiannis, forty-one, a sister-in-law of the woman whom Lukas had invited on the second attempt. Kanta’s nerves snapped and she turned on Lukas, accusing him of spilling the plot to half the village, now that her mother was not around to make him keep his promise. But her cousin Arete, who had come behind the new arrivals, stepped forward and admitted that she was the one who had invited Chrysoula to join them.

  Arete and Chrysoula had been childhood friends. Both shared the stigma of being barren and knew they were in danger of being conscripted as andartinas because their husbands were living far away in Crete. Chrysoula had brought along her two teen-aged nieces, who had been left in her care by their mother, Constantina, when she was forced to go to the threshing fields in the same group as Eleni. Chrysoula was usually a sensible, cool-headed woman, but now she was trembling after the ordeal of walking from the eastern edge of the village past two guerrilla outposts. She reported that in the distant one, at the Church of St. Friday, a noisy party was going on, celebrating the birth of a son to the notorious guerrilla Stravos.

  Lukas began to pace. “Where the hell is Tassi?” he muttered. “This is the time to leave!”

  “Olga isn’t here yet either,” Kanta reminded him.

  Lukas cursed under his breath. He raised a corner of a lace curtain to peer out the window, then abruptly dropped it and reached for his white towel, wrapping it around his neck. “There’s someone coming this way from the church!” he exclaimed. “And he’s got a gun. Everyone into the stable, and for God’s sake plug up your noise! I’ll stand on the trap door.”

  Lukas and Gakis Mitros herded the Gatzoyiannis family, the Drouboyiannis women and Arete into the small dirt-floored cellar where the animals were kept, then closed the hatch over their heads. Kanta crowded against the others, cobwebs brushing her face, and took Nikola into her lap.

  The Ziaras and Mitros families stayed upstairs to carry on the charade of attending to the baby Alexi, who now was wheezing in his alcoholic stupor and looked convincingly ill.

  From the cellar the hidden fugitives could hear everything: Lukas coughing nervously, his wife Soula sobbing. She was so frightened that it was easy to produce tears for her “sick” child. “Oh, my poor little boy! Sweet Virgin, save him!” she cried as the guerrilla rapped on the door. Kanta could hear Lukas’ footsteps overhead, on his way to open it.

  At the door was a young man from the nearby lookout post, carrying a handful of dried tobacco leaves. The fugitives learned to their relief that he had come to the Ziaras house, the nearest one to the church, simply because he wanted to use a knife and a cutting board to shred the tobacco.

  Seeing the weeping women, the guerrilla inquired solicitously about the baby. Lukas shook his head and said his son might not survive the night. Studying the child, who was flushed and evidently unconscious, the andarte offered his sympathy and suggested they apply upturned glasses with candles burning inside to his chest to draw out the evil vapors. While the guerrilla set about chopping the tobacco leaves, Lukas made a strained effort at conversation. “How goes the struggle, Comrade?” he asked. “What do you hear from Grammos?”

  “It’s still holding,” the young man replied, “but it won’t last much longer. We’ve lost too many men. Every day there seems to be more of them and less of us. Next place they’ll attack is here. If you ask me, we’ll be pulling back into Albania soon. But don’t worry, we won’t leave you to the fascists. We’ll take everyone and everything that can walk. Within a month, mark my words, there won’t be a rooster crowing in this village.”

  Hearing this from the cellar, Kanta shivered. Their mother had been right; they couldn’t have waited any longer. She heard Lukas say meekly, “Do what you can, Comrade! That’s all the people can ask of you boys. Whatever happens, we’re with you.” Then she heard his rasping cough and the sound of a match being struck.

  Kanta’s trembling infected Nikola. They were both praying that the guerrilla would leave before Olga walked in.

  Finally the visitor finished his cigarette and left with wishes for the baby’s recovery. As they climbed out of the cellar, Kanta began to fret that Olga had been captured on the way; it was now long past sundown. But within minutes there was a timid knock at the door. Olga hurried in and nearly screamed at the sight of all the strange faces in the room.

  “Damn your husband!” Lukas said to Calliope Mitros, growing increasingly frightened at the realization he would have to lead the group without Tassi’s help. “We can’t wait any longer. We’ve got to start.”

  “But you can’t just leave him behind to be killed!” Calliope cried. “And he’s bringing all our sovereigns.”

  “It’s time for the children to get started,” Lukas said. “If we wait any longer, the lookouts will get suspicious at seeing them up so late.” He explained the plan: the children were to pretend they were playing hide and seek, and gather in the gullies below the house, making plenty of noise. One by one they would creep together beneath the underbrush in the gullies. The mothers would set out next, calling for their children to come home, and when they reached them, they would crawl into hiding beside the children and wait for Lukas to come last and lead them through the wheat field just below.

  Lukas surveyed the frightened faces gathered around him and wondered how he had ever agreed to this harebrained enterprise. There were nineteen people crowded into the small room, eight adults and eleven children. He had count
ed on the presence of Tassi Mitros, who worked out this plan. Now he would have to lead these terrified women and children out alone. Lukas squared his shoulders and mustered his courage. Why should he share the glory with his arrogant brother-in-law?

  In his croaking voice, Lukas reminded the group that the first leg of the journey was the most dangerous. After they left the gullies, they had to pass through a field of tali ripe wheat that was within sight and hearing of the lookout post. They must crouch down below the top of the wheat and walk very quietly, moving slowly. Once they were out of the wheat field there was a patch of open hillside, then they would be in a thick, dark grove of trees which would shield them from the sentinel’s eyes.

  Lukas examined the women and children to see if they had understood, and was struck by what an unpromising group they were for such a risky undertaking. He tried to conceal the desperation welling up in him by assuming the demeanor of a military officer. “If anyone makes a sound, I’m sending them back!” he snapped, glaring at Nitsa, who was emitting a constant, wordless moan to herself. “And if anyone—woman or child—gets lost or separated from the rest, we leave them. We can’t sacrifice the whole group to save one life.”

  Everyone jumped as a tattoo of knocks assaulted the door. Lukas opened it a crack and then nearly staggered with relief at the sight of the miller standing there, his fringe of gray hair disheveled and his face pale. “We’ve got to go now!” Tassi gasped. “I went back to the house to get the sovereigns I had there and that bastard Kyriakos was standing in the door wanting to know where everybody was. He was so suspicious I told him I’d bring Calliope and the boys back right away. It won’t be long until he starts raising a hue and cry.”