“Sturdy, too,” Uncle Spiro said, wrapping his hand around Lump’s ankle. “He’ll grow. Perhaps he’ll be the biggest of all.”
Petros noticed there were two cups of coffee poured. “Uncle, are you waiting for someone?”
“No, no,” he said, picking out a little tune on his guitar.
Zola had recently whispered to Petros that their uncle was rumored to have hidden some British soldiers from the Italians. Petros didn’t believe it. Their uncle was not the serious type.
They sang songs until, at home, the family would think of eating lunch. Petros wasn’t in a hurry. After the meal, the family would find places to sit or sleep quietly through the afternoon heat. Only when the air cooled a little would the work begin again.
“We’ve surrendered in Salonika,” Uncle Spiro said, naming the town in northern Greece. “What are people saying in our village?”
“That the Germans will come soon. Somebody paints Greek flags on the sides of buildings,” Petros said. “And words.”
“Words. Against the Germans?”
Petros nodded. “Some people hang small flags from their windows or chimneys for everyone to see. But whoever paints the words, they do it at night, when no one will see them.”
Uncle Spiro made a tight little circle of his lips, thinking.
“Mama won’t send us to school,” Petros said. “Everyone waits. I thought Papa always knew what to do. But now—”
“He plants another row. He picks another crop,” Uncle Spiro said. “It’s enough for now. Even the Italians wait.”
Petros slumped in his chair.
Uncle Spiro patted him on the arm. “You’re making good arms,” he said. “Such arms could farm all day and still play the guitar all night.”
Petros said, “I think I want to be a soldier.”
“Being a soldier is only a job,” Uncle Spiro said. “After the war, these men will go home to be builders and poets and teachers and painters. They’ll play the guitar. Make families.”
Petros thought of how his mama’s face grew frightened when there was talk of the soldiers. “Everyone wishes this war were over. No one wants the Italians here, but people are more scared of the Germans.”
“Everyone always wishes a war were over,” Uncle Spiro said. “We must learn how to avoid them before the start.”
“How?”
Uncle Spiro ran his thumbs over his guitar strings. “I think about this a great deal. No answer comes.”
“What exactly do you think?” Petros asked.
“I think about two men, not their countries,” Uncle Spiro said. “I think if two men each think he’s right and the other is wrong, does this have to lead to a fight? If one man hits the other with his fist, does this have to lead to a war? And I think, no, not if these men are smart.”
Petros nodded.
“Then I think, what if one man hit the other man’s son? What if the son is killed? It’s too late to be smart.”
The Germans of Petros’s imagination didn’t seem real. Only their planes were real. The bombs. But his uncle spoke only of men, and these Petros could see. “So there’s war.”
“Perhaps smart is not enough. We must be forgiving. Or at least, we must be willing to live with our loss. So I began to think of losses I could not forgive. The list is long.”
Petros thought of losing an unfair wager. Of doing Zola’s chores for three days. “So what do you think finally, Uncle?”
“I think, how can we avoid war?”
There was a certain sadness in the laughter Petros shared with Uncle Spiro. But laughter was always good. Uncle Spiro said, “You can take some books to Zola when you go.”
He led Petros into the house.
Made of soft paper, the books came from America and were written in English. Uncle Spiro spoke only Greek, and Petros spoke English but couldn’t read it. The many small drawings made the stories easy to follow.
Flipping through the pages, Petros saw an undersea adventure unfolding. Petros said, “I think this story is in one of Zola’s books.”
“There’s a puzzle for your sister,” Uncle Spiro said, and handed him a cardboard box. Petros’s sister, Sophie, loved these puzzles. Usually the picture they created was something she remembered and could tell Petros about.
Which meant that Petros loved them too, although he rarely sat still long enough to put them together. The picture on top of the box showed children playing in deep snow, something Petros knew about but had never seen.
Uncle Spiro took a crumpled cloth out of his pocket. He unwrapped it to reveal a glass marble. Large, a shooter. Inside, where there would ordinarily have been a thin ribbon of color, there was an American flag.
Petros gave a low whistle.
“My sister, your aunt Vivi”—Uncle always reminded him this way because Petros didn’t know his aunt Vivi—“sent me books and guitar strings and a packet of tobacco. This was in the box.”
Aunt Vivi stayed in America when Papa brought his family back to Greece. Petros wished he remembered America, or even the boat trip, but he was only a baby at the time.
Uncle Spiro never left Greece, even while Papa and Aunt Vivi both lived in America. During those years, she began sending Uncle Spiro small boxes filled with interesting American things, and she hadn’t stopped.
Petros knew glass marbles were easy to get in America. Still, he thought his aunt Vivi must be a woman of uncommon good taste, to have such things lying about.
Petros’s pouch hung from his belt loop. He untied it and spilled his marbles at their feet. Almost unbreakable, they were made of fired clay, painted in bright colors. They looked ugly beside the glass beauty. He wrapped it up again and put it into his pouch with the others.
“You’ll win every game you play now,” Uncle Spiro said.
Petros shook his head. “I won’t play with it.”
Uncle Spiro sat back and rested his chin on his hand, frowning. “You could play with Panayoti.”
“Last time I reminded him he’s American too, he blacked my eye.”
Uncle Spiro grunted softly. Panayoti was a hard case.
Petros scratched Lump’s head one last time. “I should go home.”
Uncle Spiro tied the little fellow to the table leg so only long-legged Fifi could follow Petros. Petros didn’t look back at Lump’s sweet dark face even once.
chapter 4
Everything Uncle Spiro said about Fifi was true. She bit, she spat, both with very little excuse. She wouldn’t allow Petros to lead her with the rope. But on the walk home, he decided she must like him. Why else would she go along without coaxing? Petros strolled into the kitchen, following the smell of roasting chicken.
“What’s the matter with you?” his sister scolded. She was chasing a persistent horsefly around the room with a dish towel. “Don’t bring a goat in here.”
Before Petros could explain he’d tried to tie her outside, Fifi bit into Sophie’s skirt. “Euw! Goat slobber!” His sister ran for her room.
Petros shook his head. When Sophie turned eighteen, everyone said she’d grown up, but she acted sillier than ever.
Mama came through the doorway with a bowl full of eggs. “Take that goat outside,” she said, setting the bowl on a table.
“Her name is Fifi and she bites,” Petros said. He reached for her rope and she snapped at him. He drew back very quickly.
Mama clamped a hand around Fifi’s mouth. Fifi sat like a dog. One good yank on the rope and the goat allowed herself to be led outside. But when Mama tried to tie her to the rail at the doorstep, Fifi got in a good bite. “Ouch!”
Mama let go of the rope and of Fifi, both. The goat trotted over to sit down in the open doorway.
“I see what you mean,” Mama said, and Petros grinned. “She could end up in my stew pot if she doesn’t watch out.”
Petros said, “We’ve traded for her. Papa wanted another female.”
Mama squeezed past Fifi. “Keep her out of my kitchen—and don’t take he
r into the garden with you.”
Petros couldn’t go to the garden at all, then. Fifi wanted nothing to do with the other goats, and she bit him when he tried to leave her behind with them. She bit him again while he stood trying to decide what to do about her.
“You took the wrong goat,” Papa said, coming in from the garden. “Is this the trade you made?”
“Uncle Spiro was content with the trade.”
Petros found it hard to meet Papa’s eyes, but he threw an arm over Fifi’s back and, good for them both, she didn’t turn and bite him. “She’ll give many babies, lots of milk.”
Papa answered with a grunt.
Two things were said with this grunt. That Papa knew he’d done it deliberately. Also, this matter was not done with.
“It’s suppertime,” Mama said.
Petros shot her a grateful look, which she pretended not to see.
Fifi sat in the doorway all through the evening meal, looking as alert as Zola’s dog, beneath the table, and far more elegant. Petros wished he’d been successful at getting Fifi into the goat pen, where she wouldn’t be a constant reminder to Papa. Second best would be for Petros to find a mission to fulfill as soon as dinner was over so he wasn’t a constant reminder. He decided to watch for the Germans.
He stationed himself in the tree just outside the front gate, on a branch overhanging the road. Petros gave a great deal of thought to the German army, slow in coming from a place not very far away.
Probably they weren’t coming to Amphissa. It wasn’t an important city like Athens. He had two minds about this: First, the Germans sounded interesting to him. Exciting. Second, Papa was frightened of them. Knowing that Papa was afraid of almost nothing, Petros was now frightened too.
He watched for the Germans every day, because Old Mario said the best way to avoid trouble was to see it coming. Petros had his mission to himself for nearly an hour. He ate a lot of mulberries, and dropped even more of them to Fifi, who stood below the tree.
His friend Elia came out of his house and saw Fifi beneath the tree. He walked across the road. “Are you coming down?”
“Not yet,” Petros replied.
“Ouch!” The tree was easy to climb, but Fifi was quick and got in two bites before Elia was out of reach. “That goat’s a mean dog.”
Petros had owned this goat for less than a day, but already she was making a reputation for herself.
“Why are you here so long?” Elia asked.
“I’m watching for Germans,” he told Elia in a low voice.
Elia said nothing while he rubbed his bites. Then he suggested, “We could go down to the bakery and see if there’s a game.”
Petros dropped a mulberry to Fifi. “Let’s go.”
At the back of the building, a game of marbles was in progress. Five boys, including Stavros, played in an area of hard-packed dirt.
Panayoti saw Petros coming. “Got an ugly dog there,” he called.
Panayoti’s fat dog barked, its neck fur standing up like a brown collar. The other boys shouted to spur it on. Fifi spread her forelegs and put her head down, ready for the fight. The dog trotted off as if it’d had something else in mind all along.
“Don’t hurt Fifi’s feelings,” Petros said, reaching the edge of the game. “She’s likely to hurt yours back.”
Panayoti tried to pet her. She nipped his hand. “Yee-ouch!”
“See what I mean?”
The other boys began to tease, putting out their hands and pulling back. Petros quickly brought out his new marble.
It was an instant sensation.
All the boys wanted to roll the marble between their palms, make a test shot. Left in peace, Fifi trotted over to a weedy area for a nap. She walked in circles, trampling the grass to make her bed.
Elia peered through the marble as if he were sighting a gun. “A marvelous thing,” he said, and passed the marble to Panayoti.
Panayoti looked at it critically. He didn’t like things new, but if there was to be a new thing, he liked to be the one who brought it. His six-year-old brother, Hero, tugged impatiently at his sleeve.
“It’s not a Greek thing,” Panayoti said, and passed it to Hero.
Panayoti had been born in America and was no more or less a Greek thing than the well-traveled marble, or than Petros himself, but Petros didn’t say so.
Hero looked the marble over, rolled it across his shirt as if to remove any dust that might cling, and popped it into his mouth. There was an immediate outcry. Panayoti whacked Hero on the back, and when the marble shot from Hero’s mouth, he shouted, “What’s the matter with you?”
Panayoti slapped Hero again on general principles. “It’s a miracle you didn’t swallow it.”
Petros wanted to give Hero another whack. He was always swallowing something he shouldn’t or putting things up his nose. He couldn’t play marbles to save his life. But he was Panayoti’s younger brother, and so he was tolerated.
Stavros snatched the marble up from the dirt and rubbed it in a fold of his shirt. He held it out, clean and dry, for all to see. “Let me shoot with it first, Petros,” he said, his eyes sharp with greed.
chapter 5
“You can shoot with it,” Petros said. Stavros could be more trouble than being first was worth. “But you can’t win it from me.”
Stavros, the best player by far, said, “That’s how we play now. We gamble.”
Petros put out his hand. “Give it back and I’ll take it home.”
“Don’t listen to Stavros,” Elia said.
Panayoti closed the argument. “If we all get to shoot with the marble, you don’t have to bet.”
The glass shooter improved everyone’s game. They didn’t stop playing until the marbles all seemed one dark color. “Where’s the shooter?” Petros couldn’t find it.
Elia emptied his pouch to make sure he hadn’t scooped it up.
Petros saw his cousin sneaking off. “Check your pouch, Stavros.”
“Why mine?” Stavros turned around, already angry. “Are you accusing me?”
All the boys stopped checking their pouches, looking on. They’d gone so still, Petros could hear their shallow breathing.
“Everyone must look,” Petros said. “But you’re in the greatest hurry to go home.” He made fists. “We should check yours first.”
Stavros shoved Petros, and Petros pushed back.
At first that’s all they did, push and yell insults. Petros had the better insults, or maybe a better memory, and hit a sensitive nerve. Stavros launched himself at Petros, knocking him to the ground. The boys rolled in the dirt, getting in punches when they could.
The other boys shouted advice to both. Panayoti’s dog yapped. Fifi’s voice rose in an alarmed meh-eh-eh, meh-eh-eh, and once she reached into the fray to nip. She got Petros.
The string on Stavros’s pouch broke, spilling the marbles between them. They felt like pebbles under Petros’s ribs and shoulders, but he hardly knew it. He gave back as many blows as he’d gotten. Hitting fast and furiously, he bloodied Stavros’s nose. Stavros returned the favor.
Petros hardly noticed when the shouts died away and the dog barked more ravenously than before.
A stranger snatched him up by the neck and grabbed Stavros as well, separating them roughly. “Stop it,” he told them. “We’re at war already! Don’t fight among yourselves.”
Petros stopped fighting right away, not because the stranger scolded but because he stank. His matted hair and beard clung to his head like a scarf of sheep’s wool. His face and body were dirty and sunburned, his nose and shoulders blistered and scabbed over. He wore only the ragged remains of his trousers.
His feet were wrapped in rags. Bloody rags.
After one long look at him, Petros and Stravros both struggled to escape. “Quit!” the stranger shouted, so hard his voice failed and the rest of what he said came out in a whisper. “Stavros, Petros, stop it.”
Petros was frightened into struggling even harder. The st
ranger stood firm, holding Petros in place with only a grip on his shirt collar.
Stavros froze, still gripped about the neck. “Lambros? Is that you?”
“Of course it’s me.” The stranger let go of them. “Don’t you recognize your own brother?”
Petros stared. Could this filthy, wrecked creature be the same Lambros whose daring assaults on the Italian army were so dramatic that word of his courage reached the village? Whose adventures were told and retold on the verandas? Only nineteen and already he was a hero.
“Lambros.” Petros was sickened to see the cuts on his hands, the torn nails. How could this happen to him?
Stavros said, “Your feet, Lambros. Where are your boots?”
“Gone.” Lambros didn’t wait but limped forward a few steps. “It’s enough to know for now. Let’s go home.”
Stavros moved to put his arm about Lambros’s waist, to be his crutch. Lambros stopped him, saying, “Don’t come so close. I’m covered with lice. Walk with me, but keep your distance.”
The boys followed Lambros.
Petros snatched up the spilled marbles. His glass marble was now among them. As for the rest, there remained just enough evening light to tell them apart.
He stuffed his own marbles into his pouch, glad for the moment to himself. The vision that was Lambros had shaken him. He dropped Stavros’s marbles into his pocket and hurried to catch up.
Elia pointed to Lambros’s swollen hands and asked, “What happened to you?”
“Little enough,” Lambros said as Petros joined them, “considering all that might have happened.”
“Where’s the rest of your company?” Panayoti asked.
“On their way home, the lucky ones. Has no one else returned from the north?”
“No one yet,” Panayoti replied.
“Then you must all go home now and give warning,” Lambros said, his voice rising like an alarm. “Tell your families the Germans are near.”
“They’ve been coming for nearly a month,” Petros said. “Even the Italians aren’t expecting them.”
“Go tell your father now,” Lambros yelled, in a voice sharp with the pain of his feet and hands.
War Games Page 2
