Once her parents had gone out for the evening, her father in his tailcoat and her mother in that dark-green dress, Clio went up the back stairs to the flat roof of the house. She often went there to think and to find some of the solitude she had looked for in the clover houses. At times, she imagined herself as an adult—as an actress, or a dancer. The picture was never quite clear. But she always drew confidence from her high-up view of the city streets, reminded of her place in a world she loved, a world that was stable and fully known to her.
Whenever her father caught her coming down from the narrow stairway at the back of the third floor, he said, in a voice that was mostly bewildered but partly annoyed, “What were you doing up there? Going to Hollywood?” He pronounced this incorrectly, Clio was certain, making this very American word sound as though it were part of his native language. Choleywooud. With a guttural H, a tight o, and a w that sounded like three letters put together.
Now she opened the door of the little hut on the rooftop and felt a tiny breeze pushing past her into the house. Her hair blew back from her face for a second before she stepped out into the night air. From the northern edge of the roof, she could see the streetlights in rows running down to the giant blackness of the sea. Just at the edge, there were zigzags of light from the tavernas by the docks. And then nothing. There was nothing on the other side of the Gulf of Patras—at least nothing visible tonight—but that way were mountains and more mountains until you reached Albania. And to the northwest was the other blackness of the Adriatic and then Italy, that giant boot tossed onto the water, ready to kick.
She crossed to the southern railing, where she could see men and women in fine clothes getting out of carriages at the concert hall across the street. Looking down at the elegance of the men and women, it was hard to believe that war could touch them. There were a few cars among the carriages—long, sloping, shiny things, like exotic animals. Everything about the scene below her was sleek: the men’s hair, the women’s gowns. She saw her parents walk up the front steps of the hall. Her father was tall and lean, in his tailcoat and high-collared shirt, and her mother wore a fur stole over her shoulders and white gloves past her elbows.
Her mother raised her arm to greet someone, and her topaz bracelet slid along the glove, like a stream of honey on a tablecloth. Sophia would be given that bracelet when she turned sixteen, and Thalia would get the choker Clio could see now at the nape of her mother’s neck. Already sixteen, Clio had the ring. But she had given it to her mother for this evening, eager that an emblem of her be included with the other two. She imagined she could trace its outline beneath the white silk of her mother’s glove. As she watched her mother swing past her father through the door, she shivered. As long as the war didn’t come, it would be just months until the first parties where she, too, could wear a woman’s gown.
As the days passed, Clio tired of the cocoons. At first she had joined the other children in their vigil, watching for that sign of change that would herald the emergence of a new creature. But when nothing happened day after day, she lost interest. It was Marco who made the cocoons exciting, after all. She felt a jolt of anticipation every time she neared the bakery. She would take Marco aside and hand him one more cocoon to tuck away into a little box beneath the counter. He would check to be sure his grandmother wasn’t looking, and then he would slip a raisin roll into Clio’s hand and wink at her. He looked like an adult, like the men who winked at her when she walked by a taverna, clearly delighted to be doing something mysterious.
But then one day Marinelli was standing behind the counter and Marco was nowhere to be seen. Clio was certain she had noticed him running down the street ahead of them a few blocks earlier. Marinelli was smiling, but there was something different about him. She glanced over to see if maybe the old woman was sick, but she was there, on her stool, tucked in by the far end of the counter.
“Ciao, Mr. Marinelli,” Clio began.
“Miss Clio.”
“Where’s Marco? I have another cocoon for him.” She felt the need to offer something to Marinelli, just to make him become the friendly baker he always was.
“Marco is at home. I can give him the cocoon if you want.”
Clio was not sure what to say. Marco liked their secret trading. But Marinelli was still looking at her that way.
“All right,” she said.
Marinelli smiled at her with tight lips, and then he placed both hands flat on the counter.
“Miss Clio, I can’t let Marco keep trading raisin rolls for these cocoons. I’m sure you understand that our raisin rolls are our specialty and that we use only the best ingredients available. We simply can’t afford to give them away.”
What he meant was that if he didn’t take in four drachmas for each roll, he would lose money, because Notaris raisins were expensive. He was looking at her in a way that told Clio he knew she understood him.
She kept her eyes on him and nodded.
“Can we please have a karveli, Mr. Marinelli?” She chose Greek, since it was a matter of business now.
“Of course.” He turned to tug one from a bin on the wall. “Five drachmas.”
She placed the coin in the bronze plate and ushered the others out the door before turning to go back.
“Please do give this to Marco.” She looked Marinelli in the eyes and her face was on fire. “It’s a gift from us.” She left the cocoon on the counter.
Two days later, Clio tried once more, going into the bakery with a small bag full of cocoons. There were plenty more at the house, and not even Nestor would notice how many she had taken.
“Geia, Marco.” The grandmother was at her stool and the boy sat cross-legged on the floor with paper and a colored pencil.
“Geia.” He gave her a timid smile and came over to see what she was holding.
“For you,” she said, and placed the bag in his hands.
Just then Marinelli came in from the back of the store. Marco slipped away, tucking the bag under his arm.
“One karveli, please, Mr. Marinelli,” she said, and set her coin in the bronze dish.
When she took the karveli from him, she simply nodded.
“Arrivederci,” she said this time. She shot out each syllable crisply.
Friday morning, Clio heard low voices, men’s voices, coming from somewhere at the bottom of the house. She leaned over the parapet and peered down, but couldn’t see anything except the chairs and tall plants and the delicate hall table in the pale-blue light of early morning. The other children followed her down the stairs into the sitting room, where they found their parents standing by the radio. Their father told them that, sometime after midnight, Mussolini had sent Metaxas an ultimatum: Let us through, or we’ll force you to let us through. Metaxas had answered in French, which, to Clio, seemed to confirm the utter strangeness of the situation. “Alors, c’est la guerre,” he had said. So, it’s war. Already the newspapers and radio had reduced this debonair statement into one forceful word: Ochi!
“Ochi!” her father repeated, slamming his fist into his palm. “No! Our soldiers are in Albania even now, pushing those Italians back where they came from.”
“I thought you liked the fascists, Babá,” Nestor said.
“I like Metaxas, Nestor. Not that clown Mussolini.”
Clio didn’t say anything, but she thought of Marinelli and his grim mother.
“So, we get to stay home today?” Nestor asked.
“Nonsense. Everything’s fine. We’re not going to run around screaming. Go have your breakfast.”
Clio did not know what to make of this. Nestor and Thalia chattered away while they ate, but Clio held her biscuit in her sweet coffee too long and it fell in. How could the others eat? All summer and all fall, everyone had been waiting and waiting for this war, and now that it had come, they were all behaving as if everything were normal.
Clio led her siblings down Kolokotronis to school, proud to be walking down a street dedicated to a leader of the War of Ind
ependence, this day of all days. She saw Marinelli’s up ahead, and for the first time in her life she wished she didn’t have to pass it. It was more than the confusion of the new war; she was suddenly overcome with shame for the way she had focused her eyes on Marinelli two days before and the way she had spoken to him. She could not believe she had dared to behave that way. And that word, arrivederci, which rang so oddly now that Italy was their enemy. It was no different from au revoir, but that wasn’t what she had meant when she had said it.
Clio turned her head as if she were intensely interested in the groups of people on the other side of the street discussing the ultimatum. But as she approached the school, she couldn’t help noticing Marco standing by a doorway. He didn’t move until she reached him, and then the little boy sidled away from the building and fell in beside her.
He seemed about to cry.
“What’s the matter, Marco?” she asked. “Are you worried about the war?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head vigorously. “It’s the cocoons. My father says they’re charity and I need to pay you today or I can’t have them.”
Suddenly she was glad she had stood up to Marinelli. He had turned this into something serious, when she had only been trying to play a game with his little boy.
“Sorry.” Marco kicked at the sidewalk.
“It’s not your fault, Marco.” She crouched down to him. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out, and I’m sure your father will let you have the cocoons.”
Clio could see that he was not convinced, but she tousled his hair and sent him off to the right, where the lower school was. She sent Nestor along behind him.
The teacher began French class by leading the students in the national anthem. Everyone made swooping gestures to accompany each reference to a sword. Clio was waiting for something else—a discussion of the war, an announcement of safety plans—but, once the singing was finished, the teacher insisted they return to their seats and proceed with the lesson. Still, it was clear that even the teacher was distracted, constantly looking out the windows. Clio was certain she chose the text from Racine with Mussolini in mind: Ses yeux indifférents ont déjà la constance/ D’un tyran dans le crime endurci dès l’enfance. Indifferent eyes, a tyrant hardened in crime since childhood.
It was math class in the middle of the morning when Clio noticed a few children by the window, looking up from their textbooks. She followed their gaze but couldn’t see anything besides the tops of the buildings across the street. Then there was a drone and a whine and a roaring crash and the room shook. Glass blew in from the windows and children began to shout and cry. They all began to run.
There was nobody in charge. Out in front of the school, children grabbed hands and ran off. Clio was looking for Sophia and Thalia and Nestor. There was a plane in the sky, drifting over the city, and she stopped in her tracks to watch actual bombs drop from it, simply falling out of its belly and sailing down like giant loaves of bread. It was a fascinating image, something she had never seen before. In one instant, she lost sight of the bombs and heard and felt them explode. There was smoke and fire and the sounds of tumbling stones. Shocked out of her daze, she screamed for her sisters and her brother, and she saw Sophia, who had Thalia by the hand. Together, the three girls ran to the lower school and found Nestor crying and darting from one gate to the other. Clio grabbed him to her and then thrust him away, yelling at all three of them to run.
She led them down Maizonos, as she was supposed to do. Sophia and Thalia insisted on holding hands, and Nestor would not let go of Clio’s, so she dragged him along.
“My arm, Clio!” he cried, as he dangled awkwardly from her grasp.
“I’m sorry, Nestor. Come on. Over this way. Sophia! Thalia!” she shouted. “Hurry up!”
Another plane roared into view and the girls screamed, pressing themselves into a doorway. Clio ran back to them, Nestor by her side, and pulled them back out.
“It’s gone. We need to run!” she yelled.
Ahead of them, a hole was ripped out of the street. Two houses were torn in half, a bureau hanging over the edge of a shattered floor. Men and women were bleeding and screaming, holding their heads. An old woman in black was clutching her head and crying, crouched beside a dark form on the ground. Clio dragged her siblings to the right, but soon there was another bomb site in front of them, with smoke still rising from the rubble. They went left. Now they heard the drone of yet another plane coming over the city. They ducked into a doorway. A bomb crashed farther up the street, showering them with dirt and hard pellets of concrete or plaster. Clio tasted salt on her lip and spat out grit and blood. She retched at the thought that the blood might not be her own. She dragged the others to their feet; they began to run again. They were all crying and yelling now, covering their heads, moving vaguely northeast until a crater would force them to turn.
It went on like this until, up ahead, Clio could see the portico of the concert hall and she knew that they were near their home.
“Almost there,” she yelled. “We’re close.”
She heard a man’s voice calling her name and, through dust and smoke, made out her parents running down the middle of the street. The sleeve of her mother’s dress was torn and there was dirt on her father’s face.
“It’s all right,” Urania said, hugging the children around her. “It’s all right. We’re all safe.” But Clio knew that they were not safe at all anymore.
When they made it home, they saw smoke coming from the house two doors away from theirs. It was missing its top left corner, which lay in pieces in the street and in the walled garden of the house. The neighbors were standing in the street, crying. Clio’s mother tugged all of them up the stairs and pushed them inside, where Clio was almost disappointed to see that nothing appeared to be altered at all. The house was quiet. Everything was as they had left it that morning and every other morning. The sun had risen to fill the atrium window, casting stark shadows down into the hall.
“Come,” her mother said softly. She took them to the kitchen and washed their faces gently with a warm cloth. When it was Clio’s turn, she held her elbow tight. “Sophia,” she said, over Clio’s shoulder, “take your brother and Thalia upstairs and find your father. You’ll be fine there.”
Clio looked in her mother’s eyes as she dabbed at the dirt on her cheek.
“You kept them safe,” Urania said. “I’m proud of you.”
“What happens now, Mamá?”
“I don’t know.”
No one spoke very much for the rest of the day. Clio’s father tried the radio, but all he got was patriotic music with the national anthem thrown in from time to time. She wondered if they would have to go to school now. And where would they go to take shelter from the bombs? Her parents, Irini, the neighbors—they were all shaking their heads, stunned, caught off guard, as if they had never believed the war could come to Patras.
That afternoon, she went up to Hollywood, bracing for the sight of an enemy plane. The sun had turned the buildings golden and the sea a dark purple. Across the Gulf of Patras, a broad mountain rose up almost from the water. And to the west, the island of Ithaki stood out clearly in the calm October air. She wanted the landscape to reveal a sign of the change she knew was finally, actually, upon them. In books and movies, it always rained when the heroes were sad. But that day the landscape did not cooperate. It was indifferent to their situation.
When Clio woke the next morning, she remembered the bureau hanging in midair, the crouched woman crying in the street, and the missing corner of the neighbors’ house. And then she remembered the first bomb that had blocked their way on Maizonos Street, and she wondered if Marco was all right. She thought of the bag of cocoons his father would not let him accept. She had been planning to see him again, but that had been before the war had started. She begged her parents to let her go out, and eventually they allowed all the children out to see what they could do to help. Clio waited until no one was watching and head
ed for the bakery.
The streets were full of people clearing rubble, walking from house to house with food or water, standing in the street and talking. On Astiggos there was a ruined house with a black mourning cloth draped across the door. Along Maizonos some of the shops were open and people were buying tins and sacks of food. Someone passed Clio, pushing a cart loaded with a piece of beef and a large paper bag full of loaves of bread. In front of Marinelli’s, Clio saw a woman carrying a karveli. The bakery was open. Marco was all right.
But the woman was going into the bakery, not out of it. She came out again empty-handed and frowning. Then another man came out through the door and, seeing the owner of the cart, called out to him, “Hey, where’d you get the bread?”
“Drimakopoulos.” The cart owner nodded up to the sign over the door and laughed. “Today I’d rather buy from a Greek.”
“Marinelli’s flour is bad anyhow,” said the other man. “Full of bugs.” He walked off toward Drimakopoulos’s bakery.
In no more than a minute, as Clio stood there beside the door, full of bugs was tossed from one person to another until no one went into Marinelli’s at all. People glanced up and shook their heads at the name on the sign and then continued down the sidewalk.
Clio went to the door and peered through the glass, but it was dark inside and she could make out only the counter that ran across the front. She pushed the door open. Marco came to her side. The old woman was sitting in her regular place at the end of the counter. But Marinelli had his back to Clio. He was reaching up into the bins where he kept the bread—loaves he must have baked only hours after the bombs fell—and he was doing something with his hands. Then Clio saw the moths. There were dozens of them, crawling over the bread and falling into the spaces between the loaves and then pulling themselves up again.
She made a noise and he turned around. He had a small bandage on the side of his neck and he looked tired. He was not smiling. Ses yeux indifférents, was all Clio could think of.
The Clover House Page 17
