Chapter 7
Márkos had gone. He’d come down from the mountains. Just in time. When he was a student he’d joined an anti-Metaxás1 organization. 1936. The year I first went to Athens. We lived on Ayíou Pávlou Street in Patíssia. The students had started this movement, and the Security Police dressed up as priests and whatnot and they caught them — eight of them. They took in a lot of them, they kept eight. Ilías Vlahákis, he’s an ophthalmologist now, and our brother Márkos. They had them at Security Headquarters, near Tosítsa Street, one street over from Káningos Square. Stournára. Stournára Street. That’s where they had Márkos and the others, and I’d go see them. I’d bring them cigarettes and food wrapped in that day’s newspaper, so they could keep up with the news. I don’t remember how long they held them. They took them up on the roof — Márkos’s hands were swollen like loaves of bread from the beatings. I don’t know if he had to drink castor oil too. Maybe he’s just not telling. Maniadákis2 would force them to drink castor oil.3 And it tore right through them. The Security Police showed up, they arrested him at his house. He had a sore, a boil, on the back of his neck. Then they took them to the Army Transfer Section. Seven of them and Márkos eight, to exile them. 1936. I don’t know how I managed it, I’d go and see them. They were covered in lice by then and they would catch them, put them in cigarette boxes and stroll around with them. Then Mavroyiórghis arrived, on the Feast of the Annunciation, I think. There was someone named Anghelétos, served on the police force in Kastrí, my father knew him. Because our house was like some kind of monastery, whoever passed through would get a meal, even strangers. Anghelétos was getting on in years now. A commander. And they pulled it off, in the end Márkos wasn’t exiled. But his papers stayed at Security Headquarters, the Italians found them. And that’s how our troubles began. We left our house and slept at the Sotíris place. Seven times we evacuated our house. We’d hear that the Italians were coming to burn us down. We’d go upstairs, collect our clothing, our linens, and off we’d run. Well, anyway, during that period the Germans arrived. From the fire to the frying pan. We hid our things. In those so-called shelters. The Sotíris family had a storeroom. No. It was Omorfoúla’s winepress behind the wall. We hid our things in there, the whole neighborhood did. Someone gave us away, I don’t know how, and we took them to Old Man Sotíris’s place. From there, we left a lot behind, we took them to Haroúlis Lenghéris’s parents’ place. Put them in the cistern. And someone told on us again. We were away. Old Gligóris’s wife Stamáta took them, with Theodóti, her sister. Kókkinos’s wife. They took them to their own cistern. Some things, not the whole lot. Again someone gave us away, our auntie Sokrátaina,
4 Marinákos’s wife, took them. Her husband was my mother’s oldest nephew. And her mother-in-law was Mávroyiórgaina’s sister. And Aunt Margaríta’s. He was a watchman. A field guard. Auntie had an oakwood chest, and she buried it in her yard. Some blankets and two kilim rugs, one piece each, that we women had woven on our loom. And those were saved. Nothing else. The rest Haroúlis snitched about to someone, I don’t know who. We had a whole suitcaseful. My father had given me quite a few things. I was a good girl. In fact he wanted to take me to Sýra, he used to travel there to stock up. He had given me a gold sovereign. There weren’t any in circulation at that time. And there was also my mother’s gold jewelry. She’d got it from her uncle the doctor. A diamond and other things. And embroideries of mine. Whatever Anna Papayiánnis had, I had too. We’d been friends from way back then, friends since childhood. Whatever one of us embroidered, the other did too. Some satins — those were taken by the rebels, from shelter to shelter. The sewing machine stayed at home. And I don’t know why, I had taken out Granny’s fur-trimmed jacket. I like saying that: Granny. She’d given it to me, I was named after her. Grandma Eléni. When she married Grandpa Márkos, the doctor, her father borrowed two thousand gold drachmas. Back then, in 1800 and something. He was a licensed doctor. She was a priest’s daughter. They made her an outfit just like Queen Amalia’s. His brother was a tailor for the palace. Grandpa’s brother. And his other brother a merchant in Venice, he went back and forth. Anyway, he gave me the fur jacket. I kept it in a sturdy cardboard box along with two embroideries. I’d copied the design from Mrs. Manolópoulos. The wife of the justice of the peace. They had come to Kastrí at that time. She was the only daughter with nine brothers, and they gave her everything. A fantastic dowry. Lace from Cyprus and the like. I had those things at home, I’d left them there along with the sewing machine. And they barged in, Galaxýdis and the others, and someone, I have no idea who, took those things. That’s when the blockade started, the big blockade. The rebels said whoever stays in their houses we’ll kill. All the men outside. And the Germans said everyone had to stay in their houses. They passed through Voúrvoura, they found sixty or so men in the woods, they killed them all. Their wives came to Athanásis’s place to buy black mourning clothes. Four or five women. Ismíni opened up the shop. Maybe Andréas was there too. I was astonished, I went in, I asked, Which of your kinfolk did they kill? My husband, my son, and my father, one of them said. On the same day. Then the Security Battalions came. Mihális Galaxýdis and the others. They found Spýros Roúmelis. I think that’s who it was. His shoes had nails in them, and he’d put paper in them so they wouldn’t hurt him. They rounded up everyone. They searched them. The papers in Roúmelis’s shoes were EAM leaflets. They rounded up all those men in the coffee shop, they took them to Trípolis. And they executed Roúmelis there. They took in Stávros Farmakídis, just a kid, Yiórghis