Kranken toubakoulozoum. It said they had tuberculosis, that the Germans shouldn’t bother them. Tássos Kirkís had one of those papers. But Tássos was actively involved in everything. In the end Aryíris got him off. He wrote a note to Nikólas Petrákos and got him off the hook. Aryíris is now in Kastrí. I notify him to come down to Karátoula so we can talk. To come down to the Kouloúros property. I come up there too from the mill. In the meantime the others left. And Aryíris’s shoulder sack with the myzíthra, the half-head of cheese, a bottle of wine, and several boiled eggs arrived in Trípolis. Aryíris came to the Kouloúros property. I tell him, We shouldn’t go. What should we do? It was all very worrisome. And I was half-crazy, racking my brain to find a solution. I tell him, We need to find a sheltered place. We’ll go to Kyvéri. We had olive trees there. And we left the same evening. In Trípolis the men from Karátoula were angry. They were very angry, mainly with Aryíris. Aryíris was a sergeant in the army, they had earmarked him for leadership. And in Albania he’d been promoted to sergeant major. The Kékeris brothers betrayed us, they stayed behind. And then there was our family of course, it was well known that our old man was a supporter of Venizélos, so they thought our political leanings were in the other direction. After several days things calmed down somewhat. We couldn’t bear it in Kyvéri. With the summer heat and the mosquitoes. We’d run out of food, we couldn’t find anything to eat. We left and came back. Then they ordered us to report for duty to Kastrí. Me and Dímos Aloúpis. With two days’ worth of bread. We go to Kastrí. They give us each a mule. They had another five or six muleteers. They tell us, Follow your comrade. Our comrade was Tsoúkas from Oriá. Sarantákos. We had no idea where we were going. Our comrade would consult his map en route. And we made our way toward Zygós. In the end we went to Koútrifa. There was a rebel platoon there. They had looted Arapóyiannis’s house. Some of them were from Logistics, they had bagged all the grain. The booty was ready. They put us to work loading it. There was one mule left over. They burned down the house. One of the rebels comes over and says, Follow me. We left. Tsoúkas stayed there. I don’t know if he was the one who burned down the house. The rebel was in front of us, saying, Follow me, follow me. We had the extra mule. Aloúpis and I took turns riding it, first him, then me. We kept going toward Ayiliás, then we headed farther out, toward Yídas’s inn. To bypass Ayios Pétros and get ourselves across to the place they called Sourávla. Just below Ayios Pétros the Germans had killed Nikólas Fotiás. Mítsos Fotiás’s brother. And five other men. In a small vegetable patch on the side of the road. The execution had taken place about ten days earlier. During the big blockade. End of June, or early July at the latest. Just before the Germans withdrew. You could still see the imprint, the outlines of their heads. Three of them had fallen backward and three to the front. Right into the freshly watered potatoes. The blood had dried on the ground. That’s what happened, in short. We kept going. We came to Sourávla. Aloúpis was ready to scream. Where are they taking us, those Turks,