— But we’d beat them to it. We’d tried them ourselves.
— Not them. We didn’t know them.
— First we caught Anéstis.
— We caught Balátsas first. Stylianós. From Mesorráhi. Balátsas was his nickname. Everyone called him that.
— Tyrovolás was his name. Stylianós Tyrovolás.
— But he was in prison.
— Well, I used to go to some land we had for grazing sheep. We call the place Bouzouriá. Down in Koubíla. There someone named Fotópoulos tells me, Look up there. Isn’t that Balátsas? We thought he was in prison. I tell him, What are you talking about? I go to the sheepfolds. I had the mules with me, I left them with some shepherds. I go back to the village. I get four or five men and we go there at night and we catch him.
— That was in 1946.
— 1946 or ’48.
— Not in ’48. I was in the army in ’48.
— Anyway, 1946. I got the men together, we went straight to his house. We knock on the door, they wouldn’t open. We break it down. His wife runs out, she started shouting. Stylianós isn’t here. He’s not here. She was shouting. Even though she could have said that more softly. I tell the others, He’s hiding somewhere. Either at Souroúpis’s place or at Markoúlis’s. By shouting she was signaling him to clear out. We run over to Souroúpis’s place, he wasn’t inside. We go down to Markoúlis’s place. What was his name?
— Kambylafkás.
— He was from Galtená. He’d married someone from Mesorráhi and was living there. He opens the door. I tell him, Where’s Balátsas? He says, I don’t know. Soon as he says I don’t know I smack him. Listen, I don’t know, he says again and motions upstairs with his eyes. He had a very small attic — and that’s where Balátsas was hiding. Hey listen, I don’t know. And he motioned upstairs with his eyes. I think to myself, he’s here. I shout, Come down, Balátsas. He comes down. He’d taken out his release papers and he was showing them to me. His release from prison. I take them and I tear them up, I bash him with my rifle butt. And with that my rifle goes off, I could have been killed. We take him outside. I tell the others, Leave him to me. Because I was the one had a beef with him. And then I started beating him. I beat him like an octopus, until the same time the next day. He’d been in prison, stayed there for a year or so, maybe less. And then he got out, when they were ordered to reduce the number of prisoners. We took him down to Perdikóvrisi. I tell him, Where’s Poúlios? Anéstis Poúlios. He says, You’ll find him at Kóstas Tyrovolás’s place.
— In Mesorráhi.
— We put him in the cellar, tied and bound, and we left. We went home, we all had something to eat, and then we went after Poúlios. And we caught him. I started beating him. Then Karelína threw a rock at me. An old lady, a relative of his. From up behind a wall. Almost killed me. I go back and I give her two swift kicks. We got Anéstis, we took him off to Tservási.
— On the way were some vineyards, they’d fenced them off with pear trees and gorse. We’d pull some up and beat him over the head.
— He could barely walk at that point.
— We take him to the village, I take some scissors, I cut off his ear.
— His ear, his hair. His hair, his scalp, I cut it all. We dump him in a corner. And in comes Kóstas Nikoláou’s sister with an ax handle. Nikoláou who they’d executed in Ayiliás. Telésilla. She starts beating him with it. On the head. Trying to break his head open. We carry him out of there. We go to a deserted house. That lawyer Karamítzas’s house. We throw him in the cellar. There was an empty barrel there. The top was missing. We shove Anéstis in there, head first. We tie his hands behind him and pull down his pants. So he can’t walk. And we leave him there. Now if you mention Anéstis and the barrel in Kastrí they’ll tell you all kinds of stories. Like that we screwed him. That’s not true. We left him there. Half dead from the beatings. And what did he do? He came round little by little. Now they say that a cousin of Karíbakas, a woman whose brothers were kapetanaíoi, went there and let him out. And he jumped over some terraces, got as far as Kótronas, and someone named Fotópoulos untied him. Soon after that we caught him again. We took him to Náfplion, and they kept him in custody awaiting trial. Then I left for America. I was discharged from the army, I left in 1951. In June. I had that right. My father was an American citizen. Twenty-eight years. 1951–1979. The year before last I was at the bus depot in Trípolis. I was waiting for my daughter, she’s married, in Corinth. I see Anéstis. An old man now. He comes right up to me, he doesn’t recognize me. He asks, Has the bus from Kastrí arrived yet? I pretended to be American. I say in English, I don’t understand Greek. Because I thought to myself, maybe he was looking to get me into trouble again. And last year I saw him again. Again I was on a bus and the bus stopped in Mesorráhi. He was waiting there with a man named Panayótis Tsíkis.
— They’re first cousins.
— First cousins, and they were going to get chestnuts. It was October. The bus stopped, I was in the front seat, he put out his hand so I could help him up. He couldn’t get up, he was an old wreck by then. I pretended not to see him. And he got up by himself, with Tsíkis pushing him from behind. Well, hello there Nikoláou, he says. Hello, Anéstis, I say. And I thought, now that we’re about to leave this life, why did we do all that? For revenge, that’s why.
— Revenge, yes. Then from Eleohóri they sent word to us to go after someone named Mathés. An important Party cadre. We left and went to Ayiasofiá, traveled all night. At the railroad tracks Antonákos the doctor was waiting for us. He got us and took us back to Samóni. He was an important cadre, that Mathés. I don’t know how that man stayed alive. There were seven men from Másklina and us. He was a murderer. A murderer. Just like those other men who are getting pensions today. Who took part in the Resistance and are getting pensions. Murderers’ Resistance.
Chapter 42
And that’s how the wife of the justice of the peace lost her things. Manolópoulos was the justice of the peace in Kastrí. Pavlákos let it slip somewhere that they were going to arrest him. Vasílis goes and tells him, Take your wife and get out. I don’t remember if they had children, they were both young. They were staying at Horaítis’s place. Did I hear you right, Manolópoulos says to him. Don’t ask me anything else, Vasílis says, I can’t talk to you. They’re following me. You didn’t dare talk to anyone back then. The court clerk lived right above our house. Konstantinídis. He had a sister named Vasilikí. Manolópoulos’s wife called her and said, Come and pack up the house if you can. And I’m leaving a present for you on the table. Take it, I’m leaving. She told her that and she left. She and her husband left at night. She went the next morning, she tidied up the house, and she took a very lovely nightgown the other woman had left for her. She supposedly closed up the house and left. A few days later they supposedly got her things and took them to some shelter. Then Harís arranged things the way he wanted. And later, when he would quarrel with Kouroúnis, every time they had a spat, he’d say: You took those things and you sold them in Megalópolis. All Manolópoulos’s wife’s clothes.
— Who said that to whom?
— Kouroúnis said that to Harís. Because it was Harís who was going and selling them.