— Did they kill them with a rifle?
— They killed Panayótis with a knife. He must have fought back. He was a big strapping man.
— They killed them at night.
— Yes, at night. They had drawn some water for them from the well. Panayótis was playing the clarinet before that. That’s what they told me. Yeorghía Makrís. And then they killed them. They took them down to the ravine. We put him in some sacks and brought him back. Loaded onto the mule.
— Why in sacks?
— They had cut off his head. They’d cut off his feet, they’d cut off his hands. His torso was a separate piece. So how could we take him? We put him in two sacks. We loaded him into two sacks. Not right after it happened. Three or four days later we went and got him. I didn’t do any loading. I couldn’t do anything. Then someone told me. I found Yiánnis Makrís, I found Kóstas Karayiánnis.
— Where was Kóstas?
— Poor man had disappeared. Then I ran into him. I almost killed him. He escaped by a hair. Hey, Iraklís, Koumbáros. It’s me, Kóstas.
— Was he a prisoner too?
— He was hiding of course.
— A prisoner? From the detention camp?
— No, he left the village. They sent them away. Because of the blockade. And he hid up there. Kóstas, Chrístos Papadimítris and Yiánnis Makrís.
— And then they came to Trípolis?
— All of them. With me. Kóstas, God rest his soul. We went and tore through all of Zíreia, we went through all of Neméa. We went down to Pátras. Yes. We did.
Chapter 45
Ah, those villagers from Tsíveri!1 If a lemon tree wouldn’t come up, they’d go plant onions.
Chapter 46
I knew Athens. For four years, while Márkos was a student, I would come there often. I would go to my uncle Kóstas Verétsos, my father’s first cousin. He had a shop at 93 Aiólou Street. He sold men’s clothing. Socks and the like. He says, Where’s your uncle the doctor? My uncle the doctor had left. He says, Go to the Red Cross, where they told you to go. I went to the Red Cross. They put us in a school in Pláka.1 All of us girls who’d been in Haïdári. We each had a cot. They would give us milk, hot chocolate. They’d give us bread. Bread in those days. We’d go outside, and they’d offer us a sovereign for each loaf of bread. I left Pláka after a few days. I went to my aunt, Yiannoúla Ioannítzis. At 18 Notará Street. Or was it 20? I stayed there, I’d help my cousin Christina. I knew about men’s shirts. I’d unstitched one of Márkos’s shirts and made a pattern from it. I didn’t know much but I learned. Loukía was working at Kaloyiánnis’s shop. On the corner of Emmanuel Benáki and Stadíou Streets, back then. We’d go there and pick up a dress or two in the latest style. Christina was an accomplished seamstress. And I was pretty good at it too. I started sewing in people’s homes. The woman from Xylókastro I was with in Haïdári — her sister. She’d been adopted by an aunt, a rich aunt. She lived near the museum, on Bouboulínas Street. They’d have me at their house to sew something for them, and my wages were two cans of food. That lady wore her hair high in a bun, and rings on her hands, and she had got her adopted daughter engaged to a naval officer. I was impressed by his uniform, I’d seen it hanging in the closet. Back then he really stood out because there was no navy. I’d work in people’s homes, and in the evening I’d go back to Aunt Yiannoúla’s. But it had already become like a barracks. Rodópi Ioannítzis had come, and Lítsa, and maybe Loúrdos’s wife Evyenía was there too. So many people. And they went through a lot, those folks. Take Loúrdos himself. He had brought oil from Astros. And that was quite something, but we all slept crowded one next to the other. The apartment was on the ground floor. It belonged to Zonar’s,
2 and that artist Alex lived above it. He had married Zonar’s daughter, and there was also an M.P. living there. They had a piece of property on Spýrou Dontá Street. Not anything much, I mean, just an abandoned old room. It had a bathroom, it had once been used as a small kafeneío. I don’t remember if it had a kitchen. We found Andréas Athanasíou, he was staying at his aunt Aspasía’s in Kolonáki. His father’s first cousin, from Epirus. And Ismíni. They were living there, and we’d meet. Every day at noon we’d go to a taverna called Anoúsi. The owner was from Ayios Pétros. Andréas would bring a sausage, I’d bring my food from Pláka, I was still getting rations, and we’d eat. Márkos too. So let me tell you. Márkos says, Let’s go live at Ioánnou’s place. Ioánnou was the one who had the property on Spýrou Dontá Street. He let us stay there free of charge. So I took the cot I was sleeping on at the shelter, at the school. I took it on my shoulders and I carried it to Spýrou Dontá Street. Off Makriyiánni Street, after Syngroú Avenue. At the Makriyiánni gendarmes station, just below it. I took two cots. One for each end of the room. With the door in between. Márkos and I slept there. I went to Notará Street, to Christina’s, four times a day. On foot. I went and helped her with her sewing, she paid me. And I’d go back there, and we’d sleep. And we had a kerosene lamp, a gas burner, and Andréas gave us a can of olive oil. He owed it to us at any rate, and he gave it to us. Up until December. When the December Uprising started I was at Aunt Yiannoúla’s. On a Saturday, I think. Or Sunday. Márkos had come down from Kifisiá to listen to Papandréou speak at Syntagma Square.3 And he comes and tells me, There’s an uprising. We took — or rather I’d taken — two or three loaves of bread from the shelter. I left one at Aunt Yiannoúla’s. Back then we had net bags, not plastic ones. I put the two loaves in the net bag, and we left. To go to Spýrou Dontá Street, to spend the night. By the time we reached Stournára Street the gunfire was under way. And I’d keep my hands held high, with the net bag visible, hands up high, keep them up. And the net bag swinging, back and forth like this. I’d press myself against one wall after another, and how I escaped being shot, I don’t know. We went into a basement, through a trapdoor. From there we went to the cathedral. But we couldn’t get through. They had started fighting on Makriyiánni Street. I don’t remember if we went back. Or if we got there. But we stayed on there, in that room, until Márkos left. They drafted him. He left, and I was left alone. There was a family from Ileía living next door. The Papakonstantínous. A mother and two sons. There was no father. Both lawyers. The two sons. The younger one had a motorcycle. He was a wintertime bather. He’d go swimming and come back. On his motorcycle. Someone who made car upholsteries lived across from me. Lálos. The house is still there. Small world. I asked a koumbára of my husband’s niece about them last year. At any rate. She knows them, they’re still there. At night alarms would go off, mortar shells would fall, and all of us, the whole neighborhood, would go to his basement. There were no apartment buildings yet. I was there alone, Márkos had been drafted then, but I knew where he was. So I’d take some bean soup, and Ismíni would come with me, and we’d go and find him. Once we met him on Akominátou Street. I saw houses that had been broken into there, with furniture and various household utensils scattered about upstairs. Imagine if the army were to get in there. At Christmastime, I don’t know why, there was a cease-fire every day around noon. Twelve to two. I’d managed to get myself five or six passes. There were passes in those days. Back then Maíri Iatrídis, Mítsos Iatrídis’s sister, was still alive. She used to come and vacation in the summer at Kastrí. We’d go together to Christina’s, we were apprenticing as seamstresses. I had gotten a pass for her neighborhood. A pass for Pláka and one for Exárheia.