4 I don’t know how I managed it, maybe the police looked on us with a kind eye. I don’t know. I’d be stocking up on food. Stocking up wherever I could, and I’d go to Márkos’s place and he’d give us a dab of margarine, and some hard-baked bread. I’d go with Ismíni. On Christmas Day Aunt Yiannoúla called me — Yiórgos Ioannítzis had been drafted too. Márkos Ioannítzis’s brother. He’d been drafted and he was a guard on Heródou Attikoú Street at the palace. I went and saw him and he gave me a can of food. He was an officer. What did I take him? He gave me a can with potatoes, beans, and a piece of meat. I don’t remember if I took him something or what it was. He told me, You’re too thin. Maybe I took him matches because he smoked a pipe. I was tall and slim. Too thin. I remember him. Maybe I went to see him twice. He gave me that can of food and I took it to Mrs. Papakonstantínou, the lady with the two sons, and we ate it together. On New Year’s Day I stayed in. I was in a bad mood, and I’d had a terrible fright the night before. Next to me was another door with the same little stairs, three steps that led up to a two-story apartment. Some Greeks were living upstairs, and British soldiers would come and play cards with them. The Brits would come, and that night they knocked on my door. Maybe they were drunk, or made a mistake. I was shaking. I didn’t open the door, but it had a glass pane on the upper half, a pane of glass. And I signaled to them, go next door, next door. They got what they came for, and they left. In the morning I told Lálos about it. He had one son and one daughter. He tells me, If you have an old blanket, bring it, and we’ll give it to them, and they’ll give you a new one. Trade-offs like that happened, that sort of exchange. I took him an old blanket, and he gave me a new one, a wonderful khaki one. I don’t remember the dates, I don’t remember when I left that room. I couldn’t go to Notará Street to Aunt Yiannoúla’s. There were too many people crammed in. So I went to Kifisiá. I had nothing warm to wear. Christina tells me, a different Christina that one, another cousin, a Menglínas. She says, Let’s dye this blanket and make it into a nice coat. I had taken it to Kifisiá, and Aunt Magdálo had a tub, and we dyed it brown. A nice soft brown color. But I didn’t make it into a coat, I made a suit. People got by like that then. We had the Red Cross, and we had UNRRA.5 I think. And there was the Athens Archdiocese. They gave out different things, clothes and shoes — hand-me-downs. All those registered with the Red Cross could get one suit apiece. I made that suit, there was a piece of woolen material left at the shop, and Christina from Notará Street made a flared Tyrolean skirt from it. I’d found a silk dress at UNRRA, an evening dress with a cigarette burn just below the waist. And I cut it, made it into a blouse, and embroidered it. I’d wear all those things, and now I was going to get war victims’ assistance. Why you smashing young thing, you, Yiórgos Ioannítzis would tell me. You smashing young thing. You look like you just stepped out of a fashion house. I had a handkerchief here in my pocket, I was slim, I was at the height of my youth and beauty. At any rate. I was living in Kifísia, I’d begun to sew. The Támbaris family had a koumbára who was one of the best shirt makers. And she recommended me to various households. People would have new clothes made but mainly they would do alterations. I was good at that, too. I went to a villa in Kefalári,6 with velvet wallpaper, it was just like being in a movie theater. Impressive-looking furniture — and all that just when I started making money. But I left. There was the problem of what would become of my brother and sister, Phaídros and Stella. They had gotten out of prison, they’d survived, and they’d gone to Kastrí. And something had to be done. How stupid of me, I should have stayed in Athens. Instead of that I began to go back and forth, from Athens to Trípolis to Kastrí. In Trípolis the Salíveros family put me up. Maria was there, we’d become very close friends. And I sewed different things for them, and they were thrilled. I also sewed for the Athanasiádis family. And for Mavroyiórghis. They had stood by his side ungrudgingly. They tell me, Come and live in Trípolis, we’ll help you. And stupidly, I did. I moved in September, so the younger ones could go to school. Stella had finished but she was studying English. Phaídros was attending the eight-year junior high school. He was going to enroll in fifth grade. Fifth grade, I think. I went to Trípolis. I couldn’t find a house. I had no money. My father had sold some barrel staves, he got 350 drachmas for them. He gave me the money. Voúla Vasilópoulos was in Trípolis, she was pregnant with Maria. Ada Papayiánnis was there. All the men from the Battalions had come down there, Yiánnis Dránias, Iphigenia. They were there then. I don’t know why they had moved house again. The Kavasális girls were there. It was a nightmare finding a room, but I found one that fit us. The woman renting it to us had TB, we didn’t know it. We stayed there, it had a smaller side room. It was September when we moved in. After that they brought those gendarmes back dead from Ayios Pétros, in their undershirts. I don’t remember when that happened. The Galaxýdis brothers came down, they wanted to arrest us again. In Orthokostá they’d taken me as a hostage because of Márkos and my uncle the doctor. They had gone to Athens. I’d been in prison, I’d been in Haïdári. And now they wanted to arrest me again. They didn’t let them. I’ve forgiven them all. But that Mihális Galaxýdis, there was a time when I was ready to throw a grenade under his car. Back when Phaídros was rejected from the Air Force Academy. He was about to become a squadron leader. I was really indignant. Phaídros left for Canada. He made a success of himself there, he has children. We stayed in Trípolis. Our atelier was doing well. I’d go up to Athens every once in a while. I always stayed with Iríni Koutsoúmbis. She lived on Zínonos Street, around there. It was convenient because the terminal for the bus from Trípolis was on Ayíou Konstantínou Street in the center of Athens. So she let me stay there. She had moved to Athens. From Corinth to Athens. Daphne and the younger sister went overseas, they emigrated. One went to Chicago, and the other I don’t know where. When Iríni’s brother Yiánnis died I was in Trípolis. I heard about it after the funeral. But I went to the forty-day memorial service. Iríni invited some people for a meal. Around 1955. Or was it in the sixties? She had guests, that Mihaíl fellow from Ayios Pétros. Who had a sister called Xáko. Short for Xakoustí. Mihaíl Manousákis. He had dealerships in Trípolis. And another man from Kosmás, a microbiologist, Maístros the microbiologist, at 40 Karneádou Street. They were talking, and they said something. Maístros did. She’s Spade-and-Shovel’s cousin. About me. Kind of allegorically. And I thought they were being sarcastic. I say, What’s up, you guys? Mihaíl says, He’s talking about Márkos Ioannítzis. I tell them, Now look. And they talked about my brother Márkos too. I tell them, Márkos Mávros may be my brother, but Márkos Ioannítzis was twice as much a brother to me. I won’t allow any remarks from you. Maístros was from Kosmás. His father was a doctor too, a friend of our Níkos. I tell him, You men must know his story — and how it all happened. Because certain people had spread the word that Níkos had finished him off. He stopped eating. He tells me, I only know what my godmother has told me. Márkos Ioannítzis left our house, and he asked her for a towel and a knife. Alímonos came and got him. This was on June 3. He came and got him from our house. I was just a kid, but I know where they buried him. I say, Go and tell all that to Yiórgos Ioannítzis. Because this is what happened to our family: Níkos got carried away by his ideas, and he made the mistake of writing things against Márkos to Yiórgos. Back then. And Yiórgos told me that very bitterly. I tell Maístros: Please go and tell all that to Ioannítzis. I think Márkos had also left a letter there. At that house. Maístros knew the true Ioannítzis story. And then our Christina said, Since that’s how it is, let’s tell the girls and go all together and help them dig up their brother’s bones. But they didn’t agree. They said they hadn’t the courage. They hadn’t worn black for ten years. For ten years they believed that Márkos was in the Middle East. Because the BBC had said something like that back then. Márkos was betrayed by Kontalónis. He spoke English, and he told the officers, their headquarters liaisons, to stop air dropping supplies to the Communists. He told them, They’ll turn against us and against you. And Kontalónis betrayed him. I think that’s why they killed him. I was twenty-two years old at the time.