With the commanding Gestapo officer was a Greek interpreter, wearing the yellow armband of collaborators. He said Kostas Vasilis was wanted in connection with acts of sabotage on the docks in the Piraeus district.
The Gestapo officer then presented two clippings from the Nazi-controlled Greek newspapers Vradini and Proinos Typos. The first reported a fire in a box factory in Piraeus. The second carried a story on a cotton mill in the same district that had gone up in flames. The damage was estimated at thirty million drachmas.
“These two fires destroyed supplies for German troops in Africa and on the Russian front,” the German said through the interpreter. “And then there are the robberies from the Piraeus electric company. We believe Kostas Vasilis was involved in all three acts of terrorism.”
Aphrodite’s mother was hysterical, her father speechless. Aphrodite came halfway down the stairs, listening while her father said he didn’t know where Kostas was. He had slipped out the back, in fact, through the gardens and over the wall. So when the Germans searched the house, they found only her and brought her downstairs.
“Ah, what have we here?” asked the Gestapo officer, fondling her long black hair. “Pretty Fraulein, do you know where your brother is?”
Aphrodite was blinded for a moment by the headlights of the cars in the drive, their white beams shining through the open front door like spotlights. She shaded her eyes and shook her head.
“In that case, we’ll take you.”
Her mother had begged for mercy, and her father had offered the Gestapo officer his secret stash of gold sovereigns, when the silhouette of a tall, dark figure suddenly appeared in the doorway.
“The girl goes nowhere, Standartenfuhrer.”
The Gestapo officer turned with a start and clicked his heels. “Herr Oberstgruppenfuhrer!”
Aphrodite blinked and saw Baron von Berg emerge from the light. The man whom she had tended in the hospital was now wearing the black uniform of an SS general. The wrappings around his head were still visible beneath his black cap.
“What seems to be the problem, Standartenfuhrer?”
“This family has been harboring the terrorist Kostas Vasilis. As we cannot find him, we shall take them to Averoff prison and lock them up as hostages.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said von Berg. “As of this moment, I am requisitioning this home as my own in Athens. The Vasilis family shall stay on to manage the estate.”
“But, Herr Oberstgruppenfuhrer-”
“That is all, Standartenfuhrer. This Kostas Vasilis, should you find him, is yours. Even so, he is not to be executed immediately but held as a prisoner. This will discourage his friends in the Resistance from future acts of sabotage. His family, however, will assume their place in the New Order by serving me.”
And so the Baron had requisitioned the house. He did so for her “protection,” at first from the Gestapo and later from the Greeks themselves, who labeled the Vasilis family collaborators even after her brother finally was captured and imprisoned. As for Aphrodite herself, the Baron anointed her his personal attending nurse and flew her to the Villa Achillion on Corfu to supervise his recuperation. The only health risk she discovered on the island was to her brother and parents. The Baron assured her that if she ever revealed the location of his secret retreat to anyone, they were all dead.
The only things that kept her alive were her visits to Athens to see her parents, her secret work of feeding and clothing the families of Resistance fighters through the Red Cross, and her hope that someday her brother would be freed and her fiance would return.
24
“I hate him, Father John,” Aphrodite told the priest with tears in her eyes. “I hate what he’s done to me and what I’ve become. But I love my family. If I stop pleasing him, who knows what will become of them?”
Father John shrugged. “That, only the Lord knows. All I can tell you is that making peace with the devil is no way to seek God’s favor.”
“What choice do I have, Father?” There was anger in her voice.
He raised his hand, and she caught the glint of a fisherman’s knife. “You could always kill the swine.”
She sighed. “If only that would release my brother or provide an escape for me and my parents. But Ludwig is the only protection we have from the Gestapo.” She hesitated. “Besides, you’re forgetting that I tried that once before, remember?”
He put the knife away, crossed himself, and sighed in despair. “And what happened?”
“He told me he liked that in a woman.”
Father John shook his head in utter disbelief. “Truly, this man is possessed!”
“No, Father, I’m the one who’s possessed. That’s the problem. I’m the personal property of Baron Ludwig von Berg.” She felt rage and despair and humiliation at her helplessness. “If only the Allies would hurry up and start the liberation. Greece would be free. My brother would be free. I would be free.”
Father John nodded sympathetically. “I wish the Lord would come today and fix Hitler, but he hasn’t,” he said. “The Lord is not a genie, granting our every wish. His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor our ways His ways.” Father John raised his other hand, which was missing two fingers. He, like other Orthodox priests, had fought against the Italians and Bulgarians along the northern frontiers on the mainland, just across the channel. During the winter in the mountains, he’d lost his fingers to the cold. Most other men lost more: hands, legs, their lives, but worst of all, their souls.
“So what are you saying, Father?”
“Sometimes the only thing we can do is wait. You must endure. The Lord is not wringing His hands, wondering what to do about Hitler. He knows exactly what He’s going to do with that Antichrist.”
“Well, I wish He’d hurry up,” she replied. “I don’t know how much longer I can last. One of the guards has acted inappropriately toward me, and I fear for his life should the Baron find out. And my own.”
He paused. “What about this Greek you are betrothed to?”
“Christos? He’s half a world away.” There was bitterness in her voice. “In the beginning I used to pray that he would come and rescue me from all this. I was just being a silly girl, of course; Greek women know better than to trust the men in our lives. They’re either oppressive, like the Baron, or impotent to help me, like my father, my brother, and Christos. I’m afraid you and the archbishop in Athens are the only two men in my life who haven’t let me down yet. Now please bless me, Father, for I’m about to sin.”
She knelt before him.
“You are a remarkable woman, Aphrodite Vasilis,” Father John said with admiration and resignation. “Let us pray to the Lord.” He placed the end of his stole on her head and prayed.
“O Lord God, show Thy mercy upon Thy servant Aphrodite, and grant unto her an image of repentance, forgiveness of sins, and deliverance, pardoning her every transgression, whether voluntary or involuntary.”
He placed his right hand on the stole over her head and pronounced Absolution. “May our Lord and God Jesus Christ, through the grace and bounties of His love toward mankind, forgive thee, my child, Aphrodite, all thy transgressions. And I, His unworthy priest, through the power given unto me by Him, do forgive and absolve thee from all thy sins. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
She watched his hand as he made the sign of the cross over her. He was waiting for her to give thanks to God for His goodness, as was the Orthodox way, when they heard the ominous roar of an engine.
“He’s back,” she said grimly, and rose from her knees.