A sense of dream pervaded the town. Even at this time, human beings were entering the world, or leaving it. Yakimov had died and had to be buried, but his death had been an event in another dimension of time. Now, it was amazing to see the tram-cars running. When one of them clanked past, people stared, bewildered by men who had still the heart to go on working. The rest of them seemed to be without occupation, employment or interest. They had nothing to do. There was nothing to be done. They had wandered out of doors and now stood about, blank and silent in the nullity of grief.
Before they reached Omonia Square, Harriet was stopped by the sight of a shoe standing in an empty window: a single shoe of emerald silk with a high, brilliant-studded heel. Peering into the gloom of the shop, she saw there was nothing else. Cupboards stood open; drawers had been pulled out; paper and cardboard boxes had been kicked into corners. The only thing that remained was the shoe with its glittering heel.
In the square they saw Vourakis again, still carrying his shopping-basket, though there was nothing left to buy. A few shops had remained open but the owners gazed out vacantly, knowing the routine of buying and selling had come to an end like everything else.
Vourakis was tired. His eyelids were red and his dark, narrow face had sunk in as though in the last few hours old age had overtaken him. He had spoken to Guy only once or twice but caught his arm and held to him, saying: ‘You should go, you know. You should save yourselves while there is time.’
‘They can’t find a ship for us,’ Guy said.
Vourakis shook his head in compassion. ‘Let us sit down a while,’ he said, and led them to a café that smelt strongly of aniseed. The only thing kept there was ouzo and while they drank a couple of glasses, Vourakis told them stories of heroism and defiance that he had heard from the wounded who were now coming in in thousands from the field hospitals. Even now, he said, when all was lost, there were Greeks resisting and determined to resist to the death.
These stories of gallantry in the midst of defeat filled Guy and Harriet with profound sadness; and they felt the same sadness about them everywhere in the hushed city.
Vourakis suddenly remembered that his wife was waiting for him: ‘If you cannot escape,’ he said, ‘come to us,’ and he parted from them as though they had been lifetime friends.
When they went on towards Omonia Square, an ashen twilight lay on the streets. As the evening deepened, the atmosphere seemed to shift from despair to dread. There had been no announcement. Vourakis had said that telephone communication with the front had broken down. So far as anyone in Athens could know, there had been no change of any kind, yet as though the enemy were expected that night, there was a sense of incipient panic, impossible to explain, or explain away.
The School building had been shut for Easter week. Guy expected to find it empty but the front door lay open and inside half a dozen male students were moving furniture, despite the protests of the porter, George. Flushed by their activity, they gathered round Guy shouting: ‘Sir, sir, we thought you had gone, sir.’
‘I haven’t gone yet,’ Guy said, putting on an appearance of severity.
‘Sir, sir, you should be gone, sir. The Germans will be here tomorrow. They might even come sooner, sir.’
‘We’ll go when we can. We can’t go before. Meanwhile, what are you up to?’
The boys explained that they intended taking the School furniture into their homes to prevent its seizure by the enemy. ‘It will be safe. It will be yours, sir, when you come back. We’ll return it all to you.’
Three more students appeared at the top of the stairs carrying a filing-cabinet between them. Those at the bottom, shrill with excitement, began shouting up instructions and a small, dark youth with wide eyes and tough black hair, came panting to Guy, his teeth a-flash, crying: ‘To me, this very day, an admiring fellow said: “Kosta, you are to make suggestions born.”’
Guy insisted that operations should cease for that evening. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘you can take what you like, but just at the moment I want to sort out my belongings.’
The departing students shook him by the hand, exclaiming regretfully because he must go, but for the young there was piquancy in change, and they went off laughing. It was the only Greek laughter the Pringles heard that day.
George, the porter, his grey hair curling about his dark, ravaged cheeks, gripped Guy’s hand and stared into his face with tear-filled eyes. Guy was deeply moved until he discovered that this emotion had nothing to do with his own departure.
George had replaced a younger man who would now be returning from the war. ‘What is to become of me?’ he wanted to know. ‘He will turn me into the street.’ George had his wife, daughter and daughter’s two children in the basement with him. The School was their home; they had nowhere else to go. Kyrios Diefthyntis must write a letter to say that George was the rightful possessor of the basement room.
Guy was disconcerted by this appeal because the old porter knew his appointment had been temporary. ‘What of the young man who has been fighting so bravely at the front?’ he said.
The porter answered: ‘I, too, fought bravely long ago.’
Guy suggested that the problem be referred to Lord Pinkrose, and the old man gave a howl. Everyone knew that the Lord Pinkrose, a mysterious and unapproachable aristocrat, never came near the School. No, Kyrios Diefthyntis, with his tender heart, must be the one to act.
In distress Guy looked to Harriet for aid but she refused to be involved. Guy wanted only to give, leaving to others the much less pleasant task of refusing. In this present quandary, she decided, he must do the refusing himself.
She said she would wait for him in the sanded courtyard. When she left the building, she saw Greek soldiers walking along the side road and went to the wall to watch them. They were coming from the station. She had some thought of welcoming them back, but saw at once that they were not looking for welcome. Like the British soldiers she had seen on the first lorries into Athens, these men, shadowy in the twilight, were haggard with defeat. Some were the ‘walking wounded’, expected to find their own way to hospital; others had their feet wrapped up in rags; all, whether wounded or not, had the livid faces of sick men. They gave an impression of weightlessness. Their flesh had shrunk from want of food, but that had happened to everyone in Greece. With these men, it was as though their bones had become hollow like the bones of birds. Their uniforms, that shredded like worn-out paper, were dented by their gaunt, bone-sharp shoulders and arms.
One man seeing her watching so closely, crossed to her and said: ‘Dhos mou psomi,’ and as he came near, she could smell the disinfectant on his clothing. She could only guess what he wanted. She opened her hands to show she could give him nothing. He went on without a word.
When they reached the main road, most of them stopped and looked about them in the last forlorn glimmer of the light. Some of them stood bewildered, then one after the other they wandered off as though to them one direction was very like another.
After they had all gone, Harriet still leant against the wall staring into the empty street.