… It opens with … wait, let me think … it goes: I saw some girls screaming in the storm, the wind carried their words away then brought them back again, and I — coward — heard these words but didn’t understand that maybe they were telling me my youth had died … that’s how it goes, but it’s too long, one of those things Frau tortures me with on Sundays, maybe I’ll recite some more, when it comes to me, we’ve got plenty of time … I told Frau, Renate, have a heart, don’t read me poems like that on Sunday, can’t you see what state I’m in? — how about something lighter, something from our childhood, like March sprinkles tinkling silver on the eaves, please, Renate, something like that, okay? It’s August, she says, it’s ungodly hot down here — it’s August, young sir — what do March sprinkles have to do with anything?
Her name was Daphne, but he also called her Mavri Elià, for her big eyes like two black olives. It happened that day in Plaka, the Nazi officer lay sprawled out, legs apart, in the middle of the square, a few meters from the boy and woman he’d killed, a thread of blood trickling from his mouth; a group of Germans came running down the narrow lane leading from the Columns of Zeus, the headquarters were in the Hotel Grande Bretagne, someone started firing out the windows overlooking the square — Greek partisans — bullets chipped Aeolus’s Column, bullets carried by the wind, Tristano pulled off his Italian military jacket and tossed it to the pavement, by the dead Nazi, because he didn’t want to get shot by partisans, but mostly because he didn’t want to be Italian anymore, didn’t want that horrible cloth next to his skin, that cloth of an invading soldier sent by a mad, grim reaper who wanted to rip Greece’s heart out on the shore … She emerged from behind a green front door; Tristano saw a small door open in that massive one, and she stepped out like a small, stray animal; she looked around, confused, she walked into the square, hesitated, saw Tristano nearby, stared at him with those enormous dark eyes. I’m an Italian soldier, he said. I just killed a German officer. She didn’t understand, and Tristano poked himself in the chest and repeated, Italian. And then he made his finger and thumb into a pistol, which he pointed at the Nazi lying on the ground, and he said, bang, and blew on his finger. She started to go back, and she gestured that he should follow her inside. Why am I telling you this, writer?… I don’t know, a writer like you doesn’t need this sort of episode … or maybe you do … you’re not a writer who looks down his nose at sentiment, when it’s there, that’s why I’m telling you this … Tristano followed her, and she shut the door. She looked at him with those enormous bewildered eyes, disbelieving, maybe she was frightened — he was the enemy. Tristano told her his name, his nickname as a boy, Ninototo. She said in Greek, I’m Daphne, and Tristano smiled as though he’d forgotten what was happening all around them, and he said he’d learned a little Greek with the invasion: I only know how to use the infinitive, but I to call you Mavri Elià because your eyes to be black olives. She gestured that he should follow, and they climbed the ancient stairway, the ceiling was vaulted, and against the walls stood amphora vases encrusted with barnacles, and on the walls hung dark paintings of solemn, bearded men. She led him through empty rooms around an inside courtyard. They didn’t speak. He was shivering, she said something he didn’t understand, meanwhile the sun had pierced the grayness of the day, a sunbeam cut through the silent rooms, there was gunfire, but it seemed far, far away, they came to an enormous room, almost bare, with only a small bed, an icon above it, a mirror, and a piano. She spoke to him in French. She said, this room, it’s mine, and now it’s yours. And then she said in her own language, efharisto. And she started to go. Thank you for what? he asked. For killing my enemy, she said. I’m the enemy, too, Tristano said. She smiled, she sat down on the edge of that small bed with a flowered shawl for a bedspread, and she said, who are the two of us, really? She was smiling, and her eyes had a sweetness to them that you can’t imagine, writer, even if you’re a writer who’s good at describing women, you’ll never get at that sweetness, it was just as inconceivable to Tristano, that Italian soldier, that invader who had no idea why he’d just killed a Nazi officer, an ally of his country, nothing seemed to make any sense to him. And you know what? — nothing did make sense back then, and that’s the truth. Tristano felt very uneasy, and his heart was pounding, too much emotion that day for a boy his age, you can imagine, writer, seeing how you toy with others’ emotions. He slipped closer to the window overlooking the square, cautious, peering through the lace curtains at the bodies of the woman and boy still lying on the pavement; the Germans had managed to drag the dead officer past the Tower of the Winds, but no one was around, not one living soul, a suspended moment, like in an empty theater, there was only a motorcycle with a sidecar, a soldier slumped over the handlebars, his helmet on crooked, probably the poor bastard they first sent out to recover the body, but a Greek sniper got him. She left him alone in that room. He studied himself in the mirror, he was young then, Tristano was, but he seemed like an old man. He looked at the sheet music on the piano: a piece by Schubert. He stretched out on the bed, in that room that was so Franciscan for such a palatial house, a modest room, with a dirty mirror and a bed that would see so much love … But he didn’t think that — I’m only telling you this because Frau read me yet another poem. Do you recognize that one? Tristano didn’t, but he understood that the Franciscan simplicity of the room was the only way to counter the squalor of that life and that world; he rose, and as if he were sleepwalking, he stretched his arms in front of him, almost to protect himself from the disgust that had settled over this time in which he was living, that had settled over everything, he moved toward the dark hallway, and he shouted, Mavri Elià! Mavri Elià, we have to save each other! Then he lay down on the small bed and closed his eyes. She tiptoed in so he didn’t even hear, vous m’avez appelée? she asked. Please, Tristano said, please play me some Schubert, what’s there on the piano. She sat down to begin. Tristano stopped her. You know that theme Schubert used as the accompaniment in “Rosamunde?” Then they made love the entire night, silently, as if this were something necessary, natural. In the morning, he held her while she spoke of Saint George’s face on a Byzantine icon found on one of the Aegean Islands, I don’t remember which one. I think he told her about a Romanesque cathedral in his hometown that had an enormous rose window, and half-asleep, almost delirious, he told her about a rose of the winds and that the only thing to do in life was follow the winds, Aeolus, he kept saying, Aeolus … It was dawn. Tristano got up and peeked through the curtains at the square. It was deserted. All that was down there by the Tower of the Winds were the bodies of the boy and woman in black, along with the German soldier slumped over his sidecar motorcycle. Tristano went to her and kissed her closed eyes, spoke into her ear, Mavri Elià, he said, I’ve found you and I’ll never let you go, I’m taking you away with me, you know what we’re going to do? — it’s dawn, we’re getting out of here, we’ll block out the cold with the tapestries from this old house, you’re getting in the sidecar, I’m getting on the motorcycle, and we’re going to Piraeus, the allies are there, they’ll take us away, we’ll make it to my home, that’s where the head of the serpent lies, and that’s where he has to be fought, we have to crush his head, otherwise his poison will spread everywhere, I’m going to crush his head and I’m taking you with me, we’re going to cross this city under siege and make it to the sea, and why not — it’s no more absurd than this absurdity all around us … She opened her eyes, maybe she heard what Tristano was whispering in his sleep, or maybe not, and she gave him a smile that was just as lost. If I can, I’m taking you to another Principate, Tristano said, but luckily, that one’s dying, they told me it was dying, so at least we’ll be stepping out of the fire and into the frying pan.