Chapter Forty
Forty
They came as the shadows lengthened, a swath of uniformed bodies as unwelcome as a plague. Katerina watched the military ships from a distance, stretched out her arm as if it were a rifle, and took imaginary aim at the disembarking soldiers.
“Brave and righteous” was how Stefanos had described these men in his letters, though to her, they were the antithesis of that.
Invaders and thieves, no more worthy than bacteria.
They had barely placed a boot on her island before they began to steal, claiming property, livestock, and boats, as well as confiscating anything that could be used or repurposed as a weapon.
Only the most meager of farming tools were left in Greek hands, and the Italians were unscrupulous when it came to searching their homes.
Though Katerina did not venture to Chora or the port village of Karavostasis, news of atrocities filtered back from those places on the wind, reports of beatings, lootings, and the swift imprisonment of any soul who dared to resist the enemy’s demands.
Whispers spoke of a black-hearted German general with a quick temper who boasted of his closeness to the Führer and had a no-mercy policy when dealing with adversaries.
“I would have a no-mercy policy in dealing with him,” Katerina muttered to Leni, who shushed her with furious irritation.
“Be quiet, silly girl, you will get us both killed. Do not forget what the men told us: The enemy has ears in the walls.”
“But this is our home—” Katerina protested, only for Leni to flap her hand in front of her face.
“Nowhere is safe anymore,” she hissed. “You must keep your thoughts in your mind only.”
Stefanos and Michalis had left three days before the occupiers arrived, accompanied by a clutch of men from the village, Constantine and Giorgos among them.
The wails of anguish that had splintered the air as Katerina and Leni returned after the wedding ceremony had come from their neighbor Phaedra.
She had discovered that her son, Kostas, had disobeyed her wishes and gone with his father to join the fight.
“He is only fifteen,” she’d cried, clutching the baby Elpida against her bosom. “He cannot hold a gun with a broken arm. How will he survive?”
While Leni and Dafni had soothed the wretched woman, Katerina had been struck by an idea. Initially, she had planned to hide Esther up in the mountains with the brothers Atlas and Zephyr, but would it not make more sense for the Jewish youngster to remain in the village?
After some discussion, Phaedra agreed to take her in, and the three women set about disguising the girl, first cutting off her long hair, then dressing her in Kostas’s clothes and wrapping her arm in a sling.
She was to keep her head down and avoid speaking to anyone.
As far as the other villagers and any marauding soldiers were concerned, the teenage Kostas had never left.
There would be no suspicions raised if they were careful, no reason to believe that their plan would not work.
They knew it had to. The alternative would surely mean death for all of them.
Katerina longed to visit the two brothers in their hiding place, but they had told her to wait.
The enemy would be on the lookout for such spies and messengers.
It made more sense for Katerina to prove to them that she was no threat, gain their trust as far as she was able, thus allowing herself a better chance at slipping away unnoticed when the time came.
Atlas and Zephyr had enough supplies to last them a month or so, and they needed her to be their eyes and ears, map the Italian outposts and military bases across the island, compile numbers of troops, and gather the names of those in command.
“Go as the bees do and gather us the pollen we need to grow our defense,” Atlas told her, earning him a terse eye roll from his brother. Zephyr had little patience for poetry or metaphors.
“Do what you must, but be smart,” he advised. “You will be no help to us dead, Kat.”
The word landed like a slap. It had never occurred to Katerina that she might die in this war, not even once.
“How can you be so naive?” Leni had asked. “Is there no caution in your heart?”
“None,” Katerina retorted. “I leave the caution up to you.”
They were so different in that way. Mama had always said as much, had called them her “oil and water” for as long as Katerina could remember.
She thought of her parents often in the days following the invasion.
Santorini had been swamped, earmarked as an important base for the enemy, and there was no way of knowing what fate would befall those living there.
She wondered if Baba, who was nearing fifty, would join the Resistance fighters, or if he would remain at Giagiá’s house to watch over her and Mama.
She knew any stubbornness in her had been inherited from her father, and worried privately where that fire would lead him.
“Mama will not let him do anything foolish,” Leni reassured her. “All will be well, you’ll see.”
Katerina had said nothing.
Folegandros was not a big island, though within only a week of the occupying forces’ arrival, it became clear that keeping everyone fed was going to prove a challenge.
Crops did not grow well on the wind-battered hillsides, and stocks that had been plentiful were dwindling at an alarming rate.
Soldiers, especially those who were removed from imminent danger, had few tasks to occupy them save for daily patrols.
Many idled away the evenings drinking, eating, and entertaining one another with music or song.
“Di più, di più!” they would shout at the local taverna staff. More, more!
Katerina had split her herd of goats, giving two to the brothers before moving several more to higher ground, where they would not be so easily spotted.
The mature nanny she kept close for milk, butter, and cheese, while Chrysí, the younger goat, barely left her side.
Each night, she would carry the animal up the wooden ladder to the attic and sleep with her arms wrapped around her, Chrysí’s soft golden fur warm against her cheek.
One afternoon, she and Leni were counting the remaining sacks of grain in the outbuilding behind her sister’s house when the sound of engines broke the stillness, low, steady, and far too close.
“I want to see.”
Katerina moved away before her sister could grab her, Chrysí at her heels as she raced by the rough stone wall onto the hillside.
There were three Jeeps, the last of which was open-sided with a large gun fixed to the rear.
A soldier leaned against it, the very picture of insouciance, his narrowed eyes boring through her with disdain.
Katerina took in his muddied uniform—not quite gray, green, or blue but a sludgy mess of all three—and fought to keep her face from twisting into a sneer. More soldiers were climbing down from the other vehicles, rifles slung over their arms, wool straps flapping away from their ankles.
These pathetic men, they could not even dress themselves properly.
Chrysí dropped her head and began to nibble at the sparse patches of grass around Katerina’s feet, her tail swishing to ward off flies.
Leni came to stand beside her.
“What is happening?” she whispered, darting a wary glance toward the men.
Two of the group broke away, and Leni grasped Katerina’s arm as they approached.
“Good afternoon,” said one. His command of Greek was poor, the tone coarse. Even without the ugly uniform, the Italian could never have hoped to pass himself off as one of them.
Katerina did not return his greeting, though Leni murmured a timid “Parakaló.”
“Is this your house?” he asked them.
Leni hesitated. “It belongs to my—yes,” she said.
“It is our family home,” Katerina told him. “This one, and the one beside it.”
The soldier translated the information to his companion, who was older and thickset, with the mean, watchful eyes of a snake. He raised a brow, then spoke curtly in his own language.
“We think this is lot of space for two young ladies,” the first man said. “Where are your husbands, your children?”
“Our parents are in Santorini,” Katerina said coldly. “We do not have any children.”
The heavier man ran a critical eye over each of them in turn.
“Husbands?” he barked, the word warped in his untrained tongue. Katerina willed her sister not to reply.
“They are away,” said a voice, and all four of them turned to find Phaedra approaching. The first soldier pointed his gun at her, and she froze, her hands raised.
“Our husbands are away,” she said again. “They left many months ago to fight in the north. We have not heard from them. We do not know if they are alive. There are only women here on this hillside, women and my two children. We do not want to cause you any trouble.”
The soldier grunted, lowering his weapon with a terse nod. Turning their backs, the two men conferred for a few minutes before striding away without another word.
Katerina reached for Chrysí, knotting her fingers through the goat’s shaggy mane.
The soldiers were moving now, trooping as one mass toward the house belonging to Giorgos and Dafni. Leni jolted violently at the bang of a fist against wood, and this time, Katerina made no complaint when her sister grabbed her hand. She had no desire to follow those men; they repulsed her.
The sound of voices floated across the hillside, tempered at first, then louder. Katerina strained to listen, but all she could hear was a pleading cry.
She turned to Leni.
“Let me go,” she said. “I need to see. I need to—”
A loud crack rang out across the hillside.
Chrysí lurched forward out of Katerina’s grasp and trotted toward where the Jeeps were parked, her small hooves kicking up dust. With a cry, Katerina wrenched herself free and ran after her, rounding the final vehicle in time to see Dafni falling to the ground as she was struck.
“No!” she cried, rushing over without a thought.
The man standing above her fallen neighbor turned.
The pistol he had presumably fired into the air was still in his hand.
He was more smartly attired than the Italian soldiers surrounding him, and recognizing the red panels stitched along his gray trousers, Katerina stalled, her heart leaping up into her throat.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t hurt her.”
The German officer looked at her in bemusement. He had the complexion of wet dough, his neck a livid red. Katerina met his eyes and saw only cruelty within them.
The soldier who had acted as translator stepped forward.
“This woman,” he said, following the German’s acidic drawl, “dared to defy orders.”
From the ground, Dafni left out a whimper. One side of her face was already beginning to purple, though she made no attempt to deny the accusation.
“Wh-what orders?” Katerina stammered, looking between the men.
“She has been instructed to give up her house,” the Italian soldier said. “General Wolff requires it for his wife.”
Dafni muttered something unintelligible and spat into the dirt.
“If you need a house, there is an empty one over there,” Katerina said, pointing across to the dwelling that had until recently belonged to the brothers.
The German pursed his lips.
“That one is no good,” he informed her. “Tell your friend here to collect her belongings. Anything she leaves inside, she will forfeit.”
Dafni heaved a great breath and got slowly to her feet.
“Neín,” she said firmly, though her lips quivered. With a sigh, the German cocked his pistol and pushed it against Dafni’s head.
“Stop!” Katerina screamed. “She doesn’t mean it, she doesn’t understand. Dafni,” she begged, “do as they say. You can come to live with me. Please!”
The German officer growled a warning, which the soldier translated.
“He is going to count to three,” he said, and there was a pleading edge to his tone that hadn’t been there before. Katerina tried to reach Dafni, but it was as if the older woman was set in stone.
“Eíns, zweí…”
“No!” Katerina grabbed General Wolff’s arm in desperation.
He wheeled around and almost fell, righting himself on one of the men who hurried forward.
Katerina found herself pinned against the wall of Dafni’s house, the German’s gloved hand around her throat.
Spittle landed on her cheeks as he roared at her.
She could not understand the words, though she knew what he meant to do.
Her mind went helplessly to Stefanos. If this were to be her final moment, she wanted to spend it thinking of him. She closed her eyes, allowed her body to go limp. Her arms dropped to her sides, the flame inside her doused by terror.
Dafni began to scream.
Katerina made herself look. The older woman was being restrained by the soldiers, shouting that she would do as they asked, that she was sorry, that if they must shoot someone, let it be her, not this innocent girl.
The pressure around Katerina’s throat was increasing. Her vision clouded with dark shapes, and she gasped, trying in vain to breathe past the man’s clawing fingers.
The end must surely be soon.
Then, suddenly, there was air. Clean and sweet and rushing into her lungs.
The general fell to his knees. Behind him stood Chrysí, her head down and her front hooves firmly planted.
Coughing and spluttering through her tears, Katerina crawled away from her captor.
The German was back on his feet within seconds, the faces of the other soldiers a mix of veiled shock and amusement.
Katerina stumbled, rolling onto her back only to launch herself up with a raw, splintering cry.
Too late.
Another crack rang out across the hillside. Birds took flight in a flurry of wings.
The body of the little goat landed with barely a sound, her life draining out into the dirt.