Chapter Forty-Five
Forty-five
Katerina was beginning to show.
In war, she had learned, possessions were no longer something that belonged to you.
They could be taken at any time and frequently were, the occupiers on her island grasping always for more.
Precious jewelry was traded for bags of grain, animals taken and slaughtered to fill the bellies of an idle army, families ripped from their homes with only the clothes on their backs.
It was for these reasons that Katerina did not wish to share the news of her pregnancy.
The baby was hers, and it was Stefanos’s.
She cherished the comfort of knowing their child was there, growing inside her.
A secret she must keep for as long as possible, even from those closest. Though in a community where food was scarce and becoming more so, the protrusion of her stomach would not go unnoticed for much longer.
Katerina was, for once, eager to bid farewell to the summer.
She looked forward to cooler days that would warrant thicker layers of clothing.
Life had settled into a routine of sorts, one that saw her rise each day before the dawn.
She and Leni had so far been permitted to keep their one remaining goat, though the soldiers were first in line when it came to any milk the nanny produced.
The bakery was still open, though Leni prepared only the most basic breads, substituting ingredients and adjusting the size of loaves so that everyone could get their fair share.
Katerina ate more for the life inside her than to satiate her own hunger.
She foraged for wild herbs as she wandered the hillsides, scouring the edges of walls for fallen fruit.
Leni barely seemed to take a morsel.
“There are others who need it more than me,” she would say, nibbling half-heartedly at a tomato. “Many who do not have my health or youth.”
The school in Chora had been closed, its building taken over as a military barracks.
Leni, having sought permission from the officer in charge of their village, had converted the grain store at the rear of her house into a classroom.
The island’s children were welcome to come and go as they pleased, encouraged to read or draw or merely escape the watchful eyes of their captors for a few hours each day.
Katerina was no scholar, though she was able to teach the basics of farming, while Dafni took care of the rest. When she was not tending to her oven, Leni also helped.
“The children give me a purpose,” Leni told Katerina. “When I am around them, watching them play, it does not feel as though we are at war.”
Their small school did not draw only the young inhabitants of the village.
Ingrid, the wife of the general who had so callously murdered Chrysí, would often come to stand in the doorway, her slim arms clasped and head bowed.
She did not attempt to speak to them, which was just as well.
Katerina could not abide the idea of having to exchange pleasantries with such a woman.
She was living in Dafni’s house, had wriggled inside it as a maggot would into a wound—yet somehow, their neighbor had made peace with her presence.
“Look at her,” Dafni said to both sisters one afternoon when Ingrid had materialized in her usual place. “She is a broken soul. There is no hate in her heart. It is her husband who is to blame, not this waif who moves around as if she has already passed over.”
“You pity her?” Katerina muttered, eyes narrow and indignant.
Dafni sighed.
“I pity any woman who has been abandoned by a man who promised to look after her,” she said. “I pity her, as I pity us.”
“There is a difference,” Katerina said cuttingly, “between men who choose to leave and those who are given no choice. Her husband, that téras”—she snarled the word—“is an invader. He dragged his wife here with him for no other reason than his own stupid pride and selfishness. Why bring her at all if he was planning to rejoin the fight on the mainland?”
“I have heard that she was a nurse,” Dafni said, “traveling with the German army to tend to the injured soldiers. Something bad must have happened to bring her here. It is not usual for the wives of fighting men to accompany their husbands.”
“I do not know what to think about her,” Leni said. “But I am glad he is gone. My sister is right, that man is a monster.”
“A monster that Ingrid chooses to love,” Katerina pointed out. “That is why she will never receive any pity from me.”
When she was not required at the school or bakery and the few chores she had were complete, Katerina concentrated on what she and the exiled brothers had come to refer to as “pollinating.” Some days, this simply meant collecting morsels of food in secret, readying them to be transported to the mountains, while on others, she passed messages between men on other parts of the island, some of whom were hiding, others protected by their professions.
In the months since Stefanos had left, she had helped Atlas and Zephyr build a radio by carrying each separate component to them, disguised within the carcass of a maza loaf or strapped against her body below the folds of her skirt.
The patrolling Italian soldiers took pleasure in stopping anyone they happened across on the roads and pathways—especially if it happened to be a lone female.
Katerina had been subjected to their filthy pawing hands on more occasions than she could bear to recount, though she was careful not to complain.
Battles had to be chosen carefully, and each time she walked away having gotten another item of contraband past them, it was with her head held high.
A lot of the men were barely men at all, their faces pocked with adolescent acne, downy fluff where a mustache should be.
They did not frighten her. Others did, older lieutenants with mean eyes, ready fists, and belligerent smiles.
Of the five assigned to Ano Meria, three were of the first kind and two like the second—including the man who had leaned so nonchalantly against his gun while the general had nearly strangled her.
The men called him Lio—a name Katerina associated with a lion—and he was every bit as predatory.
“Do not antagonize him,” Leni would hiss whenever they emerged from the bakery to find him loitering in the lane outside.
Lio had a pipe, not dissimilar to those Baba and his friends used.
He kept it in his mouth, even when he wasn’t smoking.
Katerina had come to loathe hearing the soft clack of it against his teeth almost as much as she hated the cold, sharklike stare he fixed on her.
“Signorína,” he would say to each of them in the kind of mocking tone that made Katerina want to spit into the dirt.
On every occasion, Leni smiled, replying with a timid “Kalispéra.” Katerina refused to engage.
Why should she greet the enemy as if he were a friend?
To do so would dishonor not only her husband but also her country.
Lio did not take kindly to her indifference.
The more she ignored him, the more it seemed to fuel his desire to pursue her, to prod her, to taunt her with crude remarks.
“When Stefanos returns to me, that man will be sorry for what he has said,” Katerina brooded.
It was always when, never if. Neither she nor Leni had heard from their respective husbands, though it did not mean they hadn’t tried.
The Greek postal service had been all but canceled on the mainland and was nonexistent out among the islands.
Everyone was aware that the flow of information was being strictly controlled by the occupying forces.
“How will we know if something has happened to them?” Leni fretted.
“I would know if Stefanos had been killed,” Katerina said. “My heart would tell me.”
On the final Sunday of the calendar month, Katerina was making her way down from the mountains several hours later than planned. She had gone that morning with a food package, arriving worn out and dehydrated to discover a group of newcomers at the cave.
“Do not worry,” Zephyr said as he hurried to greet her. “These people are with us. They are part of the Resistance.”
Three men she did not recognize, all young, and a woman around her own age.
A woman alone with five men?
Katerina was shocked into momentary silence at the sight of her. She said nothing until Atlas approached, embracing her warmly while his brother unwrapped the parcels.
“There is not enough here,” Zephyr said, turning to her. “We need more.”
“There is not enough anywhere,” Katerina told him, aggravated by his tone, by the hovering flies, by the tenderness in her breasts. “The blockade has not moved, and no food has reached the island for many months. I told you this.”
Zephyr went to argue, but his brother silenced him with a look.
“We understand,” Atlas assured her. “And we are grateful to you. I know you risk a lot, coming up here.”
The woman stepped forward.
“Selena,” she said. “I am a bee, the same as you.”
“In Chora?” Katerina asked.
“All across the island, but yes, mostly in Chora. I can speak Italian,” Selena explained.
“I hear what they say about us, how they wish to defile us. To them, we are common peasants, though they underestimate us at their peril. The soldiers’ lips grow looser each day, and the wind blows secrets from these men as easily as it spreads seeds for harvest. Their bravado and arrogance will destroy them,” she added with malicious relish.
An hour later, when Katerina was about to leave, Atlas drew her to one side.
“If you see Selena in the town or by the port, you must not acknowledge her,” he said. “Do you understand, Kat? Not even if you think she’s in danger.”
“I will always help my friends,” she said, only to fall silent as an image of Chrysí appeared in her mind. She had buried the brave little goat in her garden, her neat hooves pointing east, where she would be greeted each morning by the sun. She looked back at Atlas and nodded.
“I understand.”
The way he had elicited that promise from her roused a suspicion in Katerina.
She mulled it over as she crept down the hillside in the near darkness.
Could it be that Atlas had developed feelings for Selena?
She was certainly brave, and beautiful, too, with all that wavy hair the color of tamarisk bark and those piercingly blue eyes.
The idea of anyone finding love amid the horror of war made her limbs feel lighter somehow, and as Katerina rounded the corner that would lead her home, she broke into a skip.
“Buonaséra, signorína.”
A dark shape emerged from the shadows, and Katerina staggered sideways, a scream escaping her lips. Lio removed his pipe from between his teeth and considered her. It was past curfew—long past it. Katerina did her best to dredge up a smile.
“Buonaséra, signóre,” she said, hoping her use of Italian would appease him.
Lio came slowly toward her. She saw the glint of something gold at his throat as he extended a languid finger into her basket.
“It is sage,” she told him, “for eating.”
When he didn’t immediately respond, Katerina lifted a bunch and made as if to eat them.
The soldier cocked his head to the side, watching her, and then, with a ferocity that caused her to cry out, he knocked the basket from her hands and began to stomp on it, mashing the precious herbs into the ground beneath his boot.
Katerina turned and fled, though she only got a few yards before he caught her, his arm snaking around her waist and pulling her roughly back against him.
She became sharply aware of two things: the hard, unyielding shape of his pistol and—far worse—the vile pressure of his arousal.
“Please,” she begged, first in Greek and then again in his native tongue. “Per favore.”
Lio ignored her. He dragged her off the pathway and over to a low wall, one hand creeping up to her throat, the other burrowing lower.
She threw her head back, trying to smash it against his nose, but he dodged away.
With a grunt, he removed his hand from between her legs and slapped her hard across the face.
Katerina reeled, momentarily stunned by his violence, and then she erupted.
She clawed and bit and screamed. She tried everything she could to wrench herself free.
Lio grabbed her left breast, squeezing it so hard that Katerina thought she would throw up.
He had torn open her shirt and was attempting to raise her skirt, all the while hissing “Shhh” into her ear.
A light appeared in the window of a nearby house, and a woman’s voice shouted, “Who is there? What is happening?”
Lio loosened his grip only a fraction, though it was enough for Katerina to break away from him. She fell onto her back, her ripped shirt gaping open, skirt pulled up around her thighs.
“Bastárdo!” she yelled, aiming a kick at his ankle.
Lio stared down at her for a moment, then readied himself to retaliate. There was no time to run, to speak, even to think. It was pure instinct that wrapped her arms around her stomach. Nothing mattered more in that moment than the precious cargo growing inside her.
Lio’s boot struck her in the ribs. The next strike landed higher, smashing into her shoulder. The harder he kicked, the tighter she curled herself. On and on it went, blow after blow, until at last, panting with effort, he slid down against the wall.
Katerina watched through a haze of pain as he removed a pouch of tobacco from his pocket, the scent of it bringing with it an image of Stefanos.
The corners of her mouth lifted. She tasted blood.
Smoke clouded the air. The Italian sucked his pipe, regarding her with what?
Disgust? Amusement? Katerina did not care.
He had beaten yet not beat her. She said nothing as he continued to stare, nor did she move or look away.
Eventually, with a bored-sounding sigh, Lio got to his feet and spat in the dirt where she lay.
“Puttána,” he said almost regretfully, as if by being pregnant, blessed in the purest and most natural of ways a woman could be, she had become a disappointment.
Katerina knew then what she must do. The truth struck her with such clarity that she whispered the words, sending them off into the wind as a promise.
“I will kill you.”