The Daughter Page 13

  Still, Adrianna was a kind soul. Lots of times she hid partisans in the jitney or drove them right through the German lines all wrapped up in the scenery or hidden in the troupe’s wardrobe.

  ‘People ought to learn Geography, really,’ Mrs Adrianna goes on, we’re still back in National Rally days if I’m not mistaken, just before Karamanlis. Came to see me when I was playing in Athens with a road company, a musical it was; just paid the apartment off. She was all for Geography, seeing as how one day while they’re on tour, about a year after they started out from Pelopion village, they come into this village and Marcello goes out to drum up an audience for the night’s show (learned Greek really well, he had; you’d swear he was from the Peloponese), people just stared at him and laughed. At which point the players realized what was going on: they crossed the border, now they were Abroad. First they thought they were in Yugoslav territory. But somehow it turned out they were in Albania. Mrs Adrianna, she gets all emotional remembering Zambakis, this is the place where my hero heroically left his bones, she says. And – I mean, was she crazy or wasn’t she? – she starts asking around, maybe her late husband’s grave is somewhere close by. Always was a simple-minded woman. Anyway, they put everything in reverse and turn back towards Greece. The border was wide open, the Albanians, they didn’t ask for passports, nothing. But before they leave Albanian soil, Mrs Adrianna plants a cross. Nothing much really, just a couple of boards as kind of a cenotaph for her spouse. She never found out that he was killed by a kick in the head from a mule even before he could contribute to the combat against the invader. Later Mrs Salome learned what really happened, from the Ministry of the Army, but she never breathed a word to her sister, if she wants to make out she’s a hero’s widow, let her. And so she collects her pension every month, just as proud as you please.

  Once they were back on Greek soil they kept up the tour for a couple months more. Things had got quieter, the Italians and partisans were nowhere to be seen, not even the Germans. But they were so involved in the artiste’s life it never occurred to them to ask why. Until one day some guy asks Tassis, Hey mister, how come you’re still burning wood to power that thing? Why not use petrol?

  Only then they noticed: across the street, above the door to the municipal office, he sees a Greek flag and rushes off to tell the rest of the troupe. As it turns out, Liberation had come to pass three months earlier but they were so taken up with the life of the artiste, and the youthful couple Marina-Marcello with their love life, that they never heard a word about it. Found out three months after the fact, celebrated the occasion retroactively, and turned back towards Rampartville, not in too much of a hurry of course; along the way they staged a show or two. Changing the titles of the plays to match the new victorious situation, of course.

  MUST BE NEAR ON two years since the Tiritomba family upped and left. Autumn or thereabouts, there I was playing on Mrs Kanello’s upstairs balcony with her six kids and she’s telling me, It’s high time your ma makes up her mind, Roubini; she’s got to get out of the house, everybody’s forgotten the whole thing. I was saying, Not yet, wait till her hair get a little longer. Her hair just wouldn’t grow any more after they sheared it off; she maybe had an inch left.

  All of a sudden, what do we see coming round the corner by the church but the Tiritombas’ jitney, only now it was running on petrol, and pulling up in front of their house, with the flag on the front bumper flying.

  ‘Well I never … it’s Adrianna,’ goes Mrs Kanello. We run over, hugs and kisses and tears all around; the Tiritombas were back, without Salome but with a fine-looking blond lad who talked Greek like a country boy. The whole neighbourhood gathered around, we helped them open up the house, and stayed up the whole night listening; everybody just adored Marcello, and after I gave Mother the whole story. Didn’t come to the overnight though; ever since the public humiliation she wouldn’t even stick her nose out of doors. Fortunately by then I was working, in three houses; I was a grown-up girl now, why, the year after I got my period for the first time and Ma made me halvah.

  That night we got all caught up on the adventures of the troupe. Mrs Adrianna was a changed woman; used to be a plump little housewife but now she looked like some partisan band leader. Asked us to forgive them for missing the Liberation, can you beat that. Marina and Marcello got married in Saint Kyriaki church and we all attended, Mother even sent a wedding present, six hand-embroidered napkins from her dowry it was. After the wedding they left for Rimini, Italy, where they lived happily ever after.

  Mrs Adrianna was completely liberated now, as a woman I mean. Did more than become a feminist, even went and remarried, an Athenian would you believe. Lives in Athens, she does, with her brother Tassis; I run into her now and then, her second husband is buried in the same cemetery as Ma, she even managed to get her Albanian war widow’s pension activated again, thanks to this politician she knows. So we talk it over, the two of us, waiting for the priest to show up and read the prayers.

  Yes indeed.

  Meantime, we’re so-called Liberated once and for all. In my family we were all Collaborators because of Signor Vittorio. Only Mrs Kanello, poor dear Aphrodite’s mother Mrs Fanny and now the Tiritombas would talk to us. Valiant’s mother wouldn’t say a word to anybody in any case, talked to herself, that’s all she did, or to her son’s grave.

  The work started picking up. Doc Manolaras found me the three house-cleaning jobs, and to show my gratitude I did his place for free. One day Anagnos’ boy Thanassakis comes calling. Grown up now, he is. Comes with his father the schoolmaster, their donkey’s loaded down with things to eat. Thanassakis unloads the lot of it, brings it right in without so much as a how-do-you-do; Ma’s sitting at the table. It’s no fault of yours, Asimina, says the schoolmaster. Our first duty is to our children and to our own lives, then to our honour. Your choice was the right one and I respect it, you knew the price you’d have to pay. Never regret your decision: be patient, things will calm down, people can’t keep on being vicious for ever, they’ll leave you be.

  A saintly man, the schoolmaster. But Mother didn’t so much as give him a glance, and pulled the kerchief tighter over her head so her sheared-off hair wouldn’t show. Thanassakis was struggling not to look at her, making out he was stacking up the victuals or nipping outside to check the donkey or chitchatting with our little Fanis. Couldn’t keep his eyes off her though. Never once looked at me, mind you. Not once.

  His father, he sees how awkward a situation it is, so he goes into this description of the exploits of his boy wonder in the Occupation, mostly with mines and minefields. But what with Ma not saying a word and us too embarrassed to talk, the visit didn’t last long. I almost didn’t thank the people, I can’t remember, did I kiss the schoolmaster’s hand? Or was it Ma kissed his hand? Can’t remember. All I can remember is how hard I laughed when I remembered Thanassakis stark naked, back when the mine blew him sky high.

  Come the so-called Liberation lots of people made good money thanks to the mines. The big landowners, they paid real good money to clear the explosives out of their fields and olive groves and vineyards, rush rush, seed, plough and cash in. But plenty of poor people put bread on their table digging up mines. See, there’s one good thing the Germans did for us. Nobody died, only the odd arm or leg got blown off.

  Thanassakis, he did it for free, his father wouldn’t let him take money. Knew just where the mines were, all he had to do was point to the spot. Left Greece long ago, he did; no way was he going to stay and rot. He’s in America now, a professor; got his own university, so Mrs Adrianna tells me when we meet at some demonstration or other, can’t for the life of me remember what about.

  One time I spotted Thanassakis, a little before Ma died, outside a bookshop it was, but how was he supposed to know who I was? I didn’t say a word. He comes back every summer to visit his father’s grave. Now he’s moved up the ladder, socially speaking: why, over there, in Boston, he’s quite something. I hear: me he’s going to remem
ber forty years later. What I mean is that there, as he’s window-shopping at the bookshop. I wanted to walk right up to him and say, hey, roly-poly, remember the time I saw you with your bum showing? Just getting hairy, you were!

  Happened a little before the Germans fled the scene. There I am, out hunting wild artichokes, and who do I run into but him and his gang; our little Fanis was with them. Come on, Thanassakis says, I’ll show you where there’s all the artichokes you want, only be sure you step right where I do. He takes me through his minefield. Don’t be scared, he says, look, look at this! And he starts hopping up and down right on top of this mine like some kind of dare-devil. So we get to a fence thick with artichokes, and I start picking. Hey kids, shouts Fanis, look here, pears! At the edge of the field is a pear tree covered with ripe fruit. Nobody makes a move; all around it are mines.

  ‘I’ll climb it,’ says Thanassakis.

  Up he shimmies, but when he reaches the second branch he kind of slips and falls, smack on top of a mine, roasters we called them, the flat, round kind. In the twinkling of an eye I see the other kids playing further off, a flash of fire and Thanassakis shooting up like the Prophet Elijah headed straight for heaven, I barely have time to tell myself No time for jokes, you dingbat. Everything he’s got on, the mine burns it to a crisp and the shreds are hanging like dead birds from the tree, and there’s Thanassakis, hanging from one of the branches like a bat, stark naked. He drops to the ground like a ripe fig, fortunately the ground was wet, his hind end goes plop like a busted watermelon, but all things considered he’s still alive. As naked as the day he was born though, and there I am, tittering; I drop all my artichokes, prick my fingers, and his pals, a bit further away, are standing there dumbstruck, yelling, hey, Thanassakis got hairy, Thanassakis got hairy! As if they were jealous or something.

  In spite of everything, he stays cool, the little rascal. With his bum almost split in two and bleeding, he dashes off, picks up his school cap and hides his private parts, but not before I get an eyeful.

  Meantime, the others come over, Fanis gives him his schoolbag to hide his behind, and yells at me, Don’t you dare look or I’ll tell our ma.

  They plaster his posterior with mud to stop the bleeding and we escort him back to the village in a kind of human ring so people won’t see his nakedness. His mother gets one look at him and gives him a whipping, Why you good-for-nothing little … she sputters, didn’t I tell you not to play around with mines, and now look at you, your underwear’s all gone.

  While she’s cleaning off his behind in the water-trough where the pigs and cattle drink Fanis is hissing in my ear, Don’t look at naked men, you hear! (man, ha! he was just a runt), then we went home.

  That’s why he wouldn’t dare look me in the eye when they show up at our place with their donkey, seeing as how I saw him humiliated and naked. His behind was cured by then, but still, he had to walk around with bandages for one whole year. Wasn’t so much bringing us food as giving us moral support against the rest of society, his father was like a kind of judge, wherever he went, he took away the shame of the house whatever the wrongdoing was.

  They made a nice stack of the victuals, said their goodbyes, untied the donkey’s reins from our window and left. Mother didn’t even turn her head, didn’t so much as glance in his direction. But the schoolmaster knew. And Thanassakis knew, because of how he followed along for the whole parade, and he saw everything. I’m saying to myself, he came to see you, to keep you company from a distance, but you know me. I get the strangest ideas sometimes, I just get carried away.

  I could tell the situation was different three months before the partisans marched into Rampartville. The Italians vanished into thin air; Signor Vittorio didn’t even come to say goodbye. You know some of the higher class families, the ones who were so friendly with the Italians? Well, they left town. A couple of others took on seamstresses to sew them up British flags. The Germans got meaner, gave the Italians the boot as allies, and set up the Security Battalions, a kind of home guard, nothing but a bunch of starving Greeks was what they were, dressed in short little khaki-coloured fustanellas Secbats we called them. Them Shitbats, they scare me sweetie, Mrs Kanello tells me one day, can you imagine a Bouboulina like her admitting she’s scared. She heard something about the Russian front – it had broken.

  From the departure of Signor Vittorio onwards we weren’t all that hungry, I must confess. We had the public soup kitchen. Got four servings, because we never told a living soul that Sotiris, our big brother, was missing; in fact, we still had his coupons. Even had food in reserve. we did: a whole crate of chick peas left over from distributions. And we had Mrs Adrianna’s ration book, the one she let us borrow when she left and when she came back we returned, as a souvenir.

  And one night in September it would’ve been, we hear lorries. Next morning the Germans are nowhere to be seen. We kids run downtown for a look-see; the Kommandantur is empty, the door hanging open. Mrs Kanello didn’t go to work that day, the Shitbats (that’s what she called the Secbats, called them Rallis’ roughnecks too) will make mincemeat of us, she said. She stayed home from work, bolted the door and herded her whole family down to the cellar. The whole city was waiting. For something. The shops were closed but the Secbats broke down doors, stole whatever they wanted, killed people to settle personal differences; later on they put them on trial but most of them got let off scot-free.

  Three days we laid low; we only stuck out heads out into our back yard, the one with the wall around it, had a few vegetables growing there, a couple of sick-looking tomatoes, that kind of thing.

  At daybreak we hear gunfire. And far away, the sound of voices. They’re burning police headquarters, the partisans are here, brayed Kanello from her balcony, waving a bedsheet in jubilation. Now was she waving it like a flag, or to show that she surrendered, I haven’t the faintest idea. Lie low a bit longer, we’ll soon be liberated, she shouted. A voice like a foghorn, nothing feminine about that woman I swear. But good as gold all the same.

  ‘Hide’, says Ma. But we didn’t have any place to hide. We close the door, put the cross-bar in place, not far away we hear a machine-gun chirping, The bullets sound like kisses, Ma, says Fanis. And a voice yelling though a megaphone, This is the People’s Government speaking! Holy Mother of God, I go, they captured the bell tower. I peep out of the window and see this tiny partisan waving his machine-gun from side to side, dancing. Duck, idiot, I hear Mrs Kanello yelling, that woman wanted to direct everybody and everything. I swear. It was all her kids could do to pull her back inside, finally they managed to drag her back in, the six of them plus her husband, first time he set foot on the balcony since before the war. At which point a shell rings the church bell and the whole neighbourhood echoes, and the little partisan ducks down behind the parapet.

  That very instant we hear a mortar. I didn’t have any idea what a mortar was, Mrs Adrianna explained it to me later; it’s a sort of small war tool, like a manual meat-mincer. But dangerous too, shoots a shell way high up so if some ham-handed Secbat aims at the bell tower the shell could just as soon drop right smack on our roof, seeing as it’s right next door to the church, and only one floor at that.

  So Ma drags our table out into the back yard and around it we set the crate of chick-peas and broad beans and a trunk full of clothing from her dowry, and on top we pile all our mattresses and quilts; then we crawl into our shelter, Go on, now shoot all you want, says little Fanis. Three whole days the bullets flew back and forth overhead. And there we were, huddled under the table for three days; bread we had, plus water from a bucket we used for watering the vegetables. It had a thin film of kerosene on the surface to keep the mosquitoes away which we pushed aside with our hands to drink; it smelled. Don’t worry about it, says Ma, paraffin’s good for your hair. Besides, we survived.

  On the third day the shooting stopped. But the smell of smoke was in the air. Scraps of charred paper were fluttering by in the air over our yard. They burned down the town ha
ll.

  It was a Godsend for the nationalist or leftist women with files on them. Seeing as the town registrar’s records went up in flames they all took out new birth certificates with whatever birthdate they wanted; swear an oath, that’s all you had to do. So every female in Rampartville, women and ladies alike, go and swear a false oath – even the best families. Mrs Adrianna even, she swore she was only about twelve years older than her daughter, not because she needed the certificate. but, she said, everybody else was doing it. What’s more she took out a fresh birth certificate for Salome, knocked thirteen whole years off her age just like that, and sent it off to her as a wedding present, a bit late but a terrific present all the same. Only Mrs Kanello refused to play along. Even today she’ll tell you her real age, nothing feminine about the woman!

  Doc Manolaras our member of parliament got me a new birth certificate; two, to be exact. The eight years less one, Keep it, he says, you’ll be needing it one of these days. The other one he adds on nine years, but he holds on to it himself, to get my voter registration book. This was in Athens.

  At any rate, that first certificate came in handy twenty years down the line, it shut up plenty of my co-workers. God bless the partisans for burning the damn thing to the ground, I wish them all the best even if it’s a sin to say so, a nationalist gal like me. Many’s the time I prayed to God to look after them, later on when they shipped them all off to some island for some kind of exile; what did they call the place, Long Island, Little Island, can’t recall. But it didn’t make much difference that I could see, I was wasting my time, plenty of them died on that island. Ever since then I just don’t approve of tourism on islands even though it’s all the rage these days; no way you’ll catch me gallivanting around the Aegean and such disgusting things, so what if they advertise, what with all those people dying there, why, maybe they’re vampires now.