The Clover House (36 page)

“Hey, Nikos,” I say. “Take a look at something for me.”

I bring the box over to him and wait for him to turn his attention from the game. He looks into the box and reaches for the bullet, picks it up, and rolls it in his fingers.

“Where’d you get this?”

“That’s the thing. Nestor had it. It’s a bullet, right?”

“A cartridge. Spent.”

“My mother says it could have belonged to Yannis. For hunting on the farm.”

He examines it closely.

“She’s wrong,” he says. “It’s from a Breda.”

“What’s a Breda?”

“An Italian heavy machine gun. Nestor,” he adds softly, “you surprise me.”

“Why?”

Nikos is looking admiringly at the cartridge. “The Italians used Bredas with tanks, or they set them in fortified positions. They weren’t the kind of guns soldiers just carried around with them.”

“Nikos, why does Nestor surprise you?”

“Well, the only way Nestor got this was from the Italians themselves. The Breda didn’t leave brass around.” I give him a confused look. “Which means the spent cartridges went back into the clip after you fired them. Someone had to have pulled this from the strip for Nestor to get it.”

I look at Nikos, who sets the cartridge back in the box. His information seems important, and I can’t understand why he isn’t acknowledging that.

“You’re a history nerd,” I say finally. “You know that, right?”

“Don’t tell,” he says, putting a finger to his lips.

As I gather up my things, Aliki tells me about the plan for tomorrow: lunch at a taverna in Psilalónia, the hilly district of the city, followed by family attendance at Agios Andreas for Forgiveness Sunday after the very last parade, which takes place in the afternoon. I keep myself from commenting on this new observance. Then again, I have never been here for Carnival before; perhaps this has been a part of my family’s life all along.

“But first there’s Nestor’s memorial service later today.”

“We’re doing one?”

“It’s part of Pre-Lent, for all the dead. We did one when
Babá
died and it meant a lot. It kind of converted me.” She shrugs, smiling. “You and the aunts can come meet us here together,” she says. “And I called your mother. She’s meeting us there.”

I’m glad Aliki was the one to call her. So full of questions for her these past few days, I find myself now hesitant to speak to my mother until I know the entire story. And I do know that I will have to get it from someone else.

T
halia leads me to the kitchen with a worried look on her face. Sophia is there, washing dishes. When she sees me, she unties her apron and folds it in front of her. I show her the piece of Nestor’s foolscap on which I have written my list.

“This is what I know,
Theia
Sophia. You have to tell me the rest.”

“Letter,”
she reads. “What’s this letter you list here?”

“From my mother. To a man.”

Thalia jerks her head to the side, making no attempt to hide the fact that I have flustered her.

“
Theia
Sophia, there are three men here: the Italian, the soldier with the feathers, and Skourtis. I know they were connected, but I can’t tell how. Please tell me.”

“Paki,” Thalia says, “why do you care? This all happened ages ago.”

I don’t quite know how to articulate my reason. I know that this story has taken hold of me in a way that none of my mother’s and the aunts’ stories ever has. The other stories were all complete, little gems of adventure or grace. This one is rough and messy; it has more of real life about it, and that is what I want to understand: my mother’s real life.

“Nestor wanted me to know,” I say. “I’m sure of it.”

“I’ve said all along that she needed to know,” Sophia says to Thalia, who is looking sad again. Sophia stands almost a head taller than her sister and surely knows how imposing she appears now.

“But, Sophia, we were never certain.”

“Well, then, I’ll just tell her the facts.” She buttons her cardigan and smooths it down over her skirt. She turns to me and speaks as if she were reading from a piece of foolscap of her own. “The letter was for an Italian soldier, a Bersagliere named Giorgio. The feathers in your box belong to him. He gave them to Nestor.”

“Why?”

“For carrying messages between him and your mother.”

I take this in but don’t want to lose momentum with the aunts. Thalia is sitting down now, hugging herself as if she’s suddenly cold.

“And that piece of silk?”

“It’s from a parachute. From an Italian soldier.”

“From Giorgio? Did he give Nestor that cartridge?”

Sophia waves my question away. “This happened at the farm. There’s a lot you should know about the farm.”

“Sophia, don’t,” Thalia says.

“I’ll tell her what I want to tell her.”

“This is not your story to tell,” Thalia insists.

“Of course it is. It affected my life, didn’t it? It affected all of us.”

“Sophia, we don’t even know the truth.”

“The girl should know what we know.”

“She told me about all that,” I say. I can’t understand why the aunts are bogged down on this minor story. “Skourtis killed the Italian and your father sent him away.”

“Is that what your mother told you?” Sophia shakes her head. “Poor Skourtis was too much of a coward to do anything like that. She just had to make him a villain. It was Vlachos, an old man from the docks. He killed the soldier and
Babá
turned him in.”

“Was
Papóu
a collaborator?” I hate to even ask the question.

“It was the occupation, Calliope,” Thalia says. She takes my hand and pats it a few times. “Things were complicated.”

“But why did Nestor save these things?” I ask. “Why are they all in one box? That letter says Nestor did something. That he ruined their plans.”

Sophia starts to say something, but Thalia jumps up and takes her sister by the elbow. I am stunned. I have never seen Thalia so anxious. She tugs Sophia’s arm back, trying to lead her out of the kitchen.

“Stop that, Thalia,” Sophia says, leaning against her sister’s pull. She lets out a laugh, but there’s no humor in it.

“
Theia
Thalia,” I say, stepping toward them.

“Just come here, Sophia.” Thalia ignores me. “Come out here,” she says. “Please.”

“No! Right here. Here where the girl is, so she can understand what her mother’s done.”

“What are you saying?” I push my hands through my hair. I feel tears coming.

“Sophia, don’t you see that this is bad for the child? You stand on principle all the time. Everything has to be so precise.”

“I believe in accuracy, Thalia. In truth.”

“And that’s admirable, but there are times when human beings don’t need truth. They need a little solace. The child needs a little comforting.”

“From what?” I say, but they’re not listening.

“I’ve said all along that there would be a time when she would need to know,” Sophia says. “And
that
would be a comfort to her.”

“To carry a burden? What world is that where guilt is a comfort? Sophia, you’re taking this too far.” Thalia lowers her voice, as if I won’t be able to hear. “You always do this, Sophia. You put abstract principles ahead of people. People you love.”

“Don’t you dare,” Sophia says.

“I haven’t said anything about this for years. For decades. But you’d be married to Michalis now if you hadn’t objected to his politics.”

“That’s enough, Thalia.”

“No, it’s not. You made yourself unhappy because you couldn’t love a socialist. Why make Calliope unhappy now simply because you want to tell the truth? What’s so wonderful about the truth?”

This is the first time I’ve heard of a man in connection with Sophia’s past. She was the one sister who never married and who always seemed satisfied with her life. I barely have time to
contemplate this before Sophia grabs Thalia’s arm and succeeds in dragging her all the way into the living room. I stay where I am, listening to the sounds of their argument, the crackle and hiss of their voices. I could go closer and hear what they are saying. Isn’t that what I want? To learn whatever it is they’re hiding about my mother’s past and their own? But I can’t. I’m a child again—the child they’ve been talking about—and their voices are sucking me back to my parents’ anger and my mother’s despair.

I finally force myself to step into the room.

“
Theies
, please,” I cry, and there must be something pained in my voice, because they both stop to look at me. Sophia’s bun is awry and Thalia looks as if she’s been crying. She steps toward me and forces a smile, brushing my hair from my face.

“Paki
mou
, don’t cry.”

“You have to tell me what she did. My whole life, you’ve treated her different. We were here every summer, but the three of you were never really
together
. Now Sophia is making all kinds of accusations. Are you holding some grudge for something she did when she was just a kid?”

“No, Calliope, no,” Thalia says. “It’s not that.”

“Then, what? Why?”

Neither one of them makes a sound for a long time, and I’m about to leave when Sophia speaks.

“She didn’t treat you right. We never could abide a mother not taking good care of her child.”

The world jolts, and it feels as if we just had one of Patras’s frequent earthquakes. Then my balance settles. I’m still standing in my aunts’ living room. They are still two old ladies looking at me with sad eyes. And everything else is utterly changed.

I
start walking, letting the slight downhill of the street carry me toward the water. When I was little, the harbor was bordered by a narrow strip of cement on the other side of the main coast road. On the near side were snack bars and tavernas where you could buy souvlaki on a skinny stick topped with a slice of bread. You could get right down to the water and walk along the old jetty where my mother and the aunts used to swim. Now Patras is a giant port, where cruise ships and ferries loom over a wide apron of pavement edged with bollards the size of a large dog. There are traffic lanes to steer you to Brindisi, or Ancona, or the nearby islands dotting the Ionian. It was like this already when I took my trip to Zakynthos, but my childhood memories are stronger than that more recent one. As I reach the sidewalk opposite the central gate, I feel as though I am in a new city, unsure of where to go.

Already on the northeastern edge of Patras, I turn so that the water is on my left and walk out of the city. As I leave the port behind me, the paved path draws nearer to the water and I can feel the spray on my face. When I wipe my hand across my cheek, it comes up wet, my tears mingled with the sea. The gulf is teeming with
provatákia
, little sheep, waves herded along with me by the stiff wind.

I am trying to think my mother’s story through, to piece together the scraps and fragments into a whole I can keep in my head. Images begin to form in my mind—of this Vlachos, whoever he was, with his hands tied behind his back; Giorgio the soldier snipping feathers from his hat; and my mother embracing a Bersagliere during the war.

But it’s not just my mother’s story I need to piece through now. It’s my own. The story of a little girl whose aunts tried to protect her from her own mother.

Clio

April 1941–February 1942

Clio rushed to the window to see the source of the strange crunching sound outside. She caught a glimpse of a black car, and then her father was pushing her away from the window.

“In the back room. All of you.”

“Come on, girls. Nestor,” her mother said, ushering them into the small room where Skourtis had set up his sewing months before.

“What is it?” Nestor asked.

“I saw a car,” Clio said.

“Italians!” Nestor scrambled to the door, but his mother pulled him back.

“Sit down and wait for your father.”

A moment later, Leonidas came to the door.

“Where’s Vlachos?”

“Fetching wood,” Clio’s mother said.

“Tell Yannis to go find him. It’s all right,” he said to the children. “You can come out.”