The Clover House (43 page)

In the far corner of the square, she saw two men in rough clothes standing together. She was about to veer away when she noticed that the shorter man, lighting a cigarette in his cupped hands, was Yannis, who had left the house with Irini when her parents could no longer afford to pay them. Clio must have
made a sound, because Yannis looked up as he fanned the match out.

She ran toward him, calling his name, but he began to walk away. She caught him in a side street. She touched his arm, wondering if perhaps she’d been mistaken, but he turned around and gave her a smile.

“Miss Clio,” he said.

“Yannis! I’m so glad to see you. We’ve been worried since we haven’t heard anything. Where have you been? Are you all right?” She looked around her. “Where’s Irini?”

“We’re both well, Clio. I need to go.”

“What?”

“I can’t talk to you, Clio. It’s best if I don’t.”

“But why?”

“I need to go.”

He was looking over her shoulder. She turned to see what had caught his eye and saw Nestor—Nestor, who was supposed to be playing soccer in Plateia Olgas on the other side of the city.

“Both of you!” Yannis was angry now. “Go away. Nestor, get her out of here.”

“Nestor, what are you doing?” she asked. She spun back to Yannis to find him half-running, half-walking down the street.

“What on earth are you doing, Nestor? What is going on?”

“I saw Yannis before and we were talking. That’s all.”

Yannis was out of sight now, having disappeared around a corner.

“And you didn’t tell anyone at home? We’ve all been worried about them.”

“It’s not important.”

“You know that it is.” She led him back to the square and down Trión Navarchon, their legs thrashing down the incline
in a ragged stride. She had to get Nestor away from Psilalónia as quickly as possible, away from the source of the secrecy she had stumbled into.

By the cathedral of Agios Andreas, she pulled him to a stop.

“Tell me,” she said.

He scowled at her, like the little boy she still saw in him, and finally spoke.

“Giorgio told me I could help.”

“What the hell does Giorgio have to do with anything?”

Nestor looked up sharply at the swear. He would have to get used to it. She was too old—and too angry now—for delicate language.

“There are ways to help,” he said. “Some of the Italians are in the hills.”

“I know that.”

“Well, the partisans are too.”

“Nestor! Just say it.”

“I’m not supposed to.”

“I’m your sister and I’m telling you to.”

He took a breath and spat the words out in a rush.

“Giorgio knows where Italian guns are and I’m helping Yannis get them.”

Clio felt her entire body sink into itself. Nestor was breathing hard, clearly waiting for an outburst from her, but to Clio the world slowed to a halt. There was the Psilalónia, the slices of bread, the gossip of her sisters, and then there was this, this fact, which draped over all the rest like a heavy blanket. Nestor was involved in the resistance. It would matter to no one that he was only thirteen. He was involved.

She took him by the shoulders.

“Look at me. I don’t want you to do any more of that. I need you to be safe. Can you promise me that, Nestor? Please?”

He seemed to understand that her request had nothing to do with war and resistance and allies and everything to do with her desire to keep him unharmed. He nodded.

C
lio wasn’t sure. She kept Nestor’s revelation to herself, not even telling her parents. Each of her parents dealt with Germans every day, and Clio feared that their awareness of Nestor’s—and Yannis’s—actions would reveal itself in their behavior. Besides, they didn’t notice much about their children now, wearied and preoccupied with the work they were ashamed to be doing. So Clio watched over Nestor, at first barely letting him out of her sight, lingering at the edges of soccer games or scuffles by the fountain at Plateia Georgiou. Eventually, Nestor seemed to prefer staying home to dragging his burdensome sister around the city. He loitered around the house, picking at anything he could find to eat in the kitchen, wandering up onto the roof, where Clio was determined never to follow. She watched him one day stalk a Japanese beetle in the front garden so that he could tie a string around its leg. He slipped it into a matchbox and carried it up the stairs to the top of the house to fly it around his head like a lasso.

That must have been where he was the day the Germans came for him. Clio was in the basement, sitting in one of the storage rooms on a pile of rugs still rolled up for the summer. She had her sketch pad with her but hadn’t opened it. Instead, she hugged her knees to her chest and watched the dust motes rise in the light from the window. The house was quiet, and she could almost imagine that she was in her clover house at the farm—on some day from what now seemed her very distant childhood, before the war had made even the clover houses feel
unsafe. When she breathed deeply, the twine creaked around the rugs, just like the clover stalks shifting in the breeze.

“Clio!” It was Nestor shouting. “Clio!” He came running down the stairs. “Clio, hide me!” He rushed into her arms, breathing hard, his eyes wide.

She heard deep voices upstairs and the knock of boot heels on the marble floor. None of the others were home, she realized, or, if they were, they were staying hidden. The voices quickly grew louder and then there were two men, German soldiers, in the door of the storage room.

One of them grabbed Nestor and said something in German. The other one replied and stood in the door, his rifle barring the way out.

“Let him go,” Clio said.

“Clio!” Nestor was crying now.

The first one spoke to Nestor again in German.

“Clio, what is he saying?”

She didn’t know. They had stopped their lessons when the war broke out.

“He doesn’t understand you,” she said to the man’s back. “What do you want?”

He faced her, swinging Nestor around with him.

“This boy is a partisan,” he said in choppy Greek.

“No! No, he’s not. He’s just a little boy.”

Nestor’s crying grew stronger.

“He will tell us where the others are. Where are they?” He shook Nestor by the arm.
“Wo?”

“Nestor, you don’t know anything,” Clio said, wanting to make it sound like a fact and not a warning.

“Where is Yannis?” This was the soldier by the door. Clio couldn’t help herself; she turned around at the sound of Yannis’s
name. The door guard smiled. “Ah,” he said. “Maybe you both know. Who’s going to give us what we want?”

The other one twisted Nestor’s arm, and the boy cried out in pain.

“Clio!” He stared at her. He was asking her what to do.

She stepped toward the soldier who was holding Nestor.

“I know more than he does,” she said.

The door guard came into the room, took her arm, and turned her toward him. He looked her up and down.

“What do you know,
Mädchen
?” He tipped her chin up.

Nestor had stopped moving. He was old enough to understand this new danger.

“I know about the guns.”

“She knows about the guns,” he repeated to his partner, and they both laughed.

He pointed the barrel of his rifle at Clio, and she gasped. Nestor began to struggle again. The German lowered the barrel to the hem of her dress and poked at the fabric.

“Do you know this?” he asked. “And this?” He was lifting her dress. Clio could feel the cold of the metal against her thigh.

“Leave her alone!” Nestor broke free and fell upon the soldier, who pushed him off without taking his eyes from Clio.

“Not unless you tell us,” he said. Then he said something in German, indicating Nestor with a tilt of his head. Clio understood only
Yannis
and
junge
. They knew she was lying.

“Clio, what do I do?”

The German had brought his face closer, but the barrel of the rifle was still between her legs. He raised it up so that it was lifting her onto her toes. She winced at the pain of the metal pressing into her. The soldier moved the barrel down and she dropped back onto her feet, exhaling, and then he jammed it
up again fiercely. She cried out at the sharp jab. Tipping forward, she braced herself against his chest and quickly snatched her hands away in revulsion.

“I promised I wouldn’t tell,” Nestor said, sniveling now.

“I know, Nestor,” she said, gasping from the pain.

Again, the soldier lowered the rifle barrel slightly and jammed it back up into her. He made questioning noises of encouragement and laughed as he repeated the movement over and over. She thought she could stand the pain if this was all they did to her. But she knew it wouldn’t stop there. The other soldier was close behind her, and all her fear concentrated on the possibility that he would take hold of the barrel’s other end. She felt the heat of him at her back, smelled the sour odor of sweaty wool from his uniform. His rough fingers scraped along her neck and slipped into the opening of her blouse.

“Nestor, I need you to give them what they’re asking for.” As she said the words, she felt once again that blanket falling over her, muffling sound and smothering her emotions. She thought she could protect Nestor, take his place, but she was too weak. If he gave them the information, maybe he could save them both.

She took a deep breath to subdue the ache between her legs and spoke again.

“You need to tell them where to find Yannis.”

“All right,” Nestor said, as if to himself. “All right. I’ll tell. Oh, God, I’ll tell.”

The rifle barrel was still pressed against her thigh. What if they didn’t let them go? What if they hanged Yannis from a tree and added her and Nestor too? What would their signs say?
Traitor
. She and Nestor would need two signs each.

Nestor named a village Clio had never heard of, in the foothills of Panachaïko. Yannis’s band of partisans were hiding out
there, armed with heavy Breda machine guns and Berettas and Carcanos, all taken or bought from the Italians as they gave up the fight. All these names for weapons. Clio listened to her little brother say these words as if he were speaking a different language.

But the Germans appeared satisfied. Smirking, the guard slid the rifle barrel from between her legs. He made a show of wiping it with a rag he found on the pile of rugs, and both men laughed. Clio didn’t move. Even when she heard the front door slam shut, and even when Nestor buried his head in her chest, she stayed still, thinking of the shame that held both of them now.

“We can’t talk about this to anyone,” she said.

“I know.”

Callie

Sunday

The cathedral of Agios Andreas is standing room only, and we sidle our way through to the back row on the left. We join the revelers fresh from the parade that ended just moments ago, at 6:00, their high spirits not yet muted by the solemnity of the church. To my left, a teenager’s satin costume peeks out from the hem of her good winter coat, while her father’s Carnival whistle hangs around his neck on a neon-pink lanyard. Aliki tugs us all into place, making sure Demetra, my mother, and the aunts can see the priests through the crowd. She turns to a group behind us and presses her finger to her lips.

Taking my spot next to Nikos, I look around the cathedral. It is brightly lit by an enormous wooden chandelier that hangs on a long chain from the central dome. It’s more of a ball than a chandelier, like a miniature earth suspended from the heavens painted on the domed ceiling. Giant pillars mark out the space beneath the dome, each pillar covered with an elaborate mosaic. The light from the chandelier makes the tiles glimmer, and the saints look down on us with large eyes rimmed with black.

Aliki and Nikos seem to know everyone in the cathedral. On the way in, they kissed people on the cheeks and made whispered introductions for me. Some of these people were at the memorial service, I can tell, and they greet me with suppressed embarrassment for my absence the previous day. Now Aliki gazes straight out at the altar, while Nikos occasionally catches someone’s eye and smiles. The most devout are seated in pews right by the altar, their heads bowed in prayer. Aliki must wish she were among them. As the service goes on, I copy my relatives, crossing myself when they do, murmuring the responses after I have heard them a few times. Demetra does the same, giggling up at me once she senses my ignorance of the rituals. The cantor’s clear tenor trills precisely in the mournful minor key of Orthodoxy.

I find it hard not to be swept up in the mystical feeling of the cathedral, with its incense clouds and the muted jingling of the silver censers and icons and the rich colors of the priests’ embroidered vestments. The cantor is singing to us, singing for us—asking God to forgive us so that we might be ready to re-enter paradise.

“Kyrie, eleison,”
he sings, as the priests light a series of seven lamps.

I look over at my mother, on the other side of Nikos. She stares straight ahead, into the back of the man who has shifted over in front of her, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. I see her lips moving in response to the cantor’s call.