Finding Callidora

By Stella Leventoyannis Harvey

A horrific betrayal sets the destiny of the Alevizopoulos family, farmers who dare to choose a side, first in the Great War of 1914-1918, then in the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922. Theodore, the patriarch, was given a significant plot of fertile farmland in the Peloponnese for his efforts to fight the Ottomans in the Cretan revolution of 1886-1896. After he dies, it is Callidora, the matriarch, who must protect this legacy, raising her children to ensure the land is passed down from one generation to the next. But will the treacherous schemes of a neighbour ever allow this to happen? Survival might mean leaving what is most precious: home.

Finding Callidora unfolds against multiple backdrops—the unforgiving terrain of the Anatolia, the isolated Greek islands of Naxos and Crete, the bustling, chaotic streets of Cairo and later the vast expanse of Canada. Reflecting the headlines of the day, the novel follows four generations of the Alevizopoulos family, starting with Callidora’s children, Nikos, Vasilis and Katarina. Each will carry and pass on the scars of the original betrayal and their need to find the place where they belong.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Signature Editions
• Release date: Oct 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781773240626

Stella Leventoyannis Harvey

Stella Leventoyannis Harvey was born in Cairo, Egypt and moved to Calgary as a child with her family. In 2001, Stella founded the Whistler Writers Group, which each year produces the Whistler Writers Festival under her direction. Stella’s first novel, Nicolai’s Daughters, also set in Greece and Canada, was released by Signature Editions in 2012 and released in Greece in 2014 by Psichogios Press. Stella’s short stories have appeared in the Literary Leanings anthology, The New Orphic Review, Emerge Magazine and The Dalhousie Review. Her non-fiction has appeared in Pique Newsmagazine, The Question and the Globe and Mail. She currently lives with her husband in Whistler, but visits her many relatives in Greece often, indulging her love of Greek food and culture.

Book preview

BOOK 1

FROM ONE WAR TO THE NEXT

Beware the toils of war…the mesh of the huge Dragnet sweeping up the world.

HOMER

1

Daily Telegraph. Surrender of Turkey. 1 November 1918.

Callidora paced from the salóni to the kouzína, back and forth, like a captive looking for a way to escape. This space had once been large enough to raise her family, but seemed too small now to contain her worry and pacing. She had extinguished all the lanterns hours ago and made her way once more in the dark to Katarina’s bedroom. She lit a candle in her daughter’s room and hoped, again, to find her where she was supposed to be.

This was the fourth time she’d checked Katarina’s room tonight. Perhaps Katarina had somehow snuck back in. As long as she was safe, Callidora, like all mothers, would allow her daughter to lie to her, pretend yet again that she’d only been playing a game as she’d often done when she was a child, hiding under the bed or in one of the armoires, jumping out without warning to frighten her mother. The girl was headstrong, but she wasn’t a moró anymore.

The bed remained unmade. She’d thrown off the covers herself when she had realized Katarina wasn’t there. Against the stone wall, two armoires stood as immobile as sentries. The breeze badgered the curtains and sent shivers through her despite the heat. Callidora placed the candle on the nightstand beside the bed, then slammed the window shut and bolted it. This time Katarina would have to come in through the front door.

Katarina was seventeen now, but she’d been ignoring Callidora since she was ten. Theo enjoyed the independence he saw in their daughter. He was the kind of man who adored women with a practical head and a strong hand. I want her to be like you, he used to say, but despite their efforts, Katarina, from her delicate hands and narrow-set brown eyes right down to her foolish recklessness, was her father’s daughter.

Theo had always pandered to Katarina’s stubbornness and now that he was gone, it was left to Callidora to teach Katarina right from wrong.

She made the sign of the cross several times, then kissed her fingers and promised herself and God that she would forgive her daughter, all her carelessness and selfishness, if she would just come home.

Theo had died more than a year before their country had entered this war. According to witnesses, a lively discussion had turned into a deadly brawl in the taverna. That was all she was told. It was difficult to know what really happened. Some said, Theo was too far to the left. He was a bleeding heart when what was needed was an iron fist. The days of the old revolutions and ideals were long gone. His good heart and wild political ideas got him into trouble. But this was just speculation. The truth? She would never know. People in this town wagged their tongues about all sorts of things—Dmitri was drinking too much again, Spiro had raised his prices at the market without warning—as a way to pass the time. But when it came to murder—and what else could she call what happened to Theo?—the same people, her neighbours and friends, somehow lost their voice. Timely silence is wise, she was told. For who? she wondered. She wore the black of her mourning and kept her tears hidden for those early mornings she found herself alone. Drop by drop they flowed into the soil as she dug and pulled the weeds around her oleander bushes.

And she didn’t sell her land as was expected and move into town. She kept the tobacco farm going. She would not give up this home and see her children forced to leave for the city to find work, away from what was rightfully theirs. If they left, they would leave for university and return to make the farm better with their education.

Callidora sat down on Katarina’s bed, smelled the jasmine her daughter had in vases on the floor. She curled up under her daughter’s blanket, the one Callidora had knitted years ago. It would be so easy to sink into this warmth and away from this past autumn’s tragedies. How many more times would she be expected to be resilient?

The war was over, at least with a few of her country’s enemies. But it was early days. She had to remain on her guard. She’d been this way for so long, she didn’t know any other. She knew she should ease the reins she’d kept on Katarina. And perhaps Katarina was right. The time had come for less worry and to be more carefree. The enemy had been defeated. And they had survived. This was enough cause for gratefulness and celebration.

Her sons would be home from the war soon and they would help her deal with Katarina. The girl idolized her brothers. She would listen to them.

Callidora’s family were Venizelist. Prime Minister Venizelos’s Megali plan for Greece would finally come to be. It was a grand plan and as a start he’d made the right choice, as her family had done, to side with the Entente, the Allied forces. The king would have to see this now and stop his feud with the prime minister. Nothing good came from war. But this time, she hoped, something would.

Nikos, her eldest, was a major in the country’s army. As a child he’d had an uncanny ability to attract others to him with his soft-spoken charm and endless energy. He too was like his father, except he didn’t have Theo’s weakness for gambling, or for what some of her so-called friends in the village called his voraciousness for women. Gossip. Dangerous and useless gossip was all it was.

Her husband, Theo, had been a good man. He’d fought in the last Cretan revolt against the Ottomans and had been decorated. As a hero, their government had given him this piece of land and with that he had returned to their village and married her. You will help me work this land, turn it into something for our future, he had said, which was his way of proposing marriage. And as a woman who would do what her parents expected, she accepted. She was a woman of the land, a person anyone could rely on.

Their three children were born one after the other. Theo had provided for the family, and while he enjoyed a game of dice, he had enough money to maintain and work their land. It stretched up into the hills on one side and towards the sea on the other. If he’d had women, as the town gossips claimed, why would he have named this property of theirs Callidora? The land named for her would eventually go to their children. Their sons, Nikos and Vasilis, would inherit the rich farm fields close to the hills and their daughter would get the more troublesome, less fertile land along the sea.

Katarina wasn’t entitled to anything. She was the responsibility of her future prospective husband’s family. But Theo and Callidora had taught their sons to share whatever they had with their sister. After Theo died, Callidora had reminded the boys of her wishes for the acreage by the sea.

By receiving and keeping such an expansive and fertile piece of property, her husband—may God rest his soul—had ensured their family’s future.

I would have nothing without you, he would say, and kiss her forehead, sometimes tucking his night’s winnings into her apron. Other times he would turn out his pockets and shrug. It didn’t matter to her. He came home every night.

Other women? She pursed her lips. This was only in the narrow-minded imagination of the jealous. And besides, Theo was gone. All she had left were her sons, her wayward daughter, and this land. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, lose any of them.

Nikos was different than his father in so many ways. A responsible, determined child practically from the womb, everything he did, from fixing his bicycle to helping his father with the basmas leaves, was done with tenacity. There was nothing more important to him than what he was engaged in at any particular moment. That child was blessed. She crossed herself and knocked at the wooden frame of her daughter’s bed. She didn’t want to give him the máti. He didn’t need the evil eye on top of everything else he was dealing with in the war.

Vasilis, her younger son, was another matter. All he’d ever wanted to do was work with the few animals they’d had on the farm. They were only good for food, she’d told him, but he had ideas of buying more cows in order to produce and sell milk, yogurt, and cheese. He wanted to create and sell products. Where would we get the money for these dreams of yours? she asked him. This war has made all of us poor.

The people who live in the cities. The ones who don’t have the fresh things we have here, he’d said. Maybe people in other countries would buy our goods too. We would create a thriving business. There would be no limits.

Vasilis was a dreamer. She had to push him to find his way. This was her responsibility as a mother. She was the one who had encouraged her directionless boy to follow his brother. "Your brother is a Tagmatarchis. He will find you a safe post in this war. You will be fed and make some money. The Prime Minister has promised this to all who fight. The money will help us when you come back. Then we shall see about your dreams. Maybe by then." She’d stopped herself from what she’d wanted to say to the boy. Maybe by then, you’ll be grown up enough to understand how foolish those ideas are.

Unlike her husband and many of the other farmers in this village, she had always wanted her three children to go to university. It wasn’t common to send daughters for higher learning, but Callidora wanted more for her daughter than she had been given herself. They should all get an education, make a better life for themselves when they returned, but they each had their own ideas. Vasilis was keen. She could at least say that about him. Nikos and Katarina had their own plans. She knew this. Mothers were supposed to know and see everything. And she was no exception.

Her hopes for them didn’t matter anyway. The war had come and she’d had to adapt to yet another new reality. She could only pray her children were safe.

Nikos would have taken Vasilis under his wing. She knew her sons would have fought bravely and soon they would return as heroes. She would be the mother of the country’s heroes and be admired rather than whispered about when she was in the village. Her boys would look after her and their sister and make something of this land.

Callidora had done her best to maintain their tobacco farm by herself, while providing sanctuary and sharing the little food she had with other Venizelist fighters who knocked on her door almost every evening. This had been her contribution to the effort.

Callidora yawned. But she knew she would not sleep until her daughter was home.

She heard a knock. Finally. She told herself she should leave Katarina out there and teach her daughter a lesson. But what good would that do?

She got up, straightened out the blanket, took a last whiff of jasmine, and told herself to be calm. She’d handle things differently and be better with her daughter tonight. It was a time for new beginnings, a time for her to soften her approach with Katarina.

She took the candle and went to the door. Thank God, Katarina was home. Thank God.

2

Callidora’s eyes fluttered open and closed. She felt as though she were struggling out of a dreamless, obliterating sleep. A sticky wetness seeped beneath her back. The heat she felt drew her in, in the same way sleep often overtook her after an exhausting day in the fields. She opened her eyes again. She was on the ground, flat on her back. Had she fallen into a puddle? There had been so little rainfall this summer. It couldn’t be a pool of water. What then?

Taking a breath, she felt a sharp pain rip through her chest. She swallowed and hoped she hadn’t broken a bone. She was far too busy with the farm for such a calamity.

The sky was as dark as the night her sons left. Still the stars shimmered, so many she couldn’t begin to count. Had they always been this bright? As she gazed at them her body calmed, the throbbing in her chest subsided.

She’d answered the door after the third knock. She thought it had been Katarina finally coming home.

But there had been no one at the door.

Callidora had stepped outside and down the short stoop to the pathway, lined on one side by her oleander shrubs. She would have to give them some water, but that was a job for tomorrow. The candle in her hand hadn’t provided much light, but she’d hoped to spot Katarina rushing to her bedroom window to try it again. She would have found it locked the first time she tried it, and realized she had to knock at the door, but when Callidora hadn’t answered right away, she’d probably gone back to try the window again. She would have to give her daughter another talking to, but she had to be gentle as well. Katarina would listen this time. That girl needed a brain before it was too late. And maybe the only way to reach her was to speak to her calmly.

She now recalled she’d heard a loud crack and smelled gunpowder, but that hadn’t been uncommon, given the war. She couldn’t remember anything else. Perhaps she’d banged her head.

She tried to get up, but the pressure on her chest held her down. She raised her head slightly and spotted a stain growing against her blouse. Her shawl dangled off one shoulder. She let her head sink back to the cobblestones beneath her. Her arms shook by her sides. Winter was coming. Although it was still hot, the heat of the summer was waning. She’d always felt these seasonal changes in her body first. She would have to find firewood to keep them warm until the farm got back on its feet.

Before he left, Nikos had told her to stay out of harm’s way. You are a woman, this is not your fight.

One day she would tell her son how she found her place in this battle and he would realize how much he’d underestimated her.

Vasilis had said, We need you, and held her tightly before he joined the war. She had been the one to break away.

We’ll be back together soon, she said. Her sons worried too much about her. They were such good boys.

She heard footsteps approaching rapidly. Finally. Katarina was coming back to the front door. She’d probably been on another rendezvous with that fool, Stavros. Her daughter needed to stay away from that family. She had told Katarina this.

Stavros and his family were royalists, cowards, like the king himself, who had wanted to stay neutral during the war because of his wife’s family connections to the Germans. Shameful. How could any Greek remain neutral when the Ottomans were also involved? These people had been the enemy for centuries. People don’t care about politics in our village, Katarina had said. And besides, we are at the edge of this country. No one cares about us. This fight is the worry of those in Athens and Salonika. They have too much power and too many ideas while we suffer their decisions.

While Callidora’s brave sons had gone to fight on the Greek Turkish border against the Germans and the Ottomans who supported them, that coward Stavros stayed behind closed doors pretending not to see what was going on in front of his own eyes. She wanted to spit his name out of her mouth, scrub her tongue with one of the bristled brushes she kept in the barn, but her energy seemed to wane.

She felt a whoosh of air and the break of branches as a foot connected with her shrubs. Stupid, ugly things.

Who had said this? And what were they talking about? She felt a kick against her ribs and grimaced. A torch was held in a hand above where she lay. She tried to pull up her arm to shield her eyes, but it refused to move. Her candle hadn’t been that bright. Where had it gone? She had to be careful with the smallest of flames after the tinder dry summer. Autumn hadn’t brought any relief this year. Maybe winter would finally produce the rain they needed.

Can you help me up? she said and extended her hand. Her arm, too heavy to remain stretched out, fell by her side. The ache in her chest glowed red hot similar to those early days after Theo’s death, when there was no end to the waves of pain she endured. Just as she had done then, she took shallow breaths.

"That pórni daughter of yours is exactly like her wandering father. She has put stupid thoughts into my son’s head. This is your fault. You helped the prime minister’s collaborators fight and gave them refuge. And she followed your example. You didn’t know how to stay objective. You should be like other women, a mother not a warrior. And your daughter’s father was just as useless. From a bad crow comes a bad egg."

The torch blinded her. She couldn’t see his face, but she recognized that high-pitched, spineless voice of his and the way he threw old expressions around as if to say, look at me, see how smart I am. This bad Greek. This traitor. He was a disgrace to his country, to his village and to his family. And to think she had insisted, in the face of Theo’s resistance, on embroidering that tablecloth for this man and Theo’s sister, Stamatula, when they married.

Nestor?

That bullet was to avenge my son. The son your daughter bewitched. She’s the one who put stupid ideas in his head. She’s the one who made him run away.

Run away? How?

You’re her mother. If anyone should know.

Help me up, Callidora said. We will discuss this, find a solution. We are neighbours and family. Not enemies. Never enemies. She choked on these last words and began to cough. She licked her lips. Dry as some of her scorched fields.

She watched the torch fly over her head. The flame exploded into an intense light inside her door. The twinkling stars, above her, there a moment ago, disappeared.

Over the roar rumbling in her ears she heard his footsteps as he ran away.

The ground beneath her was colder. She’d never known such a bitter chill. Thoughts of her children came rushing in. As babies, as toddlers, as near adults. Then the images of Nikos, Vasilis, and Katarina faded and Theo stood above her. He held out his hand. She wanted to ask her husband what would happen to their children. Would they come home? Find each other? He smiled, but it didn’t reassure her. "Will they settle, Theo, settle on this land, the land you named Callidora?"

3

The Toronto Star. British can save Constantinople. 30 September 1922.

His few remaining men trudged behind Nikos, their footsteps threatening to overtake and crush him. He tried to put the images of dead, ravaged bodies out of his mind. On this road leading to the sea, he had seen too many to count. Anytime he thought he had witnessed the worst possible atrocities of this war, he’d stumble on yet another body tied to an old olive tree, a tongue slashed and hanging from a sagging mouth, a nose hacked off, eyes pitted. The futility of so many casualties was too much to bear.

The last corpse he’d seen was of an old woman, her wrinkles softened in death. The scarf around her neck fluttered in the wind, giving her the air of a young girl without a care. Her hands were open by her sides. Her shoes were scuffed and covered in dust, her black dress stained. She must have been a widow, like his mother. He squeezed his eyes shut. He had been thinking about her more lately, but it was impossible to get word to his mitéra. This war. His duty. These were the only responsibilities he could think about.

Nikos had not set foot on home soil for over six years. The Great War his country had entered had stubbornly morphed into this one, the battle for land in the Anatolia that belonged to Greece, the victors of the Great War. Many times, he’d worried about his mother and sister, particularly when he saw what had happened to women when they got caught in the crossfire, but he’d gone from one war into another without a chance to go home. The last time he’d been on the farm was for his father’s funeral, God rest his soul, and to bring his brother Vasilis back with him for military duty. So much time had passed. His mother would have aged; his sister would be a young woman, perhaps in university if his mother had her way. She had wanted all her children to go to university, even Katarina. And then what? His mother knew university life would never be for him. He liked to work with his hands, not his head like his brother. His sister was headstrong and focused on what she wanted. She might be married by now with children. Maybe Nikos was an uncle.

He’d missed so much.

His men had continually made advances, changing locations, pushing the cause of Greece in this foreign land that had been theirs since the time of the ancients. They didn’t need to fight for what was rightfully theirs, but the Turks were an obstinate, savage lot who indiscriminately slaughtered Greeks and Armenians and anyone who was not like them. He would never understand them.

And yet he’d also seen what his own could do. When they’d first entered Smyrna years ago, many Greek soldiers took it upon themselves to kill innocent Turks who found themselves alone on a street. Nikos stopped the men in his own unit, threatening them with taking away their rations or recording their names in the notebook they all knew he carried. But he couldn’t control all of the others. He had tried, only to be shouted down, insulted as a lover of Turks, and shoved out of the way. He told himself he could only control what he could. But then he’d see an old woman holding the mangled body of her daughter or son, her eyes parched of any tears, and he’d question himself. Had he done enough to stop this? His answer was always, no, he hadn’t. And again, he’d felt helpless in the same way he did when he’d been unable to find and avenge his father’s killer, even though he was sure he knew who had done it. It was very difficult to hide anything in a small town. Stop, he told himself again. Focus.

His prime minister had assured the country of an early victory and Nikos had believed these promises. After all, they’d won the first conflict and there was a treaty that gave Greece this land. Maybe not all of the Anatolia, but certainly some of it. He had agreed with his government. The Turks would not have any strength left after their earlier defeat in the Great War.

He had relayed his government’s assurances to his men with such zeal it shamed him to think of it, particularly now that the territories they had gained in the early days had slipped out of their hands. Of late, he and his men had been retreating more than advancing. Even the priests who had been assigned to his troop to bless the battle and protect the men had retreated. Nikos had been relieved. He couldn’t protect those who blindly believed God would watch over them, unarmed as they were, proceeding in advance of the troops. Many times he’d told them to say a prayer the night before, give their sermons then. When combat started, he encouraged them to take shelter in an abandoned farmhouse or in a ditch. Some complied, others didn’t. Until he’d convinced at least some of them to leave and return to Greece, Nikos could not erase images of the four priests he’d lost. At the end of a fight as dusk was setting he’d spot the zostikòn in the rubble, a scatter of boot prints blotting and desecrating the cloth.

No, he shouldn’t think about these things or anything else. Not his mother or his sister or the farm or the losses he’d endured during this war. His concentration had to be on his remaining troop and his country’s goals. No one had surrendered, and yet on this frigid day as the wind ripped at his uniform and rain needled his face, he wondered, could capitulation be far off? He didn’t know how he would deal with failure. Stop, he told himself. It isn’t over. The doubts, like the rain, continued to hound him.

He would explain everything to his mother when he finally got back to the farm. She would understand why he hadn’t returned earlier or tried to reach her. His mother knew the meaning of sacrifice, raising children and building a farm while her husband had spent their meagre earnings on gambling and God only knows what else.

Nikos could step in, fix up the farm, and build on what the family, mostly his mother, had started. Yes, his father had received the land as a gift from the government for his battle days in Crete, but it was his mother who made it into something that could support all of them. She was a strong woman. Helping her with the tobacco production and modernizing the farm would be his only purpose when he got home. He’d make it up to her. He’d promised her he would return and he always kept his promises. This was what had kept him alive despite two wars.

And who knows, maybe one day he’d raise a family himself, give his mother grandchildren to spoil with her sweet-smelling diples. He could almost taste the spongy texture of the honey-soaked dough mingled with the crunch of the roasted walnut topping.

Foreign politicians from England, France, and America had guaranteed his prime minister they would help Greece take from Turkey the spoils of the first war. Turkey had sided with the losing Germans and Central Powers. But signing agreements with the devil was no guarantee of anything. His government should have known as much.

The land stretching from Smyrna to Constantinople belonged to Greece, not to the Anatolia. It always had. At first, with the help of the British, the French, and the Americans, all seemed possible. Their naval ships had stood at the ready to support the battered Greek ships. But now, the Turks eroded the progress made, and Greek forces had retreated first from the desert, then over the Sakarya River, from one village to the next, their backs up against the sea. Nikos remembered an old Greek expression that seemed fitting now, sigá sigá san ton Toúrko kalá. Go slowly, slowly like the Turks, so to arrive well. Greeks had been too quick to believe the promises of foreigners and to underestimate the length and demands of such an undertaking. As was so typical of his countrymen, they had been far too eager and blinded by their delusions.

His father, if he were alive, would have told him not to believe any of the words a politician uttered, but Nikos had led his troop, mostly boys, no more than seventeen years old, based on those promises. If they lost this war, he was as culpable as his government.

His ears reverberated with the constant wails of women and children. Over the wind, he continued to hear that sound. Mournful, lost, and tortured. He knew that as long as he lived he would never forget this unrelenting grief.

The thud of boots against concrete vibrated in his chest. During the last war and at the start of this one, when he was buoyed by the fight, this same vibration made Nikos feel as though he was part of something bigger, surrounded by his men, those who believed in him and the cause they were all fighting for. It bolstered his heart and reassured him. He wasn’t alone. Now the tremors in his chest threatened to crush him.

Everyone on this narrow road was scrambling towards the port. Military personnel shared it with women, their children on their hips, and old men, canes in hand and nothing else to keep them upright. Others squatted by the side of the road; arms outstretched begging for someone to help. Stop, Nikos ordered his remaining troop when he spotted a small group of women with their children. Three of his men didn’t bother to look at him and ran ahead. He had written down the names of previous deserters in his log and he would mark the names of these men as well the next time he took a break. Perhaps one would come after he got these civilians to waiting ships and safety. It didn’t matter if he wrote down their names or not, he would never forget the deserters. Nor would he rest until they were all rounded up and dealt with. A little time in a military prison would straighten them out. His country would never succeed in this war or any other if it allowed turncoats to go unpunished.

And yet, if he were honest with himself, what bothered him the most was not that some of his men had deserted their country when it needed them, but rather that they had abandoned him when he needed them. For four years he’d kept them safe, made sure they were paid, shared his rations with them when there wasn’t enough, talked to them when they were frightened, listened to their worries about their parents and families, and reassured them. Step by bloody step. Now that he wanted them to help the most desperate Greek citizens of this godforsaken country, his soldiers ran like sheep. After all he’d done for them, how could they desert him so easily? How could they turn their backs on what he was trying to do?

He wondered where his brother was and hoped he was safe. If Vasilis had been posted to his unit, Nikos was sure he would have stuck it out. Vasilis would have remained by his side. Vasilis wasn’t always realistic, but he knew right from wrong and understood what it meant to be loyal to family and country.

Antonis, Lukas, and Dmitri, the only remaining men in his troop of twelve, slung their rifles over their shoulders and each grabbed a child. The mothers stood motionless at first, other children in hand. We will take you to the ships, Nikos said. You will be safe.

They nodded mechanically, eyes vacant.

Nikos spotted a woman on the ground, her toddler pushing at her. The child wore a finely knit sweater, something a grandmother might have lovingly made especially for the boy in the family. The blue and white stripes, similar to the colours of the flag used by Greeks at sea or in the Foreign Service, were faded and dirty. The child had no shoes or pants, just a diaper, yellow and fraying at the edges close to his bony thighs.

Nikos boosted the child into his arms. The child kicked at him and screamed.

The woman shifted and propped herself up on an elbow.

Take him, she whispered. I want him to live.

Wherever this child goes, he will need his mother, Nikos said, thinking again of his own mother and sister. If they’d run into any problems during these wars, he hoped someone had come along to help them. He would not allow himself to believe otherwise.

He extended his hand. You must be strong for the boy.

Her arms remained lifeless. I’m dying. Rain soaked her black dress, plastered her hair against her face.

He kept her gaze. She had to understand. He would not leave her behind. He’d already lost too many.

In the distance, Nikos heard an explosion. He didn’t move. Tiny bits of marble fell from the abandoned building they stood beside, and peppered him. He didn’t blink.

Come on, Major, Antonis said. You can’t allow all of us to die for the sake of one stubborn woman. Those godless Turks are on our heels. They’ll make us martyrs. If we’re dead, none of us will enjoy those medals or bonuses you keep promising.

He refused to take his eyes from the woman. Rain dripped from his cap. The child screamed into Nikos’s chest and still, he held him. Move, he ordered.

Her dead stare seemed to grow more distant, but then as he was about to order Antonis to go ahead, she reached for Nikos’s hand.

He pulled her up. Her thin hand was ice cold. The child flung himself into her arms. She bent her forehead into his and the child stroked his mother’s cheeks. Rifle in hand and on the lookout, Nikos would guide them to the sea and a waiting ship. They would be saved and he would stay on shore and find a way to defeat the Turks.

At the port, men, women, and children jostled to get onto one of the ships. Others jumped into the sea and swam to waiting boats, climbing ropes and chains attached to anchors to get onboard. Over the shouts and screams, and the reek of burning flesh, Nikos heard gunfire. While most ducked, he stayed focused on the horizon. Fire swallowed more and more of whatever stood in its way. The smoke and ash, despite the rain, entered his nostrils, threatening to smother him. He pitched a gob of whatever was in his nose, wiped his arm across his face, and swallowed the ash still choking him. The enemy was approaching. He would put the women and children on a boat, then find a good spot just below the hill so he could shoot at the enemy if they came over the brow. It might stop a few and give those fleeing a better chance.

With his major’s stripes on his cap and uniform, he was prodded into a line of soldiers heading to a naval ship. He pushed back and allowed the women and children in his care, along with Antonis, Lukas, and Dmitri, to move ahead of him. An officious-looking soldier shoved them back and Nikos forced his way ahead to talk to the vlákas.

We have to get these people on a ship, Nikos said. What is going on?

The officer, thin-faced and sweating, saluted. You can go ahead, sir. Priority is to be given to our forces, he shouted over the screams, the rain, and the distant gunfire.

Take these people in my group, Nikos said. "Let them pass. I