‘There are a few of us going together. We’ve been planning it for some days now. Palestine.’
‘You’re going to settle there?’ asked Eugenia.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We have no plans to come back.’ The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable.
‘Look,’ said Eugenia, ‘if you are leaving, there are some things you should take with you. Your parents left some valuables with us to look after. They belonged to the synagogue.’
She got up. ‘Katerina, will you go and get the quilt?’
As Katerina disappeared up the stairs, Eugenia crossed the room and took down the framed samplers. With a knife she began to cut around the backing of the frames to remove the embroidered panels. Elias leaned forwards, his curiosity aroused.
‘There is a fragment of Torah scroll under here and some manuscript behind the other one,’ she said.
‘And here’s the quilt,’ said Katerina, holding up the embroidered masterpiece.
Elias gasped at its beauty. Eugenia had got out some scissors and was about to start unpicking the stitches.
‘Don’t do that!’ cried Elias. ‘It’s a work of art!’
‘But it has the parochet underneath . . .’
‘Why don’t I take it as it is?’ he enquired. ‘It will keep it even safer!’
‘Elias is right, Eugenia. Let’s roll it up. You can even use it as a pillow on your journey!’
‘And there’s the tallit too.’
‘I think you should keep that safe here. Perhaps I will visit one day and retrieve it. I must go now,’ he said. ‘The boat is leaving at ten tonight and we arranged to meet at nine. I don’t want them to leave me behind.’
He stepped away as if to avoid their embrace, then picked up his bag and the rolled-up quilt.
‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘for everything.’
With that, he was gone.
The women held each other tight. Only once Elias was out of the house did they allow themselves to give in to their grief for the loss of the Morenos. Each day, more evidence of the scale of the crime that had been perpetrated against the Jews was being discovered. They had seen the synagogues wantonly destroyed and the ancient cemetery torn up, but the physical annihilation of millions of men, women and children was beyond the reach of any human understanding. The evidence of what had happened to their friends was now irrefutable and yet would always be beyond belief.
Somewhere in northern Europe, the physical remains of Roza, Saul, Isaac and Esther had ceased to exist except as a million particles of scattered ash, but Katerina and Eugenia would never forget them. With every candle they lit in the little church of Agios Nikolaos Orfanos, memories of them were rekindled, burning for ever, bright and true.
Chapter Twenty-four
BY APRIL, MUCH of the country had plunged once again into crisis. Konstantinos Komninos was obliged to close one of his warehouses and it infuriated him that the empire he had built up was being eroded by the effects of a civil war. His profits during the occupation had been more than satisfactory. He had always managed to continue his imports so that he could meet the demand that still existed among the wealthy clientele and the Germans, but now, as he saw it, a minority of Greeks were strangling the recovery of their own country.
Even at the age of seventy-three, Komninos still maintained the same habits, getting up at dawn and staying in the office until late at night, except on Saturdays, when he would entertain. The image of progress and success was one that he was eager to sustain, and he continued to ensure that his inventory was superior to any other fabric merchant in the city. Olga was still obliged to dress on those occasions in made-to-measure haute couture, and Katerina visited her several times a month to fit or deliver something new.
It was during one of these visits that she told Olga of Elias’ departure. Pavlina was in the drawing room too, cleaning some objets d’art, whose only purpose seemed to be to gather dust.
‘Well at least he’s gone with some decent clothes on his back,’ Pavlina said. ‘It was such a waste having them hanging up in Dimitri’s cupboard when he isn’t around to wear them.’
Katerina winced. Pavlina’s lack of tact not only hurt Olga, but her as well.
‘Poor Elias. Poor man . . .’ said Olga quickly. ‘What must he be feeling?’
It was a question that did not ask for an answer.
There was silence for a few minutes as Katerina pinned Olga’s hem.
‘You will let me know if you hear from him, won’t you?’ urged Olga after a while.
‘Of course, I will,’ affirmed Katerina.
‘I’m afraid there’s still no news of Dimitri,’ Olga said.
‘I thought the amnesty they were talking about might make a difference,’ replied Katerina.
‘Well, it didn’t last, did it . . .’ said Olga glumly. ‘He’s not likely to come now, with the way things are going.’
‘It wouldn’t exactly be safe if he did, would it?’ interjected Pavlina, her duster in mid-air. After a moment’s pause, she added: ‘I don’t think I’ll be laying another place at the table just yet.’
Olga’s hopes that one day Dimitri might walk through the door had faded when the far Right began to take revenge against the Left for crimes they had committed during the occupation. There was fighting between ELAS and the anti-Communists and collaborators who had worked alongside Germans, and thousands of leftists were rounded up and imprisoned. After a brief pause, Thessaloniki once again lived in fear. Its prisons were full of people whose only crime was to disagree with the government.
Whatever happened, Olga had always hoped that her husband would put aside his disapproval of his son’s actions in the war but it seemed to her that Konstantinos Komninos happily nurtured the rage he felt towards his son.
In order to carry out this ‘white terror’ against the Left, the police and gendarmerie had been hugely expanded. Their brief was to destroy the Communist organisation using any means they could. They collected biographical information to compile evidence against their suspects. Giving support to anyone who had fought for ELAS was enough to warrant arrest.
Much to her own surprise, Olga found herself praying that Dimitri would stay away. She knew how vulnerable he would be and she feared for him. Thessaloniki was a dangerous enough place, but when there was someone inside your own home who might betray you, the perils were multiplied.
Olga need not have feared. Dimitri was four hundred kilometres away. Along with many others, his unit was now in a mountainous area of Central Greece where the toughness of the landscape had been its own defence against the Germans. Labyrinthine pathways, hidden valleys and villages that were only accessible by foot had allowed it to become an almost self-governing state during the time of the occupation. It was an ideal place of refuge for ELAS members.
When people in the villages heard that there was a medical worker among the soldiers they came for help. With little more than a few torn-up rags and a bottle of raki for antiseptic, Dimitri found himself dressing ulcers, helping women during childbirth, extracting rotten teeth and diagnosing diseases he could not cure. He never enquired about a patient’s politics before helping them but sometimes he had to ignore a large picture of King George, who had been forced to remain in exile even when the occupation had come to an end and the government had returned. Of one thing he was certain: the vast majority of these people did not willingly support the Communists. The village folk that they were living amongst were being coerced into supplying food that they could ill afford, and they and their children were going hungry.
Dimitri could not pretend to himself that the side he fought on was without fault. Like most of his compatriots in this unit, he had joined the resistance in order to fight against the Germans, but once they had gone, he was pulled into a vicious fight between Communists and the government. Like many he was not a hard-line Communist, but there was one thing he believed: they offered something closer to democracy than the government.
Over the
years, he had learned that no one had clean hands in this war. His own were covered in blood: Communist blood, Fascist blood, German blood, Greek blood. Sometimes it was innocent blood, sometimes the blood of someone he was glad to see die. It ran the same in everybody: thick, red and often shockingly copious.
Most of the time he was trying to save lives rather than end them, but treating any of the Communist guerrillas with whom he fought, would mean that they could kill again. There seemed no end to the barbarity in which this country was caught up, and the twists and turns of politics were becoming increasingly lethal.
He was still in his twenties, but he sometimes caught sight of his gnarled old fingers with their skin as crinkled as the bark of a tree. They looked as if they belonged to an old man
In spite of a sometimes overwhelmingly strong desire to visit his city, something apart from fear of arrest kept Dimitri away. He would die rather than go home. It would seem like an admission of defeat. Such a loss of pride in front of his father, someone he despised with his whole body and soul, was unthinkable.
Olga managed to avoid confrontation with her husband but she could not avoid listening to the discussions over her dinner table. Everybody Konstantinos invited shared his own political views and they were all in favour of the war against those who had resisted the Germans.
‘How can the government justify what’s happening?’ she asked Pavlina. ‘They’re letting these bullies persecute innocent people.’
‘They don’t believe they’re innocent. It’s as simple as that.’
At social events, Konstantinos Komninos always steered skilfully around the enquiries about his son. It was assumed by their guests that he was in the government army.
The talk was mostly of the rise of communism in the surrounding Balkan countries and there was obvious paranoia that Greece would go the same way. Dinner party guests avoided mention of the atrocities currently being carried out by the government army, but spoke warmly of the help the British were giving them to hold back the Communist advance. In their terminology, it was an andartiko that was being fought, a ‘bandit war’. Olga thought of it as emfilios polemos, a war between brothers.
It was turning into a hot summer with temperatures soaring, but the mention of the ‘red menace’ caused them to rise even further. The wives fanned their faces with anxiety whenever it was mentioned. That season and for several following it, red, and even shades of pink, became distinctly unfashionable.
Outside the walls of the grand mansions, living conditions deteriorated further. Agriculture and industrial production were under half pre-war level and there were no ships to bring goods in or out. Roads, railways, harbours and bridges continued to be in the same state of post-occupation dereliction.
As if things were not bad enough, a severe drought wrecked the harvest that summer. While people fought against members of their own family, nature seemed to be turning against itself. The sight of children begging and going through bins to find food once again became commonplace. Foreign aid was sent but, even then, half of the population still lacked essentials, owing to the corruption among some of those government officials responsible for distribution.
Somewhere up in the mountains, Dimitri, who had not seen a newspaper for many weeks, learned that there was to be an election, with a plebiscite on whether the King should return.
‘How can they promise a fair election, with this country in such upheaval?’
This was the general opinion. The disorder prevalent in the country did not seem conducive to such a democratic process.
The election went ahead, but the Left abstained to demonstrate their disapproval. International observers verified that it had been free and fair, but there was an inevitable victory for the Right. In September, the plebiscite over the monarchy then took place and was won by the monarchists with an overwhelming sixty-eight per cent of the vote.
Konstantinos Komninos was doubly jubilant.
‘So, people have shown us what they want. Twice. There’s one thing we definitely know now – people would rather have a king than a Communist leading the country!’ he said, scarcely able to keep the joy out of his voice. ‘Perhaps we can get this country on its feet again.’
‘The people have chosen!’ said the pompous Grigoris Gourgouris, who was at dinner in Niki Street that evening.
The men have chosen, thought Olga, wondering if the outcome would have been different if women had the vote.
She looked around at the faces of the wives at the table and asked herself if they had the same thoughts as she did. Mostly they wore a uniform mask of mild interest. Like her they had learned when to nod and when to make the kind of noises that would suggest both understanding and acquiescence. They came in perfectly in unison, like second violins in an orchestra. She and all the women here had a triple role. As wives, mothers and elegant shadows.
The conversation continued around her.
‘So we should be able to make some progress now,’ said Gourgouris. ‘I reckon the country’s had enough fighting. And not enough fancy clothes!’
A wave of laughter rippled around the room, but the person who laughed until the tears ran down between the folds of fat in his face was Grigoris himself.
The results of the election and the plebiscite finally pushed the Communist Party towards the decision that organised, armed struggle was the only path they could take and, in October 1946, they announced the formation of the Democratic Army.
‘You see?’ Konstantinos said furiously to Olga. ‘The Communists will stop at nothing until they take over this country. Do you want to be ruled over from Moscow? What do you think will happen to businesses like mine? They’ll be state-run. We will lose everything. Absolutely everything.’
‘There might just be people who don’t want to see the King back,’ Olga said, knowing that her husband would not listen.
‘There is no doubting who these people are now!’ he screamed. ‘You can’t pretend they’re the liberal left any longer, Olga! They are Soviet-backed Communists! Are you too blind to see that?’
He was screaming at Olga, but all she noticed was the fear in his eyes. She was so used to being abused for her stupidity that his invectives no longer bothered her.
Unofficial reports that week created further alarm by revealing that the Democratic Army leadership was intending to co-ordinate all the existing guerrilla bands and would be carrying out a concerted recruitment campaign to expand its numbers.
Something was beyond doubt for Komninos now. As far he was concerned, everyone fighting against the government was doing so under the red flag. His son was now carrying out the orders of a Communist general.
Wherever he went, the same taunts seemed to follow him: ‘Komninos . . . Komninist . . . Ko-mmu-nist . . .’ On and on they went, hissing and whispering inside his head: ‘Comminos . . . Communos . . . Komnunist . . .’
People looked at him differently, talked of him behind his back and, when he came back late at night, he heard the prostitutes muttering in their doorways: ‘There he goes again, that Konstantinos Kommunistos!’
These hallucinations pursued him to his bed and hounded him in his sleep. Night after night he woke soaked with sweat, panting like a hunted animal.
Once or twice from her adjacent room, Olga heard her husband scream out in his sleep. His mingled fear and anger over his son possessed him like a demon.
Customers did not look him in the eye, or so he thought, and he was sure he had received pitying glances from his staff. ‘Fancy,’ he imagined them saying, ‘a Communist!’ He felt himself branded, despised and an object of scorn.
If he was ever to sleep quietly again, something had to be done.
In the past few years, he had neither desire nor means to find Dimitri. Now he had both. The organisational changes that the Communists had implemented for their army would work to his advantage, enabling him to locate his son with some ease. Back in his office, at his desk in the middle of the city, he sat down to write two lett
ers. The first one was to his son.
The opening paragraphs were sorrowful and restrained, with repeated mention of his disappointment.
Dear Dimitri
As you know, the decisions you have taken in your short life have been a catalogue of disappointments to me. I was bitterly disappointed by your choice of careers and with your political leanings while you were at university. Most of all I was disappointed by your decision to fight for the resistance during the occupation.
In the past decade, every step you have taken has been a source of deep dismay and embarrassment.
All of those mistakes could have been put aside if you had seen some sense once the country was restored to our government and now to our King. But I know that you are now fighting for the Communists. You are siding with a movement that seeks to destroy all the individual freedoms that the Komninos family has always stood for.
The tone in the second half changed to one of vitriol and abuse. They were the slightly insane ravings of a man hearing voices, and yet while he was writing, his heart was as cold as ice and his intentions as measured as would be expected from a man who has made money from calculating to the last millimetre the profit on a bolt of silk.
The stigma and shame that you will bring to our name can no longer be tolerated. I hope every day to hear news of your death, but each one brings more disappointment. Even now you are letting me down. I assume that you are a coward and not even willing to risk your life for what you believe. I have done all I can to conceal the crime of your political affiliation from everyone we know, but it is slipping out of my control.
As far as I am concerned you are dead to this family. Your mother will be informed within the next few days that you have been killed. In due course you will be thoroughly defeated, I am sure of that, but meanwhile, I would advise you to leave for Albania or Yugoslavia, where your fellow Communists will make you welcome. This is the best thing for the honour of the family name. Never – and I repeat, never – return to Thessaloniki.