Eleni (73 page)

“He came to his home secretly.”

“How do you know that?” Katis persisted.

Foto Bollis turned to grin at Alexo. “He said so, boasted about it to everyone.”

Katis faced her. “Having heard this testimony, do you still deny that your husband visited you?”

Alexo raised her chin. “I told you; I haven’t seen that soul of a devil since last November. If he had come, why would I keep it a secret? To tell in the next world? I know what’s in store for me!”

Somewhat discomfited by her defiance, Katis ordered her to sit down.

The testimony of Alexo Gatzoyiannis ended the second day of the trial. There remained only one more defendant to examine—Eleni Gatzoyiannis—and for the testimony against her, Katis wanted to interrogate a special witness who was not yet in the village.

While Eleni was standing trial in Lia, her daughter Glykeria was working with the other women sent to the harvest, threshing grain and building pillboxes near the village of Vatsounia. It was now sixty days since she had been separated from her mother.

A few days after she arrived at Vatsounia, Glykeria was joined by Rano Athanassiou, who had also been sent from Granitsopoula. Rano told her that Eleni had been taken from the fields with some other women back to Lia, but Glykeria did not realize she was under arrest. She simply felt relief that her mother had been released from the heavy labor of threshing.

In the two months that ensued, Glykeria became more and more worried about what had happened to her family. She knew nothing about the success of the escape or her mother’s imprisonment. She was wrapped up in her own problems; still suffering from the heat, struggling to keep up with the older
women in the fields. Sometimes the girls from Lia taunted and hit her for her slowness. “Why did your mother send you, when you can’t do any work?” they complained. “She should have sent your sisters instead!”

It was natural that Glykeria should turn for help to Rano Athanassiou, her sister Olga’s best friend, just as Kanta had taken comfort in her strength when they were both conscripted as
andartinas
. Rano encouraged Glykeria to keep up with the other girls, and she slept next to her on the wooden floors of the village houses at night.

One morning in mid-August, just as the women were awakening, a guerrilla arrived on horseback and called the name of Rano Athanassiou, saying that she was to return with him to the village. Rano’s first thought was that something had happened to her married sister Tassina or that their invalid father had died. She tried to hide her apprehensions as she kissed Glykeria goodbye.

“If you see my mother and sisters in the village, tell them I miss them!” Glykeria called after her.

All the way back to Lia, Rano bit her lip to keep from asking questions. There was no way she could have guessed that she had been named by Stavroula Yakou as someone who knew details of the Amerikana’s treachery, and that she was being called back to testify against Eleni at her trial.

On August 21, the third day of the trial, the slopes of the ravine were crowded long before the prisoners arrived, and the place was filled with a buzz like a million bees. Everyone knew that the testimony would end today and the sentences would be decided. The only defendant remaining to be tried was the Amerikana.

Eleni stood still as a figure on an icon as the charges were read against her. The foliage of the plane trees sifted sunshine on her pale, immobile face and dark-blue dress.

The main thrust of Katis’ case against her was that Eleni had organized and led two previous unsuccessful escape attempts, that she had sent away her children and that she had tried to convince other women in the village to do the same. Her actions had seriously undermined the efforts of the Democratic Army in her village.

Katis paused, scanning the faces before him to judge the reaction to what he had said. Then he added that the Amerikana had stayed behind to organize more escapes, that she had sabotaged the program to relocate village children, that she had slandered guerrilla fighters and hidden clothing and food needed by the army.

As he spoke, Eleni turned to look at the group of witnesses gathered at one side. She gasped as she realized there was a new face among them: Rano Athanassiou. She turned and searched the audience; if Rano had returned from the threshing field, then perhaps Glykeria had too. But nowhere could she see her daughter’s face or her red dress.

Katis planned to lay the ground for his condemnation of Eleni by establishing her fascist leanings and disloyalty to the cause. He had not previously interrogated Rano, but Stavroula Yakou had told him what questions to put to her. He felt his hands perspiring as the bewildered girl was called to testify. This was the climactic day of the trial and the most important prosecution and Katis was determined to conclude his case with an overwhelming barrage of testimony against the Amerikana.

Rano stood petrified. She had no idea what she would be asked or how she should answer to protect herself from punishment.

“You lived next to Eleni Gatzoyiannis for many years and you spent much time in her house,” Katis began. “Answer the following questions: Why did the Amerikana make her daughter Olga Gatzoyiannis wear her kerchief tied around her face? Doesn’t this imply a distrust of our
andartes
, who have respected the honor of every woman in this village?”

Rano stared at him, blinking. “Many of us wear our kerchiefs that way, especially in winter!” she replied. “But Olga has an additional reason; she has a goiter on her neck. She was hiding the goiter because we are young girls and it doesn’t take much to be left a spinster.” Rano jumped at the sudden outburst of laughter from the villagers.

Katis frowned. This girl was clearly not smart enough to understand how she was supposed to answer, but he would show her the risks of protecting the Amerikana. “We know, Comrade, that one day you went to the defendant and told her that our men were going to search her house,” he said, “and that you took clothing and valuables of hers to hide in your own house. Why would you do that?”

While Eleni was remembering that Stavroula Yakou had been sitting in her kitchen on that day, Rano swallowed and looked about as if for help. Then she shrugged unhappily. “I don’t know. Call it a stupid mistake … call it friendship …”

“But isn’t it true that at a time when all of her neighbors were sharing their goods with the Democratic Army, Eleni Gatzoyiannis was hoarding luxuries that no one else in this village could ever hope to own?”

Rano cleared her throat. “She hid the clothes, yes.”

“That will be enough,” snapped Katis, tossing down his papers with a satisfied air. Two guerrillas stepped forward and led Rano away. She was given just enough time to kiss her invalid father as they passed her house in the Perivoli, and then she was taken to Tsamanta, where she was assigned to Spiro Skevis’ batallion as an
andartina
.

Eleni struggled to keep her face impassive as she watched Rano being led away. They were using the people closest to her to put the last nails in her coffin. She ached to know what they had done with Glykeria.

“Stavroula Yakou,” rang out the voice of Katis. Eleni turned around to see the tall blond girl stand up and approach the judges’ table. Stavroula’s mother, Eleni’s friend Anastasia, uttered a heartbroken moan. The sound
seemed to jar the girl, and when she met Eleni’s unnaturally wide eyes, she blushed to the roots of her hair.

Katis looked at her and in a resonant voice began to read a long statement from Stavroula testifying that Eleni was a known fascist, that she had burned her eldest daughter’s foot to keep her from being drafted as an
andartina
and that she had stubbornly refused to send her children to the people’s democracies. After he read a few sentences, Katis stopped and asked Stavroula, who was listening with her head bowed, “Is this not true, Comrade?” But Stavroula only stood like a statue of a saint in meditation and did not answer.

Katis read a bit more and repeated his query; then, seeing that she was determined not to reply, he lost his temper. When he had interrogated her in private, Stavroula overflowed with accusations against her neighbor, but now, before the united gaze of the village, she was tongue-tied. “Don’t be afraid of Eleni Gatzoyiannis, woman!” Katis thundered at the mute figure. “She has no power here any longer! Where is the strength you showed when you gave this statement?”

But still Stavroula would not speak and stared at the ground as Katis’ voice read on, piling up the allegations she had made against Eleni. The audience sat transfixed, watching the most feared woman in the village tremble. Katis reached the end of his patience. He gestured violently with the sheaf of papers in his hand, and a vein rose on his neck just where his collar pressed it. “Speak, damn it!” he shouted. “Did you say these things about the prisoner or not?”

The tension mounted until Stavroula’s mother Anastasia could bear it no longer. She had suffered in silence for years as this headstrong girl had done exactly as she pleased, flaunting the village traditions by arranging her own marriage, dishonoring her husband by becoming a collaborator of the guerrillas; a woman whose name was always spoken with a leer. It had been wormwood and gall to watch Stavroula stand up before the assembled village at the trial and denounce Vasili Nikou, but now her testimony was being used to condemn the woman who had been the kindest of their neighbors during the years of poverty. Something in Anastasia snapped and she rose to her feet, shrieking at her frightened daughter, “That’s right, Stavroula! Tell it! Say it out loud! Let us hear everything you’ve whispered to them about Eleni, just as you said it on that paper!”

Stavroula looked up with wet eyes and shook her head. Then she sat down without having said a word.

Stavroula Yakou’s unexpected refusal to testify threw Katis off balance. He hurriedly continued before the embarrassing scene made too great an impression on the other judges and the onlookers. He turned fiercely to Eleni.

“Amerikana,” he said, giving the word a sarcastic emphasis, “did any of our fighters ever annoy your daughters or make the slightest suggestive remark to them?”

“No,” Eleni replied, “I never said they did.”

“Then why did you hide your daughters inside the house, try to prevent them from going on work details, which is the responsibility of every strong young woman in the village, and make them cover their faces with kerchiefs?”

“I always told my daughters to avoid becoming the subject of gossip in the village,” Eleni replied calmly. “That is the responsibility of a mother, especially when her husband is not present to help protect his daughters’ reputation. As for the kerchiefs, look around you; almost every woman here is wearing one.”

There was a stir among the crowd and Katis realized he had stepped on marshy ground. He returned to the main point of his condemnation. “Your actions hardly support your words,” he snapped. “You showed your contempt for the revolution by organizing the defection of your family and thirteen other civilians from this village. Listen to what the escaped prisoner, Marianthe Ziaras, had to say about your role in that betrayal:

“‘I was in the house cooking when Eleni Gatzoyiannis came. My father asked me to leave the room, but I went outside and listened under the window. I heard the Amerikana tell my father that she would give him one thousand dollars if he would take her family to the other side. When the first two attempts were not successful and it became necessary for her to go to the threshing fields, she told my father, “I’m going to where Glykeria is and if we can find a way to leave too, we will. But you must take my family and don’t think about us.”’”

He put down the papers and looked at Eleni. “What do you say to that?” he asked.

Eleni sighed. “It’s too bad that Marianthe isn’t here to speak for herself,” she said.

Katis’ brows drew together. “We have a witness who is present and is more than willing to say these things to your face,” he said. “I call Milia Drouboyiannis.”

The stocky young
andartina
with the masculine frizz of black hair came forward, holding her rifle at her side. She eagerly answered the questions Katis put to her, testifying that the Amerikana had organized the escape attempts and that Lukas Ziaras had tried to convince her mother, Alexandra Drouboyiannis, to take two of her daughters and come along. She described the first two attempts in convincing detail: how the group had turned back once because of a baby’s crying and again because of a heavy fog. “My mother and sisters were persuaded by the fascist Lukas Ziaras to consider leaving,” Milia declared, “but then I found out what they were planning and I told them that wherever they went, the Democratic Army would come. Soon all Greece will fly the Red Flag.”

The stocky girl, her face contorted with the intensity of her emotion, pulled herself up to her full height and thumped the butt of her rifle on the ground, a bit of theatrics that made an indelible impression on the watching
villagers. “I swear by the gun I’m holding that my mother and my sisters abandoned all thought of leaving with the Amerikana’s family after I spoke to them!” she cried. As she testified, her mother sat on the sidelines, nodding her head at everything the girl said.

Heartened by the impression Milia Drouboyiannis had made, Katis turned suddenly on Eleni. “You organized the escape of your family and your friends because, like your father and your husband, your heart is with the fascists!” he charged. “You have tried from the beginning to turn the people of this village against us!”

Her face was ashen, but Eleni was calm. Unlike her cousin Antonova Paroussis, she had been careful not to speak out against the guerrillas and she would not admit to what she had not done.

“That is untrue,” she answered. “Show me a single mother who will say that I told her not to give up her children.”

Katis looked around. “Who will answer her? Stand up and speak!”

The silence was complete, except for the mechanical whine of the cicadas. After several moments Katis turned on Eleni angrily. “You didn’t have to use words to influence the women of this village,” he said. “By refusing to volunteer your daughters and by holding on to your son, you were defying and sabotaging the goals of the revolution. By sending them to the fascists, you betrayed us all.”