Sons of Thunder (28 page)

CHAPTER 21

Nights like this one, with the sky so black it poured through her and shook her to her bones, Sofia Frangos despised the day she’d moved to America.

Learned English.

Then returned to Zante with a skill the Greek resistance needed to communicate with the English OSS, their suppliers.

She leaned against the sea-washed stone wall of the fishery where, inside, Nikos copied the letters of the English phrase spelled out by Morse code. A phrase they would decipher using the phrase code—and then bring to her to translate.

It was bad enough that they required her to gobble up and pass on the tidbits of information dropped by the SS officers who ate at the taverna. She didn’t count the colonel—especially since that was more about keeping Dino alive and safe than helping her countrymen escape the grip of the Nazis.

No thank you, this was the last time she stayed out past curfew to decipher a message. She didn’t care how many German transports were leaving, when, or how.

Okay, that wasn’t true. She could still feel the hungry eyes of the German officers on her, their gazes dogging her into the kitchen, their conversations feasting upon her as she cooked their suppers.

And the partisans she worked with didn’t bother to hide their own ravenous appraisals. Apparently, she wore some sort of brand on her head.

She pressed her finger against the bruise on her upper arm, despising the memory of Colonel Kessler’s touch. The more she did to push the Germans out of her country, the faster she and Dino might move away, perhaps start a new life. A life outside the landscape of shame.

The wind scraped from the wooden dock the briny odor of fish and seaweed, rustled the grove of calamus reeds along the shore. She pulled her knitted sweater tighter over her thin cotton dress, the air having turned cool with the desertion of the sun. Gooseflesh raised on her arms. Somewhere in the darkness, waves knocked against the bright red hulls of fishing boats tied up at the long piers in the bay. Farther out, the beady lights of a German transport peered into the starless night.

A spotlight sliced through the night from the hilltop overlooking the city, sliding over the faraway cliffs, the blue cupolas of the Greek Orthodox churches, the tall bell tower, the whitewashed homes that flowed up the mountainside, between whitewashed Cyprus, and willows, aspen, and poplar. What had been a village exploded into a small city over her ten-year absence, and she’d donned a black scarf and slipped back into her life, her scars folded neatly inside.

Now she pressed herself against the building, even as footsteps shuffled toward her.

“Sofia?”

She bristled, slipping into the shelter of the building. Nikos shoved a piece of paper into her hand. She scanned it with a penlight as she translated in her head. “They’re sending in more supplies. And an agent. Meet at the drop zone tomorrow night to the north of the Blue Cave.” She shoved the message back at Nikos.

“An agent? British?”

“They didn’t say.” She peered past him, down the boardwalk, her heartbeat swishing in her ears.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, Nikos. Can I go?” She didn’t mean the tone, but Dino needed his—

His hand on hers stilled her shaking. “Sofia, this war is going to be over some day, and we’ll remember who helped us. Long after this war is over, we’ll remember. I promise.”

Perhaps he meant it. She glanced at him—the dark panes of his face, the earnest eyes. So young to live his life on the sharp edge of risk. His zeal reminded her of a young man who’d too quickly despised his life. A blade of pain made her edge away from him. “Thank you, Nikos. May God allow us all to live that long.”

She slipped out, kept her feet light on the boardwalk, a whisper against the tumult of waves, and a faraway melody, probably from some taverna catering to a cadre of Germans.

Rules, apparently, didn’t apply to the enemy.

She would label the taverna where she worked more of a café than a rousing eatery. Ava Stavros didn’t have the manpower—or supplies—for more than a few offerings—egg sandwiches, eggplant salads, grilled octopus. But the German officers loved to drive their bare feet into the sand, to watch the dark Greek children splashing in the waves just beyond the portico, to tuck fresh basil behind their ears, twine together the white oleander that grew nearly from the rocks that spilled toward the sea.

One might think the invaders considered themselves on vacation.

Gathering up her skirt, she cut between two whitewashed stone homes, scuttling along the road toward the olive grove overlooking Zante. If she didn’t return soon, Dino might cry.

Then the colonel would note her absence, make her answer his too-probing questions.
Please, Zoë, be there.
Zoë would hold Dino to her breast, sing to him. Zoë herself found a new birth when Dr. Alexio caught Dino from Sofia’s body.

Her feet scattered pebbles against the stones. She stilled as they sprinkled out before her. Down the street, light trickled out from the overhang of a taverna, three Germans silhouetted, their laughter raucous as they raised glasses of Ouzo. Shrinking back, she swallowed around her heart in her throat.

Last time she’d been caught out past curfew, she’d had to appear before the new magistrate. Lucien’s father had been just as cruel as she remembered, his years mourning Kostas sharpening his grief, turning his power dangerous. His sour threats rang in her ears as she pushed against her stomach.

Please.

She shuffled forward—

A hand pressed against her mouth.

Her scream caught in her throat. Then an arm dragged across her and clamped her tight, pinning her back against a hard body. A voice rasped into her ear. “Hush, Sofia.”

She curled her hands up over his arms, sinewy from so many years working his nets, and shook her mouth free from his grip. “Lucien!”

“Shh.” He shuffled her back, into the courtyard of a darkened home, under the archway of too-fragrant bougainvilleas, pushing her into the alcove and bracing one hand over her shoulder.

Voices, raucous laughter drifted down the street—louder until footsteps marched by. She held her breath, her heart lodged in her ribs.

In the dim light of the doorway, she made out a scar in the wood,
a lighter rectangle pierced with two holes. She ran her finger over the mark of the mezuzah. “A Jewish family lived here.”

“Jewish families lived all over the city.
Shh
, the soldiers are almost gone.”

She pressed her hand on the mark, remembering the day the SS had demanded the list of the Jews in Zante from the mayor. He and the local orthodox bishop had heroically appeared in the square the next morning, only two names on their roster—the mayor’s and the bishop’s.

No wonder Lucien’s father so quickly cooperated when he gobbled up the new position.

Truthfully, overnight, the Jews of Zante had vanished. They now lived in cellars and barns and secret rooms all over the island.

But not at her house.

Still, they’d left little black holes all over the city, darkened, vacant houses, shops left to decay in the salty wind. She missed Sarai Avramidis and her friend Ruth Ann Mizrahi, granddaughter of Dr. Alexio, The way they’d hovered around the taverna, watching her weave wedding bread and playing with baby Dino on the floor, reminded her of herself during her school-age years. She’d heard rumors of Ruth Ann’s brother and father being drafted into the Greek army during Italy’s invasion.

Too much war. It never ended.

“They’re gone.”

She turned under the umbrella of his arm and didn’t need light to trace his face, to see the dark, tousled hair, the bristle of whiskers across his leathery skin. The hooded, almost black eyes that seemed ever watching, ever weighing. Lucien Pappos had turned into a rebel, a soldier, a hometown hero.

Probably only she truly remembered the scamp he’d left behind.

“You need to be more careful.” His breath reeked of lamb and garlic. Beer.

Someone had been visiting his father’s home tonight. The perks of politics—food. “Did you see the colonel?”

“He’s still drinking with my father. You’ll be home long before he will. I doubt he even makes it back by morning.”

She could almost make out Lucien’s smile, a wink. “Did you drug him….again?”

He caught a tendril of her long hair, pushed it behind her ear. “I didn’t want you getting caught. I knew you had a late message. What did it say?”

She met his hand, pulled it away, despite the warmth in it. “There is a shipment tomorrow. And an agent coming in. I gave the information to Nikos.”

Voices, then footsteps, and Lucien secreted her farther into the alcove, his black coat like the night over her own white blouse, even though she’d covered it with a shawl. He smelled of the sea, salty and wind-whipped, his skin weathered from the sun. Oh. It reminded her too much of—

“I think they’re gone.” Only, Lucien didn’t move away. Instead, he caught her chin with his hand. “I will see you home.”

“Lucien—”

But he touched his lips, whisper soft, against hers.

She should feel something sweet under his caress. Instead, her stomach burned, a very real ache that never quite vanished, flaring to life. “Lucien, you know I can’t…”

“Won’t.” He ran a rough thumb down her face. “Won’t. At least not for me…”

“That’s not fair.”

“Life isn’t fair. C’mon.” He turned and found her hand in the darkness. Then he pulled her through the courtyard, into the street, along the buildings, through the shadows, almost as if he’d planned the route that led her through the village and up into the olive grove overlooking Zante.

They ducked against a gnarled olive tree on the far edge of Zoë’s property as the searchlight trickled across the grounds, then back across the scape of the city.

“I can find my way from here,” Sofia said.

Lucien kneeled beside her, her hand still locked in his. He said nothing, his breath coming long and thick. Finally— “I could keep you safe, Sofia. You and Dino. You know I have connections. You don’t have to—”

“Shh.” She pressed her hand to his mouth, and he looked up at her. If only he didn’t remind her— “I made my choices. Besides, you don’t want to be with me, Lucien. I will only hurt you.”

His jaw tightened.

She found something sweet, flavored it into her voice. “I’ll see you tomorrow. At the taverna. Bring me some
bacalliaro
.”

He shook his head. “I’ll see you to the villa.”

She didn’t argue—he had the will of a Greek—and let him direct her through the olive grove, between the trees bent like arthritic fingers, the silvery flash of leaves under a ghost of moonlight. They caught their breath, hiding from the searchlight beside the stone wall, then he secreted her up to her house. No light from the second-story window suggested he’d been correct—no colonel tonight. Next to it, from her window, curtains blew out into the night.

She unlatched the front door, stepped onto the stone landing.

“I’d do anything for you, Sofia,” Lucien said. He kissed her hand. “Anything.”

“Be safe,” she said softly, as she slipped into the house.

The whitewashed walls seemed to have collected the light of the day, even as the moonlight dipped into the windows, splashed on the stone floors. She noticed fresh oranges in the bowl—the tree over the house must be in fruit.

Nothing but darkness streamed from Ava’s door on the main floor. She fooled herself into believing that Ava was ignorant of her activities, but the middle-aged woman never let on. Indeed, Sofia depended on her steady calm, her strong hands keeping the taverna running to keep her looking forward into hope. No, Ava might be nearing sixty, but she had the strength of her sons in her robust frame, and the wisdom of a woman who understood sacrifice. She could scare a drunken man speechless with a look, yet hold little Dino as if he might be her own child.

Or grandchild.

She climbed the stairs, breathing a full breath at the colonel’s dark room, then eased her own door open.

Zoë sat in the soft glow of light, knitting, her rocking chair creaking, the wind chasing the curtains behind her. She seemed older than her years, her face framed in a black headscarf, as if she might still be in mourning.

Her Bible lay open on her lap. “He asked for you.” She glanced at the child asleep in the wrought-iron double bed in the corner.

Sofia slipped off her sandals, dropped her shawl onto a chair. Pulled off her own headscarf, working her fingers into her hair. The sea air tangled it, turned it sticky, and she longed for a brush. Not tonight. She let out another long breath.

“Did he eat?”

“An orange and fried egg. And some goat’s milk.”

“Perhaps we will have fish tomorrow.” She should probably clean up, wash the stress from her body, but she let herself sink onto the bed first, run her fingers across his tiny, soft cheek. She combed his inky hair from his face, his lips parted as if ready to say something. His tiny fingers curled around a sock she’d stuffed, drawn a face on, and turned into a monkey.

“You’re late,” Zoë finally said. She ran a finger under her eye. “One of these days—”