The Thread (33 page)

‘See you tomorrow then,’ Elias said. ‘Give my regards to your parents.’

‘And mine to yours,’ said Dimitri.

Elias turned away and walked north towards the old town, slipping into one of the network of alleyways that would eventually get him to Irini Street.

Dimitri took a quiet street that ran parallel with the seafront. He saw no one. There was an unnerving deadness about the city. Ten minutes of brisk walking brought him to Niki Street. The size and grandeur of the house were even more impressive than he had remembered. He rang the bell and his heart began to beat furiously. Many such houses had been taken over by German officers and it suddenly dawned on him that he might be seconds away from arrest. He had not felt such fear in all those months in the mountains. Having had no communication with his parents for a long while, he had no idea at all who stood behind the door.

Before he had time to make a decision on whether or not to flee, he heard the heavy latch being pulled up, quite slowly, as though the person behind it was as nervous as Dimitri. When Pavlina saw who was standing on the doorstep, she clasped her hand across her mouth in shock.

‘
Panagia mou!
Dimitri!’ She was half-choked by surprise. ‘Come inside! Come inside!’

She pulled him into the hallway, stood back and looked at him with both pleasure and concern.

‘Look at you!’ she said crossing herself many times. ‘What have they done to you?’

It was not a question that needed answering. Dimitri knew that he looked gaunt and exhausted. He had caught sight of himself in the hallway mirror, the first he had seen in many months. He was not really sure who Pavlina meant by ‘they’. Some kind of enemy, presumably. The Germans? Other Greeks?

‘Your mother will be so pleased to see you! She is upstairs.’

‘And my father?’

‘Still at the showroom, I expect.’

Dimitri took the stairs three at a time, stopped for a moment at the top and knocked timidly on the drawing room door. Without waiting for an answer he walked in. Olga did not look up from her reading, presuming it was Pavlina coming in with her tea.

‘Mother. It’s me.’

Dropping her book, Olga got up and found herself locked in her son’s embrace.

‘Dimitri …’

There were no words, just tears, unashamedly wept by both of them. Eventually, she stood back in order to look at her son.

‘I can’t believe it’s you. I’ve been so worried. I thought I might never see you again! We haven’t had a word from you! Not for over a year …’ Tears continued to flow down her cheeks.

‘I couldn’t get a letter to you. It wasn’t possible. I am so sorry, Mother, I really am.’

‘I’m just so happy to see you …’

They continued to embrace for some minutes. Eventually, Olga became calmer and mopped her face. She wanted to enjoy the moment of her son’s return.

‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Tell me everything. Tell me what you have been doing. Tell me where you’ve been!’

They sat side by side on the chaise longue.

‘Look, there’s something you need to understand,’ Dimitri said seriously. ‘Something really important I must tell you now.’

‘But can’t it wait,
agapi mou
? Your father will be back later,’ she said dutifully. ‘And surely now you’re home, there’ll be plenty of time,’ she smiled.

‘That’s the thing, Mother, I don’t have plenty of time.’

‘What do you mean, darling?’ she said, her voice full of disappointment. ‘You’ve only just got here. And the war is over now.’

‘Oh,
mana mou
, you know that’s not true,’ he responded gently. ‘The war is far from over.’

‘As far as your father is concerned, it is.’

‘Well, that might be where we differ. The fight continues. Thousands of us haven’t given up. The Germans and Italians are still our enemies and while they remain on our soil, we will keep attacking them.’

Olga looked at her son with a mixture of love and pure dismay. He had been brought back to her and yet she could sense he was about to be taken away once again.

‘And who are “we”?’ Olga asked.

‘ELAS,’ he replied.

‘ELAS?’ she repeated in a whisper. ‘You’ve joined the Communists?’

‘I have joined the organisation that is putting up a fight against the Germans,’ he answered defensively.

‘Oh,’ she said, going visibly pale.

‘We’re fighting for people who are not able to defend themselves, Mother,’ he continued.

Then she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. Neither of them had noticed the slight breeze of the opening door.

‘Konstantinos!’ she exclaimed, surprised to see him back so early. ‘Look! Look who’s come home!’

Dimitri got up, and father and son faced each other. Dimitri was the first to speak.

‘I’m back.’ He could think of nothing else to say.

Konstantinos cleared his throat. The tension was palpable. Dimitri could already feel his father’s simmering anger. In spite of his time away, nothing seemed to have changed and he knew that the conversation would now take a polite course before the inevitable explosion.

‘Yes, so I see. And where have you been?’

Komninos’ tone of voice was the one that you might use when someone had returned after a week of absence. Dimitri had been away for eighty-four weeks and four days precisely. Olga had counted.

‘In the mountains, mostly,’ Dimitri answered with honesty.

‘We were expecting you back some months ago … the war finished last April,’ he said in a clipped tone. ‘You could have let us know where you were.’

‘I explained to Mother that it wasn’t possible to send any mail,’ he answered in his own defence.

‘So what exactly have you been doing in the mountains?’

His father’s questions were both persistent and disingenuous. Olga had already deduced that her husband had been in the room before they noticed him.

Dimitri looked down at the floor. He saw his boots, white with dust, their cracked leather almost split to reveal his feet. They had taken him an incalculable number of kilometres. His eyes strayed to his father’s pristine brogues, so shiny they reflected the pattern of the rug on which both men stood.

He was proud of how he had spent the past months since he had joined ELAS.

‘Olga. Please would you leave the room now.’

Dimitri had spent many nights half frozen to death in mountain caves, watching icicles form on the ceiling, but nothing had chilled him as much as his father’s voice at this moment.

It froze Olga’s heart too. She left the room and retreated to her bedroom, fearful for her son.

Dimitri remained standing. He was the same height as his father, to the millimetre, and tonight he wanted to look him in the eye. He inwardly castigated himself for feeling such fear. After some of the situations he had faced during his time as a soldier, it was absurd to find himself trembling. And yet he could feel his heart almost bursting through the walls of his chest.

As soon as Olga had left the room, Konstantinos spoke again.

‘You are a disgrace to this family,’ he said calmly. ‘I overheard what you told your mother. When I have said what I wish to say, you will leave this house. And for as long as you are still fighting with ELAS you will not return. No one with such beliefs is entitled to be a son of mine.
No one with such beliefs
is permitted within these four walls. You are to go straight from this room and out of this house. I don’t care where you go as long as it is out of this city.’

Konstantinos’ voice rose ever higher as he spoke. Dimitri looked blankly at him. There was no more he wished to say to this man with whom he shared nothing but a name.

‘If I did not want to bring this family’s name into disrepute, I would report you this very minute to the authorities.’

Komninos wanted a response from his son and left a moment’s pause. His son’s silence infuriated him.

‘Why don’t you see sense, Dimitri, and admit that fighting is not the way forward for this country?’

‘And what is the future?’ Dimitri finally responded. ‘
Collaboration
.’

There were no raised voices in this encounter between father and son, but the suppressed anger was palpable. Konstantinos Komninos had the final word.

‘Get out of my sight, Dimitri,’ he said.

Walking past the closed door of his mother’s room, Dimitri felt a terrible grief. How could his mother, whom he loved so much and missed each day, be married to this monstrous ego, this Fascist? With this question and the terrible guilt at the sadness he must be causing her, he went slowly down the stairs. Pavlina was standing in the hallway.

‘Goodbye,’ he said, kissing her. ‘Say sorry to my mother …’

Before she had time to tell him that dinner was nearly ready, he was gone. She touched her cheek and realised that it was wet with tears that were not her own.

Once in the street, Dimitri was not sure what to do. He was not scheduled to meet up with Elias again until the next day, but there was only one place where he would feel safe. Irini Street.

He was there in twenty minutes, nervously ducking in and out of doorways, carefully avoiding the attention of the gendarmes. Irini Street was quiet, apart from two women sitting outside at the top of the street. Pushing aside the curtain that hung in the doorway, Dimitri slipped into the Morenos’ house. Although it was dusk, it was even darker inside than it was in the street.

‘Dimitri!’

It was a familiar voice. After a moment, his eyes became accustomed to the darkness and he could make out the silhouettes of four people sitting around the table. They all rose from their seats and came towards him.

‘Dimitri! What are you doing here?’ Elias asked.

‘But what a nice surprise,’ said Saul Moreno. ‘We’re so happy to see you!’

‘Come! Come and sit down. You must eat! You must eat!’

Roza Moreno was guiding him towards the table where Isaac had already pulled up another chair.

Soon he was eating. It was the first wholesome meal he had eaten in many, many months. The normality of it was joyful.

‘So, tell me. Did you see your father?’ asked Elias.

‘Yes,’ said Dimitri, his mouth full. ‘I should have known what he would be like.’

The whole family understood without needing any more information. There was a pause.

‘So tell us. Tell us everything,’ Saul Moreno urged. ‘We want to know everything.’

Kyria Moreno went tirelessly to and fro keeping their plates filled with her special
quieftes
and
fijón
and their minds with questions. Until the early hours of the morning, the two weary men told them where they had been, of their campaigns, of their encounters, of how Dimitri had stitched wounds, applied tourniquets and learned how to extract shrapnel from wounds. Kyria Moreno wanted details of what they had eaten and she was shocked at their answers.

Dimitri and Elias not only talked, they also listened and asked questions. There had also been huge changes in the Morenos’ lives in the past eighteen months. What was it like to live in an occupied city? How did the Germans behave? How were they treating the Jews?

Kyria Moreno painted a positive picture of it all, but Isaac was more honest.

‘We have to sew suits for Germans,’ he said sulkily. ‘We would like to put razor blades into the seams, but that would be bad for business.’

‘But we’ve been so fortunate,’ said Saul. ‘So many Jewish businesses have been taken away. At least we still have ours. And believe me, we’re busier than ever.’

‘But not with the business we would like to have …’

‘Isaac!’ said his father. ‘Please stop. People died of starvation in this city last winter. Did we ever go hungry?’

‘Let’s not argue,’ said Kyria Moreno, who was thrilled to see her youngest son and did not want this brief family reunion to be blighted by angry words.

‘Mother’s right, Isaac,’ said Elias. ‘We have so little time to together.’

Kyria Moreno went to the sink and began to wash the stack of plates. Saul Moreno went upstairs, to sleep under the sacred quilt. As his mother clattered crockery at the sink, Elias had the chance to ask his older brother a question.

‘Look, we’re leaving again tomorrow. Why don’t you come with us?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘We’ve lost a few men in our unit, and we could do with some more.’

‘No more making suits for the Hun,’ whispered Dimitri, encouragingly.

Isaac looked from one to the other. ‘Let me sleep on it,’ he replied.

Kyria Moreno looked over her shoulder. She saw her two sons and Dimitri leaning forward, heads almost touching. They looked as though they were engaged in some kind of conspiracy.

‘Boys,’ she said, smiling, ‘don’t you think it’s time for bed?’

‘Yes,’ her sons said, in unison, and laughed.

‘Elias, why don’t you stay a little longer?’ she asked. ‘It’s so wonderful having you back. And Dimitri can stay as long as he likes too.’

‘We wish we could, Mother. But we only have seven days’ leave, and it took us four of them to get here …’

That night Dimitri slept soundly on the stone-built couch in the living room. A bed had never felt softer and he was soon enveloped in vivid dreams that kept him asleep until well after twelve the following day. He then had a thorough wash outside in the courtyard, scrubbing the ingrained dirt from around his neck and bathing the sores that had been left by lice. Kyria Moreno had left fresh, clean clothes for him (he was exactly the same size as Elias) and the slightly starched cotton rustled as he put it on, its coolness soothing his skin. Standing in these laundered clothes, he felt reborn.

Elias had left a note for Dimitri on the table. He would be back at the end of the afternoon, in good time for them to leave for their return journey, but meanwhile had gone to the workshop to try to persuade Isaac to join them.

Dimitri felt a stab of jealousy. He could not pretend to himself that it was anything else: Elias would see Katerina.

In the past months, he had tried not to think of her. There had seemed little point. Up in the mountains, away from everything that was civilised and kind, it had seemed almost wrong to carry his thoughts of her, but now that he knew where Elias was, he wanted to run to the workshop himself.