Read Online Fugitive pieces by Anne Michaels - Free Book Online Page B

hands through his long white hair. He leaned across the low table towards Athos.
    “On the day the last German left the city, the streets were jammed, Syntagma was packed, the bells rang. Then, right in the middle of the celebrations, the communists began to shout slogans. I swear to you, Athos, the crowd went silent. Everyone sobered up in a second. The next day, Theotokas said: ‘It only needs a match for Athens to catch fire like a tank of petrol. ‘ “
    “The American boys brought food and clothing, but the communists stole the crates from the warehouses in Piraeus. There’s been so much wrong from both sides. Whoever has power for a minute commits a crime.”
    “They hunted down bourgeoisie in their beds and shot them. They took away the shoes of democrats and marched them barefoot into the hills until they died. Andartes and Englezakia had fought side by side in the mountains only a few weeks before. Now they were shooting at each other across the city. How could it be, our brave andartiko who blew up bridges and were runners for the resistance across the mountains, who disappeared in one place and reappeared in another, a hundred miles away—”
    “Like a needle and thread across fabric.”
    “On Zakynthos a communist turned in his own brother, an old man, because once ten years ago he happened to raise his glass to the king¡ The communists are our sons, they know everyone’s affairs just as well as they know the paths through the valleys, the mountain passes, every grove and gorge.”
    “Violence is like malaria.”
    “It’s a virus.”
    “We caught it from the Germans.”
    … By the time Mones and I started to walk home it was misty and drizzling and our wool socks were soaked through and our feet were cold as the fish in the Nemen. Our boots were heavy with mud. Each house was connected to heaven by a rope of smoke. We would be best friends forever. We would open a bookshop together and let Mones’s mother mind the store when we went to the movies. We would have plumbing in our houses and electricity in every room. My hands were cold and my back was cold because of the rain and because it was far and I was sweating too under my coat. Broken fences, sagging roads with deep wagon ruts. The tops of our socks hardened into casts. But we didn’t want to get home too quickly. We stood a long time at Mones’s wooden gate. We would be pious like our fathers. We would marry the Gotkin sisters and share a summer house at Lasosna. We’d row through the inlets there and teach our wives to swim….
    “Daphne’s cousins, Thanos and Yiorgios, and hundreds of others, anyone they thought was well off before the war, were rounded up by the communists in Kolonaki Square.”
    … At Mones’s gate we shook hands like men. Under his cap Mones’s hair was plastered to his head. We were soaked through but would’ve talked longer if it wasn’t dinner time. Together we’ll visit Crinik and Bialystok and even Warsaw¡ Our first sons will be born the same year¡ We’ll never forget these promises to each other….
    “Daphne went out to try to buy some sugar, a treat for my birthday. Instead she found Aleko with three others hanging from the acacias at Kyriakon….”

    The first morning at Daphne and Kostas’s, I was embarrassed to eat breakfast with strangers. Everyone came to the table fully clothed. However, in the days to follow, Kostas appeared less and less dressed, first without a tie, then wearing slippers, finally in his dressing gown with a belt that had tassels at the end. Athos and Kostas sat at the table each with half the newspaper, reading aloud to each other. Daphne prepared eggs with chives and thyme. She was happy to be cooking for two men and a boy, though the food shortages required inventiveness. Athos complimented Daphne’s cooking at every meal. The luxury of their affection brought feeling to me, my hair tousled by a passing hand, the squeeze of Daphne’s spontaneous embrace. Daphne