War Games (9 page)

He went back to the kitchen for the key to the padlock on the gate, then unwound the chain. The sun was coming up as he crossed the road, heading to Elia’s. Behind him, Old Mario’s door creaked open.

Petros tossed a pebble at Elia’s window to rouse him. When Elia looked out, Petros beckoned and crept away again, to wait for him at the road. A truck passed, filled with soldiers.

Elia came out his back door.

“We must pick as many of the mulberries as we can,” Petros said, “and we must keep our hands clean.”

Elia nodded, catching on. He said, “Use the mulberry leaves like a potholder, pick the fruit, and drop it into the bucket without touching it.”

Soon the smell of coffee wafted on the air, making their bellies grumble. Old Mario crossed the yard to feed the goats. Fifi got loose and trotted over to stand below the tree. The boys picked a bucketful of berries before their mamas began to wonder where they were.

Only a bucketful, because the leaves made them clumsy. Even without trying, they dropped enough berries to keep Fifi contented. She ate a leaf as happily as a berry. The only trouble
came when Petros had to put her back into the pen, and then tie the rope to her collar once more. He got many bites.

Going into the kitchen, he heard Mama say, “He treats that animal like a dog.”

“A good farmer keeps his animals content,” Papa said as he dipped a crust of bread into his coffee. Petros let his chest swell just the littlest bit. He did keep Fifi content.

German troop trucks rumbled past the house while the family was still at breakfast. The family hurried to the front windows.

“Men and supplies,” Papa said. Officers rode between some of the trucks in jeeps. Everyone drew a breath in relief whenever a jeep didn’t stop at their gate. Then came the realization: the German army had come to Amphissa. Petros glanced at Zola, who pulled a wadded note out of his pocket to show Petros, shoved it back down.

“Some of these trucks must be going straight through,” Papa said.

“Through to where?” This was Sophie.

Papa said, “Perhaps to the railroad. Or to follow the coast around to the Corinth Canal. To get to Crete.”

Papa and Old Mario agreed the commander would settle his men in the village before they’d see him. They still had their house to themselves and were free to speak as they pleased. Yet they lowered their voices to speak of the commander.

They stopped counting the trucks that passed by. It was more like they’d decided not to look.

During the day, people came to the gate to sell things. Villagers, leaving Amphissa for any place more hospitable than their home had just become. Papa said the boys weren’t to open the gate.

Mama was lucky to buy a pair of shoes for Zola, who’d outgrown his work boots. This pair had been worn but didn’t have any holes. The shoes were taken out of a feed sack, and money stuffed to fill it.

Mostly Mama shook her head—she wanted nothing but shoes, even if they were too big for Zola right then. No one was making shoes. But she often gave away a cabbage and a couple of potatoes, because she didn’t like people to go empty-handed.

Only a day later, it became more difficult. People didn’t want money. They needed eggs and cheese. They were glad to get bread. It was widely agreed the Basilis sisters were selling cardboard disguised as bread. For a pair of boots for Papa, worn and very dirty, Mama gave up a young chicken and felt she’d made an even trade.

Papa looked at the boots and said, “I hope it was an old chicken.”

“These boots will last longer than the chicken,” she said back to Papa. “They just aren’t as pretty.”

Papa and Old Mario strung goat bells on a rope all along the top of the rock wall. The wall was shoulder-high to Papa, but a man could climb over it. Now one touch on the rope set the whole place to ringing.

The next afternoon, Petros, Elia, and Stavros worked again as a team. Right away, they saw how much the village was changed.

There were only a few Germans to be seen, sitting in trucks or standing in the school building doorways. But the village was in hiding. Old men didn’t sit in their gardens. Gates were closed, shutters pulled tight at windows.

Petros, Elia, and Stavros threw the sand ball as before, dropping notes into boots left at the edge of the garden, the chair beside a door, a window box. They scrambled up and down a short flight of steps and dropped a note into a flowerpot. Their voices rang shrill with nerves.

Twice Elia missed the ball, throwing off the rhythm. The first time the game halted for a split second, as Petros stopped cold in shock. Then Stavros laughed in a loud jeering way. Elia jeered back.

They looked like they were fighting among themselves. If they drew any attention, none of it would be curiosity. Petros wished Zola had seen how quickly Stavros saved the moment.
And how quickly Elia understood. He threw the ball to Petros and the game went on.

Only one message was left on a gravel walk as if the paper had fallen out of their pockets. This was when Stavros ran around a corner and nearly slammed into a German soldier.

Stavros halted just in time but remained there, stock-still, head down. Petros and Elia stopped too, panting from the running, uncertain what to do. This soldier looked young, but hardened somehow. The Italians were rowdy in comparison, either joking or full of temper.

It was then Petros realized there were no Italians on the streets. Not a single one. The Italians were on the German side in this war. Where had those soldiers gone?

Stavros stepped back, still looking at the ground, so the soldier could walk on. When he did, Stavros walked a few steps away from the young soldier before he skipped a step or two. Petros saw the note drop.

Stavros ran on as if this foolish bravery didn’t risk all their lives.

Petros wanted to hit him but he also enjoyed his cousin’s foolish courage. Love and pride ran fast through veins, faster by far than blood, Petros discovered, laughing with the thrill of it.

“Ya ha rah,” Stavros shouted, his voice strong and deep. Petros threw him the sand ball.

Stavros caught it and tossed it to Elia, who didn’t miss as Petros flicked a note through the iron fencing of a garden. An
old man stepped out from his veranda, giving Petros a fright. It could just as easily have been a soldier he hadn’t noticed.

The old man bent at the waist to put his cigarette out. Petros thought he grabbed the note as he straightened up. Zola was right, he realized. People had taken notice of these messages. But he pushed the thought away, catching the sand ball and tossing it to Stavros.

When they were done, and sitting on a curbstone like boys who’d grown tired of a game, Petros said to Stavros in a low voice, “Where are the Italians?”

“Gone,” Stavros said. “The Germans sent them away. All in one night. They were gone by morning. I saw it.”

Elia said, “Papa heard a rumor the Germans killed them. Shot them dead in the road.”

Stavros nodded.

Petros said, “That can’t be true. The Germans and the Italians are on the same side.”

Stavros said, “I asked my grandmother what she thought of this. She told me that in a fight with the Italians, there are rumors. In a fight with the Germans, there are only losses.”

Petros and Elia both sat back slightly. Petros felt a chill between his shoulder blades—this was why
he
sat back.

Stavros shrugged. “She’s only an old grandmother talking.”

The boys sat silent. That Stavros would attempt to make less of Auntie’s opinion gave that much more weight to it. Together they watched the women hurrying through the marketplace, carrying eggs or tomatoes in boxes, or chickens in cages.

Some old women were bent double with the weight of their produce. None of them smiled or talked to each other as they had done when the Italian soldiers were here.

“We weren’t so afraid of the Italians,” Stavros said. “Their eyes told us always where we stood. That one’s eyes told me nothing.”

Petros didn’t need to ask whom Stavros meant by
that one
. It was very unlike Stavros to say he’d been frightened, even for a heartbeat.

When Petros got home, he found Zola weeding near the gate so he could stop there, away from everyone else. “It was different this time,” Petros said, crushing a weed under his shoe.

“Different?”

“The Italians are gone.”

Zola didn’t look impressed. “So it’s the Germans instead.”

“They’re our enemy.”

“We’re at war.”

“Differently,” Petros said. “They didn’t stop us, but they didn’t smile at the game either. These soldiers talk to no one but among themselves.”

Zola said nothing. Petros left him there, but later, in their room, he said, “I think you were wise to send this message out now. But when the commander comes—”

“We’ll use our wits,” Zola said.

The words Petros needed hadn’t come to him. “This is serious business we’re up to,” he said.

“We must do our part,” Zola whispered. “This is for the war effort.”

“Those are only words you’ve heard on the radio,” Petros said. “Papa’s put the radio in the cellar. Perhaps we should stop.”

“Stop what?” Papa said, stepping inside their room. The room got so quiet Petros thought Papa was the only one still breathing.

“Talking about the radio,” Zola said in a way that nearly fooled Petros into believing him.

“The Germans are here,” Papa said, looking hard at Zola. “Ours is the only battle that matters now.”

Zola said, “Yes, Papa.”

Papa went on down the hall to his bedroom. Petros steeled himself for the sneering look he expected from Zola, a look that meant little brothers were as easily frightened as mice. But in Zola’s eyes there was only determination.

“History is being made all around us,” Zola said in a whisper because they didn’t hear Papa’s door close. “Don’t you want to be part of history?”

“I want to be part of the future.”

“That too,” Zola said. “What good is history if you aren’t around to enjoy it?”

“Exactly,” Petros said. “We must remember the danger.”

“That you must,” Zola said, and then he grinned. “Papa will kill us if you get caught.”

“He’ll kill you first,” Petros said, “because you’re older and should know better.”

The next morning, Mama sent Petros out to pick the zucchini. He didn’t like to do it. These plants spread their stems like the arms on an octopus, and the prickly vines made itchy work for him. But he was there to see Papa and Elia’s father going down the road toward the village.

Elia came across the road. “Your father offered to trade your farm for ours.”

“That wouldn’t be fair,” Petros said, and then looked away when Elia’s face flushed red.

He didn’t mean to hurt Elia, but it was true. The Lemos family’s farm, while a fine one, was small. Their mules wouldn’t be employed for enough weeks to make it pay to feed them if Papa didn’t lease them several times a year to plow his fields.

“They want the commander to stay here because your farm has plenty of vegetables in the garden,” Elia said.

“You have lots of vegetables,” Petros said. He regretted saying the Lemos farm was small. He wished his brother had remained near enough to weigh in on this matter. Behind
Elia, so far off they swam in a sea of green, Zola moved alongside Old Mario in the wheat field.

Elia wore a small mean look on his face. “You have the bigger parlor. That’s what my mother said. He’ll sleep in your parlor.”

Petros sensed a distance opening up between them. He’d known Elia his whole life without knowing this feeling. He got the oddest sort of ache around his heart. “Papa wouldn’t trade this farm.”

“Your father wants you and Zola and Sophie to be safe. But my grandfather said no one will be safe with him there.”

Him. The commander, of course. A figure more terrifying in Petros’s imagination day by day. “We didn’t invite him.”

“Mama says we’ll be safe,” Elia said. “We have nothing to hide.”

This had the awful ring of truth. Elia’s family had no Americans and no soldiers. Elia’s father buried their gun and anything else they were afraid to lose, but not every book or plate they had with an English name on it. His family spoke only Greek because Greek was their only language. It struck Petros suddenly that Elia was taking a great chance with his family’s safety.

Stavros’s family had the difficulty of protecting Lambros, and Petros’s family had the danger of being Americans, but Elia’s family had nothing that put them at risk.

Except Elia.

And Petros and Zola, who had involved him in a dangerous game.

“Your father said the trade would stand when the war was over,” Elia said. “My father was for it, but my grandfather said no. He didn’t want to live with a high officer of the German army. Not even to own a farm twice the size.”

Elia spoke as if he hadn’t been angry moments ago. As if this were simply a matter of interest to both of them. Petros and Elia had always been close. Most of the time Petros preferred the prick of Elia’s quick hurtful words to the burn of Stavros’s long-held grudges.

But with the other boys, even Stavros, Petros had always been made to feel a little apart. It was hard to forgive Elia for making him feel that way now, even for a few minutes.

Petros carried the basket of zucchini past him. “I have to feed the chickens,” he said. This wasn’t strictly true, but chickens could always eat, and he didn’t want to talk to Elia anymore.

Elia said, “We could walk into the village and get Stavros’s thinking on all of this.”

“All that way to ask Stavros what he thinks?” Petros said. “Ask your mule—it’s a shorter walk.”

Petros left the basket on the kitchen doorstep. He wanted to avoid Mama, who’d know that Papa had tried to trade the farm. He stopped in the shed and dumped a little feed into the bucket for the chickens. When he came out, he was careful to latch the door again.

He saw Elia heading home. Petros didn’t feel good about comparing Stavros to a mule, but he felt worse for the fight with Elia. He wished it hadn’t happened, but still, he was glad he’d thought
of something
to say in return.