*
Sofia, Athens, 1944.
I raced down the backstreet and around into the foyer, almost tripping up the marble steps. After getting my hem trapped in the stage door, I was worried I would miss Mama’s opening number, and couldn’t bear that thought. This was the most precious day of my life and I could hardly breathe for excitement.
‘Wait!’ Big Yiannis, the chief usher, caught hold of my arm. ‘You can’t go in, Sofia. The lights have gone down, you know the rules.’ He reached into his pocket and gave me a barley sugar. He always had a sweet for me, and usually a smile as well. This time he seemed tense.
‘But my mama – I have to watch her sing, Mr Yianni. I have a seat with my family at the front.’
‘Sorry, child, you’ll have to sit this one out. Wait for the interval, and then you can go in.’ His attention was caught by a cavalcade of black cars, each with a little flag fluttering from the bonnet. As the vehicles drew up outside, Big Yiannis straightened and smoothed his green-and-gold uniform. Looking round at me, he tapped his cheek and laughed. ‘You’ve got—’
Before he could say more, a commanding voice at the entrance distracted him.
‘They’re here!’ the concierge cried.
Theatre staff hurriedly formed a line near the door, and Big Yiannis glanced over his shoulder.
‘Scoot! Get out of sight, Sofia!’
I didn’t need telling twice and ducked through to the auditorium. I would be in trouble with Big Yiannis later, but I couldn’t miss Mama’s big moment.
My plan to dash down the steps to the second row was scuppered when I found another usher blocking the aisle. As he started to turn, I dropped to my knees and crawled along the narrow gap behind the last seats.
A lot of coughing and whispering was going on, and several men clacked their komboloi. I wanted to tell them all to shut up and still their worry beads. Soon, Mama would come on stage, and she ought to have silence. Wedged in my dark corner, I prayed nobody would notice me.
A fire door near the orchestra pit opened, and silence fell. A shaft of light silhouetted the line of uniformed men as they entered. The audience rose to their feet as the orchestra struck up the British and then the Greek national anthems. I longed for that moment when the curtain rose. As soon as Mama appeared and everyone was focused on the stage, I would sneak down to my empty seat between Papa, Ignatius and Pavlos. I tried to pick them out in the audience, but then the door closed, and we were thrown into darkness.
*
Markos, Athens, 1944.
Helped by his comrades, Markos lowered himself into the cement sewer pipe. He hesitated, afraid. Unable to bend at the waist because of the fuse wires, he struggled to manoeuvre into a horizontal position.
Then they replaced the manhole cover and he was plunged into darkness.
His hands and knees sank into the sludge. The pipe was less than a metre in diameter, lined with lumpy moss. It touched his shoulders, creeping against his skin. A shudder ran through him. The rancid dankness stank like nothing on earth.
He waited for his comrades to tie the end of the fuse wire to the grid. Two clangs, metal against metal, told him it was done. His destination lay fifty metres away, directly under the first row of theatre seats. A ton of dynamite had been accumulated there over the past months, awaiting Markos and the detonation caps.
Light filtered down through the drain holes. Ahead, there was impenetrable darkness. He switched on his torch.
Brown slurry filled a third of the tunnel. Straining to keep his head above water, he moved onwards. The top of his head scraped along the dank detritus that clung to the overhead curve. A pair of tiny red eyes flashed in the torchlight, then they were gone.
Markos crawled forward, fighting the grey grip of claustrophobia. He was in the bowels of Athens – the hellhole of the city. Slimy blobs were touching his bare arms and slinking past in the black fluid. The eerie sounds, ghostly whispers – then nothing but rushing water somewhere far away – made him tremble with fear and revulsion.
A metre further on, and the air changed. Stagnant fumes burned his throat. Now he had to straighten, lie in the quagmire and roll over, careful to keep his face out of the slurry. Trapped, with panic rising, he reminded himself why he was doing this.
Markos remembered it only too well. His pride, to labour beside his father, shearing the sheep in a field just outside the city. They worked as a team. Papa pulled a ewe from the fold, sheared the belly, crotch and legs, and then passed it to Markos. The back was easier to clip, with less chance of a bad kick to his body, or an accidental snip through the sheep’s skin.
And then the foreman, pointing at the sky, shouted to Papa. ‘Spyridon, look!’
They both heard the plane, and looked up in time to see a British bomber drop its payload of bombs over the Athens suburbs. An area rumoured to be a communist enclave. An area packed with innocent families going about their daily lives, including his mother, his three sisters, and his newborn brother who hadn’t yet received his name.
They both stared in shock as dust mushrooms bloomed upwards after each explosion.
‘Isabella!’ Papa screamed.
He dropped the shears and sheep and ran full pelt towards home. By the time Markos caught up, his father was already tossing slabs of mortar aside as if they were paper. Their house, their home, reduced to nothing but rubble.
‘Isabella! Isabella!’ he cried.
Only five-year-old Marina showed any sign of life. She had been playing with her dolls under the table, as she so often did. Her little body hung limply, yet as Papa lifted her, she blinked at him and smiled. Then she was gone.
Markos forced himself to remember Papa’s tears. They ran into his beard the next day as he swung the skapáni, bringing it hard down into the earth with a cry of anguish, venting his anger and grief to dig the family grave.
Together, they had carried Mama’s body into the centre of the rectangular dig. How tenderly Papa had unbuttoned the front of her dress. He placed his dead, unnamed baby at her breast while muttering holy words between sobs. Then he straddled Mama’s body and fell to his knees. He moved his face over hers to meet her lifeless gaze. Smoothing her thick, dark hair, he whispered, ‘I’ll always love you, Isabella,’ his voice heavy and choked. Then he closed Mama’s eyes.
Markos had cried too. He could almost hear his mother’s whispered reply. I love you too, Spyridon. He longed to feel her arms around him again.
‘Pass me little Kiki,’ Papa whispered. He spread Mama’s arms wide, the way she often did to gather her children.
Markos lifted his two-year-old sister. She lay silent in her eternal sleep, featherweight, limp against his chest. He kissed her forehead, his grief heavier than he’d ever thought possible. He handed her over, and Papa placed her to rest, curled towards Mama’s heart, her head lying on her mother’s shoulder. Then Markos helped his father lay five-year-old Marina on Mama’s arm, next to her sister. He turned her head to face her mother and placed her little rag doll in her hand.
Poppy was eight years old, the double of her mother but with the determination of her father. She wanted to fly aeroplanes when she grew up. Everyone laughed and said she never would.
How right they were.
He imagined her now, flying on angel’s wings, looking down on him with a smile.
See, Markos, I told you I would fly . . .