Free Orthokostá by Thanassis Valtinos

upstairs. There was a man there, he spoke Greek. He starts asking me who is this one and who is that one. Wanted information. He says, You took part in a play for the rebels. I say, Yes, I did. What could I do. And I’ll take part in a play for you too if you ask me to. Whatever it takes. And his answer to me was: Do you have a friend? I say, I have lots of friends. Kóstas Dránias, Chrístos Haloúlos. They’re in the Battalions, they’re our friends. Listen, says the German, I didn’t mean that kind of friend. We’re asking you if you’re in a relationship with a man. I say, I’m not. He says, We’re going to examine you, and if it turns out you’ve been exposed to anything, tell us now where and how, or else we’ll send you to Náfplion with the whores. I say, I don’t have a boyfriend. Then, during my interrogation, a man comes in, I tried to find that man later on and thank him, a man from Tegéa, named Kóstas Karatzás. He came upstairs and he told them, I’ll be responsible for this girl, her brother’s my friend. Karatzás from Tegéa. Her brother is my friend. And they tell me—they were doctors, the one who spoke Greek too—they tell me, Off you go. Then an order came, for them to leave immediately for Ayios Panteleímonas. They had arrested two girls in Ayios Panteleímonas. Somewhere around there. Two sisters, both pretty girls. They had come to the village for us to sew them some dresses. They were with the rebels but they came to us. And look what happened, they killed them. They arrested themand they killed them. The doctors left. They notified them that they found those girls and they left. They didn’t come back. We kept the dresses. No one came asking for them. So we wore them ourselves. The other Germans stayed there for two or three more days. With the Battalions. I went down to the square. And then I see my father. A German was taking him to our uncle the doctor’s house to go in and search the place. Mavroyiórghis tells me, They’ll come to our house too. I run over to the house. I found a pistol. I had found it under Márkos’s bed. Kapetán Achilléas had slept there. During the first blockade, when the Germans arrived on bicycles, and they all ran away. Delivoriás, Broúsalis, Achilléas. We kept it. I take it and hide it. I open the hatch that goes down to the store. I put it behind the stairs. The German comes in. He searches the house. He says, Get the keys, we’re going to the store. As soon as we walk in, there’s the pistol, in plain sight. Oh, Lord, I say, put a quilt over it, cover it up. A quilt, a quilt. Did he not see the pistol? Did he see it and not say anything? Thinking they might kill us all. Who knows. He left. Then I go and I take it. I put it up against my breast. I was afraid it might go off, I go down to Omorfoúla’s vegetable patch and wedge it into the stone wall. Later, when things calmed down there, I went back for it, and it was nowhere to be found. And the year before last some children were playing, and they started shouting, A pistol, a pistol. They picked it up and took it to the police. It was all rusty, of no use. And that was the end of that. The Germans were getting ready to leave. Stávros Karvouniáris arrives. He takes us away, all of us. He came and he threatened us. He took our goat, and our sewing machine, and I think he was the one who took my granny’s fur-trimmed jacket. Took everything we had. Whatever the others had left us, he took. Well, anyway. They took us to Trípolis. Márkos’s friends were there. Dránias and the rest. They left our old man and our old lady. Mavroyiórghis and Mavroyiórgaina. They went to Athanasiádis’s place and he kept them there. They sent Stella to the slaughterhouse. Don’t remember where Phaídros went. Phaídros was just a kid. Maybe it was Ménis