War Games (16 page)

Papa reached for sliced bread and cheese to make Lambros a few sandwiches. Petros popped a crust into his mouth to comfort an uneasy rumble in his middle.

When Zola said, “I can do it,” he looked like he’d grown a few more inches.

Papa said, “Petros, you must go through the orchard as if you’re playing. Once you get past the arbor, start crawling alongside the wall to look for the sack.”

Petros felt something like the charge from a battery running through his veins—part fear, but also excitement. Almost the same as when the boys had dropped Zola’s messages.

Old Mario began wrapping the sandwiches in one of Mama’s dish towels, saying, “No paper, no noise.” He pointed to the rice pudding.

“When your mama worries,” Papa said, “she likes to have sweets.” He put several dishes on a platter. “Zola, take the dessert out to the veranda. And Zola,” Papa said, “when you say the words ‘the commander,’ say them respectfully.”

Zola looked as willful as Sophie, but he caught himself and said, “All right, Papa.” He carried the rice puddings away, head held high.

Papa said, “When you start crawling, Petros, be patient. Stay low and keep going until you find the sack.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“From there you can crawl straight to the well.”

Zola came back to report, “He’s sitting a little apart from Mama and Sophie. He likes rice pudding. No one’s speaking, otherwise.”

Old Mario said to Papa, “Go out there before the commander begins to ask himself why all the men are in the kitchen.”

Papa hesitated, then left them.

“First, don’t look Zola’s way at all,” Old Mario said to Petros.

Zola had already begun packing the meal. He said, “Then, when you’re hidden from anyone looking out from the veranda, you stop playing and crawl.”

Old Mario said, “Keep an ear open for one of the Omeros boys. They patrol the road at night.”

“And keep your head down when you’re crawling,” Zola added. “The moon is bright tonight.”

Petros wanted suddenly to tell Zola he’d gotten the kite string. Of how the commander had helped him get the string. But he couldn’t tell, not while Old Mario stood beside them.

“Papa would’ve chosen you to go to the well, Zola,” Petros said in a whisper, “if you weren’t so tall. You’re a man.”

“I have never been a better one than I am being just now.” Zola looked a little grim.

“Are you ready?”

Petros nodded.

The dog followed them out the back door. Zola walked away from the back of the house, moving quickly into the shadow of the chicken house. His dog went with him but was sent back a minute later.

Fifi was grazing on the tufts of grass growing near the well. To Old Mario, Petros said, “There’s one problem we haven’t solved.”

Old Mario said, “I know how to manage her.” He pulled a packet of cigarette tobacco out of his pocket. Fifi came to him right away.

Petros said, “She smokes?” and Old Mario laughed.

“She likes a nibble of tobacco,” he said. “Put a rope around her neck while I give her some.”

Fifi didn’t even try to bite them. Together, Petros and Old Mario walked toward the veranda. The commander sat on the far side, near the trellis, smoking.

There was a little talk as Old Mario climbed the steps, during which Petros wandered off into the orchard. He felt the
German officer’s attention in a spot between his shoulder blades, but he didn’t look back even once. He climbed into a tree in clear sight of the veranda, only so high that his legs could be seen dangling.

From his leafy perch, he saw the red glow of the tip of one cigarette. He thought it was odd that Papa and Old Mario didn’t smoke, then realized he’d know the commander this way.

Petros dropped from the tree, swung on a low-hanging branch of the next one, and stopped behind the third. He waited there, breathing hard, before going on, tree to tree, trying to imitate his own meandering walk on so many evenings before this one.

Zola was carrying the burlap sack to the end of a faraway row of vegetables. In his mind’s eye, Petros saw Zola set the sack in the dirt, then hurry back to the house. “You and Lambros must stay on the far side of the well so you can’t be seen from the house,” Papa had said.

Petros said, “What if he wants to run away?”

“We won’t know the men who come for him. Lambros must be here to meet them.”

Petros had not thought of this. “How can we be sure Lambros will know them?”

“He’ll know the things they say to each other,” Papa said.

Petros nodded.

“Drop the stones,” Papa said. “Speak to Lambros as he climbs, but softly.” His face tightened with concern. “And don’t stay long. Are you sure you can manage?”

“I’m sure,” Petros answered. A lie.

If no one went to the well, Lambros would wait. If he stayed down there all night, he might grow sick from the cold. This thought carried Petros deeper into the orchard.

Finally he could see only the light in the kitchen. The house blended into the night. He began to run.

A few minutes later he was on his hands and knees in the dry soil. The sharp smell of the tomatoes and basil marked the distance he’d made as he brushed against the plants.

He crawled past the garlic and the peppers and the eggplant. He passed the tomatoes, rows of them dug into trenches so the stems didn’t stand as high as the eggplant. Petros dropped to his belly and dug his knees and elbows into the dirt, slithering along until his hand landed on the sack.

He inched backward to the rows of eggplant. Still, he was careful to stay low, finally reaching the row he knew would take him to the back of the well.

He could crawl on his knees here, which was faster and easier. There wasn’t enough space between the rows to drag the sack at one side of him. He crawled a few steps, reached between his knees and yanked the sack out in front of him.

The tops of the eggplant bushes were just about level with the flat of his back. He wanted very much to look over them. He kept his head down anyway. The row stretched ahead of him, much longer at night and on his knees than when he walked through it by day.

When he finally reached the last eggplant bush, he flattened
himself to the ground. They’d been mistaken about how well hidden he might be. He had a distance to crawl between the garden and the well, and he could be seen—

Petros could see a red dot at the edge of the veranda. He watched as the cigarette was tossed away and lay in the graveled yard. A match was struck and another cigarette lit from another place on the veranda. Papa.

Petros thought he saw a movement in the shadows of the veranda. He watched, thinking he might have imagined it, and then the other cigarette tip disappeared. Petros stared at the blank slate of his mind and the answer came quickly.

The commander had moved away, so Papa had turned away with his cigarette. Petros was safe for the moment.

He checked the moon and waited for a cloud to dim that light a little. The cloud drifted slowly. But he gathered up the sack so it might be carried across the gravel in one arm, rather than dragged.

Finally the cloud covered the moon. Petros crawled out of the cover of the leafy eggplants. The gravel hurt a lot, but Petros thought only of making nearly silent progress.

The gravel stretched away from the well for several yards. Petros rose to make a crouched run at the well. He came up against it hard, the sack falling next to his feet.

The well from one side to the other could fill a room, so he was safely out of sight and could move around a little. The danger lay in getting Lambros out of the well. Looking up, Petros made certain he’d come up behind the buckets when he stood.

The cold air met him when he hitched up onto the wall. His heart went out to poor Lambros, who had been in the well for so many hours. Petros dropped three rocks into the well, waiting to hear each one plop into the water.

He waited and, when he heard nothing, scooped up three more rocks. One. Two. Three.

After the last one splashed down, a faint sound rose from inside the well, Lambros stepping into a bucket. Petros answered this with a hiss, a warning to be silent.

The well workings creaked, taking Lambros’s weight.

Petros was afraid this would be heard at the house—such sounds carried easily on the night air.

Lambros had to climb slowly, carefully. But after the first complaining noises from the buckets, there was almost nothing to hear. Only the slight shift in the buckets told Petros Lambros was climbing.

It felt like forever until he saw his cousin’s head appear out of the dark center. “Stay on this side,” he whispered. “Away from the house. The German commander is there.”

Lambros didn’t appear to be disturbed by this news. In fact, he didn’t speak even as he dropped with hardly a sound into the gravel beside Petros.

Petros handed over the sack. “I couldn’t come before now.”

“What kind of sandwiches?” Lambros asked with a grin.

“Roasted peppers and cheese, I think.”

Lambros made a sound of approval. “I got worried when no one turned on the well. Is everyone safe?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s the German now?”

“On the veranda with Papa and Old Mario.”

“What’s his rank?”

“Colonel.”

Lambros’s eyebrows made him look like Stavros, despite his beard. “Amphissa is a pin on a German map.”

Petros hadn’t thought of this. Papa had had such a map—before burning it. He’d marked the cities where the Allies could be found with Mama’s straight pins.

Lambros was shivering, Petros realized.

“Are you wet? I thought that tunnel was dry.”

“There’s a trickle of water, but I sit on one side of it and rest my feet on the other. I’m dry enough.”

“Where’s the jacket?”

“It’s kept me warm, little cousin, don’t worry. But I can’t wear it and climb quietly. Any word from Uncle Spiro?”

“Old Mario says we must give him another day,” Petros said. “Papa wants you to remain below.”

“Someone put some candles and matches in this sack.”

“Old Mario.”

“Tell him I’m grateful. The dark and cold will be more bearable.”

“You should sit here until you’re warm to the bone. Zola will have locked the gate by now, so unless trucks come, there’s only the one German to worry about.” Even though they hadn’t planned what to do if things went wrong, Petros added, “If he leaves the house, I’ll set the goats loose and make a big fuss over getting them back in.”

“Go back, then,” Lambros said. “Your papa’s worried enough.”

“I can sit with you awhile longer.”

“I’ll wait until I hear more stones falling into the well
before I come up again,” Lambros said. He squeezed Petros’s arm in a friendly good-bye. “Until tomorrow.”

Petros made sure no cigarettes glowed on the veranda. As he crawled back to the orchard, he chose the best place to leave the garden. He wanted it to look as if he’d been playing there all along. He stood up on the hidden side of a pistachio tree. When he left the cover of the tree, he leaped up to hang from a branch and swung his legs as if he’d been sitting up there.

He started back to the house, not in a straight line but in a wandering way. His knees wanted to wobble a little. Exactly the way Sophie had complained of feeling when she sang in school last year. Nerves, she called it, when she was afraid of doing badly.

Petros began to run a zigzag path, touching each tree he passed as if it were a game of tag. He saw Papa stand up from his chair. Petros stopped running at the gate, breathing heavily enough to disguise any nerves he still had. He went over to the odd pair of bars, one higher than the other, that the German soldiers had pounded into the ground.

“Tomorrow morning,” the commander said in a low voice from the veranda, “I’ll show you what it’s for.”

Petros kicked a fallen unripened persimmon around the corner of the house. Perhaps there were more. Tomorrow morning he would bring Fifi to eat them, so he wouldn’t look eager.

A bird murmured in the tree as Petros walked on.

“I can shoot two birds with one stone,” Petros called over his shoulder. This sounded bold, daring even, except that his voice shook.

First thing in the morning, Petros unlocked the gate and led Fifi over to the trees. There were only a few fallen fruits, but she didn’t count. She ate them.

In the trees there were several catbirds, gray, but smaller than Mama’s doves. Sometimes these birds arrived in time to eat ripe fruit, but it just as often happened they came early, before the fruit was ready.

The birds were spoiled by the easy life, Petros thought. They plucked fruit and dropped it when it wasn’t sweet, wasting something they might have eaten happily a week or so later.

But then he remembered the Italian soldiers, taking green tomatoes. The catbirds were hungry. He’d ask if he could throw some chicken feed on the ground for them. Probably Papa could spare the feed more easily than the fruit the birds were spoiling.

The commander came outside in something like underwear, to stretch, to swing from one iron bar to the other so he made circles in the air.

Petros tried not to look overly interested, but he didn’t
refuse when the commander offered to let him hang from the bar. Petros showed off, hanging upside down.

“Can your friends do that?” the commander asked him.

Petros nodded. Everyone could hang upside down from the branch of a tree without falling.

The commander showed him how to walk on his hands.

It took Petros a couple of hard thumps onto his back to get the hang of it, but he was delighted once he could do it. “No one else can walk upside down.”

“They’ll learn,” the commander told him, “but you’ll be the first.”

Mama came to look for Petros, calling in a voice sharp with fear. The commander patted him on the head, plainly trying to make Mama feel he was safe.

Fifi followed Petros into the house and was chased out the kitchen door. The whole family had gathered in there. Mama put the commander’s breakfast tray on the table in the hall and shut the kitchen door.

“What did he say to you?” Zola asked very quietly.