War Games (17 page)

“I may swing on the bar as often as I like,” Petros said, seeing Fifi sit down in the doorway. “He walks on his hands—did you see him?”

“Shah,” Mama said. “He’s not an entertainment.”

A knock sounded, and Papa opened the kitchen door.

The commander stood there. Seeing Mama’s concern, he said to Papa, “Herr, I think we can agree. Wars should be fought among men, not boys. Boys have to grow up. Even in war, boys play.”

A great many arguments crossed Papa’s face, but he only nodded.

“That’s all, then,” the commander said. “Breakfast looks very good, Mrs., thank you.” Papa didn’t close the kitchen door until the commander had closed the parlor door.

Petros reached for his glass of milk, suddenly thirsty. Boys played. But it was also necessary to learn things about the commander. They wouldn’t send any more messages, but the war effort wouldn’t end, would it? Looking at his brother, he saw in Zola’s eyes it wouldn’t.

Even the way Zola then said, “We must remember to take a can when we go to the tomato plants. Yesterday I saw caterpillars to be picked off them,” was a kind of lie. If Zola was picking caterpillars, he was going to make them carry letters like pigeons.

This thought made Petros laugh suddenly, laugh so hard milk shot up into his nose. He coughed and had to be clapped hard on the back. The dog barked and Fifi stood as if a game was about to begin.

The commander left shortly after eating his breakfast. The family heard him go out, that was all. Mama twisted her apron around her hands. “Work near the house today.”

“Haven’t I waited until he was gone?” Papa said.

After this, breakfast was much the same as always, with teasing and scolding as part of the menu. The morning was different only because Papa remained at the table longer.

“Enough talk,” Old Mario said. “We must go drag that boy out of the well for an hour or two in the sun. He’ll have turned blue by now.”

Sophie looked out the window as she washed the dishes. “Where will we hide Lambros?”

“In the garden,” Mama said. “If he’s wearing a hat, looking down to pull weeds, no one will see him.”

A little later, Petros carried a basket of tomatoes and basil to the house. Mama was cleaning the commander’s room, running a mop over the floor.

Sophie stood at the doorway and pointed to a picture in a frame. “Mama’s to touch nothing on a desk or table, not even to dust. But look there, next to his bed. They have families.”

Petros saw the commander and his wife and two boys his own age or younger. “Everyone has a family,” he said, although he saw Sophie’s point. It was sometimes hard to remember this was true.

Mama said, “Tell Zola to start more seeds this morning. The commander asked your father to take more vegetables into town. If we’re to feed some of his men as well as the families we provide for, we need more rows.”

When Petros found him, Zola said, “If I’m out of sight planting seeds, and Lambros takes my place in the garden, anyone passing will think it’s me out there with Papa and Old Mario.”

Zola went straight to the shed. Petros dropped three stones into the well, and while he stood around the front gate, ready to shout a hello if anyone came into sight, Lambros climbed out. When Papa called Petros back, Lambros was already in among the beans, soaking up the sun.

Fifi followed Petros like she was his personal dog. Once, before he’d realized she was there, she ate a row of his new pepper plants, leaving him only Mr. Katzen’s pepper.

When he shooed her away, she ran off kicking her heels up high, looking so pleased with herself, he had to forgive her.

He turned back to the garden and noticed Elia across the road, watching him.

Petros felt torn. He couldn’t invite Elia over because Lambros was picking beans. And he couldn’t risk that Elia would come looking for him in the evening either. Petros didn’t wave and Elia didn’t wave. And Elia didn’t walk across the road. This was good, on the one hand, but also troubling.

Petros found Zola hunched over his small pots in the shed. “Elia doesn’t wave when he sees me.”

Zola didn’t look up. “The commander’s living here and everyone is afraid of him. Elia’s father probably told him he can’t come over here anymore.”

“The Lemos family knew this would happen.”

“And now it has,” Zola said. “His car stops here every day, and trucks filled with his men, too. If he were staying somewhere else, those soldiers would pass by without stopping.”

“Aren’t the other officers staying in somebody’s house?”

“Yes. Probably those people don’t have any friends stopping by either,” Zola said, and stood up straight. Stretched. “But we are a bigger problem to the Lemos family. We have something to hide.”

“Lambros.”

“Us. I mean us.” Zola frowned. “Papa said if he were Lemos and his friends across the road were American, he’d tell his children to stay home. He’d be afraid for his own family first.”

“If the people across the road had trouble, Papa would help,” Petros said. “Mama too.”

Zola sounded almost angry when he said, “We don’t want the Lemos family wondering who
is
that extra fellow in the garden. We don’t want their help.”

“If something goes wrong,” Petros said, “how will you know when Lambros goes into the well?”

“Old Mario has a scarf wrapped around his scalp. He’ll put on the hat Lambros is wearing.”

Talking with Zola, Petros hadn’t really noticed the other
sound in his ears. Not until the car pulled up outside the gate with a shriek of brakes and Zola dropped to the dirt floor.

Petros saw the commander getting out of his car. He’d gone away with a driver but he was alone now. Petros saw Lambros put down his basket. “Stay here,” he told Zola.

Petros ran toward the commander, pulling his slingshot out of his pocket. “I can kill two birds with one stone!”

“That would be pretty good shooting,” the commander said.

“I did it this morning,” Petros said with bravado. A lie. “I can do it again now.”

“All right. Let’s see it.”

Petros ran to the far side of the veranda, behind the leafy trellis, where the well couldn’t be seen. The commander followed him.

“This is the stone,” Petros said, digging it out of his pocket. In the back of his mind, Petros saw Zola run from the shed to the garden. How long would it take for Lambros to hide?

“See? It’s my lucky stone.” He showed it off as if it were one of Papa’s card tricks.

“Let us hope so,” the commander said, smiling.

Petros felt a stirring of shame in his heart. The commander had been good to him so far. To his family. He had come as the enemy and made himself one of two men, the way Uncle Spiro thought of them.

But the other man, Lambros, was Petros’s cousin.

“See that bird?” Petros pointed to a finch on the vine-covered trellis. Not an easy shot. The finches were quick, but
he didn’t allow this thought to settle. He kept his eye on the bird.

He set the stone, drew back, and shot.

It was a lucky shot—he knew that immediately. The finch was used to people. It turned away, and in an instant it fell to the veranda.

“One bird,” Petros shouted, and a few of the finches flew away.

The commander laughed. “You said two.”

Petros ran up onto the veranda and retrieved the stone. He held it out. “Two birds with this one stone.”

Another laugh. “Very tricky,” the commander said.

Petros pointed to the persimmon tree. “Two birds in a row.”

As they neared the trees, the well stood in the distance behind them. Petros didn’t look there but danced ahead, trying to be everything at once—convincing as a boy at play, and more interesting than whatever had brought the commander back when no one expected him.

A catbird with its face in the fruit was the target he hoped for. These birds were a sure kill. One lifted into the air at his approach, and although it wasn’t the easy target Petros meant to find, the lucky stone wanted it.

Petros placed the stone while moving, drew, and shot, never hoping for another lucky shot, not even caring if he failed, imagining the chill darkness closing around Lambros, the safety of the well.

The stone found its mark.

The catbird fell to the ground.

“Very good,” the commander said as proudly as Papa might, clapping his hands together. “You’re a good shot.”

As proudly as Papa. The thought struck Petros as soundly in his guilty heart as the stone did the bird. “I have a lucky stone,” he said.

The commander crossed his arms over his chest.

Mama saved Petros further embarrassment, coming out on the veranda. She said to the commander, “To eat?” as if the man hadn’t already spoken perfectly fine Greek to them. At the same time, she put her hand out to Petros, the picture of a mama looking for help.

“No, Mrs. I only came back for some papers. I’m going right out again.” She gave the commander a stiff little nod and gathered Petros to her as he stepped up on the veranda.

He felt the tremble in her hand on his shoulder. He went inside, Mama only a step behind him. “Go to the kitchen,” she said.

Petros had begun to appreciate how Mama would get through this, holding the commander, even the danger, at a distance. Petros thought at least she would never have a guilty heart.

Either the sack was heavier tonight or Petros’s arms were weary from hanging on the bar. He couldn’t decide which. When one arm grew tired with pulling the sack forward, he switched to the other. It took him longer to reach the well, he thought.

When Petros dropped three stones, it was with a great sense of relief. Lambros came out of the well shivering, more than before.

“Uncle Spiro’s sitting on the veranda,” Petros said to give Lambros time to warm up. “After Old Mario introduced him, no one talked.”

Lambros said, “Perhaps your papa and Uncle Spiro can’t figure out how to start a conversation after so many years.”

That Uncle Spiro had come at all said everything.

“Mama’s feeding him there.” Uncle Spiro had come late, probably deliberately. It wasn’t troubling to lack conversation on the veranda, but it would have been strange at the kitchen table.

“What do you think of the commander?” Lambros asked. His voice sounded steadier—he’d warmed up a little.

“He walks on his hands.”

Lambros raised his eyebrows.

“For a little time in the morning. He has a name for it, I forget. He hangs from a bar and swings like a monkey.”

“He’s a gymnast.”

“He has two sons. You’d like him if it wasn’t for this war.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Lambros said.

“I never imagined him having a family.”

“It never helps to think of that,” Lambros said.

Petros agreed. Because his next thought had been
What if he dies?
Everyone worried when they thought of Lambros, and it never helped. Of course they also bragged about his courage. But even that was a kind of worry.

Lambros said, “You did a fine job of turning the commander’s attention today.”

“I tricked him.”

“You kept us all safe,” Lambros said. “You did right. You did a man’s job. But you must remember to go on being a boy. That’s your job if there are no more such emergencies.”

Petros warmed like a lantern.

“Lambros, the Georges told us you held off the Italians for six days. Single-handedly.”

“I had the company of five mules. Don’t sell them short.”

“You climbed the Needle bare-handed. No one did that before.”

Lambros said, “Perhaps no one was that scared before.”

“And you escaped the Gestapo.”

“When it’s time to sleep, the Germans sleep. When it’s time to get together in a meeting, they go. This much was on my side,” Lambros said. “But I was lucky too. Very lucky.”

“I hope I’m so lucky,” Petros said.

“I pray you never have to be,” Lambros said.

“How do you account for it? Did you know you would succeed?”

“I knew only what I faced if I didn’t.”

“Everyone before you knew the same thing,” Petros said. “How did you become such a good fighter?”

Lambros said, “Do you remember that time you cut your foot badly and I fainted at the sight of blood?”

“Yes.”

“I no longer faint. But I don’t look too closely.”

Petros let this sink in. “Do you speak to the dead?”

Lambros cocked his head, but it was too dark for Petros to read the look on his face. “Sometimes they speak to me. It would be rude to ignore them, don’t you think?”

“Who are these dead?”

“Too many.” Together they listened to the night for a time. Fifi, tied inside the goat pen, bleated. Lambros said, “You should get back.”

“I can wait.”

“I’m going with Uncle Spiro, Petros.”

Petros didn’t know why someone else hadn’t come for Lambros, a man who could fight off a German soldier. One of those men who had come into the kitchen, someone a little scary. “Didn’t Uncle Spiro tell someone else to come and help you get past the Germans?”

“He’ll have told someone to feed his chickens,” Lambros said.

“It’s past curfew,” Petros said. “Uncle Spiro didn’t worry between his farm and ours, but what about when you get further away?”

“Those Omeros boys have a few tricks up their sleeves,” Lambros said.

“Really?” Petros wouldn’t have suspected it.

“They’re smarter than they look,” Lambros said, the white of his teeth flashing a little in the moonlight when he grinned. “Also, their grandmother has been my grandmother’s friend since they were little girls together. We are almost as good as cousins.”

Lambros ran his fingers through Petros’s hair and added, “Almost.”

Petros knew he should go, and yet he felt something had been left unsaid. “Mama’s mother, you know her?”

“Popi.”

“She speaks to the dead,” Petros said. “She says they don’t talk to just anyone.”

“Your grandmother’s right.”

“They don’t talk to me.”

“Someday, Petros,” Lambros said, “when you need them, that’s when they’ll speak to you.”

As Petros crawled back through the garden, he heard the creak of Uncle Spiro’s donkey cart passing him. The soft burr of Uncle Spiro’s voice in a low song.