The Angry Hills (13 page)

Faster—faster—faster—the brush ripped their clothes and tore into their skins—faster—faster—away from the flashlights—the barking dogs—the commands...

The sound of the Germans grew dimmer and dimmer. Mike clutched at a tree in a dizzy sweat. Eleftheria fell to the ground, sobbing. She rolled over on the dirt, writhing in anguish and her hands tore at her hair and she babbled like a madwoman.

“Get up, you little fool,” Mike gasped. “Get up! We—we’ve got to get away from here. Get up! get up!”

She answered with an hysterical shriek. Mike dragged her to her feet once more and slapped her face again and again until she fell against him weak and mumbling.

He lifted her in his arms and staggered higher into the hills.

When he was no longer able to carry her, he dragged her limp body—one hour—two hours—three...

Then he fell to the earth, too exhausted to move. He fell beside her and she lay against him sobbing weakly.

The sky opened and a torrent of rain lashed their torn bodies.

At dawn, Eleftheria and Mike crawled from the brush and walked to a hillside and looked far down on the smoldering ashes of what had once been the village of Paleachora.

SIX

E
LEFTHERIA SAT ON A
boulder, too exhausted to speak and too dried out for further tears. There were no words Mike knew or would ever know to comfort the girl. From the barn loft she had seen Christos shot down in the village square while resisting the Germans and she had seen Melpo bayoneted as she knelt over her husband.

During the confusion of the roundup Eleftheria had managed to escape from the barn along with a few other villagers. Mike’s escape had been possible only because the bulk of the German force had been concentrating on a roundup of the villagers while the remaining soldiers were scattered tracking down five escapees. In his short stay in Paleachora Mike had learned the lay of the land and the places where the forest was thickest.

The two of them circled about in the hills all day away from the ashes of Paleachora. From their high vantage point they could see German patrols working, fanning out in a growing circle until they gave up futilely at dusk.

The end of the day found Mike and Eleftheria still numbed with disbelief, wet, shivering cold and their bellies rumbling with hunger.

Mike reckoned it was safe enough to risk a small fire. Its warmth revived them. He gathered up several armfuls of pine needles and piled them near the fire, then went to Eleftheria and knelt beside her.

“You’d better get some sleep,” he said. “You can start for Dernica in the morning.”

She stared down at Mike. Her black eyes were lusterless and rimmed with red. “What will become of you?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve caused enough trouble.”

“You cannot blame yourself. You did not bring the Germans to Greece.”

Small consolation, Mike thought—damned small consolation. Soutar wasn’t kidding. Heilser will look behind every rock and every tree. He tried to shake the feeling of inevitable doom, but he couldn’t. What chance did he have against this force? How many more times could he be lucky?

Mike put his arm about the girl and led her to the bed of pine needles. She lay down and stretched her tired body. Her blouse had been almost completely ripped by the underbrush. He could see the dark rounds of her breasts and their red pointed nipples.

Her eyes were intent on his. Her hands reached up slowly and drew the blouse apart, baring herself for him to see. She was silent and motionless save for a growing unevenness in her breathing. Mike felt the blood rush through him.

Her breasts rose and fell, and her eyes looked up at him languorously.

He spun around. “I’ll get some more pine needles to cover you. It’s going to be cold.” He stacked several armfuls of needles over her and built up the fire. For several moments he pondered, then fixed another bed on the other side of the fire.

The sun fell in a few moments.

Mike rolled close to the fire and tried to shut out all thought of the girl on the other side. It turned dark. He could hear her thrash about restlessly.

It seemed fantastic to him that he would want to take her at a time like this. Perhaps it was his feeling of utter defeat that prodded him to seize a moment of joy. I’m not one of these noble bastards, Mike told himself. What the hell’s the matter with me?

He knew the answer. Eleftheria wasn’t the kind one could be casual with. No—she’d end up with a broken heart and he’d end up with a messy conscience. He turned his back to the fire and shut his eyes. He would not have slept except for the total exhaustion.

But the sleep was tormented. Once again he ran down the list of names—the cursed names—the seventeen names—and Stergiou and Soutar and Christos dressed in his
funstanella
and blood all over his white skirt and Melpo wailing over him. And flames—flames dancing high and licking cruelly at the little white cottages and German soldiers dancing around the flames—dancing the
calamatiano
and the fire burned higher and higher.

Mike opened his eyes and sighed with relief.

The forest was still and dark.

It was freezing cold; the fire was a mass of smoldering embers. He sat up and rubbed his legs and crawled away groping for more wood.

“Jay?” Eleftheria’s frightened voice called out.

“I’m here. Go back to sleep.”

He knelt beside her and put some fresh twigs on the fire. In a moment they were crackling.

“I am cold,” she said.

“It will warm up in a couple of minutes.”

He crawled back beneath his blanket of pine needles and stretched out on his back.

“Jay?”

“What do you want?”

“I am frightened.”

He hesitated for a long while. “Well—all right, come on over here.”

His heart pounded as he heard her stir and felt her slip beside him timidly. “Poor kid, you’re just like ice.” He rubbed her arms and shoulders and she purred like a kitten as the warmth returned to them. She pressed close to him and his hand reached into her blouse and against the soft satin flesh of her back. Her head nestled on his chest and her arms folded tight around him.

“S’agapo,”
she whispered.

“Sleep, honey...”

“S’agapo,”
she said and closed her eyes.

A warming ray of sunlight found its way through the trees into the clearing. Mike opened his eyes. The fire was dead. He slipped his arms from Eleftheria, arose, stretched and patted his empty belly. The sun felt good and his mood was a bit more on the optimistic side.

The girl rolled over on her back and squirmed. Mike caught himself staring at the rip in her blouse. He turned away to find more kindling as Eleftheria opened her eyes and looked about and propped up on an elbow.

She tossed her long black hair onto her shoulders with a little flip of the head and made a sweet picture as she encircled her knees and rested a cheek on them. She stared at Mike and smiled as he reset the fire. She looked young and fresh and lovely—and eager.

Suddenly, Mike crushed his lips on hers and her body arched against his and they fell to the earth clutching each other. His hand groped for her breast—and ripped the blouse from her. He felt the sweet pain of her teeth tearing into his shoulder and her fingers clawing his back.

Eleftheria was a little savage. Mike’s fingers became entwined in her hair and he drew her face back. Her black eyes flamed with passion and her body pulsated with the fury of a tigress. They were on the ground again, rolling and thrashing about wildly and their lips sought each other out in mounting violence.

Mike strained every fiber in his body as he shoved her away and staggered to his feet. Eleftheria clung to his waist. He grabbed her hair and flung her away. She lay there, her fingers clawing at the earth, panting in her access of passion.

Mike gasped for air as he looked down in puzzled anger at the half-naked girl. He peeled his shirt off and threw it to her.

“Put this on!”

“Please—darling...”

“We’ve got enough goddamned trouble! Put this on!”

The sharpness of his command startled her into submission. In an instant she sank back to her natural shyness, and obeyed.

An hour passed before either of them spoke. But in the silence everything was said that needed to be said.

“You’d better get started for your village,” he spoke at last.

“And where will you go?”

“Athens. I’ll get there somehow,” he answered—not even convincing himself.

“You can never get to Athens alone—you know that. You must come to Dernica with me.”

“And see another village get burned.”

“You cannot take the blame—you cannot ...”

“What’s the difference...?”

“I will not leave you,” she said softly.

Mike knew he could not rove the hills indefinitely. He knew he could not go to Dernica. He knew he could not get to Athens, nor could he afford to cut off from the girl. He further knew that no place in Greece would be safe for long from the relentless Konrad Heilser.

“I have a distant cousin, Despo, who lives in Kaloghriani,” Eleftheria said. “It is many kilometers away in the hills. You will be safe there.”

“No,” Mike said. “I must get to Athens.”

“The village is so remote that the Germans do not even know it exists. Then I will help you get to Athens. Come, we can reach it by sundown of tomorrow if we keep going.”

SEVEN

N
IGHT FELL ON A
pair of weary travelers who felt as though they had reached the end of the world.

They stood five hundred meters above sea level and looked down upon fifty whitewashed cottages which lay in the midst of rocky, barren, eroded hills—Kaloghriani. Below them they could see fragments of the plain near Dadi airdrome and the peak of Mount Kallidromon. The village of Kaloghriani and the land around it were as poor as they were remote.

Eleftheria knocked at the door of a cottage. It swung open and a giant of a man loomed over them. A massive black beard gave him a likeness to the famous portrait of the angry John Brown.

“Kalosorisate!” he roared in welcome when he recognized Eleftheria and ushered them through the narrow doorway into a humble room. “Despo!” he called to his wife. “It is Eleftheria.... Bring
krasi
... Hurry, woman!”

A flat homely old woman hurried in from the kitchen and welcomed Eleftheria. Mike, shirtless, stood about self-consciously, as the three exchanged greetings. At last Eleftheria turned to him.

“This is Jay Linden. He is a soldier of New Zealand and he needs a place to stay.”

“Englezos?” the giant inquired.

“Yes.”

The giant was introduced to Mike as Barba-Leonidas and shook his hand with such violence that Mike thought he would tear his arm from its socket. Barba-Leonidas found a shirt for Mike many sizes too large and then inquired if they were hungry.

In a moment they were seated on backless stools and, without ceremony, Barba-Leonidas dunked his bread into a bowl of lentils and motioned his two starving guests to follow suit.

After the meal, Barba-Leonidas listened intently as Eleftheria unfolded the story of Paleachora. He sat in silent anger broken by an occasional gruff exclamation. Despo, the wife, sat removed from the table at a homemade spindle and did not enter into the conversation.

When Eleftheria had finished, Barba-Leonidas announced, “My only son, Yani, was killed fighting the Italians in Albania. You may have his bed for as long as you wish.”

There was something about the direct simplicity of the man that appealed to Mike. He was “real people”—like the longshoremen, the teamsters, the bartenders and the hookers who filled the pages of Mike’s books. A quick bond was established between the two.

Dispensing with the social amenities, Barba-Leonidas said, “You are very tired. Go to sleep and we will leave talk for a later time.” Then he ordered Despo to find Eleftheria a place to sleep in another cottage. There were but two beds and, as a matter of custom and fact, Mike took priority over a mere woman.

“The one bed will be fine for us,” Eleftheria said.

A stunned silence fell on the room. Barba-Leonidas threw an inquiring glance at Mike who had a stupid expression on his face. Barba-Leonidas grunted a few times and looked back and forth from Mike to Eleftheria. Mike just shrugged. The giant continued to mumble to himself, weighing a decision.

“It would not be in proper taste,” he declared, and Mike sighed with relief. He did not look forward to another tussle with his conscience.

Mike noticed throughout the evening that Barba-Leonidas became annoyed by the most trifling attention he gave the girl, whether he touched her hand or gave her so much as a small smile. The breed of hill men was obviously more strict about the social status of the female than the men in the village of Paleachora.

Mike walked her to the door where Despo waited. “I’ll talk to you in the morning, early. We’ve got a lot to work out,” he said.

The night’s restful sleep in the soft down bed worked wonders on Mike’s tired bones. He sat down hungrily to the dawn meal with Barba-Leonidas and awaited the arrival of Eleftheria. His mind was filled with plans to get to Athens. The giant remained silent except for his slurping of the boiling-hot coffee. As the meal drew to a close a feeling of alarm swept over Mike.

“Where is Eleftheria?” he asked.

“She went back to Dernica.”

“What do you mean she went back to Dernica? Did you send her?”

“She went back. What difference does it make why she went? She went.”

“It makes a lot of difference to me!”

“Finish your coffee. It will get cold.”

“But...”

“Don’t get excited. She promises to return on the Sabbath.”

Before Mike could argue further, Barba-Leonidas walked out toward the fields. He turned to Despo, who remained as silent as a dumb woman.

Mike grunted angrily. Whose work was this? Was Eleftheria trying to trap him and keep him in this remote place or did the giant send her away for some reason? He didn’t like it at all, but there was little choice except to ride it out till the Sabbath and see. He finished his coffee.