In the churchyard I quickly explained to Nathanial that the British soldier needed a doctor urgently. He’d lost a lot of blood and might have more bullets in him. To get him out of the cave we required a couple of strong men and a long rope. I rode back to Kamiros Scala at a steady trot.
After securing Zeus, I raced to the shore and pulled off my frock. A tamarisk tree grew on the beach, so I looped my dress onto a branch. The Embonas rebels would see it if they arrived while I was underwater.
I dived, hoping the grouper fish hadn’t returned. Harmless he might be, but I didn’t want to play chicken in the passageway. My luck was in. The soldier was barely conscious. The sun, now up, no longer directed light into the tunnel.
I felt the soldier’s face, patted his cheek twice, then gently pushed him against the cave wall. I hoped he got the idea to stay there. I swam out of the tunnel and saw four men riding mules towards the shore. One was Nathanial. There was no sign of the enemy or the dinghy. Two Brits floated in the eddies, arms and legs spread like starfish.
I put my thumb and forefinger in my mouth and whistled as Giovanni had taught me. Despite the grim situation, I smiled to remember the shepherd boy. Just thinking about him gave me strength.
Nathanial and the Embonas Andartes secured their mules at the trough alongside Zeus. The beasts nodded and blew as if having a heated conversation. The men dumped a rope and a medical bag under the tamarisk tree. I tied a circle in one end of the coil, and then led the Andartes to the rocks. Once inside the cave, I struggled to get the loop over the soldier and under his arms in the dark. Back in the water, I reached up and pulled on his arm. He cried out, but got the idea and dropped into the sea with a splash.
I yanked three times on the rope, at which the Embonas men heaved so hard the Brit’s head cracked against the roof of the tunnel. He went under spluttering. I swam after him, glad to break surface on the other side of the passage. To add to the soldier’s injuries, I saw a nasty gash on his forehead. A bullet had gone through his shoulder, and another was lodged in his leg.
The graze across my thigh hurt like hell. I struggled into my dress and bid goodbye to the Embonas men, who were dressing the soldier’s wounds.
As I turned to go, the soldier yelled weakly, ‘Oy!’ He thumped himself in the chest, winced, and said, ‘Sergeant Tommy Bloomberg!’ then he pointed at me.
‘Rhodes Freedom Fighter Pandora Cohen,’ I said. I stood tall and saluted him.
He flicked his hand to his forehead, smiled wearily, then held out his good arm and we shook. Nathanial grinned, and I sensed the men’s eyes on my back as I climbed to the crevice. After retrieving the two machine guns, I placed them in Nathanial’s lap, saluted him, and walked away.
With the sergeant in capable hands, my job at Kamiros Scala was done. I seemed more adept at handling Zeus each time I rode and as I sat in the saddle, I contemplated all that had happened. I had killed again and with all the stress of the night, I hadn’t considered my actions until that moment. When I recalled pulling the trigger, my emotions got the better of me and I trembled so violently I feared I would fall out of the saddle.
I walked Zeus off the road, leaned forward, and hugged his neck. He stood perfectly still while I cried. Although this sounds perfectly ridiculous, I sensed he understood what I was feeling, and his placid sturdiness helped me to recover my senses.
When I urged him back to the road, he made a quiet snicker, as if to say, ‘Better now?’
I wondered if my actions really did help to end the war. Would there be a chain reaction that led to the release of Papa and all my family? I imagined someone unlocking Papa’s door and saying, ‘You’re free to go. You can thank Pandora for this.’ My heart sored as I evoked Papa’s wide smile and his reply. ‘I always believed she’d come to our rescue.’
I could see his face again but it only made me cry once more.
I recalled Giovanni’s words, They’s killin’ them all, and I crushed that sentence to dust in my mind. Even the Nazis couldn’t simply kill all the Jewish people. It wouldn’t be allowed.
Friday, 25 August 1944
My diary is up to date. I am in the hut, exhausted, but eager to hear Irini’s voice. I long for her embrace. On the last stretch of my journey up Mount Filerimos, with the wind in my hair and the sun warming my shoulders, I realise I want to spend the rest of my life with Irini at my side, and I was going to tell her the moment I saw her. Just because I loved Giovanni, didn’t mean I loved Irini any the less. She would understand that.
But Irini wasn’t at the hut. Xanthi told me she had gone out shortly after I left for Kamiros Scala and hadn’t returned.
Evangelisa rushed up and hugged me. ‘Will you tell us everything that happened, Dora?’ she said, her eyes sparkling. ‘Did you have a real adventure? Did you shoot anybody?’
She wore her best dress and red ribbons in her hair. I understood this was in my honour and I was touched.
‘You look beautiful, Evangelisa.’ I kissed her cheeks and hugged her. She held her skirt out and twirled.
‘Dora, you can borrow any of my dresses or ribbons whenever you want. I wouldn’t lend them to anyone else, but you are so special, and I’m sorry to say so but you’ve been looking a bit dishevelled lately.’
This was an honour indeed. ‘That’s so generous! Wait until I tell Mama what a fine young woman you’re turning into with your cooking and housekeeping. She’ll be so proud. You’ll make some handsome boy a very lovely wife one day.’
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled, and I loved her so very much.
‘Come on, Dora, I’ll find a really nice frock for you.’
‘Evangelisa, will you forgive me if I go for a sleep first? I’m so exhausted.’
She took my hand and led me into the hut. ‘You get some sleep, Dora, and don’t worry about a thing,’ she said. ‘I’ll sort you out with some fresh clothes when you wake, later.’
When I woke, I refused one of her flamboyant party dresses and I settled for a simple blue gingham frock with little puff sleeves and white buttons down the front. Evangelisa also insisted I took a pair of her pristine ankle socks.
Giovanni turned up, took in my appearance and smiled. I longed to fall into his arms, but he told me I had to report to Nathanial immediately.
*
I left my sister with Xanthi. Giovanni led me to the villa, once again by a different route. And once again, I sensed we were under observation. The Andartes leader seemed moody. While recounting the events that led me to the little church in Embonas, I became dizzy and my knees buckled.
Next thing, I was carried upstairs by a burly rebel who deposited me on a huge four-poster bed. I opened my eyes and found Giovanni staring into my face, his concern very apparent.
‘You fainted. Here, drink some water.’ He slid his arm under my shoulders and sat me up.
‘I was scared,’ he said.
‘What, in the woods?’
‘No, silly, when you blacked out like that.’
We returned downstairs, and I apologised to Nathanial, explaining that apart from the cheese pies, I’d hadn’t eaten or drank anything in forty-eight hours. He ordered Josie, his woman, to fetch soup and bread.
‘Now start again. I want to hear everything that happened at Kamiros Scala in your own words, little one.’ I left nothing out. ‘You were brave,’ he said finally. ‘From what you’ve told me, I realise it wasn’t a chance encounter, the Germans were waiting for the British. Clearly, someone had informed the Nazis that our allies planned an insurgence. This means we have a traitor.’
Finding the information difficult to grasp, I said, ‘Perhaps the traitor was connected to the British soldiers.’
He shook his head. ‘No. It’s someone here.’
‘I can’t believe it. Who would do such a thing?’
‘Yesterday, the Gestapo stormed the bamboo groves again. This time they tortured and killed Kapitanos Nikos and confiscated the radio.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Who saw the radio, Dora?’
‘Kapitanos Nikos. Oh, no!’ This shocking news made me dizzy again. I shook my head and shrugged. ‘What radio?’
‘The radio that was in the box I gave you for Nikos. The person responsible for Nikos’s death knew about it. Are you telling me you never looked in the crate?’ I stared at him. ‘Dora?’
‘He was so full of life.’ I tried to grasp what Nathanial implied. ‘The lid was nailed down. I had no idea what was inside.’
Nathanial narrowed his eyes as if he had realised I was lying. ‘We’ve lost important equipment, Dora.’ He rubbed his hand over his mouth for a moment. ‘Even worse, the Kapitanos is dead. He glared. ‘We must discover who the traitor is before more lives are taken.’
Only Irini and I knew about the radio, and Irini had disappeared.
Josie, a good-looking fair-skinned woman about twice my age, stuck her head into the room and called, ‘Food!’
‘Get Giovanni, Josie. They can eat together. In fact, it’s getting late; they can sleep here tonight.’
Josie ladled two bowls of chicken lemon soup thick with rice. Nathanial and his woman left the kitchen, and moments later Giovanni entered.
‘Are you all right now?’
I nodded. ‘You’ve got some food. Let’s eat. I’m starving.’
Despite the upsetting information, I ate ravenously. We both licked our spoons when the bowls were empty. ‘I’m worried about Irini,’ I said.
‘Don’t fret. She’ll turn up with an explanation. You were brave yesterday, Dora.’ His voice was soft. ‘You killed our enemies and you saved a man’s life.’ He seemed distracted, then he took my hand. ‘Nathanial said you can stay here tonight.’
He gazed into my face. I understood his thoughts, lowered my eyes and shook my head.
‘Why?’ he said. ‘I want to sleep with you in a real bed. Spend the night in each other’s arms, all the way until morning.’
‘No, Giovanni. That will be the most precious night of my life, and I want to save it for . . . you know.’
‘But we won’t be able to’ – he swallowed hard – ‘until after the war. I’ve got no money for a wedding now.’
‘Wedding? You mean we will be married?’ I was shocked, happy, and sad all in the same instant. Somehow it set an appointment. An event for my family to come back to. A wonderful time in the future when this war could be forgotten and happiness would rule the day.
‘You will marry me, won’t you, Dora?’ He lifted my face, his slow-blinking eyes gazing into mine. ‘I love you, Pandora Cohen.’
Filled with emotion and unable to speak, I nodded.
He cupped my chin and kissed me tenderly. ‘Then I must make arrangements.’
Giovanni left the kitchen and returned minutes later. ‘Come with me.’
He led me up the red marble staircase, and out onto the Juliet balcony. A million stars twinkled in an ebony sky. An owl hooted. Crickets trilled their monotonous song and the warm air was laden with the scent of wild honeysuckle.
Nathanial joined us. He smiled and said, ‘Stand together.’ We did. ‘With the power vested in me as Capitano of the Andartes, I ask if you, Pandora, take Giovanni as your husband, to love and honour for always?’
I may have gasped, I’m not sure, but when I found my voice I looked into Giovanni’s eyes and said, ‘I do.’
Nathanial said, ‘Do you, Giovanni, take Pandora for your wife, to love and honour for always?’
Giovanni continued to gaze at me. ‘I do,’ he said softly.
‘Then place the ring on her finger.’
Giovanni pulled at a leather thong around his neck and as it emerged from under his vest, I saw a ring glint in the starlight. Nathanial cut the thong and Giovanni slipped the simple band of gold onto my finger.
‘I now pronounce you man and wife. Kiss the bride,’ Nathanial said. Giovanni took me in his arms and kissed me tenderly.
A great racket of clapping and whistling came from inside, and I realised the rebels knew what was happening. Someone struck up an accordion, raki was handed out, olives and bread on the table, and a party whooped into full swing.
By midnight everyone was a little drunk. Giovanni whispered, ‘Let’s escape.’ And we rushed upstairs. In front of the bedroom door I’d been in earlier, he picked me up, carried me over the threshold, and placed me on the bed.
I took the wedding ring off. ‘I’m afraid of losing it, Giovanni; it’s too big.’
He pulled the thong from his pocket, slipped the gold band onto it, and tied it back together. ‘Then wear it like this until I can have it made smaller. It belonged to my mother.’
We abandoned our clothes and for the first time slept naked, all night long in each other’s arms. The happiest night of my life.
Afternoon, Saturday, 26 August 1944
I am back at the hut, and write this while Evangelisa and Xanthi are clearing a new kitchen garden at the edge of the woods.
Before I left the villa this morning, Giovanni and I ate eggs and bread with olive oil in the big kitchen. Nathanial came in and said I was to have a break for a week or so.
‘But I don’t want any time off, sir. We must end the war. I have to help my family return home!’ I cried. ‘Tell me how to get the radio back!’
But he was insistent.
Sunday, 27 August 1944
Where is Irini? She’s been gone for two days. I fear for her safety and miss her terribly. I wanted to keep our wedding a secret until I had told Irini about it myself. At midday, I met Giovanni under the cinnamon tree but I couldn’t relax.
‘I’m sorry, Giovanni. I’m so worried about Irini. Where can she be?’
‘It looks bad,’ he said. ‘That night, when I came to tell you where you were going, when you suspected we were being watched, you’re sure it wasn’t Irini? And are you certain she didn’t know about the radio?’
‘Of course!’ I lied. ‘How could you say such a thing!’ I turned and stomped back to the hut. He realised there was no point in following me.
I couldn’t believe Irini was an informer, but it didn’t look good. Her body was cold when I got into bed that night. She was the only one who had seen the radio and knew I was meeting Kapitanos Nikos. She also knew I was going to Kamiros Scala.
There was a simple explanation for these things, and I had to find it. Irini would never betray me – not ever – as I would never betray her. I felt sick at the thought of someone assisting the enemy when the lives of our families depended on the war ending.
*
Dear Diary, it is afternoon now and there is still no sign of Irini. With every hour, my concern deepens. After meeting Giovanni, I was sitting on the log outside the hut, contemplating all that had passed, when Evangelisa brought her hairbrush and started untangling my long hair.
‘I don’t know how you manage to get so much grass and twigs in the back of your hair, Dora,’ she scolded. ‘You really should wear a scarf when you go into the woods.’
She was full of questions: Where had I been? What happened? Had I received more orders through Giovanni? Did I think the Germans had captured Irini?
That very thought horrified me, and I decided I had to talk to Nathanial about my fears.
My sister was growing quickly, taking on responsibility for our comforts. She and Xanthi had dug a patch in the rich soil and planted tomato pips, and she’d cut the sprouting ends off the potatoes hoping they’d grow too.
‘I’m proud of you, Evangelisa. You’re doing a wonderful job,’ I told her as we went inside.
‘Xanthi’s teaching me so much, Dora,’ she said. We’re baking bread tomorrow.’ Clearly delighted, she fussed around the hut. She had even placed a jar of wild flowers on the table.
‘Where’s Xanthi?’ I asked.
‘She’s gone to meet one of the Andartes.’ She leaned forward, her eyes shining. ‘Don’t let on, but he’s her boyfriend.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘The other day, while you were away, she met him and came back with a love bite on her neck.’ Evangelisa nodded rather like Zeus. ‘I’m sworn to secrecy, but right after the war, she is going to get married and I’ll be her bridesmaid!’
‘That’s lovely.’
‘I wish I had a boyfriend,’ she said. ‘I watched you and Giovanni kissing. I want a boy to kiss me too.’
I remembered how Irini and I would study lovers kissing at the port. ‘When did you watch us?’
‘Ah, that would be telling.’
Monday, 28 August 1944
I hardly slept last night for worry about Irini. I plan to speak to Nathanial this very morning. His men might have heard something. Xanthi has gone to collect pine cones for the fire, and Evangelisa is arranging fresh wildflowers for the table.
Giovanni appeared in the doorway. ‘Can I speak to you outside?’ he said.
We sat on the log. Evangelisa followed.
‘Evangelisa, you realise this is the very best time to water tomatoes?’ I said. ‘If you’re hoping for really big ones.’
‘Oh, right.’ She grabbed the bucket and headed for the spring.
Giovanni smiled. ‘She’s cute, isn’t she?’
‘What did you want to tell me?’
‘Nathanial wants to see you. He said they’ve discovered who the traitor is.’
‘Who?’
He shrugged. ‘I have my suspicions, but it’s not for me to say.’
‘Is he still at the villa?’ I asked. Giovanni nodded. ‘Then will you stay with Evangelisa, while I go? I can’t leave her alone if there’s a traitor watching.’
*
All the way through the forest, I fretted. Who was the informer?
I sat with Nathanial on the stone wall outside the Villa. When he answered my question, I was speechless, I snapped my mouth shut and stared at him.
‘I can’t believe it,’ I managed. ‘Why would Xanthi betray us to the Nazis? She has nothing to gain.’
‘We have learned that her lover’s a Nazi. She’ll do anything for him, even give him information. You really had no idea, little one?’
I shook my head. ‘Would I leave my sister with her if I suspected Xanthi was capable of treachery? It’s too awful! I thought someone was following Giovanni and me the night before I left Kamiros Scala.’
I knew it couldn’t be Irini!
He nodded. ‘Xanthi will be dealt with. Is there anything else you want to talk about?’
‘I’m worried sick about Irini. She left without a word three days ago. It’s not like her. Something’s terribly wrong, I sense it. I don’t understand. We never have secrets, apart from what passes between you and I, capitano.’
‘Ah yes, now we come to Irini.’ Nathanial stared at the ground as if searching for words among the wild flowers and blades of grass. He rubbed his hand over his beard. ‘There’s no easy way to say this. I’m sorry, little one. Your friend Irini . . . her body was found this morning.’