It’s good information, too.

  One time, we learned of troops leaving Chania and heading to Rethymno under the command of someone Cassia regularly saw, and Demetrios and his men were able to set a trap for them on the road. After they killed them, they took the German weapons and ammo from the kubelwagen jeeps, then drove them into the sea. In addition to the kubelwagens, the Germans also had a Zundapp KS 750 motorcycle with them that Demetrios managed to ride back to the mountains with the weapons and ammo, and that’s how they were well-armed again, with more rifles and bullets for everyone, and a motorcycle, too.

  There was poetry to it, I thought.

  They’d now kill Germans with their own German weapons.

  It was also around this time that Demetrios started to notice a change in Ikaros.

  In the beginning of their time in the mountains, Ikaros was apprehensive, Demetrios told me, as many men are when they first experience battle. Very quickly, though, his apprehension turned into something else. He had learned he had a talent for shooting and killing—a steady hand and precise eye—and that led him to becoming quite bold, and then even bolder still, after he’d been with them for some months, and it was now to the point where his actions during the fighting and skirmishes against the Germans had become reckless. On one hand, he’s beginning to live up to his name. On the other, he’s unnecessarily risking a life, and a life that’s needed, too, just the same as the original Ikaros did. We don’t see any of this, though, me or his parents in the village, but I’m there when Demetrios comes on a Thursday night, which is unusual, and he comes without Ikaros, which is even more unusual. He asks to speak with Giannis and tells him everything that’s been happening. Giannis listens, stone-faced, and after he hears all his oldest son has to say about his middle child, he simply stands and leaves. He doesn’t say anything else, he just gets up from the table where they’d been sitting, takes his jacket to protect against the chill of the winter night, and begins to walk.

  “Where’s he going?” I ask Demetrios.

  He doesn’t answer.

  Instead, Demetrios just gets up, and so do I, and we go to our bedroom.

  I don’t ask any more questions about Giannis because the limited time we have together is so precious, and I count every moment. So we go, and when we’re there, and close the door behind us, I put my hands on his chest.

  My lips find his.

  I take off his jacket, his cummerbund, his shirt, and when I do, I see there are now more scars crisscrossed on his skin.

  Fresh scars.

  “What happened?” I ask, very softly.

  “Nothing,” he whispers, as my hands trace the angry lines as if my fingers could command them to reveal their mystery. He gently takes my hands from the scars and places them on his shoulders, then my thoughts begin to slow and turn to something else as we move to our bed. I didn’t become pregnant in the first years we were married, leading up to Demetrios’s deployment to the mainland, and I haven’t become pregnant since he’s been back, despite us continuing to try, though of course we try less now than we did before the war. It’s something I always think about, however. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s us; one of us, both of us, our biology. Other times, though, I wonder if it’s God and his protection. Either way, we soon drift to sleep, together, holding each other, and when I wake, he’s gone again, back to the mountains, and my bed is empty once more. I quietly dress and when I leave my bedroom, I see that Giannis has returned. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, holding Angeliki’s hand, as she sits across from him with her steaming mug of malotira and tears on her cheek.

  “What is it?” I ask, looking between them. “What’s happened?”

  “It’s time to prepare for a wedding,” he tells me.

  9 JANUARY 9, 1942

  I don’t know what Giannis said to Anastasios Magarakis.

  In fact, no one does, and however often we might ask, I’m not sure anyone ever will; all any in our family or either village knows is that Giannis showed up in Elaionas that Thursday night, woke Anastasios from his sleep and after an entire night spent talking alone, the next morning they both agreed there would be a wedding. Are ancient and eternal things finished and undone just as simply as that? I guess the answer is sometimes they are, especially during war. Time will surely tell, but it seems if there isn’t an outright peace, there’s at least a truce, though it becomes clear after the announcement that the truce isn’t an all-encompassing one, but rather a begrudging impasse reached for the happiness of children during these times where there is so little happiness. I don’t know Kyriaki Magarakis, but I look forward to getting to know her as we become family. I’ve seen her, of course, but never spoken to her and I ask myself: what could she have possibly said or done to change the mind of her great and stubborn father? Because surely it was her, right, who changed his mind? In the end, it doesn’t matter. If there’s one good thing that’s happened in the whole of the last year, it’s this, and the entire valley will be able to share in the happiness of Ikaros and Kyriaki.

  Happiness.

  Joy.

  Pure, unadulterated elation and love.

  Giannis and Angeliki told Demetrios what Anastasios said before he left to go back to the mountains, so it’s their oldest son who gets to tell their middle child this news, and I’m sorry I won’t be there. I imagine it to be something like this, though: a scene where Ikaros tries to take off and run again, straight to Elaionas, and her arms, the same as he did when we heard the German planes, but Demetrios stops him. Demetrios grabs him and holds him so he can’t run to the village where he might be seen by Germans, then tackles him to the ground and Ikaros starts to laugh, and so does Demetrios, who feels the same love and joy his brother now feels. I imagine there will be too much drinking among the men there in the mountains, and too much celebrating, and I keep smiling at all of this and all I imagine must be happening there.

  I won’t see any of it, though.

  At least not until the wedding.

  Giannis and Anastasios both agree the wedding needs to be sooner rather than later, while it’s still winter, and it’ll be in the mountains at the town of Skiafos. It’s an area still covered with snow in January, and while the German patrols occasionally reach those heights in the summer, in winter, they rarely venture out of the cities. So while there will always be risk to having a wedding and large gathering, that’s the calculated risk that will have to be taken. Since the fighting began and the Germans took our cities, they’ve flown planes over the entirety of the island and dropped leaflets in Greek that warn any villager who holds or owns a weapon will be treated as an enemy soldier, regardless of age, sex, ability, or anything else. And also, any village that harbors resistance fighters of any kind will pay the most severe price. So in the mountains, and protected by season and elements, is where and how the wedding will have to take place.

  It’s also decided, to minimize risk, that neither Ikaros nor any others will return to the village before the wedding.

  I realize what that means.

  The next time he sees Kyriaki, it will be on the day that will mark the beginning of their lives together.

  How beautiful, I think, but it also leaves very little time to prepare.

  It’s normally the mother of the bride who would be in charge of food, wedding dress, and decorations, but Kyriaki’s mother died many years ago—during the birth of her last sibling—so we split duties between all of us instead. My mother will handle the food, she enlists the help of the women of the village to assist her with it, and I walk to Elaionas with Angeliki to prepare the wedding dress. Kyriaki opts for traditional rather than modern and will wear the same dress her mother wore when she wed Anastasios, she tells us. So we’ll tailor it to fit her, and since on our island a wedding dress is a map of a family’s history, we’ll also add her history to it, as well. It’s the first time I’ve really met or spoken with her, or even seen her closely; she has jet-black hair and brown eyes set in a triangular face with sharp angles and features, rather than the soft and diminutive shape many men seem to prefer. I wouldn’t describe her as beautiful in a traditional sense, but the more I’m with her, the more I find myself not able to turn away, and though her beauty isn’t the type we’ve all been shown over and over, I see and understand what’s so entranced Demetrios’s middle brother.

  Her mother’s dress has been stored in a chest of cedar, made of wood from the trees that grow on the southern coast of the island, near Elafonisi, and when we take it out we see all the color, layers, textures, and images that have already been embroidered on it. These are images of her family’s story, up until this point, and this is what they are: a kaiki, a sheep, a lion, a crescent moon, an olive tree, a dolphin jumping next to an island, and a gold coin. I don’t ask her about them. Instead, I ask what she would like to add. Each successive bride that wears the dress usually adds one embroidered motif, but she tells me she wants to add two: a snow-capped mountain, and a Cretan dagger.

  We look at her curiously, both Angeliki and I.

  “It’s where we met,” Kyriaki says simply, “and it’s also who we are.”

  I don’t know how they met, but I suppose she’s telling us it must have been in the mountains. However it happened, we have what we need, so we take the dress and begin the process of embroidery, as she’s requested, which we’ll do here, in Elaionas, and in her house so that the dress will remain with her and her people. Now that we’ve seen the colors, pattern, and fabric, Angeliki will weave and sew the headdress that will be made for Kyriaki, and that she’ll be given on her wedding day and not before. I look down at the motifs once more. I still wonder about the mountains and what they mean. The dagger, of course, is in regard to the continuation of conflict we’re all now part of. They will both be there now, in the story of her family, forever, which means it will now be in the story of our family, too. I suppose it’s as it should be.

  The next days go by quickly.

  Every time I walk through the house, Angeliki is at the dining table sewing the headdress, and despite the circumstances and family into which Kyriaki was born, I can tell that Angeliki is ecstatic to finally have another daughter after a life of raising three wild boys. Giannis seems more reluctant, however. He seems apprehensive about the future and becoming part of the family that his family has been at odds with for more time than any can count, but things change, as the world has shown us, so many times now; things do indeed change, and this wedding, of course, will be proof of that.

  The day soon arrives, and when it does, my mother loads all the food she’s prepared onto a wagon that’s pulled by our donkey and covered with hay and the tools we use to trim the olives to disguise what’s really there.

  Then she sends Tasos with it up to the village.

  He needs to be there earlier than us, as he will stand as koumbaro, and the rest leave in pairs, or threes, and we don’t all go at once but rather stagger our trips and we won’t be gone long: our plan is to be back before the sun comes up tomorrow. Or at least most of us. I go with my mother and father, and it’s hard for them to travel all the way to the highest parts of the island, though they try not to show it. They don’t want to let me or anyone else see their struggle because it’s such a joyous occasion and they don’t want anything to take from that. The trip takes nearly half a day. We soon get to Skiafos, though, and begin to walk through the narrow and tiered streets of the ancient village, one that’s seemingly hanging from peaks and clutching to the sides of the White Mountains around it. And as we walk through it, we see how the village has been decorated: there are blue and white banners, the colors of the Greek flag, strung between buildings, and there are also petals of white and blue flowers spread through the streets that lead to where the ceremony will take place in the small Orthodox chapel of Agios Giorgos on the bluff facing south. When we get to the chapel, I see Father Thiseas standing in filtered and dusty light, in front of the altar, and I see Ikaros next to him in full traditional Cretan dress which is the uniform of weddings, of everyday life, and also battle. He has new clothes, though, that are bright and colorful and freshly starched, and I see he has a new dagger, too. It’s one that’s been recently carved and made by Giannis, I realize, for this occasion, and it’s strapped to his right hip. Next to Ikaros stands Tasos, also in full traditional dress, then I see that they’ve spurned tradition and Demetrios stands next to them, also, dressed the same way and as a second koumbaro. He sees me and shrugs very small and I just smile back at him. I smile at Ikaros, also, and what he’s done, because I know he’s right: a koumbaro is a best man, a godparent to future children, and a marital sponsor all rolled into one; a koumbaro is the person who will always be there for the couple, to help them, to be relied upon, and in these times, we need that help. We will all, certainly, with what is to come, need all the help there might be.

  We take our seats.

  Our family is in the front row on the right side of the chapel, the side on which Ikaros, Tasos, and Demetrios stand at the altar.

  Everyone from our village also sits on the right.

  Across from us, on the left, I look and see all the people who have come from Elaionas.

  There are no rifles or pistols amongst them, or us, not anywhere in the chapel, so that if by chance we are found by Germans, we can claim innocence and perhaps be spared. There’s another moment of silence and near-darkness, then the doors to the chapel open again and light pours in. We all turn to see Kyriaki in the dress woven by her ancestors and by us. She’s holding the arm of her father, and her two sisters are there, Efimia and Iona, to stand as koumbara, as she’s made the same decision as Ikaros, to have two siblings stand with her rather than just one. They walk down the aisle together. Kyriaki goes first, her father next to her, and she holds his arm as her sisters follow. When they pass where we sit, I see the finished embroidery we’ve added, then I see more, too. There’s another image that’s on the dress and I realize she must have done this one herself, after we left, or alone with her sisters, and I smile when I see what it is: a piece of string that’s bent and twisted and tied into a complicated, unbreakable, and never-ending knot. I smile because I know what it is. It’s us. It’s our families, once separate, but now joined, forever joined in a way that’s made to be enduring, unbreakable, and without end.

  The ceremony is beautiful.

  Tasos and Demetrios hand Father Thiseas the wedding rings.

  He puts each ring on just the tip of Kyriaki and Ikaros’s fingers, and he does this three times and blesses them each time he does it. Then Efimia and Iona come forward. They carry with them the stefana, the wedding crowns that have been woven out of branches of young olives, from both our trees and theirs, and decorated with flowers picked from a place between the two villages. Once the stefanas are placed on the head of the bride and groom, and joined by a single strand of string, Kyriaki and Ikaros are led around the altar three times, to symbolize the journey they’re about to undertake together. When they stop and stand in front of each other, Father Thiseas blesses them one last time, removes the crowns, then they kiss as they’re now joined for all eternity and we cheer. It’s a muted cheer, though, especially from the Elaionas side of the aisle, as resentments, bitterness, and jealousies don’t end simply because a wedding takes place. The only thing that can cure such things is time, I know, which is if such things can be cured at all.

  Ikaros and Kyriaki turn and face us.

  They leave the altar and begin to walk down the aisle as we mimic spitting at them, each three times, to bring the greatest amount of luck and good fortune, then we follow after them and back outside to the mountain streets.

  And that’s when we stop.

  Demetrios is at my side now, and he’s taller than me, and can see over the crowd, so it’s him that stops first. I can see Ikaros and Kyriaki ahead of him, too, and when I look, I see the joy that was on their faces only moments before has now left and turned to something else.

  Anger.

  Fear.

  Then I see why.

  Soldiers.

  They’re German soldiers, an entire battalion coming from the mountains and down the narrow streets, armed with rifles that are pointed at us and after a quick count, I realize there are about twenty of them. I see Ikaros tense in front of us, his entire body on alert now as his hand reaches towards his Cretan dagger, but behind him, and next to me, Demetrios whispers into his brother’s ear: “Oxi,” he says, under his breath.

  I of course know why.

  There’s another young man here, though, from Elaionas, who doesn’t have an older brother to whisper to him and doesn’t look to be more than sixteen, the same wild and uncontrollable age as Ikaros, and he breaks from us and starts to run in the opposite direction. One of the Germans raises his rifle. He aims, then a shot rings out. It echoes between the mountains, and after the boy stumbles and falls, there are screams that echo between the mountains now, too. The screams are all around us, and I want to scream, as well, but I don’t. I don’t let myself. I won’t give them that. Some of the women run to the young man that’s fallen, while some of the men instinctually reach for daggers or anything that could be used as a weapon, but the other men—Giannis, Anastasios Magarakis, and Demetrios among them—urge them to stop. They know what we have always known, and the reason why we have no rifles or pistols with us: we are no match against the Germans in open combat, and if we try to fight them as we are, it will be a bloodbath.

  The soldiers approach.

  They continue to walk slowly towards us.

  We wait for them.

  Giannis, Anastasios, and Demetrios go forward from our group, along with Anastasios’s sons, Kyriakos and Errikos, then a leader steps forward from the German battalion to meet them.

  There’s silence.

  The German commander surveys all of us, his eyes twitching and moving between each individual, as he takes us in, our purpose, and the reason we’re here.