“I don’t know. I’d guess a girl, maybe someone from his class, from before the war.”

  “Because of Ikaros,” Giannis shakes his head now.

  “No,” Demetrios says firmly, “because he’s a boy, and that’s what boys do.”

  “And you knew about this? And did nothing?”

  “I didn’t see the harm.”

  “How could you possibly not?” Giannis practically yells at him, raising his voice.

  “I didn’t think he would steal my motorcycle!” Demetrios yells now, too. “As much as you might want, Baba, you can’t keep your children alone here forever. Surely you must realize that by now. War or not, there’s a whole world out there, there’s a whole other world where—”

  “Enough!” I hear my own voice.

  I interrupt my husband, and they all turn to look at me.

  “Enough,” I say again, softer now. “We just need to find him.”

  “Where do we start?” Angeliki asks.

  “Who was his last schoolteacher?”

  “His name was Angelos Daskalakis, from Delphinos.”

  “That’s where I’ll start,” I tell them. “I’ll start with Mr. Daskalakis and see if I can get a list of classmates, or if he knows who he might be seeing.”

  “Good idea,” Demetrios says, then starts towards the door.

  But I stop him.

  “Not you,” I say.

  “What?” he turns back, angrily.

  “The sun’s up.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does. We can’t lose both of you.”

  He turns and looks outside, sees the light that’s come now, that’s all around.

  It’s almost as if he’s forgotten about it, and where we are, with what’s happening.

  “I’ll be careful. I’ll be careful, and stay out of sight, and—”

  Then I see Cassia running up the path, towards the village, which is a strange sight, and Demetrios sees her, too.

  I go outside.

  “What is it?” I ask as she reaches us.

  She’s out of breath.

  “Tasos,” she says. “They have him. The Germans.”

  “Where?” Demetrios asks, pushing past me.

  “Chania,” she tells us, still catching her breath.

  And Demetrios doesn’t wait for more, or anything further.

  He starts to run.

  I yell after him.

  I tell him to stop, but he doesn’t listen, so I have no choice.

  I start to run, too.

  I try to catch him the entire way to the city, and while I don’t lose ground, I don’t gain any, either.

  We go past the olive trees that sit unattended and waiting to be trimmed.

  We go past Chryssi Akti and the place where sand gives way to rock, then there’s sand again, and we sprint around the point that reaches into the sea before we come to the kastro and the beginning of the Old Town.

  A crowd has gathered.

  Demetrios pushes his way through the people that are going the same direction as us, and I do, too, shouldering through the same people behind him, and trying to catch up.

  I try.

  But I don’t.

  He gets to the front of the crowd first, then when I do, what I see takes my breath away: the motorcycle is there on the ground, in front of Tasos, who’s been stripped naked, his wrists bound in handcuffs and shackled to a large pole behind him so his body is stretched and pulled.

  His eyes are barely open.

  I don’t know how long he’s been there.

  He has large red welts across his chest, arms, and legs where he’s been whipped.

  There’s a German officer that stands in front of him, holding the leather whip that’s done this, and he speaks to the crowd. “This boy was caught in possession of a German motorcycle! A sacred instrument of our war. He will not say where he found it, and it’s a crime to harbor resistance members who kill German soldiers and take our vehicles, so this boy will pay with his life unless he, or any of you, tells me where it came from!”

  The German looks around.

  No one answers.

  “Anyone?” he yells again. “Does anyone want to help this boy and spare his life?”

  Silence.

  Then someone yells.

  “Let him go! He’s just a kid!”

  “Children can be traitors, too, and he’s old enough to know that,” the German says, then turns back to Tasos. “Tell me now where you got the motorcycle, and this will all be over.”

  Tasos looks back at him, through swollen eyes.

  But he doesn’t answer.

  He stays defiant and keeps his lips closed, and even though the pain and embarrassment he must be feeling is immense, he still won’t say anything about the motorcycle, or where he’s from, or anything else.

  Not to a German.

  Not to an enemy.

  That’s why I panic, because I know who will tell them these things, and I try to reach in front of me, between all the people who are gathered and who are shouting now at the Germans to let the poor boy go because he is just a boy, after all.

  But I’m too late.

  Demetrios gets to the front, ahead of where I can reach, and calls in a loud, clear, and defiant voice.

  “The motorcycle’s mine!”

  The German turns and sees him, as Demetrios pushes his way through the last of the crowd.

  “Is it now?” he asks.

  “Yes,” Demetrios nods. “I’ve never seen that boy in my life. He must have stolen it from me, but he’s not the one who took it from you,” he says, then offers the German his hands to be cuffed.

  “Because it was you who did that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well, then,” the German nods.

  Then he pulls a pistol from his waist and shoots Demetrios in the head.

  It happens that quickly.

  I open my mouth to scream but nothing comes and the screams and noise I hear are from all those that are gathered and dive for cover at the sound of the gunshot piercing the air.

  People fall to the ground.

  I do, too, then crawl through and over them.

  Demetrios’s body collapses, then the German pushes it off the stone of the harbor and into the shallow water. I reach the feet of the German then scramble past him and to the edge to reach and pull my husband out and back up onto the limani.

  I do.

  I pull him from the water, but as I hold his head in my lap, I look down, and I can see he’s already gone.

  The bullet passed straight through his temple.

  There will be no last words, no final moment.

  I open my mouth again.

  Above me, I can hear Tasos yelling, crying, struggling against the bonds that hold him stretched and upright.

  Still no words come.

  The tears do, though.

  They pour down my face as I hold Demetrios and beg for this not to be real.

  But it is.

  Then I hear German above me, and look up to see another officer point at me, and my heart sinks when I recognize him.

  It’s the German that was in the kubelwagens that passed where I worked in the olives.

  He speaks with the officer that killed Demetrios and points south, and a little west, in the direction of our village, and my heart sinks even more because I know what he’s telling him.

  “Oxi!” I yell. “No!”

  I try to stand, but other German soldiers come and grab me.

  The officer turns to the crowd and speaks once more.

  “You’ve been warned that harboring enemies of Germany will result in death, yet still you do!” he pauses, and looks around. “Let this be a lesson to all of you, both what’s happened here in Chania today, and also what will now happen to the village that gave shelter to enemy combatants who killed the Fuhrer’s soldiers, and stole our possessions. Tell your family. Tell your friends. Tell all of them, every single one. Tell them that this is what being an enemy of Germany brings,” he spits. “It’s so much easier not to be. It’s so much easier to be our friend, then we can all live here together, in peace. Tell them that, too.”

  I glare up at him with the blood of my husband staining my arms, my clothes, and I hope it’s a sight that will live with him for the rest of his life; I hope it’s something that will haunt his soul, for the rest of his days, though I doubt it.

  “What, you would like to curse me, is that it?” he asks, speaking to me now, only me.

  “You’re already cursed,” I tell him through my tears.

  He spits again in disgust.

  I can see it in his eyes, and why?

  This is our home he’s come to; this is our island he’s invaded.

  The spit lands next to me and he waves his hand, towards Tasos, and soldiers untie him from where he’s been strung, then grab me, too, and pull me from Demetrios. I try to hold onto him but they rip me away and carry me and Tasos together across the rest of the limani. I struggle against them and try to push my way back to my husband, who lies dead and alone now, behind us, but I don’t win.

  I’m not strong enough.

  Not alone, and against all of them.

  I continue to struggle. So does Tasos.

  They pull us both along with them, though, then the limani turns into the Old Town, but we don’t go there; instead, we’re brought to the town hall that’s the German headquarters. They carry us inside. We go past more Germans and they all turn to look and see the bloody and crying wife, and naked boy, both still fighting, being carried past them. I’m sure it’s not a sight they see every day. The soldiers take us to a cell where they open the door then roughly shove us inside, as we both trip, and fall to the ground.

  They close the door behind us and lock it.

  On the other side of the bars, one of the German soldiers takes an old pair of clothes and tosses them through the bars for Tasos.

  We lay there.

  We both lay there.

  Tasos slowly pulls himself towards the pants and carefully, gently, pulls them on over his bruises and cuts, through his tears, wincing in pain as the fabric touches places where there’s raw skin because he’s been whipped.

  We lay there.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally says. “I’m so sorry.”

  I move closer to him.

  I hold his head in my lap now, as he cries, we both cry.

  “I’m so sorry, Maria,” he says again.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No, it’s not,” I whisper, my heart completely broken, my soul shattered, no longer whole, once again unmade, and I also know now it never will be whole again.

  “If I hadn’t—”

  “Oxi, Tasos-mou,” I interrupt him, as strongly as I can in this moment. “No. If they hadn’t.”

  “But I—”

  “It’s not your fault. He knew that, too. It’s not your fault,” I tell him, then I tell him once more. “It’s not your fault.”

  Silence.

  Tears.

  We both lay there in blood and grief.

  “What are we going to do?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s going to happen to them?”

  I know who he’s talking about, of course.

  The village.

  Our parents, our friends, everyone that we know.

  “I don’t know,” I say again.

  But I do.

  I know.

  So does he.

  What else can we do, though?

  What else can we do in situations that are beyond what we’ve been made to be able to endure?

  I don’t know. I don’t know.

  Next to me, Tasos closes his eyes, then soon I do, too.

  It doesn’t stop the tears, though.

  It doesn’t fill the hole, or ease any of the unbearable pain.

  15 MARCH 15, 1942

  I don’t sleep. How could I?

  How could I, or anyone, possibly sleep?

  Tasos doesn’t, either.

  I don’t want to close my eyes because I know I’ll see his again, staring blankly up at me from where I cradle his head in my lap after I pulled him from the water.

  I try not to think.

  I can’t.

  There’s the jingle of keys and I look up to see a German soldier at the entrance to the cell.

  He uses the keys to unlock the door. He swings it open and says something to us in German.

  I don’t understand the words.

  I understand what he’s telling us, though.

  We’re free to go.

  How?

  I don’t know, but I painfully stand, and so does Tasos, next to me, looking with questions in his eyes I can’t answer and we walk out of the cell and past all the other Germans that are in their headquarters, that was once the headquarters for the British, but before that was ours.

  The center of our town, our city.

  We keep walking.

  We go past them, then outside.

  And once we do, I understand.

  I see Cassia waiting for us on the street.

  I glance to the side and see an unfamiliar German officer standing by the old Venetian fountain and when he sees us walk out, he tips his hat, very small, to Cassia, before he turns and starts to walk down Zampeliou Street, towards the Old Town.

  I go to Cassia.

  “Do you have him?” I ask her, very quietly.

  “Yes,” she nods.

  I nod, too.

  Then I start to run.

  I hear her call after me to stop and be careful and to wait for her, but I don’t, and then before I’m too far away, I hear her tell Tasos to run after me, and he does.

  He runs.

  But he doesn’t catch me.

  I sprint along the familiar path, through town where I dodge vendors, soldiers, and Cretan men dressed in suits spinning their komboloi that clack clack together, then past the kastro, the craggy point in the sea to where there’s sand, then rocks, then sand once more at Chryssi Akti.

  I keep going.

  I go past the olives.

  And then, that’s when I begin to see smoke.

  The Germans have dropped fliers since the beginning of the invasion, telling us what they’ll do to villagers who harbor Greek resistance or enemy combatants, and we’ve heard rumors they’ve done similar things and destroyed other villages.

  As I get closer to the farm, I see they’ve destroyed ours, too.

  The sheep are scattered because the barn has been burned, so they wander the hills and across the path and graze on any grass that’s there.

  They look at me curiously as I run towards them, then I slow, and walk.

  Behind me, Tasos catches up, and he slows, too, when I do.

  I go to the house.

  That’s where I find them.

  They’re together on the ground, so that’s something at least, that they didn’t face this alone and they’re halfway between their bedroom and the kitchen and I wonder if it was quick, or if they saw their murderers coming and knew what had happened and what their fates would be before it came.

  Tasos reaches out.

  He takes my hand.

  There are no words.

  There’s us.

  There’s just us now.

  We continue.

  We go up and towards the village and our other house and there’s smoke there, too.

  There’s so much more smoke because the entire village has been burned, decimated, anything of value pillaged and stolen, and the rest simply destroyed for the sake of destruction, and a warning, of course.

  We approach the house.

  We don’t need to go in, though.

  Unlike my parents, Giannis and Angeliki are outside, near the overturned table where we all shared so many meals together.

  Behind them, the house still burns.

  So do the ancient olives and tall cypress across from where the bodies now rest.

  Tasos falls to his knees.

  I keep walking through the rest of the village and I see no one, I don’t see a single other person as my feet lead me through smoke and ash, then I come to the middle of the village, and that’s where they are.

  They’re not here anymore, though.

  They’re bodies.

  They’re just bodies.

  They all lie where they fell, and I see Doctor Papadakis first, with his wife next to him.

  I see Vassilis the baker.

  I see my friend Chrisoula, and her mother Ione.

  I see Anteros the cobbler, and his wife Elena, then I look even farther and see Father Thiseas, his body alone, the white collar and his black robes stained red again with spilled blood.

  I see others, too.

  I see the bodies of all those I grew with, who helped raise me, and I’m unmade once more.

  There’s still one, though.

  There’s still one person that’s not accounted for.

  Ikaros.

  I turn and see smoke rising at the far end of the valley, also, and then hear his last words to me again: tell her I’ll see her tomorrow night, and will be there waiting when she gets back.

  My heart sinks once more.

  I need to know, though.

  I need to be sure.

  I turn and begin to make my way through the narrow valley towards Elaionas, and when I get closer, I choke on the smoke that’s there, too, swirling and being blown straight at me by the wind that’s begun to pick up.

  I don’t go to the Magarakis house.

  I don’t need to.

  As I get closer, I hear the soft sound of grief and crying, through smoke and wind, and I walk towards it.

  It takes me to the center of the village.

  The bodies aren’t laid out nicely here, like they were in my village, but rather all piled on top of each other in a giant heap and I see Kyriaki on top of the pile and next to her are the bodies of her father, her brothers, and there’s one that she holds even closer to her, though, she holds the body as close as she can to her pregnant stomach as she cries and cries and rocks them both back and forth.

  I don’t need to go any closer to know who it is.

  They’re gone.

  They’re all gone.

  I fall to my knees now.

  Why?

  Why me?

  Why have I been chosen to stay, when this is what’s happened to every single person I love?

  Because I don’t want to, I realize.