“That was a long time ago, Alexei.”

  “We’re still the same people.”

  She smiled at Alexei, seeing his pride bristle.

  “That’s why I love you … you know that, right?”

  “Why.”

  “They say that pride is a sin, but I don’t believe that it is. Not always, at least. And your pride in us gives me pride in us, too. Now what is it that you wanted to show me?”

  He took her hand and started guiding her towards the boat. “Let’s make it out before the tide,” he told her, as he helped her step into it, and then waded out from the shore, pushing the boat against the soft waves until they were far enough and he pulled himself over the side and started the engine.

  The dull roar cut through the silence of the peaceful evening as Alexei turned the nose of the boat to the north.

  They sailed up the coast until Alexei saw the distinctive shape of a peak off the shore that looked like the hooked beak of a bird, and that’s when he turned east, away from the peak, and further out to sea. It was fifteen minutes of nothing—just Alexei and Philia and the sea and the waves—until an unmistakable shape appeared in front of them, a rocky crag of land jutting harshly up in the distance.

  “What’s this?” Philia asked, looking out towards the land that was getting closer in front of them, the island.

  “It’s what I wanted to show you.”

  “What’s its name?”

  “It doesn’t have one.”

  “Really?”

  “This sea is filled with islands … some that people know about, and some that they don’t. This one is mine. We can call it whatever you want.”

  “Who else has been here?”

  “No one. Just me.”

  “Not even Costa?”

  “No,” Alexei smiled. “Not even Costa.”

  He steered the boat clear of the rocks near the surface of the shallow water and into the natural harbor where he tied the boat off and got out, then helped Philia make the step over the railing and onto the land.

  She looked around, taking it in.

  The island was small, a person would have been able to walk from one side to the other in under ten minutes, with a secluded beach next to where they’d docked in the harbor, and there was a rocky mountain in the middle that rose to about a thousand feet.

  “How did you find this place?” Philia asked, taking in the natural beauty around them, the beauty that she was a part of now, too.

  “I stumbled on it when I was fishing one day. Come on … up this way, we have to go higher.”

  Alexei took her hand and led her along a pathway up the mountain, following the route that he always followed, and soon they came to the entrance of a small cave. Alexei ducked inside, pulling Philia in after him, and again she didn’t hesitate, like the first day that he met her, even though the cave was deep and very dark, and as she crossed the threshold she saw that it was large and spacious, too. But the thing that Alexei loved most about his cave was how high the ceiling was, and the sense of immensity that it created, and also the intimacy, as if the people that were inside were shut off from the world in a place that could be theirs, nobody else’s but theirs, and that’s what he wanted to share with her.

  “Do you like it?”

  “It’s amazing.”

  “Turn around.”

  They turned back to the entrance, which faced west, the way that they’d come, and far in the distance the sun had nearly completed its descent, setting slowly and full of bright and distinct color painted over the mountains and valleys of the land where they’d been born.

  “It’s beautiful,” Philia said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “It’s my favorite place in the whole world.”

  They kept watching in silence as the sun cast its soft orange glow over everything that was in front of them, getting closer and closer to disappearing behind the peaks in the distance. Then, with the sun sinking in the sky, almost gone, Philia turned back to Alexei, and he could see the worry that was in her eyes.

  “What’s going to happen tomorrow, Alexei?”

  “Could you really love a man that’s not willing to defend his home?” he asked. “Because that’s not a man at all.”

  “Men search for pain. They search for pain because they don’t know who they are without it.”

  “You know that’s not what this is.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Philia, look at me,” Alexei said, and he used his thumb to turn her cheek until she was looking directly into his eyes. “I love you, Philia. That’s what this is. And while I don’t know what’s going to happen in the days to come, the one thing I do know is that’s never going to change. That’s the only thing that’s never going to change.”

  “I’m scared, Alexei. I don’t want to be, but I don’t know what else there is left.”

  “I’ll come back to you. I know that in my heart, more clearly than anything I’ve ever known. I’ll come back to you.”

  “How do you know?”

  He looked at her, and she looked back at him, and he hadn’t planned this, but he was in love with the woman in front of him, and he knew that he wanted to do everything in his power to make her as close to him as he possibly could, for the rest of both of their lives.

  “Marry me,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Marry me, Philia. I want to make you my wife.”

  She put her hands over her mouth as the tears came to her eyes. “Alexei, I love you more than anything in the world, you know that … but you can’t ask that of me.”

  “I’m not asking.”

  “We’re too young.”

  “Too young for what?”

  “My father … you know what he’ll say. How could we be a family without his blessing?”

  “Don’t you want to be with me?”

  “Of course I do. But you can’t make me choose between you and him. You can’t ask me to do that.”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  “You’ve tried that before. We both know that he won’t listen.”

  “The world’s changing, Philia. Your father can change, too. I’ll talk to him. I’ll make him understand.”

  “Alexei …”

  “Come here.”

  Alexei sat down on a rock at the front of the cave and made room for her next to him as he took out the pen, knife, and ink that he’d brought from his desk.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Watch.”

  He took the knife in his right hand, then turned over his left, so that his palm faced the sky and his wrist was exposed, waiting for what was about to come.

  He dug the knife into the soft flesh just where the wrist meets the hand, and the first drops of blood slid down his arm and into the dirt. He worked slowly, carefully cutting perfect and straight lines, and when he was done he reached for the ink and dipped the pen into it, black liquid gathering on its tip, before using it to trace back over the tender skin uncovered by the knife, using the pen to set the ink into the exposed flesh. He worked carefully, and when he was done he held his wrist out to show her what he’d created. It was four letters, perfectly drawn, embedded and inked with permanence into his flesh——her name written in Greek.

  “Now you’ll always be with me.”

  She looked at it for a moment, then took Alexei’s hand in hers and started to trace her fingers over the letters—

  “Careful,” he said. “The ink needs to set.”

  She raised his wrist to her mouth and gently pressed her lips against it, softly kissing his skin.

  “I want you to do it to me now.”

  “There’s not enough room,” Alexei smiled. “My name’s too long.”

  “Just your initial, then.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t tell me no.”

  He turned and looked at her—

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It’ll hurt.”

  She looked back at him, and he could see the strength that was in her eyes, the strength that was in her soul, and he had no doubt why he loved her—

  “I know,” she said.

  After they were done, and the ink had set, and the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, Alexei led her back into the cave to where two blankets waited for them. He lit the candle that he kept next to the blankets, and he took her hand and they gently lay down together.

  He looked into her eyes.

  “I love you, and I don’t ever want to love anyone else. And when I come home I want you to have my children, and I want us to raise them here, where we were raised, in the fields and hills where we grew, in the city that we made ours, and teach them to love their country the way that we do. That’s what I want, Philia. That’s all that I want.”

  She looked back at him.

  He traced his fingers along the lines of fresh ink on her wrist, and he could feel her heart beating against his. He kissed her, his dry lips rough against her smooth skin, their bodies begging for each other, but once again they would deny what their bodies asked. They’d never spoken of it, but they hadn’t made love, and it was their silent agreement that their first time would be on their wedding night, the way that it used to be so many years ago.

  So they lay there and held each other, Philia’s eyes watching the light as it flickered and danced across the walls of the cave.

  “I’m scared.”

  “I’m scared, too. But I’m right here.”

  He looked at her, the most beautiful girl in the world, and this the most perfect moment that he could possibly imagine—

  “I’m right here, and I’ll never leave you.”

  2

  October 29th, 1940

  THE NEXT MORNING THEY LEFT THE cave just as the sun was beginning to rise in the distance, early enough for Philia to slip into her bed before her father woke and discovered that she hadn’t come home.

  Alexei never went to sleep.

  He stayed awake all night, memorizing every line of Philia’s face, every wrinkle in her skin, the way that her hand felt in his hand and the way that her body felt against his body, how perfectly they fit together in every way.

  It was what he was going to take with him.

  When they finally went down from the mountain, back down the trail towards the boat that would take them home, Philia stopped and looked behind them, up towards their cave.

  “You said this place has no name?” she asked, still taking it in, committing it to memory. “Because a place as beautiful as this needs a name.”

  “What do you want to call it?”

  She thought for a moment, looking back to where they’d just spent such a perfect night together—

  “Eudaimonia,” she said.

  Alexei smiled at her choice.

  The word had many meanings, some going as far back as Socrates and Aristotle and Plato, but in this case the most common was the most fitting, and he was glad to hear her in her own way call the cave “happiness.” He helped her into the boat, the pre-dawn breeze starting to pick up as he pulled the engine alive and they started back and away from the island, both of them silent, not wanting to change a single thing about what was already perfect.

  After they returned and pulled next to Alexei’s dock, he helped Philia out and over the railing just as he’d helped her in, and she gave him a small kiss and brushed his cheek with her fingers, lingering as long as she could, before she knew she had to leave. Alexei watched as she walked away from him and towards the road that would take her back towards her house, knowing that he would see her again very soon, and when she was gone Alexei finished tying off the boat before heading towards his own home to speak with his father.

  As Alexei walked up the path towards his house, he saw that even though it was very early, Iannis was already awake and sitting on the porch in the back, overlooking the sea, the place where he always took his coffee in the morning. Alexei walked over and sat down next to him, Iannis smoking a cigar with his right hand, holding his worry beads in his left, flipping them through his fingers. Alexei smiled at the familiar clack clack the beads made as Iannis expertly twirled them and they struck together.

  “You’re up early, Papa.”

  “I haven’t been to bed.”

  “No coffee today?”

  “No. Not today.”

  Iannis and his son were silent for a moment, and Alexei looked down at the worry beads that he was still spinning in his hand, and he knew why his father hadn’t been to sleep—

  “I’m going to be alright, you know.”

  “Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t. It’s war, Alexei. It’s a very dreadful thing.”

  “Are you going to tell me not to go? That you went, and that it broke you, and that you came back, but when you did nothing was the same?”

  “No,” Iannis took another puff of his cigar, slowly exhaling, still working his beads with his other hand. “A young man should fight for his home, and for his country. I wouldn’t take that from my son. And besides, I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to. Young men like to fight too much, blinded by that thing they call passion, until they’re old enough to understand what it really is.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You’ll know when you’re as old as me.”

  Alexei smiled as they sat in silence together a little longer, and then Iannis set his cigar down and put his hand on his son’s shoulder, and in that moment Alexei saw how frail his father looked, the great man, the man who had once been Zeus to a little boy, who now looked so old, so infirm, and so suddenly mortal.

  “Did she say yes?”

  “What, Papa?”

  “Make sure that she says yes. One thing that I learned in my time is that the men who return from war are the ones that have something to return to. She’ll give you that. A reason to keep fighting, when the rest of the world will surely give you a million reasons not to.”

  Alexei looked at Iannis, and for the first time realized how much a father can know his son, how much they share of their own bodies, and that mystical understanding between two generations of the same man. Alexei reached into his pocket and took out a handful of drachmae that he’d been saving from the sponges that he’d sold.

  “Here, Papa,” he said. “I want you to take this.”

  “Where did my son get such a fortune?”

  “It’s not a fortune, Papa,” Alexei smiled back, knowing his father liked to tease him. “I’ve been gathering sponges all summer, like I told you, and I’ve been selling them at the agora. Here, take it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to buy one of our goats from you.”

  Iannis reached out and instead of taking the money he gently closed Alexei’s fingers around the coins and squeezed his son’s hand into a fist. “Keep your money, Alexei. Take whichever goat you think will make him the happiest. Remember, you must make sure that she says yes. Give your mother something to plan, and to keep her busy while you’re gone. That’ll be the best thing that you can do for her. Women don’t understand war, but they do understand weddings. My god, do women understand weddings.”

  Alexei sat for another moment with his father, neither of them sure when they’d be able to share a time like this again, a moment free of care between a father and his son with the sun rising above the waves in front of them in the land where they were born and had also been made. Alexei didn’t want to go, to let a moment like this slip away without staying longer to appreciate it, but he knew that he had to. So with the sun almost over the mountains, he finally stood and patted his father on the hand, where he held his worry beads, and then walked towards the enclosure where they kept their goats. He looked at all of them until he found the best one—the youngest and healthiest—and slipped a rope around its neck to lead it out of the enclosure and down the dirt road towards Philia’s house.

  In so many of the books that he loved, he’d read about moments in people’s lives. Moments when what they did mattered, because it changed everything else, for one way or the other. And that’s what our lives are built on, these choices, and these moments. English doesn’t have a word for it, but the Greeks have a word for everything.

  Kairos.

  As Alexei walked into the sun, he felt something inside him that he’d never felt before, and he knew.

  This morning … this was a moment.

  Alexei knocked on Giorgos’ door.

  He waited for a moment, and then it opened. Giorgos stood on the other side, and took in Alexei on his porch, holding a goat on a leash next to him.

  “Are you lost?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  Alexei could see Philia in the house, behind her father, sitting at a table eating breakfast. Giorgos followed Alexei’s eyes and saw the look that they shared, so he stepped outside, closing the door shut behind him.

  “Philia’s busy today,” he said. “She can’t see you.”

  “I didn’t come to see her, sir. I came to see you.”

  “What’s this on the leash?” he nodded towards the goat. “I thought your people were fishermen.”

  “We are. It’s for you,” Alexei said, trying to hand the leash to Giorgos, but Giorgos made no effort to take it, instead just folding his arms firmly across his chest.

  “If you came all this way to give me a goat, then I’m afraid you’ve wasted your morning.”

  “I came to talk to you.”

  “Well, then. Talk.”

  “You know that Philia and I have loved each other for a long time now. Tomorrow I’m going to join the army, like every other young man in this country, and I’ll head north to fight for Greece.”

  “That’s brave of you. But what does that have to do with me?”

  “I came to ask for her hand in marriage before I leave.”

  “No,” Giorgos said, without any hesitation.

  “Just no?”

  “You’d make my daughter a widow before she’s even twenty years old? That’s what you’ve come to ask my blessing for?”

  “No. She won’t be a widow. I’m going to come back.”