We walk to Elaionas together, the whole village.

  We take the narrow path that winds the length of the valley, then soon get there and see all the villagers, waiting to greet the caravan that’s coming, and we arrive just before they do. We stand next to the other Cretans, though a little apart from them, and I see Giannis look back at Anastasios Magarakis who is across the crowd with his three young sons, two teenaged daughters, and his wife, who’s named Lydia.

  Giannis and Anastasios stare at each other.

  They don’t nod, don’t speak, don’t do anything except just stare.

  The royal caravan soon reaches the village and when it does, the two men finally turn their attention to the distinguished and important visitors. As the cars and lorries pull to a stop, the door to the first vehicle opens and the driver gets out to open the passenger door behind him. When he does, I see a leg first, then a jacket, and finally an arm and face, as the man exits the car and stands in front of us, and that’s when we all see for the first time, in the flesh, the man who must be King George II of the Hellenes. He’s tall and slender, just like the pictures in the newspapers, and balding in his middle age with skin more pale than ours or that I would have thought, and a narrow face with sunken eyes. I wonder if this is how he always looks, or if he only now does because of what he’s gone through in the last days, weeks, months, what we’ve all gone through, these great and perilous times. After the king is out of the car, he turns and reaches a hand to help a woman behind him who we all know is not his old wife, his Romanian cousin Elisabeth, who he had been married to and who divorced him some years ago, while still childless, and long before the war started; the woman he’s now with is tall and slender, and quite beautiful, also, I see, and when she speaks, I hear a familiar accent and realize she’s British, too, just like William.

  Anastasios Magarakis goes forward.

  He introduces himself, as he bows to the king, as well as the woman at his side who he calls Mrs. Jones (Missus, I realize he says, not Miss). Then behind them, the door to another car opens and we all recognize Emmanouil Tsouderos, the new prime minister of Greece. Ioannis Metaxas had been the prime minister who’d said the proud “Oxi!” to the Italians, but shortly after he had died, under mysterious circumstances, and been succeeded by Alexander Koryzis, the former governor of the Bank of Greece. But as German troops reached Athens, Koryzis shot himself in the head rather than flee or be captured, so Tsouderos was chosen to be the next head of government even as that very same government fled from Athens to Irakleio.

  And now, here they are, in our valley.

  The people go to him.

  They crowd around and shake Tsouderos’s hand, and I watch as my father goes with them and he does, too, and I stand behind my father and smile when Tsouderos gets to me. He was chosen to be prime minister because he’s from Rethymno, not many kilometers to the east, and he was chosen because the government had to flee and come here and they wanted to be sure of their reception. On Crete, there isn’t much sentiment or sympathy for the royal family, as the government and political party the king supported was at odds with the government and party of Eleftherios Venizelos, the favorite son of our island, and our most famous politician, who had been the leader of the Greek opposition.

  But that was before, during peacetime.

  Now there’s a great war, and in war, such things are put aside.

  The king and his family may not have been favorites here, but he’s still king, and he’s now among us; he’s in our mountains, and on our island, so we’ll do him honor, as we do to all who come to visit.

  Philoxenia.

  I look at Tasos next to me, at his wide eyes.

  It’s a day he’ll remember, I know, for all the rest of his life: the day he saw the king of Greece.

  Then I look at Ikaros, next to him.

  There’s a look on Ikaros’s face that’s hard to read as it isn’t the wide-eyed wonder of his brother.

  What is it?

  What’s the look that’s there?

  In front of us, Anastasios Magarakis shows the king into his house, along with Mrs. Jones, and valets follow behind, carrying luggage. We take everything in, after they go inside and disappear, because I know this will be a moment. Even as it’s happening, I know this will be talked about for years and generations in this valley, about how king and prime minister came to our village and stayed the night. They won’t stay longer than that, as they’re of course on their way somewhere else, but they’re here now, and they’re our guests.

  Or, at least, they’re Anastasios Magarakis’s guests.

  I turn back towards the soldiers.

  I look past the rest of the officials and cabinet members who have gotten out of cars, too, and to where the British escorting them are getting out of their own vehicles. I scan faces, eyes and cheeks under helmets, and I find I’m looking for one soldier in particular, hoping he might be there amongst them.

  He’s not.

  I do, however, recognize one of them.

  It’s the young, thin, and already-balding American that Cassia told me is James Roosevelt, the son of the American president.

  He sees me looking at him and walks over.

  “From the docks, right?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say, looking back and nodding, taking in this strange American accent I’ve only heard on the radio and in movies, not ever in real life, and from a flesh and blood person in front of me.

  “I’m James.”

  “I know.”

  “Word travels fast, I guess,” he smiles.

  “It may seem like a large island, but it really isn’t,” I tell him, then nod towards all the others, the entire caravan he’s travelled with. “Where are you going?”

  “A place called Agios Roumeli, they tell me, which is near Samaria, I think,” he says, then waves towards the peaks of the White Mountains behind us and to the south. “We’re to leave our vehicles here and take donkeys the rest of the way over the mountains, or at least something along those lines.”

  “The king? On a donkey?”

  “Not even the Germans would expect it, right?”

  “So it’s happening, then,” I say, very quietly.

  “Yes,” he nods, knowing what I mean, exactly what I mean. “I’m afraid that it is.”

  “When?”

  “We don’t know exactly, but it’ll be soon. It’ll be very soon now.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because we need to get the king and government to safety before—”

  “No,” I shake my head, cutting him off. “Why are you here.”

  He pauses as I look back at him and I’m surprised.

  I’m surprised I’ve asked such a forward and blunt question, and also that I’ve cut off his words, but it is Greece, after all, and being forthright and honest is a cultural inevitability, and we’d been speaking so casually the words just came.

  He’s not offended.

  “Strictly speaking, I’m not,” he says.

  “Not what?”

  “Here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “America’s neutral in this war.”

  “But it soon won’t be?”

  “I certainly hope that’s the case. My father faces an incredible amount of political pressure to not intervene, to not send our men to fight in what his opponents have deemed someone else’s war.”

  “No foreign entanglements.”

  I remember the slogan from the newsreels that play before the movies.

  “That’s right,” he smiles and nods. “That’s what many of them think, and the signs they plant in their yards.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “What do I think about what?”

  “This war. What else?”

  A pause.

  The soldiers keep walking around us, carrying things into the large Magarakis house for the king, Mrs. Jones, and the government, as the villagers begin to show the others that travel with them into smaller houses where they’ll board them and they’ll be able to stay and sleep for the night.

  Philoxenia.

  There it is again.

  “I believe,” James Roosevelt finally tells me, very slowly, picking his words carefully, “just as my father believes, that evil shouldn’t not be fought simply because of the distance from us or number of borders between us and that evil. He believes, and I believe, too, that it’s our duty and moral obligation to fight evil both whenever and wherever it’s seen, regardless of politics or whatever other excuse the ignorant might design and speak to each other in darkness to try not to do their part, and sometimes even actually convince themselves that they’re right.”

  “And that’s controversial in your country?”

  “Unfortunately it is. Unfortunately, it’s the most controversial topic and subject in our entire country right now, and there will be an election soon, too, in just a few months.”

  “This issue will be important in your election.”

  “Yes,” he nods. “It will perhaps be the only issue.”

  “You still haven’t answered why you’re here.”

  “Because election or not, I’m reporting back to my father what I’ve seen, and to assure all the governments that fight against the evil we should be fighting against, also, to hold out for just a little bit longer because he’s doing everything in his power to join this fight, and hopes we soon will.”

  “And you?”

  “What about me?”

  “What do you think? What do you hope?”

  “I’m not a politician.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means if it were up to me, we’d be here already, politics and all the rest of it be damned and we’d blow the Germans, Italians, Japanese, and all the rest of them right back to where they came from, just the same as we did twenty years ago, and then none of this would be happening at all. It likely wouldn’t even have started.”

  “Are all Americans like you?”

  “Some. Not enough, unfortunately.”

  Giannis sees me and comes towards us.

  He looks at James across from me, and the American sticks out his hand.

  “James,” he says.

  “Giannis,” my father-in-law answers as they shake, and the younger man smiles at him.

  “Good to meet you.”

  But Giannis doesn’t answer, he just turns back to me.

  “It’s time to go.”

  I look at him, then nod.

  I turn back to James and there’s one more moment, then James nods, too. “Good luck,” he says, then leaves and goes back to the vehicles and his task of unloading and settling in to the house where he’ll stay. When he does, I turn and join Giannis, my father, and the rest of the family as we start back along the valley, towards our own village in the distance.

  We go a few paces, but then I stop.

  I turn back to where we’ve just left, and the men that are still there, and one in particular, the one I’ve just spoken with.

  “Mr. Roosevelt!” I say, loud enough so he’ll be able to hear me.

  He looks up from his task amongst the soldiers, from unloading his things from the vehicles they’ll leave here in Elaionas before they take donkeys the rest of the way across the mountains; he’s just another one of them, just another soldier, along with all the others, which is how they must do things in America and part of what it must mean to be American.

  “Yes?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

  I wait one more moment, for eyes to gather, and look at us.

  “Thank you,” I tell him.

  “No,” he shakes his head. “It’s of course very kind of you, the sentiment, but misguided.”

  “How is it misguided?”

  “Because unless I’m very wrong, based on all I’ve seen here these past weeks, I think it’s the rest of us who will be thanking you, perhaps many times over, before all this is over.”

  I understand what he means.

  The Greeks on the mainland have done their part, and now it’s time for us to do ours, too, whether the world sees us or not.

  But the world does see us, doesn’t it?

  That’s why he’s here, and why his father has sent him in secret.

  It’s the last I’ll see him, or speak to him, I know.

  Baba looks at me, his eyebrows raised now, also.

  “Mr. Roosevelt?” he asks.

  “It’s a long story,” I say, and see Giannis looking, too, and wondering now about the man he’s just met, so I tell them about who he is and why he’s come to our small Cretan village, and when I do, I see a small glimmer of hope, in both their eyes, the first I’ve seen in much too long a time.

  * * *

  When we arrive back at our village, the others that walked with us begin to disperse and go back to their houses. My parents return to the farm, but before they do, I see something: it’s Ione, who now wears the all-black of a widow. Once she puts on the black, she’ll wear it the rest of her life, and when my eyes find hers, I can read her look, the accusation that’s there. She thinks me a fool and naïve because I have not lost hope. After a moment longer, she leaves, and I shake my head and go in the other direction, to the stone house where Giannis and Angeliki have already returned, and Ikaros and Tasos have moved back into their room.

  I sit at the dining table with Giannis and Angeliki.

  We’re silent.

  Next to me, Giannis pours a raki and Angeliki has her malotira, which she sips slowly. I drink nothing, even though I sit with them, and as I do, my eyes keep returning to the loose boards in the kitchen and the hole dug deep into the earth under the house where Giannis hid the weapons that William gave me to bring back to the village. It’s an ancient hole, an eternal hiding place. Who built it, or when? I don’t know. We’re an island that’s been occupied by so many; not conquered, but occupied, so this hiding place has seen weapons before: broadswords and arrows to fight the Romans, knives and spears to fight the Venetians, curved sabers to fight against the Ottomans with their own weapons, and pistols, too, that came later. And now, finally, here are British rifles and bullets that will be used to kill Germans that will come.

  How will they come?

  The seas are still controlled by the British, so perhaps that will buy us more time.

  Giannis doesn’t seem to think so, but regardless of what he thinks, and how the Germans get here, this is the decision and promise that I make: I will not wear the black. Why has this small thing affected me so much? I don’t know, but I do know that no matter what happens, I’ll not wear the black, not ever, even though they all think me a widow already, which is a near certainty, after the amount of time that’s now passed. I will refuse. A life for me is ending. Perhaps it already has ended, some time ago, and it’s not Demetrios’s life, or anyone else’s, because it’s mine, and it’s a specific type of life: the life of being second, being spoken over at dinner, being left to walk behind, being asked to make lunch and dinner and do nothing else besides these things, to only read about deeds and great things or watch them in movies, rather than participate in them myself and only be allowed to take a place after all others have taken theirs.

  That will end now.

  I will not wear what they tell me I have to wear, even if Demetrios never returns.

  I have nothing left; no husband, no children, no future to think of.

  So what is there to lose?

  Nothing, absolutely nothing. What freedom.

  I know my family will support me in this, but will the world?

  No.

  The world will do what it always does when it’s presented with change, and reject it, but I still don’t care and will never become what they want me to; instead, I will be something else.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  I hear Ikaros’s voice and look up from where my eyes have been staring at the floorboards with these thoughts steaming through my head like a freight train. Giannis looks up, too, and so does Angeliki. Tasos is still in the room they share, so it’s just the four of us, and there’s change in my eyes, I know, and when I look at Ikaros, I recognize the same thing in his eyes, also.

  “What is it?” Giannis asks, looking back at his middle son.

  “I love Kyriaki Magarakis,” Ikaros tells us, speaking very slowly. “I’ve loved her for a long time now, I love her more than anything else in this world, so I’ve asked her to marry me, and she’s said yes.”

  6 MAY 20, 1941

  Looking back, I should have recognized it.

  I should have seen the signs when he wasn’t in his bed, when he wanted to return early from Chania, and not spend the night in the city, the look in his eyes when we were in Elaionas and lack of interest in the royal family or soldiers or any of the rest because, of course, there was something else he was interested in and it was something that had taken over his body; it was something that had taken over his mind, and most importantly, most blessed of all, it of course had taken over his soul, too.

  I’m jealous.

  I think back to when I first met Demetrios, and what it felt like, all the stolen nights and fluorescent moments when colors seemed brighter, the world seemed both bigger and smaller at the same time, because the world felt the way our hearts felt when they were together. I miss the uncertainty, the obsession of thought, the always-occupied space and place in my life for the all-consuming fire of both fulfilled and unfulfilled passion that’s left to burn, burn, burn.