And while I might be jealous, I’m glad, too.

  I’m so happy for him that he’s found this, as we all should in our lives, at least once.

  Giannis and Angeliki don’t feel the same.

  They’re from a different time that believes love is something that’s made, not found, and it’s a parent’s job to pick a husband or wife for their child and once that match is made, that’s when love will eventually be fashioned. Surely Anastasios Magarakis feels the same way, Giannis says, so how could this possibly work?

  I don’t know.

  I hope it does, though.

  I hope it does for Ikaros, in the same way it did for me and his brother.

  After Ikaros tells us his intentions, we all decide to go to sleep as it’s something best sorted in the morning, when everyone is fresher and thinking clearly. But as it turns out, there isn’t time. I’m not sure Giannis sleeps at all, and when I wake before the sun and come from my room, I see Giannis at the table outside the house with a mug of malotira, and I make one for myself and go sit next to him. In front of us and over the mountains, the sun begins to rise and a new day comes. We don’t talk. I just sit there and he reaches out and puts his hand on mine, and that’s how we stay until eventually Angeliki comes to the table, also with a cup of tea, then the three of us sit there. We sit in silence for a few more moments until Ikaros walks from the house and sits next to us, too.

  He has no tea.

  He never drinks it, unless Angeliki forces him.

  “I won’t change my mind,” he finally says, breaking the silence and looking across where I sit to meet his father’s eyes.

  Giannis is silent. Then he finally nods.

  “I know you won’t,” he says, softly.

  “How?”

  “Because you’re my son.”

  “So you’ll give us your blessing?”

  Giannis opens his mouth, but before any words come, that’s when we first hear them.

  The noise comes from the distance, and from the north.

  We all pause and turn towards it.

  We look away from the mountains and where we had been looking before, and it takes a moment until we realize what it is we’re hearing: the soft buzzing of planes. We sit there for a moment more, then Tasos rushes from the house, too, because he’s heard the noise and then sees the planes, and we all wait in silence, one last moment of peace, as a family, until finally Tasos speaks.

  “Maybe they’re British,” he says, the innocence of a child.

  “They’re not British,” Giannis answers.

  “Just like you said,” I turn from the sky, and look at him. “They didn’t come in boats at all.”

  Next to us, Ikaros turns and runs into the house.

  He’s only gone a matter of seconds, though, before rushing back out with an Enfield bolt-action rifle and a handful of bullets from the duffel that William gave to me and Giannis hid under the floorboards. He swings it over his shoulder in a single fluid motion, and keeps running.

  “Ikaros!” Angeliki calls.

  But he doesn’t listen.

  He takes the small, narrow path to the east, away from our village and towards the other, and it’s of course no secret now as to where he’s going, and why.

  “IKAROS!” Angeliki calls again, louder.

  But he’s too far away now.

  Giannis watches his middle child as he continues to run, and I look at Giannis, and for the first time in my life, I see a tear on his cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away. He doesn’t say anything, either, he just walks towards the house and I follow after him. So does Tasos. After a moment, Angeliki does, as well. We’re almost to the door when I see my parents hurrying up the path from the farm, then they’re to us, also, and we don’t speak because what words could we possibly say? We all just go inside and Giannis crosses to the hole under the kitchen that’s now no longer covered and the duffel inside it. Ikaros only took one rifle, but Giannis reaches down and pulls the whole bag out before reaching inside. He finds another Enfield bolt-action—the standard rifle of the Commonwealth and all British soldiers—and hands it to Baba, then another that he takes for himself, and he finally takes one more and without even a moment’s hesitation hands it to Tasos.

  Tasos looks down at the large weapon in his young hands.

  “Giannis,” Angeliki whispers.

  But he ignores her and gives two grenades to Baba and keeps three for himself, which he tucks away into the loose pockets of his black trousers, then is about to walk to his bedroom, but before he goes, I stop him.

  “What?” he asks, looking back and meeting my eyes.

  “What about me?”

  “They won’t hurt you if you’re not armed.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  He stays looking at me for another moment, then I reach down and find a rifle myself, and one for Angeliki, too, that I pass to her, and my mother also, and they take them from me as Giannis watches us.

  Who I used to be is dead. This is who I’m going to be now.

  Giannis doesn’t say anything.

  He just watches what I do, then when the weapons have been passed to my two mothers, he goes to his bedroom and comes back carrying five Cretan daggers. These are daggers that are larger than normal knives, made with carved handles of animal bone or horn, and a silver blade with a slight curve up at the end, at the very tip. Their history in Crete is long and part of our culture and heritage, with making them a skill passed from father to son. Giannis has been making them since he was a boy. He showed Demetrios how to make them, also, and the dagger they’d made together with the handle of goat horn carved with the history of their family on it had travelled with Demetrios and the 5th to the mainland. The presence of the daggers and blades on this island is ancestral and ubiquitous and now, more than just being worn for culture, history, posterity, and tradition, now… they’ll finally be used once again, too.

  Giannis hands one to Tasos.

  He hands one to Baba.

  Then he hands one to Angeliki, and my mother, and finally he hands one to me, as well.

  Outside, we hear the first explosions.

  They come from the distance, from the south, near the sea, and perhaps even a bit west where we know there’s an air base near the village of Maleme and we can also hear the buzzing sound of planes in the sky more clearly now.

  We go outside, all of us, and we’re not prepared for what we see.

  The entire sky is filled with planes and what had once been the soft buzz of engines is quickly becoming a roar as they rapidly get closer, and there’s more: little dots that come from the planes then fall down, down, down, towards our island, German paratroopers jumping and parachutes deploying as they glide and float and ultimately land.

  Or at least some of them do.

  There are so many that fall and then there’s gunfire and some of them are hit, but there are many who aren’t, and then there are more massive explosions over the noise of the gunfire, both near Maleme and the city of Chania itself.

  Bombs.

  Being dropped on our cities, and on our harbors.

  Smoke begins to rise.

  Not near us, though, or our village.

  Near us the noise is getting louder and there are so many paratroopers that the sky in front of me looks nearly black. All the other villagers have come now, as well, and Giannis carries the duffel that still has more weapons in it as he passes out all that he has left, giving a rifle to Vassilis the baker, then Enfield revolvers to Chrisoula, my friend Ione, Anteros the cobbler, and his young son Philippos, who is the same age as Ikaros, and even Father Thiseas, as well, the priest, along with Doctor Papadakis and his wife who stands next to him. Elena, the wife of Anteros and mother of Philippos, has a Cretan dagger that must have been made by her husband and she’s tied it to the end of a broomstick which she’ll use as a spear. The rest of the villagers who don’t have British rifles carry old, rusted muzzleloaders, left over from the Turkish wars several decades earlier, I’m sure.

  I look at them.

  Will their muzzleloaders even work?

  If there’s anything that’s certain in all this, it’s that we’ll soon find out.

  We are only old men, women, and young children, because all our soldiers or any men of fighting age are still on the mainland.

  Where are the British, who promised they’d protect us?

  Father Thiseas steps forward.

  He stands in front of the gathered and raises his arms to bless us, to bless all of us that are here and he speaks his prayer over our village and the villagers who will try to protect it. “May the almighty polish the rust from these rifles and those who carry them,” he says with a loud voice, meant to carry over the hum of engines that are nearly directly above us now. “And may he watch over all today who are on this island, and fight for this island, just the same as he watches over us here every day.”

  He makes the sign of the cross, and so do the rest of us.

  Giannis turns.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he says, very quietly, just to me.

  “Yes, I do,” I answer. “We all do.”

  “From the time that they’re very young, boys are taught how to fight. It’s in everything they do.”

  “I know. And like all other girls here, I was taught how to cook and sew. But that’s not my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault, but—”

  “I’ll just have to learn quickly.”

  Giannis pauses.

  He looks past me, and to my father.

  Baba waits for a moment, then nods, once, very small.

  I’m sure he knows what it is he’s doing and the consequences it might bring to his only child, but then there’s no time for words or nods or anything else because the planes are to us and we look up as they fly overhead and for a moment they block the sun. We watch as German paratroopers jump from them and plunge down and straight towards us, straight towards our village and mountains and fields, then parachutes deploy and they glide through air rather than plunge, but they still come.

  They get closer.

  We all raise our weapons.

  There’s nothing they can do as we look up and then all of us who have rifles aim, or at least try to, and as soon as they’re close enough we pull triggers and the air is shattered with explosions and smoke as our shots travel upwards and mine misses any mark, but there are several that do not.

  Screams.

  Death.

  When I fired, the strength of the gun almost knocked me from my feet, and the sound of all the gunfire nearly shatters my eardrums.

  I recover, though, and next to me I hear Giannis.

  “Aim at their heels!” he yells, and I know why.

  We need to aim below them so their momentum carries them into our bullets.

  We aim and fire again.

  I brace myself more fully this time, but the force is still immense, and so is the noise that comes with the bullets.

  I see at least two German soldiers that are hit—one of them by my shot, or at least I think it’s my shot—and I’m surprised again.

  Also, some bullets miss the actual Germans, but still tear through their parachutes, and once they do, the soldiers attached to them begin to spin and fall even faster towards the ground.

  One parachute rips apart altogether.

  The soldier that was attached to it falls and crashes against the ground not far from where we stand, and I hear more screams from those near enough to witness the death and mutilation of a body that meets earth from hundreds of feet above.

  Three of the Germans land safely on the ground.

  They’re about a hundred yards from where we stand—beyond the olives and the cypress, and caught between our group and another group of villagers—and once they do land, they try to shrug off their parachutes and immediately start firing. Giannis pushes us behind the house for cover, but not everyone is so fortunate, and one of their bullets hits Vassilis and his body collapses before Giannis, Anteros, Father Thiseas, and the others start firing back and hit one German, who falls near the bakery, then the other two who see they’re outnumbered start to run.

  One heads straight towards Father Thiseas, who raises his weapon.

  The other runs towards us.

  The one that runs towards Father Thiseas tries to fire at the priest as he sprints, but his shot misses, then Father Thiseas drops to a knee, takes aim, fires himself and his bullet rips into the German’s chest and he falls, then Ione and Chrisoula run forward with Anteros to kick his rifle away and make sure he’s disarmed.

  The one that runs towards us can’t get his backpack off, though.

  Giannis moves us farther behind the house, and as the German gets closer, he still has his parachute tied to his back and it’s preventing him from being able to run properly before it catches in his legs and he stumbles. He’s about to fall, but then doesn’t, regains his balance, and that’s when Giannis rushes forward and tackles him to the ground. The German’s rifle is knocked from his hands and skids across the dirt, and when he sees Giannis on top of him, he immediately reaches to his boot and pulls a knife.

  When Giannis sees the blade, he rolls off the German, who scrambles to his feet.

  Giannis gets to his feet, also, and stands away from him.

  Tasos raises his rifle and points it at the German, and so do I, but Giannis holds both his hands out: one towards the German, and one towards us.

  “Stop,” he says. “Everyone.”

  He turns to the German.

  “Stoppen,” Giannis says to him, in his language.

  The soldier hesitates, just for a moment, then finally speaks.

  “Nein,” he says before charging towards Giannis, swinging his knife, and before I or Tasos or anyone else can fire or do anything, the German’s to him, the knife plunging down towards Giannis’s chest and the German is too close for a shot now, but Giannis steps back and dodges the blow. The German swings again and misses, then swings once more, and when he swings wildly for a fourth time, and Giannis expertly dodges again, it’s clear the German won’t stop so Giannis then brings his own blade back around and plunges it into the German’s chest.

  The German stands there.

  He looks down at the carved and ancient dagger protruding from him, and wielded by a man he didn’t know is a Cretan knife-fighter, and he must be wondering where he’s come to as he takes a last look at the big barrel-chested man that the ancient and carved dagger belongs to.

  His own knife slips from his hand and falls.

  Then he falls, too, his body crumpling in an exhausted heap.

  Giannis goes to him and kneels, very slowly, and puts his hands back onto the carved handle and breathes in. He’ll do this part quickly. He rips the dagger from the German’s chest then plunges it into his neck, just where it meets his shoulder, and pushes down, between the bones and into the heart in what will be the quickest and most painless death for the man.

  The German cries out, in pain and surprise.

  Then after a moment, he doesn’t, and lies still.

  My hand is steady, where it holds my Enfield rifle, with my breathing quicker than normal, which is to be expected.

  I’m surprised none of this seems to have affected me.

  Why?

  Is it because of my blood?

  I don’t know.

  I do know there will be time for questions like these later, though, because right now it’s time for something else and in the distance there’s another German that got caught with his parachute in the branches of a cypress so he just dangles there, twisting, and decides to fire his rifle wildly as he spins. We all duck. He keeps spinning and firing until Elena sneaks beneath him and thrusts up with the broom with the dagger on the end of it. The dagger pierces his stomach, just above his waist, and he screams now, too. He tries to contort his body to fire down at her but she moves and stabs again, this time into his side, and he drops his rifle and it lands in the dirt at Elena’s feet and she stabs again, and again, and then once more after that, until the German’s still, though his body continues to swing and twist in the wind.

  I turn back to Giannis.

  His hands are covered in blood, and I realize even though I’ve known him since before I can remember, just how little I actually know him, which I suppose is a realization all children eventually make in regard to parents. It’s clearly not the first time he’s handled a knife. It’s also clearly not the first time he’s fought an enemy, or the first time he’s taken a life.

  What else has he done?

  Who else has he been, and that I don’t know about?

  He wipes the blood from his hands on the German’s uniform.

  He starts to gather the German’s weapons—the knife he used, rifle he dropped, and ammo he finds in the German’s backpack—and once he does, he holds them out to Tasos.

  “Take these back to the house,” he tells him. “Hide them where we hid the others, then cover it.”

  Tasos stands for a moment longer, staring at his father, at the blood that stains Giannis’s arms and sleeves and the knife that’s tucked back at his waist that’s brought this blood.

  “Hurry,” Giannis says, gently.

  Tasos comes back to himself then nods and runs to do as Giannis has told him, as Giannis turns to us now.

  He doesn’t speak.

  Neither do we.

  Instead, he jerks his head towards where there are still gunshots being fired amongst the streets and houses of our village, so we all start to carefully go in that direction. The gunshots end, then we see other villagers, ones that are still alive, and we see the dead. There’s the German that Father Thiseas killed, in a pool of blood in the streets of the village. There are two more Germans swinging from giant oak trees where their parachutes were caught, that have been shot in their chests, and then there’s the third in a tree set apart from the others that was stabbed by Elena and her makeshift spear.