The Girl Under the Olive Tree (48 page)

So many sorrows and disappointments were soothed by children and family ties. She hoped Penny had a good supply of this too. She kept touching her hand to check she was real and not some ghost that was tricking her mind. She had known old people close to their end who see all their relatives long gone as if they were still living.

They were sitting under the olive tree with the lantern, watching moths flickering to the light, listening to the last of the cicadas as the day cooled. Her son, Toni, and Sarika’s husband came to pay their respects, then disappeared to watch football on the television.

Perhaps now it was time to speak of the old days and that visit to Andreas’ camp before the ambush. ‘Andreas was so angry with me for coming alone and we rowed. I left at first light but the “black cattle”, as we called the enemy, were coming up the hill and I hid. I didn’t know there were two groups. Andreas’s band got the worst of the attack and fled, but the second group caught the enemy by surprise. It was a shoot out and men were wounded in the crossfire. One of them was their leader, Panayotis.’

Yolanda paused. ‘I knew who he was and what he meant to you. I was with him and made him comfortable. There was no hope of moving him so I sat with him and tried to speak a little English and he had good Greek. He knew I was your friend. “How is she?” he asked. “Penny?” I told him you were safe with friends. “Ah, Ike and Katrina, I have stayed there, in the hole near Clarence . . . ” he said. He was delirious, in and out of consciousness, but suddenly he woke and clutched my hand. “Tell Penny, Bruce’s box with Clarence . . .” That is what he said, but it made no sense. He was beginning to struggle for breath and I made him comfortable. He died with your name on his lips, as I pray Andreas died knowing he was in my heart for ever.’

Penny gripped her chair and then put her hands to her head. ‘Thank you. I didn’t know where he died or that he was killed until I got home to Britain. Though I had a feeling there would never be any future for us.’

‘I left the flowers because I knew you would have wanted me to do this. It was the least we could do. He was a good man, full of life, a brave leader. His kind will never be forgotten here.’

‘But I forgot him. I was so angry and mixed up. I didn’t want to think about him. I didn’t even know he was buried here. I am so ashamed, but what did he mean about Clarence? Are you sure that’s what he said?’

Yolanda nodded. ‘I wrote it down so I would never forget in case you returned. It’s not a name we know, not a saint’s name.’

‘It was my uncle’s name, my mother’s oldest brother. He was round and jolly and spent his life on horseback. His skin was like creased leather. Good Lord! He meant the olive tree. Clarence, the old olive tree. I was thinking about that only the other day.’

Penny was not making any sense as she stood up. ‘When I lived with Ike and Katrina, there was this huge old tree with a face in its bark. I called it Clarence. Bruce and I . . . He left a box?’ She turned to Yolanda. ‘Could it possibly be there after sixty years? I’ve no idea where the house was.’

‘I do. Ike’s house was burned to the ground like all the others in the district when the enemy retreated into Chania, before the end. They scorched all the surrounding villages so the partisans couldn’t find refuge there, but I can take you there tomorrow. You will stay here tonight, no point in going back. We have a phone: you can ring your niece. Tell her to come back too so we can all go and see what may be hiding there.’

Penny was too tired to protest. She was lost in thought for her lover.

‘I never got to say goodbye to him and now you tell me these things. It’s hard to take all this in. We’re two of a kind, you and I, our lives so entwined by all these terrible things.’

‘And good things, too. We had some wonderful parties. Come, it’s late and tomorrow we’ll rise early. Sarika will drive us to where I think you need to go and we’ll take a spade, just in case. He said a box – I’m sure something will be there still.’

It was hard for Yolanda to sleep with a lifetime of news spinning round in her head. Penny had taken the account of Bruce’s death without tears. She always did put a brave face on her sorrow. To have Penny back in her life was such an unexpected gift. She was right, they were two of a kind, having been through so much together and apart.

She hadn’t admitted to the real reason she had gone in search of Andreas or Penny in Chania, and all that followed. To do that she must face one of her own dark secrets in the fight for survival, one only Andreas knew. She’d not mentioned Stavros or those last terrible months of occupation.

The bitterness grew in Yolanda’s heart from exhaustion and fury as she tried to put back the destruction of the farm and the crops. Clearing debris was backbreaking with little help. They repaired the stone house as best they could and she filled the room with flowers to take away the smell of those thieves and looters.

Andreas came and went, and the coolness between them grew. She wanted to reach out to him but, surrounded by comrades in arms, he was too busy to take much notice of her signals. The
andartes
also came and went for fresh supplies of clothing and food but it was dangerous for any of them to be seen out in the open now.

There were rewards of big bags of rice for information leading to the capture of Kapetan Cyclops and his bandits. There was such hunger, and villagers might be tempted.

The late summer heat lingered, crops withered early, but Yolanda dug deep into her reserves of grief and determination to keep them fed and watered, often carrying water on her back if they were in an arid rocky hideout.

She felt she was being punished for doubting the loyalty of one of Andreas’ men and for bringing the enemy to their door to search for her.

Now she kept her own counsel as Stavros returned from Chania. He looked surprised to see her, eyeing her as if she was a bad smell. In turn, she stood, arms folded, hardly acknowledging his heroic return. But she did question him about the fate of the Jews and prisoners in Agia.

He shrugged. ‘They went away in trucks. I was lucky to escape. A guard was bribed and, when they were loading us up, he pulled me out of sight.’

Yolanda was not convinced. Why had he come back? Was he biding his time before betraying them? It had happened before, but to prove it was another matter. He knew who she was. Had he betrayed her too? Would the German soldiers come back for her? It felt as if her whole world were falling apart, wondering just who she could trust and who was watching their comings and goings.

Then one morning two scruffy men appeared at the door begging for food; miserable, filthy, foreign strangers. She’d been warned about deserters and she was glad Adonis and Dimitra were now back home so she was not alone with them.

‘We are soldiers . . . Germany is finished, no good . . . we will fight with you now,’ they stuttered.

Yolanda was careful to give nothing away. She fed them, as was the custom when strangers came to the door, sat them down with the last of the rough wine. One boy was from Yugoslavia, the other from Romania, or so they said. They wanted to go home. ‘We make no more war with friends.’

The
andartes
had gathered up a few genuine deserters over the past months. They were useful with information and, of course, speaking German. They were known to the loyal policemen, who would use them to check out any other deserters. This way they’d picked up spies posing as deserters and shot them.

Adonis wasn’t fit to take them up to a rendezvous to pass them over so Yolanda said she would run, herself, to Andreas’ camp and warn them to expect new arrivals. They wouldn’t be allowed near their base camp.

It was another hard trek, making the usual detours and false doglegs just in case she was being followed. It was noon by the time she found Andreas, sitting round a fire, roasting hares.

‘I don’t know what to do with them,’ she explained. ‘They say they want to fight. They have very little Greek.’

‘Come sit, eat. You did right to warn us. Take them to the old cave on the high rocks and we’ll check them out there. Can you do this? Are you strong enough?’

It was the first time her husband had enquired after her health, the first time he’d shown appreciation of all her efforts. She sped back downhill with wings on her feet and, under cover of darkness, with the shepherd Taki pointing a rifle behind them, she escorted them back up to the cliff top. The strangers, cheered by wine and cheese, whistled and chattered along the track, unconcerned about being guarded.

Andreas, Stavros and two other men were waiting to greet them with slaps on the back. ‘You are good men, come join us.’ They’d done this many times before.

Yolanda was happy to be spending the night with her husband, alone for the first time in weeks. That vixen Anna, who’d ogled him in her kitchen, had disgraced herself by running off with one of his men, against all the rules and custom. They would be hunted down and punished. Yolanda slept with Andreas under his blanket and he reached out for her with desire, making her weep with relief to feel wanted again.

Stavros offered to keep guard on the two deserters as they slept in the cave under guard. A lookout sat up all night watching for any movement that might mean betrayal, but there was none.

In the morning a strange thing happened. The two men emerged silent and sullen, not wanting to talk, gabbling among themselves in German, thinking no one else would understand them. ‘We go back now, no stay here. It is dangerous . . .’ They looked frightened.

Andreas, sensing something had altered, had them tied up. ‘You’ve seen our faces, you’ve seen this place. We can’t let you go now. Stavros, what did you tell them?’

He shrugged. ‘They are spies. They should be shot.’

‘Why?’ Yolanda snapped. ‘Why do you say that?’ She sensed they were just two lost boys in need of direction.

‘You can’t trust men who desert their units. They can turn coat again.’ He was staring at the strangers with contempt.

Then one of the men screamed, ‘No kill, no kill . . . kill him. He is spy, he is bad man. I see him. You are all spies come to trap us, to kill us . . .’ He was shaking with terror. ‘He come and tell us go back or he will kill us. We are traitors to the Reich, he said.’

Stavros pulled out his gun to shoot the boy but Andreas stayed his arm. ‘Why is he saying this? He has never met you before, or has he?’

‘He speaks good German,’ the other boy shouted. ‘He is German spy. You are all his friends. You are spies.’

Stavros wrenched his arm free and shot the boy, and then turned his gun on Andreas for a second. ‘They lie, these peasants always lie to save their skins. They talk rubbish. I am one of you. Have I not served you well?’

Yolanda rushed to the injured man to stem the blood flowing from his chest. ‘What did I tell you, Andreas? The boy is speaking the truth. Can’t you see he threatened them? They are terrified.’

‘Don’t listen to a Jew, they lie. She should be with the rest of her kind. She knows nothing.’

‘Don’t speak of my wife like that. It was you who told me she was dead. Why did you escape that hellhole and no one else did, unless . . .’

Stavros pointed the gun again at Andreas. The other men stood in shock, fishing for their knives. ‘You are making a big mistake. It is I who have kept you safe all these months. If it was not for me giving false information, you would be dead long ago. I admire your stand for freedom.’ Stavros stepped back, ready to spray his bullets across the men. ‘I am no traitor. I have always worked for the freedom of the Greek national people. Can’t you see the threat coming? The communists are taking over, allies of Russia are all around us. We nationalists must stick together.’

‘So it was you I saw, signalling to the patrol, the day Panayotis died,’ Yolanda shouted.

‘I give them a little and take a lot. You have to understand, it is for the best.’

Andreas lurched forward. ‘How could I have been such an idiot? No, it was you who made me doubt my wife’s good instinct, you insulted her people. Was it you who sent the beasts to our door, ransacked our home and desecrated our land.
Why?’

Stavros backed again and snarled like a cornered rat. ‘Why, you stupid fools? You can’t beat the might of the master race. You island fools think you can resist without punishment, hide English soldiers without punishment, kill good men before they even land without punishment, and then you shelter these scum of the earth, deserters, give them food and arms against their own comrades. What I do is for the good of the Greek nation. I will not see our country brought down by Russian bears. I was keeping you all safe. You have to understand that.’ He was waving the gun in Andreas’ face.

Andreas stood firm, his cheeks twitching with rage. ‘What I see are good men dead because of you, men tortured, deported, executed. We will take you before the court. We do not shoot before we are sure of our facts.’ Andreas stood firm. ‘Give me your gun.’

Stavros spat on the ground, then dropped the pistol. ‘Do what you like, you are all dead men. It is only a matter of time before they come for you. They know exactly where you are – the tracks to base camp are easy to search – and when they find you they’ll take her and send her to the death camps with all the rest.’

Yolanda heard all this as she finished the tourniquet round the boy’s shoulder. The shot had missed his lungs and heart. He would live, but her own anger erupted into a blaze of fury at all the treachery of this loud-mouthed fascist. She saw his pistol, dropped on the ground. Kneeling up from her crouched position, she grabbed it, as if to finish off a mad dog, and shot Stavros in each leg, one bullet for each parent.

He staggered backwards in shock. ‘Stop that witch!’ He was edging slowly towards the rocks as his legs collapsed under him, kneeling as if in prayer. No one spoke, no one helped him as he shuffled back from Yolanda’s gun, losing his balance, toppling backwards to the edge of the rock face. He looked down and then up in horror. Yolanda stood above him.

‘What are you waiting for?’ she screamed. His face was filled with horror at the chasm below him and the look of revenge on her face as she nudged him with his own gun. He was helpless, crippled by pain but he cried out, ‘Stop her madness!’