Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Giorgi, leaning on his pillow filled with straw, sat beside the fireplace in his home and stared at the fire. He watched the red flames dance and lick the dry wood, embracing it and releasing it, repeating the motion until the wood turned from black to red and then fell into the ashes as coals. The heat from the fireplace slowly spread throughout the room. The teapot full of water hanging on a hook over the fire began to boil. The quiet bubbling sound and pleasant heat emanating from the fireplace slowly spread warmth all throughout the house. Everyone felt relaxed and ready to fall asleep. Giorgi took out the tobacco pouch from his pocket and slowly, with a slow movement of his fingers, untied it and pulled out his smoke pipe. With two of his left fingers he stuffed the pipe full of tobacco. He then took the tongs hanging over the fireplace, reached into the fire, picked up a small burning coal and placed it on top of the tobacco in his pipe. Smoke began to come out, first barely visible then intense as Giorgi took a puff and then let it out of his mouth and nose in a circle. The smoke was soothing and made Giorgi feel relief. He reclined comfortably on his pillow, put his hands over his head and stretched out his legs. He was lost in thought. As he took the occasional puff he thought of the beautiful days of summer and fall and how the north winds had intensified. He heard the occasional drop of rain fall on his window. “It was a good thing we planted today,” he said quietly. But in every moment of time his mind was far from the wind and fields. Even now, in quiet moments like this, he could not divert his mind from thinking of the one issue which began and ended his days. An issue which hung over everything, an issue for which he had no answers: “Where is Vasil?” This question was always in his mind and occupied every moment of his life. Because of that his life was in turmoil. It seemed to him that nothing was worth anything because he did not know what was happening with his son.

“What do you think… Where do you think our Vasil is right now?” he blurted out.

Giorgevitsa adjusted herself and set her knitting aside. Her ball of yarn rolled onto the floor. The cat, resting under Giorgi’s feet, jumped out and began to play with it. Giorgevitsa crossed her arms

and bowed her head. And, instead of answering, silently, very quietly she began to weep. Giorgi did not notice her, but when he heard her sniffing he adjusted himself. His own question now made him feel pain. He raised his head up and looked at his wife. He noticed two shiny droplets slowly rolling down Lina’s cheeks, leaving a thin wet trail of tears behind.

“You!” Giorgi blurted out in a loud angry voice which startled Lina and made her tremble and quickly wipe her tears with the corner of her black head kerchief. “You foolish woman!” he added, “I just wanted to make conversation to alleviate my troubles and ease my soul and what do you do? You sob!”

Lina looked at him with a guilty look on her face and lowered her eyes. Giorgi felt bad for what he had said because he thought he upset her. He had scolded her for being human; because she felt the same way he did. Whatever he felt she felt. They both felt the same thing… had the same experience; it was as hard for her as it was for him. That’s what he thought. Lina, on the other hand, thought “okay husband, it might be easier for you because you are a man, but it is difficult for me and that’s why my tears constantly flow.” He was sure he had offended her and made her feel worse and he knew very well that her tears were tears of pain and for that reason he decided to say something.

He mustered up enough courage and, in a soft voice, said: “Stop crying woman. It is not good. Surely our child is well and will soon return to us. He will come and visit us, just like he did before. I am sure of that. Do you remember what the winter was like last year? The wind was blowing and piles of snow had fallen. And before that,” old Giorgi began to recount old memories and string them one after another like pearls on a string, “when the leaves were falling and he came back to us after leaving for the first time. You remember that? The grapevine still had grapes…You know, woman, this time when he comes back it will be even better. I am sure it will be soon, I believe that. I heard some shooting taking place in the mountains and in the fields of Kostur. They say that they are fighting there. I am sure our son will return before the New Year. Then we will invite all our neighbours and we will celebrate with a great feast... the table will be covered with your best white

tablecloth. Don’t forget to cover it with your best white tablecloth… You can also use your gilded wine glasses. And then you will see… I will even sing the best patriotic song of all before dinner… If I don’t? I may turn to stone…” concluded Giorgi with a hardy long laugh. In times like these people believe in spells, magic and even in happy endings. They need to...

Unfortunately Giorgevitsa was stuck in her own dreamy thoughts and heard nothing. She thought of her own way, of how she was going to meet her son. But for now her hands were tied, she did not know anything about his status; there was not a word about him; if he was alive and well or not… She stood up, went to the window, opened it and looked into the darkness outside. It was windy and droplets of rain were falling

Giorgi, thinking that Lina was going to start crying again, stood up and went beside her. He leaned on the wall with one hand and he too began to stare outside the window into the darkness. Both of them stood there looking out of the window, feeling uneasy about their unclear future and thinking of how much more pain they would have to endure…

Standing by the window looking outside into the dark, Giorgi was reminded of another time, an earlier time when he had stood by this very same window and watched the weather turn for the worse. The north winds had picked up and moaned mercilessly. Snow was falling; big snowflakes covered the footsteps on the ground and turned everything white. The wind raged on for several hours seeming like it was never going to end. Clouds of snow were angrily picked up from the roofs, spun around and thrown against the walls of the village houses. The darkness grew denser. The dry branches of the pear tree, planted by Giorgi in the garden when he was still a child, creaked and cracked in the blizzard. No one could predict how long the storm was going to last. A column of horses loaded with boxes was passing through the village street. The people were turning their heads away from the weaving wind which blew snow in their faces. A village dog began to bark. Someone yelled loudly in the darkness. The column of horses moved on and the snow quickly covered the footsteps. The barking became lost in the storm. The wind moaned, hugging the village chimneys. One moment it

subsided another it intensified. Only late at night it became a little calmer. Giorgi stood there with his forehead leaning against the glass. He fogged up the window and made it wet with his warm breath. Giorgi opened it, but only for a moment. The cool air blew in and mixed with the warm, clouding up the entire window. The smell of tobacco was disappearing being replaced with cooler and clean outdoor freshness. Giorgi was unable to leave the window, as if he was nailed to it. The blowing wind reminded him of when he had been in Canada and had traveled by train across the Canadian vastness. It was much colder in Canada. You could not see anything from the windows. There was a thick layer of ice covering it, with snow glued on top of it.

Giorgi stood by the window for a long time but now he was tired and felt sleepy. He rubbed his eyes as his eyelids became heavy. Giorgi slowly moved away and went to his bedroom. Just as he was about to lie down he heard shouting and banging at his door.

“Giorgi… Giorgi... Open up!” he heard someone yelling.

After Giorgi asked Giorgevitsa to light the lamp, he started walking towards the yard to open the door. The unknown person impatiently kept knocking and calling for him to open up.

Giorgi came close to the gate, raised the oak lever and asked: “Who is it?”

“Open the door… don’t be afraid…” replied the unknown person.

Giorgi put down the lever and unlocked the door opening it partially, enough to stick his head out and see who it was. When he looked he saw several men dressed in military uniforms. They were unshaven and looked tired and cold in the knee-deep snow. Giorgi felt the cold wind hit him in the face. A little further back a couple of soldiers were carrying someone on a stretcher, covered with an army blanket.

“What do you want?” Giorgi asked with a tone of nervousness in his voice.

One of them pointed at the stretcher with his head.

“What is that?” asked Giorgi.

“Well sir?” the same man spoke, “It’s Naum, your son, we brought him to you…”

Giorgi knew that Naum was fighting on the Albanian front but didn’t think things would go this way. He also knew that tough battles were fought and all sorts of news circulated about the many casualties. So when he heard that his oldest son Naum lay on the stretcher, he was shaken. But after he overcame his initial shock, he asked: “Sick or injured?”

There was silence. The soldiers could feel his pain coming on like a storm.

“Is he wounded?” Giorgi yelled with a broken voice.

“Yes... that’s what he was… but on the way…” said the same man, barely audibly.

Giorgi gasped. His legs gave away at the knees. He tried to step forward but had no strength. He was about to collapse. One of the soldiers grabbed him. Giorgi composed himself, took a few steps and threw himself on the stretcher. He started weeping. The soldiers took off their hats. They stayed, but only for a moment, then they left.

When Giorgevitsa, who had just now lit the lamp, heard Giorgi cry outside, she realized that something terrible had happened. She quickly rushed outside where she too dropped on top of the body of her dead son.

In no time at all the snow not only covered the tracks of those who had brought Naum’s body home, but they also covered Giorgi and Giorgevitsa who, for a long time, lamented over their dead son’s body. Many people heard the bad news and in the morning, the next day, gathered in front of the house. None of them was without tears. They all wept and thought of their own loved ones fighting the

Italians in the Albanian mountains. Heavy grey clouds appeared from the east and dropped more snow on the village. Naum’s frozen body was brought inside the house. Giorgi, sitting on his right, tried to fill his pipe with tobacco but his hands shook and he spilled most of it on the floor. Many people came in the house, lit candles and put them in a large bowl placed on the floor. They crossed themselves and moved on making space for others who wanted to pay their respects. The older people took a sip of rakia and said “May God rest his soul”. Giorgevitsa sat beside Naum’s head and wept and wept and wept until she had no more tears. When she first entered the room she brought a large lit candle and before sitting down, knelt and, with tears in her eyes, placed it in Naum’s broken hands. Until yesterday she had saved this candle for him, her first born. She was hoping and dreaming of using it to bless his marriage, when he carried his bride over the threshold. Giorgevitsa would now never get to meet that bride. The aroma of the candles filled the room.

The family mourned the slain Naum for two days and two nights. Kiro, in an attempt to encourage Giorgi, often said: “My dear stepbrother may God rest his soul and forgive his sins. Thank the all mighty for not leaving his body lying somewhere in the mountains. Thank the Lord for returning him to us. Don’t despair; you have two more sons, Done and Vasil. Pray to God that they be well…”

Giorgi looked lifeless at the funeral. His sons had to hold him up. Both he and Giorgevitsa could not be torn from Naum’s grave.

But, like everything else, time cures all. With help from their friends and relatives Giorgi and Lina, slowly but surely, began to recover from their traumatic ordeal. But no sooner had the Italians and Germans left the mountains, than the partisans began to take them over.

The newcomers unfortunately did not feel as free as those of earlier days. This fear in them however quickly passed and they felt like new kindled spirits. In the spring of 1942 when Giorgi was busy with things around the fields and gardens and when he finally started to feel like himself again, he son Done was about to leave for the mountains. Giorgi did not want to interfere in Done’s affairs but before Done left he told his father he was leaving and going to fight

at the front, to avenge his brother. That’s when Giorgi grabbed him by the collar, looked into his eyes and said: “I did not bring you up to be a revenge seeker. Revenge is best left to the savages. We are not like that… think about it. Are you sure this is what you want to do in these desperate times?”

But before Done had a chance to respond, Giorgi continued: “This is not a place for strangers. This is our place and every time we aspire to do something we end up with pools of blood. Think about it son, nothing can be done with a single step or with a single drop of blood. It is easy to say: ‘I am going!’ But why are you going, have you really thought about it? You know that this kind of storm took both your maternal and paternal grandfathers? And all that’s left of my father is his name engraved on the trunk of a thick beech tree. Remember? Like your grandfather Kiro said, Naum my son, your brother, lucky for us, was not left in the Albanian mountains. Fate wanted him to be returned to us so that we can lay him to rest under our skies. Our kind, my son, never wanted anyone with bad intentions to enter our yard. The gun that hangs on the wall there from the time of our great-great grandfathers, hangs there to prevent strangers with bad intentions from entering our yard. It was used the most when the Andarts came to our village. My grandfather Naum used it to drive them out. Any stranger that dared enter was met with a shot in the head… I don’t want to hear any more about any revenge… I will tell you again… nothing is solved with a single step, a single drop of blood or a single sigh. Never forger that…”

Done left anyway… without a rifle. He ran into the Greek army when it was retreating from the front. One of the Greek soldiers asked him: “Hey, you, villager, which way to Greece?” Without delay Done said: “You see those mountains in the distance, well once you pass them you will see more, after you pass those then you will find Greece behind them.” The soldiers then dropped their rifles and ammunition and rushed to climb over the mountains that Done had pointed out. Done knew about those mountains from his grandfather Kiro who one time slyly said: “From here to there the land is ours. Beyond there it is foreign. You must never fight for what is not ours. And you must never allow a stranger to move in, into what is ours.”

Done, now with a gun over his shoulder, roamed throughout Macedonia, Epirus and Thessaly on foot, mostly barefoot, hungry and full of lice. He was helping the wounded and weak soldiers who were at the front return to their homes. He chose his friends carefully, he befriended only those who carried weapons and who fought against the foreigners. He often used to say: “Any person who fights against the foreigners with me is my brother.” And during his hungry and cold marches in Macedonia and Epirus, Done, while returning those from the battlefields to their homes in Thessaly, the Peloponnese and Rumeli, often slept in cold wet basements. Among the many wounded he met in the battle fields, he recognized a few who some time ago had come to his village. Some insulted him by calling him a stinking Bulgarian. He remembers one of them saying: “You are a stinking Bulgarian! Shut up and never speak that filthy language again.” But when Done found them on the battlefield, mutilated and barely alive, he helped them without question, without asking why they had insulted him. One of those who recognized Done and who remembered insulting him said: “Sorry, friend, they lied to us, they sowed hatred in us against you because you did not speak our language. We trusted them blindly and believed everything they told us. We were convinced that you were wild animals.” One day Done picked up a wounded Thracian out of the trenches and, to make him feel a bit better, decided to speak to him in Macedonian. The Thracian became visibly irritated and accused him of being a filthy Bulgarian so Done left without him. The Thracian kept yelling: “Help! Help! Help!” But Done refused to take him. After that, during a military company meeting, Done was charged and found guilty of abandoning a wounded soldier in the battlefield.

Later there were rumours circulating in the Kostur villages that Done had been appointed commissar of a battalion. Some of his friends were wondering why he still hung around in ELAS and did not join the Macedonian brigade. It appears Done was located far away from Koreshtata and did not know what Markos was up to. Markos, in place of sending the Macedonian divisions to Athens to fight against the English, he deployed them at the northern border. Markos wanted trusted people to protect the Greek state, which, at the time, fell under the English sphere of influence. Some people

were even saying: “Oh, if Done only knew, he would have left with the Brigade.” But he didn’t.

Unfortunately, Done never returned home and died somewhere in Kozheni Region.

Giorgi was devastated by the terrible news and completely shut down. He became a hermit. He spoke to no one, even at home, and left his fields and gardens unattended. Wild grass grew everywhere, even in his yard. He never left the house. Rumours began to spread around the village that he had become mute from an illness that he contracted and that he had also lost his mind. His grey beard had grown long and turned white making him look a lot older than he was. On the fortieth days after Done had died, Giorgi trimmed his beard, got dressed in proper clothes and set off to look for Done’s grave. He endured torment but did not break down. The one loyal supporter that he had was Lina, his wife. She understood how he felt and the meaning of family. And, in spite of being insulted in small and great measures, she remained true to her husband because that was how she was brought up to be by her mother; to be a good wife, to be proud of her family and to live with dignity. “If you do that,” the old people used to say, “then your family will stay strong and your home will endure anything that comes along.” The Macedonian home, as the older generations used to say, is kept strong only by the noblest of pure hearts. And Giorgi, being well taught by his father, always used to say that there needs to be at least one pure heart in the family.

Giorgi wanted his two sons to rest side by side, one beside the other, “in the eternal home”, as the old priest Vasil used to say. And when his turn came, “when God wanted him”, like he used to say, he too wanted to lie down beside them.

Giorgi left his village and went to Kozhani where he visited every village and looked everywhere, in village cemeteries, on hills, in fields, in brooks, in gullies and in every other place where battles were fought. He left no stone unturned. He spoke to everyone that gave him the time of day and described for them the man he was looking for but no luck. Then, the day he was thinking of giving up, he spoke to a man who said he knew many of the soldiers who

fought there. The man recognized his son both by his name and by the description Giorgi gave him. This man personally knew Done and told his father everything that he knew about him; the kind of fighter Done was, where they fought and where he was killed. But he did not know where Giorgi could find Done’s remains. The man told Giorgi that Done had been killed by a cannon shell. The shell exploded on top of him and blew him to pieces and that he and his mates had had no time to gather the fragments of his body to bury them in a grave.

Giorgi went in search and found the spot where the battle was fought. He spent a long time searching for remains. He scoured the entire area looking for human bones; he even dug in several places sorting through the soil but without success. Being unable to find his son’s remains, Giorgi decided to take back some of the soil where Done had fallen. The next day Giorgi took a bag and filled it with soil from the hillside.

When Giorgi returned to the village he summoned all his relatives and the village priest to the cemetery and they performed a proper funeral for Done. Giorgi personally dug a grave next to Naum’s and buried the bag full of soil. The entire village attended the funeral and almost everyone cried. When they returned home everyone sat around the table and, according to custom, thought of Done and his life.

Giorgi was startled when Giorgevitsa touched his hand. Her gentle touch brought him back to the present. He slowly turned and looked at her.

“Come…” she said in a gentle voice while rubbing his hand. “Stop staring into the dark… It has brought us nothing but hardship…”

Giorgi followed her to the table, wiped his moist forehead and said: “Yes you are right. Staring into the dark has been a great pain for us… but we still stare at it…”

The two sat at the table, one at each end, and silently swallowed their pain in silence. And, even though they had been together for many years, they always felt alone. This is because after losing their

two sons and after Vasil left, their home felt empty and full of pain ruled by hardship, disappointment and despair. At least that’s how they felt. From the time he was a child, Giorgi was tough and relied on his work to keep him tough. He trusted his grandfather and remembered everything he taught him. One of the things he taught him was that misfortune would fall upon a house where no fire was burning in the fireplace, no smoke was coming out of the chimney and wild grass and weeds grew in the yard. When misfortune comes evil takes over and life begins to shrivel and die.

After dinner Giorgi sat down beside the fireplace, tossed a couple of logs into the fire and watched them burn. The dry wood caught fire fast and the room became illuminated. Giorgi stretched his legs, took out his pipe and some tobacco and lit it. The smell of the burning tobacco overpowered the aroma emanating from the burning logs. Giorgi felt sleepy. The glittering fire, the lively flame, the glow of the coals, the warmth of the fire… banished his loneliness and gave him a new desire to live. The glow of flames emitted by the fire in the semi-lit room exaggerated Giorgevitsa’s shadow as she busied herself preparing the bed.

“Come to bed…” she said.

Giorgi knocked his pipe on the stone beside the fireplace and then got up. He got undressed and then went to the icon, crossed himself and quietly whispered: “God, if you exist, be merciful. Have mercy on Vane and protect my Vasil… almighty God...”

“Amen!” he heard Giorgevitsa say in a quiet voice. She too was also praying.

The wind outside was blowing and it was raining like crazy. The branches of the old pear tree in the yard groaned and strained under its force. Large drops of water were hitting the window and the loose metal sheet on the wall was shaking and hitting the wall wildly. The coals in the fireplace glowed red with each blast of wind and then quickly disappeared in the ashes. The old man stood there motionless, quiet, thinking. He was tired and his heart beat in his chest painfully. He was wondering: “Who knows where he is now, where he is freezing? If the wind and rain are beating on him,

whether he has eaten or is he hungry? Whether he is barefoot or he has shoes? His Vasil?”

Unable to shake the bad thoughts from his mind, Giorgi decided to roll into bed. He leaned on both of his hands and swung around violently. Lina, not being able to sleep herself, asked: “Are you not asleep?”

“No! I can’t sleep!” confessed Giorgi.

The old man then got up, lit a cigarette, walked around the room and a little later went back to bed. Then, sigh after long sigh, after hearing the first rooster crow, he fell asleep.