War Games (2 page)

They stood in the shadow of the goat shed until Papa had pushed a wheelbarrow to the far end of the garden. Petros tried to look innocent as he led the little goat away.

Old Mario, the hired hand, worked in the garden. He wore a straw hat and a shirt with soft, loose sleeves. The air shifted around him in wavy lines, hot and dry. He didn’t notice Petros.

But as Petros approached the gate, Zola came from the orchard. “That isn’t the goat Papa meant for you to take.”

“I know it.” Petros walked faster.

Zola said, “Papa’s going to be mad.”

Petros hurried along the dusty road to Uncle Spiro’s farm, Lump trailing behind. He’d hoped to feel brave and bold once he’d left the farmyard, but the knot in his stomach kept reminding him he was neither.

He’d walked halfway to his uncle’s, mostly uphill under the hot sun, without noticing, before he passed some Italian soldiers who took his mind off this trouble. One of them waved to him, smiling. Petros didn’t wave back.

He’d once watched Italian soldiers steal tomatoes from their garden. Papa allowed this. The soldiers carried guns. Papa put a heavy chain on the gate only minutes after the soldiers walked away. But he let the soldiers take the tomatoes.

Since last year, 1940, the small Greek army had been fighting
the Italians back into Albania man against man. Greece won the battles in the air with only their old biplanes, shooting down newer, faster planes.

For many pleasant evenings, Petros listened to reports of these battles on the radio along with his friend Elia—with the whole Lemos family gathered in Mama’s parlor.

But when the Germans sent troops through Bulgaria, the Greek army rushed to defend another border. The Italian soldiers streamed through the undefended mountain passes. Now they camped around the countryside, living an uneasy truce.

Sometimes the soldiers charmed a lonely old person into sharing a meal with them. Otherwise they cooked tomatoes over their fires and said their prayers on Sunday. The wily ones also stole chickens.

If he were a full-grown man, Petros thought, he wouldn’t be afraid. Among Mama and her friends, there was talk of chasing the Italian army back to Italy. Petros suspected the women could do it. The soldiers looked no older than Zola.

They’d rolled their jackets to make pillows and dropped their guns in the sparse grass of the rocky hillside. Smoking and talking, they laughed over a joke. One of them called out to Petros.

“Do you want to sell that goat?” This was the kind of trouble these soldiers gave people. Always hungry. And now that they’d begun speaking Greek, they liked to tease.

“This goat is my sister’s favorite,” Petros said, pulling Lump
along a little faster. He’d have said Lump was his favorite, but these soldiers often had a soft spot in their hearts for sisters.

“What has she named it, this favorite?”

Because Sophie had named
her
favorite, Petros said, “Pearl.”

The soldiers laughed. They offered Petros a piece of soft white candy with fruit and nuts. He hated to turn it down, but he shook his head, never stopping. If the soldiers stole Lump, the little goat would be in a stew pot before the day was out.

Passing them, he asked, “When are the Germans coming?”

“Why would they come?” one soldier replied. “We’re here already.”

“Everyone is afraid the Germans are coming,” Petros said.

“A strategy,” another soldier said. “While you’re talking, you’re not fighting, isn’t it so?” A few of the soldiers laughed, and Petros hurried on his way, glad little Lump hadn’t looked more appetizing.

Uncle Spiro’s farm had a stream and many old olive trees. But the house needed a coat of paint. The chicken house needed repairs. And the garden always needed weeding.

The reason for this was simple. Uncle Spiro sang and even danced as he worked. He preferred to lay down the work for the dancing, and often did. Zola once said this was because he was a younger brother, and Papa appeared to agree.

Petros found him at an old table under the grape arbor.

“Hello, Petros,” Uncle Spiro called out.

“You’ll like it here, little Lump,” Petros told the kid when it balked.

His uncle’s breakfast of hard bread and strong coffee sat neglected as he adjusted the strings on his guitar. “Uncle,” Petros said, “could I trade this male for one of your females?”

“Excellent idea.” Uncle Spiro pointed out his largest kid.

“Papa told me to bring you our biggest one. But I’ve brought you the smallest.”

“He’s captured your heart,” Uncle Spiro said.

Petros wasn’t ashamed to admit it. “He’s good-natured for a goat.”

“Then you must take Fifi.” Uncle Spiro pointed to a white goat grazing some distance away. A rope tied around her neck dragged on the ground, as if she’d been waiting for someone to take her away.

“She isn’t the largest, but she isn’t the smallest either. She’ll give milk and she’ll have many babies to give more milk. And”—Uncle Spiro raised a hand so one finger pointed to the sky, his way of saying this would be the important part—“you’ll tell your papa you made a fine bargain and we’re both content.”

“Papa will be angry anyway.”

Uncle Spiro laughed. “Not when he comes to know Fifi. She bites hard, and I swear to you, she spits like a camel. I don’t prefer her, and your papa, he won’t like her either. He’ll congratulate you for giving up only the small goat.”

“Small, but sweet.” Petros patted the hard bump of Lump’s head.

“Sturdy, too,” Uncle Spiro said, wrapping his hand around Lump’s ankle. “He’ll grow. Perhaps he’ll be the biggest of all.”

Petros noticed there were two cups of coffee poured. “Uncle, are you waiting for someone?”

“No, no,” he said, picking out a little tune on his guitar.

Zola had recently whispered to Petros that their uncle was rumored to have hidden some British soldiers from the Italians. Petros didn’t believe it. Their uncle was not the serious type.

They sang songs until, at home, the family would think of
eating lunch. Petros wasn’t in a hurry. After the meal, the family would find places to sit or sleep quietly through the afternoon heat. Only when the air cooled a little would the work begin again.

“We’ve surrendered in Salonika,” Uncle Spiro said, naming the town in northern Greece. “What are people saying in our village?”

“That the Germans will come soon. Somebody paints Greek flags on the sides of buildings,” Petros said. “And words.”

“Words. Against the Germans?”

Petros nodded. “Some people hang small flags from their windows or chimneys for everyone to see. But whoever paints the words, they do it at night, when no one will see them.”

Uncle Spiro made a tight little circle of his lips, thinking.

“Mama won’t send us to school,” Petros said. “Everyone waits. I thought Papa always knew what to do. But now—”

“He plants another row. He picks another crop,” Uncle Spiro said. “It’s enough for now. Even the Italians wait.”

Petros slumped in his chair.

Uncle Spiro patted him on the arm. “You’re making good arms,” he said. “Such arms could farm all day and still play the guitar all night.”

Petros said, “I think I want to be a soldier.”

“Being a soldier is only a job,” Uncle Spiro said. “After the war, these men will go home to be builders and poets and teachers and painters. They’ll play the guitar. Make families.”

Petros thought of how his mama’s face grew frightened
when there was talk of the soldiers. “Everyone wishes this war were over. No one wants the Italians here, but people are more scared of the Germans.”

“Everyone always wishes a war were over,” Uncle Spiro said. “We must learn how to avoid them before the start.”

“How?”

Uncle Spiro ran his thumbs over his guitar strings. “I think about this a great deal. No answer comes.”

“What exactly do you think?” Petros asked.

“I think about two men, not their countries,” Uncle Spiro said. “I think if two men each think he’s right and the other is wrong, does this have to lead to a fight? If one man hits the other with his fist, does this have to lead to a war? And I think, no, not if these men are smart.”

Petros nodded.

“Then I think, what if one man hit the other man’s son? What if the son is killed? It’s too late to be smart.”

The Germans of Petros’s imagination didn’t seem real. Only their planes were real. The bombs. But his uncle spoke only of men, and these Petros could see. “So there’s war.”

“Perhaps smart is not enough. We must be forgiving. Or at least, we must be willing to live with our loss. So I began to think of losses I could not forgive. The list is long.”

Petros thought of losing an unfair wager. Of doing Zola’s chores for three days. “So what do you think finally, Uncle?”

“I think, how can we avoid war?”

There was a certain sadness in the laughter Petros shared
with Uncle Spiro. But laughter was always good. Uncle Spiro said, “You can take some books to Zola when you go.”

He led Petros into the house.

Made of soft paper, the books came from America and were written in English. Uncle Spiro spoke only Greek, and Petros spoke English but couldn’t read it. The many small drawings made the stories easy to follow.

Flipping through the pages, Petros saw an undersea adventure unfolding. Petros said, “I think this story is in one of Zola’s books.”

“There’s a puzzle for your sister,” Uncle Spiro said, and handed him a cardboard box. Petros’s sister, Sophie, loved these puzzles. Usually the picture they created was something she remembered and could tell Petros about.

Which meant that Petros loved them too, although he rarely sat still long enough to put them together. The picture on top of the box showed children playing in deep snow, something Petros knew about but had never seen.

Uncle Spiro took a crumpled cloth out of his pocket. He unwrapped it to reveal a glass marble. Large, a shooter. Inside, where there would ordinarily have been a thin ribbon of color, there was an American flag.

Petros gave a low whistle.

“My sister, your aunt Vivi”—Uncle always reminded him this way because Petros didn’t know his aunt Vivi—“sent me books and guitar strings and a packet of tobacco. This was in the box.”

Aunt Vivi stayed in America when Papa brought his family
back to Greece. Petros wished he remembered America, or even the boat trip, but he was only a baby at the time.

Uncle Spiro never left Greece, even while Papa and Aunt Vivi both lived in America. During those years, she began sending Uncle Spiro small boxes filled with interesting American things, and she hadn’t stopped.

Petros knew glass marbles were easy to get in America. Still, he thought his aunt Vivi must be a woman of uncommon good taste, to have such things lying about.

Petros’s pouch hung from his belt loop. He untied it and spilled his marbles at their feet. Almost unbreakable, they were made of fired clay, painted in bright colors. They looked ugly beside the glass beauty. He wrapped it up again and put it into his pouch with the others.

“You’ll win every game you play now,” Uncle Spiro said.

Petros shook his head. “I won’t play with it.”

Uncle Spiro sat back and rested his chin on his hand, frowning. “You could play with Panayoti.”

“Last time I reminded him he’s American too, he blacked my eye.”

Uncle Spiro grunted softly. Panayoti was a hard case.

Petros scratched Lump’s head one last time. “I should go home.”

Uncle Spiro tied the little fellow to the table leg so only long-legged Fifi could follow Petros. Petros didn’t look back at Lump’s sweet dark face even once.

Everything Uncle Spiro said about Fifi was true. She bit, she spat, both with very little excuse. She wouldn’t allow Petros to lead her with the rope. But on the walk home, he decided she must like him. Why else would she go along without coaxing? Petros strolled into the kitchen, following the smell of roasting chicken.

“What’s the matter with you?” his sister scolded. She was chasing a persistent horsefly around the room with a dish towel. “Don’t bring a goat in here.”

Before Petros could explain he’d tried to tie her outside, Fifi bit into Sophie’s skirt. “Euw! Goat slobber!” His sister ran for her room.

Petros shook his head. When Sophie turned eighteen, everyone said she’d grown up, but she acted sillier than ever.

Mama came through the doorway with a bowl full of eggs. “Take that goat outside,” she said, setting the bowl on a table.

“Her name is Fifi and she bites,” Petros said. He reached for her rope and she snapped at him. He drew back very quickly.

Mama clamped a hand around Fifi’s mouth. Fifi sat like a
dog. One good yank on the rope and the goat allowed herself to be led outside. But when Mama tried to tie her to the rail at the doorstep, Fifi got in a good bite. “Ouch!”

Mama let go of the rope and of Fifi, both. The goat trotted over to sit down in the open doorway.

“I see what you mean,” Mama said, and Petros grinned. “She could end up in my stew pot if she doesn’t watch out.”

Petros said, “We’ve traded for her. Papa wanted another female.”

Mama squeezed past Fifi. “Keep her out of my kitchen—and don’t take her into the garden with you.”

Petros couldn’t go to the garden at all, then. Fifi wanted nothing to do with the other goats, and she bit him when he tried to leave her behind with them. She bit him again while he stood trying to decide what to do about her.

“You took the wrong goat,” Papa said, coming in from the garden. “Is this the trade you made?”

“Uncle Spiro was content with the trade.”

Petros found it hard to meet Papa’s eyes, but he threw an arm over Fifi’s back and, good for them both, she didn’t turn and bite him. “She’ll give many babies, lots of milk.”

Papa answered with a grunt.

Two things were said with this grunt. That Papa knew he’d done it deliberately. Also, this matter was not done with.

“It’s suppertime,” Mama said.

Petros shot her a grateful look, which she pretended not to see.

Fifi sat in the doorway all through the evening meal, looking as alert as Zola’s dog, beneath the table, and far more elegant. Petros wished he’d been successful at getting Fifi into the goat pen, where she wouldn’t be a constant reminder to Papa. Second best would be for Petros to find a mission to fulfill as soon as dinner was over so
he
wasn’t a constant reminder. He decided to watch for the Germans.