Dafni was not in the house nor the yard. The clock on the wall of her bedroom told her it was nearing four thirty p.m.—the sun would set within the hour. Katerina was struck by a sudden urge to see it, to sit as she once had on the hillside in the days before the occupation. Before love. Before tragedy.
Wrapped in two shawls, with her boots laced tight, she raised the latch and stepped out into the cold afternoon air, pausing for a moment at the grave she had made for Chrysí. Her beloved goat. The first casualty of a war that was determined to take away everything she loved. Katerina used the wall to steady herself, stared up through the bare branches of the overhanging tree toward a sky the gray of a young gull’s feathers. Walking hurt, but she had come this far, so she pressed on, ignoring the low pulls of pain across her back, the cramps that squeezed bile into her throat.
The ridge was ahead, though she could no longer go to that spot. Lio’s face was a frequent visitor, coming to her in the blurred world between wakefulness and slumber, eyes wide and mouth agape. His death had shocked both of them, and though the rain of that night had washed away any trace of blood, Katerina fearedhis ghost would be standing guard where his body had fallen. Waiting for her, as he had in life.
She stopped as a ripple of discomfort traveled through her. A new pain, as if someone were pulling her insides together. Sweat beaded on her upper lip, her skin damp despite the chill.
It had been a mistake to climb up here; she should never have strayed so far from the house.
Katerina gave in to a sob, stumbling on legs that felt weak as matchsticks. Her hair fell in tangles over her eyes. Pebbles tumbled away. The path was slick, the light fast fading. Below her, the village came into view, her relief tainted by agony as a violent cramp took hold. She clutched her stomach, cried out as a gush of liquid flooded the inside of her legs.
The baby was coming.
She fell to her knees and crawled toward the closest house. Not her own, Dafni’s. In her delirious state, she had forgotten that her friend no longer lived there, had not lived there for many months. If she could only reach the door, find the strength to bang against it—but then the burning came again. Katerina could no longer move or breathe or think coherently.
Warm light fell across her. A voice, gentle but firm. Hands moving, examining. Words she did not recognize spoken with hushed urgency. Katerina was afraid, more afraid than she had ever been, and though the woman looking down at her did so with kindness, she shut her eyes. And did not open them again. Not during the pain or the agony, not when she was tearing, ripping, screaming. Not afterward, when all was quiet and the darkness she craved came again to steal her away.
She dreamed of Stefanos. His hand in hers. Laughter on his lips. Light in his eyes. They were on an island. Not Folegandros but another, smaller, cut off from the rest of the world. The sunwarm against their skin as they lay together, side by side, on a beach of sugary sand.
It was all she wanted, but there was something wrong. Something missing.
Katerina sat and stared out across the water. It was not blue but black. A great swirling beast rising nearer and nearer until—
She awoke thrashing, kicking, a rasping cry scouring her throat.
Dafni appeared in an instant. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled Katerina against her, holding her tight, rocking her back and forth.
“Wh-Where is she?” Katerina stuttered. “Where is my daughter?”
Dafni did not reply. She loosened her grip, shook her head.
“What have you done with her?”
“I am sorry,agápi mou.” Dafni began to cry. Her face crumpled like paper in the rain. “Ingrid, she did everything she could. The baby came the wrong way. The cord was around her neck. I am sorry,” she said again.
What use was sorry? What good could sorry do?
The door to the room creaked open. Ingrid emerged, a bottle in her hand. Her face was flushed, blotched with tears. The dress she wore stained in blood.
“Koniák,”she said, unscrewing the lid.
“Drink it,” Dafni urged. “It will help with the pain, the shock.”
Katerina was too numb to refuse. The brandy tasted sweet. She took another sip, then another. She drank until the room turned to water, until the horror of her reality had been erased. She craved only oblivion.
The days passed.
Sun rose, darkness fell.
Somehow her heart continued to beat.
Ingrid and Dafni stayed close. She was never alone. Even when she stepped outside to relieve herself, their boots waited just beyond the wooden door, standing guard, watching, caring. In the quiet hours, the German nurse read thick novels, slowly working through Greek words. Dafni, endlessly patient, offered gentle corrections with a smile.
Katerina was in the room but not truly present. The world felt distant, muffled, as if she were watching through the wrong end of a telescope. She was a ghost in her own skin, untethered from life.
It was several weeks before she ventured back to the place where her daughter was buried. Not in the church grounds or the cemetery in Chora but with Chrysí. Katerina had been adamant.
“We will have a proper funeral when her father returns,” she said in answer to Dafni’s timid argument. “I am the only home she ever knew. She belongs close to me.”
