Pericles

Then it would have been just me and my grandmother and a few other little girls and old women in a town full of empty houses.

The Bulgarians would have killed them all, every one.

Just as they did in Kerdillia. And Doxato. Fifteen thousand in Drama. Ninety in Hrisoupoli. For giving guns to the Resistance fighters, and to Giovan Tsaous. That’s why I still believe that what happened that afternoon was a miracle. Saint Marina saved us.

All during the Occupation, at eight each morning, the church bell would ring and all the men would gather in the square.

The Bulgarians would come and take them for forced labour. Out in the fields, up in the mountains. Building roads and footbridges.

Whoever came late, they beat.

The overseer was a short guy with a heavy hand who looked like a salamander. He always carried a big pistol and sometimes he would fire it into the air. If someone came late, the overseer would slam the pistol down on his head. Or if someone dared to look him in the eye.

Even my father’s cousin, the giant, Pericles.

And what could Pericles do? He just sat there and took it. After all, if they were to kill him, what would become of his wife?

Once it’s rolled up and wrapped with cord, a bale of hay weighs thirty kilos. Before the Bulgarians came, Pericles could grab four of them at once, two in each hand, and toss them onto the bed of a truck as if they were as light as chicken feathers.