Occupation Child

[This excerpt from "Occupation Child" by T. Styppas contains mature and graphic themes such as poverty, war and death.]

A twelve-year-old boy, Tasouli, narrates his story. Born in Greece in 1938, just before the German Occupation started, he insists that he must tell his own story from the very start. His narration is in late 1950 and covers the period from his first memory to when he was about 12 years old, when he came to Canada. Tasouli is convinced that he must be the sole narrator and that no one else can narrate these previously undocumented events during the Occupation and the subsequent Civil War. He is pedantic, obsessed by the use of language and captivated by dreams. Sometimes he uses rhyme to tie in his dreams to factual reality.

But out of his dreams, a second narrator arises. It is Styppas, who speaks with an authoritative voice and narrates what happened much later, after 1950. Tasouli sees Styppas as a supportive figure and tells him all his problems. But sometimes Styppas gets very angry at Tasouli’s pedantic and obsessive behavior. Tasouli then becomes terrified that Styppas will extinguish him by impalement, like the Ottomans did to a Greek hero of the revolution of 1821 that he had learned about in school.

The excerpts here are from Tasouli’s narration.

---

Language of Hunger

Hunger was the most pervasive thing I remember during the Occupation. We were always hungry. These were not the familiar hunger-like pangs of the generally well fed of today. Rather, it was a feeling of emptiness. Continual emptiness. And one never felt really well. This feeling unwell was there all the time. You would only notice that you felt better if you had something in your stomach. Even if it was very little.

Of course, there was no meat. If anyone had any meat at all he would immediately be suspected as a collaborator. The Resistance would likely get him or his family sooner or later. Even bread, the staple for the Greeks which was essential for life, was in very short supply. Yes, bread was the staple. Yet 'staple' implies that you might have other things to eat. But bread was often the only thing we had to eat. And bread, the staple, was the last thing that remained before starvation. The very last.

The demotic Greek word for bread is psomί, the affectionate diminutive being psomάki. As a child during the Occupation my big daily question was:

– Mamaka, do we have psomaki today?

And she would always say:

– Oh yes, Tasouli, we have lots of psomaki today.

But what my mommy, my Mamaka, would do is cut what she had of the loaf into thinner slices, so it would appear more. I knew she did this, but I was happy that she made the bread seem more for me … ever, ever so happy. For I knew then that I would not die that day. I would live.

There is still more to psomaki. For it can also refer affectionately to a loaf of bread. A whole, un-sliced loaf was the only form of bread that existed. And the daily allotment would be one loaf per family. That is, if loaves were available at the neighborhood baker. If the loaves ran out for good, life would run out.

For me, and the people around me during the Occupation, the notion of a loaf of bread being equivalent to a day of life was part of everyday speech.

The allotted loaf even in the worst days of the Occupation was still warm from the oven, shortages and all. One chewed the slice with its thick crust and soft core. It started to go down into your belly and your hunger, your fear … that terrible fear would subside. Your Mamaka loved you. There would be lots of slices from the loaf that day.

Your Mamaka had said so.

And you loved your Mamaka.

So it had to be true.

And it was always my mother, my Mamaka, who fed me what food there was for me. My father, my Baba, probably heroically starved most of the time so I could have a little more. But I think I used the affectionate diminutive Mamaka a lot more when speaking to my Mother, than Babaka when speaking to my father.

The greatest hunger was in 1941-42 (mέgas limόs), when hundreds of thousands died. Omonia is a central piazza in Athens. The electrical train from Kifisia to Pireus had its main station under the Omonia platea. There were vents from the Underground to the surface. There, children in rags would gather during the cold Athens winter trying to keep warm by huddling together over the vents of the Underground. They seemed to be abandoned and were starving. Some of them were dying and sometimes one had to step over the dying ones to get across the platea. Many had big swollen bellies. My mother, pulling me by one hand, tried to cover my eyes with her other hand, so I would not see them. I remember thinking my mother’s gesture was unnecessary. I had already seen the kids before and I was curious about them.

The dying children would talk to me. They were begging, I suppose.

I wanted to ask them why they had no psomaki. No psomaki at all it seemed. But I was dragged away.

---

Civil War: British Prisoners

The Insurgents thought they had essentially won the war in Greece, as the Germans retreated. Virtually all of Athens was under their control and they had massive popular support. They also thought that they had the full material and military support of the victorious Soviets. But it was not to be.

Instead, British forces landed in the port of Piraeus. Their orders were to engage the Insurgents and prevent Greece from going communist.

We lived on a small street in the first floor of two-floor building in central Athens. My grandmother had dubbed our home “the Bastille” because it seemed so dark. The name stuck. I do not remember hand-to-hand fighting on our street, but one could hear guns and explosions close by.

The Insurgents took over the front hallway of our house and set up their heavy machine guns there. They were young, very polite, and mostly from rural areas. Some of the Insurgents were wounded. Thales, my favorite uncle, who was a physician, mostly took care of them, cleaning the wounds and putting dressings on. The first-aid station was our main bathroom, where we usually had running cold water. Water had to be boiled in the little gaziera to wash the wounds. Then, patched up, the Insurgent boys would go out to fight some more.

As the fighting intensified the Insurgents brought to the Bastille a small group of captured English prisoners. I think they were all officers, who came with tattered uniforms. Some were also lightly wounded, with superficial face wounds that had more or less dried up.

I was assigned special responsibility for those with the facial wounds. The reason was that I was the razor-boy. Safety razors were available then in Greece, but with the years of Occupation, it was difficult to find new razor blades. So, razor-boy’s job was to sharpen used safety razor blades. It is a skilled job. One needs a drinking glass with a cylindrical shape. The safety razor blade is put inside, more or less flat against the inside of the glass and then slightly angled, so the edge of the blade is sharpened against the glass, and moved back and forth using the index, the middle finger. And a good clean shave was essential, as a British officer would not want to appear scruffy to his captors.

So, I stood beside the English prisoners, sharpening their safety razor blades. They seemed to be familiar with this trick and showed me how to improve my technique. We provided the soap and the shaving brush, and water was boiled for them. Then, my most important task was done and I was able to watch the English prisoners shave. They all seemed very tall to me, with their heads practically touching the low bathroom ceiling.

However, this was a most excellent vantage point from which I could observe if my sharp safety razor blade was getting too close to the wounds on their face. I had to be especially vigilant as they shaved under their chin and their throats. If it looked dangerous, I would warn them with a tug on their uniform. The shaving went well, without further trauma. The English looked quite happy and I was rewarded with some English candies. They were harder, and less sweet than what I was used to. But they were very flavorful and tangy.

These British prisoners had their own smells. They smelled of nice tobacco and other unusual musty smells none of them unpleasant. Their smells were different than the Italian prisoners in Pyrgos, inside the barbed wire, who smelled mostly of sweat. The English were not as talkative as the Italian prisoners, but they were very pleasant. They smiled after having told me something, which I generally would not understand and which they would repeat and smile again.

I suppose they were telling me little jokes or making amusing comments or else they were trying to speak to me in Greek, which I also did not understand with their funny accents. I think the British prisoners stayed a few days. They slept in the hallway with their captors, the Insurgents. The British were very polite, just like the Insurgents. And politely and quietly one day the Insurgent boys approached my Uncle Thales.

– Mr. Thales, excuse us.

– Yes, what would you like boys?

– Mr. Thales, we have received orders.

– Orders?

– Yes, Mr. Thales. Orders from headquarters.

– What orders, boys?

– Excuse us, Mr. Thales, but we will have to execute the English prisoners.

– What in the world for?

– For retaliation, Mr. Thales.

– Retaliation?

– The English have executed some of our boys, Mr. Thales.

– But we don’t do these things, we are not Barbarians!

– No, Mr. Thales, we are not Barbarians.

– And you are supposed to represent the people. You are our popular Resistance.

– Yes, Mr. Thales, we are the popular Resistance.

– Then you can’t execute prisoners, boys.

– No, Mr. Thales, we can’t execute prisoners. Excuse us, Mr. Thales. Headquarters said we have had hundreds of casualties. And tortures of our people. And executions.

– But the commanders at the headquarters are supposed to be communists and we are all to be working to build a better society. We can’t start a new society with executions of prisoners, can we now boys?

– No, Mr. Thales, we cannot start like this.

– How can the commanders call themselves communists, with orders like this? The British are our allies to fight fascism. It is outrageous, you cannot just shoot them. I will not allow it! I looked after you all.

– Yes, Mr. Thales. You looked after us very well when we were wounded. We will not shoot them, Mr. Thales.

– Good. You are talking sense now.

– We will decapitate them, Mr. Thales. These are our orders, Mr. Thales.

– Decapitate them?

– Yes, Mr. Thales. To save bullets. We are all running short of ammunition.

– You can’t decapitate prisoners in our home. In the Bastille!

– No, Mr. Thales, we cannot decapitate them in your home. That would be impolite. We will decapitate them in the garden.

I knew exactly how the Insurgent boys would decapitate the English prisoners. They would use a long knife, like my father had brought back from the front. It had the wooden sheath like a long pen-knife. Now I knew what the wooden sheath was for. It was to hold the knife for cutting heads off. Maybe it was even the same knife that my father had brought back from the war. I wondered if the heads of the English would still look clean-shaven, on the ground in our back garden.

A couple of days later the British prisoners were gone from the Bastille. The Insurgent boys did not seem to know what happened to them.

I checked a few times in our little back garden, walled all around as it was, but I could not find any English heads.

---

So?

So if something at all

is forever the same

in London of then

and Athens of now,

I’ll be looking for you

as I freely wander

on my cobbled paths

my glistening byways

in soft winter rain

of my Athens of now,

and if I tire too much

I’ll just lie down and

after falling asleep

I’ll be sure to find you

wherever you are.

---

"Occupation Child", by T. Styppas.

Bio Provided by author:

We lived on a small street in the first floor of two-floor building in central Athens. My grandmother had dubbed our home “the Bastille” because it seemed so dark. The name stuck. I do not remember hand-to-hand fighting on our street, but one could hear guns and explosions close by.| Author: The author of "Occupation Child" was born in Greece and came to Canada as a youngster and is now Professor of Medicine (Rheumatology) at Queen's University. Kingston. His literary autobiography is described as magic realist, in which time and characters are fluid over the protagonist's lifetime. Set in WWII Greece, and then Ottawa, Canada in the 1950s. | Artist: The illustrator Athena Moss was born in England and studied Fine Art at Sheffield College of Art and is now living in Athens, Greece.

Fiadone

You move your finger

across the Fiadone recipe you teach me

and this is our version of swearing on a Bible

Your free hand is always moving too

It hands me the measuring cups

or motions towards the ingredients

“Easter cheese,

ricotta,

the zest of three lemons,

sugar to your liking--

But put a half-cup;

I always put a half-cup”

You turn a zesty cheese pie

into an early inheritance

You teach me the stuffing,

and you teach Cristina

how to make the crust

As if you are writing your epilogue

as a recipe

whose required skill set

has been cautiously delegated

to ensure that mimicking it

is always collaborative

Three fingers point to the recipe

and leave the huddle

careful not to flinch

at the fading penmanship

They roll or zest or measure

Our temporality will keep its distance

if we are busy

But when we don’t have our hands full,

we wait for the oven to beep

or for the pie to cool

And when dessert is on the table,

we wait for everyone to gather

before slicing into our family recipes

that we strain to keep relevant,

before you regift your pie cutter

to someone who will eat last

---

Fiadone, by Lucia De Luca.

As an English teacher and emerging spoken word artist, Lucia (Lu-chi-a) De Luca plays with stories in the classroom and on the mic. Her storytelling often nods to past versions of herself or centers around family and her Italian heritage. You can find more of her work published to the TEDx and Bankstown Poetry Slam YouTube channels, and in Baby Teeth Journal and Yolk Literary Journal.

IG: @luciadeluca96

Website: luciadeluca.com

LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/luciadeluca

Photos of a Wren

Excerpt of "Photos of a Wren" by Ava Droski, Chapter 1:

“All right, let’s go boys and girls.” Joe said calmly as he hopped out of the cabin. Dean and Ryan secured their helmets, nodded, and hopped out of the jump seat with the crew. Sam had parked the engine behind two parked cars on the edge of a dark road.

There were no streetlights. Thick woods flanked the road, absorbing into their complete blackness any natural light from the starry sky. The whoosh of ocean waves crashing on the nearby shore cut through the silence of the night like faint, distant bombs.

“We’re in Sun Row, aren’t we?” Dean glanced at Ryan.

“Yeah. ‘The Nest’.”

His eyes attempted to focus and adjust to the darkness; his ears absorbed the calming coo of the ocean’s song; his skin shivered at the touch of Poseidon’s breath on his face. The trees on each flank of the road seemed to have swallowed the twilight and regurgitated an ominous pall of black nothingness. The nearest streetlamp must have been at least two kilometres back. The only light challenging the gloom was the unremitting red bulbs atop the emergency vehicle.

Ryan had mentioned The Nest to Dean once or twice - the desolate outskirts of Sun Row Harbour where the lone main road came to an end at the sea, about a ten minute drive south from the town centre. There were walking trails within the flanking woods, but fitness visitors were rare due to the dense and sempiternal fog that swept the area.

The end of the road appeared to be abruptly swallowed by the beach; a dangerous unity of land and the ocean’s doorway.

Ryan said The Nest was a popular location for teenagers to smoke and drink on the beach late at night. The closest home from the water was approximately two kilometres back on a small piece of land just before the emergence of the woods.

A green Volkswagen was parked in the middle of the road. A woman stood beside it, frantically waving her cell phone above her head, calling attention to the fire crew. She was attempting to speak through hysteric gasps. Joe approached her earnestly.

“I called you. Two cars – over – two cars – I heard the crash – the rocks – I was just leaving my son’s house up there – I was visiting my son up there – I was leaving and I heard the horrible crash – I drove down here to see what happened, if anyone had been hurt - and -”

The woman was frantic. Her cheeks and eyelashes glistened with tears and it appeared as though she had been pulling at her hair.

Joe interrupted her, “Ma’am, I need you to calm down and stay by your car. Do not leave the side of your car. Do you understand?”

The woman nodded and clasped her cell phone tightly against her chest. There was another witness on the scene: a short, stubby man with glasses. He was sitting on the hood of his Taurus. He sprinted to Joe at his beckoning. “She’s my mother. I just got down here a couple minutes before you guys showed up. I live in that last house up there,” he pointed down the road. “She called me. She was shaken and told me she saw an accident, so I walked up a little bit and saw the car up on the rocks just ahead.” He pointed into the darkness toward the beach. “Just at the edge ov- ”

“I need you to stay with your mother,” Joe interrupted, “the two of you need to stay by your vehicles. Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes of course, Sir.”

Joe called to Dean and Ryan. He pointed forward to the beach. “Go. Now.” They sprinted down the road, leaving Joe and the witnesses behind. A single, dimly lit antique streetlamp greeted them as they reached the edge of the pavement. A weak circle of light floated and flickered innocently against the blackness. The bulb illuminated the surroundings just enough to make the edge of the road instantly visible to emerging motorists. Just beyond the streetlamp, a car had crashed plumb through the centre of a rocky knoll. The car was encased in a temporary tomb of weeds, rocks, and boulders; hundreds of tiny, shattered pieces of glass shrapnel sparkled on the pavement in the flickering light, the ocean roared thunderous just beyond. Dean and Ryan dashed to the vehicle. Glass crunched beneath their heavy bunker boots as they each chose a flank and climbed the knoll. They moved adeptly and knelt on their haunches by the driver and passenger windows. The ocean continued its midnight howl.

They sprawled on their stomachs atop the knoll. They dug at the rocks and cast away debris that blocked their view inside the car. Dean crawled to the front of the vehicle and peered through the shattered windshield.

The car was empty.

Ryan glanced over his shoulder and scanned the road. “Shouldn’t there be two cars? The woman back there said there was another car – where is it? And where’s the driver of this one? Out there somewhere?” He pointed to the beach beyond the knoll.

Dean rose to his feet and extended his arms laterally, maintaining his balance on the rocks. He turned his flashlight inside the car once more and searched for any sign of movement within.

Ryan sighed. “There’s no one here. What the hell?”

Dean squinted in the darkness. The ocean stirred angrily; the moon cast a faint glow atop the restless waves. He shone his flashlight on the beach for any sign of movement – or another car.

Then he saw it.

The other car.

Dean hurled himself off the peak of the knoll and sprinted across the sand. He dashed impetuously; his face and body dripped with perspiration beneath his helmet and bunker gear. He ripped off his helmet and tossed it in the sand. Ryan followed closely behind.

---

"Photos of a Wren" by Ava Droski.

Ava Droski is a graduate of the University of Windsor and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music degree. She lives and writes in Windsor, ON., where she also owns a music school and teaches piano and vocal lessons. "Photos of a Wren" is her debut novel and is a work that has been 10 years in the making! It will be available on Amazon (Kindle and Paperback) on March 1st, 2021.

Instagram: @ava.droski.author

Facebook: Ava Droski - Author