The Angry Hills - Leon Uris [58]
The man, Vassili, spoke more like an American than an Englishman. He was of great importance both to the Gestapo and the Underground. Heilser would have not made the proposition to her unless he was desperate. In their last meeting he made no attempt to persuade her to become his mistress. The man, whoever he was, must hold some great power.
But could she betray her own people? What would life be like then? Dr. Thackery, Papa-Panos and Thanassis were just as desperate to have the man escape from Greece. Yes, her sons would live, but how many other sons would die if she betrayed?
Three weeks to decide... three weeks...
The picture on the mantel—a boy of two and a boy of four. One with a bright smile on his face and the other held a little stuffed bear. Lisa lit a cigarette and sank into a chair.
Mike had no choice but to get accustomed to the pump house in Chalandri. It was obvious that the final dash from Greece was no simple chore to arrange.
He tried to read but couldn’t concentrate. He slept in snatches and waited for darkness, for darkness meant he could step outside the shack for a breath of air.
At midday the sweat poured from him. As the sun blazed hotter it would become stifling and unbearable in the house. Mike would lie flat and motionless, almost passing out from the heat.
He was alert to every sound, from the rustle of a tree to the shuffle of footsteps that came after sundown. At the sound of the footsteps he unfailingly reached for his pistol. The steps would grow louder and louder, then stop in front of the door. A dish of food and a bottle of wine would be left and the footsteps would shuffle away.
Mike couldn’t eat much, but the wine would throw him into a blessed fog for a few hours.
All through the night he would pace the dirt floor like a caged animal. The days seemed endless.
One sound outside the pump house made him sigh with relief. The soft, light footsteps of Lisa. It was only human, under these conditions, for him to look forward with renewed eagerness to her nightly visit. And it was only natural for him to spend a great deal of time thinking about her when she was gone. Mike felt that he always would have remembered her even if he had met her under ideal circumstances. There was that deep, haunting sadness in her face that seemed to give her beauty a mysterious aura.
Their visits were friendly. Each day Lisa would be more persuasive in her efforts to gain his complete confidence.
“How is it today, Vassili?”
“Great. I love it here. Do you want to hear me recite Julius Caesar forward or Plato’s Republic backward?”
“Well, now, perhaps this will cheer you up a bit.”
She opened a package and produced a razor, some blades and two books: The Sea Wolf and Martin Eden. Mike didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d read the books a half dozen times.
“Wait! There is more! Here is a surprise. Look what I have, Vassili—tobacco.”
“Tobacco...” But even his pipe did not taste good any more. “Lisa, how much longer do I have to stay here?”
“It is very difficult for Dr. Thackery to move about these days, but it should not be too much longer, Vassili, not too much longer.”
Five days passed.
Lisa began to arrive earlier and stay almost to the curfew hour. Each day he awaited her more anxiously than the last. He began to think that much of the duty and routine of her visits were disappearing and that she actually enjoyed being with him.
They would brew a pot of tea or share a bottle of wine and relax and converse. They would talk of books and music. He found her to be intelligent and highly educated. And from her Mike learned more of the tragedy that had befallen Greece.
The country was rapidly degenerating into a state of moral rot. Most Greeks were bitter in their hatred of the invaders, but there were those—as there always are—who thought