Eleftheria’s two daughters, Valia and Penelope, were both children at the time they were bereaved. That commonplace notion—that each of us grieves idiosyncratically—was true for the Asproyerakas family, but one dilemma was the same: none could say they truly knew the wife of Achilles.

2.

Nineteen thirty-nine. At the hottest time of day, Valia and Penny, twelve and ten years old, climbed onto the corrugated-iron roof of the Cafe Achillion. The gauge on the verandah read thirty-eight degrees Celsius. Achilles was inside, behind the stove, watching bacon crisp. There were customers in the cafe, and the girls trod lightly. Valia and Penny stood at the midpoint of the cafe’s pitched roof, a feature that Valia associated with pictures of the prows on ancient boats. A few rocks had rained onto the iron: they assumed these came from the Anglo-Celtic boys of the suburb.

The sisters removed their shoes and stood facing each other on the corrugated iron, one bare foot on either side of the roof arch. They wanted to see who, between them, could stand on the hot metal surface for the longer time. If you could bear the burning sensation, if you could forget about its sting long enough, you won the game, the test of your capacity for pain.

‘What will happen to us without a mother?’ Valia wondered aloud on the rooftop.

‘I don’t know! My feet are hurting already,’ said Penelope.

What always happened then duly happened: Valia succeeded. Penny sat down first on the roof, making the sounds ow ow ow, and plunged her feet back into shoes.

‘Don’t make so much noise,’ said Valia. ‘There are customers inside.’

Valia enjoyed the sight of jacaranda trees in the distance: she’d come to know what it felt like to appease her own wilfulness.

3.

That year, at the outbreak of war, Achilles told his daughters that he had queued at the recruitment branch like all the other men—like other fathers, he wanted to do his duty—but the army did not have a service shirt to fit his broad chest, and the stupid army people had refused to enlist him.

‘It’s done then,’ Achilles said. ‘I’m not meant for war.’

At night the sisters convened in Valia’s bedroom to discuss their father. The eldest Asproyerakas daughter believed the recruitment branch story was poorly conceived in several ways. She told Penelope that widowers were not allowed to serve in the military, and even if their mother were alive he wouldn’t leave his business. Achilles couldn’t leave his daughters because he believed they belonged to him; he thought men owned women, that families were possessions created by transactions. Their beloved mother had brought a dowry. But Penelope disagreed: she suspected that her father told the truth—yes, he did try to enlist. Probably he wanted to fight; he wanted to hurt people.