‘Wait.’ The officer brakes suddenly, and Zoë catches her breath, looking up at the sky for the plane that must be diving at them, but the officer is striding past her to the back of the car. He opens the boot and then a large coat is dropped onto the seat beside her. ‘I’m afraid it’s a bit barbaric,’ he mutters. Then the door slams and they are off again. She bundles up the coat, which is made of thick, scratchy wool and smells of sweat and acrid smoke, and tucks it under her head. But the car is bouncing along and the seat is hard and slippery, and it is too much effort to keep herself braced between the doors. So she sits up and pulls the coat over her knees.

They are getting close to Athens now; the signs say Maroussi and Kifisia. The road is busier here: cars stream by in the other lane, filled with people and luggage. Horses pull carts. Donkeys trudge along. Men and women push bicycles festooned with suitcases. Children drag along behind their parents. There is a bus, even a couple of Athenian taxis. In the villages, the windows are shuttered. Outside one hamlet they pass a line of seven or eight people walking northwards, away from the city. Men, some women, one of them old, a boy of about ten. The man in front is leading a small donkey to which an oddly festive cart has been hitched: a milk cart or something like it, gaudily and freshly painted. The cart is piled with suitcases and carpet bags, and each person, even the old woman, is carrying something. The jolly little cart, the orderly clothes of the walkers: they could be on their way to a village fete, a saint’s day, except for the wide, unfocused eyes that stare from every face. Behind them, in the direction of Piraeus, the columns of smoke are thicker. Zoë can’t bear to look at those little figures. She can feel their fear, their confusion. Little stick figures, always shoved into someone else’s story. But she sees the officer looking. His head turns here and there, his eyes darting, always avoiding her but seeing everything else. ‘God,’ she hears him whisper, once, as they pass a mother crouched at the roadside, head in hands, while her three children tug at her black shawl. There are soldiers everywhere too: every olive grove or clump of pines is hiding a clutch of trucks, tanks, guns and men huddled under camouflage netting which festoons the trees like huge, filthy cobwebs. Some men turn to stare at her, but there is no curiosity in their faces, just exhaustion and anxiety.