But the lightness is an illusion. Partisans – fighters of EAM who now call themselves the Greek Peoples’ Liberation Army: ELAS – are operating in Kokkinia. There is fighting all the time, some of it against the Germans, some of it Greek against Greek, because there are new Security Battalions made up of Greek collaborators, some of them fascists, others fanatical royalists. Graffiti – slogans, political diatribes, the hammer and sickle – has changed the look of familiar streets completely. It is as though the city itself is sloughing off its skin like a snake and revealing its true nature. Just last month, ELAS fought the Battalionists up and down the streets of Kokkinia. The SS took over the school next to St George’s church, only a few short streets away, cordoned off the whole area and arrested three hundred men, who were all marched off to the concentration camp at Haidari. They heard, days later, that fifty of them had been shot. Zoë had known two of them: a young teacher, and the son of the man who owns the kiosk in Osia Xeni Square. Now the neighbourhood wears new clothes: bullet holes, the black starbursts of mortar explosions, the darkening blood in pools on the pavements or running in thick streaks down the walls. Efi slips out at night with a German medic’s bag to help wounded fighters. Zoë isn’t sure if Efi has joined ELAS or not. Sometimes she wonders if she ought to, but instead she keeps her distance. They can kill her, she has decided, but she won’t fight. She won’t add to the misery of the world. What had Tom said? He’d wanted to object. Conscientious objector. Is that what she is? She has these thoughts, and then she takes out Tom’s cap badge and stares at it. You fought, though, she thinks. Did they kill you, or are you still alive? Can you feel me here, thinking about you?

There is a knock at the door. She curses, drops the magazine onto the table. Opening the door, she finds Pavlo standing there grinning, and behind him, to her dismay, is Feathers. And, her dismay rapidly turning to horror, Zoë sees they are both holding suitcases and Pavlo, of course, has a bouzouki in a bag slung over his shoulder.

‘Hello, sister! Xronia polla! ’

‘Xronia polla,’ Feathers echoes, in her too-loud voice. ‘Sister-in-law,’ she adds slyly.

‘Come in,’ Zoë says, eyeing Feathers suspiciously.

‘We need a place to stay,’ says Pavlo. He drops his suitcase and looks around. You don’t look well, Zoë thinks.

‘You can have your bedroom back,’ she says curtly. She grabs her brother by the sleeve and pulls him into the yard, kicking the door shut behind them. The whole house rattles. ‘What in the Holy Virgin’s name is Feathers doing here, Pavlo?’ she hisses.