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Chapters (56)
  1. Cover
  2. THE BLACK EARTH
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. BOOK I
  6. CHAPTER ONE
  7. CHAPTER TWO
  8. CHAPTER THREE
  9. CHAPTER FOUR
  10. CHAPTER FIVE
  11. CHAPTER SIX
  12. CHAPTER SEVEN
  13. BOOK II
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. CHAPTER TWELVE
  19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  24. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  25. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY
  27. BOOK III
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. BOOK IV
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  54. About the Author
  55. By Philip Kazan
  56. Copyright

This little splinter of comfort on the Riviera is nothing more than a weird Shangri-La and quite honestly, I feel disgusted with myself for sitting here in the sunshine. But my old outfit, to which I’ve vaguely attached myself, is leaving for Italy tomorrow and I am going with them. The fighting has moved north and I’ll go and find it. I seem to have gained a reputation with the WAAC for recklessness, which I do nothing to deny. I can’t stand being safe while you’re in danger – the guilt of it. It’s pretty useless, what I’m doing: I’m not under any illusions about that. Recording what people are already calling history is, I suppose, valuable but I’m an artist, not a photographer. When people look at war artists’ work when this is all over (if they ever look at it), will they see anything except art? They will be concerned with aesthetics, with my talent, or lack of it, and not what I’m trying to show them. I mustn’t think like that, though, must I? I must be a witness, not a painter. I must bear witness without flinching.

Tomorrow we sail for Naples. Eastwards again, my darling: the map will show me how close we are. But I’m going to try not to think too much any more. I’m just going to work. You were right: hope is unbearable. But so beautiful.

With all my love,

Tom

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Athens, October 1944

Past midnight, and the club on Ermou Street is still packed. There is an edgy, almost hysterical feeling in the air, an end-of-the-world fever. The tables are full of junior German officers and NCOs, black marketeers, a few low-ranking civil servants. All the Germans of influence left Athens days ago, along with most of the government, slipping away on special trains to what remains of the Third Reich. Zoë and the band give them what they want to hear: love songs, fake rembetiko with all the hashish, the knives and the manges ironed out of it. She is happy, though, because for the first time in years, she sees some faces she knows from before the war: people who bought the records she made with Semsis, Athenian intellectuals who would come down to the tekés in Piraeus for the thrill of it. She likes the way they are deliberately staking out their portion of the room, the way they are staring at the Germans with open contempt. Because the Gestapo are leaving. The SS are leaving. It will soon be over.