Zoë is getting ready for bed when there is a loud knock on the door. She groans. ‘What now?’ she mutters, while Efi, still dressed, goes to see who it can be. Sólon Pandelis comes straight in without asking permission, without saying anything, shuts the door and leans on it. It takes Zoë a moment before she recognises him, because he isn’t in uniform, and she can’t remember ever seeing him in plain clothes, and yet here he is, in an old tweed suit with cycling breeches instead of trousers, his calves in army gaiters, a satchel slung across his back and a flat cap pulled down low over his face. She hasn’t seen him since that day in August, when he helped so many escape the round-up.

‘Sólon!’

‘I’m sorry to intrude, my dear ladies,’ he says, his voice strained, as though he has been running. ‘But you have to come with me.’

‘Whatever is the matter, Sólon?’ Zoë asks.

‘It’s about my brother.’

Efi plants her hands on her hips. ‘What about that bastard?’ she snaps.

‘He’s coming to arrest you.’ Sólon pulls off his cap and almost twists the peak in two between his fists.

‘My God …’

‘Where can we go?’ Efi says. Zoë shakes her head in disbelief at her friend’s calm.

‘Are you in EAM?’ Sólon asks. ‘Because I am. I’ve been in EAM for two years. I think you are too, Kyria Efi. You, Zoë, I don’t know.’

Efi takes a deep breath. ‘I am; she’s not,’ she says. ‘What do we do?’

‘Please trust me,’ Sólon says. ‘My friends will take you to a safe house.’

‘How?’ Zoë has sunk down onto one of the rickety chairs. ‘It’s long after curfew.’

‘In a gendarmerie van. There’s a group of us, mostly serving gendarmes. Which I’m not, any more. I’ve deserted, I suppose.’ He shrugs, as if the confession pains him. ‘We must go right now.’

‘Can we take anything?’

‘If you hurry.’

Zoë rushes into Pavlo’s tiny room, dumps the contents of his suitcase out on the bed and stuffs her own clothes into it, realising how few she has left. Then she looks around. Everything else except for the kerosene lamps and the icon have been bartered off long ago for food: Mama’s sewing machine, the gramophone, the records. She goes to the lavatory, pulls out the loose brick and takes Mama’s icon and her roll of banknotes. Efi is already packed: she has even less to take than Zoë.