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Back The Black Earth Save as PDF
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

‘They have a nest in those pines over there,’ says Tom. ‘They think the buzzard is after their chicks.’

‘Is he?’

‘I expect so. But the ravens would eat his chicks too. Look, they’re chasing him.’

‘The world is such a dreadful mess,’ Mum says, leaning back against the rock.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Piraeus, Greece, 1935

‘Mama?’

Katina Valavani opens her eyes and Zoë feels an all too familiar sense of relief. Mama is lying back on the nest of pillows they have made for her against the iron bedstead. ‘Hello, my darling,’ she whispers. Her hand pats the quilt beside her. ‘Sit. I’m still here.’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘I’m feeling fine.’ Mama’s voice is as thin as the skin on her hands, as delicate and papery as ancient silk. ‘Are those old ravens here?’

Zoë sits and takes Mama’s hand. ‘No. Thank God, they’ve gone to pester Mr Deliyannides.’

‘Is he still alive? Poor devil.’ Mr Deliyannides, an old man who had been a conductor on the Bournabat Railway and lives two streets away, has had a stroke. The women of the neighbourhood must make their rounds of the dying and dead, and Katina Valavani has been left alone for a few hours. But ever since she took to her bed a few days after Christmas, the whole neighbourhood has known that she will never get up again. Women have been telling Zoë for weeks: your mother is surrounded by angels. Don’t bother her. She needs to make her peace. Katina was full of life, even then, though she was gaunt and her skin was almost transparent, as if she’d already coughed all the blood out of her body. But the women know the end is coming. They have started to drop by more and more often. Zoë seems to be boiling the coffee pot all the time, carrying the tray backwards and forwards, little cups of coffee to be filled, to be emptied of their sweet brown dregs, filled again. She knows them all, of course: Mrs Nasos, Mrs Kodjagas, Mrs Mouhtaris, Eleftheria Milionis, Mrs Zaifoglou. The old women, over the course of a few days, have made themselves quite at home. They don’t even bother to knock at the door. Death is such a frequent visitor to Kokkinia that his arrivals and departures are just another social event.

‘Is Pavlo here?’ Mama asks, and Zoë frowns and shakes her head.

‘He’s out somewhere,’ she says. The house has become a place of women, and Pavlo has made himself scarce. He is probably down in the streets behind the harbour, sitting in with one band or another in the tekédhes, the rough bars that drift across the line of legal and illegal, where men go to smoke hashish.