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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

‘No thanks.’ The neighbourhood women are always complaining about hashish smokers. She can just picture Mrs Moumdji and Mrs Kodjagas, the old ravens, clacking their beaks at her. To hell with you, she thinks suddenly. Worming your way into our house to drink your Soup of Consolation. ‘Micho,’ she calls. ‘Come back. I’ve changed my mind. What do I do?’

He grins, and offers the pipe. ‘Take a sip, as if it were the finest champagne in France,’ he says.

But she has never drunk champagne. The smoke grabs her throat like molten lead. She coughs explosively and the whole teké cheers. ‘Damn,’ she croaks, pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘This is shit, Pavlo! What’s the point?’

‘There is no point. That is the point.’

‘God, I hate you. What do you want me to sing?’

‘What about “Ta Hanoumakia”? We sang it to Mama last week.’

‘“The Harem Girls” … Yes, right.’

They had sung it leaning on the end of Mama’s bed, Mama laughing and coughing, waving them on even as she had been wiping blood from her mouth. Pavlo had whistled the introduction, and tapped out the measure on the sheet, on Mama’s foot. Zoë closes her eyes. The song comes.

On the beach near Pasalimani you had your hashish den

And I’d come there every day to drive away my pain.

One morning I found them there, sitting on the sand …

On the sand … Is there a beach at Pasalimani? And the pain. It is ebbing away into warm, soft sand.

BOOK II

CHAPTER EIGHT

Vevi, Northern Greece, 11th April 1941

From where he crouches behind a narrow railway embankment, Tom looks out across a landscape of low, rolling hills dappled with scrub pine. The full moon, which is shining down from somewhere over his right shoulder, has not brought any magic to the scene. Instead it seems to have made it more dull, less sinister. To complete the illusion of humdrum familiarity, the Great Bear hangs over the ridge at a jaunty angle. He could be in Richmond Park. Tom stretches his legs and turns to look at the troop of four anti-tank guns mounted on the flat beds of Ford trucks, spaced out and dug in along the line of the wall. His troop, which he has been in charge of for less than twenty-four hours. Two days ago, he landed in Piraeus and was carried north in a series of convoys, jammed in with New Zealanders and Australians and a few Greeks. Then he hitched a ride with a regimental supply truck and found his unit here, strung out across this wide, low valley. The 121st Regiment, RHA (East Devon Hussars), in which he was, effective immediately, Gun Position Officer, Second Troop, C Battery.