Well, Milos, we’ve gotten this far, eh? It is black outside, and inside too. There is nothing more to do than write.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Sarah

Corfu
1944

In June 1944, Sarah had not heard a word from her family in over a year, and a film played constantly in her head. In it, Benjamin barreled toward her, his cheeks rosy and his eyes dancing with light. Her parents followed closely behind, so that soon all three sets of arms wrapped around her, fusing her back inside her family. Sarah soaked in their familiar smells: her mother’s perfume she made by crushing petals from her beloved pink roses; the meaty tinge to her father’s breath that lingered after a meal, when he sucked the marrow out from the lamb.

But the scent she imagined the most was the sweet sweat of her little brother, and in her movie, she hungrily dipped her face to his raspberry curls. Benjamin wasn’t a climber or a traipser or a runner; his sweaty perfume derived from all the energy he expended with his nose inside books. He would read Robinson Crusoe and get worked up from the excitement of spearing fish by hand even when he was too afraid to poke a toe in the sea.

In Sarah’s wishful daydream, her parents accepted Milos. The Germans, their long separation—all of it had lent time to building new understanding. Her being with a Christian man was no longer an insurmountable problem. She still believed in happy ever after then. She just had to look forward and trust that soon her movie would be real.

Sarah was still in her movie when Costas and his grandson walked into the cheese lady’s shop. The house was stifling, with the mingling of ovens and a hotter-than-normal June. The air Costas let in from outside, even steaming, was a welcome fan to Sarah’s face.

Costas fingered his thick gold chain with its ruby cross nestled in the bird’s nest of his chest hair. “Hello, Sarah. Wonderful to see you.”

“And you, Costas. Bobota with orange zest today?”

“Wonderful,” he said, as usual acting as though the cornmeal loaf were as grand as his prior baklava.

His grandson raised on his tiptoes to peer over the counter. “Kourabiedes, please.”

Sarah almost salivated at the memory of kourabiedes cookies—buttery shortbread made with local almonds and dusted with icy sugar. Sarah used to think their recipe to be overly sweetened, but the cheese lady had liked it that way. So had the grandson.

“I’m afraid we don’t have kourabiedes now.”

The boy frowned.

“Soon, when the war is over.” Costas patted his grandson’s shoulder. “In the meantime, we have tasty bobota.”

“Mama makes bobota.” The grandson sighed and sank into a seat.