Thomas Greanias - The 34th Degree

To Andros’s astonishment, the Baron walked over to the bookcase and removed several tomes from the sixth shelf to reveal the safe door. Von Berg didn’t seem to mind revealing its location to him, rightly assuming that Vasilis couldn’t keep his mobster safe a secret from his children’s friends, what with his boasting.

Von Berg turned the combination with a few deft twists of the wrist and opened a single door, about six inches thick, to reveal a second, double door. He placed the ring box inside and began to search for something else.

“As you may know, Herr Andros, Hitler was impressed by the valor displayed by the Greek army in their brave fight against the Italians and, later, the Germans. So impressed that, after their defeat, he allowed the Greek officers to retain their swords and daggers. A gesture of tremendous respect on his part, considering his disdain for non-Teutons. It seems he regards men like your father as the descendants of Alexander the Great.”

Von Berg turned around and presented to Andros a knife in a sheath.

Andros immediately recognized the embossed A insignia on the handle and realized it was his father’s dagger.

“It was found on Crete after your father’s body was returned to Athens and buried,” von Berg explained. “A Greek partisan apparently lifted it when your father fell, and made good use of it against my countrymen. The initials and special seal on the handle told us who its rightful owner was.”

Andros removed the dagger from its sheath and held it in his hand. It felt heavier than he had remembered, weighed down, perhaps, by his childhood recollections. He could still see his father showing the dagger to him and telling him how someday he, too, would have a dagger when he grew up and became an officer in the Hellenic Royal Army. He remembered falling asleep that night dreaming of future battles against the Turks and even facing Hadji Azrael, the devil himself. But life didn’t turn out the way he or his father had expected. The devil wasn’t Hadji Azrael. He was Baron Ludwig von Berg, a German aristocrat and a general in Hitler’s dreaded SS. The self-styled “good sport” had wiped his father’s blade clean of any blood but couldn’t erase the swirl of suppressed emotions that overwhelmed Andros. He almost felt compelled to plunge the blade into von Berg’s chest, a feeling that the Baron perhaps wished to encourage. But he remembered he was supposed to detest all forms of violence, so he kept his composure. He slid the dagger back into its sheath.

“And what am I supposed to do with this vile weapon?”

“Keep it as a symbol,” von Berg said, escorting him to the door. “To remind you that there is still valor for those who lose.”

He was referring to Aphrodite, Andros realized, and doing so with outrageous presumption. Seething inside, Andros forced a smile as he slipped the sheathed dagger into his breast pocket. He patted the bulge. “An excellent idea,” he told the Baron. “Perhaps this would look nice on the fireplace mantel. His sword is there, you know. That’s where these things belong, on wall displays, not in men’s hands. I feel nervous simply having it on my person.”

“So it seems.” Von Berg frowned. “Perhaps I had you figured differently, Herr Andros.”

“How is that?”

“I thought you were your father’s son.”

A phrodite slipped away from the Red Cross food distribution center that afternoon, as instructed by the note Archbishop Damaskinos had passed to her. It took her half an hour to make her way from the Plaka district up the winding paths to Likavitos Hill, the highest point in Athens. At the summit was the white chapel of Agios Yioryios and a sweeping view of the city and the Saronic Gulf.

She stood there on the terrace, gazing out across the city, blinking in the setting sun. As children, she and Chris would meet here secretly, telling their parents they were going to Agios Yioryios to say their prayers. But times were different now. They were no longer children, and it was the Nazis they were eluding this time.

“You had no trouble getting here?” asked a voice.

She turned. It was Chris standing next to her, dressed in the same dark suit he’d worn that morning at the memorial service. He looked even better in the late-afternoon sun than the night before. It was their first time alone in four years.

“Eleni Lemnos covered for me at the distribution center,” she said. “I put on one of the donated dresses as a disguise and slipped out the back. I have only a few minutes before I’m missed.”

“One of von Berg’s men is watching you?”

“Helmut long ago tired of watching me distribute food and comfort grieving widows,” she replied. “The only things he watches in the afternoons are movies at the cinema down the block from the center. Still, there may be other eyes at the center that I’m not aware of.”

There was an awkward silence. Finally, Chris said, “I’m glad you came.”

“You’re surprised?”

“I had my doubts,” he said, rubbing his cheek. “That was some act last night. The slap across the face in particular-was it for real or just your flair for the dramatic? It was an act, wasn’t it?”

“That depends on what you say next.”

Chris paused to pick his words with care. “I know this insane war isn’t your fault,” he told her. “But seeing you with the Baron made me a little crazy. I’m sorry. I just want to know what happened.”

He had said all she could reasonably expect him to say. “I’ll tell you, Christos.”

She told him how she’d met the Baron in the hospital, how the Gestapo had come for her brother, Kostas, and how the Baron had moved into her family’s estate. The only thing she didn’t tell him about was the Baron’s retreat on Corfu. She remembered Ludwig’s dire warnings of doom should she ever reveal its location. Although it was Berlin that Ludwig seemed to fear more than Washington, she wasn’t about to put her family or Chris in any further danger over something as insignificant as the Baron’s personal taste for peace and quiet.

When she was finished, all Chris could say was “I’m sorry it was you and not me who stayed behind.”

She watched the sun melt over the blue gulf, turning the ruins of the Acropolis black against the Aegean sky. So symbolic of their relationship, she thought, for from this high ground, they once again enjoyed perspective not only of the city but of the tattered fragments of life.

“Why did you come back, Christos?”

“I told you last night,” he said. “I came for you.”

She recalled her father’s talk about some sort of turncoat deal with the Germans to save Andros Shipping. “Is that what you told Ludwig this afternoon at my house?”

“Among other things,” he said. “Actually, we discussed the release of your brother.”

“My brother?”

He smiled at her. “Tomorrow an Andros ship with Red Cross supplies will arrive in Piraeus,” he explained. “When it leaves on Monday, your brother and several other political prisoners will be on board. Von Berg already has agreed to it.”

“And you believe him?” she asked. “Where is the ship going?”

“Istanbul,” Chris said. “Your brother will be sent on to Syria, Lebanon, and ultimately Egypt. There he’ll undoubtedly volunteer to join the Greek army in exile. Maybe he’ll salvage your family’s tarnished image as collaborators before it’s too late.”

“And you, Christos? What will happen to you? What will happen to us?”

His smile vanished. “A lot depends on you. Von Berg is going to throw a reception for the Red Cross delegation tomorrow night. During the party, I’m going to break into your father’s safe. Inside are papers vital to the defense of Greece.”