Over the past several months, the Sunday evening supper conversations have become lectures from Papa about the Italian Fascists and the threat of war. Nicholas and I know all about Hitler, but Papa gets especially aroused talking about Benito Mussolini. Mussolini has taken sides with Hitler and has declared war on France and Britain, but our father believes that his real interest is in taking control of Greece, and that it will only be a matter of time until the Italians invade the motherland.
Papa has never been a big fan of Franklin Roosevelt, but he argues now that Roosevelt is the only one who can save Europe from being sliced in half, with Hitler’s Nazis taking over the northern half and Mussolini’s Fascists taking over the south. I have seen photographs of Nazis marching down the street like robots, but I do not really know what a Fascist is. I consider asking, but I know that this would send Papa off on another of his rants, so I make a mental note to ask Nicholas some other time.
Mama frowns and shakes her head whenever Papa begins sputtering, his voice rising and falling while the food on his plate grows cold. It is interesting, Nicholas and I agree, how our parents have exactly the same life experiences and more or less the same views about politics and world events, yet they have completely different opinions about what we should be doing to fix things, personally. Despite his age, I think Papa would quit the restaurant and head off to Greece to fight Fascists without a second thought. In fact, I think the idea has probably occurred to him more than once. Whereas Mama’s focus is on maintaining the Pappas family unit. The war, she has said, is a fight declared by arrogant men with grand visions and fought by poor and weak younger men who have no real choices.
But Papa continues with his lectures. As October 1940 nears an end, Mussolini, just as Papa has predicted, turns his attention to Greece, demanding that the country’s leaders give up some of its land – for reasons that I do not even try to understand. When Greek’s leaders reject these demands, Italy invades. And Roosevelt does nothing, Papa rages, although his greatest source of disgust seems to be Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committee, which Papa believes is a Fascist front organization aimed at weakening the Allied forces that are fighting to keep Europe free.
Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the Spirit of Saint Louis the year after Nicholas and I were born, and we have always been taught that he is one of the greatest American heroes of all time, so hearing from Papa that he is on the side of the Fascists is very confusing.
Do you think there’s another Charles Lindbergh? I ask Nicholas one night. Someone with the same name?
Nicholas laughs good-naturedly. People aren’t all one thing, he tells me.
What do you mean?
There is no moonlight tonight, so I can only make out the outline of Nicholas’ head as he pushes himself up from the mattress. Like Father Gregory, he says. He’s a man of God. He devoted himself to a religious life. But he also likes to box kids on the ears and drink wine. And I don’t mean this-is-my-blood wine.
I have become suspicious of Father Gregory, for reasons I cannot really explain, but this business about drinking wine and boxing kids on the ears is something I have never witnessed, and something Nicholas has never mentioned. Has he boxed you on the ears? I ask. I am not sure I want to know the answer.
I can make out the silhouette of Nicholas shrugging. One time. Two, actually. He thought I had taken a sip of the altar wine.
Twice, I think. I know that Nicholas would never drink altar wine, and I cannot imagine why Father Gregory would think that. And it is hard remembering a time when Nicholas was serving mass without me, so I have no idea when this might have happened. The other surprise is that Nicholas never told me about the ear-boxing incidents. I had always thought that there were no secrets between us, but that seems to not be so.
In any case, I am not sure that knowing about Father Gregory’s secret life provides any answers to the Charles Lindbergh question, but all this gives me a lot to think about.
For several weeks, Papa says nothing at the Sunday supper table about Mussolini invading Greece. I think that he and Mama must have had a private conversation, and that Papa has agreed not to use our weekly family suppers to rant about the war and about Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committee and the Fascists, whoever they are.
The Atheneum is closed on Thanksgiving. Mama begins the day in the kitchen, cooking what she is calling a classic American Thanksgiving Dinner. It is unusual to smell turkey and sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie in the house rather than lamb and spinach and phyllo and feta, but Papa seems happy to surrender the kitchen to his wife for the day, and to have something different to look forward to. Nicholas and I both notice that he is in an unusually good mood. I ask Nicholas if he thinks it has something to do with the war, but he is as puzzled as I am.
At supper, Papa pours four glasses of pink wine and passes them around the table. Nicholas and I are given juice glasses with about a half-inch of wine in the bottom. I notice Mama giving him an annoyed look, but she says nothing. Nicholas raises his glass and studies it. This will be the first time that either of us has sampled wine, despite Father Gregory’s suspicions about my brother. Nicholas seems uncertain what to do.
You need something to toast with, Papa explains, looking at Mama.
What are we toasting? Nicholas asks.
Who, says Papa. Not what. I am proposing a toast to Winston Churchill. While Franklin Roosevelt sat in the White House gazing out the window and smoking his Camel cigarettes, Winston Churchill sent British bombers to Greece to help our men repel the Italian invasion.
We won? I ask.
Papa shakes his head. He has a faint smile on his face, but it disappears quickly. The war is far from won. But Mussolini demanded that Greece surrender, and Greece did not surrender. The Italian Army invaded, and Greece has pushed them back, with the help of our British friends.
So your services weren’t needed after all, says Mama. She and Papa avoid looking at each other. I recognize that this is a continuation of one of their private conversations. No one has actually taken a sip of their wine yet. I wait until Papa raises his glass to his lips, and then I do the same. The wine tastes sour. I know that wine is made from grapes, so I expected it to have a sweet taste, but this disappoints me. Nicholas is watching me, and he finally puts his glass to his lips. I cannot tell whether or not he actually swallows it, but his reaction is pretty much the same as mine.
When the new year begins, Nicholas and I decide to privately follow news of the war ourselves, rather than relying on Papa’s accounts. One of the regulars at The Atheneum buys a weekly magazine called Newsweek, and he leaves it at the counter when he is finished with it. When two or three days pass and no one else has picked it up, I bring it home. This becomes one of my new routines. Reading about the battles between the Allies and the Axis forces, I understand what Papa meant when he said that the war is far from won. For weeks, it seemed as if Greece had succeeded in turning back the Italian attackers, and Mussolini was sent crawling back to Italy. But in April, the Germans join with the Italians and attack from the north, pushing their way down until Greece has no choice but surrender.
Papa has, of course, been following the news, and our Sunday suppers become a battleground of their own. Papa talks about returning to the homeland and joining the Greek resistance, but he seems to know that this is an empty threat. Mama, who has usually avoided arguing with her husband in front of Nicholas and me, stomps her foot, almost like an actress in a play, reminding Papa that they have lived in America all of their adult lives, that the people of Greece are not clamoring for 43-year-old restaurant owners from Wisconsin to take up arms in defense of the motherland – and, finally, that he has obligations to his wife, his two children, and the employees of The Atheneum that are more important than his obligations to a country they left more than twenty years ago.
We are Greek! Papa protests, but his voice is weak.
We are Americans! Mama responds. Your sons were born in America!
Nicholas and I know that this is a fight Mama will win, although Papa will find some face-saving way to make his point. And this happens, finally, at a Sunday supper in June, when Papa announces that he has sent money to support the Greek resistance.
Mama is, for a moment, speechless.
It was a small gift, Papa says, his voice wavering again. If I cannot join them, they must know that we support them.
So you sent them your children’s money.
My children’s money? Papa looks confused. How did our money become my children’s money?
Mama stomps her foot, then pushes herself away from the table and walks out of the room. Tonight’s supper is spanakopita, salad and Soupa Avgolemono – an egg and lemon soup that has been an Atheneum staple forever. But Mama’s plate sits untouched. Papa looks down at his food. I can almost see the gears turning in his brain.
I take my fork, poke it into the spinach pie and watch the steam escape.
Eat! Papa says. But he himself sits there, not eating, studying the food, then studying Nicholas and me, then gazing off in the direction of the living room, as if he can make Mama suddenly appear if he concentrates hard enough.
Papa’s donation in support of the Greek resistance proves to be, as far as Nicholas and I can tell, a one-time gift, and it seems to have done nothing to affect the war. The new national government in Athens is what Newsweek calls a puppet government, more sympathetic to the Fascists than to its own people. But with London being bombed every day, and swastika flags flying over the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and Hitler invading Russia, no one seems to be giving much attention to what was happening in Greece. Puppets, apparently, are less interesting than monsters.
Papa places a large jar next to the cash register at the Atheneum, where people can make donations to support the Greek resistance. At home, nothing is said about the jar, so Nicholas and I conclude that this is our parents’ compromise on the subject of the war in Europe and the freedom fighters in Greece.
Thanksgiving reappears. A full year after Papa toasted Winston Churchill, he has nothing to say about the British Prime Minister. He is equally silent about Franklin Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini, Charles Lindbergh, and the American First Committee. Watching him, Mama seems sad, as if she wishes for a return to the passion of previous Sunday suppers, even if it caused her blood to boil and her foot to stomp.
Newsweek has very little to report about the situation in Greece, but there is talk among the customers of the Atheneum and the parishioners of St. Spyridon, and the consensus is that Greece will likely be under the control of the Axis powers until the war is over, and the Allies are too focused on their own problems to do anything about it. Everyone agrees that America can end the war quickly if it chooses to get involved. Everyone also agrees that all the puppets acting as if they are running the government in Athens will see their puppet heads chopped off after the war. It is surprising, considering that I have never been to Greece, that such a violent picture appeals to me.
November 30 is the last Sunday of the month, and Father Gregory gives a sermon about the Misguided Doctrine of Papal Authority – a topic I have never heard anyone mention. He lectures that Pope Pius, as a Roman Catholic, is more interested in keeping Rome from being bombed than in the outcome of the war. Pius, says Father Gregory, is more antagonistic toward Communism than toward Nazis and Fascists, which makes him no friend of Greece. It is an unusually political lecture, and the congregation seems not to know how to respond. It also makes me wonder if Father Gregory has been drinking something stronger than altar wine.
Six days later, Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese. It is a Saturday, and Nicholas and I are at the restaurant with Papa and Mama when a man I have never seen before throws open the front door, catches his breath and makes the announcement, then rushes out to deliver the news to other businesses on the street. The mid-afternoon lunch business is slow, and I have been doing nothing more than bussing the occasional dirty dish from dining room tables back to the kitchen, where Nicholas is helping with the washing and drying. I stop and look at Mama, who is standing at the cash register. Her fingers are fastening and unfastening and refastening the bottom button on her blouse, as if they are acting on their own.
Papa steps out of the kitchen, holding a soup ladle. Turn on the radio, he orders.
Mama seems frozen for a moment. She looks down at the button in her fingers, quickly drops her hands, hurries over to the shelf where we keep the Philco and turns it on.
Nicholas has left the kitchen and is standing next to Papa. Everyone in the restaurant has stopped eating. Is it true? someone asks. Mama is waiting for the Philco to warm up. Papa marches over and begins turning the dial until we hear the faint, high-pitched voice of a man who sounds as if someone is strangling him.
The reports are difficult to understand, and hard to believe – and some of the Atheneum’s patrons are skeptical. Remember War of the Worlds, says one diner. In an hour, we’re going to hear that this Jap business is someone’s idea of a joke.
Nicholas and I were among those who heard the Mercury Theater production of War of the Worlds three years ago. If you had listened to the broadcast from the beginning, you would have known that it was a hoax, that it was all theater, but there were thousands of people who tuned in after the program had started and who believed that aliens from Mars had invaded New Jersey. It is reason enough, I suppose, to be skeptical now about Japanese planes dropping bombs on an American base in Hawaii. The restaurant crowd seems uncertain.
Papa leaves the Philco on for the rest of the afternoon, and it becomes gradually clear that the story is not a hoax.
After that, everything rushes along so quickly, the country seems almost to forget about this being the Christmas season. It takes President Roosevelt just a day to declare war against Japan. Three days later, we are also officially at war against Germany and Italy. About a week later, the draft – which had applied to men ages 21 to 35 – is expanded to include men between the ages of 18 and 64.
Sixty-four! Nicholas and I have become accustomed to hearing Mama stomp her foot and raise her voice at Sunday supper, but it seems now as if there is some report every day that sends her into a new outrage.
I know that Papa is glad to have America finally involved in the war, even if it took an attack by Japanese bombers. But he is careful not to provoke Mama. They’re not going to be sending 64-year-old men to war, he offers weakly. It’s just a statement that this is our fight. All of us. Not just the young men.
I suppose this gives you permission to register for the draft.
Papa shakes his head. It’s not exactly optional. I’m an able-bodied 43-year-old American, and it’s the law.
Able-bodied. Pfffft. Mama usually has the upper hand in these arguments, but she seems to know now that this is one she cannot win. She waves her hand as if she is shooing away a fly, but she looks more worried than I can remember seeing her.
Christmas is as normal as possible, under the circumstances. Nicholas and I each receive new winter coats and gloves, and a Flexible Flyer to share. Mama has been trying to shame Papa into throwing away his gray sweater, which is stretched out of shape and has developed several small holes at the neck and elbows, so her unsurprising Christmas gift to Papa is an identical gray sweater. Papa waits until all the other gifts have been opened before presenting Mama with her gift, which she unwraps very slowly, as if she is expecting something to jump out of the box. It is a pair of ice skates.
Mama lifts the skates and inspects them. She has tears in her eyes. I haven’t skated since we left Farsala, she says. I don’t know if I remember how.
You learned quickly, Papa insists. Remember? You were a natural on the ice. And you’ll have more opportunities to skate in Wisconsin than in Greece.
They kiss self-consciously. I exchange a should-we-leave-the-room? look with Nicholas, who shrugs. For a moment, it seems possible to forget that America is now at war against the Japanese and the Germans and the Italians, and that Papa is eligible to be drafted into the American army. I do not understand how the draft works, but I doubt that Papa would automatically be sent to Greece to fight Italian Fascists, just because that is where he wishes to go. As Mama says, we are Americans, and if Papa joins the Army he will have to go where the American generals decide that he is needed.
The restaurant is closed, of course, on Christmas Day, but it remains closed the full week after, which is unusual. Mama keeps herself busy at the house, but Papa seems to not know what to do with himself and he is constantly getting underfoot. It snows twice during the week. There are not a lot of hills near the house, but Nicholas and I find an open lot where a large mountain of dirt has been dumped, and we take turns hauling our new sled to the top of the dirt pile and racing down. Several of the kids from school apparently know about the place, and they join us with their Flexible Flyers and trashcan lids and other homemade sleds. After a brief and intense argument, we agree to name the place Kilimanjaro, more because we like the way it sounds than because it might or might not resemble a mountain that none of us have seen.
Look out below, here comes the Supermarine Spitfire! yells one of the younger kids before throwing himself headfirst down the snowy hill. Some of the kids have schooled themselves on the names of all the British fighter planes and bombers, and arguments about whether a Spitfire could shoot down a Hawker Hurricane have become as common as whether Stan Musial or Ted Williams is a better hitter, or how many times in a game Bob Feller could strike out Joe DiMaggio. Pretending to be a British fighter pilot is part of an exciting game to many of the kids here on Kilimanjaro, but it takes me back to the conversation Mama and Papa had before Christmas about the war and the draft. I wonder how many of the kids here have overheard similar conversations, and how many fathers will be spending their next Christmas somewhere far away.
On the last morning of the year, Mama emerges from the bedroom holding her skates. I might as well see if I know how to do this, she says. Does anyone know where there’s a pond nearby? And not a lot of people!
So Mama, Papa, Nicholas and I bundle up, Papa wearing his new gray sweater beneath his winter coat, and we begin hiking west, toward a small pond where Nicholas and I have fished two or three times. It was, we thought, our secret place, although we never bothered to give it a name. But today another family has discovered it, so Mama is forced to share the ice with two young girls who are dressed in identical skating outfits and who have clearly done this before.
Papa stands with Nicholas and me on the bank, watching Mama. At first, she stumbles around clumsily, as if her only objective is to not fall. Papa shouts a few encouraging words, which Mama ignores. Across the pond, the two girls are skating in wide circles, their hands behind their backs. They have not acknowledged Mama, and she has not acknowledged them. After a few minutes, Mama seems to have developed more confidence, and she ventures a bit further away from the shoreline.
That’s it! Papa shouts. You’ve got it!
Mama looks back, and she actually smiles.
Mama spends the afternoon in the kitchen, baking. There are certain traditions that she and Papa brought with them from Greece, and traditions seem especially important this year, because of the war. Nicholas and I have a poor record of staying awake until midnight, but this year Papa insists, so we play games and listen to the radio and tell stories. And with a few minutes left of 1941, Mama disappears into the kitchen and returns holding a loaf of bread on a cutting board.
We call it Vasilopeta, says Papa. What makes it Vasilopeta is the grated orange and lemon peel. Without these, you’re just eating bread. He says this every year. Baking Vasilopeta on New Year’s Eve and eating a slice at midnight – or as close to midnight as we can manage – is a tradition, and Papa’s unnecessary explanation is also a tradition.
When the clock on the mantel reads midnight exactly, Papa takes his bread knife and begins slicing. He hands the first slice to Mama and watches her take a bite before slicing pieces for Nicholas and me, and finally for himself. I love Mama’s Vasilopeta, and I wish she would bake it more than once a year – although I understand that this is exactly what makes it special. And I can see that, for Mama and Papa, the tradition and the memories mean more than the food.
I eat my second slice very slowly. I look at Nicholas and I know that we are both ready for bed. But the tradition is not yet complete, so we clean our plates and watch as Papa carves yet another slice from the loaf. The first piece goes again to Mama. And then I see it. Following tradition, Mama has buried a coin in the bread, and the slice with the coin, following the order of things, will come to me.
I’m full, I say suddenly.
Nicholas gives me a knowing look. Me too.
Papa ignores us. He is cutting the bread and getting ready to place the slice with the coin onto my plate.
I pull my plate away. I said I’m full. I don’t want any more.
You take it, Mama says to Papa. The boys say they’ve had enough. You take it.
This is not how the tradition is supposed to work, and Papa seems unsure what to do. The person who gets the slice with the coin is supposed to have good luck in the coming year, and what Mama and Nicholas and I want is for that person to be Papa, but you are not supposed to manipulate the game to get a certain result. Papa glares at each of us, and then he sets the knife down on the table. The slice of bread with the coin sits on the cutting board.
Take the bread, Mama commands. It’s late. Eat the bread. Take the coin.
For a moment, Papa looks angry. Finally, he picks up the slice of bread, puts it on his plate, and begins picking at it the way a child might pick at something they do not want to eat – exactly as I had once done when I was facing a plate of squash. When he gets to the coin, he takes it, rubs it between his fingers, holds it up for us to see, then smiles and slips the coin into his shirt pocket.
The Atheneum reopens the morning after New Year’s Day. Nicholas and I do not have to be back in school until Monday the fifth, so we accompany Mama and Papa to the restaurant. After being closed for more than a week, there is a lot to do to get ready for the lunch crowd. Nicholas sweeps the floor and cleans the bathrooms while I wipe down the tables and the counters, and then we both move to the kitchen where we rinse and dry the pots and pans that have been collecting dust. Finally, we join Papa in the pantry, where we check the food inventory and see what needs to be thrown out. Mama has always insisted that the restaurant be spotless when we close for the night and when we open in the morning – even the areas that customers never see – so cleaning up is not the most disgusting job in the world. But after the place has been closed for more than a week, it is surprising how many ants and other little crawling creatures have found their way inside.
The lunch crowd begins assembling outside about ten minutes before opening. I recognize the regulars, and I recognize a boy from our school who is there with his parents. It is a windy morning, as cold as ever, and Mama decides to open the doors early, since the restaurant is ready for business. Papa has made three large pots of his famous stifado, and the aroma seems to putting everyone in a good mood. Papa once demonstrated to Nicholas and me how a good stifado stew is made, using top round, onions, shallots, garlic, tomato paste, a splash of vinegar, a dash of cinnamon, and a hearty beef broth that has simmered for at least eight hours, along with whatever vegetable scraps are lying around. I think he was instructing us in the hope that one of us will want to take over the Atheneum when he and Mama are ready to retire, although I cannot see either Nicholas or me in the restaurant business. I think Nicholas will be some kind of scientist, if he decides to give up on the priesthood. I do not know yet what I want to do, but working in the kitchen of a Greek restaurant is low on the list of possibilities.
One of the tables in a corner of the Atheneum is usually occupied by five or six older men, and they have come today to claim their spot, linger over their bowls of stifado, and argue loudly about the war. Mama once said that the men with the firmest opinions about war are the ones who are too old to fight. That seems about right, although these men are old enough that they may have fought in other wars. Two of the men at the corner table were big America Firsters, but they changed their tune after Pearl Harbor and they now seem to be President Roosevelt’s biggest champions.
We have to give it to the Japs like they gave it to us, one of them says.
The Japs and the Nazis too, says another one. And the Goddamned Italians! He looks around the room to see if someone will agree with him, but everyone else in the place is trying to ignore the outburst from the men’s table and to focus on their food. Papa steps out of the kitchen and briefly surveys the room. Then he looks at Mama, shakes his head, and returns to the kitchen.
Nicholas and I are sitting quietly at one of the unoccupied tables near the restrooms, waiting for people to finish their meals so we can bus their dishes back to the kitchen. The first table to finish is a middle-aged couple who eat here once a week, sometimes with their son, but the couple is dining alone today. After they pay their bill, the woman walks over to the corner table of older men. She stands and waits until she has their attention.
Our son enlisted in the Army two days after Pearl Harbor, she says. Her voice is clear and steady, and she suddenly has the attention of everyone in the restaurant. Now he’s training at Fort McCoy, and soon he’ll be over there, somewhere, fighting the Nazis or the Japs or the Goddamned Italians. As exciting as all this is, I hope you don’t mind if I say a prayer every night that this war is a short one, and that my boy will be spending next Christmas at home with his father and me.
The woman stands there for a long moment, as if she is waiting either for a response or some sign that her words have registered with the men. Then her husband steps up and lightly takes her elbow, and they leave the restaurant together. No one at the men’s table has anything to say for a long time. Nicholas gets up slowly from our table. For a second, I think that he is going to make some kind of statement, but instead he makes his way over to the vacated table, stacks the couple’s plates and bowls, and carries them off to the kitchen.
A week passes. School resumes, and Nicholas and I cut back our hours at the Atheneum.
On a Saturday morning, mid-month, Mama and Papa and Nicholas and I gather at the kitchen table for breakfast. We will be leaving in an hour to get the restaurant ready for opening, but since the new year began Mama is insisting that, in addition to Sunday suppers, we sit and eat breakfast as a family on Saturdays. This morning, Mama has made scrambled eggs and biscuits and sausage, which seems like a very American and not-very Greek menu. And maybe that is Mama’s intention, although it seems that she cannot help adding Feta cheese and onions and scallions and tomatoes and black olives to the eggs. We are about halfway through the meal when Papa says that he has an announcement.
I went down to the Army enlistment office yesterday morning, he says. He glances briefly at Mama and then looks down at his plate. They wouldn’t take me, he adds quickly.
Why not? Nicholas asks. I am sure we are all happy that Papa will not be going off to war, but of course I had the same question.
Papa shrugs. My eyes. Apparently you need to have perfect eyesight to join the American Army, and my eyes aren’t perfect enough.
Mama seems torn between anger over what Papa did without telling her and relieved that he will be spending the war in Sheboygan instead of Fort McCoy and some foreign battlefield. You enlisted, she says, before correcting herself. You tried to enlist. You didn’t think this was something you needed to discuss with your wife. She tries to catch Papa’s eye, but Papa is still looking at his plate.
After a very uncomfortable silence, Papa reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out the coin that Mama baked into the Vasilopeta on New Year’s Eve, the coin that is supposed to bring good luck to the person who found it in their slice. He holds it up for our inspection, and then he sets it down on the table and gives it a little spin. A faint smile appears on Mama’s face. She looks at me, and at Nicholas, and she nods as if we are part of a great conspiracy against Papa. And maybe we are.
Papa is watching us. I am sure he knows what is in our heads, but I have no idea what he is going to say. Finally, he picks up the coin and tosses it to me, pushes himself away from the table, leans back in his chair and begins laughing just as he always has, his feet apart and his hands on his knees, exactly like a fat man.