44 Theft
Kokolios was awoken in the middle of the night by sounds of avine distress. His first thought was that the pine marten owned by the doctor had got in amongst his fowls; he had always said that it was antisocial to keep such a notorious bird- thief as a pet, and he had already twice caught it carrying away his eggs. He swore, and then leapt out of bed; he was going to give that little robber a sound
thwack over the head with a baton, and that would put an end to the issue whether Dr Iannis liked it or not.
He pulled on his boots and reached for the cudgel that he had kept over the lintel ever since the outbreak of war. It was a heavy and knotted piece of thorn from the maquis, and he had drilled a hole through the thinner end, to take a loop of leather thong: He slipped the thong over his wrist and pulled open the door of his house, scraping the bottom of it in an arc along the flags. He had been meaning to rehang the door for ten years. Fortunately the sound of it was drowned by the frenzied clucking and screeching of the hens, and he stepped out into the night.
It was very dark because a heavy cloud had interposed itself between earth and moon, and the noise was atrocious because the crickets had caught the contagion of excitement from the chickens and were sawing at double forte. Kokolios squinted into the darkness, and distinctly heard the sound of muttered oaths. Perplexed, he peered even harder. He saw two small Italian soldiers scurrying about the pen, desperately trying to grab at the poultry.
Seized by rage, he acted without thinking. Despite the rifles slung across their backs, Kokolios uttered a fearful war-cry and threw himself into combat.
The two men had endured the Albanian campaign and had acquitted themselves with courage, but they were no match in the dark for some ferocious, naked, and demonic creature that rained blows about their backs and heads, kicked at their legs, and uttered unearthly shrieks. `Puttana!' they cried, and shielded their heads with their hands, only to find their knuckles and elbows cracked by further crushing blows. They fell to their knees and with pitiful cries held out their hands and implored him to stop.
Kokolios knew not one word of Italian, but he knew a defeated enemy when he saw one. Throwing down his cudgel he seized the two thieves by the collar and dragged them to their feet. Kicking their backsides at every step, he frog- marched the both of them towards the doctor's house, periodically cracking their skulls together like a demented schoolmaster.
Outside the doctor's house, still shaking and kicking them, he set himself to
yelling, `Iatre! Iatre!' Dr Iannis appeared shortly, clad in his nightgown, as did the captain and Pelagia. They beheld, by the newly disclosed illumination of the moon, Kokolios, stark naked apart from his heavy boots, shaking with rage, with one vanquished soldier dangling from each hand. Most curiously, both soldiers still had their carbines slung across their backs. `Go inside at once,' said Dr Iannis to his daughter, concerned for her modesty in the presence of that enraged and unclothed man with bandy legs and barrel chest. Obediently she retreated to the kitchen in order to enjoy the spectacle from the shadow of the window.
Kokolios pointed at Corelli but shouted at the doctor, `Tell that wop son of a bitch officer that his men are chicken-thieves, nothing but chicken-thieves, do you understand?'
Dr Iannis relayed this information to Corelli, who stood for a moment as though making up his mind. He disappeared back into the house, and the doctor said to Kokolios, 'I think it would help if you calmed down a little.'
Whilst the officer was inside, Dr Iannis took the opportunity to tease his neighbour. 'I thought that you were a Communist,' he observed.
`Of course I'm a Communist,' retorted Kokolios shortly.
`Forgive me,' said the doctor, `but if I remember rightly, all property is theft. So, if you own the chickens, you too are a thief.'
Kokolios spat into the dust, `The property of the rich is theft, not the property of the poor.'
This philosophical debate was cut short when the captain reappeared with his revolver, and for one awful moment both Pelagia and her father thought that he was intending to shoot Kokolios down. She wondered desperately whether she ought to go and find her derringer, but could not move. Kokolios looked at the captain with an expression that combined horror, defiancé, and righteous rage. He held out his chest proudly, as though willing to die for the right of Greek chickens to live unmolested even in occupied territory.
To everyone's surprise the captain pointed his pistol straight into the face of one of the culprits and commanded him to lie down in the dust. The thief smiled ingratiatingly, and Corelli clicked back the hammer. The man dropped to the ground with comical promptitude and began to whine his excuses, which Corelli ignored. He motioned to the other man to do the same.
Corelli took Kokolios' arm and moved him a metre or so. He nudged both of the supine men with his foot, and commanded, `Now crawl.'
The men looked at one another in surmise. `I said "crawl,"' shouted the captain, exploding from calm anger to disgusted fury. One of the men rose to his hands and knees, and the captain put one foot in the small of his back and brutally forced him down, `On your bellies, you sons of whores.'
They writhed forward with the motion of snakes, until they were level with Kokolios' boots. `Lick them,' ordered the captain.
It was useless to protest. The captain whipped one of them across the side of the head, and the doctor closed his eyes, wincing for the bodily damage that he feared was about to ensue. Pelagia put her hand to her mouth in shock, and her heart went out to the grovelling crooks; she had never dreamed that her captain could have been so cruel, so remorseless. Perhaps a musician could be a soldier after all.
The two men licked Kokolios' boots. The latter stared down at them in mute amazement, and it was not until his eye caught the fleshy protuberances of his private parts glimmering palely in the light of the moon that he remembered that he was without his clothes. His mouth fell open, he placed both hands rapidly over his most precious possessions, and he scampered away back to his house.
Inside her kitchen, Pelagia could not help but laugh, but the captain was in no mood for levity when he came back in. `Southerners!' he shouted. `Camorra and mafiosi! Renegades!' The thieves sat at the table whilst the captain slapped them about the head at each epithet. They looked very small and pathetic, and the doctor moved his hand to stay the captain's blows. The latter lifted them by the collar as Kokolios had done, dragged them to the door, and propelled them out
into the night. They sprawled on the paving stones, picked themselves up, and ran.
He re-entered, his eyes blazing with fury. He glared at Pelagia and her father as if something had been their fault, and shouted, `We're all hungry!' He raised his hands into the air as though appealing to God, shook his head, beat his fist on his chest, and exclaimed incredulously, 'The dishonour!' before striding into his room and slamming the door.
Two days later Pelagia went out into the yard and was struck by the absence of something familiar. She looked around but could not see anything. And then she realised. The captain came out and found her weeping into her hands.
`They've taken my goat,' she wailed, `my beautiful goat.'
She could imagine its slaughter, its being dismembered for meat, and it was too appalling to bear.
The captain put his hand on the shoulder of the sobbing girl; she shook it off and continued to sob. `You're all bastards, all of you, thieves and bastards!' The captain stood up stiffly, 'Tesoro mio, I swear on the life of my mother, I will find you another goat.'
`Don't!' she shouted at him, turning her tear-streaked face towards him. `I wouldn't accept anything from you.'
He turned and walked away, the bitterness of shame eating like a worm at the muscles of his heart.