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the soup kitchen. I’d go instead, with ration coupons; Sotiris was gone but we used his coupon anyway. So what, if it was illegal? The Red Cross ladies gave me his portion. They couldn’t imagine how a cute little girl like me could be cheating them.
    While Mrs Kanello was recovering my mother put in her first appearance at the food line, to pick up her rations for her. At first the Red Cross ladies drove her away, but Signor Alfio went over and told them something in a low voice and they dished up the rations for Kanello’s family without saying a word; in fact, they even threw in an extra spoonful. It went on that way for a whole week, which was how long Mrs Kanello was bedridden. The other women in the queue made nasty remarks about Mother, here comes the collaborator, they’d hiss. Well, maybe we were collaborators, but Aphrodite’s mother and the Tiritomba family took our side. Poor Aphrodite, she couldn’t come to the food queue any more because she’d just come down with consumption.
    Just as soon the new mother could get around, Ma stopped going to the soup line. But Mrs Kanello, she talked to us, treated us like human beings, even when they humiliated Mother in public right after the so-called Liberation. Anyway, before we knew it, she was back on her feet, caring for Aphrodite too. The girl’s consumption was getting worse by the day, but she kept on crocheting her doilies. One day Kanello tried to convince some village yokels to sell her a little olive oil. He kicked her out. Believe you me, was she fuming! On the way back to give Aphrodite’s Ma the bad news, she runs into the daughter of the local newsstand owner, Koupas was the guy’s name. Koupas’ brood mare, we called her; well-built and plump she was, and as far as we were concerned that made her just about the best-looking woman in town. Get a load of the fat oozing off her, the men would say, drooling. But she wouldn’t so much as glance at a man because she was shacked up with an Italian officer. Anyway , Mrs Kanello spies her coming down the street, shaking and shimmying, and out of the blue she grabs her and starts pounding her for all she’s worth. And the poor girl stands there whining, Why are you hitting me, Madam? Who are you? Have we been introduced? What did I ever do to you? Introduced or not, fires back Kanello. Take that, you fat cow!
    That was the best she could do for Aphrodite. And meantime , the poor kid was getting weaker and weaker.
    Aphrodite, now there was a real beauty for you. With a real bust. She and her mother crocheted lace for other girls’ dowries, but come the Occupation the customers dried up. I never had much of a bust myself, before or after the Liberation, and later when I was in the theatre, you know, my various lovers and admirers really let me hear about it, teeny tits they called me. Not only did Aphrodite have a bust, she had lovely skin, the colour of ripe grapes, and clear blue eyes, the only pair of blue eyes in the district, all the rest of us were darkies. Me, I only turned blonde since the Dictatorship. She had this warm laugh and hair that seemed to curl in the wind. A gorgeous girl. But six months after she got consumption all that was left of her was a shrivelled up sack of skin, like some saintly relic. Even her eyes went pale. Ma would take her margarine whenever Signor Alfio brought us some, but the girl kept getting thinner and thinner. Her knees where thicker than her thighs. Be brave my little one, her ma would tell her as they crocheted away, We’re almost there, Mr Churchill says so. That was because we heard over the underground radio that Churchill was winning and Hitler was losing. Mrs Kanello told us the same thing when she’d come back from her ammunition delivery outings with a basketful of wild artichokes. She had bats in her belfry, that woman. One day, so she said, as she’s slogging along bent double under the load, she reaches the top of a little hill. All around her,