How many?"
"The mayor would only say, 'These men here have done nothing wrong.' We heard the German officer talk on the radio to Heraklion and then he let us go." The priest placed his hands on his chin and his elbows on his knees. "Some time later others were not so lucky; the Germans surrounded and arrested over a thousand men and shot them in cold blood, just outside of Vianos." He brought his hands to his eyes. "You remember Moulos?" Anna nodded yes. "He was beheaded and his skull was hung on a telegraph pole." He paused. "We suspected it was fanatic communist guerillas.
"You will recall that I came to see you in the hospital in Athens after you had the baby," continued Father Gregorios. "Then I was arrested at the cemetery … " Agatha's eyes were full of tears. "The Germans did not want to prosecute a priest, so they passed me over to the Italians, who, after a brief trial, sentenced me to three years in prison. I was sent to Italy. When the war was over and they set me free, I returned to Crete.
"The monastery was in shambles. I was too weak to do much work. As if that was not enough, one night the leftist guerillas came and took me to their mountain headquarters for interrogation. They tortured me by pulling the gold off my teeth. I never knew what pain was until they started pulling my nails off my fingers. Then they flogged the soles of my feet until the pain reached my brain. I couldn't walk for days. Then they finally released me."
He stood up. "From that day on, I swore to God Almighty that they were never, I mean never, going to catch me alive again. The last bullet of my gun was for me, if that moment ever came." Agatha looked up at him. "I joined the National Police Force to liberate Greece from the grip of communism."
He put his fist up. "I had sworn to myself and to my faith that this godless system must not succeed. Never. Defeat finally came for them and, in 1949, I returned to the monastery. When I was walking by the sea one day with another monk, he pointed out one spot where nothing grows, not even weeds. 'Why,' I asked.
"'There was a man,' he said. 'His name was Phobos. He was a communist and a collaborator with the Germans. After the Germans broke with the Soviets and they had no use for him, they shot him dead right here. That is what they did to all the traitors. Phobos' body lay decomposing on the side of the road, but nobody came to claim it, not even vultures.' Then this monk spat in disgust. 'This spot has become sterile, to this day."'