464
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
in the hills around Alexandropolis against Markos's guerrillas.
He did not think he could ever recover without proper medication, unavailable in the village. Could I bring him, his
wife and children, and his seventy-four-year-old mother to
America?
Through Arto I located a neighbor who remembered our
family—Victoria Exerjian, now seventy, a gray-haired, tortured
little widow with her right eye closed, who remembered all
the vicissitudes that had befallen Alexandropolis. She apologized for the condition of her home. "This was once a very
lovely house," she said. "Only my unmarried daughter lives
with me now. Someone—I think it was a refugee—ripped off
the doors for firewood last week, and it gets very cold. . . .
You ask me what happened to Alexandropolis after you left?
What didn't happen! After you left—it was in 1915—the
English came, then the Italians, the French, and the Greeks.
Bulgars and Germans both used it during the war. Ahh . . .
the Germans were cruel and mean! After World War II the
Greek Communists took charge and ordered everyone to
attend their parades, and salute with the clenched fist. Before
them the Germans ordered us to see their parades and greet
their flag with Nazi salutes. Everyone who came took what
was left by his predecessor, and destroyed more. Can anything
survive such a devastation?"
"What do you recall of me as a child?" I asked her.
She thought a moment. "I remember you as extremely
active, always up to some kind of prank. You would ask about
animals, then want to know why some of them had long tails
and others short. You enjoyed going into the country with
Christo, your nurse. I can see you now . . . passing with
Christo in front of my house, carrying your lunch, your milkgoat trailing behind you. You would stay away all day. . . .
When you visit your house," she said suddenly, "you may
not recognize it."