THE MIRACLE A True Story and the house of Iannis Vlastos." Both of these were very close to their home.    The first stone landed with a terrible crash, sending fragments of window pane flying into the room. Whooping and yelling, the mob began to throw pieces of coal from the heap lying on the empty plot opposite at the doors and windows. Paralysed with fear, the Nikolaidis family watched as their house filled up with coal tossed through the broken windows. Half the pile of coal which had been brought the previous evening was now lying in their living-room! One spark would have sufficed to set fire to the whole lot and burn them like torches.    All of a sudden, the mob began to move away from the house, still shouting: "Today your property, tomorrow your lives!" Half an hour passed; all was dangerously quiet. Everyone felt as if they were sitting on a time-bomb whose fuse had already been lit.    At that moment a muffled voice called to Apostolos Nikolaidis from outside. It was immediately recognised as being the voice of their neighbour, a Turk from the Pontus:    "Apostolos-efendi! Apostolos-efendi*! Come down and we'll hide you in our house! You'll be much safer with us. If you stay in there, you'll be in danger. They're sure to come back!"    The members of the family looked at each other with desperation and fear written all over their faces. The wife of the Pontian Turk was a secret Christian. She used to go to church every Sunday morning, very early, light a candle and leave without uttering a word. She must have asked her husband to protect the Christian families in the neighbourhood.    But under such circumstances you could not afford to trust anyone. Apostolos Nikolaidis pressed a finger to his lips, indicating that noone was to speak. The Pontian Turk repeated his suggestion twice more, then disappeared.    The noise of the Turks breaking up Greek homes was meanwhile continuing unabated.    Once more, thirty minutes of uneasy silence passed and then a fresh wave of rioters began to approach, their passions whipped up to such an extent that their behaviour resembled that of wild animals.    His eye glued to the crack in the shutter, Apostolos Nikolaidis saw the mob returning. For the second time that night, hope sprang up inside him when he saw that it was led by Biletçi Kemal. This was the man who issued the tickets for the ferry that operated between Çengelköy and Karaköy. He also owed his life to Apostolos Nikolaidis. Once when he had been seriously ill - something wrong with his head - it was the ice with which Apostolos Nikolaidis kept supplying him that had saved him. The Nikolaidis family were the only people in the area with a refrigerator at that time.    Seeing that the leader of the gang was Biletçi Kemal, who was so obliged to him, Apostolos Nikolaidis decided to do what a priest at the church of Beykoz had done a few days earlier: the priest had stood at the entrance to the church holding a Turkish flag, and speaking in fluent Turkish managed to convince the crowd which was bent on destroying the church that nothing separated Turks from Greeks.    Wasting no time, Apostolos Nikolaidis went downstairs, grabbed a Turkish flag which they always kept ready for an emergency like this, opened the front door and confronted the mob.    Inside the house, everyone held their breath. An awkward * Efendi is an honorific title in Turkish, attached to the first names of people to indicate respect. 55 and 56 Leonidas Koumakis THE MIRACLE A True Story If you prefer a hard copy of the book, please send an email to HEC-Books@hec.greece.org Previous Page | Initial Page | Site Map | Next Page (57th of 204) © For Internet 2001 HEC and Leonidas Koumakis. Updated on 19 June 2001.