THE MIRACLE A True Story    "I'm going to fetch it ! You set off for the police station and I'll meet you there. I'll go into the house and pretend I'm one of the demonstrators; then I'll go up to the second floor before they do and get the gold out of the trunk!"    Irini Vafia crossed herself.    "God have mercy! Have you gone mad, my son? Are you in your right mind? Do you want your father to die of heart failure?"    But it was too late. Sideris had left the hut and was running towards the house. The rest of them stared after him in anguish, unable to move.    Crouched under the fig-tree, Nikos could make out Sideris' silhouette moving across the garden and thought the rioters must have started to search the garden. His heart pounded in his chest. It occurred to him, too, that under the present circumstances the safest place to seek refuge would be the police station, which was only a few hundred metres away. Very slowly he got up and started to walk cautiously, with the child, unusually quiet as if it sensed an unseen danger, clutched tightly in his arms.    There were two points at which the huge garden communicated with the road outside. One was the entrance to the factory, which was closed at night. The other was a path which led from the garden to the main road, emerging right beside the police station. Nikos set out slowly and carefully along this familiar path. His eyes anxiously scanned the darkness for human shadows and his ears were alert for any sound of danger close at hand. Every now and then he stopped to make sure no-one had seen him. The short distance to his destination seemed like a thousand miles.    Finally he reached the police station. A guard on duty outside blocked his way.    "I must see the chief constable, it's urgent!" he told the guard, who had been observing the rioting as if he were watching a war film.    The guard had been employed at the police station for many years and knew Nikos Soukas. He took one look at the child in his arms and the distraught look on the man's face, and said with a languid gesture: "He's in his office." He stood aside to let Nikos pass.    Nikos Soukas dashed into the police station and went up to the chief constable.    "At this very minute our house is being destroyed, my family has scattered and I don't know where they are! This little tot is in danger and I must protect him! Please, I beg you, keep us here tonight - outside our lives are in danger!"    The chief constable looked at him with an apparently indifferent air and said:    "What happens if the child cries? Do you think I'm in any less danger than you or the child if they find out I've given refuge to Christians? Do you really think that with just a handful of policemen I'm in any position to help you?"    "I realise that, sir! I also know what a good man you are. In my position, wouldn't you have done the same? So please, help us - you know we have always found ways of showing our gratitude!"    The police officer scrutinised him carefully, a barely perceptible smile on his lips.    "All right!" he said. "Stay here, but if the child cries he'll have to leave immediately!"    At about the same moment, Sideris Vafias had managed, with the aid of a stick with which he beat about him dramatically, pretending to be an enraged demonstrator, to get up to the second floor of the house. Pushing aside 65 and 66 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 (67th of 204) © For Internet 2001 HEC and Leonidas Koumakis. Updated on 19 June 2001.