![]() ![]() Stella, eavesdropping on them from a window, suddenly looks sad.ĭays later, Leckie returns to the stadium worn out. She gets up and gently squeezes his shoulder as she heads back inside. "That's a good thing to pray for," Leckie tells her. She says that she's going to pray that he comes back to them. She goes on to say that they're lucky to have him in the house, that they always wanted a son like him. Mama asks if he goes to church, and he tells her he's Catholic. ![]() Mama tells him the Greek boys are gone, all the boys Stella grew up with. Leckie puts on his clothes and goes out to talk to her. Stella peeks her head in and he looks hopeful but she tells him that her mother is still up. That night, Leckie lays in bed and plays with his dog tags. Stella and her family head over to the fallen soldier's home, where neighbors are gathered to honor the boy. They decide to visit the family to pay respect to her friend. He roasts the lamb over a barbecue spit later in the Karamanlis' backyard, whereupon Baba Karamanlis reads in the newspaper that a childhood friend of Stella was killed in action. Stella and Leckie have sex again in a field through Stellas skirt and Leckies open fly, and he gives her gifts: real silk stockings and a leg of lamb. He takes a sip from a bottle of water and, for a moment, looks content. The next day as Stella and her mother work in the garden Leckie, who is on the roof clearing vines, sits down for a moment and drinks in the sight: Mama folding laundry, Stella looking up at him and smiling as she sorts the vegetables. Her mother got sick and couldn't have anymore. Stella reveals she had a brother, but he died when he was a baby. His father's been crippled in his head ever since, he says. She asks if his brothers went into the service too, and he reveals that one was too old, and the other died. To Leckie's great surprise, she disrobes, gets in bed with him and they have sex.Īs they lay together afterward, she asks Leckie why he fled his family. That night, Leckie is struggling to sleep when Stella sneaks into the room. Leckie says he can never repay them, and Baba says that he can help clear vines from the roof. Mama asks where the Marines are staying and when he tells her about their camp in the stadium, she insists that he stay in their guest room. She says that Stella is her only blessing, that she prayed for more but it didn't happen. He said he was last - "last is least." Mama, who thinks of such a big family as a blessing, disagrees. Leckie tells her that he came from a family of five girls and three boys, that his mother was nearly 40 when he came along. In exchange she asks Leckie about his home and he jokes that he escaped the Leckie household. She remarks with a good bit of sadness that her home is gone but brightly adds she's managed to work and find love in this new place. She reveals that when her home was sacked by the Turks, she escaped to a dock, swam to a passing ship and eventually ended up in Australia. When Stella goes to the kitchen to get more food, Leckie asks Mama about how she came from Greece to Australia. They sit him down and proceed to lay a feast before him that rivals American Thanksgiving. Her mother doesn't react but instead tut-tuts over how skinny Leckie is. Stella warns her mother in Greek that he picked the neighbor's roses. She introduces him to her father and mother, Mama and Baba Karamanlis. "I hope you're hungry," she says with a smile, and welcomes him in. He picks a rose from a nearby garden and, as she opens the door, introduces himself as Bob. Juergens commends him on his guts, and thanks him. As she gets off the tram she turns and says, "I'm Stella, in case you're wondering what to call me." A joyful Leckie bows and grins. "You're a bold one sotted," she says, writing down her address and instructing him to collect her from home. She's bowled over by his romantic gesture. He begs her forgiveness by way of explaining that he's a foreigner. (In Australia, it means you are telling someone to go away.) He looks at the faces of the ladies around her and blushes as they giggle to themselves. He replies that he's proposing that she takes a walk with him, and she asks coyly if he knows what take a walk means. Once on board, he finds his lady but trips and falls at her feet as the boys, who have jumped in behind him, laugh. She is first seen by Leckie boarding a tram. They settled in Melbourne at some time thereafter, having raised Stella in the city, before the USMC 1st Marine Division arrived following Guadalcanal. Stella's family escaped the Turkish city of Izmir (the ancient Greek city of Smyrna) when the long-established Greek and Armenian sections were burned following three years of Greek occupation after Turkish forces recaptured it in 1922 at the end of the Greco-Turkish war. ![]()
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