Summary

In “The Full Belly,” Costa Iordanou is living with his aunts Pronoë and Maro Makridis in German-occupied Greece. Since the Germans arrived, the family has been starving. They live in the old family house, where Costa’s sister Anna resides on the ground floor with her husband, Stavro Vlachos. The Makridis sisters took Costa and Anna in after their parents died when they were children and have cared for them ever since. Often lonely, Costa tries caring for his aunts. They are old and weak, but their deaths seem impossible to him. He often plays the piano for them, too, as he “was born a prodigy” (113). Sometimes, he daydreams about “his pretended future” while playing, envisioning himself taking trains or creating a life “with his friend Loukas” (114). Other times, he lies in bed staring at “the tremendous...