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This is the second part of the plot summary of Victoria Hislop's novel The Thread. For a brief introduction and the first 10 chapters of the book, please read Victoria Hislop - The Thread (Plot Summary) Part 1
The Thread
- chapter 11:
- Dimitris, girls, Elias, Isaac often go out on walks/to play: this is kept secret from Komninos
- kids visit graveyard
- meals with the Morenos described
- American lady at offices of Refugee Settlement Commission still remembers Eugenia + family
- Katerina writes letter to her mother + gives it to office
- Zenia + Artemis’s story: in Athens, are housed in opera house; ladies in Smyrna (prevented Zenia from getting off the boat to stay with Katerina for fear boat would capsize + they’d lose relics / icons for new church) now tell her to write letter to find Katerina
- French lady at Refugee Settlement Commission indifferently puts letter on pile
- chapter 12:
- Katerina learns stitching from Mrs. Moreno, who is happy to have a girl to show her trade to
- Olga lends Eugenia money to buy loom to make carpets
- Olga tells merchants to take their time with the orders for new Komninos mansion
- Eventually, mansion is ready, Olga must leave Irini Street: sad goodbyes
- postmaster at sorting office in Athens makes connection between Zenia’s and Katerina’s mail
- Zenia: remarried to neighbor with 4 kids (Angelos Pantazoglou); Artemis is pushed around by stepfather and siblings, Pantazoglou beats Zenia
- Zenia asks Eugenia to keep Katerina for some time
- chapter 13:
- Maria + Sofia want to work as tobacco girls (would work outside, get paid every week)
- Katerina and Eugenia disagree with this: Eugenia wants her daughters to learn a skill (which would take time)
- Dimitris misses his friends: Komninos doesn’t let them play together
- Olga’s agoraphobia grows: tailors come to her house to make dresses for dinners at the mansion/Olga’s appearances with clients
- Katerina goes to learn needlework at Moreno’s house every night while Eugenia fought with her daughters about their future as tobacco girls
- Mrs. Moreno embroiders quilt: Roza’s work for pleasure = she adds sth new every so often; is a work in progress that would never be finished; is a “profoundly symbolic work”; for Katerina this links sewing with love
- Katerina’s present for Eugenia’s name day: handkerchief she embroidered with flower + butterfly
- Eugenia gets letter from government: husband presumed dead; is touched by Katerina’s beautiful gift
- chapter 14:
- Sofia + Maria start work at tobacco factory (away from home, edge of the city)
- Sofia gets a little more money than others because she’s flirtatious with supervisor
- Katerina = 13 yrs old: extremely skilled in embroidery; goes out to sell wares in richer neighborhoods; wares are sold for less than their worth, but always sold out, so money brought in and family never hungry
- Moreno workshop known for its attention to detail + perfection: Katerina goes to work there
- Komninos at Moreno’s shop: Dimitri set to take exams to go into law school (although Dimitris wants to become a doctor); Olga doesn’t leave the house
- Elias goes to play tavli (backgammon) with Dimitri from time to time but leaves as soon as Komninos comes in: Komninos wants son to learn 5 languages before leaving school
- why Morenos didn’t live in bigger house since they have such a big workshop + good reputation: put profits back into business, hire best workers (especially relatives + Jews but also Greeks, + had Muslims they still miss)
- chapter 15:
- Katerina learns under guidance of Saul’s aunt, Esther Moreno (worked over 40 yrs there)
- Katerina put to work in finishing room under Mrs. Raphael (on beading): does excellent work
- Katerina remembers her mother working on ecclesiastical robe with nostalgia
- historical facts: Thessaloniki = the affluent live side by side in shacks with poorer immigrants since the great fire wiped out homes; Irini Street families are in between; unemployment rising; labor militancy especially from tobacco workers; Nationalists hostile towards Jews (who hadn’t welcomed Greek troops during 1912 liberation of Thessaloniki + some who still didn’t speak Greek)
- Moreno workshop: Moreno finds “Jew” painted on door
- Campbell district: 2 Jewish houses torched: afterwards many Jews emigrated (Palestine)
- Moreno’s reaction to this: keeps morale of workers high (buys gramophone); takes out large ads in newspapers to improve reputation (right-wing newspapers too)
- dress for Olga is finished + Katerina takes it to Komninos house (Olga has grown thin)
- Katerina sees Dimitris as she nears the house (Dimitris= 16 yrs old); they go in together
- Olga eager to hear news from Irini Street: Katerina brings life back into the house with her news + tales; Dimitris is mesmerized
- Komninos returns; rebukes Olga for not having taken dress out of box to hang
- 20,000 stremmata bought 5 yrs earlier by Komninos for production of silk; guests / clients see Olga wearing clothes made from his fine materials and want to buy from him
- Dimitris preparing to take exams to get into medical school
- chapter 16:
- Komninos furious with Dimitri for joining medical faculty at university: his business is growing despite economic slump; needs lawyer not doctor
- Dimitris: aware of inequality + precariousness of his position as the son of a wealthy man
- Dimitris sees Katerina + Elias (Mr. Moreno now has delivery van for clothes): Elias + Dimitris arrange to continue tavli tournament
- Dimitris’s university friends: Vassilis Filipidis, Nikolaos Zakhariades, Lefteris, Manolis, Alexandros
- they go to tekhes to see Stelios Keromitis (rebetis) sing about suffering + flight from Asia Minor until early morning
- nights out continue + Elias joins group of friends (continues to play tavli with Dimitris)
- Elias updates Dimitris: Maria moved to Trikala (married with baby); Sofia engaged for 2 yrs; Moreno grandmother dead; Katerina practically member of Moreno family; Eugenia works long hours at carpet factory
- Dionis Street: they see Komninos go into brothel: Dimitris tells father indirectly the same night after returning home late + drunk
- family lunch: Komninos goads son to anger over political situation (Metaxas appointed Prime Minister by King; is cracking down on worker protests; trade unionists + Communists are exiled); Dimitris keeps his cool for Olga’s sake
- Dimitris meets Elias, Vassilis, Katerina at kafenion (café): walks her home; falling for her happiness; says she, like Mozart, is said to be a prodigy
- tobacco workers strike: Vassilis tells them all to go out to support over 20,000 strikers in the city
- martial law imposed by Metaxas: next day during strike, police fire on unarmed crowd; Dimitris seeks shelter in Moreno house
- martial law declared, Greece = dictatorship: over dinner, Komninos toasts dictatorship (Olga not present) taunting Dimitris, who leaves
- chapter 17:
- Vassilis + Communists are imprisoned; further suppression by Metaxas
- letter to Vassilis’s father: Vassilis died of tuberculosis (Dimitris goes to pick up personal belongings in prison; signing his name on the form = marks him as Communist)
- twins want Eugenia to move to Trikala (Sofia lives nearby), but for Katerina + Eugenia Thessaloniki = home
- Zenia’s letters to Katerina become fewer: squalid conditions at home, sharing it with 2 stepdaughters + their husbands + their widowed mothers; only Zenia works
- Greek army pushes Italians back (Epirus): Komninos toasts his son + Metaxas’s army
- chapter 18:
- Germans arrive: food shortages, Jews arrested (council members + community leaders)
- growing anti-Semitism: signs “Jews not welcome here” appear
- anti-Jewish measures: hand over radios (Moreno gramophone is hidden)
- Moreno business: Germans are clients; employees at workshop were better off than other Greeks because they had a job + food
- 2 men arrive, are representatives of Jewish Affairs Commission: gather any Jewish documents + manuscripts; Morenos hide parochet (curtain hanging in front of the Ark), tallit (silk parchment, 500 yrs old), yad (pointer)
- German at Moreno workshop breaks rebetiko records employees would listen to on gramophone: gives them Wagner’s Lieder instead
- chapter 19:
- Dimitris + Elias become andartes: become members of EAM (National Liberation Front) whose aim was relief work by stealing food and medication to give to the Greeks ; King George + government have withdrawn to the Middle East
- they join ELAS (National Popular Liberation Army) fighting guerrilla warfare against Germans
- they obtain a few days leave to visit with family
- Dimitris goes home: sees Pavlina + Olga; father returns (“You’re a disgrace to this family.”) and bans son from entering the house so long as he’s a Communist fighting for ELAS
- Dimitris goes to Moreno house: they welcome him, give him a bed for the night + fresh clothes
- Elias goes to Moreno workshop to convince Isaac to join them (Dimitris is jealous Elias will see Katerina)
- Dimitris goes for a walk, sits in a café, is recognized be a gendarme as Komninos’ s son: is disgusted that his father is on good terms with gendarmes
- all Jewish men 18-45 yrs old transported to do hard labor in Larissa; before leaving they are made to do “keep fit exercises” in the sun without water, shade, rest: Jacob from the Moreno workshop vomits, collapses, is left on the ground unconscious for an hour
- Jews are given the chance to buy back laborers (3 million drachmas): Jewish cemetery valued at that amount by Germans and so is given to them; Germans take marble headstones, sell them + use them in construction
- Isaac returns (Jacob has died along with 3 other Moreno employees)
- chapter 20:
- less work at Moreno workshop: famine in city; Komninos put up price of fabrics so only the rich had clothes made; poorer people brought clothes to be mended or altered for size
- Olga becomes thinner; dinners at Komninos mansion continue with Germans as guests
- Jan 1943: Eichmann’s deputy arrives to implement the Final Solution for 50,000 Jews; first are made to wear a yellow star at all times, then are moved into a ghetto
- Morenos give precious hidden heirlooms to Katerina and Eugenia to keep and hide
- Moreno workshop is locked
- Isaac arrives at Eugenia’s, starving: says he escaped from the ghetto. Rabbi Koretz told them they’d be moved to Krakow, Poland; they were told to exchange their drachmas for zlotys; he had escaped but came back to leave with his family/can’t abandon them; he has just come to get some clothes + blankets
- Eugenia + Katerina stay up all night to make warm clothes for Morenos
- they both go to railway station the next day to say goodbye to Morenos but aren’t allowed to go near
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