ABSTRACT

Some have regarded Aris Alexandrou's text as a realist account of the Civil War, a view which might be meant to suggest the accuracy with which it depicts the thoughtful processing of a traumatic period in history. Despite the setting of a military mission, the instances of physical confrontation with what is taken to be the enemy are actually very rare. The fictional nature of battles is also signposted in the battalion's disguise as a team of footballers, a precautionary measure that prevents arousing suspicion among their colleagues and protects the secrecy of their mission. Alexandrou is engaging in the theoretical qualms of testimonial accounts on the Civil War, when he assigns his narrator the task of writing a testimony on the expedition. The testimonial act is paralleled to a jigsaw puzzle, alluded to in the form of a much simpler game that Christophoros had kept from his childhood.