Another difference between our two great nations is that it is quite unnecessary to hire a marquee or rent the village hall for the festivities, as the Greeks are unlikely to encounter the occasional downpour, especially in the middle of summer – about ten months. Anyone can be a weather forecaster in Greece.
The night before the wedding was due to take place, Christina suggested to her husband that, as host, it might be wise for him to remain sober. Someone, she added, should keep an eye on the proceedings, bearing in mind the bridegroom’s occupation. George reluctantly agreed.
The marriage service was held in the island’s small church, and the pews were packed with invited, and uninvited, guests long before vespers were chanted. George accepted with his usual grace that he was about to host a rather large gathering. He looked on with pride as his favourite niece and her lover were joined together in holy matrimony. Although Isabella was hidden behind a veil of white lace, her beauty had long been acknowledged by the young men of the island. Her fiancé, Alexis Kulukundis, was tall and slim, and his waistline did not yet bear testament to the fact that he was heir to a vineyard.
And so to the service. Here, for a moment, the English and the Greeks come together, but not for long. The ceremony was conducted by bearded priests attired in long golden surplices and tall black hats. The sweet smell of incense from swinging burners wafted throughout the church, as the priest in the most ornately embroidered gown, who also boasted the longest beard, presided over the marriage, to the accompaniment of murmured psalms and prayers.
George and Christina were among the first to leave the church once the service was over, as they wanted to be back at the house in good time to welcome their guests.
The bridegroom’s rambling old farmhouse nestled on the slopes of a hill above the plains of the vineyard. The spacious garden, surrounded by terraced olive groves, was full of chattering well-wishers long before the bride and bridegroom made their entrance. George must have shaken over two hundred hands, before the appearance of Mr and Mrs Kulukundis was announced by a large group of the bridegroom’s rowdy friends who were firing pistols into the air in celebration; a Greek tradition which I suspect would not go down well on an English country lawn, and certainly not in the village hall.
With the exception of the immediate family and those guests selected to sit on the long top table by the side of the dance floor, there were, in fact, very few people George had ever set eyes on before.
George took his place at the centre of the top table, with Isabella on his right and Alexis on his left. Once they were all seated, course after course of overladen dishes was set before his guests, and the wine flowed as if it were a Bacchanalian orgy rather than a small island wedding. But then Bacchus – the god of wine – was a Greek.
When, in the distance, the cathedral clock chimed eleven times, George hinted to the best man that perhaps the time had come for him to make his speech. Unlike George, he was drunk, and certainly wouldn’t be able to recall his words the following morning. The groom followed, and when he tried to express how fortunate he was to have married such a wonderful girl, once again his young friends leapt onto the dance floor and fired their pistols in the air.
George was the final speaker. Aware of the late hour, the pleading look in his guests’ eyes, and the half-empty bottles littering the tables around him, he satisfied himself with wishing the bride and groom a blessed life, a euphemism for lots of children. He then invited those who still could to rise and toast the health of the bride and groom. Isabella and Alexis, they all cried, if not in unison.
Once the applause had died down, the band struck up. The groom immediately rose from his place, and, turning to his bride, asked her for the first dance. The newly married couple stepped onto the dance floor, accompanied by another volley of gunfire. The groom’s parents followed next, and a few minutes later George and Christina joined them.
Once George had danced with his wife, the bride and the groom’s mother, he made his way back to his place in the centre seat of the top table, shaking hands along the way with the many guests who wished to thank him.
George was pouring himself a glass of red wine – after all, he had performed all his official duties – when the old man appeared.
George leapt to his feet the moment he saw him standing alone at the entrance to the garden. He placed his glass back on the table and walked quickly across the lawn to welcome the unexpected guest.
Andreas Nikolaides leant heavily on his two walking sticks. George didn’t like to think how long it must have taken the old man to climb up the path from his little cottage, halfway down the mountain. George bowed low and greeted a man who was a legend on the island of Cephalonia as well as in the streets of Athens, despite the fact that he had never once left his native soil. Whenever Andreas was asked why, he simply replied, ‘Why would anyone leave Paradise?’
In 1942, when the island of Cephalonia had been overrun by the Germans, Andreas Nikolaides escaped to the hills and, at the age of twenty-three, became the leader of the resistance movement. He never left those hills during the long occupation of his homeland and, despite a handsome bounty being placed on his head, did not return to his people until, like Alexander, he had driven the intruders back into the sea.
Once peace was declared in 1945, Andreas returned in triumph. He was elected mayor of Cephalonia, a position which he held, unopposed, for the next thirty years. Now that he was well into his eighties, there wasn’t a family on Cephalonia who did not feel in debt to him, and few who didn’t claim to be a relative.
‘Good evening, sir,’ said George stepping forward to greet the old man. ‘We are honoured by your presence at my niece’s wedding.’
‘It is I who should be honoured,’ replied Andreas, returning the bow. ‘Your niece’s grandfather fought and died by my side. In any case,’ he added with a wink, ‘it’s an old man’s prerogative to kiss every new bride on the island.’
George guided his distinguished guest slowly round the outside of the dance floor and on towards the top table. Guests stopped dancing and applauded as the old man passed by. George insisted that Andreas take his place in the centre of the top table, so that he could be seated between the bride and groom. Andreas reluctantly took his host’s place of honour. When Isabella turned to see who had been placed next to her, she burst into tears and threw her arms around the old man. ‘Your presence has made the wedding complete,’ she said.
Andreas smiled and, looking up at George, whispered, ‘I only wish I’d had that effect on women when I was younger.’
George left Andreas seated in his place at the centre of the top table, chatting happily to the bride and groom. He picked up a plate and walked slowly down a table laden with food. George took his time selecting only the most delicate morsels that he felt the old man would find easy to digest. Finally he chose a bottle of vintage wine from a case that his own father had presented to him on the day of his wedding. George turned back to take the offering to his honoured guest just as the chimes on the cathedral clock struck twelve, hailing the dawn of a new day.
Once more, the young men of the island charged onto the dance floor and fired their pistols into the air, to the cheers of the assembled guests. George frowned, but then for a moment recalled his own youth. Carrying the plate in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, he continued walking back towards his place in the centre of the table, now occupied by Andreas Nikolaides.
Suddenly, without warning, one of the young bandoliers, who’d had a little too much to drink, ran forward and tripped on the edge of the dance floor, just as he was discharging his last shot. George froze in horror when he saw the old man slump forward in his chair, his head falling onto the table. George dropped the bottle of wine and the plate of food onto the grass as the bride screamed. He ran quickly to the centre of the table, but it was too late. Andreas Nikolaides was already dead.
The large, exuberant gathering was suddenly in turmoil, some screaming, some weeping, w
hile others fell to their knees, but the majority were hushed into a shocked, sombre silence, unable to grasp what had taken place.
George bent down over the body and lifted the old man into his arms. He carried him slowly across the lawn, the guests forming a corridor of bowed heads, as he walked towards the house.
George had just bid five thousand pounds for two seats at a West End musical that had already closed when he told me the story of Andreas Nikolaides.
‘They say of Andreas that he saved the life of everyone on that island,’ George remarked as he raised his glass in memory of the old man. He paused before adding, ‘Mine included.’
‘WHY DOES HE WANT to see me?’ asked the Commissioner.
‘He says it’s a personal matter.’
‘How long has he been out of prison?’
The Commissioner’s secretary glanced down at Raj Malik’s file. ‘He was released six weeks ago.’
Naresh Kumar stood up, pushed back his chair and began pacing around the room; something he always did whenever he needed to think a problem through. He had convinced himself – well, almost – that by regularly walking round the office he was carrying out some form of exercise. Long gone were the days when he could play a game of hockey in the afternoon, three games of squash the same evening and then jog back to police headquarters. With each new promotion, more silver braid had been sewn on his epaulet and more inches appeared around his waist.
‘Once I’ve retired and have more time, I’ll start training again,’ he told his number two, Anil Khan. Neither of them believed it.
The Commissioner stopped to stare out of the window and look down on the teeming streets of Mumbai some fourteen floors below him: ten million inhabitants who ranged from some of the poorest to some of the wealthiest people on earth. From beggars to billionaires, and it was his responsibility to police all of them. His predecessor had left him with the words: ‘At best, you can hope to keep the lid on the kettle.’ In less than a year, when he passed on the responsibility to his deputy, he would be proffering the same advice.
Naresh Kumar had been a policeman all his life, like his father before him, and what he most enjoyed about the job was its sheer unpredictability. Today was no different, although a great deal had changed since the time when you could clip a child across the ear if you caught him stealing a mango. If you tried that today, the parents would sue you for assault and the child would claim he needed counselling. But, fortunately, his deputy Anil Khan had come to accept that guns on the street, drug dealers and the war against terrorism were all part of a modern policeman’s lot.
The Commissioner’s thoughts returned to Raj Malik, a man he’d been responsible for sending to prison on three occasions in the past thirty years. Why did the old con want to see him? There was only one way he was going to find out. He turned to face his secretary. ‘Make an appointment for me to see Malik, but only allocate him fifteen minutes.’
The Commissioner had forgotten that he’d agreed to see Malik until his secretary placed the file on his desk a few minutes before he was due to arrive.
‘If he’s one minute late,’ said the Commissioner, ‘cancel the appointment.’
‘He’s already waiting in the lobby, sir,’ she replied.
Kumar frowned, and flicked open the file. He began to familiarize himself with Malik’s criminal record, most of which he was able to recall because on two occasions – one when he had been a detective sergeant, and the second, a newly promoted inspector – he had been the arresting officer.
Malik was a white-collar criminal who was well capable of holding down a serious job. However, as a young man he had quickly discovered that he possessed enough charm and native cunning to con naive people, particularly old ladies, out of large sums of money, without having to exert a great deal of effort.
His first scam was not unique to Mumbai. All he required was a small printing press, some headed notepaper and a list of widows. Once he’d obtained the latter – on a daily basis from the obituary column of the Mumbai Times – he was in business. He specialized in selling shares in overseas companies that didn’t exist. This provided him with a regular income, until he tried to sell some stock to the widow of another conman.
When Malik was charged, he admitted to having made over a million rupees, but the Commissioner suspected that it was a far larger sum; after all, how many widows were willing to admit they had been taken in by Malik’s charms? Malik was sentenced to five years in Pune jail and Kumar lost touch with him for nearly a decade.
Malik was back inside again after he’d been arrested for selling flats in a high-rise apartment block on land that turned out to be a swamp. This time the judge sent him down for seven years. Another decade passed.
Malik’s third offence was even more ingenious, and resulted in an even longer sentence. He appointed himself a life-assurance broker. Unfortunately the annuities never matured – except for Malik.
His barrister suggested to the presiding judge that his client had cleared around twelve million rupees, but as little of the money was available to be given back to those who were still living, the judge felt that twelve years would be a fair return on this particular policy.
By the time the Commissioner had turned the last page, he was still puzzled as to why Malik could possibly want to see him. He pressed a button under the desk to alert his secretary that he was ready for his next appointment.
Commissioner Kumar glanced up as the door opened. He stared at a man he barely recognized. Malik must have been ten years younger than he was, but they would have passed for contemporaries. Although Malik’s file stated that he was five foot nine and weighed a hundred and seventy pounds, the man who walked into his office did not fit that description.
The old con’s skin was lined and parched, and his back was hunched, making him appear small and shrunken. Half a life spent in jail had taken its toll. He wore a white shirt that was frayed at the collar and cuffs, and a baggy suit that might at some time in the past have been tailored for him. This was not the self-confident man the Commissioner had first arrested over thirty years ago, a man who always had an answer for everything.
Malik gave the Commissioner a weak smile as he came to a halt in front of him.
‘Thank you for agreeing to see me, sir,’ he said quietly. Even his voice had shrunk.
The Commissioner nodded, waved him to the chair on the other side of his desk and said, ‘I have a busy morning ahead of me, Malik, so perhaps you could get straight to the point.’
‘Of course, sir,’ Malik replied, even before he’d sat down. ‘It’s simply that I am looking for a job.’
The Commissioner had considered many reasons why Malik might want to see him, but seeking employment had not been among them.
‘Before you laugh,’ continued Malik, ‘please allow me to put my case.’
The Commissioner leant back in his chair and placed the tips of his fingers together, as if in silent prayer.
‘I have spent too much of my life in jail,’ said Malik. He paused. ‘I’ve recently reached the age of fifty, and can assure you that I have no desire to go back inside again.’
The Commissioner nodded, but didn’t express an opinion.
‘Last week, Commissioner,’ continued Malik, ‘you addressed the annual general meeting of the Mumbai Chamber of Commerce. I read your speech in the Times with great interest. You expressed the view to the leading businessmen of this city that they should consider employing people who had served a prison sentence – give them a second chance, you said, or they will simply take the easy option and return to a life of crime. A sentiment I was able to agree with.’
‘But I also pointed out,’ interrupted the Commissioner, ‘that I was only referring to first offenders.’
‘Exactly my point,’ countered Malik. ‘If you consider there is a problem for first offenders, just imagine what I come up against, when I apply for a job.’ Malik paused and straightened his tie before he continued. ‘If your speech
was sincere and not just delivered for public consumption, then perhaps you should heed your own advice, and lead by example.’
‘And what did you have in mind?’ asked the Commissioner. ‘Because you certainly do not possess the ideal qualifications for police work.’
Malik ignored the Commissioner’s sarcasm and ploughed boldly on. ‘In the same paper in which your speech was reported, there was an advertisement for a filing clerk in your records department. I began life as a clerk for the P & O Shipping Company, right here in this city. I think that you will find, were you to check the records, that I carried out that job with enthusiasm and efficiency, and on that occasion left with an unblemished record.’
‘But that was over thirty years ago,’ said the Commissioner, not needing to refer to the file in front of him.
‘Then I will have to end my career as I began it,’ replied Malik, ‘as a filing clerk.’
The Commissioner didn’t speak for some time while he considered Malik’s proposition. He finally leant forward, placed his hands on the desk, and said, ‘I will give some thought to your request, Malik. Does my secretary know how to get in touch with you?’
‘Yes, she does, sir,’ Malik replied as he rose from his place. ‘Every night I can be found at the YMCA hostel on Victoria Street.’ He paused. I have no plans to move in the near future.’
Over lunch in the officers’ dining room, Commissioner Kumar briefed his deputy on the meeting with Malik.
Anil Khan burst out laughing. ‘Hoist with your own petard, Chief,’ he said with considerable feeling.
‘True enough,’ replied the Commissioner as he helped himself to another spoonful of rice, ‘and when you take over from me next year, this little episode will serve to remind you of the consequences of your words, especially when they are delivered in public.’
‘Does that mean that you are seriously considering employing the man?’ asked Khan, as he stared across the table at his boss.
The New Collected Short Stories Page 41