The Oracle

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘Not yet, but the coroner has been notified and he should be here in twenty minutes. Over.’

  ‘Okay. I repeat, keep everyone away. I’ll be right there. Over and out.’

  He took a blinker from his glove compartment and set it on the roof of the car, turned on the siren and rushed at top speed through the already chaotic city traffic. When he arrived, he saw a cordon of police keeping a group of onlookers away. Behind them the wreckage of a car covered the asphalt over a wide area; what was left of the chassis was enveloped in a cloud of steam and extinguisher foam. There was blood everywhere, and shreds of human body parts covered by sheets of plastic.

  An officer approached him: ‘It fully appears that they were planning to bomb the station, but the explosives went off before they could park the car: real amateurs.’

  ‘Any possibility of identifying the bodies?’

  ‘None. There was so much explosive aboard that they practically disintegrated. If you’d like to come in, we’re preparing a report for the district attorney’s office.’

  ‘All right. You continue collecting all the evidence, I’ll be back in a few minutes. If the coroner arrives, let me know immediately.’

  He went into the office and checked the report, skimming it rapidly. The telephone rang: ‘Police headquarters: Captain Karamanlis speaking.’

  An unmistakable voice answered: ‘It’s Bogdanos.’ Karamanlis loosened his tie and nervously lit another cigarette.

  ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

  ‘Is it true that there were a man and a woman aboard that car?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Are the bodies identifiable?’

  ‘The biggest piece is like a pack of cigarettes.’

  ‘Good. We have the solution to our problem. I can’t say anything over the phone. Walk outside and meet me in the bar across the street.’

  ‘But the coroner is about to arrive.’

  ‘Exactly. I must see you before you talk to him. Come immediately, it’s a matter of life or death.’

  Karamanlis went towards the window and looked across at the bar: there was a man standing at the phone wearing a homburg and a dark coat. ‘I’m on my way,’ he said, and hurried over.

  Bogdanos was sitting at a table with a cup of Turkish coffee in front of him.

  ‘This attempted bombing will get us out of a fix and provide us with two anonymous corpses to utilize as we like: the two occupants of the car were Claudio Setti and Heleni Kaloudis. She was a terrorist, and had convinced her young Italian lover to help her. Give this version to the press and our problems will be solved. The Italian embassy will open an investigation but they won’t get anywhere.’

  ‘Just one second, Admiral: I know the girl will never come back, but that boy was alive when I turned him over to you. Who’s to tell me that he won’t reappear after I’ve announced his death?’

  Bogdanos’s hat sat low over his eyes and he didn’t even lift his head to look his interlocutor in the face: ‘The boy won’t turn up anywhere. After what he had seen we certainly couldn’t let him go. But at least we got him to talk. You, with your disgraceful methods, you didn’t learn a thing.’

  ‘My methods may be disgraceful, but I use violence honestly, no tricks, just pure and simple violence: whoever is tougher wins. You deceived him: he thought you had come to save him. You’re just bigger hypocrites.’

  Bogdanos lifted his head slightly, revealing his clenched jaw: ‘Deception is an intelligent human weapon, and is even compassionate at times. Violence is brutish. Do as I say. Do you have any of Heleni Kaloudis’s personal effects, to prove her identity?’

  ‘Her University ID.’

  ‘Show it to the judge after you’ve burned it up a little with some gasoline. And add this.’ He took a couple of little medals out of his pocket and handed them to Karamanlis. He turned one over: ‘To Claudio, with love, Heleni’, it said, in Greek. ‘There won’t be any follow-up. Both are actually dead, and the accomplices of whoever really was in that car certainly won’t come forward.’

  Karamanlis hesitated for a moment, then dropped the medal in his pocket and said: ‘I think it’s a good solution. I’ll do as you say.’ He looked towards the street. The coroner’s car had arrived and one of his men was pointing at the bar. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Karamanlis.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What were you looking for last night in the basement storeroom at the National Museum?’ Karamanlis thought he would faint; in just a few seconds his well-honed bloodhound’s instinct sorted through dozens of possibilities, all of them absurd.

  ‘A normal search. We’d had a report of . . .’

  ‘Whatever you were looking for, forget it. Forget all about it. Do you understand me? Forget it if you want to save your skin. You won’t be warned again.’ He got up, left a coin on the table, and left.

  Karamanlis followed him out and crossed the street as if drunk, greeting the official who had been charged with the investigation.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Good morning, Captain. I’d say there’s not much chance of identification.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, sir. We have some real proof of identity. When you’re finished here, come into my office. I have something to show you.’

  AN HOUR LATER, Claudio Setti, sitting in a bare, cold little room in the Piraeus port district, heard the news of his death and Heleni’s.

  He wept for Heleni’s lost life, for the enormous outrage and the atrocious violation of her body, her soul and her memory, and he wept for his own life, lost as well. He would still be breathing the air of the living, for how long he didn’t know. But he was certain that what awaited him was no longer life, not any more. His heart was already buried deep in an unknown ditch along with Heleni’s profaned body.

  That evening, the legal procedures completed, Professor Harvatis’s funeral was held in the presence of a papàs and two grave-diggers. He was lowered into a hole dug by a mechanical digger and already partially flooded by the rain that had been falling heavily all day.

  Ari had learned of the funeral from Kostas Tsountas when he had gone to work at the museum that morning, because the hospital – seeing that the dead man had no relatives – had notified the Antiquities and Fine Arts Service, which had sent out a bulletin to their main branches throughout the city.

  He went to the funeral but remained far away from the coffin so he wouldn’t be noticed. Hiding behind the column of a portico, he said the prayer of the dead for the soul of Periklis Harvatis so that God might greet him into his eternal light, but felt a weight on his heart that was not just pity for those hurried, unseemly funeral rites. He felt a dark presence, restless and uneasy, dominating that bleak landscape of crosses and mud. An unsolved mystery that was descending, for ever, into that tomb.

  He looked around him, certain that the only person who knew whom or what Periklis Harvatis had died for would appear. But the cemetery porticoes were deserted in whichever direction he turned to look.

  The papàs and grave-diggers had already left. Ari dried his eyes and hurried towards the exit, because the custodian was closing the cemetery. He lingered at the gate for a moment, looking at the small mound scored by little rivulets of water. Reluctantly, he opened his umbrella and walked away in the driving rain.

  6

  Athens, 19 November, 6 p.m.

  NORMAN SHIELDS READ the news about the deaths of Claudio Setti and Heleni Kaloudis in the evening edition of Tá Néa. The story was on one of the inside pages and faced the sports page, with its eight-column story on the match of the year: Panathinaikos versus AEK. Norman had arrived at police headquarters that morning just after the explosion. He had realized that, given the circumstances, they would hardly be concerned with releasing his friends just then. Lying low in his car, he’d watched the comings and goings of the police and public officials, and had even seen Karamanlis at the bar across the street speaking with a stranger.

  When he read
the news in the newspaper, he was sure that he’d been played for a fool, yet he couldn’t figure out why. He thought of going straight to the National Archaeological Museum, but it would be closed and Ari would have left hours ago. If he was on duty at all.

  Maybe his father could help. He reached him at the British embassy and showed him the newspaper story of the bombing. How could Claudio and Heleni have been in that damned car if they were being held prisoner? He knew full well that they’d been arrested by the Greek police and dragged off down the streets of Plaka before the eyes of a special agent who had arrived too late.

  ‘Norman . . . Norman, I’m afraid they’ve killed them,’ said his father in a low voice. ‘They simulated a terrorist attack to get rid of the bodies. I’m sorry.’

  Norman felt like dying. He turned towards the wall and burst out crying: ‘But why?’ he kept repeating. ‘Why . . . why?’

  ‘Norman, Heleni Kaloudis was considered one of the leaders of the students’ movement at the Polytechnic. Maybe the police thought she had important information. Maybe they used a heavy hand to get her to talk . . . I’m just hypothesizing here, son. An interrogation can turn into a situation of no return where the sole solution is the physical elimination of all witnesses. I’m afraid this may have been the cause of your friends’ deaths.’

  ‘Okay, if that’s how things went, we have proof that they were in the hands of the police and we can nail them with it. At least we can see justice done.’

  ‘No. We can’t. The only witness to their arrest was one of our secret service agents; we cannot create a scandal of this proportion in this situation and in this country. The consequences would be unforeseeable; it could destabilize our alliance. We’re bound hand and foot. Unfortunately, you’ll have to resign yourself to it. It’s a very sad, very bitter experience for you . . . and for myself as well, son. Believe me. I did everything I could.’

  ‘I know you did,’ said Norman, completely giving up. ‘Goodbye, father.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Back to England. I can’t stay in this country any longer. I’m leaving on the first flight out.’

  ‘What about your studies?’

  Norman didn’t answer.

  ‘Will you come to say goodbye?’

  ‘I don’t know. If I don’t, don’t feel badly. It’s not you I blame, it’s the whole world, myself. I just want to forget, although I know I never will. Goodbye, father.’

  ‘Goodbye, son.’

  James Shields walked his son to the door, and as he was crossing the threshold he suddenly hugged him tightly. ‘You’ll forget these days,’ he said. ‘You’re young.’

  Norman freed himself from his father’s embrace. ‘Young? My God, there’s nothing young left in me. I’ve lost everything.’ He walked out on to the street and towards the bus stop.

  His father watched him for a few minutes from the window of his study until he disappeared from sight. The elder Shields had never considered that his son might be affected by the consequences of his profession. He’d always kept him out of it, and he’d never opposed Norman’s passion for archaeology, although he considered it an interest both costly and useless. Now, by a strange coincidence, their two lives had meshed dangerously and risked colliding. Looking at his mourning son, he felt suddenly close to the victims himself, unwillingly involved. They were no longer anonymous corpses like so many in his long career. The cynicism essential to a man who was used to considering reasons of state above all else was failing him. His son’s tears made him feel close to the boy. It gave him reason to hope for a reconciliation after the exasperating conflicts of recent years; his son was a rebel, independent, scornful of the bond with authority that had been at the centre of his family tradition for generations. It was certainly a good idea, in any case, that he go back to England. Time would heal his wounds, and maybe he’d find a girl who would help him to forget about these unhappy days.

  Norman closed himself into his little apartment in Kifissìa and packed up his personal things into a backpack. He counted up the money he had and realized it was insufficient to take a train, let alone an aeroplane.

  He decided he’d hitch-hike, rather than ask his father for anything.

  He fell into an agitated sleep, full of anguished dreams: the car packed with TNT exploding and disintegrating into thousands of bloody bits. He saw himself killing Karamanlis, plugging dozens of bullets into his body. He saw the cop’s lifeless body jerking at every shot, his face mangled, his chest torn open, his impeccable uniform soaked in blood and excrement. He awoke again and again, drenched in a cold sweat.

  When morning finally arrived, he left the house, putting the keys and an envelope with the last month’s rent under the landlady’s door. It was still dark out, and the streets were empty and silent. He walked to the little bar at the corner that was just opening and sat down for a Turkish coffee and two sesame-seed bread rolls. They were always so good, these sesame rolls, so fresh and crisp. He’d eaten them countless times with his friends, around that very table. There was no one left but Michel now, but looking for him made no sense. Michel was hidden somewhere in France, wasting away with remorse and shame. What good would it do to ask him why he hadn’t resisted, why he hadn’t been stronger? Michel had a right to forget as well. Who knew, maybe one day the two of them would find the courage to meet up again somewhere. Maybe they’d meet by chance, and pretend that nothing had ever happened. They’d remember how it was at first, the day they met in Epirus, the evenings in the tavern, their studies, the girls . . .

  He walked out on to the street, while a cold pale light sculpted the barren mound of Mount Hymettus against an ash-grey sky. He nudged the backpack up on to his shoulder and walked north. A truck transporting a herd of sheep to the pastures of Thessaly stopped to pick him up. He got into the rickety vehicle and curled up on the seat with his backpack between his legs. The bleating of the sheep, the chatter of the driver, the din of the old asthmatic engine and the unhinged side boards didn’t even touch the abysmal silence of his soul, or alter the painful, stupefied look in his eyes.

  He crossed Thessaly and Macedon, passed the border at Evzoni and travelled through Yugoslavia under torrential rain on a Bulgarian semi carrying a load of meat for Italy. He crossed Austria and Germany, sleeping in hostels or under the shelters at service stations. In three days and three nights he reached the Channel and landed at Dover, white with snow.

  Athens seemed as distant then as a remote and desolate planet.

  When he opened his passport at the border control station, a photo fell out: it was a polaroid he’d taken with Michel and Claudio next to the Deux-Chevaux on the mountains of Epirus. He didn’t bend down to pick it up, allowing it to be trampled by the muddy boots of the truck drivers at the inspection counter.

  And so he snuffed out the memories of the last years of his youth.

  THE ITALIAN CONSULATE opened an investigation into the death of Claudio Setti, although he had no close relatives, as instructed by the Foreign Affairs Ministry. The version provided by the Greek police contrasted greatly with the information they were able to collect among his companions and professors at the Italian school of archaeology in Athens. Claudio was described as an easy-going, polite boy, with rather conservative political ideas, scrupulous in his studies. Not the picture of a dangerous terrorist, unless he had agreed to accompany his girlfriend that day without knowing what was in the car. In any case, no evidence for any involvement on his part ever turned up, and his death remained a mystery.

  Captain Karamanlis, who had sought more information on Ari Malidis, ended up abandoning his efforts. The file he had asked for eventually came through, but bureaucratic red tape and the lack of eagerness on the part of the Fine Arts Service to collaborate with the political police led to considerable delays, and his request ended up fuelling suspicion on his account rather than providing any useful information. Moreover, Admiral Bogdanos’s words had had a profound and long-lasting effect on him, h
anging over his head like a permanent threat. Besides, normalization operations were taking up all of his time: inspections, interrogations, searches, arrests.

  He had gone as far as Patras and Salonika to incriminate a number of professors who had declared their solidarity with the students during the Polytechnic revolt, and to arrest members of clandestine labour unions who had encouraged the students’ demands for a general strike.

  Throughout all these operations he was never able to uncover anything more than what everyone already knew: that there was widespread intolerance of and rebellion against the government. But he never had the least doubt that his convictions were absolutely on the ball: he was certain that the whole plot had been cooked up by outside organizers and that it was just through bad luck that only the little fish had got caught up in his nets.

  Sometimes, late at night, he sat at his desk with a sandwich and a bottle of beer trying to trace the connections between the group of people who had given him so many headaches at this crucial moment of his life: Norman Shields, who had told him about the golden vase, was the son of James Henry Shields, the liaison between the Greek and American secret services, and was the friend of Claudio Setti, Michel Charrier and Heleni Kaloudis. Plus he knew Ari Malidis, who had brought a dying man to the hospital at Kifissìa in the middle of the night.

  And this Admiral Bogdanos, who always knew everything and was everywhere. He’d even known about his unfortunate midnight excursion to the museum basement! Who could have informed him? The director of Antiquities? Improbable. The young Shields himself ? But what connection could there be between a high-ranking secret service officer and a twenty-year-old student? The strangest thing was that there were no plausible connections between these people, apart from the group of friends, who were clearly all archaeology students. But there was one thing that they all had in common: the magnificent gold vase that he had held in his hands for a moment.

  Was that the connection? The true centre of gravity? If only he could manage to find out where it was and what it meant – those figures engraved on the vase . . . so strange – then maybe he’d understand what it was that tied all those people together. But the vase had disappeared and he had no clue where he could find it. And something told him that it was too risky, business too big for someone like him. Bogdanos’s order to stay away had nearly even made him forget about the blow a stranger had dealt him so unexpectedly that night in the National Museum.