The Bull of Mithros

by Anne Zouroudi

  ‘Do you think that’s the obvious answer? It is an obvious answer, I grant you. But in fact, it isn’t right. No, the reason no one heard him shout was because he was silenced before he was put in there.’

  Loskas stopped scribbling and looked at the fat man.

  ‘What do you mean, put in there?’

  ‘Unless he put a stone in his own mouth to gag himself, and tipped himself over the rim with his hands by his sides, someone forced that unfortunate man down that well.’

  ‘My God.’ Loskas put a hand over his cheek. ‘So old Vasso was right. There was someone there.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I didn’t give it much credence at the time. He tends to paranoia. Since he was robbed, he jumps at every shadow. He went off to attend to a call of nature, and when he came back, he swore he’d seen someone on the hillside. Seems now he was probably right.’

  ‘But if there was someone there, who could it have been?’

  ‘How should I know? You must excuse me, I have to sort out this discrepancy.’

  ‘Did you know the dead man, Loskas? Apart from yesterday, had you seen him before?’

  ‘Yes, I had. He came in here for money, two, three days ago. Said he had an account. Of course I couldn’t give him money without proof of identity. That’s the rule.’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ said the fat man. He turned to go; but as he did so, he caught sight of a piece of paper, wedged behind the leg of a chair. He picked up the paper, and studied it.

  ‘You might want this,’ he said. ‘A withdrawal slip, in the sum of twenty-two thousand drachma. I suppose the wind caught it, and blew it off your counter. Will it help to balance your books?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Loskas, as the fat man slid it to him under the glass partition. ‘Yes, that will solve my problem very nicely.’

  ‘So now you’ve balanced your books, I shall be doing the same with mine,’ said the fat man. ‘You and I are in the same business, in a manner of speaking. We’re both balancers of books. We’ll talk again, maybe. In the meantime, I wish you kali mera.’

  Outside the town hall, a TV crew was conducting an interview. In a glare of white lights, the blonde reporter spoke into a microphone; the man beside her was nervous, sweating in a formal black suit.

  The fat man collected his watermelon from the hawker and went to find Enrico, who was sitting at a waterside table, his chair a little too close to a woman of thirty or so, with bronzed skin and a white cotton dress.

  When the fat man joined him, Enrico took his eyes away from her with reluctance.

  ‘I’m in love,’ he said, turning his head to gaze again at the woman. ‘But she’s hard-hearted. She won’t even speak to me. Not a word, not a smile.’

  ‘You should take that as a no, then,’ said the fat man. ‘And good for her. You’re much too old for her.’

  ‘Many men have happy relationships with women much younger than themselves,’ said Enrico. ‘With respect, kyrie, you yourself are one of them. And your father is noted for it.’

  ‘My father is a special case,’ said the fat man, ‘and patently I have more charm than you can muster. Leave the poor creature alone. I think you’re frightening her. I’ve decided that after siesta, it would be a good idea to return to Kolona. I’ve seen the corpse, and it throws up some interesting questions. But now, I think it’s time for lunch.’

  ‘Maybe we could eat here, kyrie?’ suggested Enrico, glancing across at the woman. ‘It’s pleasant enough, here under the canopy.’

  ‘I think better not.’ The fat man rose from his seat, and waved away the patron, who was approaching the table. ‘We’ll lunch aboard Aphrodite. Then a siesta, and some thinking time. When it’s cooler, I’ll take a walk over the hills, and have another look at Kolona.’

  Fourteen

  The fat man found the Kolona road quite easily. Leading between houses set in generous gardens, it began as a concreted lane barely wide enough for a vehicle to pass between the badly parked cars and motorcycles. As he walked, the distances from one house to the next increased, until at a stream bed where bulrushes poked through the drying mud, he crossed a bridge of heavy boards, and came into open countryside.

  In a field of thigh-high grasses, a farmer scythed rhythmically at the stalks; the fallen hay lay behind him, marking the track he had taken across the meadow, from west to east. The sky was alive with calling swallows feeding on insects flying up from the grass; dust and pollen drifted on the still, warm air.

  The fat man stopped at the field gate, and noticing him, the farmer paused in his work, and looked towards him, shielding his eyes from the low sun. The fat man raised his hand, and called out, ‘Kali spera!’

  With an excuse to take a break, the farmer began to amble towards the fat man, rubbing the sweat from his palms on the legs of his trousers, which were bound with string around his boot-tops to protect him against snake bites; his shirt was fastened with a single button to allow air to his torso whilst protecting him against biting insects.

  ‘It’s hot work, making hay,’ he said as he reached the fat man, wiping his shirtsleeve over his brow. ‘I’m getting too old for this business.’

  ‘I agree it has been particularly hot today,’ said the fat man. ‘I thought an evening walk would be refreshing.’

  ‘So where are you walking to?’

  ‘To Kolona, if I get that far.’

  The farmer pulled a face, to show his doubt at the wisdom of such a choice.

  ‘There’s nothing there but a bunch of dozy soldiers,’ he said. ‘But if you’re going, take plenty of water. You wouldn’t want to be drinking from their well.’

  ‘Really? Why not?’

  The farmer shook his head.

  ‘A man died there, yesterday,’ he said. ‘Down the well. You wouldn’t want to be drinking from a well a man’s drowned in.’

  ‘I’ve heard the story,’ said the fat man. ‘But I don’t believe he drowned.’

  ‘Drowned or not, it isn’t healthy. They’ll be asking the priest to bless it to remove the contagion.’

  ‘No doubt,’ said the fat man. ‘But how did he come to be in there? It’s not a common occurrence for a man to fall down a well.’

  ‘Who says he fell down?’ The farmer spat, aiming his spittle at a fly settled on a rock, and coming close enough to disturb it. ‘As you say, that’s not a common thing. So maybe he had a helping hand.’

  A swallow swooped low over their heads, so low the farmer flinched.

  ‘Whose helping hand?’ asked the fat man.

  ‘Like I say. There’s no one over there but a bunch of soldiers.’

  ‘You think one of them might be involved?’

  ‘I’m saying nothing, for certain. But things happen on those camps. All living on top of each other, in this heat, things get said. Tempers fray. Young men have fiery tempers.’

  ‘I hadn’t heard the man down the well was a soldier.’

  ‘Oh, he was no soldier. He was too old to be a soldier.’

  ‘So what was he doing there, in this place where there are only soldiers?’

  ‘I only know what I’ve heard,’ said the farmer. ‘I can’t vouch for the truth of it. But what I was told was that he fell out with his shipmates, and they tipped him overboard. Which I don’t find hard to believe. He caused trouble when he was here before.’

  The fat man looked at him sharply.

  ‘What do you mean, when he was here before?’

  ‘It’s a long time ago now. It was a bad business, that was.’

  He looked off into the distance, as if remembering; then he seemed to come back to himself, and finding the scythe in his hands, recalled the job of mowing the meadow.

  ‘I must get on,’ he said. ‘There’s only a couple more hours of light.’

  The fat man reached into the pocket of his linen jacket, and took out a small tin, decorated with Turkish writing and dainty pictures of desert camels.

  ‘Do you take snuff?’ he asked.

/>   ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ said the farmer. ‘I reckon that’s the brand I was using thirty years ago! Are they still making it, then?’

  ‘Don’t be fooled by the packaging,’ said the fat man, prising off the lid. ‘It’s an old tin I’ve had for some time, and the snuff is from my father. He grows a little tobacco on some of his land, and himself prefers snuff to cigarettes. He claims it’s healthier, though whether that’s true or not, I couldn’t say. I myself am not a regular user. I take it as a treat, now and then, though he takes it in large quantities, and swears it keeps him young. He claims it’s a powerful aid to memory, but that may be invention on his part.’ He offered the brown powder to the farmer. ‘Try some.’

  ‘You’re a gentleman,’ said the farmer. He took a generous pinch of snuff, and dropping it in a mound on the back of his thumb, blocked first his left nostril, then his right, and expertly snorted the powder. He sniffed loudly, several times. ‘Panayeia, that clears the head!’ he said. ‘That brightens the spirits!’

  ‘My father’s very proud of it.’

  ‘Maybe I should start growing tobacco,’ said the farmer. ‘That’s marvellous stuff, is that!’

  ‘You were saying that the man who fell down the well had been to Mithros before.’

  ‘No doubt of it, in my mind. Though it’s fifteen or twenty years ago, easily.’

  ‘Mithros is full of strangers every summer, and there have been thousands of visitors to the island in that time. Why do you think you remember him so particularly?’

  ‘I remember him because he was one of them,’ said the farmer. ‘I never forget a face, and I’d certainly never forget that one. I saw him with the army captain in the harbour, and I knew him straight away. He was one of them that set on old Vasso. They hung around Mithros for a few days, maybe a week. They came and went without anybody much noticing them, and I suppose that’s how they planned it. But I noticed them. I had cause to notice them.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘I suppose you wouldn’t offer me a pinch more of that snuff, friend?’

  ‘Gladly,’ said the fat man. ‘Shall we sit down for a moment? It’s too warm to be standing in the road.’

  Kicking at the dried weeds to disturb any sleeping snakes, the farmer found a section of collapsing wall where the stones were relatively flat, and sat down with his scythe resting against his thigh. The fat man sat down next to him, and offered the open snuff-tin to the farmer, who helped himself to another generous pinch.

  ‘Wonderful stuff!’ he said, sniffing. ‘Your father wants to go into business with that.’

  ‘My father has plenty of irons in the fire already,’ said the fat man. ‘You were telling me why you particularly remembered the man down the well.’

  ‘I had a chandler’s shop at that time,’ said the farmer, reflecting. ‘He came in the shop two or three times in the space of a few days, alone or with his friends. The last time was to buy rope. Of course I didn’t think anything of it, at the time. But afterwards I realised it was me who’d sold him the rope old Vasso was tied up with.’

  ‘I’ve heard the story of that robbery,’ said the fat man. ‘It was an ugly business. But there was a hero in that hour, wasn’t there? Socrates Rokos, who put himself in the way of their departing boat. Undoubtedly a remarkable act of bravery.’

  The farmer eyed him with amusement.

  ‘Do you think so?’ he said. ‘That’s not how others see it. Ask yourself, friend, how did he come to be in the vicinity to give chase? And why did he give chase? Out of heroics? Out of a wish to avenge poor old Vasso?’ He shook his head. ‘No, young Socrates was in on it. It was him who led them to Vasso’s door in the first place. Once they’d got what they wanted, in their rush to get away they forgot all about him. They were going to leave him behind, and unpaid – without his pieces of silver for his betrayal. He went after them because they hadn’t given him his due. It’s true he borrowed a boat, and raced after them to Kolona, and it’s true he drove the boat in front of them to stop them. What did he care for that boat? It wasn’t his. But he didn’t know what he was dealing with. They were ruthless men, and they ran him down. Old Dinos who lent him the boat is still sore at the loss of his old tub. Every year that goes by, his lost boat gets more wonderful and more valuable.’

  ‘Are you saying, then, that people don’t think well of Socrates? His friends spoke very highly of him, yesterday.’

  ‘Was his son there? Milto, they call him.’

  ‘I know Milto. He wasn’t there that I saw, no.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have been far away, at St Nikodemos’s festival. They play the part for his benefit. They let him think his father was a hero. It was a hard thing, to be at the scene of his father’s death.’

  ‘He was there?’

  ‘Oh yes, he was there. And that’s tough for anyone, let alone a young boy, to see your Papa go down and not come up again.’

  ‘Did they never find the body?’

  ‘They never did. The water’s deep there. No, he’s down there still. Milto plays the fiddle for him, some nights. If you’re going over there to Kolona, you might hear him. Gives you the chills, it does, that sad music playing in the dark.’

  ‘The nature of that robbery puzzles me. It was an act of gross brutality, to burn a man’s hands to get what they wanted. Who is it who would do that to such a good-hearted man?’

  ‘If it had to do with Vasso, no doubt at all it had to do with money,’ said the farmer.

  ‘I’m told he’s very generous with his money.’

  ‘He’s generous enough, but at a price. I borrowed from him, some years ago. Not much – I had a fire, and lost my hay crop and my tools, so he lent me enough to cover my losses set against the value of my land. And you know, somehow, I still haven’t paid it back. Now, he’s got enough that it doesn’t bother him, and I let him have a gallon of oil from time to time, and when I make raki, he has a couple of bottles of that. But I suppose you might say this land’s as much his as mine, so it’s my good fortune he’s never called in the loan.’

  ‘Do you know where he made his money?’ asked the fat man. ‘Was it in coffee, or in cotton? Egypt, or the Congo?’

  ‘Neither, that I’ve been told. Though for certain it was in Africa, somewhere. They say his house is full of souvenirs, all voodoo masks and shrunken heads. But I always thought his interests were in mining – copper, I seem to recall. Nigeria, or Namibia. Or was it Cameroon?’

  ‘No one seems very certain,’ said the fat man.

  ‘If it interests you, maybe you should ask the man himself.’

  ‘Maybe I should.’ The fat man stood up from the wall. ‘I must go on, or by the time I get to Kolona, it will be too dark to see the road. It has been a pleasure talking to you. And since you enjoyed my father’s snuff so much, perhaps you would like to keep the tin?’

  The farmer smiled broadly.

  ‘I would.’

  The fat man held it out to him.

  ‘I must caution you to use it wisely, though,’ he said. ‘Three pinches a day is quite enough to use as a tonic. Any more, and you’ll find its effects are detrimental. Too much can cause prolonged sleeplessness.’

  ‘I won’t waste it,’ said the farmer. ‘It’s wonderful stuff, and I’ll make it last.’

  The fat man turned to go, but then turned back.

  ‘Something I should ask you,’ he said. ‘If you were so sure the dead man was one of those who set on Vassilis, why did you not tell the police?’

  The farmer spat again on the ground.

  ‘Those fools?’ he said. ‘Why should I waste my time with them? After the robbery, I took myself down to the police station, and gave them a full description of the men. Not just this one who’s come back, but all of them. Every day for two weeks I went down there, offering to identify anyone they might have brought in. But they never brought anyone in. I doubt they ever left the office. There was bad feeling between old Vasso and the police chief at that time. The chief
of police had a brother, Thodoris. Thodoris called himself a builder, idle and incompetent though he was. When he was restoring his villa, old Vasso fired him from the site, and Thodoris and the chief didn’t like it. They weren’t interested in what I had to say then, and I see no reason any of them would be interested now.’

  ‘But even so, perhaps it wasn’t wise to keep such information to yourself.’

  ‘Who says I did?’ asked the farmer.

  Within a kilometre, the road to Kolona deteriorated. Winter rains had exploited its weaknesses until its surface cracked, broke up and washed away, leaving only irregular sections of the cement intact, so now it was passable only by the most rugged of vehicles, or on foot. The fat man saw no traffic. For a while, the road followed the line and contours of the coast, before turning inland and climbing, taking a route which connected several farmsteads, where stocks of firewood were piled up in the yards and nets lay in the olive groves ready for the autumn’s harvest. It led then back to the coast, above stretches of inaccessible rock and isolated beaches surrounded by scrub, until at the top of a steep descent, he glimpsed the campanile of St Nikodemos, and a stretch of sea which must be part of Kolona’s bay.

  His pace was surprisingly quick, and by the time he reached this point, there was still another hour of evening sunlight. He found himself a seat on a tree root, and in its shade took a small vacuum flask from his hold-all, poured water into the cup which was its cap, and drank it down. He looked down at his shoes, and frowned; they were grey with dust from the road. He put away the flask. Above him in the tree branches, cicadas called; an aeroplane was passing high overhead. From the direction of Kolona, there were voices, and laughter.

  A light breeze was reaching him off the sea. He picked up his hold-all, and followed the road its remaining distance down to Kolona.

  ‘Kali spera sas.’

  The fat man had appeared unobserved and unheard on the guardhouse terrace, and the startled captain turned abruptly in his chair, jarring the table in front of him with his knee and spilling water from his glass. He glared at the fat man.