The Feast of Artemis (Mysteries of/Greek Detective 7)

by Anne Zouroudi

  ‘Was no one else under suspicion?’

  Renzo shook his head.

  ‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘I’m foreign, and I’m a poustis. I’ve never hidden what I am. So maybe I am guilty, but whether I am or not, I’m their scapegoat. In a small town like Dendra, what more perfect scapegoat could there be than a foreign poustis?’

  The fat man sipped more grappa.

  ‘In fact you make a poor scapegoat, because you are still here, in Dendra,’ he said. ‘The original idea of scapegoats was to carry bad luck or plague far away. In ancient Athens, the city kept a supply of undesirables – criminals, drunkards and paupers – to perform the role of scapegoats, and when they were needed, they were fed figs and cheese, beaten with branches and then burned, limbs first, before their ashes were scattered to the four winds. A very unpleasant fate indeed. The name for these poor souls was pharmakoi, from which we derive our modern word pharmacy, where we find cures for our ills. But as time went on, and we supposedly became more civilised, the sacrificial role was taken on by goats, who were driven out of towns or villages, taking misfortune with them. If they returned, they brought the bad luck back.’

  ‘They’d be happier, then, if I would go,’ said Renzo. ‘And if I could, I’d be only too glad to leave this place.’

  ‘I’m sure you would. The people here have treated you badly, because as you say, you are subject to their prejudice, and so an obvious target. But I think you, and they, are missing a crucial point. Scapegoats are made to shoulder the blame, but scapegoats are not the guilty.’

  After the fat man had left, Renzo sat on at the table. The bottle of grappa was by his hand, and he reached out to refill his glass, but changed his mind and instead put the bottle down by his feet. A pigeon took flight from a balcony rail above the watch-seller’s, circled and disappeared over the rooftops. The lingerie shop’s matronly owner was dabbing at the window cobwebs with a feather duster, but disappeared when Renzo looked her way.

  Xavier wheeled his bicycle into the square, carrying a batch of leaflets under his arm. When he saw Renzo, he walked in his direction, and leaned his bicycle against the gelateria wall. He held out one of the leaflets.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

  ‘Eh,’ said Renzo. ‘Not so bad. Could be better, could be worse.’

  ‘I was wondering,’ said Xavier, ‘if you might put one of these up in your window. I’m holding a candlelit vigil, and I need to get the word out.’

  Renzo took the leaflet, and read through it.

  ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Good for you, trying to change the world.’

  ‘Not the world,’ said Xavier. ‘Just one small part of it.’

  He crouched down, and rubbed the terrier’s head; the dog sighed, and rolled on to its side, encouraging Xavier to rub its belly.

  ‘Since I’m here,’ said Xavier, ‘have you got any of that banana and coconut in the freezer?’

  Renzo smiled.

  ‘I made some yesterday,’ he said. ‘Come on inside.’

  A distant church bell began to toll the sad rhythm of the passing bell, and was joined, within moments, by a second.

  Renzo listened.

  ‘Who died?’ he asked.

  ‘A Papayiannis,’ said Xavier. ‘The old man, Donatos.’

  Renzo led the way inside, and went behind the freezers. He took the scoop from its bowl of water.

  As he was wiping it dry, he said, ‘He wasn’t so old, was he? Sixty, sixty-five?’

  Xavier was peering down on to the display of ice creams, searching out the banana and coconut.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘Could I try a taste of the double chocolate?’

  Renzo picked out a wooden spoon, dipped it in the ice cream and held it out to Xavier.

  ‘What did he die of?’

  ‘This is great,’ said Xavier, licking the spoon. ‘I don’t know. Heart failure, I think. The funeral is this evening. I’ll have a scoop of that as well. With a swirl of chocolate syrup.’

  ‘He was a difficult man,’ said Renzo. ‘Still, we shouldn’t disrespect the dead. Have a scoop of the panna cotta to go with it. It’s on me.’

  Ten

  The chapel of St Laurentios was a humble building of unworked stone, whose only embellishment was a modest belfry mounted on the tiled roof. The door had been left ajar, as though someone had just left and might soon be returning, but though the fat man looked up and down the road, no one was in sight. Ducking his head under the low arch of the doorway, he went inside.

  The chapel had no windows, and the place was dark but for the light of a slender candle bent from the heat of its own flame, and a wick burning in a glass of oil and water before the largest icon of the saint. The chilled air was frowsty with mildew. Somewhere behind the modest iconostasis, water dripped on to stone.

  The fat man put nothing in the offertory box, but helped himself to a candle from the stack, lit it from the oil lamp and moved closer to the icon of St Laurentios, who stood bearded and indifferent with his gridiron and the palm leaf which signified his martyrdom. The fat man raised his candle, spreading shadowy light across the sooty walls and ceiling, and – shrouded by centuries of blackening smoke – a panoply of faded frescoes: a once-blue sky turned to night, peopled by a crowd of haloed saints, with fire-dancing demons prodding pitchforks at their feet.

  He lowered the candle, and studied the floor, a plain arrangement of flagstones worn into shallow dips where trodden most. Before the ‘beautiful door’ in the iconostasis – where only the priest was allowed to pass through into the inner sanctum – was a carving in the stone.

  He crouched to examine it, running his fingers over the simple design, eroded by time and impossible to make out in the weak light. But as he traced it, the curving lines made sense, and the fat man smiled. It was a crescent moon, the sacred symbol of the huntress goddess, Artemis.

  The Lachesis vineyard spread across the sloping sides of a ridge, from where the eastern view was of Dendra and expanses of olive groves, and to the west, a hinterland of pine-wooded hills. The narrow three-storey house seemed an anomaly, similar to the tower houses built as defences in the bleakest coastal villages of the Peloponnese. The grey stone had never been rendered, and made the house forbidding; tiny windows set high in the walls would make the interior oppressive.

  The fat man parked on the raked gravel surrounding the property, and climbed from the car, intending to approach the house; but somewhere behind, music was playing, and so instead he followed a well-worn path over grasses regenerating in the season’s coolness.

  The vines grew in rows running down the hillside, supported by wires strung between posts. The green growth of summer had all fallen away, and the vines were pruned back almost to the stubs of their trunks. Amongst them, on hands and knees with a hessian sack half-filled with weeds nearby, a slight figure in cord trousers tucked into wellingtons was digging with a hand fork; an old cassette player, once black but faded with clay dust, was turned up to full volume, broadcasting a moody nocturne.

  The fat man followed the line of the vines, expecting to be unheard over the music and that he would take the digger by surprise; but as he drew close, the figure, still kneeling, looked up at him, the eyes hidden by shadow cast by an old man’s cap.

  ‘Kali mera.’

  At the fat man’s words, the digger shoved the hand fork into the stony ground, and standing, pulled off the cap, revealing grey hair cut short but very chic, and a woman’s face tanned dark as a fisherman’s.

  ‘I’m sorry if I startled you,’ said the fat man.

  ‘You didn’t startle me,’ said the woman, with a smile which showed white teeth. ‘Maybe it’s I who surprised you?’

  The fat man returned her smile.

  ‘A little,’ he said. ‘From a distance, I took you to be a man.’

  ‘That’s the fate of the older female. We lose our charms, and our curves droop to less desirable places. And I don’t help myself by dressing in a man’s
clothes and labouring in the fields. How could you not mistake me for a man? Except now you stand beside me, you’d never make the same mistake, seeing I barely come up to your shoulder. I wouldn’t make much of a man, at my height.’

  Over the smell of turned earth, he caught a trace of her floral perfume: iris and musk.

  ‘Now we’re face to face, I see my error is absurd,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to be ungallant, and I apologise unreservedly. Allow me to introduce myself. Hermes Diaktoros, of Athens.’

  ‘Meni Gavala.’

  ‘Chairo poli.’

  She repeated his formal greeting.

  ‘You have such lovely manners,’ she said. ‘Good manners are rare in Dendra. My mother was French, and spent a lifetime trying to instil French manners into the population here, with no success whatsoever. And to make her task more difficult, she married my father, who came from the Mani, where the manners – then, at least – were about as rough as they possibly can be without people actually killing each other. When we moved here, he built this house in the Mani style. He never forgot his heritage of vendettas and constant in-fighting. I suppose he thought if we ever went to war with the neighbours, we could be safe from attack on the third floor.’

  ‘And are you at war with your neighbours?’

  ‘I’m pleased to say I have no near neighbours, though in Dendra, the war between certain neighbours keeps the gossips entertained for hours. But I’m sure you’re not here to gossip. What can I do for you, Kyrie Diaktoros?’

  ‘I’ve been drinking your wine over the past couple of days, and I’m impressed. I’m here hoping I might buy some.’

  The music came to a climactic end, beyond which the everyday sounds of the place – the whisper of a breeze, bird calls, the distant sound of machinery in the olive groves – were amplified.

  ‘The music was beautiful,’ said the fat man. ‘Was it Debussy?’

  ‘No, Fauré. The vines prefer him.’ Meni laughed. ‘You’ll think me mad, of course, but my mother taught me the value of playing music to the vines. She came from a Burgundy family. Some of these vines are imported from there, cuttings from old family rootstock, but they don’t flourish. The soil here isn’t ideal for French varieties. I have a few grapes from them, and they add interest to the vintage, but it’s my Agiorghitiko grapes which are the stars of this vineyard. They’re of this place, and everything is perfect for them, both soil and climate. But all the vines do better with music. An hour or so a day lifts their spirits as it lifts ours. This time of year, when the vines are resting, I play them something soothing, like the Fauré. In spring, I wake them gently with Mozart or Vivaldi, and in summer when they’re working their hardest, I rouse them with Greek dances, their native music. That in part gives the wine its quality. You may not agree, but I’m convinced of it.’

  ‘And does your husband go along with your unorthodoxy?’

  The smile left her face.

  ‘My husband, sadly, is not here to approve or disapprove of anything I do. The vineyard was always my work, my family’s work, though he was always happy to drink his share. But it’s been a long time since he and I opened a bottle together.’

  ‘Forgive me. Are you a widow, then?’

  ‘You think I’m unorthodox because I don’t wear black?’

  ‘Unorthodoxy is generally something I applaud.’

  ‘If I knew for sure he was dead, then I’d wear black. But I’ve no proof. He was, or is, an engineer, and took a contract out in South America. Six months, he should have been gone. That was sixteen years ago. They tell me he and a friend went exploring the jungle, and never came back. The friend, they say, was blonde. Which is extraordinary – I never knew him to show interest in blondes before. He always said he preferred brunettes. So I may or may not be a widow. Maybe I should have claimed the status, but I hate to wear black – it’s so unflattering on a woman my age. And in a corner of my heart, I hope the vines will call him home. I still write to him. Every month, I write to where I know he last was.’ She looked towards the distant hills, and was lost in thought, until she seemed to come back to herself. ‘Enough of an old woman’s ramblings! We need more music!’ She bent down to the cassette player, reversed the cassette and pressed the play button. A fresh piece of music began, the gentle lilt of a piano. ‘Les romances sans paroles. They’ll enjoy this. Now, to business. Shall we?’

  He followed her between the rows, but she led him not towards the front of the house, but to the back, through an orchard of mixed trees all picked clean of their fruit. The fat man stopped beneath one, and looked up at a single plum withering on a high branch, just beyond his reach.

  ‘This plum,’ he said, ‘what is it?’

  ‘An old variety of damson,’ said Meni. ‘The flavour’s excellent – you can make jelly with it, or eat it as a dessert, and it goes very well with goats’ cheese – but it’s very susceptible to blight. I have an interest in preserving old varieties, the traditional fruits our grandparents knew. I planted all these trees myself. You’ll see they’re all quite young, only adolescents of the tree world, but they’re old enough to produce decent crops. The fashion for hybrids disturbs me. In the search for quantity, we have sacrificed so much quality.’

  ‘Isn’t that the crux of your local feud?’

  Meni considered.

  ‘I suppose in a way, yes. The argument there though isn’t over varieties. They’ve both got what their ancestors planted, and are lucky for it, I’d say. Their dispute’s over maximising production. I can’t see how the traditional way can’t be best. You see this apricot? Its ancestors were around at the time of Jesus. The fruit’s not as sweet as modern taste likes it, but again the flavour is superb. And can we not add a little sugar or honey ourselves?’

  ‘And this looks something like an almond.’

  ‘Again, an old cultivar. You see I have several of its modern counterparts, over here. The nuts are very flavourful, but the yield is low. I think it’s so important to see beyond profits, and keep sight of what has value. I’ve made this orchard my life’s work. I’m proud of it, and it will be my legacy. I’ve no granddaughter to carry my name, as in the Greek tradition, so I shall carve my initials in these tree trunks. Everyone should have a legacy. Don’t you agree?’

  The fat man considered.

  ‘If only it were so,’ he said. ‘Too many souls who spend time on this earth are left with no lasting memorial, not even a stone to their name. Maybe we should do no more than ask to be remembered for our deeds.’

  ‘But what about those who die too young to have deeds to remember? What about them?’

  ‘Then we should remember their smiles, and their joyful innocence.’

  ‘You’re a wise man, Kyrie Diaktoros,’ she said. ‘Come inside, and let’s find you some wine.’

  Meni led him into an untidy kitchen, leaving open the door to supplement the weak light from a small window. The room smelled of good things, both sweet and savoury. A cake dusted with icing sugar was cooling on a board; on the stove, over a flame so low it was barely visible, a pot of lamb was stewing with onions and herbs.

  ‘You’ll see I’m no typical Greek housewife,’ she said. ‘I’m one of nature’s untidiest creatures. I drove my husband almost mad with my messiness. Still, I was and am a decent cook. My daughter’ll be here in a while. I don’t see her as often as I’d like, and I like to feed her well whenever I get the chance. She’s quite capable of feeding herself, of course, but I love to have someone to cook for. I cook for everyone.’

  ‘It smells delicious,’ said the fat man. ‘Your daughter’s a lucky woman.’

  She went to a small door in a corner of the kitchen, turned the Yale lock and slipped the catch to keep it open.

  ‘Here’s the main reason this house was built here,’ she says. ‘There was a cave in the hillside, big enough to make a decent cellar. My mother insisted she could never live in a house without a cellar in this climate, and I agree with her. In summer, you must have somewhere
cool, but not so cold as a fridge. Fridges have their place, but they destroy the flavour of some foods, fruits especially. The entrance wasn’t here, it was away down the hill. My father had a new entrance excavated here, and blocked the natural entrance from within the cellar, at the back. My father was no fool. He knew that to build a wine cellar with public access was to invite everyone in the district to come and help themselves. But the steps are steep, and a little uneven. I think it might be better if you waited here.’

  ‘Whatever you suggest.’

  On a shelf inside the cellar door was a clay bowl, moulded in the shape of a mussel shell, with wings drawn up at one end to form a hole through which a string poked. The bowl was half-filled with oil. Meni patted her trouser pockets, and found a book of matches carrying the name and number of a firm of roofers, struck a match and lit the end of the string.

  ‘That’s an intriguing lamp,’ said the fat man.

  ‘It’s one of my treasures, bought for me by my husband on one of his trips. It’s supposed to be genuine Mycenaean, but I salve my conscience from guilt regarding hoarding antiquities with the thought that it’s probably a fake. It’s an ingenious thing, so simple yet so effective, and quite safe. Olive oil won’t burn without a wick, so if I spill a little here and there, it doesn’t matter. It’s much cheaper than batteries, and more reliable than a torch. There’re no electrics down there. For years I ran this place off a generator, and when they installed mains electricity, they forgot all about the cellar. The old generator’s still down there. I crank it up if the power goes off, which it seems to do almost every time it rains.’