‘Your father’s chef here, then?’
‘He is.’
‘And does he share your politics?’
‘He has his own politics. He’s taught me to think for myself. But he was at the Polytechnic uprising in seventy-three.’
‘Was he? I witnessed those events myself.’
She looked at him, scrutinising his face, unselfconsciously trying to determine his age; but though there was grey in his hair, close inspection showed no wrinkles to support a diagnosis of middle age.
‘You don’t look old enough to have been there,’ she said, mistrustfully. ‘You must be younger than my dad.’
‘Maybe time has been kinder to me than to him,’ said the fat man. ‘Is he a good cook?’
‘One of the best.’
‘Then tell him I’m hungry, and to send out whatever he thinks I should eat.’
She brought him, first, his ouzo, then a dozen tail-on prawns, fried in crisp cauls of kataifa pastry, with garlicky dips of yogurt with dill, and roasted aubergines with fennel seeds. When he had cleared his plate, she brought him the braised veal, a crumbling of kefalotyri cheese added as it was served, and melting into the sauce.
When she came to clear his second course, he was sitting back in his chair, hands on his stomach.
‘Truly excellent,’ he said. ‘Your father’s a very good cook.’
‘I’ll tell him you said so.’
From the kitchen came a shout.
‘Arethusa! Table four!’
She picked up his plate and the bread basket.
‘That’ll be your dessert.’
‘Is there dessert?’ asked the fat man, doubtfully. ‘I don’t know whether I should.’
‘You should,’ said Arethusa. ‘I make the desserts.’
‘Then it would be ungallant of me to refuse. I shall be wanting Greek coffee afterwards, no sugar.’
‘Amessos.’
Dessert was a cinnamon-sprinkled rice pudding, served with poached quinces in orange-flower syrup. The fat man ate very slowly, but by the time Arethusa brought him his coffee, his bowl was empty.
‘How was it?’ she asked.
‘Delicious,’ he said. ‘I promised myself I would eat only a taste, but as you see, that taste led to my finishing the whole dish. You make a creditable apprentice to your father.’
‘My future’s not in cooking,’ she said. ‘I want to make a difference in people’s lives.’
‘And can you not do that here, by giving them the pleasure of food?’
‘Life’s not about pleasure, when so many don’t have money to eat at all. They need champions to fight on their behalf. That’s what I want to do.’
‘And what does your father say about that?’
‘He says I should find myself a husband, and settle down.’
‘His ambitions for you are rather modest. Will you go along with them?’
She gave him a smile, which – despite the severity of her haircut and her unfeminine clothes – made her very attractive.
‘I’m not the dutiful type,’ she said, and left him to his coffee.
Thirteen
After lunch, the fat man dozed away an hour at the wheel of his car, undisturbed by passing traffic and the shouts of schoolboys kicking a football between themselves as they made their way to the nearby park. Refreshed, he roused himself, and drove with his usual care to the outskirts of Neochori.
The entrance to the St Panteleimon hospital was flanked by palm trees. Opaque glass orbs – which had, at one time, lit up – were mounted on the gatepost pillars, and on the orbs were painted red crosses, and serpent-entwined staffs of Asklepios, the god of healing. Beyond the driveway, the post-war hospital building was four storeys of cheap construction and peeling paint. The hedges lining the footpaths were straggly with unchecked growth; cars were parked on the flattened clay of what had once been flowerbeds.
The fat man parked in a tight space by a statue of the hospital’s most generous benefactor, and locked the car. The benefactor’s marble shoulders were spattered with pigeon droppings, and his pedestal was scribbled with graffiti: the rising green sun of PASOK socialists, a football fan’s support for AEK. In a freshening wind, a plastic cup blew along the edge of the kerb. Below a notice ordering Ambulances Only stood two taxis, whose drivers were relaxing on a nearby bench. One was eating a gyros, wiping up with a finger a dribble of oily liquid which ran from the wrapper on to his leg, and oblivious to the other, who was declaiming against the poor treatment his wife had suffered at the hospital when admitted for an emergency hysterectomy.
‘In agony she was,’ he was saying as the fat man passed, ‘and they gave her nothing for the pain. When they cut her open, everything popped out like a champagne cork.’
In the reception area, the soles of the fat man’s tennis shoes squeaked on the polished floor. On banks of uncomfortable chairs, people were waiting. A young mother comforted a grizzling, feverish toddler, whilst her own mother nursed a teated bottle of water and a box of rusks. A brawny man was holding his hand vertical, his middle three fingers voluminously bandaged, his work-boots caked in dirt. A woman with a gauze patch over one eye was picking at hangnails. And with his arm in a new sling, asleep in the corner, was Dino.
It had been the fat man’s intention to speak to the receptionist, but instead he made his way between the rows of chairs. Dino’s mouth was open, his head back, his breathing loud and guttural. His clothes were still the same (though the yellow T-shirt was very dirty now, and he had acquired from somewhere a knitted hat, which he was clutching to his chest), and the odour coming off him of stale alcohol and sweat overrode even the hospital smells of carbolic, boiled greens and frying fish.
The fat man frowned. He put out a hand to shake Dino awake, but changed his mind, and crossed to the reception desk.
The receptionist had squeezed herself into a uniform sizes too small, and the blouse buttons gaped across her chest. On her overloaded desk was a vase of radiant flowers – purple iris, scented roses, frothy sprays of gypsophila – but the vase was inadequate for both their quantity and quality, and whilst the flowers were fresh, a number were already wilting from broken stems. Tucked behind the vase was a packet of expensive biscuits – German wafers covered in dark chocolate – and on the receptionist’s breast, above her name badge, was a tell-tale crumb of the same chocolate. She was searching a stack of patient files, some holding only a page or two, some bulging with paperwork. As he reached her, she pulled a folder from the stack, placed it to one side, and looked up at him expectantly.
‘Yassas,’ he said.
An ambulance drew up outside; finding his parking space taken by taxis, the driver gave a blast on the siren. Dino shifted in his chair. One of the taxi drivers reluctantly stood, and prepared to move his car.
‘May I help you?’ asked the receptionist.
‘I’m here to see a patient of yours,’ said the fat man. ‘Dmitris Kapsis.’
But his last words were lost, as a determined woman in a blue overall started up a floor polisher, and began gliding it over the gleaming floor. The receptionist gave the cleaner a look of annoyance, and was leaning forward to ask the fat man to repeat himself, but her phone rang, and she answered it.
‘I’ve found it,’ she said into the receiver. ‘It’s here, on my desk, but you’ll have to come and get it. I can’t leave reception.’
Outside, the ambulance parked in front of the doors. The co-driver jumped out, and walked smartly to the rear of the vehicle. The cleaner drew closer to reception, and the receptionist hung up the phone. She seemed distracted; her plump hand was on the patient file.
‘Dmitris Kapsis?’ prompted the fat man. ‘Where will I find him?’
Still not hearing him, the receptionist shook her head impatiently, and leaned towards him.
‘Dmitris Kapsis.’
Understanding at last, she reached out for a clipboard, and searched the ward lists for the name.
‘Are you a relativ
e?’ she asked.
The fat man hesitated.
‘A friend to the family,’ he said.
‘In that case, you can’t see him,’ said the receptionist, and she laid down the clipboard. ‘Dr Fitanidis has said close family only.’
The fat man cupped his ear.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Close family only,’ she repeated. ‘Dr Fitanidis says so.’
The ambulance’s rear doors were open, and the driver was putting a ramp in place. The co-driver strode into the reception area and glanced around.
‘Eh, Toula!’ he shouted to the receptionist. ‘I need a wheelchair!’
‘We haven’t got any,’ she called back. ‘They’ve taken them all up to the wards, and they never bring them back.’
‘They’ve got three on B ward,’ remarked the cleaner, moving the polisher close to the fat man’s feet, ‘standing about doing nothing, getting in my way.’
‘You’ll have to fetch one from there,’ the receptionist told the ambulance man. ‘And tell them to return the rest.’
The ambulance man headed for the hospital’s interior. After a moment, the receptionist picked up the patient file and called after him, ‘Adonis! Wait! Can you take this up to Dr Fitanidis’s office? He’s asking for it urgently.’
But over the floor polisher, the ambulance man didn’t hear, and disappeared.
The receptionist looked anxious. She reached out for a biscuit.
‘Those look very good,’ said the fat man. ‘I have something of a sweet tooth myself. Do you have a cafeteria here?’
‘Second floor.’ She bit into her biscuit.
‘May I help out?’ he suggested. ‘I’m sure it’s highly irregular, but I assure you I am trustworthy. Might I be your messenger, and carry your file to Dr Fitanidis?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ she said, sharply. ‘These are confidential records.’
‘As you wish,’ he said, and turned away. But the phone on her desk rang again, and rather than answer it, she picked up the file.
‘Kyrie!’ The fat man stopped. ‘If you wouldn’t mind just saying you’re family. His secretary’s on the first floor, straight ahead at the top of the stairs, second door on the right.’
The fat man made his way along the first-floor corridor, stepping aside for shuffling patients in bathrobes and slippers, one pushing his own drip-stand on squeaky wheels, another clutching his stomach as if afraid of losing his guts if he let go. Two doctors in shirtsleeves and stethoscopes puzzled over a patient’s chart. In a janitor’s closet, someone was clattering buckets and mops. A nurse with a drugs trolley leaned, arms folded, against the wall, unable to wheel the trolley past a stepladder whilst the electrician at its top fiddled with a screwdriver in an overhead duct.
Dr Fitanidis’s name plate was engraved in loud capitals; alongside his name, it listed his degrees, memberships and qualifications, which the fat man noted, and with an expression suggesting he was impressed, he entered the office.
The doctor’s secretary was an extremely attractive girl with long, black hair put up in an elegant chignon; she was typing, listening to dictation through a set of earphones, and noticed the fat man only when his shadow fell across her desk. The door between her office and the doctor’s was closed. She pressed a button to stop the dictaphone and removed the earphones.
‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m playing messenger,’ said the fat man, with a smile. ‘I brought this from downstairs.’
The file was labelled with Dmitris’s name and a code, B14.
She took the file and read the label.
‘At last.’ She left her seat, walked gracefully and with a slight sashay to the doctor’s office, knocked briefly and without waiting for a response, went inside. There was a murmur of voices.
When she returned to her desk, the secretary picked up her earphones, preparing to go back to her work.
‘I wonder if I might have a brief word with Dr Fitanidis?’ asked the fat man.
‘On what matter?’
‘Regarding a patient of his, Dmitris Kapsis.’
‘Are you a relative?’
‘I have an interest in his case.’
‘But are you a relative?’
‘No.’
‘Then I’m afraid it’s out of the question.’ She replaced her earphones, taking care not to disturb her chignon.
‘Perhaps I could wait, and ask him myself if he would talk to me?’
‘Impossible. His schedule is very tight. He has a patient with him now, and he’s due in theatre in half an hour. If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.’
‘What if I had the family’s agreement? He would speak with me then, no doubt.’
‘I expect so. If you had an appointment. Otherwise, I’m afraid the answer’s no.’
Back in the corridor, the fat man stopped at the foot of the stepladder. As he looked up, the screwdriver fell from the electrician’s hand. The electrician swore; the fat man picked up the screwdriver, and held it up to the electrician.
‘That’s awkward work,’ he said. ‘And complicated. The logic of electricity has always baffled me.’
The electrician looked down on him, taking in his hold-all, his clothes, and his shoes.
‘There’s not much to it,’ he said, ‘once you’ve mastered the basic principle. Which is that, if you get it wrong, at best it’ll sting a bit, at worst it’ll kill you.’
‘It sounds as if you have a healthy respect for it. Has it ever caught you out?’
‘Once, in my early days.’ The electrician descended a couple of steps. ‘Here, take a look at this.’ He pushed up his sleeve to show a large patch of his forearm skin, which was hairless, very smooth and pink. ‘Like a fool, I set myself on fire. And let me tell you, there’s no pain like it. It was burned right down to the bone, so badly there was talk of my losing the arm altogether. Even when it healed, it was so hideous my own wife couldn’t bear to touch it. But that man in there . . .’ He pointed his screwdriver at Dr Fitanidis’s door. ‘He’s a miracle-worker, a magician. He saw it one day after I started working here, and we got talking. He wanted to know what butcher had worked on it, and offered to do me a better job. I was reluctant, but he persuaded me, and the result’s what you see here. He put it right, almost as good as new.’
‘It was Dr Fitanidis I wanted to see,’ said the fat man, ‘but understandably, he’s a very busy man. As it happens, it’s a burns case I’m interested in, but not being a family member, I can’t get an appointment. Yet your story confirms that he’s the man I should talk to.’
The electrician considered.
‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this,’ he said, ‘but if it’s in someone’s best interests . . . The doctor has his diversions, as we all do, and he takes his pleasures very often up at Argiri Lake. I’m not saying you’ll find him alone. If you’ve been in there, you’ve seen the girl who works for him, and if she’s providing other services, he’s a lucky man. But when he’s not here, if the weather’s decent, that’s where you’re most likely to find him.’
Bed B14 was not on the open ward but in a side room. A handwritten note taped to the closed door warned against entry, and of the risk of infection. In the passageway outside the room, despondent members of the Kapsis family – a young woman with the child the fat man had seen in Marianna’s care, a youth not much older than the boy in the bed, a man who from his looks was father to both Dmitris and the youth – sat on a row of chairs with their backs to the wall, with the necessities for their vigil around their feet: water and fruit juice, blankets and newspapers, gifts of food from relatives and neighbours, toys to entertain the child.
The fat man greeted the family respectfully and glanced through the window separating the passageway from the side room. Dmitris Kapsis lay motionless in the bed. A mask of gauze was tied over his face; the square-cut holes for his eyes, mouth and nose gave repugnant glimpses of scabbing flesh glistening with ointments. From the waist down, he was covered
in a carefully folded sheet and blanket; above the waist, he was naked, except for gauze wrapping his right arm and shoulder. A drip fed fluids into a vein on his left hand, and to his stomach through a feeding tube threaded into his nostril. At the bedside, his mother sat on a hard chair, her hair tucked into a paper cap, a hospital gown over her clothes, holding his hand between her own, on which she wore surgical gloves.
‘I saw his accident,’ said the fat man to the relatives. ‘How is he?’
‘Accident!’ The youth drew in his cheeks to spit his disgust, but remembered where he was. ‘Since when is a shove in the back an accident?’
‘Leave it,’ said his father. ‘The gentleman’s good enough to ask after your brother. He’s as you see, Kyrie.’ His eyes were swollen from tears, and he wiped away more. ‘They’re doing all they can. But the pain he’s in when they do what they have to do! Every time they change the dressings, he’s in agony! We’re going this evening to offer prayers, to ask for some relief from his suffering.’
The fat man looked in again at Dmitris, who was moving his head and becoming restless. His mother let go of his hand and came to the window, pointing to her wrist where a watch would be and mouthing her words so as not to disturb her son.
‘Tell them it’s time for his morphine,’ she said. ‘Tell them to be quick, he’s in pain.’
‘If I can do anything to help him, I shall,’ said the fat man to Dmitris’s father as he left. ‘In the meantime, I hope your saints will respond to your prayers.’
In reception, the seat Dino had occupied was empty. The ambulance was gone. One of the taxi drivers sat alone on the bench, chewing open-mouthed on a piece of gum, a foot crossed over his thigh.
‘You wanting a taxi?’ he asked, when he noticed the fat man.
‘Thank you, no. I have my own car. I was wondering if you saw a relative of mine leave a short while ago? Scruffy, long hair and a yellow T-shirt, arm in a sling?’
‘Your relative, is he?’ asked the taxi driver with a smile. ‘He’s a live wire, isn’t he? Had us both in stitches, he did.’
The Feast of Artemis (Mysteries of/Greek Detective 7) Page 17