From the Devil's Farm

by Leta Serafim

  “You report them?” If so, there’d be a police record, possibly the names of Sami Alnasseri’s friends.

  “No, never. How could I? Report a child for stealing food? You see how they live, worse than us during the war.”

  “You have any idea who might have killed him?”

  “No. Everybody on Sifnos is talking about it. ‘Not ours,’ they say. ‘The dead boy was one of theirs.’ I don’t like it. It’s as if he doesn’t matter.”

  “I heard two men were harassing the migrants. You know who they were, who might want to harm these people?”

  “There’ve been a couple of incidents here and in Kamares,” the woman said. “Fights, mostly. Nothing like this.” She hesitated, “Some of them are my people. I know their families and we grew up together on Sifnos. One or two are from Athens.”

  “Please. I need their names. It might be important.”

  “The worst are Costas and Achilles Kourelas. Start with them and you’ll find the rest.”

  Patronas gave her his phone number. “There’s a reward,” he said. “If this leads to anything, I’ll see that you get it.”

  “I don’t want a reward. He was a little boy. We should have made room for him and his people among us. We should have fed them and made them feel welcome.”

  After leaving the store, Patronas visited a few other houses, seeking to verify what he now knew; that a boy named Sami Alnasseri had once lived in the vicinity, a child who was hungry and stole food. But again, nothing came of it.

  Seeing an elderly woman harvesting figs along the side of the road, he stopped and spoke to her. The air was thick with wasps, drawn by the rotting fruit, and she batted them away with her hand while they talked. An old-fashioned villager, she was dressed entirely in black, a kerchief on her head and tsokara, crude heavy sandals, on her feet.

  “I might have seen him,” she said. “Some boys play in the street here sometimes, running around shouting. He might have been with them. I don’t pay much attention. Anyway, I wouldn’t have understood what they were saying, not that jibber jabber of theirs.”

  She turned back to her work, plucking a fig from the tree and dropping it into the straw basket at her feet. “Not enough for us and now they come. We should sink those rafts.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  When crows sing, the righteous take flight.

  —Greek Proverb

  “Costas Kourelas and his son, Achilles, are pretty unsavory characters,” Petros Nikolaidis told Patronas. “They’re members of that right wing political party, Chrisi Avgi, the Golden Dawn. I’ve had numerous run-ins with them. They’re violent men. You never know what they’ll do.”

  “We’ll take Tembelos and Evangelos Demos with us. If nothing else, we’ll outnumber the renegades. And if there is a fight, Evangelos Demos’ sheer bulk will ensure victory. All he’ll have to do was sit on them.”

  “A tank would be better,” Nikolaidis said. “They’re enormous, those two, an army unto themselves.”

  “How many members of Chrisi Avgi are there on Sifnos?”

  “Not many. Ten, fifteen at most. As in the rest of Greece, they’ve gotten more powerful over the last couple years, recruited more people into the party. Two members beat up a Pakistani man not too long ago. But the victim refused to testify, so I had to let them go. I’m pretty sure the son, Achilles Kourelas, was the instigator of the attack. He’s pure poison, talks about exterminating the migrants like they were cockroaches.”

  “He from Sifnos?” Patronas asked.

  “No. Athens, I think. Works odd jobs on the island with his father, picking fruit and helping out on the farms, repairing cars and motorcycles. Whatever he can find.”

  Patronas parked the car alongside the road, and Nikolaidis guided them down a steep slope. They were far to the north of Apollonia in a rocky wasteland, high above the sea. There’d been mines in the area at some point; Patronas could see slag heaps glimmering on the hills, frozen streams made up of chips of metallic stone. Untended olive trees clung to the cliffs, their leaves rippling in the wind.

  Costas Kourelas and his son lived in a small building about half a kilometer from the road. Patronas doubted they owned the property. Most probably the two were squatting there, the land being too poor to farm. Engine parts littered the yard, the soil greasy under them, and tattered shades hid the interior from view, the windows streaked with filth. Little more than a shed, it had probably housed animals at one time—chickens, would have been Patronas’ guess. A pair of bucket seats from a sports car were sitting outside the house. Well-used, evidently they were Achilles and Costa Kourelas’ idea of lawn furniture.

  Patronas observed it all with a sinking heart. This is what happens when men don’t have wives or mothers to look after them, he told himself, repelled by the junkyard feel of the place. And here I am, going down that same road, no doubt about it. He recalled the tottering pile of pizza boxes on the floor of his office, the sink where he shaved every morning, caked with gray whiskers and toothpaste. Tembelos was right. He needed to get back on that horse and ride it. Giddy-up, giddy-up.

  Standing behind him, Tembelos whispered, “Katapatoun,” squatters.

  “Meros gia gourounia,” Patronas whispered back. Pigs.

  Costas Kourelas was kneeling next to a massive truck engine, tinkering with a screwdriver, his son standing beside him. Neither appeared happy to see them.

  Both men had shaved heads and the physiques of bodybuilders, the muscles of the older man softening now in middle age and giving way to fat. Bare-chested, he was wearing a wide leather belt around his waist to support his back.

  His son, Achilles, had shoulders like a Russian shot putter and looked like he weighed half a ton. As he stood there in the sun, his skull gleamed as if oiled.

  Judging by their living conditions, they didn’t have enough money to pay for a barber, Patronas concluded, looking them over. Probably took turns wielding a razor. Father would scalp the son, and then the son would return the favor. Not exactly Nazi Stormtroopers, they were more like strongmen in the circus.

  “How do you do,” he said politely, introducing himself. “I’m Chief Inspector Yiannis Patronas of the Chios Police Department, and these are my colleagues: Officers Evangelos Demos, Giorgos Tembelos, and Petros Nikolaidis.”

  Grunting, the older man got to his feet. His fingers were black with oil and he wiped them on a rag. “Costas Kourelas,” he said gruffly and shook Patronas’ hand. “You’re here about that dead kid, aren’t you? Anything happens to the migrants, it’s on us.”

  His Greek was heavy, poli vari, his accent that of a maggas, a member of an urban underclass rarely seen anymore. In the old days, men who spoke like Kourelas were known for their combativeness, rough individuals who picked fights and knifed others in nightclubs. The reasons never amounted to much—the offender might have eyed a girlfriend or interrupted a song they liked—it was more a point of honor with them. A slight, be it perceived or actual, always had to be dealt with. It could not be allowed to pass.

  Strange, a man like that taking up residence here.

  His son, Achilles Kourelas, picked up a wrench and began banging it against the engine. Metal against metal, the sound was deafening, and there was menace in the gesture. “Go ahead, talk,” he growled. “We’re listening.”

  “I heard you two are members of the Chrisi Avgi,” Patronas said.

  “So what if we are?” the father said. “It’s a legitimate party. There’s nothing criminal about it.”

  “A migrant child was killed two days ago—”

  Kourelas interrupted him. “Murdering kids isn’t part of Chrisi Avgi’s agenda. All we want to do is to protect our homeland, to keep Greece for the Greeks.”

  “You beat up a man in Kamares. A migrant from Pakistan.”

  “Stories.” He nodded to Petros Nikolaidis. “Your friend here has it in for me.”

  Wrench in hand, Achilles Kourelas continued to pound the engine. “The only language those
people understand is violence. Car bombs and guns,” he shouted. “They fucking behead people. You let them in, there’ll be mosques on every corner, imams on loudspeakers five times a day.”

  “It’s simple,” his father said. “We don’t want them here with their honor killings and crap, Sharia. Halal. Everybody hates them. The only difference is we have the guts to say it. As for that kid, someone in the camp did it. They’re not like us, those people. They’re backward. You heard what happened to that Greek girl on Paros. A Pakistani raped her and beat her half to death.”

  “That’s what this was about?” Patronas asked. “Revenge?”

  “We’d never lay a hand on a kid,” Achilles Kourelas insisted. “Nobody in Chrisi Avgi would. It’s like my father says—one of those men in Platys Gialos did that boy. Carved him up because he was a Kurd maybe. A Sunni instead of a Shiite.”

  “You ever been to Thanatos?” Patronas asked, watching them.

  The older man answered without hesitation, “Yeah, we went there once when we first got here. We were out shooting birds and we stumbled across it. I climbed up to take a look and climbed back down again.”

  A complicated answer.

  “When was this?” Patronas asked.

  “A year ago.”

  Patronas and Nikolaidis looked at each other, both thinking the same thing: if they found their DNA on the platform, they’d have them. Both men were certainly strong enough to carry a ten-year-old boy up to the platform and kill him. Means, motive, and opportunity. Costas and Achilles Kourelas had all three.

  “Tell me about the Pakistani you assaulted,” Patronas said. “What did he do to you? Why’d you go after him?”

  “Because he was fucking here,” Achilles Kourelas shouted, pointing to the ground with the wrench.

  He continued in this vein for more than ten minutes, actually using the word, cleanse, katharisoume, a couple of times when talking about the migrants. It was a poisonous speech, a litany of hate.

  “Careful, Achilles,” his father said.

  Although Patronas and his men kept after them, they got little information, only a festering sense of grievance and rage.

  Patronas was sure both had been arrested before, probably even done jail time. Hard as he tried, he found them impossible to intimidate. Costas Kourelas kept mocking him, asking which of them, he or Nikolaidis, was playing ‘good cop’ and which was playing ‘bad.’

  “I think it might be you, Chief Officer,” he said at one point. “Short as you are, you’re tough. A real kolopetsomenos.” Leather ass.

  Nor was there any physical evidence on them that Patronas could see, injuries that might warrant further investigation. Neither had any scratches on his hands or forearms, chest, or neck—wounds a child might inflict, seeking to fend them off. No visible bruises.

  Achilles Kourelas went back to pounding the wrench. A steady, thunderous drumbeat in the late afternoon stillness.

  Sounding the alarm, warning his fellow Greeks the barbarians were coming.

  The Greek poet Cavavy had written a poem called “Waiting for the Barbarians.” Patronas had always liked it and he could still recall a couple of lines. Something about how everyone was waiting for the barbarians, who never came and perhaps no longer existed, which was unfortunate because those people had been ‘a kind of solution.’

  The recent influx of migrants gave these two men a cause, gave meaning—however desperate and bleak—to their lives, as did their membership in the Golden Dawn, a political party that espoused racism and hate. As Cavavy had pointed out, it was a symbiotic relationship. Without the migrants, Costas and Achilles Kourelas would be nothing.

  “Can you vouch for your whereabouts two days ago?” Patronas asked.

  “Sure.” Achilles Kourelas slammed the wrench down again. “We were both here, same as now. We didn’t leave.”

  Saying they had nothing to hide, the two agreed to be fingerprinted and held out their hands. Patronas also swabbed them for DNA, inspected their Greek identification cards and handed them back.

  “One last question: who else was involved in the beating of that Pakistani in Kamares?” he asked.

  “You want us to sell out our friends?” Taking a step closer, Achilles threw the wrench at Patronas, striking him on the side of his head. “You filthy baskinas!” You miserable pig!

  Crying out in pain, Patronas stumbled back and fell, blood streaming into his eyes. Achilles was on him in a second, shouting abuse and kicking him in the ribs. He was about to bring the wrench down again when Evangelos Demos sailed into him like an airborne whale, tackled him and threw him to the ground.

  “You’re under arrest!” he shouted.

  Pulling Kourelas’ arms behind his back, he handcuffed him and dragged him off in the direction of the car.

  Costas Kourelas helped Patronas to his feet. Worried, he dabbed at his wounded brow with his oily rag and within minutes was able to staunch the bleeding.

  Fearing the contaminants the rag contained, Patronas winced. From the look of it, it had served many purposes during its lifetime, perhaps even done duty as toilet paper.

  “You’re going to have a hell of a bruise,” Kourelas said.

  Tembelos put his arm around Patronas and together they limped up the hill to the car. Patronas’ aching ribs weren’t his only problem. He didn’t know how they were going to get back to Apollonia. There wasn’t enough room in the Rav for everyone, not with that ham-fisted monster, Achilles Kourelas, in tow. They’d probably have to make two trips.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Too many opinions sink the boat.

  —Greek Proverb

  The municipality building in Apollonia had once been a ‘C class’ hotel. And, like all the government offices Patronas had ever visited, it remained ‘C class,’ The musty, claustrophobic space had no air conditioning, and the rooms were stifling. Little fans whirled on the desks, ruffling piles of papers like decks of cards being shuffled. The entire place reeked of mildew and angst, a fitting summation in his mind for the current state of the Greek civil service.

  Standing there in the lobby with Petros Nikolaidis and Evangelos Demos, he felt like he’d stepped back in time, to the era when cement had been the material of choice and Soviet architecture had been the inspiration.

  Earlier he’d stopped off at the local medical center, a modern building near the center of Apollonia. The doctor in charge, a kindly young man doing his alternative military service, had assured him he had nothing to worry about—his wounds were minor. He didn’t have a concussion, nor were his internal organs in danger. “Ice might help.”

  After much discussion with his boss in Athens, he had been forced to release the younger Kourelas on his own recognizance, pending a formal hearing. The prisoner had sworn in a written statement that Patronas had frightened him, causing him to lose his balance and drop the wrench on his head. The whole thing had been an unfortunate accident, and he was very, very sorry. Chrisi Avgi had a lawyer on its payroll, a slick operator from Athens who’d briefed Achilles by phone on what to say.

  It was a preposterous situation, but Stathis had counseled Patronas not to get caught up in an assault case now. “Lawyers here are talking about going out on strike, and if they do, the judicial system will shut down. You could get hung up indefinitely. Focus on the murder instead. You can go after Kourelas later. As they say, ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.’ ”

  “I don’t want revenge, sir. He assaulted me. I want to enforce the law.”

  “Never mind the law,” Stathis said.

  “But that’s my job. I’m a cop. I’m sworn to uphold it.”

  “Your job is to follow orders,” Stathis yelled and slammed down the phone.

  And that was that.

  Worse for Patronas was the fact that he was now indebted to Evangelos Demos for saving his life. He’d have to tiptoe around that fathead until he retired. And knowing Evangelos, he’d remind him of the debt every chance he got.

  After h
is associate shot the goats, Patronas meant to confiscate his service revolver, a worrisome lapse, given that Evangelos was perfectly capable of shooting up, not just goats, but any living thing, Patronas included. Most probably in the back.

  On all sides, idiots: Stathis, Evangelos, Papa Michalis with his psalms and his prayers. Even Tembelos had been acting up.

  His friend remained deeply uneasy about the case. “We should get out of here,” he’d told Patronas on the ride back from the clinic. “Go back to Chios. Tell Stathis to fuck himself.”

  “Justice,” Patronas reminded him. “Justice for the kid.”

  “I say we forget about justice this time. Just this once, we let it go.”

  “Why? You afraid?”

  “Of course I’m afraid. I don’t want this killer anywhere near me. I don’t want to look into his eyes or breathe the same air. You saw what just happened. This case is going to kill you, Yiannis. Mark my words, it’s going to break your heart.”

  A gloomy space with dirty white walls, the so-called murder room was full of boxes and broken-down office equipment, non-functioning printers and computer monitors, listing chairs. The only light was a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, which would have been fine except that it kept going out—an electric short of some kind—and leaving Patronas in total darkness.

  He was sitting at a desk in the corner, painstakingly entering the day’s events in the murder book. His men were off eating dinner and Nikolaidis had returned home for the night, so he had the place to himself. He’d bought a bag of tyropitas, cheese pies, at a snack bar in Apollonia and walked back here to the office. Something nagged at him, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He thought if he reviewed his notes, it might come to him. So far, no luck.

  Lighting a cigarette, he walked over to the window and looked out. A terraced ravine led downward, linking Apollonia to the next village. Street lights cast a lonely glow on the tarmac of the road. It was close to eleven and everything was quiet.