The element -inth in Greek

by Alison Fell

  Asterios came in buttoning up his trousers, bringing with him the stale smell of one wakened suddenly from a siesta. He wore a sweat-stained vest, and his grey hair was damp and awry. Seeing the surprise visitors, he mumbled a yassou and, without so much as a handshake, sat himself down heavily on the sofa. Androula was mortified. The man was behaving like a lout – an act put on, she was convinced, for the sole purpose of shaming her.

  ‘What’s all this, then?’ Taking a half-smoked cigarette from behind his ear, Asterios lit up. He looked dourly at the photograph the Kyriaki woman produced from a cardboard folder, and shrugged. ‘Never set eyes on him.’ He eyed Kyriaki boldly. ‘I saw the paper. It was a woman, wasn’t it. Some tart getting her revenge.’

  The Kyriaki girl gave him a frosty look. ‘We can’t discuss the case at this point. I need to know if you were in the vicinity of the Totem Bar last Saturday night.’

  ‘I don’t believe I was,’ said Asterios, with such an air of innocence that Androula was astonished, since she knew for a fact that he spent most Saturday nights at the Totem, guzzling raki with Manoli Dimeros. She glanced at the Panagia for guidance. The candle on the altar flickered at the brazenness of the lie, but the Panagia didn’t advise her one way or the other.

  ‘Kyria?’ The Stephanoudakis boy was watching her closely. She pursed her lips and folded her hands in her lap.

  ‘Aach!’ she said at last, shaking her head, for she could hold it in no longer. ‘You should ask Manoli Dimeros, that’s what! He’s there every night after work, isn’t he, sniffing around that Papaioannou girl.’

  Asterios glared at her. ‘Mind your business, woman!’

  Androula tossed her head defiantly at him. Let him see that his scowls no longer had the power to silence her.

  ‘Ask Sofia!’ She turned to the Stephanoudakis boy.‘Sofia Benaki. My niece. She’s a good girl, an honest girl. She lives opposite the place. If you want to know what goes on at the Totem, ask her.’

  ‘I don’t have to listen to this!’ Asterios jumped up, hitched up his trousers and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. A moment later the papaki engine sputtered, and snarled into life.

  ‘No, no,’ said the Stephanoudakis boy, when Androula tried to apologise. ‘We were just leaving.’ At the front door he turned to shake her by the hand. ‘Thank you for your help, Kyria Androula.’

  The intimacy of it brought tears to Androula’s eyes. She held on to his hand just a moment longer, realising suddenly what it meant to be old. How hardly anyone ever asked you for help any more, let alone thanked you for it.

  26

  The Benaki house was a faded two-storey building in the shadow of a new apartment block, whose stark white balconies were tiered asymmetrically, to maximise the sun potential. When Yiannis rapped on the Benaki’s door a woman leaned over one of the balconies, holding a large pair of secateurs.

  ‘Sofia? She’ll be at work. I saw her go off earlier with the boy.’

  ‘Any idea when she’ll be back?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘Me, I don’t live here, I just keep an eye on the block.’

  Although she was wearing sunglasses, Kyriaki shielded her eyes with her hand as she looked up. All afternoon it had been impossible to ignore the new engagement ring on her finger; but the determined way she kept flashing it made him just as determined to withhold the comment she clearly expected.

  He glanced at the shuttered windows of the apartments. ‘No one around, then?’

  ‘You could try number 5. The Dutch gentleman. Weather-man,’ she added helpfully, ‘Works up at the observatory on Psiloritis. He’s on the second floor.’

  ‘Thank you, Kyria,’ said Yiannis.

  There was a smart new mountain bike on the second floor landing, as well as a snowboard, which Yiannis thought betrayed a certain optimism. There was snow in Crete, true, but not that much.

  The Dutchman answered the door in silk boxer shorts, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. A giant of a guy, gym-toned and graceful. He had a broad open face marred only by a small moustache, and blond bristle showing on a shaved scalp. The nipple ring announced that he was gay, just in case you hadn’t already got the message.

  When Yiannis explained himself in English, he said quickly, ‘I understand,’ and stood back to usher them in.

  Yiannis saw woven rugs on the tiled floor, a low divan, and a slanted draughtsman’s table spread with charts.On the wall of the studio were exhibition posters in clip-frames: Mapplethorpe, Ansel Adams; at the far end of the room French windows opened on to a triangular white balcony.

  ‘I take it you’ve been here for some time, Mr …?’

  ‘Jansen,’ said the Dutchman, thrusting out his hand for Yiannis to shake. ‘Jaap. Yes. I’m here for three months now, at the T.E.I. lab. From the University of Amersfoort. I do post-doctoral research. Image-modelling,’ he added modestly. ‘I design codes for incorporating seismic and meterological data.’

  ‘Ah yes?’ said Yiannis, frowning knowledgeably. Some moments later, his brain sagging under the weight of tapered wavelet analysis, cloud anomalies, and atmospheric precursors, he regretted having encouraged the Dutchman.

  ‘Milate Ellenika?’ Kyriaki demanded, giving Yiannis a reproachful look. He’d forgotten her English was limited, although he was fairly sure Jansen’s spiel would have been no more comprehensible in Greek. It was another blot, he suspected, on his copybook.

  ‘Signome,’ cried Jansen, turning the full warmth of his attention on her. ‘It’s technical, I know. But excuse me, I must put a shirt.’ With a brilliant smile at Kyriaki, he vanished into the bedroom.

  There was an impressive arsenal of gadgets on the kitchen counter: a coffee grinder, some kind of steamer, a pasta maker, and two different kinds of blender. A man who likes to cook, thought Yiannis – a nesting Dutchman, rather than a flying one. Then he saw the photograph on top of the fridge-freezer. Jaap Jansen on his snowboard, performing a frightening aerial manoeuvre against a fairytale Alpine backdrop. There was another photograph, taken at a dinner table, in which Jansen was smooching a handsome mixed-race man with blue glitter on his eyelids.

  The Dutchman reappeared in a long-sleeved linen shirt. He was still barefoot, and hadn’t bothered with trousers. He took a string bag of oranges fom the fridge and began to cut them up.

  ‘It is time for my juice, I think. You’ll join me?’

  Yiannis glanced at Kyriaki, who shrugged ungraciously but didn’t actually refuse.

  ‘You’re very kind.’

  The balcony faced west, with a view not of the sea but of the olive groves on the slope of the headland. Although a finger of sun touched the protruding beak of the balustrade, the table and chairs were still in shade.

  Jansen settled a cushion on one of the chairs for Kyriaki and insisted that Yiannis take the other. Kyriaki sat down and examined her surroundings with an intently disdainful air: it was, Yiannis supposed, her way of pulling rank. Either that or she was one of those females who’re allergic to gay men, who can’t forgive them for turning their backs, so to speak, on women.

  The juice, when it came, was delicious, and Yiannis said so.

  Jaap Jansen beamed with pleasure. ‘A carrot. My secret weapon. And I have picked blueberries on the mountain.’ He leaned back easily against the balustrade, one bare foot propped up behind him. ‘Raspberries I prefer, but of course one can’t get them here. But in Holland, raspberries always.’

  ‘So you’re a meteorologist, Mr. Jansen?’

  ‘Ah no. A geophysicist. I enjoy this – taking the pulse of the earth, you understand.’ Since this elicited no more than a nod from Kyriaki, he turned his eager smile on Yiannis. Yiannis found himself smiling back. A likeable man, this Jaap, he decided, with his raspberries and his recipes.

  ‘An obsession, then, rather than a profession?’

  The Dutchman threw back his head and laughed. ‘That’s correct! Let me show you my earthquake escape route!’ He leaned over the parapet, pointing out th
e flat roof of the Benaki’s back-kitchen extension; his hand described a wide straddle from there to a first floor balcony, and thence to the curved parapet of the ground floor patio.

  ‘So you saw the quake coming?’ said Yiannis.

  Jansen shrugged, grinning. ‘Not so much. Seismology is an infant science, Sergeant – we think we can predict, but Mother Earth, she plays with us, you know.?’

  Kyriaki sipped fastidiously at her juice. Her engagement ring made an agreeable tinging sound against the glass.

  ‘And were you here last Saturday night, Mr Jansen?’

  ‘Ah yes!’ He glanced at the olive grove, shaking his head mournfully. ‘Poor guy. How terrible.’ Sun silhouetted the tops of the trees on the upper slope; soon it would move round and turn the balcony into an oven. ‘I was not on night shift on Saturday, so on Sunday morning I left early, about 6.30, I think.’

  ‘Did anyone see you leave, that you know of?’

  Jaap shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, no.’

  ‘And you saw no one in the vicinity?’

  ‘The German lady with the jeep, that’s all.’

  Kyriaki made a note. ‘Where was this?’

  ‘On the Katomeli road. By the Golden Sun studios, I think.’

  ‘So this person could corroborate your statement?’

  ‘Wiltraud?’ Jaap frowned. ‘Yes. I expect.’

  Yiannis leaned forward, interested. ‘Did she say what she was doing, exactly?’

  ‘Delivering, I believe. To the wholefood shop in town. Eleftheria, where I get my bread and pulses and things – you know it?’

  Yiannis scalp prickled. ‘It’s on Dedalou, right?’ He made a mental note to check if Eleftheria was open on a Sunday.

  ‘You have an address for her?’ asked Kyriaki.

  ‘It’s the commune up at Neo Chori,’ said Yiannis.

  Kyriaki looked at him sharply. ‘And on Saturday night – you heard nothing?’

  The Dutchman spread his hands. ‘On Saturday I was dead to the world.’ Realising that he had spoken in English, he begged Kyriaki’s pardon.

  ‘You were alone?’ she asked abruptly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jansen. Yiannis could have sworn that he blushed.

  *

  The fruit juice had acted like a depth charge on his innards. In the Totem bar he left Kyriaki to interview the Papaioannou girls while he hurried to the toilet in the back yard, opening the tiny net-curtained window to let out the choking smell of air-freshener.

  Up in the olive grove they’d found the Crime Scene team standing around in their white bunny suits, scratching their heads.

  ‘Looks like we’re fucked,’ said one whose name Yiannis recalled as Milo. He indicated the landslip which had strewn rocks, roots, and yellow earth across the site. Blue ribbons of police tape sagged among the debris.

  ‘You’ve let D.I. Vasilakis know?’

  The man pushed back his white hood and nodded glumly.

  ‘Not best pleased. What do you think?’

  Instead of toilet paper, squares of newspaper hung on a string. He tore off a couple and used them gingerly. The tap’s jet was too powerful for the tiny foetus-shaped sink. He mopped his spattered trousers with a towel the size of a facecloth, and exited with relief.

  Aphrodite was deep in conversation with Kyriaki. She wore a low square-cut top from which her breasts rose slippery and smooth, like boulders at the waterline. Above these riches, her lugubrious face expected the worst. When she saw Yiannis she jumped up.

  ‘You’ll take something, sir? An ice-cream, maybe?’

  He wagged a finger at her, smiling. ‘Don’t encourage my bad habits, Aphrodite!’

  Between the cool cupboard and the freezer where ice-creams were stored, the elder Papaiouannous sat side by side, he clicking away at his komboli, she in black dress and thick black stockings, basilisk-faced in the shade. They were too old, clearly, to be the girls’ parents; too old, also, to chaperone them. Yiannis glanced enquiringly at Kyriaki, who warned him off with a slight shake of the head.

  In the car Kyriaki filled him in. Manoli Dimeros had indeed patronised the Totem that night, as had Asterios Zois, and, briefly, Demosthenes and his wife, but Aphrodite had nothing unusual to report. Little Fotini had gone to bed at 10, as always, and Aphrodite had closed up at 1am.

  Kyriaki had drawn a blank on the grandparents. ‘He’s stone deaf, and she’s Turkish. Not a word of Greek. The girls’ parents were killed in a car crash in Izmir 10 years ago, poor sods. They were over there visiting granny’s side of the family.’

  ‘And Aphrodite? What do you reckon?’

  Kyriaki shrugged. ‘None too bright.’ She was driving fast and one-handed, her left elbow casual on the window rim, her fingers flattened fondly along the exterior bodywork, as if for optimum ring-exposure. ‘Might be worth running a check on this Dimeros guy, though – see what he’s got to say for himself.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Yiannis, ‘I know the family.’

  In Katomeli Kyriaki dropped him on Vassilikou and drove off without a wave. He headed for the corner, walking fast despite the heat, hoping against hope that Dora was indoors with the blinds drawn, declining nouns or conjugating verbs or whatever else she did in her air-conditioned classroom.

  When he turned into Limonas Street he saw her on the tiny side patio, watering a tub of geraniums. Flat-eyed, she considered him for a second, then, without a word, she turned her back and went inside.

  Hot-faced, Yiannis fled up the hill, and when he reached his house he went into the kitchen and ran the tap until the water was cold. He filled a glass and drank it, watched impassively by Kore, who was sunning herself on the windowsill. Then he headed for the shower, discarding his clothes as he went, throwing his shoes angrily through the open bedroom door.

  Afterwards he lay on the bed for half an hour, trying unsuccessfully to nap. In the end he got up and went to look for clean pants in the chest of drawers. When his hand brushed against the condom box he stopped dead and stared at it. Although Dora was on the pill, he’d always insisted on using them. His mistrust, unspoken, evident in the act. The message must have been loud and clear but, typically, Dora had never told him what she felt about it. And, typically, he had never asked. But didn’t he have reason for caution? Women without children – women of Dora’s age, at least – were a law unto themselves. It was too easy for them, if not to play tricks, then to forget, accidentally on purpose, to present you with a fait accompli. And then, well, then you were really screwed, weren’t you.

  Yiannis listened to himself, and didn’t much like what he heard. Perhaps he was turning into the sort of person who could always find good reasons for not doing things – one of those anal types who, out of ingrained conservatism, lets life pass them by.

  Depressed by these bruising thoughts, he could bear the emptiness of the house no longer. He dressed quickly in T shirt and chinos, grabbed his cellphone, and went out into the back garden. All afternoon he’d managed, with some success, to deny that Ingrid was on his mind, but now he would deny it no longer.

  Just as he was about to dial her number, however, his finger froze above the keypad. From the windowsill Kore was eyeing him with a certain irony. She knows a fool when she sees one, he thought, remembering that Ingrid had no number, because Ingrid had no cellphone.

  He interred the phone in his pocket, uncoiled the garden hose, and advanced purposefully on the lemon grove at the bottom of the garden.

  Insects floated, humming happily, in the soft radiance of the evening sun. It was 7 o’clock. Over in Panomeli, people would be taking a leisurely aperitif, deciding where to eat a meal: the Shoestring, or the Totem, or a shortish stroll to the Medusa. In Panomeli the choice of establishments was severely limited.

  When he twisted the nozzle of the hose nothing happened. He must have forgotten to turn the tap on at the wall. One look back at the long stupid snake of the hose decided him. He threw the thing on the ground and ran indoors to fetch his car keys,
anxious to get going before he could change his mind.

  He was almost at the car when his cellphone rang. It was Sotiris at the station.

  ‘Sorry, Yianni, but a call just came through from Knossos. They’ve been holding old Pericles at the ticket office. Something to do with thieving.’

  Yiannis stopped with his hand on the door, thinking of the artefacts he’d delivered to the Museum. Could Pericles have filched the things from Knossos?

  ‘Thieving what?’ he snapped.

  ‘Seems some tourist complained about a bottle of water.’

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake! Haven’t they got anything better to do up there?’

  ‘Thing is, since he mentioned you by name, they said can you go and pick him up.’

  27

  As the autumn of 1947 turned to winter, John Franklin Daniel threw all his weight behind Alice Kober’s candidacy for the Indo-European Linguistics post at the University of Pennsylvania. To Dean Morrow he made much of her work with Myres on Scripta Minoa, describing Kober as the outstanding authority on pre-Hellenic languages and the Minoan scripts. He outlined how her appointment would allow her not only to take charge of the Minoan Linguistic Research Centre, but also to assist with any Lydian inscriptions uncovered by the Museum’s projected excavations at Sardis in Turkey.

  ‘Miss Kober is one of the few people in this country who would be qualified to prepare this material for publication,’ he wrote to the Dean. ‘As I mentioned above, Lydian may well provide the key to the language of the Minoan inscriptions.’