Cretan Teat

by Brian Aldiss

  Rather to Kathi’s surprise, Paleohora seemed perfectly normal. Tourists were strolling about, shops were open, people sat outside tavernas and bars, relaxedly chatting. The sun shone down benignly on a slice of typical Mediterranean life.

  Grim-faced, Langstreet enquired in a bar where the police station was. The barman looked blank. Police station? The nearest police station was in the mountains, in Kyriotisa. But there was an office here.

  ‘My son was kidnapped here in Paleohora.’

  The barman was sympathetic. There certainly was a local policeman; Takis by name. He lived in one of the side streets. Good-naturedly, the barman offered to take Langstreet to him. Calling to his waitress, who was sitting having a smoke on the verandah outside the bar, to take charge, he set out with Langstreet.

  Kathi, meanwhile, had gone to speak to Vibe in her hotel, to hear her account of Cliff’s capture. Vibe was dry-eyed and practical, and had already written a longhand account of what had happened. A van had been driving slowly along the front where Cliff and Vibe were lingering. They had paddled in the sea and were then on the road side of the promenade wall, kissing and discussing their next move – on the sand or back in Vibe’s bed? The van stopped close to them and a man leaned out the window, asking Cliff for a light.

  Cliff went over to him. As he was taking a folder of matches from his pocket, two men rushed around the front of the van and seized him. He struggled and yelled. They bashed his head against the cab and knocked him unconscious. Vibe attacked them, striking out with her shoe, which she had been carrying. Two more men jumped from the back of the van. They knocked her over. She was certain there were four men involved, one no more than adolescent, with a yellow kerchief tied round his head.

  One of the men had kicked Vibe. She showed Kathi the bruise, high on her left thigh. Cliff had been bundled into the back of the van, which was then driven off at speed, towards the way out of town.

  Had Vibe seen the number plate?

  No. It had happened so fast. She had thought rather too late of taking the registration number, when the vehicle was already speeding away. It was dark. There were few street lights. She had the impression there was no rear number plate.

  Kathi liked Vibe, with her intelligent and clear account. She took charge of the statement, bought her a drink and sympathised. She gave Vibe the phone number of their hotel. They kissed each other on parting.

  Langstreet’s barman, meanwhile, was knocking at a modest door, above which a sign said POLIS. It was situated in a side street close by the harbour. The door opened. A fat woman with a pleasant wrinkled face began to talk immediately. Quite a long conversation ensued. Langstreet stood by, concealing his impatience.

  The chat concluded. The woman smiled at Langstreet, the door closed.

  The barman said, ‘She is mother of Takis. He live and work here below her room with his typewriter. Her daughter not too well with rather a back problem and two little childs. Takis, he is on his rounds. He can be at the bakery where his brother work. So we go there.’

  They found Takis at the baker’s, sitting at a little table, drinking coffee and talking to his brother, who sat opposite to him, and his brother’s wife, who stood silent by her husband’s chair.

  Since Takis spoke no more than a few words of English, another long conversation in Greek ensued, with the brother and his wife joining in occasionally. The woman left the group, to disappear into the rear quarters of the shop. She emerged a minute later with a coffee for Langstreet.

  Accepting the cup, he said, ‘Look, Mr Takis, this is urgent. My son has been kidnapped by a gang of thugs. Are you going to do something?’

  The answer came through the barman. ‘We do not have such crime in Paleohora. Therefore the men come from somewhere else. Probably foreigners. You must go to Kyriotisa. There they have a big station of police, with computers. There you can find help.’

  More argument followed by all concerned. Langstreet set down the cup to make a small gesture of protest. He wanted Takis to check the harbour road for tyre prints. He was told that there was only one sort of tyre available locally.

  The barman said, politely, that he must return to his bar for the midday trade.

  Langstreet went back to his hotel. He was starting to throw some items of clothing and toiletry into an overnight bag, when Kathi entered the room.

  ‘Archie, you walked right past me. I called to you. You ignored me. I’m as worried as you are, but be human, will you? What did the police say?’

  ‘They said virtually nothing. Perhaps they know who my father was. Perhaps they also are against me. In Kyriotisa there’s a real police station. I am going there. I’m packing in case I have to stay overnight. And I am sorry if I passed you by. There is much on my mind.’

  ‘Stop packing for a moment, will you?’ She went over and snapped the bag closed. She attempted to smile into his solemn face. ‘Archie, I have Vibe’s statement. She is a good, straightforward young woman. Also, I phoned the British Embassy in Athens. They are taking the matter seriously, thank God. They are going to send over an investigator who speaks Greek. He is Greek. He will help us. And, we may have received a message from the kidnappers.’

  She produced a soiled brown envelope. She had retrieved it from their pigeonhole at the reception desk. The porter did not know who had put it there.

  ‘Thank you, Kathi. How very sensible you are!’ He moved forward and kissed her as he took the envelope. They stood together with their arms around each other. ‘I can’t help being anxious…’

  He tore open the envelope with a thumbnail. Withdrawing a piece of lined paper, he read out its simple typed message:

  We demand one million Deutschmarks for return of your son.

  The note bore no signature. They stared at it gloomily without speaking. Then Langstreet tucked it slowly back into the envelope and put it in his pocket.

  ‘What should we do?’

  ‘We must phone this investigator to meet us in Kyriotisa. The message may provide a clue. Perhaps the make of typewriter can be identified from the printing. This is all so terrible.’

  ‘Don’t think of paying up, Archie. I spoke to Vibe. She said that during the scuffle, when the thugs were trying to get Cliff into the car, they called him a Kraut. It’s in her statement.’

  ‘So it is political! I feared as much. God, I was mad to bring us to this island. I must get to Kyriotisa at once.’

  ‘If you imagine you’re going without me you’re much mistaken!’

  ‘Yes, come too. I wasn’t thinking… There’s no danger.’

  She gave a joyless laugh. ‘So we thought…’

  The outskirts of Kyriotisa lay dead and grey in the afternoon sun, as the re-hired Fiat Punto entered the town. There was some action at the service station, otherwise it seemed like a place embalmed. Nearer the centre of the straggling town, lorries and a few private cars were about. People wandered slowly in the street or the road.

  Archie and Kathi recognised the advertisements for Coca Cola and Nentelstam Milk – ‘Best for Babies’, it said. By the side of the police station was a hoarding showing a yobbish young man with a cigarette in between his lips, and the legend, ‘Get a Character – Get a Carter!’ in English. They stopped the car and went in to see the police.

  A man in jeans sitting at a computer – the very computer Takis had mentioned – put down a cigarette, presumably a Carter, and came over to them.

  ‘You are from Paleohora? Takis phoned to me concerning your problem. Good evening. Your son has been taken, that’s right? My name is Manolis Tsouderakis. I’m in charge here. Come and sit down to talk to me.’

  It sounded like a promising start.

  Manolis Tsouderakis was a clean-shaven man of about forty, and of medium height; his features were regular and sharp. Although his gaze was searching, he appeared to be well-disposed towards his visitors.

  They sat down at a trestle table on which stood the computer and some stacks of paper. A uniformed man ente
red the office from the rear, and was sent off to get some coffee and wine.

  Tsouderakis then made a performance of selecting paper and pen in preparation for taking a statement. Kathi presented him with Vibe’s handwritten account. He read it through carefully, looking up to ask, ‘Is this truthful? This woman was not an accomplice in the crime?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘She says that four crooks were involved in the abduction, eh? Mm. I had better interview her.’

  ‘Do you know who these four men might be? Vibe says one was young and wore a yellow kerchief.’

  ‘It’s a gang, let’s say. We are peaceful here. There are only a few such gangs…’

  Langstreet handed over the ransom note in its brown envelope. Tsouderakis appeared to weigh it in his hand before extracting the demand. He studied it for some while, saying nothing. The coffee came on a tray with a jug of wine, and was set on the table at his elbow.

  When the Langstreets had reported on the little they knew between them about Cliff’s abduction, the police chief got them to sign the statement.

  He cleared his throat, nodded his head several times, and addressed them:

  ‘I shall do all I can to help you in this crime. I am an educated man, you understand? I have degrees. Also, I have travelled beyond the confines of Crete and of Greece. It’s a vital part of a man’s education. I realise that some people in Kyriotisa are rather backward in their thinking.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Langstreet, with impatience.

  ‘Once I came to Poland and Germany. A friend from my family works in Mannheim. Mannheim’s a good town, with decent people there.

  ‘This I say to convince you that I have no feelings against Germans. They are a different generation now. However, the people of Kyriotisa are not greatly enlightened, let’s say. They suffered harshly from German atrocities in the war.’

  Tsouderakis began to enumerate some of these atrocities. It was a tale the Langstreets had heard on their separate visits to the town. Langstreet held up his hand. ‘Excuse me, sir, but we know of these wartime misfortunes of half a century ago. We also understand that the German authorities made handsome restitution to Kyriotisa after the Nazis had been defeated. No point is served by bringing up these sad stories once more.’

  Once more, Tsouderakis nodded his head as if in disagreement. Speaking slowly, he said, ‘Excuse me, sir, but a point is served…’ He paused before speaking again in a more formal voice, looking directly at Langstreet. ‘For the purposes of this enquiry, I have to ask you directly if you are not the son of – and your son Clifford is not the grandson of – Hauptsturmführer Klaus Langenstrasse of the Waffen SS?’

  A signal passed between Langstreet and his wife.

  ‘Mr Tsouderakis, I feel this is a dangerous town in which to delve into the past…’

  Manolis Tsouderakis suddenly became a more official person. Speaking with authority, he said, ‘Dangerous or not, as you consider it, I have reason to believe that your father was a Hauptsturmführer, or captain, let’s say, in the SS, and active in this very vicinity. If I am to help you, you had better tell the truth to me.’

  Staring hard at the man, Langstreet said, ‘This is an unfortunate question. I came to England as a boy of nine. I am English. I have an English name. England is my country. Also, I am a religious man. I reject my father and his ideology. I have nothing to do with Nazism – ’

  ‘But Klaus Langenstrasse was nevertheless your father?’

  ‘Yes. He was.’

  The hour was growing late. Dusk gathered in the banal room, as if the dusty history of Hitler’s Third Reich was reassembling itself. As if whatever had been in the mind of young Klaus Langenstrasse had an essence that could still be felt; as if something in the baffling and quasi-messianic mind of Adolf Hitler had been experienced almost tangibly by his deceived subjects. Like his leader, Captain Klaus Langenstrasse held an absolute conviction regarding his goals.

  The sorrowful end of this Cretan day was an acknowledgement that the melancholy circumstances of historic process were constantly uncoiling in this room.

  Tsouderakis clicked on a desk lamp.

  ‘There we have the reason for the abduction for your son. It may be this criminal gang expects to receive the ransom money demanded. However, I think it more likely that they understood very well that this capture would draw you back to Kyriotisa.’

  Kathi’s face was pale. She asked, ‘Why should they want Archie back here?’

  He clasped his hands together on the table and, staring at them, said, ‘Maybe – this is just a theory – maybe they visited Paleohora to shoot you. They discovered you were not there. So they stole your son instead. Maybe they will shoot him up in the hills, let’s say. They knew you had to come here to make your enquiries.

  ‘Here, they can shoot you as you walk on the pavement. As your father used to do in the bad days.’

  Langstreet looked extremely grim. He clutched the edge of the table. But his voice was steady when he spoke.

  ‘Oh, this is villainous! Whatever my father’s crimes were, they are not mine. I’ve done nothing. Cliff’s done nothing. What could possibly be gained by shooting me?’

  At this, Tsouderakis began a long explanation concerning the poverty existing in the town and region. Unemployment levels were high. The olive oil industry was run down. It operated on primitive machinery, and the oil had to be sold in barrels to Italy because of the lack of a bottling plant. People with nothing to do tended to turn to crime, in particular to theft and burglary. They were depressed. In some cases, they turned to violence. The events of the World War, though distant, could be used as an excuse for crime. Many men who had lost one parent or other during the German invasion still felt bitter; they had little else with which to fill their minds. It was a story that could be found elsewhere in the world. Perhaps the situation was aggravated here by the comparative isolation of Kyriotisa. The land was not very fertile. Another factor was that there was a tradition of resistance to foreigners; Kyriotisa had been a centre of resistance against the Ottoman power, long before the Nazi invaders. Business investment – even a tourist industry, if such a thing were possible – would greatly benefit everyone, and lead immediately to a reduction in misery and lawlessness.

  To this long analysis, the Langstreets listened with resignation.

  At the end of it, Langstreet repeated his question, asking what could be gained by his being shot.

  ‘The wrong-doers would say that they avenged an ancient wrong. The ancient philosophy of an eye for an eye… They would be seen by others as powerful people, to be feared… Do not worry, Mr Langstreet, I will see to it you are not shot, or your wife. My wife runs a little domatia or pension, let’s say, nearby. You must stay there for the night.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be safer to drive back to Paleohora?’ Kathi asked.

  ‘If these criminals know you are here, as is likely the case, then they can attack your car just outside the town. Stay here and be safe.’

  The assistant was then summoned. He took the fingerprints of the visitors in a businesslike manner. Tsouderakis, in a friendly fashion, said he would take them by the back way to his mother’s house. The luggage in their car would be collected for them. But first, he would show them how Langstreet had been identified as the son of his father.

  He led them into one of the rear rooms. Here were stored photographs of the Cretan patriotic struggle against Fascism. Kathi refused to look at the gory collection. Captured on Kodak Brownie cameras in black-and-white were pictures of heads severed from bodies, of naked men and women hanging from ropes, of people with terrible mutilations, and of German troops. And of Hauptsturmführer Klaus Langenstrasse in military uniform, standing in the middle of a road, with a service revolver pointed against a boy’s head.

  Langstreet gave a convulsive sob. The profile of his father was so similar to his own. The steep brow, the craggy nose, the thin lips and the square jaw: these were his as they were his father’s. Sta
ring at the photograph, he could feel only sorrow that his father had been led so far away from God that he could commit such crimes. His father would suffer in hell for what he had done.

  ‘That’s enough,’ he said.

  Kathi clutched his hand as Manolis Tsouderakis led them through the back door into a dark alleyway.

  After they had eaten with the wizened Mrs Tsouderakis and their luggage had been delivered, the Langstreets retired to a small back room allocated to them. It was sparsely furnished but clean. Archie went down on his knees, locked his hands together, and prayed silently by the side of the bed. Kathi sighed, standing there staring at her husband’s bowed head.

  When he rose, she asked, ‘Why should God listen to you? Did he listen to the small boy in the photograph, the boy your father was about to shoot? … No, sorry, I’m sorry I asked that. Never question faith!’

  ‘Faith is greater than reason, Kathi,’ he said gently.

  ‘Maybe that’s why I’m on reason’s side.’

  At two in the morning, they were lying together in the bed, awake. He spoke. ‘A tourist industry! Is that really a cure for the sins of mankind?’ His tone implied that the question, being rhetorical, required no answer.

  Nor did it receive any.

  When I was first learning my trade as a writer, I read Henry Fielding’s novel, Joseph Andrews. What I most enjoyed was the way in which Fielding would alternate chapters of narrative with chapters of discussion about what was happening in his book. He adopted a relaxed and man-of-the-world style, rather as if a friend of your father’s was talking with you over a glass of claret.

  Well, such were my impressions of the book. However, when I took up my copy again after many years (so many that the book contains, inside its front cover, a little old-fashioned booksellers’ tab, announcing that it came from Sanders & Co, Booksellers, 104 High St Oxford) I found this division of chapters was not as regular as I had remembered them to be. It is always disconcerting to find that past reality was not that real – however often the discovery occurs. What do you expect? I asked myself.