by Stav Sherez
And there it is. That’s enough. But Nikos continues listening.
‘Our bin? The bin out there?’ Petrakis turns and points to emphasise how stupid he thinks this course of action is. Dimitri, in that instinctual human way, follows his gaze, and they both stare out the window directly at Nikos.
Nikos falls flat to the ground. Breathing hard. Small stones poke his chest and neck.
‘You put it in our bin?’ Petrakis wonders unbelievably, as if it’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard of. Nikos realises they didn’t see him. The light in the room, the darkness outside, the only thing which could have given him away was his sudden movement. He’s forgotten even the basics, he realises, all the stuff drilled into his head out on the mainland so long ago.
‘And how the fuck do you suppose it got here?’ Petrakis’s voice is coming under control now, the rage and incredulity fighting against the tight mouthful of vowels and consonants.
Dimitri shrugs, moves out of view. ‘It was there when you came in?’
‘Are you on fucking drugs, you imbecile? That’s what I just fucking told you. Someone snuck in while I was at dinner and put it here. Someone who knew what to look for in the dumpster.’
Dimitri shuffles back into view. He raises his hand to the old man’s shoulder, a placatory gesture, father to son, but the old man brushes it away. ‘We’re fucked,’ he says. ‘Why didn’t you get rid of it somewhere else?’
‘It’s just a can. Could be any can.’ Dimitri says quietly. ‘Nothing tying it to the library.’
Petrakis shakes his head, turns and slumps into his armchair. ‘You think if it was just any can someone would have gone to the trouble of taking it out of the dumpster and placing it here? On my fucking table?’
‘No one saw me at the library. I made sure.’
Cigarette smoke clouds the room as father and son take a moment out from accusation to light cigarettes, puffing so furiously that Nikos suspects in a moment he won’t be able to see a thing.
‘You can’t do anything right, can you?’ The old man says, a litany familiar to all sons, the critical barbs of the father’s displeasure and failure pushed onto the son. A dynamic Nikos counted on.
‘I tell you to do one small thing. One thing, and you fuck it up. Bring it all back to me. Didn’t I make it clear how important this was? What was at stake here? Did you do this to spite me or are you just a fucking retard?’
THIRTY-FOUR
She’s staring at the screen. Words pouring from her fingers. The computer humming in the still white room. But she isn’t writing. The world of fiction seems like a misplaced dream now. These things dripping from her fingers are facts, bold and stark, black marks on the white page. She stares up at the walls of her hotel room thinking how strange and yet oddly exhilarating it was to find yourself in the middle of life and somehow not recognise yourself; the distance between the person you want to be and the person you are ever widening. She’d dreamed about Jason this morning. His hand on her skin. The brush of lips on her breast, the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. How could you control yourself in dreams? Was that the person you really were or only its darkest outpouring?
Jason was back at his hotel, gathering his things. They’d spent the night there. George had found a spare room for her. All night they could hear screaming, crying, yelling, expressions of disbelief and wonder in the streets outside.
The morning was quiet and the town empty. The centipedes were gone. The aftermath of the boat-burning cloaked the streets in dry smoke and ashes. She hadn’t slept. She paced her room, wall to wall and back again, but could not find the peace she needed to close her eyes. She thought about Karelis instead. Was last night part of the priest’s revenge? There was a certain symmetry to it, she couldn’t deny, the whole town gathered together for this one evening of celebration and ritual, as if history had usurped faith.
She’d had her breakfast with Jason, neither of them saying much, then said she had to go back to her hotel, take a quick nap, and check some things out on the Internet.
She searches seminary records and religious chat forums. She manipulates her parameters, tries different spellings of Karelis’s name. Comes up with nothing. Short, dry biographical nuggets that only obscure the man further. She scours local papers and websites dealing with monasteries. She scans and skim-reads. The light from the screen stabs her eyes. Her fingers start to ache. Words buzz like insects around the screen. Words lined up in a row like mourners at a funeral.
It’s amazing she doesn’t miss it.
She reads it twice before it even clicks. And then she has to read it again. It’s small, almost inconsequential. It’s history, there in black and white. It’s a witness, mute and immutable, but it almost slips her notice.
Because it’s not about the cult or the priest.
She’d given up on getting any direct hits. She’d entered Palassos 1974 into the search engines of all the Greek papers she could find, both mainland and island. Of course there were features about the cult, running commentaries and leaders. But they only told her what she already knew. They laid out the facts, the numbered dead. They printed photos of the two boys. They speculated and tried to make sense of this thing to which no sense would ever adhere.
She’d almost given up, packed her things and gone back to bed, when she spotted it.
She gets up from the table, walks around the room, as if by physically moving away from the computer she would gain the perspective she needs. She wishes she smoked. This is what cigarettes are for, she thinks, these moments in between moments. Then she rereads the article.
Two more cases of the virus were found on the island today. A health official from the mainland stressed that these were ‘isolated’ cases as the stream where the virus was found has been purified and is now safe to drink and bathe in.
It is thought it was the farmers’ practice of dumping dead sheep into a landfill that bled into the creek that caused the virus which, for the last couple of months, has swept through the village.
Though it is not fatal, several people have been hospitalised with severe stomach pains and cramping. Doctors at Athens Memorial say that all the patients are doing well and, indeed, most have returned to the island.
When asked how two new cases were found when the stream had been apparently sanitised, the health official was quoted as saying, ‘There are always anomalies. We did our best but sometimes that’s not good enough. These people were living in the interior where the virus was more rife. Also, they are not native islanders and therefore probably had less resistance than the locals did. They have been evacuated to Athens where they will be treated.’
When asked if any more cases were likely, the official said, ‘no.’
Her heart’s racing. A sharp spike of pain starts under her ribcage and shoots through her arm. Her fingers fumble as she scans through back issues looking for a follow-up article. The date on the first article is a week before the murders and mass suicide. It’s the words ‘not native islanders’ and ‘living in the interior’ that jump out at her.
Twenty minutes later she finds it.
One Dead and One on the Way to Recovery
The recent virus that swept the island of Palassos has claimed its first victim. An unidentified man of Northern European extraction died last night at Athens Memorial hospital.
While the virus was not lethal, the man’s body was, according to the coroner, so ravaged with drugs and alcohol that the virus managed to cripple the immune system.
The man is yet to be identified though he is obviously not Greek, in his mid-twenties and, from his appearance, one of the hippies that have come to dominate our landscape these past few years.
The other patient is said to be recovering and due for release in the next couple of days.
The article was dated the day before the murders of the two boys. Two days before the cult’s suicide.
A survivor.
This is what’s been at the back of her mind fo
r the past couple of days. The stone lodged in her shoe. She’d thought it was someone who’d left voluntarily, then changed their mind and come back. It’s always bugged her how anyone could have been certain that all the members had killed themselves. Now she knows. Two were sent to the mainland before the murders of the boys and the mass suicide. One died in the hospital but one didn’t.
Did the survivor come back to the island before or after the mass suicide? Did they come back to find that everyone they’d known was dead? Would that be motive enough to take revenge thirty-three years later?
She doesn’t think it has anything to do with Wynn. Jason seems pretty convinced, but she’s noticed he has his own issues with the drug dealer. She still thinks Karelis is the most probable suspect. His disappearance the major fact against him. But now this new knowledge opens up fresh paths and trails in front of her. If the survivor is still alive; if they’re still living on the island … could they have a stronger motive?
She reads the article again. She jots down names and dates. She brings up a listing of mainland hospitals. She scans the screen until she finds the number for Athens Memorial. She calls and asks to speak to someone in the hospital’s PR department. She tells them she’s writing a book about the 1974 cult. The man on the other end of the line’s never heard of it.
‘That’s OK,’ she says, ‘I just need to clarify some information.’
She gives him the dates of admission of the two cult members. The reason for the interment. The man says he’ll do his best and call her back.
She slams the phone down. The files are probably all gone by now. The man sounded as if he was going through the motions, but before despair totally takes over, the phone rings, and it’s the man from Athens Memorial. He tells her what a wonder the new computerised filing system is, proud like a father of his newly born daughter. She bites her nails. She chews her bottom lip. The impatience courses through her veins like poison. And then it’s all over, and she’s not certain at all she’s heard him right and so she asks him to repeat the name again, and when he does, she just drops the phone and stares at the flickering screen in disbelief.
THIRTY-FIVE
They spend the night together. But it’s not the way he thought it would be, nothing like it, yet, despite the fact all they do is hold each other’s barely clothed bodies beneath the thin sheets, it’s better than anything he could have expected.
They hadn’t talked much in the lift up to Kitty’s room. He’d arrived to find her pacing the floor of the lobby. Her phone call had been urgent and breathless. He’d come as quickly as he could. She took him upstairs. She said there was a survivor. She showed him the article. She showed him the photo the man from Athens Memorial had emailed her.
He wakes to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and the sight of her, a slip, a pair of flip-flops, hovering over him, stating quietly, ‘It’s time.’ He doesn’t want to move. Wants to freeze-frame this moment and reside within its borders.
But there are things to do. They both understand.
He stares at the grainy photo again as if the morning would bring a different result, but the face is the same.
He makes the phone call. Asks for Nikos. Alexia’s voice sounds a reduced version of itself, struggling to find words. Jason wonders if he’s just woken her or if her tired slur is the result of not having been to sleep. She says Nikos isn’t around. Unavailable all morning. It’s the result they want, surprised that something, at least, is going their way.
Alexia’s face shows no sign of surprise when the door opens and she sees them. ‘He’s not here,’ she says, then adds, ‘he was looking for you.’
Kitty and Jason stare at each other. Certainty slips like water from their hands. The clang of a ferry horn tries to pull them back from this choice they’ve made.
‘Actually,’ Kitty says, her voice soft and measured, ‘it’s you we wanted to talk to.’
* * *
Nikos frowns. He’s sure he’s just heard the front door open, but maybe Alexia is only putting out some trash. He ignores it, looks back down at the files and clippings spread across the floor of the storeroom. All night he’s been here. Trying to connect the dots, to find out why Petrakis wanted the library burned down.
There’s more to the events of June 1974 than is told. That he’s certain of.
His mind slips back to that summer, Petrakis the newly appointed Chief of Police. The way they sent him back to the mainland. What did they do that night up on the promontory?
He goes back to the library. Was there something inside that jeopardised the official version of events? Some document or note left at the bottom of a box in the basement? And then it hits him. Not something but someone. He slams his fist into the table. The pain burns through his arm.
How did Petrakis find out? What does he think she knows?
He’s puzzling over this, trying to make sense of the incongruity of the fire and the murders when he hears voices, urgent and terse, coming from the other room.
***
Jason slowly takes the print-out of the hospital photo out of his pocket, flattens it with his palm and lays it on the table in front of her.
Alexia looks down at her younger self as the door opens and Nikos enters the room.
‘What the hell’s going on here?’ Then, without waiting for an answer, Nikos stares down at the bad printout laid flat on his coffee table. His hand rests on his holster strap. It worries the leather as he looks across the room, at Kitty and Jason, then back to his wife.
Alexia sits at the table, her face collapsed into her hands, bitten nails and dry skin, unable to hold her quietly shaking head. She’s muttering something, but they can’t make out what it is.
Nikos lets out a long, measured breath and reaches for the table. His left hand leaves the gun. There’s something in his face, not quite relief but not far from it. A cessation of tension that relaxes his eyes and jaw. He picks up the newspaper clipping and scrunches it. ‘Where did you find this?’
‘Hospital records.’
Jason stares at Kitty, amazed at how in control she sounds. He’s still holding her hand, and in his palm it’s shaking like a wind-blown flag.
‘Did you break into my room? Alexia would have told you why I was there at the library. Did you think I’d found out who she was? Did you burn down the library to protect her? How many people would know it was her day off?’
Nikos stares at them for what feels like hours. It’s less than a minute. Then his face breaks into a huge grin, and he laughs. This is more frightening than his previous expression. If it’s supposed to relieve the tension in the room, it doesn’t.
Alexia turns to her husband, ‘You didn’t?’ she asks, her voice small and awkward in English.
‘Of course not.’ And there’s something in his tone, like he can’t quite believe his wife would accuse him of such a thing.
‘You’ve got this all wrong,’ he says, ‘Jesus. You actually think I set the fire?’
‘Considering we just found out your wife was part of the cult, the only survivor, what else were we supposed to think?’ Kitty’s words come out in short, rapid bursts, ‘Is that why the murders haven’t been solved?’
‘What are you talking about?’
There’s something in Nikos’s face for a moment, and then it’s gone. He looks at Alexia, and there’s only the faintest of nods but it’s enough.
‘She has nothing to do with this. The murders. Any of it. Blame me if you want to.’
Kitty leans forward. ‘I’m not interested in blaming anyone, I just want to know what happened.’
Nikos sits there and stares at the wall.
‘They sent me to the mainland to pick up the detectives and bring them back to the island. This was the day we found the boys’ bodies.’
Jason can hear regret weigh down Nikos’s words. He watches as the detective fiddles with his empty coffee cup and sighs, a strange exhalation that’s both relief and frustration. Then Nikos takes his wife’s
hand; a look passes between them, the faintest curl of a lip and squinting of an eye. The coffee is strong. Alexia made it while they sat there in silence. Now the sound of their sips is like a minor explosion in the still room.
‘I met the detectives in Piraeus. We took the ferry. The mainlanders headed straight for the bar. I couldn’t follow them. I could still smell the boy’s blood. Every time I closed my eyes I could see him, his eyes beckoning me, then rolling back in his head. I needed air. I didn’t want to spend the ride talking shop, sharing bad jokes and political gossip. I wanted to be alone.
‘The sea was terrible that day. One of the stewards told me the deck was closed, too dangerous. I flashed my badge and walked out into the white wailing sea.
‘It felt good. The way the water hit my face. I stood there and screamed the boy’s name out into the ocean.
“‘You’ll ruin your hair.” That’s what she said. The wind must have died down because I caught her words like she was whispering them in my ear. I turned around and saw the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.’
A smile breaks through Alexia’s grim expression, quickly hidden, but somehow her face is softer when it falls back into place.
‘Only a young man would think that, right? The most beautiful woman?
‘She said I had lovely hair, and it was a shame to get all that salt and wind in it. She looked radiant, her eyes fierce black orbs. She looked gaunt and sickly. This too. But it just seemed to make her shine more. Her hair was cut short – later I was to find out it was because of the hospital – but at the time I thought she looked amazing, like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby.
‘We began to talk. She told me she was returning to Palassos. “Really?” I said, “That’s strange, I don’t think I’ve seen you around.” She told me she lived up in the interior. She was part of a hippy commune. She must have seen my expression when she said this because her face froze. “What’s wrong?” she said. “You think I’m some kind of freak?”