The Doctor of Thessaly

by Anne Zouroudi

  ‘I’ll tell you what he saw, to my shame.’ She lifted her head, showing her face red with deep blushing. ‘He saw the doctor peel back the bed sheets and the blankets, and lift poor Mama’s nightdress to show her – parts. He saw him pull her nightdress right over her face, so he had her there, naked and blind to what he was doing. He saw him probe between her legs with his nasty fingers, and touch her poor old breasts. And then he saw him unzip his flies, and with his dirty hand, take himself out and start to play, and rub himself against her, until he satisfied himself. And then Christos came running to me, when he had gone, and told me what he’d seen. And here’s the biggest sin of all: I didn’t believe him.’

  ‘You believed him in the end; you must have done, to take the action you took.’

  ‘I didn’t believe him, though, at first, and that made his burden worse.’

  ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’

  She gave a short laugh.

  ‘Who would believe such a disgusting tale? And yet that was why in the end I was forced to believe him. He’s always been, on the whole, a truthful boy; and he wouldn’t, I had to accept, invent such a terrible tale. Why should he, why would he? His tears and his anger made me believe him, though I didn’t want to. I set a trap, to prove it to myself. I was still thinking he had misinterpreted what he’d seen, that what he’d seen was some medical examination, and quite legitimate. So I left him with Mama when he came again, and told him I had to go out. He took advantage of it; I saw the self-same thing Christos had witnessed. I watched him from my hiding place, and then I went behind the hen house and I was sick, sicker than I’ve ever been before. To think, to speak of it now, still turns my stomach over. My mother was – is – one of nature’s most modest creatures; to see her abused like this in her final, helpless days . . . What can you say? I used to pray, before this happened, that when I spoke, she could hear and understand me; now I pray she’s far away, remote from everything. My guilt is more than I can bear.’

  ‘Why didn’t you stop him, interrupt him?’

  ‘Because he’d have got away. By the time the police or Tassos were here, he’d be long gone.’

  ‘I think you’re right. He’d run before, from his home country. So instead you chose a punishment to fit the crime.’

  ‘We wanted – God forgive us – to kill him, but the risk was too great. If I were locked up, who’d look after my family? And the thought of Christos jailed – no, it couldn’t be. More than anything, anyway, we wanted to cause him pain. And Christos said, What about those chemicals of Grandpa’s. And I remembered there was one above all we were never to touch, as kids, because it burned so badly. And I thought, that’s what we’ll do: we’ll burn his eyes, so he can’t see ever to do his evil deeds again.’

  ‘Sodium hydroxide,’ said the fat man. ‘A powerful alkali, and it did its work. But how did you get him to the chapel?’

  ‘Quite easily. Christos took him a message, then drove me up there on his moped. We did what we did, and left him there. We knew he wouldn’t be found too quickly, there.’

  ‘Those papers,’ asked Christos, ‘what are they?’

  ‘They tell us he is a predator with some history. Our doctor is a rare and deviant creature, the most despicable of perverts, a gerontophile. In short, a man who desires carnal relations with the elderly.’

  ‘So it wasn’t just Mama. It wasn’t just here.’

  ‘No.’

  Despairing, Litsa shook her head.

  ‘I feel so stupid,’ she said. ‘I was so taken in.’

  ‘That’s not your fault, Litsa. Why should you not have trusted him?’

  ‘Will you turn us in?’ The boy’s face was pale and worried.

  The fat man shook his head.

  ‘He’s been arrested by French police, and I imagine has already left this country. He faces trial in France, regardless of his blindness. And, whilst I do not normally advocate anyone taking the law – the law of the courts, or the more appropriate law of natural justice – into their own hands, it is my belief that, in this case, the punishment – brutal though it was – so perfectly fits the crimes, it could not be improved on. Dr Louis’s crimes were amongst the worst imaginable, and, as you say, by far the worse for the natural, deep modesty of his victims. In your case, it is a sorry thing indeed to hope she wasn’t conscious of his attacks, as we must call them, because I know how much you hoped she was still conscious of your care, because the alternative is that you are caring for a living corpse, and I do not want you to feel that. You have cared for her wonderfully in this, her final illness; and I’m sure, on some level, she appreciates all you do for her – all your acts of love.’

  Litsa began to weep. The boy pulled her head on to his shoulder and held it there, as though he were the parent and she the child.

  ‘You have a difficult choice to make now, if you believe she may have been conscious of what he did. You could tell her he is caught and punished, and already taken away – in other words, you could make her aware that she is safe. But in doing this, whilst you would satisfy her natural demand for justice, she will realise you know what has been happening. I think it very likely that she would then feel great shame, as victims of sexual assault too often do. You might also tell her what you both have done. It might please her, or trouble her – who could say? Or you might – and on balance, I think this is what I would suggest – you might simply tell her there’ll be a new doctor from now on, as Dr Louis has been recalled to his homeland.’

  Litsa lifted her head from her son’s shoulder, and looked up at the fat man with tear-swollen eyes.

  ‘You’ll tell no one, then?’

  ‘I’ll tell no one. The doctor himself made no complaint to the police; we understand why, now. But no one will come asking questions, after me.’

  Litsa ran the back of her hand across her face to dry her tears.

  ‘I’ll leave you to decide which course to take. For now, I think you should keep those photographs. They’re something your mother values very highly. And the buyers won’t go away. The museums and collectors will still be there, when she’s gone.’

  Rising from the car, Litsa walked slowly up to the house. Christos carried his grandfather’s photographs under one arm; the other, he placed round his mother’s shoulders to guide her.

  He found a quiet place beside the cotton fields. Applying the flame of his lighter to the papers, he watched the flame consume them, turning them to let them burn evenly, taking care not to burn his fingers. Their smoke dissolved in the wind; their black ashes broke up and floated away, until nothing but a singed corner was left. He hid the last white corner under a stone; and climbing back into the car, drove slowly back to Morfi.

  Twenty-five

  Storms were forecast, overnight; already clouds were gathering to the north. Towards evening, a motorbike pulled up outside the house. Upstairs, Noula and Chrissa were sitting on the sofa, watching the new TV. The newsmen were predicting localised flooding.

  Above the newscaster’s voice, they both heard music: a solitary violin played an old Italian tune whose sweet, clear notes were beautiful.

  Chrissa crossed to the window and looked out.

  A man was playing in the street – a well-dressed man she didn’t recognise, who, though not handsome, had an honest face.

  As she watched, he finished his tune, and knocked at the door downstairs.

  From the top of the steps, she called down to him.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Yassou, Chrissa,’ he said.

  She thought his voice familiar.

  ‘Orfeas?’ she asked. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘The same,’ he said. He ran a hand over his close-cut hair, and loosened his tie a little. ‘May I come up and talk to you?’

  She smiled, and lit his world.

  ‘Of course you may,’ she said. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  At Evangelia’s kafenion, the TV was tuned to the lottery draw. At their usual table, Dr Dinos an
d his friends had been served the evening’s first drinks. They seemed somewhat morose, with little to say to each other.

  The postmaster stubbed out a cigarette and opened up his packet for another, but the packet was empty.

  ‘Hey, Adonis,’ he called, ‘run to the periptero, will you, and get me some smokes?’

  Adonis was seated on a stool at the counter, sipping orangeade through a straw.

  ‘In a minute,’ he said. ‘I have to see first how much I’ve won.’

  The four men at the table laughed.

  ‘That’ll be the day,’ said the pharmacist. ‘People play for years, and never win.’

  Evangelia was cleaning out the bird cage. Old newspaper and soiled sawdust covered the counter, whilst the cockatoo fluttered anxiously over all their heads.

  ‘Leave him be,’ she said. ‘The lad can dream, can’t he?’

  ‘Not when I’m out of cigarettes,’ said the postmaster, and they laughed again.

  The fat man sat alone at his table, his holdall packed and ready under his chair. He sipped at his Coca-Cola, and made no comment.

  The compère gave the word for the draw to start. The first number came up, and Adonis whooped, delighted. The second he didn’t have, but on the third ball, he whooped again.

  ‘Two,’ he shouted. ‘I’ve got two so far, two!’

  The fourth ball he didn’t have, but the last two were his again.

  ‘Four!’ he shouted. ‘I’m a winner! I got four! How much do I win, Evangelia, if I’ve got four?’

  ‘See,’ said Evangelia, pointing at the four men. ‘The lad’s a winner, no matter what you say. Ten thousand drachmas at least in your pocket, agori mou,’ she said to Adonis, ‘and if you’re lucky, maybe as much as twenty.’

  The grocer laughed, derisively.

  ‘Ten thousand?’ he said. ‘What kind of win is ten thousand? Now if you’d got a hundred, or two, or three, that’d be worth winning.’

  ‘But four numbers is still a winner,’ said Dr Dinos, knocking the ash from his pipe. ‘And it’s traditional, in here, for a man to buy his friends a drink with his winnings. Isn’t that right, gentlemen?’

  ‘Tradition or not,’ said Evangelia, laying fresh newspaper in the bottom of the birdcage, ‘the lad’ll be buying you lot no drinks. Now take your ticket and get out of here, Adonis. Go and show your mother what you’ve won.’

  Adonis emptied his bottle, and climbing down off his stool, approached the fat man.

  ‘What about you, kyrie?’ he asked. ‘Have you been as lucky as me?’

  The fat man’s ticket was in his hand. He glanced at it again. Five of its numbers matched the six on the screen.

  He looked at Adonis and smiled; folding his ticket, he slipped it into his pocket.

  ‘No, son,’ he said, ‘I haven’t had your luck at all.’

  Dr Dinos ordered another round for his friends.

  ‘Will you join us?’ he asked the fat man. ‘Or are you not drinking tonight?’

  ‘I shall be leaving Morfi shortly,’ said the fat man, ‘and I face a long and tiring drive. I find, under those circumstances, that soft drinks suit me better.’

  ‘If you’re leaving us, you must have solved the mystery surrounding Dr Chabrol,’ said Dr Dinos. He struck a match, and put it to the fresh tobacco in his pipe bowl. ‘Aren’t you going to tell us who the culprit was?’

  ‘No,’ said the fat man, ‘I’m not.’

  The doctor’s three companions smiled.

  ‘Perhaps because he doesn’t know,’ said the postmaster to the grocer. He spoke quietly, but not so quietly that the fat man couldn’t hear.

  ‘It would be indiscreet of me to tell you, simply as gossip,’ said the fat man, ‘as you, as a doctor, will respect. But there is one small mystery you can solve for me, if you would. I’m aware I’ll have to trust you to be truthful, though Evangelia here will no doubt tell me if you lie. You told me a tale of Dr Chabrol, of his incompetence and misdiagnosis; I have to tell you he told the same tale against you. Which of you was guilty? Was he the better doctor, or were you?’

  Surprised at the question, Dr Dinos raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I would have thought,’ he said, ‘that an investigator, as you say you are, would do his research, and perhaps check the backgrounds of those he is investigating. But since you haven’t, I will show you this.’

  He reached inside his tweed jacket, and taking out a small box covered in indigo leather, handed it to the fat man for him to open. The box held a silver medal, stamped with the snake and staff of his profession; on the reverse, it was engraved simply, Thessaloniki, and a date some years past.

  ‘It’s quite a rare award; they don’t give it very often,’ said Dr Dinos. ‘For services to medicine, the details of which are rather dull. Would the recipient of such a prestigious prize be likely to make such a mistake in a diagnosis? I told the truth. I bailed him out, not the other way round. And if we never see him here again, it’ll be too soon.’

  ‘I think you need have no worries on that score,’ said the fat man.

  The fat man walked slowly to his car, along town roads he had come to know quite well. The growing dark was being hastened by the storm clouds; under the street-lights, the shadows of the pomegranate trees shifted in the strengthening wind.

  Unlocking the Mercedes, he placed his holdall carefully on the passenger seat and walked round to the driver’s door.

  Around the corner, into the light of a street-lamp, came the old man and the donkey which wore no saddle. The old man walked slowly, with one hand on a painful hip; but the donkey was lively, and kept well ahead of him. The old man saw the fat man, and touched two fingers to the peak of his seaman’s cap.

  ‘Kali spera!’ he called.

  As he drew level with the fat man, the old man planted his feet firmly, hauling back on the donkey’s halter with both hands. The fat man stepped up to the donkey and, putting a hand on its head-collar, brought the animal to a stop. The donkey jerked its head and tried to shake him loose; but the fat man’s grip was immoveable, and in a few moments, the donkey conceded and stood still.

  ‘She’s the very devil, this donkey,’ said the old man. ‘I’m wanting to go to my sister’s, but the donkey wants to go home, so that’s where we’re going. It’s a rough night, in any case, to be socialising.’ He stopped, and peered closely at the fat man. ‘It’s you,’ he said. ‘I know you!’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said the fat man. ‘You met me in this exact spot, a day or so ago.’

  But the old man shook his head.

  ‘Before that,’ he said. ‘You’ve been here before.’ He dug into the pockets of his trousers and pulled out a photograph.

  ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘I looked this out; I knew I still had it, somewhere. That’s me, over here. And that’s you, there.’

  The photograph showed a group of men and boys, standing proudly with pitchforks before a wagon-load of hay. The old man pointed himself out, as a youth; standing beside him, relaxed in shirt sleeves, was someone who was the image of the fat man, though the hair was somewhat shorter and a little less grey.

  The fat man laughed.

  ‘He’s like me, I grant you,’ he said, ‘but how could he possibly be me?’

  ‘It’s you,’ insisted the old man. ‘You gave me some apples, and I’ve never eaten better to this day.’

  ‘Well, next time I visit, I’ll be sure to bring you more,’ said the fat man, laughing again.

  ‘I knew you’d be back,’ said the old man. ‘You said at the time you’d be back.’

  ‘The donkey has sense, at least; you should get home,’ said the fat man. ‘When this downpour comes, you’ll catch your death of cold.’

  He released the donkey’s bridle, and the donkey trotted on, leaving the old man no choice but to follow it.

  ‘I remember you, like it or not!’ called out the old man.

  But the fat man seemed not to hear. As the first drops of rain fell, the Mercedes’s engine
was running. He threw the switch for the windscreen wipers, and they moved smoothly across the screen; when he switched them off, they stopped.

  By the time he reached the coast road, the rain was falling hard, and everyone who was out had run for shelter; and by the time he passed the port and reached the limits of the town, there was no one still around to see him leave.

  Acknowledgements

  My grateful thanks, as always, to the teams at Christopher Little

  and Bloomsbury. Thanks too to photographer Jonathan Reed for

  his good-humoured research.

  ANNE ZOUROUDI was born in England and lived for some years in the Greek islands. Her attachment to Greece remains strong, and the country is the inspiration for much of her writing. She now lives in the Derbyshire Peak District with her son.

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  The Messenger of Athens

  The Taint of Midas

  The Lady of Sorrows

  Dramatis Personae

  First published in Great Britain 2009

  This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © 2009 by Anne Zouroudi

  Map on p. vii © John Gilkes 2009

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

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