by Tony Kaplan
I check my e-mails. Irini has responded. Lucy has still not contacted her and still no reply, and, under the circumstances, she agrees I should try to ‘access her computer’, as she puts it diplomatically. As for the password, she suggests I try the name of Lucy’s cat – she’d doted on the cat in Amsterdam. Sophocles. The cat had died last year and Lucy had been bereft. Maybe she used it in her password to help keep the memory of her cat alive. She thought that a picture of Sophocles was her screensaver. Yeah, I could play around with that. Sounds promising. At least now I have Irini’s agreement – permission – to hack into Lucy’s computer, so I don’t feel as guilty or voyeuristic. Purely professional.
I dash off my proposal to New World Order for a series of articles on island life.
I’ve got some time still, so after I’ve finished my coffee (American, weak) and sandwich (bland, too much bread), I walk around the harbour, the pleasure boats of the rich and the fishing boats of the poor democratically arranged on the dark green water. Grizzly old fishermen disentangle their nets with nimble fingers and mumble to each other, each battling manfully to talk with their unlit cigarette butt balanced at the corner of their mouth. Tiny black fish swirl in pockets, looking for scraps. The water is clear, all the way to the bottom.
There are tavernas all along the harbour road. At the least modern, and, it must be said, the least pretentious, at a table in the sun, I see Calliope, the Communist Party apparatchik, with the handsome older man she was with at the police station. She is watching me. I nod to show I recognise her. Then on an impulse, I go over and introduce myself. She takes my hand and grips it in hers firmly. She does not lose her stern expression.
“From London?” she says, “I lived in London for many years. Islington. I stayed in Islington. You know Islington?”
No way! What a coincidence! I tell her I live in Islington. She used to lecture at “the Poly”, now a University – “Should have stayed a Poly,” she opines. “Universities are for the elite. The Poly was a democratic structure.” The man next to her nods. “My husband, Nektarios,” she says. He offers his hand glumly.
“So what do you do on the island?” I ask.
“Now I write,” she says, “and I make trouble!”
Her husband nods, and smiles. “For sure,” he says.
“My husband would prefer to remain in his studio and make his sculptures,” she says. Her tone is dismissive, but her eyes betray her warmth for the handsome man at her side. “And you? What do you do?”
I explain my job (Calliope is impressed that I write for a progressive journal – I can see her eyeing me up to see if she can get something published through me), and that I am on the island, looking for a friend who has gone missing.
“Who is your friend?” Calliope asks.
“Lucy Discombe,” I say, “an environmental activist. You know her?”
“I never met her, but I know of her. Like me, she is a trouble-maker,” Calliope says with an ironic dipping of her left eyebrow.
“Who was she making trouble for?” I ask.
“The developers, the Mayor, PASOK – the Socialists, and the workers,” she says. “She was saying things, criticising the new resort and the roads, the new developments on the island. She was not understanding that on the island we need the jobs. There are a lot of poor people here, especially in winter, when the tourists go back to their comfortable homes in Germany, Austria and Sweden. The developers are a piece of shit, but we need their jobs.” She takes out a packet of cigarettes, shakes one free and lights up. She offers me the packet. I tell her I don’t smoke. She looks at me as if this confirms I am a soft liberal. “She does not understand the dialectical nature of development.”
“But what about the environment?”
“Exactly what I am explaining. The Greens want us to put the environment before everything else, even before the wellbeing of the people. The environment is not before or after – it is side by side with the economic uplifting of the proletariat, and, in this country, of the peasant class too. It is in the matrix of production; it is not the organising principle,” she asserts emphatically, daring me to disagree.
“I disagree,” I say, accepting, with a grin, the invitation to be contrary. I sense this is what the old Marxist wants.
“Mmph,” Calliope snorts, tipping the ash off her cigarette, “You are a privileged cosmopolitan. You have surplus capital. Have you ever been poor? Have you ever gone hungry?”
“Why are you arguing with the young man?” her husband asks benignly.
“We are not arguing - we are debating!” Calliope says. Now she grins. “It is nice to have an intellectual debate with someone from London. It takes me back!”
I suddenly have a picture in my mind of this firebrand, extolling the virtues of communism to lively young students in the bar at Middlesex Uni, berating complacent liberals, scorning Thatcher and her fawning acolytes, when I would still have been in nappies. She has dignity in her upright posture, in her high cheekbones and sunken cheeks, in her silvered hair – almost an aristocratic bearing. She must have been impressive in those days, even beautiful.
I change the subject and ask about the protest she led that morning.
“The Socialist, PASOK, the ruling party,” (she says in italics) “play it safe. Can you imagine – for all the bravery of the Resistance – it was our party who fought the Germans, our party that fought for our freedom from imperialism after the War – there is not one statue to commemorate them? So many people on the old Left sold out – became Social Democrats – capitalists, and they don’t want to open old wounds, they say. Instead they will forget the brave men and women who gave up their lives for their country. Look at the body they found in the bridge. When the Colonels took power in the late 60s, who was it they persecuted? It was us. The Communists. It is our comrade in that old bridge. So many disappeared when the junta came,” she says sadly. “The Struggle continues,” she pronounces. “A luta continua.” She savours the texture of the old left-wing rallying cry, before continuing, ardently, “But the Mayor, who says he’s socialist, doesn’t want a statue of our fallen comrades, because he says it is not good for ‘inward investment’ to honour communists. The Americans, especially the Greek Americans, will keep their money back, if they think this island is going too far to the Left. Fuck him! It’s our history! The People will rule again. Capitalism will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. Believe me, it will happen. Nektarios is already working on a beautiful statue. We will, we must remember our Struggle!”
I look at my watch. Christ, it’s two thirty. I have to meet Yiannis at the van.
“I must go,” I tell them. “My lift back to Agia Anna… It’s been nice talking. We must meet again.”
They nod at me in rhythm. Calliope raises a fist in solidarity and gives me a weary smile. Then her expression deepens, there is a dark shading to her concern, “Tell your Lucy to be careful. People are not happy with her.”
6
Yianni’s van has been pre-heated by the midday sun; it is sweltering on the way back. There is no air conditioning. Yiannis smokes all the way, steering around the hairpin bends with one hand on the wheel, singing along with the burr of the rebetika music from his old car radio. By the time we get back to Agia Anna I am ready to throw up and am slip-sliming in my own effortless perspiration. The cool ocean beckons. A swim, a beer, then down to work. I thank Yiannis, almost offer to help him unload but then think better of it and instead go straight to get my swimming trunks and towel and hurry down to the beach.
The water is mirror-like, unfurling lazily as it reaches the shore. I dive under; the coolness and silence is so what I want, that I put off coming up for air until there is only one second of air left in my lungs. I emerge, breathe and then submerge myself again. I open my eyes. The water is salty but doesn’t sting my eyes, the visibility – the endless blue – is a mind-blast. I let myself swim a slow breast-stroke, then float on my back, crucified, refrigerated. Perfe
ct. I plan a list of things-to-do.
1) Check Lucy’s laptop – see if I can get in with the help of Sophocles (deceased).
2) Go to The Seaview – get online – check if Marsha has responded to my proposal yet.
3) See if Michalis has any news from his friend, the property developer. Is Lucy there?
4) Maybe get something written for New World Order – an essay? A report? – not sure which – maybe one of each – one on land ownership and it’s ironies (maybe interview Yiannis again and maybe Michali’s mother, or is that too provocative?); one on environmental protection and the “dialectics of development”, as the formidable Calliope put it; there was one more – oh, yes, the Returnees and the American Dream.
That should keep me busy. Earn my keep. I hope Marsha agrees. This working in a sunny climate, swimming in the temperate sea, eating freshly cooked seafood isn’t for everyone, but someone’s got to do it. May as well be me.
I hope Lucy is okay and that she turns up soon. My worrying about Lucy comes in waves. Right now, floating gently in this warm salty water, I feel an upsurge in my spirits and a confidence, a certainty that she will turn up in time, and that the explanation for her absence will be a simple one, something I have not yet thought of.
I swim back to the shore with sure, aesthetically-pleasing strokes, feeling the power in my muscles, the possibility of a tragic turn dispelled.
****
I almost expect to find Lucy waiting for me at the cottage, but the house is empty and silent. I change into cotton trousers and a loose-fitting cheese-cloth shirt. I am ready to work.
I go to get out Lucy’s laptop out the cupboard, but it is not where I thought I put it. I think back to when I used it last, where else I might have put it. I look everywhere, even on the back patio – did I have it there? Nothing. It’s gone. There are no signs of a burglary. Nothing else seems to be missing. But, wait, wasn’t her hoodie over the back of the chair. That’s not here either.
Then the obvious sits up and slaps me in the face. Lucy is back! She has rushed in, collected her laptop and hoodie and gone out again. Excellent! What a relief! There I was, just about to succumb to Irini’s life-is-a-drama version of life. Fuck, I realise as I exhale and feel a weight lift off me, I was on the verge of starting to think that Lucy may be dead! Mental note to myself: don't listen to your sister.
I wonder where Lucy’s gone and what she’s made of my stuff in her place. Does she even know it’s my stuff? – maybe she thinks she has a squatter! Could she have gone down to the Sea View to get online? She could be mailing me right now. I could do a magic number on her and pop up in front of her, just as she presses “Send!” Like a genie out of a lamp. Grinning to myself like a crazy person, I grab my laptop and go to meet her.
But at the Sea View, no sign of Lucy. Nitsa, Michali’s wife, says she hasn’t seen Lucy. Michalis is having a nap, but Nitsa plugs me in and collects my five euros. I am deflated but reassure myself that I’ll catch up with Lucy later, that the wait will only make the meeting even more tender and passionate. I am so relieved she’s back. Excited with the possibilities. We’ll have dinner together. We’ll have a bottle of wine. Candles. Soft sea air. She’ll look into my eyes, see my love for her, take my artfully placed hand in hers, we’ll alight the boat, which will be the rest of our lives, and set afloat on the tranquil waters of contentment. No life jackets required.
But first – work. An e-mail from Marsha. She wants more details, more of a feel for what I would write. I sketch out the topics I had in mind and tell her about what I’ve been up to. I search more articles on environmental protection in Greece and download two of them to add to my research. I tell her of the body in the bridge and the Communists’ campaign. Maybe there is a story in that for us.
I think about working on the veranda of the Sea View, but there are some noisy kids squabbling there, and the music (is this “The Best of Robbie Williams”?) will be a distraction. Maybe I’ll go get a Greek coffee and a Metaxa at the run-down looking bar on the wing of the bay next to the low fishermen’s houses at the other end of the beach, facing the mountains. Looks quiet.
The bar, “Kafenion”, (literally “coffee bar”, but they also serve brandy and ouzo) is on a long, shaded veranda built on to the water. A concrete jetty extends a short way and harbours one large and two small fishing boats. The grey and ochre mountains rise up suddenly across the small bay, clouds banking up on the windward side. Pine forests green the folds. In places, gigantic boulders and sandstone rock faces stand proud. From this side the sea is spread out in unfathomable shades of aquamarine and deeper greens. I sit at a table over the water and look at the view. The owner is at a table near the door to his establishment, smoking a cigarette, a peaceful tragic look in his eyes. He nods to acknowledge me and waits for me to get settled before he comes over and waits for my order. Evidently, he is a man drawn to silence. He’s got the right spot for it. It is very peaceful here. I guess you get used to your own company. I order a coffee and a brandy.
I flip open my laptop and begin, putting in order, as best as I can remember it – there will be time to edit it later – what Yiannis told me last night about the ironies of matriarchal property rights on Mythos - how, since ancient times, the fertile land was passed down from mother to daughter and the men had to make do with the dusty, wind-swept land near the sea, at the mercy of marauding pirates; how, as they prospered, the islanders’ mainly vegetarian diet started to include more meat and fish, and it was this, in Yianni's opinion, especially the consuming of razor clams, that caused mothers to produce male children, and how consequently, the bride price had become exorbitant; landless men had to leave the island to find lucrative employment enough to buy a bride, the less adventurous going to Piraeus, Thessaly and the mainland beyond, the more adventurous braving the hungry seas to make their fortune in America. Some got lost somewhere in between. All came back – the luckless with empty pockets and a foreign wife – Greek of course, but not from the village – the lucky ones with disposable income and electrical gadgets – phonograms, electric lights, fans which blew by themselves – the wonders of the modern age, waiting in a back room for electricity to come to the island.
I end with: “But now, with the growth of tourism since Greece entered the European Common Market, what was the best land – the most productive farming land - owned mainly by women, is now of much less value than the land next to the sea, land which used to be thought of as wasteland. As land values invert, the socio-economic hierarchies are reversed and old scores are settled. Change brings conflict.”
I read it back. Not bad for a first draft. Good enough to send to Marsha anyway.
As I am looking for the owner to order another coffee, a taxi pulls up outside and a neatly dressed man in a suit gets out, pays the driver and with a briefcase in one hand and the other dragging his suitcase behind him, he comes towards me. The owner comes out of the kafenion when he hears the percussion of the suitcase wheels on the irregular concrete floor of the veranda, grins and opens his arms to the visitor. “Stelio!” the visitor says joyfully and they embrace. “Ti kaneis? Kala?”
“Nai,” says the owner, who I guess is called Stelios. He takes the visitor’s suitcase from him and goes inside. The visitor sees me regarding them.
He comes to me with his hand extended. “Hello,” I say as I offer him my hand.
“Ah, English,” he says. “Antonis Ionidis,” he says, “Inspector of Police, Athens.”
“Tom Pickering, journalist, London,” I retort.
“Antoni, ela!” Stelios call to the visitor.
“My cousin, Stelios,” The Police Inspector explains. “Wait, I am coming back,” he says and goes inside hurriedly.
He doesn’t take long unpacking. He returns without his jacket, now more relaxed. He is about my age, but shorter than me, although probably heavier – he is thick-set which gives him a muscular appearance now, but which, in middle age, will turn into a paunch and a fat back. His b
ulbous eyes and his smile which goes almost, but not quite, from ear-to-ear give him the appearance of a puppy keen to earn an affectionate pat. He carries a pack of cigarillos and a zippo lighter. He sits himself down at my table, assuming my invitation. He is keen to make the acquaintance of an English journalist, someone with whom he can have uplifting conversations, someone with a broad world view. He is a man of the world, a graduate of the University of Thessaly with a Masters in Political Science, he is quick to tell me. His accent is American inflected, no doubt from watching American crime movies. He has only recently been promoted to Inspector and this is his first case for the Political Crimes Unit which he has just joined.
“You heard they found a body in the bridge?” he asks me earnestly. I nod. “The communists are making a stink, o-boy! My superiors want this to be, what you might call, nip-ped in the butt,” he says. He put himself forward for the job. He championed his cousin, Stelios, the owner of the Kafenion, as a man well-connected, who could smooth the way for him and give him valuable insider’s knowledge of the island. In return for his superiors’ confidence, he would save the Police Department the expense of housing him for the duration of his stay on the island by staying free of charge with Stelios in Agia Anna. Rumour had it that the son of the corpse under investigation lived in Agia Anna, so it was just as well.
He lights a cigarillo, then offers me one. I decline. I don’t smoke, but I do like the aroma of a good cigar, so I don’t mind. He smokes in an affected way, like he’s a character in a movie and displays a confident social manner which only serves to accentuate his insecurity. I bet he is from a small town, probably the son of a grocer or a factory worker. But there is humour in his eyes. He doesn’t take himself too seriously. I like him.