She folded her arms over her stomach, and closed her lips.
Maria and the neighbour looked at her expectantly.
‘What do you mean, Mama?’ asked Maria.
‘How will there be answers?’ asked the neighbour.
‘Someone’s been here,’ said Roula. ‘An old friend of mine. He’ll get to the bottom of it. It’s what he does, gets to the bottom of things.’
‘Who, kalé?’ asked the neighbour.
‘What friend, Mama?’ asked Maria.
But Roula gave no answer; she closed her eyes, and seemed to fall back into a doze.
Maria and the neighbour talked quietly as Maria prepared the sauce – squeezing the water from the soaked breadcrumbs, mixing them in the mortar with the garlic, adding oil, salt and vinegar to the right consistency. In the kitchen, Maria dipped the soaked fish in semolina, and heated a pan of oil to fry it crisp. Their talk was of the poet’s second death, and where he had hidden himself for so long, and though they had no answers, they enjoyed their speculation. As Maria lifted the last fish from the pan, the neighbour took her leave.
When the door had closed behind her, Roula opened her eyes.
‘Has she gone?’ she asked, as Maria placed the food on the table. ‘The fish looks very tasty. Cut it up small for me, kori mou, and put me a dollop of skordalia on the side. I’m hungry enough to eat for two. That little food for thought has whet my appetite.’
But Roula’s daytime sleeping brought insomnia, interminable nights of wakeful hours where the weight of time’s slow passing was intolerable.
Eyes closed, she said a prayer.
‘Take me tonight,’ she said, ‘painless and quick. I need no more time. Let me slip away, and not wake to see another day.’
But another night passed; and with first light falling on the window, she faced again the disappointment of an unanswered prayer.
Thirteen
The dog barked a warning of someone’s approach: a fisherman heading for waters where swordfish might be taken, calling in to the islet on a detour. He was in high spirits, optimistic of a good catch and pleased to be escaping from home, from his bickering children and the sighs of his discontented wife. He brought with him four days’ worth of newspapers, all untidy from someone else’s reading.
‘Yassou, hermit!’ he called as he came up the beach, the newspapers under his arm. ‘I’m playing postman, for today.’
The hermit made him coffee as the fisherman prattled on: the fish he expected to catch, the price he would get per kilo, the second-hand motorbike he might buy if his trip went as he planned. He smoked a pipe of Swedish tobacco, and as he smoked, he admired the view and the comforts of the cabin.
‘You’ve made it all very agreeable here,’ he said. ‘And no women to nag you. A life free as yours would suit me very nicely. Maybe I’ll come and join you for a while, when I return.’
The hermit offered a biscuit from a packet; the fisherman accepted, took a single bite himself, and threw the remainder to the dog.
‘Your name was mentioned, the other day,’ said the fisherman. ‘They say you’re putting it to the mechanic’s wife.’
He looked expectantly at the hermit, but the hermit, smiling, shook his head.
‘You can believe that, if you like,’ he said. ‘But look at me. I’m no woman’s dream, am I? And as you say, I’m a free man. I’d be a fool to complicate my life with women.’
The fisherman put another match to his pipe.
‘So what’s your interest in the news?’ he asked, tapping an oily finger on the newspapers. ‘What’s it matter to you, what’s happening in the world? Sta’nathema! Let them all go to hell! It’s what I would do, if I were you.’
‘I’m becoming ignorant,’ said the hermit, dipping the corner of a biscuit in his coffee. ‘I lose track even of who’s president, and what year it is. When I go over to Seftos, they all think me stupid; I’ve nothing to talk about but the weather, and the sea. The government might be overthrown, or Athens might sink beneath the waves, and I’d be the last to know.’
‘If that damned city sinks beneath the waves, I’ll come and tell you myself,’ said the fisherman, ‘and bring whisky to toast its destruction. And if you can talk about the weather, and the sea, you’ll not be behind them over there. What else do they ever talk about? Women’s gossip, and old men’s tales! Read your papers if you like, but not in hopes of clever chat from a Seftian. I’m going; I’ve fish to catch. I’ll call in on my return; I’ll bring you a little something for your dinner. I like this place; it’s peaceful. A place like this would suit me very well.’
As he made off down the beach, he waved goodbye without looking back. Inside the cabin, the hermit listened as his engine faded away.
He opened the oldest copy of Ethnos, published a week before. The pages were well read, dog-eared and creased, and marked with the stains of a coffee cup, and ink scribbles where the shopkeeper had tested his failing pen. He flicked through the paper quickly, scanning each page’s headlines, reading a little news. He put the first paper aside, and scanned the second – dated two days later – in the same way, but found nothing there to interest him. But in the third paper – published four days previously – at page two, he stopped to read.
The headline was bold, and unmissable, set above a half-page article. He read the article with care, and then read it again.
The hermit folded the paper.
The afternoon was drawing on; the light in the cabin was growing dim. The sea was calm, the breeze was mild, and he was growing hungry. He took a fishing line and bait from the shelf, and made his way across the pebbled beach down to the jetty. There, he cast his line into the water, and stood patiently, waiting for a bite.
Reburial
Fourteen
Outside the front doors of his hotel, the fat man paused to consider the weather. Overhead, the sky was clear, but banks of clouds were forming out over the sea. A breeze rustled the branches of a tree bright with a crop of oranges; near its roots, fruit lay crushed and trodden into the pavement flagstones. A woman in a fur coat encouraged a small dog to defecate in a gutter; when she saw the fat man watching, she glared as if he had given some offence and turned her back.
The fat man yawned. His bed had been uncomfortable, the room either too hot, or, when he had turned off the heating, too cold. Though the rate had been expensive, and had included breakfast, he had not stayed to eat; the lack of quality he might expect in the food was implicit in the hotel’s other shortcomings.
He disliked this city and was always glad to leave; his business here would shortly be completed, and he’d be free to go. He walked along the dirty pavement to where the side street joined a boulevard. Traffic on the boulevard was heavy, its fumes spoiling the salt scent of the sea. At the intersection of the two streets was a public phone booth – an aluminium box bearing the OTE logo in red. The booth was sited under a balcony where a verdant garden flourished, spreading to the phone booth’s roof in pots of ferns.
The fat man stepped into the booth, pleased to find that it had a meticulous caretaker; the floor was recently mopped and smelled lightly of lemons; the receiver, when he picked it up, had been cleaned with lavender polish. He slid the door closed behind him, reducing the traffic’s din, and took out his little notebook, turning to the page he had written on as Attis made his phone call in Vrisi’s kafenion. He had written a series of numbers; now he deposited coins into the phone’s slot, and skipping the first three digits as the code for the city he was in, dialled the digits he had noted.
The number rang out several times, until a man’s voice answered. The voice was deep and had authority, but there was crackling on the line, and the fat man didn’t catch what had been said.
He waited for the man to speak again.
‘Yes?’ said the man, impatiently.
‘Kali mera sas,’ said the fat man, politely. ‘Please forgive me for calling you so early.’
‘Who is this?’
&nb
sp; ‘My name is Hermes Diaktoros. I am an acquaintance of Attis Danas. I’m calling you in regard to Santos Volakis.’
‘What about him?’
‘I wonder if I might beg a few minutes of your time, to discuss a matter of family business.’
‘Family business? What family business? Who are you?’
‘I’m someone with your best interests at heart, someone who wouldn’t want to see you involved in anything illegal. If you’re a man of integrity, you’ll want to be warned, I’m sure, if you’re about to make a deal which might turn sour.’
There was a short silence on the line.
‘How do you know Attis?’
‘We met in Vrisi. He asked me to look into some family business for him. But before I do so, there are some questions – may I speak plainly, my friend? – which I would like to ask about Attis himself. Discreet questions, of someone who has dealt with him in the past.’
‘How did you get this number?’
‘From Attis, indirectly. Do you have an office where we can meet? I really think it would be worth your while.’
Again, there was silence.
‘Attis is offering you something for sale, is he not, which you would very much like to acquire,’ suggested the fat man.
The silence continued.
‘It is my strong advice that you talk to me before you hand over any money,’ he went on. ‘Of course, if you prefer not to speak to me, that is your prerogative, and I shall not trouble you further. Yassas.’
He kept the receiver to his ear.
‘Just a moment,’ said the voice, at last.
‘Yes?’
‘My office is on Papanikolas Street, number 78. I have a meeting across town I shall be walking to. If you care to walk with me, we could talk. Meet me outside the building at 10.30. But if you’re late, I won’t wait.’
The fat man looked at his watch and calculated there would be time for breakfast, before he’d need to find a taxi.
‘I’ll be there,’ he said. ‘And be assured, I am never late when it’s necessary to be punctual.’
Along the boulevard, the fat man stopped at a periptero: a wooden kiosk, whose roof was over-painted with advertising for Assos cigarettes and whose every shelf was crammed with goods for sale: sweet biscuits and cigarette lighters, condoms and city maps, chewing gum, lozenges and batteries. In wire racks nailed to a brick wall behind, magazines for many interests – sailing, pornography, farming, fashion – were displayed in Greek and foreign languages, along with all the nation’s daily newspapers and outdated international editions: the Wall Street Journal and the Herald Tribune, Die Zeit, a single copy of the English Sun.
Framed by displays of postcards of city views, a young woman in tight jeans and a leather jacket with many zips leaned on the counter, flicking through the pages of Italian Vogue. She was chewing gum; her heavily made-up eyes ran the fat man up and down, and returned to the photographs of glamorous couture.
Attracted by a cover picture of a glazed and golden-baked courgette pie, the fat man picked out a copy of Yevsi – Taste – magazine from the racks, and from the newspapers chose that morning’s Ethnos.
He wished the young woman Kali mera, but she gave no reply. There was no room for his intended purchases on the counter where the woman’s magazine was spread, so the fat man instead held them out to her, showing their prices. The woman glanced at the magazine and the newspaper, but not at the fat man; eyes back on the pictures of expensive clothing, she stated a price.
‘I’d like cigarettes, too, please,’ he said, with a smile. ‘Do you have any of my brand?’ He took a box of his cigarettes from his pocket, and held it up so the woman could see the starlet’s pretty face; by contrast, the woman’s own face slipped into a scowl as she lifted her chin and tutted, ‘No.’
‘Perhaps if you looked, you might find a pack or two,’ suggested the fat man, brightly. ‘Many people tell me they don’t stock this brand, and then, when they look, they find a packet or two, hidden away.’
The young woman looked at him with contempt.
‘I don’t have them, I tell you,’ she said. ‘Twelve hundred fifty, for those.’
The fat man paid with exact change, and with his magazine and newspaper under his arm, made his way to the pedestrian crossing at the roads’ intersection. As he waited for the traffic lights to change in his favour, he heard a bang and a clattering behind him, and the shriek of a woman’s angry voice. All around him, pedestrians stopped and turned towards the periptero, where the newspaper rack had dropped from wall to ground, scattering dozens of newspapers as it fell. The young woman was moving quickly as she emerged from the kiosk’s rear door, but the breeze was quicker. Riffling the light paper of the morning editions, it easily separated the pages of newsprint, and carried sheets of the nation’s news high in the air, flying and flapping into the boulevard traffic.
Across the boulevard, the fat man found an Italian café, more appropriate to Milan than to a Greek city, yet somehow lacking an Italian city’s style. He took a table with a street view, away from the draught caused by the door’s opening and closing, and asked the blonde-haired girl who served him for a Greek coffee without sugar.
‘No Greek coffee,’ she said, in Scandinavian-accented Greek. ‘Espresso.’
His eye had been caught by a display of cakes and pastries.
‘Could I trouble you,’ he said, ‘to tell me what sweets you have on offer?’
She listed them with no interest, her pen held over her order pad to hurry his choice.
‘Denmark,’ he said, as she finished speaking. ‘Am I right?’
‘Yes,’ she said. She looked at him expectantly.
‘I have never been so far north,’ he said, affably. ‘I am certain the weather would not be to my taste. Though I suppose it is something you could get used to, like the lack of light.’
‘Are you ready to order?’ she asked. ‘If you want a minute, I can come back.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m ready. I think a slice of the lemon tart, with a little whipped cream on the side. It’s not something you eat for breakfast every day, but a change of habit is healthy, once in a while. And I’ll have one of the croissants too, whichever you recommend; I’m torn between the chocolate and the almond.’
For a long moment, she looked at him.
‘I’d have the cherry,’ she said, ‘if you’re asking my opinion.’
‘I am, and I will,’ said the fat man. ‘Cherry it is. And since there are two courses to my breakfast, be good enough to make my espresso a double.’
She left him, and he unfolded his newspaper, reading the headline with little interest: political scandal, though with an original touch – not a minister’s affair, but his wife’s affair with a boy exactly the age of their own son. Amused, he turned the page, and saw a smaller headline there: Death of the Lazarus Poet. Skimming the article for its crucial points, a thought seemed to strike him, and he turned to the classified section in the paper’s last pages, where, amongst trysts for illicit lovers, advertisements for deviant sex and a request for a baby to adopt, was a message: Investigator please return to us urgently. AD.
The waitress laid his coffee on the table, alongside a slice of lemon tart with a spoon, and a cherry croissant with a knife.
The fat man folded his newspaper.
‘Thank you,’ he said, with a smile. ‘It is most fortunate I have ordered a decent breakfast; my day, it seems, is likely to be quite a challenge.’
The fat man found the address he had been given without difficulty: a white-walled office block on a quiet street, overhung by the branches of tall plane trees whose roots were lifting and splitting the road and pavements. The building was respectable but not opulent; it suggested modest earnings rather than great prosperity, a business making a comfortable living but not vast profits. A revolving glass door and a glass front on to the street showed a reception desk inside, where a woman typed. There was no sign on the front of the building to announc
e the offices’ business, except for a polished brass plaque – partly covered by the branches of an oleander bush – engraved with the words, ‘Bellerophon Editions AE’.
The fat man checked his watch and found the time to be a minute before 10.30. Through the glass, he watched the receptionist pause in her typing to answer the phone on her desk and make a note in pencil before her fingers went back to the keys.
On the street, the three-wheeled blue wagon of a municipal street cleaner – a man whose sagging face told of one hangover too many – pulled up alongside a waste-bin secured round the trunk of a plane tree. Dismounting his vehicle, he tipped the bin’s small amount of rubbish into the wagon’s back, and as he did so, noticed the fat man and stared at him with curiosity, as if the fat man were someone he ought to know. The fat man gave him a broad smile, and raising his hand, called out Kali mera. The street cleaner responded with a nod, and drove away with his face still full of questioning.
The fat man found his cigarettes, and took one from the almost empty box. Lighting it with his gold lighter, he inhaled deeply. Inside the building, on the modern-looking staircase which curved down behind the receptionist, a man appeared. He descended at a run, his feet light and confident on the stairs; he seemed a man of energy, and as he strode past the receptionist, did not stop but spoke to her in passing, raising his left hand in farewell as his right hand pushed on the revolving door.
The fat man drew again on his cigarette, and watched the man as he emerged. Well built, and not dissimilar in stature to the fat man, his posture was less commanding, his shoulders stooped and somewhat rounded. His appearance was untidy; though his navy suit was well tailored, it was in need of cleaning and pressing; his white shirt was not fastened at the collar; and though his silk tie was a shade of blue the fat man would have admired, it was stained with a double dribble of coffee. He approached the fat man with his hand outstretched, and there seemed about him qualities of openness and cordiality, although he wasn’t smiling now. Instead, his expression was wary.
The Whispers of Nemesis Page 13