Her wise eyes went over him again. “ I was afraid you might.”
“Lascou is dead.”
Her expression did not change. “So.… When?”
“This evening.”
“She does not know?”
“Not yet. I must be the first to tell her.”
“I’ll arrange it. Wait for me.”
The company began to file out, Sir Giles bending his benign head to the confidences of the Ambassador’s sister; Lady Camwell trailing tall and vague with the Comte de Trieste; Anya with Paul Vyro in close attendance; in the hall Gene waited with M. Vyro and Mrs. Regent. Temporarily a sense of inanition had come on him; he was a puppet caught up in these elderly formalities; for him it was a period of quiescence which he must make the most of, resting within himself while still on his feet. What news Aegis would have for its evening editions tomorrow!
Mme Lindos came down the stairs. “ I’m sorry to have kept you, Angelos. I had forgotten my bag.”
They went out to the taxi. M. Vyro handed Mme Lindos in with old world courtesy. Gene shared a seat with Mrs. Regent. They drove rapidly through the bright streets, which were still busy at midnight.
Mrs. Regent said: “Sam and I are making a comprehensive tour of the Balkans and the Near East—with our movie-camera. Our 16 mm. goes with us everywhere and later, properly edited, the film has nation-wide distribution in the States. My husband speaks the commentary.”
Gene shifted in his seat.
“We have two days more in Athens, then we go on to Rome. Our Ambassador is planning a big programme for us there. We shall make no more than a whistle stop in Vienna, but shall study Istanbul extensively and then go through to the Arab countries. We plan to have three weeks over here altogether. I guess we felt this was too important a commission to entrust to anyone but ourselves. Do you know Greece well, Mr. Vanbrugh?”
“Pretty well,” said Gene.
“Maybe you’re not interested in the political scene. Sam and I have visited fifty-seven countries in the last two years with our 16mm. movie-camera. We have very efficient sub-editors who carry on in our absence. I may say we’re very pleased indeed with the situation as we find it in Greece. We’re very impressed with the way the political parties are presently handling the situation. When we return to the States we’ll be able to interpret election events over here to our readers over there with up-to-the-minute freshness and understanding.”
Gene didn’t speak. The car had turned off the main streets. Mrs. Regent said: “Are you one of these Europeanised Americans, Mr. Vanbrugh?”
“Why?”
“You don’t seem to me to have an American way of speaking.”
“Oh, I have.”
She looked at him. “To tell the truth I haven’t much room for Europeanised Americans. Some of them talk like Englishmen, and in that case I say it’s better to be English and the hell with it. Besides that, most of them live over here and by their behaviour are no credit to their country or their countrymen. They live loosely in Paris or London and pay no heed to world trends.”
“Here is the letter you wanted,” said Mme Lindos, opening her bag and handing him an envelope. “I will give it you before I forget.”
They were slowing up. She said to Vyro: “I hope this visit will not entail a lot of walking, Angelos.”
“Ten minutes will see us through. Then we will meet my son in his office and drink champagne. It is merely a little formality; but you may go straight to the office if you wish.”
He spoke stiffly and she patted his hand. “No, no, I would like to come.”
They drew up outside the offices of the Aegis, a squat white building with a polished mahogany hall. The rest of the party were in the hall waiting, and a number of others had joined. Among them were the French ambassador—the Vyro family had strong ties with Paris—several members of the Greek press, an Egyptian official, an American Gene didn’t know.
At this point each member of the party was presented with a souvenir of the occasion. Each woman was given a silver propelling pencil, each man a penknife. They were all dated and inscribed: ‘Presented with the proud compliments of Aegis on the 50th Anniversary of its foundation.’
Gene edged away from Mrs. Regent, who was talking to the new American, and towards Anya, who was still being cavaliered by Paul Vyro.
“Anya, I have to see you. I’m sorry—after yesterday—but it’s vitally important.”
Gene glanced at young Vyro but he did not give way.
Anya said angrily: “ What is it?”
“Come, mademoiselle,” said young Vyro, “the others are moving off.”
They went up in lifts and walked through a large editorial room. Gene found himself next to Lady Camwell, who looked at him vaguely as if she was not sure whether she had seen him before and then said: “Is this a daily paper?”
In a room full of Linotype machines, at which men sat setting up their columns, M. Vyro halted the party and began to explain.
“… trouble?” said Lady Camwell.
“What? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear.”
“Are you in trouble?”
He stared at her. “Why?”
“I heard you saying so to Mme—what’s her name.”
“You speak Greek?”
“In my parents’ house we all had to read and write it before we were ten. The modern is a little difficult at first. Can I help you?”
“Thank you. Thanks a lot. No.…”
They went downstairs. A member of the staff began to tell how a raised surface was etched for printing. The Greek-ambassador to Turkey and the French ambassador to Greece had their heads together in a corner, but the subject was clearly nothing to do with fish-glue emulsion.
Mme Lindos said to Gene: “ If it is true, what you told me before we left.…”
“It’s true.”
“How did it happen?”
“Not naturally.”
“Oh.…” After a minute she said: “ You want to tell Anya Stonaris that?”
“I want to tell her it was not my doing.”
“Is it likely it will be thought so?”
“Possibly—later on.”
“You must leave at once. I have a cousin in Piraeus. I think he could help.”
Gene patted her arm. “This is none of your business.”
Vyro stepped forward beaming. “You are not too tired yet, Sophia?”
“Not too tired but tiring.”
“A few more steps, that is all.”
The group moved on to the foundry hall. Here moulds were coming in and being thrust into the giant casting box. Beside this the great metal-pot was bubbling with molten metal; and at a signal the metal ran down the pipe into the casting box, where it spread over the mould. An impression of fatality began to take hold of Gene, as if he was in the grip of foreseeable circumstances which left him no hope of escape. He saw a predictable end as one might if caught on a conveyor belt and moving towards the cogs of a great machine. The sweat kept starting from his body.
The casting box was open, and men with leather gloves picked out the semi-circular metal plates and carried them still warm towards a further door. At this door M. Vyro stopped and stood on a stool and made a short speech. Gene edged towards Anya.
As he did so Lady Camwell got in his way and he felt something pressed into his hand. It was a roll of 50-drachma notes. “You may need them,” she said. “I’ve always believed in backing my fancy.” She looked across absent-mindedly at her husband. “I’m not often wrong in a man.”
M. Vyro was talking about the two new printing presses in the room beyond, how much they had cost and what they would do, and how they were now going to be set in motion for the first time. It was fitting that they should first come into use on the fiftieth anniversary of the paper’s founding and still more that they should be switched on for the first time by his oldest and dearest friend Sophia Lindos.…
Gene said: “Thank you. But I …”
Lad
y Camwell had moved on, leaving him with the notes. He thrust them into his pocket as absent-mindedly as she had given them; money was for a future which now might never arise.
He looked for Anya and saw that she had moved with young Vyro towards the door and away from him. He changed his direction and edged nearer. He could not shirk the compulsion of the nightmare, but he bore like a load of guilt all the dreamer’s anxiety to avert catastrophe.
Somebody led a little applause as Vyro stepped down and Mme Lindos limped forward to press down the switch. As she did so a low pitched hum began in the room beyond; it increased second by second as the party moved towards the little door, soon it over-rode the noises in the foundry.
Some had already passed in. Gene caught Anya’s arm as she reached the door. “Anya, I must tell you.…”
She stopped and looked at him, her eyes wide and hurt. Then she shook her arm free. “ What have you to tell me? Nothing that I don’t know. It was a weakness on my part, coming here; I know; but I’ll get over it. I’ll get over it. Leave me alone.”
She turned and rejoined Paul Vyro who was waiting at the door. Gene followed them in.
The roar of the screaming machines inside was like the obverse side of sound. One had broken a new kind of barrier beyond which noise was the basic medium instead of silence.
There was not much room in the hall; the visitors grouped in casual spaces here and there to watch. Four men tended the presses, ant-brains ministering to the monsters, tiny dwarfs reaching a hand into the vitals with oil can or rag. Gene was right beside Anya again, but all communication was reduced to gesture. Once he shouted at her but she did not even turn her head.
Mme Lindos had drawn as far away as possible from the machinery, her quizzical eyebrows a sufficient expression of her views—tolerating and condoning her old friend’s pride but disclaiming enthusiasm. By gestures Vyro himself was indicating exactly how the machines did their job, explaining how the paper raced round the plates at lightning speed, snatching at the print and whirring through the folders and cutters, to be magically transformed into a completed newspaper and flipped down upon the delivery platforms in quires.
After a time the noise took not only one’s ears but one’s breath. It was something for which one’s body had only a limited absorption. As the first newspapers were delivered, men lifted them upon a moving platform which carried them away to the packing room, and Mme Lindos had already taken a step or two in this direction. As the party began to move M. Vyro took one of the papers out of the quire and opened it to demonstrate the completeness of the modern miracle.
It was there. The headline took up nearly half the front page. In black print of enormous size at the top of the page were the words LASCOU ASSASSINATED. Below them was a photo of George Lascou. What caught Gene entirely by surprise was another word WANTED, and under it a quarter page photograph of himself.
Chapter Twenty Four
The robots went on their screaming way, swallowing up bales of blank paper and spewing out an endless repetition of the same sensation, the same news, the same shock. The ant-brains were busy at their tending and took no notice; the papers were flopped endlessly upon the delivery platform and borne away. It went on without purpose and without sense, an automaton grinding uselessly through its routine.
Not all had seen the news. But enough to take in the first part. Vyro himself stared at the paper and then held it for others to see. Mme Lindos saw, and it was her first glance at Gene that gave Vyro the hint of recognition.
But none could speak. They were puppets jerked by invisible wires of surprise; gestures, expressions, became larger than life, grotesque and slightly inhuman. Vyro dropped the newspaper back upon the others, but the Greek ambassador to Turkey picked up another, and then Leon de Trieste. They mouthed at each other. Someone tugged at Gene’s arm. It was Lady Camwell. She gave a jerk of her head towards the door they’d come in by. Gene looked at Anya; she had gone grey in the face.
Gene moved back towards the door. A hand caught him. Paul Vyro shouted something in his face, making his meaning clear; Gene shoved him hard and he went back against a bale of paper.
At the door two others were moving towards him. Through the door and slam.
In the foundry room deafness was beset by indistinct ordinary noises trying to come in. No lock on the door. A man came towards him carrying a newly-cast cylinder for presses. He said something to Gene, can you get away from the door.
“Way out?” said Gene.
The man answered but Gene was still deaf; he leaned forward and the second time heard; “ Over there. The green door.”
Gene began to run down the foundry room. The others were out before he got to the green baize, but he was through it. A long dark passage dusty and cold ended in a small office with several time registers, but no one in charge. A door faced him in the semi-darkness; he fumbled for the handle, scraping fingers on the woodwork. Double back and push open the office door; voices and shouts down the passage.
Rough coats and heavy boots. Two doors. Wash-basins. If this was a dead end he was caught. But there was another door, a door with a push bar. He pushed.
Someone was coming through the office as the door opened and he fell down the two steps into a narrow alley. He ran along it, came to the end and an empty street. Down the street at full speed, the opposite direction from the main doors of the building; a wider street. But he’d gone wrong: it wasn’t a street but a square for unloading lorries. It was ill-lit; two lorries were there backed against a wall, abandoned for the night.
No way out. Buildings cast rectangular moon-made shadows. He shinned up into the van of one of the lorries, but the ignition key was missing. Then through the rear window he saw that the lorries were backed against an alley which ran into the yard of a factory. As he slid round and down and disappeared behind the back wheels he heard footsteps running in the square.
The yard of the factory seemed just another cul-de-sac. Doors locked and bolted from the inside; empty packing ceases from which two cats stared their disapproval, broken bottles, corrugated iron, steps. He took the steps four at a time. At the top was a locked door but beside it a concrete path ran round the corner. He stopped a few seconds for breath. All pursuit was a delicate balance between coolness and speed. As bad to be too hasty as too slow. But not many yards away from him someone had opened one of the doors of the lorry.
He went round the corner hardly hoping, found that the raised path went along the side of the building, and beyond the wall were steps leading down into the street at the factory entrance. This street was not empty but he got down and wriggled unobtrusively over the small gate at the bottom of the steps. Then he began to walk briskly but not too briskly away from the scene.
Lucky about the taverna; from it you could just see the steps leading up to her flat. An old yellow house, bland and bleached; two great palms stood before it like Corinthian pillars gone to seed; he had been in the taverna half an hour and while there two o’clock had struck. A meal swallowed as an excuse for occupying a table—also he had not eaten for twelve hours, and who knew when next?
This feeling of being hunted, really hunted again, was like a reminiscent pain, forgotten until it returned; not since early ’44. A sensation to be dreaded: the beating pulse, the catch of the breath, the loneliness. Yet it carried savours. One had the freedom of the atheist denying God; there was nothing more to lose but one’s life.
As a young man his nerves had lain too near the surface he had fought them as well as the Germans, disciplined them so that a triumph over one became a triumph over the other. Contempt of his own nervous and physical stamina had often carried him past the breaking point; beyond it was a no-man’s-land few knew and understood.
Tonight after leaving the newspaper offices he had spent half the Lindos-Camwell money on a change of clothing. Behind Pandrossou Street you can buy almost anything at almost any time. A second-hand suit of Greek cut, a pair of spectacles, a wide-brimmed hat, a bott
le of dye, an old gladstone bag which now held his own clothes.
The murder of Lascou had been broadcast on the late news. The police, said the proprietor of the taverna, were seeking a noted foreign agent provocateur who had been seen committing the murder.
“What nationality?” Gene asked.
“They did not say—Bulgarian I would guess.” The proprietor rubbed greasy fingers down his blue striped apron. “They are the trouble makers. Hairy perverts.… Oh, well, a politician more or less—but there are those one could spare more easily than Lascou. Not that he’s of my party, d’you understand; I could not vote for a man like Manos. And Spintharos—well, I can tell you sometime about him—poo! you wouldn’t believe. But Lascou—he was not a bad figure of a fellow.”
She came in about half past two, and there was a man with her. Gene thought it was Manos but they were past too quickly to be sure. He dallied in the taverna drinking coffee, but the proprietor was waiting to close so he paid his bill and got up to go. As he did so Manos came down the steps and passed out of sight. Gene went to the door in time to see a pale blue saloon drive away.
Good night to the proprietor, and he pulled his hat over his eyes and stepped into the street. There wasn’t anybody about and a light chill wind rustled a newspaper thrown in the gutter. Lights in her rooms now, but cagily he walked first to the end of the street and looked quickly back. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw something stir beside the trunk of a palm tree just beyond the house. He waited patiently but there was no other movement except a gently waving frond. The lights in the taverna had gone out. He came back and walked up the steps.
When she saw who it was she tried to slam the door in his face but he got his foot in the door.
“Anya, I must see you.”
“I—don’t want …” There, was a sharp angry struggle and then the door gave. He was in a hall with double doors leading into a large sala, but she had gone from the door and was inside lifting off the telephone. He stopped in the doorway, short of breath.
“Go on,” he said. “Ring the police if you want to.”
Greek Fire Page 15