“So, you want to find out who and where she is?”
“Yes. Drag and I are getting nowhere. We have to find somebody with some answers.”
“Answers… mmm…”
“So… you going to tell me?”
“Of course.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ll tell you if you come to my place. I’ve prepared my world-class lamb espetadas and I want to have someone to share them with, but no one’s around. Maria spends all day, every day with Sotiris, you’re tearing around all the time with Drag…”
She really enjoyed calling the recipe “lamb espetadas”, although it was basically lamb steaks grilled on skewers with some bay leaves on top. She thought it made the food sound more exotic.
“It’s only been two weeks since we last got together…” I said.
“Two weeks? You’re talking about someone you love. Someone who hates to be on their own.”
“I thought you had Nikos.”
“But who do I have to talk to about Nikos? Get your arse over here, right now. And tell that big dope Drag to speak to me soon or else…”
“Or else, what?”
“Just tell him ‘Or else…’ That’s what they say in the movies. If he doesn’t, I’ll put on my pink tights and my mauve shawl, no bra, and I’ll come and pay him a visit at Security Headquarters in front of all those cops, just to embarrass him.”
“Teri, we’re under a lot of pressure here, we really have to…”
“I really have to talk to you. Need to talk to you. I’ve so much to tell you about Nikos… If I don’t tell you, then who will I tell? Have you ever heard me say that I’m in love before?”
“Several dozen times.”
Of course, all of her former infatuations had been with clients who had gradually become lovers. Nikos Zois was the first in many years that she had met outside her bed and taken into it.
“Those were just passing fancies. This is the real thing.”
“Teri, please, I need…”
“Pop in for a chat, just a chat! Nikos may come by later and you can meet him… These are my terms. Come by and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“I actually met him last night.”
“What? Is this a joke? No, it’s not a joke, because you’d never joke about something like that, oh my God, when? Last night, how? After… No, don’t tell me, be here in five and then tell me everything.”
“Look…”
“In five!”
She hung up the phone.
Teri lives in a spacious old two-storey house in Galatsi, with views of the Veikou Wood from its balconies. An inheritance from her grandmother who stoutly maintained that Galatsi was, traditionally, the most aristocratic district of Athens, haughtily dismissing the theory that it got its name from the shepherds who roamed the area in the eighteenth century, shouting “milk: gala, gala, galataki”. Her proud grandmother had been delighted to hear that her first grandchild was a boy. Luckily for everyone she quickly changed her will and left him the house, then died before Teri reached adolescence. Lucky Grandma. Even luckier Teri. Or maybe not so lucky with the ENFIA taxation on everybody that dares own a house.
I knocked on the door and the moment she opened it she threw me on her sofa – or at least tried to.
“You should really lose some weight. I can’t beat you now like I used to,” she said.
“When?”
“Shut up. Tell me everything. Where, when, how, why did you meet? What did he tell you?”
“If I shut up how can I tell you everything?”
“You’re the muscle, you aren’t allowed to be funny. Speak!”
I told her everything. Including how proud he seemed of her. Teri just stood there, smiling like an idiot.
“So?” I said.
“I’m over the moon. Outrageously, ridiculously happy. I want to turn back-flips in the air, do Comăneci’s Olympic jump ’76.”
“You’re old enough to remember that?”
“Yes, yes, fuck you too. I want time to freeze so that we stay exactly as we are now. Nikos and I. No, I want time to keep moving for a while, to give us the chance to get even closer and get married in New York. And then I want it to freeze. Time will be kind to me, at last, and keep us as we are; in love, forever.”
Knowing how easy it was for Teri to work herself up, I didn’t find her little outburst particularly surprising. It only takes someone to show her a little affection and she believes she’s found the man of her dreams. I couldn’t wholeheartedly share her joy. Not just because I’m suspicious of enthusiasm but also mainly because I’d seen her fall flat on her face so many times. Teri never learnt; she went on making the same mistakes, over and over. It would be annoying if it weren’t so touching. She had the guts to challenge the world that rejected her every day on account of her transgender nature, and, at the same time, she was ready to forget all that she’d been through and give herself wholeheartedly to whoever took the trouble to give her some attention. While refusing to admit that some of those who courted her may have unsolved problems of their own. Of course, Nikos Zois seemed very different. He appeared happy about what was going on between them. He seemed sweetly, boyishly, in love with her.
“I’m even thinking of giving up work for him. Imagine that,” she said.
I’d heard that before. Only major affairs prompted her to think of changing her profession. I was glad for her and wanted more than anything for things to go right, so that she wouldn’t have to go on renting out her body, never mind her emotions. But I was a realist and didn’t hold out much hope.
“Mr Zois seems to have done you some good.”
“Just good? I’m radiant, man. Can’t you see that? Radiant with joy, radiant at the sight of him, ra-di-ant, ra-di-ant.”
Her voice was so gratingly off-key as she sang this that it almost made me laugh out loud. Teri had a fantastic voice, an ambisexual blending of the best elements of the male and female, and whenever she picked up a guitar and sang Hadjidakis, Loizos and Kaldaras’ songs, people would stop whatever they were doing and sit spellbound. Even at school, where gangs of kids used to physically and psychologically torture her – if Drag, Maria and I didn’t manage to get to them first – Teri’s singing made everyone stop and listen. She bewitched them, even made them look human for a while. She could make some of her torturers change their behaviour towards her. I was a bit jealous. Of all the arts, only music has the power to awaken feelings where before there had only been darkness. Only music. Cinema could only record the darkness. Maria, Drag and I spent a whole decade, till we were in our mid-twenties, trying to persuade Teri to pursue a career in music, without success. She said she didn’t want to commercialize it, she wanted to keep at least one part of her life pure and personal. We had no answer to that.
But now she was having fun. I let her finish mauling her made-up little song, her false long blond hair swaying this way and that, before trying to talk to her about her new love. Trying to bring her back down to earth and give her the softest landing I could.
“Was it him who asked you to give up work?”
“Of course not. It was my idea. I don’t feel good when I go with this one and that, knowing that Nikos is thinking about me in bed with them. Doesn’t feel right, eh?”
“So, he didn’t say it was a problem.”
“No, not at all. He took me in his arms – do you know how long it was since anyone had taken me in their arms? They’re taking out their complexes on me, all those creeps, I often can’t believe what I’m hearing – and by now I’ve heard it all. But he, he treats me so tenderly and hugs me and says that I can do what I want, he doesn’t mind.”
“He doesn’t mind.”
She nodded.
“Great. And he seems nice…”
“Adorable!”
“… but isn’t that a bit strange?”
“What?”
“The closer he gets to you, the more he should object to sharing you
.”
“He’s simply discreet. That’s all. A gentleman.”
“Right. And you discovered all these good points after a relationship of…”
“I know what you’re going to say. That it takes time to get to know someone properly. But I do know him, deep down, our souls have connected since that first day at the centre, and we’ve been spending whole days together and I know that…”
“He’s the one for you.”
“Yes. He is.”
She looked at me as if her relationship depended on the outcome of our conversation. I said nothing.
“What do you expect him to do? That’s what I was doing when he met me. It’s like in Pretty Woman: I’m Julia, he’s Richard and, if at any time we fall out, you can be Barney Thompson, the hotel manager, to help us make up.”
She had to explain who was who in the movie, because she’d put it on three times and each time I’d fallen asleep.
“From the little I recall, Richard wanted Julia’s services exclusively.”
Teri continued as if she’d never heard me.
“And since I’m Julia, I have to make the decision to change my life. Her relationship with Richard goes hand-in-hand with her personal development, see? ’Cause you’re being a bit thick about this. What I’m trying to say is that whatever problems each of us has, as long as Nikos and I get along we have a chance of making it together, don’t we? Everyone has a chance, even though most people fuck it up, but the chance exists, it’s there, waiting for us. So why not? Why not go for it?”
Her phone rang. She picked up and I immediately knew that something was wrong.
“Got to go,” she said, and ran to her bedroom to put on a sweater and change her shorts for a pair of jeans.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“It was from the centre.”
She was fighting back tears and indicated that she didn’t want to talk about it.
“Please, please, come back tomorrow night,” she said. “I really want to spend more time with you, especially now. Nikos will be here too, I’ll call him later. In the meantime, here’s what you want.”
She gave me a piece of paper out of her pocket on which was written “Lena Hnara”, next to it a number. Aliki’s friend.
“That’s her phone number. Ring and arrange a meeting.”
“I need her address, too. After everything that’s happened she might be frightened and refuse to talk to me.”
“I told you, she’s a friend of mine and a good kid. There’s no reason to go to her place; she’ll talk.”
“And if not?”
“I’ll ring her right now, from the car, before you do. I’ll tell her to expect your call. There’s no way she won’t come or say that she doesn’t know anything. She owes me.”
“Tell her I want to see her as soon as possible. Whatever time.”
Teri nodded. She was all businesslike now, a different person altogether. She put her wallet and car keys in her jeans’ back pocket. The handbag was the one female article she had never adopted.
“OK. OK. So, Nikos is fantastic, isn’t he? Go now. Bye. Bye.”
Walking to my car I remembered that Teri had called Hnara a “good kid”. In The Two Mrs Carrolls, a ’47 noir, in which Bogart played one of his most difficult roles, Barbara Stanwyck says: “Women are never wrong about women.” Lena Hnara was willing to pay someone to kill her friend’s husband. And the original Teri wasn’t a pureblooded woman.
I bore in mind the possibility that she was mistaken.
24
“It’s Stratos. I’d like to see you,” I told Vassilis Stathopoulos on the phone.
“I’d like to see you too,” he replied.
His behaviour continued to baffle and surprise me. I couldn’t say the same about his quick work to free Makis without any charges being laid against him. Makis had been released from custody almost immediately. I learnt that from Drag, who’d tried unsuccessfully to persuade Rizos to testify against him.
“That therapist wouldn’t cooperate at all. He really seemed to take against me,” Drag told me.
“He isn’t crazy about cops,” I told him.
“I’m not either!”
“If you tell him that, you might get a free session,” I replied.
Vassilis suggested meeting in Piraeus, as he had something to do near the port. I mentioned an outdoor parking lot I knew well and he agreed to wait for me there alone, in three hours.
He was where he’d said he would be, and nobody was lurking around to hasten my demise. I knew because I’d arrived at our meeting point much earlier, to make sure I wouldn’t encounter any ugly surprises. Every inch of the piers was filled with African refugees, women and their babies sleeping on the cement, covered with ragged coats, men begging for food at the shops around the port. The refugees had paid smugglers all they had to get them to Greece, in the hope that they would reach central and northern Europe. Now many were refusing to be sent back to Turkey. The government pamphlets stating that we loved them but they had to help us out strangely had little effect.
Reading the news on my mobile, I found out about the “something” Vassilis had to do. The largest Greek electronics company had got into financial trouble and was holding a press conference in its Piraeus headquarters to announce its bankruptcy. The workers’ union had organized a protest and a counter press conference, together with their lawyer who was, of course, Vassilis, who had, of course, taken the case pro bono. If he carried on representing everyone who’d been sacked from corporations that were closing or relocating to the Balkans, he soon wouldn’t be able to afford me.
Vassilis got in my car and I saw his eyes were all red. It wasn’t emotion on seeing me, it was tear gas that the police had fired when the protest turned violent. A commentator on the radio was just saying that he thought Vassilis was a shoo-in to become an MP the next time there was an election, regardless of the scandal surrounding his wife’s disappearance.
“The man’s an idiot,” said Vassilis.
I started the car, keeping an eye on the mirror to make sure we wouldn’t be followed.
“So you don’t intend to stand?” I asked him.
“I have my hands full with Aliki. And even if she got well and you sorted everything out, which party would I join?”
“I assume many of them would want you.”
“But I hate all their guts.”
Maybe he could form a party with Rizos, once he’d stopped sending goons to beat him up.
“If I behaved like they do, telling people they’ll fight against austerity and then enforcing it, who’d believe me any more?”
“You’re a lawyer; who believes you anyway?”
“I don’t see it that way. I stand for different values.”
Maybe he was an idealist. Or maybe not, if Aliki’s accusations were true. Maybe the dirty money she said he earned was what would pay me.
“And if I told the truth about what needs to be done, who would want to listen?” he added.
“I have a few questions. Non-political ones,” I told him, turning off the radio.
“About Makis, I’m sure. Why he took a shot at you at Rizos’ office.”
“That’d be a good place to start.”
“I asked him to go and find Rizos. I’d told you I was going there myself, but I changed my mind. I don’t think he’d tell me anything about Aliki that I might want to know.”
“So you sent Makis, to beat the information out of him.”
“If necessary. She’s out there, all alone, lost and confused, and I still don’t know who’s after her. Behaving like a gentleman wouldn’t do much good.”
“How would killing me help you?”
“It wouldn’t. That was Makis acting without authority. When he saw you with Aliki the night before last, he was convinced you’d taken up the contract on me.”
“Aren’t you afraid that I might have?”
“Stratos, I think you have your own principles. I think you reall
y want to find out what’s going on here, almost as much as I do. You want to find out before you decide what to do.”
I didn’t respond to that.
“If I wanted to kill you, what would I be doing at Rizos’ office?”
“I know it doesn’t make much sense, but it did to Makis. He was humiliated by the way you and Mr Dragas dealt with him the other day. And then he kept running into you… I apologize on his behalf. I have explicitly ordered him to stay away from you. It’s in his interests as well.”
“How come he appeared in Zografou the other night?”
“He has some contacts – an informer told him he’d seen Aliki there. Makis didn’t trust him particularly; the guy is a drug addict so he didn’t tell me. He’s worked for me for years, you know, and he’s very loyal. So he went to Zografou himself, to check it out, and there you were with Aliki. Are you going to tell me what she said, and if she’s somewhere safe?”
His tone was almost pleading. He was no longer the totally in charge lawyer I’d watched at the live press conference an hour or so ago. He came on sincere, but I knew from Aliki what a control freak he was. And I never believed for a moment that he didn’t really care about Aliki’s former life.
“We didn’t get much chance to talk. Makis interrupted us soon after I’d got there, and she thought I’d tipped him off – so now she’s cut off all communication with me as well.”
Athenian Blues Page 8