Che Committed Suicide

by Petros Markaris

  She smiled with satisfaction. ‘I knew that from the start, but you wouldn’t believe me.’

  ‘Do you think they might have had some common secret from the past that could have led them to suicide? I’m asking because they knew each other, took part in the same struggles and had been locked up together in the cells of the Military Police.’

  ‘What can I tell you? I couldn’t say no with certainty. But I was studying in London then and I had no idea what was going on here. I met Loukas much later, after the fall of the Junta, when I returned to Greece.’

  ‘Would Mrs Favieros know?’

  She let out a spontaneous laugh. ‘Good Lord, no. Ioanna kept out of all that and she got upset whenever Jason talked about the resistance.’ She reflected a moment. ‘The only person who might know something is Xenophon Zamanis, but even if he did, he wouldn’t tell you. He’s one of the old school and he still believes in the underground’s code of silence.’

  I may have felt some satisfaction at finally having persuaded Stathatos to open up to me, but that was of little practical value, because she had told me nothing that would give me a lead.

  I got up to take my leave of her, but her farewell was far from cordial. ‘I trust this will be the last time that we meet, Inspector,’ she said. ‘I find your presence distressful, as I don’t like talking either about my husband or about my businesses.’

  ‘I quite understand,’ I said in all sincerity.

  As I turned into Vikelas Street, I toyed with the idea of paying a call on Zamanis. But I thought better of it, coming to agree with Stathatos’s opinion. Apart from his dedication to the ideals of conspiracy, Zamanis was even more fed up of seeing me than Stathatos and he would send me packing as soon as he heard my name. I would wait first to see what Vlassopoulos and Dermitzakis came up with. I very much doubted they would discover the common secret linking the three men, but they might discover something that would help me to break Zamanis’s silence.

  It was six in the evening and I decided to go home. Before I’d left the office, Koula had phoned me to say that I would have to rule out getting anything from Favieros’s computer in Porto Rafti. So I wasn’t expecting any more earth-shattering news unless, of course, another new biography by Logaras was delivered to me. The thought made me shudder, but I tried to convince myself that no such thing would happen.

  Everything was quiet when I got home and I heaved a sigh of relief. Adriani was sitting in her usual place of honour in front of the TV. The air conditioning was on and the room was cool. She had had it on regularly during the previous few days.

  ‘I see you’ve got used to the air conditioning,’ I said to tease her.

  ‘I put it on so the money we paid for it won’t go to waste,’ was her glib reply.

  I sat down beside her to watch whatever was on till it was time for the news bulletin, but the only choice was between indifferent chat shows and game shows. After five minutes, I’d had enough. I was about to withdraw to my dictionaries, when I felt two hands covering my eyes.

  ‘Katerina!’ I shouted, because we had played that game when she was a little girl.

  ‘So you haven’t forgotten our game, eh?’ I heard her say, as she pulled her hands away from my eyes and wrapped them round my neck.

  ‘What time did you arrive?’

  ‘On the 12.10 from Thessaloniki. We were at Larissa Station just after six.’

  ‘And why didn’t you tell us you were coming?’

  ‘So I could see you as you are now,’ she said laughing.

  ‘How long are you staying?’ I asking, hugging her. From the moment she came home, I was always immediately gripped by the fear of her leaving.

  ‘I’m staying a week. Then Fanis and I are going on holiday and in August, when Athens is empty, I’ll be back here again.’

  ‘We’d better make plans for going in July, because I can’t see us leaving in August,’ said Adriani, cutting in.

  ‘We’ll go, don’t worry. Besides, I can’t see this case going on for much longer.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ asked Katerina.

  ‘It’s like this, dear. Either the investigation will stop or the suicides will.’

  ‘And what if the suicides don’t stop?’ asked Adriani. She had made a hobby of bringing bad luck.

  ‘Then we’ll go away so I won’t see them.’

  I almost believed it when I said it. I would have found it unbearable to stay in a scorching Athens waiting for my daughter to get back from her holidays. Whereas being on a cool island counting the days till I would return to Athens and find my daughter waiting for me seemed a much better prospect, whichever way you looked at it.

  45

  It had been months since I had experienced the delight of the family breakfast in the kitchen. I certainly hadn’t felt it since returning from the hospital. It was nine in the morning and the three of us were sitting round the table: Adriani with her cup of tea, Katerina with her iced coffee and me with my sweet Greek coffee. We were all sipping at our beverages, with Adriani casting a sideways glance at Katerina every so often. I attributed it to the fact that she had missed her and couldn’t get enough of looking at her, but, as usual, I was wrong.

  ‘So, Pop, do you have any objections to meeting Fanis’s folks?’ Katerina suddenly asked me.

  I immediately understood Adriani’s sideways glances. She had been waiting impatiently for her daughter to broach the topic. I must have been expecting it too, because it didn’t surprise me.

  ‘Is there an engagement in the air, or am I mistaken?’ I asked calmly.

  ‘Call it what you like, but Fanis knows you both and I know Fanis’s parents, and only our parents haven’t met each other. So we decided to get you together before we go off on holiday.’ She paused momentarily and then added somewhat restrainedly: ‘Fanis’s parents are quite keen on the idea.’

  ‘The question is whether it’s something you and Fanis want.’

  ‘It is,’ she answered without hesitation.

  ‘So arrange it for whenever you want.’ She got up and planted a kiss on my cheek.

  ‘Anyhow, my opinion is that if we’re going to meet, we should exchange the rings too,’ Adriani cut in.

  ‘Mum, don’t start rushing things. Everything in its own good time.’

  ‘Katerina dear, your father is a police officer, and when the bonds aren’t tied officially, the rumours start to fly.’

  ‘And when did the police start arresting couples not wearing engagement rings?’ I asked her.

  She was about to have a go at me when the doorbell rang and Katerina got up to see who it was. Adriani took a time-out and waited for her daughter to return before continuing.

  ‘Dad, it’s for you!’ Katerina shouted from outside.

  I suddenly feared the worst. I left my coffee and rushed to the front door. I encountered a young lad wearing a helmet and carrying a shoulder bag, the classic attire of a courier.

  ‘Sign here!’ he said and thrust the envelope together with the receipt into my face.

  It was exactly the same kind of envelope as the one containing Vakirtzis’s biography. Instead of taking hold of the envelope, I grabbed hold of the lad and pulled him into the house.

  ‘Tell me who gave you this envelope and where! I want the exact address and a full description!’

  ‘What’s got into you, Dad?’ I heard Katerina’s voice but it was no time for explanations.

  The young lad looked terrified and didn’t know whether he was dealing with a policeman or a madman. ‘12 Nisaias Street,’ he murmured. ‘It’s written there.’

  It was the deserted ramshackle house that Logaras always gave as his address.

  ‘An old house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And where were they waiting for you? Inside or out?’

  ‘Outside, on the pavement.’

  ‘And who gave you the envelope? I want you to describe him to me in every detail.’

  He reflected for a moment
. ‘An Asian girl. Thai, Filipino, I couldn’t say. Small, a little chubby, wearing jeans and a brown T-shirt.’

  The simplest thing in the world. You send your Filipino maid to hand over the envelope in front of a deserted house so the police would have no chance of ever finding her.

  ‘Where did the order to pick up the envelope come from?’

  ‘I don’t know. The orders are taken by the people at the central office. They notify the courier for that area to go and pick it up.’

  I scribbled my initials on the receipt and took the envelope. The lad ran through the door and jumped into the lift before I changed my mind.

  ‘What’s got into you?’ Katerina asked again, staring at me strangely.

  ‘Vakirtzis’s biography was sent to me by courier and in exactly the same kind of envelope!’

  She realised what that meant and stood over me to see what was in the envelope. The biography wasn’t as thick as the previous ones because, as I held the envelope, I could tell that whatever was in it was thin and light. I ripped it open, but, instead of finding paper, I found a piece of red material folded into four. I opened it up and it turned out to be a T-shirt imprinted with the face of Che Guevara.

  Something fell out of the T-shirt. Katerina bent down and picked it up. It was a CD in its case.

  I stared at the T-shirt with the Che Guevara face and at the CD and I didn’t know what to make of them.

  ‘What does it mean? Is he sending you the Che Guevara T-shirt as a gift?’ asked Katerina, who was equally puzzled.

  ‘He wants to tell me something. It’s a message, but I don’t understand it.’

  Before going any further, I decided to finish with the formalities. I looked at the shipping document attached to the envelope to find the number of the agency and I phoned straightaway.

  ‘Inspector Haritos, Homicide Division. I’ve just received an envelope from you and I want to find out some details.’

  ‘Could you give me the number of the shipping document, please?’ came the sound of a woman’s voice.

  I gave it to her, waited just a few seconds and heard her voice again.

  ‘Yes, Inspector. What is it you want to know exactly?’

  ‘I want to know how you were contacted to pick up the envelope.’

  ‘By phone, from what I can see.’

  ‘Did you by any chance keep a phone number?’

  ‘No, Inspector. Just the address. 12 Nisaias Street, behind the Attiki Station.’

  ‘All right, thank you.’

  Katerina was standing in front of me and staring at me with that inquisitive look of hers.

  ‘Nothing. They didn’t leave a phone number, just an address. The derelict house.’

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘I don’t know. I need to think a little.’

  ‘So you’ve managed to infect your daughter now,’ said Adriani, always coming out with her opinion at the most inappropriate times. ‘Come on, Katerina dear, come and tell me what you want me to cook for Fanis’s parents.’

  Katerina winked at me and went off with her mother without brooking any objections. Evidently, in order to leave me in peace to think, though in the meantime I had decided that it would be better if I got my things together and went to the office. Perhaps Vlassopoulos and Dermitzakis would have come up with something. I stared again at the T-shirt and the CD I was holding in my hands, but they still meant nothing to me. So what? A Che Guevara T-shirt that you can find in any wastebin or hanging in any number of shops that sell boots and imitation army uniforms. As for the CD, I was unable to listen to it because I didn’t have a CD player. Our audiovisual needs were met by the TV and occasionally by a radio-cassette player, of which only the radio had ever been used.

  I put the T-shirt and the CD in a plastic bag and went out of the house. Halfway to the corner of the street, where the Mirafiori was parked, I suddenly stopped in my tracks. Why the office? If there was a message behind these two objects, the most suitable person to decode it for me was Zissis. I’d go to see him instead.

  46

  When it’s hot in Halandri, it’s sweltering in Ambelokipi. And when it’s sweltering in Ambelokipi, it’s boiling in Acharnon. And when it’s boiling in Acharnon, it’s sizzling in Dekeleias Street. I left the boiling pot of Acharnon and turned into the frying pan of Dekeleias Street. As I drove up it, I had the impression that the asphalt, the concrete and the glass were all emitting red-hot lava that was burning my face. A few ladies and several pensioners were sitting under the umbrellas at Kanakis’s and were gazing languorously at the orange juice or ice cream before them, barely able to reach out and pick it up.

  I stopped at the first kiosk and bought a bottle of water that I downed in one go to clear my parched throat. I prayed that Zissis wouldn’t have finished watering his plants that morning so that I’d be able to cool down under the hose.

  I must have arrived about a minute too late as the cement in the yard was still wet and steaming. Zissis was sitting upstairs, in the doorway, half inside the house and half outside on the balcony, drinking his coffee. He saw me coming but continued drinking his coffee as though he hadn’t seen me, either because he didn’t want to notice me or because I wasn’t particularly noteworthy. I would discover that as soon as I saw the expression on his face when I had him before me. I slowly climbed the steps leading up to his place, holding the plastic bag in my hands.

  ‘I need to pick your brains.’

  We had dispensed with the usual ‘good mornings’ and ‘welcomes’. Sometimes months passed when we didn’t see each other, yet it was as if we were going in and out of each other’s house all day long. He got up without saying a word and went inside. I watched him going into the kitchen and I sat on one of the two old wooden chairs that, together with the café-style table, constituted his furniture. In less than five minutes, he was back with my coffee, which he put, still not saying a word, in front of me on the table.

  I suddenly had a vision of how things would be if I didn’t have Adriani and Katerina. Every day, we’d sit together, two miserable old men, and make coffee for each other that we’d drink in silence. It would be the first copper-commie cooperative in the history of the world. I went along with his game and, without saying a word, I took the red Che Guevara T-shirt out of the plastic bag and handed it to him. He took it, looked at it carefully on both sides, and said slowly:

  ‘What is it, a gift for me for the summer?’

  ‘It’s a gift for me. It was sent to me by Minas Logaras, the one who wrote the biographies on Favieros and Stefanakos.’

  I began telling him about all the similarities in the circumstances of the three suicides, and also in the biographies of the three men. I explained how Logaras had sent the third biography to my home, just before Vakartzis’s suicide.

  ‘Do you see what I’m telling you? First the biography and now this. He’s playing games with me and now he’s sending me messages. That’s why I’ve come to you. Maybe you can help me discover what it is he’s trying to tell me.’

  He again examined the T-shirt, turned it inside out, but didn’t seem to come up with anything. ‘One of those T-shirts that you can find anywhere and that make a mockery of Che,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘So what’s he trying to tell you?’

  ‘There was another gift too.’ I took out the CD and handed it to him. ‘Perhaps together they might make more sense.’

  He took hold of the CD and went over to the stereo system on the edge of his huge bookcase. Despite the stifling heat, I felt overcome with excitement. What was I expecting to hear? Perhaps a recorded message from Logaras explaining why he was doing all this or why he had obliged the three men to commit suicide, or some challenge, perhaps, in the form of a game, or even some ironic remarks. Instead, I heard a Latin American song with guitar accompaniment. It was pleasant enough, but it didn’t solve the mystery for me; on the contrary, it only deepened it. A Che Guevara T-shirt and a Latin American song, with the usual
guitar accompaniment. What could they mean? And what connection could Favieros, Stefanakos and Vakirtzis possibly have with Latin America? So far, I hadn’t found the slightest shred of evidence that might connect them in any way. Consequently, it must have been something else that Logaras was trying to tell me, or perhaps he wanted to turn my attention elsewhere. But where?

  I was awakened from my thoughts by the sound of Zissis’s voice. There he was, an old man, bald and stubbly, with half his teeth missing, holding a cigarette between his yellowed fingers, singing a Latin American song in a loud voice, while the tears ran down his cheeks. I got the impression that he was singing with a slight Vlach accent, but I wouldn’t swear on it because I didn’t understand a word. I couldn’t understand the song or why Zissis was crying, or anything for that matter. All I managed to catch were the words ‘Commandante Che Guevara’ every so often. It was the only phrase connecting the song with the T-shirt.

  I waited for the song to end in the hope that some explanation or message would be forthcoming, but all that followed was silence. There was nothing else on the CD. Zissis had fallen silent, too. His eyes were still filled with tears. I’ve said it before, I’m not very good at expressing my feelings. That’s why I preferred to fast-forward and come straight to the point.

  ‘Make anything of it?’ I asked him.

  He got up without saying anything and went out of the room. I suspected that something had flashed through his mind, but I knew I would have to be patient and go along at his pace. Before long he came back holding a small card covered in scribbles. Because I had seen cards like that before at his house, I knew that it was from his secret archive and I waited.

  ‘Favieros, Stefanakos and Vakirtzis claimed that, politically, they belonged to the left but that they were not members of any particular leftist party.’ He stopped and twisted the card in his fingers. ‘But they were only telling half the truth. It’s true they didn’t belong to any party, but they were members of a group.’