The Black Life

by Paul Johnston

  Rachel headed to the bedroom. ‘I can look after myself. I’ll see you in the lobby in ten minutes.’

  Mavros went to his room further down the corridor and found the scarf he’d thrown into his bag. It was red tartan, which would hardly make him fade into the background, but at least he could partially cover his face. He hoped Rachel had something similar. If not, there was always the hotel boutique. He decided to ring Shimon.

  ‘She must be crazy,’ the customs broker said, after he’d heard Mavros’s story.

  ‘I don’t get that impression. Rather the opposite. Anyway, I just wanted you to know where we were in case something happens.’

  ‘Something?’

  ‘You know what those arseholes are like.’

  ‘Only too well. Talk her out of it.’

  ‘I’ll try again.’

  ‘Call me later, OK?’

  Mavros agreed and rang off. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. He’d attended enough demonstrations in Athens over the years, in particular the annual march to the American Embassy on the anniversary of the student uprising that was crushed by the Colonels in 1973. The Phoenix Rises would muster a tiny percentage of attendees and the police would no doubt be there, but things could easily turn nasty if the Communists or other anti-fascists turned up.

  He saw Rachel by the main doors. She was wearing jeans that displayed the lower part of her figure to advantage, and a loose black woollen jacket that did nothing for the other half. He was glad to see she had a beret and a scarf, both dark blue. As he got closer, he noticed her footwear.

  ‘Are Doc Martens big in Paris?’

  She glanced down at the black boots. ‘I bought them this afternoon. The other shoes I have aren’t for walking. Shall we go?’

  He followed her out, trying to recall what she’d had on her feet before. High heels in Athens, certainly, but nothing too crippling in Thessaloniki. Maybe she was a punk rocker in her spare time.

  They walked along the seafront, the lights from the ships bobbing up and down. The wind had got up and he shivered in his leather jacket.

  ‘The Vardharis,’ he said. ‘That’s what the northerly’s called here. The Vardhar is another name for the Axios River, which rises in and runs through much of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and meets the Aegean not far west of here.’

  Rachel turned her head towards him. ‘You’re a bottomless pit of information.’

  He smiled. ‘Ah, but it’s relevant to what we’re about to see and hear. After Yugoslavia fell apart in the early 90s, Macedonia’s constitution contained claims to Greek territory – it’s a landlocked country and, like Bulgaria, has always wanted direct access to the Mediterranean. Of course, there wasn’t much they could do against a much larger and better-armed country, and eventually the constitution was changed – but not before a huge outbreak of nationalist zeal, particularly in Greek Macedonia, i.e. here. The Phoenix Rises is still rabid about the issue, especially the flag. Originally it was a blatant use of the star of Greek Macedonia, and the extreme right still sees the watered down version as an insult.’

  ‘I thought the ancient Macedonians weren’t Greek.’

  Mavros looked around. ‘Don’t say that. I told you it’s a hot issue.’

  ‘My guidebook says the southern Greeks thought they were barbarians.’

  The sound of martial music was audible, as well as chanting. Some of it was against the Phoenix Rises.

  ‘There’s much more to it than that, though Demosthenes did insult Alexander’s father in that way. I’m not a historian but, as far as I understand, they were Greeks who spoke a dialect of the ancient language. I wonder if Aristotle thought Alexander the Great was a barbarian before he started tutoring him.’

  ‘A fine job he did,’ Rachel scoffed. ‘Alexander was a monster like Napoleon. Nothing mattered except conquest and death.’

  ‘It’s a point of view,’ Mavros admitted. ‘Right, listen carefully. There could be mayhem ahead. Do what I say without question if anything happens. Are you sure you want to see these scumbags in action? It’s not as if you’ll be able to understand what’s said.’

  ‘That why you’re here, isn’t it?’ she said, striding on.

  Mavros shook his head and caught up with her. A group of Communist youth was screaming abuse from the seafront, while a militaristic anthem was blasting out from speakers at the opposite end of the square. Riot police with shields and batons stood in a line. Rachel stepped through and wasn’t stopped. Perhaps they thought she was a fascist, Mavros thought. His long hair attracted disapproving looks, but they let him proceed. The monument to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, a bronze tree of flames, was almost obscured by flags and the people holding them.

  There were about a hundred people standing in front of a platform covered in Greek flags and olive wreaths. A large red banner hung from the covered dais, the word ‘Counter-attack’ written in black letters, the Greek letters adapted to resemble Gothic ones.

  ‘These people really are idiots,’ Rachel said, her mouth close to his ear.

  Mavros glanced around. It didn’t seem that anyone had heard or, if they so, that they understood English.

  ‘Fraktur, the old German script, was banned by the Nazis in 1941 on the grounds that it was Jewish.’

  ‘We’re not talking about Nobel prize-winners, Rachel. Pull up your scarf and for God’s sake don’t take any photos.’ Mavros looked to the front and made out Makis Kalogirou, the party leader. He was of medium height and almost square in shape, wearing a shit-brown jacket adorned with badges and what looked like medals. There was also a red band on his upper left arm. Mavros couldn’t make it out, but he suspected there was a white circle with a black phoenix spreading its wings.

  Rachel moved closer. ‘Who is he? What’s he saying?’

  Mavros identified the speaker, whose voice was high and grating. ‘He’s ranting about the media bias against him and his gang. Although they have no time for Jordanians or other non-Aryans, they had nothing to do with the murder. They do not use the swastika.’

  ‘What’s that on his arm?’

  ‘I’m guessing a phoenix. They don’t use it on graffiti or posters because they get criticised so much for harking back to the dictatorship. Those fools were fond of the bird that rises from its own ashes too.’

  ‘He doesn’t look like much of an Aryan.’

  ‘I think they trace their Aryan descent via the Goths and Huns, who passed through Greece in the late Roman and early Byzantine periods.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t a historian.’

  ‘I have an interest in the past. Where would we be without it?’

  Rachel glanced around the square. ‘The bastards these animals worship left my family without a past.’

  Kalogirou had stopped speaking to gulp down water and this time Rachel was heard by a tall skinhead to her left.

  ‘Who you call bastards? Who animals?’ he said, in English, looming over her. He was wearing combat trousers and a black shirt.

  Mavros moved between them, but he was too late.

  ‘The Nazis were bastards and the Phoenix Rises are animals,’ Rachel said, enunciating the words clearly.

  The skinhead pulled his right hand back, then squealed as Rachel’s right boot caught him hard between the legs. As he went down, she raised her left knee so that his chin cracked on it.

  A scrum of bodies immediately surrounded them. Mavros tried to pull her away without success. She laid out another pair of Phoenixes, then lowered her head and drove it into the belly of a third. Mavros grabbed her lower abdomen and pushed her forward. People scattered on either side of them. The uproar behind grew even louder. They were about twenty metres from the nearest riot police, not that they would necessarily be favourable.

  ‘This way!’ Rachel yelled, her beret gone and her scarf loose round her neck. She raised her arm and slammed it into a black-clad man’s throat.

  ‘I can’t do that!’ Mavros shouted back, shrugging off th
e grasping arms of another fascist.

  ‘No, I mean follow me.’ Rachel handed off a skinny youth in the face, doing serious damage to his acne, and then veered left, heading for a gap in the police line. A narrow street at right angles to the square gave them a potential escape route.

  Mavros felt hands seize both his arms. He brought his forehead down on one of the men’s noses – a trick he’d learned from a university friend in Edinburgh – and elbowed the other in the gut. Then he sprinted clear and followed Rachel down the street. They kept going at speed until the next junction. As they turned the corner, they looked to see if anyone was in pursuit. The police had finally got their act together and blocked off Eleftherias Square.

  ‘Jesus!’ Mavros gasped.

  ‘Keep walking,’ Rachel ordered. ‘We need to get back to the hotel ASAP.’ She pulled his scarf off and dropped it in a rubbish bin.

  ‘Hey, my mother gave me that.’

  ‘She can get you another one.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ He couldn’t see any wounds on her face.

  ‘Yes. You?’

  ‘Miraculously, I am. Where did you learn to fight like that?’

  She shrugged. ‘Assault protection classes. I had a friend at high school who was raped.’

  Mavros’s breathing was almost back to normal. ‘They teach you all that?’

  ‘The instructor said I had an aptitude for it.’

  ‘He was right.’

  ‘It was a she.’

  Back at the hotel they walked upstairs together.

  ‘Well, that was interesting,’ Rachel said. ‘I’m going for a swim and then I have to work. I trust you’ll be staying in this evening.’

  ‘That would be prudent.’

  ‘Good night, then.’ She swivelled away and strode to her door.

  Mavros had a shower and ordered dinner from room service. He was starving, his hunger fuelled by the excitement of what Rachel had literally kicked off. What was she up to? He hadn’t expected an ice-cool woman like her to spring into action like a whirling dervish. Her feelings about her Jewish heritage were obviously stronger than he’d realised. Then he had a thought. Had she gone to the rally with the intention of causing trouble? He turned on the TV and found local a news report. After they’d got away, the Communist youth had broken the police line and laid into the neo-Nazis. The over-made up harridan on screen lamented the violence and disorder on the streets of the co-capital, but she didn’t condemn the Phoenix Rises’ policies. There had been rumours that Kalogirou’s mob was funded by the super-rich, who had an interest in inciting chaos so the government could justify clamping down on civil liberties. They also owned much of the media.

  None of that explained Rachel’s actions. He considered calling her father, but let the idea go. He didn’t fancy being frozen out by her.

  Which reminded him. He rang Niki.

  ‘Yes?’ she said faintly, when he was about to ring off.

  ‘It’s me. How are you?’

  ‘I was asleep.’

  Mavros raised his eyes towards the ceiling. ‘Shit, sorry. I’ll let you go.’

  ‘No, it’s all right. I didn’t even make it to bed. I dropped off on the sofa. Not enough sleep since you left.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Stop apologising. Have you made any progress?’

  ‘A bit.’ Recounting the riot that Rachel had instigated wasn’t on the cards. ‘Hope to make more tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, Alex. It’s not long till the weekend. You will be back by then?’

  ‘I’m sure I will,’ he said, not convinced. ‘Are you … are you feeling any better about … you know?’

  ‘Was your degree in beating about the bush?’

  He took a stab at ribaldry. ‘I did have quite a lot of girlfriends, actually.’

  Niki laughed, prompting him to clench his fist in triumph. ‘I hope you aren’t drooling over those steamy Macedonian women?’

  ‘No, miss. Not at all, miss. Well …’

  ‘Ha! See? We can have fun together.’

  She was right. They did laugh, though there hadn’t been much of that recently.

  They talked for a while longer and then she yawned audibly.

  ‘Go to bed,’ he said. ‘On the way brush your teeth and do whatever else you do in the bathroom. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’

  ‘All right. Love you.’

  ‘Love you too.’

  Shortly afterwards Mavros stretched out on the comfortable bed. He felt his eyes close, then he was fully awake again. He should have gone to sleep thinking of Niki, but the person who was trying to get into his dreams was Rachel Samuel. She scared him and that was a definite turn on.

  TWENTY

  I was seduced by the power invested in me as a capo, though I only beat my men when SS guards were in close proximity. When I explained what was expected of them – they were all new to the SK – most of them buckled down. One got himself machine-gunned when he ran towards the fence and another was shot by Knaus for breaking down. The rest, a mixture of Poles, French and Greeks, took to the work without appetite but driven by their will to keep going. Inevitably I spent more time with my countrymen. Two were from Rhodes and another, to my surprise as the transports from Thessaloniki had ended, was an old schoolmate. Zvi Tsiako was taller than me – as you can see, I’m taller than average – and there was still some muscle on him.

  ‘Will you look after me?’ he whispered one morning, as we were on our way to the crematoria.

  I gave him the hard stare of the capo. ‘Why? What can you give me in return?’

  ‘Support,’ he said, the over-long sleeves of his new jacket flapping. ‘We know each other.’

  That was hardly true. I hadn’t seen him for years and he had no idea of my involvement with the party. Still, I had noticed that prisoners with friends lasted longer.

  ‘Do what I tell you without question or hesitation and I’ll think about it,’ I replied. ‘And roll those sleeves up. You’ll set yourself on fire.’

  That day my group was filling and tending the crematoria. I had it easier, but I’d spent many shifts doing what they had to do – loading the corpses in threes on to the steel trays and pushing them into the flames. They also had to maintain the temperature, clear blockages from the drain that drew off the melted fat, add coke at the right time: they were the worst jobs, not least because your face and hands got scorched.

  They did well enough. Unlike me, they had to go straight to work at the furnaces. The SS had killed almost all of the old SK members after an abortive revolt in one of the other compounds. It was months in the planning and I’d been aware of it. From the outset I knew it was doomed to failure and stopped my men discussing it. In the end hundreds were killed at the cost of a few SS men’s lives – one thrown alive into the flames – and the destruction of a single crematorium. Now they are seen as heroes, but I think they were simply unable to face the cycle of extermination. I lived from day to day, never worrying about my future. As far as I was concerned, the present was all.

  Zvi proved to be good at his work and I allowed us to become closer. He talked of his family, some of whom he knew had passed along what the SS called ‘the road to heaven’. He didn’t seem unduly concerned. The others in the unit looked at him with suspicion. He didn’t care about that either.

  After a month we were rotated off crematorium duty and returned to the front compound. Some days were difficult, especially those when long-term occupants of the Lager selected for execution arrived. Most were emaciated, skeletal figures, their heads bowed and their legs incapable of anything more than shuffling. They were known as ‘Muslims’ in the argot of the camps, I don’t know why. Perhaps it was another Nazi joke, reducing their Jewish victims to followers of the prophet Mohammed. Sometimes, however, there was resistance. Even disease-ridden, downtrodden slaves can fight to the last. The guards fired on them whenever necessary. Our job was easier once they were in the changing room. Many removed their tattered clothing a
nd staggered to the gas chamber with relief.

  I was standing in the middle of the crush one day. The walking dead were experienced in the ways of the Lager and flowed past me as if I were a rock in a stream. They knew what capos were capable of. Still, one naked man contrived to walk into me and I turned on him, club raised.

  ‘My son?’ came a querulous voice. ‘You are alive?’

  I stared at him and eventually recognised my father. He was half the weight he’d been when I last saw him, his ribs visible and streaks of excrement on his legs. Dysentery. I pulled him over to the wall, keeping my mouth away from his.

  ‘You … you are alive,’ he repeated, his faint voice scarcely audible above the slap of bare feet on the concrete. He smiled, revealing toothless gums. ‘Soon I will not be … thank God.’

  I struggled to speak. ‘The others?’ I asked, the words forcing themselves out. ‘Mother? Miriam? Golda?’

  He sobbed and tried to lean against me. I backed away, afraid of contagion and only going close again when he slumped against the wall.

  ‘I heard that … your sister … and your niece were sent here from the experiment block in the summer. You did not see them?’

  I shook my head, struck by his avoidance of their names. Perhaps he thought the words were too pure for the place, especially if their bodies had been subject to the Nazi doctors’ brutality.

  ‘And Mother?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He looked at me with eyes that were already lifeless. ‘No one in the huts I’ve been in knows.’

  The words did not affect me. I was sure my mother was dead. None of them had been mentally strong enough. I looked round. The SS men were shouting and my men were lining up behind the prisoners.

  Father grabbed my arm with claw-like fingers. ‘Stay alive,’ he said. ‘Stay alive for us all … tell the world.’ Then he let go and walked into the crowd, suddenly energised. He wanted the death that had been waiting for him for months.

  After the door was closed behind them, I supervised the SK men as they gathered up the pitiful clothes and wooden shoes. My father wanted me to tell the world about what had been done to the Jews. I had no interest in that, at least in terms of words and proclamations. What I was planning would have horrified him.