Greeks Bearing Gifts

by Philip Kerr

  “Yes,” said Reppas, “that would explain a lot. It was always stick and carrot with Merten; sometimes he was leading the boss on with estimates of how much gold was down there—each time more than the last—and sometimes he was threatening to tell the police about how the boss had acquired the ship in the first place.”

  “One more question: Did Max Merten discover exactly how Brunner found out about your expedition? After all, it was fourteen years since Merten double-crossed Brunner and arranged for the Epeius to be scuttled. And twelve since the end of the war. Max Merten has been living openly as a lawyer in Munich all this time. The Americans offered to extradite him to Greece in 1945 but the Greek government said he wasn’t wanted in connection with any war crimes. He’s been a model citizen in Munich, a man with friends in the West German government. By contrast, Alois Brunner is a hunted war criminal living under a false name. The Greeks want him, as do the Israelis, and so I imagine do the French. How did he find out that Merten had come back to Greece?”

  Spiros Reppas frowned. “Like I said, sometimes my German is not so good. I understand German when someone speaks to me and I can see their lips moving. Overheard is not so easy for me. Also the longer compound words are difficult. But I think maybe I heard Merten tell Witzel that someone close to Adenauer must have told Brunner that he, Merten, was coming to Greece. And that Brunner wouldn’t be the first old Nazi to go to work for the new German government.”

  Reppas took a superhuman drag on the cigarette and threw up his hands in defeat.

  “That’s it, mister. Every damn thing I know. I’ve no idea what’s to become of me now.” He sighed. “I’ve lost my best friend and I’ve lost my livelihood. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Fire away.”

  “Diving can be dangerous. The boss always said that if anything ever happened to me while he was diving the Doris would be mine. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’ll reconsider your decision on the insurance money. That you could make out a check to me instead of him. I’d be more than happy to accept a reduced figure. Ten cents on the dollar, perhaps. After all the ship was old and probably not worth half of what the boss said it was.”

  “Sorry, no. My employers are kind of funny about paying out in cases involving arson. They don’t do it, as a rule. But if you can find a last will and testament naming you as my client’s sole heir, you could always take them on in the courts. I wouldn’t give much for your chances, mind. Even in Germany there’s probably some small print that discriminates against the kind of people who go after millions in stolen Jewish gold.” I took out my wallet and handed him some money. I decided I could probably afford it out of the twenty thousand I was going to have when we cashed the certified check on the way to Spetses in the morning. “But to show you there are no hard feelings, here’s fifty. Get yourself a new nose.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  –

  The next morning we cashed the certified check at the Alpha Bank in Corinth, with me pretending to be Siegfried Witzel, as planned. While we were still in the bank there was a small earth tremor, which did little to make me feel better about what I was doing, although that might as easily have been the ten stitches in my left forearm—now in a black sling, as if I was in mourning—and the painkillers I was taking. But even for a self-confessed coward like Achilles Garlopis it seemed that the venetian blinds swaying gently on the bank’s windows were nothing to be concerned about.

  “In Corinth these things happen all the time,” he said, crossing himself just to be on the safe side. “Which is to say, when the gods are angry with us. I often think that earth tremors are why we believe in the gods in the first place.”

  “I’m sure I can’t think of a better reason.”

  “Oh, I can.” He nodded at the window, through which we could see the Rover and Elli sitting inside it, and smiled a mischievous smile. “At least I can when I look at Miss Panatoniou.”

  She was outside because I thought it best for her legal career that she should stay away from the larceny being carried out inside the Alpha Bank. Not that she seemed to care very much about that. For a lawyer she wasn’t averse to taking risks. More than seemed at all judicious.

  “Maybe you should become a priest,” I said. “A sermon like that beats anything the Lutherans have to offer.”

  “It’s strange, but she really seems to like you, sir. Women are odd creatures, aren’t they? I mean, there’s no accounting for a woman like this. And when she’s around it’s like the sun is out. The way she looks at you—it’s like she’s shining upon you.”

  “A man can get burned if he stays in the sun for too long.”

  “I don’t think she’s the type to burn you. Just dazzle you a bit. Always supposing such a thing is even possible.”

  “Actually, I’m not sure it is anymore.”

  When the tremor finally stopped the money was paid over without so much as a raised eyebrow. We hung around in Corinth afterward only long enough to meet the Alpha Bank clerk less formally in a nearby bar and to pay him the five percent handling fee that had been agreed upon with the cousin of Garlopis. The clerk was not much more than a boy with a face as cold as a marble statue. Corinth itself was equally dull and featureless, a bleak, low-lying city on the sea, with little to recommend it except the eponymous canal, which cut straight across the isthmus like the scar on my forearm. It was hard to imagine the apostle Paul bothering to send a long letter to the Corinthians except to question why they were living there and not somewhere else more interesting like Athens or Rome. More usefully, Corinth was halfway to Kosta, where there was a regular foot ferry to Spetses. Since I couldn’t turn the heavy steering wheel of the Rover without my arm hurting, it was Elli who was driving the car. We took Garlopis to a bus stop so that he could travel safely back to Athens. I felt bad about involving Elli in the business with Max Merten, but not as bad as Garlopis felt about exposing himself to something he considered much more dangerous than the simple movement of the earth.

  “I know this man,” I told Garlopis in a last attempt to persuade him to come with us to Kosta while we waited for the bus to arrive. “Max Merten. And take it from me, I can handle him. Rough or smooth. Last time I saw him he was fat and the only danger I was in was that his liver might explode. He’s a pen pusher, not a dangerous sadist like Brunner. And I’ve dealt with hundreds of men like him.”

  “I know you think that, sir. But there are ten reminders stitched into your arm to suggest you might just be wrong. Besides, you heard what Spiros Reppas said. Merten has a gun and he’s nervous. Which makes it all the more perplexing to me that you should have returned that Webley to Reppas. A gun might have been useful insurance against all kinds of otherwise uninsurable risks.”

  “I can see why you believe that but take it from me, it’s not. Two guns don’t make a right. Just a lot of noise. A gun’s a lot more risk. More risk requires a bigger premium. And I can’t afford it. My soul—always supposing I have one—can’t handle the payments anymore. Does that make sense?”

  “I think so. But you don’t strike me as a man who has much on his conscience, sir.”

  “Don’t be fooled. You might not see him, but even without his top hat the Jiminy Cricket who follows me around is six feet tall.”

  When the blue-and-white bus finally hove into sight like a piece of outsized, metallic chinoiserie, I offered Garlopis the envelope containing the twenty thousand drachmas I’d received at the Alpha Bank.

  “Keep this in the office safe and put a stop on buying that cop—for the time being, anyway,” I told him. “If I can pull this off with Merten, we may save ourselves some money.”

  But of course I didn’t believe this, not completely. In spite of everything I’d told Garlopis I knew there was considerable danger involved in confronting Max Merten on the island of Spetses. I certainly didn’t expect Merten to quietly give himself up, not for a moment. He was going to
need some friendly persuasion. Fortunately I had a plan and knew just what to say and, given half a chance, I was going to say it—if necessary, with force. A lot of it.

  Garlopis shook his head. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d prefer you looked after it. Twenty thousand drachmas is a lot of money for a person of my moral caliber. The fact is, you’re not the only man with a loudly spoken conscience. Mine has taught me that I can resist almost anything except real temptation. Especially when it comes in the form of a lot of banknotes in an envelope.”

  “All the same, I still think you should take it with you. This wad of cash is not quite thick enough to stop a bullet.” I looked at Elli expectantly, in the hope that I might finally have scared her, but she still seemed quite unperturbed by the prospect of the two of us going up against a potentially desperate man. “I’d hate to think it wouldn’t find a good home if something did happen to me.”

  “All right. I’ll take it. But please be careful. I’m looking forward enormously to corrupting that cop. No, really, sir. There’s nothing that’s quite as much fun as discovering the price of a truly honest man.”

  After the bus had left, we got back in the Rover. Elli checked her face in the rearview mirror although I could have saved her the trouble; her face looked perfect. I’d seen the faces of women before and hers was the kind to launch a whole fleet of passenger ferries in the general direction of Troy. She was wearing a short-sleeve white blouse, an under-the-bosom belt that had its work cut out, a full pink skirt with deep pleats and, underneath it, multiple layers of sheer fabric, not to mention the invisible and impertinent scouts for my very active imagination. The fawn suede driving gloves added a nice touch to the whole ensemble. She looked elegantly in control of the car and of herself, like a woman who’d meant to enter a beauty contest and ended up competing in the Mille Miglia. Humming lightly, she steered us quickly along the meanderingly scenic Greek coast and was proving to be an excellent chauffeur; with her eyes on the road and her feet on the pedals I had all the time in the world to admire her shapely calves, and sometimes her knees. Her elbows weren’t so bad either and I was becoming very fond of the line of her jaw, not to mention her body’s sublime, S-shaped curves. She looked like one of the Sirens, and possibly sounded like one, too.

  But my admiration for Elli was accompanied by the growing suspicion that she was using me to help her exact some sort of personal revenge against the Nazis; that perhaps she was intent on murdering Alois Brunner, or Max Merten—that maybe her mother or her father had been killed during the occupation. It was the only explanation for why she was with me that made any real sense. In which case I was going to have to be very careful because I wanted Max Merten alive and for a purpose I’d only just learned to appreciate myself; nothing is more compelling to a man nearing the end of his useful days than the sudden realization that he has the chance to do one good thing.

  There’s no sacrifice that’s too great for an opportunity to do something like that.

  FORTY-FIVE

  –

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she said. “I mean, I wouldn’t like anything to happen to you.”

  “Not you as well. I already told Garlopis, I can handle Max Merten.”

  “Actually I was talking about your plans to bribe that policeman. Or try to. If he doesn’t take the fakelaki it would be all the excuse he needed to put you in prison.”

  “He’s already got more than enough of an excuse to do just that.”

  “I really do wonder if you know what you’re getting into, that’s all.”

  “I know what I’m getting out of. This damn country, I hope.”

  “That’s not very flattering, Christof. To me or my country.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry, sugar. Look, I just want my lousy passport back. When I can see my picture in that little green book again, maybe I’ll feel a bit more comfortable about staying on for a while.”

  Her eyes stayed on the meandering road ahead; I was glad about that; it meant she couldn’t look straight through me. I glanced out the passenger window at the sumptuously appointed view; with its bright blue sky, sapphire sea, and majestic coastline, it looked like the set for some inspiring Cecil B. DeMille epic. On a road like that, and with a driver like Elli, it was easy to think of Muses and Graces and of returning home after a long journey. Munich wasn’t exactly Ithaca but it would do.

  “Did you take a day off work?” I asked, changing the subject quickly.

  “It’s a Saturday.”

  “Yes, but you said you work on a Saturday.”

  “We have a different attitude to work than you Germans.”

  “So I noticed.”

  “Greeks don’t believe that God will like us better because we work hard, or because we deny ourselves pleasure. We prefer to believe that God wants us to go to the beach and admire the view. That contemplation of all the Unmoved Mover’s works is the highest form of moral activity there is. It’s the only way of understanding him.”

  “That doesn’t sound much like Marx.”

  Elli smiled. “It’s Aristotle. Actually he has a lot more in common with Marx than just an impossibly large beard.”

  “I’m sure he does, but please don’t tell me what. I’m too busy right now, admiring the view.”

  Elli glanced at me and saw that I was looking at her.

  “The view’s the other way, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve seen it. But you. You’re always worth looking at. Garlopis was right. Looking at you is enough to make a man believe in God.”

  “He said that?”

  “Even if I can’t quite bring myself to believe in you, my lovely. Snow White is supposed to wait for her handsome young prince, not fall for the grizzled huntsman with an ax to grind.”

  “I see we’re back on the age-old debate about my age and you being old.”

  “I can see what’s in it for me. That’s obvious to any mirror on the wall, not only a magic one. I’m trying to figure out what’s in it for you, that’s all.”

  “You think I might have an ulterior motive for choosing to spend time with you? Is that it?”

  “Women usually do.”

  “Perhaps you underestimate yourself, Christof.”

  “I just don’t want to disappoint you the way I usually disappoint myself.”

  “A woman falls for a man and maybe he falls for her. There’s aesthetics and chemistry and biology and a lot of other technical stuff. Then there’s what he says and how she responds to it. And let’s not forget the metaphysics of it, too: the things we can’t know—the time and place, and the men I’ve known before, and the women you’ve known before. I don’t have a secret agenda here. I don’t have a wicked stepmother or even seven friends who are dwarves. I like you. Maybe it’s just as simple as that.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You know what your real problem is? You want to try and understand something that goes beyond understanding.”

  “That’s the German in me, I guess.”

  “Then we’ll have to make a Greek out of you. I think you could use some cheering up. Sometimes you’re just a little bit too contemplative. Like you have something else on your mind.”

  “There usually is. The gun in your bag, perhaps—that might give anyone pause for a whole series of thoughts.”

  “You think I’m planning to shoot you? It’s an idea at that.”

  “One that’s already crossed my mind.”

  “Why on earth would I shoot you?”

  “You know, I still can’t think of a good reason. But I was hoping I might find one before you got around to actually doing it.”

  “Let me know when you come up with one. It will be interesting to hear it. Who knows? Maybe it will seem like such a good reason that it will inspire me to shoot you for real. I could certainly use a little target practice.” She shook her hea
d. “Your head is a mess, do you know that? With all that suspicion it’s a wonder you can think straight. I’m guessing, of course, but I think you must have had some very interesting girlfriends before me. Maybe some of them were the type to go and shoot a man.”

  “Then you should feel sorry for me. Besides, I’m a victim of my own upbringing. The fact of the matter is that I come from a broken home. All Germans do, you know. My home’s been broken so many times it looks like the Parthenon.”

  Elli was quiet for a while, during which time she bit her lip a lot as if she was trying to prevent herself from telling me something important and I let her alone in the hope that, eventually, she would; but when she did speak again it was to tell me something much more personal than I might have expected, and that brought a tear to her eye.

  “You really want to know why I carry a gun?”

  “Sure. But I’ll settle for your explanation.”

  “My father gave it to me.”

  “Beats a bottle of perfume and a doll, I suppose.”

  “He gave it to me because last year, not long before he died—on the Ochi Day, which is the national anniversary of General Metaxas telling Mussolini to go and screw himself—a man tried to rape me, in Athens. He was a much younger man than you—a mutamassir, which is to say an Egyptianized Syrian who’d been living in Alexandria before being expelled from the country by Nasser. I made the mistake of trying to help him find a job with the Red Cross. He made me do things—horrible things—and he would certainly have raped me if he hadn’t been interrupted by George Papakyriakopoulos.”

  “Meissner’s lawyer.”

  “That’s right. George has been a pretty good friend to me ever since.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “There’s a lot of rape these days in Greece and I carry a gun to make sure it doesn’t happen again or, if it does, that I’m able to take my immediate revenge. But I also carry it in case I ever run into the bastard who almost raped me.”