Greeks Bearing Gifts

by Philip Kerr

  “You didn’t report it to the police?”

  “This is Greece. Reporting a rape, or an attempted rape, is almost as bad as the actual act. Not that I’ve ever seen him again. He disappeared, I’m glad to say. But if I ever do see him again I intend to kill him and to hell with the consequences. In the meantime I like older men like you because I think your sex drive isn’t nearly as strong as that of younger men like him, which means you’re more likely to take no for an answer. Especially if I have a gun in my hand. Does that make sense? I hope so. There. Now you know my dirty secret.”

  FORTY-SIX

  –

  I might have laughed at the way she’d ended her story with a joke at my expense—if it was a joke. Instead I uttered an audible, sympathetic sort of sigh and handed her my handkerchief. “I’m sorry, Elli.” I nodded firmly. “Makes perfect sense now that you’ve explained it. The men in this country being what they are.”

  “I don’t know that they’re much different anywhere else.” She threw the handkerchief back at me almost as if I’d insulted her.

  Of course, I didn’t quite believe what she’d told me. It wasn’t that I doubted Elli so much as I doubted my own capacity for trusting anyone. Which is to say that I’d believed other women before. Of course, these days honesty is a joke, thanks to politicians, and men just lie because they have to in order to stay alive. But long before Hitler and Goebbels and Stalin and Mao, all women were liars and all women lie unless they’re your own dear mother when they always tell you or your father the unvarnished truth even though you and he really don’t want to hear it. No one could mind the gentle nurse with a heart of gold who lies out of kindness to your best friend because she can’t bring herself to tell him that the shell took away both his legs and that he’s never going to walk again. But the rest of them lie like Cretan Jesuits with a college degree in amphibology, and about everything, too, including why they’re an hour late showing up to a restaurant, their weight, their delight at the present you just bought them, and the pleasure you gave them as a lover. There’s nothing they won’t lie about if they think you’ll swallow it and if it advantages them in some way. But mostly women lie and they don’t even know when they’re doing it, or if they do, then you had surely left them with the clear and unequivocal impression that you didn’t ever want to know the truth, which means it’s your fault, of course; or else they simply believe they have a God-given right to lie since being a woman gives them that right whereas you are just a poor dumb fool called a man.

  So there was the fact that women are just natural liars and the fact that I was German and, given everything we’d done to the Greeks in 1943, it was hard for me to imagine there were Greeks like Elli Panatoniou who were prepared to put all of that history behind them. Which is to say I didn’t think it was healthy to believe her because I was going up against Max Merten and I was worried I might find a small hole in my back just because I was German like him. Knowing what I did about how Germans had behaved in Greece I could hardly have blamed her for wanting a bit of revenge. But because I had to be absolutely sure of Elli, I needed to furnish her with a motive that might make the woman reveal her true hand, if she had one, which meant telling her a dirty little secret of my own, and this had me shaking like a dice box.

  “Since you showed me yours then perhaps I should show you mine,” I said. “Only I have to warn you, sugar, mine’s a lot dirtier than yours.”

  “Should I park now or wait to drive us off the road with shock and horror?”

  “It is kind of horrible, Elli.”

  “So don’t tell me. This is a dress I’m wearing, not a surplice.”

  “Believe me, I like it a lot. Especially with you in it.”

  “I wonder about that.”

  “Do you ever wonder what I did during the war?”

  “I’m not naïve. You’re a German. I didn’t think you were running an orphanage or working for Walt Disney. Just don’t tell me you used to have a small mustache.”

  “Look, I was never a Nazi but, for a while, I was a detective in the security service of the SS. I honestly didn’t have much choice about it. Luckily I wasn’t stationed here in Greece. But my war is not something I feel proud of. Which is why Christof Ganz isn’t my real name. Things were difficult for me after the war. Changing my name was a quick way to a fresh start. Or at least that’s what I hoped. I still have a lot of sleepless nights because of the war. And once or twice a bit more than just a sleepless night.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “There’s an old Hungarian song called ‘Gloomy Sunday’ that was banned by the Nazis. Goebbels thought it was bad for morale. So did the Hungarians. It was even banned by the BBC because it’s been blamed for more suicides than any other song in history. But the fact is that despite Goebbels forbidding it, I used to like that song. Lots of men in uniform liked that song. You might say the song performed a useful service because some of those men aren’t around anymore, if you know what I mean. But I almost wasn’t around myself.”

  “All right. You feel bad about it. Maybe you even feel guilty. I get that. Lots of people feel guilty about what happened during the war. Even a few Greeks. What of it? Why are you telling me and not your psychiatrist?”

  “Let me finish my own horrible story. Then you can judge me. I joined the Berlin police not long after the Great War. The first war, that is. There was nothing great about it except perhaps the extraordinary numbers of men who fought and died. Millions. For four years I woke up every morning with the smell of death in my nostrils. Do you have any idea what that’s like? Let me tell you, the amazing thing is not that so many of your comrades die, but the fact that you get used to it. Death becomes something routine. Every man who came out of the trenches was like that. Some were finished forever as human beings, their nerves shot to pieces. Others were angry and wanted to blame someone for what had happened—communists, fascists, Jews, the French, anyone. Me, I wasn’t angry, but I needed to do something useful with my life. In spite of everything I’d seen in the trenches, I still believed in law and order and, yes, justice. What kind of a cop doesn’t believe in that? So when people were murdered, we tried to do something about it, you know, like investigate the crime and then arrest the man who did it. That was the contract we made with the people who employed us. We protected them and when I did that, being a detective felt like something decent and good. For a long time I had a sense of pride in myself and life felt like it meant something. Well, most of the time. I had a few low spots along the way: 1928 wasn’t such a good year.

  “But then the Nazis came along and made nonsense out of all that, which was bad for me and bad for detectives everywhere in Germany. Because of that, it’s been a long, long time since I had a chance to feel like I was on the side of anything clean and good. Too long, really. Most of the time I feel bad about myself. I don’t expect you to know what that’s like but I’m asking you to understand that this might be my last chance to do something about it. The fact is, I agree with Lieutenant Leventis. I want to help put a real criminal in the dock, instead of some damn Greek who was unlucky enough to speak fluent German and steal some office stationery. And I want to do it not for Leventis, not for the people of Greece, no, not even so I can get my passport back and go home; I’ve just realized I want to get Max Merten so that I can feel like I’ve done something good again. Perhaps for the last time I can feel like a real cop again. Redemption is a pretty grand idea for a Fritz like me, but that’s what I’m after. So if you are after your own personal reckoning with Max Merten, I’d like to know now so I can be sure I don’t get between you and your ladies’ pocket pistol.”

  Elli pulled up at the side of the mountain road and switched off the Rover’s V8 engine. She kept a hold of the wheel for a while almost as if she didn’t risk letting it go in case she hit me. Then she peeled off her gloves, reached for her handbag, took out her cigarettes, and lit one; after a
couple of puffs she left it on her lip, fumbled around in her handbag some more, and this time when the hand came out again it was pointing the Beretta at me.

  “So we can’t all be good girls,” she said.

  “You’re joking.”

  She thumbed back the hammer. “Does it look like I’m joking?”

  “Take it easy with that thing,” I said. “At this range you could hardly miss.”

  “Then you’d better bear that in mind. Get out of the car.”

  I reached for the door; it was lucky for her she’d asked me nicely. I stood there dumbly for a minute with my hands in the air while she stepped out of the Rover on her side. Sometimes it feels bad to be proved right. The sea was at Elli’s back; at least it was if you’d climbed down a series of jagged rocks. You could hear the waves and smell the salt in the air and the sun on my face felt like a small atom bomb; if it hadn’t been for the little gun in her hand I’d have said it was an excellent place for a picnic.

  “I have to hand it to you, sugar. You picked a nice spot. It’s kind of romantic here.”

  “Do I have your attention?”

  “Undivided.”

  “Good.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “Just this,” she said, and hurled the gun into the sea before coming around the car. “Do you still think I’m planning to shoot you?”

  I put down my hands and breathed a sigh of relief; people who think a shot from a ladies’ gun won’t necessarily kill you are almost right; but a little Beretta will fire six or seven in very quick succession and, close up, six or seven will kill you just as effectively as a single bullet from a 9-mill Luger.

  “Not unless you’re an expert climber and a hell of a swimmer.”

  Elli shook her head, then took my face in her hands and planted a big kiss on my mouth.

  “Well, that’s more like it,” I said, and was about to kiss her some more but she stopped me and said:

  “No, listen. Until I met you I’d never even heard of Max Merten, okay? But if he’s anything like you, he’s so deaf I doubt he’ll even hear you knock on his door. Like I told you already, that Beretta was for my own personal protection on account of how a lot of men don’t listen when a woman tells them something important such as ‘No, I don’t want to sleep with you,’ or ‘I carry a gun because I was nearly raped and I intend to make sure it doesn’t happen again.’ Just like you, Merten probably won’t be listening when you tell him to give himself up to the police, or try to arrest him. Although how you propose to do that I’m really not sure. But I’m certainly looking forward to seeing you try.”

  “Me too. Especially now you’ve got rid of our only weapon. I was counting on you backing me up with your little pistol if we found ourselves in a tight spot.”

  Elli frowned. “I thought you said you were afraid I was going to shoot you.”

  “Not really,” I lied. “Like you said, why would you want to shoot me? No, I just wanted to see if you still had it with you.”

  She managed to contain her momentary irritation with me and the loss of her Beretta. She had my sympathy, too; I always liked the little ladies’ pistol and often a lot more than the ladies who carried one.

  “So, Christof Ganz, what’s your real name? And please don’t tell me it’s Martin Bormann.”

  “Bernie. Bernie Gunther.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “I really don’t know what you’re going to say next. I think that you just might be the most unpredictable man I’ve ever met. Bernie. And, on occasion, quite the most infuriating, too. Maybe that’s why I find you attractive. But, on reflection, I should have shot you when I had the chance. Bernie.”

  “You know, a lot of people have said that, and somehow I’m still here.”

  “They must have liked your sense of humor as much as I do. But I shall miss having that little gun.”

  “I’ll buy you another, for Christmas.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  –

  We parked the Rover in Kosta and then traveled by water taxi to Spetses, a journey that took all of ten minutes. I wanted to leave Max Merten with the impression that we were escaping the island by the skin of our teeth, so I paid the boatman approximately five times the going rate on the understanding that he would be waiting on the quayside before six the following morning for the return trip to the mainland. It was a beautiful island and I was sorry not to stay longer, especially with Elli, who told me she’d been to the island several times before because, in summer, it was a popular bathing resort much frequented by Athenians, which was also why there was a first-class hotel on the island, the Poseidonian, with a hundred beds and a good restaurant, which had recently opened again after being closed for the winter. We checked in, and while I kept a low profile by staying in the room—I hardly wanted to run into Max Merten on the street—Elli went out to buy a little flashlight and to reconnoiter the address Spiros Reppas had given us.

  “I walked past the house several times in case anyone was watching, the way you told me,” said Elli, while, later on, we ate a dinner that might have been described as typically Greek except that it was good. “It’s a small fisherman’s cottage with two floors, and more or less typical of the houses on the island. A little dilapidated. The curtains were drawn and no one went in and no one came out, but there was wood smoke coming out of the chimney and there was a light burning in one of the bedrooms. By the way, I’m certain it’s someone German in there.”

  “How did you work that out?”

  “Because there was a washing line in the little front garden, and one of the shirts still drying on it had a German label, from somewhere called C&A.”

  “That was smart of you.”

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t actually go in the garden, I just leaned over the front wall and took a quick look. It was quite a large shirt, too. You said Merten is fat? The collar on the shirt was a size forty-five. And not well-washed either; there was still grime on the inside of the collar, like he’d forgotten to take a bar of soap and a stiff brush to it, the way you’re supposed to. My guess is that it’s a man who’s living alone because there’s also a burned saucepan left out on the kitchen step. A man like you, probably. And then there’s the fact that a woman would have remembered to take in the washing. A woman like me, perhaps.”

  “You’re very observant. And you saw all this in the dark?”

  “There’s a small bar opposite, which was closing up, but all the lights were on.”

  “Anyone suspicious hanging around?”

  “Only me.”

  “Were you seen near the cottage?”

  “No. I got a couple of comments on the seafront, but any girl expects that in Greece.”

  “You’re not any girl. Not in my eyes. If Paris was here now he’d sling you across his shoulder and leg it for the ships.”

  “You need to get out more.”

  “Take the compliment. Please. Was there anyone suspicious in the town? Anyone like me?”

  “You mean any Germans? No.” She sipped at a glass of white wine and then frowned, but not because of the taste; it was a good Mosel we were drinking. “I wish I knew what you’re going to do. I expect you want me to stay here in the hotel safely out of the way. Well, try and get it through your square German head, I’m not going to do that. Not now that I’ve come all this way. I’m in this until the end.”

  “I didn’t see it happening any other way.”

  “Besides, it’s the only way I can be sure of killing you both with my spare gun. Brunner, too, if he should decide to put in an appearance while we’re there.”

  “Another present from your father, no doubt.”

  “I was never one for playing with dolls.”

  “Just make sure you shoot to kill, sugar. Brunner’s not the type you can only wound.”
>
  “Of course. There’s no other way with a rat like that. But just for the record, schnucki, I shall regret having to shoot you. Schnucki. Did I say that right?”

  “Sure. By the way, your German is much improved.”

  “I’ve a good teacher. Shame I’ll have to end the lessons, and so abruptly, too. What does it mean anyway? Schnucki.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything very much except that you don’t want to shoot me, schnucki. It’s generally held to be a term of affection.”

  We went to bed and after a few hours we got up early, very early, which is to say at the kind of uncivilized hour the Gestapo—and you don’t get more uncivilized than them—used to favor when they decided to make an arrest, because experience had demonstrated that people put up less resistance to the police when they’re still fast asleep.

  Leaving the Poseidonian Hotel we walked through the necropolis-like white town and along a narrow street and then up a steep hill to the address Elli had already reconnoitered. The front of the gray cottage belonging to Reppas was covered with a lot of bright blue tiles and on top of the twin gate pedestals were a couple of crouching stone lions painted yellow; it looked like a cut-price Ishtar Gate. There were no lights and the shirt with the German label was still hanging motionless on the line where Max Merten had left it, as described by Elli. Behind the gatepost was a cardboard box containing several empty schnapps bottles, which led me to suppose that Merten hadn’t been entirely wasting his time on the island.

  As soon as I opened the front door with the key Spiros Reppas had given me and I moved the flashlight around a bit I knew for sure Merten was living there. The place was pungent with the smell of the same distinctive Egyptian-style Fina cigarettes Merten had been smoking back in Munich. There was a copy of an old German magazine called Capital on the floor by the sofa and a half-empty bottle of Schladerer on the coffee table. There was a hat and an overcoat with Munich labels lying on the sofa, but no gun in the pocket. On the wall was a picture of King Paul, and a framed Imray chart of Greece and its islands. There was plenty of light through the window—enough to conduct a search of the place—and I whispered to Elli to look around for the Walther automatic that Spiros Reppas had mentioned back in Athens; then I headed for the carpeted stairs. Every step was furnished with a pile of books, as if the cottage belonged to a keen reader who didn’t own any shelves; most of the books were cheap paperbacks, crime novels and thrillers by English and American writers for whom choosing a red wine with fish was probably the kind of clue that would reveal the socially maladroit murderer’s identity to the very clever detective. I wondered if any of them had advice on how to approach a sleeping man with a gun. I placed my foot on the first step and tested it for sound with my weight. The wooden step stayed silent so I tried another; and then another, until I was at the top of the stairs with my heart in my mouth. I turned and looked down and saw Elli standing there looking up at me; she shook her head as if to say No gun, and I nodded back and prepared to open one of the bedroom doors in the knowledge that Merten probably had the gun on the bedside table; that was certainly where I would have left mine if Alois Brunner had been looking for me. And you didn’t have to be much of a shot with a Walther to hit someone coming through your bedroom door. A three-legged cat could have made a shot like that.