The Oracle

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  For weeks and weeks he was also tortured by the thought that Bogdanos might screw him with that story about Claudio Setti. After all, he had no real proof that the kid had been rubbed out, and he cursed his hastiness that day. He’d let himself be drawn in like a novice. Maybe Bogdanos wanted to keep him on a leash with the threat of resurrecting a dead man and setting him on him. Okay, so what could be the worst possible scenario? He could always say he had acted in good faith, and refer to the personal objects, the ID card and medal that he’d shown to the coroner. When he’d nearly forgotten all about it – since nothing had happened in the meantime – one of the errand boys handed him an envelope. It contained a photograph showing Claudio Setti on the table of a morgue. If it had been anyone else, he would have turned it over to the technicians in the lab, but he thought it best to rely on cop’s intuition this time. He burned the photo and banished it from his thoughts.

  As time passed, the situation returned to normal; day after day, life was resuming its usual rhythms and at police headquarters they went back to busying themselves with thieves and robbers, smugglers and swindlers. His opponents were in the cooler, meditating on their stupidity. This should have set his mind at rest, put his soul in peace. And yet . . . he was tense and nervous. Even at home, where he’d always managed to keep out work-day worries, he was irritable and bad-tempered and his wife did nothing but repeat ‘What’s wrong with you?’ At times, getting out for a walk and a bit of fresh air, he even had the sensation he was being followed: a shadow that he could almost see out of the corner of his eye, but which vanished as soon as he turned his head. Him, followed! That was a laugh. He was the bloodhound, capable of hunting down his prey for weeks on end, for months. He must really be worn out.

  One day he picked up the phone and called a friend at the Ministry of Defence: ‘Do you have an officer named Bogdanos on the navy list?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Nothing in particular. Just . . . curious.’

  ‘Bogdanos, you said? Wait, I’ll check. Certainly, Anastasios Bogdanos. I’ll call you back when I’ve taken a look at his file. It’ll be a fine opportunity to see you! You never come round any more. You never think of an old friend unless there’s something you need, huh?’

  ‘You’re right, I should be ashamed of myself. Thanks for your trouble.’

  They met a few days later at a tavern in the Plaka.

  ‘He’s a war hero. Did time on the submarine Velos, much decorated, gold medal, former commander of the navy academy, currently assigned to special duties with the staff office, of which he is a member.’

  ‘Is it too much to ask what these special duties are?’

  ‘You said it. Let him go, my friend, don’t bite off more than you can chew.’

  ‘Is he so powerful?’

  ‘He’s an honest man. No one has anything on him. In our current situation, that makes him a man to be feared, because he knows everything about everyone, but no one can accuse him of anything.’

  ‘Would you say he can be trusted?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s ever fallen back on his word. If you’ve collaborated with him in some operation, you’re safe on all sides. He’s a man who, when he has to, pays off his debts in person. And punishes . . . in person, if necessary.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘There’s nothing more I can tell you, even if I wanted to. I hope I’ve been of some help to you, my friend.’

  ‘Oh, you certainly have. Of great help. Thank you.’

  His friend changed the subject, chatting about the soccer championship and the music festival at Salonika. But the sound of a bouzouki wafted in from a nearby house, with the words from a song by Theodorakis: ‘In his cell they tortured Andreas, And tomorrow they’ll take him to die . . .’

  ‘Listen to that garbage! They should be arrested and taken to trial. They should all be arrested.’

  Karamanlis fingered his komboloi, passing the yellow plastic beads from one hand to the other.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Good. Well then, I’ll say goodbye. Come by some time. You only show up when you need something, dammit!’

  It was getting dark and Karamanlis walked to his car. He stopped at a street vendor’s to buy a packet of roasted chestnuts for the kids: they loved them.

  TEN YEARS LATER

  7

  Tarquinia, Italy, 28 May 1983, 5.30 p.m.

  THE MAN AT the reception desk was obviously annoyed at having to take his eyes off the Formula One grand prix on his little portable TV. He turned to the client who had just walked in.

  ‘There are no vacancies,’ he said. ‘Unless you have a reservation.’

  ‘I do have a reservation,’ said the stranger, resting his suitcase on the floor.

  The clerk took the register, turning the TV set so he could still see it out of the corner of his eye.

  ‘What’s the name?’

  ‘Kouras, Stàvros Kouras.’

  The clerk ran his finger down the guest list.

  ‘Kouras with a K, right? . . . Okay,’ he said, ‘here we are. Suite 45, second floor. Could you please give me an ID, and then you can go right up.’

  The stranger placed his passport on the counter. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘I need some information.’

  ‘Yes?’ replied the clerk, increasingly torn between his job and the object of his true interest.

  ‘I’m looking for a man named Dino Ferretti. He lives here in Tarquinia and he’s a tour guide.’

  ‘Ferretti? Sure, he often takes our guests around. Matter of fact, if you hurry you’ll probably find him with the last group of tourists at the necropolis of Monterozzi. Do you know how to get there?’

  ‘No, but I’ll find someone who can tell me,’ replied the stranger.

  ‘Oh, sure,’ said the clerk, turning the volume on his set back up.

  The stranger asked a boy to take up his suitcase and walked out of the door, leaving the deafening roar of Niki Lauda’s McLaren behind him. He went to his car and drove past the city limits to the entrance of the necropolis. It was nearly closing time and the custodian had already put away the tickets and pulled down the shutter. He stood beside the gate, waiting for the last tour group to leave. They trickled out a few at a time, strolling towards the bus that was waiting for them. The guide, a young man of about thirty-five with a tour agency badge in the buttonhole of his jacket, was among the last to arrive. He lingered, answering the questions of the two or three people most interested in the tour. They were elderly American ladies in leisure suits and hats, still piqued by the sex scene in the Tomb of the Bulls and asking for embarrassing elucidation.

  When they were all in the bus, the guide stepped up on to the footboard, checking outside to make sure there were no laggers, when his eye fell on the black Mercedes with Athens plates parked at the end of the lot. He suddenly scowled, staring at the indistinct shape behind the windscreen. The bus’s pneumatic door slid shut, and he sat down next to the driver, eyeing the rear-view mirror. The Mercedes pulled out behind the bus and followed it at a distance of a couple of hundred metres. The tourists got out in front of the Rasenna hotel as the guide waved goodbye and set off on foot towards the high part of town. The Mercedes had disappeared.

  He stopped in a grocery store to buy some cheese and cold cuts and pick up a magazine at the news-stand. He walked off, paging through it, headed towards a small building not far from the cathedral square. He stopped and looked around, trying to shake the sensation that he was being followed, then went into the main door and took the stairs up to the top floor.

  He stood at the window and let his gaze wander over the spread of red roof tiles and the flower-filled countryside beyond smelling of freshly cut grass. A cloud of starlings wavered uncertainly in the sky, looking for shelter as night began to fall.

  A knock sounded at the door: a dry, hard sound. He sensed the same presence behind the door as behind the shiny surface of the windscreen up at the necropolis. Far off, ov
er the fields, the clouds of starlings scattered, the dark shadow of a kite splitting them apart. He went to open the door.

  ‘Good evening, son.’

  ‘Admiral Bogdanos . . . you?’

  ‘You weren’t expecting me? Maybe I should have called first.’

  The young man lowered his gaze and stepped aside. ‘Come in, please.’

  The man entered the room, walking across it with a slow stride and stopping next to the window. ‘Quite a beautiful place,’ he said. ‘An enchanting view. And so this is where Dino Ferretti lives.’

  ‘Yes, it is. And it is here that he will die, very soon. I’ve decided to recover my original identity.’

  Bogdanos turned towards him and Claudio Setti thought he saw, for the first time since he’d met him, an expression of dismay, nearly panic – if it hadn’t been for the unchanging strength in his eyes. He felt ashamed at what he had said.

  ‘I owe you so much, Commander. My life, the tranquillity of this place, my shelter in a storm. But I feel it’s useless to keep up this facade. I’ll never be able to lead a normal life this way.’

  Bogdanos flared up: ‘Normal? You want a normal life? I understand. You want your name back, a woman, most likely, and children and a house with a garden and summer vacations. Is that what you want? Tell me, is this what you want? Tell me, dammit, so I’ll know that all I’ve done has been in vain and that the person who I met and saved no longer exists.’

  Claudio dropped to a chair, covering his face with his hands: ‘Time changes many things, Commander. Even the most horrible wound scars over. You can die right away, of anger and of pain, but if you survive, it means that an unknown force is pushing you towards life. You can’t blame me for this, Commander.’

  ‘I understand. Now that the political situation in Greece has changed so radically and you feel you are no longer threatened, you think it’s time to take up your true identity again. The newspapers will love it: a dead man lives . . .’

  ‘You think I’m an ingrate and a coward. You’re wrong. I’ve lived for years in the dimension that you assigned to me, waiting for the moment at which I could take revenge. I’ve followed all your instructions to the letter, but now I feel that it’s all been useless. Human wickedness will remain, no matter what I do.’

  Bogdanos nodded and fell silent for a few moments, then took his hat and walked towards the door.

  Claudio seemed suddenly to shake off his mood. ‘Commander.’ Bogdanos turned towards him, the door handle already in his hand. ‘Why did you come here today?’

  ‘It no longer has any importance.’

  ‘No. I want to know.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have found you in this state of mind. I came to open your wound up again, to make it bleed . . . against your will, I’m afraid. Son, I have the proof which will nail those responsible for Heleni’s death as well as their accomplices. I have devised a plan to destroy them. Every last one.’

  Claudio paled. ‘Why don’t you turn this proof over to the law?’

  Bogdanos looked appalled, as though Claudio were a complete stranger, speaking nonsense, but his voice betrayed no emotion.

  ‘All the crimes committed during that time have fallen under the statute of limitations or have been covered by amnesty. They are, in any case, outside the jurisdiction of the law. They would never be punished. I know where they disposed of Heleni’s body: they threw it into the dam at Tournaras, after having taken off her clothes. They were afraid that some strip of clothing might have floated to the surface and given them away. A cold tomb . . .’

  Claudio felt tears rise to his eyes and stream down his cheeks, but he couldn’t say a word. Bogdanos looked at him in silence and then started down the stairs. Claudio ran to the railing on the landing: ‘Commander!’ he yelled, his voice breaking. Bogdanos stopped and slowly turned his head upwards. ‘Why? Why are you still seeking . . .’

  The door to the street opened and a woman came in with a shopping bag. Bogdanos waited until she disappeared behind the door of an apartment on the ground floor. ‘I’ve always punished unwarranted violence. Mercilessly.’ He continued down the stairs, in the dark.

  Claudio shouted again, through his tears: ‘Why did you choose me? Why didn’t you let me die?’

  Bogdanos was already at the bottom of the last ramp of stairs and was about to open the outside door. He turned again, and his voice echoed darkly, like a wolf snarling from the depths of his lair. ‘I didn’t choose you, fate chose you. You can’t escape the consequences of what has happened. Why don’t I take care of it? I can’t expose myself. Not here, not now. I’ve been fighting a hostile destiny, for ever, it seems . . . And I have to go back to my hotel. I’m tired. I’ve been investigating for years, understand? I’m tired . . .’

  ‘Which hotel?’

  ‘The Rasenna.’

  ‘In what name? If I . . . if I were to look for you, what name are you registered under?’

  ‘Kouras, Stàvros Kouras. Goodnight, my son.’

  He disappeared down the street and the door closed behind him with a bang. Claudio rested his head on the railing and remained in that position, mentally counting Admiral Bogdanos’s steps as he walked away, and imagined Heleni’s white body in the black water as she vanished, swallowed up in its depths. ‘Goodnight, Commander,’ he murmured.

  8

  France, University of Grenoble, 10 June, 9 a.m.

  ‘GOOD MORNING, PROFESSOR.’

  ‘Good morning, Jacques. What’s new?’

  ‘Just the usual, Professor. Oh, I wanted to remind you that there’s a faculty board meeting this afternoon.’

  ‘Right. Trouble in the air?’

  ‘Looks like it. Madame Fournier is furious because your department has made off with two of her graduate scholarships, and the students are planning to present a motion for exam reform beginning the next academic year.’

  ‘Got it. We’ll try to weather the storm and survive. Don’t pass me any calls for the next ten minutes; I have to open my mail and look over my notes for the lesson.’

  Michel Charrier hung his jacket on a coat hook and sat down at his desk. The telephone rang not a minute later.

  Jacques, I thought I said ten minutes.’

  ‘I couldn’t say no: it’s Senator Laroche, from Paris.’

  ‘Oh right, thank you, Jacques. Hello? Hello? Is that you, Georges? To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me, Michel. And I have good news. The executive committee at the party secretary’s office have decided to support your candidacy for the coming parliamentary elections. Not bad, eh? Well? Cat got your tongue?’

  ‘Good God, Georges . . . what can I say? I . . . good heavens, I don’t know what to say. I never expected anything like this . . . well . . . I’m happy, very happy. Please, could you thank them all on my behalf . . . I’m literally . . . speechless!’

  ‘Someone like you, speechless! Don’t make me laugh. You’ll have to find the words, you know. Meetings, assemblies, conferences . . . You’ll have to find a wealth of words!’

  ‘But, Georges, what about the University?’

  ‘Yes, that’s important. See, we’re preparing everything so far in advance because we want to be ready when the moment comes. And so we were thinking it would be good if you could be tenured before the next electoral campaign begins. An element of prestige like that would be just the thing. We’re planning on pushing this image hard: the excellent intellectual level of our candidates. The time when we were putting labourers up for parliament is long gone. The competition is setting such sharks into the arena that we can’t make too many concessions to ideology.’

  ‘Tenure! As if that were nothing at all! It’s no joke, you know. I don’t think the department intends to even ask for a chair for this subject.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nothing that can’t be fixed. We may be the minority, but we’re pretty strong in this neck of the woods, and we’ve got the right friends.’

  ‘Georges, I’m afraid that’s
not enough. What I need is more . . . direct support.’

  ‘We’ll try to find that as well, but you have to get moving: produce something important, something that will get people talking even outside the academic world, maybe even abroad . . .’

  ‘I understand. I’ll . . . see what I can do. You have to give me time. Just off the top of my head . . . well, there is some research I’ve been working on, but I’m afraid it’s not very sensational. I’ll have to think about it.’

  ‘That’s fine, nothing to worry about, Michel. We’ll see each other and think of something together, with the help of other friends, if need be. What’s important is that you feel up to the challenge.’

  ‘Well, of course I do.’

  ‘Great, that’s what I like to hear. We’ll worry about the rest. Have to run now; I’ll call you back next week. Is next week okay?’

  ‘Oh, certainly. And thank you, thanks again.’

  Michel hung up, leaned back in his chair and took a long breath. My God: Michel Charrier, tenured professor and member of parliament in one fell swoop! Not bad, not bad at all. One of the youngest and most brilliant intellectuals of France, one of the youngest deputies . . . that’s what the papers would be saying. If everything went as planned.

  He stretched out his hand to reach for a frame with the photo of a beautiful blonde girl with the sun in her hair.

  Mireille, a brilliant career at the same university, associate professor of art history. One of the most illustrious families in the city, the Saint-Cyrs; also one of the most disagreeable and haughty. If all this went well, they’d no longer have a reason for keeping him away from their daughter. They’d have to recognize him for what he was and stop hindering their relationship. Maybe they’d even get married.