The Oracle

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  His friend had told him that the secret police often used mediums and psychics to solve intricate, unsolvable cases. Not only in Greece, but in many other countries as well. He had claimed that in Italy, when statesman Aldo Moro was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Red Brigades, a psychic had told the police the exact name of the street where they could find him. The only reason they hadn’t been able to save him was that there happened to be a town of the same name which they’d mistakenly raided instead.

  Karamanlis knew that the seer lived in an old shack next to a cave which opened on to the southern slope of Mount Peristeri, not far from a spring. He found a shepherd who knew enough to provide him with reasonable directions to the place.

  He quickened his pace, because it was already three in the afternoon and the days were getting shorter. It would take him another hour to get up there and just as long to get back down, and he didn’t want to be stuck up there when darkness fell.

  He was soon struggling and drenched with sweat, dressed as he was in a brown suit, shirt and tie, with shoes that were absolutely unsuitable for such a hike. He slipped several times, falling to his knees and covering his trousers with dust and burrs. When he was finally close enough to see the shack, the weather started to turn. Clouds cloaked the sun which had begun to set over the Ionian Sea in the direction of Metsovon.

  Just a few dozen metres away was a drystone-wall cabin, its roof covered with schist slabs like all the old houses in the area. All around were pens with sheep, goats, pigs, a couple of donkeys, chickens and turkeys, geese. But he could hear the cries of other animals as well: monkeys, or parrots, it sounded like. That discordant chorus of beastly voices created a sinister atmosphere in the place, which seemed devoid of any human presence.

  Karamanlis was about to turn back, because the clouds were gathering rapidly and the idea of remaining in that place longer than necessary gave him the creeps, but stopped when the door suddenly swung open. He thought he would see the owner come out, but nothing happened: the door had opened on to a black, empty space inside.

  Karamanlis walked slowly towards the house. ‘Anyone home?’ he asked, ‘May I come in?’ He was given no answer.

  All at once, he realized that his men had been killed after being lured into a solitary, out-of-the-way place. Just like this. Stupid. What an idiot. Had he come on his own legs to meet his butcher? His friend at the Ministry hadn’t given him much information, after all. Perhaps he knew more about Bogdanos than he’d let on. After all, their ‘friendship’ had always been greased by sums of money Karamanlis had appropriated from funds destined for informers and spies.

  He took his gun from its holster and hid it in his pocket, so he’d be ready to fire at the slightest provocation.

  He then heard a voice from inside.

  ‘You won’t need your weapons. There is no danger for you here. The danger is elsewhere . . .’

  Karamanlis started and paused at the threshold, looking in. There was a man sitting next to the hearth, although the fire was out. His back was to the door. To his left a bird was perched on a stand: a hawk, or a kite. A large grey-haired dog lay at his feet, absolutely immobile.

  ‘I’m—’

  ‘You are O Tàvros. Chief of many men, yet you fear remaining alone, do you not?’

  ‘I see someone has spoken to you about me,’ said Karamanlis, putting the gun back in its holster under his armpit.

  The man turned towards him: his hair was dark and curly, his skin swarthy. He had long, nervous hands and strong arms. He was wearing the traditional costume of the area: a pleated fustanella and a puff-sleeved shirt under a black wool vest. Karamanlis was disconcerted.

  ‘You called me O Tàvros. That was my battle name during the civil war. Someone must have told you about me . . .’

  ‘In a certain sense. What do you want from me?’

  The light outside was fading quickly and the dog whined softly.

  ‘I’m looking for a man who I knew under a false identity for many years. I cannot understand his behaviour for the life of me. Each one of his actions contradicts another, and I cannot explain them, as hard as I try. His appearance is always accompanied by death, either just before or just after I have seen him . . .’ He was amazed at how he was talking to the shepherd, as if he could really provide a response. ‘I know only his face. It’s a face that is difficult to forget because it seems unchangeable. As if time never passes for him.’

  ‘There are people who wear their years well,’ said the man.

  ‘Do you know who I am speaking about?’

  ‘No.’

  Karamanlis reproved himself for being so gullible. He’d come to this godforsaken place for nothing.

  ‘But I feel him looming over you,’ the man continued. ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘More than that,’ said Karamanlis. ‘I can show you a very good likeness of him.’ He took the identikit from his pocket and handed it to him.

  The man took the sketch but didn’t seem even to look at it. He put it on a stool in front of him and placed his open hand over it. His voice suddenly became deep and hoarse, distorted. ‘What do you want from me?’ he asked.

  ‘My life is threatened,’ said Karamanlis. ‘What must I do?’

  ‘Your life is threatened by this man. I know.’

  ‘By this man? Not by another man? This man saved one of my officers . . .’

  ‘It is he who administers death. Where are you going now?’

  ‘To Athens.’

  ‘This is not the road to Athens.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What is your next destination?’

  ‘Ephira. I’ll be going to Ephira, sooner or later.’

  ‘Where the Acheron flows. The swamp of the dead is there. Did you know that?’ His voice seemed full of pain, as though each word were costing him a dear sacrifice.

  ‘I know. That’s what I’ve been told, but all the leads I have point there. I’m a bloodhound, and I have to follow the trail, even if it takes me to the mouth of hell. I don’t want you to tell me if I’m going to die there. I wouldn’t give up the chase now, even if that were the case.’

  ‘The danger . . . is . . . not there.’ His lips were white with dried spit; the hand he held over the likeness was beaded with sweat. The animals outside were silent, but he could hear their hooves scuttling on the stony ground as if they were running frantically back and forth in their pens. The kallikàntharos began to speak again: ‘Your soul is hard . . . but every man must fight to survive. Avoid . . . if you can . . . stay away from the vertex of the great triangle. And beware the pyramid at the vertex of the triangle. There where east and west touch, shoulder to shoulder. It is there that the bull, the ram, and . . .’ Karamanlis drew closer to the man, until their brows nearly touched. The man’s features were taut, his forehead covered with perspiration and his face carved by deep wrinkles. He seemed to have aged ten years.

  ‘Tell me who he is, and where he is, now!’ he implored.

  The man’s head jerked forward as if a fist as heavy as a maul had slammed against his back. The dog suddenly got up on its back legs and sniffed the air, turning towards the door with a fearful yelp.

  ‘He is—’

  ‘Who is he?’ shouted Karamanlis, seizing him by his vest. ‘Tell me who the bastard who’s been screwing me for the last ten years is!’

  The man lifted his head with supreme effort. His hand still hovered over the drawing, still and solid, while the rest of his body trembled uncontrollably: ‘He is . . . here!’

  Karamanlis jumped: ‘Here? What are you saying?’ He looked wildly around the room and pointed his gun at the door, as if a nightmare figure might appear there. When he turned again towards the kallikàntharos, the man was unrecognizable. His breathing sounded like a weak hiss. He slowly removed his hand from the sheet with a great effort and turned to speak. When the sound of his words formed in his mouth, Karamanlis shuddered with horror: it was no longer the voice of the man sitting in front of
him, but of the man who for years and years he had thought was Admiral Bogdanos.

  ‘What are you doing here, Captain Karamanlis?’

  Karamanlis staggered backwards; a gust of wind hit him from behind through the open door, dishevelling his hair and pasting his jacket collar to the nape of his neck: ‘Who are you?’ he cried. ‘Who are you?’

  He stumbled back until he found himself outside. The wind slammed the door shut, banging it two or three times, loudly. The top of the mountain was no longer visible, completely hidden by huge black clouds. Karamanlis took off at a run as the rain started to pelt down. There was not a single shelter from there to his car, and he ran with every last bit of energy he could gather, panting, falling, wheeling around at every peal of thunder and bolt of lightning until he reached it. His heart was bursting, he was soaked and tattered. He switched on the engine and the heat and stripped down. He sat naked and still, sheltered from the pouring rain, trembling with fear and chilled to the bone. A car finally drove by on the road, then a truck and a camper full of foreign tourists: he was back in the world made up of people, noise and real voices. He would never again leave it of his own will. Never.

  AFTER TALKING TO the police, Mireille returned to Odòs Dionysìou to check with the waiter at Milos’s Bar. She gave him another tip to make sure that he’d promise to call her hotel again if he saw the light under the shutter of number 17 or if he saw a black Mercedes parked anywhere nearby. The waiter assured her that if she wasn’t in her room, he would leave a message with the front desk. Then Mireille called Mr Zolotas, asking him to meet her in a bar in Omonia Square. He showed up in a dark blue suit with a polka-dotted pocket handkerchief and a gardenia in his buttonhole. Given his job, his apparel was incredibly elegant, albeit slightly démodé.

  ‘Well, miss, how is your little investigation proceeding?’ he asked as soon as he saw her.

  ‘Better than I’d hoped, but unfortunately all the information I’ve gathered isn’t leading me to any solution. I need to know more. I even went to the police, but the person I was looking for was out. He’ll be back today, they said.’

  ‘Can I ask who you were looking for, miss, if I’m not being indiscreet?’

  ‘An officer who was involved somehow in the events that followed the death of Professor Harvatis – his name is captain Pavlos Karamanlis.’ Zolotas paled. ‘Do you know him?’ asked Mireille.

  ‘I do. Unfortunately. He is a dangerous man. During the dictatorship he was one of the mastiffs of the repression. He never rested the night of the Polytechnic, and those he got his hands on still carry the signs, I can assure you. Be careful. Careful of what you say, and say as little as you can.’

  ‘Thank you for warning me. You have given me precious help, Mr Zolotas.’

  ‘What kind of information do you still need?’

  ‘Land registry. Can you consult those records?’

  ‘Not personally, but I know a person who can. What do you need to know?’

  ‘Who the printer’s shop on 17 Dionysìou Street belongs to. If there’s someone who pays the rent. If it has other entrances besides the front shutter, which has been closed for seven years, if not more.’

  Zolotas took notes on a little pad with a slim pencil. He looked up at her when he had finished writing: he certainly wasn’t a good-looking man. His light-coloured eyes were protruding, his nose aquiline and his cheeks a bit jowly, but his hair was carefully combed and he reminded Mireille of one of those Hellenistic busts in the National Museum portraying a stoic philosopher or a late-generation academic. She was becoming quite fond of him.

  ‘What did you want to ask Captain Karamanlis?’

  ‘I wanted to show him a sketch I’ve made of a man to see if he knows him. I even have his licence plate number.’

  ‘I wouldn’t give Karamanlis that number if I were you.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Mireille with a disappointed tone, since she had already told the police she had it.

  ‘Let him look for the man, if he’s interested. Why should you help him?’

  ‘Because I’m interested as well.’

  ‘Do you trust me, miss?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Give me that number. I’ll go to the automobile registry. My Greek is better than yours.’

  ‘I’m making progress, though,’ said the girl.

  ‘That’s true. In a month or two, it’ll be perfect.’

  ‘I’ve come here often on vacation, and I went to a classical lyceum for high school. Modern Greek’s not that hard, once you get used to your strange pronunciation.’

  Zolotas arched his eyebrows: ‘Strange? But we are the Greeks here, aren’t we, miss?’

  ‘That’s true too.’ Mireille gave him her phone number at the hotel. ‘This is where you’ll find me if you need me. I’m going to the police tonight.’

  ‘Be careful, miss. Please promise me you’ll be careful’

  ‘I will be careful, Mr Zolotas. You don’t possibly think I could be in danger?’

  ‘Not if you drop everything now and go back to wait for your boyfriend in France. But if these things have remained hidden for all these years, there must be a reason. And it might well be a serious reason. Farewell, miss.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Zolotas.’

  CAPTAIN KARAMANLIS DIDN’T get to headquarters until five the following afternoon, and went directly to his office without saying hello to anyone. He sat at his desk and used a key to open the bottom drawer. He pulled out the file with Heleni’s photographs, chose one and placed it on his desk. He then took one of the photos he had taken of her sister from his bag and placed it alongside. He had been right: they looked like two pictures of the same person. A little bit of laboratory retouching would make the illusion perfect, or nearly so.

  He put back the negatives and started to read his mail. The officer on guard soon called him.

  ‘Captain, that girl is here for you. And hey, Captain, she’s really a nice piece of—’

  Karamanlis was not in the mood for lewd remarks. ‘Take your comments and stick them up your ass. Show her in immediately.’

  ‘Yes, sir, Captain. Right away, Captain.’

  Karamanlis did his best to seem open, honest and cordial with Mireille, and most of all not like an inquisitor.

  ‘You came with a likeness of a man,’ he said, ‘to see if we know anything about him.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  Mireille took the drawing she had made from her bag and showed it to him. Karamanlis could barely hide his amazement.

  ‘You drew this, miss?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s perfect. And I know, because I’ve seen this man many times. What is it you want to know?’

  ‘I’m looking for information about an archaeologist who died ten years ago here in Athens. His name was Periklis Harvatis. He left a very important study incomplete, and it is essential that I find his writings. As far as I know, the people who may have been in contact with him before his death are a man who worked for the Antiquities and Fine Arts Service, a certain Aristotelis Malidis, and –’ she pointed her finger at the drawing on the table – ‘this man here.’

  Karamanlis continued to stare at the drawing, and felt, despite himself, that the man’s gaze was looking right through him, watching his every move, like the eye of God.

  ‘Someone told you to contact me personally, isn’t that right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘May I ask who it was?’

  ‘A doctor. Doctor Psarros at the Kifissìa hospital.’

  ‘Psarros . . . yes, I remember now, I remember. He phoned me the night Periklis Harvatis died, or maybe the night after, reporting the strange conditions of the patient who had been brought in on the brink of death. I investigated Malidis: he was his excavation foreman.’

  ‘On what dig?’

  ‘I don’t know. The Service did provide a list of all the excavations in progress, but I was told I’d hav
e to contact every single branch office for complete information. I got nowhere.’

  ‘Well, I got somewhere. I went to the National Library before coming here and consulted the excavation journals. On 16 November 1973, Periklis Harvatis was exploring the adyton of the Oracle of the Dead at Ephira. The dig was published by his successor, Professor Makaris.’

  Karamanlis felt caught unawares by this girl, apparently such a doll and in reality so quick-witted. Too quick, maybe. Ephira . . . so that was where the golden vase came from. Who else could have come to Athens that night with a piece from an archaeological dig? And maybe the vase was now back. Maybe that was why Charrier and Shields were returning to Ephira, defying death there?

  ‘You’re better at this than I am, miss,’ he said with a grudging smile. ‘In any case, absolutely nothing against Malidis ever emerged. I had my suspicions, but I never found anything I could use against him.’

  ‘What about this man here? What was his relationship to Professor Harvatis?’ asked Mireille, pointing to the drawing on the table.

  Karamanlis wasn’t sure how to proceed. There were a lot of things he wanted to know from the girl, but he realized he wouldn’t get them for free. He had to come up with something feasible without implicating himself.

  ‘Miss,’ he said, ‘this man has been a real headache for me. But I’m beginning to see through him, and I believe that with your help we’ll manage to find out everything we need to know. You told my men you had a licence plate number.’

  ‘Captain,’ said Mireille, ‘I’m sure that we’ll become good friends. When that happens you’ll do me a favour, I’ll give you a hand . . . but for now, let’s do things my way: I tell you something, you tell me something. Okay?’