In the Shape of a Boar

by Lawrence Norfolk

  ‘You are to take the truck tomorrow,’ he said in faintly-accented English. ‘Take your possessions with you, whether you are told to or not. Colonel Ward wants to talk with you in Messolonghi.’

  ‘Clearance,’ said Sol.

  ‘No, that's done here.’ The official paused, as if unsure how to proceed. ‘It's very irregular. The circumstances in which you were brought here are not recorded in your file. There's nothing unusual in that, but you should assume that Colonel Ward knows something of those circumstances. Do you understand?’

  ‘Who is Colonel Ward?’

  ‘Never mind. Just answer his questions as fully as you are able.’

  ‘And who are you?’ asked Sol.

  The official looked surprised. ‘Dahlberg. Liaison.’ When no reaction was forthcoming from Sol he added, ‘From Sweden.’

  There was much confusion with the check-list before the British Captain, a plump bespectacled man with a red face and bristly light-brown moustache, had a tick next to all the names.

  ‘Memel?’ he pointed to Sol, who nodded. The Captain tried to explain something in very bad Greek. Sol nodded again and climbed into the truck with the other men. They sat around him, clutching their bundles and grinning while the truck lurched and swayed out of the camp to begin the drive around the lake. After less than an hour they turned south into flat marshland. The road ran over a low causeway. Out of the open back Sol watched Agrinion shrinking and the mountains behind, which seemed invariable. It was late afternoon before they reached the lagoon. The truck rounded the shoreline to enter Messolonghi from the north and a short time later they pulled up outside a large brick building. The men climbed out of the truck and stretched their legs. Most of them were continuing on to Naupaktos, where their homeward journeys would properly begin. Sol jumped down and looked back. The heights of Zygos rose behind him.

  ‘Follow please,’ said the British Captain in his almost-Greek. They walked into the building.

  A large room with benches on either side was deserted save for two Greek women dressed in black, one young, one old, and three silent young children who sat between them. They looked up as the two men passed through. Sol and the Captain climbed a staircase. Rooms to either side of a corridor had been outfitted as offices. Sol caught glimpses of uniformed men hunched together over map-tables and desks. One appeared to be taking a telephone to pieces.

  ‘Ward about? Colonel Ward, anyone?’ the plump Captain called out as he bustled through. Men shook their heads, or looked at him curiously.

  ‘Pandazis then? Anyone seen him?’

  ‘Upstairs,’ a voice said.

  The Captain beckoned to Sol, an exasperated expression on his face, and they climbed to the top floor.

  ‘Pandazis! Where the . . . Ah, look, explain to this chap that Colonel Ward wants to ask him a few questions. Let's sit in here, shall we?’

  Pandazis was a small neat man. He arranged three chairs around a desk at one end of the spacious room. Above the fireplace, a large-scale map of the Gulf of Corinth caught Sol's eye.

  ‘Tell him not to look at that, Pandy. Classified.’

  This was translated into Greek, then the interpreter said something else, which Sol assumed had to do with Colonel Ward's absence.

  ‘I speak English,’ said Sol.

  ‘Well!’ exclaimed the Captain. ‘That's going to make life easier, if Colonel Ward ever gets here. He's got a few questions for you.’ He enunciated his words precisely. ‘Pandazis here does the interpreting around these parts. I'm Captain Montgomery. No relation, worse luck. Now let's see if we can get some tea while I track down Colonel Ward.’

  Two hours passed. From time to time, Captain Montgomery put his head around the door to deliver the news that the lines were still down, or that the vehicle which they had heard outside, which should have contained the missing Colonel, in fact did not and that Colonel Ward was, all in all, not to be found. Eventually Montgomery returned with the intelligence that the elusive Colonel seemed to be in Patras and thus would not be back that night.

  ‘We're just going to have to make the best of it,’ announced the Captain to Sol and the silent Greek. ‘Memel, isn't it? You probably know what this is all about. I'm deuced if I do. If Pandazis here takes the notes we can get through it one way or another. Let's start with the Kurtaga camp, that's where you were, wasn't it?’

  Sol nodded.

  ‘Good, that's a start. Write that down, Pandy. Now, after that . . .’

  ‘You want to know about Eberhardt,’ Sol interrupted. ‘Or your Colonel Ward does.’

  This seemed to irritate the Captain.

  ‘Look Memel, I don't pretend to know any more than the average British Army officer posted out to clean up somebody else's mess. If you're so sure that Colonel Ward wants to know about this Eberhardt fellow then blast away by all means.’

  Pandazis spoke then. ‘Colonel Eberhardt was an Abwehr officer here in Messolonghi. He ran a number of agents and ordered some of the reprisal actions north of Karpenisi.’

  ‘I see. Well, that sounds like Colonel Ward's department. What can you tell us, Memel?’

  Sol told the two men what he knew of Colonel Eberhardt.

  ‘Is that right, Pandy?’ asked Montgomery when Sol had finished.

  The Greek shrugged in a non-committal manner.

  ‘I must say, Memel, it does seem odd that this Eberhardt was here so late in the day. Getting caught out like that. Worse than careless. You say the partisans caught his unit, up by the lagoon was it?’

  ‘There had been a fight there. He got away with a few of his men,’ Sol tried to lead the Captain back to the subject at hand.

  ‘Let's be clear about what you're telling me, Memel. You weren't there at the time, but you know that he escaped, and who killed him, but you don't know how he died. It doesn't matter to me which of those statements is true, and I doubt it matters to Colonel Ward either, but even a Captain in the British Army knows that they can't all be true. Simple logic.’

  ‘He was killed by a woman partisan who fought under the name Thyella . . .’

  ‘This girl you say tried to help you escape?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you know this how?’

  ‘He had been mutilated, in a particular way.’

  ‘Let's stick to specifics,’ said Captain Montgomery, leaning forward.

  ‘Eberhardt had been castrated.’

  Montgomery's expression did not change. ‘One wouldn't want to meet her on a dark night. And what became of this Thyella after that?’

  ‘She's dead. She went after Eberhardt, just as I told you.’

  As he spoke, Sol caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. The Greek had given a tiny shake of the head to the Captain.

  ‘You saw her body too?’ Montgomery pressed him.

  Sol did not answer.

  ‘Come on Memel. Simple question. Yes or no?’

  Sol turned to the Greek.

  ‘You're not an interpreter.’

  ‘Steady on there, Memel. Speaking out of turn won't get you . . .’

  But the Greek had raised his hand. Montgomery sighed and sat back in his chair. The Captain and the interpreter exchanged glances.

  ‘You already know about Eberhardt and Geraxos and Thyella, don't you?’ Sol continued.

  ‘Anastasia Kosta, to give her her real name,’ the Captain said. ‘Yes. And we've heard your name too, Mr Memel, although you seem to grow more mysterious by the minute.’ He smiled, then spoke in a businesslike manner. ‘Colonel Heinrich Eberhardt was an executive officer of the Militärverwaltungsstab-Messolonghi reporting to the Oberfeldkommandantur here. Responsible for internal security, in other words. How he was able to issue orders to a Greek Security Battalion, as you suggest, is something of a mystery. Wouldn't have made him very popular with the SS men. Bit of a loose cannon. What I'd like to ask you, what we would both like to ask you,’ he nodded his head to the Greek, ‘is why Eberhardt had a Jew with known affiliations to a local a
ndarte commander assigned to a low-security labour battalion instead of shot?’

  Sol looked from one man to the other. Their expressions were mild. Curious.

  ‘Eberhardt interrogated you personally.’ Montgomery continued. ‘We know that. He also put his name to papers describing you as a “Temporarily Displaced Romanian National”. Has a better ring than “Jewish Communist Partisan”, wouldn't you say?’

  The Captain regarded him evenly. The buffoonish manner of a minute ago had disappeared.

  ‘He wanted something from you, Herr Memel. What was it?’

  Sol kept his silence, which grew to fill the room and press on all of them. At last, the Greek broke it. He rested his elbows on his knees then spoke slowly and softly.

  ‘There was a table in front of you, and on the table there was something wrapped in cloth, wasn't there?’ He looked up for Sol's confirmation before continuing. ‘An instrument of some kind. Before he showed you what it was, he told you what it was for. That was the order, wasn't it?’

  Sol nodded again.

  The Greek reached down and fumbled with the laces of his right boot. Montgomery pushed his chair back, stood up, and walked to the window. The Greek peeled off his sock to expose his foot.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘That is what it was for.’

  Sol glanced down, then looked away.

  ‘Some things cannot be withstood,’ said the Greek. There are places where we cease to be ourselves. It makes little difference now what you did, or said. And it will have no repercussions. Or not for you.’

  The Greek pulled on his sock and pushed his foot back into his boot.

  ‘Eberhardt died by the lagoon,’ said Captain Montgomery from the window. ‘We have that much. The Kosta girl too, most likely.’

  ‘You know that's not true,’ said Sol.

  ‘Really? Please tell me why.’

  Sol shook his head. Men's voices drifted up from the street outside. A horse's hooves clopped as it pulled a cart up the slight incline. These sounds only magnified the silence in the room. The two men let it continue.

  ‘Well, we can't force you to talk to us,’ said Captain Montgomery at last. ‘No butchers’ hooks here. No doubt it'll all be cleared up sooner or later. Or not.’

  Sol looked up.

  ‘As I said, I'm only a British Army Captain posted out to clean up a mess. In the end, none of this will amount to much. But wars rumble on for a while, Memel. They don't just stop.’

  The Captain nodded to himself, then walked over to the desk and opened one of the drawers.

  ‘Now, a final mystery. A United States Army Major in the – what is it?’ He looked down and read aloud, ‘The “Internal Film Information Services Unit”. Major John Julius Aubrey Franklin II, no less! Now why would he be so eager to meet you?’

  Montgomery handed a sheaf of papers across the desk.

  ‘Travel warrants. Entry permit. Even some US Army meal vouchers in there somewhere. The full works.’

  The Captain was easing himself back into character. Sol looked through the documents one by one. The bold peaks of the Major's signature repeated themselves across the pages, dwarfing the scrawls of the co-signatories, which were mostly illegible. He looked up, baffled.

  ‘Don't look to me for answers,’ said Captain Montgomery. ‘Questions more my line. I'd try and ship out to Taranto, if I were you. Get a troop train up the coast.’

  The route he eventually took, while indeed passing through Taranto and continuing up the eastern coast of Italy, would prove considerably more complex than the simple sentences of advice offered by the Captain in the upstairs room in Messolonghi had suggested. It would be autumn before an overworked locomotive heaved its mixed train of battered carriages and freight-cars across the plain of Lombardy, pulling into sidings to allow the passage of the westbound trains and stopping for the work-gangs who appeared to line almost the whole route. The line was single-track for long stretches. The mountains visible to the north and the sheet of water to the south encroached and receded, squeezing and releasing the neck of land over which the train passed until a long bend in the track directed it south and shortly afterwards they were passing over open water. The tired and sprawling men raised an ironic cheer. The train slowed to little more than walking pace to cross the causeway. Long minutes later, yellow stucco walls rose around them, then fell away just as abruptly. The carriages and cars shuddered over the points outside the station.

  Sol showed his papers to a succession of baffled Italian gendarmes until, after a long wait, two white-hatted American Military Policemen were summoned.

  ‘Major Franklin, huh?’ said one, looking through the dog-eared bundle. He pointed to Sol's name. ‘This you?’

  Sol nodded.

  ‘Should have a photo and a stamp.’ He spoke briefly with his colleague as to whether civilian transport passes required stamped photographs or merely photographs without stamps. They decided the former.

  ‘Get a photo,’ said the colleague. ‘Get it stamped.’

  They led Sol out of the station into a bicycle-crowded square and then through streets which narrowed and widened unpredictably. They pressed themselves against walls to allow passage to the oncoming traffic, then crossed smaller squares where the only sounds were the reports of his escorts’ boots and the softer slap of his own. An instant later the crowds would surround them again: men pushing handcarts, young women carrying children, or bundles of wood, groups of American servicemen. They turned corners. They crossed canals. Tattered laundry hung from lines strung between the buildings’ upper storeys.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

  ‘Major Franklin, right? The film guy?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sol.

  ‘That's where we're going.’

  They exchanged glances and Sol had the impression that some laborious joke was being played on him. Or perhaps on Major Franklin, the ‘film guy’.

  The policemen stopped at last outside a pair of wooden doors set into a large archway. There was a bell-pull, but one of the men hammered on the wood with his fist. They waited. After a minute or more, a woman's voice called out something in Italian.

  ‘Americano,’ replied the hammerer. ‘Got someone for Major Franklin.’

  A small door set into one of the larger two opened and a very small, very old woman peered out, looked the three of them over, then nodded.

  ‘There you go,’ said one of the policemen, ushering him inside. ‘Don't forget that photo either.’

  Sol assured him that he would see to it, then ducked through the doorway.

  A short archway led to a courtyard enclosed on three sides by walls and shuttered windows. On the fourth, balconies rose in tiers, supported by elaborately carved pillars. The old woman bolted and barred the door behind him then said something in Italian.

  ‘Franklin,’ he said, and tried to show her the name on his papers. ‘Major John Franklin.’

  The woman began to speak rapidly, incomprehensibly to Sol. Perhaps this was part of the policemen's joke. A water trough stood in the middle of the courtyard. He would sit on that and think. The old woman followed, still talking, or complaining, or threatening. It was hard to tell, with her jabbering in his ear. Suddenly his patience ran out. He stood upright and shouted.

  ‘Ruth!’

  The old woman closed her mouth and began to back away. He drew breath to shout again, louder this time. As loud as he could.

  ‘Ruth!’ he bellowed at the top of his voice.

  The noise echoed around the courtyard. The old woman stared at him as if he were mad.

  ‘Here, Sol.’

  She was leaning over the second-floor balcony. He would remember a navy-blue towelling bathrobe, a light-coloured towel, and the bright red of her fingernails. She wore her hair short.

  ‘You've had your hair cut,’ he said. ‘It suits you.’

  Ruth turned away for an instant and then was joined on the balcony by a middle-aged man with dark slicked-back hair.

&nbs
p; ‘Sol, this is John. Major Franklin, I should say.’ She nudged him with her elbow.

  Major Franklin waved his hand in welcome. ‘You're Ruth's cousin?’ asked the man. ‘We're glad to see you at last. Let me tell you.’

  ‘You're sleeping with him.’

  ‘I am not!’

  ‘You're in love with him.’

  ‘Don't be ridiculous. He's in love with me.’ She poked her head around the door. ‘I'm going to marry him and live in Hollywood. With a swimming pool.’

  Sol laughed.

  ‘I'm serious!’

  Sol and the Major had sat awkwardly together on the balcony while Ruth dressed. The Major had made conversation, telling Sol about his unit's assignment, which was to produce short films about the lives of ordinary people coping with life in liberated Italy. The Major spoke modestly and wittily. Sol nodded and grew ever more conscious of the dirt ingrained in his skin. He must smell, he thought. The urbane, softly-spoken American seemed a creature from another world.

  ‘The game is finding people with the same attitude Americans hope they would have if they found themselves in, say, a ration-queue in Venice, if you see what I mean. Then we have to persuade them to be filmed. They're a little hard to find.’ He smiled at Sol. ‘But that's where Ruth comes in,’ he said, as Ruth reappeared. ‘Don't know what we'd do without her.’

  Ruth had smiled back, meeting his gaze. She wore clothes Sol had not seen before.

  ‘We'll put Sol in my aunt's apartment, shall we?’

  Had the Major nodded, or had his head dropped a little at that, Sol asked himself, recalling the moment. He lay with his own head resting on the lip of the bath-tub. Grey soapy water swirled around him as he lifted one knee and scrubbed lazily, listening to Ruth rearrange furniture in the next room. After a disorientating walk, the two of them had climbed a narrow twisting staircase. Ruth had unlocked a door at the top and ushered Sol through. He had blinked in the sudden brightness. Windows opened over rooftop vistas to either side. Light flooded the rooms, a soft golden light which warmed everything it touched.