For Will
‘Thou seest how sloth wastes the sluggish body, as water is corrupted unless it moves.’
Ovid
Contents
Map
Dramatis Personae
Glossary of Greek Words and Expressions
Prologue
One
Seventeen Years Later
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Acknowledgements
A Note on the Author
By the Same Author
Dramatis Personae
Hermes Diaktoros – The fat man, an investigator
Enrico and Ilias – Crew aboard Aphrodite
Remo and Ricardo – Crew aboard a visiting boat
Vassilis Eliadis (Uncle Vasso) – A wealthy philanthropist
Lemonia Bousali – Uncle Vasso’s housekeeper
Manolis Chiotis – A stranger
Spiros Tavoularis – A coastguard officer
Loskas Vergas – A bank clerk
Makis Theonas – A butcher
Captain Fanis Andreadis – An army captain
Skafidis, Kastellanos, Lillis and Gounaris – National Service conscripts
Professor Philipas – A museum curator
Lukia – Professor Philipas’s wife
Olympia – A nurse
Tavros – Proprietor of a waterfront taverna
Milto Rokos – A musician and smallholder
Socrates Rokos – Milto’s father
Kara Athaniti – A friend of Hermes, an archaeologist
Nondas – A kiosk owner and fisherman
Glossary of Greek Words and Expressions
agapi mou – my love
agori mou – my boy
ambelopoulia – a dish of songbirds
amessos – immediately
chairo poli – formal greeting
Despina – Miss
embros – hello (on telephone) (lit. forward)
frappé – iced coffee whipped to a froth
kafenion – café
kai – and
kalé – familiar form of address
kali mera (sas) – good day (plural/polite form)
kali nichta (sas) – good night (plural/polite form)
kali orexi – bon appétit (lit. good digestion)
kali spera (sas) – good evening (plural/polite form)
kalos tou, kalos irthes – welcome
kamari mou – expression of affection, lit. my pride
koproskilo – dirty dog
kori mou – my daughter
koritsi – young lady
kouklos/koukla(ra) – handsome/pretty (lit. doll, m/f)
koulouri – a circlet of bread or pastry
Kyria – Mrs, Madam
Kyrios/Kyrie – Mr, Sir
malaka – common term of abuse
mankas – derogatory word for ‘gentleman’, a spiv
meltemi – seasonal summer wind
mori! – expression of shock or surprise
mou – my
panayeia (mou) – by the Virgin
pedi mou – my child
pedia – lit. children; affectionate address to a group
poustis – slang for ‘homosexual’
raki – home-made spirit distilled from wine-skins
salone – living room
tavli – backgammon
Theé mou! – my God!
Theia – lit. Aunt: term of respectful and affectionate address to an older female
to chronou! – here’s to next year!
vlaka – fool
volta – promenade (lit.walk)
yammas – cheers
yassou/yassas – hello or goodbye (singular and plural/polite forms) (lit. your health)
yiayia – grandma
zaharoplasteio – pastry/cake shop
Prologue
The struggling bird was dangling from the twig, beating its free wing as it strained for flight, but the glue held both its feet fast, and pinned it by its last few tail-feathers. The quinces in the branches were the yellow of ripe pears; a scattering of lost feathers littered the tree’s roots.
‘Be careful with it,’ said Spiros. ‘Don’t kill it.’
As Loskas reached out, the bird’s fluttering became more frantic, its call more desperate.
‘You’re frightening it,’ said Spiros.
Loskas withdrew his hand.
‘You do it,’ he said. ‘It might bite me.’
‘What if it did?’ said Spiros. ‘You’d never feel it. Look how tiny it is.’
The boys changed places. Loskas put his hands behind his back.
‘Why don’t you pull the twig out?’ he asked. ‘If you got the twig out, we could get hold of him.’
‘It’s a her,’ said Spiros, peering amongst the foliage for the twig’s end.
‘How do you know it’s a her?’
Spiros looked at him with faint derision.
‘By the markings,’ he said, and pointed to the oval of tan plumage on the bird’s head. ‘It’s a female blackcap. The male’s head’s black.’
He reached in amongst the leaves.
‘Don’t get glue on you,’ said Loskas. ‘Don’t get it on your clothes.’
The limed twig had been set low amongst the tree’s natural branches. Spiros tugged it free, and drew out the long, straight switch, half-coated with linseed glue.
The tac-tac of the bird’s distress call was growing fainter.
‘Poor thing,’ said Loskas. ‘Let’s let it go.’
‘We have to clean it first,’ said Spiros. ‘It can’t fly, covered in glue.’ He laid the lime-twig on the ground and crouched beside it. ‘If you cover the glue in dirt, it loses its stickiness.’
Taking care around the bird, he trickled sandy soil over the grey gum.
Somewhere in the orchard, an eager voice called out.
‘There’re more birds!’ said Loskas. ‘Makis has found more birds!’
‘Go and tell him to bring the traps over here,’ said Spiros. ‘And tell him to stop yelling, or someone’ll hear.’
Hampered by hand-me-down shoes, Loskas set off at a run. By the time Spiros finished neutralising the trap, the bird had stopped moving. Afraid that trauma had killed it, he placed the pad of a finger on the bird’s chest. He felt only the ridge of a fine bone, but his touch provoked a silent opening and closing of the bird’s beak, and a beating of its free wing, which gained it nothing but the loss of one more feather.
Spiros closed his hand around the bird’s body. Poking through the loop of his thumb and forefinger, its head moved from side to side, its beak fitfully opening.
Amongst the orchard’s trees of citrus and olive, Loskas and Makis were squabbling. Spiros touched the bird’s delicate feet, and realised how easily he might damage them. Holding his breath, one by one he prised the claws from the glued switch, and, relieved to have caused no apparent injury, freed the feathers of the caught wing and the tail. With the bird liberated, he stood up, and rolled the lime-stick in the dirt with the toe of his shoe.
‘What’re you doing?’ The voice close to his back made Spiros jump. Socrates had a way of doing that, of creeping up unseen on the other boys. He tried to look over Spiros’s shoulder, but being younger, was too short to see. ‘What have you got?’
Spiros showed him the half-dead creature in his fist. Loskas’s and Makis’s
arguing was growing closer.
Socrates looked down at the dirt-caked stick.
‘That’s one of Vassilis’s traps,’ he said. ‘If he catches you, he’ll thrash you! What are you going to do with the bird?’
‘Let it go,’ said Spiros.
‘What for?’ asked Socrates. ‘Why don’t you keep it?’
From between the orchard trees, Loskas and Makis approached, each carrying a switch almost as long as they were tall. Makis’s had caught a ruby-masked goldfinch, worn out with its struggle and almost dead. Loskas’s held a redstart, newly trapped and still battling.
‘Mori!’ said Socrates. ‘You’re stealing all Vassilis’s birds!’
‘We’re not stealing them,’ objected Spiros. ‘We’re setting them free. And he’s got no right to trap them anyway. He doesn’t even live here.’
Loskas and Makis laid down their lime-twigs. Loskas began to cover his in dirt, as if he were an old hand at the job.
‘This is where the most birds are,’ said Socrates. ‘You’ve got to lay the traps where there’re birds. But I don’t see why you’d let them go. We could sell them, same as he does.’
Loskas paused, his fist full of soil.
‘How could we sell them?’ he asked, curiously. ‘We don’t have cages to put them in.’
Socrates tongued an adult ‘tut’ at Loskas’s stupidity.
‘To eat, vlaka,’ he said. ‘We could sell them to eat. Vassilis makes good money from them. He gets a thousand drachma a pair.’
The other three looked at him. Spiros’s expression was of distaste, but Socrates had caught Loskas’s and Makis’s attention.
‘They’re good to eat, fried,’ said Makis. ‘Or you can pickle them, in jars. My yiayia does that, but I don’t like them pickled.’
‘And we haven’t got a jar,’ said Socrates.
‘If we sell them to eat, we’ll have to kill them first,’ said Makis.
‘That’s easy,’ said Socrates. ‘I’ve seen him do it. You smash their heads, like this.’ He squeezed his thumb hard against three fingers. ‘Or you just pull their heads off.’
‘You leave them alone!’ warned Spiros. ‘We’re not killing them, we’re setting them free! Loskas, you get them off the twigs. Then we’ll go and wash them at the well.’
‘You’ll never get that glue off with just water,’ said Socrates. ‘You have to have that special stuff.’
‘What special stuff?’
‘Listen!’
The boys became still. On the track between the houses and the orchard, a young man whistled, and called a dog to heel.
‘He’s coming!’ said Loskas. ‘Run!’
The birds forgotten, he headed off towards the furthest trees. Long before they reached the orchard’s cover, Makis had overtaken him.
Socrates snatched up the traps Makis and Loskas had abandoned.
‘Go,’ he said.
Spiros was anxious to follow the others.
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
‘He doesn’t scare me,’ said Socrates. ‘He takes our oranges, so he owes us.’
‘But what are you going to do?’
Vassilis was very close; the boys could hear him curse his disobedient dog.
‘He steals from my family, I can steal from him,’ said Socrates. ‘And I can outrun him, any day. Go. I’ll keep him off your back.’
‘Let’s both go,’ said Spiros. ‘We can set the birds free in the hills.’
‘Go, and I’ll slow him down. Loskas needs a head start, and Makis’ll cry like a girl, if he thinks he’s in for the strap. Tell him I’ll make sure he doesn’t get caught. And I’ll be right behind you, don’t you worry.’
So Spiros didn’t wait. As he made off, Vassilis came into the clearing, and seeing Spiros heading away and Socrates holding the lime-sticks, the young man himself began to run.
‘Thief!’ he shouted, aiming for Socrates. In spite of his boots, he moved fast. ‘Rob me, would you? Koproskilo! Give me my property!’
‘Come and take it!’ taunted Socrates. ‘Here!’
He yanked the goldfinch from the switch, but the bird was badly stuck, and left behind a toe, and a spray of feathers. Socrates launched it gleefully into the air, looking up to see it fly away and thwart Vassilis; but the exhausted bird fell back to earth with a thud, and lay half-stunned and floundering at Socrates’s feet.
‘Malaka!’ shouted Vassilis. ‘I’ll teach you to steal from me!’
He lunged for the boy. Socrates dodged him, and dropping the lime-sticks, set off after his friends; but the young man had longer legs, and quickly caught him. He held Socrates by his arm, so tight it hurt; and when the boy struggled to get away, Vassilis pinched his ear-lobe, and that hurt more. Socrates stopped his struggling. Vassilis released his arm, but used the pressure on his ear to make the boy turn and look up at him. Vassilis wasn’t tall, but he had the island’s broad and powerful build.
‘I should have known,’ he said. ‘Wherever there’s trouble, there’s you. Do you know who I am?’
The boy tried again to pull away. Vassilis squeezed his ear-lobe, and Socrates yelped.
‘I asked if you know who I am.’
‘You’re Vassilis,’ said Socrates.
‘But you can call me Vasso,’ said Vassilis, almost kindly. ‘And those birds are my property.’ He tugged Socrates’s ear to stress his point, and Socrates winced. ‘Those little birds are my ticket out of here. People pay good money for them. And we all want to make money, don’t we?’
The boy said nothing, so Vassilis increased the pressure on his ear, until Socrates answered, ‘Yes!’
‘You could make some money too,’ said Vassilis. ‘If I have a good season this year, I’ll be off this island by spring. You could help me have a good season, by keeping your thieving friends away from my traps. Do you think you could do that?’
Keen to avoid more pain, the boy nodded.
‘Then you and I have a deal.’
Vassilis let go of Socrates’s ear, and tousled his hair. He reached into his pocket, took out two one-hundred drachma coins and held them out to the boy.
Socrates took them.
‘Let’s you and I be friends,’ said Vassilis. ‘You look after my traps, and I’ll look after you.’
Socrates clenched his fist around the money, and rubbed his ear.
‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’ asked Vassilis. ‘If my father had caught you thieving, he’d have tanned all your backsides. I’ve let you off lightly, because I trust you. But if I catch those boys at my traps again, I’ll hold you responsible. Got it? Now go.’
He gave the boy a playful clip to the side of his head.
Overhead, the rainless clouds were breaking up. Socrates sprinted after his friends. As he disappeared amongst the trees, Vassilis whistled his dog and walked back to the lime-sticks, where the goldfinch and the redstart cried their despair.
One
In Mithros’s harbour, no boat ever came or went unnoticed.
By early summer, when the heat was beginning to bite and all risk of storms was past, the number of visiting craft increased fivefold, and by August, doubled again. Some left with the dawn, and some arrived in the small hours (the great ferries of the Zoutis line – whose routes were lengthy, and so were prone to delays – never docked before midnight, even when running to time). But the majority arrived as the blue afternoons became evenings, seeking out overnight berths: yachts captained by professional wanderers, or mishandled by nervous novices ignorant of seamanship and etiquette; luxurious cruisers crewed by lithe men in white uniforms; and local fishing boats bringing home sun-sated tourists from the beaches, legs dangling over the sides and nursing weary children. There were dinghies and cargo-boats, caiques and gulets, and all were watched by somebody, somewhere: by the coastguard’s duty officer, self-important on the quay, or feet up in his office with its view of the harbour’s full stretch; by the town councillor’s boy who collected the mooring fees, cycling unhur
riedly from berth to berth on a brakeless bicycle; by the post-siesta crowd in the kafenions and bars, who – whether sailors or not – passed judgement on the competence of the arrivals’ manoeuvrings.
But not every boat that came to Mithros entered the harbour. Some wanted peace, or privacy, and found their way instead to the remoter coves and bays around the coast – bays like Kolona, a wide-mouthed stretch of water narrowing to a stony beach, beyond which, set some way back, was a hamlet of run-down cottages and their church.
On a day in midsummer, where Kolona’s aquamarine shallows ended, a German yacht lay at anchor. As noon approached, a second vessel sailed towards the beach, cutting its engines to anchor on the same line as the yacht. On the roof of its wheelhouse, a Greek flag fluttered; at the stern was a tattered flag of red and black. The boat showed the dilapidation of long travel: the fenders were battered, the exhaust smoked black with burning oil, the port-holes were blind with salt spray. As the anchors dropped, the captain switched on the bilge-pumps, fouling the waters with diesel.
When the engine and the pumps were switched off, the boat was quiet. The crew of four men – one blond, one black-skinned, two Greeks – were subdued. They didn’t dive into the cooling sea, or turn on music; there was little talk between them, and no laughter. One clattered crockery and cutlery, and laid the table on the canopied stern; another brought out feta, salted cucumber and bread, which they ate in near silence. The blond fetched beers from a cooler, but got no thanks as he passed the bottles round. They finished their food, and cleared the plates, and sat back down at the table to light cigarettes.
From the trees behind the shore, cicadas shrilled. The men drank more beer, but stayed sober; when they spoke, they kept their voices quiet. The sun went down, and the temperature fell a few degrees towards tolerable. As the stars came out and the gibbous moon rose, one by one the men all went below, and lay down in their narrow bunks to sleep.
Mid-morning of the following day, an islander at the shoreline was mending nets. Over a mound of yellow mesh, flies buzzed after decaying debris: fish-scales and seaweed, dead crabs and discarded bottom-feeders. The islander spread the next few feet of net, and finding a tear, hauled it up over his knees.
The Bull of Mithros Page 1
