The Bull of Mithros

by Anne Zouroudi

  The shuttle moved fast as he made the repair, but as he cut the thread with his knife, the day’s brilliance dimmed, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. The islander looked up. A figure stood over him. The islander put his hand above his eyes to block the sun, and squinted up at a face he didn’t know.

  ‘I’m looking for a relative of mine,’ said the stranger. ‘Maybe you could help me.’

  The islander stitched the next knots in the mesh.

  ‘Who’s your relative?’ he asked.

  ‘They call him Vassilis Eliadis.’

  The islander’s fingers became still.

  ‘You’re a relation of Uncle Vasso?’ he asked. ‘I don’t see any family resemblance.’

  ‘We’re related by marriage,’ said the stranger. ‘But you do know him?’

  ‘Oh yes, I know him. I know him very well.’

  He found another hole, and put the shuttle to work.

  ‘There’d be something in it for you, if you’d show us where to find him,’ said the stranger. ‘But we’d like you to be discreet. Our visit’s a surprise.’

  The islander was silent. He stitched, and cut.

  ‘We’ll make it worth your while,’ said the stranger.

  The islander seemed uninterested; but as the stranger turned to go, he spoke.

  ‘I can be discreet,’ he said. ‘Especially if you make it worth my while.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the stranger. ‘And I expect you know your way around here pretty well?’

  ‘I should do,’ said the islander. ‘I was born here, and I’ve lived here boy and man.’

  ‘There are things we need,’ said the stranger. ‘Our stores are low, and we need a chandler. Is there one in the port?’

  ‘There are two or three,’ said the islander. ‘I can show you the cheapest, if you’d like. For a consideration. You’d be taking me from my work.’

  The stranger smiled.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I think you could be our man.’ He held out his hand, and the islander shook it. ‘They call me Ricardo.’

  ‘Socrates.’

  ‘Good to meet you, Socrates. When you’ve finished here, why don’t you and I have a drink, and we can talk?’

  Some nights later, Ricardo, the blond and the black-skinned man climbed into the dinghy they towed behind their boat. The blond fired up the outboard, and steered towards the shore. At the jetty, Socrates was waiting; as the dinghy drew alongside, he flicked his cigarette into the sea. He stepped aboard, and offered a greeting, to which only Ricardo replied. The engine was never cut; the three made room for the fourth, and they sped away, passing their own unnamed vessel without acknowledgement to the crewman left behind.

  In the weak light of battery lamps, he watched them go.

  In the dinghy, the blond spoke to Ricardo in a foreign language, and as Ricardo replied, Socrates caught his own name.

  ‘He wanted to know what they call you,’ translated Ricardo.

  ‘What do they call him?’ asked Socrates.

  ‘Nothing, as far as you’re concerned. He doesn’t need a name.’ He jerked his thumb at the black-skinned man beside him. ‘But you can call him Remo.’

  As they made the turn into Mithros’s harbour, the dinghy slowed.

  ‘Vasso lives up there,’ said Socrates. He pointed to the highest house on the promontory, where lights blazed at all the windows. ‘The Governor’s Villa.’

  Ricardo spoke to the blond, translating what Socrates had said. The blond’s response was short.

  ‘He wants to know where to go,’ said Ricardo.

  ‘Over here,’ said Socrates. ‘Tell him to find somewhere on this side.’

  There were no vacant moorings, but the dinghy needed little space. Between an elegant Turkish gulet of varnished pine and a local caique painted up for the tourists, the dinghy touched the harbour-wall, at a point where stone steps rose from the water. The blond tied up to an iron ring in the wall. The gulet’s crew looked down on them mistrustfully.

  On shore, they fell in with the casual pace of the evening’s volta. Amongst the many tourists, Ricardo, Remo and the blond moved unremarked. Socrates walked ahead, assuming without looking that they were following. A shout came for him to join a kafenion table, where local men sipped coffee and eyed the girls. Socrates called out, ‘Later,’ and went on.

  Towards the harbour’s end, the town was quiet. The three followed him along an alleyway, where drab businesses were doing no trade. In the doorways, the proprietors sat in shorts and cutaway vests which showed their thick shoulder hair; on the balconies above, their women spread their fat white legs under cotton dresses, sighing for a breeze to cool their thighs.

  Socrates led on and up through a maze of backstreets, until they reached the lane where the Governor’s Villa hid behind its wall. Lit by a streetlamp, the lane at its far end dropped away down the hillside, giving a view of the night-black sea and the silhouettes of islands under the moon. Far out on the water, a boat’s navigation lamps glinted green and red.

  The villa wall was draped with honeysuckle and jasmine, whose sensual perfume mixed with the stink of cats. From a house below the villa, Kalomiris’s piano concerto crackled from a dusty-needled record-player.

  Socrates didn’t speak, but gestured to the villa door, which had no handle, only a keyhole, and a knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. Over its arch, a light burned; given the brightness of the streetlamp, it seemed unnecessary.

  Ricardo spoke to Socrates, keeping his voice low.

  ‘Get him to open the door,’ he said. ‘Don’t let him know we’re here.’

  He led Remo and the blond a little way along the lane, where they stood with their backs against the villa wall, out of Socrates’s sight.

  Socrates raised the lion’s-head knocker, and banged on the door three times. He waited, until at length from behind the door, someone asked, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me,’ said Socrates. ‘I want to talk to you.’

  A key was turned, a bolt drawn, and the door opened.

  ‘So you’re back, are you?’ said Uncle Vasso, his voice full of dry humour. ‘What is it you want to say?’

  Socrates had no answer to the question, and in several seconds of silence, Uncle Vasso studied him, and realised all was not well. He moved to shut Socrates out; but before he could do so, Ricardo, Remo and the blond reached the door, the blond slamming his weight against it so it could not be closed.

  Uncle Vasso’s expression was grim.

  ‘Yassou, nephew,’ he said to Ricardo.

  There was no embracing, no back-slapping reunion.

  ‘Shall we go inside?’ said Ricardo. He turned to Socrates. ‘You, wait over there.’

  Socrates shrugged his indifference, and walking away, took a seat on the stump of a pine tree. He lit a cigarette. The three men followed Uncle Vasso inside. There were footsteps on the stone-flagged courtyard; an inner door closed, and there was silence.

  On his tree-stump, Socrates listened. In the house below, the record of the piano concerto was stuck; the same uplifting phrase played over and over, until the needle was lifted from the groove, and dropped back on to the record beyond its sticking point.

  The silence from the villa continued. Socrates ground out his cigarette, and approached the door; he put his hand to the wood, and found it fastened shut. He pressed his ear against it. There was nothing to hear.

  Minutes went by. Growing bored, he wandered to the lane’s end, and looked out over the sea. The music from below was coming to its climax, piano and strings playing loudly, and with passion.

  Someone screamed.

  The sound was startling, short and sharp, there and gone. Unmistakably, it came from inside the villa. Yet as the silence resettled, Socrates doubted what he had heard; as the quiet persisted, he was ready to dismiss the scream as a tom-cat’s yowl, or a child in some rough game.

  But then there was shouting – a stream of protests, curses and the vilest, foulest language thro
wn between men – until the curses broke off, and the screaming came again, drawn-out and chilling to the soul.

  Socrates ran back to the door and hammered on it. There was no answer. The screaming stopped. As Socrates listened, a new silence grew, spreading to the houses down the hillside where others were now listening, too.

  Fast footsteps ran across the courtyard, and the door was thrown open.

  The three men emerged, the blond carrying a satchel made from coarse-grained boar-hide. Socrates was in their way, and the blond jarred his shoulder as he went by. Socrates grabbed Remo’s arm, but Remo was moving quickly, and easily pulled free. Socrates put out a hand to stop Ricardo, but Ricardo dodged him, giving no acknowledgement Socrates was even there.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Socrates called after them, but the men were intent on their getaway, and didn’t respond. At the lane’s end they disappeared, heading back the way Socrates had brought them.

  Socrates’s instinct was to follow; but somewhere in the house, Uncle Vasso moaned.

  Through the courtyard, the villa door stood open. Inside, the kitchen smelled of burning.

  He went through the kitchen, into the salone. The room was ostentatious in its comforts, flamboyant in its style – a low-backed leather sofa, a lighted drinks cabinet with crystal glasses, a polished oval dining table – yet what drew the eye was Uncle Vasso’s collection, his hoard of African souvenirs. On the floor before the fireplace was a zebra-skin, on the hearth a funerary urn decorated with stick-figures. Along one wall hung spears and painted shields, and complex, beaded necklaces in frames; and on all sides were disquieting black masks, the weird, elongated faces of warriors.

  Behind a burning icon-lamp, Uncle Vasso sat at the table, roped by his waist and lower legs to his chair. The dead match which had lit the lamp had been dropped on the polished table, but the burning smell – far more intense in here – was not of scorched varnish, but of singed hair.

  Uncle Vasso looked up at Socrates. His eyes were swollen with crying, his face was creased in pain, and he held up his shaking hands to show Socrates his roasted skin.

  ‘My hands!’ he said. His voice was weak with shock. ‘They burned my hands!’

  Socrates ran outside, made for the sea’s end of the lane, and called down to the house where there had been music.

  ‘Lemonia! Come up here, quickly!’

  A woman’s voice responded.

  ‘What’s going on? Who is that?’

  ‘Come up here, quickly!’ shouted Socrates. ‘Bring bandages, and honey! Vasso needs help, and I can’t stay.’

  As fast as he was able through the dark lanes he followed his quarry, kicking off his sandals and carrying them to move faster on the smooth-worn stones. Knowing the shortest route, he had the advantage of them. They, inevitably, would lose their way; they’d keep heading downhill, but they’d hit dead-ends and take unwanted detours. He knew he’d reach the harbour-front before them; even given their lead, he’d be there first.

  But then he felt a sting of pain in his foot. He hopped to a stop, and swearing, picked it up. The light was bad, but by touch he found the object which had punctured his sole still embedded in the skin. Leaning against a wall and balancing with difficulty, he pulled out what was buried there, wincing and taking care not to break whatever it was. He held it up to the moonlight: a piece of glass, and the wetness glistening on his fingers could only be blood. Cautiously, aware there’d probably be more glass, he slipped back into his sandals and continued on.

  His foot was painful; he limped along on his toes, so his progress was slowed. As he reached the waterfront, he saw his delay had been too long. The three men he was pursuing had already cast off, and the dinghy was mid-harbour. He shouted after them – kleftes, kleftes – thieves, thieves – so loudly the diners in the tavernas stopped eating, and the drinkers in the bars turned to stare; but in the whole of Mithros harbour, only the three men he wanted to hear him apparently did not.

  Socrates needed to borrow a boat.

  At his house a short way back from the waterfront, the postman was sitting on his doorstep in only a pair of shorts, his legs apart to let the air circulate around his genitals.

  ‘Hey, malaka!’

  The postman squinted over at Socrates.

  ‘Hey, Socrates! Is that you? How’re you doing? Long time no see! Come and have a beer!’

  He picked up a bottle and waved it in the air, then held it up to the light, disappointed to find it empty.

  Socrates stood in front of him.

  ‘I need a favour,’ he said. ‘I need to borrow your boat.’

  The postman’s face showed his reluctance.

  ‘When?’ he said. ‘I’m taking my boys out tomorrow. We’re going fishing.’

  ‘Now,’ said Socrates. ‘I need it now. To stop them.’ He pointed after the dinghy, which was by then moving out of sight around the harbour end.

  The postman craned forward from his step for a better view.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘They’re foreigners,’ said Socrates. ‘Please, fetch me the keys. You’ll have it back within the hour, I promise.’

  The postman cast around for another excuse.

  ‘I’d be happy to, normally,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think there’s any fuel in it. Ask Fotinos. He might have fuel.’

  ‘I need something quicker than Fotinos’s old tub,’ said Socrates. ‘I’ll pay you. Five thousand. Five thousand for an hour’s rental – that’s fair.’

  The postman was still doubtful.

  ‘OK, seven and half,’ said Socrates. ‘Ten, then. I’ll give you ten thousand.’

  The postman laughed.

  ‘Where would you get ten thousand?’ he asked. ‘You don’t have ten thousand to give me!’

  ‘They owe me,’ said Socrates. ‘The foreigners owe me money. That’s why I need your boat. They’re moored over in Kolona, on a cruiser. If they get to it before I get to them, they’ll be gone.’

  ‘Ten thousand?’

  ‘Ten thousand. I promise.’

  ‘And you’ll be back inside the hour?’

  ‘Inside the hour. Kolona and back, that’s it.’

  The postman sighed, as much at the inconvenience of standing as at the risk of loaning his boat. He ambled into the house. Minutes went by. Socrates sat down to inspect his foot. The wound was still oozing blood; his sandal was stained with it. More time went by. He stood up, and called through the window.

  ‘Be quick, malaka! For Christ’s sake!’

  ‘I can’t find the keys,’ called the postman. ‘My damned wife’s been cleaning again.’

  Eventually he appeared at the window. He had opened himself a fresh beer.

  ‘Here,’ he said, dropping a set of keys into Socrates’s cupped hands. ‘Remember, no more than an hour. And take care of her!’

  Everything seemed to take too much time – the starting of the uncompliant engine, the hauling in of the small anchor, the loosing of the ropes to cast off – and even once all that was accomplished, the boat moved slower than Socrates had anticipated; what had always struck him as being a fast boat seemed to chug through the water as if dragging three others behind.

  He reached the outer waters of Kolona Bay. The moon was high in the sky, and as he drew close, its dim light showed him the inevitable: Ricardo, Remo and the blond already aboard their vessel, the engine fired and the boat moving forward on to its upcoming anchor.

  Socrates began to shout, though over his own engine at full power he could barely hear himself.

  Their boat’s anchor was up, and she was leaving her mooring.

  Socrates stood up in the stern, and steered at the oncoming vessel; but the postman’s boat was beginning to labour, missing and losing power.

  Socrates was still shouting.

  ‘Malakes! Eh, malakes! Where are you going, you sons of whores!’

  And then his engine died. Furious, cursing, he went to the control panel, and played for a minute with the s
witches, until a glance at the gauges told the whole story: he had no fuel.

  But the postman’s boat glided on, slower and slower, in the direction he had been heading, towards the vessel which was driving towards him at full throttle. Socrates ran back to the rudder. At the other boat’s wheel, Ricardo waved him out of the way; but Socrates was helpless to move, and his drifting boat began a turn to port, taken round by the light breeze and the swell until she was broadside to the oncoming prow.

  There was a terrible bang. Ricardo never even cut the power.

  A flare went up, turning the moon blood-red. A young boy – held back from the water by his distraught mother – screamed, Papa, papa! Men came running from the hamlet, and launched their fastest craft. When they reached the place where the two vessels had hit, pieces of the postman’s boat were still afloat; but of Socrates, who had captained it, there was no sign.

  Seventeen Years Later

  Two

  The heat of early afternoon made everything still. Close to the islands’ shores, the sea rippled with unbroken waves; far out, a crescent of calm water – silky as the skins of swimming bream – was split by the fanned wake of a white ferry, which moved unhurriedly along the arc of its heading, towards a misty smudge of land on the horizon.

  Tracking the ferry, a mile or so behind, was an ocean-going yacht. Along her hull, narrow bands of gold and navy blue picked out her subtle curves, and on her prow, her name – Aphrodite – was painted in gold.

  Leaning on the deck-rail, a man taller than many looked down on Aphrodite’s wake, studying the flow and forms of the tumbling sea. From time to time, he brushed salt-water splashes from his clothes: a pale-lavender shirt, and cream linen trousers of Italian design, expertly tailored to disguise a generous stomach. His greying curls required a barber’s attention; his sunglasses were of tortoiseshell, round-lensed and giving an air of academia; and on his feet, he wore white canvas shoes, in the old-fashioned style once worn for tennis.

  The fat man brought his attention back from the water, and read a pencil-marked paragraph from an old copy of Herodotus. A breath of aromatic wind – fresh with oregano, pine and sage – riffled the book’s loose pages. He glanced forward. The ferry’s stern was markedly further ahead than it had been, when he had last looked. Aphrodite was losing ground.