The Bull of Mithros

by Anne Zouroudi

  Somewhere below decks, he heard hammering and the whine of a drill.

  From the bedroom closet, he picked out a mint-green polo shirt and a suit in pewter linen. He chose a belt from his collection and threaded it through the trouser waist-loops, leaving himself plenty of breathing room when he fastened the buckle. Then he sat down on the bed and took a bottle of shoe-whitener from his hold-all.

  He gave both tennis shoes a full coat of whitener, paying particular attention to the rubber toecaps and heels, and holding the shoes up to the porthole’s light as he worked to check no spot was missed. As he finished, a knock came at the door, and Enrico entered, carrying a tray with a cup of Greek coffee and a glass of chilled juice. He gave a slight bow of the head, and placed the tray on the bedside cabinet.

  ‘Kali mera, kyrie,’ he said. ‘I trust you slept well.’

  ‘Excellently, thank you, Enrico,’ said the fat man. ‘I can hear some activity in the engine-room. What’s going on?’

  ‘Ilias has already started on the repairs,’ said Enrico. ‘I encouraged him to get up early this morning.’

  ‘And how did you do that?’

  Enrico smiled his wicked smile.

  ‘Yesterday I found a little shop which sold water-pistols,’ he said. ‘A single shot, ice-cold from the fridge, seemed to do the trick.’

  ‘Simple, but effective,’ said the fat man. ‘Usually the best way. I shall be ready for breakfast in ten minutes.’

  Reveille was, for once, on time; the captain made sure of it. When the first small boats arrived bringing the priest – a gaunt man, said to live on wild greens and potato soup – and the earliest, most pious celebrants for St Nikodemos’s name day, all the soldiers were ready in full uniform. The captain put the conscripts through a perfunctory inspection. Skafidis had cut himself shaving, and had a piece of bloody tissue stuck on his jaw; Gounaris had no green socks, and was barefoot inside his polished boots.

  Manolis, unshaved and untidy in his loaned T-shirt and trousers, sat at the guardhouse table, his feet on a chair in front of him. The captain watched him watch another boat approach. As the conscripts set off in the direction of the church, the captain called Kastellanos over, and nodded in Manolis’s direction.

  ‘Go and ask our friend to join us,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go and ask him to join us,’ said the captain. ‘With all these boats coming and going, and trucks backwards and forwards on the road, he’ll disappear if we don’t keep an eye on him, and then our friends from the coastguard will take it out on me. So be persuasive. Look sincere. Remind him there’ll be alcohol, and women. Say whatever you have to say, but get him to come with us.’

  ‘No disrespect, sir, but why do I have to ask him?’ asked Kastellanos.

  The captain smiled, and patted him on the shoulder.

  ‘Because I’m in charge, and I told you to,’ he said.

  Persuaded as much by his own boredom as by Kastellanos’s coaxing, Manolis followed the soldiers to the church, where the growing gathering was preparing for the service. A stout woman whose widow’s black had grown too tight for her was arranging bottles on a trestle table.

  ‘Can I get you a drink, kalé?’ she asked. ‘What’ll you have?’

  ‘Ouzo,’ said Manolis.

  She reached under the table, and pulled out a stack of plastic cups.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘give me half a dozen of those, and I’ll take the bottle round my friends over there.’

  He waved a vague hand towards the company.

  Without demur, she handed him a full bottle, and the cups.

  Manolis left the plastic cups in the kitchen, and carried the bottle, a glass and a jug of water outside. He sat down in front of the guardhouse, and poured himself a tall measure of ouzo; he added water, and the ouzo turned the pale blue-white of moonstones. He took a long drink, and closed his eyes against the sun.

  ‘May I join you, friend?’

  The newcomer had not come up the beach; perhaps he had followed Manolis from the church. He waited for no answer to his question, but took a chair, and crossed a foot over his thigh. From the pocket of his shirt, he took out cigarettes, and offered them to Manolis.

  ‘Smoke?’

  Manolis looked at him, as if only now noticing he had company.

  He jerked his chin upward to signify no.

  The newcomer lit himself a cigarette, and laid the pack and his lighter on the table, implying he might stay long enough to smoke a second, or even a third.

  Manolis’s eyes moved back to the sea. He squinted at a distant tanker, then brought his focus back to his cloudy drink, from which he took a swallow.

  ‘You’re an ouzo man, eh?’ asked the newcomer.

  Manolis looked at him again, with little interest.

  ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to find a glass.’

  The newcomer laughed.

  ‘Not me, friend,’ he said. ‘I never touch it. You’re not from here, I know. You passing through?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I’m Mithros born and bred,’ said the newcomer. He flicked ash from the end of his cigarette, and brushed grey flecks from his trousers. The cicadas in the olive trees behind them fell simultaneously silent, then a moment later intensified their clamour. ‘I know every stone of this island. I know it better than anyone, I’d venture to say.’

  He waited for Manolis to respond, but Manolis said nothing.

  ‘No, you’ll not find anyone who knows this place better than me,’ went on the newcomer. ‘I could tell you stories. I’ve seen things. Heard things. But you know the difference between me, and most folks here?’ He leaned forward, and pointed to his mouth. ‘I know how to keep this shut.’

  Manolis drank more ouzo, and watched a tall-masted yacht as it crept across the bay’s end.

  The newcomer picked up his cigarette packet and began to play with it, dropping it on to its four sides, one by one, like a broken wheel.

  ‘You know about our bull, I suppose?’ he asked, watching the packet as it turned, until it seemed to bore him, and he pushed it away. He took a last draw on his burned-down cigarette and ground it out under his boot.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Manolis. ‘Everyone talks about your bull.’

  He drained his glass, and uncapped the bottle to pour more ouzo.

  The newcomer lit himself a fresh cigarette. At a distance behind the olive trees, the church bell rang briefly, rhythmic and clanging. With his cigarette burning between his knuckles, the newcomer described three crosses over his heart.

  The fat man sat at the prow of Aphrodite’s dinghy, his hold-all between his feet. Enrico reversed from the yacht’s stern, and motored away from the mooring.

  As the port disappeared behind them, the beach at Kolona bay came into view – a broad crescent of salt-bleached pebbles, with several boats already moored at the jetty. At the beach’s centre was a group of utilitarian buildings, all single-storey and little better than sheds, and a flagpole with a drooping blue and white flag.

  Behind the jetty, on posts hammered secure amongst the stones, a red-lettered sign forbade landing.

  ‘This is military property,’ said the fat man, as Enrico cut the engine almost to an idle and let the dinghy drift in towards the shore. ‘Shall we be welcome here?’

  Enrico shrugged, and waved his arm towards the boats already moored – bright-painted fishing boats, a couple of small cruisers, a compact launch in the navy-grey livery of the coastguard. He manoeuvred alongside one of the fishing boats, and leaning out to grasp the rope of a fender, pulled the dinghy close.

  ‘Are you going to join me?’ asked the fat man.

  Enrico craned his neck, in case anything of the gathering were visible, but the buildings blocked any view.

  ‘These church affairs aren’t good hunting grounds for me,’ he said. ‘All the women are married, or devout. I’ll stay close by, so whistle when you want me. If I go back to Aphrodite, Ili
as’ll have me elbow-deep in engine-oil.’

  The fat man stepped on to the fishing boat, and across it on to the jetty. From there, he made his way up the beach, following the sound of a priest singing dirges, somewhere behind the trees at the head of the beach. Wary of trespassing, he left a respectful distance between himself and the guardhouse, where a man he took to be a sentry sat with a civilian at a table. But as he drew closer, the fat man saw that, apart from a pair of camouflage trousers and a khaki T-shirt, there was nothing of the military about the supposed soldier: his hair was not close cut, nor was he young enough to be a conscript. His face, though, was one the fat man had seen before, even though he couldn’t place it at that moment. As the fat man drew close, the second at the table stooped down, and his face was hidden. The fat man raised his hand, and called out kali mera, but the man in khaki only looked at him, and took a long drink from his glass.

  The fat man went on. Beyond the buildings was a path; where it forked into a track which was almost a road, trucks that had brought name-day celebrants from the port were parked under trees, their windows wound down fully to let in air. The dirges stopped, and a bell rang out, clear and sharp.

  He followed the path away from the beach, across a stretch of bare earth which marked the canvas of his shoes terracotta. When he reached the well, he saw that the bucket – fashioned from a feta tin – was on the wall, and after checking it was securely tied, he dropped it into the shaft, letting the thin rope run through his hands. As it fell, he heard the bucket knock on stone-lined walls; but as it reached the depths, the sound was lost. The rope went slack at last. The fat man flicked his wrist to tip and fill the bucket, and hauled it up hand over hand, weighty with water, until it reappeared.

  He stood the bucket on the wall, and looked into it. The water it held was clear, sparkling with the reflected aluminium. He bent to sniff the water’s clean smell of stone and rain, and dipped in a cupped hand, and drank. The water was cool, and sweet. When his thirst was slaked, he filled a depression in the stone for insects to drink, and left the part-filled bucket on the wall.

  ‘What would you say if I told you the bull’s not such a mystery as folks think?’ asked the newcomer.

  Manolis lowered his glass from his mouth, and looked at the newcomer over the rim. The newcomer blew out smoke, and peered across the water at a passing fishing boat. He knew its owner, and raised a hand. Despite his distance from shore, the boat’s captain was watching his watcher, and raised his hand in return.

  ‘Go on,’ said Manolis, cynically. ‘Tell me you know where it went.’

  The newcomer shook his head.

  ‘I wouldn’t waste your time, friend,’ he said, apparently offended. ‘I’ll keep what I know to myself.’

  For a few minutes, neither man spoke. Manolis drank. The thump of the fishing boat’s old engine grew distant, and faded from hearing. Small waves broke on the shingle. The newcomer seemed content to watch the scene; but his silence needled Manolis, who glanced over at him, once or twice, waiting for his next words.

  ‘Come on, then,’ said Manolis, at last. ‘I’m interested. Truly. Tell me what you know.’

  ‘I’ve said as much as I know,’ said the newcomer. He glanced up at the sun to judge the time. ‘I’ve work to do. I thank you for your company.’

  He half-rose from his chair, but Manolis grasped his forearm to stop him leaving.

  ‘What do they say?’ he asked. He leaned low over the table. The alcohol on his breath was strong, and sweet with aniseed.

  ‘They say nothing,’ said the newcomer, looking Manolis directly in the eye. ‘They say nothing, because they know nothing. What knowledge there is, is mine alone.’

  Manolis released the forearm, and gave a spluttering laugh.

  ‘You’re playing me on your line,’ he said. ‘But I’ll take the bait. Come on, what do you know?’

  ‘Something I’ve seen that I’ve told no one, not even my own brother. The bull never left Mithros. It was only moved to another hiding place. When it was stolen, the man who stole it, hid it. But he never went back for it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Circumstances overtook him. That’s all I can say.’

  ‘So if you know where it is, why haven’t you retrieved it, and sold it?’ Manolis’s speech was beginning to slur. ‘Forgive me, friend, but if it’s made you wealthy, you’re hiding it very well.’

  ‘Like I said, I’m Mithros born and bred. How should a man such as me know where to go, what to do with a treasure like that? I need a partner, but not someone from here. Here, they’re all mouth and talk; they couldn’t keep a secret if their own child’s life depended on it. And it needs two men to fetch it out. One might do it alone, but it’s risky. But I’m in no rush. It’s safe enough where it is, until I find the right partner.’

  He lapsed again into silence. The mad chorus of the cicadas rose, and fell.

  ‘What do you think, then?’ asked Manolis. ‘Do you think I might be your partner?’

  The newcomer picked up his cigarettes, and slipped them into his shirt pocket.

  ‘You and I are new acquaintances,’ he said. ‘I need someone I can trust.’

  ‘You can trust me. I have connections, good connections. If you’ve got the bull, I guarantee I can find the right buyer. But I’d need some cash up front. Expenses.’

  ‘I could give you cash. I’ve got cash at my house. But how do I know you’d be discreet?’

  ‘I’ll be as discreet as you like. Give me the bull, and I’ll get top price, and bring you your share. Fifty-fifty.’

  ‘Seventy-thirty.’

  ‘Whatever you say. And you can say what you like, until I’ve seen the beast. Thirty per cent of nothing is the same as fifty.’

  ‘You doubt me, but it’s there all right,’ said the newcomer. ‘The two of us together could prise it out. But it’s a tricky spot. It hasn’t kept hidden all these years on public view.’

  ‘So how come you found it?’

  ‘Luck, pure and simple; a shaft of sunlight at an angle, at the right time of day, at the right time of year. I know it’s there, though I’ve not yet managed to reach it. It is there.’

  ‘You talk a good story,’ said Manolis. ‘Is it far?’

  ‘Not far, no.’

  Manolis hauled himself to his feet.

  ‘So what are we waiting for?’ he said. ‘Let’s prove the truth of it, here and now. Lead me, and I’ll follow. Why shouldn’t we be the ones to solve the mystery? Lead the way, friend, and let’s see if we can find this precious bull.’

  On the far side of the orchard, the fat man reached the church of St Nikodemos. At the base of the ox-blood rendered campanile, a black-clothed old woman was tolling one of the bells, pink-faced and fierce with effort. As the fat man approached, she squinted him into focus, and realising, as he drew close, that he was a stranger, took his appearance as her signal to stop ringing. He stood close to her, and looked up at the structure towering over him, as she – very much shorter than he was – stared up at him unabashed. He took in the campanile’s grandiosity, and its neglected condition (one of the bells, he noticed, was cracked), then looked down on her, and smiled.

  ‘Kali mera sas,’ he said.

  ‘Kalos tou, kalos tou. Go in, kalé, go in.’ She shooed him towards the gate. ‘They’re bringing the saint out shortly, and you won’t want to miss that.’

  The gate was open; the fat man passed through it into the dry meadow, and looked across with interest at the church. Built at the centre of the field, it was of classical more than ecclesiastical design and so more temple than church, appropriate to an agora but a poor fit with the Baroque-inspired campanile. Its design had the simplicity of the ancient, but the church was as neglected as the campanile, and peeling paint of mottled ochre and blue evoked a quiet decay.

  The celebrants were gathered around the church, where the wardens had laid out benches and mismatched chairs, and trestle tables spread with white cloths where the loave
s of communion bread were ready to be blessed. The men were keeping their distance; the women were inside listening to the priest’s guttural dirges, or waiting by the door for his emergence with the icon, whilst the children ran wild, shouting as they chased each other in circles, or poked sticks into ants’ nests, or built wax towers from dripping candles.

  The fat man followed the path between gate and church, to the point where Captain Fanis was talking with four others.

  ‘Gentlemen, kali mera sas, kai to chronou,’ said the fat man.

  ‘Kai to chronou,’ they all echoed.

  ‘I was a little nervous, walking so close to your camp,’ he said to the captain. ‘Happily, there seemed to be no sentry there to challenge me. Forgive me; I haven’t introduced myself. Hermes Diaktoros, of Athens.’ He held out his hand, and the captain shook it. ‘The name comes from my father’s sense of humour. He prides himself on his knowledge of mythology.’

  The men all looked blank.

  ‘Captain Fanis Andreadis,’ said the captain. ‘And you’re right about the sentry. My lads, as you’ll see, are all here.’ He indicated a bench up by the church, where the soldiers were seated with a prime view of the unmarried girls as they went in and out. ‘I thought we were safe to gamble, and assume the Turkish invasion won’t start before lunch.’

  ‘I think your assumption is reasonable,’ said the fat man. ‘Unless the men drinking in front of your guardhouse are invading Turks?’

  ‘One man, surely.’ The captain looked across at Spiros, who stood arrogantly in an immaculately white uniform. ‘Our friend. He’s not in a very sociable frame of mind. He walked over here, blagged himself a bottle of ouzo, and left.’

  ‘He was making good progress on the bottle when I saw him,’ said the fat man.