‘We should just bury him,’ said Spiros. ‘Have a collection to pay for a grave, and give him a decent funeral. He deserves that, surely? Why can’t we do that, and have the business over with?’
‘No confirmation of identity,’ said the sergeant. ‘He might be anyone. If you’re thinking of compensation, Makis, you’ll have to fill in the forms.’
‘There are a lot of forms,’ said the constable.
‘I’m sure there are,’ said the butcher. ‘Don’t think they’ll put me off.’
‘There’s no point in delaying,’ said Spiros. ‘Shall we get on with it?’
The butcher pulled back the bedsheet. Seeing the blackness of the dead man’s face, the constable grew pale, and crossed himself.
‘Lift at the shoulders and the thighs,’ said the butcher. ‘One at each corner.’
The corpse seemed very heavy; to Makis, Manolis seemed more weighty than any animal. Grimacing at the smell, they heaved him up. Manolis’s head dropped back, and his mouth fell open. The pebble that had silenced him was gone. They carried him to the centre of the shop, and tried to lay him down as carefully as they could; but his weight made them awkward, and his head cracked on the floor. Panting, they rested. Makis studied the palms of his hands, as if they might be stained from what he was doing.
‘One more lift,’ said Spiros, wiping sweat from his forehead. ‘On three.’
Again they raised Manolis up, high enough to get him into the freezer, and lowered him on to his back.
He was too tall to fit, stretched out.
‘We’ll have to bend his knees,’ said the sergeant. ‘Makis, bend his knees.’
One at a time, Makis pulled under Manolis’s thighs, and bent his legs so his feet were flat on the freezer’s base. Manolis’s left leg dropped to the left, his right fell to the right.
‘He doesn’t look decent, with his legs spread like that,’ said Spiros. ‘What’ll the relatives say, when they come? Can’t you do any better?’
Makis hauled Manolis’s right leg over to rest on the left. He crossed the arms over the chest, and draped him with the sheet. Spiros slammed the glass cover on the freezer.
‘Done,’ he said.
‘What if the relatives don’t come?’ asked the sergeant. ‘If they can’t find them, he might be with you for a long time, Makis.’
‘You could make him an attraction,’ said the constable. ‘Charge the tourists a hundred drachma to see him.’
The sergeant and the constable laughed. Makis looked despairing. Spiros glanced around for somewhere to wash his hands, but there was nowhere.
The defrosting food sat in a pool of its own melting.
‘Well, if we’re done here, we’ll get out of your way,’ said the sergeant. ‘What’re you going to do with all your stock?’
‘I’ll give it away,’ said the butcher. ‘Take anything you’d like.’
‘Are there any ambelopoulia?’ asked the sergeant. ‘Not that I’d say where I got them.’
‘Larks, blackcaps, help yourselves,’ said the butcher. ‘Take whatever you want. I don’t care.’
‘Thanks very much,’ said the policemen.
And they did.
Eighteen
The courtyard door was open, and the music from a record-player – Dragatakis’s sinister Concert for Oboe and Strings, with its troubling melodies and cadences of heartache – reached from the Governor’s Villa into the empty lanes outside. Lemonia poured water on the roots of the jasmine and honeysuckle, splashing the delicate white and lemon flowers to intensify their scent and mask the stink of tomcats. A warm wind blew up from the sea, carrying notes of pinewoods and mountainside thyme. The open door emitted enough of the courtyard’s light to cast shadows, and her own fell on the jasmine, moving as she moved.
An owl screeched.
In the tree where the bird must be, she caught no sign of movement in the branches; but as she lowered her eyes, the tree’s trunk was distorted from its usual form.
Someone was there.
She felt the unpleasant flutter of fear. The courtyard door was near to hand, and she might within seconds have been through it, and slammed it shut; but disbelief in her own senses made her stay and look again.
The fat man stepped out of the dark beneath the tree, and into the outer limits of the courtyard’s light-spill.
‘Yassou, Lemonia,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if I frightened you.’
She recognised him, but recognition did not dispel her fear.
‘You did frighten me!’ She glanced at the open door, balancing an instinct to run with the training of politeness and good manners. ‘Of course you frightened me, hiding there like that! What are you doing here?’
‘I brought you a gift, a parting gift. I leave Mithros tomorrow, and I wanted to give you the volume of poetry I promised you. In fact I have gifts for both you, and Vassilis.’
‘He won’t see you,’ she said. ‘I told you that when you were here before. He never sees anyone at home, and certainly not at this hour.’
Though it remained in shadow, Lemonia thought a smile might have crossed the fat man’s face.
‘If I want to see him, I will see him,’ he said. ‘The choice is mine, not his. But he’s an old man, and there may be no reason to disturb him, if you will be my messenger. I thought he was deserving of a gift – a token suitable to reflect the gifts he has so often made to others. Shall we go inside a moment?’
‘No!’
She shook her head in emphatic refusal. Again, she sensed him smile.
‘You have nothing to fear from me, Lemonia,’ he said. ‘But if you prefer, we can talk out here.’
He walked two paces forward to where the light was better; she matched him, moving two paces back. He placed his hold-all at his feet, and unzipping it, searched out a paperback book and held it out to her. She took it, and twisted the cover to the light to read the title: The Odes to Nemesis, by Volonakis.
‘It is my personal copy, and you’ll find it well read,’ he said, ‘but the words are not diminished by having been viewed by other eyes. I knew Volonakis, once. His was a remarkable talent, and his loss from the world was unfortunate. He came to a humbling end for a great man. The story of course was that he choked on an olive. But whatever his ending, his poetry stays with us. I hope you enjoy it.’
He fell silent, watching her. The pins in her hair were coming loose, and she brushed a long strand from her forehead. At the neck of her dress, her skin was damp with sweat. She looked briefly into his face, then lowered her eyes.
‘It’s hot,’ he said. ‘There seems to be no relief from the heat this evening, does there? I don’t want to compromise you, but might I trouble you for a glass of water, before I go? I assure you, Lemonia, I am the same man I was when I was here before, weaponless and not intending any violence. If you would let me have a glass of water, I can give you my gift for Vassilis, and I’ll be gone.’
‘I told you,’ she said, ‘he always tells me to let no one in.’
‘And you are an excellent gatekeeper. But you’re capable too of making your own judgements. Aren’t you? I could come no further than the courtyard. He need never know I’ve been there, unless you choose to tell him.’
‘He’ll know,’ she said. ‘He has hearing sharp as any dog. But as far as the courtyard, all right. I’ll get your water.’
She led him through the courtyard door, and laying the book of poetry on the outdoor table, indicated he should take a seat there; but as she took down a glass from the kitchen shelf, she turned to find him standing on the threshold.
He caught her apprehensive glance at the salone door, through which Dragatakis’s music was reaching a crescendo.
She ran water into the sink, holding her finger under the stream until it ran cool.
‘You seem afraid of him,’ he said, softly, as she filled the glass. ‘Is that why you stay? You’re an attractive woman, Lemonia, who must have other options. Yet somehow he – old though he is – keeps y
ou in this mausoleum as his gatekeeper and protector, his cook and his mistress.’
‘You have no right to speak to me that way,’ she said, and held out the glass. ‘Drink this, and then please go.’
He took the glass, but instead of drinking, placed the glass on the kitchen table, alongside the closed ledger and a parcel wrapped in candy-striped paper, decorated with florist’s ribbon.
‘I have no right to speak, of course, and what I say is no more than my opinion. But I wonder what will be left to you, when he is gone? I see no ring on your finger, and so I assume he has not made you his wife. When he dies, who will take care of you then? What I am asking you is, does he deserve the loyalty you offer him?’
Her expression was defiant. The last notes of the music came through the speakers. In the absence of the music, the house seemed silent.
‘Let me tell you about that man through there,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘When I first knew him, he was a lion of a man, a lion who dared to roar, a lion who had seized life and lived it in a way few men do. He was a fireball, he took risks, and he made things happen even in this place, where these idlers will do nothing troublesome or hard. Now he’s failing; he’s weak, and he’s afraid, and his lion heart has deserted him. When I first knew him, I worked for him through obligation, because I needed money, but he earned my affection because of what he was. I cared for him when he was that lion; how can I desert him now he can no longer roar?’
‘In the same way, perhaps, that he may leave you vulnerable when he goes.’
She shook her head.
‘You have us wrong. It’s he who’s the vulnerable one. Night after night he sits there, waiting for whatever it is that scares him. I know the thought preys on his mind every minute, that those men who came and tortured him are coming back. I did whatever I could for him, after he was burned. I changed his bandages, and rubbed honey and ointments into his skin to help it heal. That’s when he and I grew close. And slowly I began to realise, I could help to heal his physical wounds, but there was nothing I could do in here.’ She pointed to her temple. ‘He’s damaged, as I was damaged goods when he took me on. I might seem matronly and honourable to you, but my past is black and shameful. Small wonder he wouldn’t marry me. No one would blame him for that, least of all me. I made choices in life which made marriage to any decent man impossible. But to see him this way breaks my heart, and it is my duty to try and stand between him and whatever or whoever it is he fears. His fears are growing worse, I know. He always keeps his gun by him now, even though it can do him no good. He used the bullet that might have saved his own life to end the suffering of a fellow creature. That’s why I love him, and that’s why he has my loyalty.’
The fat man reached forward, and opened up the ledger, and ran his hand over a page of the columns, of the figures and the names.
‘And this?’ he asked. ‘What’s your explanation for all this?’
She shrugged, indifferent.
‘He’s always been a businessman. I keep his books for him. He pays me to do it.’
‘And this?’ He picked up the candy-stripe wrapped parcel. ‘If I were to guess, by its size and weight, this is a pair of shoes for a little girl, very pretty and decorated with butterflies. A name-day gift for somebody, no doubt.’
‘It is,’ she said. ‘What of it?’
‘I have no criticism at all of the gift,’ said the fat man, ‘or of any of the gifts he is famous for, or of the generosity on which he builds his reputation. Except that he didn’t choose this gift, did he? You did. It’s you who has the talent for choosing gifts, for finding the perfect present for his godchildren. No doubt it was you who found the violin for Milto Rokos, and gave him his very successful musical start in life.’
‘Is that a crime?’ she asked. ‘A woman’s sensitivity can be a help.’
‘A help, yes. But between you, you have cooked up a deception surrounding his reputation. Which begs the question, what other deceptions might have been dreamed up in this house? I think it’s time I showed you the gift I brought for Vassilis.’
From his hold-all, he brought out an object wrapped in pale-blue tissue paper. She took the packet from him, the paper rustling at her touch.
‘Open it,’ he said, and she did so, being careful not to tear the delicate wrapping as she peeled back the tape which held it closed. She opened up the tissue paper, and revealed an ebony bull, with golden horns and a gold crocus at its mouth.
For a long moment, she looked at him.
‘I think you need to talk to him yourself,’ she said.
She sent him into the salone, where the lamp made of shrew-skins was lit, and the long, black tribal masks stared disquietingly from the walls. The room, though, was empty, and so the fat man passed straight through it towards the balcony, where Uncle Vasso sat at the cast-iron table, his binoculars out of their case and ready for use alongside his pistol. He had a glass of brandy in one hand, and between the fingers of the other a burning cigar, and laid across his thigh, his cream kid gloves.
The fat man moved almost silently in his tennis shoes, but as he drew close, Uncle Vasso became still in his chair, his cigar part-way to his mouth.
‘Has he gone?’ he asked. ‘Lemonia?’
The fat man stepped on to the balcony.
‘No, Vassilis,’ said the fat man. ‘No, he hasn’t gone.’
Shocked, Uncle Vasso turned his head, and put his hand on the gun. Almost half the hand was covered with scarring, a glossy red welt which spread from the knuckle of the thumb, down to the wrist and across to the central metacarpals. The tightness of the skin made him awkward in gripping the weapon, and with his stick-hand holding the gun, he was slow to get out of his chair. In the time he was ready to aim and pull the trigger, the fat man might have snatched the gun, or walked away. He remained, however, where he was – the easiest of targets, yet unconcerned.
‘Get out,’ said Uncle Vasso. ‘Get out, or I’ll shoot.’
‘Shoot all you like,’ said the fat man. ‘You’ll do me little damage with an empty gun. Why don’t you sit down? I have not come to offer violence, and I shan’t burn you or beat you. I am here only to talk. Come, let us behave like civilised men.’
A moment passed. Uncle Vasso sank back down into his chair, and let the gun fall on the table.
‘I’ll join you, if I may,’ said the fat man, taking a chair. He placed his hold-all at his feet, and put the tissue-wrapped bull before Uncle Vasso.
‘I brought you something,’ he said. ‘A work of genius.’
Uncle Vasso studied him.
‘Remind me who you are,’ he said. ‘I’m an old man, and my memory’s unreliable. What’s not important, I forget.’
The fat man gave a slow smile.
‘I will allow you to forget me once,’ he said, ‘since I made it my business with you to be unobtrusive. My name is Diaktoros, Hermes Diaktoros. I don’t think you’ll forget me again, Vassilis. You’ll be carrying me with you for the time you have left. Why don’t you look at what I brought you?’
As Uncle Vasso picked up the package, the fat man saw the scarring on his palm: a hollow burned almost to the bone, following his fate line from the mount of Saturn to the mount of Neptune.
Keeping a close watch on the fat man, Uncle Vasso opened out the tissue paper. When he found the bull, he frowned.
‘Where did you get this?’ he asked.
‘From the place where it was,’ said the fat man. ‘What will you give me for it?’
Uncle Vasso stood the bull upright on the table between them; he crushed the tissue paper into a ball, and tossed it over the balcony, into the night.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you nothing for it.’
The fat man seemed surprised.
‘How can that be? Here I present you with the original bull of Mithros – he is the original, I assure you – and you will offer me nothing for it? Why not, Vassilis?’
Uncle Vasso drew on his cigar, and blew a
cloud of smoke high into the air.
‘I know why not,’ said the fat man. ‘I know Mithros’s great secret, and I know the truth behind the legend of your famous bull. You might have fooled all the hopefuls who come here looking for the treasure, but you do not fool me, nor my friends in the archaeological museum, whom you never succeeded in duping. You know without even a second glance this cannot be the fabled bull of Mithros, because the bull of Mithros doesn’t exist. He is a fake, an invention. He was never found during building work, and he was never stolen or lost. You know that the bull there before us can only be the replica – the so-called replica – stolen from the museum. Not truly stolen, perhaps. He was removed temporarily by my man Ilias, on my instructions, and it was he who tipped off the television newsroom. It was a little game I played with Mithros, whose people seem to enjoy games and trickery. They have, after all, tricked most of the world into believing in your tale of lost antiquities.’
‘Go, friend,’ said Uncle Vasso. ‘The evening’s getting late. I’m an old man, and I’m tired.’
He turned away from the fat man, dismissing him.
‘Are you disappointed in my gift to you?’ asked the fat man. ‘Did you think I might have brought something of value? But disappointment is what I feel about you, Vassilis. I was sold you as a man of high value, of integrity, a philanthropist and the most generous of men. Your packaging persuaded me. See, here you are, masquerading as an old man who needs his sleep. But you are none of those things that you appear. You are a schemer, a user and a deceiver. The bull was your invention, wasn’t it? And I don’t deny it was a clever one. The bull and the industry round it, all your idea. You sponsored a museum to give credibility to a lie, and made that lie a source from which the whole island might draw its living. Tell me, who did you recruit as the bull’s finder? Who was it who came into a legacy, and disappeared from Greece so no questions could be asked?’
‘My cousin and her husband,’ said Uncle Vasso. ‘What of it? They wanted to make a new life in America, and I gave them a way to finance it. They couldn’t possibly have stayed here. Too many questions would have been asked of them.’
The Bull of Mithros Page 25
