The Feast of Artemis (Mysteries of/Greek Detective 7)

by Anne Zouroudi

  He watched the pale glow of her lamp as it descended the stairs, then looked around the kitchen. The chair-backs were draped with cloths and clothes, and a half-worked piece of knitting in pale blue wool. On the window sill were photographs: one of a man, not handsome but intelligent-looking; another, more recent, of a young woman holding a toddler, the woman laughing as the beaming child reached out to touch her face.

  From the cellar, he heard the rattle of bottles and Meni’s muttering as she climbed back up the stairs. When she reappeared in the kitchen, the lamp’s wick was out.

  ‘I shouldn’t try and carry so much,’ she said. ‘I let the lamp spill, and drowned the wick. But the stairs are awkward, and I like to make as few trips down there as possible.’ She placed four bottles on the table. ‘My vintages are small, but I think they’re special. Where did you try my wine?’

  ‘I’m staying at the Hotel Byron. Lefteris served a bottle – two, actually – at lunch yesterday.’

  ‘Lefteris is a good customer. And the wine you had must have been last year’s. I used a little less than usual of the French stock. My mother would turn in her grave to hear me say it, but I think it worked very well with less. I’m afraid I can only let you have a few bottles. I supplied the wine for this year’s feast, and that made a large hole in supplies. I have my regular customers to look after, and the cellar stock is getting low. But if you’d like to try something else . . .’ She picked up one of the bottles from the table. ‘You might like this.’

  She opened the bottle, and poured the wine.

  ‘Sit,’ she said, handing him a glass, removing the knitting from a chair so he could do so. ‘Taste.’

  He did so. The wine was heavy, dense and syrupy.

  ‘What do you think?’

  He tasted again.

  ‘Is it fortified? It reminds me of a wine my father had from Portugal.’

  ‘If you like it, why not take a bottle to go with the other three?’

  ‘I will. You have real talent in this arena. How does your success go down with the men?’

  She laughed.

  ‘They make excuses for me because they see me as a mad foreigner, and they accept it because they like my wine. Shall we have a little treat to go with it?’

  She found clean plates, and cut two slices of the cooling cake, one large, one very small. She put the larger portion in front of the fat man, and gave him a cake fork and a napkin.

  ‘Orange and almond,’ she said. ‘A flourless cake, a recipe of my paternal grandmother’s. The secret is in the boiling of the oranges. I boil them for two hours, then they just melt into the mix. The almonds, of course, are all my own.’

  The fat man tried the cake.

  ‘The almond flavour is intense.’

  ‘I have too many of them,’ said Meni. ‘I spend my days trying to think of things to make with them. You see over here, I’m going to make almond skordalia, another family recipe. I make biscuits, and praline . . .’

  ‘I tried your praline,’ said the fat man. ‘I had a piece from Kyrie Papayiannis.’

  ‘Really? From Donatos? You do surprise me. Don’t take any more. He’s very careful of his praline, and he won’t be happy if you eat it.’ She gave a laugh. ‘I suppose at his age, he must guard his pleasures.’

  The fat man laid down his fork.

  ‘You haven’t heard the news,’ he said. ‘And I, as a stranger, am the wrong man to be carrying it. Are you close to the family?’

  ‘I know them all, of course. I buy their oil, they buy my wine. Tell me, what’s the news?’

  ‘I’m afraid Donatos Papayiannis is dead.’

  Meni sat up very straight and looked directly at him.

  ‘Dead? How so? I saw him, only . . . Recently, this week, and he seemed . . .’

  ‘Not well, in my estimation,’ said the fat man. ‘I spent a few minutes with him myself, and he was not at all a well man.’

  ‘The cause of death . . .’ she asked. ‘What did he die of?’

  ‘His heart, I gather. He told me himself it was failing, and I wonder if he was put under a degree of stress yesterday which may have been the final straw.’

  ‘What kind of stress?’

  ‘Some harassment at the hands of a group of youths. That is my own reading of the situation, at least.’

  ‘And the funeral?’

  ‘Later today, I believe. Will you go?’

  ‘With my daughter being here, I don’t know. But it’s a shock. I didn’t expect . . . It brings it home, doesn’t it, the fragility of life? One moment here, another, gone.’

  ‘He had refused to see a doctor,’ said the fat man. ‘I myself don’t advocate the current fashion for running to the doctor for every cough and sneeze. But in his case, I thought he would do well to seek medical care, and yet he never did. Not until he reached the hospital, at least. By which time I assume it was too late.’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘I wonder if some good may come of his death,’ said the fat man. ‘Whether the old feud might abate somewhat, with the head of the clan gone.’

  ‘The head of the clan will be replaced with another,’ she said. ‘Sakis.’

  ‘He struck me as being a reasonable man. But I wonder about Marianna Kapsis, whether she might be more stubborn. You know her, of course. She is, like yourself, a strong and successful woman. Dendra seems to breed them.’

  ‘So you’ve met Marianna, and have lived to tell the tale.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Meni smiled.

  ‘I’m only teasing you. But the town gossips would have you believe an attractive man like you who wears no wedding ring is lucky to have escaped from her clutches. They’ll tell you she’s a gold-digger, who married old man Kapsis for his assets, such as they were, and that he didn’t last long after she got her hands on him. There were whispers about her when he died, whether she speeded him along. But she’s more a Kapsis than those who are Kapsis by blood, and though some of them don’t like it, she rules them with an iron rod. She’s made her stepchildren afraid of her, and in the main, they do as they’re told. And if she’s the man-eater they say, which men have been her prey, I couldn’t tell you. Still, they paint her as a black widow, always on the look-out for her next victim, so if you’re unmarried and want to stay that way, maybe you should watch out for her.’

  ‘Whatever her reputation with the opposite sex, she seems to know her business. I tried their oil, and found it excellent. I tried the Papayiannis too, in a blind-tasting experiment, and my tasters could find no difference between them. Which do you prefer? Which would you recommend?’

  She shrugged, and offered to refill his glass.

  ‘If you’ve tried only those two, you haven’t begun to taste our olive oil,’ she said. ‘There are far more producers than Papayiannis and Kapsis in this area, some better, some not so good. You should look beyond Dendra, Kyrie Diaktoros. Oil is like wine, and what I like may not be what you like. It’s a very personal preference. You should broaden your horizons, taste all this region’s got to offer. Oil is an adventure, an uncertain craft. Like wine, a slight difference in soil, a degree or two in temperature, a different blend – all affect the flavour. There’s a wholesaler in Neochori, where all the growers take their crops. He could take you through a whole spectrum of flavours, from the mildest to the hottest of the peppery. If you’re serious about your oil, you should go there. Dendra oil is good, but you may find another you prefer.’

  The sun had passed its noon peak, and as they drank, the kitchen fell into shadows.

  Meni apologised for the lack of light.

  ‘It’s galling,’ she said. ‘But the views from upstairs go some way to compensating for the gloom. Let me show you.’

  She led him up a wooden staircase, highly varnished but dusty, to the top floor, and a room used as an office. At one end of the room, a ladder led up to a trap-door, and picking up a pair of binoculars from the desk, she led him upwards again and out on to the flat r
oof, where beyond the carelessly scattered materials for repairing a leak stood a single chair.

  The view was magnificent – of Dendra, of hills and valleys, and the distance beyond.

  ‘The best is after dark, when the stars come out,’ she said. ‘I sit up here for hours sometimes, watching the heavens. In the moonlight it’s so beautiful, it brings tears to the eyes. And something else.’

  She handed him the binoculars, and brought his attention to a stand of trees on a rocky crag, some distance off.

  ‘Look carefully, and you’ll see an eagle’s nest,’ she said. ‘All spring and summer, I watched them raise their young. Two chicks. Such noble creatures. I’m hoping they’ll breed again, next year. I think they will.’

  ‘Eagles, the most venerated of birds,’ said the fat man. ‘So much so, in ancient times they were the symbol of Zeus himself. I hope you’re right, and that they’ll return. Now, I should leave you to prepare for your daughter’s visit. How much do I owe you for the wine?’

  Meni wrapped him cake and pie to take away. As he was putting his parcels and wine on the passenger seat, a battered little Fiat driven by a young woman turned into the gateway. A small child was secured in the back. The woman lifted him out, and settled him on her hip.

  ‘Yassas,’ said the fat man.

  She cast an eye over the foil-wrapped packets on top of the wine, and gave him a broad smile.

  ‘My mother has been plying you with gifts,’ she said.

  ‘She’s very kind. I came to buy wine, and I’m leaving with food for a week.’

  ‘No preserves?’ asked the young woman. ‘No eggs?’

  ‘I declined the eggs,’ he said. ‘And there’s a jar of marmalade in there, somewhere.’

  ‘I’m well prepared for my visit,’ said the young woman. ‘I haven’t eaten for two days. She likes to spoil us. Doesn’t she, kamari mou?’ She chucked the smiling baby under the chin.

  ‘You’re lucky to have such a caring parent,’ said the fat man.

  ‘I know I am,’ she said, and went smiling into the house.

  As the funeral bells began to toll, a pall of dove-grey cloud was sapping light from the late afternoon. The Papayiannis house was smoky with incense and scented with white lilies, mingling with the tang of whisky and the steam of brewing coffee.

  The shadow of his mourning beard was already dark on Sakis’s cheeks. He gave the command to lift, and he and his three relatives – uncle, brother-in-law and cousin – heaved Donatos’s coffin from the dining table on to their shoulders. Either whisky or the weight made the uncle stagger, and to a gasp from the onlookers, the coffin slipped; but in a minute or two they were settled, and with Sakis at his father’s right shoulder, Papa Kostas the priest led them out into the yard.

  The women in their best black followed on. Haggard with shock, Sakis’s mother Tasia was supported by her sister and Amara. Behind them, wailing and dabbing their eyes, came neighbours and relations. A young girl hushed a babe in arms, whose crying was drowned out by the women’s laments.

  Outside, the men ground out their cigarettes and came forward to help with the coffin, sliding it on to the back of a black truck valeted for the occasion. The majority of the mourners climbed into other vehicles, ready for the drive to the cemetery; but Sakis had chosen to walk, and as the makeshift hearse moved slowly through the yard gates, he and his fellow bearers followed on foot, heads bowed, with the cortège crawling behind to match their pace.

  From an upstairs window of the Kapsis house, Marianna watched the procession move down the road.

  ‘Adios, old man,’ she said, under her breath, and without even the shortest invocation for his immortal soul, she turned away.

  The service in the cemetery chapel was brief. From there, Donatos’s coffin was carried to the family grave, and lowered in with ropes. Papa Kostas said the necessary words, splashed holy water from his aspergillum, made crosses in the air and stood aside to wait for his fee.

  Sakis held his weeping mother’s arm, supporting her as she dropped a white rose on to the casket. The clods of earth she and Sakis threw into the grave thudded like portents on the coffin lid. Amara stood alongside her mother-in-law as one by one the other mourners approached the grave, scattering in handfuls of earth before wandering away to pay respects at memorials to their own relatives, or joining hushed conversations, both serious and banal: the suddenness of Donatos’s passing and the fickleness of Fate, or the extramarital affairs of their neighbours.

  The fat man had come late to the ceremony. Once the coffin had been carried out of the chapel, he strolled up to the portico, and smoked a cigarette as the funeral came to its end.

  Lefteris was talking with two men, demonstrating, perhaps exaggerating, the length of something between his hands; the disbelief of his listeners was obvious, though one turned his face away to hide his doubt. Renzo stood alone behind the open grave, ostracised or self-excluded from the gathering. Meni had arrived in her daughter’s Fiat but never came beyond the cemetery gate, keeping, like Renzo, to herself, whilst her daughter waited for her in the car.

  As Miltiadis the tailor left the graveside, he touched Sakis’s elbow and said a few appropriate words, then moved away to join a group of his contemporaries, passing close to Dora as he did so but giving her only a cursory nod, as if he and she were barely acquainted. Dora offered condolences to Tasia, who seemed bewildered at being a centre of attention, and baffled as to why she herself was there.

  The fat man finished his cigarette, stubbed it out on the wall and put it back in the box for later disposal. The crowd was thinning. Sakis noticed the waiting priest, fumbled for money and paid him, whilst Amara led the compliant Tasia away. The sexton was keen to finish his work, and asked Sakis if he might begin the filling-in, but Sakis was reluctant and shook his head, telling the sexton he wanted a little more time.

  The fat man reached the graveside, and looked down into the grave, on to the pine box and the stem of the half-buried rose. Very faintly, he smelled the coffin’s barely dry varnish. He reached deep into his pocket, brought out a small coin with the glint of old gold and tossed it into the grave, where it landed with no noise, and slipped unseen between the clods of earth and stones. For a few moments he bowed his head; then he walked away between the graves, following the other mourners to the gates.

  Eleven

  The next morning, the fat man set off early for Neochori.

  Lefteris had told him there was a new road, a black-topped dual carriageway stretching away between the acres of olive groves, but the fat man preferred the old route, through the mountains.

  The road was steep and strewn with rockfalls, and wound in sharp hairpins deeply shadowed by larch and pine. Gorges dropped to breathtaking depths, and the carriageway skirted their rims, with only the flimsy panels of damaged barriers between road users and the chasms. The road signs had all been targets, and were dented by shotgun pellets, or shot into holes by rifle bullets. From time to time, the fat man stopped the car, and climbed out to admire the views: a bridge high over a fast-flowing river which foamed between crags and rocks; soaring buff peaks where the first snows had already fallen; in the far distance, a glimpse of cobalt sea. Beyond the mountains, burgeoning clouds signalled a coming change in the weather.

  At the outskirts of Neochori the road levelled out, and at the head of the main street, alongside a church dedicated to the apostles, the fat man pulled over to get his bearings from the plan Lefteris had drawn for him. According to Lefteris, it was by the church the fat man should turn left, and he moved off cautiously from where he had stopped, positioning the car correctly on the centre line and indicating before making his turn. From this street, he would find the oil wholesalers along the third street on the left, but before he reached it, he saw a sign on an office block for the Neochori News; and since there was a space outside with only a single yellow line forbidding parking, he left the car there.

  The reception area at the Neochori News seemed long deser
ted. An arrangement of dusty-petalled silk tulips stood on the desk; a plainly mounted certificate and a black and white photograph hung on the wall.

  The fat man studied the photograph – a head-and-shoulders shot of a cheerful man looking into the camera with amusement – and read the brass plaque screwed on to the frame: Panayiotis Dimas, Proprietor. The certificate was embossed with a wax rosette, and under the elaborately inscribed heading of The Pan-Hellenic Federation of Journalists, it announced Panayiotis as the Best Investigative Journalist of 1964.

  The opening and closing of the outer door had drawn no one’s attention. Out of politeness, the fat man waited a minute or two, then went through the door beyond reception.

  He found himself in an office, where the woman seated at the only occupied desk drew on the remains of a Marlboro, and looked at the fat man through heavy-framed, cat’s-eye glasses.

  ‘Kali mera sas,’ she said. ‘Can I help you?’

  The fat man put on a genial smile.

  ‘Kali mera sas,’ he said, as he approached her. Her hair was black, but not naturally so; her skin was made more sallow by crimson lipstick. Despite her being some years past the age customary for marriage proposals, he saw no wedding ring. He held out his hand. ‘I am Hermes Diaktoros, of Athens. I’d like to talk to someone about your archives.’

  ‘Esmerelda Dimas,’ she said, and placed her cigarette in the notch of an ashtray to touch, very briefly, his hand; her own was cold, the nails long with chipped red varnish, the insides of the index and middle fingers stained the ugly amber of tobacco. Immediately she let go of his hand, she reached out for the burning cigarette, and drew on it gratefully, like one reunited with an old friend. Smoke trickled down her nose and from her mouth. ‘You’ll have to talk to me, Jill-of-all-trades that I am. Owner, editor, reporter, photographer and archivist. What do you need?’