Enemy and Brother

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  “The women of Souli to live must be free….”

  I had never heard her sing before but I would have imagined her voice as it was, a deep, vibrant contralto. Soon Paul, everyone joined in singing the “Ballad of the Zalongo” which tells of the Souli women who, their men massacred by the Turks, put on their festival costumes, flung their children from the cliff and one by one, dancing, leaped to their deaths.

  It was George Kanakis himself who took the lead in the dance. He was not a dancer. Not every Greek is. But Vasso’s eyes, I thought, had summoned him. He bowed to her and then to Stephanou, and a murmur of—approval, assent, I didn’t know just what—ran through the room. Several men followed him.

  Paul demanded, “Who is dancing?”

  “Kanakis,” I said.

  He seemed to freeze—just for a second—his smile, his cane mid-air, his very breathing. I glanced at Modenis, scowling, watching Paul with apprehension; at Vasso, on whose face at that instant was an expression of the utmost abject petition. Then Paul let out a sound the ring of which to me meant triumph. He beat out the rhythm of the dance more fiercely. More time has been spent in the telling than in the incident itself, but from that moment both Paul and I knew what many others here already knew: that Kanakis was Michael’s father.

  The dance quickened. One dancer after another leaped from the circle until Kanakis was alone. He did not attempt the final dramatic leap. He merely stopped dancing. The singing stopped and finally the pounding of Paul’s cane. A hush was on the room.

  “Vasso, come to me,” Paul said.

  She came with a rush and threw herself at his feet. I moved away from them. Kanakis was gone. The others were pressing in as I strove to get out. Old Spyro, standing on tiptoe, shivered like a wet dog. I looked back and saw Paul lifting her face and playing his fingers softly over it. I had had as much as I could take. The very air reeked of humanity beyond my tolerance of it.

  At the door I met Father Lappas and his wife. The priest and I did one of those little dances trying to get around one another and all but colliding. He was beside himself to see what he had been missing. I stood aside and said as though it were the truth, “They’ve been waiting for you, Father.”

  I heard Paul call out to me, but I did not go back. Kanakis and I, I thought. I went home and wondered how long Vasso’s cottage would be my home in Kaléa. Because I could concentrate on nothing, I turned to the newspaper. I have never been a newspaper reader though I had subscribed to many, watching always for some reference to the Webb case or to the history of that time. I had read once that Markos was living in the Soviet Union, again that he was in an asylum in Poland. I had studied the Greek Civil War in terms of what subsequently happened in Yugoslavia, Tito’s breakaway from the Soviets. Markos had been replaced after that, and some members of the press, who liked to see history tidied up, I had always thought, connected Webb’s death with the split in the Soviet bloc and the subsequent downgrading of Markos among the Greek Communists. Had I been questioned instead of kangarooed in those dark days in Ioannina, I could have told that Webb anticipated an early end to the rebellion when we went north, but he had already written that in his dispatches. Did he document it for Markos that night?

  These thoughts ran through my mind while, almost by rote, I read the affairs of the day’s paper. I put it aside and took up the clipping I had trimmed to save for Paul. I read again the list of distinguished guests he had asked me to repeat. I should not have thought Miss Kondylis belonged there. At the wedding, perhaps, but to have been singled out…. Of course she was appearing at the Epirus festival. That was it probably. Colonel Alexis Frontis: I had seen the name before—or was it in the first reading of this same article? I went back to the paper and found the name also in the front page story. The present government crisis had arisen out of the purge of leftist elements in the army. Colonel Frontis was apparently responsible for the removal of the officers, and, by way of the chain of ministerial authority, he had been sustained by the King himself.

  14

  I WOKE TO THE clanging of the church bell after a miserable night. I would rather have slept on a bed of nails than where I supposed Vasso would be bringing at last her true lover. I threw open the shutters. The grandmother turned from where she was gossiping at the gate with the butcher’s daughter and the priest’s wife and I don’t know whom else, a cluster of women that broke up when the old woman came running to me.

  I did not want to go to the restaurant that morning. She brought me bread and fruit and water for Nescafé, and the news that had been many times told already: Vasso had been to the priest with Paul’s consent and they would be married on Sunday a week. Kanakis would take the bride-to-be from her mother’s house to the church. Why not? She had lived by his providence and love when there was none other for her to live by. Needless to say, I have always loathed weddings. More, if possible, than funerals. But this was one I could not escape. I listened to the old woman’s pratings—about the bridal veil and the wedding cake, and then something I had not expected: Modenis’ cottage was being prepared for Paul and his bride. I felt much better. She made me go to the window and see where even now her own bedtick was being aired, the frame sanded down by Vasso and her friends. It was the bed on which the old woman had given birth to three sons and Vasso, her only daughter. Her eyes filled up as she told how she had waited for this day. I hugged her briefly, one arm about her frail shoulders. Once more she had released me from myself.

  She pulled back shyly. “You should have a wife also, Mr. Professor, a good Greek woman to take care of you.”

  “Are you tired of the job, grandmother?”

  “You know I am not, but like all my sons you too will go away. And who will I take care of then? Modenis.”

  The way she said the name made me laugh. She had indeed lifted me out of the depths.

  Not long afterwards I heard Paul’s stick tapping the stones along Vasso’s walk. He called out and threw open the door. “Professor?”

  “Yes, Paul.”

  He stood in the doorway, an image of strength, self-confidence. “I want to talk to you.”

  “Come. The chair is here. Congratulations. I hear you’ve set the wedding date.”

  “The women set it. What could I do?” He caught my hand. “First of all, I want you to stand up for me at the wedding.”

  “I am honored, but I am not of your religion.”

  “Neither am I. It is for Vasso, and I have decided that if the priest can be a hypocrite I can also.”

  “Right you are,” I said.

  He shook my hand and released it. “This is the only place safe from the women in the whole of Kaléa. Of all the ceremonies, matrimony is their favorite. Is it so in America?”

  “One must suppose so—considering the number of times a woman will go through it.”

  “Why have you not married, Professor?”

  “I am fond of women, but not of ceremony.” Then: “There were reasons. Someday perhaps I shall tell you.” I drew up the chair that had come into the house on his first visit, and sat near him.

  “When will you go to Athens again?”

  That he asked indicated his wish for something there. “Within the week,” I said.

  “And will you go to the library again—to where the old newspapers are?”

  “I can.”

  “There is someone I would like to know about…. Perhaps he is not important enough and he would not be in the newspapers….” He hesitated, trying to select the least he needed to tell, I thought. “He was in the prison with me at Averoff and I have wondered what has happened to him.”

  “Could I not simply inquire of the prison authorities?”

  “No. Look, Professor, I will tell you. It is the man who blinded me. It was a quarrel, yes, but we had been friends. He was in prison for having stolen money, quite a lot of money. It was the payroll for the army barracks…. Afterwards he was most penitent, he said he would give me money… if we were both released from pr
ison.”

  Was Stephanou lying to me? I remembered well his capacity for telling a lie and making it seem the reluctant truth. “Has he been released?” I asked.

  “I do not know that. He was moved to another prison—to one of the islands after what happened to me. His name is Stavros Varvaressos. He was a blacksmith by trade. I think he came from the Peloponnese, but he always said he would not go back there. He loved Athens—the city.”

  “Was the stolen money recovered?”

  “Most of it, I think, but there would have been some that was not. Otherwise, how could he have promised me money?”

  I thought for a moment. “And if I find him, Paul, what am I to say to him?”

  “Nothing. You are not even to speak to him. You must promise me that or I will beg you to forget the whole matter. Afterwards, I will ask you to write a letter to him for me.”

  Afterwards: The implication of confidence. Which could either be withheld or given. Oh, yes! my brother had uses for me.

  “Do you need money, Paul—that kind of money?”

  “I want to know. That is all. Modenis is too old, and he would not go in any case.”

  “Paul, if there was money, don’t you think the police would have watched him in the expectation of his leading them to it?”

  He twisted his head and grimaced, an agony of impatience. “It is not the money!” he cried out.

  “I hadn’t supposed it was,” I said quietly. “It would be better if you told me the truth.”

  “I do not know the truth. I only suspect.”

  “That you were deliberately blinded?” I said after a moment.

  “It is a possibility. I should like to know.”

  “I shall go up tomorrow,” I said. “There is a private collection of papers available to me on weekends. I shall combine missions.”

  “Professor, don’t…” He could not find the words. “I do not wish to call attention to myself in this matter.”

  “Neither do I,” I said, and took some satisfaction in the concealed irony.

  15

  WITH THE PRECISION OF a man documenting expenses against the filing of his income tax, in Athens I arranged to see the Pietro Gamba letters written for Byron, in the margins of which were comments in the poet’s hand. Then I set out on my search for Stavros Varvaressos.

  The newspaper files yielded information on his arrest and conviction. A civilian employee of the army, aged nineteen, he had stolen, apparently without accomplices, 300,000 drachmas, roughly a $10,000 payroll. He claimed to have been robbed of the money, and was indeed arrested on his job to which he returned after a three-day absence. He was sentenced to fifteen years’ hard labor in 1955, which left him several years yet to serve.

  But two years ago, the entire payroll had been recovered. The story was cryptic: “The police today recovered…” Not a word on where or how or on what advice they had acted.

  The entire payroll: surely Paul would have known that. He did, of course. But had Varvaressos actually promised him money? If such a promise had been given, it would have had to be given in the presence of a prison guard at least. The two men would not have been left alone, even in a hospital.

  The name of Varvaressos did not again appear in the newspapers.

  I thought of Nikos Spiridos and his prison connections. I did not like to go back to him, but decided to look up his phone number while making up my mind. The phone book in hand, I looked up Varvaressos first. There was a Mrs. S. Varvaressos in Piraeus. It was not a common name.

  The house was part of a row of what I can best describe as new tenements, three- and four-story buildings put up after the war, but already showing signs of becoming slums, the plaster cracked, the marble stained with rust from bad drainage. A small sign indicated that Mrs. Varvaressos was the proprietress of a sailors’ rooming house. The inside of the building looked immaculate.

  I walked to the top of the steep, narrow street. One could see the bay, the funnels of ships anchored there. Her custom would be in merchant seamen, dockworkers. It was a respectable, working class place, I thought, walking past it again. But she catered primarily to transients. There was none of the hallway paraphernalia of children’s toys and carriages common to the other buildings. I crossed the street and entered the taverna a few doors down. A card game was going on in the rear with twice the number of observers to players. I bought a bottle of beer and took it to one of the outside tables. Nobody cared where I took it. I watched the occasional woman climbing the street, stringbag in one hand and almost invariably the other hand at her back. The climb had taken its toll of most of them. I studied each one as she passed in case she should turn in at the rooming house door. None of them did. I thought how like this was to my vigil outside Averoff… which had not come out badly to my purpose. It was a matter of patience and some sort of plan. I did not want to speak to Mrs. Varvaressos, not until I knew something about her.

  Two men came up the street, one with his seaman’s bag over his shoulder. The other looked at a piece of paper in his hand and then at the numbers on the houses. They were young, clean-cut men. It was an easy matter to catch up with them. I asked them if they were looking for Mrs. Varvaressos.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Three houses up,” I said. “What kind of a place is it, do you know?”

  “Cheap and clean.” But I could tell from the way they looked at me they didn’t think it was my style.

  “I am looking for a place for some of the men who work for me,” I said, improvising, and realizing as I said it that I could as easily have approached Mrs. Varvaressos myself using that gambit.

  “Come along, boss,” one of the youngsters said to me.

  The other said, “You must be a very good boss to look for lodging for your men.”

  “I want to know where they are,” I said.

  I went with them into the building. One of them rang the bell of the first-floor apartment. There was a faint smell of mothballs or disinfectant, I wasn’t sure which, but it was a clean smell.

  The woman who opened the door was well into her sixties, neat, tight-lipped and hard. Her back was slightly bent. She had known work in her time.

  “We are looking for rooms, my friend and I,” one of the seamen said. “The gentleman must speak for himself.”

  “I have men working for me who need rooms,” I said.

  “What kind of work?” She had not allowed us entrance to or even a view of her apartment. I could see only a heavily upholstered chair and a calendar on the wall behind it.

  “Construction,” I said.

  “No,” she said, “they are too dirty.”

  “I pay them well,” I said.

  “Then what do they need of my house? No.”

  And that was that. I muttered a sarcastic “thank you,” and retreated, the seamen going into her parlor with her. It was my appearance, my very presence, of course, that had made her suspicious. Which only suggested that she had had such visitors as myself before, prying men perhaps connected with the police.

  On the stoop an old unshaven man was fingering his beads. He grinned at me, bowing a little again and again.

  “Kali´spera,” I said. He reeked of onion and beer.

  “Kali´spera. You would like to buy me a bottle of Fix?”

  “Do you know Mrs. Varvaressos?”

  “I know, I know,” he said and rolled his eyes.

  “I’d be happy to buy you a bottle of Fix.” I indicated the taverna where I had been before.

  He shook his head and led the way into a cellar apartment a few doors down the street, running a skip and a jump ahead of me. The place was as bare as a jail cell which was in itself a blessing, an uncovered mattress on the floor, a table and two chairs, a few bits of crockery on the table.

  He held out his hand for money. “You will wait here and I will bring the beer. One hundred drachmas, please.”

  Three dollars was a lot of money for a couple of bottles of beer. I assumed it included the price of
what he wanted to sell and gave it to him.

  I stood at the window and watched him trot across the street to the taverna and back with the two bottles. He uncapped one of them and handed it to me. A shaft of sunlight hit the wall behind him where he sat cross-legged on the mattress, the image of an evil genie. I wondered how often he had performed this ritual.

  “Now,” I said, “what do you want to tell me?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Whatever you can tell me about Mrs. Varvaressos.”

  “She is a very hard woman. She does not talk to anybody. She is not like us. She comes from the Peloponnese. A peasant.”

  The man Stephanou was looking for had also come from the Peloponnese. He was thirty or so and, if related, probably the woman’s son. “Where—do you know?”

  “A village called Skandi.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I went through some rubbish the day after she came—the stub of a bus ticket.”

  “When did she come?”

  He screwed up his eyes as though trying to remember something I suspected he knew by rote. “Eight, nine months ago. She was a peasant, you know? Now… she wears a corset, very elegant.”

  “Does she have any family?”

  “No. That is to say, I have never seen anyone like that. Six months ago she began to wear the heavy veil, black, you know? And she burns a candle for the dead.”

  “Six months ago?” I repeated.

  “It would be,” he said, “and it was then she paid for the house. The man who owns this one, he owns them all except hers. He is a very rich man. I used to work for him. I had a nice apartment in her house for my daughter. She put us out, may the evil eye look on her.”

  The reason occurred to me, but it was not my affair.

  “She is a beautiful girl,” he said and grinned in attempted ingratiation. He was speaking of his daughter, I realized.