The Destroyers

by Christopher Bollen

  “It’s not that I don’t believe you.”

  “Just eighty euros,” she says, unclenching the rag. “You see, I need to take the ferry to Athens tonight.” She checks again to make sure her mother is out of earshot. There is a goat-like quality to Vesna’s face in profile, with its large, crested eye spaced far from her nose. “Tomorrow there is a rally in Syntagma Square to protest our government’s alliance with the European Union. It’s very important! We will never be a free country, our own people, with the West bleeding us dry with their impossible restrictions. It’s our country! Not the capitalists who are determined to put us in our place!” Perhaps she’s merely prepping for the rally, or her politics are still in their early formation when every statement is expressed as a vehement argument, but I no longer remember if I’m the target of her antagonism or the person she’s asking for help. “You must know how awful it is here. Half the Greeks my age can’t find a job. We have to be independent if we ever want to escape this nightmare of poverty and dependence. They have decided what Greek people are and they are making us be those people whether we like it or not. So you see, I have to be there!”

  “Wasn’t the bomb in Skala last month set by a leftist group that was trying to send the same message? I hope you don’t agree with their tactics.”

  “That bomb.” She snorts. “Who says it was set by us? You think liberal minds are the only ones who use explosives? It was two sticks of dynamite. All the islands are loaded with dynamite. How do you think Greek fishermen used to fish before it became illegal. String a fuse on a timer, drop the sticks in the water”—Vesna mimes a hunk of explosives in her hand and proceeds to detonate a switch—“and all the fish come to the surface. Haven’t you seen old men with missing fingers in the villages? They were fishermen of the old Greek style. Boom.” Vesna brags of her knowledge of explosives the way American college students show off their music tastes. I’m not sure whether to be impressed or frightened, and when pulled between those two reactions I tend to become aroused. Remember Marisela, I tell myself. “If you walk down this hill I bet you’d run across a hoard of dynamite piled under tarps. Anyone could have gotten their hands on it. It’s just easier to blame the group that is trying to execute real change.” As an afterthought, Vesna adds, “I didn’t mean to say execute. I believe in nonviolence. So will you help me? Charlie will pay you back. He understands.”

  I reach for yesterday’s clothes on the floor and milk my wallet from my shorts pocket.

  “And you can’t ask your parents for the money?”

  “No. They don’t want me going. They think it’s dangerous. But I told you, they live in another century. Please don’t tell them about Charlie giving me money. They wouldn’t approve because of their pride.” As if to apologize for asking, she touches my arm with her chilly rings. “It’s our pride that gets in our way.”

  I open my wallet and pull out the last aquamarine hundred from my advance. After last night’s dinner, I’m down to less than two hundred euros when counting up all the bills. Vesna snatches the hundred before I have time to hand it over and doesn’t offer me the twenty euros in change.

  “Thank you,” she says and leans close, her grimace twitching at the corners. “Another thing, because you have been kind. I would hide that money you have in the nightstand somewhere safer. Thieves know that vacationers have brought extra cash with them this summer in case the bank machines run out. I’ve heard of break-ins and robberies on the islands. They come in and out on the ferries, so they’re never caught. You should be careful.”

  “Where should I hide it?” I ask, tossing my arm around the room.

  Vesna shrugs and tucks the hundred-euro bill in her apron pocket.

  “How about under the mattress? It is safer these days than the banks.”

  “Vesna?” Therese cries from the sliding door. The mop handle is tight at her chest. She notices us close together with an open wallet between us. “Why aren’t you cleaning? Why are you bothering Charlie’s best friend?” Therese’s ashen face, with sunspots circling like lace around her eyes, seems to hope for the least upsetting conclusion. She sucks air through her yellowed teeth.

  “We were just talking about how generous Charlie is,” Vesna answers. I catch a trace of sarcasm in her voice, as if Charlie might not regularly supply her with covert funds. Have I just been duped by the housekeeper’s daughter? Should I be grateful she didn’t stage a robbery to dip into the nine thousand in cash?

  “Oh, Charlie is very generous,” Therese proclaims while she touches her forehead in the opening volley of the sign of the cross. “We owe our lives to the Konstantinous. They’re family. Charlie is our second son. Where would we be without him?” I’m accustomed to domestic workers of richer friends swearing their allegiance in the chance that I might pass along their praises, but Therese’s devotion strikes me as genuine. It must strike Vesna that way too, because she pauses from stripping the pillowcases to glance at her mother like she’s in need of senior care. “And not only us,” Therese continues. “Charlie funded the playground of the children’s school last year when the government couldn’t afford to keep it up. He brought in his own engineers and builders so the kids could have their games. And he pays for Vesna’s studies too, doesn’t he?” She prods her daughter with her eyes to confirm it. The nape of Vesna’s neck glows red. “So many people today who buy houses on Patmos don’t care about our island. They see it only as summer fun. Not the Konstantinous. Christos and I are very proud to be working for them all these years. I worry about Mr. Konstantinou’s health. He is too sick, now, to make the trip to see us. Sonny told me he has one of his operations today.”

  “Why does he even bother to leave the hospital?” her daughter mutters.

  I ask Vesna where Domitian is docked. She lifts from the bed with a tired breath. Her mother races over to finish fitting the sheets.

  “In Grikos,” she mumbles. She’s staring over my shoulder, and when I turn I find a sweaty, dark-suited man with a black mustache standing in the rectangle of sunlight. His belly swells over a tightly buckled belt. Two blue-shirted officers fill the void around him. He’s putting a crumpled pack of cigarettes into his blazer.

  “Excuse me,” he says, tapping belatedly on the door. “Are you Ian Bledsoe? I am Inspector Martis.” For a second, my stomach plummets, and the air is knocked from my lungs. “I was hoping we might have a word down at the station. It is about your friend, Charlie.” He gauges my expression and smiles. “Nothing has happened. It is merely an informal inquiry, involving an accident yesterday with two young foreigners on a motorbike. I promise it will only take a few minutes of your time.”

  Therese, hugging one of the pillows, barks at him in Greek, and he gesticulates wildly as he replies.

  “It’s okay,” Therese reassures me. “He says you are not in trouble. He says you can follow him on your bike.”

  “I could have told him that,” he balks. “I do speak English, Mrs.—”

  “Stamatis. Therese Stamatis. We work for the family. And this is my daughter—” But Vesna, clearly averse to cops, has disappeared into the bathroom.

  I collect my wallet and keys and step outside. The two officers have returned to the police car, no doubt to prevent the sense that I am being taken into custody.

  “I really don’t know anything,” I swear to the inspector, as if my ignorance could absolve me from having to make the trip to the port.

  “All the same, a few questions, very minor,” Martis replies warmly and stares down the hill at the sea. “I forget how beautiful Patmos is. A rare island. They say it vibrates.”

  “You aren’t from here?”

  “Oh, no,” he says laughing as he claps my shoulder. “I’m from district headquarters in Kos. I only come to Patmos when there’s a mess that the local police can’t handle.”

  “I thought you said it was very minor.”

  Martis’s response is to smile at the view.

  THE POLICE STATION in Skala shares
a building with the Tourist Information Office. The squat Venetian structure with domed archways and a gingerbread tower sits across from the ferry dock boasting a tattered Greek flag. In Venice, the building would be declared a public eyesore; here, due to its bell-tower height, it possesses an imposing majesty. Yet nothing about the building suggests that either the tourist office or the police station is open to visitors. The windows are closed and curtained. Only a small rusted plaque announces its municipal purpose. Palm trees and parked rental cars barricade its entrances. Drifting all around the reclusive white cube of bureaucracy are the restless tans and fluorescents of August vacationers: bag-weighted couples in board shorts; children Breathalyzer-testing inflatable rafts; cherry ice cream lickers; collectors of day-cruise leaflets. A family of seven from Sweden, fleeing the confines of their yacht, jogs along the waterfront wearing shorts that bear the name of their boat, Princess Octopus—the name means something different sewn across the ass of each family member. They run so happily, so unencumbered, a family portrait in blond, bouncing motion, their terry cloth shorts free of the bulk of wallets or IDs, that it strikes me that only the obscenely rich are permitted the comfort of carrying nothing. I park my bike while Martis and his officers wait across the road.

  “You will have your beach today, do not worry,” Martis promises. We head toward the station, the inspector leading the way as the two officers flank me. I force a smile to downplay the impression I’m under arrest and scan the port for anyone I might know. Standing at the tobacco stall, not twenty feet away, is the thief from the Athens hotel. He steps from the shade. And as on the Grande Palace rooftop, our sights cross uneasily like two unfamiliar hunters through riflescopes.

  Martis motions to a set of steps running up the side of the building. A white arrow points skyward with the words TO THE POLICE STATION written modestly across it.

  “Is this necessary?” I ask, not exactly sure what I even mean besides some need to register noncompliance, in case this is an arrest, in case I’m about to be told a Mediterranean rendition of my Miranda rights. A phone call? A lawyer? An arraignment in front of a judge? Is there a standard arrest procedure in Greece? Is there even a judge on this island? All of these questions barrel through my head before I realize I’ve done nothing wrong.

  “I said not to worry,” Martis replies. “We are very civilized. We have no death penalty.”

  At the top of the staircase, a different visitor chaos spills across the yellow terrace, hidden from the tourists below. Nearly twenty dark bodies, some slumped in corners, others squatting over swaddled infants, some upright with eyes fixed on their toes. Men of all ages, in dirty T-shirts, hoodies, and jeans, barefoot with raw, ulcerous skin, jaws etched with days of facial hair; women in their early twenties, roped in hijabs and dense fabrics of maroons and browns, most wearing sandals, a few clutching plastic bags. The smell of the sea is on them, and the silence of the sea too, the hopelessness of lost places, of valuables irretrievably dropped. Tiredness weighs in their eyes but also elation, a nervous, festive mood of relief. Only a pear-skinned kid of ten or eleven acknowledges me. “Hello,” he shouts, blinking his uneven eyes—one big and brown, the other slivered almost shut. He sits under a cabinet shrine to a saint. The boy is dressed in a too-large sweatshirt, his black hair parted by the plastic comb in his hand. He smiles as he glides the comb across his scalp, wanting to meet the new continent with the polish of a first day at school. I give him a thumbs-up, as my heart ripens—ripens, falls, and is scorched by the acid in my stomach until the pain of it waters my eyes. Martis doesn’t have to tell me that these are refugees from the east. Life vests are piled next to pallets of bottled water. A rug has been left unrolled for prayer. An orange bucket by a drain offers what I can only imagine is a receptacle for seasickness.

  I want to believe that this terrace is like a fire escape in Manhattan, a safe spot for sitting, a converted outdoor room, and not a last-ditch measure for people fleeing a blaze but still a dangerous distance from solid ground. An officer appears from a doorway by the shrine and grabs the closest man by the upper arm. He wears the same light-blue latex gloves that were snapped on at the motorbike crash, as if each migrant body is the scene of a crime.

  Martis taps me on the back to urge me toward the main door of the station. As I stumble forward, I feel as if my shadow is being ripped from me, the remnant of who I was that needs to stay and help. Do something, do something. I reach for my wallet, at least to give the boy a few euros, but Martis practically pushes me into the station. We sweep through a tapioca-colored waiting room, and Martis motions me into a glass-enclosed office. I take a seat in a walnut chair directly below a blinking light fixture with wires poking from its sconce. The inspector lingers in the doorway, speaking to the officer who tried to stop me from getting near the bodies yesterday. The other uniformed men greet Martis obsequiously. As with any unchallenged authority, Martis remains relaxed and convivial. The desk in the office he’s borrowing is a Sahara of disheveled paperwork, beige dunes of files and perforated documents. Framed, waterlogged photographs of men fishing, drinking, and posing with saturnine monks crowd the tops of the metal cabinets. I recall Charlie’s warning about the uselessness of the Patmian police force; it does appear from the look of the desk as if their primary occupation consists of filling out and misplacing forms.

  Martis lumbers in and squeezes himself into the chair behind the desk. His bottom teeth are engaged in the effort of trying to bite the tips of his mustache. The dusty sunlight reveals the craters and hairline scars running across his cheeks. The skin around his eyes is bunched like the creased corners of a folded map.

  “Those refugees outside,” I say. “Are you arresting them?”

  “Syrians,” he replies, spinning a ballpoint pen on the blotter. “No, not arrest. Process. Once they set foot on European soil, they claim the right to stay. Most of them don’t have papers. And, of course, they can never remember the names of their smugglers. They’ve spent days in a boat with these traffickers, but ask them to describe these men, they all go hazy in the head. We do what we can, which is not much. No one knows what to do with the refugees this summer.”

  “What will happen to them now?”

  Martis smiles as he scrunches his shoulders. “They are seeking asylum. Not in Greece. Even Syrians are aware of how bad our circumstances are right now. Would you risk your life at sea to join the long lines of the poor and starving in Athens? No, they want to get to Germany or Denmark. And perhaps that is why we don’t stop them. Germany gives us so much trouble in the E.U., we shall give them something back.” He winks and takes a deep breath. “Most of the boats don’t get as far as Patmos. They land on the islands closer to Turkey, like my island. You should see our shores on Kos, littered with life vests and rubber boats and growing camps of despair. The beaches are like war zones now. But they can’t control the currents, they are prisoners to the mind of the water, and some do wash up as far as here. They will be sent to the detention center in Lesbos, and from there?” He tosses his hands. “It is a very bad summer for refugees. And where is the money to patrol our borders? There isn’t any. It is open season on the seas. What is that line on your statue? We take your poor, your tired, your huddled breathers? We should move that statue to the Aegean. It makes more sense for us now.” Even this dark forecast is treated with Martis’s personable mirth. He chomps at his mustache. “Where are you from in America?”

  “New York.”

  He slaps the desk. “One day I hope to visit. I have cousins in Astoria, Queens. Do you know where that is?”

  “Sure.”

  Martis points a peremptory finger and struggles with his blazer pocket. He fishes out his cell phone and taps. “I follow my cousins on Facebook. They are very happy in New York. Every weekend is baseball games. You and I could be friends on Facebook too. And when I visit, you could come to Astoria to greet my family.”

  “I’m not on the Internet.”

  Martis glances at me
perplexed, as if I’ve just admitted that I don’t intend to go to heaven. “You must be. All young people are on the Internet. Let me type in your name. Ian Bledsoe.” I can’t decide if he’s staged this conversation to lead us to the disclosure of my past or he’s simply unwilling to accept a refusal of friendship. No day is safe from friendship. Gone is a world of passing acquaintances; one is either nonexistent or a certified friend. He switches his phone’s keyboard from Greek to English. I-A-N.

  “I’m not on there,” I yelp, digging my foot against the chair leg. “Ian Bledsoe is a very common name in America. You won’t find me. But I promise I’ll join Facebook and I’ll send you a friend request.” I don’t want him dredging through my history of bombs and cartels and a tourist with a record for turning against his family. “I’m sorry, I actually have somewhere to be. I’m not on vacation. I work on this island, at Charlie’s charter company. So if we could just get to the questions you have for me?”

  “Yes, yes,” Martis agrees apologetically. He swats his phone aside. “I am sorry. It is addictive, this device, making friends, looking into the lives of others.” He smiles without a hint of duplicity. “My questions involve your friend, Charlie. That is why we are here. I haven’t been able to track him down.”

  “No?”

  “I have learned from my colleague that you were witness to the two young foreigners who died yesterday near Grikos.”

  “I witnessed the police finding them. I didn’t see them die.”

  “No, no. That is what I meant,” he corrects jovially. “My English. Yes, a man and a woman, backpackers who were part of the Christian camp on the beach. According to their parents, they had been traveling around the Mediterranean for several months. Not together. They didn’t seem to know each other before Patmos. The man, Mikael, was Norwegian, and the girl, Dalia, was Dutch. I have pictures of their passports. Now let me find them.” He makes a show of searching the desk but locates the folder instantly and slides two printouts in front of me. Both Dalia and Mikael are of the age when passport photos are still flattering—Dalia grinning prettily through stage curtains of long, straight hair; Mikael, pre-nose ring and earlobe plugs, serious and strong-jawed and blank. They could be any twenty-somethings patiently submitting themselves to the red tape of documentation for the freedom that waits on the other side. It hits me how archaic passports are, tiny, mobile stamp collections recording the pit stops of the wandering soul. And they’re like yawns—the sight of one induces me to clutch my pockets for my own. I left mine in the cabin.