The Icon

by Neil Olson

  “That all sounds convincing,” Matthew finally responded, pulling Fotis back to the present moment, “until Tomas and the icon vanish.”

  “Tomas was stealing funds. It’s an unrelated matter.” Strange that the truth should sound so suspect.

  “Well, then I guess that leaves just you.”

  “You are forgetting Anton.”

  “Do you deny that you’ve wanted the icon for sixty years? Since my Papou showed it to you during the war, before his brother hid it away? An hour, a few minutes, is all it took, am I right? And you were hooked for life. You had to have it.”

  “Are you speaking of me,” Fotis replied, the insight striking him at once, “or yourself?”

  “Yes,” Matthew nodded, undeterred, “I’ve felt it. That’s how I know.”

  What was this? Was the boy a rival? Was this more serious than he had imagined, and could some use be made of it? But no, he mustn’t think that way; this was Matthew.

  “I am tired now. We should speak again tomorrow.”

  “What happened that night the church burned? Where were you? Why weren’t you with the men Andreas sent to retrieve the weapons?”

  “So he has finally spoken of it.”

  “Did you know Kosta would tell Stamatis where the icon was hidden, and that he would try to get it? Were you waiting for him to come out? Am I close?” Too damn close. The boy was relentless, never taking his eyes off Fotis. “Or maybe you sent Stamatis in yourself, and then he decided to double-cross you. Is that it?”

  “You are growing disturbed, my child. You are creating fantasies. This business has become too much for you. It’s time to let it go.”

  “Let it go?” With sudden, furious energy, Matthew swept the breakfast tray to the ground and leaned right over the other man.

  “Let it go? How the hell am I supposed to do that? I’m up to my neck it in, and you led me there. You owe me these answers, you old bastard.”

  Fotis became frightened; not of the boy, but of something, the broken fragments of truth beginning to reassemble. For a moment, he thought it was Andreas standing there above him.

  “You all betrayed me,” he whispered, “all of you.”

  “Who betrayed you? How?”

  “One is going to trade it, the other sell it. Guns, money. Only I loved it for what it was, only I could keep it safe. You fool, don’t you see?” He grabbed Matthew’s shirt, and his face broke; the tears came. “Don’t you see, paidemou? Only I can keep it safe. Won’t you help me?”

  The large silhouette of Taki appeared in the door, making them both turn, breaking the spell. Fotis shoved Matthew away weakly.

  “I heard the noise,” said Taki, both fierce and bashful, looking at the scattered plates and cup on the floor.

  “He was just leaving,” Fotis said hoarsely. “Show him out.”

  Matthew sized up the larger man for a moment, then relaxed. There would be no struggle. He gave Fotis a long look—was it confusion, compassion, or something else entirely?—and then started for the door.

  “My boy, wait,” said the Snake. The younger man stopped, Taki’s hand on his shoulder, but he did not turn back to look.

  “Saturday night. The services at Saint Demetrios. You will accompany me? Please?”

  Matthew glanced back at him briefly. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

  “We will speak further about all this.”

  But Matthew was already headed down the stairs.

  15

  T he rain-dampened woods around the house produced a fine mist as the day warmed. The effect evoked a sense memory in Andreas that he could not quite grasp: a cove by the sea, a pale morning fog, and the desire to stay there upon that warm, wet ground where he’d slept—not pick up the rifle by his side, not rejoin his fellow soldiers, but simply stay there, disappear in the mist. When had it been, what had happened next? He could not say. Half a lifetime ago and more, before his brother died, before he’d met Maria, years before the son and grandson who so troubled him now had ever drawn their first breaths.

  He had abandoned the heavy coat and hat and felt somehow exposed, even in the safety of his son’s backyard. Alex leaned upon the fence beside him, shaky, but under his own power, and stared out at the shadowy trunks.

  “You couldn’t stop him from going?”

  “I didn’t know,” Andreas answered. “He didn’t tell me.”

  “The police will believe he’s involved now.”

  “He is involved.”

  “You know what I mean. That he and Fotis dreamed it up together. Everything. The theft also.”

  “Let us hope they are wiser. His actions that day make no sense if he was an accomplice.”

  “Why haven’t you gone after him?”

  “He does not want my assistance.”

  “You’re going to make him face the schemer alone?”

  “He does not trust me, Aleko. You and Fotis have seen to that.” The younger man looked as if he would protest, but held his peace. “I too am responsible, of course,” Andreas amended.

  “Did you speak to him?”

  “About the icon, you mean? Yes. Too late, but we spoke.”

  “It should have perished in that church. It would have saved everyone a lot of pain.”

  “I have thought that before now.”

  Alex turned slightly to look at him.

  “Does it trouble you? That you gave it to the Germans? Does that ever keep you awake at night?”

  Andreas shook his head. He would be answering the question the rest of his life.

  “I once watched Fotis cut the fingers off a German prisoner. A young man. He did not know the answers to Fotis’ questions, but it didn’t matter. Later, he cut the boy’s throat.” He moved some damp earth with his shoe. “Another time, I shot a communist guerrilla in the hills above Tsotili. I executed him. For spreading lies, and for being a communist. A good reason to kill a man, don’t you think? Have you heard these things already?”

  “Not from you.”

  “I saw an American reporter fished out of the harbor in Thessaloniki, hands tied, skull shot through, because he spoke to the wrong people. I watched dozens of men, young and old, beaten until they confessed to things they had not done. Once I even saw them take a woman—”

  “Why are you telling me this now? I asked you questions for years and you never said a word, not a word.”

  “Why do you imagine I’m telling you?”

  “I don’t know. So I’ll say it’s all right, that I understand?”

  “Your forgiveness,” the old man spat bitterly, and Alex looked away. “Do you imagine your forgiveness could matter? You who have lived his whole adult life in this soft, fat country? There are things for which I would have your forgiveness, Aleko, many things, but not these. No one can pardon me, and I seek no pardon. But can you think, in the face of what I’ve seen, that a damned painting could mean anything? Do you really believe that is what keeps me awake?”

  “All right, then. But here it is, back with us again. And it has its talons in my son now.”

  “I did not cause that.”

  “And you did not prevent it, either.”

  “What would you have me do?”

  “Find it.”

  “Find it. Then what?”

  “Burn it, bury it, give it back to the church, I don’t care. Get it out of his life. It is a danger to him, missing or found.”

  “Finding it will not be so easy.”

  “Of course not. If it were easy, I would do it myself. It will take someone of your skills.”

  “Which skills? Killing, lying, planting tomatoes?”

  “Hunting.”

  “I hunted men, not paintings.”

  “Hunt the men who have it.”

  “That is beyond what I can do. There are too many possibilities.”

  “Use your friends.”

  “You are as bad as Fotis, imagining I still have useful connections. My friends are few, and do not take instruction fro
m an old man like me. The police investigation will be well ahead of us, and I have no influence there.”

  “So you’ll do nothing.”

  “I did not say that.”

  Alex rocked on his heels impatiently, looking back toward the house.

  “What then?”

  “Matthew needs to stay clear of anyone who might believe he knows the icon’s location. He may be safer in Greece than he would be here. In any case, I have asked someone to look after him over there.”

  “One of these friends you don’t have.”

  “This is a retired fellow, like myself, and Matthew may make it hard on him. But it’s something.”

  Alex turned back to the woods again, squeezing the worn fencepost with one hand while he clenched and unclenched the other. “Thank you. Thank you for doing that.”

  “He’s my grandchild. When he returns here, I will try to take him in hand, but it won’t be easy. He is mistrustful and stubborn.”

  “Like his mother,” Alex concurred.

  “And his blood is up now. Hopefully, the matter will sort itself out swiftly.”

  “You don’t care which way it goes? Whether Fotis is tied up in it, whether the icon ever appears again?”

  “Stolen art is seldom recovered. I only want Matthew safe, and released from blame. I have business with Fotis, but I don’t know that we shall ever resolve it.”

  “I’ll kill that old bastard if I ever see him again.”

  “Yes, well, many have tried.”

  “He’s like a disease. I’m surprised you didn’t kill him years ago.”

  Andreas looked over at his son in some dismay, then nodded slowly.

  “I was his creature. He looked after me long past the time he needed to. He was supposed to arrest me, you know, when the colonels were in power. Papadopoulis ordered it. Instead, he sent me out of the country.”

  “Very loyal of him.”

  “It was. And dangerous. There was no gain in it for him.”

  “He was banking your goodwill against the day that he was out and you were in.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps that’s what he told himself.”

  “You think he cares about you at all?”

  “It’s possible. Against his own will and understanding. Anyway, he’s not a simple man, he keeps us all guessing.”

  “That’s how he keeps control.” Alex cleared his throat, working up his courage, Andreas could tell. “Why did you tell me those things just now? All those terrible things. It wasn’t about the icon.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe just to say them, to someone.”

  “Have you never spoken about them?”

  “To your mother, a little. Only a little. Why should I burden someone else?”

  “To ease your own burden.”

  “There is no ease in telling.”

  “How would you know?”

  “These things have no meaning outside of the times and places where they happen, whatever the judges and moralists say. Much of the work, even the bad work, was necessary. No one can understand but the others who went through it, and we are too troubled to help one another. And now, too few.”

  “It’s not my fault if I don’t understand. You sent me here.”

  “I did not expect you to stay, to marry Irini—I thought you would come back to Greece. But it is much better that you did not. Much better.”

  “I probably would have become a communist, just to spite you. What are you smiling about, old man?”

  “The idea of you taking any interest in politics at all.”

  “You don’t make it sound like I’ve missed much.”

  “No, you were wise. It’s a fool’s game.”

  “It’s good that you came here,” the younger man said softly.

  “It’s good that we’ve spoken.”

  Andreas breathed in the damp air, exhaled slowly. Such declarations from his son were the best he could hope for, and he tried to be grateful for them, grateful for this moment. Glancing over, he noticed that Alex no longer leaned upon the fence but merely touched it with one hand, swaying slightly, but standing on his own feet.

  “You look good, Aleko,” he said, against the dictates of ancient superstition. “You look strong.”

  Alex stared hard into the woods, searching, perplexed.

  “Yes. I feel strong.”

  Sotir Plastiris lived in one of the many concrete apartment buildings that had come to deface the city of Salonika. Like most residents, he had filled his terrace with plants and bright flowers, and the collective effect of all that living color somewhat ameliorated the gray, slapdash look of the buildings themselves. The interior was furnished in the traditional bourgeois fashion: white walls, dark wood, a hammered copperplate with Alexander’s profile hanging in the living room, a figurine in gaudy peasant dress in a glass cabinet. To the man’s credit, there was no cheap icon in the corner with a votive candle before it; this meant only that Sotir had no wife to attend to such matters. Matthew might have looked down upon the whole arrangement, but in truth the apartment wasn’t so different from his grandfather’s in Athens, and he felt comfortable in it.

  “Yiasou,” said Sotir, handing Matthew a small glass of cognac, then raising his own as he sat down in an easy chair opposite. He turned his round face to the window, his expression slack, his mind seemingly at rest, but his companion suspected otherwise.

  “By plane, it would be difficult,” Sotir said after a time, his English precise, but heavily accented. All his grandfather’s cronies insisted on speaking English to him, Matthew mused. Some matter of professional pride, no doubt. “They are careful at the airports now. A ship would be easier. More private owners, more space. You could hide a small piece within a large container. Customs at the ports are overmatched by the volume, and also corrupt. Mostly, they are afraid of what is being taken out, not what is coming in.”

  “Piraeus, or here?”

  “Piraeus would make more sense. More activity.”

  “It wouldn’t have arrived yet.”

  “In a few days. It’s more than a week from New York, depending on the stops.”

  Matthew nodded, sipped the cognac.

  “Of course, it could be a plane. An isolated airstrip.”

  “Yes, and it may be coming by train from Paris.” Plastiris smiled with gray teeth. “It may not be coming at all. We are speaking only about what is probable. It would be unwise to tire yourself with every possibility.”

  Instead of trying to duck his grandfather’s watchdog, which would likely have been impossible in any case, Matthew decided to make use of him, and had to confess that he liked Plastiris’ easy, Old World style. He also had to keep reminding himself that the man was one of the gang, an ex–freedom fighter, spy, assassin—who knew what?

  “The main thing,” Sotir continued, “is to keep your eye on Dragoumis, see what he does, who comes and goes. Which is difficult, since the house is on a hill and surrounded by trees.”

  “How was he able to buy that property? He was supposed to be in exile.”

  “Your grandfather opened the way. It was intended as a small favor. Visits, for Holy Week each year. He surely did not expect that Fotis would be allowed to build a fortress, or engage in his old activities.”

  “Why was he?”

  “It’s the way things are done. He was distrusted until the moment Andreas persuaded them to make a concession. Once they did, his file was downgraded, and they forgot all about him. Things must be black and white for bureaucrats. If he’s allowed back in, well then, he must not be a real threat. Besides, he’s old. It’s all young men in there now. They don’t remember the colonels. They don’t remember anything.”

  “Do you have the means to watch the house? Because I sure as hell don’t.”

  “Dragoumis is not my concern.”

  “No, apparently I am.” He waited, but Plastiris gave nothing away. “And Fotis is my concern, so it all goes together.”

  “I am sorry, Matthew. I am retired
. My nephews do favors for me sometimes, but I do not want them getting near your godfather. He is too unpredictable.”

  “Then I guess I’m on my own.”

  “Will you attempt to see him again?”

  “We’re supposed to meet tomorrow night. The Easter services at Saint Demetrios.”

  “Is he well enough?”

  “If he decides he is, not much will stop him.”

  “Of course. And you will try to learn more of his plans.”

  Matthew massaged his temples with both hands.

  “‘Try’ is the word. I pushed him pretty hard yesterday. Dredged up some stuff from the war, but nothing about what he’s up to now.”

  “I think it unlikely he will tell you anything useful.”

  “I’ll just have to stay nearby, look for him to make a mistake.”

  “You hope to catch him receiving the icon.”

  “That would be convenient.”

  “Why do you believe it will come at all? He does not live here. The chance of discovery and seizure is great. There is no logic to it.”

  “You’re probably right, I don’t know that it’s coming. But the longer he stays, the more I think it must be for some reason.”

  “He is ill.”

  “Yes, but I wonder if that alone would stop him if he needed to be elsewhere. If the icon is in the possession of others in New York, even if they’re in business with him, he’s taking a big chance by being away for a week. They may get ideas. He’s not that trusting.”