The Cretan crossed himself. ‘How can you say such a thing about a book by the greatest modern Greek writer?’
‘I could argue the toss about that for hours.’ Mavros was not a fan of the great man’s work, finding it overblown and under-edited, though this book — the story of a freedom fighter and family patriarch who dies in a final skirmish against the Turks — was better than most; certainly more powerful than Zorba the Greek, which largely owed its popularity to the film. Give him a poet of few words like Cavafy or Seferis any day.
‘Actually, I was only messing with you. I have a literature degree from the University of Crete,’ Mikis admitted. He stared ahead. ‘And now the fun starts.’
Mavros followed his gaze. A pickup truck with massive chrome bull bars was parked across the road, completely blocking it. Two men in high boots, vraka, and mandili, stood in the back, each carrying a shotgun, while another one in the cab spoke into a walkie-talkie.
‘Shit,’ Mikis said, under his breath. ‘You sure you want to go through with this?’
Mavros looked over his shoulder. Another pickup was drawing up behind them. ‘I don’t think we have much choice, my friend.’
‘Play dumb and British,’ said the driver. ‘If that isn’t a tautology.’
From The Descent of Icarus:
It was dusk when I came round, unaware of where I was until I managed with great difficulty to pull myself up from the floor of the ruined house. I stumbled over to the shattered window and looked out on to the small square. What I saw was a scene of unbelievable horror.
The bodies of my fellow paratroopers were now almost completely covered by those of the New Zealanders, gendarmes and local people who had defeated them. I was unable to focus and struggled to walk, so hard had the blow to my head been. But at least I was still alive — not that I took any comfort from that. I could only imagine that either 109s had strafed the enemy to destruction or that our troops on the higher ground to the rear had fired down on them. The place smelled like the slaughterhouse in my grandparents’ Bavarian town in August — iron blood, rotting guts and lacerated flesh.
Leaning on a rifle, I staggered out into the square and started looking for the woman. I was drawn to her and, if she had been killed, I wanted to lay her out and place her arms across her chest as a mark of respect. But there was no sign of her, even though there were several other women in black among the dead. Then I heard a groan from what turned out to be the sole survivor.
It was the squat British tank officer I had seen giving our men the coup de grace — an action I was fairly sure was not within the bounds of the Geneva Convention. Not that we had been observing that either. He was at the side of the street, his legs covered in blood and his face peppered with shrapnel. I dropped to my knees and lifted his head, then poured some water from my canteen into his mouth. He stared at me in amazement.
It wasn’t long before paratroopers began to trickle into Galatsi, initially observing the drills for taking possession of disputed territory and then showing themselves as it became clear there was no danger from the enemy.
‘Identify yourself!’ came a raised voice I recognized instantly.
I slowly hauled myself upright and gave my name and unit.
Captain Blatter came closer, limping from a wound above his right knee. ‘Where are the others?’ he demanded.
I nodded to the square. ‘Underneath.’ I said, provoking a glare. ‘Sir.’
Troops were pulling enemy bodies off their comrades and swearing.
‘Herman! Throat cut!’
‘My God, the lieutenant’s head’s nearly off!’
‘Two men stuck by the same Maori!’ I watched as the sergeant drew his own bayonet and stabbed it repeatedly into the dead New Zealander’s back.
Blatter ignored that. ‘What have we here? A British survivor?’
The wounded man stared up at him. ‘Waggoner, Captain David.’ He stated his regiment and serial number.
‘How many of my men did you kill, Captain?’ Blatter placed one of his jump boots on the Britisher’s legs and pressed down hard. ‘How many?’
‘My Captain,’ I said. ‘You-’
‘Silence!’ he roared. ‘You hid yourself away while your comrades were massacred. Do not think I will forget that!’
Captain Waggoner looked at me, his eyes dull, then turned back to Blatter. ‘Fuck you!’ he shouted. Blatter kicked him hard and he lost consciousness.
The regimental doctor came up to me and examined the side of my head. ‘He couldn’t have done this himself, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he said to the captain. He was taking a risk, but the medics were a law to themselves after they proved themselves in battle, as this one had in Belgium.
‘They will pay for this,’ Blatter said, limping over to an old woman who had been nearly cut in two by machine-gun fire. ‘Your children and grandchildren will burn in hell!’ he yelled, his spittle flecking the dead woman’s swollen features.
Without being ordered, the paratroopers set about removing our dead from the heaps in the square, treating the bodies of the enemy without the slightest respect. I was glad the woman who saved me had escaped, fearing that her corpse would have been mutilated because of her great beauty.
‘With a head wound like that, you should be in hospital,’ the doctor said to me in a low voice.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I should be beneath the ground.’
He didn’t understand my meaning. Why should he? We were the spearhead of the German armed forces, we did not crumble after a few days’ fighting. But it wasn’t the fighting that had undone me, hard and ghastly though that had been. It was the dauntless courage and nobility of the Cretan woman. I realized that if I’d found her body in the square, I would have plunged one of the long Maori bayonets into my own heart.
NINE
‘Leave this to me,’ Mikis said, opening his door.
‘No,’ Mavros said, doing the same with his. ‘Time for me to play the blundering Brit.’ He walked forward slowly, waving his hand. ‘Hello!’ he said, in English. ‘Is the road closed?’
Mikis swiftly overtook him. The men in the pickup had levelled their shotguns at them.
‘The gentleman is British,’ he said, in Greek. ‘He asks if we can visit the village.’
‘Why?’ demanded one of the men, beetle-browed and bearded. ‘Don’t you know better than to bring tourists here?’
Mikis let his shoulders slump. ‘I’m sorry, but he insisted. He says his grandfather was here when the Germans held the island.’
The men’s expressions remained stony, but they exchanged a glance.
‘Was he sent by someone?’ the bearded villager asked.
Mavros was playing dumb, but the question put him in a dilemma. Should he lie about Waggoner providing an invitation? And if so, how could he get that across to Mikis?
The Cretan wasn’t thrown. ‘I think so,’ he replied. ‘I can’t understand the name he says.’
‘Ask him again.’
Mikis went through the process of asking Mavros in halting English for the name of the man whose writings had led him to visit Kornaria.
‘Waggoner,’ Mavros said.
‘O Lambis,’ hissed the bearded man to his sidekick.
Mavros presumed that was the cover-name Waggoner had used when he was on Crete during the war. He cursed himself for not asking the Fat Man to do those searches overnight. Outwitting Oskar Mesner had distracted him from the main case.
He nodded. ‘Lambis, that’s right,’ he said, in English.
There was a hurried conversation between the men in the first pickup and another who had come up from the one behind the Jeep.
‘All right,’ the bearded man said to Mikis. ‘You can go up to the village.’ He frowned. ‘Keep your tourist under control and don’t go beyond the houses.’
Mikis raised his shoulders. ‘It’s a dead end anyway, isn’t it?’
‘It’s certainly been that for all the invaders who tried to
take us,’ the other man said, his eyes unwavering.
The pickup was manoeuvred out of the way and Mikis drove on.
‘I hope you enjoyed that demonstration of mountain hospitality,’ he said.
Mavros grunted. ‘Friendly types, aren’t they?’
‘Still sure you want to go through with this? I won’t be able to step in like I did last night. There are dozens of guys like those ones in Kornaria.’
‘I’ll keep my questions to a minimum.’
The track led down into a wide valley and ahead of them lay a surprisingly large patch of flat land covered in sheds, with a cluster of white houses in the centre. The air was clear and tinged by the chill of the snow on the peaks. It struck Mavros that this would be a very harsh place in winter.
‘See those sheds?’ Mikis asked.
‘Not for mushrooms?’
‘Correct. Don’t even think of taking photographs.’
‘Never crossed my mind.’ The only camera he had with him was in his mobile and it wouldn’t pick up much from such a distance. ‘Anyway, I don’t give a shit about them growing dope.’
Mikis glanced at him, then steered round a large pothole. ‘You say that, but it isn’t the way things work. Everything that goes on in Kornaria has some connection to the core business. And that business extends far beyond the village.’
Mavros thought about that. David Waggoner had a house up here — could the old soldier have anything to do with the narcotics trade? The mayor, Vasilios Dhrakakis, would obviously be in the business up to his neck. And what about Maria Kondos? Was the missing woman linked to it in some way too? Had she been driving Cara Parks’ car after all when the drugs gang member was killed?
They drove past a few abandoned buildings and into the village proper. It was spotless, the white houses on each side of the concrete road gleaming in the sunlight, their wooden shutters and fences freshly painted. There was obviously no shortage of water, as the bougainvilleas and oleanders were tall and healthy. Old women in black peered at the Jeep and its occupants curiously, while young women in jeans played with chubby children.
The road ended in a wide square with a large tree in the centre. It was very quiet — the men presumably in the cultivation sheds or playing cowboy in their pickups. Metal tables and chairs with wicker seats were arrayed outside a solitary kafeneion.
‘Give them a few moments,’ Mikis said. ‘They’ll have been told we were on the way.’
Sure enough, a trio of barrel-chested men in traditional garb and boots came towards the Jeep. They weren’t armed, but they hardly needed to be. Mavros had the feeling that they were being closely watched from the open windows of surrounding houses, each of which no doubt had a well-stocked gun cabinet.
‘Welcome,’ the man in the middle said, in Greek. He wore a moustache that extended horizontally across his cheeks. ‘I am the mayor, Dhrakakis is my name.’
Mikis introduced himself — he had no choice about using his real name since ‘Tsifakis’ was all over the Jeep. ‘I have brought an Englishman whose grandfather was here in the war.’
Mavros bowed extravagantly. ‘Arthur Smith,’ he said, with a tentative smile. ‘Very pleased to meet you.’
Dhrakakis eyed him diffidently and then extended a horny hand. ‘Kornaria welcomes the offspring of the brave man who fought for Crete’s freedom.’
Mikis translated for form’s sake.
The mayor turned on his heel and walked over to the kafeneion. He stopped at the most shaded table and extended his arms. ‘Please, accept our hospitality.’
Mavros nodded and smiled frequently, trying to look as foreign as possible. As he sat down, he realized what a dangerous game he was playing. These men had their code of honour and it wasn’t long since the vendetta had become less common — for all he knew, it might still be flourishing in Kornaria. Deceiving them might be very costly. Then again, he’d be off the island as soon as he found Maria Kondos and he didn’t think their reach would extend to Athens.
After glasses of raki had been consumed — Mavros pretending to choke — and coffee provided, along with slices of a dark, nutty cake, the mayor turned to him.
‘Your grandfather, what did he tell you about Kornaria?’
Mavros explained via Mikis that Ralph Smith had been a wireless operator in the mountains, spending weeks with only a pair of guards, but that he had always spoken with great pleasure of the days when they came down to Kornaria to replenish their food supplies. The villagers had been most generous, slaughtering sheep and chickens and opening casks of aged wine.
Dhrakakis nodded throughout Mikis’s presentation, a slack smile on his lips.
‘And he was part of Lambis’s group?’ he asked.
Mavros smiled broadly.
‘Ou-anggoner,’ Dhrakakis said, struggling with the English ‘w’ and ‘gg’ sounds.
‘David Waggoner,’ Mavros said, nodding vigorously. ‘I have read about him, but my grandfather didn’t say if he was attached to his unit.’
The mayor raised a shaggy eyebrow. ‘Lambis was in command of all the British in this area,’ he said firmly.
‘Well, then, my grandfather was with him,’ Mavros relayed back.
‘How was he called, your grandfather? He still lives?’
Mavros shook his head. ‘He died last year.’
Mikis’s translation brought exclamations of grief and sympathy. Again, Mavros felt bad about deceiving them. Then he remembered Dhrakakis’s voice on the telephone — he definitely knew Maria Kondos and had been concerned by mention of her name.
‘How was he called?’ the mayor repeated.
Mavros looked confused and then gave the impression of understanding. ‘Ah, you mean his cover-name? Yes, he told me it was Panos.’
Dhrakakis, who looked like he was in his late fifties, shook his head. ‘I have learned from the old ones of all the British and New Zealand fighters. No one ever mentioned any Panos.’
A heavy silence fell. Mavros considered and then decided to take another risk.
‘My grandfather mentioned a family he stayed with, they were very good to him. I can’t quite remember the name. . Kond. . there were more letters. . Kondo-something. .’
Mikis translated, with a dubious look on his face.
The three men in black leaned together and started talking in low voices. Mavros glanced at Mikis and then looked around the square, as if enchanted by the picture of rustic simplicity.
‘There was the Kondoyannis family,’ the kafeneion owner said, from the doorway. ‘They moved to America in the Fifties. There are none of them left here.’ He was given very heavy stares from his co-villagers.
‘How sad,’ Mavros said, realizing a hot piece of information had dropped into his lap and dissembling as best he could. ‘Do none of them ever come back?’ The return of Greeks who had made good abroad was a feature of Greek popular culture — they made elementary mistakes with the language, wore expensive clothes and threw money at their dirt-poor relatives as if it were feeding time at the zoo.
Dhrakakis was staring at him. Mavros had done what he could to change his voice from the one that the mayor had heard on the phone, but even if he had succeeded in fooling him on that count, all bets were off now he had heard what could be the vital name.
‘Perhaps I made a mistake,’ he said, looking at Mikis. ‘Are there any villages with a similar name?’
It wasn’t much of an escape plan, but Mikis did what he could.
‘Well, there’s Koulouridhiana and. . Kambanos and Koudhouriana. .’
Mavros asked for the last one to be repeated. ‘I don’t know, maybe that was what Grandpa said. He was quite vague in his last years.’
Mikis got up and extended his hand. ‘I’m very sorry to have brought this man to your village under false pretences.’ He was being deliberately over-respectful, which impressed Mavros. The young Cretan was turning out to be a useful associate.
Dhrakakis regarded Mavros with ill-disguised contempt. ‘The
English today have become women,’ he said. ‘Take him to a barber, young Tsifaki.’
Mikis smiled. ‘I will.’
The appropriate farewells were made and they made it back to the Jeep. One of the mayor’s henchmen was already speaking on a walkie-talkie, alerting the guards to let them pass, Mavros hoped.
‘I hope you think that was worth it,’ Mikis said, as he drove out of the village.
‘It was. I have a name I can work with — Kondoyannis.’
‘May it bring you much joy.’ Mikis waved at the men in the pickup. ‘Christ and the Holy Mother, that was nerve-wracking. And it’s all right for you, back in Athens shortly. They can find me easily enough.’
‘Sorry about that. Anyway, there’s no reason they should come after you.’
‘Is that right? What if Dhrakakis describes the English visitor to David Waggoner?’
Mavros looked out at the sparsely covered terrain. The sea and the thick tranche of cultivated land alongside it were visible in the distance.
‘You’re right,’ he agreed. ‘That would not be ideal. Let’s hope that Waggoner’s too busy with the film to come up to the village for a while.’
‘It only takes a phone call.’
Mavros was getting irritated by Mikis being right all the time. ‘For your information, I’m not an Englishman. I’m half-Scottish.’
Mikis shook his head. ‘As if that makes any difference.’
In the context of heavily armed Cretan dope-producers, Mavros had to admit he was right. Now didn’t seem the right time to ask how often vendettas occurred on the Great Island these days.
About ten minutes out of the village, the track took a bend round a large rock. There was a line of ancient olive trees, their trunks as wrinkled as a dinosaur’s legs and their pale leaves almost touching the ground. It was then that Mavros saw the woman, stepping quickly down the hill.
‘Stop!’ he shouted, opening his door before Mikis brought the Jeep to a halt. He ran through the treeline and towards the woman, whose black hair flew out behind her as she started to stumble on more quickly. ‘Stop!’ he repeated, in English.
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