by Tobias Hill
The floor of the cave was smooth, rising towards the furthest recess: he knew there were no crevices, but with the light gone he began to doubt it. He lurched forward into the dark. A dry branch snapped under his foot. He took a second step.
On the fourth step he paused. He could hear something ahead. A scrabbling or a gnawing. It stopped and started, stopped and began again, surreptitious, like a mouse inside a wall. It was the bird, he told himself, the echoes confusing its location. But he knew it was not the bird.
He took the last five steps in a rush and snapped on the light. There was limestone a foot from his face, yellowish, blueish, black. He had almost run headlong into it. The only way onwards, to his right, was a ridged orifice of stone.
It was smooth, its edges calcified, as if it had been burrowed out by water. It tapered as the cave mouth did: only by the floor was there room for him to go on. He shone the light inside. The crawlspace opened out. More than that he couldn’t tell.
He sat down beside the hole with his back against the stone. He hauled the satchels around, unbuckled them, and unpacked them carefully onto the ground between his feet.
Bread. Six round loaves of it. Water, which he had known was there, feeling its counterweight as they climbed: eight litres in four segmented bottles. A ball of blue nylon string. A bar of Nestlé chocolate. A mask.
He took out the mask. It was a latex head, skin-tone, the scalp hairless. The face dimpled and sagged in his hands. For a moment it was familiar to him: a horrible old man with half-moon eyes and an obscenely puckered mouth. It was one of the ritual masks from the Sanctuary of Artemis-Orthia. Then he had it flat, and the mouth and eyes relaxed and became mournfully anonymous.
He couldn’t put it on. It was the mask which brought it home to him, all at once, crashing down. The cave around him, and the night outside. There was a Hallowe’en mask in his hands. He tried to remember the point at which it had become definite, his presence in this time and place. The point of no return.
There is no going back.
He pulled on the face. The rubber yanked at his hair. The hood came all the way down to his neck, hanging stiffly below his chin. Instantly he began to sweat. There were no nostril holes and he took one suffocating breath before he understood. His breathing echoed unevenly as he packed the satchels and knelt by the orifice.
He inched his way in. The crawlspace was as smooth as its mouth had been, as if it were the product of an organism, or organic itself. The air was warmer inside, and there was a new smell, too, not that of the stone or the rubber mask but something animal. A faint, foetid, faecal scent that made him retch with fear.
He kept going. At one point he felt the walls against his shoulders. Then he was through the worst of it, and as the passage broadened out he discerned the beginnings of a second cave.
It was much larger than the first. The roof above was jagged, hung with dry, broken stalactites. The far walls were out of sight. The floor was deep, shelving down sharply from his ledge towards the outer limits of his light.
There was something down there.
It was near the blind end of the pit, perhaps fifty feet away. It was moving, though his first thought was that it might be only incidentally animate, a heap of leaves or ash or driftwood directed by some subterranean current of air or water. Then he saw it was working at something, scrabbling at a stone overhang, erratically but doggedly, as if hunting for sustenance, and the fact of its life became unavoidable.
It was squat, dark, and quadrupedal. He remembered the jackals, but this thing was bigger and cumbersome, with no alertness or grace. For a moment it seemed to him that it was a pig, a massive farm-bred animal, the wrongness of that in the darkness worse than anything. Then as his eyes adjusted he understood that it was not that either, was not four-footed at all, the main mass of it a heap of blankets or pelts, and the limbs scratching at the overhang each concluding in a hand.
His light furred the stone around it and it stopped its foraging with a jerk and turned in a circle. It raised an arm against the glare and then began to shamble towards him. As it came the blankets and sheepskins fell back from the head, and he saw that it was certainly a man.
He dropped the torch. The light flared and went haywire. He caught the pommel as it skittled towards the edge. When he had it steady again the man was closer. He was no longer young but was big in bone. His hair was almost gone, though he had a moustache and a newer, paler growth of beard. His mouth was open as he stared upwards and his eyes were screwed up against the light, the expression faintly imbecilic.
No sound except for the conjoined echoes of their breathing. Finally the man licked his teeth.
–Good evening.
–Hello.
His voice was not his own. It was lipless, distorted by the mask.
–Do you know how I know?
–What?
–Good evening. How do I know to say good evening?
–I don’t know, he said, and the man smiled, pleasantly, as if they were discussing fine weather.
–There is a bat. Only one. I thought they lived together, like the birds, but here there is just one. It’s not here now. It’s gone to hunt. So then I know it must be evening. I hate it. It shits everywhere.
He said nothing. After a moment the man raised a hand, as if he meant to wave.
–Can you see this?
His accent was provincial, Ben thought, though his voice was distorted too. It was hoarse from disuse and his teeth clenched oddly around certain words or syllables. There was something clotted in his beard, a dirty pussy crust around the wet shine of his teeth. –Can you see this? he said again, and Ben shuddered.
–I don’t know what you mean.
–My hand. The man smiled terribly and spread his fingers into a star. –Look. It’s cut.
–I can’t–
–I try to climb. I keep trying. Of course I try. Come up to the edge, he said, and when Ben shook his head he took another two steps himself. Now the hand was raised above his head. The nails were black and broken. The palm was stained a vivid ochre.
–See it now?
–Alright.
–It’s bad. Rotting. I’m rotting to death. So you see, I need a doctor.
–I’ll tell them, Ben said, and the man stopped smiling. He moved his hand to his forehead and blinked into the light.
–I heard you yelling. Which one are you?
–No one, he said, and the man laughed.
–You all say that. You’re all the same. Are you the Englishman? Yes, that’s you. It’s not like you, Englishman, to be yelling like that. Someone might hear you. They might find this, this…I don’t remember. I forget words now, you know. Atrocity. This atrocity. But listen, Englishman, you don’t sound like yourself today. Maybe you need a doctor too. Maybe you’re rotting, like me. Come down, we can rot in hell together. What is today?
–Saturday.
–That’s right. I lose count sometimes, now. I lose track of my bat. I lose track because I hate it. The little fucker shits everywhere…Saturday. What month is it?
–I can’t tell you that.
The man laughed. –You all say that! But I don’t see why. I don’t see why, eh? Come to the edge, boy. I can’t hurt you.
–I’m sorry, Ben said, and the man lunged forward, suddenly frenzied and strong, scrabbling at the pit wall, his black nails scraping on the rock.
–You’re not him, are you? Jesus Christ, which one are you? Who are you? Help me. For God’s sake, boy, help me, help me if you’re not him!
–I’m sorry, he whispered again, and the man began to shriek, his mouth puckering in rage, his face crumpling like the mask.
–Fucker! Arsefucker! Whoreson! Bastard, I’ll kill you, I’ll eat you alive, I’ll…oh, for the love of Christ, please! Please? Please! Please!
The shrieking followed him. He had no conception of what he was doing until he found himself back at the entrance, flailing at the undergrowth with the torch-head and his empty han
d. He stopped only as the shrieking faded.
He sat down. He noticed time passing only when the dry cold of the stone began to permeate his clothes. He thought of that. The old man sleeping in the cave, the cold creeping up into him.
The pigeon was crouched across from him. Its eyes were bleak, empty of all interest in him. He found it in himself to be surprised that it had not fled. He wondered if it was dying.
The mask was wet with sweat and saliva. He wiped at it uselessly, then peeled it off and shook it out. After a while he realised he could still hear the man in the pit. He was no longer shrieking, but his voice rose and fell distantly, an ululating sound, not wordless but made indecipherable by echoes.
You’ll know what else to do.
One of the satchels was still round his shoulder. He got up and rescued the other. It was halfway across the first cave. Once he had gone that far it was not so hard to keep going. He put the mask back on. At the wormhole he got down on all fours. To keep the torch ahead he had to crawl on his elbows.
He crept to the edge of the pit. The old man was huddled below, rocking on his haunches. Along the wall beside him were faint, dry streaks that might have been blood or faeces.
He opened the satchels again. He tied the string around the neck of the first bottle and began to lower it. Half the ball was unspooled when the bottle began to swing, bumping along the wall of the pit, and the man stopped rocking, his eyes rising to the bottle first and then on upwards. The expression was that of a figure in a religious painting, a martyr gazing heavenwards, patient, expectant, fanatic.
–I’m thirsty.
–Untie the string.
–What else is there?
–Bread.
–Just bread?
–Some chocolate.
–Ah. That’s good.
–Did you really cut your hand?
–Bastard, the man said, and untied the string, cradling the bottle in his arms.
It was slow work. They were both clumsy in the torchlight, labouring together without much helpful talk. Without any prompting from Ben the man collected up a litter of empty bottles and tied them on to be reeled up. Once he asked again if Ben was the Englishman, his voice doubtful and querulous. When they were finished the man lay back, wrapping the sheepskins around him. He looked older, lying there: later Ben would understand that it was because he looked so like a corpse. His gaze drifted up, but his eyes were empty, like those of the bird. There was nothing in his face. It was like meeting the eyes of a baby, a newborn whose sight was so weak it perceived nothing but the vaguest outlines of anything beyond the immediate. He hoisted the satchels and left, ripping off the mask, crawling back through the caves and the curtain of undergrowth.
The night had become beautiful. The moon was paler, sailing clear. An aeroplane was heading west, its altitude so extreme that it seemed to make no sound at all. Elsewhere the landscape was timeless. The hills were mythical. Silvered.
Eberhard sat where he had left him, a sentinel looking out across the hollows of the valley. Ben trudged down the slope. His legs were numb, and the scrub snatched and tugged at his feet. When he reached the outcrop he dropped the satchels and the mask and sat down, not facing Sauer or Sparta but looking back up towards the caves.
It was a long time before Eberhard spoke, and when he did his voice was soft and meditative in the moonlight.
–His name is Kiron Makronides. He is sixty-nine years old. He was born in Epirus to a military family. During the war his father was one of many who served the Germans. He fought against the communist resistance and died an undistinguished death in the Epirot mountains. After the war the family lived with an uncle stationed in Lárissa. Kiron became an officer in the armoured cavalry. He married young and well and received a post at the Armour Training Centre in Athens. In 1967 he was promoted to a captaincy. One night that spring his superiors overthrew the lawful government. I expect you know that story.
An owl cried somewhere below. He shivered, hearing the man’s voice in it. In the moonlight the cave was clear, a splinter of darkness in the lunar face of the mountain.
–It would be bad enough to say the powers of the world did nothing. The truth is they did everything. The coup would never have occurred if not for America. Socialism was strong here. The West feared its sympathies. For twenty years America groomed the Greeks, seduced them with wealth, interfered with them, subtly or brutally as the times required or allowed. The relationship was that of abuser and child. You think this is hyperbolic. The metaphor is too violent. What other form of metaphor should one use to describe violence? That spring the American ambassador called the coup a rape of democracy. In reply the CIA chief of station in Athens asked how one could rape a whore. One has to admire his honesty.
He turned to watch Eberhard. His voice was still meticulously calm. His arm lay along his thigh, the hand and thermos cup outstretched. The posture was like those of the figures in the museum, alongside the masks. Chthonic Deities.
–That spring there were soldiers who found it hard to obey their orders. Kiron was not one of them. He was one of those young officers who feared and loathed the communists as if they were mythical monsters. He believed those who called the coup a revolution to save the nation. It was all beautifully organised. Athens was seized in the small hours. Ten thousand were arrested by dawn. Many of them were old people whose names had been on file since the war. They were held at the racecourse on Phaleron Bay until arrangements were made for their imprisonment or exile to the mountains or the islands.
–Kiron was at Phaleron. His posting there frustrated him. He wanted to be on the streets, where the nation was being saved. Instead his revolutionary duty was to maintain the hygiene of old men. Among his many charges was Panos Eliopoulos. In his youth Panos had been an officer of the resistance. At Phaleron he commanded the respect of the prisoners and the antipathy of his warders. Among the lower ranks there was some talk of what should be done with old soldiers like Eliopoulos.
–On the fifth day of the coup Kiron oversaw the hours of afternoon exercise. Five hundred prisoners at a time were led out onto the track. As six o’clock approached Kiron ordered the last back to their cells. Many were still queuing when Kiron took Panos aside. The men who were with Panos say they heard the captain and the old man speaking in a friendly way as they walked towards the track. When they reached the racing lanes Kiron drew his pistol and struck Panos across the face. He went on beating him after the old man fell. After he had stopped moving Kiron turned him over and shot him once in the chest.
–The camp commander knew the Makronides family. Fifteen years before the coup he had served with Kiron’s uncle in Korea. The death of a prisoner was a tractable problem to him. The racecourse at Phaleron was sand rather than turf. The evening of the killing two junior officers from the Armour Training Centre were ordered to water the sand until it was soaked clean of blood. The commander’s report concluded that Panos had been killed while attempting to escape on his way to the toilet. The cause of death was a single bullet to the heart. The bullet had been fired by a second lieutenant, Kopris Kotsarides, who bore no responsibility, since he had acted in accordance with his duty, but who nevertheless did not appear on any other army records that survived the military regime.
–It took only seven years for the junta to destroy itself. Its leaders and torturers were put on trial. Some were convicted. Most not. Many records had been burned and others falsified. Some of the leaders died in prison, but most are now growing old on handsome country estates: the torturers went free long ago.
–Many crimes were publicly forgotten. Kiron Makronides is only one of many who have gone unpunished. Most of them are still alive. There are murderers and torturers who betrayed everything that Greece is and has been and should be, and who live as happily ever after as children in fairytales. Kiron is exemplary. His life has been full of rewards. He has had an enviable career. At his retirement he held the rank of lieutenant-general. He is still employed a
s an advisor to two national companies. He is a Knight Commander of the Order of Honour and the Order of the Phoenix. This will make you smile: when we took him, two months ago on his yacht, he was polishing his medals.
–Why are you doing this?
His voice sounded querulous, like that of the man in the cave, and Sauer turned and looked at him strangely, as if he had spoken in some indecipherable ancient tongue.
–Because some things are worth fighting for.
–What things? What will this do? Eberhard, how is this a fight? You’re as bad as he is, you’re just punishing one old man, I can’t see–
–The punishment is incidental. A week from now, on Easter Day, Kiron will be free to go, assuming our demands are met. But those are incidental too.
–You’re mad.
–If I am then so are you. So is Kiron. Everyone has their own shameful little streak of madness. Most hide their neuroses and manias as best they can. They act out an ideal sanity which very few ever possess. And in the end the charade is ludicrous, because we all suspect that we aren’t alone in what we feel. We come to realise that others must behave as falsely as we do ourselves. We never hide these things nearly as well as we hope to do. What point is there in pretending? Everyone is a little mad. The only relevant distinction is that some admit to it. Are you angry with me, Ben?
He answered automatically, lightheadedly, his voice far off and disembodied. –I used to be angry all the time.
–You should be now. There’s no sanity in anaesthetising yourself. There are things to which anger is the only sane response. The life of Kiron Makronides. The forgetfulness which allows it. You should feel angry about such things. Have you ever admired Sparta, Ben?
All my life, he thought, but he didn’t say it, not wanting to give Eberhard that. –That’s got nothing to do with this. I don’t see what you hope to gain–
–We hope to focus minds. People forget too easily. They have no appetite for the past. They need to be reminded. No one remembers the murder of Panos Eliopoulos, but they will. No one wants to take account of the crimes of America. Except the Greeks, of course: the Greeks need less reminding than most. But Greece is where we choose to act, because Greece matters to us. This is where the West begins and ends. This is the birthplace and the easternmost frontier. The frontier is where we are needed most. Greece is weak and deserves our help. The Spartans understood. We fight the same fight as they did. We came here to remind ourselves that others fought as we do. Sparta gives us hope–
