“I won’t say anything.”
“Not even to your husband. No one told you about it. Otherwise I’m lost.”
“I won’t even tell my husband.”
“I know what they’re like. I know what foul trash they are. You live somewhere else. We’re with them every single day and have to be careful. Look out for Z.! They’ll eat him alive!”
On this note he had left. Now, home and falling asleep, he no longer had any doubts—after the counterdemonstrators he’d seen outside the building where Z. was to speak, and the worked-up crowd—that trouble was brewing for everyone this night. “It was the same then, too!” he said aloud. “The very same! They put the women in black outside the law courts and shouted: ‘Death to the murderers!’ Nothing’s changed. Seventeen years have gone by; it’s all the same again. Again! Ah, where are you, youth—you who mirrored the man I betrayed.”
“Stop raving,” his wife called out from the kitchen. “It rained today and the ceiling’s leaking. A rotten house built on the sly is all I deserve and all I’ve got for a lifetime with Mr. Kostas.”
He turned over on his good side and went to sleep.
* New Parthenon: the name given to the island of Makronissos, where political prisoners were deported during the civil war of 1947–1949.
** EDA: United Democratic Left.
Chapter 4
She’d been right. That’s the only thing he could say now as he looked through the Labor Union Club window at the commotion outside. “They’ll kill him: they’ll consume him, just the way they tossed the first Christians to the hungry lions.” And these hungry lions howling down below—skinny, ill-dressed, sickly—how could they clamor for hunger and misery and against peace? But this was no time for philosophy. It was a seething, dangerous time. He was waiting for Z. and his entourage to emerge from the hotel.
He had done his duty. When his wife phoned in the morning, saying, “I want to meet you right away,” Z. and this evening’s assembly hadn’t crossed his mind. Soula’s voice was alarming. He thought: something serious has happened to her, an error in the account books, a threat. “What is it? What is it?” he asked her anxiously. “You start out at once from your office, and I’ll start out from mine. Come down the right-hand sidewalk.” When they’d parted this morning, everything had been fine. It wasn’t yet ten o’clock. What could have happened in an hour and a half? He knew his wife. She wasn’t easily upset. It took a great deal to shatter her splendidly cool nerve. So what had happened? He stumbled down the stairs. On the street he was almost running.
“Someone came,” she told him once they had met as agreed, outside a perfume shop. “Someone who begged me not to tell who he was—not even you—and he told me they’re going to assassinate Z. tonight. I didn’t know you expected Z. tonight.”
He was silent. His wife’s ignorance of Z.’s coming lent greater urgency to her message.
“And the one who gave me the information, he doesn’t even know who Z. is.”
“How did he find out about it?”
“Is this a cross-examination, or will you believe what I’m telling you? You’ve got to act at once.”
She was ready to leave.
“Just a moment, Soula,” he said. “One moment.”
“I can’t. The boss looked at me suspiciously as I left. You know very well he may fire me any time on account of you.”
Then he, returning to the EDA offices, immediately called the lawyer Matsas, without revealing that the information had come from his wife. And Matsas said he would report it right away to the Public Prosecutor and ask for protection.
“What kind of protection?” he reflected now in front of the Club window. “They’ll kill him. They’ll eat him alive!” Till a stone, accompanied by a cry of “Bulgar, you’ll die tonight!”, came through the window and hit him on the nose.
Chapter 5
The lawyer, Georgios Matsas, son of Jannis, member of the Salonika branch of the Greek Committee for International Détente and Peace, was waiting below at the iron gate of the building on whose third floor Z.’s speech was scheduled to take place in a hall next to the Labor Union Club. He himself was greeting the audience, to give them courage.
The Friends of Peace, like the first Christians, arrived with reverence, with that deeper certainty of people who believe in something, in an idea, in a God. They believed in peace, a badly worn word to be sure, which in our own days has acquired a new meaning. Peace could no longer be conceived as the apathetic preference of human beings for concord and love among nations. Peace required support, participation, a struggle against whatever threatened to disrupt it. So they were not afraid of the howls of the pterodactyls or the swooping birds of prey—bearded vultures, sparrow hawks, turkey buzzards—or the menacing movements of the carnivores—jackals, coyotes, wolves—which had gathered on the surrounding sidewalks and were choking the entrance, beneath the almost paternal gaze of the police and the security agents.
Many of them streamed in right from the Catacomb, where, according to the newspapers, tonight’s meeting was to take place. There they had read the torn announcement about the change of hall and without a fuss walked on: it was just two blocks away. And when they saw the “outraged citizens” arm in arm with the police, hurling curses and denunciations, jeering, aiming punches at them, they realized how essential the meeting was.
And Matsas at the entrance was keeping up their courage, welcoming them. He was trying to counteract at least the fright caused by the policemen, who were loudly shouting their names, as though they—the friends of peace—were princes and counts whom some old major-domo was announcing at a reception held by two deaf kings. Other policemen, in plain clothes, threatened them in furtive whispers: “Remember the hospital!” or “Ten years in prison and you still haven’t come to your senses.” Matsas’s presence was one familiar element in an unknown quarter of the moon. Because this quite friendly part of the city, with its closed shops and old buildings, its commodious intersections and small alleys radiating from the Modiano Market like little streams, had metamorphosed into a bloodthirsty arena, a clandestine crossroads of the anomalous, a danger zone planted with mines left over from the Occupation.
Who else indeed, Matsas thought, was here in this place tonight except the impenitent murderers of the Occupation? There’s Autocratosaur, for example, an important Nazi hireling, acquitted after the Civil War. There’s Dougros, from the Hitlerite Militia of Poulos, carrying a life sentence for collaboration with the Germans; Leandros, an old member of the Greek Nazis. Too many others to count.
Every so often he would leave his post near the door and go over to the kiosk to phone either the Public Prosecutor or the Chief of Police. What unheard-of things were happening tonight! The darker it became, the fiercer were the faces all around. Neither the security agents nor the policemen were lifting a finger to help those being knocked about by the counterdemonstrators.
“Where’s the Prosecutor?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who’s speaking?”
“Who are you?”
“I want his home number.”
“Look it up in the directory.”
“The directory doesn’t list it.”
“I don’t know it.”
And then: “Mr. Chief of Police?”
“He’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
“Where the trouble is.”
“But I’m phoning you from there.”
“He’ll be coming along, he’s on his way. Phone the station.” He phoned the station and some officer put him on to the Emergency Squad. Did they take him for a fool? He saw baboons in the distance, approaching with baskets of stones. These were not chance occurrences.
He knew very well they were not. Ever since the meeting had been announced in the press, they’d begun following him and the other lawyers of the committee. He himself had had two shadows. Wherever he went, they tagged behind him. Suddenly his actions were no longer
private. His freedom had been cut off. As if he were smuggling dope and the bloodhounds of the Security Police wanted to catch him in the act. Once he caught one of them off guard—the short one with the checked jacket. “I’m on duty, Mr. Matsas,” was the answer. Then he turned to his friend, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Northern Greece. The latter pretended surprise. “If you don’t believe me, come and look.” And he drew him to the window and pointed out his shadows at the Ministry exit. It let up for a day or two—he thought his complaints had worked. Later he learned that during those days all the detectives had been mobilized for the security of an eminent visitor, General de Gaulle. After that a black limousine would park at the corner, by his house, and remain until late at night, when all the lights had been turned off. He watched it from behind the blinds. At that point he went, with the president of the legal society, to the Chief of Police. “Unfortunately, that’s an order from the Ministry of the Interior, Mr. Matsas. We have to follow all members of the Peace Committee. I cannot do otherwise, no matter how much I respect you personally.”
This was one thing that convinced him nothing was happening by chance tonight. The other was the strange attitude of Zoumbos, proprietor of the Catacomb. He had agreed to lend his place for the Friends of Peace meeting and had pocketed the full rent—three thousand drachmas. Then yesterday afternoon, out of the blue, Zoumbos said he couldn’t let them have it unless they brought a permit from the police. In vain Matsas tried to explain that a permit was required for outdoor meetings only, not for meetings in an enclosed area.
“I don’t want to get mixed up in anything. Either you bring me the permit or I won’t let you have the place.”
“But, Mr. Zoumbos, you’re being unreasonable.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying.”
“Unless there’s something you’re not saying.”
“There’s nothing I’m not saying, and I’m very reasonable. You lawyers can make up whatever you like out of your heads.”
“If you’d told us this several days ago, we’d have had time to look for another hall. We’d have had time to inform people through the newspaper. Now you’re really making trouble for us! They’ll come here from all over the city, and what will they see? An announcement telling them to go somewhere else! And where else, Mr. Zoumbos? At the last minute you tell me! Where’ll we find another hall?”
“That’s your affair. I’m returning the rent you paid me in advance. I’ll also give you the forfeit that’s due because of the cancellation of the agreement. Now … leave me alone!”
“But this isn’t the way to behave, a big cabaret-owner like you!”
“What do you want, Mr. Matsas? I have to make a living.”
“I’m not saying you don’t.”
“Then leave me alone.”
“Did they put so much pressure on you?”
“Who put pressure on me?”
“You know very well who.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Why are you stuttering all of a sudden?”
“You’re not getting anywhere, Mr. Matsas. Nowhere at all. Goodbye.” And Zoumbos got up to leave.
“One minute,” the lawyer called after him. But Zoumbos had already disappeared.
It started him thinking. Not only was he being followed, there was now Zoumbos’s refusal. Had someone perhaps overheard their conversation? Turning around, he saw a character who at that precise moment lifted his newspaper to cover his face. Had he been planted there? Or was Matsas overly suspicious? Then he got another idea. He remembered Prodomidis, of the Rotunda Theater. He had let them have the theater on a previous occasion for the same kind of meeting. Matsas telephoned him, but he too beat around the bush.
“Just now, a little while ago, Mr. Matsas, they paid me a visit here …”
“Who?”
“Inspectors from the department of public entertainment. They prohibited the renting of the hall until it’s fit for the public.”
“What’s wrong with the hall?”
“The seats aren’t set up.”
“Our meeting won’t take place until tomorrow.”
“We’re short of staff because the summer season hasn’t started yet. And it’s not as easy as you think to set up the seats. I’m very sorry. Truly, I’m sorry.”
“I understand.”
“You remember how pleased I was in the past to let you have the theater. I also happen to be a pacifist. But now …”
As he hung up, he thought: No, Zoumbos couldn’t get away with it. He had to find him again, talk to him, persuade him. He phoned Zoumbos’s home and his wife gave him all the phone numbers where he might be found. He went through them one by one but couldn’t locate him anywhere. He got home about 11:30 exhausted but in spite of everything woke at dawn. From behind the blind he saw the black limousine; this time it had been there all night.
Early in the morning he went to the Prosecutor and demanded his intervention for the hall. The Prosecutor actually sent a written message to the Chief of Police requesting that he “persuade the owner to make his hall available after all.” About eleven o’clock Matsas had to return to the Prosecutor on another, more serious matter. He now had been informed that they were planning to murder Z. Who? How? He didn’t know. Someone got wind of it and passed it on to someone else. Finally it had reached him. He didn’t find the same prosecutor. Another man sat in the armchair, shaking his head gravely.
“With such vague charges, all I can do is relay the matter to the police force. While you are here I’m going to phone the Chief of Police and pass the information on to him.”
He phoned, but the Chief was out. He then asked the officer on duty to have the charges communicated to the Chief.
“All right?”
“All right.”
The Prosecutor actually looked sleepy. He was probably thinking that lawyers these days (perhaps because of lack of work) spent a lot of time on extracurricular affairs.
“At any rate,” concluded the Prosecutor, “rumors of this nature often circulate. It is not wise to pay too much attention to them.”
Still in search of a hall, Matsas left the Prosecutor. The only possible site was the Catacomb. But Zoumbos had disappeared. At 2:30 Z. and Spathopoulos arrived. Along with the others, Matsas met them at the airport. He didn’t know Z. But when he saw him coming down the steps off the airplane, a feeling of certainty flooded him. Z. was a real man, powerful, with a high forehead, a leader, a true champion of the Balkan Games. He was holding a raincoat in one hand, and a briefcase with the other. Matsas recognized him from photographs in the newspapers when he’d walked alone from Marathon to Athens, the month before. Then he’d looked tormented, harried. Close up, he was something else. As they all walked toward the car, Z. turned and asked him suddenly: “Is everything ready for this evening?”
“Nothing’s ready, unfortunately. We don’t have a hall, and the public hasn’t heard about it. They’ll come, and we won’t know where to put them.”
They didn’t stop to eat. After dropping their suitcases at the hotel, they all went to the Chief of Police. He received them coldly though not hostilely, as representatives from the other shore. He had the air of a movie American negotiating with Russians, carefully observing his adversaries’ every gesture and movement as though fraught with meaning, when in reality it meant nothing at all.
“Well, gentlemen,” he told them, “to be brief, the hall isn’t in good shape. I have here”—and he drew a sheet of paper from his drawer—“the report of the committee of public entertainment. It says that the hall needs certain improvements, which Zoumbos hasn’t taken care of.”
“But it was in use as a music hall right up to April, Chief. How can it be unsuitable now, less than a month later?”
The Chief turned a steady gaze on them, hoping by the serenity of his counternance to prove his sincerity. “By far the most important thing,” he went on, “is that the hall lacks an emergency exit.”
&nb
sp; “Then it shouldn’t have been used as a music hall.”
“Music halls don’t have emergencies; in meetings such as yours there is always the risk of stirring people up.”
“The report, if I’m not mistaken, mentions an exit not an emergency. No emergency will be created by our side.”
The Chief assumed a professionally patronizing manner. “Listen, boys, I have nothing against your renting the hall; and you have nothing against me. I’ll call Zoumbos and try to persuade him. Though I very much doubt if I’ll succeed.”
“When you want to, Chief, you can manage anything.”
“I respect you personally, Mr. Matsas, and I hope that you, especially, won’t overestimate my power. I am only a humble cog in the government machine.”
Z. had said nothing, Matsas recalled. He was too proud to mention the rumors of an assassination. He merely stared over the Chief’s head at the portraits of Paul and Frederika, examining the frames.
Only later in the afternoon did Matsas learn definitely from the officer on duty that Zoumbos had refused, giving unlikely excuses such as that he’d thought he was renting the hall to the lawyers’ association; that if he’d known it was for the so-called Friends of Peace, he’d never have signed the contract.
“But it says on the receipt who’s renting it. He’s talking nonsense!”
“That’s what he said, Mr. Matsas,” the officer told him. “Just what I’m telling you.”
He was in his office. The telephone had begun to sweat against his ear. He hung up. Before he could wipe off the perspiration, he picked up the phone again. This time it was Zoumbos himself.
“Well, I won’t give you the key.” He was all excited. “I won’t give it to you. Go somewhere else; go wherever you like. From me there’s no key. We made no agreement—nothing at all. There’s no key.”
Z, 50th Anniversary Edition Page 4
