Z, 50th Anniversary Edition

by Vassilis Vassilikos

  Then, as they entered the building, he heard:

  “Is there some other exit maybe, so they could get away from us?”

  “Bulgars, you’re going to die!”

  “Z., you’re going to die!”

  “But this is a disgrace,” Spathopoulos repeated more insistently. “Can’t you hear what they’re saying? Can’t you arrest them? What sort of a government is this?”

  Then he passed through the iron gate and climbed to the third floor, where Z. was still speaking.

  Chapter 15

  He’s come, thought Z. as he saw Spathopoulos walk into the hall. He’s returned like Lazarus from the other world. I’d thought he’d vanished forever. He’s come back. But what about those who have never come back, who’ve abandoned us without transmitting their message? All the dead who circulate in our blood and never put to us the questions we put to them? The night without mysteries: a big rectangular blackness like a door. And those two who ordered us to cut the loudspeakers did so because the loudspeakers were opening holes in the night.

  I must speak. The faces in front of me require that I speak. But when Lazarus came back from the other world, all he found to say was: “I’m hungry.” I’m hungry means I’m beginning life again from the beginning, I’m asking for food again. Once again, I want justice, equality, peace.

  A little stream in which two cows stand hoof-deep. A sun at its zenith, a glare that scourges me. What else to say? I don’t know. When the telephone stops ringing, you think no one remembers you. And nevertheless you are lullabied—not you but your image—in the sheets of women and in the dreams of youth. If they kill me, I shall become that kind of image. A disembodied face seeking its justification upon a stranger’s retina.

  The present day has filtered drop by drop through my brain, which can no longer follow sequences. A situation rears itself by degrees alongside us, we see it suddenly matured and are terrified.

  Love is sweet, but sweeter still, myself inside you. The hour of your surrender, nerves of your neck atremble. The hour when you lose yourself in me and I control your yielding. You, a passive and passionate sea, by nature both eternal and ephemeral, a rivulet, a ravine where red-clawed partridges are calling, you and I, peace.

  The policemen came up and polluted our hall, demanding—what? They checked on things and left. But the breach was widened, that’s what frightens me. Instinctive fear of turning into a photograph. When everything impells me that way. Why?

  One photograph clashing with another in the armory of the dead. Traversing time as ships traverse the sea. But the sea is eternal and the ships fleeting.

  What was I saying? To these people, nothing. I was talking to myself. Life is, yes it is, beautiful. When there are no telephones, your hand in mine, the nerves of your neck responding to my lips, life is, yes it is, beautiful, when no one dies of leukemia.

  I have difficulty speaking in public. I cannot give words to the cataclysm within me. Words are symbols too. Feelings alone are genuine. I can’t find the words to say I love you, I cannot live without you, peace.

  Stockings and underclothes hung up on a wire line to dry, fastened with decrepit, rusty clothespins. Who are you?

  I’m a man shut up in this hall, who cannot speak. People came here to listen, and how little I’ve said. People nowadays distrust words. Their faith is in images, in just such a photograph as I shall become, for them. Disguised as a photograph, I shall insinuate myself into their houses.

  A progress not unrelated to technology. Whoever believes that the spirit exists independently of scientific developments makes a huge mistake. But the pain in my head returns and I see: a big red egg, big as a public square, red as Red Square in Moscow. It cracks and breaks and out comes a bird; even though my mother boiled it, out comes a bird which begins to fly. It flies through the atmosphere, the stratosphere, the ionosphere. Tell me, what do you feel now? The mind is narrowing, the heart is narrowing. Everything depends on a telephone call I shall make this evening when my parody of a speech has come to an end. The planes are taking off. And we take vengeance on everything we could not be. Failure.

  Come, come back, I must speak to you. Don’t hesitate to come. I have no hesitation about speaking to you. I miss you. Life is beautiful when everyone has enough to eat and drink, when everyone can get drunk.

  “But this is a disgrace!”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “Disperse them.”

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Well then?”

  “They must be dispersed.”

  “We will guarantee your safe departure by bus.”

  “That is unacceptable.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the buses are traps. The crowd could stone us more easily once we’re inside a bus. In our position we’ve learned to be wary of everything.”

  My skin perspires; afterwards, the queers take over the world. Whole armies of men who can no longer be men. Undelivered letters for him who became legend. The earth shouts. Injustice shouts. Don’t turn me into a photograph.

  They’re taking a long time; they struck the other without mercy for his weak heart. “O-o-o beautiful Thessaloniki!” And now nothing. Good night. The world is shrinking, the heart is shrinking. Worse, I haven’t grown used to being afraid.

  “Orderly departure!”

  “We’re not under siege at Missolonghi.”

  “No danger.”

  “And the stones?”

  “The crowd’s been dispersed.”

  “To where?”

  “To a point beyond your hotel.”

  And now, my love, farewell. Love is what did not happen, what did not exist. Elsewhere are you, elsewhere am I. For us two there will always be some justification.

  Chapter 16

  Yango bent down from his seat and peered through the iron lattice protecting the window of a watchmaker’s shop, to see the exact time. But that didn’t help any, because each clock there had its own time. So he moved on, till he came to a shop that flaunted its advertisement clock before him, like the switch button that jerks automatically when there’s a short circuit. Twenty-five past nine. The time he’d been told to be at the appointed place. He was already three minutes late. He tapped on the rear window and Vango’s face appeared.

  “Let’s get going, koumbaros,” Yango shouted.

  Stepping on the gas, he made for the demonstration. He decided to take a different route from the one he’d come by, so as not to attract attention. He would go the long way around by Nea Megalou Alexandrou Street, up Aristotelous Street, keeping in the right-hand lane, turn into Egnatia Street, and from there disappear into the narrow byways of the market, so familiar to him, until he arrived at his appointed post on Spandoni Street, which gave like a secret artery into the very midst of the fray.

  All along the way the city seemed relatively calm. Not many people out, not many cars; and despite the numerous illuminated shop windows, the streets were dark, though not dark enough for him to turn on his own lights. It all seemed very remote from what was going on only a couple of blocks away. Even though driving very fast, he noticed a couple walking arm in arm, a group of young strollers loitering in front of the big Lambropoulos stores, one or two American sailors from the torpedo boat that had just dropped anchor in the harbor. As he waited for the traffic light to turn green, he saw a little boy with a pan of fresh koulouria stacked up like a pyramid. He wanted one; his mouth was dry. But he was afraid of missing the next light. The city was breathing in its usual quiet, neutral rhythm, near the sea, which tonight was scarcely breathing at all. He turned left and entered Aristotelous Street.

  The sudden swerve tossed Vango to the other side of the pickup. Vango cursed loudly, certain that Yango, who was driving without a thought for him, hadn’t heard him. Then, grabbing the railing of the pickup, he amused himself by watching the white arrows on the pavement flashing by behind the vehicle. They reminded him of
the furrow made by a submarine torpedo, heading straight for the flagship of the enemy fleet. He’d seen such a thing in the movies.

  Yango was now in the neighborhood of the Petinos Café, where he’d beaten up the woman this afternoon. A bit farther on, the Catacomb, where he’d torn down the announcement. In the green traffic island, the empty frame where the announcement had been was still visible. It hung there like the skeleton of a kite caught on wires.

  Turning his head abruptly as if saluting officials on the platform at a parade, he caught a glimpse of his own stand at Vasileos Irakliou Street deserted and drowned in darkness. The huge block of the tobacco factory dominating everything. Only the Electra movie house had lights, and they were too weak to pierce the surrounding darkness. At this hour not a pickup truck was to be seen. Instead, there were piles of crates, sacks of cement, and barrels, which tomorrow morning would provide his friends with delivery jobs. As he drove up the street, he suddenly realized the full significance of his mission tonight. This evening’s transfer job was the one that would make all the other transfer jobs secure.

  Now he was racing past the stone foundation of the buildings on either side of Aristotelous Street. Columns and arches which, to his swift glance, seemed to melt into each other, forming one continuous, uniform wall. At the intersection of Aristotelous and Ermou he looked to his left and saw menacing figures outlined in the distance. Dimly he heard a voice from the loudspeaker, without being able to distinguish what it was saying. He could have entered Spandoni Street directly from here, but he risked being spotted by some troublesome witness. And so, following Autocratosaur’s instructions, he continued toward Egnatia Street. In front of the EDA offices something was going on, but he didn’t slow down for a second. He should worry. He had his own job to do.

  At the point where Aristotelous Street meets Egnatia Street, he held out his left arm and the traffic cop signaled him to go ahead. Exactly to the right was the police station, where he’d gone that afternoon after the incidents in front of the Catacomb. Grazing the traffic cop’s wooden stand, he turned left again and then right, into the market, with its labyrinth of narrow, slate-paved streets. He knew them like the lines of his own palm.

  From the way the pickup was bouncing around, Vango could tell they’d entered Modiano Market.

  The market was closed. The merchandise was covered with big pieces of canvas. Hardly any light. Not a single human being. Eyeing the window of a butcher shop, Yango felt a craving for pork chops. The smell of olives, oil, of fresh strawberries now in season, of tomatoes he didn’t dare look at—he only ate tomatoes in July, when the price dropped to a drachma a pound—of fresh cucumbers as expensive as a leg of lamb, went to his head. Shifting into second gear and veering skillfully to left and right, he spied the shop that sold women’s purses, suitcases, and hats and he knew he’d arrived at Spandoni Street. He shut off the motor and coasted along, stopping three or four yards from the square. Three men who seemed to have been waiting for him a long time rushed out to meet him. He jumped out and with a piece of burlap covered his license plate. He didn’t have enough string to tie the burlap with, but he did the best he could. In the end, it was completely covered.

  “You’re late,” said one of the three.

  “We had another one to polish off on the way,” Yango explained.

  “Luckily the guy hasn’t finished his spiel yet. All right. Get ready. Get back on your seat and don’t budge. Keep your foot on the pedal. Got it?”

  Yango, who hated to be ordered around, obeyed as meekly as a child. There were now about ten men in front of him; he didn’t recognize any of them, they weren’t in uniform and had their backs turned. They formed a wall, like the wall soccer players form when the opponent is about to kick a goal from the penalty line. Even though higher up than the others, he could barely make out what was happening. The cries reached him in indistinct waves.

  It was no coincidence, he thought, that everything was taking place within one compact space: the police station, the Catacomb, his stand, the meeting, the hotel where the VIP was staying right over there, the EDA offices, and all the streets in this space intersected each other at right angles. Only one ran diagonally—the little asphalt street where he was now parked. And he, like the bishop in chess, moving diagonally from this point, would lunge into the square among the pawns, rooks, and knights, to check their king.

  Chapter 17

  Joseph had no interest in politics. His shop was beside the Ministry of Northern Greece, and there he worked peaceably as a carpenter, without bothering anyone. That evening, although the shops were closed, he had stayed on to finish a kidney-shaped table, so that he could deliver it the next day to the woman who owned the neighborhood grocery. She had become rich because of the apartment buildings recently constructed on the corner and wished, as she explained, to replace all the old junk she owned with beautiful modern furniture. This would be added to the dowry of her daughter, who would soon be old enough to marry. She had contracted for the job on terms favorable to herself.

  At about 8:30 he decided to stop. The smell of the wood aggravated his asthma. He decided to take a walk as far as the water’s edge and get a breath of sea air. He strolled along, absorbed in his own thoughts, passed the Caravanserai, and then turned up Venizelou Street. Noticing a crowd of people in the distance, he thought first of an accident. He stood on the corner waiting for the light to change.

  “What’s going on?” he asked a man standing next to him.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is it a demonstration?”

  “That remains to be seen,” said the other.

  The green light flashed and they crossed the street together, separating without a word, on the opposite side, Joseph going to the left and the other man to the right.

  As he approached, he began to see what was happening. People were fighting among themselves and throwing rocks at a building. Why? He went on, out of curiosity. Outside the Adams Department Store, his attention was caught by a nude mannequin in the window; her nudity contrasted strangely with the opulent richness which surrounded her. He saw reflected in the shop window two men trying to grab a third, who was running away; they tripped him, laid him out, and began kicking him. The victim grasped him by the leg and, with a sudden spurt of energy, managed to topple him down; but the larger of the two aggressors intervened. Taking a thick sailor’s belt ornamented with a heavy metal buckle, he began thrashing him.

  Joseph looked around: he could see people in other places engaged in precisely the same actions. It was as if one scene were being reproduced in a series of mirrors. Then he felt someone tearing at the frayed lapel of his jacket. Forced to turn around, he found himself facing a character with the eyes of a drug addict, who pulled at his lapel as if he wanted to tear it off.

  “Where’s your pin?” he demanded. Joseph felt the heavy, foul breath on his face.

  “What pin?”

  “So you’re not one of ours?”

  Letting go of his lapel, he punched him in the stomach. Joseph doubled up. He had a chronic ulcer.

  “Why are you hitting me? What have I done?”

  Meanwhile other people had collected. Somebody tickled him in the ribs to make him turn around; and when he did, an elbow struck him straight in the face. He started to bleed. What was happening?

  “Police!” he shouted. “Police!”

  A policeman not far away pretended not to hear. One last kick in the back cracked against his spine. He fell to the ground and watched as someone smashed a chair and distributed the pieces to the circle of outstretched hands, which a moment later were armed with improvised clubs. He fainted.

  When he came to at the first-aid station, they were sewing up the wound over his eyebrow. He was in horrible pain. Who had brought him here? How? He didn’t know, he didn’t remember. His bones hurt to the very marrow. When his wound was bandaged, he hurried home.

  The hours slipped past and he couldn’t sleep. The idea that he woul
dn’t be able to finish the little kidney-shaped table for the grocery woman worried him. Black thoughts buzzed in his brain. At the first-aid station he’d heard talk of someone named Z.—a stranger to him—and about pacifists: who wasn’t a pacifist? The good Joseph himself was unable to believe in the Crucifixion. Around midnight a rooster crowed; someone knocked at the door. Joseph lived alone, his wife had died three years before. His daughters were married, his son worked in a factory in Germany.

  “Who’s there?” he asked, before opening the door.

  “Police.”

  Trembling with fear, he opened the door.

  “Come with us.”

  “Where?”

  “To the police station.”

  “Just a minute, I’ll go get dressed.”

  “No. Come as you are, in your pajamas. Put on a coat, the car’s waiting.”

  He did as he was told. He was in horrible pain. At the station they sent him directly to the office of the Chief of Police. The Chief asked him to sit down. He seemed very affable.

  “Joseph Zaimas, son of Leontos?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Occupation, cabinetmaker?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Your papers are in order, Zaimis. There’s no reason to get them dirty. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I mean it’s better for you to avoid preferring charges against unknown parties. You’re a good fellow and the police have a good opinion of you. You realize that there’s been a misunderstanding. They took you for someone else. If you will forget the incident, it will make our position easier. If I can ever do anything for you, just let me know.”

  It was the first time a full-fledged police chief had ever spoken to him. In a certain way he felt flattered. His work permit, everything, depended on these people.

  “You can leave now. Forgive us for bothering you at such an hour and in your condition. But tomorrow would have been too late. The others would have got to you before us. Tomorrow, when you read the newspapers, you’ll understand why I made you come. Good night.”