Z, 50th Anniversary Edition

by Vassilis Vassilikos

  “Sergeant, is it possible for us to go back so that one of your men could take the van?” he asked the head of the patrol before they turned into Ermou Street. “I’ll be needing it when I’m finished at the station.”

  The sergeant said that was not his affair, and then, making radio contact with his department, he announced that the guilty party had been arrested and was being taken to the police station. The words “guilty party” offended Yango. He wasn’t the kind to take a joke like that. How was it possible that the police had not been informed that tonight he, Yango Gazgouridis, was going to render a distinguished service to the nation? And how could they behave so insultingly, treating him like a common criminal?

  But nothing offended him as much as having to leave his van in somebody else’s hands for the night. He had no sentiment about human beings. But he loved his kamikazi. He decorated it with little flags, polished it to a shine, he couldn’t have looked after a woman with more care. And tonight … tonight … He’d broken so many laws in the past and it had never been taken from him—even for an hour. Yet tonight, when he was serving their own cause, they were going to haul it away! That’s what they call a good government? It was a disgrace!

  As soon as he reached the door of the police station, he breathed more calmly. The head of the patrol led him upstairs and handed him over to the officer on duty, delivering both his driver’s license and his club at the same time. Then he saluted and left.

  In the station Yango found all his pals. They were all there: Kotsos, Manendas, Baïraktaris, and even Zissis, whom he hadn’t laid eyes on for months. But there were three characters he didn’t recognize sitting on the bench. They might have been burglars, he thought, though actually they didn’t look like it. He was clever enough to avoid showing too much friendliness with the police in front of the strangers. Then he went to the office of the sergeant on duty and turned over his identity card for the records. From there he was led to another office on the door of which were the words: ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER.

  When he opened the door, he saw Mastodontosaur himself, frowning.

  “Mr. Commissioner,” he began. But Mastodontosaur stopped him with a gesture and signaled to him to close the door. His somber manner made Yango feel ill at ease.

  “What’s up?” Yango asked anxiously.

  “Sit down first,” the Commissioner told him.

  He sat down and lit the cigarette the Commissioner offered him.

  “Things aren’t going too well, Yango,” Mastodontosaur said, getting up and pacing nervously around. “It’s not working out as we planned.”

  “Didn’t I do the transfer job all right?”

  “You did it all right. If that slimy devil hadn’t jumped into the van, the whole thing would have been just fine. You and Vango would have disappeared completely. We could have made it look like an ordinary traffic accident and we’d still be looking for you. Now everything’s fouled up. We can’t do that now. You were apprehended by an agent of the law who lacked indoctrination.”

  “What doctor’s station?”

  “Indoctrination, Yango. We have families to feed. Now we have to get ourselves out of the mess as painlessly as possible.”

  “I understand,” said Yango, greatly worried by his chief’s dejected air.

  “It isn’t just me, you know. There are others over me. And over them, there are still others.”

  “For me you’re the highest, Mr. Commissioner.”

  “That’s not the point. I’m trying to let you in on things and there’s not much time. It won’t be long before the prosecutors come to get a statement from you. Then you’ll say what I’m going to tell you. Take some paper and a pencil and write it down.”

  “I can’t read or write.”

  “Hell, I forgot.”

  He paused, staring at the ceiling light vacantly.

  “If only Vango had gotten rid of that scoundrel who jumped into the van, we wouldn’t be in this fix now. What a jerk he is! Coward! Imbecile!”

  He struck the table angrily.

  “I’d have done him in with a twist of my wrist,” said Yango. “I clobbered him with the club and the son of a bitch had a hard time getting up again. If it hadn’t been right in the center of town, I’d have laid him out on the pavement. But there you are, a crowd gathered and a fireman in uniform kept me there.”

  “And where’s Vango now? What’s he doing with himself? Unless your statements agree in every detail, we’ll be in trouble. Where’s the pig dawdling now? Just on the chance, I sent a jeep to the first-aid station to pick him up if he’s there. If the prosecutors get to him before we do, we’re done for.”

  “Maybe he went to the Little Refugees.”

  “What little refugees?”

  “The tavern. It’s got good retsina.”

  “Surely not. God only knows where he is. Anyway, he’s sure to turn up any minute.”

  Yango had never seen the Commissioner so upset. Mastodontosaur kept lighting and stubbing out cigarettes. He paced the floor. His eyes were haggard.

  “And my wife will be waiting for me at her Institute,” he sighed. “I’m supposed to pick her up. If she only knew!”

  Yango himself was calm. He couldn’t see beyond the end of his nose. Had he realized that his chief was in danger, he might have been afraid. But to his way of thinking the police were invulnerable. The law couldn’t be used against them; it was they who imposed the law. He didn’t know that those who make the laws and those who put them into effect are different sets of people. The police station seemed to him as inviolable as Gonos’s tavern when Autocratosaur was holding forth. No one could crash the gates.

  “And who’re those three characters on the bench outside?” asked Yango.

  Mastodontosaur was nonplused.

  “What three characters?”

  Opening the door a crack, he saw the three lawyers seated on the bench, taking in everything that was going on in the station. “But this is an outrage!” he thought indignantly. “Spies on our own doorstep.”

  He went out and spoke to them: “The disturbances are at an end. You may leave.”

  “We’re waiting for the police captain,” said the lawyer in the middle, whom Mastodontosaur knew to be a Red.

  “Now we’re in worse trouble than I thought,” he murmured to himself as he reentered his office. “Did they see you come in here?” he asked Yango.

  “How should I know? Yes, they must have seen me.”

  “But they don’t know you?”

  “No.”

  “That’s all right then,” he sighed. “But suppose your photograph gets into tomorrow’s newspaper and they recognize you.”

  “It’s a good thing I was suspicious of them,” said Yango, “and clammed up in front of them. But who are they?”

  “Three lawyers who took part in the meeting and know everything. We’re done for, Yango, we’re done for! I can see no way out. Let’s get in my car and beat it to Germany.”

  “If I had a passport,” said Yango, “I’d have gone a long time ago.”

  Chapter 32

  They were like three pigeons in a flock of crows. They kept their eyes open and they remembered what they saw. The three lawyers were unaware that Z. had been mortally wounded. They had been among the first to leave the meeting. Heading for home, as they reached Egnatia Street, they were accosted by some toughs.

  “Bulgar Hatzisavva, drop dead! Go back to Bulgaria, baldy!”

  Hatzisavva prudently dived into the first hotel he saw, the Strymonikon, and waited for the storm to pass. The other two quickened their steps, still tagged by the hoodlums. At a shoe store on Egnatia Street they were joined by a colleague as terrified as they. He took the place of Hatzisavva in the group, and the trio went on, trying to shake off their pursuers.

  But the owl monkeys and the anthropoids kept on their trail like seagulls following fishing boats. They glided over the sidewalk with incredible agility, sometimes in front of them, brandishing their fists; s
ometimes in back, shouting: “We’re going to knock you off, dirty Bulgars! We’re going to follow you right to bed!”

  The lawyers couldn’t in all decency start a fistfight with these wretches. Fortunately, they met a police patrol returning to the station.

  “Officer,” one of the lawyers addressed the officer in charge, “we would like your protection. These scoundrels are following us.”

  Immediately the thugs began to play the innocent strollers taking an evening walk.

  “Who is following you?”

  “These hoodlums!”

  “Come along with us,” the officer said, and made a sign to his men to form a protective ring around the three men. But while they were waiting for the green light at Egnatia and Aristotelous Streets, one of the thugs slipped nimbly between the policemen and struck one of the lawyers on the head.

  “Did you see that? They’ve got the nerve to do that in front of you!” And taking a two-drachma piece, the lawyer pressed it on the spot where he’d been hit, to avoid a lump.

  “Come on, let’s move along,” said the officer. “Follow us to the police station. Nobody will bother you there.”

  And in actual fact, once inside the station, no one did bother them. No one paid any attention to them at all. They sat there on the bench and waited. A quarter of an hour later they saw the same officer come down the steps and issue a command: “Everybody to the EDA headquarters.”

  The policemen stubbed out their cigarettes hastily in the ashtrays, adjusted their belts, and tramped down the stairs in a body toward the exit.

  “Must be a fight over there,” said the first lawyer apprehensively.

  “Z. must have got excited and blasted them all to smithereens,” said the second one.

  “Lucky we’re here,” said the third. “The only place you’re safe from the wolf is in his den.”

  “What a lousy night!”

  “Tomorrow I’ll file a complaint.”

  “Did you see the fellow who punched me? The officer didn’t bat an eye, didn’t even say anything to him.”

  The first lawyer noticed Mastodontosaur, in plain clothes, coming in. In a low voice he informed the other two, who didn’t know him, who he was. The Commissioner whirled into the station without paying any attention to them and headed straight for a door marked ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER. He didn’t come back. A few minutes later they saw a mustached individual come swaggering in, escorted by the head of the Emergency Patrol. He seemed to be much at home in the place, greeting everybody as if he’d already seen them in the course of the day. He looked rather like the hoodlums who had followed them in the street. The following morning, when they saw a picture of Yango Gazgouridis in the papers, and recognized him, they regretted not having watched him more closely in the police station. He too went into the office of the Assistant Commissioner. Somewhat later another man came in; he walked unsteadily, his face was bandaged and there was iodine on his elbow. He made straight for the same inner office. What was going on in there?

  There was something sinister about the building. The gray mold on the walls stank of police.

  Chapter 33

  “At last!” exclaimed the Commissioner when he saw Vango. “Where have you been?”

  “At the first-aid station.”

  “I was just telling Yango, I don’t like the way things are going. One way or another, we’ve got to cover this business up.”

  Vango turned pale.

  “The two of you will have to agree what you’re going to say.”

  “And Z.?” asked the pederast.

  “He’s about ready to croak.”

  Vango rubbed his hands in satisfaction.

  “Now listen. This is what you’re going to say. You were together, you and Yango, and you were doing some drinking. Let’s get the name of the tavern right, so you won’t contradict each other.”

  “Pahni’s.”

  “The Little Refugees.”

  “No, One-Armed Koulou’s. If we say the Refugees, someone might say we weren’t there. At Koulou’s they’re all our own boys.”

  “Fine,” said the Commissioner. “You were at One-Armed Koulou’s drinking retsina.”

  “No, ouzo. Their retsina’s no good. It’s muddy; it stinks.”

  “Ouzo, then. Along about a quarter to ten, you started for home, blind drunk. You, Yango, were driving and you, Vango, were behind in the van. A traffic cop stopped you from going down Venizelou Street, saying there was a political meeting going on. And so you decided to make a detour through the market, where there weren’t any people. You came out on Spandoni Street, expecting to find the road ahead just as clear. And you were speeding—you hear, Yango?—you were speeding because when you’re loaded you always speed; all of a sudden, before you had time to put on your brakes, you heard the noise of breaking glass. You didn’t know you’d run over someone. You came to a stop on Karolou Deel Street—you don’t know how, you were tight and only half conscious. There was a crowd of people and you saw a traffic cop coming toward you and you gave yourself up. He handed you over to the patrol car which brought you to the station.”

  “And me?” asked Vango.

  “You, a little while before, in the middle of the hullabaloo, jumped out of the van because you were afraid you might be killed by that demented guy who fell on top of you, without your knowing much of anything because you were dead drunk. This way you won’t be accused of anything but illegal driving: first, for going the wrong way on Venizelou Street, and second, for driving when intoxicated—a minor traffic offense.”

  “Will they take my license away?” asked Yango.

  “Don’t worry about that. You’ll have the van along with all the papers tomorrow,” the Commissioner replied reassuringly. “Tonight you’re going to stay right here in the bosom of your family and tomorrow you’ll go back home. And you,” he said, turning to Vango, “get going. Supposedly, we haven’t caught you yet. You’re going to be kept out of the picture as long as possible.”

  “Only one question, Mr. Commissioner,” said Vango. “The character who jumped into the pickup will spill everything. Him we ought to get rid of.”

  “That’s somebody else’s job,” said the Commissioner. “I’ve told you what you have to do. So beat it. And above all, don’t tell anybody you were here tonight.”

  “And what about those three outside?”

  “They don’t know anything.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” said Vango.

  And from his pocket he pulled a pair of glasses with no lenses. He put them on, shrank into his clothes, and, thus disguised, walked out of the office. As he left, he affectionately thumped the shoulder of his koumbaros, who was laughing heartily at the sight.

  Chapter 34

  The three lawyers saw Yango coming cheerfully out of the Assistant Commissioner’s office. He’d gone in sullen and gloomy and now seemed lively as a sparrow. He caught a policeman by the nape of the neck and slapped him one. Recognizing his friend, the policeman burst out laughing. Then Yango disappeared down a corridor. They didn’t see him again during the time they remained at the station.

  Finally the captain who had brought them and who by now had returned from the EDA headquarters, where apparently nothing was happening, suggested that he escort them to their homes. The three lawyers left the station. The fresh air did them good. The night, the great night, spread about them, as round as the domes of the Turkish baths across the street. Each went back to his own home.

  Chapter 35

  In this same great, stealthy night, Hatzis sought refuge. When he left the first-aid station, he immediately realized that he was being followed. He was the only witness of an abominable crime and assuredly they would want him out of the way. He used his head. Eluding them by climbing a wall, he slipped down deserted lanes and found himself near the old railroad station. There he fell asleep in an empty coach, his head aching horribly from the clubbing administered by the driver of the van. It would have taken a handful of aspir
in to ease the pain, but where could he get any? The nearest pharmacy open at that hour must be miles away. Besides, they must be looking for him everywhere. He fell fast asleep. When he felt the coach moving, he thought at first it was a dream. He stood up; he ached more than ever, it was like waking up after a dreadful binge. He saw he’d arrived at Plati, a half hour out of Salonika. He got out of the coach and went to look for the stationmaster. He didn’t have a single drachma in his pocket.

  Chapter 36

  Vango, instead of heading home, went straight to the newspaper office. When his reporter acquaintance saw him come in, looking like a shriveled old monkey in his disguise, he was flabbergasted.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Z.’s going to die.”

  “What have you got those glasses on for?”

  “So nobody can recognize me. I’ve come to ask you not to write anything about me. I don’t want them to involve me in the case. Z.’s going to die.”

  “And what’s your connection with that?”

  “Me? None. But if they see my name in the Macedonian Battle and if you write that I was one of the people who hit him when he went to the meeting, the investigations and all that crap will start, and it won’t do me any good.”

  “All right, I won’t mention your name. But don’t come back here again tonight, because I won’t be here.”

  Vango said good night and left. He went back to his neighborhood, passing by Yango’s house to tell his wife that the koumbaros wouldn’t be coming tonight because he had a job. From there he walked through the little woods, but there were no couples for him to spy upon, the early-morning drizzle must have discouraged them. Vango felt sprightly in his new skin, a stranger in the darkness. He ran into Stratos, one of his neighbors. Vango said he was on his way back from the center of town and that there had been some trouble. Stratos scrutinized him closely but asked no questions. And then Vango went home, rumpled up his bed so he would not have to explain to his folks the next day, and went off again into the night, looking for a trick.