Z, 50th Anniversary Edition

by Vassilis Vassilikos

  * The National Radical Union Party, right wing.

  Chapter 3

  The medical examiner bent down and looked at the cast.

  “An old fracture in the heel,” Vango told him.

  “Take off the cast,” he ordered the nurses.

  No fracture, either in the heel or in the ankle.

  “Let me see his papers,” the doctor said.

  They brought him the admission slip, which stated that Vango had entered the hospital for a heart ailment. And here he was, being treated for a fractured heel. A nonexistent one at that. It was beginning to look suspicious. A few smiles, a few hints. The medical examiner caught on.

  “Fine,” he said to Vango. “You’ve done your time here. Now get over to the Investigator’s.”

  The lawyers had set this in motion. They had sent the medical examiner because Vango had been hospitalized on the sole authority of the police physician. This time the medical examiner could not keep silent or cover up for anyone. He had to send Yango’s accomplice to the Investigator; the machinations of the police had kept him hidden all these many days.

  The morning after the assassination, Vango, as agreed, went “voluntarily” to the police station. From there he’d been dispatched straight to the city hospital with a fraudulent medical certificate. He was placed in strict isolation. The point was to prevent his giving evidence at the same time as Yango, for the Investigator would have had no trouble getting them to contradict each other. The strategy had in fact succeeded, since only now, after a week had passed and after Yango had already been jailed, was Vango brought to the Investigator’s office.

  The only trouble was that he didn’t have a lawyer. Yango’s lawyer, realizing the rottenness of the whole affair, had withdrawn from the case, pleading “overwork.” Another lawyer was found, and Vango was closeted with him for hours, getting primed, the Investigator having granted him a forty-eight-hour delay to prepare his defense.

  “… Inasmuch as the said forty-eight-hour period has expired today, May 30, 1963, at 5:30 P.M., the above-mentioned accused has appeared before the magistrates, in order to reply to their interrogation, in the presence of his lawyer, and after he has taken cognizance of all items in the file.”

  “Have you ever been charged before?”

  “Yes, I’ve been convicted for rape, illegal bearing of arms, burglary, and slander. That is to say, four times.”

  “You are hereby accused of complicity with the accused Yango Gazgouridis, in the premeditated murder of Z. in Salonika on May 22, and in the intentional infliction of contusions and abrasions on the person of Georgios Pirouchas, in such a manner as to cause grave bodily injury and endanger the life of the said person, and in any case to deprive him of the normal use of his faculties for a long period of time; all of which acts evince on your part an exceptionally aggressive and provocative spirit toward society. Have you anything to say in your defense?”

  Fortunately his lawyer had told him beforehand what the charges against him were, because Vango would never have understood. This wasn’t Greek; it was some language created for the express purpose of bewildering him. First of all, he didn’t like the Investigator: he was young, he looked honest and alert. He wasn’t the usual corrupt magistrate. That’s what worried Vango most. His lawyer had warned him, “He’ll get you into a tight spot, and if you want to get out of it, you’ll have to be slippery as an eel.”

  His interrogation lasted nine hours. He told him the story of his life. He was born and bred in Salonika, since 1931 he had been living in Toumba. He’d never left except to go to the army, prison, and camps. He knew every stone in Toumba, and he loved it. The neighborhood was poor, so was he, but the people were wonderful. The government neglected them, but even so, he didn’t hate the government, he was a good Greek. The only other times he’d been away from Toumba were when he had to go to the hospital. He had heart trouble. Yes, he had a heart condition. He couldn’t stand emotional excitement. He might even collapse during this interrogation. No, he hadn’t been to school very much; only as far as the fourth grade. Then he had to go to work because his father was dead and he had younger brothers and sisters. He’d done all kinds of jobs. He’d always been hard-working. Of course, it had been his dream to study. If he’d studied, he wouldn’t be in the scrape he was in now, being accused of absolutely imaginary things—as far as he could understand the charges from the reading of the indictment. If he’d studied, he’d know how to distinguish good from evil, and he wouldn’t have fallen into all the traps that had been laid for him; these had cost him a lot of his life. And then there was the Occupation. A harsh time, with the hunger and black bread. Two uncles of his had starved to death before his very eyes. They’d spread their legs wide apart and dropped dead just like that in the middle of the street. That year there weren’t even any birds in the sky. The Stukas chased them all away. He used to set bird traps near the brook in Toumba, but there wasn’t a wing in the air. So as not to suffer the same fate as his uncles, he joined the German labor squads, just to earn his daily bread. But the work was too heavy and he was too weak, so he had to stop. The Germans arrested him and, without a trial, shut him up for thirteen months in the Pavlos Melas concentration camp, outside Salonika. He stayed there until the last of the Germans departed after blowing up the port, and the Liberation armies arrived. It was only natural for him to join the liberators. First he got mixed up in ELAS*—at the time he had no idea what it meant. Later he was in charge of the National Mutual Aid Society of Toumba, and he wound up as the second administrative secretary of EPON.** He got caught up in the wild unrest of that period, and since he’d come straight from the concentration camp, he hadn’t had time to learn who was who. When he began to see more clearly and to suspect their real aims, when he saw with his own eyes that the dirty Commies were planning to sell Greece to the enemy, he resigned. That happened in 1946. After the elections and before the plebiscite on the King’s return. He didn’t resign out of fear that they were going to lose. He resigned out of a feeling of disgust and hatred. But this didn’t prevent them from arresting him when he went for his military service in 1949. He was sent to Makronissos, along with all the Commies. There he found himself among those with whom he’d collaborated in the past and who had never really forgiven him for bolting. How long was he going to be hunted? He was accused of being a Red and subjected to all the tortures inflicted on the Communists—while the Reds charged him with being a traitor and a stoolpigeon, planted with them to denounce them. He was rejected on all sides. Luckily, just at that point the saving declaration-of-repentance forms came along, and by signing that he “disowned and execrated Communism and all its by-products,” he was able to escape from the hell. And if anybody wanted proof that he was a good fellow and didn’t wish any harm to anyone, all he had to say was this: they’d made him a proposition to stay on at Makronissos, be a torturer or political instructor, and he had refused. Yes, he—Vango—had turned it down, even though he knew that when he got out he’d be unemployed. He’d turned it down because he couldn’t bear to see other people suffering. Later on, he was “cleared” and got his honorable discharge from the army. He at last had understood that it was better not to get involved in parties and political organizations. Enough. He’d made a vow and kept it. That’s what he meant when he said a little while ago that if he had had some education he would have known better. He had wasted ten years of his life and gained nothing. Had anybody so much as thanked him? His only decorations were slipped discs, heart ailments, scars, and weaknesses. And everything they said about him was lies, such as that he had been president of the ERE youth organization in Toumba, or again—this was unheard of—that he belonged to a league—what did you call it?—Guarantors of the Constitutional King of the Hellenes?

  Yango and he were neighbors and koumbaros: Vango’s brother had been best man at Yango’s sister’s marriage. That’s how they became friends. Of course, Yango had faults, but as the proverb goes, “Love your friends,
faults and all.” Wasn’t that right? Who doesn’t? But Yango was a good guy. And he owned a truck. What did Vango have? Nothing but a brush. That was how he earned his livelihood, as a house painter. He went to the Parthenon Café, where all the house painters gather, drank coffee and waited till a contractor came along. With a brush planted in the pail beside him, he waited for hours on end. Some days he’d eat, others he wouldn’t. Whereas Yango had security. His truck. For Vango this meant power. One has to face it, the fellow who gets respect in this world is the one with the wherewithal. If you haven’t got it, you get trampled on like a slug.

  Finally he got to the point. Just as in telling his life story, he began at the very beginning, so now, to tell about that Wednesday, he had to start all over again from the beginning. The previous night, he hadn’t been able to sleep. His foot hurt; he’d strained it two weeks before on a construction job, while painting. It hadn’t bothered him before. But that evening it ached, because of the dampness. And so, the next morning—Wednesday morning, it was drizzling if he remembered rightly—he headed straight for the outpatient clinic of the central Salonika hospital to find out what was the matter. A sprain? A cramp? Something more serious? People were lining up. He’d got there very early but they didn’t finish with him until about 11:30. By then it was too late to go to work, so he headed for Toumba. They had told him to come back in a few days to get the results of the X-rays. That’s why he’d stayed in the cast in the hospital for so long. Yes, he knew now! There was a crack in the bone. He had taken a nap that afternoon and at 5:10 that evening had gone to the usual café, had taken his post to see if he couldn’t perhaps rustle up some job for the following day. He couldn’t have been there a quarter of an hour when he got the urge—if they’d excuse the expression—to piss. He’d left the café to go to the public toilets up the block.

  “There is a toilet in the Parthenon. Why didn’t you use it? Why did you decide to go to the public urinals on Balanou Street?”

  Well, he hadn’t gone to piss, he now explained to the Investigator. He suddenly remembered it was Wednesday, the shops were closed and no one was going to turn up with a job. So he decided to go home, that was why he left, not expressly to piss. Because of course there was a toilet in the café too; though it was true that the proprietor grumbled every time the house painters used his privy, and always made the same remark: “Don’t you have any crappers at home?” No, that’s right, he was on his way to Dikastirion Square, where the Ano Toumba bus terminal is.

  “When—and please write it down the way I say it—passing the public urinals, I got the urge to go. It was probably because of the smell. Also, I have weak kidneys. All right, that’s another story. Anyway, when I came out of the urinals—I know the old lady in charge of them, Aunt Ammonia, as we call her in Toumba—who do you think I saw sitting outside a tavern right across Balanou Street? That’s right, my koumbaros, Yango himself. ‘Hi there, Yango,’ I say to him, ‘couldn’t you find somewhere else to sit? A place that smells a little better?’ He motioned me to sit down at his table and invited me to drink some retsina with him. He said he often went to that tavern because it had good retsina. His kamikazi was parked nearby; it was Wednesday, you see, and everything was closed in Kapani Market. Then I got the bright idea that when we’d finished our drinks Yango might offer to take me to Toumba in his truck since he didn’t have to work, and that way I’d save the price of the bus ticket. ‘Yango,’ I told him right off, ‘I don’t have any money.’ ‘Don’t worry about that, Vango,’ he said. ‘The drinks are on me.’ That’s the way he is. We stayed quite a while talking about the in-laws, we drank about three quarts of retsina and had bread and hard-boiled eggs. ‘Man,’ I said to him, ‘this retsina’s got a kick!’ ‘Go on,’ he says, ‘it’s like water.’ Yango can’t hold his liquor, and I’m worse. He paid the bill—sixteen or twenty drachmas about. Then we left, because some gypsies had come in with their noisy brats. I was afraid we might catch some of their fleas. Besides, I can’t stand gypsy women. Whenever I see one, I choke.’ ”

  And so from there they’d gone to One-Armed Koulou’s tavern around 6:30. And why in the hell did they order ouzo? It’s very bad to mix drinks like that. They’d gone through five or six carafes of ouzo and …

  “Yango began to cry because he couldn’t make ends meet to buy out his partner Aristidis’s share of the truck, and I began to cry too, and I consoled him. Yango paid sixty-two or sixty-three drachmas and we climbed aboard the three-wheeler to go back home, both of us dead-drunk. Someone at the joint came out and said: ‘Listen, guys, you shouldn’t be on the road in that condition, you might have an accident.’ But we didn’t give a damn what he said. Yango got up on the seat, and I lay down in the back, just what I wanted. I put my hands behind my head so I wouldn’t feel the jolting, and fell asleep. No, I didn’t really fall asleep, I just closed my eyes, out of contentment. I don’t know how long it was after we’d started off when I heard a crash that shook the whole truck. At first I thought we’d been knocked into a ditch or something, it was such a violent jolt. Before I had time to get up and see what was happening, two characters jumped into the back of the truck and began punching me. ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ I shouted, keeping my hands in front of my face for protection. I yelled to Yango to stop. But he could not hear me, with all the racket the motor was making. I didn’t have any idea what part of town we were in. I took the pommeling with stoic patience—isn’t that how you say it? I didn’t have any kind of weapon. How could I buy a revolver when I didn’t even have the money to buy a water pistol for my nephew? Without knowing how, I found myself under the cart, shaking my head so that the nightmare would go away. When I looked around I recognized the Philipos Pottery Shop, where they sell flowerpots and jugs and things. Then an old man came over, like in a fairy tale, and pointed to the street that gives on Aristotelous Square, where all the outdoor movies are. Since I couldn’t understand what he wanted to say, he motioned for me to follow him. Walking along, I felt ashamed of the way I looked and I wanted to cover my face with my hands. By the waterfront, near the Hotel Mediterranée, there were limousines and a crowd of people in evening clothes, all the high society, while we poor buggers—oh well, the kind old man pointed out the red sign of the first-aid station. I went in, a male nurse examined me, put some iodine on my wounds and bandaged them, and by the way here’s the slip he gave me—” And Vango laid the slip with the hospital letterhead on the Investigator’s table. “I don’t have a watch, so I don’t know what time it was when I got back home. I wanted to go and see what had become of Yango, but I was so befuddled with drink and the pain was so bad that I fell asleep on the couch with my clothes on. In the morning I went out and bought the newspaper to see if our adventure was mentioned. And what did I see? Yango’s picture spread all over the front page! The story said he’d killed some deputy by the name of Z. with his truck. First time I ever heard the name. I roared with laughter. I didn’t know any more about Z. than I knew about the meeting that had taken place the night before in the center of town. The paper was full of a lot of other crap of the same kind, and God only knows what crocked schemes they were trying to cook up. Then and there I decided it was my duty to go to the police station and tell the truth as I knew it. I told it all to the police captain, not leaving out a single thing, and he turned me over to the officer on duty. Ever since then I’ve been in custody as an accomplice to the crime, that’s what they say; and I haven’t seen a single human being except my lawyer.”

  “So you didn’t know Z.?”

  “No. I didn’t know him.”

  “Had you any grudge against him?”

  “No, none.”

  “Had you any reason to kill Z.?”

  “No.”

  “Not no,” intervened Vango’s lawyer. “My client means ‘No, I did not kill Z.’ ”

  Both answers were noted in the minutes.

  Vango noticed the Investigator toying with a metal letter opener, looking at it first on
one side, then on the other. After a long silence he raised his head, looked at Vango with a broad, open smile expressing boundless confidence, and said to him: “Everything you’ve said fits perfectly with what Yango told me, and since you two haven’t seen each other since the evening of your excursion, I believe you are telling the truth. Nevertheless, in your statement there was one sentence that has given me much food for thought. If my idea should prove correct, then I must direct my entire investigation along that line. I think you are a Communist.”

  “For God’s sake, Mr. Investigator! After all I’ve suffered at their hands! And I haven’t told you everything about Makronissos!”

  “Your past doesn’t interest me. In any case, it’s easy to check up on it. What interests me is what you think today, and from a single sentence, which probably slipped out unawares, I conclude that you’re with the Reds.”

  “What sentence, Mr. Investigator?”

  “I’ve written it down. Here it is: ‘By the waterfront, near the Hotel Mediterranée, there were limousines and a crowd of people in evening clothes, all the high society, while we poor buggers—oh well …’ At that point you stopped short; you knew you had unintentionally betrayed yourself.”

  “I swear I hate the Communists.”

  “Your oaths don’t interest me.”

  “I hate them! I only have to see one in front of me and I’m ready to …”

  “Don’t try to justify yourself. We judge by actions. We want proof. A sentence like the one you allowed to escape couldn’t be uttered by anyone but a Communist. No one but a Communist could even conceive such a thought.”

  Vango was furious. Before his lawyer had time to stop him, he blurted out: “I’m a member of an organization whose aim is to fight Communism in every possible way. It’s called the League of Former Combatants and Victims of the National Resistance of Northern Greece. I can show you my card.”