The Investigator has a large stethoscope. He is the moon probing the stadium at a football match played under floodlights. Thousands of spectators are involved in the contest. Who among them has bribed the players to throw the game? Who has staked a fortune on their losing? The Investigator studies the X-ray record of the crime, he makes a precise analysis of each suspicious shadow. There must be no doubt. How sweet the terrible responsibility! He reels with fatigue and determination. The Investigator distributes tickets to Yendi-Koule.
“The Investigator is accused of left-wing bias. A deputy of the ERE, known for his extreme right-wing opinions, has demanded that the Minister of the Interior inform Parliament of the personal activities and past record of the Investigator handling the affair at Salonika, Mr.—.”
The Investigator declares: “The castle is well fortified.” The Investigator is courageous. He is intelligent. Whenever he sees the need for silence, he says, “I have no statement to make.” When the Generalissimo submits to him a list of witnesses to be questioned, the Investigator refuses it, on the pretext that he must gather his material at its source. One source leads to another. The earth is hollowed out beneath his feet, it collapses under him. Moles have tunneled everywhere, creating a subterranean labyrinth whose countless corridors converge at the very center of the affair. The Investigator is a helmeted deep-sea diver equipped with oxygen.
“The Grand Judge of the Areopagus has told the Investigator that in his opinion the guilty parties intended not to kill Z. but to cripple him. What is the meaning of these new warrants mentioned in the press? Well, issue them and let’s be done with it!”
The Investigator is a climbing plant named “desire.” He scales props. Ignores obstacles. He can even fill a room with foliage. The Investigator is an arbor with small green grapes hanging from its lattices, but by autumn they will be ripe for wine. The Investigator demolishes plastic flooring. He uncovers ancestral roots in buried corpses. The Investigator desecrates graves.
“He does not figure in the hegemony of the twelve gods of Olympus—any more than any investigator does. Nor is he listed among the saints of the Christian Church. Neither has his infallibility been recognized, that unique privilege being reserved for the Pope. The Investigator is a human being like the rest of us. He is a particular human being, who was born of particular parents, and whether he likes it or not he bears a given heritage in his blood and soul. He was perhaps moved by particular ideas in the course of his youth, and on his own individual nature depends his capacity to resist the weaknesses innate in man. Such is the Investigator—any investigator.”
The Investigator doesn’t have time for anxiety, agonies, metaphysical griefs. He is attached to the vessel as the rudder is attached to the keel. The Investigator is a gardener who uproots the weeds from the garden. The Investigator is a flower that blooms in solitude like those flowers of South America that make their appearance in the gloom of autumn and announce, even before winter comes, the eventual springtime.
Chapter 22
Winter is coming and I shall not see you; I want you to know how much I long for you. At least the nights will be shorter, and I shall have you more to myself. These summer days are endless. My black cotton absorbs the sun. It scorches me.
My love for you will not go to your children. My love for you will turn to smoke. It will rise as through a chimney at the point where our skies separate.
I am an empty stadium. The white boundary lines have faded. The little sandpit is unraked, where you landed when you jumped. Sand settles into odd depressions. The grains stick. I don’t know when the next Balkan Games will take place.
Without you, I am so much untended sand. You, the champion broad-jumper, are missing. I keep your track clothes in memory of your body, your running shoes in memory of your feet.
Now that you are sailing further and further toward the horizon, following the curve of the earth, it will soon be that I can see nothing of you but a flag on the highest mast. Outside of that, I feel all right. I study your surgeon’s instruments for the touch of your hands.
Another time I shall write you the little things about you I keep secret, never to be a part of other people’s memories. I don’t know how much longer I can bear this solitude. Perhaps I would do better to remember you through other people. A dangerous egoism takes form in solitude. You imagine that other people owe you something. But friction seals the wound, the scar forms over it, and what remains is the purest gold.
I am bored to death. I wait for day to close, for night to open its vast arms, in which I have my real existence. There is no possible compromise with death. That is the truth. A simple parting gives rise to expectation, uncertainty. Death is whatever had no time to happen.
This is why I suffer. Because I had still immense reserves of tenderness stored up for you. Because there were things still to be experienced. Even if we didn’t always get on too well. You don’t know how much comfort I find in our not having been the ideal couple, in the courage with which we disagreed, open, without deception.
All these things keep me alive. And if I am becoming a romantic, it is because I miss you. I truly wanted to see what kept us apart. I truly liked to suffer at your side. But the kite broke loose, and here I am, holding the string.
Chapter 23
A black limousine with a foreign license plate trailed in the wake of witnesses and reporters. A Taunus leaped up on the sidewalk in pursuit of a lawyer—who moved away in time—a Taunus with a foreign license plate. (Where were these license plates made? Were these numbers unrecorded at the central offices of the traffic police?) Two hands shot out of a little truck and gave Nikitas a “scientific” clout. Motor bikes circulated around the scene of the meeting on the evening of May 22. Ambulances bobbed up out of nowhere, picking up injured persons and disappearing into the night. There was Yango’s kamikazi. And finally a Volkswagen driven by a policeman transported Z. to the hospital. All this had set up a train of thought in the young reporter’s mind. As the investigation progressed, he came to the conclusion that, behind the persons involved in the case, there had been a motorized battalion at work that night, whose aim was to exterminate Z. and ensure the speedy evacuation of the assassins.
If things had gone awry for the culprits, if one by one the assassins had come out from behind the bushes—like children playing hide-and-seek, “Come out, come out, I see you”—it was thanks to Tiger’s good work. But a conviction had taken root in the reporter’s mind that the investigation should pursue the “motorized battalion angle.” Otherwise many obscurities in the case would remain undispelled.
One of those sticky summer evenings in Salonika, while he was eating fried mussels at Stratis’s down by the shore, he thought he’d hit on the solution to the puzzle. The General, before going to the meeting, had been at the Ministry of Northern Greece, attending the lecture given by the Assistant Minister on the subject of downy mildew. The Secretary General was also present. He had close connections with EKOF, an extreme right-wing student organization. (The reporter had just disclosed this fact in the press, with photographs to support it.) As for the General, he had close links with the mobsters, and both these men and the EKOF had participated in the counterdemonstration of May 22. The driver of the Volkswagen was the personal chauffeur of the Secretary General. Everything started from there. The lecture on downy mildew had been only a pretext. But he had to discover where the policeman had rented the Volkswagen. And so, playing the self-appointed private detective, a role he very much liked because it broadened the stifling limits of his own profession, he set out on this new adventure.
He went to the first-aid station and discovered with surprise that the license number of the Volkswagen had not been entered in its register of admissions. He made the rounds of all the car-rental agencies, inquiring about the Volkswagen and giving the relevant details, the date, the exact hour, all the data about the crash. They regarded him as an imbecile, of course, but he didn’t care. He knew that one of the
keys to the case was to be found in this “chance” circumstance. Finally, exhausted but not discouraged, he stumbled on the agency he was looking for. This time the man behind the desk paid careful attention as Andoniou told his story.
“Yes, of course I remember. But you told me over the telephone that you had decided not to claim any damages.”
Adoniou understood. He was silent, waiting to hear what would come next.
“Of course! Of course!” continued the proprietor. “You were hit by the policeman who was driving Z. to the hospital. Isn’t that so?”
“Precisely.”
“At first you asked for damages. And then, for some strange reason, you phoned me and told me you were withdrawing your claims. Are you coming back to your first position? You’re perfectly right in doing so.”
“What was the policeman’s name?” Andoniou asked.
“I must have given it to you over the telephone.”
“I lost it.”
“Just a moment.”
And he began to search through his records. He found the entry and gave him the name. Thus the reporter succeeded in verifying the testimony of one witness, that the policeman in question was the chauffeur of the Secretary General at the Administration Building.
“This policeman telephoned me about four in the afternoon, asking to rent a car. He wasn’t the one who came for it; that was another guy whom I work with sometimes. I mean, the other guy rents them from me and then rents them again to third parties. His name is Meracles. The policeman got the car from Meracles at six and said he’d return it at nine that evening, but, because of the unfortunate incident, he returned it at ten.”
“And who is this Meracles?”
“A poor devil trying to make a living. He doesn’t have any capital. But they claim he has some pull at the Ministry of Northern Greece, and he manages fairly well. The best thing is for me to take you straight to him. He’s the one directly involved, and he’ll have to take care of your damages. Let’s go. It’s just a step away.”
They left the agency. The proprietor talked with animation about the Z. affair: “What a case that is! Sometimes I think we’re all involved in it without knowing it. That’s the impression the newspapers give at least. Don’t you agree? At least I have this impression. What do you think? What’s your profession?”
“Reporter.”
The proprietor froze right in the middle of the sidewalk. An old lady coming from the opposite direction bumped against him, spilling the bag of peaches she was carrying. They both stooped down to pick them up.
“Reporter? Then you must know better than I …”
“I don’t know anything. I came for the express purpose of finding out.”
“Oh, please!” the proprietor entreated. “Don’t bring my name into it! I don’t want to get involved. I have enough trouble making a living. I have a son, and a daughter in Geneva at the interpreters’ school. And now that everybody’s buying a car, it’s harder and harder to rent them. I can’t even meet the expenses of my own agency. We don’t have the tourist activity they have in Athens …”
They had arrived at their destination. Meracles was in his office, on the phone. When he saw them, he signaled for them to sit down, thinking that the boss must be bringing him a new client. Covering the receiver with his hand, he asked if they would like coffee. They declined. Meracles finished his telephone conversation and addressed the boss: “What can we do for this gentleman?”
“This gentleman’s a newspaper reporter and wants to talk with you,” the boss said nervously.
Meracles was visibly irritated. Without looking at Andoniou, he asked, “What does he want?”
“There are a few points I would like to clarify,” Andoniou began.
“I have an order from the Head of the Administration Office not to give out any information.”
“From the Head of the Administration Office or from the Head of Security Police?”
“From the Head of the Security Police,” said Meracles.
This information was all Andoniou needed. He left at once to make a deposition before the Public Prosecutor, and at the same time prepared the story for publication in his newspaper. Meracles denied it, claiming he had never said anything about the Head of Security Police.
In the trial that followed, he was condemned to seven months’ imprisonment for perjury. It was brought out at the trial that whereas, prior to the crime, he had purchased a Skoda car on credit and was having difficulty meeting the payments, the day after the assassination he had paid cash for a new Vespa worth 15,000 drachmas. Where had he laid hands on the money in the course of one night? It also emerged that he had dealings with the Administration Office and that a certain policeman came frequently to his office—the same policeman, in fact, who was to declare when the Karamanlis government fell, and on the eve of the parliamentary elections, “If Karamanlis wins the elections, God help the Investigator!” But that was much later. For the moment—it was the end of summer over the Thermaic Gulf and the International Fair was about to open its gates as it does every year in September—the right-wing newspapers had begun to publish colorful accounts of how the Communists had killed Z., using Vango, a former member of ELAS, as their agent. In the chaos that reigned, the young reporter, having fulfilled his duty, went back to Athens for good.
Chapter 24
The General is free to go where he pleases. The General makes statements. The General takes mysterious trips. He has only one concern now, to stay out of the limelight and to die. He is pulling strings that connect with the infinite. A few strings break and the General curses. One of the broken strings is Nikitas. Another is Baronissimo, who declares in prison: “Why do they throw me in here now, when they’re the ones who dragged me down?” Yango keeps his mouth shut. Vango’s having a ball. Jimmy the Boxer is nowhere to be found. Then one day he gets caught trying to cross the frontier at the getaway point near Orestiada. He claims he’s an itinerant boxer on tour. The General, former head of the Palace Guard of evzones, has powerful protectors. The problem, as the General sees it, can be reduced to one simple injunction: Conceal the guilty. He states that if the Chief of Police is relieved of his post, he will side unequivocally with him. The Chief of Police is relieved of his post, and the General doesn’t stir from his hole. Without the General there would be utter chaos. Amid the charges hurled from all sides against the police force, he declares that he will assume full responsibility. But the General, by legal definition, is above responsibility. When the press accuses him of complicity in the crime, he retorts: “How are we supposed to arrest our own accomplices? How are we to take ourselves into custody?”
For the General, Salonika is a chessboard. Here is the Castle—the White Tower; here is the Bishop—the Rotonda minaret; here is the Knight—the port riding horseback into the sea. All these pieces, reflected in the bay, become double: two Castles, two Bishops, two Knights. Although the Queen is missing, the pawns are numerous. The General moves his men masterfully. But the opponent also plays well and has the advantage of external support: the newspaper reporters. Every time the General loses a pawn, he explodes with rage. He is not accustomed to losing. All of a sudden he finds himself without a line of defense. He goes to Athens in secret and begs the authorities to take charge. His nerves have given way. The General has an idea he is being pursued, in these grievous days, by the Spirit of Evil. The Zionist mafia and the Communist mafia join forces. The General retires, “for reasons of age,” just when he was counting on becoming Generalissimo, the incumbent being due for retirement. He has been accused in the report of the Court of the Areopagus. The Investigator requests him to prepare his defense. The General feels that his life has lost its purpose.
PART IV
APOLOGIAS
Chapter 1
“I am beside myself. I am outraged, Mr. Investigator. Who could have imagined that I would attain the summit of departmental hierarchy—with the post of High Commander of the Royal Police within reach—on
ly to be overtaken by so cruel a fate? That I, the General, should be accused of ‘willfully aiding and abetting the perpetrators of this murder by my actions before, during, and after the crime.’ And how did I ‘aid and abet them’? ‘By being present at the site of the crime and by promising assistance after it had been committed; by covering up the tracks of the criminals; by failing to sue and arrest them and by concealing the instruments of the crime from the Investigators’? And who is said to have done all this? I, I who have spent my whole life in the service of the Fatherland. And here I am, branded a murderer! No, no!”
That afternoon, he didn’t remember precisely at what time, but he was sure it was that afternoon and not some other, because it was Wednesday and the shops were closed, and, forgetting it was Wednesday, he had set out for the shops to buy some underdrawers, but he hadn’t found any, and that’s why he remembered it was that afternoon, even though three months have passed and memory declines with age—well then, to get back to that afternoon, he had put on civilian clothes, because of course he couldn’t very well go shopping for underdrawers in his General’s uniform, and here he wished to add parenthetically that he was afflicted with hemorrhoids, so that the question of underdrawers—whether or not they chafed—was absolutely crucial to him. Consequently he couldn’t very well tell his orderly to buy underdrawers for him, and his wife was busy with a Philanthropic Brotherhood Tea—well, that same afternoon, at the Ministry of Northern Greece, a lecture was being given on methods of combating downy mildew. He himself was of farming stock (his father had been a farmer) and had a passion for agricultural problems. Having been invited to attend this lecture, reserved for the “higher echelons of the administration,” he thought it would be interesting to learn about the most modern methods of fighting downy mildew. For he was still a farmer at heart. He maintained several small farms in the vicinity of Kavalla and his hobby was raising tobacco. Nature relaxed him. His responsibilities as General were crushing and his only relief was contact with the soil. As he grows older, a man returns to his roots, so closing the circle of his life like a great zero. He used the word “zero” because that was exactly what he felt like now. A product of the lowest though the most patriotic segment of the population, he had attained the Mount Everest of the hierarchy and now “the Communists, those termites who do everything in their power to undermine the foundations of our race,” wanted to tumble him from his throne. But they would not succeed! He was innocent. He was not denying—on the contrary, he was proud of it—that he had made it his aim in life to combat Communism and Judaism, the two related diseases threatening our glorious Hellenic-Christian civilization. Alas, the masses failed to realize how closely related these two ills are. Well, he hadn’t come to see the Investigator to expound his theories. He had brought the matter up only to show that it was the axis of his life, his compass so to speak, and because he wished to make it known that “by rubbing those twin stones together, I have produced heat and light.”
Z, 50th Anniversary Edition Page 27
