Z, 50th Anniversary Edition

by Vassilis Vassilikos

  The lecture on downy mildew had woken him up. At noon he had squid with onions, a dish excellently prepared by his wife, but rather indigestible nevertheless, which was why he’d gone to sleep afterwards, and whenever he slept at noon he always woke up with his head feeling like a boiler and had to drink at least two or three cups of coffee to recover—that was why he’d been confused and had gone down to the shopping district on a Wednesday afternoon to shop for underdrawers. But the lecture on downy mildew had brought out the farmer in him, had brought back the days when he had set traps and caught birds on the village stream in Nea Karvali with his friend Zisis (“the poor fellow had his throat cut by the Slavo-Communists”). So he’d jumped up and spoken briefly of the Communist mildew that was the scourge of Greece. What? The Investigator already knew that. Who told him? Professional secrecy? So there were spies in the auditorium? Or maybe he’d learned it from that ex-Communist, now Salonika District Director of Rice Plantations? Oh well, on his way down the stairs of the Ministry he’d stopped to chat with the cleaning woman who was scrubbing the floor. He knew her from long ago, when she had worked at police headquarters. Her husband had been butchered by the Red hyenas. She had asked a favor of him recently; the General never missed an opportunity to help the simple people. Why did he go so often to the Ministry of Northern Greece? Because the Secretary General was a friend of his. “This young man, inspired by the unimpeachable ideals of the Hellenic-Christian Ideal, lends an attentive ear to my theories about the sunspots and—a point that cannot be sufficiently stressed—their inverse polarity.” After that, he had driven the Assistant Minister to the Mikra Airport in his own car. They had been delayed on the way and the Assistant Minister had almost missed his plane, because they’d run over a chicken. It couldn’t be avoided. The road was slippery, and if he’d put his brakes on suddenly, he might have turned over and crashed into a parked tractor. The Assistant Minister of Agriculture, president of the Society for the Protection of Animals, asked him to stop to see if they had in fact run over the chicken. He seemed upset and looked disapprovingly at the General. It didn’t seem to occur to him that the chicken had run in front of the wheels and was at least partly to blame. Not naturally superstitious, the General was inclined to be so now. That chicken had been an omen! A few hours later, the General was to be accused of complicity in the death of a Red deputy. But let’s take the events in their actual order:

  When he got back to the city, he stopped at his office for his invitation to the Bolshoi Ballet. The invitation did not say what time the performance was to begin. He asked his orderly to phone the theater and learned that the performance was scheduled for a quarter to ten (which meant ten, he said to himself). It was then nine. He had a whole hour ahead of him. He phoned his wife to be ready at 9:30, he would drive by to pick her up. Then he phoned the Chief of Police to suggest that they all go together. The officer on duty informed him that the Chief was out. He had set out a short while before for the intersection of Ermou and Venizelou Streets, where a meeting of the Friends of Peace was being held. First word he’d heard about any such meeting. He decided to pick the Chief up right there.

  Ah, yes. He’d been expecting that question! How was it possible that he, a fanatical anti-Communist, had agreed to attend the Russian ballet? Naturally, he would not have gone to see the ballerinas—thank God, he had no such vices! He would have gone to observe the troupe, study the physiognomies, colors, the movement, “which would of course be mostly on stage left.” In short, he’d be doing his job! Because ever since the death of the Jew-Communist Stalin and the rise to power of the pure-blooded Russian Aryans, Russian propaganda methods had become subtler. Theater, cinema, satellites, astronauts were its new weapons. What’s that? Stalin was like Hitler? He persecuted the Jews? The General didn’t wish to offend, but he knew his history. Stalin was a Jew! “In case you need proof, his name was Joseph.”

  So he parked his car outside the Modiano Market and asked for the Chief of Police. Recognizing the General despite his civilian clothes, a policeman froze to attention and informed him that the Chief was at the Kosmopolit Hotel. And there he found the Chief, engaged in vehement conversation. The Chief took courage from his presence and continued: “Mr. Spathopoulos, when you came to my office this noon, along with the other members of the Peace Committee, you told me you were an honorable man. What you are doing now is not an honorable thing. What are you trying to do? Create a sensation? Do you hear those loudspeakers? The racket they’re making? They’re saying you’ve been kidnapped. Couldn’t you open the window and call to them that nobody has molested you and that you’re not in danger. Or phone them at least.” And Spathopoulos kept protesting that this was an intolerable state of affairs and that the jungle had broken loose out there. He himself had listened in silence. The mere sight of Comrade Spathopoulos gave him a bellyache. He felt the squid he had eaten that noon coming back to life inside him, squeezing his intestines with its tentacles. The Chief of Police offered to escort Spathopoulos to the meeting.

  He had gone out with them and seen “a crowd of about 150 people, shouting their disapproval of the incendiary slogans issuing from a loudspeaker placed provocatively on the balcony of the Labor Union Club.” They’ve gone back to those old megaphones from the Occupation, he reflected. Our home-grown Communism hasn’t even learned to adapt itself like the foreign brand. The others send ballets to persuade us that life in the Red inferno is a dance, while ours—these cripples of our own race—are still using the old Occupation megaphones. In any case, he was sure of one thing now: it was out of the question to go to the ballet. Of course, even if he went, he was under no obligation to stay. But just as a doctor on a cruise can’t help coming to the assistance of the man in the next cabin who suddenly falls ill, so he too put his professional conscience first; he was a green lighthouse in a Red sea of murderers. And so he went back to his office and phoned his wife that for reasons beyond his control he was obliged to call off their evening at the Bolshoi. Duty! Fatherland above all! And then he phoned the Secretary General and told him he had an extra invitation and if he wanted it he could send the Ministry clerk to pick it up. The Secretary General did indeed want it, though not for himself—he himself would not have gone, he had too much work to do—but for a friend, whose wife (a former ballerina) had moved heaven and earth to obtain a ticket and hadn’t been able to, and who would now be thrilled. Then the General had gone back to the site of the incidents. It must have been ten, perhaps twenty, minutes past nine. He said at the very start that he had no sense of time.

  Yes, of course he had arrived after the injury to Pirouchas. Did Pirouchas say he had seen him? If so, it was an hallucination of his own. Pirouchas was obsessed by the idea that the General had been pursuing him ever since the Occupation, when they had belonged to rival Resistance groups: Pirouchas to the Red EAM, he himself to the national camp. Ever since then, whenever there’s a brawl and Pirouchas is there, whether he gets hurt or not, he imagines the General is behind it. Pirouchas needs a psychoanalyst. Still, the General was proud of having given him this “complex.”

  “Undoubtedly the loudspeakers were to blame. If your neighbor plays his radio too loud, you can sue him. If a loudspeaker on top of a car goes through your neighborhood advertising a movie, you blow your top—and now these blaring loudmouths right in the center of town! That’s the difference between Communists and donkeys: when Communists get obstinate, they don’t refuse to budge; they simply bray twice as loud. When it was suggested that they turn down the loudspeakers, they had turned them up.”

  He had never heard of Z. Not even from the newspapers. The General did not read the newspapers. On the whole, he was against the press, a deplorable institution, especially in Greece. Well, when the speeches and songs were over, he had seen a man approach the Chief of Police and point to some bruises on his forehead. The man was vociferating furiously. He shouted that the Friends of Peace had come as free citizens and would leave as free citizens. Such impud
ence had exasperated the General. To avoid uttering a curse that would have reduced him to the level of this fanatical riffraff, to remain a neutral observer, he had preferred to move off. Later he had heard that the impudent individual had been Z.

  In his effort to get away from the scene of this exchange between the Chief of Police and Z., he found himself opposite the entrance to the auditorium where the meeting had been held. A detachment of police was seeing to it that the Friends of Peace left quietly and in small groups. He mingled with the demonstrators to note their impressions, to find out how much they had been influenced by Z.’s anarchism. Suddenly he had heard the roar of a motorcycle. He had turned his head and seen a man struck by the three-wheeler and falling to the ground. The vehicle had dragged him a yard or two and then with dizzying speed disappeared up Venizelou Street, which, as everyone knows, is one-way in the other direction. He had paid no attention to the incident but continued on his way, taking note of every word uttered by the Friends of Peace. But by the time he had reached Egnatia Street, the small groups were breaking up, so that nothing further could be gleaned. At the taxi stand he turned around and went back down the opposite sidewalk. There he met the Chief of Police, who was very upset and told him that someone had been injured. “We’re sunk! I think it’s Z.!”

  His first thought was that it must have been a traffic accident. But even then they were involved, because the Communists, “who had probably arranged the accident to throw the guilt on us” (this had been his second thought), would be sure to exploit the incident one way or the other. The situation had to be faced with calm deliberation. He had taken the Chief of Police by the arm. They had gone to his car, parked outside the Modiano Market, and had made the rounds of the neighboring districts to see if there was any rioting. In the car they discussed ways and means of counteracting the Communist efforts to exploit the situation. The Chief of Police had seemed more and more agitated. The General had had to calm him down; it was his duty as a friend and superior in rank. In the end the ride had soothed the Chief. The General had finally convinced him that there was nothing to fear and that his own presence at the site of the incidents, though quite accidental, partly relieved the Chief of his responsibility. In any case, he would stand by him to the end. They reached police headquarters at a quarter to eleven. The Public Prosecutors arrived shortly afterward.

  INVESTIGATOR: At what time, General, do you situate the arrival of the two Public Prosecutors at police headquarters?

  GENERAL: I am unable to tell you even approximately for the simple reason that it was not my business to notify them. Moreover, three months have elapsed since then and I find it difficult to remember occurrences that seemed unimportant to me at the time. The affair was not within my jurisdiction and I was not responsible for notifying them.

  INVESTIGATOR: Quite aside from questions of jurisdiction and responsibility, at what time did you first become aware of the presence of the Public Prosecutors at police headquarters?

  GENERAL: I was indeed aware of their presence but reiterate that I cannot tell you even approximately when they arrived.

  INVESTIGATOR: The Prosecutors asked you whether the culprit had been arrested and you replied: “No matter where he goes, he will be caught.” In your estimation, how long after their arrival did they ask you that question?

  GENERAL: For the reasons already stated, I am unable to give you even an approximate answer.

  INVESTIGATOR: Why, in your opinion, did the Prosecutors go to police headquarters so late at night?

  GENERAL: Undoubtedly to inquire into the circumstances of the accident incurred by Z. and to find out whether or not the culprits had been arrested.

  INVESTIGATOR: If, as you say, the Prosecutors’ purpose was to ascertain whether the culprits had been arrested, they must have addressed themselves immediately to you and to the Chief of Police. How then is it possible that you are unable to estimate the time that elapsed between their arrival and the moment they questioned you?

  GENERAL: I cannot read prosecutors’ minds. It is quite possible that like many persons at that particular time they suspected the police of organizing the crime or at least of having done nothing to prevent it. In that case their purpose in coming would have been to observe our first reactions and they would intentionally have waited some time before questioning us.

  INVESTIGATOR: In your opinion, would the fact that the police failed to notify the Prosecutors immediately of the culprit’s arrest justify them in suspecting the police of organizing the crime?

  GENERAL: In my opinion, the suspicions of the police would have been partly justified if indeed the delay of the police in notifying the Prosecutors had seemed unjustified.

  INVESTIGATOR: Express yourself more clearly. Was the delay justified or not?

  GENERAL: It was justified.

  INVESTIGATOR: Did the two Prosecutors have reason to believe that the police were implicated in the crime?

  GENERAL: Only the Prosecutors are in a position to answer that question objectively. As for me, the mere thought that Public Prosecutors may have entertained such a suspicion would be inconceivably shocking.

  INVESTIGATOR: When I say the police, I am referring not to the police force as a whole but to you in particular.

  GENERAL: Question the Prosecutors.

  INVESTIGATOR: Have you ever in the past observed a certain distrust of the Salonika police force on the part of the judicial authorities?

  GENERAL: No such thought ever entered my head.

  INVESTIGATOR: Did you that evening observe the presence at police headquarters of the Prosecutor of the Court of Appeals?

  GENERAL: Certainly not. However, I remember well that about that time—I cannot tell you the exact date—I personally met the Prosecutor of the Court of Appeals in the office of the Chief of Police and that we had a conversation the tenor of which I have forgotten. I believe, however, that we discussed the circumstances of the accident incurred by Z. I do not exclude the possibility that this conversation took place on the night of May 22.

  INVESTIGATOR: First you said “Certainly not.” Now you say “I do not exclude.” You are contradicting yourself.

  GENERAL: Be that as it may, the Chief of Police announced in my absence that the guilty party had been arrested; he must have done so five or at most seven minutes after the question had been asked him in my presence.

  INVESTIGATOR: Permit me to point out once again that “in my absence” and “in my presence” are two contradictory propositions. The question, then, was asked in your presence and the Chief of Police answered in your absence. How so? Was he afraid to answer in your hearing?

  GENERAL: My answer had startled him. He did not wish to contradict me.

  INVESTIGATOR: Can it be that he thought you were hiding a fact known to him and therefore preferred to keep silent?

  GENERAL: Only the Chief of Police could tell you that.

  INVESTIGATOR: It is possible that he as your subordinate, judging that you were trespassing on his prerogatives, preferred not to antagonize you. It is also possible that you had withdrawn his right to act in matters concerning the Security Police. Otherwise it seems incomprehensible that he knew the guilty party had been arrested, yet made no attempt to contradict you when he heard you say: “No matter where he goes, he will be caught.”

  GENERAL: The Chief of Police told me later that when he informed the Prosecutors of the arrest of the culprit, one of them, Mr. Panagakos, expressed keen dissatisfaction. He stood up and said angrily: “My friend, this is the second time you’ve pulled this on me!” Those were his exact words. He was referring to an incident in the 1961 election campaign. A policeman had committed manslaughter on the person of a Communist and the same Prosecutor had been informed of the crime only after an unjustified delay.

  INVESTIGATOR: So he had reason to harbor suspicions. First a case of manslaughter, now this “traffic accident.”

  GENERAL: I would commit suicide if I did not regard this interview as a crude far
ce!

  INVESTIGATOR: There has been so much talk lately about attempts at suicide by members of the police force that no one takes them seriously any more. Where did you go during those seven minutes?

  GENERAL: I had diarrhea. I hadn’t digested the squid I’d eaten for lunch.

  The telephone rang. It was an urgent call for the Investigator. He adjourned the interview until late afternoon and left the office. The General followed him, inwardly cursing the Zionist movement and its adherents.

  At the afternoon session he was faced with new trouble. His lawyer had been unable to come and that worried him. He was afraid of making a blunder. The Investigator gave the impression of wanting to finish him off as quickly as possible.