Island Casualty

by D. R. Ransdell

  “Yesterday you served tables non-stop. You barely sat down. I can’t believe you worked any harder in Athens.”

  “But what am I doing, Andy? I’m hurrying to make frappés and serve ice creams. There’s no pressure. What could possibly go wrong? How mad would my customers be if I ran out of chocolate? How much would they suffer if I needed ten extra minutes to prepare their order? People come to my café to visit with friends and enjoy their evening. They might come in with problems, but by the time they leave, they feel better. So do I. At the end of the night, I feel relaxed because I’m satisfied with my efforts. I sleep so soundly Eleni can’t wake me, and when I get up the next morning, I’m ready to do it all over again.”

  “That’s good I guess.”

  “Of course it is. You, on the other hand, are full of anxiety, but it’s out of proportion. And it’ll pass.”

  I was jealous that Nikos had such a clear understanding of his life. He even had a clear understanding of mine.

  “I wish I could borrow your confidence,” I finally said.

  “Eleni’s my confidence. She makes me believe in myself. If I stop, she gives me a kick in the butt until I start again.”

  I flicked the ashes onto the rocks. “I’m scared.”

  “I would be too. Here you are in a foreign country, and a remote, backward part of it at that. But you don’t have to worry. Soumba will listen to your side of the story.”

  “Why should he?”

  “Because I’ll ask him to.”

  Chapter Seven

  After we reached the port, we turned left at Nikos’ Café and travelled two blocks east. The police station was a one-story building with chipped gray paint and barred windows on the corner of Angelou and Sintagmatos. The front door hung open as if it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to close or not. Inside was a wide room with three desks, a hallway leading back to other rooms, and a couple of closed doors. At the desk on the right, a young secretary with poufy hair sat behind a typewriter, but she wasn’t doing any typing. She was busily chatting with two police officers.

  “Nikos!” grinned the officer whose cropped hair suggested a close call with a helicopter. He pointed to his watch as if he’d never seen Nikos so early in the morning.

  Nikos introduced the man as Petros, his companion as Lascar, and the secretary as Dimitria. The trio grinned, no doubt thankful we’d broken up the morning’s routine.

  “The boss?” Nikos asked.

  Petros pointed to the door behind the secretary. “Soumba says he is working.” He pantomimed the act of knocking on the door. “I think he plays on the computer.”

  Nikos strode to the door and I followed. He knocked loudly as he called the man’s name.

  “Ela!” we heard from inside.

  So many boxes flooded the small office that the door only opened partway. A man sat behind a computer at a desk dwarfed by stacks of files. Additional stacks filled two chairs. Light streamed in from a window adjacent to the desk, further illuminating the crowded conditions. Overhead the fan cranked at each rotation.

  Soumba was a forty-something with wavy black hair typical of the islanders. He’d shaved that morning but quickly, leaving strands of uncut stubble across the bottom of his chin.

  “Nikos.” The police chief stood to shake our hands, keeping his free hand on the desk’s tallest stack to prevent the files from tumbling over. “I am Soumba.”

  “This is Andy Veracruz, the friend from L.A. that I told you about,” Nikos said. “He’s a musician.”

  “You have come for a visit. Good choice! Our island is full on foreigners, but we don’t have so many Americans.”

  In my head I corrected his phrase to “full of.”

  “You know where they go?” Soumba continued. “Italy! The beaches are dirty, but the tourists go.” He pointed to three large photographs that had been pinned to the wall behind him. The views showed a volcanic beach with pebbles that led out to a gentle sea, but the photos were so old that they had nearly faded to black and white. “You recognize?”

  We shook our heads.

  “Petronaki,” Soumba said. “You have gone?”

  “Not yet,” said Nikos.

  “Best place on the island. I used to go every weekend, camp with my wife and daughter. We would watch the moonlight over the ancient village. Now—ah! My daughter studies in Athens and my wife stays with her.” Soumba regarded me kindly. “You would like a tour for the police station?”

  I stopped short of saying “of the station.” Soumba was the police chief. He had the right to use any wrong preposition he wanted to.

  “We’re here on business,” Nikos said.

  “Ah.” He motioned for us to displace the files and sit down. “Business so early in the day. Drink?” Behind his desk was a mini-refrigerator on top of which were half a dozen dirty sundae dishes. Soumba pulled three cans of an orange soda labeled Amirosian Sunset from the refrigerator. He handed a can to each of us and opened the third for himself. “Local business,” he said in apology. “We must support this. Now what I can do for you?”

  “We read the newspaper this morning.”

  “The Amirosian? Bah! Garbage for the tourist trade. They hover around here, those reporters, acting busy. They are paid a lot for not much work.”

  I tried the orange soda and held back a cough. Too much sugar or maybe too much syrup.

  “About those spies we read about in the newspaper this morning—” Nikos began.

  Soumba threw his hands in the air. “When the reporters run out of stories, they invent Turkish spies. You know why? Because the reporters are lazy. They create spies from the air.” He pointed east. “From here with strong arms you swim to Turkey. Why we would need spies?”

  Indeed, why would we, I thought, internally changing the word order.

  “And the Turkish people—let me tell you a big secret.” Soumba lowered his voice. “They’re the same as Greeks. The other side of the same rock.” He pointed out the window. “Same blood. Same foods. Same music.”

  When Soumba paused for breath, Nikos jumped in. “There was a picture in the paper of the drowning victim talking to some other chap.”

  “Yes, yes. What does this tell us? Nothing. Two men sitting at a café. This is what the Amirosians do all day, all night. Sit at a café. This is nothing unusual.”

  Nikos readjusted his chair. “But who knew to take that particular picture?”

  “Nikos, you are no longer a stranger to the island,” said Soumba. “What happens when the ferries come in with all the tourists?”

  “They rush to the nearest cafés.”

  “Before that?”

  “They take pictures of the harbor.”

  “Yes.”

  Nikos swigged on his Amirosian Sunset as if he always had one for breakfast. “That still doesn’t explain why someone would have taken a picture of this Hari fellow.”

  Soumba sighed. Now that the sun’s rays had climbed further into the room, I noticed circles under his eyes. “The dead man is in this picture, yes. But you can’t know the original picture.” He put his hands together to make the outline of a square. “Maybe the picture was of the harbor, but this man Hari happened to be in one corner.”

  “Somebody accidentally got this poor soul in a picture and then sold it to the newspaper after he turned up dead,” Nikos suggested.

  “Yes! A simple matter. I could call Gregos and ask, but it would be useless.”

  “Who’s Gregos?” I asked.

  “Bastard newspaper editor,” Soumba hissed.

  “That jerk,” said Nikos. “Did you read his editorial last week on the ‘Modern Greek Woman’?”

  “‘Modern Greek Woman’? What he would know?” Soumba turned to me. “He married a girl twenty years younger so he could push her around.”

  “Fifteen years younger, I thought,” Nikos added.

  Soumba waved his index finger as if shaking loose a spider. “I talked to the girl’s parents at the wedding. Want to know
how they felt? Like Gregos stole their girl. He has nothing in common with her—how he could? And poor Maria. It’s one thing for Gregos to divorce her. It’s something different for him to make her the joke for the island by marrying a child.”

  “You should have seen them at the wedding,” Nikos told me. “The bride was clutching Gregos’ hand as if he held a magic key to the universe.”

  Soumba shook his head as if it were harboring a spider too. “Men and women were meant to grow old with one another. How this can happen when you marry with your grandfather? At the ceremony, I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see. But there I was at the end, clapping when the priest says they are husband and wife.”

  “What else could you do?” Nikos asked. “You didn’t have a choice.”

  “Bah! I am a hypocrite.”

  “You supported your family.”

  “Family?”

  Soumba turned to me. “Gregos is my first cousin. And the thief who stole my grandmother’s house because his lawyer, who is a bigger thief, makes a fake will.” Soumba’s eyes bulged. “You don’t want to hear for it! I only went to that wedding because I felt my mother watching me from the heavens. But I don’t talk to the bastard.”

  “I wouldn’t either,” Nikos said. “But that’s island politics. I guess you don’t get this back in California, do you, Andy?”

  I was out of my league. My Mexican relatives held grudges sometimes, but as far as I knew, they didn’t resort to the silent treatment. They had far too much fun complaining directly to one another instead. “All families have problems.”

  “My family has a few black sheep of its own,” Nikos admitted.

  “Thanks God those sheep are all in Athens where you don’t hear them bleeping,” Soumba said.

  I overcame my instinct to correct him. He probably wouldn’t have believed I was right.

  Soumba kicked the wastepaper basket, causing two discarded newspapers to shuffle further down inside. “Gregos is always making trouble with his stupid stories. And I must read them to anticipate the confusion they will cause. Last week he wrote that Athens Airways is going on strike. Do you know how many townspeople called us asking about plane tickets? I almost put a sign outside the door for ‘Soumbasakis Travel Agency.’”

  “This wouldn’t happen in Athens,” Nikos said.

  “No. In Athens the police do police work, not community service. Okay, it’s my community. Usually I don’t mind, but sometimes I lose too much time. That’s why I must have Petros and Lascar. They protect me.”

  Tourists who couldn’t figure out their plane tickets? If that were the worst problem on the island, I wanted to find my own café to buy.

  “Seriously,” Nikos said, “what do you think happened to that fellow?”

  “Who?”

  “The one in the newspaper. Don’t you think he died in a suspicious way?”

  Soumba raised his head and made a clicking “tzt” sound by snapping his tongue from his upper palate. I’d witnessed the regular sound for “no” several times since my arrival in Greece, but Soumba’s “tzts” were more emphatic.

  “Bah! These days you see everything.”

  Despite the sugar high, I drained the soda can and popped it into the wastepaper basket with a one-handed toss. “Maybe he was a robbery victim.”

  “Tzt, tzt. The wallet was on the body. My friends, Lepidopteros is a tiny fishing village. Their last murder was in 1903. A jealous husband thought he had cornered his wife’s lover. Instead he shot the wrong man three times in the stomach.”

  “As police chief, I guess you see everything,” Nikos said slowly.

  “In my job I learn the human nature. I could give classes in the university. Instead I pay half my salary so my daughter can live in Athens and study psychology.” Soumba pointed at the floor. “She could learn more in my office. That’s the new life. Learn from books. Bah.”

  I nodded. No matter what I thought, at this point I didn’t want to argue.

  “You had coffee with this man, right?” Soumba asked.

  I nodded.

  “He seemed upset?”

  “Tired. Just like me.”

  “He told you his personal problems?”

  “No.”

  “You know why?” Soumba patted his heart. “They were here. Too great to share. Probably small to us. You don’t agree?”

  We did.

  “Probably took his own life. Business problems, women problems—who knows? He comes down here to get away from everything, and he sees he can’t get away.”

  “You think it was a simple suicide?” I asked.

  “Tzt. Suicide is not simple. It is straightforward.” He clasped his hands. “Dead bodies make people nervous. On the island of Amiros, we don’t expect them. Thanks God this isn’t Athens with the street crimes and the things you find for the big cities. But please do not be worried, my American friend. You are not at risk.”

  Nikos finished his soda and squeezed the can into modern art. “You don’t think this Hari was a spy?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Because I would be the other spy,” I said, suddenly anxious to contribute.

  “You?” Soumba slammed his hands on his desk and sat straight up. “You?” He reached into the wastepaper basket, pulled out the newspaper, and spread it over his desk. He looked from me to the picture.

  “I’m that other man.”

  The police chief shook his head before he started laughing.

  Nikos and I exchanged glances.

  Soumba tapped on the picture. “A spy who wears flip-flops?”

  My Tevas weren’t flip-flops, but I’d worn them so long the Velcro had given out. I attached the right strap with a bread twisty. “I didn’t want to be loaded down with luggage.”

  “A spy who wears shorts and a T-shirt?” the police chief asked.

  “It’s been hot out.”

  “Spies don’t wear shorts?” Nikos asked, starting to have fun.

  Soumba raised his arms as if addressing a theater audience. “No! They take themselves more seriously. Ha, ha, ha, ha! And they don’t have long talks at harbor cafés where people can photograph them on broad daylight!”

  Under my breath, I said “in broad daylight,” but Soumba was too wound up to notice.

  Nikos laughed. “And they visit their barbers regularly!”

  My straight black hair was shoulder-length. I’d meant to get it cut before my trip, but I’d run out of time.

  Soumba shook his head in big waves. “Andy, you’re wrong for the spy business. You don’t watch movies?”

  “Not so often. I work nights.”

  “If you are a spy, I am the American president!” Soumba wiped a tear of laughter from his eye. “I like you. You’re even more crazy than my friend Nikos.”

  When Soumba stood, we did the same.

  “You will be on the café today?” Soumba asked Nikos.

  Nikos nodded.

  Soumba produced a paper sack from behind his desk and filled it with the empty sundae dishes. He handed the sack to Nikos. “I’ll stop by for an ice cream—after I catch the spies!”

  As we closed the door behind us, Soumba was still chuckling.

  “What was so funny?” Petros asked.

  “We were looking for Turkish spies,” Nikos said. “Have you seen any?”

  Petros pointed to a closed door. “In the back.”

  Nikos winked. “That’s what your boss said. Keep up the good work.”

  Once we reached the street, Nikos reeled around so fast I knocked into him. “Mind if we stop at my café?” he asked. “Might as well get rid of these sticky dishes. And while we’re at it, I was thinking about washing that orange stuff out of my mouth with a beer.”

  “A beer,” I repeated. “That’s just the thing.”

  We’d walked a block before I stopped short.

  “Shit.” I wrenched the engagement ring box from my pocket. “I meant to give this to Soumba.”

  Nikos looked up th
e street in the direction of the police station and then down towards the port. “What’s the rush? Beer first.”

  I totally agreed.

  Chapter Eight

  Across from me, Nikos slapped the table, shaking the host of empty Piraiki bottles. The ale was hearty for this early in the day, but the flavor was growing on me. The richness reminded me that I was on vacation.

  “You?” Nikos asked, exaggerating Soumba’s accent. You! A spy! Ha, ha, ha, ha!” It was the eighth or ninth time he’d imitated Soumba, and we’d laughed harder at each rendition. Nobody else heard us. We were alone inside the café, which was still closed. Tourists walked by without suspecting that we were cloistered inside the building in the semi-dark.

  I picked up one of the Tevas I’d already kicked off and examined its broken strap. “These don’t look half bad.” I checked the treads. Half the sole was worn smooth. “I should be able to wear these for at least six more months.”

  Nikos finished another Piraiki. “I’ve got it! You’re part of a musical smuggling ring. You hide merchandise inside your violin and then parade it under the authorities’ noses!”

  “I left all my instruments in Squid Bay.”

  “See? That’s why you’re so good!” So far he’d already accused me of smuggling boats, palm trees, and very small children.

  “If I’m so good, why don’t I have better footwear?”

  “Because you’re always in disguise!”

  “No, no! You mean ‘on’ disguise!”

  We roared with glee. After all my over-dramatizations and outrageous fears, even bad jokes would have made me laugh. I kept thinking that such a scene as we had at the police station would have never happened back home. Then I had to kick myself and remember that I was certainly not back home.

  Eleni and Rachel entered the café through the back door.

  “You!” Nikos shouted, pointing at them. “You are no spies! You are wearing shorts!”

  The women entered the room tentatively as if meeting us for the first time. Eleni gave Nikos a swift kiss before sitting beside him. “I thought you said everything went well.”

  “It did! Soumba explained that Andy can’t be a spy. He has the wrong clothes.”