The Black Life

by Paul Johnston

  ‘I’ll ring and see if I can visit.’

  Mavros swallowed a laugh. Niki and the Fat Man didn’t get on like any kind of building on fire. ‘That would be … nice of you.’

  ‘Are you at the airport?’

  He glanced at Rachel, who was sending a text, her long fingers moving like a pianist’s.

  ‘Not yet. Yiorgos told me to stay if I wasn’t finished.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Niki?’

  ‘I can’t believe you, Alex. Never mind me, but your best friend is almost killed and you’re still up there?’

  ‘I don’t know … I need to find out who was behind the fire.’

  ‘And you can do that from the co-capital?’

  ‘I can’t do it from Athens either. I’m not an arson expert.’

  ‘Arson?’

  Shit, Mavros thought, then told her what Yiorgos had said.

  ‘So it could still be you know who.’

  ‘Or someone employed by him. The cops will look for witnesses once they take the Fat Man’s statement and get the fire service’s report.’

  ‘You could be looking for witnesses now.’

  That was true. ‘Leave it with me, Niki. Please, I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘Yes, you do. When it comes to yourself.’ She rang off.

  Mavros shook his head, then his phone rang again. The name on the screen made him feel even worse.

  ‘My commiserations on your friend’s … problem.’ Police Brigadier Nikos Kriaras, chief of the capital and surrounding area’s organised crime unit, sounded unusually concerned. He distrusted mobile phones and spoke cryptically.

  ‘Yeah, like that’s why you’re calling.’

  ‘So hostile. I was hoping we could get over last year.’

  ‘When you let the Son loose? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Do you think it’s him?’

  ‘Do you?’

  Kriaras sighed. ‘This is going nowhere. I called to ask if Pandazopoulos passed on any information we could use. I hear he’s conscious.’

  Mavros was immediately suspicious. ‘Why are you so interested in a fire?’

  ‘Anything to do with you interests me.’

  Mavros told him what Yiorgos had said.

  ‘Molotovs? Has the big man being throwing his Communist flab around? Antagonising the far right, maybe?’

  Mavros let that pass. ‘Will you organise a canvass? Maybe the slimeballs were seen.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Very well. Have a good time in Thessaloniki.’ The connection was cut.

  Bastard, Mavros said to himself. He might have known that Kriaras would be keeping tabs on him. He’d probably told his counterpart in the co-capital about his presence.

  Rachel was still busy, so he made calls to his mother and sister. Both were pleased to hear that the Fat Man was alive and reasonably well, though neither of them were his biggest fans. They would maintain high alert in case the Son was involved.

  ‘All done?’ Rachel asked.

  He nodded, although he’d had a worrying thought. If Nikos Kriaras knew he was in Thessaloniki, maybe the Son did too.

  Mavros led her to Shimon Raphael’s office.

  ‘If you want to go to Athens, it’s fine by me,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Let’s see how things down there and up here develop.’

  ‘What about your … woman?’

  ‘What about her?’ he replied sharply.

  She didn’t answer.

  Shimon rose as they came in, the office being a single though large room. Clerks were working at computer terminals.

  ‘Alex,’ he said extending a hand. ‘And you must be Ms Samuel.’ He was speaking accented but fluent English. ‘I saw you sticking it to those neo-Nazi fools on the TV.’

  Rachel looked at Mavros coolly. ‘I am,’ she said, turning back to Shimon. ‘You’ve evidently heard of me, but I know nothing about you.’

  ‘Shimon is an old friend of the Fat … my friend Yiorgos,’ Mavros put in. ‘He’s been helping me with some background matters.’

  The customs broker laughed loudly. ‘Background, yes.’

  ‘So, what have you got for us?’

  ‘First of all, Ester Broudo.’

  Rachel frowned.

  ‘Everyone I’ve talked to says she’s sharp as a tack and an upstanding member of the community. No dark secrets.’

  ‘All right,’ Mavros said neutrally.

  Shimon unlocked his desk drawer and took out a file. ‘As I said, I don’t think it’s major, but it’s interesting.’

  Mavros opened the file and ran his eye down the papers inside.

  ‘You want to explain what this means?’ he asked, struggling with the small print of the documents.’

  ‘Sure. During the war the Germans set up an organisation called YDIP, the Service for the Disposal of Jewish Property. It was run by local worthies – so they’d have characterised themselves – but answerable to the occupiers. In fact, most of them were traitors, collaborators and thieves. They expropriated Jewish businesses and homes, not to mention personal possessions. The people closest to the Germans enriched themselves hugely, as did those who were able to bribe them.’

  ‘Didn’t they have problems when the Jews came back?’ Mavros asked. ‘I read there were court cases.’

  ‘Which dragged on for years and often resulted in limited return of property and compensation. Many claimants emigrated rather than wait.’

  ‘And in any case there weren’t many of them,’ Rachel put in. ‘How many came back? Three thousand?’

  Shimon nodded. ‘It’s difficult to be sure, but well under ten per cent.’

  Mavros could tell there was more. ‘So, what have you dug up?’

  Shimon looked at Rachel. ‘Your great-great-uncle, Yosif, owned five shops as well as the family home. All were obtained by the same person.’ He paused. ‘Efthymis – Makis – Kalogirou.’

  Mavros’s head jerked back. ‘As in …’

  ‘Makis Kalogirou the neo-Nazi wanker. Efthymis was his grandfather.’

  ‘That’s … interesting,’ Mavros said. ‘And possibly more significant than you imagine.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Rachel said. ‘You’re saying that the grandfather of the Phoenix Rises’ leader owned my family’s property.’

  Shimon nodded. ‘And that Makis – a.k.a. Efthymis, he has his grandfather’s name, may he rot in hell – is the current owner.’

  ‘God,’ Rachel said. She looked queasy.

  ‘There’s something else. Old Kalogirou went missing in August 1948, towards the end of the Civil War. There was no trace of him and his body was never found.’

  Mavros had a flash of his brother Andonis. ‘What happened?’

  ‘According to the newspapers, he went out for dinner with colleagues – meaning other right-wing extremists – and never showed up. It was assumed an aggrieved employee got to him. He was a notorious exploiter, working his staff hard and paying them as little as he could get away with. He’d also made several people redundant recently. Someone – no doubt another collaborator – removed everything he could from the YDIP files about the Samuel properties.’ He tapped his nose. ‘I have a special source.’

  The customs broker turned to Mavros. ‘I’ve got something on the “hyper” issue,’ he said, in Greek. ‘Do you want me to share it with your client?’

  ‘Is it good or bad?’

  Shimon raised his shoulders. ‘It’s confirmation.’

  ‘Go on, then. She could do with something to take her mind off the Nazis.’

  ‘I’ve been checking into Aron Samuel’s background,’ Shimon said, in English. Rachel immediately perked up. ‘He was a member of the Communist Youth Party here. His file has been – how can I put it? – purged. I don’t know when.’

  ‘So he was a Communist.’ Rachel looked shocked. ‘We … my family has no sympathy with the left.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘What happened to his f
ile?’

  ‘I don’t know. I used to be a member of the party – I’m sorry if that offends you – but I can’t find out that kind of information.’

  ‘He was either a traitor or a valuable operator, probably undercover,’ Mavros explained.

  Rachel’s face was pale again. ‘Well, those are tempting alternatives. What else do you know?’

  Shimon dropped his gaze. ‘That’s it, I’m afraid.’

  Rachel got up, nodded to him and headed for the door.

  ‘She didn’t take that well,’ the customs broker said. ‘It’s not as if Communists are lepers.’

  ‘They are for some people, especially Jewish Communists.’

  ‘True.’

  Mavros extended his hand. ‘I’ll be in touch. I owe you dinner.’

  Shimon grinned. ‘And a research fee.’

  Mavros laughed. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get it. And if you hear anything else …’

  ‘Don’t worry, my friend. I have your number.’

  As he walked away, Mavros suddenly remembered what had happened to the Fat Man. He went back and told Shimon.

  ‘Fuck. But he’s OK, you say.’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Who would throw Molotovs at Yiorgos’s place?’

  ‘Good question. Does the Phoenix Rises have a track record of that up here?’

  ‘Off the top of my head, no. They prefer fists and boots.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘Besides, they wouldn’t fancy something named after a leading Soviet official.

  Mavros shook his head, but couldn’t resist smiling.

  ‘Aren’t you going back to Athens?’

  ‘He told me not to. I’ll see.’

  ‘Oh, I almost forgot. Yitzak Tsiako will see you at the Noufara Café on Tsimiski Street at nine. He’ll be finished his evening’s chess by then.’

  Mavros looked at his watch. He’d forgotten about the family whose wedding Aron Samuel had been seen outside of. He needed to get a grip.

  Allegra Harari was as cheery and bustling as she’d been on their last visit. Her experience the previous evening didn’t seem to have affected her.

  ‘Oh, that,’ she said dismissively. ‘The neo-Nazis are cowards. I think it would have been as you said. Some of the anti-fascists must have seen them and scared them away.’

  Mavros was less inclined than she to dismiss the ‘ghost’ she’d mentioned. Only a trained operative would have been able to take out head bangers so silently; only an experienced professional would get them out of the building so efficiently. The sole person he knew with those qualifications was the Son. Was he dogging their footsteps in Thessaloniki? Who would have put him up to that? The obvious answer was Nikos Kriaras. Was the policeman acting on behalf of the privileged groups that controlled the politicians and ran the country from behind the scenes? What would their interest in a supposedly long-dead Jew be? Or were they more interested in the Kalogirou family? His mind was spinning. Then he had another thought. What if the Son was working on his own account? But if he was in the co-capital, he couldn’t have petrol-bombed Yiorgos’s house – unless he’d subcontracted that job.

  ‘Alex?’

  Mavros came out of his reverie and looked up at Allegra.

  ‘I was saying that Rachel should refrain from taking the fight to the Phoenix Rises, even though they’re vile and ignorant animals.’

  Mavros translated, adding, ‘I quite agree.’

  Rachel gave him a cool look.

  Mavros told Allegra what they had learned from Shimon Raphael, stressing that it was in confidence.

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Shimon’s a good man, especially since he saw the light about the comrades. They’ve lost their way. They’ll be rehabilitating Stalin soon. Besides,’ she said, looking down at a page full of notes, ‘that chimes with what I’ve found.’

  ‘Really?’ Mavros was surprised. How could a non-Communist have discovered anything revealing about a member?

  ‘Yes. As you know from the book I put together for your mother, several survivors of the death camps wrote private memoirs about their experiences. Others tried to forget, of course. And others … well, others were never the same again.’

  Rachel looked at her curiously after the translation was made.

  ‘Meaning?’ Mavros asked.

  ‘Meaning that their minds were damaged by what they went through. I interviewed all of them – those who hadn’t been taken to Israel or elsewhere by their families – and I kept notes. Something nagged at me about Aron Samuel from the start and I finally tracked it down.’ She held up a transparent file filled with handwritten pages. ‘Haim Rosenberg. Twenty-five when he was put on the fourth transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Returned here in November 1945. Lost everyone except his sister Rula, who was hidden by Christian Greeks in a village outside Thessaloniki. Haim lived with Rula and her husband and children till they all left for Israel in 1995.’ Allegra fell silent.

  ‘What did he tell you?’ Mavros prompted.

  ‘I’m still not sure if I believe him – he was prone to hallucinations. Anyway, he said he saw Aron Samuel here several times during the Civil War. He was unclear about dates.’ She shook her head. ‘But no one else did. I really don’t know if his testimony is reliable.’

  Mavros kept Rachel up to speed, aware that Allegra was uncharacteristically nervous.

  ‘Haim couldn’t work so Rula used to send him to the shops. They lived in the centre, near the Arch of Galerius, so he went past a lot of offices and cafés every day. He said he saw Aron waiting around, looking in windows, and once following a man who came out and walked down the street.’

  ‘Why did he remember that?’

  ‘Because of the look on Aron’s face. Haim said it terrified him, gave him nightmares for months … because it reminded him of the guards and the worst of the capos in the Lager. “Death had eaten him and spat him out alive”, he said.’

  Mavros translated.

  ‘You think the man he followed was Kalogirou?’ Rachel asked. ‘You think my great-uncle made him disappear?’

  Allegra heard the Greek name. ‘What has the Phoenix Rise’s idiot leader got to do with this?’

  ‘You know about his grandfather?’ Mavros said.

  ‘Oh, you’re talking about the collaborator. Of course. He got a lot of Jewish property at low prices from the Nazis, via the YDIP. You’ve heard of that?’

  He nodded. ‘Including the Samuel family’s.’

  The researcher looked surprised. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Apparently the records were tampered with.’

  ‘There was a lot of that. Did you know that some of the collaborators in this city became government ministers during the 50s?’

  Mavros nodded. ‘The Merten trial proved that.’

  ‘Indeed it did.’

  ‘My father was a lawyer. He worked with the prosecutor.’

  ‘Good for him. It was a disgrace what happened.’

  Rachel nudged him and he translated.

  ‘I’ll tell you about Merten later.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We have to go. Thanks for this. Have you made out a bill?’

  The researcher shook her head. ‘This was a public service. But be careful. The link to the older Kalogirou is worrying. It means the Phoenix Rises might be involved. They might have found out that Aron Samuel was spotted.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Not only Christian Greeks were collaborators. There was a Jewish police force that helped the Germans in the war. If a poor member of our community was tempted by money …’

  Mavros asked Allegra about the old man they had found hanged, but got no further information on him. He told her they were going to visit Yitzak Tsiako and asked what she knew about his father, Zvi – no more than Shimon, it turned out.

  Mavros and Rachel took their leave. Before he explained to her about the Merten trial, he had a worrying thought. The special interests served by Nikos Kriaras and innumerable others no doubt included people whose ancest
ors had been black-market operators and collaborators. It wasn’t at all unlikely that some had ties to the far right in general and the Phoenix Rises in particular.

  Was it a coincidence that the pickup full of skinheads had arrived at the Jewish cemetery gates when they were leaving?

  TWENTY-SIX

  We killed many of them, the beasts of Auschwitz-Birkenau and other Lagers. Some were women, but I had no pity for them. If anything, they were worse than the men – hard-faced blondes who spat at us and swore till their last moments, never pleading for their lives. The poison of Nazism ran deeper in their veins, while many of the men had it sucked out of them on the Eastern Front along with their aggression. Only SS guards who had never seen combat escaped disillusion.

  Gradually our work became harder. The Americans and British had tolerated the killing of SS members in the aftermath of the war. As battle lines were drawn against the Soviet Union, we became an embarrassment. More than once we had to shoot our way out of confrontations with Military Police units, although we always aimed high. By the beginning of 1947, Shlomo and I accepted Zvi’s argument that we return home. That proved to be difficult as the British monitored the movements of Jews in order to control those trying to get to Palestine. We spent several months in a camp in central Italy. We weren’t captured, but walked in voluntarily, having run out of food. Also, we were in desperate need of rest.

  The problem was, we weren’t allowed to leave when we recovered. At least we were supplied with clothes and shoes. The guards weren’t like the SS men and we could have staged a breakout, but we had matured. Killing was no longer a good idea, so we waited, Shlomo and I playing cards and backgammon, while Zvi devoted himself to the Torah. He rapidly became a very Orthodox Jew and regarded us as little better than gentiles. He had been shot in the shoulder by an American patrol and had played only a small part in the last executions.

  Eventually, along with other Greek Jews, we were shipped home. We wanted to disembark at Igoumenitsa opposite Corfu, but the Civil War was being fought in the northern mountains of the mainland and we had to go to Patra and then Athens. We were treated with suspicion, despite the papers we had been issued with in Italy. Members of our community in Athens helped us find a fishing boat that was going north. There had been fewer of them than in the northern cities, but more had survived because of the good work of their chief rabbi, the help of Christian Greeks and the proximity of the mountains. When they heard we were from Thessaloniki, they clutched our arms and commiserated with us. Later we found out that they didn’t tell us all they knew.