by Ben Pastor
Not that our camera-toting Powell would have necessarily met Minos in person, but by the end of May the English, routed everywhere on the island, no doubt secured local channels who could direct them to safe havens in the interior if need be. Major Busch admitted there are a number of runaways out in the mountains, wearing Greek garb but still very much British at heart. I am determined to seek Minos tonight, which brings me to describe my logistics. I find myself in a summer rental for tourists that went understandably unlet this year. In fact the whole house is unoccupied. In case I wanted company, though, given that balconies and small terraces connect properties here, I could easily climb into the house next door. The rub is that two loafers have magically appeared at both ends of the street. In a strange way it makes me homesick for Moscow, as I recognize plain-clothes men at first sight. It remains to be seen whether Kostaridis wants to watch over me, or wants to watch me at all. I can’t leave the house in daylight without being noticed by his goons, so I’ll wait until dusk sets in, and then off I’ll go. With the curfew, I won’t be able to ask the locals for a tsagkares (read: tsangaris, shoemaker) near Chanià Gate. Still, luck is supposed to help those who dare. This is turning into the best thing that has come my way since Poland!
PS The alley (sokaki, in Greek) is named after Ulysses’ homeland, Ithaca, or Itaka. Kostaridis says Italians used to live here at the start of the century. Funny, all the more since Itaka is the nickname we Germans use for our Italian comrades, Italienische Kamaraden.
PPS Losing the wine is a potential disaster. It seems the airborne (not necessarily Preger’s men, although…) had a festive lunch with it, taking along what they didn’t consume at the table. I can’t possibly return to Russia without it. Hell, I’ll worry about it after I’m done with Minos and the entire Villiger affair.
Forcing the lock of the apartment next door was hardly a challenge. Well after sundown Bora entered it and found to his delight that it featured a balcony on the next alley over. He climbed down from its railing to the balcony below, and from it jumped onto the street. He’d studied on the map the web of old streets that crept toward the Venetian walls on both sides of Chanià Gate. He could reach the gate, closely guarded at this hour, without difficulty, but not having a precise address posed a major obstacle. Curfew had emptied the streets of civilians. Life went on in wine shops and cafes behind closed or half-open doors. Curtains or shutters protected windows on all floors; armed sentries watched over buildings where Germans noisily gathered, toasted and drank. Avenue 25 August, bisecting Iraklion, had best be avoided, and also the wider thoroughfares. Bora walked, ready to tell any fellow German with a military police gorget around his neck whatever story necessary to be let through. One street corner after another, his path became darker and more solitary; Greek voices replaced German sounds, the pavement grew uneven and odours unpleasant. Recesses in the stuccoed walls let out an acrid, fishy smell of male urine.
In normal times, in a normal city, a cobbler would have a name in a phone book and a sign outside his door, but that would hardly be the case in 1941 Iraklion with a man like Domenikos/Minos. It was possible he worked out of his house and was intentionally lying low, especially if he indulged in clandestine activities. That’s the best way to hide. Buried in thought, Bora stepped in and out of a puddle best unseen and unexplored. So, what’s the second-best way? To be in a place frequented by many. In Crete, as everywhere, that would include wine shops, cafes, eating places. And brothels. Didn’t Sinclair describe the man as “turpis, abiectus”? The adjectives suggest such an association. If that’s the case, with all the new customers in town a whorehouse will be in full swing at this hour. Or so Bora lightheartedly resolved. Keeping away from larger thoroughfares and to the narrow winding streets, which he knew (or assumed) to lie north of Kalokairinou, made him lose his way and go in circles. That’s what a maze is – this town is a postage stamp, and I get lost in it.
Starlight and a waxing moon evoked rooftops, crossroads, but left alleys and back lanes steeped in darkness. Bora resorted to his lighter to discern street signs whenever a briny gust from the sea did not funnel inland to snuff the flame. Sometimes only by a given odour did he realize he’d walked past a doorway. Once or twice he had more than an impression of being watched. Nothing easier; walls had more than ears in this country: every door, every window apparently shut was a peeping eye. It was that Greek way of looking through the fissure of an eyelid, from under the lashes. Thank God I hid Villiger’s passports and the rest, and have nothing on me but money that they can go for.
Until he reached what he recognized as the Armenian church Bora wasn’t sure he was heading in the right direction. The Chanià Gate – Chanioporta – lay somewhere ahead, slightly to his left in the city walls. Walking to the shore the previous afternoon, he’d glimpsed the dark repair shops, tinkers’ and joiners’ cubbyholes carved into the Venetian bastions, crannies where who knows how many people could work, live or hide. What if Powell, wounded as he was, had hobbled back to Iraklion, and was only steps away from him? He could wander aimlessly without ever finding him. He reached Kalokairinou Street and crossed it not far from the cafe. It seemed years before, and only a day had passed.
When the soldier on guard by a small post (or commander’s quarters) searchingly flashed his torchlight on him, Bora decided to make the most out of the incident.
His direct question, plainly spoken, drew no open reaction from the soldier. “Officers only, sir?” he staidly enquired.
“No. Isn’t there one by the gate?”
“There is. You have to keep south and go down Ainikolioti, by the keg-maker’s. But that’s for locals mostly. You don’t want to go there, Captain. There’s a much better house two streets down that way; Italians run it.”
Bora thanked the soldier and walked where he was directed, save changing course once he was out of sight. This is totally irrational, there’s no ground to believe I’m right, but a brothel is a place where you can ask about a seedy cobbler and not raise eyebrows. Bora wasn’t worrying yet about what language he’d ask in. Those girls understand all languages if you have money, and I have both drachmas and German marks. Echo paradhes: I have money.
He missed Ainikolioti Street the first time, ending up in an alley that blindly met the ancient rampart. Retracing his steps, he skirted the city walls for several minutes before he distinctly heard laughter and women’s shrill voices from somewhere in the neighbourhood. It became a matter of trusting the sounds, the ribbons of dim light through shutters and under doorways.
At last Bora reached a place where half-finished kegs and barrels sat like paunchy monks at the side of the street. A wide, wooden awning such as he’d seen elsewhere in town, extending far out from the house, created the impression of a free-standing roof over nothing. Just ahead, voices (Greek and German, with Italian expletives thrown in) came from the upper floor of a two-storey building. The words ficken and puttana floating down left no doubt as to the nature of the establishment, and suggested two things: either the soldier on guard was wrong in saying it was mostly patronized by locals, or else their percentages had changed. No direct entrance to the brothel was visible from the street. Bora had to shake his lighter before the flame came alive, as the gas in it was running low. In front of him flickered a scurfy, whitewashed partition, no more than eight feet in height, screening the space between the house in question and an adjacent building. Twin posts topped by chalk or cement spheres framed a flimsy wooden door that gave way the instant Bora pushed it. Again, he had to use the lighter to make sense of what lay behind, and what he was getting himself into.
The space between the two houses extended maybe twenty paces in length, unpaved and wholly dark. To Bora’s right stood a door painted crimson or oxblood, whose glass fanlight was shaded by wrapping paper. From a shuttered window above came the muffled grunts of a male – nationality unknown but imaginable – exerting himself as drunks do when they can’t reach an orgasm. The sounds were laborious, uncouth.
The moment they’d grow closer, and more explosive, a German Army condom or the neck of a Greek uterus would be receiving doomed Aryan sperm. Bora didn’t fully articulate the thought but it crossed his mind with some embarrassment, as he turned away to check what was on his left. A wooden step and an narrow unpainted door faced him, with a hand-painted cardboard sign that read Tsagkares.
So, he’d guessed right. Only now did he wonder how the English got to communicate with Minos: either he spoke a few foreign words or else they depended on one of their Greek speakers, like vice-consul Pendlebury or other patriotic and meddlesome young scholars. But no, these people could direct the runaways themselves; they knew the island like the palm of their hands. And besides, they’d been the first to seek the mountains with rebels armed and organized by them – unless they’d been wounded (or killed) outside Chanià Gate like John Pendlebury, MA, FSA.
Bora knocked. Nobody answered, but he heard steps rustle to the door from within, and then hastily withdraw. Giving himself no time to think, he tried the lock, opened the door and walked right in.
Inside, the final spurt of light from his lighter drew the impression of a low-ceilinged labyrinth of small rooms reeking of glue, leather and dirty clothes. Bora stumbled against something, a stool or worktable, and knocked it over. He couldn’t see a thing; there was a draught from the far end of the house that did not relieve the stench but would blow out even a perfectly functioning lighter. Whoever had come to the door kept still, away in the dark.
A fine kettle of fish, his stepfather would contemptuously say when the boys did something stupid. But Bora had put himself in the kettle, and there was no turning back. Calling out “Domenikos” (Remember, in Greek you pronounce it Dome’nikosh) might or might not be a good idea. Another misstep made him lose balance and he tripped down to a lower level, a space where the ghost of an outside glimmer leaked through the half-opened window. It comes from the fanlight over the brothel’s door, he thought. Not enough to see. “Domenikos?” he said into the darkness. Next door, across the interspace, the drunk kept grinding, over a woman’s titter and whispered Greek prattle, “Oogod, oogod, oogod…” Choked moans definitely gave him away as a German drunk. I can’t see how God enters into any of this. Bora’s skin crept as the rhythm accelerated and the craved achievement seemed at hand. Do we sound so foolish when we make love?
The muzzle of a pistol against the nape of his neck came just as an unanticipated male solidarity made him slightly excited, and the touch of metal did nothing to curb the reaction. Most Cretans being short, it was probably his having stumbled down that allowed the man behind him to be level with his neck. A crude voice muttered a question in his ear, likely asking who he was. Bora didn’t understand, but ventured to say “Englesos” because – unseen – he could easily pass for an Englishman. Even as he said it, the idea raced through him that it might be a mistake. Cuicumque pretio… A man selling to anyone for money. For all he knew Minos might now be vending Englishmen to Germans, alive or dead.
Things were moving too fast, or the absolute wrong way. “Echo paradhes,” he said, and held his breath waiting for a reply. Fitful gramophone music and muffled stomping came from the ground floor of the other house, while the frantic drunk was a groaning breath away from ejaculation.
“Echo paradhes,” Bora spelt out, because the gun stayed stuck to his head. And whatever shameful reaction the brothel sounds were causing in him, it precipitously abated when he felt a second man grope into the pockets of his army shorts. But the money sat in his chest pocket, so the gun slide was pulled back, chambering a round and readying to fire.
Dark, dark, smell, sounds. Suspended, instantaneous loneliness. The trappings and locus of his death manifested themselves to Bora, who’d imagined them very differently when speaking to Kostaridis, though he had said it didn’t matter where he’d die. This was where it would happen. He wasn’t even thinking of Remedios with his last thought: just that he was turning around and striking with his left fist. He missed. He missed the armed man and the groper jumped at him. Bora flung the attacker off, managed to take out his Browning, but hung fire. If I kill him, there goes my possible lead. If I don’t… A point-blank shot exploded anyway, although Bora didn’t feel pain and was sure he hadn’t been the one pulling the trigger. Flash, blast, a ringing in the ears. The trappings and locus of his death… The bedroom next door went suddenly mute; laughter below it faded and died out. Only the insipid dance music grated away on the gramophone. I screwed up someone’s orgasm, Bora thought, as if that mattered in the situation he was in. Within seconds, the glare of a torchlight knifed through the room and Kostaridis’ voice bellowed, “Stassou!” to keep someone from fleeing. “Chorophilakì, stassou!”
The cone of light pooled downward to reveal a man crumpled at the foot of the steps and feebly moving; it then swung to the wall, where a light switch came into view and was flicked. Despite the shouted halt, somebody was noisily slamming a window open in another room and escaping into the night.
“Ma vi pare il caso di morire ammazzato a Creta dopo che l’avete presa?” Kostaridis’ words, rattled off at him in Italian, had the merit of plunging Bora from stress to extreme anger.
Furious, he missed his pistol holder twice before being able to put away his gun. The impulse to lunge at the inspector as he prodded the wounded man was hard to resist.
“Is he the cobbler?”
“What do you want a cobbler for?”
“Epitropos, is he the cobbler?”
“He isn’t. The son of a whore got away. Now we won’t have him as an informant any more, thanks to you. Who gave you his name, anyway?”
Bora seethed. “I’m telling you nothing. I’m telling you nothing. You butted in on purpose to keep me from doing my job.”
“I don’t think you even know what your job is.”
“Were you following me?”
“What do you think? I was.”
The wounded man was not so badly off that he couldn’t crawl to his feet. Kostaridis turned him around and kicked him towards the door. “He can go. He’s Minos’ idiot brother.” When they stepped out, the space between the houses was windy, dark and fresh. The brothel’s windows were all open when Kostaridis flashed his light on the facade. Clients kept out of sight, but the women were curious. An agitated hag with skittle-shaped teats leaned out, with two wild-haired girls behind her, whose breasts were plump and round instead. White, firm like those on Agrali’s marble Sphinxes but with large brown buttons topping them. All called to the idiot and made obscene signs to the policeman. Bora felt drunk, although a sip of Panagiotis’ wine was the only alcohol he’d touched since leaving Moscow.
Kostaridis yelled the whores back into the house, before reinforcing his lesson to Bora. “Are you crazy, walking in like this? You don’t go into such places at night! You could have died! If you wanted to negotiate with the cobbler you should have gone through his mother, who runs the whorehouse. The old cunt is the go-between for business with him.”
At least he didn’t think I was looking for a woman here, Bora thought.
“What did you want to see Minos for?”
“I’m not telling you.”
But they started back toward Ithaca Street together. Admitting foolishness was not something Bora was ready to do. He’d given his word to Sinclair that he’d keep the matter of the cobbler from other Germans; not from Greeks, who seemed to know about him anyway. At one point, he resentfully mumbled, “I need to know where the Englishman who took the photos might have escaped to.”
The only sign of irritation on Kostaridis’ part was that he walked quickly, just short of a marching step, with arms bent and elbows out. “I could have told you that, without your raising this hell.” (In Italian he said casotto, which meant confusion but also brothel.) “Runaways seek the foot of Psiloritis and the highlands around it. Forget about flushing them out ever. The Venetians couldn’t, the Turks couldn’t, you won’t. That’s where Krousonas is.”
“Krousonas. I saw the name on the map.”
“Well, that’s no place you want to go to. I wouldn’t go myself. It’s Satanas’ backyard.”
After the judge of Hades, Satan himself. Bora was about to say something when the policeman prevented him. “Look, capitano, Krousonas is off limits: if you go there, I wash my hands of you.” And because he heard the German snigger to himself, he blurted out, “There’s nothing to laugh about. What happened tonight was stupid. It could have ended badly.”
“I’m laughing because I’m provoked.” In fact, Bora began to find irresistible the story of the Greek brothel, and of a gunshot ruining a compatriot’s long-suffered climax. Well, Dikta and I are champion fuckers, he grittily congratulated himself. We don’t sound so foolish when we make love, and compared to us, any brothel is small fry. But Bora still needed to spread his irritation around, so he pulled out of his pocket one of the calling cards found in the Duvoin–Villiger deposit box, and placed it in front of Kostaridis, where the glare of his torchlight made it readable. “See? I told you I’d find out. Turn it around.”
Kostaridis peered at the small print on the back of the card. In Italian, it read: Daughter of Mazaltov Cordoval and Esterula De Raffeul, Rhodes. Her father runs a lucrative perfume business on Piazza del Fuoco near the postcard shop of the Modiano family and the moneychangers Harran e Mizrahi.
“I don’t understand. What’s this, capitano?”
“You know very well what it is. It’s the Jewish cabaret artist’s.”
“Yes, but what will you do with it?”
“I’m not telling you.”
Truly, Bora hadn’t given any thought to it. He’d been careful not to write in his diary that most of the calling cards found at Ampelokastro were of a similar type, and Signora’s whereabouts were far removed from his interest at the moment. Which is lucky for her, he thought, and snatched the card from Kostaridis’ hand.
