The Messenger of Athens: A Novel (36 page)

“Sit down, Theo,” said the fat man. Theo hesitated. Enrico stepped up to him.

“Please sit down, sir,” said Enrico, “or I shall be forced to make you.”

Theo spat into the sawdust, and sat.

“Tie him down,” said the fat man.

From behind, Enrico pinned Theo in the chair, while Ilias efficiently wrapped Theo’s forearms with the rope, binding them to the chair arms.

“You bastards!” shouted Theo, wildly. “What the fuck are you doing? Untie me, you pricks, or I’ll call the fucking police!”

He kicked out at them, but they were out of range.

“Theo, Theo,” said the fat man, soothingly. He laid a hand on Theo’s head, and slowly stroked his hair. “Sshh, Theo, sshh. There’s no need to call the police. At this moment in time, I
am
the police.”

Madly, Theo shook his head to shake off the caress, but
the fat man stroked, and stroked, until Theo became still. And when he was still, the fat man pulled a red silk handkerchief from his pocket, and pushed it into his mouth.

The fat man and the crewmen stood silently together, watching Theo.

Theo was very still.

“Red, Theo,” said the fat man, at last. “The color of passion. The color of beating hearts. The color of blood.”

At the bench, Ilias began to unwrap the newsprint from his parcel.

“You and I have a bone to pick, friend. Because you have not been telling the truth, have you?” Theo rattled the legs of the chair, and tried to get to his feet; Enrico moved behind him and, pressing on his shoulders, held him down.

“You know,” went on the fat man, “if you had said to me, ‘I loved Irini,
fatso
, with all my heart and soul. She was my joy, and my world, and everything in life to me’—if you had said that to me, you wouldn’t be here now. But you didn’t say that, did you? You said you didn’t know her. I wonder how poor Irini would have felt about that?”

From behind the handkerchief, Theo tried to shout, but the gag held in his words.

“How do you think she died, Theo? Shall
I
tell
you?
You think you know. You think she killed herself, don’t you? You think she killed herself, out of love for you.”

Theo shook his head, violently, and his eyes spread wide.

“I’m still not getting through to you, am I, Theo?” The fat man drew out a cigarette, and leaned against the
bench to light it. As he exhaled smoke, he said, “I have not the slightest interest in your pathetic attempts to preserve your status quo. It is time now for the truth. Truth, Theo. Not a concept which has figured largely in your world. Until now. Let me tell you how it is. I know she haunts your sleep; I can see your dreams. I know how you hold her in your arms, and how you cry when you wake, and find that it’s not real. I know you see her around every street corner, just disappearing from view. I know you look in every woman’s face, looking for her, her mouth, her eyes. Her smile, Theo. The one you threw away. And I think you would give your right hand to have one hour with her, wouldn’t you? If I could show her to you, manifest her, what would you give me? What would be a fair price? One finger? Your right hand, perhaps…” The fat man ran his fingertips tickling over the back of Theo’s bound hand; the red handkerchief muted Theo’s protesting shout, and he strained at the binding rope, raising blue veins amongst the stretching bones.

The fat man laughed, and patted Theo’s hand.

“No, no. You misunderstand me. Nothing so violent. Not
quite
so violent.”

He leaned in close to Theo’s ear, and his face took on a look of anger.

“Because it’s too late now, isn’t it?” he hissed. “What’s done is done. I can’t bring her back, any more than you can find her. No regrets though, eh? No regrets? Theo?”

To hide the bright tears in his eyes, Theo stared down at his knees, but the fat man put his fist beneath his chin, and roughly raised his head.

“Tears, Theo? Dear me! Who are they for, son—her, or you?”

He let his head drop, and beckoned to the crewmen.

“Shave him.”

Ilias peeled back the pages of newsprint, and laid out the contents of his parcel. Scissors. A can of shaving cream. A cutthroat razor.

“I understand your difficulty,” went on the fat man. “You have the heart of a great lover, but the soul of a coward. The two together create dilemmas. You’re a closet Romeo, Theo, a lover who dares nothing. So I’m going to take pity on you; look at it like that. I’m going to solve your dilemma for you. I’m going to shove you out of the closet. Now, keep very still.”

Ilias took the scissors and cut at Theo’s hair. He cut close to the scalp, letting the soft, black curls fall amongst the sawdust and the wood-shavings, cutting until there was only stubble, rough and tufted.

On Theo’s knee, a tear fell. The fat man dropped the butt of his cigarette, and ground it out beneath his tennis shoe.

“I am doubly ashamed of you,” he said, leaning back against the workbench. “You cry for your hair, but where are your tears for Irini?”

Ilias uncapped the shaving cream and, filling his palm with white foam, began to spread it over Theo’s scalp.

“If you had shown
one moment
of decency,” said the fat man, “if you had gone to Irini, told her you loved her, admitted you were too cowardly to face the fray and be with her, well, you wouldn’t be here now.”

Ilias opened the razor, and drew the blade across his fingertip. The blade’s thin track appeared in blood. He cut the first smooth swathe across Theo’s scalp.

“Or, if you had gone to her husband, and told him you loved his wife, that you wanted to take her away, if you had taken the beating he would likely have given you like a man, you wouldn’t be here now.”

Ilias scraped the foam and stubble from the razor’s blade onto the workbench edge. Where he had cut, Theo’s scalp showed gray. Ilias cut again.

“If you had stood up to your father’s bullying, said you were sticking by the woman you loved, you wouldn’t be here now. If you had run away with her secretly and started a new life elsewhere. If you had stood by her, spoken up for her when your friends were calling her a whore. If you had risked everything and gone to make love to her, just once. If you had confessed all to your wife, and tried to build a better marriage. If you had done
any one
of these things, if you had behaved in only
one small detail
as a man of integrity instead of a man looking out for himself—and only himself—you would not be here now.

“You told yourself you were a Man of Honor, deserting your lover so precipitately, without a word. You have a wife and child. But your ‘honorable’ behavior was only cowardice. Your overriding concern was sparing yourself embarrassment, and trouble at home. There was no honor there. It was pure self-interest. Admit it, Theo.”

Theo closed his eyes, and slowly nodded.

“Good.”

The shaving was complete. Cautiously, the fat man
pulled the handkerchief from Theo’s mouth. The red silk had become purple, dyed with saliva, and tears.

“And you underestimated, didn’t you, the power of passion? Passion is a great gift, a gift not given to everyone. For you, it was too much. You were not man enough for its demands. Now it is time for you to redeem yourself, to stand up and face the music. You’ve acted the part you chose well, very well. But good acting was not what was required. Good acting is the refuge of those who wish to deceive, not only others but themselves. Especially themselves. What was required from you, Theo, was honesty. Perhaps a little kindness.”

Theo was silent. Then he said, “Perhaps if I had been kinder, at the end, she wouldn’t have killed herself. That was my fault. I killed her.”

“No, Theo. You flatter yourself, I fear. She did not kill herself. Not for you, or for any other reason.”

“It was an accident, then?”

The fat man considered.

“Let’s say that. Yes.”

“So it wasn’t my fault?”

“Be careful. You cannot absolve yourself of responsibility simply because she did not die by her own hand. If it weren’t for you, she would be alive now.”

He signaled to the crewmen, who slid back the bolt on the door, and slipped out.

“It’s time for you to do your penance. The time for hiding, and acting, and lying, is past. I want you to take your punishment like the Man of Honor you have told yourself you are. Irini suffered the loss of her good name and
reputation for you, and bore it. Today starts a new chapter in
your
life. Everything you have feared losing, what you held most precious—your reputation, your good name, your quiet life, maybe even your family—you are about to lose. Because you valued them too highly, I am going to take them from you. All things in life are transient. The trick is, to value what is most important. There are diamonds beyond price, and baubles which are worthless. Both shine, and sparkle. In the past, you have been fooled. There may be no other chances for you now, but if there are, in future, choose more wisely. Now, be brave.”

Enrico, in a pair of leather gauntlets, carried in an aluminum bucket half-f of hot, black pitch; it filled the workshop with its clean, antiseptic fumes. Ilias brought in a paintbrush, and a bag he concealed behind his back.

They moved behind Theo, and began to paint his naked head with the hot tar. Wherever it touched, it burned—his scalp, his neck where it dribbled in hardening rivulets—and the fumes stung his eyes, and made them feel as if they were bleeding.

They painted until his head was glossy black. Then Ilias handed his bag to the fat man, and the fat man, holding it high, tipped over Theo a shower of chicken feathers, red-brown and white, and soft as snowflakes.

A
t the jetty, the fat man gave Enrico the keys to Theo’s truck.

“Put him on the back,” he said, “where all the good folks can see him, and take him home the longest way
you can find. Don’t be more than an hour. We have Nikos Velianidis to take care of, and his time is very precious. Then we’ll be gone. I don’t believe there’s anything else here that requires my attention, just at the moment.”

A
nxious to deliver news of the scandal, George the bus driver pulled a chair up to the table at Jakos’s
kafenion
.

Agog, Lukas listened with the rest: Thassis Four-Fingers, Stavros Pleased-to-Meet-You, the bone-fused Adonis twisting in his seat so his ears could catch every detail. Only Jakos showed no interest; he placed George’s order amongst the half-filled wineglasses and the empty cups, and, stepping back inside the kitchen, turned up the volume on a cassette of sad duets.

George tasted his coffee and took a knife to a slice of sticky baklava.

“His wife’ll be leaving him, of course,” he concluded. “She was coming out of the baker’s when they drove him by, dripping with tar and head to foot in a pillow’s worth of feathers. She dropped her shopping where she stood and went hysterical. They had to fetch the doctor for a sedative.”

“But who did it?” asked Lukas. “And why?”

For a moment, all were silent.

“It’s that Krisaxos business all over again,” said Thassis, shielding his mouth to cover a belch. “Same family. Bad blood.”

“The shame of it,” said Adonis. “It’s perverted. Disgusting. No man should put his family through that.”

They all shook their heads in agreement—all except Lukas, who stared thoughtfully at the scuffed toe of his boot.

“And there’ll be no coffee to be had in St. Savas’s now,” complained George, “with Nikos gone, and in no state to hurry back. They’ve put him aboard the Athenian’s boat, the fat guy’s. And I’ll tell you what…” He put another piece of honeyed pastry in his mouth; his words were blurred with the cloying paste of nuts. “That’s some vessel he’s got there, an absolute beauty. He must have got some cash to have a boat like that. Where’s he get his money from?”

“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Thassis. He looked around sagely at his companions; his eyes were tired, and red. “He’s family. Know what I mean?”

He tapped a finger to the side of his nose, and gave Stavros a wink.

“What family?” asked Stavros.

“He’s no idea what family,” said Adonis. “Don’t listen to him.”

“Where’s he headed?” asked Lukas.

“I didn’t ask him, and he didn’t say,” said George. “This coffee’s not as good as Nikos’s.” Around the harbor, the clock chimed the first stroke of the hour. “Christ, is that the time? They’ll be building a gibbet to string me up if I’m a minute late.”

Lukas drained his coffee to its thick dregs.

“I’ll take a ride with you,” he said. “If Nikos is leaving Thiminos, I want to say goodbye before he goes.”

The bus had few passengers. Lukas took the seat the fat
man had favored, at George’s back. The bus drove slowly around the harbor road, climbed the mountainside and descended beyond the village. When they passed the Half-way House, Lukas signed a triple cross over his heart.

But the jetty, when they reached it, was deserted. Along the beach, the shutters at Nikos’s windows were closed and barred. George parked the bus carelessly and, pulling yesterday’s newspaper from beneath his seat, slumped down to read.

Lukas climbed down from the bus, and walked a few paces towards the jetty. The sea was dark, opaque with the reflection of heavy clouds; around the shore, the fishing boats were bobbing in the swell.