Read The Messenger of Athens: A Novel Online
Authors: Anne Zouroudi
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General
The Messenger of Athens: A Novel (39 page)
Pandelis spoke through the fence, as though the old man was imprisoned.
“That’s hot work,” he said. Sweat was beginning to glaze his forehead. “Perhaps you’d like to talk in my car. It’s cooler there.” As he spoke, on the breeze he caught the old man’s smell, intense and musky sweat strong as a billy goat’s, and his smile faded.
But Gabrilis shook his head.
“I don’t have time, sir,” he said with regret. “Unfortunately. Hot or not, I’ve work to do.”
He passed through the gate, and dropped the melon into the trailer with the first.
“Then I’ll be brief,” said Pandelis. “There’s bad news, and there’s good. The bad news is, as we expected, a compulsory purchase order is to be issued on your land. The good news is my father’s agreed that, as our family’s affected by a similar proposal, we should file a joint action to fight the town council. I’ll be handling the case, as I explained the other day. So I’ll just need your signature to say I have the power to act for you—I have the papers in the car—and I’ll get on to it straight away.”
“It’s a bad business,” said Gabrilis, “when land you’ve lived on a lifetime can’t be called your own. I built that house myself, over fifty years ago. I built it with these hands, every last brick and every plank of wood.” He
offered his palms to Pandelis; their lines were dark with dirt, the nails were black and broken. “I haven’t a daughter to leave it to, that’s the pity. A daughter would take care of me, now I’m old. You’ll have daughters, I’m sure.”
“I’m not married.”
“You should be. You’re old enough. Your mother should arrange it. I’m not so old I don’t remember how it goes. There’ll be some young lady you’ve got your eye on, isn’t there?”
But Pandelis seemed not to hear the question.
“I’m confident the council’s case is flawed,” he said. “Please don’t worry. I have every confidence we’ll win.”
Gabrilis looked up at him with tearful eyes.
“What I don’t understand is why they want my land. It’s only good for farmland—you can see that—and it’s hard work, even then. What do they want it for? It’s not much use to anyone but me.”
A bee landed on Pandelis’s forearm. His face creased with worry, and he swiped it away.
“I believe,” he said evasively, “they want to build a phone mast. It’s the elevation.”
“But I don’t have a phone,” said Gabrilis. “Never thought I needed one. Maria always wanted a phone. I don’t know who she thought she was going to be ringing up.”
In Pandelis’s trouser pocket a mobile phone trilled. He took it out and glanced at its tiny screen, then flipped it open.
“Yes?… Not now… Tomorrow. I said tomorrow… No… No, I haven’t forgotten… I’ll call you later, OK?”
He slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Lawyers,” he said. “They drive you crazy. Look, my father says you’re not to worry about the money. There’ll be nothing for you to pay. He tells me we have a family connection. Your sister’s husband was my father’s second cousin, I believe.”
In puzzlement, Gabrilis frowned.
“Which sister does he mean, sir? I had three sisters. They were all younger than me, and I’ve outlived them all. Now is that a blessing or a curse? Diana was the last of them alive. What was her husband called?” He couldn’t remember, but Pandelis was in any case walking away. At his car, he took a sheet of paper from the glove box, and a silver fountain pen from his calfskin briefcase.
Gabrilis leaned on the handlebars of his tricycle. His breathing was labored, his color was high. Pandelis came to his side, uncapping the pen and pointing to the line where Gabrilis should sign.
“I’ll be all right in a minute,” said Gabrilis. “It’s the heat that takes it out of you.”
“Just there,” said Pandelis. “I’ll date it for you later.”
Gabrilis didn’t read the document, because he couldn’t; his eyes were bad, and anyway, he wasn’t a reading man. He held the paper on his palm and made his mark: not quite a signature, but a scribble he had perfected for such times as these.
Pandelis took the paper, blew on the ink to dry it and recapped the pen.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything will turn out in our favor. If nothing else, we’ll stretch it in the courts. Four years, my record is so far. Let’s see if we can beat it.”
“Four years,” echoed Gabrilis. “That’s a long time, at my age. God may not grant me another four years.”
“I’ll let you know when there’s news.”
Pandelis turned away, but Gabrilis touched his arm.
“A moment before you go. Would you mind just helping me with one small thing? Will you cut me a few grapes off that vine? Just a few. They’re lovely fruits, and the wasps are getting the best of them. You’re welcome to cut some for yourself, of course. Take some for your father, with my compliments. It’ll only take a minute of your time.”
Pandelis looked up toward the house, where the vine spread wide over the verandah, and glanced anxiously at his watch. He hesitated. Then, removing his sunglasses, he smiled.
“I’m late already, and my father will in any case be angry,” he said, “so I suppose five minutes more will make no difference. And—who knows?—a few grapes might sweeten his temper.” He laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “We must be quick, but show me the way, and I’ll cut them for you. But I warn you, I’m not much of a climber, so promise me you’ll hold the ladder steady.”
G
abrilis watched until Pandelis’s car was out of sight. Picking out a third melon, he wondered if he should have said that there were papers. Whether they’d help the case or not, he wasn’t sure; he could produce them if it seemed that they were needed.
In the meantime, he’d keep them safe, in their hiding place with its formidable guardians.
D
own on the coast road, the horizon was unstable as a mirage, rippling in the super-heated air. At the edges of the softening blacktop, the surplus tar was sticky liquid; here and there along the carriageway, the hot tarmac swelled in domes like buboes. Before the road improvements, this journey smelled of thyme and sage-brush. Now the stink was chemical, of melting pitch, burned diesel and the fumes of car exhausts. When the road was poor, the traffic traveled slowly. There was no need for caution now; the way was smooth, and from airport to resort took only half the time.
Gabrilis’s journey-time had not decreased. He cycled carefully, straining to keep the gearless tricycle moving on the uphill gradients, squeezing on the brakes to prevent his heavy cargo from carrying him away on the downhill stretches. He kept close to the road’s edge, though on the town-bound journey the drop down to the sea was treacherously close. And, siren-like, the sea drew him; the lure of cool, blue water was strong, and if his eyes strayed there, he found his wheels directed to the steep, rocky slopes down to the bay.
The landmarks of his route had changed. These days, he measured his progress by the building sites, counting off the barely begun, never-to-be-finished ruins: gray-rendered prison-block walls, empty window openings and the iron spikes ready for the upper stories bent and rusty. The builders were long gone, but their rubble and their rubbish was still here, in roadside mounds of beer
bottles and empty cans, of hardened cement and cigarette packets, of hamburger cartons and the paper wraps of sandwiches.
At the two-mile mark, opposite a Vespa with deflated, perished tires, the wires from its electrics dangling loose, its saddle ripped with yellow foam exposed, there was a chapel. Gabrilis made the triple cross over his heart, and cycled on. A car swerved round him, its driver showing a hand out of the window, maybe a greeting, maybe a curse. Another car passed, and another. A motorbike roared by. He wiped away the sweat that stung his eyes and pedaled on.
A navy-blue liveried taxi was traveling toward him, airport-bound, and as the taxi drew close, the blast of a horn came from behind, and a coach pulled out wide to overtake the tricycle, encroaching on the taxi’s share of the carriageway. The taxi driver hit his horn; the coach moved back toward Gabrilis, so close its great flank blocked out the light as it slid by him, and as it pulled away its slipstream carried off his precious cap, dropping it in the caper bushes at the roadside.
Gabrilis cycled slowly to where his hat lay, and stopped. The road was, for the moment, quiet; as he climbed off his tricycle, there was just a single vehicle coming over the hill’s brow. He took his cap from the caper bush, and with the backs of his fingers knocked the dust from it. Far below, the heat had laid its calming hand on the sea, so the limpid water seemed still and soothing, and he thought of home, of his bed and sleep.
The approaching vehicle was growing close. There
was dust on his shoes too, and he bent to wipe it off. When the vehicle changed course, he was busy with his shoes, and didn’t see it.
It hit him hard, and took the tricycle and trailer with him. The melons bounced down the hillside until they burst, spattering their red flesh on the sharp stones. The tricycle rolled twice, and then was caught and held among the largest rocks.
Gabrilis himself didn’t go far: just far enough to be unseen by passing traffic. He was on his back, his broken arm bent painfully beneath him. A little blood trickled from his nose.
Time passed; the pain diminished. Above him on the road, a refuse truck was followed by a moped, while, down among the thorny capers and thyme bushes, Gabrilis lay unmoving, his eyes staring blindly at the brilliant sun.
Acclaim for Anne Zouroudi’s The Messenger of Athens
Anne Zouroudi was born in England and has lived in the Greek islands. Her attachment to Greece remains strong, and the country is the inspiration for much of her writing. She now lives in northern England.
“Absorbing and beautifully written….
The Messenger of Athens
reveals the savage, superstitious reality behind the pretty facade that is all that most of us know of any Greek island.”
—Jessica Mann,
Literary Review
“Astringent…. A cautionary tale about the deadly sin of lust—a riveting story told with the help of flashbacks in a mix of first- and third-person voices. It proves as surprising as a classic detective story, and as sad and inevitable as an ancient Greek drama.”
—Tom Nolan,
Wall Street Journal
“Richly conjured….
The Messenger of Athens
is well-written, atmospheric, and supplies a satisfying ending. A meditation on life in the Greek isles as well as a mystery with an intriguing private investigator, the puzzle driving the narrative is well laid out and reveals itself slowly….
The Messenger of Athens
is the perfect opening salvo in a series of novels starring the fat man.”