The Whispers of Nemesis (25 page)

‘Do you know the reason for their divorce?'

‘I was very young. Why is it relevant, anyway?'

‘When a man has died in the way your father has, sometimes it's necessary to dig deep into the past. I have known people harbour grudges for years, and wait decades for revenge.'

Leda stopped walking. The fat man went on several paces, and turned back to her.

‘My father's death was an accident,' she said. ‘You talk as if it was – something else.'

The fat man walked back to stand close to her.

‘You're an intelligent woman, Leda,' he said. ‘I don't think you ever believed Inspector Pagounis's story about a fall, did you?'

She put her hands up to her face, and spoke through the screen of her fingers.

‘I wanted to believe him,' she said. ‘I really, really wanted to believe him. But there were cuts, and gashes . . . Why do that to him? Why hurt him in that way?' She lowered her hands, and looked at him, seeming older than her years. ‘And I loved him so much; I worshipped him like a hero!' She began to cry. ‘I'm sorry. It's been such a strain.'

‘Of course it has,' said the fat man. ‘But I must ask you this, difficult though it is. Your father loved you, of that I am sure. Yet – forgive me if this seems harsh – it now appears he disappeared for four years and was somewhere alive through all that time, but left you effectively an orphan, with no inheritance except his reputation; and whilst I agree that reputation is something to be proud of, it doesn't put bread on the table. He let you believe he was dead; in effect, he abandoned you. That seems to me the act of a cruel man, a hard man; yet, having read his work, I didn't get the impression that your father was hard in any way, rather that he was a man with a heart which knew how to love, and a soul which knew great passion.'

She gave no reply. Ahead of them, Attis and Frona were moving through the gates.

‘Why would a loving father leave his child?' went on the fat man. ‘Were there financial difficulties, Leda? Is that what he ran away from – not you, but financial disaster? Is that why his assets have remained frozen, to protect them for you, to shield them from someone else?' He thought again. ‘Someone you know, perhaps?' He glanced at Attis. ‘Or someone you don't know, someone like the tax man? Was he not abandoning you, but protecting you in the long term, I wonder? What do you think?'

‘I can't say,' she said.

‘Do you mean you can't say, or you won't say?'

Again, she was silent.

‘Did he have enemies that you knew of, Leda? Someone who would kill to prevent his return from the dead?'

‘I don't know.'

‘If there's someone you're protecting, I advise you not to do so any longer,' he said, in a sterner tone. ‘It would be madness to protect anyone when a violent crime has been committed. Not only because the killer must be caught, but to protect the innocent. Inspector Pagounis has a job to do, and without clear leads he will likely start questioning anyone with a connection to your father. Now, I don't know what kind of policeman he is, but many are very orderly, and loose ends are an abomination to them. I have known a number of cases, over the years, where innocent people have been jailed, just to close a case and let the paperwork be neatly filed away. Think too, of people's reputations. You don't live here now, so maybe you don't care, but in these small places, mud sticks. Hassan the taxi driver was questioned this morning, and already they have him serving twenty years. So if you know anything, you must tell me. Or tell the inspector. But please, don't think you have any loyalty to a killer.'

She looked at him. There was nothing to be read in her expression.

‘I tell you, hand on heart,' she said, after a moment, and like a patriot she placed her hand on her chest, ‘I swear, by God and all the saints, I would never do anything to protect my father's killer.'

The pledge was sincere.

‘I'm sorry, I must go,' she said, and walked away.

‘Did you find any sign of my ring, by the way?' he called after her; but she was apparently already out of earshot, and didn't reply.

 

The fat man didn't follow her from the cemetery but wandered back instead in the direction of the sexton, who was holding a lighted match to the bowl of his pipe, sheltering the flame with a cupped hand, puffing on the pipe stem in phuts and spits to encourage the tobacco to burn. Though not a young man, he was lean and fit; despite the early season of the year, he wore twill shorts which showed well-muscled legs, thick socks up to his knees and a builder's boots.

The fat man gave him a smile.

‘Please, don't let me interrupt your work,' he said. ‘I am a visitor here, making a pilgrimage to the burial place of this great man.'

‘You'll not interrupt me; I've time to spare,' said the sexton. He shook out the match and dropped it into the grave. ‘And great man or not, this one's a troublemaker. Let me tell you something.' He pointed at the fat man with the stem of his pipe, prodding at the air. ‘This is a big day for me, a memorable day. This is the first time in thirty years I've had to bury the same man twice.' He gave a laugh. ‘Died twice, buried twice. Doesn't happen very often, does it?'

‘Rarely,' agreed the fat man. ‘You're right, it happens very rarely. But is it truly the case, even here? I gather what you buried on the first occasion was, in fact, the carcass of a pig.'

The sexton puffed on his pipe.

‘Damn that beast, yes. All that work, just for some animal we'd have been better off butchering and roasting, though I should say this one'll be finding things much hotter than he'd like.' He pointed hell-wards with his pipe-stem. ‘He racked up a few sins when I knew him; who knows what he got up to whilst he was gone, and our priest's not happy, not happy at all. He's complaining about a pig in hallowed ground, and so he should complain; the man's been made a fool of, saying the rites over a few pork chops! So that's another sin on the poet's account outstanding. Still, he found his way home, at least. He got here in the end.'

‘And now he is here, he must be treated with the respect due all the dead.' The fat man took out his wallet, and handed over two large banknotes. ‘Bury him well, and make the grave tidy. And when the ground has settled, make a good job of putting in the borders and the trimmings; there is unlikely to be family here to make sure you do the job right. As for the headstone, leave that for the time being where it stands. When the time comes to put the headstone to this grave, I shall personally come and help you.'

‘You,
kyrie
?' asked the sexton. ‘Are you family, then?'

‘A friend of the family,' said the fat man, ‘as I am friend to any family who is friend to me. Mark what I say. Wait until I return before you re-erect that headstone.'

 

He left the sexton, but went only as far as the chapel, and sat down on a bench at the foot of a cypress tree where pigeons fluttered in the branches. With the mourners gone, and still no rattle of soil and stones from the sexton's spade, the place was peaceful.

From his holdall, he took out the volume of Volakis's poems and turned the pages, choosing poems to read. Some were verses of only a few lines, others covered a page or even two, but all were beautifully constructed, showing both extraordinary mastery of the language and a rare and deep understanding of the human condition. All mankind's emotions were explored and exposed: joy and pain, love and loss; some were apparently memories, summer days by seashores and winter nights by firelight; some were light and humorous, others dark and filled with grief.

At the front of the book was a short essay the poet had written; its title was, ‘Love and Death'.

 

There is in every love – regardless of how flawed, or ill-advised, or futile – perfection at its heart, the purest, whitest light, celestial and clean, unblemished and incorruptible, like the brilliance in a perfectly cut diamond; and it is Death's gift to reveal to us this other-worldly beauty. Like a carapace, repression shields this marvellous kernel; but, like warm sun on snow, the shade of Death melts away obstructions and our ignorance, and reveals this purest love in blazing glory. Death takes away self-consciousness, and offers open landscapes, where between two human souls is nothing but the empty space of love, where all truths may be said, with no fear of retraction or regret. No holds are barred, for what's the point? In Death's presence, mouths may speak what might – if there were a future, and an ego to be guarded – remain unsaid. Like soldiers in a battle lost, our souls may meet, clasp hands and hold each other. At our road's end is where the gilded moments lie, and our secret can come forth, that we are all the world to each other.

The pity is, that it is Death's gift to birth our nobility. We are not warriors in our daily lives; we lack the courage to open our hearts, before our ending comes. But this glorious, God-given love is our soft tissue, our guts and our glory, and yet we are too vulnerable, in our hard world, to bring it forth. But when it shines, it is the gift of angels. A few moments of its brilliance may make a wasted life worthwhile.

 

The fat man read this passage twice, and sat on for a while, alone and silent, until the sexton picked up his shovel and began to fill the open grave; then the fat man replaced the book in his holdall, and walked away through the cemetery gates.

Eighteen

When the fat man arrived at the
kafenion
, Hassan was waiting at a table in front of the counter. The place was busy. The old men following rituals of coffee and socialising had lingered over their uninformed debate, and had been joined by those who'd done a morning's work, calling in for a shot of something to take the mist's damp off their lungs. The fat man made his way between the men, who stank of goats, and cement dust, and the sweat of labour; they sat in their outdoor jackets and dirt-clogged boots, caps on their chair-backs and the lines of outdoor life deep in their faces.

By the window, a woodsman rubbed a hole in the condensation and looked out across the
kafenion
's empty terrace, at a woman leading a small child by the hand.

‘Head down, Vasso,' he said to one of his companions. ‘That's your sister-in-law, going towards your house.'

‘I'm a dead man if she spots me,' said Vasso, shielding his face with his hand. ‘I said I'd drive her and the wife over to town. If they know I've been drinking, they'll have both my balls on a plate.'

The men at his table laughed and jeered.

‘Balls? What balls?' asked one. ‘She had your balls the day you married her, you pussy! If she wants a ride to town, tell her to call a taxi. Isn't that right, Hassan? She can call a taxi!'

But the fat man's approach distracted Hassan from responding.

‘Sit, friend, sit,' he said, pulling out the chair beside him. ‘We've got the best seats in the house. What'll you have?'

Hassan himself was drinking lemonade.

‘You'll forgive me if I don't follow your lead,' said the fat man, ‘but the hour, to me, calls for a splash of ouzo. Especially if we are going to be eating
mezedes
.'

‘He's ready for us,' said Hassan, turning to the counter where Eustis, the patron, was making notes on a pad of paper, writing with the pencil he kept behind his ear. He acknowledged Hassan with no more than a flicker in his eyes. ‘And an ouzo!' Hassan called after him, as Eustis tucked away his pencil and headed for the little kitchen behind the counter. ‘So, tell me; did you find anything to interest you at the cemetery?'

‘The proceedings were far from being as harrowing as some. Under the extraordinary circumstances, I suppose the mourners came to terms with their loss some time ago. Their grief today was restrained, for which I, at least, was grateful.'

‘Maybe they had no grief to show. Some men no one misses. Was there a good crowd?'

‘The gathering was small; I suspect the family preferred it so. The sister was there, and the daughter – who, it turned out, I had met before. The poet's agent, Attis Danas, of course, and a few others. But no one to sing laments. I wondered why that was.'

‘Bad feeling,' said Hassan, leaning closer to the fat man like a subversive. ‘Many wouldn't go. They went last time, they say, and wasted their laments and their sympathy on a pig. They say they won't be fooled a second time, with the casket closed again and no proof of who's in there. If they can't see the corpse with their own eyes, they prefer to stay away. The women who went, did you notice who they were?'

‘A few widows. Apart from those I've named, I didn't know them.'

‘Any from Polineri?'

The fat man looked closely at Hassan.

‘Not that I knew,' he said. ‘Certainly none that I had met before.'

The patron carried out a battered tin tray whose painted view of an island harbour was scratched and fading. He placed a glass of clear ouzo and a small jug of water before the fat man, and at the centre of the table laid three dishes: small pieces of flour-dusted liver fried with onions; thickly sliced, toasted bread, drizzled with green olive oil; boiled chickpeas with a squeeze of lemon juice. He laid two forks beside the dishes, and wished Hassan and the fat man
kali orexi
.