The Whispers of Nemesis (11 page)

 

Roula sat in the chair where Maria had left her. The rugs she was wrapped in gave her no warmth; a breakfast of rusks and milky coffee had not tempted her failing appetite. Outside, her son-in-law called the dog as he set off to tend the goats, and she envied him his task; the morning's predictable inactivity was wearying, and she closed her eyes to doze an hour of it away.

There was a knock at the door, and thinking the unwelcome neighbour had come calling, she feigned sleep. But there was no shrill call of
Kali mera
, no shout for Maria; instead, she heard the door quietly open, and sensed someone approach her in her chair.

She opened her eyes. The fat man stood before her.

‘Hermes!'

Smiling, he bent to kiss her cheek, then took her aged hand and kissed that too.

‘My beautiful Roula,' he said.

‘I saw you last night, in my dreams,' she said.

‘I'm flattered,' he said. ‘I brought you a gift.' From his holdall, he produced the jar of medlar jam he had bought in Seftos. ‘I made a detour for you specially, because I remembered how partial to this you are.'

‘Put it on the table for me, would you?' she asked. ‘Then come and talk to me. They're looking for an investigator, so it's good you're here. There's been a discovery. A scandal!'

The fat man's smile grew broader. He pulled up a chair close to hers, and Roula told him of the pig's bones in the poet's coffin.

‘Intriguing,' he said. ‘I come to bring you medlars, and you offer me a puzzle in return. Shall I see what I can discover, to satisfy your curiosity?'

‘I wish you would,' said Roula. ‘You'd bring a little sparkle into my day.'

 

The morning's brightness was subdued by the towering pines, and on the road, the sun made little impact on a day which carried echoes of the long and snow-bound winter.

Attis's corduroy jacket was unsuitable for the cold; he wore it for its youthful look, though the sweater beneath was not a style a younger man would choose. He walked with his hands in his pockets; they were warmer there, and kept the envelope he had taken from Santos's study secure. Down below, the village came into view: the whitewashed houses turned drab over the winter, the narrow lanes running between them, the dome of a grandiose church. Parts of the hillside had been cleared of trees to become smallholdings, marked out by flimsy fences of chicken-wire and planks, of corrugated iron and rusted stakes, and in places by part-collapsed walls. Tethered goats nibbled at piles of hay; hens pecked around their hooves for seeds fallen from the dried grasses.

The road wound in its descent – a bend to the north, a curve to the south – hiding the stretch below from the walker above; so it was not until Attis had covered two thirds of the distance between the poet's house and the village that he saw there was someone on the road ahead.

An old beehive had been abandoned at the roadside, and a man was making use of it as a seat. No archetypal villager, or farmer, the man seemed out of place in this rural spot, where cashmere overcoats were beyond the means of all. His grey suit, though well cut, did not quite disguise his heaviness, and his glasses suggested a role in education or central government. Most striking of all were his shoes, so inappropriate for the season; he wore old-fashioned tennis shoes, whose white canvas was spotted with mud and marked with the wet.

The man's demeanour suggested he had been there for some time, and Attis thought he might be waiting for a late-running bus. If so, he seemed untroubled by his wait, his attention on a book open on his lap. He seemed absorbed in his reading; and yet, as Attis appeared in the road, he looked up as if he had sensed Attis's approach and watched him as he drew close, until Attis was within earshot, when the stranger gave a bright smile, and spoke.

‘
Kali mera
,' he said.

‘
Kali mera sas
,' replied Attis.

Attis was going to walk by; but as he drew level, the stranger closed his book, picked up the navy holdall at his feet and stood, revealing himself to be tall, though even his commanding height could not disguise the fatness of his stomach. He fell in beside Attis, matching his stride.

Startled by the stranger's adoption of his company, Attis stopped in the road, intending to let the fat man go on alone; but the fat man stopped alongside him, and before Attis could speak, himself spoke out, declaiming several lines of poetry Attis knew very well.

 

‘
Our glories with our passing shall not fade,

But burn on like the incandescent stars

Which vanish imperceptibly into dawn

And yet like souls of men will never die
.'

Attis turned, and faced the fat man, who smiled.

‘It's beautiful, isn't it?' he said. ‘The work of the incomparable Volakis, of course. Such a marvellous poet; such a tragic and untimely death. I'm here to visit an old friend, but whilst I'm in Vrisi, I thought I'd take the opportunity to pay my respects to the poet, and see something of the place which inspired so much of his work.' He held up the book he had been reading. ‘
Songs from Silence
. I give copies to everyone I know. Have you read it?'

Attis gave a tight smile.

‘As a matter of fact, yes,' he said. ‘
Kali mera sas
.'

‘Before you go,' said the fat man, touching his arm, ‘I wonder if you could tell me whether this is the road to Volakis's house? The climb is steep, and I'm reluctant to go on without confirmation I'm on the right track.'

‘This is the road,' said Attis. ‘A kilometre or so more, and you'll find the gate.'

‘I'd like to take a few photographs, if I can,' said the stranger, as Attis turned away. ‘Pictures always help to sell an article.'

Attis turned back to the fat man.

‘An article? What article?'

‘I place a few pieces, here and there, on a freelance basis.' The fat man slipped the book into the holdall. ‘My specialism is the ancient poets. I'm considered something of an expert on Panyassis of Halicarnassus, though interest in him is very limited these days. But I'm a great admirer of our modern poets, too. I've published commentaries on several. Seferis, of course. And do you know any of Elytis's work?'

He raised his face to the sky, and with closed eyes, recited from memory,

 

I spoke of love, of the rose's health, of the ray

That by itself goes straight to the heart,

Of Greece that steps so surely on the sea

Greece that carries me always

Among naked snow-crowned mountains.

 

I admire Dimoula too, and Patrikios . . . But I think of all of them, Volakis had the edge. He was a great loss to our national literature. I thank you for clarifying that I haven't lost my way. I shall go on, and find the house.'

‘Just a moment,' said Attis, as the fat man turned to go. ‘Do you have a publisher for your piece?'

With shrewd eyes, the stranger looked at him.

‘If the article is worthwhile, it will no doubt find a place in one of the academic journals.'

‘Have you thought of aiming for the national press?'

The fat man laughed.

‘To be blunt,' he said, ‘admirer though I am of Volakis, his work and his ideas are not daily reading for the man in the street.'

‘Perhaps not,' said Attis. ‘But what if you had some insight into the man from one who knew him? That would be a story with mass appeal, wouldn't it? Enough appeal to tempt even the nationals.'

The fat man appeared to consider.

‘Perhaps so, yes. But where would I be lucky enough to find a personal acquaintance of Volakis who would talk to me, and provide that insight? I believe the family is very private, at Volakis's request. He was not, I think, a man who sought publicity.'

‘No, he wasn't. But publicity's always useful, even after a writer's death. The estate – the poet's family – always benefits from an increase in sales.'

‘The family? Or the publishing business?'

‘Without the business of publishing, the world would never have seen Volakis's work,' said Attis, defensively. ‘Without a publisher, a poet may be as brilliant as he likes, but his work will never be read.'

‘Quite right,' said the fat man, genially. ‘I meant no offence.'

‘You didn't answer my question,' said Attis, ‘whether you might interest a wider audience in your piece, if you'd a good source on the poet's life.'

‘I should be honest and tell you that a source on the poet's death would be more appropriate to my skills. I don't wish to mislead you. I am not a professional journalist, and my interest in the arts is a sideline only. If you are looking for someone to promote Volakis's work, I, as a mere amateur, am not your man. I work as an investigator. That is where my talents lie.'

Attis's eyes lit with interest.

‘Investigators come in many flavours and colours,' he said. ‘Insurance investigators, tax investigators, investigators of water leaks: which of the breed are you?'

The fat man smiled.

‘I investigate anything which has a bad smell about it,' he said. ‘I specialise in wrongdoing, underhandedness and deceit.'

He looked into Attis's face, as if seeking something there. Attis was uncomfortable under his scrutiny and looked away.

‘Fraud, then,' he said. ‘Is that something you could look into?'

‘Fraud, embezzlement, extortion: all manna to me,' said the fat man, cheerfully. ‘Though I should warn you, my findings are not always welcomed, even by those who have sought out my services.'

Attis considered.

‘I'm on my way to the village to make a phone call,' he said. ‘If you come with me, I'll buy you coffee, and we can talk. I have a proposition which may interest you. They call me Attis Danas.'

He held out his hand, and the fat man shook it.

‘I will listen to any proposition, though I do not guarantee to go along with it,' he said. ‘Hermes Diaktoros, of Athens. The name – Hermes Messenger, in more modern parlance, as I'm sure you're aware – is my father's idea of humour. He's something of a classical scholar. And in the spirit of my namesake, I call these' – he indicated his white tennis shoes – ‘my winged sandals. You know your way about here better than I. Please, lead on.'

But despite his suggestion that Attis should go ahead, the fat man's pace on the road was surprisingly quick, and Attis found himself hurrying to keep up.

‘Are you a resident of Vrisi?' asked the fat man, as they walked.

‘I? No.' For a moment, Attis was silent. ‘I should perhaps explain my interest in what brought you here. Santos Volakis was my client. I was his literary agent.'

‘Ah.' The fat man nodded with interest. ‘So tell me, what exactly does such a relationship entail?'

‘Let's find somewhere warm and order coffee,' said Attis. ‘Then you can tell me what you offer as an investigator, and if it seems to both of us we might do business, I'll tell you everything you need to know.'

At the edge of the village, a path of steps and stones led down between the houses, leaving the winding road to its longer route. A young girl pegged baby clothes on a line, her fingers red with cold in fingerless gloves; the fat man wished her
kali mera
, whilst Attis passed her by as if she were not there. A man hacked with a mattock at the ground of a small plot; on the doorstep of his house, his sullen wife was polishing a copper pan. The man watched as they went by and gave answer to the fat man's greeting, whilst his wife looked away, her hand still rubbing rhythmically at the pan. By an outdoor oven, a woman was splitting logs and breaking sticks, as her ugly daughter warmed her hands on the oven's flames. The woman smiled enticingly at the passing men, and showed a
tapsi
of chicken and potatoes ready for the oven when the fire burned low: bait for a suitor for the daughter, who, scowling, turned her wide-hipped body away, and wiped her nose on the cuff of her jacket sleeve.

Their path (which the fat man seemed to know, in fact, as well as Attis) began to level out, until it rounded a corner and rejoined the road. The road was wider here, and straight, crossing levelled land where in a gravelled playground, the chains of the swings were broken, and the steps to the top of a little slide were crooked. Lanes led to a school and to the church, before the road passed the village square, where the granite Santos read his wordless book.

The fat man stopped at the foot of the statue, and looked up at the poet.

‘It appears the villagers take little care of Volakis's monument,' he said, grimacing at the bird-droppings on the poet's shoulders. ‘Do they have no pride in their famous son? A bucket of water and a scrubbing brush would soon restore him to his intended glory. And what of the family? Have they no objections to his state?'