Greeks Bearing Gifts

FIFTEEN

From Frankfurt I flew on a DC-6B to Hellenikon Airport in Athens. Including a refueling stop it was a nine-and-a-half-hour journey. It wasn’t hot in Athens, not in March, but it was a lot warmer than Munich. I was met inside the airport building by a fat man carrying a sign for MUNICH RE. He had a drooping mustache and was wearing a well-rendered bow tie that might have looked smart but for the fact that it was green and, even worse, matched his tweed suit—and, very slightly, his teeth—and the overall impression, apart from the one that the suit had been made by a trainee taxidermist, was of a jovial Irishman in some sentimental John Ford film. It was an impression enhanced by the enamel shamrock in his lapel which, he later explained, was due to a lifelong enthusiasm for a local football team called Panathinaikos.

“Did you have a good flight, sir?” asked Achilles Garlopis, MRE’s man in Athens.

“We didn’t crash, if that’s what you mean. After nine hours on a plane I feel like Amy Johnson.”

“It’s not a civilized way to travel,” he said, taking my bag politely. “Nor a natural one. Ships and trains—these are kinder to human beings, gentler. You won’t find a Greek who disagrees with you, Herr Ganz. After all it was a Greek, Icarus, who first dared to conquer the skies and look what happened to him.”

Garlopis managed to make Icarus sound like one of the Wright brothers but there was nothing wrong with his German; it was near perfect.

“The gods dislike aviators as they dislike all blasphemy. Myself, I never disrespect the gods. I am a very pagan sort of man, sir.” He chuckled. “I would sacrifice chickens if the priests did not object to it. For a religion based on bloodshed, Christianity is most peculiar in its attitude to animal sacrifice.”

“It doesn’t keep me awake at night,” I admitted, hardly taking him seriously, yet. “Not much does.”

“How is Mr. Neff, sir? He had a heart attack, did he not?”

“You know Mr. Neff?”

“Yes. He’s been here on several occasions. We’re old friends, Walther and I.”

“I believe he’s recuperating. But for a while back there he wasn’t so good.”

Garlopis crossed himself in the Greek Orthodox way and then kissed his thumb. “I shall pray for him. Send him my regards the next time you see him.”

He walked me out of the airport to his car, a powder-blue Oldsmobile with an accent stripe and whitewall tires. He noted my surprise at seeing the big American car as he placed my bag in the bedroom-sized trunk.

“It’s not my car, sir. I borrowed it from my cousin Poulios, who works at Lefteris Makrinos car hire, on Tziraion Street. He will give you a very good rate on any automobile you like. Including this one.”

“I’d prefer something a little less noticeable. Like a Sherman tank, perhaps.”

“Of course, sir. I perfectly understand. But this was all he could spare me today while my own car is in the workshop. Rest assured, your hotel is much more discreet. The Mega, on Constitution Square. Not as good as the Grande Bretagne, but not nearly as expensive. Many of the rooms, including yours, have their own baths and showers. I have another cousin who works there who has made sure you have the best room and the best rate. You’ll be living on velvet. It’s also very convenient for the post office on Nikis Street, from where you may send telegrams to head office at ten drachmas a word, at all hours and on all days of the week. For anything else, you may contact me at my office on Stadiou Street, number 50, next to the Orpheus Cinema.”

Garlopis handed me a business card and eased his bulk behind the white steering wheel of the Oldsmobile while I lit a cigarette and climbed in beside him, settling onto the matching white leather upholstery. On the blue dashboard was a little silver-framed icon and a small plaster statuette of an owl.

“What’s with the towels on the backseat?”

“Habit, I’m afraid. It gets very hot in the summer, sir. And I do sweat a lot. So it protects the leather.”

He started the engine and smiled. “The new Rocket engine. Alert, eager, power when you need it, thrifty economy when you want it. I must confess to an absurd and rather boyish enthusiasm for this car. Ever since I was young I have loved all things American. What a country that must be to make such cars. Driving this I find it all too easy to imagine myself on a space rocket to the moon.”

“You wouldn’t like the food,” I said, observing his girth. “There isn’t any.”

Garlopis put the car in gear and we moved off smoothly. After a while he pressed a switch to operate the car’s electric windows.

“Electric windows. Isn’t it wonderful? You look at a car like this and you think of America and the future. When Americans talk about the American dream it’s not a dream about the past. That’s the difference between the American dream and a British one, or a French one, or a Greek one. Ours is a dream that’s always about the past; and theirs is a dream that’s always about the future. A better tomorrow. Not only that but I sincerely believe they’re prepared to guarantee that future for us all, by force of arms. Without NATO we’d all be playing balalaikas.”

“Yes, that’s probably true.”

“I can assure you there are lots of American cars in Athens, sir. They’re not quite as noticeable as you think.”

“All the same I’d still like you to change it.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Garlopis was silent for a moment while he played with the electric windows some more. But after a while he changed the subject.

“Since you mentioned food,” he said, over the noise of the Rocket engine, “the best restaurant in all of Athens is Floca’s, on Venizelos Street, where they will give you a very good price if you say you are a friend of mine. You should expect to pay a maximum of twenty-five drachmas for a good lunch.”

“Another cousin of yours?”

“My brother, sir. A most talented man in the kitchen, if unlucky in life. He has a gorgon of a wife who would terrify the Colossus of Rhodes. But do not mistake Floca’s for Adam’s restaurant, which is next door. That is not a good restaurant. It pains me to say so because I have a cousin who works there also and the stories he tells me would make your hair curl with horror.”

Smiling, I pushed my elbow out the open window and tried to relax a little after the flight, although this was difficult, given the Greek’s erratic driving. I hoped we wouldn’t have need of the icon’s protection.

“You speak excellent German, Herr Garlopis.”

“My father was German, sir. From Berlin. Garlopis is my mother’s maiden name. My father came to Greece as the foreign correspondent for a German newspaper, married my mother, and stayed, at least for a while. His name was Göring, which we changed during the war for obvious reasons. My mother had eight aunts and uncles and all of those cousins of mine are on her side. You are from Germany, yes?”

“Yes. From Berlin, originally.”

“And do you travel very much, Herr Ganz?”

I thought of my recent trips to Italy, Argentina, Cuba, and the South of France, to say nothing of the eighteen months I’d spent in a Soviet POW camp, and then shook my head. “Hardly ever.”

“I’m not a well-traveled man, myself. I’ve been to head office a couple of times. And once I went to Salzburg. But there was something about Salzburg I didn’t like.”

“Oh? What was that?”

“Austrians, mainly. A cold, disagreeable people, I thought. Hitler was an Austrian, was he not?”

“We keep mentioning that in Germany, in the hope people will remember. Austrians most all, of course. But they don’t seem to.”

“I wonder why,” said Garlopis in the voice of one who didn’t wonder at all. “If I may make a polite inquiry, sir? What other languages do you speak besides German?”

I told him. “Why?”

“You’ll forgive me for saying so, sir, but finding yourself alone and in need of help it would be best in all circumstances if you were to speak English, sir. Or even French. It’s not that Germans are disliked, sir. Or that the English are popular. Far from it. It’s just that so soon after the war there are some who are jealous of West Germany’s economic miracle, sir. Who feel that our own economy has performed, shall we say, less than miraculously, sir. Indeed, that it has stagnated. Myself, I believe that Germany’s success is good for all of Europe, including Greece, no matter how unjust it might seem to those of us who suffered so horribly under the thoughtless brutality of the Nazis. Only a strong Germany can help to guarantee that Europe doesn’t become communist, as Greece almost did after the war. But please speak English whenever possible, sir. And exercise a degree of caution before admitting your true origins. To say you are Swiss would always be better than to say you are just German. After the terrible civil war we fought, Athens is not without hazards, sir, even for a Greek.”

“So I see.” I touched the large blue eye that was hanging on the end of the chain attached to the car key. “That’s for the evil eye, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed, sir. I don’t think one can be too careful in the insurance business, do you? I’m a great believer in minimizing all manner of risk.”

“And the owl?”

He looked sheepish. “The goddess Athena is often accompanied by an owl, which traditionally symbolizes knowledge and wisdom. You can’t have too much of that, can you? I have a silver coin in my pocket, a tetradrachm, that also depicts an owl, for good luck.”

“How about the icon?”

“Saint George, sir. Been looking after me and for that matter, this country, since I was born.”

I flicked my cigarette away. “So tell me about this ship that was lost. The Doris. I guess they weren’t so well prepared for disaster as you seem to be, Mr. Garlopis.”

“To business. I like that. If I may say so, this is commendably German of you. Forgive me for talking so much. That is very Greek of me. From my mother’s side.”

“Don’t apologize. I like to talk myself. That’s from my human side. But right now I just want to talk about the ship. After all, it’s the only reason I’m here.”

“As I think you know, the ship is German and so is the owner. The insured value was thirty-five thousand deutschmarks, which is two hundred and fifty thousand drachmas. Siegfried Witzel is a German diving expert who makes underwater films. One of these, The Philosopher’s Seal, was about Mediterranean monk seals, first described by Aristotle, and for some reason it won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Don’t ask me why. All I know about monk seals is that they’re very rare. The Doris sank on an expedition looking for ancient Greek artifacts: statues, pottery, that kind of thing. Which are much less rare, at least in Greece. The ship was en route from Piraeus—the main port of Athens—to the island of Hydra when it caught fire off the coast of Dokos, which is another island near there. The small crew abandoned ship and made for the mainland in the life raft. The Hellenic Coast Guard in Piraeus is now investigating the loss, as is the Mercantile Marine Ministry here in Athens, but being Greek both of these bodies are slow and bureaucratic, not to say sclerotic. And to be quite frank with you, sir, their enthusiasm for investigating the loss of any German ship is unfortunately small. Which is perhaps not surprising, given that in the war Greece lost a total of 429 ships, most of them sunk by the Germans. But even at the best of times—and speaking of it as a purely investigative body—the Hellenic Coast Guard is slow; it’s still looking into the loss of the Lycia, a British ship that ran aground off Katakolon last February, and also of the Irene, a Greek coaster that foundered southeast of Crete last September.”

“So we’re on our own, investigatively speaking.”

“That’s about the size of it, unfortunately.”

“Tell me about this fellow Witzel.”

“I think it’s possible the gods sank his ship because they were angry with him, but I doubt they could have been more angry than he has been with me. In short, he is a man with a most violent temper. Rude, disagreeable, and impatient. He makes Achilles seem like a model of good grace.”

“Why do you say so?”

“I’ve tried to explain to him that nothing was going to happen until someone arrived from head office to adjust his claim against MRE but he’s not much disposed to listen to me, a mere Greek. Since then I’ve been threatened with violence on more than one occasion.”

“By Witzel?”

“By Witzel. He’s very tough, very fit, you see. As you might expect from someone who is a professional diver. He doesn’t seem to suffer fools gladly, and Greek fools like me, not at all. Frankly, I’m glad you’re here so you can deal with him. One German with another. Poseidon himself would find this man frightening. Not least because he carries a gun.”

“Oh?”

“And a switchblade.”

“Interesting. What kind of gun?”

“An automatic pistol. In a leather shoulder holster. Many Greeks do carry weapons, of course. Because of the Nazis. And before them, the Ottoman Turks. On Crete, it’s quite common for men to carry handguns. But then Cretans are a law to themselves.”

“But Witzel is a German, you said. Not Greek.”

“Although not as noticeably as you, sir. He speaks our language fluently. As you might expect of someone who was living here before the war.”

“In my own experience carrying a gun tends to calm a man down. You can’t afford to lose your temper more than once when you have a Bismarck in your pocket. The police don’t like it.”

“Well, I thought I should mention it.”

“I’m glad you did. I’ll certainly remember that if I try to adjust his claim. What else can you tell me about him?”

“It’s true that the man has lost his home as well as his livelihood, since he also claims to have been living on the ship. So this might account for his behavior. However, I have also found him inclined to be evasive as well as angry. For example: in my opinion he has failed to supply an adequate explanation for how the fire on board the Doris might have occurred. I say might have occurred since I only ever asked him to speculate on what could have happened, which did not seem unreasonable, given the size of his claim. After all, one has to write something down on the loss report. Also, about the company that chartered the Doris to look for antiquities, he has been less than forthcoming.”

“Is it possible that they were looking for these antiquities illegally?”

“On the contrary. All of the permissions were obtained at the highest level. And I do mean the highest. The exploration license was signed by Mr. Karamanlis, no less.”

Konstantinos Karamanlis was the Greek prime minister.

“Mr. Witzel seems to think that this trumps the need for all explanations. As if Karamanlis were Zeus himself.”

“Do you think his claim might be fraudulent? That he might have scuttled his own ship to get the money?”

“That’s not for me to say, sir. I’m not a loss adjustor. Just a loss adjustor’s humble agent.”

“Perhaps, but when he sent me down here, Alois Alzheimer, MRE’s chairman, described you as our local shipping expert.” This was a lie, of course. But a little flattery couldn’t do any harm.

“He did? Mr. Alzheimer said that?”

“Yes.”

“That is most gratifying, sir. To think that a man like Mr. Alzheimer knows a man like me even exists. Yes, that is most gratifying.”

“I’m new at this game, Mr. Garlopis. I’m afraid I know nothing about ships. And even less about Greece. I’m here to cover for Mr. Neff. So your own opinions about what happened to the Doris are more important than you might think. You tell me to authorize payment and I’ll recommend we authorize payment. But if you tell me the case has only got one shoe we’ll take a walk around and look for the other. Thirty-five thousand is a lot of money. Take it from me, people have killed for a lot less.”

“It’s kind of you to say so, Mr. Ganz. And I appreciate your honesty, sir.” Mr. Garlopis chuckled. “There are logical explanations for almost everything, of course. I accept that. But for several years I was a merchant seaman myself and I can tell you that the men who go to sea, especially here in Greece, hold many irrational beliefs, to put it mildly. Our own explanations for everything that happens here in Greece might not meet with much sympathy among our masters in Munich.”

“Try me.”

“You’ll only laugh, sir, and think me a very credulous fool.”

“No, not even if I thought so.”

Garlopis talked some more and I shortly formed the impression he was one of the most superstitious men I’d ever encountered, but no less likable for that. To my surprise he believed supernatural beings continued to inhabit the country’s mountains, ancient ruins, and forests. The sea was no different, for he also believed in the Nereids—sea nymphs that did the will of Poseidon—and seemed more than willing to attribute all manner of disasters to their interference. This struck me as unusual in an insurance agent and I wondered how Mr. Alzheimer would react if I sent him a telegram explaining that the Doris had been sunk by a sea nymph.

“Sometimes,” said Garlopis, “that’s as good an explanation as any. The waters around these islands are strange and treacherous. It’s not every ship that disappears that can be properly accounted for. You’ll forgive me, sir, if I suggest that it’s a fault of you Germans to believe that absolutely everything has a logical explanation.”

“Sure, only it was the Greeks who invented logic, wasn’t it?”

“Ah yes, sir, but if you’ll forgive me again, it’s you Germans who have taken logic to its most extreme. Dr. Goebbels, for example, when he made a speech advocating the waging of total war—in 1943, was it not?

“Yes, I know, you’ll tell me he was just echoing von Clausewitz. Nevertheless, it can be argued that it was this mentality that condemned Germany to a futile squandering of life on an unprecedented scale when the reality is—you should have surrendered.”

I certainly couldn’t argue with that. For a superstitious man, Achilles Garlopis was also an educated one.

“In this case, however,” added Garlopis, “I’m sure we’ll find a better explanation for what happened to the Doris, one that will suit Mr. Alzheimer and Mr. Dietrich.”

“Let’s hope so. Because I think the only monster Mr. Alzheimer believes in is probably Mrs. Alzheimer.”

“You’ve met her?”

“I saw a picture of her on his desk. And I think she was probably frozen for millions of years before he found her.”

Garlopis smiled. “I’ve taken the liberty of asking Mr. Witzel to come to the office at ten o’clock tomorrow. You can question him then and form your own conclusions. I’ll come by the hotel at nine and walk you there. Will you require an early-morning call, sir?”

“I don’t need an early-morning call, Mr. Garlopis. I’ve got my bladder.”