Greeks Bearing Gifts

EIGHTEEN

“Commendable honesty?” Mr. Garlopis chuckled quietly. “I must confess to a certain amount of incredulity when I heard you say that, sir. And I don’t mean to tell you your business. But please don’t tell me you believe that man’s story?”

“No, of course I don’t believe his story,” I said, grabbing my coat. “What you’ve said about him from the beginning seems perfectly accurate. I’ve seen foxes who were less evasive than Herr Witzel.”

“I’m very relieved to hear you say that, sir. It was all I could do not to laugh out loud when he was trying to persuade you not to contact Professor Buchholz. There’s much more to this than meets the eye. I fear even a cyclops could see the flaws in his story. And did you notice the way he didn’t contradict you when you talked about suing the shipyard in Megara after he’d already said it was in Salamis? I take it that was deliberate. If so it was a masterstroke, sir. I take my hat off to you. And the way you brought up the gun. I should never have dared even mention it. No, the man’s story has more holes in it than the present government’s political manifesto.”

I went onto the landing outside the office door and, peering over the wrought-iron banister, I watched Witzel go down the stairs.

“That’s why I’m going to follow him. In my experience it’s sometimes the quickest way to see how much of what a man has told you is on the level.” I was thinking of the way I’d followed Friedrich Jauch in Munich, and how that had worked well for me; perhaps following Witzel would prove equally productive. “At the very least I’d like find out where he’s living right now, and with whom. That might tell us something on its own.”

“But forgive me, sir, you don’t know the city. Supposing you get lost?”

“That’s the thing about tailing a guy. It’s impossible to get lost. After all, he’s bound to lead me somewhere and even if I don’t know where that is, I can probably find it again.”

“Seriously, sir. I have to say, this doesn’t sound like a good idea at all. I can’t imagine Herr Neff ever doing such a thing as following one of our insurance claimants. Suppose Witzel sees you? Have you forgotten that he’s armed?”

“I’ll be all right.” I smiled. Part of me—the part that was still a detective—was already looking forward to what I had in mind. I’d enjoyed following Jauch, almost childishly so.

“Then would you like me to drive you, sir? I’m parked just around the corner and entirely at your disposal.”

“In that car of your cousin’s? I might as well try to follow him with a couple of motorcycle outriders. No, I want you to stay here and try to arrange for us to meet with someone from the Archaeological Museum this afternoon. And see what else you can find out about that boat of his. You said it was called the Carasso before it was the Doris? So why’d he change the name? And when did that happen? Presumably the Mercantile Marine Ministry in Piraeus must have some information on that kind of thing.”

“New owner. New name. That’s usually how it works, sir. It’s not everyone who believes a new name brings bad luck to a ship. Although in this case it would seem that it has. Poseidon’s ledger of the deep and all that.” He shook his head sheepishly. “Pure superstition, of course. But sometimes it has to be admitted that these old customs are not without their foundations.”

“All the same. I’m curious.”

“Of course, sir. I’ll get right on it. I’ve a cousin in the ministry who owes me a favor. An impossible and very conceited man but he might be able to help. In fact, I’ll insist on it. If it wasn’t for me he’d still be the janitor at the American Farm School in Thessaloniki.”

I heard the front door open and close and I went downstairs and out onto the street in time to see Witzel walking southeast down Stadiou toward Constitution Square, in the same direction as the roaring Athenian traffic. I was already looking for a taxi and, not seeing one, was wondering if I’d made the right decision in dispensing with Garlopis and the blue Oldsmobile, which was parked right in front of a florist’s on Santaroza and immediately behind a pistachio-green Simca that Witzel had stopped beside. I told myself to remind Garlopis to get rid of the American car. As Witzel opened the Simca’s door I quickly crossed the road and, speaking English, offered the young priest polishing the scooter outside the cinema a hundred drachmas if he would follow the Simca with me on the back. There was a banknote already vertical in my hand and he took it without a word, lifted the scooter off its stand, started the engine, and nodded over his shoulder for me to get on board. A minute later we were in the midst of the choking Athenian traffic and in heart-stopping pursuit of the Simca as it headed west along Mitropoleos.

“You American?” asked the priest, whose name was Demetrius.

“Swiss,” I yelled. “Like the cheese.”

“Why are you following this man?”

“He stole some money from some friends of mine. I want to find out where he lives so I can fetch the cops.”

“Attica cops? They’re as bad as the thieves. You’d be better off going to church and asking God to get it back for you.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I hear he often asks a savior’s fee. Like your immortal soul.”

Blasphemy is never a good idea when you’re riding on the back of a scooter in Athens. I braced myself and closed my eyes for a second as we came perilously close to the wheels of an ice truck. Then I felt a strong jolt as the smallish wheels of the scooter hit a pothole and, out of fear that we would bounce off the road, I grabbed on to the priest’s black cassock, which smelled strongly of incense and cigarettes in marked contrast to the stinky blue smoke that filled the streets, but the scooter stayed upright and about thirty meters right behind the Simca. Now that I was riding pillion I realized a scooter was perfect for following someone in Athens, if not for my nerves; the city traffic was so chaotic and undisciplined that I might never have kept up with Witzel in a yellow cab. Demetrius made light work of the pursuit and even found time to point out a building on our left.

“That’s the old Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens where I work. Come in sometime and say hello to me and to Saint Philothei, whose reliquary is in there. She was beaten to death by Turkish Muslims for giving shelter to four women who’d escaped from a harem.”

“A lot of guys take that kind of thing much too personally these days. Especially when they’ve had a drink or two. At least I always think so. But please, keep your eyes on the road. We can do the sightseeing later. Better still, you can hear my confession now, while I’m riding pillion. That way we can kill two birds with one stone.”

The Simca turned abruptly south in the general direction of the Acropolis and we followed. Witzel was as angry a driver as he was an insurance claimant; a couple of times he extended all the fingers on his hand at other motorists, which, Demetrius assured me, was an obscene gesture called the moutza. The young priest didn’t tell me what it meant; he didn’t have to: in any language, an obscene gesture isn’t usually meant to be an invitation to a waltz.

Witzel went left in front of some ancient ruins and we did the same, heading up the hill along a narrowing street with the Acropolis and whatever was on top of it now firmly in sight. Then, in front of a café, Witzel stopped the Simca, got out, and walked up the hill toward the Acropolis. For a moment I didn’t appreciate that he had actually parked the car because this was Greek parking and a thousand kilometers from the way people parked their cars in Germany, which was neatly and legally and with a certain amount of consideration for other people.

Without being instructed to do so Demetrius hung back a little, keeping the two-stroke engine running, and I more or less hid behind him to prevent Witzel from seeing me. This was easy; the priest was as tall as a Doric column and just as wide. He made the red scooter he was seated on look like a cocktail cherry.

I climbed off the back of the scooter and tried to steady my trembling legs; they say you learn something every day but all I’d learned so far was that I liked riding scooters even less than I liked being on the back of a wild mustang. Demetrius stroked his beard and promised to wait for as long as it took to smoke the cigarette I’d given him, so I gave him another for the back of his ear and, when I was sure Witzel was almost out of sight, I followed him on foot.

It was a quiet neighborhood of empty tourist cafés, winding narrow streets, and neat little white stucco houses—the sort of old town neighborhood you imagine probably exists only on a Greek island and not jumbled around the base of the Acropolis. Bouzouki music spilled out of windows like electronic signals sent by some frantic space traveler. Up ahead, a few intrepid Japanese tourists who had braved the Athenian morning cold were shopping for souvenirs. Like almost everyone else in Europe, Witzel paid the Japanese no attention. They were fortunate that way; fortunate that their own war crimes had been committed against the Chinese, the British, and the Australians in faraway places like Nanking and Burma. They could tour the historical sites of Greece without fear of assault, unlike myself. And maybe they just didn’t give a damn the way we Germans did.

Witzel stopped for a moment to light one of his revolting menthol cigarettes, which gave me enough time to gain a little ground on him and, from the doorway of a shop selling cheap plaster models of the Parthenon, I watched him carefully to see where he would end up. A few moments later he paused in front of a dilapidated three-story house with an almost opaque carriage lamp and shabby brown louvered shutters, produced his keys, and unlocked the narrow double-height door. A Greek flag was visible in a window on the uppermost floor and, behind a wrought-iron gate, an evil eye had been painted over an old wound in a gnarled tree trunk that was scratching itself against the wall like a mangy dog. I took a good look at the house, noted the address, which was helpfully recorded on a street sign behind the carriage lamp, and then decided to go back to the priest and his scooter. I might have stayed a bit longer but the house had a very private, closed-up look that made me think I wouldn’t learn anything by just standing outside and keeping a watch on the place. I wanted to return to number 11 Pritaniou and surprise Siegfried Witzel later on, when maybe I’d gathered a little more information about the Doris and the diving expedition from the Mercantile Marine Ministry and the Archaeological Museum in Piraeus. Enough at least to contradict whatever cock-and-bull story he’d cooked up to make sure his insurance claim was settled. I was looking forward to that. But halfway down the gently sloping street, I was obliged to stop for a moment outside the Scholarhio café.

It’s one of life’s miracles that—most of the time—you don’t notice your heartbeat. To that extent it’s like being on a ship; when the sea is rough you can’t help but pay attention to it. My heart had put in a couple of extra beats, like a virtuoso jazz drummer, just for the hell of it, perhaps, and then stopped for an unnerving fraction of a second, or so it seemed, which left me reaching to lean upon the whitewashed wall of the café—as if the ship’s deck had shifted ominously under my feet—before it kicked in again, so strongly that I almost went down on one knee and which I now considered doing anyway because this always seems to be the best position to adopt when uttering a prayer. Somehow I stayed silent, even inside my own skull, for fear that I might hear God laugh at my mortal cowardice. I felt a pain in my back, as though from some infernal turn of the screw, and it began expanding through my trembling torso. Beads of sweat studded my face and chest like scales on a crocodile and my breathing quickened. I thought of Walther Neff and the heart attack that had put him in the hospital and me in his place representing MRE in Athens, and I almost smiled as I considered the irony of me dying in Greece, doing his job, while he recuperated safely at home in Germany. But straightaway I knew what needed to be done: I lurched into the café, ordered a large brandy, and lit a cigarette but not before snapping off the filter to smoke it plain and get my breath. The old remedies are usually best. Throughout both wars it was a strong cigarette and a tot of something warm that kept the nerves in check, especially when the shells were falling around you like rocks at a Muslim stoning. Once the nerves were sorted, the bullets wouldn’t touch you; and if they did, you hardly cared.

“Are you all right?” asked Demetrius, when I returned to the red scooter. A handsome man, he looked like a house-trained Rasputin, at least before Yusupov invited him to dinner at his palace. “You look a little pale, even for a Swiss.”

“I’m fine,” I said, a little breathlessly. “Apart from having just had a near-fatal heart attack, I feel as well as I always do. But you might hear my confession now: I’m not really sure scooters agree with me. So thanks all the same, Demetrius, but I’ll take a taxi back. Or I might even walk. If I’m going to die in Athens I’d prefer it to happen while I’m not actually in fear for my life.”