Decision at Delphi

  “And the Albanian soldiers of the Turks destroyed it,” she was saying. “Every man was killed. The women were—were destroyed. The children taken as slaves. Nothing left—a few walls. A little church, without a roof.” She sighed. “But not enough shelter for a man who was sick.”

  “How sick?” he asked quickly.

  “A bullet was in his shoulder. Something here”—she put a hand over her right ribs—“is not good. He walked and climbed over these mountains, for two nights and a day. His feet—” She shook her head. “But he is alive. And talks too much. So I made him sleep.”

  Strang got on to his feet. “I’ll have a look. No, don’t worry—I shan’t waken him.” He stood very still. “What was that?”

  She was on her feet, her hand deep in the pocket of her skirt. “It could be the morning wind. It rises before dawn.”

  They stood listening. There was only silence now.

  “Do you expect these men from Tripolis to come back?”

  “They will come back. You are very important to Odysseus, Mr. Strang.”

  If so, thought Strang, he is a little late; the time to get me out of Athens was yesterday, before I could talk with Colonel Zafiris.

  “I hear nothing,” Myrrha said, and took her hand out of her pocket. “What made you think these men come from Tripolis?”

  “Their clothes, mostly. And they travelled north. Tripolis is the nearest town in that direction.”

  “They have been living in Tripolis,” she said. “But they do not come from there.”

  It was a nice Greek distinction. But he was thinking now of the timing of the telephone calls. Three o’clock was the first one. If Cecilia and he had separated after lunch—most people did, falling into the Mediterranean custom of the long rest after the midday meal—he would have been in his room for that first call, he would have been on his way to Sparta before Cecilia even came downstairs and had picked up that note signed “Katherini.” And Cecilia would have kept that appointment.

  Myrrha was looking at him. “There is something wrong?” she asked, sensing his tenseness. She listened. “No,” she decided. “Nothing.” She sat down at the table, and watched him curiously. The last flicker of the dying fire threw faint, glancing shadows over his face. But there were deeper shadows there, too, she thought. “You wonder how I knew Odysseus sent these men?”

  He sat down opposite her.

  She said, “I remembered one of them. He did not know me. But men do not change so much as women. I knew him. He did many things for Odysseus.” She shivered. Then she said, “Levadi remembered him, too. Once, before the war; they both lived near Parnassos. That is to the north. On the mainland,” she explained politely.

  “And during the war?”

  “They both followed Odysseus. Levadi knew my brothers, too.”

  “Levadi—that is a strange name.”

  “That is not his real name. It is the place he came from.”

  “Why doesn’t he go back there?”

  “After the war, some men could not go back.”

  He looked at her. “You trust him?”

  “He has been here for almost thirteen years. Without him, I could not have worked my farm... In the village, I had no friends. Not then. People forget slowly. But—” she paused— “they do forget. A little. There is peace here. Work and peace and food. That is all Levadi wants.”

  “But how did he know where to find you?”

  “Oh, people find people,” she said vaguely. Then she brushed aside the American’s doubts. “In Greece, many people were made refugees, many left their villages, many went looking for friends, many found new places. Levadi is not so difficult to understand.”

  “Isn’t he? You said he followed Odysseus once.”

  “But he rebelled,” she said softly. “Like my brother Stefanos he rebelled. Yet they are so different. Stefanos, he thinks much. He rebelled—” she touched her forehead—“here. Levadi does not think. He never questions. He feels.” She touched her heart. “He rebelled, there.” She closed her eyes, as if her words had struck a savage memory. She drew a deep breath.

  “When Odysseus came here a few weeks ago, did he see Levadi? Did he talk to him?”

  She looked puzzled. “Yes. At first, Levadi wouldn’t listen. He ran up the hill, behind this house. But Odysseus followed him.”

  “And he patched up their quarrel, whatever it was?”

  “I did not ask any questions,” she said coldly. “I do not think you should ask them. It was a personal matter, between them. Not politics. Levadi was jealous, once, of Odysseus. Oh, not because of me. Someone quite different, someone else—” She halted, listening. The strange sound, breaking through the lonely night, died away. “Did you hear?”

  Strang was on his feet, too. The sharp rasping call of a night bird was repeated. “A screech owl, perhaps,” he said.

  “Or Petros. That is his signal.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “It is a warning. The men are coming back.”

  Strang said, “Look—they don’t know that Steve is here, do they?”

  “No.”

  “Then they are coming for me.” They must have seen Elias and Costas returning in the car from the valley, and they had assumed it was the American still searching for Thalos. Strang pointed to her pocket. “Do you know how to use that revolver?”

  Myrrha drew it out. “Petros gave it to me.”

  “Can you use it?” he repeated.

  “I have not forgotten.”

  “Then bar this door solidly. Stay here. Don’t open a window. If the men come here, don’t let them in. Tell them you didn’t let me in, either. You never let anyone inside at night. That’s your story.”

  She watched him lift the door’s bar out of its heavy sockets. “No—no!”

  “Yes!” he said. “If they catch me, they won’t take me far. Petros is out there. And Elias, I hope.”

  He edged the door open, first ajar, then a few more inches. The end of the village street and the beginning of the path lay before him. Thank God, the room had been dark; his eyes didn’t have to get accustomed, all over again, to the night’s shadows. He could hear no rustle, see no movements. They weren’t near the house then. Not yet. He opened the door and slipped through. Behind him, the door was closed quietly. He kept close to the wall of the house, to the heavy black line of darkness under the eaves. At the corner, he stepped into the path, walking lightly through its shadows. Now, he was out of them, into the open, and he slowed his pace, as if he had no reason to hurry. He halted by the curve of the stream and lit a cigarette, as if he were wondering what he should do next. Then, he began, slowly, to walk down the path toward the woods. If there was anyone watching from the distance, they would see him clearly. If they wanted him, they would know where to find him. And if I’ve guessed wrong, he thought, as he approached the first tree, if Petros isn’t anywhere near here, then— There was a sharp crack, splitting the night. A spurt of earth and stones shot up ahead of him, to the side of the path. He raced for the wood, dived into the undergrowth as a second shot cut the ground behind him. And somewhere dogs began barking.

  He lay flat on his face, his head beginning to throb again. Someone tugged at his arm. It was Petros. “Here,” Petros whispered, getting him off the path, pulling him behind a clump of bushes. “And what little game were you playing, my friend?” But he laughed softly, as if he knew. “That back of yours—it tempted them. It asked them, it begged them to shoot.”

  Elias suddenly appeared beside them. “A mistake,” he observed in a whisper. “Now we know where that fellow is.” He pointed to the field on the hillside above the house. He frowned. “But why there?” he asked himself.

  “And why,” Strang asked, equally puzzled, keeping his voice to a whisper, too, “don’t they follow me?”

  “You like trouble,” Petros said. Then, as he heard a rustle near them, he gestured with his arm. “John!” he whispered, and a man rose from the underbrush and came qui
etly to join them. “What do you see, out there?” Petros asked him. “Eyes like a cat,” Petros explained to Strang as John moved to get a clear view.

  “Where’s Levadi?” Strang asked.

  Petros shrugged his shoulders, as he stared at the distant field encircled by its stone wall. “Around, some place.”

  “Why don’t they follow me?” Strang asked again, with exasperation. This was uncanny. Two shots, then silence. “Or do they think they hit me?”

  “They nearly did,” Elias said grimly.

  Or perhaps they want to make sure I’m alone, Strang thought, and unarmed. It was uncanny. The dogs were barking wildly now, but the village still lay in darkness, as if it had pulled the blankets over its head, determined to hear and see nothing.

  John whispered hoarsely, “Four of them!” The man who had fired from the cover of the stone wall around the field had risen. Two others were coming down from the hillside above him. They seemed to think that cover was no longer necessary. “Three are going to the house,” John said.

  Petros was on his feet.

  “Keep down!” Elias whispered angrily.

  Strang said, “Steve is in that house.”

  Elias stared at him.

  “Stefanos Kladas is in that house,” Strang insisted. “And these men know. They know. That’s why they didn’t come after me.”

  John said, “I cannot see them now. The house hides them.”

  Elias rose quickly, taking a whistle out of his pocket, giving a clear sharp blast. From the other end of the village street came an answering whistle. Petros and John were starting up the path. Elias yelled to Strang, “Stay there! Stay there!” Then he was racing after Petros and John, and catching up with them, too. From the olive trees on the other side of the stream, men ran out and splashed through the water to the village street. And along there a car was starting up, gathering speed to reach the house.

  So I come out, get shot at, and stay here, Strang thought: the hell I do. He started after the others, halted, staring, helpless. He yelled, “The roof, the roof!” For a man was clambering up there, half crouching as he reached the ridge, half rising as he started a hobbling run toward the chimney, his right arm raised to throw. Petros and John both fired. The man’s step veered; he seemed to take three running steps right down the front of the roof before he fell and clattered the rest of the way to plunge over its broad eave. His body landed in front of the house, and, a split second later, exploded into a flash of grey light, a balloon of smoke.

  Strang’s sense of complete helplessness vanished. He ran toward the low stone wall encircling the field, just about the point where the sharpshooter had hidden. Petros, Elias, and John had reached the house and were fanning around it, along with the men who had crossed the stream. The car had arrived, too, screeching to a halt just as the grenade had gone off, and three men were jumping out of it to join the others. Enough men there to take care of any trouble, Strang thought. There was plenty, too; another explosion sent him ducking behind the wall. He heard the frenzied scream of a horse or a donkey, the bleating of goats; back in the village, the dogs had gone crazy. He swung his legs over the roughly laid loose stones, and landed in the field as there was a third explosion. To his left, near the house, there was a shot, then three more, a sudden surge of men, another burst of firing, then silence.

  But what interested him was the field. Up there, somewhere up there, near the top of the steeply ploughed furrows, he had seen a lumbering shadow. That must be the fourth man whom the lynx-eyed John had spied. He started up the hill, and stumbled over a dog, lying wide-eyed, its throat slit. So that was why he had heard no dog barking its warning from the Kladas house. Quickly, he focused his eyes back on the lumbering shadow, now almost at the top of the field. Someone called after him; he waved, and ran on. If he took his eyes away from that shadow, he’d lose it.

  It was heavy, slow travel, uphill through the field’s soft earth, and ruination for a careful spring planting. Behind him, Petros called again, but he went on. He was near the top of the field now; there was the low stone wall in front of him. And beyond it, a bleak beginning to a mountainside, boulders and rocks scattered over rough grass, a distant cliff face, a ridge of high peaks lined sharply against the eastern sky. Dawn was coming from the other side, a hint of green-grey behind the ragged rim of mountain, the stars fading, a cold wind rising.

  Strang climbed over the wall, and then halted, his eyes searching the mountainside, while he got his breathing once more under control. He swallowed in hot, heavy gulps, feeling the saliva burn its way down his throat. He pulled his jacket collar up, the lapels over, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets; up here, the wind had an edge like a hatchet. He took a few last deep breaths, and he had steadied himself again. And then he saw the man in the bulky sheepskin tunic. It was Levadi, all right. He had stopped, near a large boulder almost as tall as he was, and he had turned to face Strang. Friendly or not? Strang wondered, noting the long, heavy stick on which Levadi, grasping it at shoulder height, rested his weight.

  Strang, his hands still in his pockets, walked slowly up toward a goat path, a foot-broad, winding ribbon of worn earth. No sudden movements, he thought, as he reached it, no loud noises: just this steady plodding, up the goat path, one slow foot in front of another, eyes on that strange bulky shape that looked in this half-light like a shaggy animal standing on two human legs.

  Strang halted about twelve feet away from Levadi, within smelling distance, he thought wryly, but just outside the swing of that long stave. He looked at the man, seeing his face for the first time. “Good morning,” he said, speaking in Greek, slowly.

  The man said nothing, his eyes staring intently from under heavy brows at the stranger, still suspicious, still waiting for the first sign of attack.

  “A fine view,” Strang said, and looked briefly down over the valley. And it was a view to startle anyone. Strang had to force his eyes quickly back to the man and that stave. But Levadi had looked down over the dark valley, too, and then beyond, to the far-off giants of western mountains, their white peaks tinged with gold and mauve and pink, gleaming through the veils of soft trailing clouds. And he stood there, silent, his wild eyes watching as they, perhaps, watched each morning. For a long minute, he stood there as if he had forgotten the stranger. His hair was light in colour, Strang noted, an unkempt mass of thick locks falling over the prominent brow; his features were good but coarsened, the skin ruddy with health under the layer of grime, the mouth was large, the lips heavy and slack. Now Levadi seemed to remember the stranger again, and his head swung around quickly, the eyes wary and suspicious.

  Levadi spoke. It was a rough, shy voice, strangely thin, high-pitched. “You are here.”

  I certainly am, thought Strang. Or was that remark Levadi’s idea of a question? “I want to talk to you.”

  Levadi’s frown deepened. “You stop me, I kill you,” he said. He stared at Strang’s hands, still buried in his pockets.

  “I came to talk.” Strang took his hands out of his pockets. “I have no weapon,” he assured the man. But that was a miscalculation. Levadi turned and walked uphill, with a long striding step. There was no gun to fear, after all. “Wait!” Strang started after him.

  Levadi whirled around, the long stick grasped in both hands, ready to hit, if necessary.

  Strang halted. “Where are you going?”

  The man stared at him. “Home,” he said slowly.

  And where was home—a hut on this mountainside, or the ruins, far on the crest of a hill, of the Frankish castle? Then Strang made a bold guess. “This is not the way to Parnassos.”

  The man looked at him. “I know the way”

  “But you cannot go back.”

  “Now—yes.” Levadi smiled, the lips drawn slowly back into a wide, loose grimace.

  “And Myrrha—”

  The grimace on the wide mouth turned from delight to pain.

  It was, thought Strang, very much like talking to a large
powerful dog who might understand a few key words but mistrusted everything else. Strang said very clearly. “They tried to kill Myrrha.”

  There was denial in the wild eyes, staring at the American.

  I’ve seen that face, Strang thought; somewhere, I’ve seen that face. He repeated slowly, “They tried to kill Myrrha.”

  “No. Not Myrrha. Stefanos, yes. He is a deserter. He betrayed—”

  “That’s a lie. He did not desert to any Germans. Sideros told you a lie. Odysseus told you a lie.”

  Levadi’s reply to that was to raise his stick and take a step toward Strang.

  “Come back to the house,” Strang said. “See what they have done. The dog had its throat slit. Myrrha may be dead. You heard the—” And what was the Greek word for grenades?

  “Not Myrrha.”

  “They lied.”

  Levadi leaped forward in anger, in a quick bounding run, the stick upraised and ready to strike. Strang jumped aside. And from behind him, the sharp crack of a rifle sounded, echoing, echoing along the mountainside. Levadi dropped the stick as he spun around with a cry, and fell clutching his shoulder. He tried to rise and run.

  “Stop, or I’ll kill you this time,” Petros yelled, clambering over the stone wall. John was following him.

  Levadi stopped. Strang looked at him in amazement: he had stopped, had taken two paces back. To be killed—was that what he feared most? What made a man like that even want to live? Strang watched Levadi and wondered. The man had stopped again; he was looking across the black stretch of valley to its western wall of mountains. The snow-wrapped peaks were ablaze with colours, no longer hinted but as vivid as the fires of an opal: purple, pink, mauve, magenta, rose. The mists had drawn into soft white masses of cloud edged with a golden light. The colours shifted, deepened, mixed, paled. And then, in a moment, they were gone:

  “Look at him!” Petros said bitterly, as Levadi turned to them, biting his lip, struggling with his emotion. “Tears for a sunrise! And he would have beaten out your brains on these rocks just as easily as he welcomed a dog and slit its throat. He would let a man be murdered in his bed and a woman be blown to pieces.” Petros’s lip curled with contempt. He raised his rifle.