Decision at Delphi

  Then they were up on the sidewalk, in the pleasant light of a spring evening. But they called at two other shoemakers’ shops before they reached the café that Petros had selected. There were only men sitting there; some indoors, some outside at the tables on the broad sidewalk, some reading newspapers, some talking in close groups, some just sitting with eyes half closed watching the people walking past.

  “Sunset,” Petros explained. “People stop work, and wash, and brush their hair, and start walking up and down, up and down this street, from there to here, from here to there. It’s the custom. When it is dark, off they go and have their supper.”

  Strang watched the groups of bareheaded girls in short skirts and high heels, the separate groups of tall young men strolling past. They were a handsome crowd, lean and fit, straight-backed, heads held high, eyes direct and proud. But, thought Strang, Petros is not looking around him merely to admire the pretty girls. And why did he meet me at the bus? He kept silent until the coffee was brought, and Petros had cajoled the waiter into finding some dark bread and fetta for a starving American. Then Strang asked, “Petros, what’s worrying you?”

  “At last!” Petros said, suddenly afflicted by poor hearing. John, his leather apron abandoned, his face and hands washed, his grimy work shirt changed for a clean one, his jacket neat, his hair combed with water, made his way quietly through the tables to shake their hands.

  “Ouzo for everyone and more coffee for me,” Strang said, as he concentrated on the excellent peasant bread and goat-milk cheese. “You know how many to order for, Petros.” Petros looked at him, and solemnly ordered ouzo for five.

  When his three other friends had arrived and shaken everyone’s hand, Petros began a little speech. Strang understood about half of the quickly triggered phrases—when Petros was talking to other Greeks, his words came out with the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun. It was something about a man, an agent for an Athens business house, who had come to live in Sparta only four years ago, who had tried to make friends and had only made people wonder. He had a fine office with a telephone, and very little work. But he wore good clothes, he ate well, his hands were white and soft from pulling money out of the air. He had a big heart and so he talked of “the people” with deep emotion in his voice; but he overworked the woman who cleaned his house, and he spoke contemptuously of “peasants.” Were peasants not people?

  Petros, with his circle of friends nodding their thoughtful agreement, looked over at a table where a man sat by himself. “Why should a businessman travel up to Thalos this morning? Why did he ask questions?”

  Perhaps Petros saw the gleam of amusement in Strang’s eye, for he looked pointedly at the American. He said, “The questions he asked were not polite. He did not ask the girl questions about herself, so he had no interest in her or her family. No, indeed. He only talked about the shooting last night in Thalos. Very cunning questions he asked. About Levadi. About strangers in the village. And when the man left, the girl thought about this. And she came running back to the village and told us. That is why I came into Sparta. That is why I met you at the bus, my friend, and stood near you when you telephoned; and that is why my friends are sitting here. Because the man saw you as you got off the bus; and he questioned an old woman who had been travelling with you; and he has been following you ever since. Me? I am just another peasant.”

  Petros’s smile deepened as Strang remained speechless. Petros said, “He sits over there, by himself, waiting to see where you go next. Do you stay in Sparta or do you go back to Thalos? He is wondering what should be done.” Petros’s lips tightened. “And here we sit, my friends, wondering what should be done.”

  “Has he many friends here?” Strang asked.

  “He had three, last night,” Petros said, and the others laughed. “The soldiers found their hiding-place, up on the hill, not far from Thalos. The farmer, there, has much to explain. A very clever farmer; he could grow guns and ammunition among his olive trees.”

  Strang was still worrying.

  “At this moment, my friend,” Petros told him cheerfully, “that man has more troubles than you have.”

  That was certainly true. Strang signalled to the waiter. “Ouzo for everyone.” He made an attempt to look as relaxed as the others, but he could wish that someone like Elias were around to deal with this odd situation. There seemed no solution.

  “Let us get rid of him, first,” Petros said, jerking a thumb toward the lonely man. “Then we can enjoy our drink.”

  Strang looked at Petros. “Careful, careful—” he said.

  “Now, now,” Petros said equally gently, but firmly, “it will not take much to deal with him. He sees you have friends. That surprises him. If you had been alone, he would have felt much braver.” Petros rose. He walked slowly. He was sombre and serious. The others watched with half-lowered eyelids and a strange, still smile. Petros stopped in front of the man, and spoke. There was just one sentence. Then Petros turned away and came back to his own table. He sat down, with a wave of his hand, a shouted greeting to some friends across the sidewalk. He was in an expansive mood. And the man who sat alone rose and left.

  “Eh?” Petros asked Strang. There was laughter, rippling from one table to another.

  “And how did you do it?” Strang asked, watching the man disappearing into the street’s quickly fading light. The sunset was already over, the western rays blotted out by the high peak of Mount Taygetos. Night came quickly to Sparta, and a cold, sharp wind.

  Petros looked guileless. He rubbed the scar on his forehead. “I asked him if he had forgotten Mistra.” And as Strang looked at him blankly, he said, “The old ruins on the hill up there.” He pointed to the foothills below the black ridge of western mountains. “A big town it was once, hundreds of years ago—”

  “Four hundred years ago,” John said.

  “—and it covered all the hillside. Very rich. Churches, palaces, houses as big as hotels. Then the Turks brought their Albanian troops, and—nothing! All destroyed!”

  “Yes. But why should he remember the ruins of Mistra?”

  “When the Germans left and the civil war was lost to the Communists, all of them here ran like rabbits to Mistra. And all the fathers, and the brothers, and the cousins of the men they had killed took after them. They were hunted through the ruins of Mistra.” He pointed with an imaginary rifle, and clicked his tongue. “Like rabbits.” He looked at the American’s face. “Perhaps you do not understand such things? It was a night of—” he searched carefully for the right phrase.

  “A night of the long knives,” Strang said.

  Petros nodded. “And of long memories.” He raised his glass of ouzo. “The people here,” he said, “know how to remember.”

  Indeed they do, thought Strang. That was one detail he would keep from Cecilia when he guided her through the ruined streets of Mistra. But he wondered, would I have ever been able to see Mistra if it were not for Petros and his friends? He looked at their work-roughened hands, at their grave eyes and thin faces. He raised his glass of ouzo.

  They all drank, solemnly.

  Then they all began debating earnestly whether it was better to buy a donkey or a goat for Myrrha Kladas. It was decided by majority vote that the goat would be better: it provided food in milk and cheese. People could lift and carry; but, if they did not eat, their donkeys would soon have no master at all. John had a brother-in-law who would choose the right goat at next market day. He would buy it and take it to Thalos. And so, with the price paid, and another round of ouzo to seal the decision, and some supper in a restaurant where Petros’s uncle was cook, and a return to Thalos in, an old rattletrap of a car driven by one of Petros’s cousins, the evening passed pleasantly if—toward its end—a little hazily.

  By ten o’clock, with most good people indoors if not in bed, they were travelling up between olive groves and small clusters of houses, until at last they branched off the highway to follow the earth road that led to Thalos.

  The
village was peaceful, reassuring; a snug, safe, placid place, resting from its labours. Petros’s cousin left them at the beginning of the village, by a small church with its cluster of miniature domes. They began walking along the straight street of darkened houses, sleeping quietly beside the gentle flow of water. Petros said softly, “I can go back to Athens tomorrow. All is well here.”

  “I can give you a lift.”

  “No, my brother will bring the truck. We have a load of shoes to take back.” Petros halted, looked at a few clusters of stones where a house must have stood years ago. “You have not spoken of Katherini Roilos.”

  “She is dead.”

  Petros looked at the remains of the house in front of them. He thought for a long moment. Then he turned away, saying nothing, and they walked in silence to his cousin’s house. Just after dawn, Petros left. By six o’clock, the village was fully awake and starting on the day’s work. Petros’s cousin and his two young sons were embarrassed but pleased as they received Strang’s thanks, and clumped out of the house toward their field. Strang dressed and went to wash and shave, and when he came back into a street almost deserted except for a few very young children and two old women, he found Myrrha Kladas waiting for him.

  “I have brought you some breakfast,” she said, and uncovered a plate of bread and cheese and olives.

  “Where did you sleep?” he asked her.

  “At home.”

  “So you are getting things back into shape?”

  She nodded. “When will Stefanos return?”

  “In a few days. They put him in the hospital. He will soon be fit again.”

  She frowned worriedly. “I need another week to get the house ready. He would not like to see it now.”

  Strang shook his head in wonder. Everything was indeed all right when women started worrying about their house cleaning. “He will probably be a week in the hospital,” he reassured her. “Don’t stand there and serve me breakfast. Sit down, and have some, too.” He had a suspicion that the food had been saved especially for him.

  “No.”

  “Sit down and eat,” he told her.

  “It is not the custom.”

  “It is with me. I never eat unless a pretty girl sits opposite me.”

  She stared at him, and began to laugh. She sat down, though.

  “That’s much better,” he said, and offered her a roughly made open sandwich, which she refused, and finally accepted a little nervously. She ate it hungrily. Between bites, she would look at him as if she wanted to break out into laughter again. It was a silent but merry meal.

  “You are what Petros said you were,” she told him as she finished the last crumb of bread.

  “And what’s that?”

  She wouldn’t tell him. She sat, with her hand up at her mouth, politely covering her smile, but her eyes were glancing bright. “A pretty girl,” she said, and began to laugh once more.

  Then she fell silent. “Once,” she said softly, “I was.” Her face changed. “Odysseus said I was.” Very quietly, she added, “What will happen to him?”

  Strang lit a cigarette. “Arrested. Tried.” He shook his head over the revelations, the disclosures that were going to shock more than Athens. It would be a grim and horrible business, hurting the innocent in order to catch the guilty.

  “Arrested? No. He is too clever. Even if they catch him, he will go free. He will take their words and twist them and throw them back in their mouths. They will never convict him.” She was sure of that.

  “And if they can prove he killed Sideros and Elektra?”

  She stared at him.

  “Sideros and Elektra are dead,” Strang said. “Yes, they are dead. I saw their bodies.”

  Myrrha kept staring at him. “He killed my brother?”

  Strang nodded. “You had no love for Sideros,” he said, a little startled. “He has brought nothing but disaster to you.”

  “No love,” she agreed. “But—” She struggled with her emotions. “Who knows of this? I have heard nothing about it.”

  “Very few, as yet. But I thought you ought to know.”

  “So he killed Elektra,” she said slowly. “He had his revenge.”

  “Revenge? It is more a case of power politics, I think.”

  “That, too. But revenge... I know Odysseus. He must always win. Even when he loses, he must win.”

  And that, thought Strang, was quite an apt definition of revenge. It brought a slight shiver to his spine, though.

  “You look unhappy,” she said. “Did you know him?”

  “Once, I thought of him as a friend.”

  “He probably was your friend, when it suited him. He was always—” She struggled for the right words.

  “Sincere even in his insincerity?” he suggested.

  Myrrha’s thoughts had glanced on to something else. “Will he be hunted?” she asked.

  “If he tries to run—yes.”

  “You think he would kill himself instead of running?”

  Strang hesitated. “Perhaps. A trial would be a hideous thing for his family.” And for you, too, he thought, looking at her unhappy eyes. You would have to stand in a courtroom and identify him. What would the newspapers make of you, poor Myrrha Kladas? “He might at least spare them that.”

  “He spares no one. He will not kill himself. If he is caught, he will laugh. His trial will create much argument, much distrust, much hate. He will admit nothing. He will say he is an innocent man, that the law is unjust. There will be protests, demonstrations—” She broke off. “Once,” she said, “I was taught such things, how to help organise—” She stopped again. She rose and went over to the window, and looked out at some bitter memories. “But he will not be tried. He will escape,” she said, her voice heavy with foreboding.

  “This time, I think not.”

  “This time, any time, yes! And do you know why? He plans. He plans even for failure. And so he is always ready. That is his secret. He plans.”

  “Look,” Strang said a little impatiently—the infallibility of evil was one myth he wasn’t going to increase by believing in it—“roads will be blocked, all airports and harbours watched, and towns and villages will look for him. There will be a house-to-house search in Athens. I tell you, he has got men against him now who are as determined as he is. He is in big trouble, Myrrha. Big trouble.”

  “He will not stay in Athens. He will not be so stupid as to try to leave Greece. Not at this moment.”

  “Then where will he go?”

  She turned away from the window, and came back to him. “When Stefanos escaped, where did he go to hide? Into strange country? No. He came to the mountains and hills he knew best. And that is what Odysseus will do. He will go to Parnassos. He knows all the slopes, all the hills around the mountains. When he was a boy, he spent many summers near Delphi. He spent two years in that area, fighting against the Germans. Once, they searched for us. Almost six weeks, they searched. Day and night for six weeks. And we never were discovered. He had a house there, a small wooden house hidden by trees. When a German patrol came along the road, a villager warned us and we slipped away. We stayed in a hut on the hillside, too, and when the Germans were near, a shepherd would give warning. There were caves to shelter us, forests, even the tombs of the Old People. But we never went away from that district. It made Odysseus laugh to think of Ares and his men scattering far to the north for safety, some retreating back to the Pindus mountains and beyond, while he and I stayed near Parnassos, and were safe.”

  “There is one difference, though. Then, he was fighting the Nazis, so the villagers and shepherds helped him. But now, he is fighting them.”

  “Do they know that?” she asked, with her strange sad smile. “Levadi—what did he know?”

  From outside, came a woman’s voice, calling.

  “I come,” Myrrha called back. She picked up the empty plate and its cloth. “You will visit us again, someday?”

  “Yes. I’ll bring my girl with me, next time
.”

  “A Saturday night,” Myrrha said, her face brightening, “is a good time to come here. There is singing. Sometimes, the men dance.” Suddenly, she looked at him gravely. “Tell Stefanos that all is well. There is nothing to worry about now. Not here.” Then her heavy shoes clattered over the doorstep, and she was hurrying to join the other woman.

  He stood at the door and watched them walk, with their steady stride, along the village street towards the Kladas house where other women waited for them. He heard the shouts of greeting, some laughter. Indeed, he thought, there was nothing to worry about now. Not here.

  Unexpectedly, that last remark from Myrrha Kladas began to haunt him. Not here. Then where?

  The car, much to Strang’s surprise, arrived early. He rose from the church steps, where he had been sitting in the sunshine, surrounded by a cluster of new friends: eight small children, three silk-bearded goats with sloping yellow eyes and soft-sounding bells, two great-grandmothers, a completely toothless old gentleman, the village priest, who had just come off his field where he had completed a four-hour stretch of ploughing. Their questions died away as they all stared solemnly at the large car slowly drawing to a stop.

  Strang went forward. Costas, he saw, again to his surprise, was driving. Elias was with him. And Elias was wearing officer’s uniform. Why? Strang halted. Two of the children running after him, bumped against his legs and fell. Automatically, he reached down and pulled them to their feet, still looking at Elias, who was coming toward him, slowly. There was no reason for Elias to be here; he was more needed in Athens. There was no need, Strang thought again, unless he brought news so bad that he had been given the job of breaking it. Strang said, “Is she—”

  Elias looked at him quickly. “Not dead,” he said. “Miss Hillard is not dead.” He turned on the children. “Go home,” he shouted angrily, “go home!”

  “What—” began Strang.

  “I shall explain to you in the car. We shall drive at once back to Athens. Where is your coat?”