Enemy and Brother (25 page)

Even the policeman’s box was empty at the main intersection. The idle carriages stood in the shade in the square, the horses flicking their tails at the flies. Two policemen were reading the front pages of the newspapers where they hung on a glass-encased board outside the Acropolis Hotel. I glanced at one of the headlines: it concerned the festival and the Princess Royal’s arrival. The world was not collapsing if the headlines could go to a theater festival.

The two policemen, a corporal and a sergeant, were talking about the parade, apparently a preliminary to the festival. The sergeant was smoking a cigarette. The corporal wanted to know the order of precedence in terms of authority, the local constabulary or the security police. I did not hear the answer. The sergeant became aware of me and stiffened as to attention. I nodded gravely. The corporal too now came to attention.

“It will be a large crowd,” I said, speaking in English.

“Yes, sir.” One hand behind his back, the sergeant dropped his cigarette. “We are prepared.”

I could think of nothing more to say except “good day.” I moved on, virtually alone in the sun-scorched street. I wondered if every tourist drew that reaction. It did not seem likely. They had taken me for someone important, someone to whom one might have supposed they felt answerable. But to whom, an American? I had no answer.

Entering the hotel lobby I came face to face with Constantin Helmi. He offered his hand but I could see he was searching his memory for name and place.

“John Eakins,” I said. “We met at Dr. Palandios’.”

“Of course, of course, Madame Storme’s friend.”

I did not contradict him.

“How splendid we are to have a reunion. I understand Madame Storme comes in the morning. My poor Elena, she is all nerves as though it were her debut.”

“I understand the Princess Royal will be present.”

“And the Count and Countess Braschi—you know, Alexander Webb’s widow.”

I nodded. “I remember our conversation that night.”

“Then you will also remember that I was not to be quoted in the matter,” Helmi said.

“To whom would I quote you?” I asked blandly.

He smiled broadly. “You are right. Now, you will forgive me, dear sir. I am due at the airport. I shall be back tomorrow. There will be a reception after theater. You must have an invitation….” He had taken a notebook and small gold pencil from his pocket. “Professor, isn’t it?”

I spelled my name to save him the embarrassment of having to admit he had again forgotten it.

Not wanting to face the crowded dining room, I had soup and fruit sent to my room. I had not unpacked, and I felt undisposed to, but if I were to attend the reception I should have to have my dinner clothes pressed. And I proposed to attend it, once more to meet Margaret. My nerves reacted badly. I dug out a bottle of brandy along with my dinner jacket… and then put the bottle away again. I phoned the desk for the valet and presently opened the door to the chambermaid. Before taking the clothes she drew the drapes against the heat where I had opened them. When she was gone I opened them again, and the glass-paneled door besides. I stepped out on the balcony. I could hear the rattle of cutlery and dishes, the hum of conversation from the dining room below. I had not arranged a theater reservation. I decided to leave it to Elsa Storme. If she were coming in the morning she would probably be on the regular flight from Athens.

The telephone rang. It was Paul. He identified himself at what sounded like the top of his voice: “Michael, Michael Panyotis.”

“You don’t have to shout,” I said. “How many melons did you sell?”

“The whole cartload!” He shouted nonetheless. “There will be a special military exercise in the barracks grounds at six o’clock. I have a friend taking part in it, you know?”

“I shall be there,” I said.

“I myself am going to sit at the lakefront and set my face to the monastery of St. Panteleimon. Bring the car.”

He hung up with the abruptness of one totally unaccustomed to the use of the telephone. Which, I realized, was the case.

I had hoped to park the car along the wall where I had seen the market vendors tether their donkeys. Beyond the wall was the army grounds. There were cars there but no room for mine, and one gendarme after another directed me away. People were crowding through the wall entry. I finally left the car in back of the museum, having had to circle the entire area. I was on the edge then of the old town where until the war Ioannina’s large Jewish population had lived. Cleared out by the Germans, the cottages were afterwards taken over by refugees during the civil war. I thought of the woman, Maria, and wondered if she too had settled there. If so, Stephanou would find her. The walled gardens were rich with bloom; that much I glimpsed before cutting across an open field, intending to reach the army parade ground that way. I was halfway across the field when I saw several soldiers gesturing me away. I went on, afraid of missing whatever event was about to take place. A jeep came to meet me. I climbed in beside the sergeant. “It is not allowed,” he said.

“Then put me down where I am allowed,” I said.

He circled back and let me out at the edge of a small crowd of people who had poured in through the market gate. Some of the men among them cheered, I supposed for me and my little sideshow. For someone not wanting to attract attention to himself I had given a hell of a performance. An M.P. helped me force my way into the crowd. I was at its mercy for the moment, for just then two jeep-loads of officers came through the gate, followed by a limousine, the first Cadillac I had seen in Ioannina. I eased myself round to get a better view of what everyone else was straining to see. I never did see the passengers in the rear. When the car was no more than five feet from me, the officer riding beside the driver acknowledged the salute of the M.P. beside me, the flick of his hand attracting my eye.

I had thought I would not recognize him, but it was not so. I was absolutely certain that the officer was the man I had known as Captain Demetrios.

When the car had passed and the M.P. stood at ease, I said to him with exaggerated courtesy, “Excuse me, sir. Who is the officer in the limousine?”

“Colonel Frontis.”

Colonel Frontis. Even as we had surmised. I eased my way through the watchers and out the gate when the military pipes and drums began to play.

No parking was allowed along the promenade where the great plane trees line the waterfront, and are themselves in shadow from the mountainous rockbed on the top of which Ali Pasha had built his castle. I drove slowly toward where Paul sat alone, his white cane marking him in the distance.

He turned his head the better to hear if the car would stop and, when it did, got up at once. I got out to help him but it was scarcely necessary. He had found the car door by the time I reached him.

“You could get in with a stranger for all your independence,” I said.

“No, Professor. There is a cricket in the Vauxhall’s motor. Don’t you hear it? Clickety-click-click….”

I heard it, but only then.

“Well?” he said, as I got in beside him.

“I have seen Demetrios,” I said. “We were right.”

He pressed his strong white teeth for a moment on his lip. “I have been praying to St. Panteleimon for enlightenment. I told him I would not ask for sight. Drive the road north, Professor, toward Kalpaki. I have been listening to the boats go to and from the island. There are many tourists and they all wish to see where Ali lost his head. The people of Ioannina care not a damn for Ali… and some of them I am not sure care any more for Greece. They are Epirots to the core. You know, Professor, it is very curious—it is like a country being born.”

“You’ve had a good day’s listening,” I said.

“Adversity has its own uses,” he said. “And you?”

“I shall be invited tomorrow night to the reception for the Princess Royal and the Count and Countess Braschi.”

“It is too soon,” he said, “too soon. Can you drive no faster? What is the time and where is the sunlight?”

“It’s almost seven and the sun will set within the hour.”

His smile flashed briefly. “It is a great pity you also cannot see in the dark.” Then, soberly, “We are going to try to find Maria. I do not think she would have remained in the town.”

“It is eighteen years, Paul. Or do you know that she is still alive?”

“The Greek peasant is strong.”

We had reached the tree-arched highway. On either side were vast stretches of fertile land, one of the great irrigation projects in Greece. The peasants worked in gangs, harvesting the late bean crop. Their donkeys were tethered, or in some cases hobbled at the side of the road. Paul, his face to the open window, was breathing deeply, catching the scent in the air.

“What do you smell?” I asked.

“The chill of the mountains coming down. I have never been so cold as I was that night.”

We passed the road to Igoumenitsa, where the ferry from Corfu crosses to the mainland. It was through that valley we had come the last day before reaching the
Andarte
camp. I told Paul of my recollection in the Byron house, of Webb examining his coat in the hallway, and of Demetrios earlier hurrying in, apologizing—I presumed—for having to take time to relieve himself.

“It is so,” Paul said. “He made a rude joke.”

I said, “What was Webb carrying concealed on his person that Demetrios might have intercepted?”

“Communication from Athens? Intelligence?… Is it possible, Professor, that he would not have known that he was carrying it, that seeing Demetrios he first suspected it?”

“Very possible.”

“Then I would remind you, my friend, of the only likely person to have access to a man’s coat—his wife.”

“It is so,” I said, using Paul’s phrase. “I should think it is fairly safe to assume a lingering… what word shall I use?… affinity between Margaret Webb and Colonel Frontis.”

“One would like to know at what point the name Demetrios died,” Paul said.

We were approaching the crossroads, the fatal site. I slowed down and told him where we were.

“Drive on!” he said as though to forestall my dwelling on what had happened there. “And mark now ten kilometers.”

I was slow to pick up speed, looking at the great shadows spreading through the valley.

“What do you feel?” Paul demanded.

“Nothing. A sort of numbness—as though it had all been a dream.”

“You are not afraid?”

“No. Are you?”

“No,” Paul said. “Only in the city am I afraid.”

“It was not evident to see you selling melons on that cart.”

“It was an exercise in boldness. One must be bold.”

“But not too bold,” I said. We accelerated, going downhill. “All this distance you carried the woman on your back?”

“She was not heavy. But she stank of blood, poor creature, and I have never been able to get the stench of it out of my soul.”

I had to turn on the dashboard light to read the speedometer.

“It will be a long twilight, please God,” I said. The sun had set.

“Are there dwellings?”

“Some. Stone and plaster with slate roofs. The people look up when we pass. The countryside is becoming desolate again. The sheep are the color of the soil—tinged with red. I remember the scrapings of the dark-red loam they took from under my fingernails to prove I had buried the gun.”

“It is so.”

“We have not passed a car since the road to Igoumenitsa.”

“The road will go nowhere after Kalpaki with the border closed.”

An army truck approached, the driver turning on his lights and then turning them off again. I did the same. We drove in silence until I said, “It is ten kilometers now, Paul.”

“You must watch to the left then for a shrine. It will be to St. George, for it was not far from here we turned back the Fascist invaders.”

I pondered his conviction that all would have remained as he remembered it, and, as though he sensed my thought, he said, “Men live and die. Our saints have become eternal.”

I drove slowly and soon the white-washed shrine appeared, at first like a will-o’-the-wisp in the twilight. As I drew alongside I saw the flicker of candlelight within the shelter.

“There is a candle burning,” I told him.

“Pray God Maria lit it,” he said. “Is there a road? We must stop at the shrine in any case.”

I got out of the car. The overgrowth of weeds and wild wheat had all but covered the tracks, but once there had been a road of sorts. I went round to Paul’s door. “There was a road. It’s overgrown.”

“Take me to the shrine.”

I guided him around the car. He explored the frame of the shrine with his hands, then moved from the front to the back of it and got down on his knees. The stillness seemed as vast as the sky which was an unclouded wash of pink and gold, blue-tinted and darkening at the far edge of the earth. Paul scooped the silted dirt away from the base. “Once there was a metal box under here where we left messages,” he said.

I felt the leap of my heart.

“It is the remotest possibility.” He dug on until his fingernails scraped against metal.

I drew out the box for him and pried open the lid. “Something,” I said. “I’ll have to take it to the light.”

“Sometimes we left money.”

And by the headlights I saw that that was what it was, a dozen or so faded bank notes of different denominations. I took the box back to where he waited and told him.

“It is bad,” he said. “If she returned afterwards and needed money, she would have known.”

“She might have been afraid,” I said, but heavy myself with disappointment. “And, Paul, there is a candle burning. Someone may know.”

“We must go on in any case,” he said. I put the box, money and all, back where he had found it and filled in the earth again at the base of the shrine. “It is better that we walk, but put the car where it cannot be seen from the road.”

We drove a few yards in, bending the wild grain before us. A three-quarters moon was rising, reddened by the dust of August. Paul held my arm. I gave him the path, such as there was, and therefore stumbled as often as he did, hooking my toes in the rough. We went on, I do not know how far—for a long enough time that the moon had whitened and the sky had grown dark, letting out the stars. We stopped, I think because I heard a sound from him that made me stop. His hand groped up to my shoulder, and the shudder that ran through him also ran through me.