The Angry Hills (19 page)

Mike lit his pipe. The glow illuminated her face. Her eyes betrayed her.

“Wait,” she said. “There is time yet. Come, I want to show you something.”

They crossed Æolou Street and headed in the opposite direction.

“We get a full moon here so seldom,” Lisa said.

“One must never leave Greece without seeing the Acropolis by moonlight.”

Mike looked down in hushed awe on the sullen city below. The moonlight shed a silver light down the hill to the flickering lights of Athens and to the sea on the west.

He gazed down the south wall and the moonlight appeared eerie on the yellow marble of the Parthenon at his side.

Once Mike had asked himself what was the power that had brought him to Greece. He had asked in the midst of the turmoil and confusion of a retreating army. He knew, even in the chaos, that a reason was to be found somewhere. In large measure the question had been answered. But here, now, was another answer and another meaning. The very soul of his own country was born on this hill.

Mike turned and faced Lisa. As he stared into her sad black eyes he knew that Lisa was an integral part of the tragedy of Greece.

“There isn’t any contact and there isn’t any boat, is there, Lisa?” he asked softly.

She pressed her slender body to his, clutched his arms and buried her head on his chest as she trembled and wept.

“Hold me, Vassili—hold me—hold me!” she cried, her voice filled with anguish and desperation.

“What is it? Tell me!”

“Just hold me, tightly—please!”

Mike’s arms were around her and she sobbed as they crushed against one another. Then she turned and walked away and slumped down on a marble boulder. Her eyes were as lifeless at the city below. “Come, Vassili,” she said softly, “I will take you back to Chalandri.”

Lisa was drained and wordless on the trip back to Lazarus’ farm. Every ounce of spirit seemed gone from her now—as though she had nothing left to fight what was torturing her mind.

Mike’s head was dizzy with questions now. The choice of bolting again to the hills? The odds of trying to make his own contact for an escape boat? Each seemed futile. Whatever it was, Mike thought, she alone could solve it and he made his decision to remain.

They entered the pump house.

Lisa sat on the cot, drawn and weary.

“I am sorry,” she said.

“Here, have some wine.”

“Thank you.”

She sipped the wine and a little color returned to her cheeks. She got up to leave. Mike looked at his watch.

“It is past curfew,” he said.

She was silent.

“Go on,” he said, “stretch out.... I’ll—uh cover you with my jacket. Gets nippy during the night.”

She took off her trench coat. Mike watched her delicate fingers loosen the bobby pins from her beret. He remembered how he used to love to watch Ellie undress. Lisa sat on the edge of the cot and kicked off her shoes. There was an awkward period.

“Seems—seems like we’re always on cots,” he mumbled. “Well, go on, stretch out... I’ll cover you up.”

He pulled the heavy blanket from his cot and placed it over her gently as she curled up.

He knelt beside the cot and gazed at her. “I wish I could help you, Lisa,” he said.

She took his hand and touched it to her lips.... “You are very sweet.”

Mike’s hand touched her golden hair and slid to her cheek. Her eyes closed and again she looked like a small child. He kissed her forehead and she smiled.

Mike walked to the lamp and plunged the shack into darkness.

He lay restlessly on his cot and stared into the darkness. As he listened to the sound of her breathing, he remembered his sensations when he walked beside her, when he held her...

“Vassili,” her voice called softly, “are you asleep?”

“No.”

He heard her move in the darkness....

The cot swayed. She was beside him. Her hand stroked his hair. “I will not let any harm come to you,” she said.

He pulled her down beside him and found her lips. “Lisa—Lisa...”

Her hand pushed at his chest. “No, darling, no—don’t be angry—please—don’t be angry.”

“It’s—it’s all right. You—you’d better get some sleep.”

EIGHT

TWO DAYS PASSED.
L
ISA
did not come. Mike was frantic. He blamed the confinement, he blamed her beauty, he blamed the mystery and romance. All reason told him he was being foolish. Lisa was a woman he did not know, would never see again. Lisa might well be his enemy.

Rationalization failed. He had quite simply fallen in love with her.

He knew it was no novelty for men to fall in love with her. Perhaps she liked him and didn’t wish to hurt his feelings.

Then he began to wonder about other things.... How many men had she been to bed with? What would it be like to love Lisa?

How strange—how very strange for this to happen! Mike knew that when Ellie died that love had died with him. There would never be the thrill of another romance... there would never be a love like Ellie.

Mike paced the dirt floor of the shack in Chalandri.... Was he destroying the memory of Ellie? Could he stifle this feeling for Lisa?

He remembered his first novel—a book about a man’s one great love. His editor, in the cynical manner of most editors, argued that the “one great love” was a condition that existed only in fiction. In reality a man could have many loves in many times and each one of them true in its own way. His editor further argued that only in a book is a man willing to live forever with a memory. Mike knew now that his editor was right.

The contrast in loves and times was unexplainable. Ellie had been tall and fresh and bubbling and earthy. She had gone barefoot and had worn slacks and her happiest moments found her with a tennis racket in her hands or hiking through a backwoods trail or wrestling with Mike on a beach.

Lisa was frail, sad, queenly, shrouded in mystery.

Lisa knew—of that, Mike was certain. Only his declaration was missing. But he would never make it. He would chalk it up as a strange happening among many strange happenings and he’d forget her—sooner or later.

On the third day around noon he heard her footsteps coming up the path. She had never come this time of day before.

The door opened and Lisa entered. She seemed more lovely, more beautiful than he remembered her. She looked directly at him and spoke in a cold monotone.

“Tonight you will go into Athens alone. At nine o’clock take a sidewalk table at the Café Andreas on Constitution Square. A man named Nico will meet you. He will be wearing a black suit and have on a Mason’s ring. Nico will take you to Dr. Thackery.”

She turned around and opened the door.

“Lisa, will I see you again?”

“No,” she answered and walked from the pump house.

NINE

E
IGHT O’CLOCK.

Mike put the pistol in his belt, took a last look around the pump house and stepped from the door.

The half-empty tram rolled toward Athens.

Eight-thirty.

Mike’s stomach churned. At the intersection of Leophoros Alexandrou and Leophoros Kifissias he transferred to another tram—this one crowded. Many German soldiers were about. He shrank against the window and looked out. The tram rolled past the iron gate of the American Embassy. Two Marines in dress blues stood guard before it. Mike choked up at the sight of the American flag. The tram passed the Embassy.

The big clock over the square read ten minutes to nine. Mike crossed the street as he heard German heels click and guttural sputterings and flashy Italians passing by.

He looked into the cold eyes of a German officer. Mike reached to the ground and picked up the German’s hat and bowed and apologized for bumping him in the crowd.

“Greek swine!”

“Efharisto!”
Mike said and bowed again and edged away.

Café Andreas.

The sidewalk tables were nearly filled. Germans and their girls mostly. The sound of music reached Mike’s ears. At a nearby table three Americans chatted.

There were hardly any Greek men about. Mike felt conspicuous and half-naked as he edged into a table near the curb. A waiter looked at him unhappily. Greeks were not welcome, Mike thought. He ordered a bottle of
krasi
and sat rigid, afraid to look to the right or the left. He took a long swig of wine, trying to relax.

Nine o’clock.

A streetwalker slinked past Mike’s table and gave him the once over. She walked on in search of a more likely prospect. He poured another glass of
krasi
and drank it quickly.

Five past nine.

Ten past nine.

He was getting jumpy. Another glass of wine. The wine started to take hold. Mike looked over at the big clock. He’d give Nico just five minutes more to show up, then he’d leave.

“May I sit down?”

A hog-fat man was already pushing his way into a chair opposite Mike. He wore a ridiculous-looking panama squarely on the top of his head; his over-sized face looked like an English mastiff’s. In one hand he balanced a dish of black olives and in the other, a drink. He popped an olive into his tiny mouth which was a slit between layers of hanging jowls. His eyes, too, were slits and seemed to stay open only with the greatest effort above two deep pouches. His suit was of a wrinkled white summer cloth.

“I am expecting someone,” Mike said in Greek.

“Nico will not be here. He was—er—delayed.”

The man spoke like an American. He lit a cigarette which seemed to get lost in his gargantuan face. He puffed slowly, eyeing Mike. Mike arose to move.

“I wouldn’t go, if I were you. One outcry from me and you’d never get off the sidewalk.”

Mike gulped down a glass of
krasi
in two swallows. The man cracked his knuckles and spoke again in an asthmatic wheeze. “You are a British escapee, is that not correct?”

Mike remained silent.

“You are, no doubt, in the market for a fast-moving boat for Egypt. Perhaps I could be of some assistance.”

“I am a Greek citizen. I do not know what you are talking about.”

“My dear fellow, I’ve been a correspondent in this country for twelve years. I know a Greek when I see one.”

“All right—so I’m British.”

“Now then, that’s better.”

The man lifted his fingers and beckoned the waiter for another bottle of
krasi.
Mike looked around for a means of escape. There was none. The place swarmed with Germans.

“Now then,” he said, “I take it you would like to take leave of this pleasant little country.”

“What’s your game?” Mike snapped.

“Game? My dear fellow, I am Julius Chesney, foreign correspondent for the New York
Star Bulletin.
Have you ever read my reports? They are very illuminating. They are carried in the London
Times.”

“I’m a New Zealander.”

“Good. I like New Zealanders, stout fellows.” He smacked his lips on another olive and dug his fingers into his mouth to locate the pit. The
krasi
arrived. “Just say it is a little avocation of mine. I take pleasure in helping you boys.”

“I’m listening. I have no choice.”

“Suppose I told you I was in contact with the captain of an unusually fast boat who knew the mine fields and the patrol schedules and the way to North Africa.”

“Suppose you did.”

“How much value would you place on it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Is it worth—er—say three million to hit a nice round figure?”

“I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Small matter. It just so happens I also know of a lovely Greek family who would be most happy to underwrite your passage.”

“Look, Chesney. I’ve heard about your little racket. You produce me to some Greek family, collect your money for my passage and the boat never shows up. Then you collect another fat reward for turning me over to the Gestapo.”

“My
dear
fellow,” Chesney held up his fat hand in protest. “By all appearances you’ve had some dealings with—er—unsavory characters.”

“You don’t look like the keeper of the privy seal to me.”

He contorted his fleshy face into what may have been mistaken for a smile. “I like you.... What is your name?”

“Smith—Joe Smith.”

“Come, come.”

“Linden—Jay Linden.”

The conversation stopped as a German and his girl hovered nearby searching for an empty table. They drifted away.

Mike leaned over the table. “Look, Mr. Chesney, I wouldn’t trust you any further than I could throw a bull by the horns. Now be a good fellow and let me go.”

“Sit still, Linden, sit still,” he wheezed. Chesney sipped his drink and drummed his fat fingers on the table slowly. Mike gritted his teeth in discomfort. “Let me put my cards on the table. Perhaps if I presented my proposition in a more—er—open light, you’d like to...”

“All right—shoot.”

“You came here to contact Nico. Nico or the Underground can’t help you. Heilser and his Greek friend, Zervos, know every move they are making. You have heard of Herr Heilser, haven’t you?”

“I’ve heard his name mentioned.”

Mike had to admit to himself that Chesney was certainly well informed.

“Man to man, plain and simple. My hobby is collecting drachmas. I like drachmas—you represent a lot of them to me.”

“Why don’t you open up a whorehouse?”

Chesney smiled. “To repeat an old cliché—too many amateurs are ruining the business these days. Escapees are much more profitable.” He wheezed and placed his hand to his chest. “I’m getting along in years—bad heart. Let us say I’m starting a little nest egg.”

“Dealing in hot British skins.”

“My dear fellow. Escapees are all the rage these days. In some quarters I’m looked upon as quite a martyr.”

“How do I know you won’t doublecross me?” Mike said.

“You don’t know, except for my honest face.”

Mike was forced to smile. Moreover, Chesney interested him. He was obviously a slick operator—well informed and there was a fifty-fifty chance he was on the level. It would do no harm to string him out, Mike thought.

“What’s your deal?”

“Good. I see you are a man of sound judgment, Linden. Now meet me at the Piccadilly Café off Concord Square this Thursday at noon. Mr. Choleva, your benefactor, will want to meet you. He has already sponsored four escapees. All of them are safe in Egypt, I may add.”