YANNIS (Cretan Saga Book 1) (82 page)

‘Suppose,’ suggested Nikos tentatively, ‘the outcome of the enquiry shows the drug is successful?’

Dimitris smiled. ‘We’ll think about that when and if we have to. I have to admit I was a little concerned when I first read the letter, but you’ve put my mind at rest. I don’t think we’ve anything to fear from this man after all. Let’s have a drink, my friends, before you return to your offices.’

Yannis put the letter to one side. ‘They think themselves very clever saying they’ll investigate and ask for the formula and results from the tests. By the time they’ve written away for them I’ll be in possession of the answers.’

Spiro looked at him in surprise. ‘How do you think you’re going to manage that? They have access to medical papers that we’d never be allowed to see.’

‘When I first came here I was betrothed to my cousin. She married a man who was researching into the disease. I can’t remember his name, but Andreas told me he was given a research scholarship and they went to America. At the same time as I wrote to the government I also wrote to Andreas and asked him to write to her asking for the information.’ Yannis smiled triumphantly.

‘Do you think she’ll send it to you?’

‘Why shouldn’t she? I’m not asking for anything that’s secret.’

‘Her husband might not like it.’

‘I don’t see why he should object.’

Spiro shrugged. ‘Scientists can be odd about sharing their knowledge.’

‘Not when it’s already been published.’

‘I’ll still be surprised if you get what you want. You’re like a dog with a bone when you get an idea fixed in your head. Be content with what you’ve got. Accept your life.’

‘Do you accept yours?’

‘Yes.’

Yannis turned away. ‘I’m glad you’re happy. I must go and write some letters.’

When the package finally arrived, some months later, Yannis was surprised at the bulk. He had expected a letter, but the contents of the brown paper parcel were almost beyond belief, including a letter from Annita, hoping that his general health was good, telling him about her family and also hoping the enclosed information was what he wanted.

The letter from Elias was long and Yannis read it curiously, wondering what kind of man it was who had dedicated his life to research and persuaded Annita to share it with him. Elias expressed a wish to meet him and a desire to see the island, yet thought it most unlikely he would ever have the opportunity. He said he would be only too pleased to furnish Yannis with any information in his possession that could be of use, adding that all those who had been treated had shown no adverse signs at all, and had, in his opinion, definitely improved. He added that it was still too soon to be able to claim the drug as a cure, except in very early cases. In no way did he want to dash Yannis’s hopes, but for someone who had suffered for almost twenty years and mostly without any form of treatment, he could not answer for the outcome.

Yannis smiled grimly and began to examine the contents of the parcel. There were newspaper cuttings in English, which he could not read, but each was clipped to a piece of paper and Yannis could recognise Annita’s hand writing in the translation. It was the same with the reports in the medical journals, each one had been translated and often there was a note added which contained a personal opinion. Yannis sorted the information into piles on his table. First the letters, followed by cuttings, reports and papers written in Elias’s own hand, describing the experiments that had been carried out and the results of each one.

It was tempting to write immediately to the government to tell them he had proof, but decided he must first write to Annita and Elias. The letter took him almost a week. He described the hospital conditions he had left behind in Athens, only to find equally as bad on the island and how they had all worked to build their houses and a hospital. He admitted his happiness with Phaedra and hoped they had found the same together. He told of her lingering death and then the sudden death of Anna, along with the decimation of three quarters of the occupants of the island and how he planned to take the government to task for denying them the medicine for so long. When he finally sealed the envelope and handed it to Manolis he felt a weight lifting from his shoulders. Now he could really start.

He made one rough draft after another, copying extracts from the papers he had been sent until he was satisfied there was nothing more he could add which would have any bearing on the way the government would act. Before he sent the letter he asked both Spiro and Doctor Stavros to read the copy he had made.

Spiro was complimentary. ‘I think you’ve done wonders, Yannis. It’s so explicit, no wasted words, just the facts and presented in order.’

‘I’m sure Orestis would have made a better job of it if he were still alive.’

Doctor Stavros was unwilling to commit himself too fully, feeling Yannis would receive scant attention from the government however factual and eloquent his letter. ‘I don’t think you have to be trained in the legal profession to write as you’ve done. You needed the facts, and those were given to you. You just made a list of them.’

Dimitris opened the letter roughly, tearing at the envelope and almost spilling the contents. He recognised the handwriting. Not having heard anything for almost six months he had thought the matter over and done with, the man dead, perhaps, now here he was again. As he read the frown between his eyebrows deepened. Before he was half way through the letter his hand reached out for the telephone and he was ordering Vassilis and Nikos to meet him urgently. Whilst he waited for them to arrive he continued reading. Where had the man gathered all this information? He hoped Nikos would be able to produce counter information. This would need more than a letter to say they were investigating.

Nikos read the papers with interest, clicking his tongue occasionally, raising an eyebrow or frowning. Finally he looked at Dimitris. ‘He’s certainly done his homework well.’

‘Is it true?’ demanded Dimitris.

Nikos shrugged. ‘I would expect so. Most of it’s taken from medical journals and he quotes from articles written by an American researcher who professes himself willing to write to us.’

‘I thought you were going to find out?’ snapped Dimitris.

‘I do have my work here. There’s little time to go to libraries and ask them to look up medical papers. When I have managed to spend an afternoon there it’s been a hopeless task. I’ve no reference numbers and without them I have to go through everything. There’s the added problem that a great number of them are published in America and I don’t read English.’

Dimitris grunted and turned to Vassilis. ‘Then how has this man managed to get hold of them? He lives on an island, he has no access to any libraries and I doubt if he reads English either.’

The men looked at each other. ‘Maybe someone worked on his behalf?’ suggested Vassilis.

‘If he’s capable of getting men to work on his behalf maybe I should offer him a position in the government. He appears to have more success than I.’ Dimitris glared at them. ‘If he can gather this information you should be able to.’

The men shifted uncomfortably on their hard chairs. ‘Do you want me to write to him again? I could say we are investigating the papers he sent and ask him to help us by telling us how he gathered the information.’

‘Ask him how he did it?’ Dimitris looked at Nikos in disgust. ‘Make us look foolish in his eyes? No, you write to him and say we are investigating, but nothing more. I’d like to see the letter before you send it, and I suggest you do some of this investigating that you keep talking about. What you don’t seem to realise is that we hold this government by a thread. If these papers are correct, and they probably are, it could cause a public outcry and then where would we be? Out on our ears.’ He waited for his words to hit home.

‘You mean people would take notice of a leper?’ Vassilis asked incredulously.

‘Since the war people have been horrified at the treatment the Jews received under the Nazis, the torture that went on to obtain information from ordinary citizens. Look at the reprisals our own people suffered! The whole world would be up in arms against us if they thought we’d mistreated or neglected sick people.’

‘But we haven’t neglected them.’

‘We haven’t exactly done anything for them either. We can gloss over what happened before, blame our shortcomings on the previous government and the war, but we can’t use that as an excuse forever. Sooner or later we’ll be asked what we have done for them.’

Nikos wrote to the hospital in Athens and sat back and waited. He had condensed the information from the papers so he could ask straightforward questions, hoping the answers would be brief. He wrote twice more before he received a reply. He arrived at Dimitris’s office without asking for an appointment and thrust the letter under his nose.

‘So now what do you want me to do?’

Dimitris read the letter slowly. It confirmed all the claims for the new drug and admitted that they had begun to use it before the outbreak of the war and were now trying to manufacture their own supply rather than have to pay the additional cost of importing. Dimitris raised his eyes and looked at Nikos. ‘This must be strictly confidential.’

Nikos nodded. ‘But what am I to reply?’

‘I suggest you say that Athens knows of the treatment and is trying to manufacture the drug for general use. As soon as it’s available we’ll contact them.’

‘Do you think that will satisfy him?’

‘It will have to. You’ll have to write back to Athens, keep in contact with them so you know how they’re progressing and keep me informed.’

The letters continued back and forth between Yannis and the government. Yannis’s continually pressing and urging action on their behalf, Nikos’s replies placatory and urging patience. Yannis would not be satisfied, each time he wrote he added another name to the list of those who had died, and demanded that the drug should be imported for their use. Nikos began to dread the familiar envelope arriving with his other post and wrote to Athens begging for supplies of the drug to be sent to Crete. The reply he received sent him hurrying to consult with Dimitris.

‘They say the patients need to have a thorough examination, blood tests and skin samples taken before they could authorise the medicine.’

Doctor Stavros frowned. There were eighty-six people on the island, most of them in an advanced stage of leprosy, and he was expected to give each one a complete medical and take blood tests and skin samples. It was not feasible. By the time he had examined the last person he would need to start again. He wrote to the government explaining that their request was impossible under the circumstances and suggested they sent a team of doctors to the island.

Nikos hesitated over the letter for almost a week, and then decided he had to show it to Dimitris. ‘We can’t send a crowd of doctors down there,’ he protested. ‘I’m pretty stretched as it is at the hospital.’

‘How long do you think it would take to carry out these tests?’

‘I’ve no idea. I don’t even know what facilities they have over there. They’ve electricity and operating equipment, but it’s doubtful that they have a stock of specimen jars or even labels to go on them.’

‘You could take those with you.’

‘Me?’

‘You’re the local specialist. You know what tests are needed and you’ll be able to get an idea of their general health by observing them as well as the facts from an examination.’

‘I can’t go,’ protested Nikos. ‘I told you, I’m over-stretched at the hospital as it is.’

‘Your assistant will have to take over. You can leave him instructions for those who are in hospital and new cases would have to wait until you returned. Look, we’ve managed to hold off all the threats this leper has made towards us so far, but we won’t be able to for much longer. If you write and say a doctor is coming as soon as possible that should keep him quiet for a bit. Take your time over there, as long as you like, maybe by then Athens will have come up with an answer.’

Nikos’s protestations died on his lips. For almost two years they had delayed taking any action and Dimitris was right when he said they could not do so for very much longer.

‘Maybe the doctor would be willing to put me up for a while,’ he spoke desolately.

‘Fine. Write to the doctor and see if you can be there in a fortnight.’

Nikos arrived at mid-day in Aghios Nikolaos and made his way to the doctor’s house where he was greeted with enthusiasm and hospitality. After a leisurely lunch he sat in the room allotted to him and began to go through the book that the doctor had kept so meticulously over the years. Name, age, date of birth if it was known, headed each page. The date the patient had arrived on the island and the affected area was recorded along with the dates the doctor had examined the patient. On over four hundred pages the word “deceased” and a date was written at the bottom. All those pages Nikos skipped over, he was only interested in those who were still alive. The afternoon passed with him engrossed in the information. When Doctor Stavros finally tapped at the door and entered he looked up with bleary eyes.

‘What time is it? I’ve been so busy I’ve quite lost track.’

‘Six. I thought you might like a drink and we could go to a taverna for a meal later.’

Nikos nodded. ‘I’d like to talk to you about some of these cases.’

‘Of course, but I’d rather wait until you’ve paid your first visit. My information could be coloured by familiarity.’ He poured wine for them both, wishing it was raki, but he thought it advisable to keep a reasonably clear head. This man was a government official as well as a doctor.

‘A thing that puzzles me about these entries, so many seem to have arrived on the same date.’

‘There’s nothing odd about that. They were the ones who were sent by the hospital ship. In fact most of them arrived in groups. It wasn’t often they came singly.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They were held in the wards in Heraklion or Athens and then transferred over here. Just occasionally one would be found hiding locally and they would be sent straight over.’