The Oracle (37 page)

Karamanlis stepped away; he could practically hear that taunting voice from the shack up at Mount Peristeri: ‘What are you doing here, Captain Karamanlis?’ He was furious. ‘There must be some kind of trapdoor in this thing. Inspect the bottom, quickly.’

One of the men stretched out on the ground under the car. ‘Right again, Captain,’ he said shortly. ‘There’s a slide-out panel on the floor of the passenger’s side, and there’s a manhole cover right underneath.’

‘Pull it off!’ ordered Karamanlis. They pushed the car a few metres up the road and the captain dropped down into the sewer hole, followed by a couple of his men. Mireille was watching everything, checking behind her every now and then to make sure no one was sneaking up on her. She could hear Karamanlis’s suffocated voice crying out: ‘Follow me, hurry! I can hear the sound of his footsteps!’

It was cold and her hands were numb, yet her armpits and breasts were moist with perspiration. She tried to imagine what was happening underground, where the owner of the black Mercedes might be at that moment. Maybe his pursuers were already on his heels. Maybe he was wandering, out of breath and disoriented, under low, dripping vaults, putrid water and disgusting rats at his feet.

‘Check all the other manholes in the area!’ ordered the officer who had stayed behind with the car. ‘He won’t have any way out.’

A
RI HAD JUST
finished his tour of inspection and was watching television. The evening news was commemorating the events that he had been a part of ten years earlier, showing the scenes of the assault on the Polytechnic. The smoke bombs, the screeching tanks, the shouted threats, an
astynomia
officer shooting at close range. But the commentator’s voice soothed over the old tragedy, filed it away, defused it so it seemed like so much ancient history.

Old Ari felt inexplicably nervous, agitated. He got up often to go to the window. It was pitch-black outside and raining; the windows reflected the wavering images of the TV. The doorbell rang and Ari went to answer it:

‘Who’s there?’

‘It’s me, Ari, it’s Michel Charrier. Do you remember me?’

Ari backed up in confusion. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said after a moment of bewilderment. ‘Oh yes, I remember, my boy. Come in, don’t stand there at the doorway, come in and sit down.’ He turned off the television and went to a cabinet, from which he took a bottle and a couple of glasses. Michel was wearing a raincoat and his hair was wet and tousled. He sat down and combed it through with nervous fingers.

‘Do you like Metaxa?’

‘You aren’t surprised to see me.’

‘At my age nothing surprises me.’

‘You’re not so old. You’re not even seventy.’

‘It feels more like a hundred. I’m tired, my boy, tired. But tell me then, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?’

Michel appeared confused, ashamed. ‘Ari, it’s hard for me to find the words. We’ve never seen each other since . . . that awful night.’

‘No. Not since then.’

‘And don’t you want to know why?’

‘From the tone of your voice it must be a sad story, or one that is difficult to tell. You don’t owe me any explanation, my boy, I’m only an old custodian. I’ve retired to this quiet little corner to end my days. You don’t owe me any explanation at all.’

He looked at Michel with clear, tranquil eyes. Michel fell silent, sipping his brandy, while the old man fingered a
komboloi
of fake amber, clicking the beads together in his hands.

‘I was taken away by the police, Ari . . .’

‘Please, I don’t want—’

‘They forced me to talk.’

‘What does it matter? It’s all finished now, part of the past . . .’

‘No. That’s not true. Claudio Setti is still alive, I’m certain of it. You must know something. I’ve been told that he’s been seen around here. Is that true, Ari?’

Ari stood up and walked to the window. The soft sound of a flute and singing could be heard coming from town. He looked out into the darkness. ‘Someone is playing the flute at Tassos’s place . . . it’s a beautiful song, can you hear it? The music is lovely.’ The singing could be heard more clearly now, a melody without words, and Ari started singing it to himself, following the distant notes.

Michel started: ‘It’s his song! It’s him singing somewhere in the night. This agony is going to kill me.’ He jumped up, went to the door and threw it open. ‘Where are you?’ he yelled. ‘You don’t want to sing with me any more? Where are you!’

Ari put a hand on his shoulder: ‘It’s raining. You’re getting all wet, come back inside.’

Michel swallowed the tears rising to his eyes and turned towards the old man. ‘Ari, in the name of God, listen to me. Norman and I have come back to Greece after all these years, after we’d nearly succeeded in forgetting everything, because someone spoke to us about that golden vase. Remember it? The golden vase you brought to Athens that night. That’s what’s lured us back here after so long. The vase disappeared that night. Only you could have taken it, so you must know why we’ve been called back here. First to the Peloponnesus and now to Epirus, through a series of messages, of clues . . . You are our only contact with that damned vase. You brought it to Athens and you took it away. Ari, it’s Claudio who wants us here, isn’t it? Ari, you were with us, you knew we were just kids – why were we touched by such a terrible destiny that night? Why us?’

The old man looked at him with resigned compassion: ‘We are all touched by destiny, my boy. It’s difficult to pull back when our moment comes.’

‘Ari, for the love of God, if Claudio’s alive, tell me how I can talk to him . . . oh God, let me talk to him . . .’

Ari had an absorbed expression and seemed to be listening to the distant music: ‘Oh, my boy . . . I don’t know whether he is dead or alive, but certainly there is no language that you could speak in that he would understand . . . Do you know what I mean? Do you?’

The music was confused now by the sound of the rain. More distant, yet even more beautiful and tormented, pushed and pulled by the gusts of the western wind.

‘Ari. Help me find him. In the name of God, I beg of you.’

Ari slid the
komboloi
beads through his fingers. When he opened his mouth, his gaze was intense and penetrating: ‘Go away, son. For heaven’s sake, go home and forget everything. Go away . . . far away. You’re still in time.’

‘I can’t. Tell me where to look for him.’

The old man lifted his eyes to the ceiling as if to escape from Michel’s obsessive insistence. ‘Your friend . . . Norman – his name is Norman, isn’t it? Where is he now?’

‘He’s here in Ephira. He’s looking for him too.’

The old man stared at him with eyes full of melancholy, shiny with emotion: ‘This could have been a happy celebration. We could be here drinking a glass of retsina together and remembering old times . . .’

Michel took his hands and leaned closer until they were face to face, his expression troubled: ‘Tell me . . . where . . . he is. Tell me now.’

‘Look for the crossing between life and death . . . if death is what you want, you’ll find him. At the pier at Canakkale, the day after tomorrow, just before midnight. Maybe you’ll see him there.’

Michel’s face lit up: ‘I was right, then. Claudio is alive.’

‘Alive? Oh, my son . . . there are places . . . times . . . and people for whom the words “alive” or “dead” no longer have the meaning we are familiar with.’

Athens, Odòs Dionysìou, 10 November, 11 p.m.

M
IREILLE FELT FRUSTRATED
and impotent and somehow to blame for what had happened: Karamanlis must have been there because of her. How else could he have known about it? Maybe it had been naive of her to trust Zolotas, or maybe the police were watching her. While she was pondering what could possibly have happened, she was startled to hear a barely perceptible creaking behind her, and the low yelping of a dog.

There was an enclosure wall just a few metres away, behind which she could see an external stair leading from a little door on the second floor of a modest building. A man wrapped in a dark coat, wearing a hat, was just coming out of that door. A big, dark-haired dog was greeting him joyfully and wagging his tail. The man closed the door, touched the rain gutter above with his right hand and bent down to pet the dog who was rubbing against him. He went down the stairs and disappeared from her sight, but Mireille thought she could hear him talking softly to the dog, who was whimpering in response to his owner’s affectionate voice.

A minute later, the little door which opened on to the street from the courtyard opened and the man walked off in the opposite direction. Mireille, hidden behind the wall, watched him walk, neither quickly nor slowly, with long, even strides, his hands in his pockets. She suddenly had a keen sensation of having seen that walk before, that way of holding his head so erect: it was him! The man from the black Mercedes, the man who had posed for that mysterious sculpture, that stone face with its closed eyes.

How could that be? He had just dropped down into the sewers through a manhole – Karamanlis had heard his steps underground. And yet in her heart she felt sure it was him. She walked quickly around the block, passing just a few metres from Karamanlis’s men, still crowded around the sewer hole. The shutter of number 17 was still locked, but light glowed faintly from the basement of the next door down. The sign above it said ‘Artopoleion’, and the delicious smell of warm bread meant that the baker had begun his long night’s work.

She spotted the man opposite her, walking in her direction. She measured her pace so that they crossed paths under the street light, and she looked up into his face: it was him, without a doubt. She sniffed him in passing – if he’d been in the sewers she’d definitely be able to perceive the stench.

He smelled like bread. Fresh bread right out of the oven. She couldn’t understand it. She stopped at the first intersection and turned around. He was about thirty metres away, and was entering a phone booth.

T
HE TELEPHONE BEGAN
ringing in Ari’s house, but he made no move to answer it.

‘I don’t understand what you’re saying,’ said Michel, starting at the noise, ‘but if he’s alive, I’ll find him and I’ll make him listen to me. He’ll have to listen to me.’

The telephone rang five times, fell silent and then started up again. Michel looked at Ari expectantly, then looked back at the phone on the table. The ringing filled up the bare little room with an intolerable anxiety, until Ari suddenly put his hand down on the receiver. The ringing stopped and then started again. Four times.

The old man didn’t say a word, as if he were listening intently, then said: ‘There are places and times and even people for whom the words “life” or “death” do not have the meaning we are accustomed to . . . the final hour has come. I beg you, my son, leave. Go home. I shouldn’t be the one who has to tell you, but I’m telling you. Go home while you’re still in time to save yourself, please! Oh, Holy Mother of God, wouldn’t it have been nice to get together for a glass of ouzo, a song . . . it would have been nice. Oh, Dear Mother of God. Leave now, my boy, go away.’

‘The day after tomorrow at Canakkale . . . there’s not much time.’ Michel got up, opened the door and clutched his raincoat close as he was hit by a strong gust of rain. The sound of the flute had stopped, and the last light in Tassos’s tavern had been turned off.

M
IREILLE OBSERVED HIM
carefully and had the impression that the man had not said a word into the telephone. Maybe there was no one there on the other side of the line. Or maybe he was sending some sort of signal. What could it be? And how could he have escaped their trap? He smelled like bread. The bakery! The light coming from the basement apartment next to number 17 – he must have gone through there and come up on the other side of the street. She remembered that little gesture, his hand rapidly passing over the gutter above the door. She went back to the house and approached the little door in the enclosure wall, but a sudden shuffling and a deep growl reminded her that there was a guard on duty.

She backed off to take a better look at the door the man had come out of, and noticed that the roof of the building was topped by a little attic that could easily by reached by climbing up a thick wisteria trunk in front of the next house over: the wisteria formed a trellis above the attic. The wind was even blowing in that direction; with any luck, the dog wouldn’t smell her.

She was frightened and had a strong impulse to flee, to go back to the hotel and wait for Michel. But she was also keenly aware that she had to do this for him; nothing had ever been so necessary in her whole lifetime.

She scrambled up the trunk without much difficulty. Every so often she’d feel a sparrow flitting away through her fingers; they’d chosen the boughs for their evening shelter. The beating of the small frightened wings vanished instantly into the dark.

She reached the attic, covered with dry leaves, and dropped to the rooftop of the neighbouring house, crawling over the tiles until she reached the door. She stretched her hand into the rain gutter and felt around until she came up with a Yale key. The key to enter the secret refuge of that enigmatic man. Maybe she’d be able to uncover the mystery of that mask, and of the light which filtered from under the closed shutter of number 17 Dionysìou Street late at night.