Greek Fire (17 page)

“How many will die in the coup? And how many before and after? Tolosa was one. Am I next? And then, when he's served his purpose, General Telechos?”

“I assure you that in the end there will be far less bloodshed and corruption in my state than in Washington D.C. You accuse me of egoism. What of yours? You remind me of a Christian missionary who goes abroad to convert the natives to a creed nine tenths of his own parishioners don't practise. Why don't you clean out your own stables? There's plenty of room for proselytising in Washington D.C.”

Something moved again in the reflection of the table. Perhaps it was Mandraki re-summoned by the pressing of a secret bell.

Gene said: “I've no particular creed. I'm not here to spread any gospel. But you forget I was here in 1944 and 1945. That's why I've come back now. I've seen Communism at work. I've seen the cold mass slaughter, the children dying, the brutality to women, the absolute ruthless callousness in gaining one set objective. Above all I've seen the lies—so that no words have
any
meaning any more.
Nothing
that's worth living for has any meaning any more.” He stopped and said quietly: “You asked me what I wanted out of all this. That's what I want. Just to stop you. Just to stop that ever happening in Greece again.”

“Does it occur to you that that is my aim too?”

“You go a queer way——”

“Has it ever occurred to you that by trying to stop me you are trying to arrest the course of history?”

“Is that how you consider yourself?”

“I'm swimming with the stream. Face up to the facts, Vanbrugh; look at the truth. The present Greek state is a house of cards, kept in being by money from the West. Everyone who knows
anything
admits that. It can't go on for ever. Already the Americans are getting tired, as the English got tired. When the money stops, Greece will slip into its proper place in the new pattern of the Balkans, which is a Communist pattern. The
only
way to save it from the pogrom, the mass starvation, the kind of imposed brutality which has happened farther east is that before then it should possess its
own native
Communism well established and rooted in its own ancient traditions. As Jugo-Slavia has, but
much
better, more subtle in its workings. Only a man like myself who understands the
mystique
through and through can see how to wed the individualism of the Greek with the collectiveness of the modern state.”

It was a hand and it had moved for a moment round the base of the Hermes statue.

Gene said: “ You're being frank tonight.”

“With a reason.”

“Oh, I'm sure of that.”

Lascou picked up one of the letters and crumpled it into a ball, nicked it into the fireplace. “That's where they're all going; but now that you're here, now that you've given yourself up of your own free will, I want to tell you
my
point of view.…”

In a mirror Gene saw a woman move behind the statue, a peasant woman in a black shapeless dress and with a black doth covering her head. But you could not mistake her build or her eyes. It was Maria Tolosa.

“… You presume to think that you're the only patriot,” Lascou was saying. “You protest you love Greece. Well, so do I; I want to serve her too, and who's to say which of us knows best? You say Communism is bad. I know, good or bad, that it's inevitable in his part of the world. So did Tito. Stop me now and you lay up a far worse fate for Greece in the future.”

“I can't stop you, it seems.”

“Happily not.”

Maria Tolosa had moved, was about as far from the Greek as Lascou was from Gene. Something glinted in the light. Gene's eyes, caught in a sort of magnetic field, could not stay on the Greek. On his last visit he had seen and admired the thing she held. The blade was of bronze, very ancient, with a lion hunt inlaid on it.

He fumbled with words, they knotted on his tongue. “N-now that I've—that I've failed—what d'you propose to do about it?”

“It must all wait until after the election—even later than that. There's no other way I can shut your mouth——”

“Drop it!” Gene said, the words spilling now, as if he had swallowed too many. “You—won't get anywhere … Revenge isn't… Maria! understand, you——”

“Sit down,” George said. “ If this is——”

“Maria!” shouted Gene, starting up.

Lascou didn't shoot him because he heard the movement behind him and half got up as the knife slid in. It went in as easily and as undramatically as a knife into a cake. It encountered no bone, no opposition. The small gun wavered away from Gene as he stretched up, but it still didn't fire. The trigger finger had slipped out of its hold. Lascou looked up in surprise at Maria, a strange woman he had never seen before.

Maria screamed: “
That
is for Juan!”

He was standing now, the knife handle sticking out of his back like a Christmas joke. There was a dreadful sense of unreality. He put the tiny gun on the table and fixed his pince-nez. Then he wobbled slightly, steadied himself with the back of his chair, straightened. “Get a doctor,” he said to Gene.

“For Juan!” panted Maria, her hair and lips suddenly loose as if blowing in a wind. “For Juan! For Juan! For Juan!”

“Where's the phone?”

“No, not phone. A doctor—ground floor. Get Otho.
Bell
!”

Gene made a move and then stopped. Lascou had put a hand to his mouth and to his obvious surprise it came away slightly stained. Always neat, he fumbled to take out the folded handkerchief from his breast pocket, and while he did so a trickle of blood suddenly ran down his chin, leapt from chin to floor. His eyes flickered upwards as if reaching for something they couldn't find; he snatched at the table with the letters on. Gene jumped to hold him but the table went over and he slithered down dragging Gene with him. A new sign was written on his face. He said with terrible incredulity: “I mustn't
die
.…” And while he spoke he was already going, sliding over the edge of life, clinging and slipping at the same time while the world tilted against him.

He choked the blood out of his throat and said: “ Burn the letters.”

Gene nodded.

The pince-nez slipped. “Tell Anya …”

And then he was no longer with them. Only one finger flexed as if still groping for the trigger it would never find.

They were alone together in the great salon while the French clocks ticked and the traffic mumbled far below. The room had become very still: and thought had stopped with movement. Time went round them, passed them by.

Then Maria Tolosa fell on her knees. “
Santa Maria
, Mother of God, Holy Mary, Queen of Heaven,
Santa Maria
, Mother of God, Holy Mary, Queen of Heaven,” and a jumble of Latin words slurred together, over and over again, like beads told in terror without thought or meaning, just a talisman to hold on to in the void her own act had created.

Some of Lascou's own incredulity still lingered after him: it couldn't happen so quickly. No noise; no blood; the human envelope, punctured in a single vulnerable spot, had deflated like a tyre. Gene bent over him; but during the civil war he had seen too many such. He straightened up, wiped his hands on his coat to quiet them. He went to the outer door. No sound outside. Another door, open, led into a sort of butler's pantry—this way Maria had come. He shut it, came back.

He scraped together the scattered letters, the membership card—a phrase caught his eye: ‘
so don't upset yourself; one stays, however reluctantly, faithful to the general scheme of things
.' The miniature revolver. That in his pocket too. It was ten past nine. They had three or four minutes. Maybe.

Lascou had stayed faithful to the general scheme of things. Gene went to the praying woman.

“Maria, where did you get in?”

“Holy Mary, Queen of Heaven,
Santa Maria
, Mother of God——”

“Maria, listen to me!”

She stopped, stared at him without recognition.

“
Maria!
”

Her eyes weren't even seeing him. He caught her shoulders and shook her.

“
Maria!
”

“Yes?”

“Where did you get in?”

“Through her flat. She was out.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“There was a little boy.”

“Did he see you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“When I ring the bell he runs out into the passage and I am able to slip in without—without him seeing me.'

“Listen,” he said. “ Can you listen?”

She wiped the back of her arm across her face. “Yes.”

“There is a way out—not going back that way. No one must see you. Understand?”

“I saw the dagger as I came in. God gave it into my hand. Then I heard this man talking. I have to destroy him.… It is God's will.”

“We must leave separately. Can you walk?”

“…Yes.”

“See that door? Go through the vestibule beyond it, to a passage outside this flat. Go past the lift to the end of the passage: at the end there's a door behind curtains. Understand?”

“I think so.”

“It will be locked on
your
side. It leads to the fire escape. Go down that. The last flight, to the street level is weighted so that you have to stand on it to swing it down. Understand?”

“Yes.” Her balance, her possession was returning. She kept filling her lungs with trembling air and blowing it out through her thick pouted lips.

“It will land you in a yard. The door into the street will be bolted on the inside. It's on the left of the fire-escape. Now then this is more difficult. You have to remember a street.”

He paused and waited. He could not go too fast.

“Yes?” she said.

“Go to the kiosk at the end of the square—remember it?—Papa André. Ask for number 12, Eleuthera Street. Got that? Then do what you're told. Do exactly what you're told and ask no questions.”

She was still on her knees. “You think I am wrong to do what I have done. I know you do! But it was God's will! God put it into my hand!”

“Leave that now. Do you want to get back to Spain?”

“What does it matter?”

“I can't help you unless you'll help yourself.”

She tried to get up, swayed, stood with his help. “I will do what you say.”

He took her firmly by the arm, led her to the door. She said: “ It was he who killed Juan. He——”

“Yes. Now then.…”

He opened the door into the vestibule. There was no one about. They crossed to the further door. As they did so, a boy's voice came, calling. “That is the boy,” she said. “If he——”

“Now.” He pushed her out.

She swayed across to the other wall of the corridor, glanced at him out of pain-dulled eyes. Then she put out her hands against the wall, set her jaw, stiffened and began to walk down the corridor, swaying as if she was drunk.

He could not wait to see if she remembered; he shut the door and slid back through the vestibule into the salon.

Quieter than ever now. The clocks said fourteen minutes past nine. Out with his handkerchief. Handle of the knife first. Sounded easy, but in practice not so: blood had oozed out round the hilt; a spot or two got on his handkerchief. Now the table he'd grasped. There was brandy spilt on it; he picked up the fallen glass, then had to wipe that. More haste etc. His own cigarette end. How many handles had she touched? The boy calling again. The door of the study. Up and down it. Difficult to be sure where one had had one's hands.

“Papa! Papa!” said a boy. “Are you there?”

The door from the pantry was opening. Gene flew across to it, got to it as a small dark boy came in.

“Otho said you were back—” He broke off. “ Oh, I thought … Who are you?”

Gene said: “ Your father isn't here. He's gone out again. Have you a——”

“But Otho said he was back. I want to show him——”

He made a move to go round but Gene barred his way. “Where is Otho now?”

“Back there. Do you want him? I'll fetch him. What if——”

“
No.
” Gene caught the boy's arm. “Is dinner ready?”

“Dinner?”

“Yes. Your father said he wanted it when he came back. Will you go and see.”

The boy's suspicious dark eyes were fixed on Gene. He was seeking and sensing something wrong. There was a contagion of tension.

“Why can't I go in?”

“You can, when you've seen about dinner.”

“It's nothing to do with me—I had my supper an hour ago. Where has Papa gone?”

“I don't know. Hurry up, now.” He gave the boy a push.

Michael turned to go; and then with the speed of a fish in a net, darted under Gene's hand into the room. Gene whirled round and grabbed his coat but could not hold him. He caught him in the centre of the room staring across at a man's body which lay islanded in a sea of white carpet.

Gene caught his arms as he began to scream. Kicking and wriggling he was dragged back towards the pantry door. His teeth nipped like a badger's as Gene tried to stop him shouting. Into the pantry he went, half fell as Gene released him, turned back to the attack, eyes glazing with fear and fight. Gene had opened his mouth to try and reason, to reassure, to smooth over the truth with gentle lies, but he saw it was no good. He slammed the pantry door in the boy's face. No key. He dragged across a chair and wedged it under the handle. The screaming stopped, and a kicking and a rattling and an animal panting took its place.

Gene flattened his hair, tried to get his breath, pushed up his tie into a tighter knot. She would be clear of the building now. Time to go.

The inner vestibule door now, one glance back. Forgotten anything? Anyway it was too late. A silent man speared like a dolphin. Otherwise the room was just as he had entered it half an hour age. Only the pattern of life had changed. The elaborate salon had become a pantheon for the man who had created it.