The Scapegoat (18 page)

Tzitzilis couldn’t have put it better himself. It was a statement of values, less confession than manifesto. Salonica was under strict martial law. The city slept and woke with a pistol to its head. The communists had bombed it, the citizens’ sleep was dogged by fear. Tzitzilis was the city’s protector.

Meanwhile, foreigners living in the city recorded their impressions and sent their reports to distant, carefree countries. One of them, Wallace Chilly—a Swiss-born British citizen with a degree in classical philology from Oxford and five foreign languages on his résumé, a distinguished rhetorician well-versed in ambiguous language and sophistry, an interrogator of prisoners of war, and therefore an expert torturer
without consideration or shame
, as Cavafy would have it—had the foresight to flee to Finland and lay low. His absence was covered up, though some commented on how he’d vanished off the face of the earth right after the murder took place, indeed even before the corpse was dragged from the sea.

Chilly’s superiors protected him: this was no time for Britain to get mixed up in a case that was, after all, an American affair. When his name was mentioned and the poison-penned reporters started sniffing around, the British officer under whose authority the issue fell announced—unofficially but emphatically enough for all interested parties to take note—that
Chilly had the habit of undertaking dangerous spy operations. That was the
reason I requested his transfer
, he clarified,
even before the Talas case broke
.

Rumors that Chilly had murdered Talas elicited sarcastic smiles and sharp comments from those in the Foreign Office. The British often relied on unconventional characters, people who jumped out of airplanes without parachutes and didn’t hesitate to use extreme measures if they thought circumstances demanded it. Chilly was a perfect example. He and his men were waging a propaganda war against the communists. Fraudulent techniques were their bread and butter.

The situation was critical. Greece considered the United States its savior, and had welcomed the Americans with hosannas and wreaths of laurel. The negotiations regarding the Marshall Plan brought hope to the broken country. NATO was just beginning to take shape, and the Berlin blockade wasn’t far in the future. None of the involved parties, Greek, British, or American, wanted Talas’s murder to knock any of that off course.

And so they drowned any inconvenient suspicions like a baby in a bucket. At the trial the accused’s lawyer, a young man by the name of Dinopoulos, spoke at length, but avoided the strongest arguments, relying solely on rhetoric. Some supporters of Gris suspected Dinopoulos of compromise, but no one ever accused him outright.

The American general who had once given Tzitzilis a piece of his mind went along with the Greek officials. Through process of elimination Gris was the only name remaining on the initial list of suspects. Antrikos was silently crossed off thanks to a telephone call from the prime minister, while Zouzou had the fervent protection of her mother-in-law. There had been another woman on the list, a reporter, Kristen Sotiropoulos, a troublemaker with an American passport and connections in both the United States and Greece; she was the one who introduced Talas to Gris during their five-minute meeting, but she had supporters in high places, too. By a kind of
reductio ad absurdum
, Gris
was the obvious solution. He wasn’t a well-known figure; he had very few connections; no one would rush to his support. He was, consequently, an easy target.

The American general had earlier expressed his suspicions to the State Department that the crime had been perpetrated by right-wing forces. His superiors were concerned, as he confided in personal conversations. The general cited his sources, but government officials were hesitant to implicate the right. A development of that sort would serve no one. On the contrary, it would harm their interests in the region. The American general rightly declared that, since his own compatriots were failing to verify the information they received, they couldn’t expect much more from the Greeks. His superiors chose not to add fuel to the fire. And the uncouth general, though known for his obdurate outbursts, also knew how to read the silences of his superiors. In this trial, justice was not the primary goal—political expedience had the upper hand, and anyone who imagined otherwise would do well to keep his mouth shut. Now and forever.

MINAS

Turns out we’re having a sit-in after all. The first-years organized it, they hung a banner and dragged all the desks to the front entrance. We took a vote, but it didn’t go down quite as it should have, since their representatives ran around to all the classrooms during the breaks making secret deals.

We decided to let the teachers into the building. The coordinating groups from the other schools say our occupation is a sham. Who ever heard of joining forces with the enemy in the heat of battle? When they found out our student council decided that seniors will still have class, so we don’t lose any prep time for the exams, they were furious. But it’s a school tradition, it wasn’t really ever in question. The world outside could fall apart, but the seniors would still go to class.
Your only tradition is in being sissies
, Dad teases. He’s a fine one to speak, making revolution from the comfort of his office.

The principal called an assembly, to give us an opportunity to share our views and articulate our demands. He invited the Parents’ Association, too. Everyone needs to accept responsibility for their actions, he said.

The teachers are bored by the whole thing. Except for the party-liners, most of them are opposed to a sit-in. They shake their heads at our demands. Grandma does, too, of course.

At the assembly the principal could barely keep it together. Just the other day he had assured the citywide school board that while occupations were being staged at surrounding schools, ours was
an unwavering bastion of learning, a shining example of effective communication between students and teachers
. Now he would have to let their offices know that the stronghold had fallen.

Spiros took a piece of paper from his pocket to read off the demands. Evelina would happily have strangled him. According to her, he was a lame, uncouth idiot. His sheet of paper was covered in scribbles and torn on one edge, where he’d ripped off a piece to spit his gum into. He took a deep breath and launched into the list. After complaining about a few run-ins with teachers and our lack of resources, he hurried on to his main issue: why did we need to learn ancient Greek? He just didn’t understand why we should spend so many hours memorizing the verb
lyo
or third-declension nouns.
We want a school that’s alive
, he said,
we want to talk about things that affect our lives, not memorize words from a dead language
.

Evelina looked like she might punch him. In the end she couldn’t restrain herself. The defender of the theoretical track of study intervened.

—Sorry for interrupting this little diatribe, she said. Our fellow student here seems to have gotten carried away by his own eloquence, when he spoke about Ancient Greek class. In order for this conversation to proceed on the basis of arguments and evidence rather than assumptions, I thought I should inform this student, who’s still only in his first year of high school, of some objective facts about the pedagogy and grammar of the Ancient Greek language.

When Evelina gets going, there’s no stopping her. She made a complete fool of him in front of everyone. Before the assembly started, she’d gotten the other seniors to agree to be totally ruthless with the younger kids. No way were the seniors going to get loaded down with absences just because some stupid brats wanted to play revolution in the cafeteria. The occupation had already lasted three days, and that was more than enough. The first-years had had their time in the sun. Basta.

The whole episode raised suspicions that the student council had made a deal with the administration, but Evelina had a solution for everything. She got the others to agree to floating
one-hour meetings to take place during different class periods, so that the student representatives could keep track of the demands of the majority. Whatever stupid shit everyone thought up, they would bring before the teachers. The negotiations seemed to drag on forever, but in the end it was decided that the seniors would continue going to class. The younger kids could cling to the illusion that their demands had been heard. Meanwhile, the whole thing would blow over, since the one-hour meetings would diffuse the situation.

Spiros learned his lesson. Next year, though, Evelina would be at university, and there was no one else with her force and connections. He would just have to sit tight and wait.

—Well? she asked.

She was expecting me to congratulate her.

—You destroyed him.

—I’d have preferred a more generous description. I guess maybe hanging out with Spiros has brought you down to his level.

I wasn’t going to give her what she wanted. I’ve figured out by now that it drives her crazy when I don’t give in.

—Are we going to your grandfather’s? I asked.

—I’ve got homework.

—Me too.

—You’ve made your decision.

—So have you. What’s a few hours more or less at this point?

—It’s a matter of discipline, she insisted.

—Fine. Then we can go tonight, when you’re done. I’m sure he doesn’t go to bed at nine.

—He doesn’t sleep at all. He just sits in his armchair with glassy eyes. Dad says he’s afraid of death.

It’s exactly what Mom says about Grandma. She once went over to Grandma’s place first thing in the morning and found her
on the sofa with the telemarketing channel on, still awake from the night before. Mom gave her a talking- to like you’ve never heard, like she was the mother and Grandma was the kid.

The older children get, the worse they treat their parents. I do it, too.

It was a pretty wild scene in the schoolyard. The cleaning lady and the biology teacher, a fat little ball of a woman, were standing there, rattling on about the shocking indifference of parents and teachers,
who haven’t stepped forward to nip this in the bud
. The cleaning lady told the teacher what she’d found at the sit-in, she was hoping word would get around, most of all to those oblivious parents. She’d picked three pairs of panties off the floor of the girls’ bathroom, which meant that some girls
had gone off with their parts uncovered
. She’d found condoms and torn porn magazines. She mentioned cigarette butts, too, she apparently had no idea people were smoking pot, she couldn’t tell the kids were all sky high, for her the problem was nicotine. She shook her head,
God will burn us for this, he’ll burn us all
.

Some angry neighbors called the principal to inform him that kids had been drinking beer in the schoolyard the previous night, they could hear cans popping from their balconies. Those who lived in top-floor apartments had found a new pastime: sitting on their verandas, watching everything we did. Skateboarding, guitar-playing, basketball, singing. They found us fascinating, even better than the Turkish soaps on TV.

—They organized a concert, Evelina told me.

—Who did?

—The younger kids. It’s tonight. To go out with a bang. That was their condition for ending the occupation early. They say they’ve got a band. I’m sure it’s some awful cover band, she added dismissively. They’re bringing backup, too, seniors from some private school in Athens.

In other words, Spiros didn’t accept unconditional defeat.

Evelina weaved her way down the aisle between the lined-up desks.

—Come on, she called back at me. We’re going to Grandpa’s. We’ve already lost the whole day, I guess I can study later.

Like most girls, Evelina is totally unpredictable. She’s practically manic-depressive. Some people can’t stand it, but I kind of like it. With her I never get bored. The more I want her, the more I tease her. The more I tease her, the smaller the chances that we’ll ever actually hook up.

Child, you’re courting disaster
, Grandma would say if she saw me this way.

I trailed after Evelina like a stray dog. I gave her ass a good look and decided it was more or less a perfect fit for my palms. It lifts gently and sways as she walks. As if there were a wind, 3 or 4 on the Beaufort scale.

—We’re not staying for more than an hour, she declared.

—That’s 3600 seconds.

—What?

The elastic band on her thong was red. Tomato red.

—I broke the time down into smaller units, so it would last longer.

—Show-off! she cried, and picked up the pace.

I caught up with her and pulled the elastic band. It snapped back against her skin.

—Are you a complete moron? What are you doing?

—Playing.

—I’ll show you what to play with, she said, pressing the buzzer for her grandfather’s apartment. But words apparently didn’t suffice: she spun around and flicked me with her finger, right where she meant.

Elena was waiting for us at the door to the apartment.

—Sorry we didn’t call ahead, Evelina apologized. There’s a sit-in at school and we thought we’d come here instead.

—Your grandfather will be happy. He saw you coming with his binoculars.

Evelina told me the other day that her grandfather has a soft spot for Elena. He’s pretty harsh with his family, though. He banned all bad-tempered people from his home, he says he has no use for grumpy faces.

—Grandma was always griping about something, Evelina whispered, so when she died, he told us all to leave our problems at the door. Of course he only remembers that rule when it suits him.

Grandpa Dinopoulos was sitting in his armchair. Elena had opened the curtains wide and sunlight streamed in through the windows, warming the old man’s bald spot. Life wasn’t too bad up there, in one of the prized penthouses on the square.
The realest of real estate
, as Grandma Evthalia sometimes says, who values nice things and nice places as much as Mom does.
Up there you need sunglasses all day, even inside
, she likes to say.
The only nicer apartments to be found are the penthouses along the waterfront, where you feel like you’re living on the deck of a ship. You wake up and see the sea, but you’re stepping on solid ground
.