My Brother Michael (10 page)

‘He’d been in dozens before. And then all that about a private message, and “getting it across”. He really had something to say.’

‘Yes. I take it you’ve had a look through your Callimachus, whoever he may be?’

‘I have. He wrote a deuce of a lot. No, there’s no clue there.’

‘And the “bright citadel”?’

‘That’s a translation of a phrase the Delphic Oracle once used to Julian the Apostate. I think that must be the one he means. It refers to Apollo’s shrine at Delphi.’

‘I see. That doesn’t get us much further.’

We were moving again towards the lights of Arachova. I said: ‘You used the word “clue”. Just what are you hoping to find, Simon?’

‘What Michael found.’

After a little pause I said slowly: ‘Yes, I see. You mean the bit about “we’ll come back here together to the bright citadel and I’ll show you”?’

‘Yes. He’d found something and he was excited about it and he wanted to “record” it – he uses that word, too, remember?’

‘Yes. But don’t you think that perhaps—?’ I stopped.

‘Well?’

I said, with some difficulty: ‘Might you not be seeing something that isn’t here? I do agree it’s an odd letter, but there’s another way of reading it, isn’t there? A quite simple way. It’s the way that I’d have taken it myself … except of course that I didn’t know your brother Michael.’

‘And that way?’

‘Well, say it
was
excitement, or rather emotion, of a
sort, wouldn’t there be a reason for it? Might he not quite naturally have things he wanted to say to your father and to you? I mean …’ I stopped again, embarrassed.

He said simply: ‘You mean it was plain and simple affection? That Michael may have had a premonition he’d not get out of the jam he was in, and wanted to say something to my father … a sort of farewell? No … no, Camilla, not Michael. If he felt very deeply about people he kept it to himself. Nor do I think he’d dabble in “premonitions”. He knew the risks and he didn’t fuss. Besides he does say he wants to “show” Father something, and me … here in Greece.’

‘Perhaps the country itself. Heaven knows it’s exciting enough. Would your father have been interested?’

Simon laughed. ‘He was a classicist too. He’d been here half a score of times before.’

‘Oh, Oh, I see. Yes, that does make a difference.’

‘I think so. No, I’m right. He’d found something, Camilla.’ A tiny pause, and that electric thrill again, which quivered to nothing as Simon added flatly: ‘I’m pretty certain I know what it was, too, but I could bear to make sure. And for a start, I’d like to know just where Michael died, and how …’

Another pause. He must have been thinking back to my remarks about the letter, for he said thoughtfully: ‘No, all things taken together, I know I’m right. Though it does seem a little odd … You may be right about the “emotion” – though it wouldn’t be like Mick. He was the most casual-seeming devil to talk to
that you ever knew. It took quite some time before you guessed that he was probably the toughest, too, and the most self-sufficient.’

Like little brother Simon
… The thought came so pat and so clearly that for one terrible moment I was afraid I had said it aloud. And I had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew just what I was thinking.

I said quickly and idiotically: ‘Here’s Arachova.’

It was one of the rather less necessary remarks. Already we were hemmed in by the crowding walls, and the coloured rugs – still hanging outside the vividly-lit shops – almost brushed the sides of the car. There were two or three donkeys, freed from rope and saddle, wandering loose in the street. I saw a goat on someone’s garden wall. It gave us an evil, gleaming glance before it leaped away into the shadow and vanished. There was the familiar smell of dust and dung and petrol fumes and the lees of wine.

Simon parked the car in the place where it had been that afternoon. He stopped the engine and we got out. We walked back towards the steep alley-way, where I had first seen him. Opposite the foot of it was one of the village cafés, a dozen tables in a white-washed room open to the road. Most of the tables were full. The men watched us … or rather, they didn’t look at me. They all watched Simon.

He paused at the foot of the alley and put a hand under my elbow. I saw that light, wary look touch the groups of dark-faced men, linger, leave them. He smiled down at me.

‘Up here,’ he said, ‘and watch where you go. The
steps are tricky and the donkeys have provided a few extra natural hazards. Stephanos, naturally, lives at the very top.’

I looked up. The alley was about four feet wide and had a gradient of one in three. The steps were just too far apart and were made of sharp chunks of Parnassus with the minimum of dressing. The donkeys – a herd of healthy donkeys – had been that way many times. There was one dim light halfway up.

For some reason it occurred to me at that moment to wonder just what I had got myself into. ELAS, Stephanos, a man called Michael dying on Parnassus and lying bleaching to earth again above Delphi … all this, out of nowhere, and now a steep dark little alley and the pressure of Simon’s hand on my arm. I wondered sharply just what we were going to learn from Stephanos.

And suddenly, I knew that I didn’t want to hear it.

‘
Avanti
,’ said Simon beside me, sounding amused.

I pushed the coward impulse aside, and started up the alley-way.

S
TEPHANOS
’ house was a small two-storied building, set at the top of the stairway. Its bottom storey opened straight on the alley, and housed the beasts – a donkey and two goats and a gaggle of skinny hens – while stone stairs led up the outer wall of the house to the top storey where the family lived. At the head of the steps a wide concrete platform served as porch and garden in one. Its low parapet was crowded with pots full of greenery, and roofed with a trellis of rough branches which formed a pergola for the vine. I saw Simon stoop to avoid a loaded bough, and a hanging bunch of grapes brushed my cheek with a cold gentle touch. The top half of the door was open, and the light streamed out to gild the vine-tendrils. There was a hot oily smell from the family’s supper, mixed with goat and donkey, and the furry musk-smell of geraniums where I had brushed a hand against one of the flower-pots.

We had been heard coming up the steps. As we crossed the platform the lower half of the door opened, and an old man stood there, large against the weak light from within.

I paused. Simon was behind me, still in shadow. I moved aside to let him pass me, and he came forward, hand outstretched, with some greeting in Greek. I saw the old man stiffen as he peered out. His mouth opened as if to make some involuntary exclamation, then he seemed to draw back a little. He said formally: ‘Brother of Michael, you are welcome. The woman of the house said you would come tonight.’

Simon withdrew the hand which the old man hadn’t appeared to notice, and said, with equal formality: ‘My name is Simon. I’m glad to meet you,
Kyrie
Stephanos. This is
Kyria
Haven, a friend who has brought me down in her car.’

The old man’s look touched me, no more. He inclined his head, saying slowly: ‘You are both welcome. Be pleased to come in.’

He turned then and went into the room.

I should perhaps make it clear here that this and most of the subsequent conversation was in Greek, and that, therefore, I didn’t understand it. But afterwards Simon gave me as exact a translation as he could, and at the time I was able to follow what I may perhaps call the emotional movements of the conversation. So I shall set the interview down as it occurred.

It seemed apparent to me, from the first short exchange on the balcony, that our welcome wasn’t exactly a glowing one, and this surprised me. I had seen
during my stay in Greece so much of the miracle of Greek hospitality, that I was both disconcerted and repelled. It didn’t worry me that Stephanos hadn’t spoken to me – I was only a woman, after all, and as such had pretty low social rating – but his rejection of Simon’s outstretched hand had been quite deliberate, and his gesture now, as he invited us to follow him in, was heavy and (it seemed) reluctant.

I hesitated, glancing at Simon doubtfully.

He didn’t appear to be in the least put out. He merely lifted an eyebrow at me, and waited for me to precede him into the house.

The single living- and sleeping-room of the house was high and square. The floor was of scrubbed boards, the walls whitewashed and hung with vivid holy pictures in appalling colours. Light came from a single naked electric bulb. In one corner stood an old-fashioned oil-stove, and above it shelves for pans and a blue curtain that no doubt concealed food and crockery. Against one wall was an immense bed, covered now with a brown blanket and obviously used during the day as a sofa. Above the bed hung a small icon of the Virgin and Child, with a red electric bulb glowing in front of it. A Victorian-looking cupboard, a scrubbed table, a couple of kitchen chairs and a bench covered with cheap American-cloth made up the rest of the furniture. A note of vivid colour was supplied by the one rug on the boarded floor. It was locally woven, in brilliant scarlet and parrot-green. The room had the air of great poverty and an almost fierce cleanliness.

There was an old woman sitting over near the stove on one of the hard chairs. I took her to be Stephanos’ wife – the woman of the house. She was dressed in black, and even in the house wore the Moslem-looking headscarf, which veils mouth and chin, and which gives the field-workers of Greece such an Eastern look. It was pulled down now below her chin, and I could see her face. She looked very old, as the peasant-women of the hot countries do. Her face had lovely bones, fine and regular, but the skin had dried into a thousand wrinkles, and her teeth had decayed. She smiled at me and made a gesture of shy welcome, to which I responded with a sort of bow and an embarrassed ‘Good evening’ in Greek, as I took the chair she indicated. She made no further move to greet us, and I noticed that her look in reply to Simon’s greeting was uneasy, almost scared. Her gnarled hands moved in her lap, and then she dropped her eyes to them and kept them there.

Simon had taken the other chair near the door, and the old man sat down on the bench. I found myself staring at him. So much a part of the land of myth was he that he might have come straight out of Homer. His face was brown, wrinkled like the woman’s, and in expression partriarchal and benevolent. The white hair and beard were curled like those of the great Zeus in the Athens Museum. He was dressed in a sort of long tunic of faded blue, buttoned close down the front and reaching to his thighs; beneath it he wore what looked like white cotton jodhpurs bound at the knee with black bands. On his head was a small soft black cap. The
knotted powerful hands looked as if they were uneasy without a crook to grasp.

He looked at Simon under thick white brows, ignoring me. The look was grave and – I thought – measuring. In the corner beside me the old woman sat silent. I could hear the animals moving about below us, and the quick tread of someone coming up the alley from the street.

Stephanos had just opened his mouth to speak, when there was an interruption. The quick steps outside mounted the stone stairs at a run. A youth came across the balcony with a rush and paused in the doorway, one hand on the jamb of the door, the other thrust into his waistband. It was a very dramatic pose, and he was a very dramatic young man. He was about eighteen, lean and brown and beautiful, with thick black curls and a vivid, excited face. He wore ancient striped flannels, and the loudest and most awful Teddy-boy shirt I have ever seen.

He said: ‘Grandfather? He’s come?’

Then he saw Simon. He didn’t appear to notice me at all, but I was getting used to that, and merely sat quiet, like the woman of the house. The boy flashed a delighted smile at Simon, and a flood of rapid Greek, which was interrupted by his grandfather’s saying repressively: ‘Who told you to come, Niko?’

Niko whirled back to him. All his movements were swift like those of a graceful but restless young cat. ‘They told me at Lefteris’ that he had come again. I wanted to see him.’

‘And now you see him. Sit down and be silent, Niko. We have much to say.’

I saw Niko throw a quick appraising glance at Simon. ‘Have you told him?’

‘I have told him nothing. Sit down and be silent.’

Niko turned to obey, but his look lingered on Simon. The dark eyes glinted with something that could have been excitement mixed with amusement – or even malice. Simon met it with that masked indifferent look that I was beginning to know. He had taken out his cigarette case and now he glanced at me. I shook my head. ‘Niko?’ the boy put out a hand, then stopped, drew it back, and sent Simon another of his vivid smiles. ‘No, thank you,
kyrie
.’ A glance at his grandfather then he crossed to the big bed and threw himself on it. Simon found his lighter, lit a cigarette with a certain deliberation, then put the lighter carefully back in his pocket before he turned to Stephanos.

The latter was sitting motionless. He still didn’t speak. The silence came back, heavy, charged, and the boy stirred restlessly on the bed. His eyes never left Simon’s face. Beside me the woman hadn’t moved, but as I glanced at her I saw her eyes slide sideways to meet mine, only to drop swiftly to the hands in her lap as if in an ecstasy of shyness. I realised then that she had been covertly studying my frock, and the knowledge came to me suddenly, warmingly, that Stephanos, too, was shy.

Perhaps Simon had divined this too, for he didn’t wait for Stephanos, but spoke easily, bridging the moment.

‘
Kyrie
Stephanos, I’m very glad to meet you at last, and the woman of your house. My father and I wrote to you to thank you for what you did for my brother, but –
well, letters can’t say it all. My father is dead now, but I’m speaking for him, too, when I say thank you again. You’ll understand it isn’t always possible to put into words all that one feels – all one would like to say – but I think you will understand what I feel, and what my father felt.’ He turned his head to smile at the woman. She didn’t smile back. I thought she made a little sound as if of pain, and she moved in her chair. Her narrow lips worked in and out, and her fingers gripped each other painfully.