My Brother Michael (11 page)

Stephanos said, almost roughly: ‘There is nothing for you to say,
kyrie
. We did no more than we should.’

‘It was a very great deal,’ said Simon gently. ‘You couldn’t have done more if he, too, had been your son.’ A quick glance at the old woman. ‘I shan’t say much about that,
kyria
, because there are memories that you won’t want to revive; and I shall try not to ask any questions that might distress you. But I had to come and thank you, for my father, and for myself … and to see the house where my brother Michael found friends in the last days of his life.’

He paused, and looked round him slowly. There was silence again. Below us the animals shuffled and one of them sneezed. There was nothing in Simon’s face to read, but I saw the boy’s glinting glance on him again before it turned as if in impatience to his grandfather. But Stephanos said nothing.

At length Simon said: ‘So it was here.’

‘It was here,
kyrie
. Below, behind the manger, there is a gap in the wall. He hid there. The dirty Germans
did not think to look behind the sacks of straw, and the dung. Would you like me to show you?’

Simon shook his head. ‘No. I told you I don’t want to remind you of that day. And I don’t think I need ask you anything much about it, as you told us most of it in the letter that the
papa
wrote for you. You told me how Michael had been wounded in the shoulder and had come here for shelter, and how, after … later on, he went back into the mountains.’

‘It was just before dawn,’ said the old man, ‘on the second of October. We begged him to stay with us, because he was not yet well, and the wet weather comes early in the mountains. But he would not. He helped us to bury my son Nikolaos, and then he went.’ He nodded towards the intent youth on the bed. ‘There was that one, you understand, and his sister Maria, who is since married to Georgios who has a shop in the village. When the Germans came the children were out in the fields with their mother, or who knows? They, too, might have been killed.
Kyrie
Michael’ – he pronounced it as a trisyllable, Mi-ha-eel – ‘would not stay, because of them. He went up into the mountain.’

‘Yes. A few days later he was killed. You found his body somewhere over between here and Delphi, and you took it down to be buried.’

‘That is so. What I found on his body I gave after three weeks to Perikles Grivas, and he took it to an Englishman who was going by night from Galaxidion. But this you know.’

‘This I know. I want you to show me where he was killed, Stephanos.’

There was a short silence. The boy Niko watched Simon unwinkingly. I noticed that he had taken out a cigarette of his own and was smoking it.

The old man said heavily: ‘I will do that, of course. Tomorrow?’

‘If it’s convenient.’

‘For you, it is convenient.’

‘You’re very good.’

‘You are the brother of Michael.’

Simon said gently: ‘He was here a long time, wasn’t he?’

Beside me the woman moved suddenly and said in a clear soft voice: ‘He was my son.’ I saw with a wrench of discomfort that there were tears on her cheeks. ‘He should have stayed,’ she said, and then repeated it almost desperately: ‘He should have stayed.’

Simon said: ‘But he had to go. How could he stay and put you and your family in that danger again? When the Germans came back—’

‘They didn’t come back.’ It was Niko who spoke, clearly, from the bed.

‘No.’ Simon turned his head. ‘Because they caught Michael in the mountains. But if they hadn’t caught him – if he had still been hiding here – they might have come back to the village, and then—’

‘They did not catch him,’ said the old man.

Simon turned back sharply. Stephanos was sitting still on the bench, knees apart, hands clasped between them, his heavy body bent slightly forward. His eyes looked fathoms dark under the white brows. The two men stared at one another. I found myself stirring on
my hard chair. It was as if the scene were taking place in slow-motion, silent and incomprehensible, yet powered with emotions that plucked uncomfortably at the nerves.

Simon said slowly: ‘What are you trying to tell me?’

‘Only,’ said Stephanos, ‘that Michael was not killed by the Germans. He was killed by a Greek.’

‘By a Greek?’ Simon echoed it almost blankly.

The old man made a gesture that might have come straight from
Oedipus Rex
. To me, still not understanding anything except that the men’s talk had an overtone of tragedy, it conveyed a curiously powerful impression of resignation and shame.

‘By a man from Arachova,’ he said.

It was at this moment that the light chose to go out.

The Greeks were obviously accustomed to the whims of the electric system. With scarcely a moment’s delay the old woman had found and lit an oil-lamp, and placed it on the table in the middle of the room. It was a frightful-looking lamp of some cheap bright metal, but it burned with a soft apricot light and the sweet smell of olive-oil. With the heavy shadows cast on his face, Stephanos looked more than ever like a tragic actor. Niko had rolled over on his stomach and was watching the two other men bright-eyed, as if it were indeed a play. I supposed that for him his father’s death was so remote that this talk of it was no more than a breath from an exciting past.

Simon was saying: ‘I … see. That makes a lot of
things a lot plainer. And of course you don’t know who it was.’

‘Indeed we do.’

Simon’s brows shot up. The old man smiled sourly. ‘You are wondering why we have not killed him,
kyrie
, when we called Michael our son?’

From the bed Niko said in a smooth voice that was certainly malicious: ‘That is not the way the English work, Grandfather.’

Simon flicked him a look but said, mildly, to Stephanos: ‘Not exactly. I was wondering what had happened to him. I gather he’s alive.’

‘I’ll explain. I should tell you first of all that the man’s name was Dragoumis. Angelos Dragoumis.’

‘
Angelos?
’

The old man nodded. ‘Yes. You know of him, of course. I told you in the letter the
papa
wrote for me that Michael had worked with him. But I should never have told you this of Angelos, if you had not come. Now that you are here, these things cannot be hidden. It is your right to know.’

Simon was carefully extinguishing his cigarette in the lid of a match-box. His face was still and shuttered, his eyes hidden. I saw the boy Niko roll over again on the bed and grin to himself.

‘You know that Angelos was the leader of the ELAS troop that Michael was working with,’ said Stephanos. ‘When Michael left here he went up, I think, with the intention of rejoining them. They had scattered when the big German search operation started in the hills, and most of them had moved north, Angelos with
them. What brought Angelos back in this direction I don’t know, but certain it is that he fetched up against Michael over on Parnassus and murdered him there.’

‘Why?’

‘I do not know. Except that such murders were not rare in those days. It may be that Michael and Angelos had had some quarrel over the action of Angelos’ troops. Perhaps Michael was putting too much pressure on him; we know now that Angelos was anxious to save his men and his supplies for a different battle later – after the Germans had gone.’

I saw Simon look up sharply, those light-grey eyes vividly intent. ‘Angelos was one of them? Are you sure?’

‘Certain. He played for high stakes, did Angelos Dragoumis. He was in Athens soon after the Germans had left Greece, and we knew he was active in the massacre at Kalamai. Oh yes, you may be sure that he was betraying the Allies all the time.’

He smiled thinly. ‘I do not think that Michael can have known. No, this was some other quarrel. It may simply have been that two such men could never come together, and agree. Angelos was bad, bad from the heart, and Michael … he did not like having to work with such a one. They had quarrelled before. He told me so. Angelos was an arrogant man, and a bully, and Michael – well, Michael could not be driven either.’

‘True enough.’ Simon was selecting another cigarette. ‘But you said he was “murdered”. If two men quarrel and there’s a fight, that isn’t murder, Stephanos.’

‘It was murder. It was a fight, but not a fair one. Michael had been wounded, remember.’

‘Even so—’

‘He was struck from behind first, with a stone or with the butt of a gun. There was a great mark there, and the skin was broken. It is a miracle that the blow didn’t kill him, or stun him at least. But he must have heard Angelos behind him, and turned, because in spite of the traitor’s blow from behind, and Michael’s wounded shoulder, there was a fight. Michael was – a good deal marked.’

‘I see.’ Simon was lighting his cigarette. ‘How did Angelos kill him? I take it he wasn’t using a gun. A knife?’

‘His neck was broken.’

The lighter paused, an inch from Simon’s cigarette. The grey eyes lifted to the old man’s. I couldn’t see their expression from where I sat, but I saw Stephanos nod, once, as Zeus might have nodded. Niko’s eyes narrowed suddenly and glinted between their long lashes. The lighter made contact. ‘It must have been quite a scrap,’ said Simon.

‘He wouldn’t be easy to kill,’ said the old man. ‘But with the wounded shoulder, and the blow on the head …’

His voice trailed off. He wasn’t looking at Simon now; he seemed to be seeing something beyond the lamplit walls of the room, something remote in place and time.

There was a pause. Then Simon blew out a long cloud of tobacco-smoke. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well. And the man Angelos … what happened to him?’

‘That I can’t tell you. He has not been back to Arachova, naturally. It was said that he went with many of his kind into Yugoslavia, when their bid for power failed. In fourteen years nobody has heard of him, and it is probable that he is dead. He had only one relative, a cousin Dimitrios Dragoumis, who has had no news of him.’

‘A cousin? Here?’

‘Dragoumis lives now at Itea. He also fought in Angelos’ troop, but he was not a leader, and – well, some things are best forgotten.’ The old man’s voice roughened. ‘But the things that Angelos did to his own people, these are not forgotten. He was at Kalamai; it is said he was also at Pyrgos, where many hundred Greeks died, and among them my own cousin Panos, an old man.’ The gnarled hands moved convulsively on his knees. ‘No matter of that … But I do not speak merely of his politics,
Kyrie
Simon, or even of what such as he do in war. He was evil,
kyrie
, he was a man who delighted in evil. He liked the sight of pain. He liked best to hurt children and old women, and he boasted like Ares of how many he himself had killed. He would put a man’s eyes out – or a woman’s – and smile while he did it. Always that smile. He was an evil man, and he betrayed Michael and murdered him.’

‘And if he has not been seen here since my brother died, how can you be sure he murdered him?’

‘I saw him,’ said the old man simply.

‘
You saw him?
’

‘Yes. It was he beyond doubt. When I came on them he turned and ran. But I couldn’t follow him.’ He
paused again, one of those heavy terrible little pauses. ‘You see, Michael was still alive.’

I saw Simon’s eyes jerk up again to meet his. The old man nodded. ‘Yes. He lived only a minute or so. But it was enough to hold me there beside him and let Angelos get away.’

‘Angelos made no attempt to attack you?’

‘None. He, too, had been badly mauled.’ There was satisfaction in the old shepherd’s eyes. ‘Michael died hard, even with that traitor’s bash on the back of the head. Angelos might have shot at me, but later I found his revolver lying under a boulder, as if it had been flung there in the struggle. The countryside was full of Germans, you see, and he must have counted on killing Michael quietly, after he’d stunned him, but he wasn’t quick or clever enough, and Michael managed to turn on him. When I came to the head of the cliff and saw them below me, Angelos was just getting to his feet. He turned to look for his gun then, but my dog attacked him, and it was all he could do to get clear away. Without his gun, he could have done nothing.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of a knotted brown hand. ‘I took Michael down to Delphi. It was the nearest. That’s all.’

‘He didn’t speak?’

Stephanos hesitated, and Simon’s glance sharpened. Stephanos shook his head. ‘It was nothing,
kyrie
. If there had been anything I would have put it in the letter.’

‘But he did speak?’

‘Two words. He said: “
the Charioteer
”.’

The words were ‘
o eniochos
’, and they were classical, not modern, Greek. They were also familiar to me, as to many visitors to Delphi, because they refer to the famous bronze statue that stands in the Delphi Museum. It is the statue of a youth, the Charioteer robed in a stiffly pleated robe, still holding in his hands the reins of his vanished horses. I glanced at Simon, wondering where, in an exchange bristling with the names
Angelos
, and
Michael
, the Charioteer could have a place.

Simon was looking as puzzled as I. ‘“The Charioteer”? Are you sure?’

‘I am not quite sure. I had run hard down the path to the foot of the cliff, and I was out of breath and much distressed. He lived only a matter of seconds after I got to him. But he knew me, and I thought that was what he said. It is a classical word, but of course it is familiar because it is used of the statue in the Delphi Museum. But why Michael should have tried to tell me about that I do not know. If indeed that was what he whispered.’ He straightened his back a little. ‘I repeat, I would have told you if I had been sure, or if it had meant anything.’

‘Why did you not tell us about Angelos?’

‘It was over then, and he had gone, and it was better to let Michael’s father think he had died in battle and not at the hand of a traitor. Besides,’ said Stephanos simply, ‘we were ashamed.’

‘It was so much over,’ said Simon, ‘that when Michael’s brother comes to Arachova to find out just how his brother died, the men in Arachova avoid him, and his host won’t shake his hand.’