The Devil Takes Half (38 page)

“
I boiled some oleander leaves and other things from the yard and ground the glass in the mortar the way you do when you make
skordalia
. Mixed it all up together. My grandmother was from Asia Minor,” she added as if the poison was a legacy, a recipe handed down through the generations. “My father he was from Tripoli.”

Her head had been bowed, but now she raised it and looked at him, and Patronas noticed her eyes for the first time. Black and shiny, they were devoid of feeling, reptile eyes. He remembered what Kleftis had said about her: ‘she was clever and not to be trusted.' There had been three, after all. “You were the one, weren't you?” he asked. “You were the one who started it all.”

She gave a curt nod. “Petros told me about the cave the day he found it.”

“
How did he find it?”

“
Chasing goats. He said he heard something clang underfoot. ‘It was a disc,' he told me, ‘a door.' ‘Where does the door go?' I asked him. ‘To a ghost town', he told me.” She smiled to herself, remembering.

“
What happened after he found the cave?”

“
I had Petros write to McLean in England. I knew he liked boys, McLean did. You could tell. I figured he'd pay more attention if he got a letter from Petros than one from me and it worked just like I planned. I wanted him to sell what we found, to take care of that part of it. I'd met him one summer, working at his hotel, and I knew he wouldn't ask too many questions. I thought we could make a lot of money; the cave would be a gold mine for us, if we were careful and played our cards right. String the man along a little. Petros gave me trouble about McLean. He was afraid that the woman would find out, think less of him. ‘She doesn't care about you', I told him. ‘You're just a servant to her.' But oh, how he fretted. That's why he asked the priest to hold the stuff for him. He waited until the woman left every day before bringing the things down to me.”

“
You are talking about Eleni Argentis, the archeologist?”

“
Yes. The one he worked for. The priest didn't know anything. He thought it was just Petros. He wanted him to give the money to me, his poor old Yiayia, instead of buying himself a motorcycle with it. He never realized we were in it together.”

It was all becoming clear. “When did you lose your pin up there, the little quail?”

“
After Petros died. I asked a neighbor to drive me to Profitis Ilias. I told her I wanted to see where it had happened, where he'd been killed. The place was empty. There was no one around and the doors were locked. I knew there was an entrance to the cave on the hill and I went there. I wanted to take more things from the cave. But when I got there, I heard people talking … men.”

“
What happened then?”

“
I ran away. Something bad had happened. I could see blood on the rocks. The pin must have come loose then. I went back another time to look for it. Voula gave it to me and I was afraid that if you came around again, asking questions, she'd say it was mine. But I'm old. I don't see so good. I never found it.”

“
How many times did you go there?”

“
Two, three. After I saw the blood, I stopped going.”

“
How did Kleftis get involved?”

“
Petros wanted his mother back, and he wrote a letter to her after we sold the first batch of things. He told her she'd be rich if she came back to Chios, that he'd buy her diamond bracelets and a big Mercedes Benz. I didn't know about the letter. If I had, I would have torn it up, burnt it. But it was too late. Two weeks later they descended like hawks, Voula and Kleftis. I knew there'd be trouble the minute I saw him. Voula's father was a man like that. A man you had reason to fear.”

She rubbed her gnarled hands over her arms as if trying to get warm. “That foolish boy, thinking Voula would ever be a mother to him. If only he'd done what I said and left her alone.”

Patronas saw that her dress, too, was unclean, a line of grayish-white material across the knees as if she'd been kneeling in ash. “After Voula arrived, did she get involved?”

“
No. Too lazy. Only knows how to do one thing, Voula, and she doesn't have to get up to do it. She didn't even get up when Kleftis hurt me.” With a sigh, she held up her crippled fingers. “Wasn't her problem, she said. He threatened to kill Petros and me and it wasn't ‘her problem.' ”

“
What was her relationship with Kleftis?”

“
He was her pimp. That's why he came with her to Chios. To make sure no one got off with his property.” She was watching him now. “What did you think? They were lovers?” She shook her head. “Only thing those two ever loved was money.”

“
What happened after they arrived?”

“
Petros had found two bulls and wanted to keep them. I thought it'd be all right. I could sell them later, but he left one out by mistake and Kleftis saw it. He beat him half to death, trying to find out where he'd gotten it. After that, we worked for Kleftis. He was in charge. I warned Petros. I told him to watch out. ‘Never let him see where you're digging,' I said. ‘He'll kill us if he finds out.' I was afraid for him. But we were already in the middle of it. We were trapped.”

“
Even though you were afraid, you continued, didn't you? You and Petros, stealing things on your own, away from Kleftis?”

She seemed surprised that he knew this. “Yes,” she said. “We needed the money.”

“
How did it work?”

“
Petros would hide things and bring them to me when Kleftis wasn't looking, little things he could slip in his pockets. Nothing like before, just some stones. I didn't trust McLean, so I sold them to a jeweler I knew in Chora. Never got close to what they were worth.” A petulant note had entered her voice. She went on for a few more minutes, talking about how the man had cheated her, her lost wealth.

“
What happened next?”

“
Petros discovered more stones, handfuls of them like jewels, and I told him to bring some to me but be careful about it. But he was a boy, a silly boy, and he got caught. He was no match for Kleftis.”

“
What happened then? McLean noticed the stones were missing and asked Kleftis about them?”

“
I don't know what happened up there.” She wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. “We had to go on, don't you see? Otherwise, we would have had nothing. Kleftis would have taken it all and left us with nothing.”

“
Papa Michalis told me Eleni Argentis gave your grandson a laptop computer, a Toshiba. What became of it? Did you sell it?”

“
No, Kleftis smashed it. Smashed the computer on my hand the day he took over. Broke it. Broke my hand. I went to the Englishman after Kleftis hurt me and begged him to help us, but he was too scared. ‘Just give him what he wants,' he said.” She mimicked the man's high pitched voice. “ ‘Just give him what he wants.' ”

“
You knew Kleftis killed your grandson. Why did you wait till now to kill him?”

“
I wanted you to prove it first. I was waiting for you. So everyone would know what he was … why.”

“
Why didn't you tell us, Kyria Athanassiou? We could have helped you.”

“
I've worked all my life cleaning up after people,” she said softly. “Kleftis, he was part of my cleaning up. Where I come from, my people, we take care of these things ourselves.”

Then as much to herself as to him, she said, “I was hoping that once he got enough money, he'd go away and, Petros and me, we'd be like before. I was praying for that. But instead he killed him. Killed my little Petros.” She clutched herself and began rocking back and forth. “I should have known better. Men like that? They're locusts. They feed and feed until there's nothing left.”

* * *

As the afternoon wore on, the old woman's conversation took an ominous turn. She began slipping in and out of the past, speaking to the dead as if they were there. The war featured prominently in her memories. At one point she sang songs she'd heard on the radio from that time and spoke of Walter Blume, a Nazi active in Greece during the war. A few minutes later, during the same conversation, she pointed to the window and said, “Look, there's my husband's freighter, the one he works on.” She was quite adamant, insisting Patronas get up and go see it. He dutifully went to the window and looked out. All he saw was the chicken coop and her little garden, gone to weeds.

“
I'm from Peloponnese—Kalavrita,” she went on. “The Germans, they killed my brothers, my father. Shot them in the square along with the other men. My mother spent a week digging graves for them with her hands. For five years we had nothing but
horta
, grass, to eat. Nothing but rags to wear. My mother died of tuberculosis in 1944.”

She was safe, Patronas thought. No matter what she'd done, no jury would convict her once they learned she was from Kalavrita. It had been one of the worst episodes of the war. After killing every male over ten, more than five hundred people, the Nazis had locked the women and children inside a schoolhouse and set it on fire. A German soldier had unlocked the door, allowing the women and children to escape. Yet there had been no escape. Starvation, tuberculosis, and death had awaited the survivors of Kalavrita. The suffering in Greece during the war had been terrible.

‘
Eine gewisse Brutalität,
a certain brutality was necessary,' the German commander had said. And now the sons and daughters of the men who'd done those things came to Greece to get a tan. And the Greeks welcomed them, even in Kalavrita.
God help us all.

Patronas wanted to stop the interview then. But she insisted on speaking. “After the war, I moved to Pireaus. Met a sailor from Chios and got married. Lived in Kastella. Oh, not in one of the grand houses, the ones by the sea. In a room over a garage. We moved to Chios when Voula was four. My husband was like Kleftis. He liked to hurt people. It gave him pleasure.”

Patronas interrupted. “How did he die?”

She looked up at him sadly, disappointed he'd had to ask. “Car, Chief Officer. He was killed in a car accident. After he died, Voula started going with men. I worked in the hotel and people's houses. Every day of the week, I cleaned. She never did anything to help me. No one did.”

She asked if they could eat together before he took her to jail. “Don't worry, Chief Officer,” she said. “I won't poison you. I just want to cook dinner and eat at my table one more time before I go.”

Although it violated police protocol, Patronas thought it would do no harm and agreed. He checked the kitchen before sitting down and waited until she took the first bite before serving himself. She noticed his behavior and gave him a wounded look.

The table she set was like her house: a machine-embroidered tablecloth, woven to look like damask, stainless steel flatware embossed like silver. The food was simple. She seemed proud as she put the roast on the table, meat still a cause for celebration.

Patronas didn't think he'd ever eaten a sadder meal, choking down the gristly meat, the stony potatoes, while she watched him from her end of the table.

She treated him to dessert liquors after, saying she'd steeped the fruit, the peaches and cherries, in the alcohol herself. “The sun is what does it,” she explained. “You have to leave it out in the sun.” She opened the doors of her cupboard and showed him the glass jars full of produce she'd put up herself, the white dishtowels she'd embroidered with flowers.

A person who'd been silent for too many years, she talked for over two hours. Patronas was reluctant to cut her off, struck by her need to speak. It pleased her that he was taping her, that she finally had a witness. She complained bitterly about her life, where she found herself in her old age. “Castro isn't like it used to be. It's full of Pakistanis now.”

One last piece of the puzzle. “Why did you argue with Titina Argentis at the laiki?”

“
Voula worked for them as a maid before she took off for Athens. She was only sixteen and pretty. Soft. Not like now. Husband cornered her, Voula told me. We were having coffee together, just the two of us, a couple of days after she got here. Had her in the garden, she said. I wanted Titina to pay damages for what he had done. I thought Argentis had been Voula's first, that Petros was his son and that's why she was the way she was.” She pulled her sweater tighter around her. “After Titina refused, I went to the shipyard and spoke to her son. He didn't even ask me to sit down. He acted like I was dirty, like I would ‘dirty his chairs.' ”

“
Was Petros indeed the son of Eleni's father?”

“
No. Voula was a slut even then. When I told her, she thought it was funny, me going to Titina Argentis demanding money, claiming Argentis had ‘besmirched her honor.' Voula laughed and laughed. Said, ‘There've been so many, if they all paid I'd be a millionaire.' ”

He could see her hands trembling in her lap.

“
It is hard enough to be poor, Chief Officer. But to be the mother of a whore, to be poor without honor ….”

Her voice rose. “You don't know what it is to struggle. To be walled in, forced to live in a tomb of a marriage with a man who beats you like it's his right, who shames you day after day after day. Knowing you were meant for better, that you deserve better. Diamantis wrote a story about it. I can see from your face you're surprised. What, you thought I didn't know how to read? I was unfamiliar with literature?” She smiled to herself. “I know more than you think. It's a good story. It was about an old woman who drowned baby girls in order to spare them from a life like hers, a life of hardship and pain, a life like mine. Diamantis got it wrong, though. She shouldn't have drowned the girls. She should have drowned the boys. You get nothing but pain from men. They ruin themselves and you in the bargain.” She spat out the words. “Whether you love them or not, it's all the same. They ruin you.”