One August Night Page 8

  Throughout the previous week, the men at the shipyard had been suspicious of Manolis. This handsome Cretan with his expensive boots had an air of privilege about him and they assumed that the shadows beneath his eyes were from late nights and gléntia, the wild village parties that took place in Crete.

  ‘Raki,’ one of them whispered the first day they met him. ‘They drink it like water in Crete, and it can ruin a man.’

  This Saturday evening changed their view, and it became the first of many that Manolis spent with the group. They regarded him without caution now. After the night of the zeibékiko, the man who had turned up that first day with clean boots and hair trimmed like a shipowner was treated like one of them.

  Personal information between these men was rationed, but little by little, over the following weeks, Manolis learned something about each of them. He did this not only by asking questions but by listening, waiting and observing. Each of them had lived his own drama.

  On hot days when they came down from the scaffolding at midday, the men sometimes peeled off a saturated shirt and put on a fresh one. During the first few weeks with them, Dimitris caught Manolis doing a double-take as he stripped off.

  ‘Ah,’ he said jokingly. ‘That’s my old war wound.’

  ‘The Nazis?’ queried Manolis, assuming he must mean some kind of combat with a German during the occupation.

  Dimitris smiled, running his hand down the long jagged scar that went from underarm to hip.

  ‘No, fíle mou, the battle of love,’ he said cheerfully. ‘And I promise you, she wasn’t worth it, though I would have died for her at the time.’

  ‘Yes, I can see,’ said Manolis, not really knowing whether Dimitris was telling the truth.

  ‘You know how it is. When you’re young, you really believe that women are worth fighting over. I don’t any more.’

  Manolis nodded, even though he was not sure if he agreed.

  ‘She ended up with him, but make no mistake, he had a scar too.’

  Aris was the only one with authentic war wounds. Manolis noticed that Stavros always carried his friend’s tools up the ladder for him, and soon discovered that Aris had shrapnel in his legs from the street battle with the British in Athens during December 1944. He hauled himself up the scaffolding with his impressively strong arms, but back on the ground, he had a very noticeable limp.

  He was not, however, the only one who had suffered as a result of conflict. One night, a passionate debate about the crimes of the communists during the civil war got out of hand, and Mihalis stormed out of the taverna, overturning a table as he went. His strong reaction demanded explanation. Manolis learned that he had spent three years in the island prison camp of Makronisos and had been subjected to vicious brutality by government troops.

  ‘H-h-he s-s-suffered a lot,’ explained Tasos. ‘H-h-he t-t-takes it . . .’

  ‘He takes it as a personal attack if anyone criticises the left for the atrocities they committed,’ interjected Tasos’s brother, Petros.

  Tasos’s stutter sometimes made him difficult to understand, but Petros was always there to finish his sentences. In general, Tasos rarely spoke, but he was built like an ox and did the work of two men.

  ‘Perhaps he imagines that people are justifying the torture he suffered,’ said Manolis.

  A waiter was calmly sweeping broken glass from beneath their table and picking up the various chairs that lay on their sides. It was clearly not an unprecedented event, and the following morning Mihalis was back to his normal cheerful self. It seemed that he bore emotional rather than physical scars from the past.

  Even if Miltos had scars, they would have been concealed by the tattoos that covered his entire torso, neck and arms. Such a sight was unusual even in the Piraeus shipyards, and when Manolis sat with him during a cigarette break, there was nothing Miltos liked more than to relate the story behind each one: when it was drawn, where it was done, its meaning and so on. And with dozens of them – so many that there was not an empty square centimetre anywhere but on his face – he was never going to run out of tales.

  ‘Ah Miltos,’ said Manolis affectionately, ‘I once went to the Louvre in Paris, and they didn’t have as many works of art as you.’

  Miltos smiled.

  ‘What’s that one, then?’ asked Manolis, pointing to a row of figures. ‘That’s less of an oil painting.’ He did not count them, but it was a sixteen-digit number.

  ‘That,’ answered Miltos, pointing at the first eight, ‘is when I killed a man. And the other numbers are the date when I was released.’

  It was a revenge murder; he had served his time and had no regrets. Manolis knew that one day Miltos would tell him more, but for now it was time to resume their work. They still had months ahead of them on the hull.

  He had noticed a burn mark on Stavros’s arm, but he was the least talkative of the group and never elaborated on what had caused it. Manolis concluded it was a childhood accident.

  All the time he was piecing together their stories, the group continued to be puzzled by Manolis. All they understood was that some deep unhappiness had brought him to Piraeus. The zeibékiko dance had told them this, but they knew no more. Only when he was ready would he open the shutters. Until then, they would respect his privacy as he did theirs.

  Chapter Seven

  THE WEEKS WENT by. It was on Manolis’s mind that the trial might begin soon, so he wrote to Antonis asking for news. He told his friend where he was staying and what he was doing and waited for a reply.

  Antonis was pleased when he received the letter. He was glad Manolis was safe and somewhere not too far distant. He showed it to his sister Fotini, making her promise first that she would not tell anyone what it said. The pair of them had always been close and Fotini always kept a secret if he asked her.

  It was now generally accepted that Manolis had been conducting a relationship with Anna, but still Antonis did not judge him for it. It merely made him despise Anna all the more.

  ‘There was no man she wouldn’t drag into the dirt,’ he told Fotini.

  Fotini was annoyed to hear him say this.

  ‘Don’t be vindictive, Antonis,’ she said. ‘I think Anna got enough of a punishment, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s Andreas’s turn now,’ he said quietly.

  ‘It’s been so many years,’ Fotini responded, ‘and you’re still so angry.’

  They were drinking coffee together in Plaka, and Antonis tipped his cup to drain the dregs.

  ‘How could Andreas have known that Anna was yours, in any case?’

  Antonis shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I suppose he didn’t know. But it doesn’t change a thing,’ he said. ‘I saw Andreas Vandoulakis almost every day for over a decade. And he treated me like dirt on every one of them.’

  Fotini looked at her brother with a touch of sympathy. Everyone knew that Andreas Vandoulakis was haughty with his employees, just as his father had been.

  ‘Maybe Anna and Andreas deserved each other,’ Antonis said with finality.

  ‘Please stop, Antonis. You sound vengeful. And it’s ugly. Don’t forget that she was Maria’s sister. And Giorgos . . . These people are like family to us.’

  On this last point, Antonis was in agreement. He and Fotini were joined to the Petrakis family through generations of friendship. He hugged his sister and left.

  That night, he wrote back to Manolis. He did not have much to tell him, but promised that he would let him know when the trial began.

  When the letter arrived, Agathi had trouble reading the name, so careless was the handwriting. The ‘M’ was clear enough, but the surname was illegible. It was only the Iraklion postmark that gave her the confidence to slip it under Manolis’s door. None of her other tenants came from Crete.

  Her lodger had seemed a little happier in the past few weeks than when he arrived, but even so there was still a hint of melancholy about him. Perhaps this letter would bring him some good news; maybe it was from that beau
tiful woman in the photograph.

  Manolis’s work on the ship was punctuated by late nights of drinking, singing and playing cards with his new paréa. Nights of sound sleep followed, but he was never without dreams of Anna. The rest was for his body only.

  Andreas’s trial took place in Neapoli in the spring and lasted just three days. Eleftheria and Alexandros Vandoulakis were there throughout, pale and rigid with shock and humiliation. Maria and Giorgos sat some distance away from them. Maria was sometimes aware of being scrutinised by people in the public gallery. As the sister of the victim, her emotions and reactions were of particular interest to them, but of course the fact that she had been a leprosy patient was the true reason for their curiosity.

  They had all seen photographs of the extravagantly beautiful Anna in the newspaper and at first they were puzzled that this plainly dressed and unremarkable-looking woman with a long plait down her back could be her sister. When they heard a rumour that she had once been engaged to the cousin of the accused, whose name also came up in the trial, their appetite to know more became all the greater. Despite their prurience, however, none of them – not even one of the several journalists covering the trial – had the courage to approach her when the court adjourned each day. Maria knew exactly why. She was protected by their fear.

  One by one, witnesses were called and gave their evidence.

  Dr Kyritsis, who only remained in the court for the first day, testified that the gun must have been pressed to the victim’s chest as it was fired. One bullet had passed through her lung and out through her back. Another had gone directly into her heart and ended her life. He verified that he had pronounced her dead at the scene.

  As he spoke, Maria’s eyes were fixed on the man she loved. It was several weeks since she had seen him, and the pain of their separation was as great as any she had endured these past months. She knew that he would have to return to Iraklion as soon as the court adjourned.

  Several estate workers spoke about Andreas’s character. One described his boss as a short-tempered, unfriendly individual. Another said that he was prone to outbursts of violent anger when instructions on the estate were not carried out to his liking. The latter witness was Antonis.

  In Andreas’s defence, others said that the accused was mild, almost introverted, and that it was very surprising that he had perpetrated such a brutal act. Maria wondered if these were men who were keen to keep their positions on the estate.

  On the final morning, Andreas’s defence lawyer called his most important witness to the box. It was Alexandros Vandoulakis’s koumbáros, his best man, who was also Andreas’s godfather. Now eighty years old, this former judge spoke with a conviction and gravitas that held the whole court spellbound. Until this moment in the trial, the handcuffed Andreas had sat pale and expressionless. Now he raised his head to look at the man who was speaking.

  ‘It must be clear to all those who have listened to the evidence that the fault lies with the woman. This woman behaved in a manner that would provoke any man. Her insolence, her impiety, her immorality could only hasten the death of such a person. I have known the Vandoulakis family for many decades, and this fine man who sits before you for his entire life. This is an upright family. A decent family. A family with values. There is one belief that is integral to such a family: that these values they hold should be protected! And one of these values is the greatest of them all. Philótimo.’

  He repeated the word that everyone in this courtroom knew so well, intoning it with even greater emphasis this time.

  ‘Philótimo! Honour!’

  There was silence for a moment. Every Cretan understood its significance, especially in such a family. In the eyes of this witness, it justified the murder of an unfaithful wife.

  Maria listened with disgust to the way her sister was described and to the old man’s exoneration of her murderer. It was almost impossible for her to remain sitting there. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that her father was totally motionless. She twisted her fingers together and looked down into her lap, biting her lip hard. The heat prickled on the back of her neck, and for a moment she felt certain she was going to faint. There were murmurs of disapproval from the small group from Plaka who were also in the public gallery but a little way from where she sat with Giorgos.

  Before the verdict, there was a break during which everyone went outside. Maria found her father a seat just round the corner from the court and went for a walk. She needed to work off her anger. In a quiet street she saw a church with an open door and went inside.

  Kissing the icon first, she sat in the back pew and then, in the darkness, she knelt. With such raging emotions, it was impossible to pray. Anger came between herself and God and she could not control it. She wanted to ask for forgiveness for Andreas, but her rational self wrestled with the very idea of it. Tears flowed unstoppably down her cheeks as she asked herself why such a crime should be erased. Was she the only one, apart from her father, Nikos and a handful of people from her village, who thought her sister had not deserved to be murdered? Did everyone else in that courtroom believe that such an act was justified?

  She heard someone come into the church and turned around. It was the priest. Maria got up, crossed herself and swiftly left. It was drizzling as she made her way back to the court. She was not very familiar with Neapoli and took a wrong turning, which led her in a circle back to the church. Her father was not on the bench where she had left him and, anxious and frustrated, she only just made it back inside the court, her hair dripping, before the doors were shut. The judge and jury returned to the room.

  The place was even more crammed with people than before, and she was obliged to remain behind three rows of standing spectators. She did not mind for herself that she was unnoticed and unobserved, but she worried about Giorgos, who must be sitting alone. She had wanted to be with him when the verdict was delivered.

  Suddenly silence descended. The judge’s was the only face that Maria could see as he took his seat on the podium. With his hooked nose and close-set eyes, he reminded her of an eagle.

  The ‘guilty’ verdict was a foregone conclusion, hastily and almost inaudibly delivered by a member of the jury. The judge then allowed for a moment of complete hush before clearing his throat.

  His gaze was focused on a single person, whom he now addressed.

  Maria could picture Andreas even if she could not see him. She had tried to keep the thought from her mind, but this was the person who had snatched away her own happiness along with her sister’s life. On that fateful evening, Nikos Kyritsis, the man who had brought the cure to Spinalonga, had asked her to marry him. Anna’s death just a short while later had had many ramifications. One was that Maria knew she had no choice but to remain with her grieving father in Plaka. The wedding had been indefinitely postponed. The new life that was within reach for such a brief time would never be possible now, she was certain of it. Andreas Vandoulakis had ruined the life of every member of her family.

  ‘For me, this is a tragic but simple case,’ began the judge. ‘I have few words to say to you, Andreas Vandoulakis.’

  He was a master of the dramatic pause.

  ‘This young woman, in the prime of her life, was murdered by you, her angry husband. We will never know if this was premeditated. You alone know the truth of that and may well go to your grave with it.’

  The atmosphere, already hushed, became electric. He was going to hand down the death sentence. Why else would he mention the grave? This was a shock. What most in the room had expected was acquittal or, at most, a perfunctory sentence.

  The judge continued.

  ‘The protection of philótimo is important, but it is not a justifiable excuse for such a heinous crime.’

  He made several references to those who had described Andreas’s tendency to lose his temper. These included Antonis, whose comments had been the most persuasive.

  ‘Andreas Vandoulakis, you are guilty of the murder of an innocent woman. This
crime merits the death penalty.’

  Someone cried out, ‘No!’ and sounds of dismay reverberated around the courtroom. Even Maria drew in her breath. A life for a life. There was something utterly appalling about it. She knew such a sentence was not unusual in similar cases, but it would not bring Anna back. It would restore neither her own happiness nor her father’s.

  The judge waited for the crowd to quieten down. ‘However, on this occasion I am not handing you the death penalty. Instead, I am sentencing you to spend the rest of your days in prison. I think this will set an enduring enough example to all other men who may lose their tempers with their wives.’

  There were more gasps from the spectators, especially from the majority who thought Andreas should walk away a free man. Surely it was Anna Vandoulakis who was the guilty party, not Andreas? The landowner’s son being sent to prison? For the rest of his life?

  Maria did not like the indignation that she sensed in the room. The crowd did not agree with this outcome. Many of the men amongst them felt themselves criticised. Raising a hand to your wife was not unusual in Crete, and they did not like the warning that had been issued to them.

  She was out in the street within a few seconds and waited for her father to emerge. They walked in silence towards the bus stop. There was a bus due that would take them home, and both of them wanted to get as far away from this place as they could, and as quickly.

  On the way home, the reflection of an exhausted, bedraggled woman looked back at Maria from the rain-spattered window. There had been so many moments in that courtroom when she had felt she was sitting through the trial of her sister rather than that of Andreas. She had aged a decade in the past three days.

  When they reached home, both father and daughter wept. Broken as they were by Anna’s death, they agreed that the execution of Andreas would not have mended their own lives.

  While the trial was going on, a daily court report had filled the pages of the local Neapoli newspaper, but there had been nothing in the national press.