The Feast of Artemis (Mysteries of/Greek Detective 7) Page 3

  ‘We’re nearly ready, Thea,’ said her niece.

  Marianna cast her eyes over the table.

  ‘Evangelia, don’t put that there,’ she said, pointing to a courgette pie, glazed and cut into perfect diamonds. ‘Move it to the back, then I can put my tarts down here at the front.’

  ‘What have you brought, Marianna?’ asked one of the sisters.

  ‘Saffron cheese tarts,’ she said, and lowered her tray on to the edge of the table. The tarts were of crimped golden pastry, filled with yellow custard spotted brown where the oven’s heat had caught the tops. ‘And my two little angels here . . . Put the baskets down, koukles, there near Evangelitsa.’

  The niece reached down into the baskets and began to lift out jars: pickled sticks of celery, sour-cherry spoon-sweets, little black sea-snails in brine. In the second basket were bottles of olive oil, and long loaves of fresh bread.

  ‘Slice the bread, Evangelia,’ said Marianna, ‘and pour some oil into those dishes, those small glass ones. We’ll give everyone a taste of Kapsis oil today, and let the people judge who makes the best in Dendra.’

  She was rearranging the saffron tarts on the tray, making sure the most perfect were towards the front, when Amara reached the Kapsis tables, and tapped Marianna on the back. Marianna turned round.

  ‘Amara,’ she said, coldly. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Oh, I think you’ve done plenty for us already,’ said Amara. The colour in her cheeks was as high as Marianna’s, though Amara was wearing no rouge. ‘So I’ve come to repay the compliment.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Marianna. The sisters and Evangelia were staring at Amara with the same coldness as Marianna. ‘If you don’t mind, we’re busy.’

  ‘The thing is with you Kapsis’s, you’re so underhand. Devious as snakes. And as for pissing on good food! You’re no better than a bunch of barbarians!’

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ Marianna objected loudly.

  ‘How dare you!’ exclaimed one of the sisters. ‘Takis! There’s trouble here!’

  ‘Oh, there’s no trouble you haven’t all earned,’ said Amara. ‘Like I said, I’m just here to return the compliment.’

  She scanned the dishes on the table, like a diner making her choice. The dainty saffron tarts caught her eye; and tossing back her head, she spat over them with gusto, contaminating them all with a spray of spittle.

  ‘Mori!’ exclaimed the sister. ‘The woman’s gone mad! Takis! Come quick!’

  Marianna, in shock, stood with her hands to her face, whilst Amara summoned more spittle into her mouth, and delivered another spray over the courgette pie. Then, as a parting shot, she spat with all her might into the aubergine pilaf. One of the sisters tried to grab her by the hair, the other by her dress; but Amara was too quick for them, and disappeared into the growing crowd.

  The fat man parked alongside a red motorbike resting on its stand. The farmer’s old bicycle was propped against the dresser, whose shelves were filled with odd-sized jars of honey and fruit preserves, and bags of mountain herbs. The table display was of wine, in anything which would hold liquid – green and clear glass bottles, cooking-oil containers, a rubber-stoppered demijohn or two – and there were several small bottles of tsipouro, crude home-distilled spirit.

  The fat man lifted a jar of honey from the shelf, and held it up to examine its clarity. His expression as he returned it to its place suggested approval. Dino was already back in his chair, and had refilled his glass. The farmer rose from his own fraying cane-bottomed chair and hauled an orange crate from under the table. Then, he faced a dilemma, wondering whether to offer the fat man the orange crate, or whether to be more polite and offer his own seat.

  ‘Better give him your chair,’ said Dino to the farmer, and he took a long slug of wine. ‘I don’t think that orange box will take his weight. You’ve put on a few kilos, Hermes.’

  The fat man patted his stomach as he sat down on the farmer’s chair.

  ‘Life is good,’ he said, in the impeccable Greek of TV newscasters, enunciating each word perfectly. ‘And I indulge myself too much. But you’ve lost more since I saw you. Are you eating at all? Or are you relying entirely on the fruit of the vine for your sustenance?’

  ‘Ah, now,’ said Dino. He tilted his glass and held it up to the sun, so the light through the wine showed the richness of its colours, sanguine in its shallows, deepest purple in its depths. ‘When it’s nectar of this quality, what else do we need? But I’m forgetting my manners.’ He waved a casual hand towards the farmer, showing on his fingers a pair of rings in twisted silver. ‘Meet my new friend, Yiorgo.’

  ‘Yianni,’ corrected the farmer.

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Dino. ‘I’m not good with names. This is my big brother, Hermes.’

  ‘Half-brother,’ corrected the fat man. ‘Same father, different mother.’

  ‘Kalos irthate,’ said the farmer. ‘But you two don’t look like brothers. You don’t sound like brothers, either.’

  ‘I shall take that as a compliment,’ said the fat man.

  ‘The paths of our lives have been diverse,’ said Dino, ‘and the company we keep is very different. I think you wouldn’t contradict me in that assessment, would you, Hermes?’

  ‘I would be loathe to contradict you in anything.’

  The farmer handed the fat man a tumbler, and since Dino had almost finished the bottle tucked under his chair, opened more wine and began to fill the fat man’s glass. When the tumbler was half-full, the fat man stopped him.

  ‘Only a taste for me,’ he said.

  Dino shook his head in mock despair.

  ‘Always so puritanical!’ he said. ‘It’s a beautiful day, and what can there possibly be out there that can’t wait? Relax for once, Hermes, and live a little!’

  ‘I do my share of living,’ said the fat man, mildly. ‘But I have responsibilities, and as you well know, unfortunately there are always matters that won’t wait.’

  ‘Responsibilities wear a man out,’ said Dino. ‘Take a leaf out of my book, and have nothing to do with them. Have you seen our parent recently? I’ve been thinking about paying the old goat a visit.’

  ‘Maybe you should,’ said the fat man. ‘He was asking about you, last time I saw him.’

  ‘And what did you tell him?’

  ‘The truth. That I hadn’t seen you in a long while.’

  Dino threw back his head and laughed, a laugh made long and loud by intoxication, and with a burbling undercurrent which turned the laugh into a tarry smoker’s cough.

  ‘Always the diplomat, eh, brother?’ he said, when he had recovered from his coughing. ‘So you didn’t divulge the shady circumstances in which you found me? Maybe that’s just as well. But come on, at least give this wine a fair trial. This gentleman here is a master of his art, and he makes a wine to make you sing.’

  The fat man held up his glass to the farmer.

  ‘Yammas,’ he said. The farmer, seated uncomfortably on the orange crate, returned his toast, and the fat man tasted the wine.

  ‘So what do you think, brother?’ asked Dino. ‘I’d say a mildly vegetal nose, with a pleasant earthiness, and some supple and distinctly easy flavours of red and blue fruit.’ He tasted the wine again, drawing it noisily over his tongue. ‘Delicious, if somewhat light by the standards of this region. A tangy finish, it’s clean, it’s crisp, and as perfect a young wine for everyday drinking as you’ll find.’

  ‘I agree it’s good,’ said the fat man. ‘What grape is this? If I were guessing, I’d say Agiorghitiko.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the farmer. ‘But I blend it with a little Korinthiaki. Not too much, just enough.’

  Dino drained his glass.

  ‘And beautifully blended it is,’ he said. ‘A drop more of this, and then we might try the tsipouro. Yiorgo, what do you say?’

  ‘I expect he’d say, if he weren’t too polite, that he’d like to see the colour of your money,’ said the fat man. �
��Another hour or two of your company, and he’ll have nothing left to sell.’

  Dino grinned.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid I find myself short of cash. Tell you what, you put some money on the table, and we’ll make a night of it. It’d be good to catch up, find out where you’ve been, who you’ve seen.’

  The fat man looked around.

  ‘Are you alone? Where’s that friend of yours?’

  ‘He’s laid up,’ said Dino. ‘He suffers with the gout, been suffering for years. He’s not one for being on the road, these days. He’d rather grow vegetable marrows. But it’s an ill wind. He was getting heavier by the day, and it was costing me in petrol. I travel lighter now. What do you think to my wheels? Seventy-three horse-power! A traveller’s bike, perfect for my free spirit. There’s nothing like the feel of the wind in your hair, heading down the road with no particular place to be. I’ll give you a ride, if you like. She and I have done a few miles together, since you and I last met.’

  ‘If you’ve been very far on something so powerful, it’s a miracle you’re still with us,’ said the fat man. ‘I don’t suppose you wear a helmet?’

  ‘Helmets are for poustes.’

  ‘Helmets, in my experience, are for those who wish to avoid disfigurement, brain injuries and death. No doubt you’ll condemn my view as over-cautious. But I’ve seen too many avoidable tragedies brought about by those machines.’

  He became reflective, until Dino nudged him.

  ‘Drink your drink, big brother! A toast to those whose lives are short! What a piece of luck to see you! I miss you, you know.’ He draped his arm around the fat man’s shoulders. ‘Where are you heading, anyway?’

  ‘I have a place not far from here in my sights,’ said the fat man, drinking more of his wine. Dino withdrew his arm, and the fat man stretched out his legs, and flexed his feet in their white shoes. ‘I was up on the hills, and I saw the smoke of several fires. Do you know what it might have been, Yianni?’

  ‘Dendra, no doubt,’ said the farmer. ‘It’s the saint’s day of the Archangel Michael, and the town of Dendra holds a feast today. Every year they have a competition to see who can make the best kleftiko. It’s hotly fought, I’ll tell you. That’ll be what you saw: the smoke from them opening the fire-pits.’

  Dino’s eyes shone.

  ‘A feast!’ he said. ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘Archangel Michael, of course,’ said the fat man. ‘I had forgotten. Did you know his festival replaced the ancient feast of Pyanepsia, in honour of the goddess Artemis? They made her offerings of fruit and pulses, and carried olive branches covered in honey and oil. It will be interesting to see what remnants of the old feast remain.’

  ‘Still the walking encyclopaedia!’ said Dino, slapping him on the back so the fat man’s wine slopped dangerously close to the rim of his glass. ‘Come on, let’s go! There’ll be wine, women and song! I’ll race you! How far is it, Yiorgo?’

  ‘Yianni,’ said the farmer. ‘Not far. Ten kilometres along this road, maybe a dozen.’

  Dino was already out of his chair, staggering as he stood.

  ‘You can join me,’ said the fat man, ‘but I shall do the driving. I wouldn’t want to explain to Papa, if I let anything happen to you.’ Finding his wallet, he gave the farmer several notes. ‘Here’s payment for what he’s drunk, and a little extra for taking care of his mount. I’ll bring him back to pick it up tomorrow.’

  The fat man’s car interior smelled of leather, and faintly of wax polish. Dino ran his hand over the dashboard.

  ‘Nice wheels,’ he said. ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘This is a rarity,’ said the fat man, looking over his shoulder before he pulled out into the road. ‘It was produced by a racing driver, Antonis Tzen, a genius thwarted by protectionism and bureaucracy. Only ten were ever made.’

  ‘Won’t it go any faster?’

  ‘Better to take our time,’ said the fat man. ‘The roads are full of careless fools like you.’

  The farmer had directed them to Dendra’s southern side where the church of Agios Michaelis was located, but every parking space was taken and every side street was lined with cars. The fat man drove instead towards the town’s centre, and parked in a quiet square he found by squeezing the Tzen down a lane almost too narrow.

  The square was bordered by archaic buildings picturesque in their decay. The three-storey houses were habitable on only one or two floors; above that, the doors to crumbling balconies were sealed with nailed-on crosses, and the stones and timbers of the houses’ construction showed grey where the perishing stucco had fallen away. A few small retailers – a watch-seller’s, a bridal boutique, a lingerie shop for the mature woman – were closed for the feast day, their window displays unlit and unalluring. There was a chapel, where a shaggy mongrel slept on the steps; alongside the chapel, a long dry fountain was set into a wall, its brass spouts in the shape of dolphins’ heads, its stonework carved with Arabic script and palm leaves.

  As the fat man took his hold-all from the boot and locked the car, Dino wandered over to the dog and stroked its head. The dog, sleepy and placid, rolled on to its back, and Dino rubbed its belly.

  The fat man was studying the fountain. Dino pressed his nose against the glass of the lingerie shop, and called to the fat man to laugh with him at the sizeable girdles and generous brassieres.

  ‘Look at this!’ he called, pointing to a flesh-coloured corset. ‘Would you tussle with a woman wearing that?’

  But the fat man seemed absorbed in the fountain.

  ‘This is charming,’ he said, as Dino joined him, bringing with him the pungent smoke of the fat French cigarette he had just lit, a dark tobacco with no filter. ‘It’s Ottoman, of course. No doubt there was a mosque somewhere near here. They built the fountains near their mosques for ritual washing.’

  ‘It’s a monstrosity,’ said Dino, glancing at the fountain. ‘What’s more, it’s been here hundreds of years, and it’ll be here when we get back. Which isn’t true of the feast. That’s today only.’ He held out his pack of cigarettes to the fat man. ‘You want one of these?’

  The fat man glanced at the packet.

  ‘Thank you, no,’ he said. ‘You should smoke Greek cigarettes, and help keep our farmers in business.’

  ‘If our farmers want to stay in business, they should grow better tobacco,’ said Dino. ‘Are you still smoking those quaint things you used to like?’

  The fat man smiled, and reaching into his pocket, took out a pack of his own cigarettes – an old-fashioned box whose lift-up lid bore the head and naked shoulders of a 1940s starlet, her softly permed platinum hair curling around a coy smile. Beneath the maker’s name ran a slogan in an antique hand: The cigarette for the man who knows a real smoke.

  ‘You mean these?’

  He chose one from the box, and lit it with a slim, gold lighter.

  ‘I’m surprised you can still find them,’ said Dino. ‘I thought they went out of business years ago.’

  ‘No, they’re still in business,’ said the fat man. ‘I pay the factory a visit, from time to time, whenever I’m nearby.’

  ‘You pay them a visit?’ Dino laughed. ‘That’s what I love about you, brother. The world keeps changing, but you just keep on being you.’ He sniffed the air, which carried the smokiness of grilling meat. ‘I smell food, and I’m starving. Let’s go whilst there’s still food to be had!’

  Along the tree-lined avenue and through the streets, the people were promenading to the feast. The men were shaven and smart in suits or Sunday jackets, shoes polished and fingernails scrubbed and clipped, the older women were respectably matronly in shift dresses and good coats. The young girls were parading their outrageous finery – short skirts, stilettos and cleavage, bordello make-up, paste jewellery and lush hair – and at the junctions, stern policemen eyed them from behind dark glasses as they halted traffic to let the crowds pass.

  Traditional music from the PA system set
a buoyant mood, and from time to time Dino broke into a dance, skipping a few cross-steps of a syrtos, circling and slapping his heel in a zembekiko. His casual appearance made him conspicuous, and he made himself more so by clutching at the hands of passing girls, paying fawning compliments to shapely beauties in high heels.

  ‘Take care,’ said the fat man, as another girl snatched away the fingers Dino had tried to kiss. ‘You’ll regret your disrespect when one of them slaps your face.’

  ‘They’re the ones I like,’ said Dino. ‘The fiery ones.’

  ‘But fiery girls often have fiery relatives in the wings. Don’t make trouble here, Dino. I haven’t come here to bring trouble.’

  They found the feast a kilometre away, on a hillside with a view over the town. The church of the Archangel Michael was an architect’s dismay, a mismatched confusion of domes, archways and stairs, awkwardly alloyed with outhouses and storerooms unused since its days as a monastery. The last monk had been laid in his courtyard tomb over fifty years before; today he was sharing his burial ground with a crowd.

  The fat man led Dino between the banqueting tables. Wherever there was a place to sit, people were eating. As they came close to the wine barrels, Dino caught the fat man’s arm.

  ‘Here we are, brother,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and get us a drink.’

  The fat man looked over to where the grandmothers were handing out carafes; too busy to drink themselves, they seemed the only ones at the gathering entirely sober. Papa Kostas had found a chair beside them, and, ruddy-faced, raised his glass to everyone who came near. The petite woman who had been talking to Marianna Kapsis was filling the carafes, taking care not to lose any wine through the dribbling barrel taps.

  ‘It will be impossible to find seats in here,’ said the fat man. ‘Find us a place outside, and I’ll bring you a plate.’

  The fat man took a while to review what was on offer: full-bodied stews with pasta and potatoes; buttery-crusted pies of feta, greens and dill; pan-fried keftedes of octopus, cheese and beef; crisp bourekakia of shrimps, and baked peppers brimming with rice. But most tempting of all was the kleftiko. The heads from seven of the carcasses were gone, handed out as favours to officials; the meat – which fell from the bones and left them clean – was being sliced and plated by men in women’s aprons, whilst others handed out bread baked in olive-wood ovens, and tzatziki so spiced with garlic, it burned the tongue.