The Doctor of Thessaly Read online

  The silence persisted. Evangelia ran a little water into the ouzo, turning it from clear to milky pale, and placed the tumbler on the counter. The fat man rose from his seat to fetch it; back at his table, he took a sip and gave a nod of satisfaction.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Forgive me, gentlemen, for interrupting your conversation. Perhaps you’ll allow me to buy you a drink, by way of apology.’ The postmaster paused in putting a lighter to his cigarette; the elderly man reached into his pocket for his tobacco. ‘Evangelia! Put drinks on my bill for these gentlemen.’

  The grocer raised his half-empty beer glass to the fat man.

  ‘Thank you, friend,’ he said. ‘Your health.’

  ‘And yours,’ said the fat man, placing his own cigarettes and gold lighter on the table. Then, holding out first his right foot, then his left, he inspected his shoes by the light of the unshaded bulb above him, and, unzipping his holdall, took out a bottle of shoe-whitener. As the four men watched bemused, he shook the bottle, removed the cap and dabbed whitener first on one shoe, then the other, until, satisfied his footwear was at its best, he re-capped the bottle, tucked it into his bag, zipped up the bag and leaned back in his chair to take another swallow of ouzo.

  Evangelia had been breaking eggs into a bowl, and the fat man’s performance had stolen her attention. Now she pointed with a fork towards the grocer.

  ‘You see,’ she said, ‘here’s a man who knows how to take care of himself. Some of you could learn a great deal from – I’m sorry, kyrie, your name escapes me.’

  ‘Diaktoros,’ said the fat man, directing his reply towards the men. ‘Hermes Diaktoros, of Athens.’

  ‘An Athenian amongst us!’ said the elderly man. As he spoke, he pulled strands of tobacco from his pouch and pressed them with his forefinger into his pipe-bowl; the action seemed to demand all his attention, so his eyes stayed on his pipe and didn’t meet the fat man’s. ‘And what line are you in, kyrie, that brings you here amongst us bumpkins?’

  ‘Bumpkins?’ asked the fat man, in surprise. ‘Are you bumpkins? Had I known, I would have brought a notebook to take notes; the anthropologist in me can’t resist the study of new species. I had taken you for men, pure and simple. If I was wrong, forgive me.’

  The elderly man put his pipe to his lips and the flame of a match to the bowl, and sucked on the stem with little popping sounds; as smoke rose from the pipe, he said no more, but a smile touched the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Are you an anthropologist, then?’ asked the postmaster.

  The fat man seemed to consider.

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes,’ he said, ‘in that the knowledge and prediction of the habits and behaviour of men forms an important base to my work. Let us say I am part anthropologist, part investigator.’

  Behind the counter, a pan sizzled as Evangelia slipped beaten eggs into hot oil.

  ‘An investigator?’ asked the man with thinning hair. ‘And what are you investigating amongst us?’

  ‘My business is the blinding of your doctor.’

  ‘You’re a policeman, then. If you’re a policeman, why not say so?’

  The fat man laughed.

  ‘I’m no policeman,’ he said. ‘There’s no police force in this country that’d take me. They find my methods – unorthodox. No, you are quite wrong. My employers are based in Athens, but their interests are wide ranging.’

  ‘Wide ranging indeed, to reach so far as this. Are the police not investigating the assault, then?’

  ‘I think you’ll find the doctor has not reported it. He doesn’t wish to press charges.’

  ‘I see,’ said the thin-haired man. ‘So he’s wanting to sue. There’ll be a suit for damages, before summer’s out – and I assume you are the man hired to make his case. Is that what you’re about – a private investigation, on his behalf?’

  The fat man regarded him intently.

  ‘I see you have an inquiring mind yourself,’ he said. ‘But the true skill in investigation is to answer your own questions by observation. That’s an art I have spent many years perfecting. Are you a betting man, kyrie? Would you like a small wager with me? Though I warn you, if we’re betting, it will have to be worthwhile. Here’s what I’ll wager.’ From the little finger of his right hand, he removed a ring – a plain band set with an unusual coin, stamped with a rising sun on one side and a young man in profile on the other. He laid the ring before him on the table, where it shone with the glow of old gold. ‘This antiquity was a gift from my mother. You can see, I hope, that it has considerable value. Do you have anything to wager against it?’

  Pulling a half-clean plate from the sink of dirty water and rinsing it under the tap, Evangelia watched with interest.

  The thin-haired man laughed, nervously.

  ‘You’re cavalier with a gift from your mother,’ he said. ‘Most men would respect such a gift.’

  ‘Oh, I do respect it,’ said the fat man. ‘But I respect my own abilities, too. I am 100 per cent confident that I can beat you at this game.’

  ‘You haven’t said yet,’ put in the pipe-smoker, ‘what the game is.’

  Evangelia slid the omelette on to the plate and arranged a sliced tomato along its edge.

  ‘Don’t get carried away, Dr Dinos,’ she called out. ‘Don’t bet more than you can afford to lose.’

  The fat man looked with interest at the pipe-smoker.

  ‘Another doctor,’ he said. ‘This town seems overflowing with them.’

  ‘I am no longer practising.’

  ‘Perhaps today’s misfortune will persuade you from retirement. The wager is, that you can ask me any question about any of the men here, and I can answer it correctly.’

  At this, the men all smiled like conspirators. The grocer nudged the doctor, urging him to take the bet, whilst the postmaster felt in his pocket for what cash was there, keen to take such an easy bet himself.

  The fat man held up his hand.

  ‘But because I’m a fair man,’ he said, ‘I want first of all to demonstrate my skill. It would be unfair, after all, to ask you to bet on a horse you’ve never seen – though remarkably, men do so, every day. So let me show you. Who’ll volunteer to be my subject?’

  ‘Well,’ said Dr Dinos, picking a strand of tobacco from his tongue, ‘it seems your only candidate is Vangelis here.’ He pointed his pipe stem at the thin-haired man. ‘Evangelia has announced my profession to you. Apostolis I believe you have already met in the post office, and Lambis you know as our grocer. Vangelis is the only stranger to you; so let him be your subject. What can you tell us about him?’

  With narrowed eyes, the fat man regarded the man with thinning hair.

  ‘Well, Vangelis,’ he said. ‘Would you hold out your hands for me, please?’

  With reluctance, the man offered his palms to the fat man, as if he were to have his fortune told; his hands were small and pale, with the careful manicure of a woman.

  The fat man leaned forward, and, taking Vangelis’s fingertips in his own, turned his hands to see their backs, and then back to the palms.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the fat man, sitting back in his chair. ‘Your hands tell me a great deal about you. You are no manual labourer, for certain – though it seems to me your work is, to an extent, with your hands. A man of science, perhaps. And you wear no wedding ring, so I know you are unmarried.’

  There was silence, until the postmaster gave a bark of laughter.

  ‘There’s no detective work there!’ he said. ‘Any fool could take a lucky guess, and say as much. With hands like those, it’s obvious he’s no bricklayer. Take the bet, Vangelis!’

  But the other three, thinking of the fat man’s reference to science, seemed doubtful.

  ‘Shall I give you a little more, then?’ asked the fat man, smiling round at them. ‘Vangelis is not unmarried, he’s widowed, and the sad event of his wife’s death was clouded by the circumstances – an accident involving falling masonry, which has left him a victim of suspi
cion, and has made him bitter.’ He held Vangelis’s eyes with his own. ‘But the authorities know of your innocence, Vangelis; your name is clear, and though you and your wife were not ideally suited, and your escape from the marriage was not entirely unwelcome, you grieve for her in your way.’

  Vangelis was about to take a drink, but froze with his beer glass only halfway to his mouth. A flush of deep red spread across his face.

  ‘We were talking, just a moment ago, about doctors,’ went on the fat man, ‘and it is your lifelong regret not to have followed that profession. Sadly, you didn’t make the grade, and so have had to content yourself with being a pharmacist, which you have always seen as second best. But your business does well, and your services are much needed. I think you’re more appreciated than you think.’ He smiled, and crossed his hands over his stomach. ‘Well, gentlemen? What will you bet?’

  From behind the counter, Evangelia waddled across to his table and laid his omelette before him, along with a basket of bread. There was cutlery in the basket; the knife blade bore small flecks of a previous diner’s food.

  She wished the fat man kali orexi – good digestion – and turned to the other table.

  ‘He’s very good, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘He’s summed you up, Vangelis, in a nutshell.’

  Frowning, Dr Dinos held up his empty glass.

  ‘Whisky,’ he said, shortly.

  ‘You’re a government man,’ said the grocer, accusingly. ‘Only a government man could know these things.’

  As the flush receded from Vangelis’s face, he drank what remained of his beer, and, handing his glass to Evangelia to be refilled, stood up from the table and disappeared through a door marked WC.

  The fat man covered his ring with the palm of his hand, and pushed it across the table towards the grocer.

  ‘Come, take the bet,’ he said, quietly. With the ring at the edge of the table where the three men remaining could see it clearly, he uncovered it; but no longer lusting after it, they shrank back both from the ring and from the fat man, who now addressed the doctor. ‘You, Mr Mayor. How about you? You have cash in your pocket, I’m sure, and money in the bank.’

  ‘Why do you call him mayor?’ asked the postmaster, flicking a length of ash from the end of his fresh cigarette. ‘You met our mayor this morning: young Petridis.’

  The fat man smiled.

  ‘The usurper,’ he said. ‘A mere boy, almost, who displaced Dr Dinos here after – how long in office, yiatre? Fifteen years, sixteen? And the boy’s moving mountains! How galling to see what’s been possible in so short a time.’

  Dr Dinos took his pipe from his mouth.

  ‘There wasn’t that kind of money about when I took office,’ said the doctor. ‘These grants are a new invention. He’ll blow himself out, before long. The bureaucracy will clip his wings.’

  ‘Perhaps it will and perhaps it won’t,’ said the fat man. ‘Perhaps his commitment to doing real good in the community will keep him airborne. Too many in public office are there for prestige or to line their own pockets.’

  ‘We did many good things for this community,’ said the postmaster.

  ‘Did you, Councillor? Forgive me – ex-Councillor. Well, no matter, now. You have an excellent man in your new mayor. You’ll be there, no doubt, to honour him when the minister visits?’

  Evangelia brought full glasses to the table. As she picked up a few more emptied bean pods, the pharmacist slipped back into his chair.

  ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ said the postmaster. ‘Your health.’

  And, as one man, the four of them clinked their glasses in the toast.

  Upstairs, the fat man’s room was cold. From the head of the bed, the view was of objects kept in permanent storage: dusty boxes tied up with string, a wicker carpet beater with broken struts, an antique typewriter with keys marked in the Roman alphabet. The seat of the bedside armchair had been chewed by mice, which might – from the droppings under the seat – still be in residence. Beside the bed, Evangelia had cleared space to lay a faded kilim, whose once-rich patterns were faded and eaten by moths. The weak light from a frilly shaded lamp flickered, and the plug crackled in its socket; the casing of the wires was damaged by the gnawing of rodents.

  The bed was narrow, with springs which creaked whenever the fat man moved; the mattress was too thin for any comfort. He turned out the lamp, and stripes of light from the room beneath shone through the floorboards. For a while, he shifted from his side to his back, and to his other side, trying to find a position where he was comfortable; but every movement caused squeaking in the bed-springs, and so the best option seemed to be to lie quite still and wait for sleep to find him.

  When he was quiet, others were not. Amongst the dusty boxes, clawed feet ran. And in the kafenion below, four men, slightly drunk, talked too loudly.

  ‘The whole town there, the newspapers and television and – what? – no minister.’ They laughed: a head-back, back-slapping, whisky-inflated laugh.

  ‘What will he do?’

  ‘What can he do?’

  ‘You should step in! Prepare a speech!’

  Upstairs, the fat man lay quite still, trying to identify each speaker.

  ‘There’ll be no speech from me. I shall be enjoying his humiliation from a suitable distance.’

  Then, a woman’s voice.

  ‘Well, I feel sorry for him,’ said Evangelia. ‘The time

  he’s given to this town, and all he’s done preparing for this visit!’

  ‘He’s a gullible fool, then, and an arrogant one! Only a fool would believe the Minister of Public Works would have time for us!’

  ‘He should know men like that have no time for backwaters like this! There aren’t enough votes here to make any difference to a minister’s career!’

  ‘Why do you call him arrogant?’ asked Evangelia. ‘He didn’t invite the man. You wrote and announced his visit. The letter looked genuine. He was proud to receive it. He showed it to me himself.’

  ‘The stationery is genuine enough. Friends in high places.’

  ‘Then it’s not arrogance to believe in the letter, is it?’

  ‘Hush your noise, woman! Gentlemen, another drink before we go?’

  But the others demurred. As they rose to leave, their chairs scraped on the marble tiles.

  ‘Well, I think it’ll be fine entertainment,’ said one of them.

  ‘Nothing to see won’t be much entertainment, will it?’ persisted Evangelia. ‘You’ve a strange idea of entertainment if you think that’ll amuse people. And if you’ve such influence in high places, why didn’t you persuade the minister actually to come? You’ve no friends in high places, just friends in the minister’s stationery cupboard! And if it’s votes you’re thinking about, playing pranks on the whole town won’t win you any!’

  ‘Women know nothing about politics. If there aren’t any votes won, at least he’ll lose a few! There’ll be no more landslides in this town, will there, gentlemen?’

  Their talk died away into goodbyes and goodnights, and the door banged shut.

  The fat man closed his eyes, and as she locked the locks and barred the shutters, he heard Evangelia muttering to herself. But he didn’t hear her pour herself a nightcap of cheap cognac, or pour milk into a saucer for the cat, or check the mousetraps in the cupboards were all set. The day had been a long one, and, despite the creaking bed and hard pillow, the fat man drifted quickly into sleep.

  So he didn’t hear, either, the murmuring of a man’s voice as he asked her to sit by him; and he didn’t hear the striking of a match, as the man who hadn’t left put a flame to the bowl of his pipe.

  Nine

  The fat man bought his breakfast at the bakery, where the baker’s unsmiling wife slipped his two apple pies into a waxed paper bag. The fat man handed her a small banknote and invited her to keep the change; the woman, scowling, insisted he pay another thirty drachmas.

  Following a lane leading off the square, he bit into
one of the pastries, finding the filo crisp and buttery and the sweet fruit still warm from the oven. Deciding a pastry of such quality deserved his full attention, he took a seat on a bus-stop bench; and finishing the first pie quickly, started on the second.

  As he was eating, around the corner came an old man and a donkey which wore no saddle. The old man walked slowly, with one hand on a painful hip; but the donkey was lively and well ahead of the old man, so it seemed the donkey led the old man by its rope rather than the old man leading the donkey.

  The donkey grew close, its feet clipping on the road almost at a trot. The fat man swallowed the last bite of his apple pie, and touching the corners of his mouth to remove stray crumbs, stood up from the bench and called out to the old man.

  ‘Kali mera sas!’

  In reply, the old man – breathless with the effort of keeping up with the donkey – touched two fingers to the peak of his seaman’s cap.

  ‘Can you help me?’ the fat man called again. ‘I need directions to a certain house.’

  The old man stopped walking, and planting his feet firmly, hauled back on the halter with both hands.

  ‘Whoa!’ he said. ‘Whoa!’

  But the donkey, ignoring him, kept up its pace and pulled the old man into a stumble. Quickly, the fat man stepped up to the donkey, and putting a hand on its head-collar, held the animal firm. The donkey jerked its head and tried to shake him loose; but the fat man’s grip was immovable, and in a few moments, the donkey conceded and stood still.

  ‘This beast’s the very devil,’ said the old man. ‘She leads me such a dance!’ With each breath, he wheezed. ‘I can’t ride her, because I haven’t got it in me to get on her back, but she won’t be left behind. Everywhere I go, she has to come; and if I don’t take her with me, she uproots her tethering post and follows me like a hound. And if she can’t get loose, she brays and brays until the neighbours come to find me to make her stop. She’s too feisty for me, kyrie, too feisty and too young. Though if she were a woman, I wouldn’t complain.’