A small scrabbling sound caught his attention: the little one, Ioannes, with his bruised head and eyes wide as plates, staring not at his murdered brother but at Elias. There was no determining how much he had seen and heard, and he was now a problem. A witness against the captain, to any number of parties. The last male of his family, and thus the certain carrier of a blood feud. Logic dictated an obvious course. Fotis would not hesitate, but he was not Fotis.
He ushered the child out into the sunlight, where he began shivering uncontrollably. Then Elias went back inside and wrapped the painting in the old sheepskin jacket in which it had been carried to this place. Kosta stared blindly at heaven. The captain settled for closing the dead man’s eyes.
“I will come back for your brother,” Elias told the boy when he stepped back outside, the parcel under his arm. “I will not leave him here.”
The boy said nothing, stared off into space, though the shivering had receded somewhat.
“Walk,” said the captain, and they started down the hillside together. When they reached the trail, Elias looked south. He would have to go that way soon, but one more detour detained him. The boy must be put somewhere, and he thought he knew the place. Still, he lingered a moment, staring south, his mind traveling to Katarini. His village. Some way or another word would get out of what he and Fotis had done, and it would be his village no longer. He would have to leave then, and probably never return. It made no difference. His life would be in Athens after they drove the Germans out, provided the communists did not get it. He could not expect others to see the necessity of what he did. The world was full of small men, and yet it made him sad. Generations of his ancestors had lived here. His father’s bones lay in that village, and now his brother’s would as well. But not his own, never his own.
Captain Elias shook these thoughts from his mind, took the boy by the shoulders, and turned him north.
18
SPRING 2000
The tables around them in the cramped airport bar were empty. No one would know what to make of such an odd tale in any case, Matthew figured. He had not wasted the opportunity of Andreas’ coming to Kennedy to meet his flight, but had dragged the old man to the nearest quiet spot available and demanded whatever part of the story he was still missing.
“The exchange went off?”
Andreas sipped his ginger ale before answering.
“Yes. Stefano delivered the message. Müller was willing to make the deal, even then. The soldier we killed at the church meant nothing to him, he was gathering his riches. Many of the German officers were doing the same. Merten, the one in charge of Salonika, sank fifty cases of stolen Jewish gold off Kalamata, thinking he would retrieve it after the war.”
“I read about that.”
“Müller wasn’t after gold. Art, especially religious art, was his calling. He had heard about the icon somewhere, from his father most likely. Art theft was a family tradition. I learned this later, when I was hunting him. He had himself stationed in Greece just to find it. Between Göring, the art lover, and the Nazi obsession with the occult, I imagine the story of a painting with supernatural powers got him some attention. Maybe one of them even sent him to retrieve it, a birthday present for the Führer, what do you think?”
The old man’s tone was cynical, but Matthew felt the depth of his suspicion and disgust, felt a chill enter his own body. Was such a guess really so outlandish?
“Epiros was in the Italian occupation zone,” Andreas continued, “so Müller had to bide his time. Even once the Germans came in, there were all those villages in all those hills. Needle in a haystack, you say, yes? Greeks love to gossip, but no one could tell him the truth about the Holy Mother. Many villages had old icons, all of them liked to claim theirs was the famous one. Nobody knew where our icon had gone. After we beat back the Italians, before the Germans attacked, my brother had it walled up in a secret space near the altar, behind the iconostásis. A good spot. Only Mikalis, the carpenter, and I knew where it was.”
“Not Fotis?”
“No. That is why he had to come to me. Müller understood the political split among the guerrillas. The communists were strongest, so contacts developed between the Germans and the other groups. We were fighting them, too, especially in Epiros where that fat-assed Zervas commanded the republicans. But mostly Zervas was watching the communists, watching the royalists, whom he hated even more, until he made peace with them. As the war went on, and we knew the Germans would leave soon, everyone started to think about postwar politics.”
“Including you.”
“Yes. I was a republican at heart, didn’t give a damn about the king. I wanted a president, like in America. But your godfather and I served the government-in-exile, and that made us royalists. Better royalists, better anyone than the communists. Fotis and I agreed on that, and at a certain point it became the focus of our thinking. We fought the Germans, though, killed many, lost good men. Watched villages burn. My people fought.”
The old man sipped at his small glass again and seemed to go far away.
“So Müller came to you.”
“To Fotis. Fotis was our regional commander. He is from Epiros, too, from Ioannina, and went to Athens for training years before me. He was already an instructor when I got there. A very clever fellow, and strong, hardened in some way, as I wanted to be. We were Patriótis, so of course we became friends. I’m sorry, you know all of this already?”
“Most, but go ahead.”
“After the Germans cut off our army, we volunteered to go back to Epiros. The government was leaving Athens, and men were going out to every region to organize. Most never made it. The resistance sprang up locally, on its own, and the communists did the best job. Fotis and I worked with the British, brought letters and gold to Zervas. Can you believe it, they had to pay him to fight? Even then he delayed. Fotis was patient, but I needed something to do. The men from my area had formed a guerrilla group, and I joined. They lost their captain, and chose me to lead them.”
“You were very young for that.”
“Older than most. I had been in the army, and my father led guerrillas against the Turks, years before. That meant a lot to them, fathers, grandfathers. As if a hero could not father a drunken sot, or the other way around. Anyway, Müller contacted Fotis. Two men of the world. The icon for guns. Fotis persuaded me to go along with it. We needed weapons, ours were old and poor. Zervas was stockpiling what the English gave him, and we didn’t even know whose side he would be on in the end. The icon had vanished as far as anyone knew. To me, it already seemed a sort of…mythological creature. I was a modern man.”
Andreas’ words were sour, and Fotis’ defense echoed in Matthew’s mind. How could it have been my plan? To burn a church? To trade a work of such holy love and beauty? His godfather always told a lie with a piece of the truth. It was how he managed to be so convincing.
“Burning the church was Stamatis’ idea,” said Matthew.
“Yes.”
“And Fotis never meant to give the icon to the German.” He spoke the thoughts as soon as they came to him, as if translating for his unconscious. “The whole thing was an excuse for him to find out where it was. To get you to tell him. For all you know, it was he who approached Müller, and not the other way around.”