That country needs to pay.
NIKITAS TSOKAS, COMMUNIST, COUSIN OF ZOE (ZOUZOU) TSOKA
Enough is enough.
Those slippery bastards saddled us with too much, they crossed the line.
Crazy, cheating sons of bitches.
Our newspaper took a stance, came out against the accusation. Our press releases called it how it was.
They’d accused Gris, an opportunist who had joined our ranks for a while, though the Party spat him back out soon enough. We could tell he had no faith. He wasn’t working for the common good, he just wanted money. To buy food, that’s what he cared about. We have no use for guys like that.
Along with Gris, they accused two of our own. I know all about it, and I can tell you the charge was absurd. Neither of them was even in Greece when the murder took place, we said that right from the start, it was official. One wasn’t even alive. He’d been killed earlier, in a bombing. His name had been released along with the other names of the dead. The second guy had crossed over into Yugoslavia on orders from the boss. His job was to help out when any of our people headed that way. He spoke pretty good English, they had him up there to communicate with the foreigners.
Those fascist thugs said our guys pulled Gris into it, to work as an interpreter. No matter how you look at it, that story is full of holes. Why would they need him to interpret when our guy knew better English than he did? They just cooked up some charge to cover their tracks. They wanted to close the case, and it suited them just fine to call it a communist plot.
Of course the Texan was no angel himself. There were plenty of his type hanging around back then, journalists on the hunt for people in the Party. He was desperate to meet our General.
He came to see me in prison. Zoe brought him. They were newlyweds, the wedding bands glinted on their fingers. He told me who he knew, wanted me to arrange a meeting. He was quick-tempered and harebrained and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I bet his mother never taught him what no meant. He wanted to get his way, that’s what he cared about most. He handed out orders and threats like they were candy.
Whatever happened to him, he brought it on himself. Think about it: he put his life in the hands of extremists. Who knows what kind of people he was dealing with. The city papers called it a murder. We believe it was an execution.
Read his articles and you’ll see. Go track down his radio broadcasts. He called things by their names, didn’t sugarcoat anything. He called the government corrupt and inept. He made no bones about declaring the country’s elite responsible for the poverty of its people, and for the political violence. He was as upper-crust as they come, but he told things like they were.
And he didn’t spare his own, either. Did you see what he wrote about Truman? That he was uninterested in truly aiding the Greek economy and improving living conditions among the people of Greece. All President Truman cares about, Talas wrote, is squelching the uprising. And supporting the corrupt administration.
The Americans called him a communist. That’s ridiculous. He was as blind as the rest, even with the truth screaming right in his face. He wrote that the communists were barbarians who swept down from the north to conquer Greece. A child of propaganda, he sang the same tune they all did.
What with one thing and another, pretty soon he made himself unwelcome. To our people but also to his. No one wants a barking dog nipping at his feet.
The Brits had him in their sights, too, for criticizing their policy in the Middle East. He spooked the British diplomats, who were in league with the Americans and the fascists in our government.
How one person can make such a fuss, I don’t know.
He also didn’t hesitate to go head to head with Rimaris, the Minister of the Interior. In a private meeting in the minister’s office, he accused him of secretly — that is, illegally — sending money to a private bank account in New York. Talas was more or less insinuating that government money, from the American aid effort, had ended up in private pockets. The minister was furious. He threw Talas out of his office, but the damage had been done, word got around. Rimaris howled that his enemies were slinging mud on his name, that dark forces were planning his political demise, that it was all baseless accusations.
What can you do, word spread.
Twenty-five thousand dollars in a secret bank account, which Rimaris’s son, who was studying at Columbia, milked for all it was worth. The dollars flowed. Everything those guys own is stolen. Those Greek fat cats, the Rimarises and all the other money junkies, built their fortunes while others among us spat blood. And those others weren’t members of the ruling class, that’s for sure.
As for what they said about Tzitzilis, what he did and didn’t do, this is a small place, there are no strangers here. His guys spread a bunch of rumors, all bullshit. That he thought about retiring so as to avoid the case. That he considered suicide — as if a pig like him could have a conscience or self-respect. That he made a pilgrimage to the island of Tinos to pray for the Virgin’s guidance. That inspiration struck and he solved the case then and there.
Not even a child would believe that.
That’s why I’m telling you, use your brain a little.
The Americans, the Brits, and our government — one big fascist roadblock. Jack Talas was a nail in their eye. If they could shut him up, they’d all be better off.
WALLACE CHILLY, FORMERLY OF THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE
I design formal gardens and labyrinths. Here, take my card. I’ve worked for royalty, and for plenty among the peerage. I’m not a gardener, make no mistake, I’m not a manual laborer. I take great pride in my taste, and it’s something the better classes are willing to pay for. I turn their endless caprices into inspired designs.
I have a file with magazine clippings from all over the world. My gardens have been photographed many times, as examples of fine taste. In such a hideous age, it’s a form of consolation. Beauty, my dear, is what makes life bearable. It’s a discriminating choice, and not everyone shares my point of view.
As for the era you’re asking about, it’s now a distant, vicious past. I rarely think of it. It’s true, I worked for the Foreign Office. In those days we rushed headlong into the fire and didn’t think twice. We thought we would live forever. Youth. I have no nostalgia for it at all.
My position: I interrogated prisoners of war. I was head of the Interrogation Center attached to the British Consulate in Salonica. The Service considered me the best informed individual, among non-Greeks, concerning the Communist Party of Greece. I knew people, I knew what was happening. I handled crises. Even Americans and Europeans came to me if they wanted to track someone down, to talk to one of the rebel fighters.
Back then Salonica was a Balkan hole in the wall, filthy and disgusting. I certainly hope you don’t believe the locals’ ridiculous claims about how cosmopolitan the city was. They’re just trying to prettify a miserable, dreadful reality. The foreigners living there suffered, that was a fact. The streets stank, the food was suitable only for locals, the only entertainment to be found was at establishments of the lowest sort. You could perhaps tolerate the place for a certain stretch of time. But there was no high emotion to be had. Anyone looking for even a drop of civilization would search in vain.
As a British citizen I have a practical, empirical mind, I like to speak with examples. This case, for instance. Let me remind you that remains of a European dish, lobster with green peas, were found in the victim’s stomach. A Scottish dish, to be precise, meant to be accompanied by aged whiskey. Talas had wine — I wouldn’t have expected more from that Texan orangutan.