The Messenger of Athens: A Novel by Anne Zouroudi Read Free Book Online Page A

ambitious. He was keen to impress the new man with his local knowledge.
    “I can tell you about her,” he said. “When she was still on the mainland, my brother’s friend’s brother knew her. He knew the family very well.”
    The Chief of Police took Lizardis by the arm, and pulled him behind the wooden flanks of a beached boat.
    “No one will overhear, here,” he said. “How
well
did this guy know her?”
    Lizardis shrugged.
    “He was posted close by her village for his National Service. There was some family connection, so he went visiting from time to time. He made a move on her, once. He didn’t get anywhere.”
    “No finesse, then,” said the Chief of Police. “A woman like that wants careful handling.”
    Lizardis shook his head.
    “It wasn’t that. She was engaged to someone else. At least, there was an understanding. Whether they’d exchanged rings or not, I don’t know. But the family wasn’t happy: the fiancé had gypsy blood, on his mother’s side. He went away, to make his fortune in Australia. The way I heard it, her family paid his ticket to get him out of the way. He was gone a long time—years—with her sitting at home, waiting for the call to go and join him. But when the call came, it was from his sister, saying he was marrying someone else. Well, they didn’t let her know it, of course, but the family was over the moon, because all this time they’d had someone suitable lined up, someone she wouldn’t even look at. So when they knew the gypsy was out of the running, straight away they went paying their respects to their groom-in-waiting. They were all ready to go to the priest and get the banns read. Happy ever after.”
    “Groom-in-waiting? You mean the guy she’s married to now?”
    Lizardis shook his head.
    “It got complicated. True or not, rumors went about that she and the gypsy had been more than friends before he left.”
    “You mean he’d been screwing her?”
    “That’s what people said. So then the family’s choice pulled out. Soiled goods. She was high and dry and not getting any younger. There was a big family conference,and they settled on Asimakopoulos. He was in the market for a wife. Old man Nikos here introduced him to the family.”
    “Not exactly made in heaven, then, this marriage?” The Chief of Police’s voice was hopeful.
    “He’s a decent guy.”
    “But she’s been around, hasn’t she? And if she likes those gypsies, maybe there’s some hot blood there, just waiting for the right hot-blooded man…”
    Lizardis’s face showed doubt.
    “He wasn’t a full-blooded gypsy,” he said. “The gypsy blood was generations back. And my brother’s friend’s brother didn’t get anything from her except a slapped face.”
    “Even so,” the Chief of Police clapped Lizardis on the back, “we have to start somewhere, do we not?”
    They crossed the beach and made their way to the café, where Nikos sat, waiting, at his table.
    “Chief of Police,” said Nikos, “good morning to you. And Stellios, how are you?”
    Nikos’s smile was broad. The Chief of Police was always welcome, at Nikos’s café; Nikos had a particular interest in him. He had observed about Zafiridis a tenseness, and a watchfulness, which his newness to the job, and to the place, could not explain. The Chief of Police, suspected Nikos, was not quite what he seemed: he was a man with something to hide, some secret he would not want to see revealed. There was a challenge there, which could be met; if played carefully, if lulled and wooed, the Chief might make a slip. A man with secrets—a man wholied—was always vulnerable to error; a man with secrets who held high office was a pigeon ripe for plucking.
    Nikos offered them the best of his dubious chairs. Zafiridis, sitting back from the table, crossed one foot over his knee. Above his short, beige sock, the flesh of his calf was pallid, and sparsely covered with feeble, dark hairs; amongst them ran the tail-end of a knotty vein,