Chapter  14

The Chief of Police strode into the hotel like a gust of wind. He found him in the hall, terrified.

“Since your friends, Mr. Spathopoulos, are afraid that you’ve been kidnapped and are being tortured somewhere, the way it happens in gangster films, I beg you to accept my escort. Let’s go to the meeting together, because Mr. Z. keeps on making appeals over the loudspeaker.”

“This is a disgrace,” Spathopoulos protested. “Where are we? In Katanga?”

“The loudspeaker’s getting them excited.”

“Why don’t you disperse them? Why don’t you make them go away?”

“The operation of dispersal is already under way.”

As they moved along, Spathopoulos heard some policemen saying: “Go on, boys, tomorrow you can kill them. Move back.”

Then, as they entered the building, he heard:

“Is there some other exit maybe, so they could get away from us?”

“Bulgars, you’re going to die!”

“Z., you’re going to die!”

“But this is a disgrace,” Spathopoulos repeated more insistently. “Can’t you hear what they’re saying? Can’t you arrest them? What sort of a government is this?”

Then he passed through the iron gate and climbed to the third floor, where Z. was still speaking.