–
Brettos was in a district of touristy Athenian backstreets called Plaka, and from the outside unremarkable; inside, the whole back wall was a virtual skyscraper of brightly lit liquor bottles and, given its proximity to the Acropolis, it felt like the world’s most ancient bar. It was easy to imagine Aristotle and Archimedes drinking ice-cold martinis there in search of the final, clear simplicity of an alcoholic aphorism after a hard day of philosophical debate.
Seated on a high stool at a marble counter beneath a brandy barrel, Arthur Meissner’s lawyer, Dr. Papakyriakopoulos, was a shrewd-looking man in his thirties, with a neat mustache, dark marsupial eyes, and a profile like an urgent signpost. Lieutenant Leventis made the introductions and then discreetly withdrew, leaving me and Garlopis to order a round and to make the case for a meeting with Arthur Meissner at the court where he was being tried or at Averoff Prison, where he was being held on remand. Leventis said he’d wait for us at the café across the narrow street. The Greek lawyer listened politely while I quickly outlined my mission. Sipping a drink that looked and smelled more medicinal than alcoholic, he lit a small cigar and then, patiently, explained his client’s situation, in perfect English:
“My client is of no importance in the scheme of things,” he said. “This is the whole basis of his defense. That he was nobody.”
“Is that nobody like Odysseus was nobody? To trick the cyclops? Or nobody in a more existential sense? In other words, was he a cunning nobody or a modest, indefinite nobody?”
“You’re a German, Herr Ganz? Which were you?”
Dr. Papakyriakopoulos was Greek but he was still the kind of lawyer I disliked most: the slippery kind. As slippery as an otter with a live fish in its paws.
“That’s a good question. The former, I’d say. It certainly took a lot of cunning for me to stay alive while the Nazis were in power. And just as much afterward.”
“In Arthur Meissner’s case he was the sort of existential nobody that you describe, Herr Ganz. If you ever met my client you would see a simple man incapable of stratagem. You would meet a man who took no decisions, did not offer counsel, committed no crimes, was never a member of a right-wing organization, was not an anti-Semite, and had little or no knowledge of anything other than what was said to him in German and which he was obliged to simultaneously translate into Greek, nothing of which he remembers now. I imagine Mr. Garlopis here would tell you that with simultaneous translation it’s often impossible to keep any memory of the translations you made just a few minutes ago.”
“Oh, that’s very true, sir,” said Garlopis. “Unless one keeps notes, of course. I myself often kept notes to assist with simultaneous translations. But I always threw those away afterwards. The handwriting is all but illegible even to me sometimes, such is the speed with which one is obliged to write.”
“There you are,” said Dr. Papakyriakopoulos. “Straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. I could have used you in court the other day, Mr. Garlopis. As an expert witness. The fact is that for most of the occupation period when my client was employed by the Nazis he had no real acquaintance with the men for whom he was translating other than the fact that they wore Nazi uniforms and had the power of life and death over all Greek citizens, including him, of course. In short, he is a scapegoat for the failings of the Greek nation then and now. For Arthur Meissner to admit that he knew this German whom Lieutenant Leventis is looking for might prejudice his defense. He was just obeying orders and hoping to stay alive, and any evidence of his criminality has, so far, turned out to be little more than circumstantial or worse still, worthless hearsay. Nevertheless, he is a loyal Greek citizen, and I will put it to him tomorrow that you are willing to help him. It may be that he agrees to meet you, and it may be that he does not. But might I ask, what is your interest here?”
“The lieutenant seems to think that as a German I have a moral duty to assist the police with their inquiry. I’m not so sure about that, to be honest. I work for an insurance company but before the war I was a policeman. I came to Greece to adjust an insurance claim made by a German policy holder called Siegfried Witzel. Witzel was found murdered earlier today in circumstances that lead Leventis to suppose that his death may be connected with a murder that took place during the war, and also with the recent murder of an Athenian lawyer.”
“Dr. Samuel Frizis.”
“Yes. Did you know him?”
“Quite well.”
“If I assist Leventis with his murder investigation—if I can persuade Arthur Meissner to talk to me, for instance, in confidence—then he may be prepared to speak up in court for your client.”
“Samuel Frizis was a friend of mine. We were at law school together. Naturally I should like to see his murderer caught. This puts a different complexion on the matter under discussion. He’s a decent man, Stavros Leventis. An idealist. But what kind of a policeman were you, may I ask?”
“A detective. I was a commissar with the Berlin Criminal Police.”
“At the risk of being facetious, all the German police who were in Greece seem to have been criminals. That was certainly my client’s experience.”
“There’s some truth in that, yes.”
“I’m glad you say so.” He sipped his ouzo and seemed to catch the eye of a woman carrying a briefcase who was standing in the open doorway like a cat, wondering if she should come in or not. She looked worth catching, too, and not just her eye. “I read a lot of German history, Herr Ganz. I’m fascinated with this whole period, and not just because of this case. Correct me if I’m wrong but it’s my information that the Berlin Criminal Police came under the control of the Reich Main Security Office in 1939. That you were in effect under the control of members of the SS. And that you often worked in conjunction with members of the Gestapo. Is that right?” He paused. “If I sound curious about this it’s because I like to know exactly who I’m dealing with. And exactly how they might be of assistance in mounting an effective defense. For example, it’s also my information that many members of Kripo were operationally obliged to become members of the SD. In other words, when you were put into uniform, you were only obeying orders. Much like my client.”
“Take a walk, would you?” I asked Garlopis.
“A walk? But I haven’t finished my drink. Oh, I see. Yes, of course, sir.” Garlopis stood up awkwardly. “I’ll wait in that café across the street, with Lieutenant Leventis.”
Garlopis went out of the bar looking like a sheepish schoolboy who had been told to play somewhere else. I told myself I was going to have to make it up to him later.
“You’re well informed, Dr.—” I shook my head. “I don’t think I’ll even try to pronounce your name.”
“I try to be. Where did you see active service? It wasn’t Greece, I’ll be bound. If you’d been here you’d hardly have come back.”
“France, the Ukraine, Russia. But not Greece, no. I wasn’t a Party member, you understand. And I think you’re right. Germany behaved abominably in this country. The man Leventis is looking for—the one who committed a murder during the war—he was also in the SD. That’s why Leventis thinks I can help.”
“Set a fox to catch a fox, eh?”
“Something like that. If I’m leveling with you now it’s so you know that I’ll do the same with Arthur Meissner.”
“Well, I appreciate your honesty. And as I said, I’m very keen to help catch the murderer of Samuel Frizis. Although connecting it with a murder that took place during the occupation looks like a much more difficult task. After all, there were so many.”
“True, but there’s no doubt in my mind or his that catching this particular fox would take a great deal of the heat off your client. Not to say all of it.”
“Interesting idea.” Dr. Papakyriakopoulos nodded at the woman in the doorway, who seemed to have been awaiting his permission, and she came inside the bar.
“What kind of a lawyer was he?” I asked.
“He was my friend. But he wasn’t a good lawyer. To be precise, he was the kind of lawyer who gives lawyers a bad name. The rich, cut-corners kind of lawyer who was much more interested in money than in justice. And not above a bit of bribery.”
“The kind of bribery that might go wrong if it didn’t work?”
“Enough to get him killed, you mean? I don’t know. Perhaps. I suppose it would depend on the size of the bribe.”
“Any German connections?”
“Like me, he didn’t speak a word of it. And he lived in Athens all his life.”
“But how could he do that? He was a Jew, wasn’t he?”
“Someone hid him, for almost two years. There was a lot of that here in Greece. Jews were never unpopular until more recently, when our governments started to become much more right-wing. This new fellow we’ve got now, Karamanlis, is a populist who talks about Greece’s European destiny, whatever that is. He sees himself as the Greek version of your Chancellor Adenauer.”
The woman who’d come into the bar approached us, and Dr. Papakyriakopoulos got off his stool, kissed her on both cheeks, spoke in Greek with her for a minute or two, and then introduced us.
“Herr Ganz, this is Miss Panatoniou. She’s also a lawyer, albeit one who works for a government ministry. Elli, Herr Ganz is an insurance man, from Germany.”
“Pleased to meet you, Herr Ganz.”
She said this in German I think but I hardly noticed because it seemed to my eyes that she reached into me with hers and strolled around the inside of my head for a while picking up things that didn’t belong to her and generally handling all there was to find. Not that I minded very much. I’m generally inclined to let curious women behave exactly how they want when they’re riffling through the drawers and closets of my mind. Then again, this was probably just my imagination, which always slips into overdrive when a voluptuously attractive woman in her thirties gets near my passenger seat. I shook her hand. And the two spoke some more in Greek before Papakyriakopoulos came back to me in English.
“Well, look, it was good to meet you, Herr Ganz. And I’ll certainly speak to my client about what you have proposed. Where are you staying?”
“At the Mega.”
Clearly he wanted Miss Panatoniou all to himself, and I couldn’t blame him for that. Every part of her was perfectly defined. Each haunch, each shoulder, each leg, and each breast. She reminded me of a diagram in a butcher’s shop window—one of those maps concerning which cut comes from where, and I felt hungry just looking at the poor woman. I finished my drink and quickly went outside before I was tempted to take a bite of her.
Garlopis had gone to fetch the Oldsmobile and, after a brief talk with the lieutenant, during which I agreed that he should look after my passport and he agreed not to arrest me for a while, I hailed a cab back to the hotel. Unlike Berlin taxi drivers, who never want to take you anywhere, Greek taxi drivers were always full of good ideas as to where they might drive you after they’d cut through the knotty problem of delivering you to your stated destination. This one suggested that he should drive me to the Temple of Zeus, where he would wait and then drive me back to the hotel, and maybe come back for me again later on and take me to a nightclub called Sarantidis, on Ithakis Street, where I could be entertained by some lovely ladies for a very special price. Unreasonably, he thought, I declined his kind invitation and went back to the Mega, where I took a much-needed bath and called up the Athenian telephone number on Fischer’s business card—80227—but it was out of order. At least that’s what I think the Greek operator was saying to me. After some time in Greece I’d decided that it wasn’t just the Trojan War that had lasted ten years but Homer’s telling the story of it, too.