The Mask of Dimitrios

In the early hours of an August morning in 1922, the Turkish Nationalist Army under the command of Mustafa Kemal Pasha attacked the centre of the Greek army at Dumlu Punar on the plateau two hundred miles west of Smyrna. By the following morning, the Greek army had broken and was in headlong retreat towards Smyrna and the sea. In the days that followed, the retreat became a rout. Unable to destroy the Turkish army, the Greeks turned with frantic savagery to the business of destroying the Turkish population in the path of their flight. From Alashehr to Smyrna they burnt and slaughtered. Not a village was left standing. Amid the smouldering ruins the pursuing Turks found the bodies of the villagers. Assisted by the few half-crazed Anatolian peasants who had survived, they took their revenge on the Greeks they were able to overtake. To the bodies of the Turkish women and children were added the mutilated carcasses of Greek stragglers. But the main Greek army had escaped by sea. Their lust for infidel blood still unsatisfied, the Turks swept on. On the ninth of September, they occupied Smyrna.

For a fortnight, refugees from the oncoming Turks had been pouring into the city to swell the already large Greek and Armenian populations. They had thought that the Greek army would turn and defend Smyrna. But the Greek army had fled. Now they were caught in a trap. The holocaust began.

The register of the Armenian Asia Minor Defence League had been seized by the occupying troops, and, on the night of the tenth, a party of regulars entered the Armenian quarters to find and kill those whose names appeared on the register. The Armenians resisted and the Turks ran amok. The massacre that followed acted like a signal. Encouraged by their officers, the Turkish troops descended next day upon the non-Turkish quarters of the city and began systematically to kill. Dragged from their houses and hiding places, men, women and children were butchered in the streets which soon became littered with mutilated bodies. The wooden walls of the churches, packed with refugees, were drenched with benzine and fired. The occupants who were not burnt alive were bayoneted as they tried to escape. In many parts looted houses had also been set on fire and now the flames began to spread.

At first, attempts were made to isolate the blaze. Then, the wind changed, blowing the fire away from the Turkish quarter, and further outbreaks were started by the troops. Soon, the whole city, with the exception of the Turkish quarter and a few houses near the Kassamba railway station, was burning fiercely. The massacre continued with unabated ferocity. A cordon of troops was drawn round the city to keep the refugees within the burning area. The streams of panic-stricken fugitives were shot down pitilessly or driven back into the inferno. The narrow, gutted streets became so choked with corpses that, even had the would-be rescue parties been able to endure the sickening stench that arose, they could not have passed along them. Smyrna was changed from a city into a charnel-house. Many refugees had tried to reach ships in the inner harbour. Shot, drowned, mangled by propellers, their bodies floated hideously in the blood-tinged water. But the quayside was still crowded with those trying frantically to escape from the blazing waterfront, buildings toppling above them a few yards behind. It was said that the screams of these people were heard a mile out at sea. Giaur Izmir – infidel Smyrna – had atoned for its sins.

By the time that dawn broke on the fifteenth of September, over one hundred and twenty thousand persons had perished; but somewhere amidst that horror had been Dimitrios, alive.

As, sixteen years later, his train drew into Smyrna, Latimer came to the conclusion that he was being a fool. It was not a conclusion that he had reached hastily or without weighing carefully all the available evidence. It was a conclusion that he disliked exceedingly. Yet there were two hard facts that were inescapable. In the first place, he might have asked Colonel Haki for assistance in gaining access to the records of the court martial and confession of Dhris Mohammed, and had not been able to think of a reasonable excuse for doing so. In the second place, he knew so little Turkish that, even assuming that he could gain access to the records without Colonel Haki’s help, he would be unable to read them. To have set out at all on this fantastic and slightly undignified wild goose chase was bad enough. To have set out without, so to speak, a gun and ammunition with which to make the killing was crass idiocy. Had he not been installed within an hour of his arrival in an excellent hotel, had his room not possessed a very comfortable bed and a view across the gulf to the sun-drenched, khaki hills that lay beyond it, and, above all, had he not been offered a dry Martini by the French proprietor who greeted him, he would have abandoned his experiment in detection and returned forthwith to Istanbul. As it was… Dimitrios or no Dimitrios, he might as well see something of Smyrna now that he was in the place. He partly unpacked his suitcases.

It has been said that Latimer possessed a tenacious mind. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that he did not possess the sort of mental airlock system which enables its fortunate owner to dispose of problems merely by forgetting them. Latimer might banish the problem from his mind but it would soon return to nibble furtively at his consciousness. He would have an uneasy feeling that he had mislaid something without being quite sure what that something was. His thoughts would wander from the business in hand. He would find himself staring blankly into space until, suddenly, there was the problem, back again. Useless to reason that, as he himself had created it, he should, therefore, be able to destroy it. Useless to argue that it was futile and that the solution of it did not matter anyway. It had to be tackled. On his second morning in Smyrna, he shrugged his shoulders irritably, went to the proprietor of his hotel and asked to be put in touch with a good interpreter.

Fedor Muishkin was a self-important little Russian of about sixty, with a thick, pendulous underlip which flapped and quivered as he talked. He had an office on the waterfront and earned his living by translating business documents and interpreting for the masters and pursers of foreign cargo vessels using the port. He had been a Menshevik and had fled from Odessa in 1919; but although, as the hotel proprietor pointed out sardonically, he now declared himself in sympathy with the Soviets, he had preferred not to return to Russia. A humbug, mind you, but at the same time a good interpreter. If you wanted an interpreter, Muishkin was the man.

Muishkin himself also said that he was the man. He had a high-pitched, husky voice and scratched himself a great deal. His English was accurate but larded with slang phrases that never seemed quite to fit their contexts. He said: ‘If there is anything I can do for you just give me the wire. I’m dirt cheap.’

‘I want,’ Latimer explained, ‘to trace the record of a Greek who left here in September, 1922.’

The other’s eyebrows went up. ‘1922, eh? A Greek who left here?’ He chuckled breathlessly. ‘A good many of them left here then.’ He spat on one forefinger and drew it across his throat. ‘Like that! It was damn-awful the way those Turks treated those Greeks. Blood!’

‘This man got away on a refugee ship. His name was Dimitrios. He was believed to have conspired with a Negro named Dhris Mohammed to murder a moneylender named Sholem. The Negro was tried by a military court and hanged. Dimitrios got away. I want to inspect, if I can, the records of the evidence taken at the trial, the confession of the Negro and the inquiries concerning Dimitrios.’

The Russian appeared to be about to say something and then to change his mind. He shook his head. ‘No. I was thinking that it was a very common name. Have you permission to examine the police archives?’

‘No. I was hoping that you might be able to advise me as to the best way of getting permission. I realize, of course, that your business is only concerned with making translations, but if you could help me in this matter I would be very grateful.’

Muishkin pinched his lower lip thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps if you were to approach the British Vice-Consul and request him to secure permission… ?’ He broke off. ‘But excuse me,’ he said; ‘why do you want these records? I ask, not because I cannot mind my own damn business, but that question may be asked by the police. Now,’ he went on slowly, ‘if it were a legal matter and quite above board and Bristol fashion, I have a friend with influence who might arrange the matter quite cheap.’

Latimer felt himself redden. ‘As it happens,’ he said as casually as he could, ‘it is a legal matter. I could, of course, go to the Consul, but if you care to arrange this business for me then I shall be saved the trouble.’

‘A pleasure. I shall speak to my friend today. The police, you understand, are damn-awful and if I go to them myself it will cost plenty. I like to protect my clients.’

‘Don’t mention it.’ A faraway look came into his eyes. ‘I like you British, you know. You understand how to do business. You do not haggle like those damn Greeks. When a man says cash with order you pay cash with order. A deposit? OK. The British play fair. There is a mutual confidence between all parties. A chap can do his best work under such circumstances. He feels…’

‘Five hundred piastres?’ He said it hesitantly. His eyes were mournful. Here was an artist who had no confidence in himself, a child in business matters, happy only in his work.

Latimer thought for a moment. Five hundred piastres was less than a pound. Cheap enough. Then he detected a gleam in the mournful eyes.

Muishkin threw up his hands in despair. He had to live. There was his friend, too. He had great influence.

Soon after, having paid over one hundred and fifty piastres on account of a finally agreed price of three hundred (including fifty piastres for the influential friend), Latimer left. It was understood that he would call in the following day to learn the result of the negotiations with the friend. He walked back along the quayside not unpleased with his morning’s work. He would have preferred, it was true, to have examined the records himself and to have seen the translation done. He would have felt more like an investigator and less like an inquisitive tourist, but there it was. There was always the chance, of course, that Muishkin might have in mind the pocketing of an easy one hundred and fifty piastres, but somehow he did not think so. He was susceptible to impressions and the Russian had impressed him as being fundamentally, if not superficially, honest. And there could be no question of his being deceived by manufactured documents. Colonal Haki had told him enough about the Dhris Mohammed court martial to enable him to detect that sort of fraud. The only thing that could go wrong was that the friend would prove unworthy of his fifty piastres.

Muishkin’s office was locked when he called the next day and although he waited for an hour on the filthy wooden landing outside it, the interpreter did not appear. A second call, later in the day, was equally abortive. He shrugged. It hardly seemed worth any man’s while to embezzle five shillings worth of Turkish piastres. But he began to lose a little of his confidence.

It was restored by a note that awaited him at the hotel on his return. A page of wild handwriting explained that the writer had been called away from his office to interpret in a dispute between a Roumanian second-mate and the dock police over the death by crowbar of a Greek stevedore, that he could pull out his own fingernails one by one for causing Mister Latimer inconvenience, that his friend had arranged everything and that he would deliver the translation himself the following evening.

He arrived, sweating profusely, very shortly before the time of the evening meal, and Latimer was drinking an aperitif. Muishkin came towards him waving his arms and rolling his eyes despairingly and, throwing himself into an armchair, emitted a loud gasp of exhaustion.

Muishkin nodded wearily, his eyes closed. With what seemed a painful effort he put his hand in his inside pocket and drew out a bundle of papers secured by a wire clip. He thrust them into Latimer’s hands – the dying courier delivering his last dispatch.

The Russian’s eyes flickered open and he looked round like a man regaining consciousness. He said: ‘If you like. I will have an absinthe, please. Avec de la glace.’

The translation was handwritten and covered twelve large sheets of paper. Latimer glanced through the first two or three pages. There was no doubt that it was all genuine. He began to read it carefully.

NATIONAL GOVERNMENT OF TURKEY TRIBUNAL OF INDEPENDENCE

By order of the officer commanding the garrison of Izmir, acting under the Decree Law promulgated at Ankara on the eighteenth day of the sixth month of 1922 in the new calendar.

Summary of evidence taken before the Deputy President of the Tribunal, Major-of-Brigade Zia Haki, on the sixth day of the tenth month of 1922 in the new calendar.

The Jew, Zakari, complains that the murder of his cousin, Sholem, was the work of Dhris Mohammed, a Negro fig-packer of Buja.

Last week, a patrol belonging to the sixtieth regiment discovered the body of Sholem, a Duenme money-lender, in his room in an unnamed street near the Old Mosque. His throat had been cut. Although this man was neither the son of True Believers nor of good reputation, our vigilant police instituted inquiries and discovered that his money had been taken.

Several days later, the complainant, Zakari, informed the Commandant of Police that he had been in a café and seen the man Dhris showing handfuls of Greek money. He knew Dhris for a poor man and was surprised. Later, when Dhris had become drunk, he heard him boast that the Jew Sholem had lent him money without interest. At that time he knew nothing of the death of Sholem, but when his relations told him of it he remembered what he had seen and heard.

Evidence was heard from Abdul Hakk, the owner of the Bar Cristal, who said that Dhris had shown this Greek money, a matter of several hundreds of drachma, and had boasted that he had had it from the Jew Sholem without interest. He had thought this strange for Sholem was a hard man.

A dock-worker named Ismail also deposed that he had heard this from the prisoner.

Asked to explain how he came into possession of the money, the murderer first denied that he had had the money or that he had ever seen Sholem and said that as a True Believer, he was hated by the Jew Zakari. He said that Abdul Hakk and Ismail had also lied.

Questioned sternly by the Deputy-President of the Tribunal, he then admitted that he had had the money and that it had been given to him by Sholem for a service he had done. But he could not explain what this service had been and his manner became strange and agitated. He denied killing Sholem and in a blasphemous way called upon the True God to witness his innocence.

The Deputy-President then ordered that the prisoner be hanged, the other members of the Tribunal agreeing that this was right and just.

Latimer had come to the end of a page. He looked at Muishkin. The Russian had swallowed the absinthe and was examining the glass. He caught Latimer’s eye. ‘Absinthe,’ he said, ‘is very good indeed. So cooling.’

‘If you like.’ He smiled and indicated the papers in Latimer’s hand. ‘That’s all right, eh?’

‘Oh yes, it looks all right. But they are a little vague about their dates, aren’t they? There is no doctor’s report either, and no attempt to fix the time of the murder. As for the evidence, it seems fantastically feeble to me. Nothing was proved.’

Muishkin looked surprised. ‘But why bother to prove? This Negro was obviously guilty. Best to hang him.’

Muishkin shrugged, stretched himself luxuriously and signalled to the waiter. Latimer turned a page and went on reading.

STATEMENT MADE BY THE MURDERER, DHRIS MOHAMMED, IN THE PRESENCE OF THE GUARD-COMMANDANT OF THE BARRACKS IN IZMIR AND OTHER TRUE WITNESSES

It is said in the book that he shall not prosper who makes lies and I say these things in order to prove my innocence and to save myself from the gallows. I have lied, but now I will tell the truth. I am a True Believer. There is no god but God.

I did not kill Sholem. I tell you I did not kill him. Why should I lie now? Yes, I will explain. It was not I, but Dimitrios, who killed Sholem.

I will tell you about Dimitrios and you will believe me. Dimitrios is a Greek. To Greeks he is a Greek, but to True Believers he says that he is also a Believer and that it is only with the authorities that he is a Greek because of some paper signed by his foster-parents.

Dimitrios worked with others of us in the packing shed and he was hated by many for his violence and for his bitter tongue. But I am a man who loves other men as brothers and I would speak with Dimitrios sometimes as he worked and tell him of the religion of God. And he would listen.

Then, when the Greeks were fleeing before the victorious army of the True God, Dimitrios came to my house and asked me to hide him from the terror of the Greeks. He said that he was a True Believer. So I hid him. Then, our Glorious army came to our aid. But Dimitrios did not go because he was, by reason of this paper signed by his foster-parents, a Greek and in fear of his life. So he stayed in my house and, when he went out, dressed like a Turk. Then, one day, he said certain things to me. There was a Jew Sholem, he said, who had much money, Greek pieces and some gold, hidden below the floor of his room. It was the time, he said, to take our revenge upon those who had insulted the True God and His Prophet. It was wrong, he said, that a pig of a Jew should have the money rightfully belonging to True Believers. He proposed that we should go secretly to Sholem, bind him and take his money.

At first I was afraid, but he put heart into me, reminding me of the book which says that whosoever fights for the religion of God, whether he be slain or victorious, will surely find a great reward. This is now my reward: to be hanged like a dog.

Yes, I will go on. That night after the curfew we went to the place where Sholem lived and crept up the stairs to his room. The door was bolted. Then Dimitrios knocked and called out that it was a patrol to search the house and Sholem opened the door. He had been in bed and he was grumbling at being woken from his sleep. When he saw us he called upon God and tried to close the door. But Dimitrios seized him and held him while I went in as we had arranged and searched for the loose board which concealed the money. Dimitrios dragged the old man across the bed and kept him down with his knee.

I soon found the loose board and turned round full of joy to tell Dimitrios. He had his back turned towards me and was pressing down on Sholem with the blanket to stifle his cries. He said that he himself would bind Sholem with rope which we had brought. I saw him now draw out his knife. I thought that he was meaning to cut the rope for some purpose and I said nothing. Then, before I could speak, he drove the knife into the old Jew’s neck and pulled it across his throat.

I saw the blood bubble and spurt out as if from a fountain and Sholem rolled over. Dimitrios stood away and watched him for a moment, then looked at me. I asked him what he had done and he answered that it was necessary to kill Sholem for fear that he should point us out to the police. Sholem was still moving on the bed and the blood was still bubbling, but Dimitrios said that he was certainly dead. After that, we took the money.

Then, Dimitrios said that it was better that we should not go together, but that each should take his share and go separately. That was agreed. I was afraid then, for Dimitrios had a knife and I had none and I thought he meant to kill me. I wondered why he had told me of the money. He had said that he needed a companion to search for the money while he held Sholem. But I could see that he had meant from the first to kill Sholem. Why then had he brought me? He could have found the money for himself after he had killed the Jew. But we divided the money equally and he smiled and did not try to kill me. We left the place separately. He had told me the day before that there were Greek ships lying off the coast near Smyrna and that he had overheard a man saying that the captains of these ships were taking refugees who could pay. I think that he escaped on one of those ships.

I see now that I was a fool of fools and that he was right to smile at me. He knew that when my purse becomes full my head becomes empty. He knew, God’s curses fall upon him, that when I sin by becoming drunk I cannot stop my tongue from wagging. I did not kill Sholem. It was Dimitrios the Greek who killed him. Dimitrios… (here followed a stream of unprintable obscenities). There is no doubt in what I say. As God is God and as Mohammed is His Prophet, I swear that I have said the truth. For the love of God, have mercy.

A note was appended to this, saying that the confession had been signed with a thumb print and witnessed. The record went on:

The murderer was asked for a description of this Dimitrios and said:

‘He has the look of a Greek, but I do not think he is one because he hates his own countrymen. He is shorter than I am and his hair is long and straight. His face is very still and he speaks very little. His eyes are brown and tired-looking. Many men are afraid of him, but I do not understand this as he is not strong and I could break him with my two hands.’

N.B. The height of this man is 185 centimetres.

Inquiries have been made concerning the man Dimitrios at the packing sheds. He is known and disliked. Nothing has been heard of him for several weeks and he is presumed to have died in the fire. This seems likely.

The murderer was executed on the ninth day of the tenth month of 1922 in the new calendar.

Latimer returned to the confession and examined it thoughtfully. It rang true; there was no doubt about that. There was a circumstantial feeling about it. The Negro, Dhris, had obviously been a very stupid man. Could he have invented those details about the scene in Sholem’s room? A guilty man inventing a tale would surely have embroidered it differently. And there was his fear that Dimitrios might have been going to kill him. If he himself had been responsible for the killing he would not have thought of that. Colonel Haki had said that it was the sort of story that a man might invent to save his neck. Fear did stimulate even the most sluggish imaginations, but did it stimulate them in quite that sort of way? The authorities obviously had not cared very much whether the story was or was not true. Their inquiries had been pitiably half-hearted; yet even so they had tended to confirm the Negro’s story. Dimitrios had been presumed to have died in the fire. There was no evidence offered to support the presumption. It had, no doubt, been easier to hang Dhris Mohammed than to conduct, amidst all the terrible confusion of those October days, a search for a hypothetical Greek named Dimitrios. Dimitrios had, of course, counted on that fact. But for the accident of the Colonel’s transfer to the secret police, he would never have been connected with the affair.

Latimer had once seen a zoophysicist friend of his build up the complete skeleton of a prehistoric animal from a fragment of fossilized bone. It had taken the zoophysicist nearly two years and Latimer, the economist, had marvelled at the man’s inexhaustible enthusiasm for the task. Now, for the first time, he understood that enthusiasm. He had unearthed a single twisted fragment of the mind of Dimitrios and now he wanted to complete the structure. The fragment was small enough but it was substantial. The wretched Dhris had never had a chance. Dimitrios had used the Negro’s dull wits, had played upon his religious fanaticism, his simplicity, his cupidity, with a skill that was terrifying. We divided the money equally and he smiled and did not try to kill me. Dimitrios had smiled. And the Negro had been too preoccupied with his fear of the man whom he could have broken with his two hands to wonder about that smile until it was too late. The brown, tired-looking eyes had watched Dhris Mohammed and understood him perfectly.

‘Right,’ said Muishkin into his glass. He had ordered and was now finishing his third absinthe. He set down his glass and took the money from Latimer. ‘I like you,’ he said seriously. ‘You have no snobisme. Now you will have a drink with me, eh?’

Latimer glanced at his watch. It was getting late and he had had nothing to eat. ‘I’d be glad to,’ he answered, ‘but why not have some dinner with me first?’

‘Good!’ Muishkin clambered laboriously to his feet. ‘Good,’ he repeated, and Latimer saw that his eyes were unnaturally bright.

At the Russian’s suggestion they went out to a restaurant, a place of subdued lights and red plush and gilt and stained mirrors, where French food was served. The room was full. Many of the men were ships’ officers but the majority were in army uniforms. There were some unpleasant-looking civilians, but very few women. In one corner an orchestra of three laboured over a foxtrot. The atmosphere was thick with cigarette smoke. A waiter, who seemed very angry about something, found them a table and they sat down in upholstered chairs which exuded wafts of stale scent.

‘Ton,’ said Muishkin looking round. He seized the menu and after some deliberation chose the most expensive dish on it. With their food they drank a syrupy, resinous Smyrna wine. Muishkin began to talk about his life. Odessa, 1918. Stambul, 1919. Smyrna, 1921. Bolsheviks. Wrangel’s army. Kiev. A woman they called The Butcher. They used the abattoir as a prison because the prison had become an abattoir. Terrible, damn-awful atrocities. Allied army of occupation. The English sporting. American relief. Bed bugs. Typhus. Vickers guns. The Greeks – God, those Greeks! Fortunes waiting to be picked up. Kemalists. His voice droned on while outside, through the cigarette smoke, beyond the red plush and the gilt and the white tablecloths, the amethyst twilight had deepened into night.

‘And after so much madness, where are we now?’ demanded Muishkin. His English had been steadily deteriorating. Now, his lower lip wet and quivering with emotion, he fixed Latimer with the unwavering stare of the drunk about to become philosophical. ‘Where now?’ he repeated and thumped the table.

‘In Smyrna,’ said Latimer and realized suddenly that he had drunk too much of the wine.

Muishkin shook his head irritably. ‘We grade rapidly to damn-awful hell,’ he declared. ‘Are you a Marxist?’

Muishkin leaned forward confidentially. ‘Neither me.’ He plucked at Latimer’s sleeve. His lip trembled violently. ‘I’m a swindler.’

‘Yes.’ He fumbled in his pocket. ‘You are no snob. You must take back fifty piastres.’

‘Take them back.’ The tears began to course down his cheeks and mingle with the sweat collecting on the point of his chin. ‘I swindled you, Mister. There was no damn friend to pay, no permission, nothing.’

Muishkin sat up sharply. ‘Je ne suis pas un faussaire,’ he asserted. He wagged a finger in Latimer’s face. ‘This type came to me three months ago. By paying large bribes –’ the finger stabbed emphatically ‘– large bribes, he had obtained the permission to examine the archives for the dossier on the murder of Sholem. The dossier was in the old Arabic script and he brought photographs of the pages to me to translate. He took the photographs back, but I kept the translation on file. You see? I swindled you. You paid fifty piastres too much. Faugh!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘I could have swindled five hundred piastres, and you would have paid. I am too soft.’

But Muishkin’s head had sagged forward on to his chest and he did not answer. Then, after a moment or two, he raised his head and stared blankly at Latimer. His face was livid and Latimer guessed that he would very shortly be sick. His lips moved.

‘Je ne suis pas un faussaire,’ he muttered. ‘Three hundred piastres, dirt cheap!’ He stood up suddenly, murmured, ‘Excusez-moi,’ and walked rapidly in the direction of the toilet.

Latimer waited for a time, then paid the bill and went to investigate. There was another entrance to the toilet and Muishkin had gone. Latimer walked back to his hotel.

From the balcony outside the window of his room, he could see over the bay to the hills beyond. A moon had risen and its reflection gleamed through the tangle of crane jibs along the quay where the steamers berthed. The searchlights of a Turkish cruiser anchored in the roadstead outside the inner port swung round like long white fingers, brushed the summits of the hills and were extinguished. Out in the harbour and on the slopes above the town pinpoints of light twinkled. A slight, warm breeze off the sea had begun to stir the leaves of a rubber tree in the garden below him. In another room of the hotel a woman laughed. Somewhere in the distance a gramophone was playing a tango. The turntable was revolving too quickly and the sound was shrill and congested.

Latimer lit a final cigarette and wondered for the hundredth time what the man who looked like a Frenchman had wanted with the dossier of the Sholem murder. At last he pitched his cigarette away and shrugged. One thing was certain: he could not possibly have been interested in Dimitrios.

3

1922