Che Committed Suicide (47 page)

‘This is my husband, Inspector,’ I heard her say from behind me. ‘Cashiered Infantry Major Yangos Skouloudis. Ol’ Yangos as they called him in the Military Police. He was sentenced to fifteen years’ detention, suffered three strokes in his despair and was released with irreparable damage to his health. He can’t walk or speak and our only communication is by means of these notes.’

She pointed to a basket with notes that was attached to the arm of his wheelchair. A little table, rather like a modern school desk, was fitted to the arm and on it were a notepad and a biro. Evidently, Skouloudis wrote the notes and pushed them into the basket.

‘Read them if you want,’ Yannelis told me.

The effort Skouloudis had to make to write them was visible to the naked eye. The letters were rounded, compressed and written separately, one by one.

The second one was a cry of anguish:

‘He can’t chew,’ Yannelis, who was reading over my shoulder, explained. ‘All he can eat are soups, purees and at most a little mashed fish.’

The third was an order in a military tone:

The last one was a comment:

Yannelis bent over him. ‘I have to discuss a few things with the gentleman and then I’ll come back. All right, Yangos dear?’ she said sweetly.

With the constant shaking of his head, it was difficult to know whether he was giving his assent or ignoring her completely.
Yannelis
motioned to me to go out with her and she closed the sliding door behind us.

‘Three days after his arrest, a friend came by the house and gave me an address and a key. The address was in Liossia. I found a
two-roomed
flat full of files. Yangos kept copies of all the interrogations he carried out with documents, reports and photographs. Among them, I found my father’s file and the files of Jason Favieros, Loukas Stefanakos and Apostolos Vakirtzis. That’s how I found out about the “Che” organisation. After they’d burned the archives of the
Military
Police in Keratsini, these were the only records to remain,’ she added with a smile.

‘And where are they now?’

‘Let me finish. While he was in prison, I began to realise the size of the network that Yangos had set up over the years. From time to time, various people came knocking at my door, bringing me information in the hope that they would help “the Major”. One day, during his visiting hours, I told him in sign-coded language that various people kept coming and bringing me gifts for him. He understood immediately and said sharply: “Don’t even touch them.” Till one day, someone came with information that interested me personally. He told me that Yannelis and his group had begun their activities again. They had dissolved the Che Independent Resistance Organisation and, in its place, had founded the October 8th
Revolutionary
Organisation …’

The name reminded me of something. ‘Weren’t they the ones who planted the bombs in local bank branches?’

‘Yes. And two in the Stock Exchange that didn’t go off. Che Guevara was killed on October 8th, 1967. The man who brought me the information was extremely methodical. He had discovered their safe house and had photos of them coming and going. He had even succeeded in getting into the safe house using a skeleton key and had taken photos inside. Yangos had told me not to touch them, but I kept them. Apart from my father, all the others made their living in respectable professions. Jason had started a small construction
business
, Loukas had entered politics and Vakirtzis had started making a name for himself in journalism. As time went by, their careers took off and, dazzled as they were by success, they forgot about the revolution, till they wrote it off completely. By the mid-eighties, my father had remained alone, betrayed by his daughter and by his former comrades.

She went into the kitchen and came back with another glass of whisky. She took a sip, closed her eyes and tried to put her thoughts in some order.

‘The idea of revenge came to me after my father’s suicide. I
convinced
myself that it was they who had pushed him to commit suicide and not me. My reasoning was very simple. If he was going to commit suicide because of me, he would have done it much earlier. He committed suicide in the early nineties because he saw how his former comrades had become big names in the system they once wanted to overthrow. The collapse of the communist regimes was just the
coup de grâce
.’ She held the glass between her palms and gazed at it. ‘I know, you’ll tell me that I see it like that because it suits me. Perhaps you’re right. I’m tormented by that doubt too. Whatever the case, I wanted to vent the anger that had accumulated within me. They had cashiered Yangos, the little money I had saved went to the lawyers and I had to find work. At the same time, I was studying business management and computer programming in the evenings. When I made my decision to exact revenge, I submitted an application to Favieros’s company using my name Coralia
Athanassios
Yannelis. My father had hidden his shame as he had told me and had never told anyone that I had married the torturer, Yangos Skouloudis. Yangos, on the other hand, had forbidden me to appear at the trial. So I was certain that Favieros didn’t know the truth. And, sure enough, after a few days, he called me to his office, satisfied himself that I was Thanos Yannelis’s daughter and hired me. I was good at my job and quickly climbed the ladder. In my free time, I wrote the biographies of the three men. I had Yangos’s huge archive together with all the information that the various do-gooders had brought me. When I had finished the three biographies, I put the plan into action.’

‘You’d already sent the first biography to the publisher?’

‘Yes. I chose a small, unknown publisher so as not to run any risks. Then, via email, I began sending Favieros copies of the
documents
I had in my possession. Each day, I sent something more, without any comment. The information automatically deleted itself the following day and was replaced by more information.’

I recalled one of Stefanakos’s notes about someone who had
information
and whose demands were outrageous. It wasn’t Vakirtzis, as I had thought, but Logaras, in other words, Coralia Yannelis.

‘And how did they react?’

For the first time, she allowed herself a spontaneous burst of laughter. ‘Favieros sent me a curt message: “How much?” Stefanakos was more diplomatic. He wrote: “I don’t know what you want, but I’m willing to discuss it”. And Vakirtzis replied bluntly: “Name your price, you bastard”. I replied to all of them in the same way. “What I want is for you to commit suicide in public and I’ll take care of your reputations with a eulogistic biography. If you don’t do it, I’ll bring everything out into the open and I’ll destroy you and your family”. Then I sent them the biographies in order to convince them I meant business.’

‘Why in public, Mrs Yannelis? That question has been bothering me since the first day.’

‘I know. You’ve mentioned it time and time again,’ she replied with a smile. ‘Because my father hanged himself and remained hanging there for three days till he started to smell. They had to die before everyone’s eyes. Of course, on the other hand, I was offering them the possibility of a heroic exit which would be accompanied by their biography. You realise what would have happened if I had revealed that these businessmen, politicians and journalists had been planting bombs in banks and the Stock Exchange in the early
eighties
? It would have meant not only their end, but also of their wives and brothers, who were the shop windows for their businesses. All three of them had grown used to the high life, they were big names and couldn’t stand the thought of ruin, exposure and prison. They preferred the solution that I offered them.’

‘And how did you know that Vakirtzis would commit suicide on the same day that you sent me his biography?’

‘I knew that every year he threw a big party on his name day. I made it a condition. I told him that either he committed suicide then or the deal was off.’

So now all the pieces were there before me: the common secret from the past, Logaras and his biographies, the hypotheses I had made that had been correct up to a point, but that hadn’t got me anywhere. There was just one question I had left.

‘Why me, Mrs Yannelis? Why did you choose me?’

She stared at me and laughed. ‘Because you were the only one who wanted to find out the truth. That made an impression on me from your first visit. No one else was interested. They wanted to take care of the funeral, put the unpleasant event behind them and move on. You were the only one. And something else, that I’ve already mentioned to you twice today.’

‘What?’

‘I think you understand. I don’t know why but I honestly do.’

‘Perhaps I do understand, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is an indictable offence. Incitement to commit suicide is a crime and is punishable. You’ll have to come with me to Headquarters to make an official statement.’

She laughed. ‘Come now, Inspector. How are you going to make the charge stick? You have no tangible evidence other than the
printout
of a biography written by someone called Minas Logaras.’

‘Perhaps, but I’ll find something.’

‘You won’t find anything, I can promise you. I destroyed the part of the archives that didn’t interest me years ago. The other day when you received the Che T-shirt, I burned the rest. There’s not even one document left, Inspector. Apart from my father’s note. Other people have photos of their fathers to remember them by; all I have is a piece of paper in which mine renounces me.’ Her bitterness was only momentary, she immediately recovered. ‘So how will you make the charge stick, Inspector? And where will you find a public prosecutor to indict me?’

She was right. I wouldn’t. That’s why she had been playing cat and mouse with me. She knew that I wouldn’t be able to touch her.

‘Those three men deceived both my father and my husband, Inspector. My father would never have had anything to do with them if he had known they would become businessmen. He hated businessmen. And my husband would never have tortured them if he’d known that they would become businessmen. He admired businessmen; he swore by Onassis and Bodosakis. The one was found hanged and stinking, the other did fifteen years in prison and from being a torturer became the one tortured. I’m not trying to whitewash anyone, not even myself, but those three had to pay. The frightened little girl beat them in the end.’ It was the first time I discerned a hint of pride in her voice.

She got to her feet to indicate to me that our conversation was over. I wanted to say something to her, but nothing came to mind. Evidently, she saw it in my face because when we reached the front door, she said:

‘Tomorrow, you’ll go to your office and I’ll go to mine. I’ll
continue
to do all I can to make the companies I manage make a profit; I’ll go on working with Mr Zamanis, Mrs Stathatos, and Mrs
Favieros
and no one will ever know that I sent the friend of the one and the husbands of the other two to their deaths. But I wanted someone else to know, apart from me. I’m glad it’s you, believe me. Whatever you may think of me, I’m glad it’s you.’

She opened the door for me to leave. I stood in the doorway, hoping that I would think of something to say, but I couldn’t. I could neither revile nor reproach her, but nor could I shake her hand. I simply turned and left.

I got into the Mirafiori, but I didn’t have the energy to start up the engine. I tried to put my thoughts into some order, but it wasn’t easy. I would have to tell Ghikas everything, just as it happened, without concealing anything. The same applied to the Minister. Neither of them would be overly distraught because we couldn’t touch Yannelis. On the contrary, they’d be overjoyed because the
suicides
had stopped and the case would be forgotten without anything coming out into the open. And Ghikas had an additional reason to be happy: because the next day he would have Koula back working for him.

Did Favieros, Stefanakos and Vakirtzis deserve to die? I couldn’t say. Did Coralia Yannelis deserve to stand in the dock? I couldn’t say that either. So what was left? The three winners: Andreadis, Kalafatis and Yannelis. Along with Ghikas and the Minister. And from what Zissis and Andreadis had said, I was one of the winners, too. Perhaps they were right. After all, I’d managed to get my old job back and my standing with Ghikas and the Minister had gone up a few notches …

I’m not an ungrateful person, but how is it that in the end I always feel like a twerp?

PETROS MARKARIS
was born in Istanbul in 1937 and now lives in Athens. His number one bestsellers are published in fourteen languages. He is the author of
The Late-night News
and
Zone Defence
, featuring Inspector Costas Haritos.

DAVID CONNOLLY
has lived and worked in Greece for over thirty years. He is currently Professor of Translation Studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He has written extensively on the theory and practice of literary translation and has translated over thirty books by leading Greek authors, for which he has received awards in the UK, the US and Greece.