Petros Markaris - Che Committed Suicide

Something fell out of the T-shirt. Katerina bent down and picked it up. It was a CD in its case.

I stared at the T-shirt with the Che Guevara face and at the CD and I didn’t know what to make of them.

‘What does it mean? Is he sending you the Che Guevara T-shirt as a gift?’ asked Katerina, who was equally puzzled.

‘He wants to tell me something. It’s a message, but I don’t understand it.’

Before going any further, I decided to finish with the formalities. I looked at the shipping document attached to the envelope to find the number of the agency and I phoned straightaway.

‘Inspector Haritos, Homicide Division. I’ve just received an envelope from you and I want to find out some details.’

‘Could you give me the number of the shipping document, please?’ came the sound of a woman’s voice.

I gave it to her, waited just a few seconds and heard her voice again.

‘Yes, Inspector. What is it you want to know exactly?’

‘I want to know how you were contacted to pick up the envelope.’

‘By phone, from what I can see.’

‘Did you by any chance keep a phone number?’

‘No, Inspector. Just the address. 12 Nisaias Street, behind the Attiki Station.’

‘All right, thank you.’

Katerina was standing in front of me and staring at me with that inquisitive look of hers.

‘Nothing. They didn’t leave a phone number, just an address. The derelict house.’

‘What are you going to do now?’

‘I don’t know. I need to think a little.’

‘So you’ve managed to infect your daughter now,’ said Adriani, always coming out with her opinion at the most inappropriate times. ‘Come on, Katerina dear, come and tell me what you want me to cook for Fanis’s parents.’

Katerina winked at me and went off with her mother without brooking any objections. Evidently, in order to leave me in peace to think, though in the meantime I had decided that it would be better if I got my things together and went to the office. Perhaps Vlassopoulos and Dermitzakis would have come up with something. I stared again at the T-shirt and the CD I was holding in my hands, but they still meant nothing to me. So what? A Che Guevara T-shirt that you can find in any wastebin or hanging in any number of shops that sell boots and imitation army uniforms. As for the CD, I was unable to listen to it because I didn’t have a CD player. Our audiovisual needs were met by the TV and occasionally by a radio-cassette player, of which only the radio had ever been used.

I put the T-shirt and the CD in a plastic bag and went out of the house. Halfway to the corner of the street, where the Mirafiori was parked, I suddenly stopped in my tracks. Why the office? If there was a message behind these two objects, the most suitable person to decode it for me was Zissis. I’d go to see him instead.

When it’s hot in Halandri, it’s sweltering in Ambelokipi. And when it’s sweltering in Ambelokipi, it’s boiling in Acharnon. And when it’s boiling in Acharnon, it’s sizzling in Dekeleias Street. I left the boiling pot of Acharnon and turned into the frying pan of Dekeleias Street. As I drove up it, I had the impression that the asphalt, the concrete and the glass were all emitting red-hot lava that was burning my face. A few ladies and several pensioners were sitting under the umbrellas at Kanakis’s and were gazing languorously at the orange juice or ice cream before them, barely able to reach out and pick it up.

I stopped at the first kiosk and bought a bottle of water that I downed in one go to clear my parched throat. I prayed that Zissis wouldn’t have finished watering his plants that morning so that I’d be able to cool down under the hose.

I must have arrived about a minute too late as the cement in the yard was still wet and steaming. Zissis was sitting upstairs, in the doorway, half inside the house and half outside on the balcony, drinking his coffee. He saw me coming but continued drinking his coffee as though he hadn’t seen me, either because he didn’t want to notice me or because I wasn’t particularly noteworthy. I would discover that as soon as I saw the expression on his face when I had him before me. I slowly climbed the steps leading up to his place, holding the plastic bag in my hands.

‘I need to pick your brains.’

We had dispensed with the usual ‘good mornings’ and ‘welcomes’. Sometimes months passed when we didn’t see each other, yet it was as if we were going in and out of each other’s house all day long. He got up without saying a word and went inside. I watched him going into the kitchen and I sat on one of the two old wooden chairs that, together with the café-style table, constituted his furniture. In less than five minutes, he was back with my coffee, which he put, still not saying a word, in front of me on the table.

I suddenly had a vision of how things would be if I didn’t have Adriani and Katerina. Every day, we’d sit together, two miserable old men, and make coffee for each other that we’d drink in silence. It would be the first copper-commie cooperative in the history of the world. I went along with his game and, without saying a word, I took the red Che Guevara T-shirt out of the plastic bag and handed it to him. He took it, looked at it carefully on both sides, and said slowly:

‘What is it, a gift for me for the summer?’

‘It’s a gift for me. It was sent to me by Minas Logaras, the one who wrote the biographies on Favieros and Stefanakos.’

I began telling him about all the similarities in the circumstances of the three suicides, and also in the biographies of the three men. I explained how Logaras had sent the third biography to my home, just before Vakartzis’s suicide.

‘Do you see what I’m telling you? First the biography and now this. He’s playing games with me and now he’s sending me messages. That’s why I’ve come to you. Maybe you can help me discover what it is he’s trying to tell me.’

He again examined the T-shirt, turned it inside out, but didn’t seem to come up with anything. ‘One of those T-shirts that you can find anywhere and that make a mockery of Che,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘So what’s he trying to tell you?’

‘There was another gift too.’ I took out the CD and handed it to him. ‘Perhaps together they might make more sense.’

He took hold of the CD and went over to the stereo system on the edge of his huge bookcase. Despite the stifling heat, I felt overcome with excitement. What was I expecting to hear? Perhaps a recorded message from Logaras explaining why he was doing all this or why he had obliged the three men to commit suicide, or some challenge, perhaps, in the form of a game, or even some ironic remarks. Instead, I heard a Latin American song with guitar accompaniment. It was pleasant enough, but it didn’t solve the mystery for me; on the contrary, it only deepened it. A Che Guevara T-shirt and a Latin American song, with the usual guitar accompaniment. What could they mean? And what connection could Favieros, Stefanakos and Vakirtzis possibly have with Latin America? So far, I hadn’t found the slightest shred of evidence that might connect them in any way. Consequently, it must have been something else that Logaras was trying to tell me, or perhaps he wanted to turn my attention elsewhere. But where?

I was awakened from my thoughts by the sound of Zissis’s voice. There he was, an old man, bald and stubbly, with half his teeth missing, holding a cigarette between his yellowed fingers, singing a Latin American song in a loud voice, while the tears ran down his cheeks. I got the impression that he was singing with a slight Vlach accent, but I wouldn’t swear on it because I didn’t understand a word. I couldn’t understand the song or why Zissis was crying, or anything for that matter. All I managed to catch were the words ‘Commandante Che Guevara’ every so often. It was the only phrase connecting the song with the T-shirt.