Jeffrey Siger - Sons of Sparta

“ Yianni. It’s time to get dressed .”

“Yes, Mother.” He smiled. She’s back.

***

Kouros parked on the dirt just off the edge of a two-lane road winding up above the tiny hill town of Vathia. Twenty miles to the north the road led to Aeropoli, the city named after the Greek god of war, where Maniots struck the first blow in Greece’s War of Independence. Six miles to the south the road ended at the sea near the mythical entrance to Hades.

In the springtime Vathia sat perched on a blanket of wildflowers, laid out across terraced hillside fields dropping down to the sea a mile away. From where Kouros stood it didn’t seem real, more like a medieval village of grand, earth-tone towers painted upon a movie backdrop of mountains, sea, and sky. To him, Vathia was the region’s most dramatic symbol of the historical essence of the Mani, for the beauty of the scene belied the fierce reputation of its villagers: Upon the walls of those same majestic eighteenth- and nineteenth-century towers once hung the heads of enemies proudly nailed there by those who took them.

Kouros and his mother walked down the road toward the turreted 1750 church of Saint Spyridon sitting with its back flush up against the road just a few paces uphill from the main entrance to the old village. Across the road he saw signs of renovations underway, but not many. Some of the towers and outbuildings in the village had been restored, but plans to do more in hopes of turning Vathia into a tourist draw fell through at the end of the last century. Vathia’s battles these days were waged by the half-dozen souls living there year-round, fighting to preserve what they could of its crumbling mystical towers. He wondered if his uncle’s plans for creating a resort might have reignited preservation efforts in this part of the Mani.

They reached the church a few minutes past nine. The church and its terra-cotta-tiled roof looked well maintained, in distinct counterpoint to much of the rest of the village. A relatively new flagstone patio abutting the church’s main entrance on its south side sat deserted, but by the time of Uncle’s service the place would be packed. In the Mani you might miss a wedding, but never a funeral. Certainly not one of this family.

They took the steep stone steps leading down from the road to the patio; the same route Uncle’s coffin had taken when brought into the church through its southern door. Kouros’ mother headed straight for a crowd of black-clad women surrounding the coffin, crying and consoling one another. Kouros looked for his cousins, but saw only Calliope and her sister. Her brothers weren’t here. He found a seat close by the front door, sat down, and waited. They would be here soon enough.

He hoped not carrying heads.

***

Andreas somehow made it into his office by ten. Before he could ask Maggie for coffee, she burst though his office door with a pot in one hand and a cup in the other.

“How did you know?”

“I could say female intuition.” She poured him a cup of coffee. “But a cop named Petro from headquarters security stopped by with a message for you. ‘Please tell the Chief they caught the guy who got away last night and he corroborated it was a drug-related shooting.’ He also told me to have the coffee ready for you.”

Andreas smiled. “Tell him thanks. Anything else happening?”

“Spiros’ office called twice. You’re to call him ‘the moment’ you arrive.”

“Oh, God, have mercy. There’s not enough coffee in the world to get me up for a call from him this morning.”

“Perhaps God considers it your penance for last night.” She put the pot down on top of a notepad on his desk. “Call me when you’ve had enough coffee to speak to Spiros.”

“As I said, there will never be enough. I may as well do it now.”

Maggie picked up the phone on Andreas’ desk and dialed. “Hi, dear, it’s me. Is your boss in? Mine would like to speak with him.” She handed Andreas the phone just as Spiros came on the line.

“Andreas, where have you been?”

“Morning, Spiros, what can I do for you?”

“I don’t know what you did last night but I got a call at home at dawn from Orestes telling me about your behavior last night.”

“The guy’s a bit of an asshole.”

“Maybe, but he thinks you’re terrific. Couldn’t stop praising you enough or thanking me for finding someone who would ‘save our country from ruin.’”

“Make that a ‘delusional asshole.’”

“Look, I don’t know how you did it, but you got him off my back, and for that I owe you.”

“All I said was that I would look into what’s happening on Crete to see if something illegal was going on.”

Spiros laughed. “On Crete? Something illegal? How could anyone ever think that?”

“It’s not smuggling or drug production he’s interested in. He just wants to protect his crowd’s piece of the gas find. I said I’d look into it. That’s all. And I can assure you I do not intend on going to war with the Cretans over anything I find. If our military thinks it’s too risky to fight them over drug production in their mountains, I’m not about to start one over gas production in their sea. I’m just going to look around and report. After that, Boss, it’s all up to you where you decide to take it.”

“Fine, fine, no problem. Just keep me informed. Got to run now. Bye.”

The phone went dead. Andreas stared at the receiver. Spiros hadn’t changed. As long as his immediate problem is somehow pushed down the road, he’s happy. It gave him more time to find someone to blame for whatever might go wrong.

“But not me this time, asshole.” Andreas hung up the phone.

***

By the time Uncle’s sons arrived at the church, Kouros’ other cousins were already there. The brothers went straight to the coffin. Grim-faced, dressed in black suits and white shirts, they lined its far side staring back toward the door. Mangas locked eyes on Kouros only long enough to nod. Kouros nodded back, tight-lipped, his hands crossed in front of him below his waist.

The priest came out from behind the iconostasis separating the main part of the church from the altar area, said a few quiet words to the family, and began the service. Age-old prayers and blessings chanted against a background chorus of crying, moaning, and wailing filled the room. Few others said a word except when called for by the service. This was a time for showing respect to the soul that once lay within the body in the coffin before them.

A half-hour passed, maybe more. Kouros had lost track of time. Memories of his uncle led him to thoughts of his father and how different the two brothers’ lives. His father lived as a soldier, guided by a moral code one would think utterly foreign to his brother. Shortly before his father died from lung cancer, Kouros asked him what he thought of his brother and the answer now ran through his mind: “I couldn’t live my life as my brother did his, and I wouldn’t want you to either, but it’s not for me to judge him. Yes, our father was a doctor, but it was our ancestors’ success as pirates that paid my father’s way. I was lucky and escaped our history. My brother could not.”

Before Kouros was born his father had shortened his family name, but never told his son why. Kouros guessed it had to do with his uncle’s infamous reputation during the years his father struggled to make a career in the military. His father’s gravestone bore both names, and at the funeral his uncle told Kouros, “Your father was a practical man. He did what he had to do to get ahead in this world, as did I. Be proud of the name he chose. I am.”

Kouros studied Mangas’ face for any sign of what he might be thinking. He saw only calm of the sort you’d expect to find in a flower-filled mountaintop meadow on a peaceful summer day. That’s not like my cousin, thought Kouros. He’s more the ready-to-explode-at-any-moment volcano type.