Neil Olson - The Icon

“What now?” asked the young man quietly.

The old man drew a wet, heavy breath.

“You’re the driver. So drive.”

EPIROS, 1944

The trail was hard-packed earth, turning to stone, and Captain

Elias could not locate footprints or other signs of recent use.

He passed the tiny, burned-out village of Nikolaos, no more than a dozen scorched stone walls, on the largest of which some communist andarte had painted in large white letters: What have you done for the struggle today, Patriot? At Mary’s chapel, still well maintained, the path seemed to end, but the captain was able to pick it up again on the far side. It was indeed desolate ground, as Giorgios had said. High and rocky, no good for goats or planting. Only for God. The religious always claimed this sort of place.

Gregori’s chapel was easily visible a hundred meters above, although at first Elias had mistaken it for a boulder. It was the color of the gray stones surrounding it, walls and dome having faded years ago. Only the dark rectangle of the entry gave the place away. A nearly indecipherable path ran up to it. There were no trees, just a large rock or two, very little cover. The slope fell away sharply to the left and right, so it was straight up. The captain’s only advantage was that the doorway faced directly into the just-risen sun, and the little dell in which he stood was still in shadow.

Anger and the heedlessness of exhaustion drove him up the hill. He ignored the trail, using the rocks as he could, sliding left and right in no definite rhythm so as to make a poor target. Halfway up he heard a sharp crack, and a small stone jumped three meters to his left. Elias darted behind the last rock of any size between himself and the chapel. A wide miss; either Kosta was warning him, or something impaired his aim-perhaps he was injured? Elias drew his own pistol, rolled right and risked slipping down the steep slope, then scrambled toward the domed cell from a more oblique angle. He reached the structure’s northeast corner without drawing more fire. Now what? He could race in, shooting, but that would deprive him of the answers he sought. He could try to bargain, but Kosta would never believe that he would spare his life. The pistol shot was his only clue. Some hesitation there.

“Kosta, put down the gun, I’m coming in.”

To his surprise, the captain heard two voices within, arguing softly but urgently. It might be his only opportunity. Three quick strides and in the door. He saw the figure in back first, a cringing monk in a cassock, then someone just inside the entry, crouched in the shadows, head turned away. Elias struck hard with the pistol butt, and the crouching figure dropped as the monk cried out.

“Don’t hurt him, Captain, please.”

Elias looked about as his eyes adjusted to the shadows. The chamber was small, no hiding places. It was just these two. The one at his feet now appeared to be a boy, ten or eleven, a pistol loosely clasped in his limp fingers. Ioannes, Kosta’s younger brother. Then the voice of the monk registered with him and Elias looked hard at the man.

“Kosta.”

He sat behind a small, crooked table. The cassock was really a long, loose shirt, beneath which stained, hasty bandages were visible. A pink discoloration ran up his neck and disfigured part of his face in a ghoulish whorl. The right eye was squeezed shut and leaking fluid, and much of his hair was gone. Only the left side of the face preserved that handsomeness that had so charmed women and men alike, until just a few hours before. An empty wine bottle was on the table before him, the last of its contents in the cup Kosta gripped with his left hand, while tiny bits of something, paper or cloth, were by his right.

The icon leaned against the wall beside him, the two panels slightly split, but otherwise undamaged. Mother Mary’s eyes stared at the captain, seizing him with that dual power of judgment and forgiveness which Mikalis had always spoken of. It had soothed the priest. The captain felt only anger. All this for you, he thought, returning the painted stare. My brother, the old man, this young one, how many more over the years? A pagan goddess is all you are, demanding blood sacrifice. You should have burned. He lifted the pistol, as if to put out those damning eyes, but leveled it instead at his traitorous protégé.

“Wait,” Kosta said quietly, his tone resigned. He placed one of the little scraps near his right hand in his mouth, took a gulp of wine. Administering his own sacrament. When he had swallowed, he leaned back in the chair and nodded. Elias resisted the impulse to simply squeeze the trigger. “Please don’t kill my brother,” Kosta added then. “He doesn’t know what is happening.”

Elias glanced again at the prone child and Stamatis’ note suddenly made sense. Spare the boy. Not Kosta-he knew that life was forfeit-but the little one. How badly had he hurt him, Elias wondered. Why should he care? The boy had shot at him. The whole family was rotten.

“Why is he here?”

“I could not walk and carry the Holy Mother also.”

“So your father sent the boy along. Why not your sister, too? Why not the whole family, if the prize is rich enough?”

The other man said nothing.

“You betrayed me,” Elias continued, without heat, as if discussing the weather. “Not a man trusted you but me.”

“You sent me to do your dirty work, and I did it well.”

There was a new defiance in the voice-or had it been there all along, buried, released now by the flames that had burned the body?

“Of course you did. Thieving and killing are in your blood. I gave you a purpose, and you betrayed me.”

“Maybe I was being loyal to my family.”

“A pig like your father cannot command loyalty. Loyalty! You bastard, why did you do that to Mikalis?”

“He caught us with the icon.”

“Your father was still in the church.”

“He had trouble with the false wall.”

“You told him where to find to it.”

“Yes.”

“Because you heard me give Müller the instructions.”

“Yes, but they weren’t easy to follow. Then it took him time just to make a small hole. He thought he heard the Germans coming, so he started the fire, in front. The whole place was burning before he got at the Holy Mother.”

“How did he get out?”

“He meant to go by the rear door, but you and I and the others were already outside it by then. He heard the priest making noise, or else he would have run right into us.”

“Why not use the crypt?”

The burned face seemed to size the captain up, weighing words.

“He tried. There was someone waiting there.”

“Germans?”

“No.”

“Who?”

“Can’t you guess?” Shifting in his chair, Kosta grimaced painfully. Whatever relief the wine had provided was fading. There was no morphine or anything else within reach that would stem the hurt of such burns. Then a lifetime of disfigurement. I will be doing him a favor, thought Elias.

“Why did you have to kill him?”

“I didn’t want to. I nearly had him turned around when my father came out of the crypt, with the painting. Mikalis understood at once. He fought my father for the icon. I tried to drag him off, but he began to shout. You must have heard him.”

“We were shooting; we heard nothing. But that didn’t matter. He had seen what you were up to, so you had to kill him.”

“The first blow was only to silence him.”

“It is a vicious kind of wound, usually fatal.”

“I had no time to think. Even then, he kept fighting. The flames were all around us. I had to strike him again. He fell down the stairs to the crypt, still cursing us.” Kosta’s gaze was almost reverent with the memory. “I thought he might live.”