Sophia Nikolaidou - The Scapegoat

The day Jack told us he was going to be a radio reporter, we were sitting right here on the sofa, listening to the radio, as a matter of fact. I scolded him for not taking off his shoes, but he was in a hurry to tell us what was going to happen —that’s how he said it, since the decision had been made and there was no changing his mind.

We had intended for him to be a lawyer, a well-paying, respectable profession. But he went his own way without consulting anyone. He’d already signed a contract to go overseas as a foreign correspondent. Instead of being upset, his father was proud. Mike became a lawyer in his place.

Jack left for the Middle East, the other end of the earth. While I was ironing his shirt collars, he came and hugged me. Don’t worry, Mommy , he said, I’ll be fine . And he was. His letters were always upbeat, full of jokes. Even when his plane crashed. Anyone else would have begged to come back home, but he insisted on finishing his assignment. He had a journalism fellowship waiting for him at Harvard, he would rest on his laurels later.

It’s my fault. I often think that, darling.

I never taught him what danger meant. My child hadn’t learned to fear. Of course at other times I say that they’re born with their character already formed. You could turn the whole world upside down, but you couldn’t change him.

I went to the country that killed him. Jack’s widow welcomed me. A good girl, I could see why he’d chosen her. She was made for happiness.

— Take off those widow’s weeds, child, I counseled. They won’t do you any good.

She insisted on wearing black. I told her to at least go sleeveless. To dress nicely, not in nun’s habits. She was a polite girl, and didn’t want to upset me by objecting too strongly. I talked to her mother and made myself understood: I would be bringing Zouzou to America. We would figure out her visa. I saw no reason for her to stay behind in that wild place.

Stench and filth, darling. That’s all I remember of Greece. Miserable people, hungry children. You had to find the proper person to take care of the least little thing. If you found him, the job got done in seconds flat. If you didn’t, door after door just shut in your face.

Before Jack went there, I didn’t know a thing about Greece. When he wrote to tell me about his latest assignment, I looked for it on the map. Such a tiny place, it was hard to find. Mike helped me, moved my finger over from Asia to Greece, a tiny splotch. It’s a country with a lot of history , he told me.

— If it mattered, we’d know about it. I bet they know who we are.

Then I saw that photograph in the newspaper. A man on horseback with a rope of severed heads hanging from his saddle. Only communists do things like that.

— That’s not a communist, Mother, Mike corrected me.

I didn’t listen. It worried me that my son was breathing their air, drinking their water, lying down to sleep on their beds.

Greece. Such a small country, and making such a big stink. Mike said that we should know more about them, they were important. But can you give me one real reason why?

Greeks: proud as punch of themselves, for no reason.

Greece: a country full of corpses and graves.

A place where the dead rule the living.

We’re not like that, darling. Our decisions are made in politician’s offices, not over open coffins.

That’s life.

They think they have a monopoly on pain. They wear their black head scarves, show their wounds like badges of honor. It’s all theater. Pure theater.

I asked for respect. A closed coffin, a service read in our language, far from those bearded priests in their cassocks.

As for them, the clock is ticking backwards.

That country needs to pay.

NIKITAS TSOKAS, COMMUNIST, COUSIN OF ZOE (ZOUZOU) TSOKA

Enough is enough.

Those slippery bastards saddled us with too much, they crossed the line.

Crazy, cheating sons of bitches.

Our newspaper took a stance, came out against the accusation. Our press releases called it how it was.

They’d accused Gris, an opportunist who had joined our ranks for a while, though the Party spat him back out soon enough. We could tell he had no faith. He wasn’t working for the common good, he just wanted money. To buy food, that’s what he cared about. We have no use for guys like that.

Along with Gris, they accused two of our own. I know all about it, and I can tell you the charge was absurd. Neither of them was even in Greece when the murder took place, we said that right from the start, it was official. One wasn’t even alive. He’d been killed earlier, in a bombing. His name had been released along with the other names of the dead. The second guy had crossed over into Yugoslavia on orders from the boss. His job was to help out when any of our people headed that way. He spoke pretty good English, they had him up there to communicate with the foreigners.

Those fascist thugs said our guys pulled Gris into it, to work as an interpreter. No matter how you look at it, that story is full of holes. Why would they need him to interpret when our guy knew better English than he did? They just cooked up some charge to cover their tracks. They wanted to close the case, and it suited them just fine to call it a communist plot.

Of course the Texan was no angel himself. There were plenty of his type hanging around back then, journalists on the hunt for people in the Party. He was desperate to meet our General.

He came to see me in prison. Zoe brought him. They were newlyweds, the wedding bands glinted on their fingers. He told me who he knew, wanted me to arrange a meeting. He was quick-tempered and harebrained and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I bet his mother never taught him what no meant. He wanted to get his way, that’s what he cared about most. He handed out orders and threats like they were candy.

Whatever happened to him, he brought it on himself. Think about it: he put his life in the hands of extremists. Who knows what kind of people he was dealing with. The city papers called it a murder. We believe it was an execution.

Read his articles and you’ll see. Go track down his radio broadcasts. He called things by their names, didn’t sugarcoat anything. He called the government corrupt and inept. He made no bones about declaring the country’s elite responsible for the poverty of its people, and for the political violence. He was as upper-crust as they come, but he told things like they were.

And he didn’t spare his own, either. Did you see what he wrote about Truman? That he was uninterested in truly aiding the Greek economy and improving living conditions among the people of Greece. All President Truman cares about , Talas wrote, is squelching the uprising . And supporting the corrupt administration.

The Americans called him a communist. That’s ridiculous. He was as blind as the rest, even with the truth screaming right in his face. He wrote that the communists were barbarians who swept down from the north to conquer Greece. A child of propaganda, he sang the same tune they all did.

What with one thing and another, pretty soon he made himself unwelcome. To our people but also to his. No one wants a barking dog nipping at his feet.

The Brits had him in their sights, too, for criticizing their policy in the Middle East. He spooked the British diplomats, who were in league with the Americans and the fascists in our government.

How one person can make such a fuss, I don’t know.

He also didn’t hesitate to go head to head with Rimaris, the Minister of the Interior. In a private meeting in the minister’s office, he accused him of secretly — that is, illegally — sending money to a private bank account in New York. Talas was more or less insinuating that government money, from the American aid effort, had ended up in private pockets. The minister was furious. He threw Talas out of his office, but the damage had been done, word got around. Rimaris howled that his enemies were slinging mud on his name, that dark forces were planning his political demise , that it was all baseless accusations .