“We can always call in my cousin.” Kouros smiled.
Andreas chuckled. “Do you want to take anyone with you?”
Kouros gestured no. “It would attract too much attention. Make my cousins think I suspect something might be wrong. I’ll just poke around and try to keep a lid on things until I get a better handle on who might be involved. If I need help, I’ll yell.”
“Don’t be a hero.”
“I know.”
Andreas smiled. “There’s only enough room for one in this unit.”
***
Kouros picked up his mother at her apartment at evening twilight. He’d wanted to leave earlier but she said she needed more time to prepare for the funeral. He knew there was nothing he could say to hurry her along, for in virtually no other aspect of Greek life was the role of women as dominant as in the matter of funerals.
Greek funerals differ from those in other parts of Western Europe, and in the Mani even more so. There, funerals evoked memories of ancient rites and pagan practices followed in the Mani six centuries after the rest of Greece had accepted Christianity in the fourth century.
Greek Orthodox funerals took place as soon as possible after death, usually within a day or so. Generally, the poorer and less educated the family, the greater the intensity of the mourning, drawing anguished female mourners sobbing, crying, shrieking, and wailing into such frenzies that some risked falling in upon the coffin. But in the Mani-perhaps the poorest province of Greece-the women conducted their traditional mourning in a relatively structured manner.
Unlike the uncoordinated dirges and lamentations staged in other parts of Greece, the women of the Mani expressed their mourning in long funeral hymns, guided by a strict poetic meter different from any other Greek rhyme. Mani women improvised their mirologia or “words of lament” while sitting with the body at the home of the deceased, each working herself into a sufficiently emotional state of grief to signal that another should take over. The mirologia employed an ancient literary form, first welcoming the guests, extolling the deceased, the deceased’s children, and the deceased life’s work, and-if killed in a feud-ending in curses and vows of vengeance.
Kouros and his mother wouldn’t make it to Uncle’s home in time for the mirologia. Uncle’s body would spend the night in church and mirologia wouldn’t be said there. He wondered what his mother might have said had she chosen to participate. There was no requirement that she do so, and for someone as important as his uncle, plenty of women would be competing to out-mourn one another.
His mother fell asleep just south of the Corinth canal. Good, he thought. It would be a long day. He wondered if his cousin had any news about Uncle’s car. He thought to call him but that would wake his mother. Besides, no reason to risk winding up his cousin with a phone call. Mangas had promised to do nothing until they’d had the chance to talk after the funeral. A phone call now might give him the opportunity to change their deal.
If Mangas found something wrong with the car, his headstrong temper could send him after an otherwise innocent mechanic. Yet if Kouros told him it might not be the mechanic’s fault, but sabotage, it chanced launching his cousin on a rampage against anyone he might think to blame. Kouros let out a deep breath. And if he mentioned the death threats received by his uncle, it risked stoking unrestrained vendetta violence of the sort his uncle had spent a lifetime trying to avoid.
Kouros needed to get a grip on things quickly. But where to begin? He yawned.
“With staying awake,” he mumbled to himself. He reached for the thermos of coffee his mother had packed for their trip…along with enough food to feed all of the Mani for a week.
God bless mothers.
And heaven help those who dared cross the child of a Mani mother.
***
“Kalo vradi, Chief Kaldis,” said the doorman at Andreas’ apartment building.
“Good evening, Angelo.”
“Mrs. Kaldis said to tell you that she and your son are at your mother’s house for dinner.”
Which was precisely where Andreas should have been an hour and a half ago. “Thank you.”
He guessed that by now his mother was having so much fun playing with her grandson that she’d probably forgotten all about Tassaki’s AWOL father. Besides, Andreas’ late father had been a cop so his mother was used to her men missing dinners. He doubted his wife would be as forgiving. Andreas wasn’t complaining. As he saw it, Lila Vardi had sacrificed far more than he when she became Mrs. Kaldis. Andreas’ biggest struggle was learning to cope with what it meant to be living in a penthouse apartment on the most prestigious street in Athens, next door to the presidential palace.
The elevator opened into the apartment’s foyer and Andreas walked through the front rooms into the kitchen. He saw a note taped to the refrigerator:
“On the off chance you don’t make it to your mother’s, dinner’s inside.:-) Marietta will warm it up for you. Love, L.”
Perhaps I’ve misjudged her.
He opened the refrigerator door and found his favorite dish: chicken and fresh tomatoes slow cooked in oyvetsi pasta. He put the pot on the black-and-gray counter on the kitchen island, found a fork, and started eating out of the pot.
The man Spiros wanted him to call came from a politically connected family that had skyrocketed to great wealth in the 1980s and remained in orbit ever since. It was rumored he could “fix anything” regardless of the political party in power.
“Mister Kaldis,” said a woman in the doorway behind him.
Andreas acted startled. “Marietta, you should wear a bell so I know when you’re sneaking up on me.”
“Missus Kaldis would shoot me if I let you eat your dinner cold. And out of the pot! Give it to me.”
“You’ll have to kill me first. I like my oyvetsi cold. And don’t worry about Missus Kaldis. If she shoots you, I promise to conduct a thorough investigation.”
She reached for the pot but Andreas shielded it from her with his body.
“Just give me the pot, please.”
“Let’s make a deal. If I let you get me a glass of wine, could we call it a draw?”
The maid shook her head, turned, and walked into the pantry. She returned with an opened bottle of white wine and a wineglass.
“At least I can tell Missus Kaldis I gave you a good wine.”
Andreas looked at the labeclass="underline" KIR YIANNIS. He smiled. That wine company was owned by the current mayor of Greece’s second-largest city, Thessaloniki, who, unlike his predecessor sentenced to serve a life term for corruption, had a reputation for honesty. A quite different sort from the man he was about to call.
“Can I get you anything else?”
“No, thank you, Marietta.”
She left him sitting on a barstool by the counter, sipping his wine and picking at his dinner. Andreas liked the kitchen. Most of the other rooms had spectacular, unobstructed views of the Acropolis or its majestic sister hill, Lykavitos, but this one offered only walls, with just a glimpse of the sky through windows in the room beyond its doorway. It reminded him of his old fourth floor, maybe the elevator was operating, slight view, one-bedroom apartment. This room kept him in touch with his roots, or so he liked to think. Roots were important. He hoped Kouros’ own roots wouldn’t create a problem for him, but the kid was tough enough to figure out the right thing to do.
Andreas looked at his watch. It was coming up on eleven, the perfect time to call Spiros’ man with all the answers. He ran with a crowd that partied until the early morning hours, entertaining many of the same folks they’d be compromising later.