‘He’s ill-mannered and always ready to pass the buck,’ was the immediate reply. ‘It’s not enough that he behaves like a boor, he’s always trying to hang all his mistakes, which are at least a dozen a day, on me.’
‘Be patient, Koula, it’s only two months, they’ll pass quickly.’
‘Amen to that!’ she said, laughing.
Despite Koula’s comments, my anger still hadn’t abated. I stood in Dimitsanas Street, in front of the church of Aghios Savvas, and waited for a taxi, but to find a taxi in the centre of Athens at two in the afternoon you have to have gone through special training. My schooling was only basic so other people grabbed the taxis from under my nose before I even had time to talk to the driver. After much ado I finally managed to grab one myself, I was ready to explode. The moment I sat in the front seat, I realised I’d chanced upon the rule rather than the exception, in other words, on the music-loving taxi driver who has his radio on constantly at full blast. My nerves gave way at the corner of Michalakopoulou and Spryrou Merkouri Streets, when a female voice started singing:
‘Shut the damn thing off and honk the horn so we can get through the traffic!’ I said to the driver.
He turned and looked at me with that arrogant expression that taxi drivers have. ‘Why, are you ill? You don’t look ill to me.’
I stuck my police ID in his face. ‘I’m a police inspector and I’m on official business. And your radio is interfering with my CB. Turn it off and honk the horn or I’ll hand you over to the first patrol car we meet and you’ll lose your licence for six months.’
He did exactly what I said without a second thought. He drove like a kamikaze pilot and within two minutes we were at the corner of Aristikleous Street. I asked him how much the fare was.
‘Never mind about it, Inspector. I’d rather you let me have your name,’ he said as though he were planning to invite me out. ‘You never know, it might come in handy some time.’
I flung three euros onto the seat and slammed the car door behind me.
‘Where have you been all this time, dear?’ Adriani asked, with a worried look.
‘Omonoia Square. I missed the illegal immigrants.’
She saw my expression and understood that it was useless to go on. ‘Let’s go and eat,’ she said.
As soon as I took the first bite of my plate of stuffed vegetables, I felt better and my anger evaporated as if by a miracle.
‘Tastes delicious, Adriani! That’s the best present you could have given me today,’ I said, full of enthusiasm.
‘Oh come on, you don’t have to lie. They’re short on onion, like I said.’
I took a second bite and held it in my mouth to allow my taste buds to do their work. There was so much we were short on, I wasn’t going to complain about the onion.
I was sitting in a deluxe cabin. Not on one of those passenger-car ferries that ply the south Aegean, but in the duty ward of the Cardiology Department in the State General Hospital, that had roughly the same dimensions and facilities as a deluxe cabin. I was waiting for the results of the analyses, for Adriani to finish with the formalities and for the surgeon to examine me. This was my reward for consenting to come for the tests: I would sit in a deluxe cabin while Adriani would do all the legwork. There was nothing wrong with me; I knew it, the doctors knew it, even the nurses knew it. It had been weeks since they had removed my stitches, my wound had completely healed and I only felt it tugging at me slightly with sudden changes in the weather. Adriani, however, insisted that I went for tests, in the hope that the doctors would find some tiny hole that had remained open in order that she might prolong her domination over me on account of continuing ill health.
She stuck her head round the door. ‘They’re ready, Costas, we can go.’
The duty ward was on the third floor, whereas the Outpatients Department was on the ground floor of the building opposite. Adriani pressed the button to call the lift.
‘Never mind, we’ll be waiting an hour for it to come,’ I said and began walking down the stairs in order to prove to her that I was in fine fettle and not to hold out any vain hopes.
It was unbearably humid and just a few days before I had gone back to wearing a suit and tie so that by the time I reached the Outpatients my clothes were stuck to me. Either it rains and you end up soaking wet or the sun shines and you end up soaking in sweat. Damn weather.
Fanis was waiting for us outside the door of the surgery and we went in for the tests under the astonished gaze of the social security plebs who turn up at six in the morning to get a priority number and are examined at around two in the afternoon.
‘What seems to be the problem, Inspector? Do you have any pain?’ asked Evkarpidis, the surgeon in charge.
‘No, no doctor,’ replied my personal government spokeswoman. ‘We’re fine, thanks be to God, but we thought of having a little check-up just to be sure.’
From the very first day at the hospital, she had been using that ‘we’, as if we’d been wounded in association. I stripped to the waist and lay down on the couch. Evkarpidis took a quick look, without touching the scar left by the wound. ‘You’re doing just fine,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘And your tests are very good. Your white corpuscles are at normal levels and your blood platelets too. That’s it, no need for you to come back.’
‘Costas dear, why don’t we have a cardiograph while we’re here?’ Adriani said meekly once we were back outside in the corridor.
I knew where she was leading. She couldn’t get any blood out of the wound and she was trying to get it out of the cardiograph. I was ready to answer her with a sharp ‘no’, but I was stopped by Fanis’s laughter.
‘You had the other tests, you may as well have a cardiograph, you’ve nothing to lose,’ he said.
I accepted in silence as I couldn’t say no to my daughter’s boyfriend.
We entered the lift to go to the Cardiology Department together with two nurses who seemed agitated and were talking to each other in an intense tone.
‘Is it certain?’ the one asked the other.
‘They just announced it on the radio.’
The first one crossed herself. ‘Dear Lord. The world’s gone mad.’
We got out on the second floor, so I didn’t find out what had been announced on the radio. That the world had gone mad, I already knew.
‘Your heart is like clockwork,’ Fanis said to me satisfied, after studying the cardiograph. ‘How are you doing as regards medicine?’
‘He’s out of diuretics, Fanis dear. Give him a prescription for another box just in case,’ said Adriani, who, like a proper quartermaster, knew off by heart exactly what medicines I had left.
‘Get two Frumil and a Pensordil for the Inspector,’ Fanis said to the nurse.
A nurse of about fifty, who was waiting for the other cardiologist, raised her head and looked at me oddly. ‘You’re lucky to be here at the hospital, today,’ she said. ‘Your colleagues outside have got their hands full.’
‘Why?’ I asked a little testily. It always irritates me when people start up a conversation with me without knowing me.
‘Haven’t you heard? That organisation that claimed to have forced Favieros to commit suicide?’
‘The Philip of Macedon Front?’
‘Exactly. They murdered two Kurds last night. They just announced it on the news.’
I immediately turned to Fanis. ‘Is there a TV in here?’
‘In the refectory.’
‘Why are you in such a rush?’ Adriani asked. ‘It’s going to be on TV for the whole of next week.’
She was right, but I couldn’t stop myself. The refectory was situated in a little park full of pine trees. It was packed. Male patients in pyjamas, female patients in nighties, visitors, young doctors and nurses were squashed together at the tables and against the walls and were watching the special bulletin on the TV that was positioned on a bracket on the wall. I happened to get there halfway through the organisation’s announcement as it was scrolling down the screen:
