The Scapegoat Read online

  —I consider it an insult, he said, staring at each of us in turn, that I have to interrupt our lesson to chastise individuals who are practically adults, and will soon be able to exercise their right to vote. An insult to you, he clarified, so there was no misunderstanding.

  That day we’d been talking about the Occupation. Security battalions, collaborators, the city’s own historical drama. He showed us photographs and film footage. Concentration camps, human experiments, mass exterminations. Greek Jews being humiliated in the middle of the city, in Eleftheria Square. German soldiers posing for the camera in a swimming pool built of Jewish gravestones over where the university is now.

  —Sir, one girl asked, is what we’re seeing a movie, or a documentary? I mean, she added, wide-eyed, did all this really happen?

  —History doesn’t happen in outer space, Souk replied without blinking an eye.

  He pushed play. Jewish prisoners smiling at the American troops who had come to free them in a documentary about Auschwitz. Skin and bones, lying on mattresses, too weak even to stand up and walk out.

  —What I mean, Souk continued, is that history doesn’t happen to other people, in a distant place and time. It’s happening to us, here and now. What we’re living is history. Some people find that idea asphyxiating, but others find it comforting, he added as he started passing around a handout.

  On Saturday night I saw Evelina at Oh La La with a group of law students. There were enough crocodiles on their shirts to stock a safari park. Evelina looked happy. I left before I would have to say hello.

  Mom says I roam around like an unfulfilled curse. Well, she doesn’t say it to my face, but she whispers it over the phone to Grandma. She’s worried about me. She’d be proud to have a daughter like Evelina.

  Whatever. I could care less.

  Mom wants me to get better. Better means like her. To care about nothing but studying and grades. To go to university. To get a proper education, find a job. To smile and make her happy. So she can say, It was worth all that effort, he turned out fine in the end.

  Mom has opinions about my opinions and beliefs about my beliefs. She knows what’s right. I apparently don’t.

  She’s a mother, which means she’s clueless. She wants to help. But that’s impossible: she can’t help, because she’s my mom.

  It drives her up the wall not to know what I’m thinking.

  Take the other day. I saw a dead guy, and when I told her, she freaked out. He was on the sidewalk in front of school. He had jumped off the fifth-floor balcony. The body wasn’t even cold when I got there. The neighbors came outside, got some rope from the shop across the way and cordoned off the street. The religion teacher stood on the corner telling kids to go around to the side entrance, without explaining why. The ambulance took forever to come. The first-years managed to see it all, even the guy’s red socks. He wasn’t wearing shoes, just wool socks, fire-engine red, you could see them from far off. The ambulance came and took the corpse away, and then during second break they came to clean up the blood. They kept scrubbing the pavement, but it still left a stain. At night the dead guy’s mother came down and lit a candle. She left a bouquet of chrysanthemums, which we found there the next day. The first-years dragged their rolling backpacks around the spot so as not to disturb the little altar.

  —Did that man really have to commit suicide here of all places, right in front of the school? one mother commented. It reminded me of something Souk once said: Parents are the most despicable category of people. Childrearing does something to them, it must be hormonal. That was last year, when a parent came into the office to bawl out the German teacher. I bet the German teacher wanted to agree, but she held her tongue.

  No one knows why the guy jumped. The neighbors have various theories. Some say he’d been unemployed for a while; others say he was gay, because of the red socks; most of the teachers at school think there must have been some deeper psychological issue.

  —Those aren’t mutually exclusive, the woman at the kiosk said, shaking her head as if she knew.

  The girls all averted their eyes and went in through the side door. Except for Evelina, who refused to change her route. She walked right by without even looking his way. I went over to see.

  Right now you’re seeing your first dead man, open your eyes, concentrate for once in your life.

  I tried to feel something, but nothing came.

  I’m a monster.

  Yesterday Dad gave me his file with materials about Gris. Newspaper clippings, interviews, old photographs. A whole box of books, all hypothesizing about what really happened.

  —These are the illustrious sources which, I take it, you’ve been discussing in history class, he teased.

  I spread it all out on the bed and started with the photographs. Gris in profile at the trial. Ashen, though that might just have been the paper.

  —When elephants dance the ants always pay the price, Dad called from the living room.

  It’s his favorite saying. It represents his whole idea of human justice in a nutshell. As for divine justice, which Grandma invokes, when you get right down to it Dad doesn’t really care. Dad believes justice has to be served in life, because everything else is just stories the priests make up. Religious nonsense to help them rule over the sleeping hordes.

  Mom says Dad has a keen sense of justice, by which she means rigid, not keen. For Dad justice is black and white. There’s good and bad, right and wrong in any situation. Anyone who flip-flops must be sitting in a dirty nest. Grandma is a conciliatory type, and always says that there are gray areas, blind spots, forces at work that we can’t see from the outside, but Dad’s theory doesn’t allow for that point of view.

  According to Dad, philosophers and lawyers spill ink like cuttlefish, they muddy the waters, play the venal game of Mammon. They obscure the obvious. For him, the word justice is a holy word, even if politicians and judges try to cut it down to their size.

  —Justice isn’t a matter of procedural pirouettes, it’s a basic human instinct. As powerful an instinct as hunger or thirst. Justice isn’t about laws. Any child can distinguish between right and wrong without having to read the penal code.

  When he talks about stuff like that his face gets all red and the veins in his neck bulge like cords. It used to embarrass me, I was ashamed of how passionate he got. Later I realized that lots of people were sympathetic to his eruptions, in fact some admired him for them. At the newspaper, barking all the time is a plus.

  Truth conquers all, and if you have the truth on your side, you need to make yourself heard. That’s what Dad thinks. He belongs to the generation that believed in demonstrations. Maybe that’s why, when a conversation gets heated, he leaves logic behind and takes refuge in slogans and quotes.

  —Sir, I don’t know where to start.

  —Real research takes guts, Georgiou. It’s not just copying and pasting from the Internet.

  —Sir, I found the books you recommended, but there are so many, and the writing isn’t very clear.

  Souk wasn’t in a mood to rebuke me, but he did it anyhow.

  —That’s what historical sources are like, Georgiou. If you’d prefer, you can study for class like everyone else, but then you’d get bored of parroting back information. Did you think the critical analysis of primary sources would be easy?

  He raised his eyes to the heavens. It’s something he does in class when we bring him to the point of despair. It’s a look I call stop-bothering-me-you-fool. I wasn’t going to lay my weapons down so easily.

  —Sir, I said again.

  —Listen, Georgiou. How long have we known one another?

  —Six years.

  He nodded in agreement.

  —Six years, yes. Now tell me, in those six years, have I ever given you the mistaken impression that I follow democratic processes in my classroom? Did I ever submit any issue pertaining to our class to a vote?

  —No, sir.

  —I’m glad I haven’t created any misunde
rstanding, Souk said, putting an end to the conversation.

  I stood up to leave.

  —Georgiou, he called as I was walking out the door, and waved me back in. Listen, I know you’re at sea. But you’re going to have to work on your own. Study the sources, decide which you trust and which you don’t, form your own opinion. Here’s a book that might help you figure out how to conduct historical research. Just read the introduction and the opening chapter. That should be plenty.

  That’s how Souk is. He’d probably been carrying that book around in his bag for a week. He believes in the theory that you shouldn’t protect kids from difficult things. That they learn from falling down and getting hurt. Learning through suffering. I don’t know if it’s a great pedagogical method, but it works.

  Freedom is a sneaky thing. You think it’s actually free, but sometimes it turns out to be pretty pricey.

  I’m an idiot.

  I’ve been reading for ages and I don’t understand anything. After the first few hours I started to take notes, the way Grandma taught me. With arrows and diagrams and page numbers in parentheses. I don’t know how I’m ever going to get anywhere, and that methodology book Souk gave me just confused me even more.

  I’ve got all the events down, with dates. But I can’t figure out how they’re connected. Reasons, causes, effects, it’s all one huge knot. Brits, Americans, Greeks, I can’t keep the names straight or remember who did what. Dad insists that I need to read the newspapers from back then. He says that’s the only way I’ll get my finger on the pulse of the time. I have to view events through a reporter’s lens, for him that’s a given.

  Yesterday he brought me a CD with scans of the front pages and reporting from 1949, when Gris was on trial. The newspaper was digitized ages ago, someone at the office did it. So now I’ve got new material, when I can’t even manage what I already had.

  I feel like an idiot.

  Like that time Souk taught us a surrealist poem called “The Forest Boat,” by Nikos Engonopoulos, in our first year of middle school. He handed out photocopies and most kids thought it made no sense, but no one dared comment out loud. I didn’t understand a word, and was terrified he might call on me and realize once and for all how stupid I was.

  It’s something I’ve always worried about. What a clever child, and so special, he’s sure to go far, my teachers all used to tell my mom. I liked hearing their praise, but it terrified me, too. I was sure someone would eventually figure out that I’m not special at all. I’ve got a mediocre mind, it only tricks you if you don’t look too close.

  The day Souk brought that Engonopoulos poem into class, he read it out loud in his usual cold voice. I had no idea what it was about. But I felt like there was something happening on the page, something important.

  I was having fun.

  So much fun that I forgot everyone around me. I forgot the classes, the fight I’d had with Mom that morning, the spinach rice waiting for me when I got home. And when Evelina raised her hand and started in on the poem, trying to unpack the “hidden meaning” of every single line, I felt like shoving her. What she was actually doing was changing the words of the poem one by one, so as to make it comprehensible. To explain it to us imbeciles.

  —A poem has handles, Souk said, trying to guide us. Try to identify them and pick it up that way. Poetry doesn’t speak only to the heart, true emotion also passes through the brain; that’s what makes it so strong.

  Evelina raised her hand again. She tried a second time to dissect the poem and explain it in her own words. Souk looked at her for a moment, perhaps trying to make up his mind whether or not to say what he was thinking.

  —That’s your poem. If Engonopoulos had wanted to say all that, he would’ve used other words. Poetry is a precise art.

  Evelina didn’t let out a peep. The others were all grateful that she had explained the incomprehensible, so they could answer the questions Souk would give us for homework. I, meanwhile, was furious at her for ruining the poem with her interpretation.

  What I’m trying to do with these sources reminds me of Evelina reading that poem. I’m not studying the events, I’m looking for easy connections between them, to get it over with. I’m not letting them speak, I’m trying to speak for them. If Dad had ears to hear, I’d tell him that journalism does exactly the same thing, even if it doesn’t like to think so. It takes events and wraps them up in its own voice. I already know what his objections would be. In our conversations he steamrolls me every time. He knows how to argue. I always think of what I want to say too late, when he’s already left the room.

  I don’t know what Souk got me mixed up in, or if I’ll ever figure it out. I’ve stuck Post-its with the names of the major players all over the walls of my room, and a photograph of Gris over my bed. Tall and pale on the first day of the trial.

  —Who’s that scarecrow you’ve got on your wall? Mom asked when she came in to clean. When I told her who it was and what happened to him, her response was:

  —They burned his youth in a single night.

  THROUGH OTHER EYES

  THEN THERE WERE TANKS,

  NOW THERE ARE BANKS

  Tasos Georgiou glanced at the slogan on the wall and smiled. For days he’d been walking into the newspaper building without noticing anything, he, a man who always claimed that nothing escaped him, not even a blink of his colleagues’ eyes. It had been a month since he’d joked around with the others, he just went straight to his office, shut the door, and started making calls.

  —It’s a tough time for the boss, said the staff reporters, his “guys,” who’d learned most of what they knew from him, on the job.

  They’d heard the rumors, they knew how bad the numbers were, and they were all riddled with worry. Whispered conversations in the halls centered around furloughs and salary reductions, and no one had a comforting word to say to anyone. The atmosphere at work was poisonous. No more goofing around, or workplace flirtations, or smiles for no reason. Every now and then someone would groan, it just slipped out before they could choke it back.

  No one felt like doing anything. The uncertainty dragged on for days, until the days became weeks. The rumors infected everything, and none of them were ever confirmed. The girls in accounting stopped buying new lipstick. They used sample moisturizers from department stores and waited for the bomb to drop.

  Georgiou wasn’t sleeping well and suffered relentless headaches. Conversations with his superiors were excruciating. He was constantly weighing and calculating, trying to figure out which would be the smallest sacrifice.

  —Ask your staff, suggested a veteran editor he knew in Athens who was an expert at spreading strife and breaking up alliances. They might prefer if you fired some of them. That way the rest would get to keep their jobs.

  He wouldn’t hear of it. He knew them all by their first names, knew their wives and children. Sure, there were some lazy guys who got away with murder, who spent all day on the phone or taking cigarette breaks, but he couldn’t just send them packing. He wouldn’t take responsibility for that crime.

  —Only the dead don’t go to work, that’s how I was raised, he cut off one guy, a specialist at sick leave, who tried to call in with a cold. He dragged the lazy bum into the office to work on a piece he’d emailed in, hoping the others would fix it up.

  Georgiou barked, sure, but he had no intention of biting. When the publisher called a meeting with the staff, he sat on the latter’s side of the room, so it would be perfectly clear whose side he was on. The balance sheets were presented and the numbers shut people up, there was no arguing with the facts. The business side of things hadn’t been going well for a while. The publisher didn’t have much to add. He proposed a forty-percent reduction in wages. The staff accepted twenty percent. The union was pleased with the compromise, the staff relieved that the worst had been avoided.

  The publisher wasn’t one to waste words. He was a good guy, all things considered. Haggling with him wasn’t an unpleasant affair: th
e necessary dirty work happened in a fairly above-board manner, he wasn’t overly greedy for profits, he knew how to be flexible while still getting his way in the end. He pulled strings behind closed doors. He knew how to compromise and how to form coalitions. He was corrupt, of course—how could he not be?—but he would admit it readily enough, with a knowing smile, if you asked, at least to the extent that he could talk about such things. Don’t interfere, you’ll mess up all my work, his father’s accountant had told him when he first assumed responsibilities at the paper. He quickly figured out how private understandings got made, how fat envelopes traveled to and from ministers’ offices, how a person could ask for the most outrageous things and see them actually become a reality.

  The publisher had already settled on a twenty-percent wage reduction, as per the advice of his unsmiling and extremely well-remunerated advisors, but proposed cuts twice as harsh so the union leaders would be able to boast that their multi-day negotiations had circumvented the worst.

  It wasn’t fun for the journalists, of course—who likes to have money snatched from his pockets?—but they felt as if the sword that had been hanging over their heads had gone to threaten someone else instead. So they all breathed a collective sigh of relief and got back to work. They were perfectly aware that their good luck was temporary, but no one was making long-term plans these days anyway.

  Georgiou went out to walk the city streets. He couldn’t stand being cooped up in the office anymore, his closed door made him claustrophobic. But he also didn’t want to leave it open, the way he used to. He planned on walking as far as Dimitris Gounaris Street, where the downward slope of the sidewalk calmed him, even if the place was filthy. He didn’t mind the muddy streets, the trash everywhere, the Pakistanis selling incense whose smell drove Evthalia crazy. All he saw was the sea at the end of the street, the glistening waves, the open horizon. That walk was his painkiller, his tranquilizer, the moments of soothing beauty he allowed himself when the going got tough. He had edited dozens of special issues about the city’s waterfront, he had talked with experts about its potential uses. He’d heard some crazy ideas and some interesting ones, ridiculous modernization schemes as well as more tasteful and sensible approaches. None of the architects brought in from elsewhere had any idea what the sea meant for the city. On a design level, of course, they knew how to present their plans with the appropriate terminology. But on an everyday level, how many of those jacks-of-all-trades with their Ph.D.s from American universities knew what it meant to walk along Proxenos Koromilas Street, one block in from the waterfront, and see the sunset peeking in at every cross street? How many of them had spent their childhoods watching the sunlight dance over the waters of the Thermaic Gulf, at midday, through the windows of their schools? And how many had talent enough to make their architectural plans account for the particular gray of the city, on a rainy day, at the old port? A milky gray, with just a touch of watery blue at the end, a color all Thessalonians know—and though they might curse the dreariness of their city, if you dropped them down in the Maldives, sooner or later they would launch into endless comparisons and complaints about how exhausting all that sunshine was.