Neighbourhoods keep ugly secrets

The summer heat in Kaisariani was a physical weight, pressing down on the narrow streets and crumbling post-war apartments. It was the kind of heat that made tempers short and secrets simmer. Myrto Zervou, a black-clad figure against the whitewashed buildings, fanned herself with a folded newspaper on her tiny balcony, her eyes like two dark olives observing the world. Below, the usual afternoon lethargy was being murdered by the relentless, throbbing bass of rebetika music.

“Again?” she muttered, the words a low growl. “This is the third day. My plants are wilting from the noise, not the sun.”

Her son, Aris, a bear of a man with sawdust perpetually clinging to his trousers, emerged from the apartment, wiping his hands on a rag. “It’s Old Man Hristos, in the building behind. He’s gone mad. Shouting earlier, now this music. The whole street is complaining.”

“Complaining is for the faint of heart,” Myrto declared, standing up with a creak of her joints. “Action is for the widow with nothing to lose but her peace. Come.”

“Mama, the police will come. Let them handle it.”

“The police? Bah! They’ll just use it as an excuse for an arrest, take him to the station to cool off, and tomorrow it starts again. A nail that sticks up gets hammered down. But first, you must see why it sticks up.”

She moved through the dim interior of her apartment, past icons and photographs of her late husband, with the quiet authority of a general. Aris followed, knowing better than to argue.

They found a small, agitated crowd gathered in the shadowy passage between the buildings. Hristos’s ground-floor apartment had its shutters slammed shut, but the music, Markos Vamvakaris singing of hashish and heartache, blasted through the gaps.

“He shouted at the postman!” cried Mrs. Sophia from the flower shop. “Called him a thief!”

“He nearly hit a child with his cane this morning!” added a young mother.

A young, sharp-faced police officer arrived, looking exasperated. “Right, that’s enough. Public nuisance. I’ll take him in, get him fined.”

Myrto stepped forward, blocking his path subtly with her body. “Officer, a moment. Hristos is eighty-two. He was a quiet man until three days ago. You hammer the nail, but the wall is still rotten. Let me speak to him.”

The officer scoffed. “Lady, he’s a disturbance. The law is clear.”

“The law is clear on noise. Is it clear on fear?” she retorted, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial tone. “What is an old man so afraid of that he must make the whole neighbourhood hate him?”

Intrigued despite himself, and wary of the formidable old woman, the officer shrugged. “Five minutes. Then I do my job.”

Myrto approached the door. She didn’t knock. Instead, she called out sharply, cutting through the music. “Hristos! It’s Myrto Zervou. You’re drowning out the television and I’m missing my serial! Turn it down and open the door. I have galaktoboureko.”

The music faltered for a second. A raspy voice shouted back, “Go away!”

“I brought dessert. Since when does a Cretan turn away a sweet and a visitor? Have you forgotten philoxenia?” She used the powerful word for hospitality like a key.

There was a long pause. The lock clicked. Myrto slipped inside, Aris a protective shadow behind her.

The apartment was dark, stale, and tidy. Hristos, a wiry man with a tremor in his hands, stood defiantly by an old gramophone. But his eyes, Myrto saw, were not defiant. They were wide with panic.

“What do you want?” he croaked.

“The truth. You’re making a spectacle. Why? A snake hiding in a field doesn’t thrash the wheat.”

Hristos sank into a chair. The bravado drained away. “They’re watching the apartment,” he whispered. “For three days. A man in a grey car. He asks questions at the kiosk. About me. About my son in Germany.”

Myrto’s gaze swept the room. It landed on a pile of unopened mail, and a recent, formal-looking envelope with a bank logo. “What did your son send you, Hristos?”

“Nothing! Just letters.”

“And you took them to the bank to have them read to you,” she stated, noticing a deposit slip peeking from under the saucer of his coffee cup. “A man who can’t read is a rich man’s favourite target.”

Under her relentless, gentle probing, the story spilled out. His son had sent a modest sum for repairs. Hristos, proud, had told everyone at the local café. The wrong ears had heard. Then came the veiled threats, a note under his door demanding a ‘share’ for ‘protection’. The grey car appeared. Hristos, terrified and alone, devised the only defence he knew: make himself a public, noisy nuisance. No one could approach unseen. The police would be frequent visitors. He was making himself deliberately, loudly, unattractive to predators.

“A donkey being sheared brays the loudest,” Myrto said, nodding. “You thought if you were a problem for everyone, you couldn’t be a target for someone. But you were making yourself a target for the law.”

She marched outside. The officer moved to enter. “I’m taking him.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Myrto said, her voice ringing in the passage. “The man is not a nuisance; he is sending up a flare. There is a man in a grey Fiat Punto, licence plate number partially seen, AXH-…, extorting the elderly. He’s at the end of the street right now, watching you do his work for him.”

The officer stiffened, his professional pride stung. He peered down the street. The grey car, noticing the sudden attention, suddenly started and sped off.

Action erupted. The officer yelled into his radio. Another squad car arrived. Descriptions were given. Myrto, Aris, and the neighbours watched the sudden flurry.

Two hours later, the officer returned, looking chastened but pleased. “We got him. Petty criminal, new to the area. Trying his ‘protection’ racket. He talked fast. We found the notes.”

He looked at Hristos, who had emerged, pale and silent, into the evening light. “The charge of public nuisance… it can be forgotten. Given the circumstances.”

The neighbourhood dispersed, buzzing with the adventure. Back on her balcony, Myrto shared the galaktoboureko with Aris.

“How did you know, Mama?” he asked, savouring the sweet custard.

“A clean house is one thing,” she said, watching the first stars appear over the Athenian rooftops. “But a suddenly noisy house? That’s a house hiding a different kind of dirt. When a sheep is silent, it is grazing. When it bleats endlessly, a wolf is near.”

Down in the street, quiet had returned, deep and grateful. The only sound was the distant hum of the city and the cheerful clatter of plates from Hristos’s apartment, he had finally opened his windows, and was sharing the ouzo he’d been too afraid to drink alone. The nail had been left in peace, because Myrto Zervou had chosen to fix the wall instead.

End