آتش

Chapter four

The fire

I ran back into the house and put on my jeans and a pullover. Then I ran down to the beach. Lots of other people were running to the beach, too. Everyone was shouting.

It was Yiannis’s boat on fire. I knew the boat. It was painted white outside and green inside. It was a beautiful little boat and Yiannis loved it. But where was Yiannis?

I ran along the beach shouting, ‘Yiannis!’ I shouted again, ‘Yiannis!’

I couldn’t see him and he didn’t answer. There was still a lot of smoke coming from the boat.

Then, suddenly, there was another very loud noise.

And then it was very, very quiet. There was just the sound of the sea.

And now there was no boat on the sea, just a few bits of wood. No fire and no smoke.

Eleni fell down onto the sand crying. The other women in the village went to help her. I didn’t know what to do. I saw Nikos, the policeman from Apollonia, and a group of fishermen. I walked up to them.

‘What happened’ Nikos asked one of the fishermen.

‘I don’t know,’ the fisherman answered. ‘I woke up when I saw the fire. Yiannis was still inside the boat. I think he was asleep. But the fire was too quick. I couldn’t help him.’

There was several empty wine bottles on the harbour wall. Nikos picked up a bottle.

‘Perhaps Yiannis drank too much wine,’ said Nikos. ‘I think that’s what happened. Yiannis drank too much wine and didn’t know what he was doing. It’s very sad,’ Nikos said. ‘I feel very sorry for his sister, Eleni.’

The fishermen looked at each other. After Nikos walked away, one of them said, ‘I don’t believe any of that. Yiannis didn’t drink. And that boat was all that he had. It was his work and his life. You’ve seen him. He washed it every day. He loved that boat. I don’t understand it.’

‘I don’t believe it, either,’ said another fisherman. ‘But what can we do? Yiannis is dead. We must help Eleni now.’

I didn’t know Yiannis very well, but I liked him. Stavros knew Yiannis very well. ‘I must tell Stavros,’ I thought.

There wasn’t a telephone in the house. ‘I go to Poulati to get away from work,’ Stavros told me. ‘No newspapers and no telephone calls.’ There was a telephone in Eleni’s taverna, but I didn’t want to go there. She needed to be with her friends. So I took the first bus to Apollonia to phone Stavros. He was in his office.

‘Something terrible has happened,’ I told him. I told him about the fire and about Yiannis and his boat.

‘Oh no,’ said Stavros. ‘I’ve known Yiannis for years and years. I can’t believe it. Not Yiannis. Poor Eleni.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘It’s terrible for Eleni.’

‘What happened’ asked Stavros.

I told him what the fisherman told Nikos, and about the bottles of wine.

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Stavros. ‘Yiannis drank a glass of wine with his dinner. But he didn’t drink bottles of wine. I’ve known Yiannis for twenty years. I can’t believe it,’ he said again.

‘I’ll come out,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the next boat to Sifnos. I must come and see Eleni. Are you OK or do you want to come back to Athens,’ he asked me.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ll stay here.’

‘OK,’ he said. But now he was crying. ‘Yiannis! It’s terrible. I can’t believe it. What’s my wife going to say? Yiannis is an old friend of ours. We’ve known him for so many years.’

I was crying, too. ‘Last night we were laughing together and now he’s dead. We were laughing about someone killing him and now he’s dead.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Stavros. ‘No-one wanted Yiannis dead.’

‘I don’t mean that,’ I said. ‘He told me about fishing at Aghios Sostis and that there were still bits of gold in the sea there. We were laughing. It was nothing.’

‘I see,’ said Stavros. ‘But there isn’t any gold on Sifnos.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘We were just laughing together.’

‘Oh,’ said Stavros. There was nothing else to say, Yiannis was dead.

I took the bus back from Apollonia. I was very sad. I sat in the garden and tried to read a book. But I didn’t feel like reading.

I think I fell asleep, because the next thing I heard was two men shouting. I was sitting behind a large tree, so they couldn’t see me.

‘I’ve done what you said,’ shouted the first man. ‘But a man’s dead now.’

‘It’s not my fault,’ said the second man. ‘I didn’t know they were going to kill anyone.’

‘But why kill him’ shouted the first man. I thought that he sounded like Nikos, the policeman.

‘They saw him fishing near Aghios Sostis,’ said the second man. ‘I thought that they were going to tell him not to go there. I didn’t know that they were going to kill him.’