Garbo’s murder
Towards the end when his once nimble fingers now splayed in awkward pointings and his ravaged body, frail and quiet sought refuge in wine and percocet, Garbo muttered something about a murder on a Greek Island back in the seventies. I thought he referred to something he heard or read about and let it pass, The old man often muttered semi coherent withered garbling that I regarded as the random engram of a mind straying back and forth in time and fantasy.
A few days later in a more lucid state we were engaged in a game of chess and I mentioned his reference to a murder on a Greek Island years ago.
“What did I say?”
“ Just something about a murder and a Greek man with pointed ears and the name of an island I couldn’t understand.”
“ Ah, Spetsae, I lived there for quite a time when I was young. I shared a room with a famous bouzouki player from Athens who played at the Taberna Skoppina . We drank Ouzo and danced every night. Me and Christo (the barber) & Nikos. There were no cars and we rode to the Taberna in a cart/ taxi pulled by a mule. My greatest summer!”
“And was there a murder?”
“No, no… the murder was years later when I went back with Cassandra.”
“Was it some Greek matter of honor between families.”
Here Garbo paused and wiped his nose while he raised his spectacles.
“The only other two people who know this are dead. “
My turn to pause and gesture inquisitively.
“ The dead guy, Cassandra and me. I killed a guy.”
