Solo - Jack Higgins [8]
'Yes, I know.'
And his grandfather, using the phrase he had used on that summer evening in Athens nearly three years before, said, 'You've decided to join the living again, it would seem?'
'Why not?' John Mikali answered. 'It beats dying every time, and I should know.'
He received an impressive certificate of good conduct which stated that Senior Corporal John Mikali had served for two years with honneur et fidelite and was discharged before his time for medical reasons.
There was more than a little truth in that. The two bullets in the chest had severely damaged the left lung and he entered the London Clinic for chest surgery. Afterwards, he returned to Greece, not to Athens, but to Hydra. To the villa beyond Molos on the promontory above the sea with only the mountains behind, the pine forests. Wild, savage country, accessible only on foot or by mule on land.
To look after him, he kept an old peasant couple who lived in a cottage by the jetty in the bay below. Old Constantine ran the boat, bringing supplies from Hydra town when necessary, saw to the upkeep of the grounds, the water supply, the generator. His wife acted as housekeeper and cook.
Mostly he was alone except when his grandfather came over to stay. They would sit in the evenings with pine logs blazing on the hearth and talk for hours on everything under the sun. Art, literature, music, even politics, in spite of the fact that this was a subject to which Mikali was totally indifferent.
One thing they never discussed was Algeria. The old man didn't ask and Mikali never spoke of it. It was as if it had never happened. He had not touched the piano once during those two years, but now, he started to play again, more and more during the nine months it took him to regain his health.
One calm summer evening in July 1963 during one of his grandfather's visits, he played, after dinner, the Bach Prelude and Fugue in E flat that he had played that evening he had decided to go to Paris.
It was very quiet. Through the open windows to the terrace the sky was orange and flame as the sun set behind the island of Dokos a mile out to sea.
His grandfather sighed. 'So, you are ready again, I think?'
'Yes,' John Mikali said and flexed his fingers. 'Time to find out, once and for all.'
He chose London, the Royal College of Music. He leased a flat in Upper Grosvenor Street off Park Lane which was convenient for Hyde Park where he ran seven miles every morning, wet or fine, always pushing Until it hurt. Old habits died hard. Three times a week, he worked out at a well-known city gym.
The Legion had branded him clear to the bone, could never be shaken off entirely. He realized that just before twelve one rainy night when he was mugged by two youths as he turned into a side street coming out of Grosvenor Square.
One took him from behind, an arm around his neck and the other appeared from the entrance beside some railings to the basement area of a house.
Mikali's right foot flicked expertly into the crotch, raising his knee into the face as the youth screamed and keeled over. The second assailant was so shocked that he slackened his grip. Mikali broke free, swinging his right elbow back in a short arc. There was a distinct crack as the jaw bone fractured. The boy cried out and fell to his knees, Mikali simply stepped over his friend and walked quickly away through the heavy rain.
At the college his reputation grew over three hard years. He was good - better than that. They knew it; so did he. He formed no close friendships. It was not that people disliked him. On the contrary, they found him immensely attractive, but there was a remoteness to him. A barrier that no one seemed to be able to penetrate.
There were women in plenty, but not one who could succeed in arousing the slightest personal desire in him. There was no question of any latent homosexuality but his relations with women were genuinely a matter of complete indifference