Che Committed Suicide Read Online Free PDF Page B

recovering their health after medical treatment .” I belong to the “some” of Hippocrates who have recovered their health,’ I told her. ‘In fact, I feel so healthy that I’m thinking of cutting short my sick leave and going back to the Force.’
    ‘Costas, for heaven’s sake, let’s not make any hasty decisions!’ On the one hand she was beseeching me out of fear and on the other she was reminding me that it wasn’t my decision alone but that we would make the decision together. ‘And when all’s said and done, you pay a fortune for health insurance. Now that you’ve an opportunity to get back some of what they’ve been taking from you all these years, are you going to pass up the chance?’
    She smiled at me triumphantly because she had found the argument that no Greek can counter. Any Greek who doesn’t believe that the state is stealing from him and doesn’t feel the need to get his own back is either mad or a communist.

5
     
     
    I had gathered momentum following my historic sortie and was flirting with the idea of cancelling my afternoon appointment with the cat. But, after careful consideration, I decided that there was more to be gained by my avoiding head-on confrontations and resorting to guerrilla warfare.
    A quarter of an hour before the designated time for our little outing, I felt her shadow falling over me.
    ‘Aren’t we going to go for a walk today?’
    I lifted my eyes from the dictionary and said with a wry smile: ‘We’ll go, but only if you promise me that tomorrow you’ll make me stuffed vegetables.’
    ‘I’d be happy to, but maybe they’re too heavy for your stomach just now, Costas.’
    ‘Not again? I’ve told you a thousand times that I have a bullet wound in my chest not an ulcer in my stomach, but you won’t listen.’
    She thought about it for a moment and came up with a compromise to save face. ‘All right, I’ll use less onion so they won’t be too heavy.’
    I was pleased with myself that my little scheme had worked and now the cat was sitting opposite me and staring at me with that same arrogant expression that my presence usually provoked. I got up slowly, stretched and went up to it. It was alarmed because my action was in breach of our silent agreement. It sat up in readiness and stared at me anxiously. When it saw that I kept on approaching it nonchalantly, it leapt down smartly from the bench so as to withdraw honorably with its tail in the air instead of being forced into a disorderly retreat. From then on, it would at least be on its toes whenever it saw me and I would be free of its arrogance.
    Adriani hadn’t noticed a thing as she was engrossed in the newspapers that I had bought that morning.
    ‘As if he would commit suicide because of financial problems!’ she suddenly exclaimed.
    ‘Do you think it improbable?’ I asked, sitting back down beside her.
    ‘Where’ve you been hiding?’ she replied, as though I had just been repatriated along with the communists from the former Soviet democracies. ‘Even if he was heading for bankruptcy, his company might have lost out but not him. You can bet your life that he had his personal fortune stashed away in Switzerland.’
    ‘Why Switzerland?’
    ‘Because it’s not part of the European Union and they can’t check his account.’
    I stared at her, dumbfounded. ‘Adriani, old girl,’ I said to her, ‘why don’t you go down to Headquarters and I’ll stay at home and make the stuffed vegetables?’
    ‘You see what you learn from TV?’ she replied with a triumphant smile. ‘You’re the only one who doesn’t learn anything because you can’t be bothered.’
    ‘Do they say things like that on TV?’
    ‘Are you joking? Do you realise what you can hear on the box? It’s a regular university.’
    ‘One door closes, another opens,’ I thought, remembering one of my favourite songs, and in the end it was the box that won out.
    ‘Let’s go, it looks like rain,’ said Adriani.
    I looked up