The Name on the Screen

In December 1997, Stella Markou placed a sheet of paper on Eleni Vardaki’s desk and tapped the first line with one red fingernail.

— Koutouki Cave, the underground lair of the Satanists of Pallini.

Eleni read it twice.

Outside, Athens was gray with rain. The television station occupied two floors above a shop selling electric heaters, and hot dust rose through the vents. A printer coughed somewhere down the corridor.

— Lair? Eleni said.

— People understand lair.

— Do they understand that it may not be true?

Stella leaned against the desk. She wore a dark green jacket and the expression of someone who had already solved a problem by refusing to see it. “The appeal is happening now. The case is back in the papers. We need a short piece before everyone moves on.”

— The appeal is in Athens.

— The cave is in Paiania. That gives us pictures.

— It gives us a cave.

— It gives us a cave with a reputation.

Eleni looked at the script. Its words were large and certain: secret ceremonies, underground passages, a place where fear became ritual. None named a source.

— How long do I have?

— Two days for research. We shoot tomorrow afternoon.

— Two days?

— You wanted work.

That was true. Eleni had wanted work for three weeks. Her mother’s medicine had become more expensive, and the landlord had stopped pretending not to notice late payments. A serious objection would not pay either bill.

She picked up the paper. “I’ll check the location before we film.”

— Check quickly.

— And if the cave was not involved?

Stella gave her a tired smile. “Then find a way to say that without making the whole story boring.”

At noon, Eleni drove east toward Paiania with the script on the passenger seat. She had grown up among low houses, vineyards, workshops, and roads that seemed to change names whenever a municipality printed a new map. She knew Pallini was not Paiania, and that Koropi was not Kantza, though newspapers often treated the places as one dark district.

She had never visited Koutouki Cave.

The road climbed the eastern slopes of Mount Hymettus. The city fell away behind her. At the entrance stood a small building beside a paved path. There were signs, lamps, and a timetable for guided visits. A family in bright coats waited near the gate while two boys argued over a packet of biscuits.

Nikos Damaskinos came out of the office carrying a flashlight.

— You are the writer, he said.

— Freelance writer.

— A polite way of saying you are paid only when someone remembers you exist.

Eleni looked at him.

He smiled faintly. “Come in. I am told television people are always in a hurry.”

— The crew comes tomorrow. I need to understand the place first.

— Good. Understanding is usually cheaper than repairing a bad story.

He unlocked the gate. The modern entrance was an artificial tunnel cut into the rock for visitors. Inside, the air changed at once. It was cool and wet, with a mineral smell. Water touched Eleni’s neck from somewhere above.

— The temperature stays around seventeen degrees, Nikos said. Humidity is about ninety percent. If your hair misbehaves, blame the cave.

They followed the electric lights along a maintained walkway. Metal rails guarded the drops. The darkness beyond them was real, but it was not secret. It had been measured, mapped, and made safe for visitors.

Eleni opened her notebook.

— How long is the route?

— About three hundred and fifty metres. The main chamber is roughly sixty by sixty. Do not leave the path. The formations are older than your television station and less likely to forgive damage.

He pointed out the Olympic Torch, a tall formation rising from the floor. There were also the Altars, the Corals, the Harmonium, and the Red Waterfall.

— Mineral coloring, he added. Not blood.

The official history began in 1926, when a goat fell through a natural opening. The first recorded descent came on 2 February 1928, when the journalist D. Chatzopoulos entered with local residents. In 1954, Ioannis and Anna Petrocheilou of the Hellenic Speleological Society mapped the cave. In the early 1960s, the Greek National Tourism Organisation developed it for visitors.

Stalactites hung from the ceiling. Stalagmites rose beneath them. In places, columns joined floor to roof.

— The natural opening is high above the cave floor, Nikos said, about thirty-eight and a half metres. Visitors use the tunnel.

Eleni thought of Stella’s script: secret passages.

Nothing here looked abandoned. The cave belonged to guides, maintenance workers, and school trips. Its documented history was one of discovery, mapping, conservation, and tourism. The Ministry of Culture described it as the largest known cave in Attica.

Near a turn, a man in a black jacket spoke quietly to his daughter.

— Police found objects in here, he said. Ritual things. Everyone knows that.

The girl looked at the rocks with sudden attention.

Nikos stopped. “Who says it?”

The man lifted one shoulder. “People.”

— Do you know where the report came from? Eleni asked.

— It was in the newspapers. About the Satanists.

— Did the newspapers say police found objects in this cave?

— I don’t remember exactly.

— That is the difficulty, Nikos said.

The man took his daughter’s hand and moved on.

Nikos turned to Eleni. “You will ask me to prove that something did not happen here.”

— I was going to ask whether it did.

— That is better. A precise question may receive a precise answer.

Eleni wrote in her notebook:

What does this source actually say?

At the far end of the route, the flashlight caught the Red Waterfall. Mineral deposits ran down the wall in thin bands. It looked dramatic because geology had been patient for a very long time.

— Where did the story begin? Eleni asked.

— Which story?

— The one about this place.

Nikos’s expression hardened. “That depends on which place people mean. Koutouki is here, above Paiania. Davelis Cave is on Mount Penteli. They are different caves. Penteli has its own legends. People carry stories from one mountain to another as if caves have no addresses.”

— And the case?

— The case has names. Pallini, Paiania, Kantza, Koropi. Nearby places, not one place. A headline makes them touch.

Back outside, the afternoon light seemed too bright. Her mobile phone rang.

— Tell me you have something, Stella said.

— I have a cave.

— I know that. What kind?

— A public limestone cave. Maintained route. Artificial entrance tunnel. Guides, lights, railings.

— Can we film it as it was before?

— Before what?

— You know. Before the police.

Eleni looked at the paved path and the information sign.

— I don’t know that the police were here.

— People say they were.

— People are not a source.

— Eleni. Check fast. And don’t come back with a geology lesson.

The call ended.

Nikos had heard enough. “Television wants the cave to confess.”

— Television wants viewers.

— Those are not always the same thing.

Eleni looked up at the mountain. She had accepted the assignment because she needed the money. Now the question had changed. It was no longer how to make Koutouki look frightening.

It was who had placed the cave inside the story, and why.

She closed her notebook. “Will you let us film tomorrow?”

— If the crew follows the route.

— And if they want secret passages?

— I will show them the timetable.

For the first time, Nikos smiled properly.

At her car, Eleni took a pen and crossed out one word in Stella’s script.

Lair.

She did not know what should replace it. She knew only that the name on the screen was already wrong.