STAVROS NIARXOS book

Dimitris Liberopoulos book "NIARCHOS"

1.  Niarchos ´s  cemise

 September of 1995 was at its end and winter was  approaching Saint Moritz, with its inhabitants getting their winter coats out of the closet as usual. The middle-aged man wearing a striped vest and dark pants sat at his small desk organizing certain accounts. When he finished, he placed them in the top drawer, and then he opened a lower one, and admired the well-organized dossiers and files. The contents of these files represented the foundation of an enormously suc cessful financial future. This man moved like a shadow through the corridors and rooms of Stavros Niarchos's house. He was the butler of the last Golden Greek who sat immobilized as though nailed to his wheel chair. The great shipowner himself was un¬aware that his end was approaching because he firmly believed that money alone would be sufficient to buy out Death.

Three years ago, when he had occupied - along with his es¬corts - the two top floors of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, he asked the Harvard professor of professors, Dr. Nicholas Zerva, to tell him the truth. Niarchos ordered everyone out of the room (even his sons), and asked the Greek-American professor to explain the aim of the operation he would perform on him. "Doctor, I want you to tell me about it in Greek," he begged. Who? The man who had never begged anyone? Professor Zervas told him that he would perform a petalectome on him, meaning he would space out the bones in his back so that his spine could "breath". "This means that you will cut me to pieces, doctor," said Niarchos, yellowed by fear. But his fellow countryman appeased him by saying they would give him anesthesia, and when he woke up, he would not have any stiffness and feel as light and agile as a little bird.

The Magnate shook his head in disbelief and said to him: "Doctor, it doesn't matter whether I feel like a bird if I can't also fly." Indeed, after the operation, Niarchos walked, but he never flew, neither like an eagle as in the past, nor even like an ostrich.

 His children, his relatives, his collaborators, his financial advi¬sors, everybody had made up their minds that the Big Boss no longer belonged with the living, but with the moribund, those living in death. However, it was not quite so simple for this great shipping magnate to die. Even though he sensed everyone hang¬ing around him like vultures, he still had a hope deeply rooted in his mind that very soon science would discover the elixir to pro¬long life and, why not, even ensure immortality, as he had read in a Greek science fiction novel, Immortal. His cunning butler had given him the book, thus reinforcing his boss's expectations, pounding on his brain, that - any time now - scientists would an¬nounce this earth-shattering discovery. However, the Magnate -who had lost his speech many months before - wrote to him on the notebook one day: "Even if the elixir is discovered and life is prolonged, how could so many people fit on the Earth?" Tom, the  butler, who had been born, Thomas, on the island of Cephalonia, bent over and whispered to Niarchos, "But, sir, the medicine will be so expensive that only a few people will be able to acquire it."

During old Niarchos's rare moments of clarity, he sometimes wondered whether Tom was a creature of his imagination. Two Cephalonians he had previously had in his service did not tell him such nonsense: neither his trusted cook, Thrasyvoulos Galiatsos, (who died in 1984) who used to prepare the most delicious meals Niarchos had ever eaten; nor his butler, Alekos Gasparatos, his confidant and general duties man. Both Cephalonians, they had been devoted and dependable. But this flighty person, who some¬times appeared like a ghost in front of him, not only did he make cocktails that tickled his palate, but even tried to give him hope that his life would be prolonged. For this reason, the old man with nine-lives, who had come close to death many times and es¬caped, wondered how fantastical Tom really was.

 Sometimes as I wrote this book, lying in an armchair, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine and feel like the Stolarchos himself during his final days. I wondered about the same thing: whether Tom-Thomas is a real person or a fantastical voice, an imaginary extension of Niarchos's two faithful subordinates. All those close to the Magnate agree that Galiatsatos's death and Gasparatos's retirement had made him feel dejected. Previously, Niarchos had only worn such a heavy face when a ship of his sank or was put out of commission.

 Bent over his papers, Tom organized clippings, photocopies and notes, everything that was useful for his memoirs. For this endeavor, he wished that the Lord should give Sir his final rest,  that Sir should remember him in his will, and then, undistracted, he could undertake the writing of his best seller. The old man, however, did indeed have nine lives. Despite his infirmity, the fact that he was almost blind, deaf and mute, was resisting and reacting, roaring like a hurt animal, until finally the shadow would appear, the one that provided for his every small enjoy¬ment, even his hope - a Utopia - for the prolongation of his life. The disabled Magnate wondered: Could it be that Tom is my guardian angel in the world of daemons that surround me lately?

Whether the good angel of the dying man or the cunning ghost of the house, Tom bent over a clipping and began reading si¬lently:

 Niarchos has disappeared from all places, social meetings, clubs, VIP ski resorts at Gstaad and Saint Moritz, Paris, London, Monaco, Spetsopoula, where he has not been in years, perhaps since his wife, Eugenia, died. He only appeared at the great Arc de Triumph horse-race two years ago, supported, however, by his nurse. His name has been forgotten and will remain with the unwanted until his death will be announced and the media will refer to the life of one of our century's richest men in the past tense. The Greek Magnate has withdrawn himself since May 1991, when he suffered his first heart attack on his yacht "Atlantis IF and was taken to Innsbruck.

Later he regained some of his lost vitality at clinics in Houston and Boston. It is said that heart, spine and eye surgery has all been performed on him.

 Niarchos had appeared publicly, for the last time, at his son's wedding and at the Lonsan horse races supported and accompanied by a nurse and doctor.

 During the past two years, the last "Golden Greek" lives isolated from the outside world at his villa "Marguri" in Saint Moritz, confined to his bed and having lost his voice.... His skin resembles cigarette paper.... He is given cortisone....

These journalists amaze me, the butler thought; they learn everything, except the most important thing which interests me: that the Big One still has his mental faculties intact and his thinking process is crystal clear, which tortures him because he constantly remember and resurrects the whole of his earlier life. This is what I have to take advantage of: to steal his recollections, even if his memory often wanders in time and he confuses events, even peo¬ple - me for example - about whom he is not even certain whether I am real or the creation of his imagination.

προστέθηκε στις: Τετάρτη 08.06.2016