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Antonis Samarakis: Το λάθος (The Flaw)

The book opens with three men in a car driving along. They look as though they are off on a business trip, In a way, they are. They are chatting away, with a man called The Manager driving. They get caught in a traffic jam but it clears and they drive on. The only odd thing is at the end of description – we will come back to it – we learn that the narrator has a pistol in his pocket.

We move to a café in a town- the Café Sport. A man is sitting having a drink. We realise that he was the third man in the car. He asks the waiter for a pencil and starts doodling drawing two circles next to one another. We learn that he has just been in his room nearby and had mad passionate sex with a woman who he plans on meeting again later. The two circles are her breasts. He is seated near the toilet and twice someone comes out of the toilet and then inadvertently treads on his foot. The first man is apologetic, the second one less so but he decides to avoid any confrontation. As he is about to leave, two men who had been discussing the price of lard approach him. One produces an ID card and tells him NSD. He has been arrested by the National Security Department.

We learn of another case they were involved with – the Lavatory-Paper Case. It seems some people were smuggling in anti-regime leaflets disguised as toilet paper. Four men were arrested but one tried to escape and was shot dead. But now the focus is on the Café Sport case. They had received an anonymous letter telling him that the next evening a man belonging to an anti-regime organisation would go to the Café Sport, where he would meet another man. Both the men and the organisation are unknown to the NSD. A not very good photo is enclosed. They identify our man from the photo. It is by no mean certain that he is the man in the photo but the match seems close enough. He is arrested and the second man who trod on his foot is pursued, He tries to escape. They aim at his legs but just as they fire he trips and falls and the bullet kills him.

They find nothing suspicious on the the nan they arrest nor in his house. He insists that he is innocent and is a peace-loving citizen but that is not good enough, As far as the Regime is concerned,” I said, “ ‘peace-loving citizen’ means nothing. Nothing! People are divided simply into those who are with the Regime and those who are not. To be an enemy of the Regime there is no need “for you to have done anything against the Regime. It suffices that you are not with the Regime, that you haven’t any positive action to show on the Regime’s behalf.

We now realise that the journey in the opening section involves the man arrested, a man we know as the Interrogator and the driver called The Manager, He is not an NSD manager but was formerly the manager of a flea circus. He has boasted of this so has been nicknamed The Manager.

They are to take their prisoner to Central in the capital. Nowhere in this book is any indication of what country we are in so we do not know if this capital is Athens. What we do know is that they break down en route, apparently because the distributor has failed, As a result they miss the ferry and have to spend the night in a nearby town. With some difficulty they find a room that has three beds and a room not on the ground floor so the prisoner cannot easily escape. The Manager goes off to sort out the car, which has various complications, while the interrogator and the prisoner initially stay in the hotel room. They chat. They play chess. They do a crossword. Eventually they decide to go for a walk and even pick up two young women and go the beach with them. While the women swim, they paddle.

All of this is part of the Plan. It seems the NSD has devised a cunning plan which cannot fail and is utterly brilliant (in their view) . However, as far as we concerned, it is quite simply the old good cop, bad cop routine. Initially he has been threatened with being taken to Central where, as everyone knows, decidedly unpleasant things are likely to happen to him. However by being nice to him – going out for a walk, having something to eat and drink together, going yo the beach with two young ladies, playing chess with one another, doing the crossword together – he will surely reveal all. However there is , as the title tells us – a fatal flaw in the Plan.

The interrogator does not interrogate him but chats to him as though they are old friends. He is looking for one of two things – either a confession or an escape attempt which would, he believes, confirm his guilt. We follow the thoughts of the interrogator as he has complete confidence in the Plan and is sure it will work. We follow the thoughts of the prisoner as he considers escaping as he knows, guilty or innocent, he will in for a very unpleasant time at Central.

Samarakis’ stock-in-trade has been the brutality of the Greek regime and while, as mentioned, there is no indication of what country this novel is set in, it is clearly based on Greece. Shooting prisoners and the idea that if you cannot prove that you have done something positive for the regime – the obvious example given is betraying someone who might be considered anti-regime – then you must automatically be anti-regime – are two examples of their nastiness. However for us readers the clever and tricky plot is what makes this book enjoyable. Is the prisoner guilty? Will he confess or get off? Will the Plan work and what is its flaw? And what tricks will they use to get him to confess?

Publishing history

First published in 1965 byEleutheroudakēs
First English translation in 1969 byHutchinson/Weybright and Talley
Translated by Peter Mansfield and Richard Burns