Spies of the Balkans ns-11

by Alan Furst

  Was it not?

  When she’d laid the garter belt on top of her clothes, she stood there a moment, head canted to one side. So, here is what you shall have. Was it what he’d hoped for? She was heavier, sturdier, than the naked Demetria of his imagination, with small breasts, small areolae, erect nipples.

  Demetria may have taken time to undress, Zannis most certainly did not. He shed his clothes, took her in his arms and drew her close, savoring the feel of skin on skin. And here, pressed between them, was an emphatic answer to her silent question. Until that evening, Zannis had been in a way ambivalent; for in his heart a tender passion, which he thought of as love, had warred with the most base desire. But tender passion, as it turned out, would have to wait. And he was only half to blame. Maybe less.

  And so?

  Lightning flickered in the distance and, when a squall passed over the Hotel Angelina, wind-blown rain surged against the window. “You could, you know”-Zannis spoke the words slowly-“never go back to Athens.”

  She didn’t answer, and he couldn’t see her face, but she nestled against him, which meant no and he knew it.

  “No?” he said, making sure.

  “It is …,” she said, suppressing the too soon, then started over. “It would be very sudden.”

  “You have to go back?”

  “Don’t,” she said.

  He didn’t. But, even so, she rolled away from him and lay on her stomach with her chin on her hands. He stroked her back, a deep cleft in the center. “Can you stay until the morning?”

  “Well, I’m surely not going anywhere now.”

  “Is it a long walk? To your mother’s house?”

  “Not far. It’s on the water, just around the bay. One of those stucco villas.”

  “Oh?”

  “‘Oh?’” she said, imitating him. “Yes, my love, now you know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That she could never afford such a thing. Nor could I. And you should see where my sister lives, in Monastir.”

  “Oh.”

  “You think I’m paid for, like … I won’t say the word.”

  “That isn’t true.”

  She shrugged.

  “So he’s rich, so what?”

  “That barely describes it. He buys French paintings, and Byzantine manuscripts, and carved emeralds. He spends money like water, on anything that takes his fancy. Have you noticed a small white ship, practically new, that stays docked in Salonika? I think it was an English ship, one of those that carried mail and passengers to the Orient. Anyhow it sits there, with a full crew on board, ready to go at an hour’s notice. ‘In case,’ as he puts it, ‘things go badly here.’ Then we will all sail away to safety.”

  “Not a yacht?”

  “The yacht is in Athens, in Piraeus. Not meant for an ocean in winter.”

  “You will leave with him, if ‘things go badly’?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.” She thought for a time. “Perhaps I won’t be invited, when the day comes. He has a girlfriend lately, seventeen years old, and he hasn’t been … interested in me for a while. So, when I return, I don’t want you to think that I …” She left it there.

  Zannis sighed and settled down next to her, in time laying his leg across the backs of her knees and stroking her in a different way. She turned her head so that their faces were close together. “I get the feeling you’re not ready to go to sleep.”

  “Not yet.”

  11 February. The rains continued. Hanging from a clothes tree in the corner of the office, three coats dripped water onto the floor. When Zannis reached his desk, a note from Saltiel-a name, a telephone number-awaited him. “This would be the mayor’s girlfriend?”

  “It would.” Saltiel was not only amused, he was anticipating the performance.

  “Hello? Madam Karras?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Zannis, I’m with the Salonika police department.”

  “Yes?” The way she said it meant What could you want with me?

  “I have a favor to ask of you, Madam Karras.”

  “What favor?”

  “That you refrain, in the future, from shooting at the mayor. Please.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. We know you did it, or hired somebody to do it, and if I can’t be sure you’ll never try it again, I’m going to have you arrested.”

  “How dare you! What did you say your name was?”

  “Zannis. Z-a-n-n-i-s.”

  “You can’t just-”

  “I can,” he said, interrupting her. “The detectives investigated the incident and they know how it came about and so, instead of taking you to jail, I’m telephoning you. It is a courtesy, Madam Karras. Please believe me.”

  “Really? And where was courtesy when I needed it? Some people, I won’t mention any names, need to be taught a lesson, in courtesy.”

  “Madam Karras, I’m looking at your photograph.” He wasn’t. “And I can see that you’re an extremely attractive woman. Surely men, many men, are drawn to you. But, Madam Karras, allow me to suggest that the path to romance will be smoother if you don’t shoot your lover in the behind.”

  Madam Karras cackled. “Just tell me that bastard didn’t have it coming.”

  “I can’t tell you that. All I can tell you is to leave him alone.”

  “Well …”

  “Please?”

  “You’re not a bad sort, Zannis. Are you married?”

  “With five children. Will you take this call to heart?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “No, dear, make a decision. The handcuffs are waiting.”

  “Oh all right.”

  “Thank you. It’s the smart thing to do.”

  Zannis hung up. Saltiel was laughing to himself, and shaking his head.

  12 February. Berlin was glazed with ice that morning, perhaps the worst of the tricks winter played on the Prussian city. At Gestapo headquarters on the Prinz-Albrechtstrasse, Hauptsturmfuhrer Albert Hauser was trying to figure out what to do about Emilia Krebs. His list of names was shrinking: some of the suspects had been arrested, success for Hauser, yet some had disappeared, failure for Hauser. That couldn’t continue, or he really would wind up in Poland, the Hell of German security cosmology. But he couldn’t touch her. He worked, alas, for a moron, there was no other way to put it. The joke about Nazi racial theory said that the ideal superman of the master race would be as blond as Hitler, as lean as Goring, and as tall as Goebbels. But the joke was only a joke, and his superior, an SS major, was there because he was truly blond, tall, and lean. And a moron. He didn’t think like a policeman, he thought like a Nazi: politics, ideology, was, to him, everything. And in that ideology rank meant power, and power ruled supreme.

  Hauser had gone to see him, to discuss the Krebs case, but the meeting hadn’t lasted long. “This man Krebs is a Wehrmacht colonel!” he’d thundered. “Do you wish to see me crushed?”

  Hauser wished precisely that, but there was no hope any time soon. Still, brave fellow, he wondered if he might not have the most private, the most genial, the most diffident conversation with Emilia Krebs. Where? Certainly not in his office. Neutral ground? Not bad, but impossible. To the dinners and parties of her social circle, Hauser was not invited. And they did not yet have an agent inside her circle who could find a way to get him there. Down the hall, another Gestapo officer was working on the recruitment of a weak and venal member of the group-they were everywhere, but one had to fish them out-as an informant, but he wasn’t yet theirs. So, no parties. That left the Krebs home, in Dahlem.

  Alarm bells went off in Hauser’s mind. “Darling, the Gestapo came to see me today.” What? To my house? To my home? The home of the important Colonel Krebs? Of the Wehrmacht? An organization that didn’t care for the Nazis and loathed the SS. No, a simple telephone call from Krebs, going upward into the lofty heaven of the General Staff, and Hauser would be shooting Poles until they shot him. Those people w
ere crazy, there was absolutely no dealing with them. So, better not to offend Colonel Krebs.

  However …

  … if the Krebs woman was involved with an escape operation, and Hauser pretty much knew she was, would the husband not be aware of it? And, Hauser reasoned, if he was, would his first instinct not be to protect her? How would he do that? By calling attention to the fact that the Gestapo considered her a ‘person of interest’? Or, maybe, by hushing the whole thing up? And how would he do that? By telling her to end it. Stop what you’re doing, or our whole lives will come crashing down around us.

  Hauser, in the midst of speculation, usually looked out the window, but that morning the glass was coated with frost and he found himself staring instead at the photograph of his father, the mustached Dusseldorf policeman, that stood on his desk. So, Papa, what is the safest way for Albert? Papa knew. The list! True. What mattered was the list. It couldn’t keep shrinking because, if it did, so much for Hauser. Safer, in the long run, to have a chat with the Krebs woman.

  Who should he be? He would dress a little for the country, a hand-knit sweater under a jacket with leather buttons. A pipe? He’d never smoked a pipe in his life but how hard could it be to learn? No, Albert! A policeman with a Prussian haircut, sheared close on the sides-smoking a pipe? And then, clumsy with the thing, he’d likely burn a hole in the colonel’s carpet.

  And the colonel wouldn’t like that. But, on the other hand, he couldn’t dislike what he didn’t know about. In fact, Hauser thought, if the meeting was properly managed there was at least a chance that she wouldn’t tell him! Simply stop what she was doing in order to protect her husband. And oh how perfect that would be.

  Therefore, no pipe.

  But maybe eyeglasses.

  Hauser walked down two flights of stairs to a department where objects of disguise were available. Not much used, this department. True men of the Gestapo did not deign to disguise themselves, they showed up in pairs or threes and hammered on the door. Here is the state!

  But not always. The clerk who maintained the department found him a pair of steel-framed eyeglasses with clear lenses. Hauser looked in the mirror: yes, here was a softer, more reflective version of himself. Frau Krebs, I am Hauptsturmfuhrer-no, I am Herr Hauser. Please pardon the intrusion. I won’t keep you long.

  In Salonika, in the morning papers and on the radio, the news was like a drum, a marching drum, a war drum. On the tenth of February, Britain severed diplomatic ties with Roumania, because the government had allowed Germany to concentrate numerous divisions of the Wehrmacht, munitions, and fuel, within its borders. And this, according to the British, constituted an expeditionary force.

  Then, on the fifteenth of February, it was reported that Hitler met with certain Yugoslav heads of ministries at his alpine retreat in Berchtesgaden, known as the Eagle’s Nest. Accompanied by a photograph, of course. Here was the eagle himself, surrounded by snowy peaks, shaking hands with a Yugoslav minister. Note the position of the minister’s head-is he bowing? Or has he simply inclined his head? And what, please, was the difference? The ministers had been informed that their country would have to comply with certain provisions of the Axis pact, whether they signed it or not. To wit: increased economic cooperation with Germany-sell us what we want, we’ll name the price-permission for the transit of German men and arms through Yugoslavia, and passivity in the event of a German occupation of Bulgaria.

  What wasn’t in the newspapers: BULGARIA CALLS FOR GENERAL MOBILIZATION! And what, on the sixteenth of February, was: BULGARIA SIGNS NON-AGGRESSION PACT WITH TURKEY! Over his morning coffee, Zannis read a quote from the agreement about the two countries’ intention “to continue their policy of confidence toward each other, which policy assures the security of peace and quiet in the Balkans in a most difficult moment, through mutual consideration of their security.” Which meant: When Bulgaria invades Greece, Turkey will not join the fighting. If Bulgaria invades Greece? The Salonika journalist didn’t think so. Neither did Zannis. And the phrase “peace and quiet in the Balkans” did not originate with either Bulgarian or Turkish diplomats, it was Hitler’s phrase.

  So, now everybody knew.

  Three days later, on the nineteenth of February, some time after ten in the evening, Costa Zannis lay stretched out on his bed, trying not to think about Demetria. A restless reader, he’d put Inspector Maigret aside in favor of a novel by the Greek writer Kostykas, a lurid tale of love and murder on one of the islands south of the coast. A yacht anchors off a fishing village, an English aristocrat falls in love with a local fisherman. So, who killed Lady Edwina? He didn’t care. Staring blankly at the page, he returned to the night at the hotel, watching Demetria as she slept, the goddess at rest, sleep having returned her face to the composure he’d seen in the backseat of the Rolls-Royce. But she wasn’t at all as he’d thought-now he knew her for an avid and eager lover, without any inhibitions whatsoever. In the past, he’d viewed fellatio as a kind of favor, performed when a woman liked a man to the extent that she would do it to please him. Hah! Not true. He had been simultaneously excited and astonished as he’d watched her, as she’d raised her eyes, pausing for an instant, to meet his. Such recollections were not conducive to reading, and he was about to put the book aside when the telephone rang. It was her!

  “Hello,” he said, his voice reaching for tenderness in a single word.

  “Costa …?”

  Not her. Some other woman.

  “It’s me, Roxanne.”

  Roxanne? Why now? The ballet school, the love affair, the sudden departure on a small plane-it seemed a long time ago, and over forever, but apparently not. “Why are you calling?”

  “I must speak with you, Costa. Please don’t hang up.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Nearby. I can be at your apartment in a few minutes.”

  “Well ….” How to say no?

  “We can’t talk on the telephone. What I have to say is, private.” She meant secret. “See you right away,” she said, and hung up.

  Now what? But, in a general way, he knew. The newspaper stories told the tale: when the political tides shifted, certain deepwater creatures swam to the surface.

  A few minutes later he heard a car. A black sedan, he saw out the window, which rolled to a stop in front of his building, there was barely room for it in Santaroza Lane. As the car’s headlights went dark, a figure emerged from the passenger seat. Zannis headed for the stairs, Melissa watching him, to answer the knock at the street door.

  Only a few months since he’d seen her, but she was not the same. Well dressed, as usual, with a horsewoman’s lean body and weathered skin, but had there always been so many gray strands in her hair? And now her eyes were shadowed with fatigue. As they faced each other in the doorway, she offered him a forced smile and touched his arm with a gloved hand. Over her shoulder, he could see that the driver of the sedan had his face turned away.

  In the apartment, she kept her raincoat on as they sat at the kitchen table. Zannis lit a cigarette and said, “Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, thanks. You’re looking well.”

  “So are you.”

  “Forgive the sudden visit, will you?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I think I ought to let you know right away that I won’t tell you any more about what went on in Paris than I told Escovil. I don’t betray friends; it’s that simple.”

  “We don’t care, not now we don’t; you can keep your secrets. Have you been reading the newspapers?”

  He nodded.

  “The situation is worse than what’s written. Bulgaria will sign the pact, some time in the next two weeks. They’ve asked Moscow for help but, to turn the Bulgarian expression around, Uncle Ivan will not be coming up the river. Not this time, he won’t. And, when that’s done, Yugoslavia is next. The regent, Prince Paul, doesn’t care; he stays in Florence and collects art. The real power is in the hands of the premier, Cvetkovic, who is sympathetic to the Nazis, and he will
also sign. Then it’s your turn.”

  “Not much we can do about it,” Zannis said.

  “Unless …”

  “Unless?”

  She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “There is some reason to hope there will be a coup d’etat in Belgrade.”

  Zannis was startled and he showed it-such a possibility had never occurred to him.

  “A last chance to stop Hitler in the Balkans,” she said.

  “Will it stop him?”

  “He may not want to fight the Serbs-most of Croatia will side with Hitler, their way out of the Yugoslav state.”

  Zannis wanted to believe it. “The Serbs fight hard.”

  “Yes. And Hitler knows it. In the Great War, German armies tore Serbia to pieces; people on the street in Belgrade were wearing window curtains, because the German soldiers stole everything. The Serbs remember-they remember who hurts them. So, for the Wehrmacht, it’s a trap.”

  “And Greece?”

  “I don’t know. But if Hitler doesn’t want war in the Balkans, and the Greek army withdraws from Albania …”

  From Zannis, a grim smile. “You don’t understand us.”

  “We do try,” she said, very British in the way she put it. “We understand this much, anyhow, Greeks don’t quit. Which is why I’m here, because the same spirit might lead you to help us, in Belgrade.”

  “Us,” Zannis said. “So then, your operation.”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that, but we can help. And, if the Serbs mean to do it, we must help.”

  “And I’m to be part of this?”

  “Yes.”

  Zannis crushed his cigarette out in the ashtray. “Why me? How the hell did I ever become so … desirable?”

  “You were always desirable, dear.” She smiled briefly, a real one this time. Then it vanished. “But you are desirable in other ways. You can be depended on, for one, and you have real courage, for another.”