Spies of the Balkans

by Alan Furst

  Zannis looked up, knife and fork suspended above his plate. Was this a joke?

  “—photographing books?”

  “What?”

  “You know that the synagogues in Salonika are famous for their sacred texts: ancient books, Talmuds, Torahs, five, six hundred years old. Very valuable, if anybody ever sold anything like that. So last week, the rabbi at the synagogue on Athonos Street left his eyeglasses in his office, then, late that night he went back to get them and discovered some guy, using a desk lamp, had some of the books out and was taking photographs.”

  “Did the man taking photographs say anything?”

  “He ran. The rabbi is eighty years old, he couldn’t chase him. Maybe he yelled at him, I don’t know. Then he talked to two or three rabbis at other synagogues, and one of them said he’d found his books in the wrong order, though he didn’t think anything of it at the time.”

  Zannis put his knife and fork down on his plate, so much for lunch. “Nothing stolen,” he said.

  “No. Photographed.”

  “Which means,” Zannis said slowly, “somebody is taking an inventory, in order to know what to steal.” He paused, then added, “At some time in the future.”

  The waiter noticed that Zannis wasn’t eating his lunch and walked over to the table. “Everything all right, gentlemen?”

  Zannis stared at him. I’ve had enough of tentacles for one day. “It’s just,” Zannis said, “I’m not hungry.”

  As they walked back toward the Via Egnatia, they passed Sami Pal, sharp as ever, a red carnation boutonniere in the buttonhole of his jacket, standing in the doorway of a tobacco shop. “Good afternoon, captain,” he said.

  “Sami,” Zannis said.

  As they went around the corner, Saltiel said, “Ah, the slick Sami Pal. You’re a captain, now?”

  “He thinks so.”

  “There are things you don’t tell me, chief.”

  “There are. And I may have to, one of these days. In the meantime, Turkish visas. What will you need?”

  Saltiel turned his head toward Zannis and raised an eyebrow. “What have you been doing, Costa?”

  “Private business. How many?”

  It took Saltiel a while. “Strange, you never count your family,” he said. “There are, with the grandkids, ten of us. Is it possible that you have a way of getting ten Turkish visas?”

  “Yes.”

  “What will this cost?”

  “I’ll worry about that.”

  Almost to himself, Saltiel said, “How in God’s name would I ever make a living in Turkey?”

  “When the Wehrmacht reaches the Macedonian border, something will occur to you.”

  Saltiel thought for a time. “Don’t do anything right away, I have to talk this out with the family. Is there a time limit?”

  Zannis thought about that, then said, “Not right now.”

  •

  Back in the office, Zannis grabbed the telephone and called Vangelis, repeating Saltiel’s story, asking what could be done. “Not much,” Vangelis said. “I assume they lock the synagogue doors. Beyond that, I don’t know.”

  “This could be coming out of the German legation.”

  “I suppose,” Vangelis said. “It’s possible.”

  “You understand what it means?”

  “Of course I do.” Vangelis’s voice was sharp. “The Nazis have some kind of commission for the study of Jewish culture and religion, maybe it’s them. They steal everywhere else, why not here?”

  “What if I interviewed the consul? Asked him about it?”

  “Von Kragen? He’d just tell you, politely, to go to hell.”

  “What about Spiraki?”

  “No, he wouldn’t be interested.”

  “Then what?”

  “Leave it alone, Costa. Go break your balls on something else.”

  Zannis, looking out the office window, found himself going back over his conversation with Saltiel. Ten visas. He knew that the more visas he requested, the harder Madam Urglu would press him: tell me something. And then, how much money did he have left? Enough, he thought, though if Emilia Krebs’s operation went on for months, the bribes and the payments to Gustav Husar would deplete his secret bank account. Then he’d have to contact Vasilou. Did he have the telephone number? He thumbed through his card index, yes, there it was, the office on the waterfront, the number at home. The number at home.

  The number at home.

  There were reasons he shouldn’t. One reason: if Vasilou found out … But he won’t find out. And, if he did, there were other wealthy men in the city, including wealthy Jews, who might be the best people to approach. One hand resting on the phone, Zannis fought it out with himself but the outcome was never really in doubt. In his imagination, Demetria once again pressed herself against the back of the sofa. Look what I have for you. That’s what she meant. And then? Then this: soon enough the world was going to end, the world he knew, and his life—he wasn’t going to run away—would end with it. So, to love one last time before that day comes …

  He dialed the number.

  Made a mistake? A man answered and said, “Plakos here.”

  Tried again. Now, a woman’s voice: “The Vasilou residence.”

  “Is Madam Vasilou there?”

  “Just a minute, please.”

  He could hear a vacuum cleaner, a voice gave instructions, then the telephone was picked up and the voice said, “This is Demetria.”

  “Hello,” he said. “It’s Costa Zannis.” He waited, ready to turn the call toward some meaningless inquiry, everything depended on what she said next.

  Silence. Only the vacuum cleaner. Then: “Oh, Mr. Ionides, please forgive me, I won’t be able to come to the office this afternoon. Unfortunately, I must attend a funeral, at the Evangelista cemetery, at four. It will have to be another time.”

  “I’ll be there,” Zannis said.

  More silence, then the phone was hung up. As he replaced the receiver, he realized that his hand was trembling.

  He made a great effort not to leave the office too early, then he did precisely that. I can’t just sit here. It had drizzled all day, on and off, from a leaden winter sky, so he took an umbrella. By twenty minutes to four he reached the cemetery, decided to walk down to the waterfront, circled the White Tower, a former Turkish prison now pictured on postal cards, then went back up the hill.

  As he passed through the entry gates, a group of mourners, led by an Orthodox priest, was on its way out, all dressed in black and wiping their eyes with handkerchiefs. Forcing himself to a slow pace, he walked down the central pathway until he reached the older part of the cemetery, past long rows of graves—headstones askew, clusters of cypress trees, and monuments with pillars and rusted iron doors. He searched as he walked, peering into the misting rain and fading light, but found no living soul, only the dead. Then, with a view from the top of a crumbling stairway, he saw, by the high wall that bordered the cemetery, a figure in a brown raincoat. Head covered by a black kerchief, a bouquet of anemones in clasped hands.

  She saw him, as he approached, and stood still, heels properly together, posture erect, waiting. When they were a foot apart, he stopped and they stared at each other, as though uncertain what to do next. At last he said, “Demetria.” Then very slowly raised his hand and touched her lips with two fingers. When he did this she closed her eyes, dropped the bouquet, and with her hand pressed his fingers against her. After a moment she let him go and, when he withdrew his hand, said, very quietly, “My God.” I cannot believe that this has happened. As he leaned forward, as though to kiss her, she said, “Please,” her face close to tears. “It isn’t safe here.”

  “Can we go … somewhere else?”

  Sorrowfully, she shook her head.

  “I …,” he said. She gazed at him, closer yet to tears. “I have fallen—”

  “Don’t! I know.” She was pleading with him. “You will make me cry.”

  He didn’t understand.

&n
bsp; She saw that he didn’t, said, “I mustn’t. I must not.” She stared into his eyes, in love with him, her lips quivered and she turned them inward and pressed them together. But, he saw, she couldn’t hold it in.

  “Quick! Think of a monkey!”

  A great bark of laughter escaped her and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Then, her composure regained, she moved closer, almost touching him. She was, he thought, beautiful beyond belief; above her brown eyes, the smooth olive skin of her forehead met golden hair at the edge of her kerchief. “You don’t,” she said, “remember me, do you.”

  “Remember you?”

  “From a long time ago.”

  He had no idea what to say.

  “You don’t,” she said. “How could you? I was twelve, you must have been, sixteen? Our schools were side by side.”

  “We knew each other?”

  “I knew who you were, I looked at you often, we never spoke. I was just a skinny little girl, just a kid. I had long hair, little gold earrings….”

  He tried, but he had no memory of her whatsoever. “It’s all right now?” he said. “No tears?”

  “Thank God. They’d see it, they’d know I’d been crying—my eyes would be red. They watch me.”

  “The servants?”

  “Yes. He pays them extravagantly, he buys their loyalty.”

  Not far from them, halfway down a row of graves, a woman was on her knees, despite the wet ground, and was placing flowers at the foot of a headstone. Demetria followed his eyes, then stepped back. “Too many people know me,” she said.

  “I have an apartment,” he said. “On Santaroza Lane.”

  She didn’t answer, and looked down at the ground, her eyes hidden from him. Finally, her voice barely audible, she said, “I am not so brave.” The top of her kerchief was turning dark with rain and he extended his umbrella, attempting to cover them both, at least covering her. Then, on the side away from the woman at the grave, he took her hand. Which was cold and damp and, for a moment, lifeless. But it tightened, slowly, until she held him hard and said, “Near the railway station.”

  Zannis took his hand back and brought out a slip of paper on which he’d written the telephone number at his office. As he held it out to her it moved in the wind. When she’d put it away he said, “If you don’t call me, I will call you. In the afternoon.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I know about ‘the afternoon.’” Her smile, as she said this, was sad, rueful, what secret lovers must do. She thrust both hands deep in the pockets of her raincoat. “I guess I’d better go home now.”

  “May I kiss you good-bye?”

  Slowly, she shook her head. It meant no, but it was—the way she did it, the expression on her face—the most seductive gesture that Zannis had ever seen. Hands still in pockets, she turned and walked away, looked back at him once, then, at the end of the path, descended the stairway, and was gone.

  The two men from the Secret Intelligence Service came to see Francis Escovil in Salonika. Well, almost in Salonika: out in the bay. They arrived on a small yacht, from Alexandria, anchored beyond the harbor, and sent the captain to the Pension Bastasini with an envelope. Escovil wasn’t there, so the captain waited in the lobby, the residents glancing at him, at his uniform—of no country, of the land of yachts—as they came and went. When Escovil returned, the captain let him go upstairs, then followed. In the room, the captain gave Escovil the envelope and then they left together, walking down to the wharf where two sailors in a rowboat awaited them.

  Once on board the yacht, he was taken to the salon: grand twenty years earlier, now fallen into gentle decay, the fabrics faded, the brasswork tarnished, mildew in the air. It was, Escovil had noted as the rowboat approached, called the Amenhotep II, so, an Egyptian yacht.

  Escovil had never before seen these men. Jones and Wilkins, they called themselves and perhaps they were, Jones and Wilkins, or perhaps not. It didn’t matter to Escovil who they said they were, he knew what they were. Jones was tall and bony and mournful—Escovil’s interior description, adding though mournful about what God only knows, while Wilkins was military: stiff, mustached, hostile, and potentially dangerous. To the enemy, to his wife, to his dog. Maybe not the dog, Escovil thought. More sentimental, likely. Only you love me, Fido. That was very possibly true, Escovil sensed, so was relieved to find Jones in charge. It seemed, anyhow. Perhaps Wilkins had been brought along merely to frighten him, or was eager to have a ride on the yacht.

  They gave him a big whiskey soda from the bar and treated themselves to one as well. Settled in the smelly chairs, and smiled. Both of them. It was utterly horrible.

  “We have a bit of a nightmare,” Jones said. “So you’ll have to help us out.” He had a high insinuating whine of a voice. “Really, this is somebody else’s mess, but we’re the ones who have to clean it up.”

  “Somebody with a name?” Escovil said.

  “Oh, we can’t tell you that,” Jones said. He stared at Escovil. Are you mad?

  “I see,” Escovil said, faintly amused.

  Which wasn’t at all the proper response. “Do you,” Wilkins said.

  Only in England, Escovil thought, could “Do you” be spoken in such a way that it meant So now I shall cut your throat. In full retreat, he took a sip of whiskey and tried to look compliant. This was war, and he’d signed up to fight a filthy enemy, but he would never be one of them, the Joneses and the Wilkinses—they didn’t like him and they never would.

  “Once upon a time,” Jones said—glass in hand, he settled back against the chair and crossed his legs—“there was a little man called Henry Byer. You wouldn’t know the name, but if you’d been one of the chaps hanging about in the science labs of Cambridge in the nineteen-twenties, you most certainly would. A physicist, Harry, as he’s called, and brilliant. Studied sound waves and radio beams, very theoretical back then, nobody had the faintest idea such things could be used in war, nobody had ever heard of radio navigation. It helps bombers flying at night, who can find their targets only by use of radio beams, locator beams we’d call them now. Who could have known that a radio beam would become a crucial weapon, could win or lose a war? Now the Germans have their own radio beams but, using the methods that Harry Byer discovered, we can alter them. And the Luftwaffe may know we’re doing it, but they don’t know how. Harry Byer knows how.”

  Jones stopped for a drink, then went on. “Anyway, life went well for Harry; a lectureship at Cambridge, where he worked in the physics lab, he married his sweetie, a pretty girl—”

  “Smashing girl,” Wilkins said. “Big bosoms.” He indicated the magnitude of the bosoms with his cupped hands.

  “Mmm,” Escovil offered, raising his eyebrows in appreciation, one of the boys.

  Jones cleared his throat and said, “Yes, well.” Then, “But, in the summer of nineteen thirty-nine, life went sour for the Byer family, because la wife found somebody she liked better. Harry was, how shall I say, unprepossessing physically, you see, very smart certainly, but came the day when very smart just didn’t … compete.

  “And, well, still, who cared? But Harry took it badly, oh, very badly indeed. And just about then the first of September comes rolling around and Adolf sends his tanks into Poland. So Harry Byer, in a terrible huff, marches himself down to London and enlists in the RAF. He’ll show the wife what’s what, he’ll go and get himself killed! Hah! There! Take that!”

  Something rumbled inside Wilkins which, Escovil figured out a moment later, was laughter.

  “Oh, but you know, Escovil, somebody should have cared about this fellow who’s crucial to the war effort. Because Hitler’s got legions of goose-stepping SS goons, but Britain has scientists. And scientists win. You see?”

  “I do see,” Escovil said.

  “But the aristocrat, who’s supposed to be watching, a very titled aristocrat I might add, who goes to country houses with divinely important people, slips up. Not that he does anything right away, when there’s still time to do something
about it, no, either he isn’t told or he ignores it.”

  “The latter, I’d say,” Wilkins offered.

  “And Arthur’s got it right. Because that class of individual doesn’t make mistakes. They simply go on. No balls-up here, everything is tickety-boo. But, as you might have guessed, everything really isn’t tickety-boo. Now the RAF isn’t going to allow Harry Byer to actually fly an aircraft, good heavens no, but he is something of a gnome, a little runt, and that qualifies him as a tail gunner because he fits in the turret. So off he goes, in his Wellington bomber, dropping incendiaries on Germany, and good for him.”

  “Amen,” Escovil said.

  “Well, it damn near is amen, as you say, because early in January, Harry’s Wellington is hit by flak over the Ruhr. The pilot makes a valiant effort but it’s no good and the crew bails out over France. Now, luck intervenes. Some of the crew are caught right away, but Harry lands in just the right farmer’s field and the French, perhaps a resistance group, or simply French, take charge of him and smuggle him up to Paris. And there he sits, as they try to make arrangements to get him out of the country.

  “Now, just about here, the aristocrat is told what’s become of Harry and gives forth a mighty British roar. And who do you suppose he roars at? To clean up this godawful mess? He roars at us, who else?”

  Jones waited. Escovil knew he had been called on to recite, and what came to him was, “And now you’re roaring at me.”

  Impertinent. Wilkins said, “We’re not roaring, Francis. Yet.”

  “So then, what shall I do?”

  “Why, get him out. What else?” Jones said. There was a file folder on the table by Jones’s chair. Jones opened it, withdrew a photograph, and held it out to Escovil, who had to go and retrieve it. When he’d returned to his chair, Jones said, “There he is. Taken when he reached Paris, just to make sure they have who they say they have.”

  In the photograph, Harry Byer looked like an owl who’d flown into the side of a barn. Owlish he had always been—hooked beak of a nose, small eyes, pursy little mouth—while the barn wall had left livid bruises by his right eye and the right-hand corner of his mouth. Injured in the airplane? Beaten up? “When was this taken?” he said. He started to rise, intending to return the photograph.