by Alan Furst
“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’état 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.”
“Why are you here, Roxanne? I mean you, and not Francis Escovil?”
“He does the best he can but he’s an amateur. I’m a professional.”
“For a long time?”
“Yes. Forever, really.”
Zannis sighed. There was no way to refuse. “Well then, since you’re a professional, perhaps you could be more specific.”
“We know you have friends in the Yugoslav police, and we will need to control certain elements in the army General Staff, not for long, forty-eight hours, but they can’t be allowed to get in our way.”
Zannis was puzzled. “Isn’t it always the army that stages the coup?”
“Air force.” She paused, then said, “There are more particulars, names and so forth, but first make certain of your friends, then contact Escovil and you’ll be told the rest. You won’t know the exact day, so you’ll have to move quickly when we’re ready.” She looked at her watch, then, as she stood, she raised a small leather shoulder bag from her lap and Zannis saw that it sagged, as though it carried something heavy. What was in there? A gun? “I have to say good night now,” she said. “My evening continues.”
He walked her as far as the top of the stairway. “Tell me one more thing,” he said. “When you came to Salonika, was it me you were after? A target? A recruit? It doesn’t matter now, you can tell me, I won’t be angry.”
She stopped, two steps below him, and said, “No, what I told you at the airfield was the truth—I was in Salonika for something else. Then I met you and what happened, happened.” She stayed where she was, and when at last she spoke her voice was barely audible and her eyes were cast down. “I was in love with you.”
As she hurried down the stairs, Zannis returned to his kitchen and lit another cigarette. In the street below, an engine started, lights went on, and the sedan drove away.
1 March. Zannis and Saltiel went to lunch at Smyrna Betrayed and ate the grilled octopus, which was particularly sweet and succulent that afternoon. Always, a radio played by the cash register at the bar, local music, bouzouki songs, an undercurrent to the noisy lunch crowd. Zannis hardly noticed the radio but then, as the waiter came to take away their plates, he did. Because—first at the bar, next at the nearby tables, finally everywhere in the room—people stopped talking. The restaurant was now dead silent, and the barman reached over and turned up the volume. It was a news broadcast. King Boris of Bulgaria had signed the Axis pact; German troops were moving across the Danube on pontoon bridges constructed during the last week in February. The Wehrmacht was not there as an occupying force, King Boris had stated, because Bulgaria was now an ally of Germany. They were there to assure stability “elsewhere in the Balkans.” Then the radio station returned to playing music.
But the taverna was not as it had been. Conversation was subdued, and many of the customers signaled for a check, paid, and went out the door. Some of them hadn’t finished their lunch. “Well, that’s that,” Saltiel said.
“When are you leaving, Gabi? Are you, leaving?”
“My wife and I, yes,” Saltiel said. “Is your offer, of Turkish visas, still possible?”
“It is. What about your kids?”
“My sons talked it over, got their money out of the bank, and now they have Spanish citizenship. It was expensive, in the end I had to help, but they did it. So they can go and live in Spain, though they have no idea how they will support their families, or they can remain here, because they believe they’ll be safe, as Spanish citizens, if the Germans show up.”
Zannis nodded—that he understood, not that he agreed—and started to speak, but Saltiel raised his hands and said, “Don’t bother, Costa. They’ve made their decision.”
“I’ll go to the legation this afternoon,” Zannis said.
“What about your family?”
“That’s next.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Saltiel said.
They paid the check and returned to the Via Egnatia. At the office, Zannis draped his jacket over his chair and prepared to work but then, recalling something he’d meant to do for a while, went back down the five flights of stairs. On the ground floor he passed beneath the staircase to a door that opened onto a small courtyard. Yes, it was as he remembered: six metal drums for the garbage. Two of them had been in use for a long time and their sides had rusted through in places, so there would be a flow of air, just in case you wanted to burn something.
•
Late that afternoon, the bell on the teletype rang and, as Zannis, Saltiel, and Sibylla turned to watch it, the keys clattered, the yellow paper unrolled, and a message appeared. It was from Pavlic, in Zagreb. Zannis had been worrying about him over the last few days because he’d sent Pavlic a teletype—in their coded way requesting a meeting—the morning after Roxanne said, “Make certain of your friends,” but there had been no answer. Now Pavlic explained, saying he’d received the previous communication but had been unable to respond until their machine was repaired. However, as he put it:
PER YOUR REQUEST OF 23 FEBRUARY WILL ALERT LOCAL AUTHORITIES TO APPREHEND SUBJECT PANOS AT ARRIVAL NIS RAILWAY STATION 22:05 HOURS ON 4 MARCH
Zannis had only inquired if they could meet, but Pavlic had sensed the import of Zannis’s query and set a time for the meeting. Nis was seven hours by rail from Zagreb and four hours from Salonika, but this business had to be done in person.
At six o’clock, on the evening of the first of March, Zannis joined the jostling crowd at a newspaper kiosk and eventually managed to buy an evening edition. In the five hours since he’d heard the report on the taverna radio, the situation had changed: armoured Wehrmacht divisions were said to be moving south, to take up positions on the Greek border. Well, as Saltiel had put it, that was that, and Zannis could no longer postpone telling his family they would have to leave Salonika. Newspaper in hand, he went looking for a taxi.
As the driver wound his way through the old Turkish quarter, past walled courtyards and ancient fountains, Zannis rehearsed what he would say, but there was no way to soften the blow. Still, in the event
, it was not as bad as he’d feared. His mother insisted on feeding him, and then he explained what had to be done. The family must go to Alexandria, and go soon. There was a large Greek community in the city and he would give his mother enough money to secure an apartment in that quarter where, as he put it, “there are Greek shops and Orthodox churches and our language is spoken everywhere.”
However, he would soon enough be fighting in the mountains of Macedonia, and he would not be able to send them any more money. He didn’t say the word charity because, at that moment, he couldn’t bear to. His mother, silent in the face of new and frightening difficulties, responded with a stoic nod, and Ari, who could not hide what he felt, was close to tears. But his grandmother, whose relatives had fought the Turks for decades, simply walked over to the table where she kept the sewing machine, removed its cloth cover, and said, “As long as we have this, my beloved Constantine, we shall not go hungry.” And then, moved by his grandmother’s example, Ari said, “I will find something, Costa. There’s always something. Perhaps they have tram cars in Alexandria.” Zannis, swept by emotion, looked away and did not answer. When he’d steadied himself, he said, “I will take you to the Egyptian legation tomorrow, so you will have the proper papers, and then I will buy the steamship tickets. After that, you should probably begin to pack.”
Back at Santaroza Lane, as he stroked Melissa’s great, noble head, his voice was gentle. “Well, my good girl, you will be going on a sea voyage.”
Melissa wagged her tail. And I love you too.
There was yet one more soul he cared for, but, once again that day, no letter in his mailbox, and the telephone, no matter how hard he stared at it, was silent.
4 March. Nis was an ancient city, a crossroads on the trade routes that went back to Roman times. A certain darkness in this place—as the Turks had built a White Tower to frighten their subjects in Salonika, here, in the nineteenth century, they had built a tower of skulls, employing as construction material the severed heads of Serbian rebels.
The station buffet was closed, an old woman on her knees was attempting, with brush and bucket, to remove the day’s—the month’s, the century’s—grime from what had once been a floor of tiny white octagonal tiles. Zannis, his train an hour late getting in, found Pavlic sitting on a wooden bench, next to a couple guarding a burlap sack. Pavlic was wearing a suit and tie but was otherwise as Zannis remembered him: brush-cut, sand-colored hair; sharp crow’s-feet at the corners of narrow, watchful eyes. He looked up from his newspaper, then stood and said, “Let’s go somewhere else, I’m getting a little weary of this.” He nodded toward the burlap sack from which, as he gestured, there came a single emphatic cluck.
Seeking privacy, they walked out to the empty platform; no more trains were running that night, some of the people in the crowded station were waiting for the morning departures, others were there because they had nowhere else to go. On the platform, Zannis and Pavlic found a wooden handcart that would serve as a bench. They were, without saying much, pleased to see each other; the closer war came, the more conspiracy was a powerful form of friendship. They chatted for a time—the fugitive Jews coming from Berlin, the Germans in Bulgaria—then Zannis said, “I’ve heard that if the Cvetkovic government signs the pact, it may be overthrown.”
“So they say. In every coffeehouse and bar. ‘Pretty soon we’ll kick those bastards out!’ They’ve been saying it for ten years, maybe more.”
“It’s the British, saying it this time.”
Pavlic took a moment to think that over. There had to be a good reason Zannis put him on a train for seven hours, now here it was. “You mean it might actually happen.”
“I do, and, when it does, if it does, they want me to work with them. And I’m asked to organize a group of police to help. Detectives, I would think,” Zannis said.
“Like me,” Pavlic said.
“Yes.”
“And like my friends in Belgrade.”
“Them too.”
“Which British are we talking about? Diplomats?”
“Spies.”
“I see,” Pavlic said.
Zannis shrugged. “That’s who showed up.”
Pavlic was quiet for a time, then he said, “I might as well help out, if I can. No matter what I do, things won’t stay the same here. If Cvetkovic signs, there’s a good chance we’ll have a guerrilla war in Serbia. Not in Croatia—the Ustashi have been taking money from Mussolini for years, because they want Croatia to be an independent state, an ally of Rome. But the Serbs won’t be governed from Berlin. As soon as Hitler starts to push them around—tries to send the army into Greece, for example—they’ll fight. It will start in the cities and spread to the villages. Assassination, bombing, the traditional Black Hand style.”
“And your friends in Belgrade?”
“They’re Serbs. They’re going to be caught up in whatever happens, but if we get rid of Cvetkovic and his cronies, we might get a few months of peace. What passes for it these days, anyhow—threats, ultimatums, the occasional murder. And, you know, Costa, with time anything can happen. America joins the war, Germany invades Russia, Hitler is assassinated, or who knows what. They’ll take the gamble, my friends will, I think, but I’ve got to tell them what they’re supposed to do.”
“Our job is to make sure that certain elements of the General Staff are kept quiet. Not for long, forty-eight hours.”
“Why would they resist?”
“Cvetkovic allies? Maybe reached by German money? You can’t be sure, down here, about motives. And all it takes, like Sarajevo in nineteen-fourteen, is one determined man with a pistol.”
“How much time do I have?”
“It could happen any day now. In a way, it’s up to Cvetkovic … he might decide not to sign.”
“He will, Costa. Under pressure, he’ll give in.” Pavlic looked at his watch, got down from the cart, and brushed off the seat of his pants. “I think we’d better find somewhere we can get rooms for the night, before they lock the hotels. We’ll talk on the way.”
•
When he reached Salonika, the following afternoon, Zannis stopped by the Pension Bastasini and told Escovil that his friends in Belgrade would agree to join the operation. Escovil was clearly relieved; one of many things he had to do was now accomplished. Maybe too many things, Zannis thought—he could smell alcohol on Escovil’s breath. “We’ll be in contact,” he told Zannis. What they had to do now was wait.
Back in his office, Zannis made a telephone call to Vangelis, then walked over to see him.
“You may as well close the door,” Vangelis said, a St. Vangelis glint in his eye. He was very much a ruler of the civic kingdom that afternoon, in his splendid office with a view of the harbor: his shirt crisp and white, his tie made of gold silk, his suit perfectly tailored. “Thank you for taking care of our esteemed mayor,” he said. “And, by the way, the lovebirds are back together, all is forgiven.” This was accompanied by a mischievous flick of the eyebrows. “So then, what’s going on with you?”
“I will have to go away for a few days, commissioner, some time soon, but I don’t know exactly when.”
“Again,” Vangelis said.
Zannis nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said, apology in his voice. “Again.”
Vangelis frowned. “Saltiel will take care of the office?”
“He will.”
“What are you doing, Costa? Does your escape line need tending?”
“No, sir, this time it’s … a British operation.”
Vangelis shook his head: what’s the world coming to? “So now I’ve got a secret service running on the Via Egnatia, is that it?” But he was only acting his part, stern commissioner, and suddenly he tired of it—perhaps he slumped a little, behind his grand desk—because he knew precisely what the world was coming to. “Oh fuck it all, Costa, you better do whatever you want, and you better do it quickly.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“It’s probably what you should b
e doing, that sort of thing, though I don’t like admitting it. What’s the matter with me?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“I wish you were right, but you’re not. Anyhow, you should likely go back to work, as long as you can, and I’ll just say farewell.”
The word puzzled Zannis who, having been dismissed, rose slowly from his chair.
“What I mean to say, is, well, may God watch over you, Costa.”
“Over us all, sir.”
“Yes, of course,” Vangelis said.
Somebody was certainly watching over something. Zannis eagerly checked his mailbox when he got home, but what he was looking for wasn’t there. Instead, an official letter from the Royal Hellenic Army, informing Lieutenant Zannis, Constantine, that he was as of this date relieved of active duty in the event of a call-up of reserve units, by reason of “medical condition.” Signed by a colonel. What was this? Zannis read it again. Not, he thought, an error. Rather, it was as though he’d been moved a square on an invisible board by an unseen hand, because he had no medical condition. On the seventh of March, sixty thousand British Commonwealth troops, mostly Australian and New Zealand divisions, disembarked from troop ships at various Greek ports. In Salonika, they were welcomed with flowers and cheers. Help had arrived. And, Zannis thought as the troops marched along the corniche, any nation that would do that might do all sorts of extraordinary things.
Finally, she telephoned.
The call came to the office, late in the afternoon. “I’m at a friend’s house, in Athens,” she said. To Zannis she sounded defeated, weary and sad.
“I was wondering,” Zannis said. “What happened to you.”
“I was afraid of that. Maybe you thought I … didn’t care.”