Spies of the Balkans

he wrote, he said, “It’s drawn on the Bank of Commerce and Deposit, on Victoros Hougo Street, near the Spanish legation.” Carefully, Vangelis separated the check from the stub and handed it to Zannis. The signature read Alexandros Manos, and the amount was for one thousand Swiss francs. “Don’t present this at the cashier’s window, Costa. Take it to Mr. Pereira, the manager.”

Zannis looked up from the check and raised his eyebrows.

“Did you know Mr. Manos? A fine fellow, owned an umbrella shop in Monastir. Been dead for a long time, sorry to say.”

“No, I didn’t know him,” Zannis said, echoing the irony in Vangelis’s voice.

“One must have such resources, Costa, in a job like mine. They’ve been useful, over the years. Crucial.”

Zannis nodded.

“And, Costa? Gun and badge for your trip to Hungary, my boy, servant of the law, official business.”

“Thank you, commissioner,” Zannis said.

“Oh, you’re welcome. Come to think of it, maybe the time has come for you to have one of these accounts for yourself, considering … your, intentions. Now, let, me, see …” Vangelis thought for a time, leaning back in his chair. Then he sat upright. “Do you know Nikolas Vasilou?”

“I know who he is, of course, but I’ve never met him.” Vasilou was one of the richest men in Salonika, likely in all Greece. He was said to buy and sell ships, particularly oil tankers, like penny candy.

“You should meet him. Let me know when you return and I’ll arrange something.”

Zannis started to say thank you once more but Vangelis cut him off. “You will need money, Costa.”

Zannis sensed it was time to go and stood up. Vangelis rose halfway from his chair and extended his hand. Zannis took it-frail and weightless in his grasp. This reached him; he never thought of the commissioner as an old man, but he was.

Vangelis smiled and flipped the backs of his fingers toward the door, shooing Zannis from his office. Now go and do what you have to, it meant, a brusque gesture, affectionate beyond words.

He was busy the following day. For one thing, because of absent personnel-the war, the fucking war, how it manifested itself-the office had to handle a few commonplace criminal investigations. So now they’d been assigned a murder in Ano Toumba, a dockworker found stabbed to death in his bed. Nobody had any idea who’d done this, or why. By noon, Zannis and Saltiel had talked to the stevedores on the wharf, then some of the man’s relatives. He wasn’t married, couldn’t afford it, didn’t gamble or patronize the girls up in the Bara, gave no offense to anybody. He worked hard, played dominoes in the taverna, such was life. So, why? Nobody knew, nobody even offered the usual dumb theories.

After lunch he cashed Vangelis’s check, visited the Hungarian legation and was given a visa, then bought a ticket at the TAE office: up to Sofia, then Lufthansa to Budapest. The ticket in his hand was not unexciting-he’d never flown in an airplane. Well, now he would. He wasn’t afraid, not at all.

It was after six by the time he got to his front door, greeted the waiting Melissa, trudged up the stairs, and found his door unlocked and Tasia Loukas naked in his bed. “I remembered your key,” she said. “Above the door.” She was propped on one elbow, wearing her tinted glasses and reading the Greek version of one of Zannis’s French spy novels, The Man from Damascus. “You aren’t sorry to see me, are you?”

He drew the sheet down to her waist and kissed her softly, twice, by way of answer. Then he went into the kitchen, gave Melissa a mutton bone, a hunk of bread, and two eggs. “I have to take a shower,” he said as he returned to the bedroom. “Really I have to, it’s been that kind of day.”

“I have a surprise for you,” Tasia said.

“Oh?”

“But not until later. At eleven we have to go back out.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see. It’s a nice surprise.”

He began to unbutton his shirt, she watched attentively as he undressed.

“I see you’re ironing your own clothes now,” she said.

The iron was still sitting on the table in the kitchen. “Yes,” he said. “A small economy.”

“I’d like to watch you do it,” she said, amused at the idea. “Can you?”

“I’m learning,” he said. He stepped out of his underpants and bent over to pick them up.

“Come and sit with me for a little,” she said. “I don’t care if you smell.”

How to say no?

He sat on the edge of the bed, she began to stroke him, observing the result like an artist. “I daydreamed all day, at work,” she said, voice tender. “A little voice in my head. It kept saying, ‘Tasia, you need a good fucking,’ so here I am. Did you think you were too tired?”

“I did wonder.”

“But you are not, as we can see.”

He woke up suddenly and looked at his watch. 9:33. He could hear rain pattering down on Santaroza Lane, a gentle snore from Melissa, which now stopped abruptly because she’d also woken up, the instant after he had. She always knew. How? A dog mystery. Tasia was asleep on her stomach, arm beneath the pillow, mouth open, face delicately troubled by a dream. Her lips moved, who was she talking to? As he watched, one eye opened. “You’re awake,” she said.

“It’s raining.” The first attack of a campaign to stay home.

She sat up, sniffed, then got out of bed and, haunches shifting, walked to the bathroom, closed the door almost all the way, and called out, “What time is it?”

“Nine-thirty.”

“Hmm.”

When she emerged, she began to sort through her clothes, which lay folded on a chair. “I have a funny story for you,” she said, stepping into her panties.

Oh no, she still wants to go out. They had eaten nothing, so he’d have to take her somewhere, though, for him, making love was a substitute for food. “You do?”

“I forgot to tell you,” she said.

He waited as she put on her bra, hooking it in front then twisting it around.

“I have a little nephew. A cute kid, maybe four years old. And you know what he did? You won’t believe it when I tell you.”

“What?”

“He tried to kill Hitler.”

“He what?”

“Tried to kill Hitler. Really. They have one of those shortwave radios, and they were listening to some music program. Eventually the news came on and there was Hitler, shouting and screaming, the crowd cheering. You know what it sounds like. Anyhow, the kid listens for a while, then he picks up a pencil and shoves it into the speaker.”

Tasia laughed. Zannis laughed along with her and said, “That’s funny. It really happened?”

“It did,” she said. She put on a black sweater, combing her hair back in place with her fingers once she had it on. “Aren’t you hungry?” she said.

The surprise was, in truth, a surprise. They left the apartment, then stopped at a taverna for fried calamari and a glass of wine, and Tasia told him what she’d planned. A friend of hers owned the movie theatre in what had been, until the population exchange of 1923, a Turkish mosque, and he had gotten hold, somehow, of a print of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. “It won’t have subtitles,” she said, “but you understand English, don’t you?”

“Some. Not much.”

“Never mind, you’ll manage. He’s showing it for friends, so we’ll at least have a chance to see it. Otherwise, we’d have to wait a long time, for the official release.”

The film was accompanied by considerable whispering, as people asked their neighbors to explain the dialogue, but that didn’t matter. Hitler was called Adenoid Hynkel, Mussolini appeared as Benzino Napaloni, which Zannis supposed was amusing if you spoke English. Mussolini teased and tormented and manipulated his fellow dictator-that didn’t need translation either. Still, even though it was Chaplin’s first talking picture, the physical