Spies of the Balkans

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.

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