Spies of the Balkans

From there, they’d moved to lunchtime conversation. And by midafternoon, after Zannis had telephoned Escovil, and with exit visas provided by Lazareff, Zannis and Byer were on the train to Salonika. At six-thirty in the evening, Byer was delivered to Escovil at the Pension Bastasini. “How did you get here so quickly?” Escovil said, accusation in his voice.

“It’s a long story,” Zannis said. “For another time.”

“You didn’t travel on the trains,” Escovil said. It wasn’t a question.

“You were watching, weren’t you.”

“Of course. So we’ll want you to explain.”

“Later,” Zannis said. “I’m going to see my family.” He was exhausted, at the last available edge of patience. Escovil knew what came next, so left it there and, a brief taxi ride later, Melissa came to the door to greet the returning hero.

Back at his apartment, the hero was exhausted-threw the mail on the kitchen table, washed his hands, and flopped down on the bed. But then, his mind charged with the images of the past few days, he realized he was not going to be able to sleep any time soon, so took off his shoes and socks and covered himself with a blanket. He tried to return to Inspector Maigret, waiting on his night table, but memories of the real Paris intruded and the book lay open on his chest while he brooded about them. Uncle Anastas was a shining example of survival, even prosperity, in an occupied city, but that was Anastas, who could deal with anything. So could he, come to that, but his family couldn’t. According to Lazareff, time was growing short, the Balkans would be overrun, and Zannis had to make plans to save his family. Where could they go? How, once he became involved in resistance and likely in hiding, would he support them? The Germans would eventually figure out who had shot their SS officer, would they dare to come after him in Greece? Maybe not, but they would be looking for him the day they entered the city.

For these problems he had no solutions, so tried Maigret again but couldn’t concentrate-Madame Cavard was who? Time was running short-so why was he alone on this bed? What was Demetria doing? In bed herself? In bed with Vasilou? What a bastard, the bully he’d heard on the telephone. So, there was also Demetria to save. What if he telephoned …?

He woke with a start, then turned off the lamp. While he’d slept, Maigret had disappeared. No, there he was, under the blanket.

ESCAPE FROM SALONIKA

10 February, 1941.

Well before dawn, Costa Zannis woke from a night of bizarre and frightening dreams. He lay there with his eyes open, supremely grateful that none of it was real and so, fearing that further horrors awaited him if he went back to sleep, forced himself to get out of bed. He washed, dressed for work, let Melissa out the door, and walked down to the waterfront corniche, to a kafeneion that stayed open all night for the stevedores and sailors of the port. There he drank coffee, smoked cigarettes and stared out the window, where the sky was streaked with red cloud as the sun, coming up over the Aegean, lit the whitecaps in the bay and the snow on Mount Olympus in the distance. The fishing caiques were headed out to sea, attended by flocks of seagulls, their cries sharp in the morning silence.

The kafeneion was quiet, only the sleepy waiter, a fiftyish prostitute with dyed-red hair, and a man dressed in merchant seaman’s sweater and wool watch cap. Zannis took a morning paper from the counter and looked at the headlines: somebody had taken a potshot at the mayor, the bullet punching a hole in his briefcase and coming to rest in the sheaves of official paper packed inside.

The prostitute was watching Zannis as he read and said, “Terrible thing.”

Zannis mumbled an assent-it was too early in the morning to talk, and, once he went to work, a full day’s talking lay ahead of him.

Turning to the seaman, she said, “Don’t you think? Shooting at a mayor?”

The man raised his hands and shrugged; he did not understand Greek.

“Always something here,” the waiter said. “They never catch them, people like that.”

But, Zannis found when he reached the office, they already had. Sort of. “What they say in the papers”-Saltiel had his feet up on the desk, his jacket over the back of the chair-“is that he was shot at, yesterday morning, while getting into his car. True, as far as it goes. But the detective who questioned the mayor told me that he was getting into the backseat, because he has a driver, and his left foot was up on the floorboard as he bent over to go through the door, with his briefcase in his left hand, swung slightly behind him. Try it, Costa, and you’ll see what went on.”

“What?”

“The way the detective sees it, somebody tried to shoot him in the backside.”

“A warning?”

“More like a lesson. I talked to some people, especially the mayor’s secretary, who knows all, and what happened is that the mayor’s wife caught him in bed with his girlfriend and made him cut her loose. Girlfriend doesn’t like it-she thought she was the one and only-so she goes out and hires somebody to pop him one in the ass. Or maybe she did it herself. She’s nobody to fool with, according to the secretary.”

“The mayor never turned around? Never saw anybody?”

“At the time they thought, the mayor and the driver, they’d heard a car backfire. Or at least that’s what they told the detectives.” Saltiel raised his eyebrows. “According to the mayor, he didn’t realize he’d been shot at until he got to his desk and opened the briefcase. The bullet stopped right in the middle of Papadopoulos v. City of Salonika.”

“So, case closed,” Zannis said.

“Not around here, it isn’t. The mayor can’t have that in the newspapers, so the investigation is transferred to this office and we’re supposed to question a few Communists, or Macedonian terrorists, or whatever we can think up. At least tell the press we’re doing it.”

“Maybe a disappointed office seeker,” Zannis said.

“Yes, that’s good. Or a lunatic.”

“Well, we’re not going hunting for lunatics, but somebody better talk to the girlfriend and tell her not to try that again.”

“Somebody?” Saltiel said.

“All right, Gabi, get me a telephone number.”

There was more that had gone on in his absence. Saltiel opened his desk drawer and handed Zannis a message from Emilia Krebs. In ochre letters above the lines of the typed commercial paragraphs she said that three men and two women would be leaving Berlin on the eleventh of February, adding that she had no knowledge of the man seen on the platform of the Skoplje railway station. The secret writing was far more legible than what Zannis had been able to produce. “Who heated the letter?” he asked Saltiel.

“Sibylla. I never used an iron in my life.”

“Well done, Sibylla,” Zannis said. “Did you send the teletypes?”

“I did,” Sibylla said. “They were confirmed, and I made copies for you.”

“Thank you,” Zannis said. “And I mean it.”

“Oh, you’re welcome,” she said, both surprised and pleased that Zannis was so grateful. “I’ll do the next one too, if you like.”

As Saltiel returned to his desk, Zannis prepared to telephone Demetria’s house. He’d almost done it the night before, because the time he’d spent in Paris-the Germans, the shooting, the escape-had had its effect on him. On the flight to Sofia he’d thought, in fact told himself, your time is running out, and more than once. Now he was going to reach for her, any way he could, and to hell with the consequences. But, as his hand moved toward the telephone, it rang.

“Yes? Hello?”

“Hello. I’m calling from the Bastasini.”

Escovil. “And?”

“I understand you were tired last night, but I would like to talk to you, as soon as possible.” Escovil was