Spies of the Balkans

trying to sound casual, but his voice was strained and tense.

“I can’t, right now,” Zannis said, cold as ice. “I’m busy.”

The line hissed. “Some people I know are very, concerned.”

“Why? They got what they wanted.”

“They’d like to know-the details.”

“Ask him.”

“Um, he isn’t sure how it worked. So they’re, well, anxious to hear your story. And this would be better in person, not on the telephone.”

Instead of attacking Escovil, because the urge to do that was very powerful, Zannis took a deep breath. “You know where I am.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see you downstairs, in the vestibule, in ten minutes. There’s something I have to do first, so you may have to wait for me.”

When Escovil answered, it sounded as though he were reading a sentence he’d written out beforehand. “Actually, my friends would like to meet you. To thank you. In person.”

“Come over here in ten minutes, and come alone. Understood?”

Escovil hesitated, then said, “I’m on my way.”

Zannis hung up, but didn’t leave the receiver on the cradle long enough for a dial tone, so had to do it again.

A maid answered.

“Is Madam Vasilou there?”

“Gone away.” This was a different maid; she barely spoke Greek.

“What do you mean, ‘gone away’?”

She tried harder, raising her voice. “They gone.”

“Where did they go?”

“Gone away,” the maid said, and hung up.

Zannis made himself wait ten minutes, then walked down the stairs. He couldn’t believe what had happened; where were they? Had they left the country? He wanted to break something. And here, on top of it all, was Escovil. Who hadn’t put on a coat, had instead looped a woolen scarf around his neck, stuffed the ends inside his buttoned jacket, and turned the collar up. With the addition of brown leather gloves, he looked like a country squire going up to London on an autumn day.

If Escovil was already anxious about the meeting, the expression on Zannis’s face did nothing to reassure him. “I hurried straight over,” he said.

“What do you want from me?” Zannis said.

“Byer told us you flew from Paris to Sofia. How did you manage that?” After a moment he added, “The people I work for would like to know how you did it.” It isn’t me.

“I was helped by some friends in Paris, people I met when I lived there.”

“And they are …?”

“Friends in Paris. And now, let me ask you something. Who had the idea that I should go to a restaurant? Because I’m sure Byer told you what happened.”

Escovil hesitated. “A senior person, in London, felt you should act like a visitor. The original idea was the Eiffel Tower, but the time didn’t work. So, a brasserie.”

“Very clever,” Zannis said. “Except that it wasn’t.”

“We need to know about the airplane,” Escovil said, desperation in his voice. “It could be very important, very important.”

“Well, you know as much as I’m going to tell you. I understand what your people want, they want to be able to use what I used, any spy service would, but they’ll have to find their own way.”

“Would you at least meet with them?”

Zannis stared at Escovil. “No,” he said.

A muscle ticked in Escovil’s cheek. He half-turned toward the door, then turned back to face Zannis. “I’m serving in a war, Zannis. And so are you, no matter whether you like it or not.” He reached the door in two strides and, over his shoulder, said, “I’d think about that if I were you.”

It was just after six when Zannis got back to Santaroza Lane. As he took Melissa’s butcher scraps from his tiny refrigerator, he saw the mail he’d tossed on the table when he’d come home the night before. He fed Melissa, then, looking for anything commonplace to make him feel, if not better, at least occupied, he began to look through the pile of envelopes. A few bills, an invitation to a formal party, a letter. No return address. Inside, a single sheet of paper:

5 February

C.

We have left Salonika and gone to Athens. I have said my mother is ill and I had to come here, to Kalamaria, to take care of her. She has a telephone, 65-245. I don’t know how long I can stay here, and I don’t know where you are. I hope you read this in time.

D.

He called immediately and was out the door minutes later. Kalamaria wasn’t far away, maybe ten miles south, down the peninsula. Out on the corniche he found a taxi and paid the driver extravagantly to take him to the village, where, Demetria had told him, there was only one hotel, the Hotel Angelina. He arrived at seven-ten and took a room. The hotel was barely open, in February, but a boy led him up to Room 3-likely their finest, since Zannis was their only guest-and lit a small oil heater in the corner. It produced a loud pop and a flash, and the boy swore as he jumped aside, but the thing worked and, ten minutes later, the room began to warm up.

The Hotel Angelina was on the bay and the room had one large window that faced west, over the sea. Not so bad, the room. Whitewashed stucco walls, a narrow bed with a winter blanket, a lamp on a night table, a wooden chair, and an armoire with two hangers. Zannis hung his trench coat and jacket on one, and left the other for his guest. He tried sitting in the chair, then lay on the bed, set his glasses on the night table, and waited. There were rain squalls on the bay that night, accompanied by a gusting wind that sighed and moaned and rattled the window. Eight o’clock came and went. Eight-fifteen. Where was she? Eight-twenty.

Two light knocks on the door.

When he opened it, there she was. Beautiful, yes, but unsmiling and, he sensed, maybe a little scared. He’d planned to embrace her-finally, at last! — but something told him not to, so he rested a light hand on her shoulder and guided her into the room. “Hello, Demetria,” said the passionate lover. “May I take your coat?” She nodded. He could smell her perfume on the collar as as he hung it up in the armoire.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she wore a heavy slate-colored wool sweater and skirt, with thick black cotton stockings and lace-up shoes. “Oh lord,” she said.

“Yes, I know.”

“You can sit down,” she said.

He was standing there, hesitant, and as tense as she was. “I can go downstairs. Maybe there’s some retsina, or wine.”

She brightened. “Whatever they have. It’s cold in here.”

He went downstairs. The hotel didn’t exactly have a bar; a shelf with bottles stood above a square plank table. The door by the table was ajar, Zannis could hear a radio. “Hello?” he said. When the woman who had rented him the room came out, he bought a bottle of retsina and she gave him two cloudy glasses, then said, “Good night, sir.”

Demetria was sitting exactly where he’d left her, rubbing her hands.

“What a night,” Zannis said. He poured retsina into the glasses and gave her one. When he sat by her side, the bed sagged beneath them.

Demetria laughed. “Ah, Kalamaria.”

“Did you live here? As a child?”

“No, my mother came here after my father died. Returned. It was her home village.”

“Is she actually ill?”

“Oh no, not her. Never. Not that I can remember.”