Spies of the Balkans

“Not yet.”

11 February. The rains continued. Hanging from a clothes tree in the corner of the office, three coats dripped water onto the floor. When Zannis reached his desk, a note from Saltiel-a name, a telephone number-awaited him. “This would be the mayor’s girlfriend?”

“It would.” Saltiel was not only amused, he was anticipating the performance.

“Hello? Madam Karras?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Zannis, I’m with the Salonika police department.”

“Yes?” The way she said it meant What could you want with me?

“I have a favor to ask of you, Madam Karras.”

“What favor?”

“That you refrain, in the future, from shooting at the mayor. Please.”

“What?”

“You heard me. We know you did it, or hired somebody to do it, and if I can’t be sure you’ll never try it again, I’m going to have you arrested.”

“How dare you! What did you say your name was?”

“Zannis. Z-a-n-n-i-s.”

“You can’t just-”

“I can,” he said, interrupting her. “The detectives investigated the incident and they know how it came about and so, instead of taking you to jail, I’m telephoning you. It is a courtesy, Madam Karras. Please believe me.”

“Really? And where was courtesy when I needed it? Some people, I won’t mention any names, need to be taught a lesson, in courtesy.”

“Madam Karras, I’m looking at your photograph.” He wasn’t. “And I can see that you’re an extremely attractive woman. Surely men, many men, are drawn to you. But, Madam Karras, allow me to suggest that the path to romance will be smoother if you don’t shoot your lover in the behind.”

Madam Karras cackled. “Just tell me that bastard didn’t have it coming.”

“I can’t tell you that. All I can tell you is to leave him alone.”

“Well …”

“Please?”

“You’re not a bad sort, Zannis. Are you married?”

“With five children. Will you take this call to heart?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“No, dear, make a decision. The handcuffs are waiting.”

“Oh all right.”

“Thank you. It’s the smart thing to do.”

Zannis hung up. Saltiel was laughing to himself, and shaking his head.

12 February. Berlin was glazed with ice that morning, perhaps the worst of the tricks winter played on the Prussian city. At Gestapo headquarters on the Prinz-Albrechtstrasse, Hauptsturmfuhrer Albert Hauser was trying to figure out what to do about Emilia Krebs. His list of names was shrinking: some of the suspects had been arrested, success for Hauser, yet some had disappeared, failure for Hauser. That couldn’t continue, or he really would wind up in Poland, the Hell of German security cosmology. But he couldn’t touch her. He worked, alas, for a moron, there was no other way to put it. The joke about Nazi racial theory said that the ideal superman of the master race would be as blond as Hitler, as lean as Goring, and as tall as Goebbels. But the joke was only a joke, and his superior, an SS major, was there because he was truly blond, tall, and lean. And a moron. He didn’t think like a policeman, he thought like a Nazi: politics, ideology, was, to him, everything. And in that ideology rank meant power, and power ruled supreme.

Hauser had gone to see him, to discuss the Krebs case, but the meeting hadn’t lasted long. “This man Krebs is a Wehrmacht colonel!” he’d thundered. “Do you wish to see me crushed?”

Hauser wished precisely that, but there was no hope any time soon. Still, brave fellow, he wondered if he might not have the most private, the most genial, the most diffident conversation with Emilia Krebs. Where? Certainly not in his office. Neutral ground? Not bad, but impossible. To the dinners and parties of her social circle, Hauser was not invited. And they did not yet have an agent inside her circle who could find a way to get him there. Down the hall, another Gestapo officer was working on the recruitment of a weak and venal member of the group-they were everywhere, but one had to fish them out-as an informant, but he wasn’t yet theirs. So, no parties. That left the Krebs home, in Dahlem.

Alarm bells went off in Hauser’s mind. “Darling, the Gestapo came to see me today.” What? To my house? To my home? The home of the important Colonel Krebs? Of the Wehrmacht? An organization that didn’t care for the Nazis and loathed the SS. No, a simple telephone call from Krebs, going upward into the lofty heaven of the General Staff, and Hauser would be shooting Poles until they shot him. Those people were crazy, there was absolutely no dealing with them. So, better not to offend Colonel Krebs.

However …

… if the Krebs woman was involved with an escape operation, and Hauser pretty much knew she was, would the husband not be aware of it? And, Hauser reasoned, if he was, would his first instinct not be to protect her? How would he do that? By calling attention to the fact that the Gestapo considered her a ‘person of interest’? Or, maybe, by hushing the whole thing up? And how would he do that? By telling her to end it. Stop what you’re doing, or our whole lives will come crashing down around us.

Hauser, in the midst of speculation, usually looked out the window, but that morning the glass was coated with frost and he found himself staring instead at the photograph of his father, the mustached Dusseldorf policeman, that stood on his desk. So, Papa, what is the safest way for Albert? Papa knew. The list! True. What mattered was the list. It couldn’t keep shrinking because, if it did, so much for Hauser. Safer, in the long run, to have a chat with the Krebs woman.

Who should he be? He would dress a little for the country, a hand-knit sweater under a jacket with leather buttons. A pipe? He’d never smoked a pipe in his life but how hard could it be to learn? No, Albert! A policeman with a Prussian haircut, sheared close on the sides-smoking a pipe? And then, clumsy with the thing, he’d likely burn a hole in the colonel’s carpet.

And the colonel wouldn’t like that. But, on the other hand, he couldn’t dislike what he didn’t know about. In fact, Hauser thought, if the meeting was properly managed there was at least a chance that she wouldn’t tell him! Simply stop what she was doing in order to protect her husband. And oh how perfect that would be.

Therefore, no pipe.

But maybe eyeglasses.

Hauser walked down two flights of stairs to a department where objects of disguise were available. Not much used, this department. True men of the Gestapo did not deign to disguise themselves, they showed up in pairs or threes and hammered on the door. Here is the state!

But not always. The clerk who maintained the department found him a pair of steel-framed eyeglasses with clear lenses. Hauser looked in the mirror: yes, here was a softer, more reflective version of himself. Frau Krebs, I am Hauptsturmfuhrer-no, I am Herr Hauser. Please pardon the intrusion. I won’t keep you long.

In Salonika, in the morning papers and on the radio, the news was like a drum, a marching drum, a war drum. On the tenth of February, Britain severed diplomatic ties with Roumania, because the government had allowed Germany to concentrate numerous divisions of the Wehrmacht, munitions, and fuel, within its borders. And this, according to the British, constituted an expeditionary force.

Then, on the fifteenth of February, it was reported that Hitler met with certain Yugoslav heads of ministries at his alpine retreat in Berchtesgaden, known as the Eagle’s Nest. Accompanied by a photograph, of course. Here was the eagle himself, surrounded by snowy peaks, shaking hands with a Yugoslav minister. Note the position of the minister’s head-is he bowing? Or has he simply inclined his head? And what, please, was the difference? The ministers had been informed that their country would have to comply with certain provisions of the Axis pact, whether they signed it or not. To wit: increased economic cooperation with Germany-sell us what we want, we’ll name the price-permission for the transit of German men and arms through Yugoslavia,