Spies of the Balkans

much, only that it would all be cleared up as the day went on.”

Zannis was puzzled; one certain detail had provoked his curiosity. “Tell me,” he said. “Why was the officer wearing a blue uniform?”

Pavlic jerked his head back toward the hotel and, as they began to walk, he put an arm around Zannis’s shoulders. “He wore a blue uniform, my friend, because he is in the air force.”

As instructed, Zannis left as soon as he could-the first train out at midday. But they made slow progress; stopped for a herd of sheep crossing the track, stopped because of overheating after a climb up a long grade, slowed to a crawl in a sudden snowstorm, stopped for no apparent reason at a town on the river Morava, somewhere north of Nis, the name on the station not to be found on the timetable. It was the fault of the engineer, someone said; who had halted the train for a visit with his girlfriend. Late at night, Zannis arrived in Nis, where the train that was to take him south was long gone.

At two-thirty on the afternoon of 27 March, he was again under way, headed for Skoplje. On this train he discovered-wedged into a space beside the seat where it blocked a savage draft-a Greek newspaper, printed early that morning. A new government in Yugoslavia! A coup led by General Simovich and the officer corps of the air force, joined by an army tank brigade. Being a Greek newspaper, it spoke from the heart: the people of this proud Balkan nation were “defiant,” they had “defied the Nazis,” and would continue to “defy” them-the journalist couldn’t get enough of it! “Hitler denied a victory,” “fury in Berlin,” “a defeat for Fascism,” Yugoslav “bravery,” “determination,” and, here it came again, “defiance.”

On the front page, a grainy photograph: a street packed with marching Serbs, their mouths open in song, some carrying flags and banners, others with pictures, taken down from walls and mantelpieces, of Prince Peter. Whose radio speech from the afternoon of the twenty-sixth was excerpted in a separate story on page two: Serbs, Croats, Slovenes! In this moment so grave for our people, I have decided to take the royal power into my own hands…. The Regents have resigned…. I have charged General Simovich with the formation of a new government…. The army and the navy are at my orders….

The newspaper story carried supportive statements from American and British politicians. The Americans were passionate and blunt, while the British, as was their custom, were rather more reserved.

*

That same day, in Berlin, the newspapers wrote about Yugoslav “criminals and opportunists,” claiming that ethnic German minorities in northern Serbia and the Banat region were being attacked by Serbian bandits: their houses burned down, their shops looted, their women raped. This was handwriting on the wall. Because such falsehoods had by now become a kind of code: used first in Poland, then in Czechoslovakia, as pretexts for invasion. So the fate of Yugoslavia was that morning already in preparation, and stated openly, for all to see.

One of the people who saw it was Emilia Krebs. She had done no more than skim the newspaper, being occupied with the departure of yet one more friend who had come to the attention of the Gestapo. This was a tall gray-haired woman of Polish descent, the eminent ethnologist and university professor known simply as Ostrova. You know he studied with Ostrova. We went to a lecture by Ostrova. But now, eminence had failed her, and her situation had become perilous. Thus, by eight-thirty, Emilia Krebs had served rolls and coffee, handed Ostrova a set of false documents, and wished her safe journey. Surely the news that morning was disquieting, and they’d talked it over. Yes, there would be war in the Balkans, but not yet. Maybe in a week, they thought. “So I’d better leave today,” Ostrova said and, if the Hungarians had been forced to close the border, she would find a way through the countryside. The two women embraced, and a determined Ostrova set out for the train to Vienna.

Twenty minutes later, Emilia Krebs was having a second cup of coffee when she heard the chime of the doorbell. Now who could be calling at this hour? Likely one of her fellow conspirators, she guessed, properly afraid to trust the telephone.

However, when she opened the door she faced a man she knew she’d never seen before. Heavily built, with a Prussian haircut, he wore steel-rimmed eyeglasses and looked, she thought, something like a mathematics teacher at a military academy. But he wasn’t that. He announced himself as “Herr Albert Hauser,” but, as it turned out, he wasn’t that either, not quite. What he was, he revealed as he sat on her couch, was Hauptsturmfuhrer Albert Hauser, of, as he put it, “the Geheime Staatspolizei.” An official title, the secret state police, simply one more government organization. But in Germany it was common usage to abbreviate this title, which came out “Gestapo.”

“Oh, that name, it’s become so …,” he said, hunting for a polite word but not finding one, and instead finishing, “… you know what I mean, Frau Krebs.”

She did.

“I called because I was wondering if you could shed some light on the whereabouts of a certain couple. Herr and Frau Gruen?”

Ah yes, she’d known them.

“Good friends of yours?”

Acquaintances.

“Well, it was reported to the local police that they’d disappeared, back in December this was, and when the detectives made no progress, it became my … concern.”

Not case, she thought. Concern. This Gestapo man seemed quite the gentle soul. Perhaps one could be, umm, forthcoming with him.

In a pig’s eye.

Emilia’s hands lay modestly folded in her lap, because she didn’t want Hauser to see that they were trembling.

“Unfortunately,” Hauser said, “I must consider the possibility that they met with foul play. They haven’t been seen since then, and there’s no record of their having-emigrated.”

They ran for their lives, you Nazi filth. No, she hadn’t heard that they’d emigrated, but still, they might’ve done so. Could the records be at fault?

“Our records, Frau Krebs?”

“Yes, Hauptsturmfuhrer. Yours.”

“I would doubt that.”

Very well. In that case, there was little she could add.

“Please, Frau Krebs, do not misunderstand the nature of this inquiry. We both know that the Gruens were … of the Jewish faith. But, even so, our security institutions are responsible for the protection of all our German citizens, no matter what people say.”

What people say. Do you mean that you are Jew murderers and should roast in hell for all eternity-that sort of thing? “Yes, I’m aware of what people say, Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer. Some people.”

“What can we do, meine Frau?”

You poor thing.

It went on, but not for long, and Hauser’s exterior never showed the slightest fissure-he was, certainly, beyond courteous. Still, there he was, in her living room, the coffee cup of the fugitive Ostrova sitting on the kitchen counter. He hadn’t come in uniform, with three fellow officers, he hadn’t kicked down the door, he hadn’t smacked her face. Yet, nonetheless, there he was. And, as he prepared to leave, her hands shook so hard she had to clasp them behind her back.

“I wish you a good day, Frau Krebs. I hope I have not intruded.”

He closed the door behind him, it clicked shut, she called an office at the General Staff headquarters, and Hugo was home twenty minutes later. It was the worst conversation they ever had. Because they had to part. She was obviously a suspect, so obviously under surveillance but, as long as he stayed where he was, she was safe, she could leave Germany. If they were to attempt to leave together, they would both be arrested.

She took the train to Frankfurt that afternoon. Was she watched? Impossible to know, but she assumed she was. At the grand house in which she’d been raised, she spoke with her grandfather, and together they made their plans. If, he said, it was time for her to leave, then it was also time for him. Since the rise of Hitler in 1933 he’d hoped for the sort of catastrophe that always, sooner or later, brought such people down, but it hadn’t happened. Instead, triumph followed triumph. So now came the moment to abandon such folly, as Emilia’s grandfather put it,