Spies of the Balkans

by Alan Furst

  4 April. 7:20 A.M. Half awake, he reached out for her—he would stroke her awake, and he would do more than that. But he found only a warm place on her side of the bed, so opened one eye halfway. She was all business, getting dressed. “Where are you going?”

  “To St. Cyril’s, to the eight o’clock mass.”

  “Oh.”

  Soon he watched her go out the door, then fell back to a morning doze. But fifteen minutes later, she reappeared, looking grim and disappointed. “What happened?” he said.

  “Jammed. Packed solid. I couldn’t even get in the door.”

  Finally, at mid-morning, as they lazed around the suite, it was time. He’d let it go for a day, but now the moment had come; she would have only that day and the next—the Bakir was due to sail at nine in the evening—to prepare to leave. She was reading in an easy chair by the window—they’d found other uses for that chair—and he retrieved the ticket from his jacket and laid it on the table by her side.

  “What’s that, Costa?”

  “Your steamship ticket.”

  She was silent for a time, then said, “When?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “What makes you think I’ll use it?”

  “You must, Demetria.”

  “Oh? And you?”

  “I have to stay.”

  She stared at the ticket. “I guess I knew it would be this way.”

  “What did you intend to do, if the war came here?”

  “Stay in Salonika. Even if we lose, and the Germans take the city, it won’t be so bad. They say Paris isn’t bad.”

  “This isn’t Paris. To the Germans, it’s closer to Warsaw, and Warsaw is very bad. No food. No coal. But that isn’t the worst of it. You are a very beautiful and desirable woman. When you walk down the street, every man turns his head, and such women are like … like treasure, to an occupying army, and they take treasure.”

  “I can dye my hair.”

  From Zannis, a very rueful half-smile: as though that would matter.

  She thought for a time, started to say something, thought better of it, then changed her mind again. “I thought you would protect me.” From Vasilou, from the world.

  “I would try, but …” He left it there, then said, “And they will come after me, they have a score to settle with me, and these people settle their scores. So I will work against them, but I believe I’ll have to go up to one of the mountain villages and fight from there. Not right away, the war could go on for six months, maybe more. Look what we did with the Italians.”

  “These are not Italians, Costa.”

  “No, they’re not. So …” He nodded toward the ticket. “It isn’t forever. I’ll find you, we’ll be together again, no matter what it takes.”

  “I love you, Costa, with all my heart I love you, but I am Greek, and I know what goes on when we fight in the mountains.” She reached out and gripped his hand. “As God wills,” she said, “but I can only hope, to see you again.” She looked away from him, out the window, then down at the floor. Finally, her eyes turned back to his. “I won’t resist,” she said quietly. “I’ll go, go to”—she squinted at the ticket—“to Alexandria. Not Istanbul?”

  “The ship is going to Alexandria.”

  “Won’t I need a visa?”

  “Too late. The Egyptians will give you one when you land; you’ll have to pay for that but they’ll do it.”

  She nodded, then let go of him and covered her eyes with her hands, as though she were very tired. “Just fuck this horrible world,” she said.

  And then, it all came apart.

  They decided that Demetria would repack for the voyage: take what was valuable, then bring the rest out to the house in Kalamaria and say good-bye to her mother. Meanwhile, Zannis had several things to do, and they agreed to meet back at the hotel at three.

  Zannis went first to his apartment, to retrieve the Walther—better to carry it, now. The weather had turned to gray skies and drizzling rain, so the ladies were not out on their kitchen chairs, but one of them must have been watching at her window. Upstairs, he wandered around the apartment, coming slowly to understand that all was not as it should be. Had he been robbed? He didn’t think so; he could find nothing missing. Still, the door to the armoire was ajar, had he left it like that? Usually he didn’t. He tried to remember, but that night was a blur; he’d hurried away when Demetria called, so … But then, a chair was pushed up close to the table—a neat and proper position for a chair, but not its usual place.

  As he poked around, he heard a hesitant knock at the door. It was one of his neighbors. He asked her in, but she remained on the landing and said, “I just wanted to tell you that some friends of yours came to see you yesterday.”

  “They did?”

  “Yes. Two men, well dressed; they didn’t look like thieves. We saw them go into the house, and my friend on the first floor wasn’t home, so they must have been … waiting for you. That’s what we decided.”

  “How long were they here?”

  “An hour? Maybe a little less.”

  “Any idea who they were?”

  “No, not really. I don’t think they were Greek, though.”

  “You … overheard them speak?”

  “It’s not that, they didn’t say anything, just … something about them. I’m probably wrong, perhaps they came from Athens.”

  Zannis thanked her, then retrieved his Walther and ammunition and headed for the Via Egnatia. They’re already here, he thought. And I must be high on their list.

  At the office, he hung up his coat and left his umbrella open so it would dry. Then he said, “I think today’s the day, Sibylla. For getting rid of the files.”

  She agreed. “It’s any time now, the Yugoslavs have mobilized.”

  “I haven’t seen the papers.”

  “Well, all the news is bad. The German army is now at the border between Hungary and Yugoslavia. Though the Hungarians, according to the newspaper, have issued a protest.”

  “To who?”

  “I don’t know, maybe just to the world, in general.” She started to go back to work, then stopped. “Oh, before I forget, two men showed up here yesterday, asking for you.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Greek-speaking foreigners. Polite enough. Were you expecting them?”

  “No.”

  “What if they return?”

  “You know nothing about me, get rid of them.”

  It took, for Sibylla to understand, only a beat or two. Then she said, “Germans? Already?”

  Zannis nodded. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “And we have work to do.” He began to take his five-by-eight card files out of the shoebox. “We’ll have to burn the dossiers as well,” he said.

  “You read the name,” Sibylla said, “and I’ll pull them.”

  He looked at the first card—ABRAVIAN, Alexandre, General Manager, Shell Petroleum Refinery—and said, “Abravian.”

  In time, they carried the first load down the stairs. Out in the tiny courtyard, enclosed by high walls, the sound of the rain pattering on the stone block had a strange depth to it, perhaps an echo. One of the rusty old barrels Zannis had chosen was half full, so he decided to use the other one. He crumpled up pages from Sibylla’s newspaper and stuffed them in the bottom, knelt, and used a rusted-through slit to start the fire. Burning papers, that ancient tradition of invaded cities, turned out to be something of an art—best to drop them in a few at a time so you didn’t starve the fire of oxygen. A grayish-white smoke rose into the sky, along with blackened flakes of ash that floated back down into the puddles on the floor of the courtyard.

  It took more than an hour, Sibylla working with mouth set in a grim line. She was very angry—this had been her work and she had done it with care and precision—and they didn’t converse, beyond the few words necessary to people who are working together, because there was nothing to say.

  •

  When they were done, they returned to the office. Z
annis stayed for a time, making sure there was nothing there for the Germans to exploit, then put on his coat. As he was doing up the buttons, the telephone rang and Sibylla answered. “It’s for you,” she said.

  “Who is it?” He didn’t want to be late getting back to the hotel.

  “The commissioner’s secretary. I think you’d better talk to her.”

  Zannis took the phone and said, “Yes?”

  The voice on the other end was strained, and barely under control—somewhere between duty and sorrow. “I’m afraid I have bad news for you. Commissioner Vangelis has died, by his own hand. At one-thirty this afternoon, he used his service revolver.”

  She waited, but Zannis couldn’t speak.

  “He left,” she took a deep breath, “several notes, there’s one for you. You’re welcome to come over here and pick it up, or I can read it to you now.”

  “You can read it,” Zannis said.

  “‘Dear Costa: you have been a godson to me, and a good one. I have known, over the years, every sort of evil, but I do not choose to tolerate the evil that is coming to us now, so I am leaving before it arrives. As for you, you must go away, for this is not the time and not the place to give up your life.’ And he signs it, ‘Vangelis.’ Shall I keep the note for you?”

  After a moment, Zannis said, “Yes, I’ll come by and pick it up. Tomorrow. What about the family?”

  “They’ve been told.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “He was—”

  She cut him off and said, “There will be a service, we don’t know where, but I’ll let you know. And now, I have other calls to make.”

  “Yes, of course, I understand,” Zannis said and hung up the phone.

  5 April. 8:20 p.m. The captain of the tramp steamer Bakir had six passengers for Alexandria and no empty cabins, so he showed them to the wardroom. At least they could share the battered couches for the two-day trip across the Mediterranean—it was the best he could do and he knew it really didn’t matter. The other five passengers—an army officer, a naval officer, and three civilians—had obtained passage, Zannis suspected, the same way he had: by means of the discreet yellow envelope. One of the civilians was prosperously fat, with a pencil-thin mustache, very much the Levantine, all he needed was a tarboosh. The second, thin and stooped, might have been a university professor—of some arcane discipline—while the third was not unlike Zannis; well-built, watchful, and reserved. They spoke a little, the man knew who Zannis was and had worked, he said, for Spiraki. And where was Spiraki? Nobody knew. He said. And if they were surprised to find that a woman, a woman like Demetria, was joining them, they did not show it. What the British did, they did, they had their reasons, and here we all are.

  At twenty minutes to nine, the captain appeared in the wardroom. Zannis stood up—if the ship was about to sail, he had to get off. “You can sit back down,” the captain said. “We’re not going anywhere. Not tonight we’re not, problems in the engine room. We’ll get it fixed by about eight, tomorrow morning, so, if you and your wife, or any of you, want to spend the night ashore, you may do that.”

  Zannis and Demetria looked at each other, then Zannis gestured toward the passageway. He picked up Demetria’s two suitcases, one of which was very heavy. “Silver,” she’d told him when he asked. “Something you can always sell.”

  Back at the Lux Palace, Suite 601 had not been taken, so Zannis and Demetria rode back up on the elevator. The flowers were gone. “Likely the maids took them home,” Demetria said. “I hope so, anyhow.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No. The opposite.”

  “Me too.”

  “I was ready to leave,” she said. “Now this.”

  Zannis sat on the sofa. “Well, a few more hours together,” he said. He certainly didn’t regret it.

  She managed a smile, weak, but a smile. Without saying anything, they agreed that the idea of making love one last time did not appeal to either of them, not at that moment it didn’t. They talked for a while, and eventually undressed and tried to sleep, without much success, lying silent in the darkened room. And they were still awake at dawn, as early light turned the clouds to pearl gray, when the first bombs fell on Salonika.

  The first one hit somewhere near the hotel—they could feel the explosion and the sound was deafening—and sent Zannis rolling onto the floor, pulling the blankets on top of him. He struggled to his knees and looking across the bed saw Demetria—the same thing had happened to her—staring back at him. He got to his feet and headed for the window, which had cracked from corner to corner. She was immediately behind him, her arms wrapped around his chest, her body pressed against his back. Down on the waterfront he was able, after searching the line of docked ships, to find the Bakir. She was tilted awry, with a column of heavy black smoke rising from the foredeck. “Can you see the Bakir?” he said.

  She looked over his shoulder. “Which one is it?”

  “The one on fire. I mean, the second one on fire, in the middle.”

  “What should we do?”

  Toward the eastern end of the city, the smoke and thunder of an explosion; then, two seconds later, another one, closer, then, two seconds, another, each one marching toward them as bombs tumbled down from the clouds. Her arms tightened around him—all they could do was watch and, silently, count. Three blocks away, the roof of a building flashed and a wall fell into the street. One second, two. But there it stopped. From the far end of the corniche, long strings of orange tracer rounds floated upward, aimed at a dive-bomber headed directly at the battery. The gunners didn’t stop, the pilot didn’t pull up, and the plane caught fire just before it crashed into the guns.

  After that, silence. Well to the east, where the oil storage tanks were located, the rolling black smoke of burning oil had climbed high into the air. “The railway station,” Zannis said. “Our only chance.” They dressed quickly and took the stairs down to the first floor, Zannis carrying Demetria’s suitcases.

  In the lobby, the hotel staff and a few guests were gathered around a radio. “The Germans have set Belgrade on fire,” the bell captain said, “and they’re attacking Fort Rupel with paratroops, but the fort still holds.”

  The Rupel Pass, Zannis thought, fifty miles north of Salonika. He’d found photographs of the fort carried by a German spy in the Albala spice warehouse, back in October. Now, if the Wehrmacht broke through, they’d be in the city in a few days. “Is there a train this morning?” Zannis said. “Headed east?”

  The bell captain looked at his watch. “It’s gone. Should have left twenty minutes ago but who knows, this morning. Still, if they can run they will, that’s how it is with us.”

  Zannis picked up Demetria’s suitcases. As he did he saw Sami Pal, sitting in a chair in the corner, reading a newspaper, a cup of coffee by his side. Sami Pal? The Hungarian gangster? At the Lux Palace? But Sami seemed to be doing well, wore an expensive sky-blue overcoat, and, absorbed in his reading, apparently did not see Zannis.

  Out in the street, a carpet of shattered glass sparkled in the early light. “Off we go,” Zannis said. There were no taxis, no cars of any kind, though he could hear sirens in the distance. Demetria and Zannis moved at a fast trot, taking the corniche, coughing from the acrid smoke that hung in the air. “Are you all right?” Zannis said.

  Demetria nodded, breathing hard, a line of soot around her mouth and below her nostrils. “We’ll get there,” she said.

  It took fifteen minutes. The station had been hit—a hole in the roof and a black crater in the floor of the platform—but there was a train. Perhaps it had been scheduled to leave but people were still trying to jam themselves into the cars. A conductor stood by the door of one of the coaches. “Where’s it going?” Zannis said.

  “It’s the Athens-Alexandroupolis Express, one stop at Kavala, but it may go all the way to Turkey.”

  “Why would it go to Turkey?” Demetria said.

  “Because it’s a Turkish train. Eventually it goes to Edirne
, but, today …”

  “Do we need tickets?” Zannis said.

  The conductor laughed. “We don’t care this morning, try to get on if you can.”

  The train was packed. At the far end, only four people were standing on the steps of the coach and there was room for one more. Demetria forced her way onto the first step, then put a foot on the second. Above her, a large angry man shoved her back. “No room up here,” he said. His face—pitted skin, a well-trimmed beard—was knotted with rage.

  “Make a space for the lady, sir,” Zannis said. He started to help Demetria up to the step, but this time the man pushed with both hands on her shoulders. Zannis led her back down onto the platform, then turned, climbed on the first step and hit the man in the throat. The man made a choking noise, a woman screamed, and Zannis hit him again, knuckles extended, between the ribs, in the heart, and he folded in two. The woman next to him had to grab him or he would have fallen. “Now make room,” Zannis said. “Or I will finish this.”

  The man moved aside, Demetria stood with one of the suitcases upended between her legs. Zannis was wondering what to do with the other suitcase when Demetria reached down and grabbed him by the lapel. “Please don’t leave me here,” she said. Beside her, the bearded man was staring at her with pure hatred. Zannis climbed up on the first step and held on to the railing, straddling the second suitcase. He would, he thought, get off at Kavala. When the train jerked forward, Zannis stumbled, put one foot on the platform, and, using the handrail, hauled himself back on. The train jerked again, the crowd on the platform was still trying to find a way to board. Somebody yelled, “The roof! Get on the roof!” Slowly, the train picked up speed. One more man climbed on the bottom step, forcing Zannis against the railing. “Beg pardon,” the man said.

  “Can’t be helped,” Zannis said.

  An hour passed, then another. They crossed from Macedonia into the province of Thrace, the train chugged past flat farm fields, always twelve miles from the coast. The Turks had built this railroad in the days of the Ottoman Empire and set the tracks inland so that military transport trains could not be bombarded by enemy naval vessels. Zannis hung on every time the train rounded a curve, the gravel by the track only inches from his feet, his hand freezing where it gripped the iron railing. They would soon be in Kavala, where he’d intended to leave the train, but he had two problems. The bearded ape above him, swaying next to Demetria, and the Turkish border post—if the train went that far. Demetria had no entry visa and Zannis well remembered what had happened to Emilia Krebs when she’d tried to bribe her way past the customs officials.