Alan Furst - Spies of the Balkans

Was it not?

When she’d laid the garter belt on top of her clothes, she stood there a moment, head canted to one side. So, here is what you shall have . Was it what he’d hoped for? She was heavier, sturdier, than the naked Demetria of his imagination, with small breasts, small areolae, erect nipples.

Demetria may have taken time to undress, Zannis most certainly did not. He shed his clothes, took her in his arms and drew her close, savoring the feel of skin on skin. And here, pressed between them, was an emphatic answer to her silent question. Until that evening, Zannis had been in a way ambivalent; for in his heart a tender passion, which he thought of as love , had warred with the most base desire. But tender passion, as it turned out, would have to wait. And he was only half to blame. Maybe less.

And so?

Lightning flickered in the distance and, when a squall passed over the Hotel Angelina, wind-blown rain surged against the window. “You could, you know”-Zannis spoke the words slowly-“never go back to Athens.”

She didn’t answer, and he couldn’t see her face, but she nestled against him, which meant no and he knew it.

“No?” he said, making sure.

“It is …,” she said, suppressing the too soon , then started over. “It would be very sudden.”

“You have to go back?”

“Don’t,” she said.

He didn’t. But, even so, she rolled away from him and lay on her stomach with her chin on her hands. He stroked her back, a deep cleft in the center. “Can you stay until the morning?”

“Well, I’m surely not going anywhere now.”

“Is it a long walk? To your mother’s house?”

“Not far. It’s on the water, just around the bay. One of those stucco villas.”

“Oh?”

“‘Oh?’” she said, imitating him. “Yes, my love, now you know.”

“Know what?”

“That she could never afford such a thing. Nor could I. And you should see where my sister lives, in Monastir.”

“Oh.”

“You think I’m paid for, like … I won’t say the word.”

“That isn’t true.”

She shrugged.

“So he’s rich, so what?”

“That barely describes it. He buys French paintings, and Byzantine manuscripts, and carved emeralds. He spends money like water, on anything that takes his fancy. Have you noticed a small white ship, practically new, that stays docked in Salonika? I think it was an English ship, one of those that carried mail and passengers to the Orient. Anyhow it sits there, with a full crew on board, ready to go at an hour’s notice. ‘In case,’ as he puts it, ‘things go badly here.’ Then we will all sail away to safety.”

“Not a yacht?”

“The yacht is in Athens, in Piraeus. Not meant for an ocean in winter.”

“You will leave with him, if ‘things go badly’?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.” She thought for a time. “Perhaps I won’t be invited, when the day comes. He has a girlfriend lately, seventeen years old, and he hasn’t been … interested in me for a while. So, when I return, I don’t want you to think that I …” She left it there.

Zannis sighed and settled down next to her, in time laying his leg across the backs of her knees and stroking her in a different way. She turned her head so that their faces were close together. “I get the feeling you’re not ready to go to sleep.”

“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.