Alan Furst - Spies of the Balkans

“I will have to go away for a few days, commissioner, some time soon, but I don’t know exactly when.”

“Again,” Vangelis said.

Zannis nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said, apology in his voice. “Again.”

Vangelis frowned. “Saltiel will take care of the office?”

“He will.”

“What are you doing, Costa? Does your escape line need tending?”

“No, sir, this time it’s … a British operation.”

Vangelis shook his head: what’s the world coming to? “So now I’ve got a secret service running on the Via Egnatia, is that it?” But he was only acting his part, stern commissioner, and suddenly he tired of it-perhaps he slumped a little, behind his grand desk-because he knew precisely what the world was coming to. “Oh fuck it all, Costa, you better do whatever you want, and you better do it quickly.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“It’s probably what you should be doing, that sort of thing, though I don’t like admitting it. What’s the matter with me?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“I wish you were right, but you’re not. Anyhow, you should likely go back to work, as long as you can, and I’ll just say farewell.”

The word puzzled Zannis who, having been dismissed, rose slowly from his chair.

“What I mean to say, is, well, may God watch over you, Costa.”

“Over us all, sir.”

“Yes, of course,” Vangelis said.

Somebody was certainly watching over something. Zannis eagerly checked his mailbox when he got home, but what he was looking for wasn’t there. Instead, an official letter from the Royal Hellenic Army, informing Lieutenant Zannis, Constantine, that he was as of this date relieved of active duty in the event of a call-up of reserve units, by reason of “medical condition.” Signed by a colonel. What was this? Zannis read it again. Not, he thought, an error. Rather, it was as though he’d been moved a square on an invisible board by an unseen hand, because he had no medical condition. On the seventh of March, sixty thousand British Commonwealth troops, mostly Australian and New Zealand divisions, disembarked from troop ships at various Greek ports. In Salonika, they were welcomed with flowers and cheers. Help had arrived. And, Zannis thought as the troops marched along the corniche, any nation that would do that might do all sorts of extraordinary things.

Finally, she telephoned.

The call came to the office, late in the afternoon. “I’m at a friend’s house, in Athens,” she said. To Zannis she sounded defeated, weary and sad.

“I was wondering,” Zannis said. “What happened to you.”

“I was afraid of that. Maybe you thought I … didn’t care.”

“No. Well, not really.”

“I’m miserable,” she said.

“Demetria?”

“Yes?”

“Get on a train. Tonight. Call, and I’ll be waiting at the station.”

“I want to….”

“Well then?”

“I don’t know what to do.” Now she was crying.

“I love you, Demetria. I think about you, I want you with me. Is there something you want me to say? Promise? Anything.”

“ No! It’s beautiful … what you say.”

“And so?”

Now she didn’t speak.

“Please, don’t cry.”

“I can’t help it.” She snuffled. “Forgive me.”

He paused-was there a worse time to say what now had to be said? “There is something I have to tell you.”

“What?” He’d frightened her.

“I’ll be going away, soon, I don’t know when, and not for long. But I’ll leave a key with the neighbor downstairs, I’ll tell her to expect you.”

“Where are you going?”

“It’s for work. A few days, only.”

For a time she was quiet, then she said, in a different voice, “I understand, you can’t say. But, what if you don’t come back?”

“I will, don’t worry about that.”

“Do you have a pencil?”

“Yes.”

“My friend’s number is Athens, 34-412. Her name is Theodora. Telephone her when you return.”

“Three, four? Four, one, two?”

“Yes. You don’t know when you’re leaving?”

“Days, maybe a week, maybe more. It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t? What if the war comes?”

Then you will be safe only with Vasilou. On his white ship . Finally, resignation in his voice, he said, “I don’t know.”

She sighed. “Nobody knows. All they do is talk.” She regretted having asked him a question he couldn’t answer, so now they would be strong together, not like the people who just talked.

“You won’t come here now?”

“Telephone when you return,” she said firmly. “Then I’ll be ready. I’ll be waiting.”

He said he would. He told her again that he loved her, and they hung up.

Zannis looked around the office, Saltiel and Sibylla had their heads down, engrossed in their work.

On 13 March, Hitler again demanded that Yugoslavia sign the Axis pact. They didn’t say no, they said, We’re thinking about it , the “no” of diplomacy. Which might have worked, but for the weather. Spring, the war-fighting season in Europe, was just beginning: once the fields were planted, the men of the countryside would take up their weapons, as they had since the Middle Ages. The March chill receded, the rain in Central Europe and the Balkans was a light rain, a spring rain, a welcome rain. Winter was over, now it was time for action, no more speeches, no more negotiation-certain difficult matters had to be settled, once and for all. Hitler loved that phrase, “once and for all,” and so, on the nineteenth of March, he issued an ultimatum. Do what I say, or you will be bombed and invaded. Costa Zannis paced his bedroom, smoked too much, found it hard to sleep. Yes, he had papers and steamship tickets for his family, but the earliest sailing he’d been able to reserve was on 30 March. Eleven days in the future. Would Hitler wait?

On the afternoon of the twentieth, he stood on the railway platform where passengers were boarding the express to Istanbul and said good-bye to Gabi Saltiel and his wife. As the train rolled out of the station, Zannis watched it go by until the last car disappeared in the distance. He wasn’t alone, there was a line of people, all up and down the platform, who waited until the train was gone.

24 March.

Belgrade was quiet that night, people stayed home, or spent long hours in the coffeehouses. In the larger towns, special Serbian police had been assigned to ensure peace and quiet in the streets. The newspaper Politika , the most esteemed journal in the Balkans, and read by diplomats all across Europe, had that morning been forced to print an editorial supporting Yugoslavia’s signature on the Axis pact. Just before midnight, two armoured cars brought Premier Cvetkovic and his foreign minister to Topchidersko railway station so they could board a train to Vienna. There they would sign.

Costa Zannis had arrived in Belgrade that same evening, met by Pavlic and taken to the Hotel Majestic on the Knez Mihailova, the main shopping street in the city. As they drove down the avenue, Zannis saw a huge swastika flag hung from the balcony of a five-story office building. “What’s that?” he said.

“The office of the German Travel Bureau,” Pavlic said. “Getting an early start on the celebration.”

In the Majestic, Zannis stowed a small valise in his room and went downstairs to the hotel bar. There, Pavlic introduced him to a bulky pale-haired Serb called Vlatko-from the spread of his shoulders and neck, every inch a cop. “He’s from the homicide office,” Pavlic said, as the two men shook hands. “And he speaks German.”

They ordered slivovitz, then Vlatko said, “It’s quiet here, but that’s just on the surface. The people are in shock.”