Alan Furst: Spies of the Balkans

When he returned to the office, he found a message to telephone a detective in the second district. “Costa Zannis,” he said. “You telephoned?”

“Somebody threw a brick through the window of the German legation,” the detective said. “Would that be something for your office?”

“Did you talk to them?”

“Yes. I went over there and wrote up a report. The consul was in a real fury.”

“He was, was he.”

“Oh yes. Red in the face, sputtering.”

Zannis laughed. “First good news today.”

“I guess that means you don’t care.”

“Well, I can’t help him.”

“You should’ve seen it,” the detective said. “It was really wonderful.”

Eventually, Zannis had to return to Santaroza Lane; he had nowhere else to go. Spring was heavy in the air that afternoon, and the two old women had their kitchen chairs out, gossiping in the last of the sunshine. As always they were pleased to see him. One of them said, “By the way, your telephone’s been ringing most of the afternoon.”

“It has?”

“Somebody’s been trying to reach you.”

Zannis hurried upstairs. The apartment was very still without Melissa. He sat on the edge of the bed and waited, but the phone didn’t ring for another forty minutes. “Yes? Hello?”

“Finally! It’s me, Costa.” Demetria, her voice strong and sweet.

“Where are you?” The connection was suspiciously clear.

“Not far. I’m in Salonika.”

“You’ve come home?” he said.

“No, that’s finished.” She paused, then said, “I’m at the Lux Palace, in 601, the suite on the top floor.”

“I’ll be right there,” he said.

It turned out to be the same suite where he’d first met Emilia Krebs. When Demetria opened the door, they stared at each other for a long moment. Well, now it’s happened, I hope you meant it . He rested his hands on her shoulders, wanting a good long look at her, his prize. She was wearing the bronze silk blouse and pearl necklace she’d had on the first time he’d seen her, in the back of the Rolls-Royce. Finally she raised her face, and he touched his lips to her smile.

“Well then,” she said. “Maybe you should come inside.”

She gestured to the sofa, sat down at the other end, then moved closer. For a time they didn’t speak, their alliance settling on them amid the ambient sounds from the open window-seagulls, car horns, voices in the street. At last he said, “Was it very bad?”

“Bad enough,” she said. “I’m going to call down for something to drink, what would you like?”

“French wine? Champagne?”

As she went to the telephone, he watched her walk. Not that she overdid it, but she knew his eyes were following her. After she’d ordered champagne, she returned to the sofa. “I guess I could have done that while you were on the way but then I didn’t know if you’d want a room service waiter … knocking on the door …”

“We have time,” he said. “What a luxury that is.”

She looked into his eyes, excited to be with him, in love with him, and put a warm hand atop his. But she did this instead of responding to what he’d said. Because there wasn’t very much time, she just didn’t have the heart to say it. “Yes,” she said. “A luxury.”

His eye fell on an open suitcase that stood on a luggage rack. “Is that all you brought?”

“Oh no, there’s more in the baggage room. You should see what I brought. That’s why I waited until we came back to Salonika. Then I told him.”

“How did he take it?”

“He was ice cold. He knew, I think. Either in his mean little heart, sensed I wasn’t with him any more, or his spies told him what was going on.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“No, he’s too busy settling his affairs before he leaves, to think about revenge.”

“He’s going to America?”

She nodded. “I would’ve liked to see it, but-”

A knock on the door. “Room service.”

They drank the champagne, touching glasses in a silent toast. Zannis poured a second, then a third, and the effect was powerful. Darkness gathered outside the window, the last drifts of sunlit cloud low on the horizon. Demetria said it was beautiful, then she yawned. “Oh God, forgive me-I couldn’t help it.”

“You’re tired, I’m not surprised, and the champagne …”

“I’m exhausted.”

“Me too. A very difficult day, until you called.”

“Maybe we should sleep.”

“Why not? We’ll stay here tonight, then-”

“Oh we can stay as long as we like.”

“It’s expensive, no?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think I’m rich, but I have a lot of money. He gave me money, I saved it. And there’s more.”

“More?”

“I’ll show you.” She went to her suitcase and returned with a slim elongated package-heavy oilcloth wound tight and secured with a waxed cord. “A gift from Vasilou,” she said. “He used to go up to the monasteries and buy things from the monks.” Carefully, she unwound the oilcloth, then burlap sacking, and held up a parchment scroll wrapped around a spindle. Very delicately, she extended the parchment. “See? It’s a royal decree, from Byzantium.”

The writing was strange; Zannis couldn’t read it. At the bottom, a series of flourishes that glittered in the lamplight.

“The emperor’s signature,” she said. “Basil II. When the emperor signed a decree, it was sprinkled with gold dust and ground cinnabar, that’s why it sparkles.”

Zannis peered at it. “Well, if you’re going to sign a decree … Seems like we’ve lost something in the modern government service.”

She smiled, carefully rewrapping the scroll. “Vasilou had a professor at the university read it. It orders a water system-for some city that no longer exists.”

As she returned the package to her suitcase, Zannis laid his head back against the sofa and, for a moment, closed his eyes. Then she said, “Very well, that does it.”

She turned out the lamp and they undressed, she down to bra and panties while he, following her example, stayed in his underwear. She took his hand and led him to the bed, they crawled under the covers-exquisitely soft and fluffy in there-held each other, and fell asleep. For an hour. Then he woke, because she had unbuttoned the front of his underpants and was holding him in her hand.

Later, they really slept. And the next thing he knew she’d woken him by kissing him on the forehead. “What time is it?” she said, urgency in her voice.

He reached a hand toward the night table, found his watch, put on his glasses, and said, “Eight minutes after six.”

“Something I want to see, so don’t go back to sleep.”

They waited until six-thirty; then she led him to the window. From here-standing naked, side by side and holding hands-they could look out over the span of the harbor. Down at the dock, the white ship sounded its horn, two blasts, and moved slowly out into the Aegean. “There it goes,” she said.

They put it off-a certain conversation, the inevitable conversation. Were very determined to leave it in the future, because they meant to have as much of this love affair as they could. So they made love in the late afternoon-first one kind of seduction, then another-decided to see every movie in Salonika, and ate everything in sight. A taverna he knew, one she knew, why hold back? Not now, they wouldn’t, and money no longer mattered. They ate spiced whipped feta, they ate calamari stuffed with cheese, they ate grilled octopus and grilled eggplant and mussels with rice pilaf and creamy thick yogurt with honey. Zannis didn’t go to the office on the first day, he just didn’t, and then he did it again. They walked along the sea, over to the amusement park in the Beschinar Gardens and rode the Ferris wheel. Of course, being out in the streets, there were traps laid for them: newspaper headlines in thick black print, posted on the kiosks. Reflexively, he started to comment on one of them but she put a finger to his lips and her eyes were fierce. So much warrior in Demetria, it surprised him. They weren’t so different.