Alan Furst: Spies of the Balkans

The files, both sets, played a central role in the unnamed office on the Via Egnatia, with support from three typewriters, three telephones, and one more device which, from time to time, would remind them of its presence by ringing a little bell. As it did at that moment, producing a mumbled “Skata,” from Zannis-the Greek equivalent of the French merde -by which he meant now what . The device, on its own private table in the corner, was a Model 15 Siemens teleprinter, and now, all by itself, it began to type, fast and furious, a page rising slowly from a slot above its keyboard. Zannis stood by the table and read the text as it appeared.

AS PER YOUR QUERY 6 OCTOBER 1940 STOP MAIN BORDER STATIONS REPORT NO RECORD RENAULT MODEL UNKNOWN LICENSE SK 549 ENTERING BULGARIA LAST 48 HOURS STOP NO RECORD GREEK NATIONAL K L. STACHO THIS OFFICE STOP SIGNED LAZAREFF END

The teleprinter waited, making its thucka-thucka-thucka sound, for thirty seconds, then shut down. Well, Zannis thought, I gave it a try. On a hunch that Stacho had fled up to Bulgaria, he’d had Sibylla send a teletype to his old friend, Ivan Lazareff, in Sofia. If he’d thought that Stacho was spying for Bulgaria-a perfectly reasonable assumption-he wouldn’t have done it, but the undertaker, a Greek citizen of Bulgarian descent, was spying for Germany, or at least for a man carrying German documents, so he’d taken a chance. And why not? He’d known Lazareff for years; they’d had plenty of good times in Greek and Bulgarian bars back when they’d both been detectives. At one time they’d talked on the telephone-mostly in German-but now that Zannis was a police official and Lazareff a chief of detectives, they communicated back and forth by teletype.

Logically, the purchase of the Siemens equipment should have been animated by some urge for progress, but it wasn’t so. As German power surged in Europe, German corporations drove deep into the Balkans, buying up raw materials at preferential prices and selling-often trading-technology in return. Roumanian wheat moved west; back the other way came Leica cameras, aspirin, harmonicas, and, in some of the police stations in the cities and towns of southern Europe, teletype systems. In many cases, the purchase wasn’t optional, was instead dictated by a very apprehensive foreign policy -we must appease these people, buy the damn machine! And yes, there were stories of hens nesting atop teleprinters in Serbian villages, and no, you really weren’t going to hunt down the goat thief sought by a Roumanian police officer, but the system did work and, soon enough, some Balkan policemen found that it had its uses.

10 October. Hotel Lux Palace, Salonika.

Maybe just the war, moving south .

The end of her cigarette was marked with lipstick, dark red, a color that emphasized her black hair and pale skin. Stunning , Zannis thought, was the word for her. And seductive, future delights suggested in the depths of her glance. And a liar, because she had no intention of going to bed with him or anybody else. She was important, this woman; she would never do such things. She was, however, scared, and not used to it, so she flirted a little with the handsome policeman, because she needed help.

He was here, in the best suite the best hotel in the city had to offer, at Saltiel’s suggestion. No, request, though put mildly enough. This was a Jewish matter, originating with some pillar of the Sephardic community who knew to reach Zannis by way of Saltiel.

She ordered coffee, sat Zannis in a brown velvet armchair, turned the chair that went with the escritoire halfway and perched on its edge, facing him. Heels together, posture erect. “Frau Krebs is terribly formal,” she said, her voice in cultured and well-modulated German. “Everybody calls me Emmi, for Emilia.”

“And I’m Costa, for Constantine. My last name is Zannis. And they are?”

He referred to two children, the boy seven, he guessed, the girl perhaps nine, in a staged tableau beyond the open bedroom door. They were perfectly dressed, Jewish by their looks, the girl reading a book, the boy coloring with crayons.

“Nathanial and Paula.” The girl looked up from her book, smiled at Zannis, then went back to reading-or pretending to read.

“Attractive children, no doubt you’re proud of them.”

Silence. She hesitated, a shall-I-lie hesitation that Zannis had seen many times before. She inhaled her cigarette, tapped it above the ashtray, and finally said, “No.”

“Not proud?” He smiled, of course she meant no such thing.

“They’re not my children.” Then, regret. “Does it matter?” She was worried that she’d made a mistake.

“It doesn’t matter, but it is interesting. I’m sure you’ll explain.”

The waiter arrived, bringing croissants, butter, jam, Greek pastry, and coffee. In ordering, she’d covered all the possibilities. “I thought you might like something to eat.”

“Maybe later.”

The tray was set on a table and she tipped the waiter.

“Two days ago, I arrived at the Turkish border on what used to be called the Orient Express. But we were turned back by a customs officer, so here we are, in Salonika.”

“A Turkish customs officer?” he said. Then made the classic baksheesh gesture, thumb rubbed across the first two fingers, and raised his eyebrows.

She appreciated the theatre. “Oh, I tried, but I somehow managed to find the only honest official in the Levant.”

“For what reason, Emmi, turned back?”

“Some question about papers.”

“Are they legitimate?”

“I thought they were. I was told they were.”

“By …?”

“A lawyer in Berlin. I paid him to obtain the right papers, Turkish entry visas, but what I got were-um, cooked up. False papers. That’s what the officer said.”

“And then you offered a bribe.”

“I started to but, oh, you should have seen his face. I think he might have put us in prison.”

Sympathetic, Zannis nodded. “Always best, we think here, to avoid time in Turkish prisons. Emmi, if they’re not your children, whose are they?”

“A friend’s. An old school friend. A Jewish friend. She can’t get out of Germany; she asked for help, I volunteered to take the children out. To Istanbul-where there are people who will take care of them.”

“And where you will live.”

Slowly, she shook her head, then put her cigarette out, pressing the end against the glass. “No, I will go back.”

“Forgive me, I assumed you were Jewish.”

“I am.”

Zannis didn’t answer. It was properly hushed on the top floor of the Lux Palace; from the corridor outside the room he could hear the whir of a vacuum cleaner. He stood up, walked over to the window and looked out to sea, at a steamship and its column of smoke against the sky. As he returned to the chair she met his eyes. Stunning, he thought again, and hard, much harder than he’d first thought. What have I stumbled on? Back in the chair, he leaned forward and spoke quietly. “You don’t have to say anything, if you don’t want to. I’ll still help you.”

She nodded, grateful for his understanding. In the bedroom, the boy said, his voice just above a whisper, “Should this be green?”

“No, blue,” the girl said.

Emilia Krebs bent toward him and lowered her voice. “It was very hard for them. They couldn’t go to school, they couldn’t really go outdoors-Berlin is brutal now. Do you understand?”

His expression said that he understood perfectly.

“So, my friend asked me to get them out, somewhere safe. Because she knew I could go in and out of Germany. Krebs is Colonel Hugo Krebs, my husband, and a very powerful man.”