Ha-ha!
Said the world. But the worst thing you can do to a dictator is laugh at him-that’s contempt, not awe, and it made Mussolini mad. Well, he’d show the world, he’d take Greece. So there, still laughing? And he didn’t tell Hitler about it, he didn’t ask permission, he just went ahead and did it. And when Hitler heard the news, as dawn broke on the twenty-eighth of October, he was reportedly enraged. Known to be a teppichfresser, a carpet chewer, he’d likely gone down on his knees, once he was alone, and given his favorite rug a good thorough grinding.
Zannis got the details on his way to work, from headlines on the newspaper kiosks, from the newspaper he bought-which he read while walking-and from people in the street. Greece was at war, everybody was talking to everybody, there were no strangers that day. Least of all the soldiers, reservists called to duty, hundreds of them, many accompanied by wives and children so they could say good-bye at the railway station. And not a soul abroad that morning didn’t stop to wish them well.
“Be careful, my child.”
“Remember, keep your head down!”
“You give them a good kick in the ass for me, and don’t forget!”
“So maybe you need a little extra money? A few drachmas?”
“Here, have a cigarette. I see you’re smoking, take it anyhow, for later.”
“Good luck, take care of yourself.”
This from Zannis, looking up from his newspaper. He might well be joining them, he thought, before the day was done. In 1934, when he’d become a detective, he had automatically been assigned to a General Staff reserve unit in Salonika. If Greece went to war, the army could call up however many detective-grade officers it required because, in a small country, every male below the age of sixty had to be available to serve.
According to the paper, there had been a grand dinner party the night before, in Athens. Count Grazzi, the Italian ambassador, had invited the most important people in the city, including General Metaxas. Seated beneath the crossed flags of Italy and Greece, the guests drank “to our eternal friendship for Greece,” Count Grazzi himself having stood to propose the toast. Eventually, they all went home. But then, at three in the morning, Grazzi was driven to the home of General Metaxas, who came to the door in his dressing gown. Grazzi presented an ultimatum: Let our army march into your country and occupy the cities. Metaxas’s answer wasn’t complicated; it could be seen at the top of every front page of every newspaper.
“No.”
When Zannis opened the office door, he saw that Sibylla was knitting. She worked feverishly; hands moving quickly, needles clicking, a ball of gray wool in her lap. “By the time I got to the store,” she said, “and they had it open at six-thirty, all the khaki was gone. Imagine that! Not yet seven-thirty when I got there, and all the khaki wool bought up.”
“What will it be?”
“A sweater. One has a choice, sweater or socks, but I’m good at it, so I decided to make sweaters.”
All over the country, women were knitting warm clothes for the Greek boys who would be fighting in the cold mountains. A poor country, less than eight million in population, they had to improvise. So Sibylla’s fingers flew and, when the phone rang, she propped the receiver between chin and shoulder and never dropped a stitch. Producing, Zannis thought, a rather curious juxtaposition. “And what time did you say he was murdered?” Click, click.
Zannis tried to telephone Vangelis but the line was busy, so he looked over at Saltiel and said, “What about you, Gabi? Are you leaving today?”
“Too old to fight. Officially. For the time being, I’m to take the place of an ambulance driver who’s going up to the border with the medical corps. So I get to drive around the city at night with a siren on. So what’s new.”
“And days?”
“I’ll be here. What about you?”
“I’m waiting for orders,” Zannis said. “I’m in a reserve group, we’re a communications unit, and I’m liaison with an officer of the Yugoslav General Staff. Not really sure what that means, but I guess I’ll find out.”
It was late in the morning when he finally got through to Vangelis. “I’m waiting,” Zannis explained, “for a call or a telegram. But I could be ordered to report. Maybe even today, or tomorrow.”
“Have you given any thought to what you might do if they occupy the city?”
“No, but I suppose I should.”
“We wouldn’t want them to have the files,” Vangelis said. “After that, it will be up to you. Just remember, if you decide to work underground, be careful with your address book. Just in case.” He paused, then said, “For the moment, who will run the office?”
“Saltiel and Sibylla. They’ll do fine.”
Vangelis didn’t answer immediately, his way of saying that it wasn’t true. “I’m not sure what lies ahead, Costa, but if I need you, I may have you brought back. We’ll just have to see how it goes.”
“We may surprise them,” Zannis said.
“Yes, I think we will,” Vangelis said. “If we don’t run out of bullets.”
Late in the afternoon, a telephone call for Zannis. Not the General Staff, but Roxanne. She sounded rattled, almost desperate. This was something new-she’d been cool and composed from the first day he’d met her. “I didn’t want to call you,” she said, “but I didn’t know what else to do.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I have to get to the airport. But there isn’t a taxi to be found in the whole city, and my friends with cars don’t answer their phones, or they’re driving somebody to Athens, or-or something!”
“Roxanne …”
“What?”
“Calm down.”
“Sorry, I’ve just had-”
“There’s no point in going to the airport, all commercial flights are canceled; we’re at war-the military has taken over out there. Now, tell me where you need to go and I’ll see what I can do.”
“I need to go to the airport. Please.”
“Are we going to fight about this? You think I didn’t tell you the truth?”
“Costa, can you borrow a car? Or get one from the police?”
After a moment, he said, in a different tone of voice, “What is this?”
“A favor. I have never asked you for a favor, not ever, but I’m asking now. And part of the favor is not trying to make me explain on the telephone, because I have to be there right away.”
“Hold on.” He turned to Saltiel and said, “Gabi, may I use your car for an hour?”
Saltiel stared at him. I don’t let anyone drive my car. “Well, I guess you can, if you need it.” He was clearly not happy.
“Did you hear that?” Zannis said, on the phone.
“Yes.”
“I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”
It was a rough ride to the airport, some fifteen miles east of the city. Convoys of army trucks were rolling west, toward them, headed for the roads that went up to the Albanian border. And, being army convoys on the first day of a war, saw no reason, in the national interest, not to use both lanes. So more than once Zannis had to swerve off the road, the Skoda bumping over a rocky field. Teeth clamped together, he waited for the blown-out tire or the broken spring, though it happened, over and over again, only in his imagination. But that was bad enough.
Meanwhile, from Roxanne, stony silence, broken occasionally by English oaths, bloody this and bloody that, delivered under her breath every time the trucks came at them. Finally, answering the unasked question, she said, “If you must know, it’s just some friends who want me out of here.”
“Powerful friends,” Zannis said. “Friends with airplanes.”