He touched her arm, lightly, with two fingers. “Just a little while,” he said.
She had a large apartment, near the city hall and obviously expensive. One always wondered about Tasia and money but she never said anything about it. Maybe her family, he thought. Once inside, she fed her cats, poured two small glasses of ouzo, and sat Zannis on a white couch. Settling herself at the other end, she curled into the corner, kicked off her shoes, rested her legs on the cushions, said, “Salut,” and raised her glass.
After they drank she said, “Mmm. I wanted that all night-I hate drinking wine. Take your shoes off, put your feet up. That’s better, right? Parties hurt your feet? They do mine-high heels, you know? I’m such a peasant. Oh yes, rub harder, good … good … don’t stop, yes, there … ahh, that’s perfect, now the other one, wouldn’t want it to feel neglected … yes, just like that, a little higher, maybe … no, I meant higher, keep going, keep going … … no, don’t take them all the way off, just down, just below my ass … there, perfect, you’ll like that later. Remember?”
He was tired the following day, and nothing seemed all that important. It had been a long while between lovers for Tasia, as it had for Zannis, they were both intent on making up for lost time, and did. But then, a little after eleven, on what seemed like just another morning at work, he got something else he’d wanted. Wanted much more than he’d realized.
A letter. Carried by the postman, who appeared at the door of the office. Not his usual practice, the mail was typically delivered to a letter box in the building’s vestibule, but not that day, that day the postman hauled his leather bag up five flights of stairs, came to Zannis’s desk, took a moment to catch his breath, held up an envelope, and said, “Is this for you?”
Obviously a business letter, the return address printed in the upper left corner:
Hofbau und Sohn Maschinenfabrik GmbH
28, Helgenstrasse
Brandenburg
DEUTSCHLAND
With a typewritten address:
Herr C. N. Zannis
Behilfliches Generaldirektor
Das Royale Kleidersteller
122, Via Egnatia
Salonika
HELLAS
“Yes,” Zannis said. “That’s for me.” The letter was from, apparently, a manufacturer of industrial knitting machines in Brandenburg-not far from Berlin-to the assistant general manager of the Royale Garment Company in Salonika. Well done, he thought.
The postman leaned toward Zannis and spoke in a confidential voice. “I don’t care if you want to do this kind of thing. These days … well, you know what I mean. But I almost took this back to the post office, so in future leave me a note in the letter box, all right?”
“I will,” Zannis said. “But if you’d keep an eye out for, for this sort of arrangement, I’d appreciate it.”
The postman winked. “Count on me,” he said.
As the postman left, Zannis slit the envelope with a letter opener, carefully, and slid out a single sheet of folded commercial stationery; the address printed at the top of the page, the text typewritten below.
30 November 1940
Dear Sir:
I refer to your letter of 17 November.
We are in receipt of your postal money order for RM 232.
I am pleased to inform you that 4 replacement motors, 11 replacement spindles, and 14 replacement bobbins for our model 25-C knitting machine have been shipped to you by rail as of this date.
Thank you for your order. Hofbau und Sohn trusts you will continue to be satisfied with its products.
Yours truly,
S. Weickel
“Sibylla?” Zannis said. He was about to ask her about an iron. Then he stopped cold. She said, “Yes?” but he told her it was nothing, he’d take care of it himself.
Because he saw the future.
Because there was some possibility that the darkest theories of the war’s evolution were correct: Germany would rescue the dignity of her Italian partner and invade Greece. Yes, the British would send an expeditionary force, would honor her treaty with an ally. But Zannis well knew what had happened in Belgium and France-the chaotic retreat from Dunkirk. So it hadn’t worked then, and it might not work this time. The Greek army would fight hard, but it would be overwhelmed; they had no answer to German armour and aircraft. Salonika would be occupied, and its people would resist. He would resist. And that meant, what? It meant clandestine leaflets and radio, it meant sabotage, it meant killing Germans. Which would bring reprisal, and investigation, and interrogation. Saltiel and Sibylla might be questioned, so he could not, would not, compromise them, endanger them, with information they should not have. If they knew, they were guilty.
So Zannis left the office at noon, walked down to the market, found a stall with used irons in every state of age and decay, and bought the best electric model they had. “It works good,” the stall owner said.
“How do you know?”
“I can tell,” the man said. “I understand them. This one was left in the Hotel Lux Palace, and the settings are in English.”
Zannis walked back to his apartment, set the iron on his kitchen table, returned to the office, couldn’t bear to wait all afternoon, and went home early.
First, he practiced, scorched a few pieces of paper, finally set the dial on WARM. Then he laid the letter flat on a sheet of newspaper on the wooden table in the kitchen and pressed the iron down on the letter’s salutation. Nothing. He moved to the text in the middle-“I am pleased to inform you that 4 replacement motors”-but, again, nothing. No! A faint mark had appeared above the p of “pleased.” More heat. He turned the dial to LOW, waited as the iron warmed, pressed for a count of five, and produced parts of three letters. He tried once more, counting slowly to ten, and there it was: “… ress KALCHER UND KRO …”
Ten minutes later he had the whole message, in tiny sepia-colored block letters between the lines of the commercial text:
Reply to address KALCHER UND KRONN, attorneys, 17, Arbenstrasse, Berlin. Write as H. H. STRAUB. 26 December man and wife traveling under name HARTMANN arrive Budapest from Vienna via 3-day excursion steamer LEVERKUSEN. He 55 years old, wears green tie, she 52 years old, wears green slouch hat. Can you assist Budapest to Belgrade? Believe last shipment lost there to Gestapo agents. Can you find boat out your port? Please help.
Last shipment meant the Rosenblum sisters, he thought, unless there had been others he didn’t know about. Also lost. Budapest? How the hell could he help in Budapest? He didn’t know a soul in Hungary; why would he? Why would Emilia Krebs think he did? What was wrong with this woman? No, calm down, he told himself. It isn’t arrogance. It is desperation. And, on second thought, there might be one possibility. Anyhow, he would try.
He never really slept, that night. Staring at the ceiling gave way to fitful dozing and awful dreams which woke him, to once again stare at the ceiling, his mind racing. Finally he gave up and was at the office by seven-thirty. December weather had reached them: the clammy chill of the Mediterranean winter, the same grisaille, gray days, gray city, that he’d come to know in Paris. He turned on the lights in the office and set out his box of five-by-eight cards. Yes, his memory had not betrayed him: Sami Pal. His real-as far as anybody knew-Hungarian name, Pal not an uncommon surname in Hungary. Or, perhaps, a permanent alias.
Szamuel “Sami” Pal. Born Budapest 1904. Hungarian passport B91-427 issued 3 January, 1922, possibly counterfeit or altered. Also uses Nansen passport HK33156. Resident in Salonika since 4 May, 1931 (renewable visa) at various rooming houses. Operates business at 14, Vardar Square, cellar room rented from tenant above, Madame Zizi, Fortune Teller and Astrologer. Business known as Worldwide Agency-Confidential Inquiries. Telephone Salonika 38-727.