He was busy the following day. For one thing, because of absent personnel-the war, the fucking war, how it manifested itself-the office had to handle a few commonplace criminal investigations. So now they’d been assigned a murder in Ano Toumba, a dockworker found stabbed to death in his bed. Nobody had any idea who’d done this, or why. By noon, Zannis and Saltiel had talked to the stevedores on the wharf, then some of the man’s relatives. He wasn’t married, couldn’t afford it, didn’t gamble or patronize the girls up in the Bara, gave no offense to anybody. He worked hard, played dominoes in the taverna, such was life. So, why? Nobody knew, nobody even offered the usual dumb theories.
After lunch he cashed Vangelis’s check, visited the Hungarian legation and was given a visa, then bought a ticket at the TAE office: up to Sofia, then Lufthansa to Budapest. The ticket in his hand was not unexciting-he’d never flown in an airplane. Well, now he would. He wasn’t afraid, not at all.
It was after six by the time he got to his front door, greeted the waiting Melissa, trudged up the stairs, and found his door unlocked and Tasia Loukas naked in his bed. “I remembered your key,” she said. “Above the door.” She was propped on one elbow, wearing her tinted glasses and reading the Greek version of one of Zannis’s French spy novels, The Man from Damascus. “You aren’t sorry to see me, are you?”
He drew the sheet down to her waist and kissed her softly, twice, by way of answer. Then he went into the kitchen, gave Melissa a mutton bone, a hunk of bread, and two eggs. “I have to take a shower,” he said as he returned to the bedroom. “Really I have to, it’s been that kind of day.”
“I have a surprise for you,” Tasia said.
“Oh?”
“But not until later. At eleven we have to go back out.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see. It’s a nice surprise.”
He began to unbutton his shirt, she watched attentively as he undressed.
“I see you’re ironing your own clothes now,” she said.
The iron was still sitting on the table in the kitchen. “Yes,” he said. “A small economy.”
“I’d like to watch you do it,” she said, amused at the idea. “Can you?”
“I’m learning,” he said. He stepped out of his underpants and bent over to pick them up.
“Come and sit with me for a little,” she said. “I don’t care if you smell.”
How to say no?
He sat on the edge of the bed, she began to stroke him, observing the result like an artist. “I daydreamed all day, at work,” she said, voice tender. “A little voice in my head. It kept saying, ‘Tasia, you need a good fucking,’ so here I am. Did you think you were too tired?”
“I did wonder.”
“But you are not, as we can see.”
He woke up suddenly and looked at his watch. 9:33. He could hear rain pattering down on Santaroza Lane, a gentle snore from Melissa, which now stopped abruptly because she’d also woken up, the instant after he had. She always knew. How? A dog mystery. Tasia was asleep on her stomach, arm beneath the pillow, mouth open, face delicately troubled by a dream. Her lips moved, who was she talking to? As he watched, one eye opened. “You’re awake,” she said.
“It’s raining.” The first attack of a campaign to stay home.
She sat up, sniffed, then got out of bed and, haunches shifting, walked to the bathroom, closed the door almost all the way, and called out, “What time is it?”
“Nine-thirty.”
“Hmm.”
When she emerged, she began to sort through her clothes, which lay folded on a chair. “I have a funny story for you,” she said, stepping into her panties.
Oh no, she still wants to go out. They had eaten nothing, so he’d have to take her somewhere, though, for him, making love was a substitute for food. “You do?”
“I forgot to tell you,” she said.
He waited as she put on her bra, hooking it in front then twisting it around.
“I have a little nephew. A cute kid, maybe four years old. And you know what he did? You won’t believe it when I tell you.”
“What?”
“He tried to kill Hitler.”
“He what?”
“Tried to kill Hitler. Really. They have one of those shortwave radios, and they were listening to some music program. Eventually the news came on and there was Hitler, shouting and screaming, the crowd cheering. You know what it sounds like. Anyhow, the kid listens for a while, then he picks up a pencil and shoves it into the speaker.”
Tasia laughed. Zannis laughed along with her and said, “That’s funny. It really happened?”
“It did,” she said. She put on a black sweater, combing her hair back in place with her fingers once she had it on. “Aren’t you hungry?” she said.
The surprise was, in truth, a surprise. They left the apartment, then stopped at a taverna for fried calamari and a glass of wine, and Tasia told him what she’d planned. A friend of hers owned the movie theatre in what had been, until the population exchange of 1923, a Turkish mosque, and he had gotten hold, somehow, of a print of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. “It won’t have subtitles,” she said, “but you understand English, don’t you?”
“Some. Not much.”
“Never mind, you’ll manage. He’s showing it for friends, so we’ll at least have a chance to see it. Otherwise, we’d have to wait a long time, for the official release.”
The film was accompanied by considerable whispering, as people asked their neighbors to explain the dialogue, but that didn’t matter. Hitler was called Adenoid Hynkel, Mussolini appeared as Benzino Napaloni, which Zannis supposed was amusing if you spoke English. Mussolini teased and tormented and manipulated his fellow dictator-that didn’t need translation either. Still, even though it was Chaplin’s first talking picture, the physical comedy was the best part. Everybody laughed at the food fight and applauded Hitler’s dance with an inflated globe, literally kicking the world around. The political speech at the end was spoken out in Greek by the theatre owner, who stood to one side of the screen and read from notes.
Zannis didn’t find it all that funny, the way Mussolini provoked Hitler. The movie was banned in Germany, but Hitler would no doubt be treated to a private screening-trust that little snake Goebbels to make sure he saw it. Hitler wouldn’t like it. So, some comedian thought the Axis partners were comic? Perhaps he’d show him otherwise. When the movie was over, and the crowd dispersed in front of the mosque, Zannis wasn’t smiling. And in that, he saw, he wasn’t alone.
“So!” said a triumphant Tasia. “What will Adolf think of this?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Zannis said. “I’ll ask him when he gets here.”
14 December. The Breguet airplane bumped and quivered as it fought the turbulence above the mountains. Zannis was alarmed at first, then relaxed and enjoyed the view. Too soon they descended above Sofia airport, then zoomed toward the runway-too fast, too fast-and then, just as the wheels bounced on the tarmac and Zannis held a death grip on the arms of his seat, something popped in his left ear and the sound of the engines got suddenly louder. He could hear in both ears! He was overjoyed, smiling grandly at a dour Bulgarian customs official, which made the officer more suspicious than usual.
It was dusk when they landed in Budapest. Zannis took a taxi to the railway station and checked into one of the travelers’ hotels across the square. In his room, he looked out the window. Looked, as big windblown snowflakes danced across his vision, at the people hurrying to and from their trains, holding on to their hats in the wind. Looked for surveillance, looked for men watching the station. What happened to the fugitives who came here? Who was hunting them? How was it managed?
The following day, he waited until one in the afternoon, rode a taxi across the Szechenyi Bridge, and made his way to Ilka’s Bar. Which was small and dark and almost deserted-only one other customer, a tall attractive woman wearing a hat with a veil. She was not a casual patron but sat nervously upright, staring straight ahead, a handkerchief twisted in her hands.