Spies of the Balkans Read Online Free PDF Page A

The name of a taverna but it meant much more than that.
    "Then we shan't be visiting Wyoming? With Effendi Slade?" This in English, but for the Turkish title. Her Greek was close to perfect but she knew how her English voice affected him. Prim, upper-class, clipped, and chilly, a voice perfectly suited to her firm horsewoman's body, weathered face, mouth barely touched with lipstick.
    "Perhaps we could go later. Or now, if you prefer."
    "No," she said. "I prefer depravity."
    Balthazar, tucked away in a cellar beneath lowlife Vardar Square, wasn't far away so they walked, protected by her umbrella, a hideous thing with pink polka dots on a green field. Very much a couple; his arm reached around her shoulders--they were just about the same height--hers around his waist. "Is the world being good to you, this week?" he said.
    "Not too bad. The school has a recital coming up this weekend but I refuse to worry about it." Arriving in Salonika in 1938, by way of expatriate years spent first in southern France, then in Capri, she had purchased the Mount Olympus School of Ballet and, once every eight weeks, the daughters of the city's bourgeoisie, all shapes and sizes, twirled around the stage to Tchaikovsky. As rendered by a Victrola that ran, in its old age, not as fast as it once did, so the dance was perhaps a little on the stately side, which frankly suited some of the statelier daughters.
    "Am I invited to the recital?" he asked.
    She pressed her cheek against his. "Many things I might ask of you, my dear, but ..."
    "Do you perform?"
    "In tights? I think not."
    "Don't tell me you can't wear tights."
    "That is for you to look at, not the butcher and his wife."
    Balthazar was delighted to see them and offered a solemn bow. "So pleased," he said, "it's been too long," and led them to a very small, very private room. Filled with ottomans, wool carpets, and low brass tables, the soft, shadowy darkness barely disturbed by a spirit lamp flickering in one corner. Balthazar lit some incense, then prepared two narghilehs, each with a generous lump of ochre-colored hashish. "You will eat later?" he said. "A nice meze?" Small appetizers--eggplant, feta, hummus.
    "Perhaps we will."
    He well knew they would but didn't make a point of it, saying only, "As you wish," and closing the door carefully--their privacy his personal responsibility.
    Music would have been nice and, as it turned out, music there was. If not from Balthazar itself, from the taverna next door, a bouzouki band and a woman singer, muffled by the wall, so just the right volume. They sat on a low loveseat, shoulders and hips touching, and leaned over a worked-brass table. When Zannis inhaled, the water in the narghileh bubbled and took the harsh edge off the hashish so he could hold the smoke in for a long time.
    They were silent for a while, but eventually she said, "Quite nice tonight. The smoke tastes good, like ... what? Lemon and lime?"
    "Did you ever eat it?"
    "No."
    "Best not."
    "Oh?"
    "Very powerful. It will take you, ah, far away. Far, far away."
    "I'm rather far away as it is." After a moment she said, "You see that little lamp in the corner? It reminds me of Aladdin, I believe it might have been in a book I had, as a child." She stared into the distance, then said, "Do you suppose, if I rubbed it ...?"
    "You'd burn your fingers, the genie keeps it hot."
    "Doesn't want to come out?"
    "Not in this weather."
    She giggled. "Not in this weather." She tossed the tube of the narghileh on the table, turned sideways, rested her head on his shoulder, and began to unbutton his shirt. That done, she spread it apart and laid her cheek on his chest--hairless and smooth, with broad, flat plates. Putting her lips against his skin, she said, "You smell good."
    "I do? I took a bath, maybe it's the soap."
    "No, it isn't soap, it's something about you, something sweet."
    For a time they drifted, then, returning from wherever he'd been, he said, "Would you like to sit on my lap?"
    "I