“Ah, yes indeed! When armies disintegrate, there are always a few who prefer to stay together and fight a private war against society. But here in Florina the gentleman need have no fear. The eagles are safe in the hills.”
“That’s a pity. We were hoping you might be able to help us to find one.”
“To find an eagle? The gentleman deals in fine feathers?”
But George was getting bored. “All right,” he said, “we’ll cut the double-talk. Tell him I’m a lawyer and that we want, if possible, to talk to someone who was in the ELAS band led by Phengaros in 1944. Explain that it’s nothing political, that we just want to check up on the grave of a German Sergeant who was killed near Vodena. Say I’m acting for the man’s relatives in America.”
He watched the little man’s face as Miss Kolin translated. For a moment or two a quite extraordinary expression came over its loose grey folds, an expression compounded of equal parts of interest, amazement, indignation, and fear. Then a curtain came down and the face went blank. Its owner picked up his drink and drained the glass.
“I regret,” he said precisely, “that that is not a matter in which I can be of any assistance to you at all.”
He rose to his feet.
“Wait a minute,” said George. “If he can’t help me, ask him if he knows of anyone here who can.”
The proprietor hesitated, then glanced across at the officer sitting at the table by the bar. “One moment,” he said curtly. He went over to the officer, and bending over the table, began talking in a rapid undertone.
After a moment or two, George saw the officer look across quickly at him, then say something sharply to the proprietor. The little man shrugged. The officer stood up and came over to them.