The Names

Lindsay stood in the hospital corridor, watching me approach. She was bright with fear, shining. I was afraid to touch her.

A man came from the Ministry of Public Order. We sat in the kitchen drinking Nescafe. He was a middle-aged man, a chain-smoker whose brisk and commanding manner grew almost entirely out of the management of his cigarettes and lighter. I asked him if anyone had claimed responsibility for the action. This is how we referred to it. It was the action.Yes, phone calls had been made to several newspapers. A group that called itself the Autonomous People's Initiative had claimed responsibility. No one knew who they were. Considering how they'd handled the action, he said, it was yet to be decided whether or not they were to be taken seriously. The weapon found at the scene was a 9mm pistol called a CZ-75, made in Czechoslovakia.He asked me what I'd seen and heard.The next day there was another visitor, a man from the political section of the U.S. embassy. He showed me credentials and asked if I had any scotch. He'd just had a nice visit, he said, with David Keller in the hospital. We went into the living room, where I waited for him to ask about my job, my contacts with local people. Instead he asked about the Mainland Bank. I told him what little I knew. They lent money to Turkey, impressive sums. They had only a representative office in Turkey-no foreign bank had a full-fledged branch-so they approved these loans out of the Athens office. He knew all this, although he didn't say so. He had the look of a once fat child, milk-white, smooth-surfaced, wheezing. He was incomplete without the much-loved bulk, alluding to it every time he moved, a soft-footed man, lowering himself carefully into the chair, carefully crossing his legs.He asked a few questions about my trips to countries in the region. He approached the subject of the Northeast Group several times but never mentioned the name itself, never asked a direct question. I let the vague references go by, volunteered nothing, paused often. He sat with the drink in his hand, having wrapped the bottom of the glass in a paper napkin he'd found in the kitchen. It was a strange conversation, full of hedged remarks and obscure undercurrents, perfect in its way.