Lasting traces of the Cold War continue to shape the social landscape in Italy and Greece. Lurking Cold War critiques the connections between global categories and individual experiences, foregrounding Cold War resonances through materiality, imagination, speculation, and affect – in literature, bureaucracy, and the family. Introducing a theory of methexi, it explores how people and history are brought into communion, blurring the boundaries between the known and unknown, reality and imagination, form and interpretation. The result is an articulation of history that not only reveals the ongoing presence of the Cold War but shows how and why it still matters today.