The Balkan Trilogy (100 page)

It was an evening of full moon. With nothing else to do, she went out, and, drawn to the occasion, made her way up through Kolonaki past the hall where the film was to be shown. She may have hoped that someone she knew would see her and persuade her in; but she walked so quickly and purposefully that anyone who did see her would have supposed she was hurrying to another engagement.

And someone did see her. Charles Warden was standing outside the hall and as she gave a glance, fleet and longing, at the open door, she saw his face white in the white light of the moon. Safely past, hidden by shadow, she looked back. He was watching after her, regretfully; and she went regretfully on.

Energetic in unhappiness, she made her way uphill until she reached the final peak of the town where the old houses, crowded together among trees and shrubs, made a little village on their own. It was here that Alan had had his Athens studio. A path ran away into the rough, open ground of the hilltop. Following it, she found herself in a deserted waste-land, passing further and further out of human existence; the moon her only companion. Hanging oddly near, just above her shoulder, the great white uncommunicating face, blank in a blank grey-azure sky, increased her sense of solitude.

Athens, stretched below, was a map of silver. As she rounded the hill and came in sight of the Piraeus, the air-raid sirens began. At this height their hysterical rise and fall was faint and seemed not to relate to the city that in the blue-white light might have been a toy city, an object of crystal and moonstone.

From habit, she looked for shelter. Ahead there was a hut where refreshments were sold in summer. Standing against it, she watched the bombers coming in from the sea. The guns opened up but the aircraft came on, untouched. One bomber dropped a star of light that hung, incongruous and theatrical, in the moon-hazed distance. Apart from the distant thud-thud of the guns, the whole spectacle appeared to be in dumb-show until an explosion startled the air. A fire sprang up.

All the time the white, unharming city lay like a victim, bound and gagged, unable to strike back. The raid was brief. In a moment the raiders had turned. They flashed in the moon-light and were gone. The fire burnt steadily, the only thing alive among the white toy houses.

The all-clear did not sound and at last, bored and cold, she started to walk again. The path brought her to the top terrace of houses. The releasing blast of the all-clear rose as she made her way down to University Street. After the empty hill-top even Toby Lush, when she met him, seemed a friend. She told him where she had been and he spluttered and guffed and said: ‘Crumbs! I wouldn’t do that walk alone at night for a lot of money.’

‘But surely it’s not dangerous?’

‘Don’t know about that. There’re bad types in most cities. I’m told it’s not safe to go on the Areopagus after dark.’

‘Oh dear!’ She was unnerved at having taken a risk from ignorance and, remembering the cinderous hill-brow in the ghastly light, it seemed to her there had been menace everywhere. She went back to the hotel, amazed at having survived the longest and loneliest walk of her life.

11

The bells rang again for the capture of Muskopolje. They rang again for Konispolis. And on the first day of December, while the rain teemed down on Athens, they rang for the great victory of Pogradets. This battle, that lasted seven days, was fought in a snowstorm. The old porter, who waited in the hall with the news, enacted for the Pringles and other foreigners the drama of the encounter. He stumbled about to show how the Italians had been blinded by snow then, drawing himself up, eyes fixed, expression stern, he showed how the Greeks had been granted miraculous penetration of vision by Our Lady of Tenos.

‘Why Our Lady of Tenos?’ someone asked.

Because, explained the porter, his wife, who came from Tenos, had sent their son a Tenos medallion only two days before the battle began.

Now victory followed victory. When the bells started up, strangers laughed and shouted to each other: ‘What, another one!’ The Athenians danced in the streets. Elderly men danced like boys and the women on the pavements clapped their hands. People said the Greeks had taken prisoner half of Mussolini’s army. As for the war materials captured, they could challenge the world with it.

When someone came into a café and shouted a name that no one had heard before, there was no need to ask what it was. It was a victory. In no time it was familiar. Everyone repeated it: it was the most repeated name in Athens. Then, overnight, it became yesterday’s victory, and another name took its place.

After Pogrodets, there came the capture of Mt Oztrovitz; then Premeti, Santa Quaranta, Argyrokastro and Delvino. The evzoni captured the heights of Ochrida in a snowstorm. The attack lasted four hours and the Greek women, who had followed their men, climbed barefooted up the mountainside to take them food and ammunition.

For every victory the bells rang. People asked gleefully: ‘What now?’ The Greeks had captured a little town that no one could find on the map. Then came a halt. The Greeks had advanced along the whole Albanian frontier and, unprepared for such success, they were outdistancing their supply lines. This was a breakthrough on a grand scale. They must treat it seriously.

On the morning when news came of the capture of Santa Quaranta – an important capture for the Greeks needed a port at which to unload supplies – Guy returned early for luncheon. He had heard, quite casually, from a student, that the new Director had been appointed. The School was to reopen. The students, weary of tramping around from one house to another, sent one of their number to tell Guy: ‘We have been grateful, sir, but now we must work at the School. There is no longer a room for teaching in any house. Our parents order us to enrol where there is space to learn.’

‘And who is the Director?’ Harriet asked. ‘Not Dubedat?’

‘No.’

‘Pinkrose?’

‘No.’

‘So it’s Ben Phipps?’

‘No.’

‘There’s no one else.’

‘Archie Callard.’

Electrified, Harriet said: ‘But this is much better than we expected. We had nothing to gain from Dubedat and Pinkrose, but with Archie Callard, there’s no knowing. He might do something for you.’

‘Yes.’

They went to the hotel dining-room that nowadays, with food becoming scarce, was no worse than anywhere else. Guy behaved as though nothing singular had happened but there was something distraught in his appearance and he could not keep his mind on the meal.

Harriet said: ‘When do you suppose Callard heard?’

‘Yesterday, I should think.’

‘Then he may still contact you.’

‘Oh yes, I’m not worrying.’

‘If he doesn’t, what will you do?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought.’

‘You have every right to contact him. He’s now your Director.’

‘Yes,’ Guy said doubtfully, disturbed by the possibility of having just such a move forced on him. Harriet, observing his timidity when it was a question of fighting his own battle, thought how little they had known each other when they married, hurriedly, under the shadow of war. The shadow, of course, had been there for years; but during the warm, dusty summer days when they first met, it had been the shadow of an avalanche about to drop. Having nowhere else to turn, people turned to each other. Guy had seemed all confidence. Had he grown up under the protection of wealth, he could not have displayed more insouciance, good-humour and generous responsibility towards life. Offering himself, he seemed to offer the protection of human warmth, good sense and reliability. And, in a sense, those qualities were his, but in another sense, he was a complex of unexpected follies, fears and irresolutions.

She said: ‘He
must
appoint you Chief Instructor. There’s no one else capable of doing the job. Pinkrose or Ben Phipps might have done as Director; but when it comes to teaching, who is there?’

‘Dubedat.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, darling.’

The only heat in the hotel came from the oil-stove in the restaurant. The tables were set round it and guests were slow to take themselves up to their rooms. The Pringles were still
sitting over their little cups of grey, washy coffee when the porter came down with a hand-delivered letter. He gave it to Guy, who, opening it, laughed and said casually: ‘It’s from Callard. An invitation to tea at Phaleron where he’s staying with Cookson. You’re to come, too.’

‘But this is wonderful, darling.’

‘Perhaps. We don’t know what he wants.’

‘Oh yes, we do. He’s got the directorship; now he wants someone to do the work.’

‘Come on. I’ll buy you some real coffee at the Braziliana.’

In the little bar, that was so small there was nowhere to sit, people stood elbow to elbow drinking the strong, black coffee that was rare enough at the best of times but was now a luxury. Looking between the crowded faces, Harriet saw Ben Phipps. Thrust into a corner beside the door, he stood by himself, staring into the street with an air of bitter dejection. Could the directorship have meant so much to him?

If she had liked him better, she would have pointed him out to Guy and Guy, of course, would have hurried over to console him. As it was, Guy was too short-sighted to see him and she too nervous to give him a second thought.

It was a sepia day. When the bus left them on the front at Phaleron, they saw a yellowish sea indolently spreading its frills of foam like a bored bridge player displaying a useless hand. The shore was as empty as an arctic shore, and almost as cold. The esplanade, stretching into the remote distance, was grey and bare, but there were palms.

‘The Mediterranean,’ said Harriet.

Guy adjusted his glasses to look at it: ‘Not exactly the sea of dreams,’ he said, but that afternoon they had something else to think about.

Passing the villas where no one seemed to be at home, he hummed to express confidence in the interview ahead, and walked too quickly. Harriet, trotting beside him, kept up without comment. They hurried to meet the moment when their equivocal position would be resolved at last.

Cookson’s villa was easily found. It was the largest of the seaside villas and its name, ‘Porphyry Pillars’, was written in roman letters. The villa was of white marble. The pillars – mentioned in Baedeker, Alan had said – were not at their best in this light.

Harriet whispered: ‘They look like corned beef,’ and Guy frowned her to silence.

A butler admitted them to a circular hall where there were more pillars, not porphyry but white marble, and on to an immense drawing-room filled with Corfu furniture and hung with amber satin.

Out of the prevailing glimmer of gold, the Major rose and shifted his rolled handkerchief so he might extend a hand.

‘How delightful to meet you again,’ he said, though they had scarcely met before. He placed Harriet on an amber satin sofa as in a position of honour and apologized to Guy: ‘So sorry Archie isn’t here. He had a luncheon appointment in Athens and hasn’t got back yet.’

Guy blamed himself for being early, but the Major protested: ‘Oh, no, it’s Archie who is late. Such a naughty boy! A little fey, I’m afraid. But never mind. For a tiny while I have you to myself, so you must tell me about Bucharest. I was there once and met dozens of princes and princesses; all delightful, needless to say. I hope no harm will come to them.
What
a débâcle! How
do
you account for it?’

Guy talked more readily to Cookson than he had talked to Gracey. As he analysed the Rumanian catastrophe, Cookson gave exclamations of wonder and horror, then insisted on being told how the Pringles managed to make their escape. ‘And you,’ he asked Harriet with deep concern, ‘weren’t you most terribly worried by it all? Even, perhaps, a little frightened? And when you left, were you very,
very
sad?’

The Major, looking from Harriet to Guy, from Guy to Harriet, exuded so attentive a sympathy that Harriet was completely won by him. His attitude was that of a courteous and benevolent host welcoming newcomers into the circle of his friends. And how privileged, these friends! She could well
understand why, in the social contest, poor Mrs Brett had scarcely made a showing.

But Guy was less easily beguiled and less ready to desert Mrs Brett. Though he responded to the Major – being quite incapable of not responding – it was not his usual whole-hearted response to a show of friendship. Once or twice when there was some noise in the house, he glanced round, hoping for Archie Callard’s arrival. The Major, apparently unaware of such moments of inattention, said: ‘Do tell me …’ asking one question and another, doing his best to distract them from their unease. But too much depended on the interview ahead. The atmosphere was amiable but Guy’s thoughts wandered and the Major murmured, ‘Where
can
Archie be?’

At last the door opened and Callard appeared. Though the light was failing, the Pringles saw from his face that he had forgotten them. He was not alone. Charles Warden was with him.

Harriet and Warden exchanged a startled glance, and Harriet felt her temperature fall. It was as though some trick had been played upon the pair of them.

Callard had dropped his old air of jocular indifference to life and, conscious of responsibility, was sober and constrained. ‘How kind of you to come,’ he said. ‘You do all know each other, don’t you?’

Accepting this as introduction, Harriet and Warden bowed distantly to each other and waited to see what would happen next.

The Major, who seemed flustered by Callard’s new importance, rose and said:

‘Archie dear, I think I’ll take Mrs Pringle and Charles into the garden while you have your little talk. There’s just light enough to see our way around. Now, don’t be long. I’m sure we’re all dying for our tea.’

He opened the french windows and led the young people outside. Harriet went with some excitement but, looking back as the door closed, she saw Guy inside, his face creased with strain. Guilty at having gone so willingly, she hurried ahead
to join the Major, behaving as though he and she were the only people in the garden. He conducted her round the beds, describing the flowers that would appear after the spring rains, and though there was not much to admire, she exclaimed over everything. Flattered by her vivacious interest, he said: ‘You must see it in April: but, of course, I hope you’ll come many times before that.’