The Balkan Trilogy (14 page)

They moved into the living room. As soon as they had sat down, a servant wheeled in a trolley laden with hors-d’œuvres and the little grilled garlic sausages made only in Rumania. Harriet, having learnt by now that luncheon might be served any time between two o’clock and three, settled down to drink
ţ
uic
ǎ
and eat what was offered her.

The room was very large. Despite its size, it appeared overfull of massive mahogany furniture and hemmed in by walls of so dark a red they were almost black. Hung on the walls, darker than the paper, were portraits heavily framed in gold. A vast red and blue Turkey carpet covered the floor. In the bow of the window, that overlooked the park, stood a grand pianoforte. Drucker’s eldest daughter, a school-girl, sat on the stool, occasionally revolving on it and touching a note whenever she stopped before the keyboard. The younger girl, a child of nine, dressed in the uniform of the Prince’s youth movement, stood very close to her father. When he had filled the glasses, he whispered to her. Shyly, she drew herself from his side to hand the glasses round.

The women talking in French and English, questioned Guy about his holiday in England – a journey that now seemed to Harriet to have happened long before – and all he and his wife had done since their arrival. Across the boisterous talk, Drucker smiled at Harriet but he was too far from her to draw her into the conversation. When she answered the questions that Guy referred to her, her voice sounded to her discouraging and remote. She had the sense of being isolated in this tumult of vivacious enquiry. Guy, flushed and excited, seemed as far from her as they were. The first time he had visited here, he had been a stranger like herself but he had been taken immediately into the family’s heart. She, she felt, was not what they expected; not what they felt she ought to be. She would be a stranger here for ever.

They began to talk of the war. ‘Ah, the war!’ The word flashed from one to the other side of the little, quick-speaking women with intonations of regret. Now they had touched upon this serious subject, they turned to Drucker for comment.

He said: ‘Because of the war, we make much business: but still, it is a bad thing.’

Harriet glanced at Guy, wondering what he would think of this, but whatever he thought, he was distracted from it by the entry of Drucker’s parents. They came in slowly, with an air of formal purpose, the wife leaning on her husband’s arm. Both were small and very frail. Drucker hurried to them and led them carefully in to greet Guy and meet Harriet. They had been born in the Ukraine and spoke only Russian. The old man, slowly shaking Guy by the hand, made a little speech in a voice so quiet it could scarcely be heard.

Guy, delighted, brought out his four words of
Russian – an enquiry as to their health. This gave rise to wonder and congratulations, during which the old couple, smiling their ghostly smiles, excused themselves and made their way out again.

Drucker said: ‘They tire very easily and prefer to eat in their own drawing-room.’

The flat, Harriet thought, must be very large. She later learnt that the Drucker family occupied the whole of the block’s top floor.

Before the conversation could start again, Drucker’s brothers-in-law began to arrive from their offices. Hassolel, dry-faced and subdued, dressed in silver-grey with white spats, arrived first but had scarcely spoken before the two younger men came in together. Teitelbaum wore several gem rings, a gold watch bracelet, diamond cuff-links, a diamond tie-pin and a broad gold clip to hold down his tie. His elderly, humourless manner made this jewellery seem less an ornament than a weariness of the flesh. The two older men, dispirited though they seemed, did their best to be affable, but Flöhr made no effort at all. Though still in his thirties, he was bald. His fringe of red hair and his striped chocolate-brown suit gave him a flamboyance that did not seem to be part of his personality. He took a seat outside the circle, apparently resenting the fact there were visitors in the room.

Guy had told Harriet that the brothers-in-law were all of different nationalities. Only Drucker held a Rumanian passport. It was evidence of Drucker’s power in the country that the others – one German, one Austrian and one Polish – had been granted
permis-de-séjour
. They existed in his shadow.

The large skeleton clock over the fireplace struck two. Drucker’s wife had not yet appeared. The door opened and the new arrival was the son Sasha, Guy’s pupil. Doamna Hassolel explained that he was late because he had gone from the University to his saxophone lesson. When introduced to Harriet, he crossed the room to kiss her hand. He was a tall boy, as tall as his father, but thin and narrow-shouldered. As he bent over Harriet, the light slid across the black hair, which he wore brushed back from a low and narrow brow. Like his sisters, he resembled his father without being handsome. His eyes were too close together, his nose too big for his face, but because of his extraordinary gentleness of manner Harriet felt drawn to him. There was in him no hint of the family’s energy and drive. He was like some nervous animal grown meek in captivity.

He left Harriet and went to shake hands with Guy, then he stood against the wall, his eyes half-shut.

Watching the boy, Harriet thought that were one to meet him in any capital in the world, one would think not ‘Here is a foreigner’ but ‘Here is a Jew’. Though he would be recognisable anywhere, he would be at home nowhere except here, in the midst of his family. Despite the fact he did undoubtedly belong – as though to prove it his aunts had each as he passed given him a pat of welcome – there was about him something so vulnerable and unprotected that Harriet’s sympathy went out to him.

After a while he whispered to Doamna Hassolel. She shook her head at him, then turned to the company: ‘He wants to play his gramophone but I say “No, soon we must eat”.’ She reflected in her speech the family pride in the boy.

The rest of the family kept silent while Drucker and Guy discussed Sasha’s progress at the University. He had been educated at an English public school and would be sent, when
the war ended, to learn the family profession in the bank’s New York branch.

The other men kept nodding approval of all Drucker said. There could be no doubt that it was he who gave them all status. Had a stranger asked: ‘Who is Hassolel? Who Teitelbaum? Who Flöhr?’ there could be only one answer to each question: ‘He is the brother-in-law of Drucker, the banker.’

When there was a pause, Teitelbaum said: ‘How fortunate a young man that can go to America. In this country, who can tell? Already there is general mobilisation and young men are taken from their studies.’

‘All the time now,’ said Doamna Hassolel, ‘we must pay, pay, pay that our Sasha may have exemption.’

While the others spoke of Sasha, Drucker smiled at the little girl at his side so that she might know she was not forgotten. He gave her a squeeze, then said to Harriet: ‘This is my own little girl. She’s so proud of her beautiful uniform.’ He fingered the silk badge on her pocket. ‘She is learning to march and shout ‘Hurrah’ in chorus for her handsome young Prince. Isn’t she?’ He gave her another squeeze and she blushed and pressed her face into his coat. As he smiled, there could be seen, behind the ravages of the years, the same sensitivity that on Sasha’s face was unhidden and defenceless.

Feeling enough had been said about Sasha, Doamna Hassolel now questioned Guy about his friend David Boyd who he had once brought to luncheon with them. Would David Boyd return to Rumania?

Guy said: ‘He planned to come back, but now I do not know. In war-time we have to do what we are told.’

The sun, that had been for a while behind a cloud, burst through the window and lit the famous corn-coloured hair of Doamna Flöhr, who was said to have once been a mistress of the King. Peering short-sightedly at Guy, her head flashing unnatural fire, she cried: ‘Ah, that David Boyd! How he talked! He was a man who knew everything.’

Guy agreed that his friend, an authority on the Balkans, was very knowledgeable.

‘He was a man of the Left,’ said Teitelbaum. ‘What would he think, I wonder, of this German-Soviet Friendship Treaty?’

Everyone looked at Guy to see what he, another man of the Left, thought of it. He merely said: ‘I imagine Russia has a plan. She knows what she is doing.’

Doamna Hassolel broke in quickly to say: ‘Never will I forget how David Boyd was talking of Vâlcov – how he rose at dawn and rowed out alone in the waterways and saw the thousands of birds, and how he saw a big bird called a Sea Eagle. It was so interesting. You would think he would be lonely and afraid in such places.’

Guy said that David had travelled over all the Balkan countries and spoke the language of each.

‘These Balkan countries are wild,’ said Doamna Hassolel. ‘They have dangerous wild beasts. I would not travel here. In Germany it was different. There Willi and I would take out walking sticks and …’ She talked affectionately of life in Germany.

The clock had struck half past two before Doamna Drucker made her appearance. She had not met Guy before, having married Drucker only that summer, but she gave him her hand with barely a glance. She was a few years older than Sasha; not Jewish; a Rumanian beauty, moon-faced, black-haired, black-eyed, like other Rumanian beauties. She wore the fashionable dress of the moment, black, short, tight-fitting, with pearls, a large diamond brooch and several diamond rings. As she crossed to the chair, her body undulating with an Oriental languor, Drucker’s gaze was fixed upon her. Settling like a feather settling, lolling there without giving a glance at the company, she expressed her boredom with the whole Drucker ménage. Her husband asked her if she would take
ţ
uic
ǎ
. She replied: ‘
Oui, un petit peu
.’

When Drucker sat down again, the little girl patted his arm and whispered urgently to him, but now his attention was only for his wife. Unable to distract him, the child stood looking at her stepmother, her expression pained.

Luncheon was announced. Doamna Hassolel led the way to the dining-room. Drucker sat at one end of the table, but the other end was taken by Doamna Hassolel, who served from a great silver tureen a rich chicken soup made of sour cream. Doamna Drucker sat half-way down the table between Sasha and Flöhr.

Drucker, having Harriet at his hand, began to question her about her impression of Bucharest.

Looking admiringly at his wife, Guy said: ‘Apart from the Legation women, who have diplomatic immunity, Harriet is the only Englishwoman left here.’ Before he could say more, Doamna Hassolel interrupted rather sharply:

‘Surely,’ she said, ‘Doamna Niculesco is here? She is an Englishwoman. You have met her?’ She looked at Harriet, who said she had not. Harriet glanced at Guy, who dismissed Bella, saying: ‘Bella Niculesco is a tiresome woman. You would not have much in common.’

At this Doamna Teitelbaum, whose cheeks hung like curtains on either side of the drooping arc of her mouth, said eagerly: ‘You do not like her? Me neither. Perhaps on you, too, she has tried the snub?’

The Drucker sisters, hoping for scandal, all turned to Guy, who innocently replied: ‘No, but I did upset her once – the only time I was taken to the Golf Club. Bella was supervising the hanging of a portrait of Chamberlain painted by some local artist. A ghastly thing. It was inscribed: “To the Man who Gave us Peace in Our Time.” Chamberlain was holding the flower Safety and had the nettle Danger crushed beneath his foot. I said: “What’s that thing painted with? Treacle?” Bella Niculesco said: “Mr Pringle, you should have more respect for a great man.”’

This story did not meet with the acclaim it would have received in Guy’s more immediate circle. Doamna Hassolel broke the silence by insisting that the Pringles must take more soup. Most of the members of the family had taken two or three plates. Doamna Flöhr had excused herself, saying she was slimming. Harriet tried to do the same.

‘No, no,’ protested Doamna Hassolel, ‘it is not possible. If you grow more slim, you will disappear.’

The soup was followed by sturgeon, then an entrée of braised steak with aubergine. The Pringles, supposing the entrée to be the main dish, took two helpings and were dashed by the sight of the enormous roast of beef that followed it.

‘I went myself to Dragomir’s,’ said Doamna Hassolel, ‘and ordered it to be cut “sirloin” in the English fashion. We are told how you eat much roast beef. Now you must fill your plate, two, three times.’

While the Pringles were silenced by food, the family grew relaxed and even more talkative. Doamna Flöhr said to Harriet:

‘You are looking for a flat?’

Harriet said she had started looking now it seemed they would stay.

‘Ach,’ said Hassolel, ‘the Germans won’t come here. The Rumanians are clever in their way. Last war, they gained much territory. This time they will keep a foot in each camp and come out with even more.’

Flöhr gave a snort of disgust. Speaking for the first time, he said: ‘Such a war! An unexploded squib of a war! What folly ever to start it. The great nations think only of power. They do not think of the ones who suffer for such a war.’

In a conciliatory way, Guy said: ‘They say there will be financial collapse in Germany soon. That might shorten the war.’ He looked round for applause and met only shocked alarm.

Doamna Flöhr, moving anxiously in her seat, cried: ‘It would be terrible, such a collapse! It would ruin us.’

Drucker, lifting his head tortoise-fashion out of his silence, said: ‘That is a rumour put around by the British. There will be no collapse.’ This firm assurance brought immediate calm. Harriet looked at Guy, but he, drowsy with food and wine, seemed unaware of the disturbance he had created. Or perhaps he preferred to seem unaware. It came into her mind that, where his friends were concerned, he was inclined to excuse anything.

Drucker, noticing her look, said quietly: ‘It is true our business is much dependent on German prosperity. But we made our connections long ago. We do not love the Germans any more than you, but we did not cause the war. We must live.’