The Balkan Trilogy (49 page)

Harriet asked: ‘Who is this “
capitanul
”?’

‘Why, the Guardist leader – Codreanu: the one who was “shot trying to escape”, on Carol’s orders, needless to say. A lot of his chums were shot with him. Some got away to Germany, but the whole movement was broken up. Who would have thought they’d have the nerve to reappear like this? Carol must be losing his grip.’

From the remarks about them, it was clear that other onlookers were thinking the same. The procession passed, the traffic crawled after, and people went on their way. From the distance the refrain of ‘
Capitanul
’ came in spasms, then died out.

Bella was saying: ‘They tried to make a hero of that Codreanu. It would take some doing. I saw him once. He looked disgusting with his dirty, greasy hair hanging round
his ears.
And
he needed a shave. Oh, by the way,’ she suddenly added, ‘you were talking about that Drucker boy. Funny you should mention him. A day or two after, I got a letter from Nikko and he’d been hearing about him too. Apparently they only took him off to do his military service. (I bet old Drucker had been buying his exemption. Trust
them
!) Anyway, the boy’s deserted and the military are on the look-out. They’ve had orders to find him at all costs. I suppose it’s this business of the fortune being in his name. They’ll make him sign the money over.’

‘Supposing he refuses?’

‘He wouldn’t dare. Nikko says he could be shot as a deserter.’

‘Rumania’s not at war.’

‘No, but it’s a time of national emergency. The country’s conscripted. Anyway, they’re determined to get him. And I bet, when they do, he’ll disappear for good. Oh, well!’ Bella dismissed Sasha with a gesture. ‘I’m thinking of going to Sinai. I’m sick of stewing in this heat waiting for something to happen. My opinion is, nothing will happen. You should get Guy to take you to the mountains.’

‘We can’t get away. He’s started a summer school.’

‘Will he get any students at this time of the year?’

‘He has quite a number.’

‘Jews, I bet?’

‘Yes, they are mostly Jews.’

Bella pulled down her mouth and raised her brows. ‘I wouldn’t encourage that, my dear. If we’re going to have the Iron Guard on the rampage again, there’s no knowing what will happen. They beat up the Jewish students last time. But they’re not only anti-Semitic, they’re anti-British.’ She gave a grim, significant nod then, when she was satisfied that she had made an impression, her face cleared. ‘Must be off,’ she cheerfully said. ‘I’ve an appointment with the hairdresser.’ She lifted a hand, working her fingers in farewell, and disappeared in the direction of the square.

Harriet could not move. With the crowd pushing about
her, she stood chilled and confused by perils. There was the peril of Sasha under the same roof as Yakimov, a potential informer – she did not know what the punishment might be for harbouring a deserter, but she pictured Guy in one of the notorious prisons Klein had described; and there was the more immediate threat from the marching Guardists.

Her instinct was to hurry at once to Guy and urge him to close down the summer school, but she knew she must not do that. Guy would not welcome her interference. He had put her out of his production on the grounds that no man could ‘do a proper job with his wife around’. She wandered on as a preliminary to action, not knowing what action to take.

When she reached the British Propaganda Bureau, she came to a stop, thinking of Inchcape, who could, if he wished, put an end to the summer school. Why should she not appeal to him?

She stood for some minutes looking at the photographs of battleships and a model of the Dunkirk beaches, all of which had been in the window a month and were likely to remain, there being nothing with which to replace them.

She paused, not from fear of Inchcape but of Guy. Once before by speaking to Inchcape she had put a stop to one of Guy’s activities and by doing so had brought about their first disagreement. Was she willing to bring about another?

Surely, she told herself, the important point was that her interference in the past had extricated Guy from a dangerous situation. It might do so again.

She entered the Bureau. Inchcape’s secretary, knitting behind her typewriter, put up a show of uncertainty. Domnul Director might be too busy to see anyone.

‘I won’t keep him a moment,’ Harriet said, running upstairs before the woman could ring through. She found Inchcape stretched on a sofa with the volumes of
A la Recherche du Temps Perdu
open around him. He was wearing a shirt and trousers. Seeing her, he roused himself reluctantly and put on the jacket that hung on the back of the chair.

‘Hello, Mrs P.,’ he said with a smile that did not hide his irritation at being disturbed.

Harriet had not been in the office since the day they had come here to view Calinescu’s funeral. Then the rooms had been dilapidated and the workmen had been fitting shelves. Now everything was painted white, the shelves were filled with books and the floor close-carpeted in a delicate shade of grey blue. On the Biedermeier desk, among other open books, lay some Reuter’s sheets.

‘What brings you here?’ Inchcape asked.

‘The Iron Guard.’

He eyed her with his irritated humour: ‘You mean that collection of neurotics and nonentities who trailed past the window just now? Don’t tell me they frightened you?’

Harriet said: ‘The Nazis began as a collection of neurotics and nonentities.’

‘So they did!’ said Inchcape, smiling as though she must be joking. ‘But in Rumania fascism is just a sort of game.’

‘It wasn’t a game in 1937 when Jewish students were thrown out of the University windows. I’m worried about Guy. He’s alone there except for the three old ladies who assist him.’

‘There’s Dubedat.’

‘What good would Dubedat be if the Guardists broke in?’

‘Except when Clarence puts in an appearance, which isn’t often, I’m alone here. I don’t let it worry me.’

She was about to say: ‘No one notices the Propaganda Bureau,’ but stopped in time and said: ‘The summer school is a provocation. All the students are Jews.’

Although Inchcape retained his appearance of urbane unconcern, the lines round his mouth had tightened. He shot out his cuffs and studied his garnet cuff-links. ‘I imagine Guy can look after himself,’ he said.

His neat, Napoleonic face had taken on a remote expression intended to conceal annoyance. Harriet was silenced. She had come here convinced that the idea of the summer school had originated with Guy – now she saw her mistake. Inchcape
was a powerful member of the organisation in which Guy hoped to make a career. Though she did not dislike him – they had come to terms early on – she still felt him an unknown quantity. Now she had challenged his vanity. There was no knowing what he might not say about Guy in the reports which he sent home.

When in the past she had been critical of Inchcape, saying: ‘He’s so oddly mean: he economises on food and drink, yet spends a fortune on china or furniture in order to impress his guests,’ Guy had explained that Inchcape’s possessions were a shield that hid the emotional emptiness of his life. Whatever they were, they were a form of self-aggrandisement. She realised the summer school was, too.

Knowing he could not be persuaded to close it, she decided to placate him. ‘I suppose it
is
important,’ she said.

He glanced up, pleased, and at once his tone changed: ‘It certainly is. It’s a sign that we’re not defeated here. Our morale is high. And we’ll do better yet. I have great plans for the future …’

‘You think we have a future?’

‘Of course we have a future. No one’s going to interfere with us. Rumanian policy has always been to keep a foot in both camps. As for the Germans, what do they care so long as they’re getting what they want? I’m confident that we’ll keep going here. Indeed, I’m so confident that I’m arranging for an old friend, Professor Lord Pinkrose, to be flown out. He’s agreed to give the Cantecuzeno Lecture.’

Meeting Harriet’s astonished gaze, Inchcape gave a grin of satisfaction. ‘This is a time to show the flag,’ he said. ‘The lecture usually deals with some aspect of English literature. It will remind the Rumanians that we have one of the finest literatures in the world. And it is a great social occasion. The last time, we had eight princesses in the front row.’ He started to lead her towards the door. ‘Of course, it calls for a lot of organisation. I’ve got to find a hall and I’ll have to book Pinkrose into an hotel. I’m not sure whether he’ll come alone.’

‘He may bring his wife?’

‘Good heavens, he has no wife.’ Inchcape spoke as though marriage were some ridiculous custom of primitive tribes. ‘But he’s not so young as he was. He may want to bring a companion.’

Inchcape opened the door and said in parting: ‘My dear child, we must maintain our equilibrium. Not so easy, I know, in this weather, when one’s body seems to be melting inside one’s clothes. Well, goodbye.’

He shut the door on her, and she descended to the street with a sense of nothing achieved.

Shortly before the Guardists passed the University, Sophie Oresanu had come to see Guy in his office. The office had once been Inchcape’s study, and the desk at which Guy sat still held Inchcape’s papers. The shelves around were full of his books.

Sophie Oresanu, perched opposite Guy on the arm of a leather chair, had joined the summer school with enthusiasm. She now said: ‘I cannot work in such heat,’ leaning back with an insouciance that displayed her chief beauty, her figure. She pouted her heavily darkened mouth, then sighed and pushed a forefinger into one of her full, pasty cheeks. ‘At this time the city is terrible,’ she said.

Guy, viewing Sophie’s languishings with indifference, remembered a conversation he had overheard between two male students:

‘
La
Oresanu is not nice, she is
le
“cock-tease”.’

‘
Ah, j’adore le
“cock-tease”.’

He smiled as she wriggled about on the chair-arm, flirting her rump at him. Poor girl! An orphan without a dowry, possessed of a freedom that devalued her in Rumanian eyes, she had to get herself a husband somehow. Remembering her grief when he had returned to Bucharest with a wife, he said the more indulgently: ‘The other students seem to be bearing up.’

She shrugged off the other students. ‘My skin is delicate. I cannot tolerate much sun.’

‘Still, you’re safer in the city this summer.’

‘No. They say the Russians are satisfied there will be no more troubles. Besides’ – she made a disconsolate little gesture – ‘I am not happy at the summer school. All the students are Jews. They are not nice to me.’

‘Oh, come!’ Guy laughed at her. ‘You used to complain that because you are half-Jewish, it was the Rumanians who were “not nice” to you.’

‘It is true,’ she agreed: ‘No one is nice to me. I don’t belong anywhere. I don’t like Rumanian men. They live off women and despise them. They are so conceited. And the women here are such fools! They want to be despised. If the young man gives them
un coup de pied
, they do like this.’ She wriggled and threw up her eyes in a parody of sensual ecstasy. ‘Me, I wish to be respected. I am advanced, so I prefer Englishmen.’

Guy nodded, sympathising with this preference. He had avoided marrying her himself, but he would have been delighted could he have married her off to a friend with a British passport. He had attempted to interest Clarence in her unfortunate situation, but Clarence had dismissed her, saying: ‘She’s an affected bore,’ while of Clarence she said: ‘How terrible to be a man so unattractive to women!’

‘Besides,’ she went on, ‘it is expensive, Bucharest. Every quarter my allowance goes, pouf! Other summers, for an economy, I let my flat and go to a little mountain hotel. Already I would have taken myself there, but my allowance is spent.’

She paused, looking at him with a pathetic tilt of the head, expecting his usual query: ‘How much do you need?’

Instead, he said: ‘You’ll get your allowance next month. Wait until then.’

‘My doctor says my health will suffer. Would you have me die?’

He smiled his embarrassment. Harriet had forced him to recognise Sophie’s wiles and now he wondered how he had ever been taken in by them. Before his marriage, he had lent Sophie what he could not afford, seeing these loans, which were never repaid, as the price of friendship. With a wife as
well as parents dependent on him, he had been forced to refuse her. His refusal had kept her at bay for the last few months and he was acutely discomforted at the prospect of having to refuse her again.

Leaning forward with one of the persuasive gestures she had effectively used in
Troilus
, she said: ‘I worked hard for the play. It was nice to have such a success, but I am not strong. It exhausted me. I have lost a kilo from my weight. Perhaps you like girls that are thin, but here they say it is not pretty.’

So that was it! She wanted a return for services rendered. He looked down at his desk, having no idea, in the face of this, how to reject her claim. He could only think of Harriet, not certain whether the thought came as a protection or a threat. Anyway, he could use her as an excuse. Sophie knew she could get nothing out of Harriet.

He was beginning to recognise that Harriet was, in some ways, stronger than himself. And yet perhaps not stronger. He had a complete faith in his own morality and he would not let her override it. But she could be obdurate where he could not, and though he stood up to her, knowing if he did not he would be lost, he was influenced by her clarity of vision; unwillingly. It was probably significant that he was physically short-sighted. He could not recognise people until almost upon them. Their faces were like so many buns. Good-natured buns, he would have said, but Harriet did not agree. She saw them in detail and did not like them any the better for it.

He was troubled by her criticism of their acquaintances. He preferred to like people, knowing this fact was the basis of his influence over them. The sense of his will to like them gave them confidence: so they liked in return. He could see that Harriet’s influence, given sway, could undermine his own successful formula for living and he felt bound to resist it. Yet there were occasions when he let her be obdurate for him.