The Balkan Trilogy (50 page)

While these thoughts were in his mind Sophie’s chatter had come to a stop. Looking up, he found her watching him, puzzled and hurt that he let her talk on without the expected interruption.

As she concluded in a small, dispirited voice: ‘And I need only perhaps fifty thousand, not any more,’ she dropped all her little artifices and he saw the naïveté behind the whole performance. He had often, in the past, thought Sophie unfairly treated by circumstances. She had been forced, much too young, to face life alone with nothing but the weapons her sex provided. He thought: ‘The truth is, she’s not much more than a scared kid,’ thankful nevertheless that he did not have fifty thousand to lend her.

He said as lightly as he could: ‘Harriet looks after the family finances now. She’s better at it than I am. If anyone asks me for a loan, I have to refer them to her.’

Sophie’s expression changed abruptly. She sat upright, affronted that he should bring Harriet in between them. She rose, about to take herself off in indignation when a sound of marching and singing distracted her. They heard the repeated refrain ‘
Capitanul
’.

‘But that is a forbidden song,’ she said.

They reached the open window in time to see the leading green shirts pass the University. Sophie caught her breath. Guy, having talked with David’s informants, was less surprised than she by this resurgence of the Iron Guards. He expected an appalled outcry from her, but she said nothing until the last stragglers had passed, then merely: ‘So! We shall have troubles again!’

He said: ‘You must have been at the University during the pogroms of 1938?’

She nodded. ‘It was terrible, of course, but I was all right. I have a good Rumanian name.’

Remembering her annoyance with him, she turned suddenly and went without another word. She apparently had not been much disturbed by the spectacle of the marching Guardists, but Guy, when he returned to his desk, sat there for some time abstracted. He had seen a threat made manifest and knew exactly what he faced.

When they had discussed the organisation of the summer school, Guy had said to Inchcape: ‘There’s only one thing
against it. It will give rise to a concentration of Jewish students. With the new anti-Semitic policy, they might be in a dangerous position.’

Inchcape had scoffed at this. ‘Rumanian policy has always been anti-Semitic and all that happens is the Jews get richer and richer.’

Guy felt he could not argue further without an appearance of personal fear. Inchcape, who had retained control of the English Department, wanted a summer school. His organisation must do something to justify its presence here. More than that, there was his need to rival the Legation. Speaking of the British Minister, he would say: ‘The old charmer’s not afraid to stay, so why should I be?’ If anyone pointed out that the Minister, unlike Inchcape and his men, had diplomatic protection, Inchcape would say: ‘While the Legation’s here, we’ll be protected too.’

Guy knew that Inchcape liked him and, because of that, he liked Inchcape. He also admired him. With no great belief in his own courage, he esteemed audacious people like Inchcape and Harriet. Yet he tended to pity them. Inchcape he saw as a lonely bachelor who had nothing in life but the authority which his position gave. If a summer school made Inchcape happy, then Guy would back it to the end.

Harriet, he felt, must be protected from the distrust that had grown out of an unloved childhood. He would say to himself: ‘O, stand between her and her fighting soul,’ touched by the small, thin body that contained her spirit. And he saw her as unfortunate because life, which he took easily, was to her so unnecessarily difficult.

He picked up a photograph which was propped against the inkstand on his desk. It had been taken in the Calea Victoriei: one of those small prints that had to be provided when one applied for a
permis de séjour
. In it Harriet’s face – remarkable chiefly for its oval shape and the width of her eyes – was fixed in an expression of contemplative sadness. She looked ten years older than her age. Here was something so different from her usual vivacity that he said when he first saw it: ‘Are
you really so unhappy?’ She had denied being unhappy at all.

Yet, he thought, the photograph betrayed some inner discontent of the confused and the undedicated. He replaced the photograph with a sense of regret. He could help her if she would let him; but would she let him?

He remembered that when he had set about her political education, she had rebuffed him with: ‘I cannot endure organised thought,’ and, having taken up that position, refused to be moved from it.

Before she married, she had worked in an art gallery and been the friend of artists, mostly poor and unrecognised. He had pointed out to her that were they working in the Soviet Union they would be honoured and rewarded. She said: ‘Only if they conformed.’ He had argued that in every country everyone had to conform in some way or other. She said: ‘But artists must remain a privileged community if they’re to produce anything important. They can’t just echo what they’re told. They have to think for themselves. That’s why totalitarian countries can’t afford them.’

He had to admit that she, too, thought for herself. She would not be influenced. Feminine and intolerant though she might be in particular, she could take a wide general view of things. Coming from the narrowest, most prejudiced class, she had nevertheless declassed herself. The more the pity, then, that she had rejected the faith which gave his own life purpose. He saw her muddled and lost in anarchy and a childish mysticism.

What did she want? The question was for him the more difficult because he was content. He wanted nothing for himself. Possessions he found an embarrassment, a disloyalty to his family that had to survive on so little. While he was taking his degree, he had worked as a part-time teacher. His mother had also worked. Between them they had paid the rent and kept the family together.

He had envied no one except the men without responsibilities who had been free to go and fight in Spain. These men of the International Brigade had been his heroes. He would still recite their poetry to himself, with emotion:

‘From small beginnings mighty ends:

From calling rebel generals friends,

From being taught at public schools

To think the common people fools,

Spain bleeds, and Britain wildly gambles

To bribe the butcher in the shambles.’
^*

The marching Guardists that morning had brought to his mind the Blackshirts and their ‘Monster Rally’ in his home town. That was when his friend Simon had been beaten up and he had recognised the fact that one day he, too, would have to pay for his political faith.

Simon had arrived late and sat by himself. When the rest of them, sitting in a body, attempted to break up the meeting they were frogmarched into the street. Simon, left alone, had with a fanatical, almost hysterical courage, carried on the interruptions unsupported. The thugs had had him to themselves. They had dragged him out through a back door to a garage behind the hall. There he was eventually found unconscious.

At that time the stories of fascist savagery were only half believed. It was a new thing in the civilised world. The sight of Simon’s injured and blackened face had appalled Guy. He told himself he knew now what lay ahead – and from that time had never doubted that his turn would come.

While he sat now at his desk, confronting his own physical fear, his door opened. It opened with ominous slowness. He stared at it. A tousled head appeared.

With playful solemnity, Toby Lush said: ‘Hello, old soul! I’m back again, you see!’

Harriet, walking home with all her fears intact, allayed them with the determination to act somehow. If she could not surmount one danger, she must tackle another. There was
the situation at home – at least she need not tolerate that.

She must make it clear to Guy that they could not keep both Yakimov and Sasha. He had brought them into the flat. Now it was for him to decide which of the two should remain, and to dismiss the other.

When, however, she entered the sitting-room and found Yakimov there, awaiting his luncheon, she decided for herself. Sasha was the one who needed their help and protection. As for Yakimov, only sheer indolence kept him from fending for himself. And she was sick of the sight of him. Her mind was made up. He must go. She would tell him so straightaway.

Yakimov, sprawled in the arm-chair, was drinking from a bottle of
ţ
uic
ǎ
which Despina had brought in that morning. He moved uneasily at the sight of her and, putting a hand to the bottle, excused himself: ‘Took the liberty of opening it, dear girl. Came in dropping on m’poor old feet. The heat’s killing me. Why not have a snifter yourself?’

She refused, but sat down near him. Used to being ignored by her, he became flustered and his hand was unsteady as he refilled his glass.

Her idea had been to order him, there and then, to pack and go, but she did not know how to begin.

His legs were crossed and one of his narrow shoes dangled towards her. His foot shook. Through a gap between sole and upper, she could see the tips of his toes and the rags of his violet silk socks. His dilapidation reproached her. He lay back, pretending nonchalance, but his large, flat-looking, green eyes flickered apprehensively, looking at her and away from her, so she could not speak.

He tried to make conversation, asking: ‘What’s on the menu today?’

She said: ‘It is a meatless day. Despina bought some sort of river fish.’

He sighed. ‘This morning,’ he said, ‘I was thinking about
blinis
. We used to get them at Korniloff’s. They’d give you a heap of pancakes. You’d spread the bottom one with caviare, the next with sour cream, the next with caviare, and so on.
Then you’d cut right through the lot. Ouch!’ He made a noise in his throat as at a memory so delicious it was scarcely to be endured. ‘I don’t know why we don’t get them here. Plenty of caviare. The fresh grey sort’s the best, of course.’ He gave her an expectant look. When she made no offer to prepare the dish, he glanced away as though excusing her inhospitality with: ‘I admit there’s nothing to compare with the Russian Beluga. Or Osetrova, for that matter.’ He sighed again and on a note of yearning, asked: ‘Do you remember ortolans? Delicious, weren’t they?’

‘I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t believe in killing small birds.’

He looked puzzled. ‘But you eat chickens! All birds are birds. What does the size matter? Surely the important thing is the taste?’

Finding this reasoning unanswerable, she glanced at the clock, causing him to say: ‘The dear boy’s late. Where
does
he get to these days?’ His tone told Harriet that, having been dropped from Guy’s scheme of things, he was feeling neglected.

She said: ‘He’s started a summer school at the University. I expect you miss the fun of rehearsals?’

‘They were fun, of course, but the dear boy did keep us at it. And, in the end, what came of it all?’

‘What could come of it? I mean, so far from home and with a war on, you could not hope to make a career of acting?’

‘A career! Never thought of such a thing.’

His surprise was such, she realised he had probably looked for no greater reward than a lifetime of free food and drink. The fact was, he had never grown up. She had thought once that Yakimov was a nebula which, under Guy’s influence, had started to evolve. But Guy, having set him in motion, had abandoned him to nothingness, and now, like a child displaced by a newcomer, he scarcely knew what had happened to him.

He said: ‘Was happy to help the dear boy.’

‘You’d never acted before, had you?’

‘Never, dear girl, never.’

‘What did you do before the war? Had you a job of any sort?’

He looked slightly affronted by the question and protested: ‘I had m’remittance, you know.’

She supposed he lived off a show of wealth: which was as good a confidence trick as any.

Conscious of her disapproval, he tried to improve things: ‘I did do a little work now and then. I mean, when I was a bit short of the ready.’

‘What sort of work?’

He shifted about under this inquiry. His foot began to shake again. ‘Sold cars for a bit,’ he said. ‘Only the best cars, of course: Rolls-Royces, Bentleys … M’own old girl’s an Hispano-Suiza. Finest cars in the world. Must get her back. Give you a run in her.’

‘What else did you do?’

‘Sold pictures, bric-à-brac …’

‘Really?’ Harriet was interested. ‘Do you know about pictures?’

‘Can’t say I do, dear girl. Don’t claim to be a professional. Helped a chap out now and then. Had a little flat in Clarges Street. Would hang up a picture, put out a bit of bric-à-brac, pick up some well-heeled gudgeon, indicate willingness to sell. “Your poor old Yaki’s got to part with family treasure.” You know the sort of thing. Not work, really. Just a little side-line.’ He spoke as though describing a respected way of life, then, as his shifting eye caught hers, his whole manner suddenly disintegrated. He struggled upright in his seat and, with head hanging, gazing down into his empty glass he mumbled: ‘Expecting m’remittance any day now. Don’t worry. Going to pay back every penny I owe …’

They were both relieved to hear Guy letting himself into the flat. He entered the room, smiling broadly as though he were bringing Harriet some delightful surprise. ‘You remember Toby Lush?’ he said.

‘It’s wonderful to see you again! Wonderful!’ Toby said, gazing at Harriet, his eyes bulging with excited admiration, giving the impression that theirs was some eagerly awaited reunion.

She had met him once before and barely remembered him. She did her best to respond but had never been much impressed by him. He was in the middle twenties, heavy-boned and clumsy in movement. His features were pronounced, his skin coarse, yet his face seemed to be made of something too soft and pliable for its purpose.

Sucking at his pipe, he turned to Guy and jerked out convulsively: ‘You know what she always makes me think of? Those lines of Tennyson: “She walks in beauty like the night of starless climes and something skies.”’