The Balkan Trilogy (63 page)

He had expected mobs and riots, but now he feared the road’s emptiness. It was a long road hung down the centre with white globes of light that were reflected in the glossy tarmac. The pavements were dark. Anything might lurk in the hedges. He was relieved when he reached the first houses. Almost at once he found himself in the cathedral square which, Galpin had told him, was the centre of the town. The main hotel was here. Galpin had promised to telephone and book him a room. Seeing its vestibule lighted, he told himself thankfully that they had waited up for him.

When he entered and gave his name the young German clerk made a gesture of hopelessness. No one could have telephoned because the telephone equipment was being dismantled; not that a call would have made any difference. The hotel had been full for days. Every hotel in Cluj was full. Rumanians were coming here to settle up their Transylvanian affairs. Hungarians were crowding in to seize the business being relinquished by others. ‘Such is the takeover,’ said the young man. ‘There is not a bed to be found in the whole town.’ Looking sorry for Yakimov, who looked sorry for himself, he added: ‘At the station you could sleep on a bench.’

Yakimov had another idea. He asked the way to the house of Count Freddi von Flügel. Seeming pleased that Yakimov had this refuge, the young German came to the hotel entrance with him and showed him a white eighteenth-century Hungarian house that stood four-square not a hundred yards away.

Despite the heat of the night, all the shutters of the house were closed. Its massive iron-studded door made it look like a fortress. Yakimov hammered on this door for five minutes or more before a grille opened and the porter inside, speaking
German, ordered him to be off and return, if he must return, in the morning. Yakimov, putting his hand in the grille to prevent its being closed on him, said: ‘
Ich bin ein Freund des Gauleiters, ein sehr geschätzter Freund. Er wird entzückt sein, mich zu begrüssen
.’ He repeated these statements several times, becoming tearful as he did so, and they slowly took effect. The door was opened.

The porter motioned him to sit on a stone seat in a stone hall that was as cold as a cellar. He sat there for twenty minutes. Having come from the summer night, wearing his silk suit, he began to shiver and sneeze. There was nothing to distract him but some giant photographs of Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and Himmler, which he contemplated with indifference. To him they were nothing but the stock-in-trade of someone else’s way of life. If Freddi were ‘in with that lot’, then all the better for both of them.

At last, at last, a figure appeared at the top of the stone staircase. Yakimov jumped up crying: ‘Freddi.’

The Count, doubtful, frowning, descended slowly, then, recognising Yakimov, he threw open his arms and sailed down with rapid steps, his yellow brocade dressing-gown floating out about him. ‘It is possible?’ he asked. ‘Yaki,
mein Lieber
!’

Tears of relief filled Yakimov’s eyes. He tottered forward and fell into Freddi’s arms. ‘Dear boy’ – he spoke on a sob – ‘so many bridges gone under the water since we last met!’ He held to his old friend fervently, breathing in the strong smell of gardenia that came from his person. ‘Fredi,’ he murmured, ‘Fredi!’

The emotional moment of reunion past, von Flügel stepped back and contemplated Yakimov with misgiving. ‘But is this wise,
mein Lieber
? We are now, you know, in opposite camps.’

Yakimov, with a gesture, swept such considerations aside.

‘Desperate situation, dear boy. Just arrived from Bucharest to find the hotels full. Not a bed to be got in Cluj. Couldn’t sleep in the street, y’know.’

‘Certainly not,’ von Flügel agreed: ‘I am only hoping for your sake you were not followed here. Have you eaten?’

‘Not a bite, dear boy. Not a morsel all day. Poor old Yaki’s famished and dropping on his poor old feet.’

The Count led the way upstairs and, opening a door, snapped on switch after switch. Chandeliers of venetian glass sprang into light throughout an immense room.

‘What do you think of my lounge?’ He spoke the word as though it had an exotic chic. Yakimov, not much interested in such things, looked round at the purple and yellow room with its vast gilded chimney-piece flanked by life-size plaster negroes naked except for the chiffon loin-cloths playfully placed about their immense pudenda.

‘Delightful!’ Yakimov limped to a sofa and sank down among the cushions. ‘Crippled,’ he said: ‘Crippled with fatigue.’

‘I designed it all myself.’

‘And hungry as a hunter,’ Yakimov reminded him.

As his host moved about, admiring and touching his own possessions, Yakimov, impatient for a drink, looked at Freddi more critically. How changed he was! His hair, that had once fallen like silk into his eyes, was now cut
en brosse
. His features, never distinctive, were lost in wastes of mauve-pink flesh – and he had grown a shocking little moustache that stood out like a yellow scab on his upper lip. His famous blue eyes were no longer blue: they were pink. Yet Freddi had been recognisable at once from his movements, that were, as they always had been, curiously fluid.

Meeting
Yakimov’s eye, von Flügel giggled. Yakimov recognised the giggle, too. That and the features were all that remained of the golden boy of 1931.

‘How well you are looking!’ said Yakimov.

‘You, too,
mein Lieber
. Not a day older.’

Well satisfied, Yakimov unlaced his shoes saying: ‘They’re killing me.’ He shook them off, then, looking down at his feet, saw his socks were tattered and dark with sweat, and shuffled his shoes on again. ‘Trifle peckish,’ he said when Freddi had made no move.

Freddi tugged an embroidered bell-pull. While they waited, Yakimov’s roving eye noted a tray of bottles. ‘How about a little drinkie?’ he said.

‘So remiss of me!’ Von Flügel poured out a large brandy. Yakimov took it as his due. Freddi had done very well out of old Dollie when her fortunes were high and his were low.

‘And what brings you to Cluj?’ von Flügel asked.

‘Ah!’ said Yakimov, his attention on his glass.

‘I suppose I should not ask?’

Yakimov’s smile confirmed this supposition.

There was a sharp rap on the door. Von Flügel sat up and straightened his shoulders before commanding: ‘
Herein
.’

A young man marched in, uniformed, muscular, conveying, without any hint of expression, a virulent annoyance. Yakimov did not like his face, but von Flügel leapt up, fluid and giggling once more, and saying: ‘Axel,
mein Schatz
!’ went close to the young man and talked at him in a persuasive whisper until something was agreed. When Axel slammed his way out, von Flügel explained: ‘The poor boy’s a little put out. We brought him from his bed. The cook is a local man. He goes home after dinner and I am then dependent on the boys.’

When Axel returned, he brought a plate of sandwiches, which he put down with the abruptness of the unwilling and went off slamming the door again.

Yakimov, deliciously infused with brandy, settled down to the sandwiches, which were rough but contained some sizeable chunks of turkey. He silenced Freddi’s apologies, saying: ‘Poor Yaki’s used to living rough.’

When he had eaten, the Count, who had been watching him with a waggish expression, went over to a corner that was cut off by a Recamier couch. ‘I have some amusing curiosities I really must show you,’ he said.

Yakimov lifted himself wearily out of the cushions. Von Flügel, having drawn aside the couch, beckoned his friend into the corner and handed him a magnifying glass. On either wall hung a Persian miniature. Yakimov examined them, tittering and saying: ‘Dear boy! Dear boy!’ but he had no interest
in that sort of thing and hoped he was not in for a night of it.

‘Over here, over here,’ said von Flügel, leading him across the room to a tall cabinet set with shallow drawers. ‘You must see my Japanese prints.’

‘Oh, dear!’ said Yakimov, taking the prints handed to him: ‘One must sit down to enjoy such things.’

He tried to return to the sofa, but von Flügel held to him, pulling him here and there between the purple and yellow armchairs, and opening Chinese lacquer cabinets to display his collection of what he called ‘delectable
objets
’.

As the effect of the brandy wore off, Yakimov became not only bored but cross. He had forgotten that Freddi was such a silly.

‘Being in an official position,’ said von Flügel, ‘discretion is forced upon me, but one day I hope to have all my things out and displayed about the lounge.’

‘Lounge!’ Yakimov said: ‘Where did you pick up that awful house agent’s jargon?’

‘Am I being vulgar?’ asked von Flügel, too excited to care. ‘I
must
show you my Mexican pottery.’

When Yakimov had been shown everything, von Flügel seemed to imagine he was the one who had earned a reward. He said in a tone of humorous complaint: ‘You still haven’t told me what you are doing in Cluj.’

Yakimov, sinking into his seat, said: ‘First I must have a drink, dear boy.’ His glass full, he sipped at it in better humour. ‘If I told you I was a war correspondent,’ he said, ‘you wouldn’t believe me.’

Freddi looked surprised. ‘A war correspondent! In which zone?’

‘Why, in Bucharest, dear boy.’

‘But Rumania is not at war.’

Yakimov thought this a quibble. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I was a newspaper man.’

‘Indeed!’ Von Flügel smiled encouragement.

Sitting with hands folded in his lap, he looked, thought
Yakimov, like a benign old auntie, and his heart warmed to his friend. He giggled: ‘You and Dollie used to think that Yaki wasn’t too bright. Well, I reported that Calinescu business for an important paper.’

Von Flügel lifted a hand in astonished admiration. ‘And you come here to report the return of the Hungarians to their territory?’

Yakimov smiled. Delighted by the impression he was making, he felt a need to improve on it. He said: ‘I might as well tell you, this assignment is just a cover. My real reason for being here is … Well, it’s pretty hush-hush.’

Von Flügel watched him intently and, when he did not add to this revelation, said: ‘You are evidently a person of consequence these days. But tell me,
mein Lieber
, what exactly do you
do
?’

Not knowing the answer to this question, Yakimov backed down an old retreat route: ‘Not at liberty to say, dear boy.’

‘May I hazard a guess?’ von Flügel archly inquired. ‘Then I would say you are attached to the British Legation.’

Yakimov raised his eyes in astonishment at the accuracy of von Flügel’s guess. ‘Between ourselves,’ he said, ‘speaking as one old friend to another, I’m on the
inside
. I know a thing or two. As a matter of fact, there’s very little I don’t know.’

Von Flügel nodded slowly. ‘You work, no doubt, with this Mr Leverett?’

‘Old Foxy!’ Yakimov immediately regretted his exclamation, which was, he realised, a betrayal of his ignorance. Von Flügel smiled and said nothing. Yakimov, discomforted by a sense of lost advantage, stared into his empty glass for some moments before it occurred to him that he had in his possession the means of re-establishing interest in himself. He drew from his hip pocket the plan he had found in Guy’s desk. ‘Got something here,’ he said. ‘Give you an idea … not supposed to flash it about, but between old friends …’

He handed the paper to Freddi, who took it smiling, looked at it and ceased to smile. He stared at it on both sides, then held it up to the light. ‘Where did you get this?’ he asked.

Disturbed by the change in Freddi’s tone, Yakimov put out his hand for the paper. ‘Not at liberty to say.’

‘I’d like to keep this.’

‘Can’t let you do that, dear boy. Not mine really. Have to give it back …’

‘To whom?’

This question was put abruptly, in a hectoring tone that pained and bewildered Yakimov. If he had forgotten Freddi could be a silly, he had never known that Freddi could be a beast. He said with hurt dignity: ‘This is all very hush-hush, dear boy. ’Fraid I can’t tell you anything more. Really must have the paper back.’

Von Flügel rose. Without answering Yakimov, he crossed over to one of his cabinets, put the plan into it and locked the door.

Uncertain whether or not this was a joke, Yakimov protested: ‘But you can’t, dear boy. I must have it back.’

‘You may get it before you leave.’ Von Flügel put the key into his pocket. ‘Meanwhile, we shall find out if it is genuine.’

‘Of course it’s genuine.’

‘We shall see.’

During this exchange von Flügel’s manner had been stern and unamused, now it changed again. Advancing on Yakimov, he clasped his hands under his chin and his gait became a caricature of himself. Yakimov, watching him, was embarrassed by behaviour that he could only describe as odd. His embarrassment changed to fear when von Flügel, reaching him, stood over him with the malign stare of an old crocodile.

‘Whatever is the matter, dear boy?’ Yakimov tremulously asked.

‘What is this game? You take me for a simpleton, perhaps?’

‘However could you think that?’

‘Does one enter a lion’s den and say: “Eat me. I am a juicy steak”?’

Von Flügel’s whole attitude expressed menace, but to Yakimov it seemed such a deplorable performance that he imagined at any moment the whole thing would collapse into
laughter. Instead von Flügel went on with increasing grimness: ‘Does one come to a Nazi official and say: “I am an enemy agent. Here is my sabotage plan. Hand me, please, to the Gestapo.”’

‘Really, dear boy, the
Gestapo
!’

‘Yes, the
Gestapo
!’ Von Flügel savagely imitated Yakimov’s outraged tone. ‘What else do I do with a British spy.’

Yakimov, for the first time, felt genuine alarm. There seemed to be nothing left of his old friend Freddi. What he saw beside him was indeed a Nazi official who might hand him over to the Gestapo. At the thought he almost collapsed with fear. ‘Dear boy!’ he pleaded on a sob.

Freddi, a stranger and a dangerous stranger, had become the interrogator. ‘What little trick do you come here to play? What do you call it? The double bluff? We can soon discover. I have in this house a number of strong young men with fists.’