The Balkan Trilogy (84 page)

‘Perhaps not,’ said David, ‘but they were wretched enough. The majority of them welcomed the Russians. The Rumanians have never learnt to rule by persuasion rather than force. They deserved to lose their minorities: not that their own people get much better treatment. The peasants have always been robbed. Why should they want to work when everything they make is taken from them? They’ve always been fleeced by the tax-collector or the money-lender, their own army or some other army. Now they feed the Germans. They’ve been kept in the position of serfs, yet, given the opportunity, I believe they would prove intelligent, creative and hard-working. In my opinion, the best thing that could happen to this country is the thing they dread most – to be overrun by Russia and forced to adopt the Soviet social structure and economy.’

Guy smiled at a prospect that seemed to him too good to be true. ‘Will that day ever come?’

‘Perhaps sooner than you think. The Rumanians imagine that with German support they can get back Bessarabia. If they try, the result could be a Russian occupation of Rumania, and perhaps of the whole of Eastern Europe.’

A flower-girl came round taking from her basket small bunches of marigolds and pom-pom dahlias which she placed on the tables, then stood at a respectful distance while the diners decided to buy or not. Guy gave her what she had asked – a small sum – but she looked surprised. She had done no more than mention a point from which the bargaining might begin.

Sniffing the bitter, pungent smell of the marigolds, Harriet looked out at the garden, which was pebbled and much cluttered with stone statues. There were several old trees that had
reached up beyond the surrounding buildings and now, too tall for their strength, bent and soughed in the wind. On the opposite side of the garden were the once famous
salons particuliers
, all the windows lit. In some the curtains were drawn as though the rooms were in use. In others the curtains were looped back with heavy cords so it was possible to see gilt and white walls and chandeliers with broken bulbs and lustres missing. Through the nearest window Harriet could see a table ready laid for two and a sofa covered in green satin – a pale, water-lily green, probably very grimy. The rooms had not changed in fifty years and some people said they had not been cleaned either. Harriet was touched to see, as everything broke up about them, this seedy grandeur still limping along.

Noticing that she was not listening to their talk, Guy said: ‘She does not attach much importance to passing events.’

Harriet laughed. ‘You have only to let them pass and they lose their importance.’

‘You may pass with them, of course,’ David said with a wry, sombre smile.

The food was slow in arriving. They had been served with soup. Some twenty minutes passed before the waiter placed their knives and forks, then, at last, came the
friptur
ǎ
.

‘In its day,’ David said, ‘this restaurant served the best steaks in Europe.’

‘What have we got now, do you think?’ Guy asked.

David sniggered. ‘Apparently some
tr
ǎ
sur
ǎ
has lost its horse.’

The men remembered the spring and early summer of the previous year, when they had often come to the Poli
ş
inel garden and talked of the war that overhung them all. Diners would still be arriving at midnight and would remain until the first cream of the dawn showed through the trees. While there was one customer left, the musicians would play a series of little tunes, maudlin, banal, pretty, but, in deference to the hour, they played more and more softly, often breaking off in the middle of a phrase and starting up with something else, or just plucking a note here and there, a token of music, patiently awaiting their reward.

‘How shall we reward them now?’ Guy asked. He took out a thousand-
lei
note.

Harriet and David looked askance at this extravagance, but he handed it over. ‘For the pleasures that are past,’ he said.

When they reached the Pringles’ flat, it was little more than eleven o’clock and David agreed to come in for a final drink. The hall was in darkness. The porter had been conscripted long ago and never replaced. They found the lift out of order.

There seemed to Harriet something odd about the house – perhaps the lack of sound. Rumanians sat up late. Usually on the stairs voices and music could be heard until the early hours of the morning: now there were no voices and no music. The three walked up from one dark landing to another, hearing nothing but their own footsteps. On the eighth floor they saw a light falling obliquely from above.

Harriet said: ‘It comes from our flat. Our front door is open.’

They stopped and listened. The silence was complete. After some moments Guy began moving soundlessly up the last flight of stairs with David behind him. Harriet paused, unnerved by the stillness and the sight of the front door lying wide open. No sound of life came from within. Cautiously she went up a step or two so she could see past the two men in the hall. The sitting-room door stood ajar. The lights were on within.

Hearing her step on the stair, Guy whispered: ‘Wait.’ He gave a push to the sitting-room door: it fell open. Nothing moved inside.

David said: ‘No need to ask what’s happened here.’

Guy came out to tell Harriet: ‘We’ve been raided.’

‘Sasha and Despina? Where can they be?’

‘They must be hiding somewhere.’

They went through the flat, walking among a litter of papers, books, clothing and broken glass. Drawers had been emptied out, beds stripped, books thrown from shelves, pictures smashed, carpets ripped from the floor. They realised this had been done not in a frenzy of destruction but in a
systematic search. The breakages and the disorder were incidental. And for what had they been searching? For something that could be hidden in a drawer or under a mattress – so not for Sasha. But perhaps it was Sasha they had found.

Anyway, there was no sign of him. His room, like the rest of the flat, was in confusion.

Guy led the way into the kitchen where the door on to the fire-escape stood open. Here drawers had been emptied, canisters of tea, coffee and dried foods had been turned out in a heap on the floor.

Harriet looked into Despina’s room. It was empty. Her possessions were gone.

They went out on to the fire-escape. The well at the back of the house, on to which the kitchens opened, was usually, even at this hour, in an uproar of squabbling and shouting. Tonight all the doors, except their own door, were shut. There were no lights. The kitchens appeared to be deserted.

Harriet went up the ladder to the roof. The doors to the servants’ huts were closed. Harriet pulled open that which had been used by Sasha. There was nothing inside. She called: ‘Sasha! Despina!’ No one answered.

They returned to Sasha’s room. The bed-covers were on the floor and, as Harriet piled them back on to the bed, the mouth-organ fell from among them. She handed it to Guy as proof that he had been taken, and forcibly. Under the bed-covers was the forged passport, torn in half – derisively, it seemed.

Remembering her childhood pets whose deaths had broken her heart, she said: ‘They’ll murder him, of course.’

‘No,’ Guy said. ‘Why should they! I’ll go to the Legation in the morning. They’ll make some inquiries. Don’t worry. We won’t let it rest.’

Harriet shook her head, unable to speak. She knew there was nothing anyone could do. The Rumanian authorities had little enough power against the Iron Guard. The British Legation had none at all. In any case, Sasha was an army deserter. His arrest was legal, and he was without rights.

David said: ‘I don’t think we should stay here. They’re quite likely to come back.’

He kept watch on the landing while Harriet rapidly packed her suitcase. Guy put some shirts and underwear into his rucksack then went into the sitting-room and began picking up his books. Some of them had been trampled on and were spine-broken with the marks of heels and footprints on the pages. Recognising the savagery against which he had declared himself, he told himself: ‘The beast has broken in.’ He was thankful that Harriet was going next day. After that anything might happen.

He managed to fit a couple of dozen books into the rucksack and put six more into his pockets. He picked up a last one and put it under his arm. It contained the sonnets of Shakespeare.

Before they left the flat, they shut the back door and switched off the lights. They had no time to right the disorder. They left it as they had found it. They reached the street with a sense of having made an escape.

‘I felt pretty nervous in there,’ David said.

‘God,’ said Guy, ‘I never felt so frightened in my life before.’

Harriet remained silent until they were in the square, then she said: ‘I can’t leave tomorrow. And now there’s no reason why I should.’

‘Oh, you must go,’ said Guy. ‘You have to find me a job. If you stayed, you couldn’t do anything. And Dobson is expecting you at the airport.’

David’s room contained two beds. Suddenly exhausted from shock, Harriet threw herself on one of them and was asleep in a moment. The men, too alert to sleep, sat up most of the night, talking, drinking and playing chess.

28

When she awoke next morning and remembered what had occurred, Harriet was surprised that she felt nothing. She prepared for her departure, no longer caring whether she went or stayed.

David had been called to the Legation and said goodbye to Harriet in the vestibule. As she and Guy left the hotel, they saw Galpin packing luggage into his car. Guy asked him if he were leaving.

Galpin shook his head, but said: ‘Something’s in the wind. It’s my hunch the balloon’s going up.’

‘You think it’s a matter of days?’

‘It’s a matter of hours. Anyway, I’m prepared. I’ll give you a lift if you like.’

‘Harriet’s off to Athens this morning. I have to stay.’

‘Stay? What for? A bullet in the back of the neck?’

A rare and peculiar look of obstinacy came over Guy’s face. ‘I’ve a job to do,’ he said.

‘Well.’ Galpin moved away, twisting himself into his rain-coat as he went. ‘One person taking no risks is yours truly.’ He hurried back to the hotel.

Dobson was already on the airfield when the Pringles arrived. The morning was chilly and he was wearing an overcoat with an astrakhan collar. Having been told that Harriet would be accompanied by one of Guy’s students, he asked: ‘Where’s your young friend?’

Guy told him what had happened. The student was Sasha Drucker – no point now in hiding that fact. Guy said he intended reporting the matter to the Legation and enlisting the
help of Fitzsimon who had played Troilus in his production.

Dobson listened with an expression, sympthetic but quizzical, which seemed to ask: What did Guy hope for? If the British Legation could no longer protect its own nationals, what could it do for this discredited Jewish youth who had disappeared into chaos? He said: ‘All over Europe there are people like Sasha Drucker …’ He made a gesture of despair at the measureless suffering which in their lifetime had become a commonplace.

Guy glanced at Harriet, saying: ‘I am sure Fitzsimon will do what he can.’

Harriet looked away. Believing he was done for, she wanted to turn her back on everything to do with Sasha. She said: ‘I think we should take our seats.’

Guy, troubled by her lack of emotion, said: ‘Cable me when you arrive.’

‘Of course.’ She gave her attention to the airport officials, one of whom went off with her passport. She protested and was told it would be returned to her on the plane.

When Guy put his arms round her to kiss her goodbye, her main thought was to get the parting over. Dobson took her arm, sweeping her through the last corroding moments by making light of the journey before them. ‘I always enjoy this little hop over the Balkans,’ he said.

The plane was about to leave when an official entered and, saluting her, presented her with her passport. The doors were closed, the plane slid off. As they rose, Harriet looked down and, glimpsing the solitary figure of Guy, who was watching after her, was stabbed by the thought: ‘I may never see him again.’ Immediately she wanted to return and fling herself upon him. Instead, she opened her passport and saw the word ‘
anulat
’ stamped across her re-entry visa. She said in dismay: ‘They’ve cancelled my visa.’ Her indifference was shattered. Suddenly in panic at the reality of her departure, she said: ‘But I must come back. They can’t keep me from my husband.’

Dobson was reassuring: ‘You can get a visa in Athens. The Rumanian consul is a charming old boy. He’ll do anything for a lady,’ and he went on to talk of the Danube, which had
appeared below, a broad ribbon with river-craft and strings of oil barges black on its silver surface: ‘Did you know, there are maps dating back to 400
B.C.
which show the Danube rising in the Pyrenees?’

‘But surely it doesn’t rise in the Pyrenees?’

Dobson laughed, so delighted by her ignorance that she began to feel at ease. She was grateful for his company. Before the war, when she had travelled about alone, she had enjoyed her own independence. Now she wanted to cling to Dobson as to a vestige of her normal life with Guy. She buoyed herself with the thought that she was on a mission. She had to find a job for Guy and a refuge for them both. She began to think of Bella, who would be the only English woman in Bucharest when her English friends departed. She spoke of this to Dobson, who smiled without concern and said: ‘I told Bella the Legation would take her out if we have to go, but she showed no interest.’

‘You could not expect her to leave Nikko.’

‘Oh, we would take Nikko, too. They both speak several languages. We could make good use of them.’ Dobson gave a laugh in which there was a hint of annoyance. ‘The truth is, she thinks she’ll be a jolly sight more comfortable where she is.’

Across the frontier, there was nothing to be seen but a fleece of white cloud through which the hill-tips broke, dark blue, like islands. As the morning advanced, the cloud dissolved to reveal the sun-dried Balkan uplands. Several times the plane, caught in an air-pocket, dropped steeply and there came, detailed, into view, stones, crevices and alpine flowers.