The Balkan Trilogy (94 page)

5

The young men were disappearing from the city. The porter left the Pringles’ hotel, first saying an emotional farewell to everyone, and his place was taken by an old man moustached like the great Venizelos.

Each day lorry-loads of conscripts were driven through the streets to the station and the girls threw flowers to them. Farmers came into Athens leading horses that were needed for the army. But there was no sight of the Italians.

Mussolini had told Hitler that he would take Greece in ten days, just as the Germans had taken France. At the end of the ten days his troops were still on the Kalamas River, at the spot where they had found the Greeks waiting for them.

The Italian radio complained of their reception. It said that the Duce had offered to occupy Greece in a friendly, protective spirit and had not been prepared for this resistance. It would take the Italians a day or two to get over the shock.

The Italian Minister had not left Athens and was pained when he found his telephone had been cut off. He rang Metaxas to ask why he was being treated in such a fashion. Greece and Italy were not at war.

‘Sir,’ Metaxas replied, ‘this is no time for philological discussion,’ and he put down his receiver.

The war was, in its way, comic, but no one imagined it would remain comic for long. The Italians had behind them the weight of Axis armour. Beneath all the humour was the fear that the Greek line would break suddenly and the enemy arrive overnight.

An order had gone out from the Legation that British
subjects must be prepared to leave Greece at an hour’s notice. Each person could take a suitcase, and the suitcase should be kept ready packed. When Guy presented himself at the Legation and asked for his salary to be diverted from Cairo, he saw a junior secretary who said: ‘If that’s how you want it, I’ll pop a note in the jolly old bag; but my guess is: while the transfer is winging its way here, you’ll be off to where it came from. Do you want to take the risk? Righteo, then! You know the drill? You chaps draw from Legation funds. If you like, you can have a small advance to settle your hotel bill.’

The bill was settled, to Harriet’s relief, but there would be no money to spend until the transfer arrived.

The Pringles heard nothing more from Gracey. No word came from Dubedat, but a few days after their visit to the Academy, the porter rang to say a visitor was on his way up.

Harriet opened the door. Toby Lush, outside, said with ponderous gravity: ‘I’d like a word with himself.’

Guy was sorting out his books. Greeting him with unusual sobriety, Toby sat on the edge of the bed and contemplated his pipe. The Pringles waited. He spoke at last:

‘We hear you went and saw Mr Gracey?’

Guy said: ‘Yes.’

‘Well, it’s like this …’ Toby stuck the empty pipe into his mouth and sucked it thoughtfully. ‘When we came here, the old soul and me, we had to find work. After all, we had to
eat
. So when we met Mr Gracey, we laid it on thick. Anyone would under the circumstances.’

‘What did you tell him, exactly?’

‘Oh, this and that. We said we’d done a spot of lecturing up in Bucharest … a few other things. You don’t want the gory details, do you? Just a bit of hornswoggle.
You
understand. But the thing is, the old soul’s moidered; hopes you didn’t give us away.’

‘I didn’t give anything away.’

‘That’s all right then. But …’ an expression of inquisitorial cunning came over Toby’s features and he pointed the
pipe stem at Guy: ‘Supposing Mr Gracey asks you direct what we did?’

Formal with annoyance, Guy replied: ‘I would tell him I do not discuss my friends’ affairs.’

‘Oh, good enough! Good enough!’ Toby whoofed with relief: ‘And you didn’t mention we’d done a bolt?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Fine. Splendid. I said you wouldn’t.’ Much heartened, Toby leant back against the wall and, taking out his tobacco and matches, prepared himself for a chat.

Harriet was having none of this. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I’d like to ask you something. What did
you
tell Gracey? Did you say that Guy wasted his time producing
Troilus and Cressida
?’

Toby jerked up with a pained frown. ‘Me? I never did.’

‘What about Dubedat?’

Toby sat up. Scrambling his equipment together with agitated hands, he said: ‘How do I know? He sees Mr Gracey in private. He doesn’t tell me everything.’ He got to his feet. ‘Have to scarper. The old soul’s a bit carked. I’ll let him know you didn’t sneak. He’ll appreciate it.’

‘He ought to.’

Toby made off with the gait of a guilty fox. When he had gone, Harriet said to Guy: ‘Dubedat means to be Director. He’s afraid you might have queered his pitch.’

‘It certainly looks like it,’ Guy was forced to agree. Pale and unhappy, he returned to his books, wanting to hear no more. Harriet pitied his disillusionment, but had no patience with it. Reality was not to be altered by an inability to recognize fact.

She had remained with Guy, imprisoned in the room, but now, uplifted by a sense of being the stronger of the two, she said: ‘Come on, let’s go for a walk.’

He did not move. ‘You go. I don’t want to go.’

‘But what will you do, shut up here alone?’

‘Work.’

‘Have you any work?’

‘I’m getting quotations for a lecture on Coleridge.’

‘Surely you could do that any time? You might not lecture again for months.’

He shook his head. Bent over his books, he whistled softly to himself: a sign of stress. Harriet stood at the door, longing to go out, not knowing what to say. During past crises – the fall of France, the final break-up in Bucharest – he had found escape, first by producing
Troilus and Cressida
, then by organizing a summer school. Throwing himself into one occupation or another, he had managed to keep anxiety on the periphery of consciousness; now, without employment, without friends, without money, he was trying to follow his old escape pattern. But there was no route open to him. All he could do was sit here in this dark, narrow room and try to lose himself in work.

‘Wouldn’t you be better at the School library?’ she asked.

‘I’d rather not go there.’

One afternoon, while wandering about alone, Harriet met Yakimov and, strolling with him up University Street, took the opportunity to ask about some of the people they had seen in Athens.

‘Who is Major Cookson?’

Yakimov answered at once. ‘Very important and distinguished.’

‘Yes, but what does he
do
?’

That was more difficult. ‘
Do
, dear girl?’ Yakimov pondered the question heavily, then brightened: ‘Believe … indeed, have inside information to the effect: he’s something big in the S.S.’

‘Good heavens, the German S.S.?’

‘No. The Secret Service.’

As there was little point in pursuing that fantasy, Harriet went on to inquire about Callard and Phipps. Sighing at being forced into intellectual activity, Yakimov dismissed them as ‘both very distinguished’.

‘What about Mrs Brett and Miss Jay?’ Harriet persisted.

‘Don’t ask me, dear girl. Town’s full of those old tits.’

‘Yes, but what are they all
doing
here?’

‘Nothing much. They live here.’

The English who lived in Bucharest had gone there to work. The English in Athens were clearly of a different order. Encountering for the first time people who lived abroad un-occupied, she was amazed by their inactivity and, learning nothing from Yakimov, decided to take her curiosity to Alan Frewen. He had asked them if they would go with him on Sunday morning when he exercised Diocletian in the National Gardens.

He called for them as agreed and Guy said to Harriet, as he had said before: ‘You go.’

She pleaded: ‘Do come darling. He doesn’t want me alone. Why not bring your work and sit in the gardens while we walk round!’

Resolute in his revolt against circumstances, Guy said: ‘No, I’m all right here. Go on down. Alan’ll love having you to himself.’

Harriet could not believe it. She descended diffidently to the hall where Alan waited, his face so obscured by his glasses it was impossible to tell how he felt. He was as shy as she was and they said nothing until they reached the square.

He was limping and several times when the dog pulled on the lead, he had difficulty in keeping his footing. He apologized, explaining that he had had an attack of gout.

‘I had to stay home for a couple of days,’ he said. ‘Not that it mattered. Things are still slack at the office. There’s not much to do except get out the News Sheet.’

‘What does Yakimov do?’ she asked.

‘Oh, his job is to deliver it.’

‘Is that all?’

Alan gave a laugh and did not reply.

There had been a shower of rain, the first of the autumn. It had scarcely moistened the ground but the sky, broken with mauve and blue clouds, had taken on the fresh expectancy of spring. Harriet longed for Guy to be with them, not only to ease their constraint but to enjoy, as she enjoyed, the changing season.

She suddenly burst out: ‘Guy’s very unhappy. What can we do for him?’

‘You had no luck with Gracey, then?’

‘None at all. He said he had delegated his authority. He suggested Guy go and ask Dubedat for work.’

Alan stared down frowning, considering what she had said, then started to speak with some force: ‘I really feel this can’t go on. The School’s becoming a laughing-stock. There are all sorts of stories going round about the lectures. Apparently Lush suggested that Dante and Milton might have met in the streets of Florence. When one of the students pointed out that there was about three hundred years between them, Lush said: “Crumbs! Have I made a clanger?” Cookson’s protected the lot of them for some time, but there’ve been complaints. I know Mrs Brett has written home. I’m sure a responsible person will be appointed when Gracey goes. My advice is: wait.’

‘Guy would agree, but I’m afraid he finds it a strain.’

‘I know. I know,’ Alan nodded his sympathy, and after this she felt there was harmony between them.

It occurred to her that Alan was the first friend she and Guy had made on equal terms. In Bucharest the people she knew had been the people known to Guy before his marriage and she imagined herself accepted because she was Guy’s wife, a state of affairs the more disjunctive because she was unused to being a wife. It had seemed to her then that she had left behind not only her own friends but her individuality. Now she began to feel the absurdity of this. Why, after all, should Alan Frewen not be as content with her as he would be with Guy?

They passed the Washingtonia Robusta palms that stood with their great silvery satin trunks across the entrance to the gardens. Inside, the sandy walks curved and flowed beneath sprays of small, tremulous leaves. The sun came and went. Moving soundlessly, they entered a tropical dampness filled with the scents of earth. Alan released Diocletian, who was off at once prospecting beneath the bushy trees that sifted the
sun on to the dark, soft, powdery ground. The paths were all much alike. The foliage was all light, a peppering of dry, rustling greenery that dappled the sand with light and shade. Then a vista opened. There was a drive lined with greyish, rubbery trees.

‘Judas trees,’ Alan said. ‘You must see them in the spring.’

‘Is that when they flower?’

‘They flower for Easter.’

And where would they be at Easter? Alan had said ‘Wait’, but he said nothing more. And what could he say? By coming here, Guy and she had created their own problem, and they must solve it for themselves.

She had thought they need only reach a friendly country and their lives could begin; but here they were, and their lives were still in abeyance. In Bucharest they had had employment and a home. They had had Sasha. Guy might find employment here, they might even find a home but Sasha, she feared, was lost for ever. Even his memory was disappearing into the past. For the last week or more she had not given him a thought, though there always remained, like a shadow on her mind, the hollow darkness into which he had disappeared. He was dead, she supposed, like her loved red kitten that had fallen from the balcony of the flat. If one could not bear the memory of the dead, then they must be shut out of memory. There was no other action anyone could take against the bafflement of grief.

She was recalled from her thoughts by the squawks of water-birds and the cries of children. They were walking through a coppice where the air was jaundiced with the weedy, muddy smell of lake water.

Alan said: ‘Where’s Diocletian? I’d better put him on the lead.’

He held the dog close as they emerged from under the trees and came to a sunlit clearing where small iron seats stood round the sandy lake edge. The lake was small. A bridge spanned the water that now, in the last days of the dry season, was scarcely water at all, but a glossy, greenish film in which
ducks, geese and swans were squelching about. The children were feeding the birds and the birds, snatching and quarrelling, were making all the noise in the world.

Limping towards a couple of vacant chairs, Alan said he must sit down. He lowered his large backside on to the little iron seat and with a sigh let his bulk settle down. When they were both seated, an attendant came and stood at a distance, respectfully awaiting the sum that was payable in fee. When Alan handed over the money, the old man counted back some coins so small they now bought nothing but the right to sit for a while beside the lake. Alan talked in Greek with the attendant and afterwards told Harriet they had been discussing the war. The old man said he had two sons at the front but he was not at all disturbed because the English had promised to aid the Greeks and everyone said the English were the strongest people in the world.

‘He knows me,’ Alan said. ‘I come here often to read Cavafy. I suppose you know Cavafy? No? I’ll translate “The Barbarians” for you one day. It fits our times.’

‘Are the English going to send aid?’

‘I wish I knew. They haven’t much to send. I’ve heard the Greeks aren’t interested in half-measures and I don’t think we could rise to a full-scale campaign.’