The Lives and Times of Bernardo Brown

by Geoffrey Household

  Strada Spâtarului was less than ten minutes walk away, but the odds were a hundred to one against reaching it unchallenged. That cop who had seen him run must have reported the incident by now and the Carol would be just as hot as the Elisabeta. Bernardo had the wild idea of removing the cabman and driving the trasura down the boulevard. It wouldn’t do. For one thing the driver might wake up; for another, he could not expect to get away with driving a trasura—if he could drive it at all—sitting on the box in a respectable suit and no overcoat.

  He took a closer look at the driver who smelt of stale alcohol and pickled cucumber. He would sleep through anything so long as he remained sprawled in the back of the cab. So the horse at any rate was available, though its trot was probably slower than that of the fattest Bucarest policeman. But why bother about its speed? Bernardo perceived that a walking horse was all he needed, plus the driver’s hat and any other handy garment.

  He had never had time to notice the hat he grabbed as he rushed out of the Alhambra. It was not his own. It was very expensive black astrakhan lined with silk and probably belonged to the Georgian knife dancer. Such a fine hat would be ample recompense for the driver if he had the sense to keep quiet about it. Very gently he removed the pointed, grey-mottled, sheepskin hat from the driver’s head and substituted the astrakhan. There was an old rug on the box seat—filthy, but a driver who left his cab surely would not leave it for anyone to steal.

  With the rug over his shoulders and the literally lousy hat on his head he slipped the traces off the horse’s collar and quietly lowered the shafts to the ground. The horse woke up with a general air of resignation and seemed quite willing to be led anywhere by anybody. Bernardo was about to start when he remembered that Pozharski’s house was modern; there might not be any slat of the shutters so rotted by snow that it could be knocked in or torn out by the bare hand. After casting round among harness and springs with a side glance at the church—but lead piping would not do and there was unlikely to be a chisel in the vestry—he opened the lid of the box seat. Inside was a rusty biscuit tin with needles, waxed thread and leather patches for repairing harness together with a worn, sharp knife. He took it, and finding himself unable to steal from someone fated to be permanently wretched—as indeed he might be too, but not yet—left a few notes in its place.

  The choice of a route was tricky. It was essential not to draw attention to Strada Spâtarului by entering or stopping near the street; on the other hand he dared not go far beyond it since he would have to walk back without the cover of the horse. He decided to put all to the test at once and not to mess about suspiciously in side roads. He led the animal into the boulevard and proceeded straight down it as if bound from the centre of the city to a stable.

  He plodded along from light to light, himself and the horse the only miserable traffic. A policeman wished him good-morning, to which Bernardo answered gruffly with some vague, wine-sodden curses at whatever disaster had forced him to leave his trasura. A car, full of military this time, cruised past him with hardly a glance. When well past the Strada Spâtarului he spotted some sort of lane serving the back of houses. Nobody was in sight. It would have to do.

  Leaving the horse in the lane, he slouched off. With trousers still stained from the garbage can, the rug over his shoulders and the driver’s hat he felt fairly confident that he could not be recognised as a possible David Mitrani. The horse gave him an unexpected bonus. It saw no food, water or comfort in the lane and took off at its regulation trot, carefully keeping to the right of the road until the next intersection where it turned out of the boulevard, presumably towards the distant stable where it ought to have spent the night.

  He passed no more than two or three very early risers who glanced at him suspiciously, but it was only suspicion of the homeless poor. At the top of the Strada Spâtarului was a bored and lonely policeman who exasperated Bernardo by refusing to get on and patrol his beat. When at last he hunched his shoulders like the cab-horse and dejectedly moved somewhere else, Bernardo wasted no time. The sky was already lightening in the east, and it was all or nothing.

  Sliding into the Pozharski courtyard he attacked the shutter of the lavatory window. The knife broke in half, but he had time for experiment. The willow tree now was opening its buds and the branches covered him from easy observation. With the half blade he hacked out a slat, wrenched off the one above it and could then get at the catch. He waited uncertainly, dreading the crash of glass to come when he broke the double window. But he was in luck; it was not necessary. The first window, opening outwards, was not properly shut and the stump of the knife dealt with it. The inner window gave to continued pressure on the frame, backed by the leverage of his feet against the passage wall which he could just reach at full stretch. He was in without a sound but the splintering of wood.

  Bernardo closed up everything, bolted the front door and collapsed into a chair, of which the broad, soft arms themselves suggested security. It took him a few minutes of relaxation before he remembered Pozharski’s altar bar. Except for ice it was still lavishly stocked. A pint of brandy and soda restored him enough to go upstairs and take a shower in the dark, carefully soaping the cabman’s companions—if he had any—out of his hair and sponging his trousers. His respectability had to be impressive if by bad luck he had hit one of the days of the Transylvanian housekeeper’s weekly visits.

  He went to bed in Pozharski’s pyjamas feeling gloriously safe—or at least too intolerably tired not to feel safe. At intervals he woke uneasily but murmured ‘to hell with it!’ and slept till eleven. Morning brought reaction. His impulsive imagination had saved him, but what steady course did one take from there? The time one could live on alcohol was presumably limited, and there was nothing to eat in the house but a handful of stale biscuits. He breakfasted on them with warm champagne.

  Having restored the slats of the shutter with gummed strips from envelopes so that at least they stayed in place, he idly returned to the champagne and its reviving influence. Pozharski’s telephone, which he had at first regarded warily as if it were an incalculable intruder from the outside world, became a possible ally. He ought to call Nadya at her restaurant. She had so seriously made him promise to tell her before he disappeared. The risk was slight. There was no reason why the authorities should detain for more than five minutes the innocent little Russian refugee who happened to live above David Mitrani.

  She recognised his voice at once, but made no indiscreet exclamation. He told her quickly to come to 16 Strada Spâtarului and to bring something home for dinner, dear, because the butcher had not delivered the meat. He wished he had risked adding that she should take care not to be followed and then realised that the advice was unnecessary. Her experiences as a child had left little mark on her character but it had developed an instinct for secretiveness. He had noticed it more than once ever since her brilliant and disobedient burning of the lighter.

  With the help of more dozing three hours passed in the darkened room. He did not dare open the shutters or show a light; from the opposite side of the street the house must continue to appear a pied à terre very occasionally visited by its wealthy tenant. From four o’clock onwards he sat by the front door listening for Nadya’s footsteps, nervous lest he should open the door to a stranger. He recognised them without a shadow of doubt, puzzled that he could be so sure when they were so faint.

  ‘The house belongs to that Pozharski I told you about,’ he explained. ‘I knew it was very unlikely he would be here, so I broke in.’

  ‘And you’re not hurt?’

  ‘Never better.’

  She had brought a loaf, butter, cheese, sausage and a litre of good red. Adorable attention to his tastes! It would remain a secret for ever that wine for once was what he needed least.

  ‘What happened at the Alhambra?’

  He told her. When he came to the horse she gave one of her rare gurgles of laughter. Bernardo himself did not think it funny. Memory of the night was altogether too cl
ose.

  ‘And you’re sure no one saw you come in?’

  ‘I can’t be sure, but it’s the least of the risks. Have the police annoyed you?’

  ‘No. They only searched my room and asked a few questions when they brought Despina home.’

  ‘She’s all right?’

  ‘I think so. She told me that she felt you were trying to say good-bye to her and couldn’t. She has gone to her Aunt Floarea.’

  Trust Despina to sink her pride and do the right thing! Bernardo could imagine Miss Floarea Luca protecting her treasure, insisting on accompanying her to police headquarters and impressing those fragile, new-fangled fellows with the authority of a generation which in old Romania had policed itself.

  ‘And Holgar?’

  ‘In gaol. Despina said they had to turn the fat man upside down to save his life. He was choking.’

  Nadya smiled, quite unconcerned that Major Vlaicu had nearly died. Damn it all, the man had only been doing his duty! She had certainly moved on a lively distance from that statue at the Moş.

  ‘I must leave now. I will have you out of Romania tomorrow, dear David, and you’ll have to take me with you whether you like it or not.’

  ‘You’re not to dream of it! If it’s that crook Scheeper ...’

  ‘Wait and see! I have told the restaurant that I have to go and see a Russian at Cluj who might be my cousin. They won’t expect me back for a day or two. I shall come here again this evening whenever I can.’

  It was no use arguing with her. The funny, little, fat thing—he always thought of her as little, though really she must be of full average height—walked determinedly out of the house. She again reminded him irresistibly of a cat with her air of soft, appealing innocence and God only knew what capacity for terrifying folly when desperate.

  After sunset it was depressing to sit in the pitch darkness of the house with nothing to do. He drew the heavy curtains across the living-room window, but still would not risk a gleam of light. At last he remembered that the alcove with the big divan in it was enclosed by a second curtain and a lamp behind it could not possibly be seen. He had been inclined to avert his eyes from that alcove—an astonishing bit of prudery from one who had lived his life of the last six months. Undoubtedly it was due to last fragments of the Magda affair. Once admitted, they became genuinely the last.

  Since he could not know when Nadya would return, it was a bore to sit at the door listening for her. He decided that there was no danger in standing outside, blotted against the wall at the end of the passage where he could not be seen and at the same time could observe anyone who passed the courtyard or showed interest in it. No one did, but there were more police patrolling the streets than on the previous night. It was easy for them to guess who had pinched that horse on the other side of the Boulevard Carol, though they must be very doubtful whether he was still in the district.

  He saw Nadya’s unmistakable figure pass the house; she did not even glance at it. Nobody was trailing her on either side of the street. He never spotted her arrival until she was actually in the courtyard. She must have slid from the pavement into a dark patch at the corner. Even so it was not her roundness which gave her presence away but the little square case she carried. As she entered the passage he detached himself from blackness and quickly opened and closed the door, leading her by the hand until they were in the alcove and its light could be switched on.

  ‘There!’ she exclaimed, laying down on the divan between them Henri Scheeper’s Belgian passport and two sheaves of tickets from Bucarest to Brussels. Her eyes were dancing with mischief.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you I could get a passport for both of us? Look what it says! Accompanied by his niece, Marie-Louise Chrétienne Scheeper. Born 1910. I can look as young as that if I try.’

  She could. But what use was it? Bernardo was touched by her innocence.

  ‘Scheeper’s photograph is on it, my dear, and he must be at least fifteen years older than I am.’

  ‘But he looks like you. That’s what put it into my head.’

  ‘He does not look in the least like me,’ Bernardo said indignantly.

  ‘Yes, he does. Your faces are the same shape. You have only to get that white mèche in your hair.’

  There was something in that. Their complexions were utterly different, but Scheeper’s carefully massaged matt and Bernardo’s tan which had become yellowish after so much night life could not be distinguished on a passport photo. Eyes, nose and height corresponded. Nobody could possibly mistake one for the other in reality, since Bernardo was broad and muscular and Scheeper slimly built. But that did not show on a head and shoulders photograph especially as Scheeper padded his shoulders.

  It seemed to Bernardo that his chance was slender but so were the odds against stowing away on a Danube barge. And how long was it going to be before Scheeper missed that passport? Poor, loyal darling, he hated to disappoint her. Very gently he demanded explanations.

  ‘But it’s simple, David! I told you Scheeper made me an offer. So I went to his room at the Athénée Palace and showed him.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘What did it matter? You don’t expect him to buy the tickets when he doesn’t know what he’s getting for his top-class brothel, do you?’

  ‘Nadya!’

  ‘Well, that’s what he wants me for, I think.’

  ‘Nadya, you are playing with fire like a baby. How did you get hold of that passport?’

  ‘When I told you my story, I left out the bits which you wouldn’t like. You’re so easily shocked, David.’

  ‘Only by you.’

  ‘Oh, no! You think you aren’t, but you are. I found that out long ago. Now, you remember that my sister and I were living on the streets after my mother and brother were shot?’

  ‘I always wondered how you did it.’

  ‘We were a gang of starving children together. One of us had been trained as a pickpocket and he gave me lessons. He said I looked so sweet and innocent. I’m really very good.’

  ‘What on earth does God think of that?’

  ‘God is not interested in petty crime. And I’ve never done it since or only once or twice. And He may have let me learn just so that I could help you.’

  ‘But Scheeper will report it to the police,’ Bernardo almost shouted.

  ‘No, he won’t. I told him that if he did I’d say why he wanted me and that I was Nadya Andreyev and not his niece at all.’

  ‘Will you please tell me exactly what happened?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘The details,’ Bernardo said, ‘could be important.’

  ‘Oh well, if you want to talk about them! I went with him to buy the tickets and saw him put them in an envelope with his passport. So I asked him to buy me an ice-cream at Capşa. And then I went to the lavatory.’

  ‘With the envelope?’

  ‘No, no!’ she answered as if everybody knew the technique. ‘With the menu of course.’

  Bernardo was lost. He just looked at her.

  ‘But it’s so simple! You see, the envelope was thick. He was bound to notice he had lost it whenever he moved his arm. So I folded up the menu card till it was about the same size. And then he offered to walk home with me so I took him down a dark street and he seemed to get a bit excited because I was walking very close to him. And when I had swopped the envelope for the menu I pretended he was frightening me and ran away. He followed but he couldn’t see where I had gone.’

  ‘Where had you gone?’

  ‘Up a tree. He looked such a fool standing there and he couldn’t make a scene and he couldn’t stop me dropping into somebody’s garden. And that was when I told him what I would do if he complained to the police. And to-morrow we’ll be over the frontier!’

  It was not good enough. Bernardo had to disappoint her. Yes, they might get clear of Romania, given luck and a sleepy passport control officer. But when Scheeper had time to think it over he must surely see that he had only to deny everything. He could s
ay she had been pestering him to be taken to Brussels and that her accusation was blackmail. The second ticket was for—well, there must be a girl or two in Bucarest with whom he had opened negotiations as he had with Despina. He had never had any intentions of passing her off as his niece, Marie-Louise. Why should he? She had a passport of her own. And that was the end of Nadya’s story.

  ‘We’ll go right through to England,’ Nadya said.

  Tempting if it could be done. In England there was no need for identity cards. Both she and Bernardo Brown could disappear.

  ‘It’s a hard climate without money.’

  ‘You always bother what you are going to live on, David. England is your country. You’re bound to find something.’

  He examined the tickets. They were for the Arlberg Express, first-class without Wagon-Lit. Scheeper had not booked on the Orient or the Simplon because he could not share a sleeper with Nadya and could not let her share with anyone else.

  ‘We’d never get as far,’ he said. ‘We have to cross six frontiers—Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, France and Belgium to England. It takes four days and a telegram from Bucarest will have us arrested at one of them.’

  Was there any way of making Scheeper wait confidently for the return of his passport from Friday to Tuesday? A confederate was needed to keep him quiet, and that was impossible. He could not drag Despina into this; it might mean a black mark against her for ever. That ass, Holgar, would have swallowed any story if it was romantic enough to fit his ice-bound conception of chivalry. But Holgar was in gaol and likely to stay there for weeks unless that beer-sodden consular friend of his could get him out on bail.

  He wondered how much Scheeper would know of the row in the Alhambra—not more, surely, than that Holgar had winded a security major and been run in. Stelian could not tell him a great deal, only that it all had something very secret to do with Mitrani. Scheeper spoke fluent English; so did Holgar with a strongish accent and his unmistakable, constipated delivery.