Before Guy could speak again, Mortimer Tufton, who had no patience with the conjectures of inexperienced youth, broke in with a history of Russian-Rumanian relations, proving that only Allied influences had prevented Russia from devouring the Balkans long ago. Rumania, he said, had been invaded by Russia on eight separate occasions and had suffered a number of ‘friendly occupations’, none of which had ever been forgotten or forgiven. ‘The fact is,’ he concluded, ‘the friendship of Russia has been more disastrous to Rumania than the enmity of the rest of the world.’
‘That was Czarist Russia,’ said Guy. ‘The Soviets are a different proposition.’
‘But not a different race – witness this latest piece of opportunism.’
Catching his small, vain, self-regarding eye fixed severely upon her, Harriet, deciding to win him, smiled and asked: ‘To whom would you award Bessarabia?’
‘Hmmm!’ said Tufton. He looked away, appearing to swallow something astringent in his throat, but, mollified by her appeal, he gave the question thought. ‘Russia, Turkey and Rumania have been squabbling over that particular province for five hundred years,’ he said. ‘The Russians finally got it in 1812 and held on to it until 1918. I imagine they kept it rather longer than anyone else managed to do, so, on reflection …’ he paused, hemmed again, then impressively announced: ‘I’d be inclined to let them have it.’
Harriet smiled at Guy, passing the award on to him, and Galpin nodded, confirming it.
Galpin’s dark, narrow face hung in folds above his rag of a collar. Elbow on bar, sourly elated by his return to his old position, he kept staring about him for an audience, his moving eyeballs as yellow as the whisky in his hand. As he drank, his yellow wrist, the wrist-bone like half an egg, stuck out rawly from his wrinkled, shrunken, ash-dusty dark suit. A wet cigarette stub clung, forgotten, to the bulging, purple softness of his lower lip and trembled when he spoke.
‘The Russkies are sticking their necks out demanding this territory just when Carol’s declared for the Axis.’
Guy said: ‘I imagine the declaration prompted them to do it. They’re staking their claim before the Germans get too strong here.’
‘Could be.’ Galpin looked vague. He preferred to be the one to theorise, ‘Still, they’re sticking their necks out.’ He looked for Tufton’s agreement and when he got it grunted, agreeing with himself, then added: ‘If the Germans ever attacked them, I wouldn’t give the Russkies ten days.’
As they were discussing the Russian war potential, in which Guy alone had faith, a small man in dilapidated grey cotton, an old trilby pressed against his chest, sidled in and nudged Galpin. This was Galpin’s scout, a shadow who lived by nosing out news, taking one version of it to the German journalists at the Minerva, and another to the English in the Athénée Palace.
When Galpin bent down, the scout whispered in his ear. Galpin listened with intent interest. Everyone waited to hear what had been said, but he was in no hurry to tell them. With a sardonic, bemused expression, he took out a bundle of dirty paper money and handed over the equivalent of sixpence, which reward was received with reverent gratitude. Then he paused, smiling around the company.
‘The eagerly awaited message has arrived,’ he said at last.
‘Well, what is it?’ Tufton impatiently asked.
‘The Führer has asked Carol to cede Bessarabia without conflict.’
‘Hah!’ Tufton gave a laugh which said he had expected as much.
Galpin’s close companion, Screwby, asked: ‘This is a directive?’
‘Directive, nothing,’ said Galpin. ‘It’s a command.’
‘So it’s settled,’ said Screwby bleakly. ‘No chance of a scrap?’
Tufton scoffed at him: ‘Rumania take on Russia single-handed? Not a chance. Their one hope was Axis backing if they stood firm. But Hitler doesn’t intend going to war with Russia – anyway, not over Bessarabia.’
The journalists finished their drinks before making for the telephones in the hall. No one showed any inclination to hurry. The news was negative. Rumania would submit without a fight.
When they left the hotel, the Pringles were surprised at the quiet outside. The Führer’s command must be known to everyone now, but there was no hint of revolt. If there had been a show of anger, it was over now. The atmosphere was subdued. A few people stood outside the palace as though there might still be hope, but the majority were dispersing in silence, having recognised that there was nothing more to be done.
After the tense hours of uncertainty, acceptance of the ultimatum had probably brought as much relief as disappointment. Whatever else it might mean, it meant that life in Bucharest would go on much as before. No one would be called upon to die in a desperate cause.
Next day the papers were making the best of things. Rumania, they said, had agreed to cede Bessarabia and the northern Bukovina, but Germany had promised that after the war these provinces would be returned to her. Meanwhile, in obeying the Führer’s will, she was sacrificing herself to preserve the peace of Eastern Europe. It was a moral victory and the officers withdrawing their men from the ceded territory might do so with breasts expanded and heads held high.
Flags were at half-mast. The cinemas were ordered to shut for three days of public mourning. And the rumour went round that the Rumanian officers, now pelting down south, had abandoned their units, their military equipment and even their own families, in panic flight before the advancing Russians. By the end of June, Bessarabia and the northern Bukovina had become part of the Soviet Union.
When the Pringles next visited the English Bar, Galpin said: ‘Do you realise the Russian frontier is less than a hundred and twenty miles from here? The bastards could be on top of us before we’d even known they’d started.’
2
Harriet had imagined that when the term ended they would be free to go where they pleased. She longed to escape, if only for a few weeks, not only from the disquiet of the capital, but from their uncertain situation. She thought they might leave Rumania altogether. A boat went from Constanza to Istanbul, and thence to Greece. Excited by the prospect of such a journey, she appealed to Guy, who said: ‘I’m afraid I can’t go just now. Inchcape’s asked me to organise a summer school. In any case, he feels none of us should leave the country at the moment. It would create a bad impression.’
‘But no one spends the summer in Bucharest.’
‘They will this year. People are afraid to leave in case something happens and they can’t get back. As a matter of fact, I’ve already enrolled two hundred students.’
‘Rumanians?’
‘A few. The Jews are crowding in. They’re very loyal.’
‘I should say it’s not just loyalty. They want to get away to English-speaking countries.’
‘You can’t blame them for that.’
‘I don’t blame them,’ said Harriet but, disappointed, she was inclined to blame someone. Probably Guy himself.
Now she was coming to know Guy, she was beginning to judge him. When they had married ten months before, she had accepted him, uncritically, as a composite of virtues. She did not demur when Clarence described him as ‘a saint’. She still might not demur, but she knew now that one aspect of his saintliness was composed of human weaknesses.
She said: ‘I don’t believe Inchcape thought of this school. He’s lost interest in the English Department. I believe it’s all your idea.’
‘I discussed it with Inchcape. He agreed that one can’t spend the summer lazing around while other men are fighting a war.’
‘And what is Inchcape going to do? I mean, apart from sitting in the Bureau reading Henry James.’
‘He’s an old man,’ said Guy, deflecting criticism as much from himself as from his superior. Since Inchcape, who was the professor, had become Director of Propaganda, Guy had run the English Department with the help only of three elderly ex-governesses and Dubedat, an elementary school-teacher, marooned in the Balkans by war. With uncomplaining enthusiasm, Guy di
d much more than was expected of him; but he was not imposed upon. He did what he wanted to do and did it, Harriet believed, to keep reality at bay.
During the days of the fall of France, he had thrown himself into a production of Troilus and Cressida. Now, when their Rumanian friends were beginning to avoid them, he was giving himself up to this summer school. He would not only be too busy to notice their isolation, but too busy to care about it. She wanted to accuse him of running away – but how accuse someone who was, to all appearances, steadfast on the site of danger, a candidate for martyrdom? It was she, it seemed, who wanted to run away.
She asked: ‘When does the school start?’
‘Next week.’ He laughed at her tone of resignation, and, putting an arm round her, said: ‘Don’t look so glum. We’ll get away before the summer ends. We’ll go to Predeal.’
She smiled and said: ‘All right,’ but as soon as she was alone she went to the telephone, looking for comfort, and rang up the only Englishwoman she knew here who was of her generation. This was Bella Niculescu, who had very little to do and was usually only too ready to talk. That morning, however, she cut Harriet off abruptly, saying she was dressing to go out to luncheon. She suggested that Harriet come to tea that afternoon.
Harriet waited until nearly five o’clock before venturing into the outdoor heat. At that time a little shade was stretching from the buildings, but in the Boulevard Breteanu, where Bella lived, the buildings had been demolished to make way for blocks of flats, only two or three of which had been built when war brought work to a stop. The pavements were shade-less between the white baked earth of vacant lots.
In summer this area was a dormitory for beggars and unemployed peasants, and the dust-filled air carried a curious odour, sweetish, unclean yet volatile, distilled by the sun from earth saturated with urine and ordure.
Bella’s block rose sheer from the ground like a prow from water. Against its side-wall a peasant had pitched a hut for the sale of vegetables and cigarettes. Several beggars sleeping in the shade of the hut made an attempt to rouse themselves at Harriet’s step and whined in a half-hearted way. One of them was well known to her. She had seen him first on her first day in Bucharest: a demanding, bad-tempered fellow who, recognising a foreigner, had thrust his ulcerated leg at her like a threat and refused to be satisfied with what she gave him. At that time she had been horrified by the beggars, especially this beggar. Having just journeyed three days to the eastern edge of Europe, she had seen him as a portent of life in the strange, half-Oriental capital to which marriage had brought her.
Guy had said she must become used to the beggars; and, in a way, she had done so. She had even become reconciled to this man, and he to her. Now she handed him the same small coins a Rumanian would have given and he accepted them, sullenly, but without protest.
The smells of the boulevard did not enter the block of flats, which was air-conditioned. In its temperate, scentless atmosphere, Harriet’s head cleared, and, stimulated and cheerful, she thought of Bella to whom she could look for companionship during the empty summer ahead. She contemplated their meeting with pleasure, but as she entered the drawing-room she realised something was wrong. She felt so little welcome that she came to a stop inside the door.
‘Well, take a pew,’ Bella said crossly, as though Harriet were at fault in awaiting the invitation.
Sitting on the edge of the large blue sofa, Harriet said: ‘It’s beautifully cool in here. It seems hotter than ever outside.’
‘What do you expect? It’s July.’ Bella pulled a bell-cord, then stared impatiently at the door as though she, who chattered so easily, were now at a loss how to entertain her guest.
Two servants entered, one with the tea, the other with cakes. Bella watched, frowning in a displeased fashion, as the trays were put down. Harriet, discomfited, also found herself at a loss for conversation and looked at an early edition of the evening paper which lay beside her on the sofa. When the girls went, she made a comment on the headline: ‘I see Drucker is to be tried at last.’
Bella inclined her head, saying: ‘Personally, I’d let him rot. He made out he was pro-British, but his rate of exchange was all in favour of Germany. Lots of people say his bank was ruining the country.’ She spoke tartly, but in a refined tone reminding Harriet of their first tea-party when Bella, fearing that her guest might have pretensions to family or wealth, had overwhelmed her with gentility. Eventually set at ease, Bella had revealed a hearty appetite for gossip and a ribaldry which Harriet, in need of a friend, had come to enjoy. Now here was Bella, a great classical statue of a woman in an unnatural pose, again barricaded behind her best electro-plated tea-service. For some reason they were back where they had started from.
Harriet said: ‘I met Drucker once. His son was one of Guy’s students. He was a warm-hearted man; very good-looking.’
‘Humph!’ said Bella. ‘Seven months in prison won’t have improved his looks.’ Unable to repress superior knowledge, she took a more comfortable pose and nodded knowingly. ‘He was a womaniser, like most good-looking men. And, in a way, that’s what did for him. If Madame hadn’t thought he was fair game, she’d never have tried to get him to part with his oil holdings. When he refused her, she took it as a personal affront. She was furious. Any woman would be. So she went to Carol, who saw a chance to get his hands on some cash and trumped up this charge of dealing in foreign currency. Drucker was arrested and his family skedaddled.’
Pleased by her own summary of the circumstances leading to Drucker’s fall, Bella could not help smiling. Harriet, feeling the atmosphere between them relaxing, asked: ‘What do you think they will do to him?’
‘Oh, he’ll be found guilty – that goes without saying. He’ll have to forfeit his oil holdings, of course; but there’s this fortune he’s got salted away in Switzerland. Carol can’t take that, so if Drucker makes it over he might get off lightly. Rumanians are quite humane, you know.’
Harriet said: ‘But Drucker can’t make it over. The money’s in his son’s name.’
‘Who told you that?’ Bella spoke sharply and Harriet, unable to disclose the source of it, wished she had kept her knowledge to herself.
‘I heard it some time ago. Guy was fond of Sasha. He’s been trying to find out what became of him.’
‘Surely the boy bolted with the rest of the family?’
‘No. He was taken away when they arrested his father, but apparently he’s not in prison. No one knows where he is. He’s just disappeared.’
‘Indeed!’ Used to being the authority on things Rumanian, Bella was looking bored by Harriet’s talk of the Druckers, so Harriet changed to a subject which was always of interest. ‘How is Nikko?’ she asked.
Conscripted like the majority of Rumanian males, Bella’s husband was usually on leave. It was Bella’s money that bought his freedom.
‘He’s been recalled,’ she said bleakly. ‘They’re all in a funk, of course, over Bessarabia.’
In the past Harriet would have heard this news on arrival and it would have kept Bella in complaints for an hour or more.
‘Where is his regiment at the moment?’ Harriet encouraged her.
‘The Hungarian front. That damned Carol Line, not that there’s anything anyone could call a line. A fat lot of good it would be if the Huns did march in.’
‘I expect you’ll be able to get him back?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ll have to cough up again.’
Bella had nothing more to say and Harriet, attempting to keep some sort of conversation going, spoke of the changing attitude of the Rumanians towards the English, saying: ‘They treat us like an enemy – a defeated enemy: guilty but pitiable.’
‘I can’t say I’ve noticed it,’ said Bella, her tone aloof: ‘But, of course, it’s different for me.’
There was a long silence. Harriet, exhausted by her attempts to break down Bella’s restraint, put down her teacup, saying she had shopping to do. She imagined Bella would be relieved by her departure,
but, instead, Bella gave her a troubled look as though there was still something to be resolved between them.
They went together into the hall where Harriet, making a last approach, suggested they might, as they often did, meet for coffee at Mavrodaphne’s. ‘What about tomorrow morning?’ she said.
Bella put her large, white hands to her pearls and stared down at the chequered marble floor. ‘I don’t know,’ she said vaguely as she placed her white shoe exactly in the centre of a black square. ‘It’s difficult.’
Knowing that Bella had almost nothing to do, Harriet asked impatiently: ‘How, difficult? Whatever is the matter, Bella?’
‘Well …’ Bella paused, watching the toe of her shoe, which she turned from side to side. ‘Me being an Englishwoman married to a Rumanian, I have to go carefully. I mean, I have to think of Nikko.’
‘But, of course.’
‘Well, I think we’d better not be seen together at Mavrodaphne’s. And about ringing each other up: I think we should stop while things are as they are. My phone’s probably tapped.’
‘Surely not. The telephone company is British.’
‘But it employs Rumanians. You don’t know this country like I do. Any excuse and they’d arrest Nikko just to get a bribe to release him. It’s always being done.’
‘I don’t honestly see …’ Harriet began, then paused as Bella gave her a miserable glance. She said: ‘But you’ll come and see me sometimes?’
‘Yes, I will.’ Bella nodded. ‘I promise. But I’ll have to be careful. I must say, I wish I’d never appeared in Troilus. It was a sort of declaration.’
‘Of what? The fact you are English? Everyone knows that.’
‘I’m not so sure.’ Bella drew back her foot. ‘My Rumanian’s practically perfect. Everyone says so.’ She jerked her face up, pink with the effort of saying what she had said, and her look was defiant.
The Balkan Trilogy Page 35
