The Balkan Trilogy

by Olivia Manning

  Six, even three, months ago, Harriet would have despised Bella’s fears; now she felt compassion for them. The time might soon come when the English would have to go and Bella would be left here without a compatriot. She had to protect herself against that time. Harriet touched her arm: ‘I understand how you feel. Don’t worry. You can trust me.’

  Bella’s face softened. With a nervous titter, she took a hand from her pearls and put it over Harriet’s hand. ‘But I will drop in,’ she said; ‘I don’t expect anyone will notice me. And, after all, they can’t deprive me of my friends.’

  3

  That evening, on their way to the Cişmigiu Park, the Pringles met Clarence Lawson.

  Clarence was not one of the organisation men. He had been seconded to the English Department by the British Council and at the outbreak of war had gone with Inchcape into the Propaganda Bureau. Bored by the work, or lack of work, there, he had taken on the administration of Polish relief and organised the escape of interned Polish soldiers.

  Guy said to him: ‘We’re going to have a drink in the park. Why not come with us?’

  Clarence, as tall as Guy but much leaner, drooped sadly as he considered this proposal and, rubbing a doubtful hand over his lean face, said: ‘I don’t know that I can.’

  As he edged away a little, apparently feeling the pull of urgent business elsewhere, Harriet said: ‘Come on, Clarence. A walk will do you good.’

  Clarence gave her an oblique, suspicious glance and mumbled something about work. Harriet laughed. Aware of his eagerness to be with her, she took his arm and led him up the Calea Victoriei. As he went, he grumbled: ‘Oh, all right, but I can’t stay long.’

  They walked through crowds that, having accepted the loss of Bessarabia, were as lively as they had ever been. Harriet was used to the rapid recovery of these people who had outworn more than a dozen conquerors and survived eight hundred years of oppression, but now she thought they looked almost complacent. She said: ‘They seem to be congratulating themselves on something.’

  ‘They probably are,’ said Clarence. ‘The new Cabinet has repudiated the Anglo-French guarantee. The new Foreign Minister was a leader in the Iron Guard. So now they know exactly where they are. They’re really committed to Hitler and he must protect them. They think the worst is over, and –’ he pointed to the placard of the Bukarester Tageblatt which read: FRIEDEN IM HERBST – ‘they think the war is over, too.’

  At the park gate, he paused, murmuring: ‘Well, now, I really think I …’ but as the Pringles went on, ignoring his vagaries, he followed them.

  Passing from the fashionable street into the unfashionable park, they moved from hubbub into tranquillity. Here, as the noise of the street faded, there was nothing to be heard but the hiss of sprinklers. The air was sweet with the scent of wet earth. Only a few peasants stood about, admiring the spectacle of the tapis vert. The only flowers that thrived in the heat were the canna lilies, now reflecting in their reds and yellows and flame colours the flamboyance of the sunset sky.

  Down by the lakeside, the vendors of sesame cake and Turkish delight stood, as they had stood all day, silent and humble beneath the chestnut trees. Beyond the trees, a little gangway led to a café which was chiefly used by shop assistants and minor clerks. It was here that Guy had arranged to meet his friend David Boyd.

  As they crossed the flexing boards of the artificial island, Harriet could see David sitting by the café rail in the company of a Jewish economist called Klein.

  Guy and David had met first in 1938 when they were both newcomers to Bucharest. David, a student of Balkan history and languages, had been visiting Rumania. He reappeared the following winter, having been appointed to the British Legation as an authority on Rumanian affairs. The two men, of an age and physically similar, resembled each other in outlook, both believing that a Marxist economy was the only remedy for the feudal mismanagement of Eastern Europe.

  At the sight of the new arrivals Klein leapt to his feet and advanced on them with arms wide in welcome. The Pringles had met him only twice before, but at once Guy, like a fervent bear, caught hold of the stout, little, pink-cheeked man, and the two patted each other lovingly on the back. David snuffled his amusement as he watched this embrace.

  When released, Klein swung round excitedly to greet Harriet, the flush rising from his cheeks to his bald head. ‘And Doamna Preen-gal!’ he cried. ‘But this is nice!’ He wanted to include Clarence in his rapture, but Clarence hung back with an uneasy grin.

  ‘So nice, but so nice!’ Klein repeated as he offered Harriet his seat by the rail.

  The evening was very warm. Guy had been walking with his cotton jacket over his arm and his shirt-sleeves rolled up, a state of undress which the Rumanians regarded as indecent. The café patrons, though shabby, sweaty, and only a generation or two away from the peasantry, were all tightly buttoned up in the dark suits that indicated their respectability. They looked askance at Guy, but Klein took off his jacket, revealing braces and the steel bracelets that held up the sleeves of his striped shirt. He also removed his tie from under his hard collar, laughing at himself as he said: ‘In this country they do not dress for taking off the coat, but here, I ask you, what does it matter?’

  Meanwhile David, who had raised himself slightly in greeting, now slumped back into his chair to indicate it was time for these pleasantries to cease and serious talk to begin again. Chairs were found. Everybody was seated at last.

  David, his bulk enhanced by a linen suit that had shrunk in the wash, his large square dark face glistening with sweat, pushed his glasses up his moist nose and said to Klein: ‘You were saying … ?’

  Called to order, Klein surveyed the company and said: ‘First you must know, Antonescu has been flung into jail.’

  ‘For speaking the truth again?’ David asked.

  Klein grinned and nodded.

  Harriet did not know what David’s occupation was at the Legation, and if Guy knew he kept his knowledge to himself. David was often away from Bucharest. He said that he went to watch the bird life of the Danube delta.

  Inchcape claimed that once, in Braşov, he had recognised David under the disguise of a Greek Orthodox priest. He had said: ‘Hello, what the devil are you up to?’ and as the other swept by had received the reply: ‘Procul, o procul este, profani.’ Whether this story, and all it implied, was true or not, David, whose subject was Balkan history, was noted for his inside knowledge of Rumanian affairs, some of which was obtained from associates like Klein.

  ‘It is such a story!’ Klein said, and ordered another bottle of wine. While the glasses were filled, he paused, but kept his brilliant glance moving from one to the other of his companions. When the waiter was gone, he asked: ‘What am I? An illegal immigrant, let out of prison to advise the Cabinet. What do I know? Why should they heed me? “Klein,” they say, “you are a silly Jew.”’

  Rather impatiently, David interrupted to ask: ‘But what was the cause of Antonescu’s arrest?’

  ‘Ah, the arrest! Well – you know he went to the palace on the night of the ultimatum. He asked to see the King and was prevented. Urdureanu prevented him. The two men came to blows. You heard that, of course? Yes, to blows, inside the palace. A great scandal.’

  ‘Was he arrested for that?’

  ‘Not for that, no. Yesterday he received a summons from the King himself. Being fearful that from emotion he could not speak, he wrote a letter. He wrote: “Majesty, our country crumbles about us.” Now, did I not say that the country would crumble? You remember, I described Rumania as a person who has inherited a great fortune. From folly, he loses it all.’

  ‘What else did Antonescu say?’ Clarence asked, his slow, deep voice causing Klein to glance round in surprise.

  Delighted at hearing Clarence speak, Klein went on: ‘Antonescu said: “Majesty, I cry to you to save our nation,” and begged the King to rid himself of the false friends about his throne. When he read the letter, the King instantly ordered his arrest. It
is for Urdureanu a great victory.’

  Klein sounded regretful and Guy asked: ‘Does it matter? Urdureanu is a crook, but Antonescu is a fascist.’

  Klein stuck out his lower lip and rocked his head from side to side. ‘It is true,’ he said. ‘Antonescu supported the Iron Guard, but, in his way, he is a patriot. He wishes to end corruption. How he would act in power one cannot tell.’

  ‘He would just be another dictator,’ Guy said.

  The talk turned to criticism of the King’s dictatorship, out of which Clarence suddenly said: ‘The King has his faults, but he’s not insensitive. When he knew Bessarabia was lost, he burst into tears.’

  ‘Crying over the oysters he’s eaten – or, rather, got to cough up,’ David said, sniffling and snuffling with amusement at his own wit.

  ‘Anyone can cry,’ said Harriet. ‘In this country it doesn’t mean much.’

  Clarence gave her a pained look and, tilting his chair back from this unsympathetic company, drawled: ‘I’m not so sure of that.’ After a pause in which no one spoke, he added: ‘He’s our only friend. When he goes, we’ll go – if we’re lucky enough to get away.’

  ‘That’s true,’ David agreed; ‘and we can thank ourselves for it. If we’d protected the country against the King instead of the King against the country, the situation here would have been very different.’

  Klein stretched out his short, plump, shirt-sleeved arms and beamed about him. ‘Did I not tell you if you stayed it would be interesting? You have not seen a half. Already this new Cabinet arranged to ration meat and petrol.’ As the others looked at him in astonishment, he threw back his head and laughed. ‘This new Cabinet! Never have I laughed so much. First they repudiate the Anglo-French guarantee. That is easy, everyone feels big work is done – but then, what to do? One has an idea. “Let us,” he says, “order for each of us a big desk, a swivel chair, a fine carpet!” “Good, good!” they all agree. Then rises the new Foreign Minister. Once he was a nobody, now he is the great man. He calls to me to approach. He says, “Klein, give me a list of our poets.” I bow. “You will have them in what order?” I ask. “Sometimes such a list is put in order of literary merit. How naïve! How arbitrary! Why not in order of height, of weight, of income, or the year they did their military service?” “So,” says the Foreign Minister, “so we will have it: the year they did their military service. I propose now that these poets write poems to the great Iron Guard leader Codreanu, who is dead but in spirit still lives among us. Domnul Prime Minister, what opinion have you of this proposition?” “Hm, hm,” mumbles the Prime Minister. What can he say? Was not Codreanu the enemy of the King? “The opinion I have … the opinion I have … oh!” He sees me and looks very stern. “Klein,” he says, “what opinion have I of the proposition!” “You think it is good, Domnul Prime Minister,” I tell him.’

  Klein’s stories went on. The others were content to let him talk.

  The sunset was fading. Electric light bulbs of different colours sprang up along the café rail. A last tea-rose flush coloured the western sky, giving a glint to the olive darkness of the water. Harriet watched the trees on the other side of the lake as they drew together in the twilight, sombre and weighty as the trees in an old tapestry.

  ‘The other day,’ said Klein, ‘in marched His Majesty. “I have decided,” he said, “to sell to my country my summer palace in the Dobrudja. It will be like a gift to the nation, for I am asking only a million million lei.” “But,” cried the Prime Minister, “when Bulgaria takes the Dobrudja, they will take the palace as well.” “What!” cried the King. “Are you a traitor? Never will Bulgaria take our Dobrudja. First will we fight till every Rumanian is dead. I will lead them myself on my white horse.” And everyone leaps up and cheers, and they sing the national anthem; but when it is all over, they find they must buy the palace for a million million.’

  Harriet, laughing with the rest, kept her face turned towards the lake from which came a creak of oars and the lap of passing boats. She looked down on a creamy scum of water on which there floated sprays of elder flower, flat-faced and lacy, plucked by the boatmen and thrown away. A scent of stocks came from somewhere, materialising out of nothing, then passing and not returning. The wireless was playing ‘The Swan of Tuonela’, bringing to her mind some green northern country with lakes reflecting a silver sky. About them, she thought, were the constituents of peace and yet, sitting here talking and laughing, they were, all of them, on edge with the nervous city’s tension.

  She began to think of England and their last sight of the looped white cliffs, the washed white and blue of the sky, the sea glittering and chopped by the wind. They should have been stirred by the sight, full of regrets, but they had turned their backs on it, excited by change and their coming life together. Guy had said they would return home for Christmas. Asked how they took life, they would have said: ‘Any way it comes.’ Chance and uncertainty were part of it. The last thing she would have wanted for them was a settled life lived peaceably in one town. Now her attitude had changed. She had begun to long for safety.

  ‘… and then the new Prime Minister makes a great speech.’ Klein raised his hand and gazed solemnly about him. ‘He says: “Now is the time for broad issues. We do not worry about trifles …” then, suddenly, he stops. He points to the things on his table. His eyes flash fire. “Cigarettes,” he cries, “pastilles, mineral water, indigestion tablets, aspirin. Auguste,” he calls, “come here at once. How many times I say to you what must be on my table? Tell me, Auguste, where is the aspirin? Ah, so! Now I speak again. This, I say, is the time for broad issues …”’

  A gipsy flower-seller, trailing around her an old evening dress of reseda chiffon, came to the table and placed some tight little bunches of cornflowers at David’s elbow. She said nothing, but held out her hand. He pushed them aside and told her to go away. She remained where she was, silent like a tired horse glad to stand rather than move, and kept her hand out. If they ignored her, she might stand there all night. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said David in sudden, acute irritation, and he gave her a few lei. Shyly, with an ironical grin, he slid the flowers over to Harriet.

  The park was now in darkness. During the early summer it had been illuminated, but the lights had been switched off when Paris fell and never switched on again. The café floating, an island of brilliance on the water, drew the boats towards it. Though poor, it had its pretensions. It did not admit peasants in peasant dress, but these were allowed to hire the cheap and shabby boats. Now, stopping just beyond the water’s luminous verge, the boatmen gazed with envious respect at the patrons in their city suits.

  Klein was saying: ‘… then the Prime Minister says: “Here is the report. Domnul Secretary, never must this report be shown to Herr Dorf. You understand?” The secretary writes across the report: “Never to be shown to Herr Dorf.” One minute later the door opens and in comes Herr Dorf. The secretary holds the report to his chest. Never will he show it; first will he die. But what does the Prime Minister say? “No,” he says, “Herr Dorf shall see the report. Always I play with my cards on the table.”’

  At Guy’s shout of laughter, the nearest boatload realised that here were foreigners. The opportunity was too good to miss. Their oars touched the water: they drifted into the light. The man in the middle seat began to do some simple acrobatics, then managed, clumsily, to stand on his hands. While this was going on, his companions stared expectantly towards the English. The acrobatics over, they began singing together a sad little song, after which they made diffident attempts to beg. Harriet, the only one who had been aware of the performance, threw some coins. They lingered awhile, hoping for more but lacking the courage to ask, then at last took themselves off.

  The talk had now moved to the Drucker trial. It was Klein who had obtained for Guy the little information he had about Sasha Drucker’s disappearance. He grimaced now as the others questioned him about the trial, saying he was not much interested in this Drucker ‘who had lived well a
nd now was not so well’.

  ‘Will the Germans protect him?’ Guy asked.

  Klein shook his head.

  ‘As his business was with Germany,’ said Clarence, ‘the trial could be interpreted as an anti-German gesture?’

  Klein laughed. ‘A gesture perhaps, but not anti-German. They try to show him Rumania is still a free country. She is not afraid before the world to bring this rich banker to justice. And the trial diverts people. It keeps their minds off Bessarabia. But the Germans, what do they care? Drucker is no use now. Ah, Doamna Preen-gal’ – as Klein leant towards Harriet a pink light coloured his cheek – ‘was I not right? I said if you stayed here it would be interesting. More and more is it necessary to buy off the Germans with food. Believe me, the day will come when this’ – he touched the saucers of sheep-cheese and olives that came with the wine – ‘this will be a feast. You are watching a history, Doamna Preen-gal. Stay, and you will see a country die.’

  ‘Will you stay, too?’ she asked him.

  He laughed again – perhaps because laughter was the only answer to life as he saw it: but it occurred to her, for the first time, that his was the laughter of a man not completely sane.

  Speaking seriously, David asked him: ‘Can you stay? Are you safe here?’

  Klein shrugged. ‘I doubt. The old ministers would say to me: “Klein, you are a Jew and a rogue. Make the budget balance,” and they would joke with me. But the new men do not joke. When I am no longer of use, what will they do to me?’

  ‘Are you ever afraid?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘But I am always afraid,’ Klein laughed, and taking Harriet’s hand, stared at her. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘Doamna Preen-gal should not stay too long.’

  An hour or so later, Clarence was still with them, though he had had nothing to say since his remark about the Drucker trial. When they left, he let Guy go ahead with David and Klein, and loitered behind, hoping Harriet would join him. She had seen very little of him, since at the party given for Guy’s production of Troilus and Cressida she had been unable to take seriously the suggestion she should return to England with him. Now their friendship was, as she supposed, at an end, she found herself regretting it. Usually silent under the pressure of competitive talk, she did not enjoy the audience Guy liked to have around him. With a single companion, however, she talked readily enough and, herself the child of divorced parents, neither of whom had found it convenient to give her a home, she had felt a rather unwilling sympathy for Clarence, whose childhood had been wretched. She did not want to share his distrust of the world. She had rallied him, scoffed at him, but the sympathy had been there nevertheless. Now, as she walked with him, she felt his distrust turned against her. He had accused her of encouraging him and rejecting him – and perhaps she had. They passed in silence under the chestnut trees, avoiding the peasants who had settled down to spend the night there, and turned into a side lane, overhung by aromatic trees, where the air, damp and cool, was occasionally scented by unseen flowers.