The Balkan Trilogy

by Olivia Manning

  Alan moved round slowly in his chair. Harriet and Yakimov lifted their heads. They all looked up at the Greek peninsula that flew like a tattered banner towards Africa.

  ‘They’ve got everything,’ Pinkrose panted. ‘The Italians are in Albania. The Germans have got Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. They’ve got the whole frontier.’

  Yakimov murmured in admiring awe: ‘So they have, dear boy!’

  ‘What’s going to happen here, I’d like to know? Something’s got to be done. I was sent here in error. I came to the Balkans in all innocence. All innocence. Yes, all innocence. No one knew the dangers; they don’t know now. If they did, they would order me back. But the Organization is bound to repatriate me; it is in my agreement. And now’s the time. Yes, now’s the time. I want it fixed up without delay.’

  ‘I have nothing to do with the Organization,’ Alan said with even patience. ‘You are the Organization head. Surely it’s up to you to fix your repatriation?’

  ‘I am fixing it. I’m fixing it now. Here and now. Yes, yes, here and now, I’m putting it into your hands, Frewen. I look to you.’

  ‘Oh? Well! I don’t know what I can do, but I’ll make inquiries. There’s no regular transport; you know that. I’ve heard it suggested that a civilian – one of the top brass, of course – might, if the need arose, be given a lift to Egypt by the R.A.F.’

  ‘I came on a service plane,’ Pinkrose said eagerly. ‘I travelled in a bomb bay.’

  ‘Did you indeed! Well, I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Yes, yes, see what you can do. Give it top priority. Treat it as an emergency. Let me know within the next hour.’

  ‘Good heavens, the next hour! I won’t hear anything within the next week. There may be nothing for six weeks.’

  ‘Six weeks? Six weeks! You speak in jest, Frewen.’

  ‘I do not speak in jest. These things take time.’

  Pinkrose’s face quivered. Drawing in his breath, he cried in agony: ‘Then I’m trapped?’

  ‘We’re all trapped, if it comes to that. But I see no immediate cause for alarm. The situation’s no worse. If anything, it looks a bit brighter. The Germans have agreed to respect Yugoslav sovereignty; they say they won’t send troops through Yugoslavia. I know you can’t trust them, but they’ll be tied up for a bit.’

  Pinkrose stared at Alan, then asked in a small voice: ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘It’s official. And what about the lecture? Are we to call that off?’

  Pinkrose swallowed in his throat and looked down at the floor. ‘No,’ he said after a long pause. ‘I was precipitous, Frewen, I was precipitous. Hold your hand a while.’

  ‘You don’t want me to try to arrange a flight?’

  ‘No. My duty is here. The lecture is of paramount importance. It must be given. Yes, it must be given. And there are other matters …’ Turning abruptly, he hurried off to attend to them.

  One of the other matters was no doubt now on Miss Gladys’s desk. She had just begun to type it when Pinkrose flustered in with another foolscap sheet. ‘Here’s the rest,’ he said and, speaking in a low, intimate and conspiratorial tone, he called Miss Gladys over to a table by the wall. Pushing the maps away and spreading the sheet out, he whispered: ‘Read it through. Tell me if there’s anything you don’t understand.’

  A long interval followed, during which Pinkrose, running his pencil along the lines, muttered under his breath and Miss Gladys whispered: ‘I understand, Lord Pinkrose, I understand.’

  Feeling that her presence was intrusive, Harriet decided to go to the News Room. As she rose, the others were alerted. The muttering ceased. They turned to watch where she might go. She passed Miss Gladys’s desk and stopped. Miss Gladys had typed: REPORT ON GUY PRINGLE. In my opinion Guy Pringle is unsuited for Organization work … Harriet picked up the draft.

  In a stern tone, Miss Gladys said: ‘How dare you touch that! That’s a confidential report.’

  Harriet read on. In the opinion of Pinkrose Guy had dangerous left-wing tendencies. He was a trouble-maker who mixed with notorious Greeks. He had become a centre of sedition and was disapproved by all responsible persons in Athens.

  ‘What a pack of lies!’ she said.

  Further, he had staged an obscene production and complaints had been received from prominent members of the British colony. The Director had banned the production. In spite of that, Pringle was visiting army camps with a play liable to demoralize all who saw it …

  ‘Lord Pinkrose!’ Miss Gladys turned on her superior, indignant that he should give her no support, and Pinkrose began obediently to chatter:

  ‘Put it down. Put it down, I tell you. Put it down.’

  Harriet put it down and asked: ‘What else have you written?’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’ As she approached, Pinkrose snatched up the paper: ‘You have no right …’ he shouted. The paper shook in his hand.

  ‘Oh, yes, I have a right. The Organization does not permit confidential reports. If you write a report on Guy’s work, you’re required to show it to him. He’s supposed to sign it.’

  ‘Sauce!’ said Miss Gladys.

  ‘Required! Required, indeed! I’m the Director; I’m not required to do anything …’ Beside himself with indignation, Pinkrose let his voice rise and at once Miss Mabel began to moan and give little cries of terror.

  Miss Gladys spat at Harriet: ‘Go away. You’re upsetting my sister.’

  ‘Yes, go away,’ Pinkrose screamed. ‘Leave this office. At once. You hear me, at once.’

  Harriet went to her desk and gathered up her belongings. ‘Before I go,’ she said, grandiloquent with rage, ‘I must say: I am surprised that at a time like this, anyone – even you Lord Pinkrose – could stoop to intrigue with Cookson, Dubedat and Lush in order to injure a man who is worth more than the whole lot of you put together.’

  She went out. Alan and Yakimov were peacefully drinking the first ouzo of the day when she burst in on them to say:

  ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Where?’ Alan asked.

  ‘Pinkrose has sacked me; but if he hadn’t, I’d go anyway.’

  ‘Have a drink first.’

  ‘No.’

  Near hysteria, she ran to the church hall. It was shut. She took a taxi to the School. No one there had seen Guy since early morning. She went to Aleko’s. The café was empty. She walked back down Stadium Street looking into every café and bar she passed, and came to Zonar’s. Guy was not to be found.

  Harriet was meeting Charles at the Corinthian. As she walked towards the hotel, Guy’s voice, loud and cheerful, came to her from the distance.

  She saw him helping the driver to take luggage from a taxi. The luggage was being heaped up beside a man who, impressive and large in a fur hat, fur-lined overcoat and fur-topped boots, had the familiarity of a figure in a fairy-tale. Harriet at that moment had no eyes for him but seized on Guy, furiously asking: ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘To the station, to meet the Belgrade Express.’

  ‘Why?’

  Guy stared at Harriet as though only she would not know why. ‘I thought David Boyd would be on it.’

  ‘Oh!’ Harriet subsided. ‘And was he?’

  ‘No. He hasn’t turned up yet. But …’ Guy indicated that he had not returned empty-handed. Indeed, he seemed to think he had brought back a prize. Presenting the large, be-furred man: ‘This is Roger Tandy,’ he said.

  Harriet had heard of Tandy. When he passed through Bucharest, he had been described in the papers as ‘the famous traveller’. That had been before Harriet’s time but Guy had met him briefly, and Tandy, famous traveller or not, had been grateful to see a familiar face when he turned up in Athens among the refugees from Belgrade. He and Guy had fallen on each other like old friends. Now Guy, playing the host, unloading and counting his luggage, wanted to know: ‘How many cases should there be?’

  Tandy replied: ‘Only seven. I travel light.’

  Other taxis were off-
loading other refugees – political refugees, religious refugees, racial refugees, and English wives with small children. The hotel would be crowded, but Roger Tandy did not seem concerned. He seated himself beside an outdoor table and said pleasantly to Harriet: ‘Come, my dear. Before we go in, we’ll have a little snifter.’

  ‘Hadn’t you better make sure of your room?’

  ‘No need. I booked well in advance. At my age one knows which way the wind is blowing.’

  ‘Better make sure,’ Guy said, and he sped into the hotel to confirm Tandy’s booking.

  Tandy patted the chair beside him.

  Harriet, overwhelmed both by his looks and his foresight, sat down. His face was plum-red and his moustache was the colour of fire. The two reds were so remarkable, it was some minutes before she noticed that the little snub nose, the little pink mouth and the small, wet, yellow-brown eyes were altogether commonplace.

  The midday sun was hot. Tandy’s face broke out in globules of sweat. He threw open his greatcoat and unbuttoned the jacket of his cinnamon twill suit, and the sun gleamed on his waistcoat of emerald and gold brocade. His waistcoat buttons were balls of gold filigree. The eyes of passers-by, lighting first on Tandy’s waistcoat, became fixed when they saw that his greatcoat was lined to the hem with resplendent honey-golden fur. One of the passers-by was Yakimov. He was on his bicycle, his own greatcoat, looped up for safety, also displaying a fur lining, but the fur had been old when Yakimov was young.

  Yakimov wobbled into the pavement, put out a foot and somehow managed to get down. ‘Dear girl,’ he called to Harriet, ‘is everything all right?’

  She was reminded of her anxiety of the morning but felt this was no time to discuss it. In any case, she saw that Yakimov had stopped for one reason and one reason only. He meant to meet Tandy.

  Introducing the two men, Harriet stressed Yakimov’s title. Tandy’s eyes grew sharp with interest.

  ‘Sit down, mon prince,’ he said, ‘and join us in a snifter.’

  Yakimov sat down at once. His own eyes, large and tender, examined, with no hint of envy, the immense, well-fed figure of Tandy who was dressed as, in better days, he would have dressed himself. The waiter was recalled and Yakimov asked for a brandy. It came at once and as he put it to his lips his excitement was evident. It seemed a destined meeting and saying: ‘I must go and speak to Guy,’ Harriet left them to find each other.

  Guy was among the crowd at the desk. ‘I want to tell you something,’ she said.

  Giving one ear to her and the other to the cross-currents about him, Guy said: ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘No. Come over here.’ Exasperated by the fact he was worrying over Tandy’s welfare as he would never worry over his own, she pulled him out of the press and said: ‘I’ve something important to tell you.’

  As Harriet told her story Guy’s attention was on the bright out-of-doors and the enticing prospect of Tandy and Yakimov who at that moment were joined by Alan Frewen. She held on to him, and speaking quickly, gave the substance of Pinkrose’s report.

  Guy, frowning, said: ‘It’s not important, surely. No one’s going to take any notice of Pinkrose.’

  ‘Why not? He was appointed Director. They didn’t appoint him in order to ignore him.’

  ‘Perhaps not; but they must know the sort of man he is. I’ve seen reports that Inchcape sent on my work. They were excellent. First-class. If Pinkrose sends in this report – and, after what you said, he may realize he’s doing the wrong thing – it will be compared with the others. They don’t relate. Someone’s talking nonsense and it isn’t Inchcape.’

  ‘How are they to know it isn’t Inchcape?’

  ‘He’ll be called in. He’ll be consulted.’

  ‘He may be dead by then.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Inch always took good care of himself. He’ll be flourishing; and I know he’ll stand by me.’

  ‘Will he? I wonder!’

  ‘You’re making too much out of this.’ Impatient of her fears, he patted her shoulder and was ready to depart. ‘Come and talk to Tandy. I’ve always wanted to meet him.’

  ‘You go. I’ll come in a minute.’

  Without waiting to wonder what there could be to detain her inside the hotel, Guy sped off like a child allowed out to play. When he was through the door, Harriet took herself to the dining-room where she had arranged to meet Charles. She was very late.

  Charles, at luncheon, got to his feet and waited for her to defend herself. She cut at once through any likely accusations by saying: ‘I’ve lost my job.’

  ‘I didn’t know anyone could lose a job these days.’

  ‘It wasn’t incompetence. I had a row with Pinkrose.’

  Charles, forced to laugh, motioned her to join him at the table.

  She said: ‘I can’t stay. Guy is expecting me.’

  ‘Oh!’ His laughter came to a stop.

  He sat blank-faced, while she told the story of the report and concluded: ‘You know, this could wreck Guy’s career with the Organization.’

  ‘I’m sure it couldn’t. There are more jobs than men …’

  ‘I’m thinking of the future when there’ll be more men than jobs.’

  ‘The future?’ Charles looked puzzled as though the future were some unlikely concept he had not studied before, then he glanced aside: ‘Yes, you must consider the future. You complain of Guy but you don’t intend to leave him.’

  ‘Do I complain of Guy?’

  ‘If you don’t, why are you wasting your time with me? You can’t pretend to love me?’

  ‘I don’t pretend anything. But perhaps I do love you. I would like to feel we were friends for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘Yes, indeed! You want me hanging around. You have a husband, but you must have some sort of cavaliere servente as well. There are a lot of women like that.’ Throwing his napkin aside, he got to his feet. ‘I can’t stand any more of this. I’m going up to my room. If you want to see me, you’ll find me there. If you don’t come, I’ll know you never want to see me again.’

  ‘This is too silly—’

  ‘If you don’t come, you never will see me again.’

  ‘An ultimatum?’ Harriet said.

  ‘Yes, an ultimatum.’ He marched off, attracting attention as he passed through the room. He was watched, Harriet saw, not only with admiration, but something near tenderness. She could imagine that for these people he presented an ideal image of the ally who, with nothing to gain, had made this foolhardy venture to fight beside the Greeks. She herself had seen him a symbol touching and poetic of the sacrificial victims of war. Now she knew him better she scarcely knew how she saw him. He passed through the door, angered and injured, and made off to nurse his injury somewhere out of sight.

  One thing was certain: she would not go after him. She would make sure of that by joining Guy and the other men outside, but not at once. Lingering in the dining-room, she saw again his swift, exact movement out of the room and felt drawn to follow him. Not knowing what to do, she sat on as though expecting something or someone to make the decision for her. Or perhaps Charles would come back, rather shamefaced, and treat his ultimatum as a joke.

  Instead, Alan Frewen came to look for her. He said they were all going round to Zonar’s. He did not ask what she was doing there, alone in the dining-room, sitting opposite someone’s uneaten meal, and she realized he did not need to be told. He asked nothing, and said nothing. He did not criticize his fellow men; nor did he wish to become involved in their problems.

  ‘Guy thought you would like to come with us?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll come with you.’

  As they passed through the foyer, she glanced up the stair-case with a vision in mind of Charles hurrying down to her. But there was no one on the stair and no sign of Charles.

  Alan said: ‘Surely you haven’t left the office for good? I need someone to edit my notes on the German broadcasts to Greece.’

  Harriet was beginning to regret her lost employment, but sa
id: ‘I can’t work in the Billiard Room with the Twocurrys.’

  ‘I thought you’d have more space there; but if you like, you can join Yaki and me in the News Room.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ she said.

  26

  Prince Paul claimed that he and his faction had saved Yugoslavia. Perhaps they had unintentionally saved Greece. No one had time to find out. The Regent was gone in a night and next morning all the talk was about revolution. The Regency was terminated. Peter had displaced Paul. The quisling ministers had been arrested. The English, Americans and Russians were being cheered in the streets of Belgrade, and the whole of Yugoslavia was a ferment of rejoicings and anti-Axis demonstrations.

  ‘Magnificent,’ said Ben Phipps. ‘But what happens next?’

  ‘It’s magnificent,’ Guy said, ‘chiefly because they didn’t stop to ask what happens next. They could not accept German domination. They revolted against it without counting the cost. That was certainly magnificent. And what would have happened in any case? Would the Germans have kept the terms of the agreement?’

  Called to order, Ben murmured: ‘Not very likely,’ and Harriet noted that these days Guy was more inclined to call Ben Phipps to order and Ben Phipps more ready to agree with him. As a result, although she still disliked Phipps, she was less resentful of his influence over Guy.

  ‘Still,’ he said. ‘What will happen next?’

  Tandy grunted once or twice and Guy and Ben looked at him. He spoke seldom. When he did speak, it was slowly, with pauses and grunts that promised some deep-set thought, not easily brought to birth. Now, at last reaching the point of speech, he said: ‘We must wait and see.’

  Waiting to see, they waited in the ambience of Tandy who spent most of his day at Zonar’s, usually at an outdoor table he had adopted as his own. He could always be found by anyone in need of companionship. Although he had only just arrived and might soon be returning whence he had come, he was already an established figure in Athens. Large and splendid, he seemed, in a changing world, permanent and unchanging. People gathered about him as about a village oak.

  Tandy came like a gift, a distraction heaven-sent, just when the fine hopes of March were changing to doubts again. Guy had discovered him but Phipps took him up with enthusiasm, and Yakimov clung to him like a lover. In spite of his fame, no one knew much about him. From occasional remarks, they gathered he had begun the war very comfortably in Trieste but, fearing to be trapped there, had moved to Belgrade shortly before the Italians entered against the Allies.