The Balkan Trilogy (21 page)

Harriet was reminded of Doamna Flöhr’s claim that the exclusiveness of the Jews was the exclusiveness of the excluded. What, she wanted to know, had the Rumanians to be so snobbish about? She said: ‘They must suffer from some profound sense of inferiority.’

Such an idea was new and strange to Bella. She looked bewildered as she asked: ‘But what are they inferior to?’

‘Why, to us, of course; to the foreigners and the Jews who run the country for them because they are too lazy to run it for themselves.’

Bella, her mouth open, considered this point a moment, then she gave a gawp of laughter and said: ‘I don’t know. Some of them still have a lot of money, but really, it’s nothing compared with what people have in England and the States.’ A new vigour, roused by indignation, began to displace the careful refinement of her earlier speech: ‘And when you
do
get invited to their houses – the bother of it all! I can’t tell you! Never a nice homey evening – always formality and everyone dressed up to the nines. All the time you have to think twice before you utter. And then this business of pretending you don’t understand the men’s jokes. Having to sit there like a dummy! My goodness, there’s been times when I’d gladly go back to Roehampton. Anyone would think the women here were all bally virgins – and they’re not,
believe me
!’

Exhilarated now by the daring of her own censure, Bella threw back her head, laughing and showing all her large, white, healthy teeth. Harriet laughed, too, feeling they had at last made contact.

‘Here,’ said Bella, ‘have another cake. They’re from Cap
ş
a’s.

I oughtn’t to eat them; I’m putting on weight; but I do enjoy my food.’

‘Life here has its compensations,’ said Harriet.

‘It certainly has. When I first arrived, the English wives were a bit snooty with me. They thought it a come-down to marry
a Rumanian. But my Nikko could show them a thing or two. He’s shown me that Englishwomen know nothing at all.’

Harriet laughed. ‘I expect they know something.’

‘Not much. Anyway, not the lot we had here. And now they’re all coming back. Old Mother Woolley wrote to me, and what do you think she said? She said: “My Joe’s just like other men. With me away, his health suffers.”
I ask you!
’ Bella threw back her head again and her bosom shook with laughter. ‘My Nikko says those old boys only started the scare to get rid of their wives.’ She wiped a tear from her eye. ‘Oh dear, it’s a relief to talk to a woman of my own age – an Englishwoman, I mean – especially now Nikko’s away.’

‘He’s away?’

‘Recalled to his regiment. His papers came yesterday and off he had to go. This morning I went round to see his senior officer. That man’s a crook if ever there was one. It was only October last I arranged for Nikko to be released from service for six months, and here he is called up again. “Ah, Doamna Niculescu,” said the officer “I, too, have a senior officer.” “And what does your senior officer want?” I asked. “Oh, the usual! One hundred thousand
lei
.” I told him straight: “If this war goes on for long, you’ll bankrupt me.” He just roared with laughter.’

‘Your Rumanian must be very good?’

‘I’m told it’s perfect. I did languages, you know. I met Nikko when I was at L.S.E. I speak French, German, Spanish and Italian.’

‘So does Sophie Oresanu. I suppose you know her?’

Bella’s face contracted significantly: ‘That little … um!’

‘You really think she is … ?’

‘I certainly do.’

Harriet, confused by the liberal traditions of her generation, had not been able to condemn Sophie so boldly, but now, hearing Bella speak out without compromise – much, indeed, as Harriet’s aunt used to speak – Harriet was convinced by her certainty.

Bella said: ‘Nikko told me to say nothing, but really! The
way that girl runs after your husband! It’s disgraceful. Quite frankly, I don’t think you should put up with it.’ She spoke rather breathlessly, in defiance of Nikko’s ban. ‘It says a lot for Guy that there hasn’t been more gossip.’

‘Has there been gossip?’

‘But of course there has. Can’t you imagine it? In this place of all places.’

‘I’m sure Guy doesn’t realise …’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t. Still, he ought to have more sense. She’s the sort of girl who’d do anything for a British passport. If I were you, I’d put a stop to it.’

Harriet sat silent. Bella’s statement that Guy should have ‘more sense’ had struck her like a revealed truth.

When it was time for her to go, Bella came with her into the hall, where the floor was tessellated in black and white. The white walls were smooth as cream. Harriet said: ‘This is a very good block. Ours is so flimsy, the wind seems to blow through it.’

Bella laughed. ‘You’re in Bloc
ş
ul Cazacul. That was built by Horia Cazacu, whose motto is:
Santajul etajul
.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘He’s a financier but his income is chiefly from blackmail. It more or less means “Each blackmail builds a new floor”. Bloc
ş
ul Cazacul is bad even for Bucharest.’

Feeling indebted to Bella for her friendly advances, Harriet asked her if she would be alone at Christmas.

‘I’ll be alone all right,’ said Bella. ‘Catch them asking me out without Nikko.’ The bitter amusement of Bella’s tone disclosed her struggle to establish herself among the ‘real’ Rumanians.

Harriet squeezed her arm. ‘Then come and have supper with us,’ she said.

The public rooms of the Athénée Palace were crowded with visitors. On this, the first Christmas season of the war, war was forgotten. The threat of invasion had passed even from memory. Life here had always been uncertain and the people,
like rabbits who have escaped the snare, recovered quickly. The Rumanian guests who sat drinking in the main room seemed to Harriet to exude confidence and self-sufficiency.

The new atmosphere had found expression in the Bucharest papers, which drew attention to the loss by Germany of the battle of the River Plate; and the fact that the Finns were making fools of the Russian invaders. Perhaps the threatening Powers were not, after all, so powerful! Perhaps the threat was all one great bluff! But, bluff or no bluff, Rumania had little to fear, being a richly provided country separated from the squabbles of others by a wall of snow-blocked mountains.

This attitude of self-congratulation did not persist into the breakfast room, where Dobson was introducing Commander Sheppy to those whom he had himself invited. There the air seemed edgy with uncertainties. Dobson, despite his charm, was a nervous host. When Harriet presented herself, he said: ‘You ought to meet Sheppy,’ but Sheppy was surrounded. ‘A little later, I think,’ said Dobson, dropping her and going to Woolley, who had entered behind her.

Guy, Inchcape and Clarence had not yet arrived. Among the other guests there was no one whom she knew well enough to approach. She took a drink and went to the French-window. Outside was the garden where she had sat in the sunlight with Yakimov only a short time before. Now the light from the room touched a bloom of snow on the north-east flanks of the trees. Somewhere outside in the darkness the boy was still emptying his urn. She thought she heard the tinkle of water, but could not be sure. Soon even moving water would be stilled to ice and the garden silent until spring.

A waiter, mistaking for a reprimand her interest in the world beyond the window, came fussily over and pulled the curtains. Then she had nothing to look at but the members of the business community gathered round the man who must be Commander Sheppy. She heard his voice come harsh and antagonising: ‘That, gentlemen, will be my problem.’ Then someone moved and she was able to see him.

Harriet noted the black eye-patch, the captive stick swinging
and clattering beside him, the artificial hand held like an adornment, and smiled, thinking his manner that of someone who has taken a correspondence course in leadership. When she turned away she noticed Woolley at the bar and, crossing impulsively to him, said: ‘I hear your wife is returning. Now don’t you think I was wise to remain in Bucharest?’

He stared at her, rebuking her with his long silence, then he said with decision: ‘No, I don’t. If you want to know what I think of you staying here, after all it cost me to send my lady wife home – I think it wasn’t playing the game.’ His brief nod underlined his opinion and he strode from her to join his associates round Sheppy.

At that moment Guy, Clarence and Inchcape arrived together. Guy and Clarence were at once seized upon by Dobson and taken to Sheppy. Inchcape was left, as Harriet had been, to find entertainment as best he might. He wandered over to Harriet, one eyebrow raised in a frown of bored enquiry.

‘What’ve we been dragged here for?’ he asked.

‘No one seems to know.’

‘Which is Sheppy? I’m told he’s an odd-looking cove.’

Harriet pointed out Sheppy, who was now taking Guy, Clarence and some other young men to a corner of the room. When he had them to himself, he seemed to be lecturing them.

‘What’s he up to?’ Inchcape stared over at the group. ‘And the chaps he has picked out – what have they in common?’

Harriet was about to say ‘Youth’, but said instead: ‘They probably all speak Rumanian.’

‘So do I.’ Inchcape turned his back on Sheppy. ‘Well, I can’t waste time here. I have people coming to dinner.’

Sheppy did not keep the young men long. Clarence joined Harriet and Inchcape, who at once asked him: ‘What’s it all about?’

Clarence gave a provocative smile. ‘I’m not at liberty to say.’

Inchcape put his glass to his lips and swallowed its contents. ‘I must be off,’ he said, and went with strides too long for his height.

Guy was still talking to the other young men. These were four junior engineers from the telephone company, an eccentric called Dubedat and an adolescent member of the English family Rettison that had lived in Bucharest for generations.

Harriet said: ‘Inchcape was wondering what you all had in common.’

‘The flower of the English colony,’ smirked Clarence.

‘What
does
Sheppy want?’ Harriet felt both pride and anxiety that Guy was among the chosen. ‘He really looks fantastic.’

‘Fact is, we don’t know yet. He’s calling us to a meeting after Christmas. I’d guess he’s a “cloak and dagger” boy – the lunatic fringe of security.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘He hinted he was here on a secret mission. But I shouldn’t have told you that.’ Tilting back on his heels, displaying a diffident flirtatiousness, Clarence seemed to suggest she had wheedled a confidence out of him.

Harriet smiled it off but realised, whether she liked it or not, she had involved herself with Clarence. Nothing, she knew, would convince him she had not made a first move in his direction.

Impatiently she said: ‘What is Guy doing over there?’ Guy was, in fact, talking enthusiastically to Dubedat.

Harriet had seen Dubedat about in the streets. He was a noticeable figure. He was said to have been an elementary-school teacher in England and had been ‘thumbing’ his way through Galicia when war broke out. He had walked over the frontier into Bessarabia. When the refugee cars came streaming down through Chernowitz, one of them gave him a lift. He called himself a ‘simple lifer’. He had arrived in Bucharest in shorts and open-necked shirt, and for weeks wore nothing more. The
crivat
had eventually forced him into a sleeveless sheepskin jacket, but his legs and arms, remaining exposed, were whipped raw by the wind. When he walked in the street, his large, limp hands, mauve and swollen, swung about him like boxing-gloves on strings. Now, under Guy’s
regard, his face, hook-nosed, small-chinned, usually peevish, glowed with satisfaction.

Harriet asked Clarence: ‘Does Dubedat intend to stay in Bucharest?’

‘He doesn’t want to go home. He’s a conscientious objector. Guy is taking him on as an English teacher.’

At this piece of news, Harriet moved to take a closer look at Dubedat, saying: ‘I’ll go and see what they’re talking about.’

Guy was including in his audience the engineers, who stood together with the bashful air of obscure men unexpectedly given prominence. He was on a favourite subject – the peasants. Describing how they danced in a circle, their arms about each other’s shoulders while they stared at their feet and stamped, he put out his own arms to the engineers. As they drew nearer, Dubedat’s expression changed to one of hostility.

Guy said: ‘The peasants just go round and round, stamping in time to that hysterical music, until they’re completely crazy with it. They begin to believe they’re stamping on their enemies – the King, the landowner, the village priest, the Jew who keeps the village shop … And when they’re exhausted, they go back to work. Nothing’s changed, but they’re not angry any more.’

Harriet, having reached Dubedat’s side, noticed the sour smell that came from him. He had been watching Guy’s performance with his lips open so that she could see his yellow and decaying teeth. The creases of his nostrils were greasy and pitted with blackheads: there were crusts of scurf caught in the roots of his hair and grime beneath his fingernails. As he lit a new cigarette from the stub of an old one, she noticed the first and second fingers of his right hand yellowed by nicotine.

The engineers, having moved into the aura of Dubedat, began edging away again. Guy, however, was not worried. On the contrary he seemed like radium throwing off vitality to the outside world – not that he thought of it as the outside world. So spontaneous was his approach to it, he seemed unaware of any sort of frontier between himself and the rest of humanity.

Watching him, Harriet felt a wave of irritated love for him and heard this echoed by Clarence, who said behind her: ‘Let’s get Guy away from here.’

They had arranged to go that evening to see a French film at the main cinema and would have to leave soon. Harriet was about to speak to Guy, when young Rettison, on the fringe of the group, broke in in an accent that was peculiar to the Rettison family. He was a sleek, self-possessed and self-assertive young man who looked like a Rumanian. He said: ‘It has always been the same here. It was the same before the King became a dictator. It always will be the same. The English here criticise the King. They forget he is pro-British. We wouldn’t have such a good time if he weren’t here.’