The Balkan Trilogy (81 page)

Harriet glanced up at the swastika. ‘Doesn’t that disturb you?’

Bella looked up again and gave an uncertain laugh. ‘Does it?’ she asked. ‘I don’t know. In a way, it makes me feel safe. It’s nice to be protected, even by Germans. And, you know,’ she gazed seriously at Harriet, a rather petulant gleam in her eye, ‘Rumania has been very unfairly treated. The Allies guaranteed her, then did nothing.
Nothing
. There was that plot to blow up the oil-wells, and there’ve always been those outside interests controlling Ploesti. Foreign engineers everywhere. No wonder we’ve been in an awkward position. You can’t blame the Rumanians for wanting the foreigners to go.’

‘When they go, what will the Rumanians do?’

‘Get in German experts, I suppose.’

‘So there will still be outside interests controlling Ploesti! Or don’t Germans count as outsiders any more?’

Bella, looking sulky, tilted up her chin as though sniffing out injury. She made a movement, seemed about to go, but, held by some memory of their earlier friendship, gave Harriet a look at once annoyed and compassionate. ‘But what about you? Aren’t you nervous, being here? I mean, it’s different for little me. I’ve a Rumanian passport.’ Suddenly the thought of something restored her humour. She gave a laugh: ‘People think I’m a German, you know. I can get anything I want.’

Harriet, fearing to enhance Bella’s isolation here, had not mentioned her possible departure, but now she realised that Bella’s high spirits were not a result of hysteria. She had found a means of managing her situation: she was shuffling off her own identity and taking on an aspect of the enemy.

Harriet said: ‘Guy wants me to go to Athens for a few weeks, but I’m having difficulty in getting a return visa.’

Hooting with laughter, Bella gripped Harriet’s arm. ‘My dear, you can get one in the twinkling of an eye. It’s just a matter of going about it the right way. Put a thousand-
lei
note inside your passport. But why get a return visa? If you’ve any sense you’ll stay there once you get there.’

‘I have to come back. Guy isn’t supposed to leave without orders.’

‘Oh, I’ll keep an eye on him. I’ll see he doesn’t get into mischief.’

Bella was enjoying herself. Here she was, secure and snug, while others must take themselves into exile. She could advise from a position of vantage. ‘You might like me to look after some of your things,’ she said. ‘Those nice Hungarian plates, for instance. I wouldn’t mind giving them a home.’

‘If we finally go, you can take what you like.’

‘Well, I must be on my way.’ Bella gathered her minks about her. ‘I’ve got several fittings this evening. I want to buy gloves. Look, give me a ring and tell me how you manage about the visa. I’ll call and see you before you go.’ She hurried away with a happy ‘Cheerio!’ and Harriet returned to the
prefectura
where she again asked to see the official in charge. When he came upon the thousand-
lei
note in her passport, he
whipped it out so quickly Harriet scarcely saw it go. He stamped in the return visa.

‘Doamna is intrepid,’ he said in English. ‘These times, the British who go do not wish to come back.’ Smirking, he handed her the passport with a little bow.

Harriet wondered how Sasha would accept the news of their going. He accepted it impassively. After all, she thought, he merely lived as his family had lived for generations: in seclusion, dreading flight, but prepared for it.

‘What about Guy?’ he asked.

‘He’ll come when he can.’

She and Guy had planned to support Sasha until he could find work. He surprised her now by his immediate appraisal of what his position would be abroad. He pointed out that, once he was beyond Rumanian jurisdiction, he could draw on the fortune banked in his name in Switzerland.

‘I shall be very rich,’ he said. ‘If you need money, I can give it to you.’

‘You would have to establish your identity.’

‘Surely my relations would do that?’

Harriet smiled and agreed, but wondered where his relations might be.

As nothing important cropped up, Inchcape’s departure was fixed for Sunday. He had only four days in which to make his arrangements, but he made them wholeheartedly. He decided to give up his flat.

On his return, he explained to Guy, he would go to a
pension
. ‘No good shutting one’s eyes to the fact,’ he said. ‘Sooner or later, we’ll have to take ourselves off, probably at a moment’s notice. Better be prepared for it. Besides, one’s safer in a
pension
than living on one’s own.’

When the Pringles called for him on Sunday evening, Pauli, opening the door, blinked at them with red-rimmed eyes. He led them through the hall filled with packing-cases and in the disordered sitting-room, where all the gold-shaded lights were lit, began to lament his quandary.

The great wish of his life, he said, was to follow the professor wherever he might go. Alas, Pauli had a wife and three children. He had been prepared to leave them but the professor, the most clement of masters, had insisted that Pauli’s duty was here.

Pauli made no pretence of believing that Inchcape would return. There was too much evidence against the possibility. At the thought of their eternal separation, Pauli’s eyes overflowed, his shoulders shook. He pulled out a ball of wet handkerchief and scrubbed at his face while Guy patted his shoulder, saying: ‘When the war is over, we shall all meet again.’

‘
Dupa r
ǎ
sboiul
,’ Pauli repeated and, as though for the first time struck by the thought that the war might end, he brightened at once. Nodding, blowing his nose, saying again and again ‘
Dupa r
ǎ
sboiul
’, he hurried off to tell Inchcape that they had arrived.

Harriet said: ‘
Dupa r
ǎ
sboiul!
’ thinking of the war that divided them like a sea from progress and profit in the world. The total effort of their lives might go down in the crossing of it. ‘And afterwards,’ she said, ‘what will be left? We may no longer be young, or even ambitious. And it may never end. We may never have a home.’

Wandering about among the packing-cases, she paused at the tables and examined Inchcape’s bowl of artificial fruit. There was a fig made of malachite, a purple plum, a flame-coloured persimmon. She held a pear to the light and, seeing the spangling within, said: ‘Do you think, if I asked him, he would give me these?’

‘Of course he wouldn’t.’ Guy was shocked at the idea and, hearing Inchcape’s footsteps, he added warningly: ‘Put them down.’

Inchcape’s bruises were changing to green and violet. He looked scarcely better than he had done on the morning after the attack, but he had regained all his own sardonic swagger. He crossed over to a Chinese cabinet and took out three bottles, in each of which a little liquid remained.

‘Might as well finish this,’ he said. ‘What’ll you have? Brandy, gin,
ţ
uic
ǎ
?’

He had put on his overcoat and Pauli could be heard heaping up luggage in the hall, but Inchcape seemed in no hurry to go. Having poured out the drinks, he went round adjusting the shades of the lights and observing their effect. One of the ivory chessmen had toppled over. He restored it. Glancing about with satisfaction at his possessions, he said: ‘Pauli will pack everything beautifully. He’ll put the stuff into store and keep an eye on it for me.’ He showed no great regret at leaving his possessions, but he was not a poor man. He could replace them.

Pauli came in to say he had found a taxi and taken the luggage down. When they left the room, he was standing by the open front door, sniffing. At the sight of Pauli’s grief, Inchcape’s jaunty air failed and his face grew strained. He put his hands on Pauli’s shoulders, seemed about to speak but moments passed before he said: ‘Goodbye, dear Pauli.’

This was too much for Pauli, who collapsed to his knees with an agonised cry and, seizing Inchcape’s hand, kissed it wildly.

Inchcape smiled again. He began edging towards the door, but Pauli shuffled after him, keeping a hold on him until they were in the outer passage. With a quick but gentle movement, Inchcape disengaged himself and sped down the stairs. Guy and Harriet followed, pursued by Pauli’s heart-broken sobs.

On the long journey through the dark back-streets to the station, the three sat silent. Inchcape’s head dropped, his face was sombre: then, suddenly, he looked up to say: ‘You haven’t breathed a word to Pinkrose?’

They had not, though seeing Pinkrose sitting alone in the hotel they had felt guilty towards him. Had he approached them with any show of friendship, they would have had difficulty in maintaining the deception, but he avoided them, keeping ‘himself to himself’.

‘It would be intolerable to find the old buffer on the train,’ said Inchcape. He glanced at Guy. ‘Tomorrow, you can tell him I’ve been called away on urgent business. Don’t tell him
where I’ve gone. Say I’ll be back, but if he wants to go himself encourage him. There’s nothing he can do here. If he went to Athens, he might get a Greek boat to Alexandria.’

‘Where would he go from there?’ Guy asked.

Inchcape chuckled. ‘Heaven knows. Let him organise his own return. He put plenty of pep into getting here.’ He smiled, reflecting on his friend, then said in a tone of the profoundest denegation: ‘He’s not a peer, of course. Scottish title, I believe, though he’s not got any sign of Scottish blood. A title like that’s mere flim-flam. I wouldn’t use it myself. And he inherited very little money. Even as a young man he was a queer fish. He simply came to Cambridge and never left it. It gave him all he ever wanted.’ Inchcape laughed to himself. ‘He loves to tell that old story of the don who was granted an interview with Napoleon. “No doubt a remarkable fellow,” said the don afterwards, “but anyone can see he’s not a Cambridge man.”’

For some time after this Inchcape sat quietly shaking with amusement, perhaps at the anecdote, or perhaps at Pinkrose, but more likely, Harriet thought, at getting away and leaving Pinkrose here to fend for himself.

Three porters had to be employed to carry Inchcape’s baggage to the train. Seeing Harriet watching the procession of suitcases, he explained: ‘I’m taking my summer clothing and a few valuables to leave in a safe place. One doesn’t want to lose every stitch one’s got.’

The express stood in the station, but little activity surrounded it. Most of the carriages were empty. No one travelled for pleasure these days. The few passengers who stood about on the platform were lost in the echoing gloom. One group comprised the young English engineers from the telephone company. Guy, when he stopped to speak to them, learnt that they had been ordered, a few hours before, to quit the country. When they appealed to the Legation, they were advised to accept dismissal and go.

Inchcape, his sleeper secured, his luggage stowed away, stood at a corridor window. He smiled down on Guy and Harriet who, standing on the platform, uncertain whether they were
expected to go or stay, could only say: ‘Well, have a good rest and enjoy yourself,’ then, after a pause: ‘Look after yourself.’

‘I’ll put our case pretty forcibly when I get there,’ said Inchcape. ‘We demand a rise in pay and the right to abandon ship when we think it advisable, eh?’

There was a long pause. The atmosphere was dispirited. Perhaps it seemed to Inchcape there was something forlorn in the appearance of the two young people in front of him, for he said in a tone of self-justification: ‘You’ll be all right. You’re young.’

‘Does that make a difference?’ Harriet asked.

‘All the difference in the world. Before you’re forty you never think of death: after forty you never think of anything else.’ He laughed, but as he gazed at them in the dingy light he seemed to Harriet pitiably aged and ill. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘you’d be worse off in England.’

Harriet said: ‘I’d rather be bombed with my own people than cut off here.’

Inchcape gave a laugh. ‘You
think
you would.’

Conversation lapsed again and Inchcape, glancing back through an open door which revealed his made-up berth, said: ‘Look, no point in hanging about. Dear knows when this train will take itself out. Everything’s to pot these days. I feel a bit under the weather, so I’ll say goodbye and get my head down.’ He reached out of the window and gave one hand to Harriet, the other to Guy, smiling his old sardonic smile while a single tear trickled down his discoloured, battered face: ‘Goodbye, goodbye. I’ll be back before you have time to miss me.’ He pulled his hands free and, turning abruptly, entered the sleeper and shut the door.

Harriet put her hand into Guy’s. As they wandered off through the cavernous dark of the station with its smells of carbon and steam, its desolating atmosphere of farewells, Harriet reflected that she herself would be gone in a day or two and Guy would be left alone.

27

Restless in unemployment though he was, Guy was in no hurry to explain things to Pinkrose. He had intended to go to the Athénée Palace on Monday morning but delayed so long that luncheon was on the table and he decided to wait until evening.

As they were about to eat, the telephone rang. It was Dobson to say that Pinkrose had appeared at the Legation in a state of great alarm. That morning Galpin had seized on him in the hotel hall and insisted on telling him about the attack on Inchcape. He had gone at once to Inchcape’s flat where he had been told by Pauli that his friend had left Rumania. In panic he had sped to the Legation and demanded that a plane be chartered immediately to fly him home.

‘By the way,’ Dobson interrupted himself, ‘is that right?
Has
Inchcape taken himself off?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why all this secrecy?’ Dobson’s tone was light, almost humorous, but there was an edge on it. Not waiting for an answer he talked rapidly on: ‘Well, my dear fellow, the noble lord is now your pigeon. He was over an hour here, wasting everyone’s time, making ridiculous claims to special passages, etcetera. We just haven’t time to cope. H.E. told him to fly to Persia or India, but he says he has no money. I suggested he might go to Athens, where he’d be out of the way of trouble and probably meet kindred spirits. Anyway, we’ve got him his exit visa. He’s free to go whenever he likes. Meanwhile, be a good chap, keep him out of our way. Try and persuade him that, contrary to his belief, the entire Guardist movement
is not, repeat
not
, directing its activities against his person.’ Dobson ended on a laugh, but rang off abruptly.