Zadruga

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘Are you waiting until you have told Nicky first?’ Katerina persisted in the same quiet, remorseless voice in which she had told her about Sandro’s terrible decision. ‘Are you thinking that if Nicky abandons you, you can pass the baby off as Julian’s?’

  With a choked cry Natalie spun round on the dressing-table stool. ‘No! That’s a wicked thing to say! I’m telling Nicky first because it’s his baby and he should be the first to know about it!’

  It was true. She hadn’t consciously thought that if Nicky let her down she would have the option of saying nothing at all to Julian. Now, looking into the muted-green depths of Katerina’s eyes she knew that even if she had, Katerina would never have allowed her to get away with such a deception.

  She said, truly not understanding, ‘Why are you being so cruel to me over this, Trina? Why can’t you understand how hard it’s been for me, marrying someone who wasn’t my choice…’

  Katerina’s eyes were darker than she had ever seen them and against the copper highlights in her mahogany hair her pale, creamy skin looked almost translucent. ‘Then you shouldn’t have married him,’ she said inexorably. ‘You should have gone to Switzerland with Mama and then maybe Julian would have fallen in love with someone else, someone who truly loves him.’

  Natalie was growing more bewildered with every second. ‘You’re talking as if someone was in love with him when we were in Belgrade! They weren’t. Not seriously. Vitza may well have had a crush on him but…’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Katerina said, pain flooding her eyes. ‘Someone was in love with him when he was in Belgrade. And still is.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Natalie said again, but this time with great uncertainty. ‘How could you possibly know? Who could it possibly …’ Her voice died away into stunned silence as she read the answer to her unfinished question in Katerina’s eyes.

  Behind Katerina the door opened and Julian entered, holding Stephen’s hand.

  ‘It’s time to go, my love. The taxi has been waiting for over fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Don’t want to go!’ Stephen said, a dangerous tremble in his voice. ‘Want to stay with Grandmama and Auntie Trina. Want to stay with Peter.’

  As Julian crossed the room towards her and, with his free hand, took hold of her arm, Natalie’s eyes continued to hold Katerina’s. Now, at last, she knew the reason for Katerina’s harshness towards her. She knew also that Katerina would never have made such a confession to her if she had not intended the parting now taking place to be far more permanent than their previous parting in Belgrade station. There were going to be no more late night gossips over mugs of hot cocoa; no more long, companionable walks together.

  The prospect of a future barren of Katerina’s love and friendship filled her with a grief as great, if not greater, than the prospect of forever being barred from Serbia.

  ‘Trina?’ she said tremulously, desperate to put everything right between them before they finally parted. ‘Trina?’

  For a brief second Natalie saw suffering equal to her own in Katerina’s eyes and then, for the second time in twenty-four hours, Katerina turned her back on her and walked away.

  A miasma of despair suffused her as she left the hotel on Julian’s arm. In a matter of hours she had lost all hope of a return home and she had lost Katerina. She remembered the dizzying elation with which she had arrived at the Negresco and the contrast smote her heart. Her only consolation now was Nicky.

  As she entered the taxi that was to take them to the railway station a small gleam of hope lightened her darkness. Nicky wouldn’t allow her to remain an exile for ever. He had powerful friends in the Yugoslav Committee, friends about to play a large part in the formation of Sandro’s new government. They wouldn’t be content to see her an exile and Nicky a voluntary exile. Representation would be made to Sandro on her behalf and when Sandro learned of her grief he would immediately give permission for her to return.

  The small gleam of hope grew a little stronger. The more she thought about it, the more sure she was that the decision forbidding her to return home had not been taken by Sandro himself but by his prime minister, the elderly Nikola Pasich.

  The bouncy optimism that was so integral a part of her personality began to reassert itself. Sandro had no doubt complied with his prime minister’s request she be made persona non grata because he had been under the impression that she was happy and settled in Britain, just as Hélène was happy in Switzerland, and that exile would cause her no great grief. Once he knew differently, he would immediately give her permission to return.

  The belief gave her the strength, when it came to saying of goodbye to her mother on the station platform, to do so with commendable dignity. She could now, again, see a way ahead. She would soon be home in Belgrade and when she was, she would be able to talk to Katerina at length and make her understand about Nicky.

  As their train began to ease its way out of the station and Julian took Stephen on his knee and dried his tears, promising him that he would see his grandmama and aunt and cousin again very soon, she looked across at him and wondered if he knew that Katerina was in love with him.

  She remembered the unselfconscious and affectionate way he had greeted Katerina when they had arrived at the Negresco and knew that he did not.

  The more she thought about Katerina’s unspoken confession, the more incredible it seemed. When had Katerina fallen in love with Julian? And why hadn’t Katerina told her she had done so? It was all very well Katerina saying that she, Natalie, had caused catastrophic problems by not confiding in her about her friends at the Golden Sturgeon, but what about the problems Katerina had caused by not sharing confidences? If Katerina had told her that she was in love with Julian she, Natalie, would never in a million years have considered marrying him.

  But Katerina had not told her. They had both kept their secrets to themselves and the consequences had been monumental. As the train steamed northwards she resolved that once she had told Nicky and Julian about the baby she would never again live with any secret. The stress and strain were too great. In the future her life was going to be an open book, trouble-free and blissfully uncomplicated.

  Fired with new resolve, confident that her present exile from home was merely temporary, she looked down at her watch, counting the hours till she would be with Nicky again.

  ‘…and so we leave for Belgrade at the end of the week!’ Nicky said euphorically, pouring generous amounts of slivovitz into two glasses designed for water.

  They were in his rented room in Camden and a large canvas bag was on the bed, already half-packed.

  Natalie sat down beside it. Her news was going to devastate Nicky. All through the war years he had yearned to return home, just as she had yearned to return. As she looked across at him he swallowed his slivovitz in one gulp in a manner so typically Balkan that a lump came into her throat. She left her own glass untouched and said, ‘I have something to tell you. Something important.’

  His wide, dazzling smile vanished. ‘About your husband? You’re not going to leave him? Is that why you were away so long together in Nice?’

  She shook her head, comforted by his fierce, jealous response.

  ‘No. It’s something political…’

  She now had his absolute, undivided attention. He stood in the centre of the room, facing her, a frown on his high-cheekboned, olive-skinned face, his tangled black curls tumbling low over his brow. Not for the first time she thought he looked far more gypsy than he did Croat.

  ‘About the Prince-Regent?’ he asked sharply. ‘You know of intentions he hasn’t yet made public? Intentions about the internal organization of the new state?’

  She shook her head, marvelling at his naïve belief that if Sandro had intentions for the new kingdom not yet made public, he would somehow have shared them with her. It was the same naïvety Gavrilo and Trifko and Nedjelko had displayed when she had met with them at the Golden Sturgeon. They, too, had assumed she was in Sandro’s confidence where p
olitical matters where concerned and they, too, had assumed wrongly.

  She clasped her hands tightly together on her lap and said, ‘It is to do with one of Alexander’s decisions, but not about the new state.’

  ‘Then what is it about?’ His frown deepened. ‘Did he write to you at Nice? Did he give you a message via your sister or your mother?’

  ‘He gave me a message via my sister.’ Her mouth had gone suddenly dry. ‘I’m sure it’s one we needn’t worry about long-term. I’m sure that once the situation has been explained to Alexander he will…’

  ‘What situation?’ He had gone very tense and still.

  She took a deep, unsteady breath. ‘Because I was seen with Gavrilo in Sarajevo the day before the Archduke’s assassination and because the Habsburg government requested my extradition…’

  Nicky sucked in his breath, his eyes widening.

  ‘… and because Alexander fears all this may come to light and implicate the House of Karageorgevich in the assassination plot he has forbidden me to return to Serbia.’

  ‘Jesus God!’

  Natalie ignored his stunned interruption saying quickly, ‘That was the message Katerina gave me, but I don’t believe it. It wouldn’t have been Alexander’s idea to make me persona non grata, it would have been his prime minister’s. Alexander probably thinks I’m happy in Britain, just as his sister is happy in Switzerland, and so he agreed to it but once he learns how desperate I am to return home he will change his mind…’

  ‘He’s not going to change his mind before the end of the week!’

  Natalie, painfully aware of the half-packed travelling bag, said, ‘Instead of going to Belgrade we could go to Zagreb and wait there until…’

  ‘Zagreb?’

  She nodded. ‘I know Belgrade is where everything is happening at the moment but Zagreb is your real home and we can stay there until either my father or your friends in the new government explain to Alexander…’

  ‘How can you go to Zagreb?’ he said, interrupting her. ‘Croatia and Serbia are now united. If you have been exiled from Serbia you have also been exiled from Croatia. You can no more go to Zagreb than you can return to Belgrade.’

  She stared at him, her eyes widening, realization as to the full extent of her exile dawning at last. ‘No …’ she whispered protestingly. ‘It can’t mean that … it can’t…’

  Nicky hooked his thumbs down the leather belt slung attractively low on his hips and said, ‘It does. It’s only common sense. Have you told your sister to speak to Alexander when she returns home?’

  She shook her head, still trying to come to terms with the new blow that had been dealt her. ‘No. I didn’t realize it would have been Pasich’s decision, not Alexander’s, until after I had left Nice.’

  Nicky shrugged his shoulders, unhooked his thumbs from his belt and picked up a pile of clothing. ‘Then the sooner you get in touch with her, the better,’ he said, walking towards the bed and stuffing the clothes haphazardly into the travelling bag.

  Dazedly she watched him, realizing that he still hadn’t understood. ‘You haven’t understood,’ she said bleakly as he re-crossed the room and began removing the last contents from a chest of drawers. ‘If we can’t go anywhere in the new kingdom we may as well stay in London until Alexander gives his permission for me to return to Belgrade.’

  Nicky approached the bed again and crammed the clothes he was carrying into the now near-full bag. ‘You’re the one who is persona non grata,’ he said reasonably. ‘I’m not. And I’m not staying in this bloody country one day longer than necessary.’

  ‘But it might be weeks before Alexander grants me permission to return! Prime Minister Pasich might be obdurate about it! There might be all kinds of complications!’

  ‘Exactly. Which is why I can’t possibly stay in London waiting for you to hear from him.’

  He began to zip up the bag and with her heart beating lightly and rapidly somewhere up in her throat she said again, ‘You don’t understand, Nicky. I can’t remain behind on my own in London because … because…’

  ‘Because what?’ He was grinning down at her as if nothing at all was amiss and she knew from the expression in his eyes that his thoughts had turned to lovemaking.

  ‘Because I’m having a baby,’ she said succinctly.

  His grin faded. ‘That is not a very funny joke.’

  ‘It isn’t a joke.’

  As he continued to stare down at her, beginning to frown, she felt a surge of exasperation. Nothing was going the way she had anticipated. She had expected him to be far more stunned by her news that she couldn’t return, as yet, to Belgrade. She certainly hadn’t expected him to continue with his own travel plans nor had she anticipated telling him about the baby in such a stark, unromantic manner. She had envisaged them being in a loving embrace and Nicky being thrilled and delighted by the news.

  His frown deepened. ‘You’re pregnant?’

  She nodded. ‘And so you see, I can’t remain in London on my own. As soon as I receive permission to enter the country we can travel out there together and the baby will be born in Belgrade and…’

  He was still frowning. ‘Have you told your husband yet?’

  ‘No. I’m going to tell him this evening when I go home.’ She looked around the small, shabby room and said, ‘We’ll have to find somewhere else to live until we leave for Belgrade.’

  ‘How do you know it’s mine?’

  The question was so unexpected, so dispassionate, that for a moment she thought she couldn’t possibly have heard aright.

  ‘How do you know it’s mine?’ he said again, making no move to take her in his arms. ‘You’ve just come back after a family reunion with your husband. If you are pregnant, the baby is most likely his.’

  ‘It is not!’ Anger bubbled up in her throat. ‘How dare you even suggest such a thing! I was pregnant before I went to Nice! I was pregnant even before Julian came home from Salonika!’

  ‘That still doesn’t mean to say the baby is mine.’

  She hit him across the face with as much force as she could muster. Without a second’s hesitation he hit her back, the force of his open-handed slap sending her half-falling against the bed.

  ‘Bastard!’ she hissed, regaining her balance, tears of pain glittering on her eyelashes.

  He shrugged indifferently. ‘If you’re pregnant, it isn’t mine,’ he said again. ‘Even if it were, it wouldn’t make political sense for me to acknowledge it.’

  ‘Political sense?’ she stared at him as if he had taken leave of his reason. ‘Political sense? We’re talking about a baby! Our baby! What do politics have to do with it?’

  His thumbs were back in his belt as he said, ‘There’s going to be a God-Almighty battle when it comes to organizing the future state. Pasich and your precious cousin seem to think the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is simply another name for a Greater Serbia and it isn’t. Now that the western powers have agreed to a federated South Slav state, there’s nothing to prevent that state being a republic, not a monarchy.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ She forgot all about the baby; all about his intention to return to Belgrade without her. ‘It’s in the new constitution that the new state is a monarchy! That’s its name! The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes!’

  ‘That’s its name for the moment,’ Nicky agreed dryly; ‘because without an established monarchy fronting it, a united federated South Slav state might never have been born at all. Now it has, there’s room for manoeuvre and the Croat Nationalist Party intends doing quite a lot of manoeuvring to ensure Croatia’s interests don’t come way behind Serbian interests.’

  ‘The Croat Nationalist Party?’ Natalie had never heard of it. ‘Are you telling me that this Croat Nationalist Party will be working against Alexander?’

  ‘Only if Alexander opposes our request for radical land reform. And I think he will. In those circumstances you can see how embarrassing it would be for me if it was rumoured I
was linked to the Karageorgevichs, however distantly.’

  Natalie’s furious flare of anger began to ebb. The emotion she felt now was far worse than anger. She had been utterly deceived. Totally duped.

  From the moment she had met Nicky she had been convinced she had found her soul-mate; convinced that they were both passionately ambitious for the same ends and that they were in perfect mental, as well as physical, harmony. Now she was face-to-face with the knowledge that it had never been so. Nicky’s loyalties had never been in harmony with hers and no doubt no other members of the Yugoslav Committee and supporters had been either. Just as when, friends with Gavrilo and Trifko and Nedielko, she had never understood their true, terrorist intentions, so she had been blind to the fact that Nicky’s loyalties were contrary to her own.

  She stood facing him, the side of her face still burning from his slap, seeing him as she had never seen him before. He wasn’t her twin soul. He wasn’t even her friend. A friend would have expressed deep sympathy over the ban forbidding her entry to her homeland and would have vowed to do everything possible to have it rescinded. Nicky had done neither. Quite simply, he hadn’t cared. She looked around the room, knowing she was doing so for the last time. It was exceedingly shabby. As shabby as their affair had been. Now, at last, she understood the contempt Katerina felt for her. It was contempt fully deserved.

  She didn’t say goodbye. Feeling as if she would choke unless she were able to breath in clean, fresh air, she turned on her heel and ran down the stairs and into the street. He didn’t call after her and if he had, she would have taken no notice. Their affair was over. Finished. And never, as long as she lived, would she be so foolish again.

  ‘It’s over. Finished,’ she said to Julian two hours later in their bedroom.

  During her long, impassioned explanation of her affair with Nicky, Julian had not interrupted her once. When she had entered the room he had been about to go to the nursery to read a bedtime story to Stephen and Hans Andersen’s Fairy Stories was still in his hand.