Soon after midday they clattered into a town where ticket collectors and controls were certain. Sounds suggested that the train was emptying. No other passengers arrived. This was evidently the terminus. Since the platforms on both sides of the line were busy and there was no chance of leaving unobserved, they stayed under the seats in very anxious peace until the train was hauled off into a siding. They left it cautiously, hoping that Lieutenant Muresanu and his colleagues had not guessed where they had gone. The cloaks on the chairs and the horses in charge of the Hungarian yardmaster must be a strong indication that Kalmody’s trainer and his distinguished English friend were still in Nagyvarad, shopping, visiting or waiting for banks to open.
It was a fully imperial little town into which they strolled. Zita could have been received at town hall or university with all the proper mediaeval ceremony rather than blowing a kiss—if she did blow kisses—at a ragged line of peasants and paper flags. They bought a map from which it appeared they were in Cluj in the heart of Transylvania. Perico’s Hungarian was accepted without question or resentment.
At lunch Perico was unusually thoughtful, staring at the map which was spread over the café table with a bottle of wine on the Ukraine and the Danube winding round Bernardo’s glass at the opposite corner. Bernardo thought for a moment that Perico could not read a map, for their next move was immediate and obvious—directly to Bucarest where there would be consuls and at last the relief of fitting into a familiar world whatever might come of it. But Perico shook his head, brooding over lines and colours as if they represented a journey of the spirit instead of a neatly rounded Romania.
‘This!’ Perico said, tracing with the point of a fork a winding railway which Bernardo had never spotted, up over the high Carpathians and down into the province of Moldavia where it joined the main line from Bucarest to the north.
‘But why? It’s a long way round.’
‘I will tell you, dear friend, when I am sure. This could be farthest of all from the Nepamuks and railway guards—the bastards without heart or courtesy.’
Bernardo did not argue. Perico was so generous in sharing his money. That gave him the right to decide where they should go. He also had the right to make his own way to whatever world he foresaw. Bernardo’s own world could wait.
Back at the station Perico bought two tickets only as far as the Moldavian junction. Bernardo had no objection, for it was common sense not to waste money when it might be wiser—at any rate for himself—to jump off the train and disappear. During most of the journey Perico either slept or was silent. Bernardo was too fascinated by the rushing water and supposedly wolf-haunted darkness of pines to do more than doze. He had never before seen the primeval forest of Europe.
They arrived in the dusk. There in old Romania Hungarian was no use, but the stationmaster spoke a very little French.
‘Ask him about the trains to north and south,’ Perico said.
‘There is a train to the north in an hour and at midnight to Bucarest. What are you thinking?’
‘That Russia is not far away.’
‘And what the devil has that to do with us?’
‘I am going there.’
‘They’ll shoot you at the frontier.’
‘I don’t believe it. I know the patter—a little of what must be said to them.’
Bernardo protested that even if he could quote Lenin and Karl Marx by the yard they wouldn’t let him in.
‘Why not go back to Argentina where men are equal?’
‘Who says they are equal? Do you think there are no peaked caps in Argentina? And besides I do not like the sea. I tell you I am going to Russia. Come with me!’
Bernardo was appalled by the mere thought. After all he had been a business man in a small corner of capitalism which worked efficiently. He was prepared to go a long way with socialism—his father and Spain had seen to that—but not so far as complete rejection of the Europe he knew and enjoyed. He reminded Perico that he had admitted Count Kalmody treated him decently.
‘But he should not exist. The wastefulness of it all!’
‘Yes. But it saves them from unemployment such as we have in England.’
‘I tell you I am going to Russia.’
‘You won’t last long, Perico. Hammers and sickles—you can’t use either. What will you do?’
‘Horses. A trainer, a captain of Cossacks, who knows? Man, if they don’t shoot me on sight there is no risk. I have a passport and it will show that I escaped from Hungary. The worst they can do is to turn me back to Romania. And then the Romanians will let me stay when I tell them I was ill-treated by their enemies.’
That gave Bernardo his excuse. Without a passport it was lunacy to try to accompany Perico. He felt guilty, for Perico—considering his ignorance of frontiers—should not be allowed to try alone. The map showed a single blocked bridge over the Dniester. The only other way to Russia was to swim the river if it was swimmable. There would be searchlights to pick out a head in the water and machine-guns to open up on it. Bernardo had had enough of that. Capitalism, socialism, friendship—none of them were so compelling as his vision of the Dniester in the dark.
The north express clanked and hissed to a stop. They embraced, and Perico mounted the steps of a third-class coach while the stench of snoring peasants escaped, almost visibly, past him. At the last moment he took out half the money he still possessed and stuffed it into Bernardo’s pocket before he could refuse.
It was as if luck or Bernardo’s nerve had disappeared with his companion. He left the station and shuffled through the warm dust to a communal well where he sat on the coping wholly occupied by memories of Magda and the dream-like quality of the last twenty-four hours. As usual he was quite unconscious of his appearance.
A brown-uniformed policeman materialised out of the night, saluted respectfully and was evidently asking who he was or if he needed help. Bernardo, drowsy and careless, made signs and noises to indicate that he had just arrived on the train from Bucarest.
‘Otel? Bagajul?’
The smiling policeman’s meaning was plain. He was eager to show the distinguished foreigner in boots and breeches a bed for the night and to arrange a porter for his baggage. It was Bernardo’s second experience of Romanian helpfulness—genuine but seldom excluding the hope of profit.
‘No bagajul,’ he answered.
‘Then what the hell is your lordship doing in this dump?’ seemed to be the next question.
Bernardo pulled himself together and tried to explain that he had been misunderstood. He had come from Cluj and was waiting for the train to Bucharest. He was English and he did not need a hotel.
The policeman got it, again saluted and escorted his Englishman to the station—more as a guard of honour than with any suspicion.
When the midnight train was due, Bernardo tried to buy a ticket. He couldn’t. Perico’s wad of money was all Hungarian except for some small and filthy Romanian paper. He might as well have offered an old sock; nobody knew anything of Hungarian money. At last the dreaded word came out.
‘Pasaportul, vå rog.’
Bernardo looked through his pockets, pretended horror, called the stationmaster to witness that he had been accompanied by a friend who had gone north to Czernowitz and explained that this friend had both their passports. Most of it appeared to get through, but meanwhile the Bucarest express had come and gone.
No baggage, no usable money, no passport, but the smart coat, boots and breeches of the landed gentry still proclaimed that though a half-witted foreigner he was respectable and perhaps rich. The policeman led him to the hotel. It was at the entrance to the main street, and Bernardo in happy days when he had never heard of that blasted Zita would have liked the look of it: half a dozen green-shuttered rooms above a little restaurant shaded by a vine.
The policeman hammered on the door, yelling for Gheorghe. Gheorghe opened up, naked to the waist and remarkably hairy. His two round, expressionless, brown eyes and considerable belly sugge
sted a sleepy brown bear on its hind legs. There was a long conversation. Bernardo nodded and smiled, tried French, got a slightly better result from Spanish, but could not dispel the general air of stern duty whenever the word pasaportul was mentioned. He gathered that he was welcome to stay the night and that there was a jidan—probably a Jew, for Gheorghe spat in the street—who might change his money in the morning.
So it could be worse. Gheorghe was unshaven and unwashed—as who wouldn’t be when woken up from sleep?—but the white-washed room was clean. A fine green and black rug hung on the wall; a red and white one was spread on the divan bed. Wine, bread and an admirable cold fish were served to him. Gheorghe, invited to share the wine, managed to put over his opinion that the policeman was a crook who only wanted money and that Bernardo needn’t worry about him. Englez—bourn, bourn! They had won the war. Romanians were grateful. And there was their St. George! So indeed he was, a gallant, armoured, dark-browed ikon over the bed. Bernardo undressed and slept magnificently, seeing nothing whatever wrong with Romanians except that all classes were very poor and ready quite rightly to get their cut out of anyone richer, that they had an objection to Jews and abused their police who seemed at first sight most reasonable chaps.
The reasonable chap called for him while he was breakfasting and accepted a glass of pale yellow spirit. Bernardo’s credit appeared to be good, so he had one himself. Kovacs, he thought, would have enjoyed it though never admitting that this plum gin—tsuica they called it—was better than apricot brandy.
Daylight revealed that nothing more than a large village had grown at the junction, its houses mostly of timber and puddled clay under white plaster. All down the long main street the inhabitants stared at their policeman’s conspicuous bag. The majority wore conical hats of sheepskin even in full summer, their shirts outside their trousers and rubber shoes—what in God’s name did they wear before the coming of the automobile?—held on by thongs to the knee.
On the edge of open country was a two-storey house, whitewashed to conform with the rest but built of bricks and standing in its own garden. The policeman rang the bell and—since this was too mild and courteous a summons—shouted for Mihai Toledano. The door was opened by a darkly pretty girl in embroidered blouse and skirt. Bernardo noticed that Romanian national costume did not include the many petals of petticoats. Petticoats—Magda—hell! Minds must be kept on money.
Followed by his shadow of the law, he was led to a room overlooking the garden where a man in his fifties with finedrawn, angular, Semitic features received them with dignified reserve. When he had heard the policeman out, he addressed Bernardo in German. Bernardo shook his head and tried Spanish, encouraged by the name of Toledano.
Instantly he was at home. Toledano’s Spanish was clear, slow and very exactly grammatical. The brown uniform stared, apparently surprised that this well-dressed anthropoid could make itself understood.
‘Of course I will change your money. I will also telegraph the police at Czernowitz to get in touch with your friend and return your passport. I’ll explain all that to this fellow and tell him he can call on you at the hotel at any time. Give him a hundred lei and shake his hand!’
It was evidently a generous tip establishing Bernardo as a land-owning boiar. The cop saluted once on the spot and again at the door.
‘Your friend has your baggage, too?’
Bernardo laughed. He must have spread some sort of radiance from outer space into that house so lonely among its neighbours.
‘What do you think?’ he asked.
‘That perhaps I should not send the telegram.’
‘You are very kind. What part of Spain do you come from?’
‘My family left Spain over four hundred years ago.’
So that was it! Bernardo had never before met a Sephardic Jew. He only knew the history of their expulsion from Spain and that they had settled in the East.
‘Are there many of you here?’
‘Very few. Here in Moldavia they are all Ashkenazim, speaking their own German. I was glad to hear my language. You are not a Jew, I think, but tell me what I can do for you.’
‘After five minutes, Don Mihai?’
‘You remind me of my son.’
‘I’d like to meet him.’
‘You cannot. God’s will be done!’
‘I am so sorry. The war?’
Toledano nodded. Bernardo impulsively decided to trust him. He cut his story short, leaving out the privacies of Magda, and answered a few acute questions. Across the desk grave eyes seemed to accept his adventures as believable.
‘This Perico—he has no chance at all. He is sure to be arrested.’
‘He won’t talk.’
‘That may be. But they can trace all his movements. And what questions will they ask you then?’
‘Nepamuk?’
‘He doesn’t count. You will hear no more of him if you do not mention him. But to the police you are bound to appear a Russian or a Hungarian agent. What did Count Kalmody intend to do with you?’
‘I don’t know. Keep me till it all blew over, I suppose.’
‘It will not blow over easily. Much depends on that cliff. If it was as terrible as you describe, no one will believe you climbed it. So in Spain there must be a warrant out for your arrest. Even Kalmody will now be thinking you only told half the truth.’
‘Can you help me?’
‘No, for the sake of my family. All I know of you is that I was asked to change your money and did so.’
‘Well, what’s your advice?’
‘You cannot be more than an hour or two ahead of the police. Go to your consul at once, but try to find out how much he knows without giving anything away. It’s a pity that you do not speak Romanian. If you did, you could disappear until, as you say, it all blows over.’
‘The trouble is I’m too innocent for anything like that.’
‘Don Bernardo, you have lost your virginity and now you will learn only too quickly. Go with God! If you remain at liberty in Bucarest and need a job, go to my cousin Mitrani, a banker in the Strada Lipscani. I cannot give you a note to him in case you are searched, but I will tell him about you. With your languages he could use you.’
Bernardo returned to his hotel, lunched and paid his surprisingly small bill. He was indeed learning quickly. His old self would have confidently taken the night train to Bucarest with a sense of relief; his new self realised that it was on the run and unlikely to reach Bucarest openly. He took a long and careful look at the countryside. As seen from his bedroom window as well as from Toledano’s garden it was bare and poor with little cover for a fugitive. He could not simply stroll out of the village for a walk; his lonely figure would be far too conspicuous.
When the policeman dropped into the hotel, partly for a free drink, partly to keep an eye on his customer, Bernardo—using gestures and experimental scraps from Latin languages—asked if there were any news of his baggage and passport. No, there was not, but he had already telephoned to Czernowitz without waiting for filthy Jews who could never be trusted. That clinched it. Perico would by now be picked up for questioning in the frontier town itself or caught behaving suspiciously on his way to the banks of the Dniester. The description of the pair of them as men wearing boots and breeches who spoke no Romanian was conclusive.
Waiting till night was a crazy risk. He was certain to be detained—courteously if Perico had invented a credible story, forcibly if he had not. He must get clear by the next afternoon train and hope to disappear somewhere along the line. And it would be wise to look a little smarter. He bought shaving kit and a hairbrush and cleaned himself up.
Bernardo was escorted to the station, shook a number of hands and settled down in a second-class compartment. There was only one other passenger who smiled at him with irrepressible admiration as if he had been a startlingly pretty girl. Bernardo said good-afternoon in Romanian—he had got that far—and the coldest possible voice. Life in this complicated east end of Europe w
as already difficult enough.
His companion was immediately talkative in sound international French. He was a classic Mediterranean type with a triangular, dark face, gleaming teeth, four of them gold, and an anxious, lost-dog friendliness.
‘One sees that you are not going very far, monsieur. For my part I regret it.’
Bernardo made noises of politeness. He realised exactly what women meant when they complained of being undressed by a stare.
‘Village to village—you have no doubt your duties?’
Something had to be invented to satisfy this impertinent curiosity. Evidently he was being taken for a sort of foreign Nepamuk.
‘I am returning after delivering a horse.’
‘Of course! And without doubt you are English.’
He fondled Bernardo’s arm with affection. The intention of the embarrassing fingers was at last clear. It was the cloth rather than the flesh below which was causing the excitement.
‘That coat, those boots, those breeches! And still as fresh as from the fitting rooms of Savile Row! Ah, monsieur, before the war I could import such quality but now nobody can pay for it.’
He lectured Bernardo on the poverty of the country. The great landlords had all been expropriated and their property distributed to the peasants. It hadn’t worked—no, it hadn’t worked. The ignorant peasants were as poor as ever, and the compensation paid to the landlords had been reduced to nothing by inflation.
Sighing and shaking his head, he handed Bernardo his business card, printed in French and of excellent, simple taste:
MIRCEA NICULESCU
Tailleur. Fournisseur d’Équipements.
Étoffes de Luxe.
One would not have guessed at any luxury stuffs. Mr. Niculescu was himself dressed in wretched cloth—though, on a second glance, admirably cut.
‘While you are in Bucarest, do me the honour to come and call on me. My shop is on the corner opposite the royal palace.’
The Lives and Times of Bernardo Brown Page 8