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.’
Guy said: ‘The King’s pro-British because Britain is pro-King. That’s the policy that’s going to wreck us all.’
The engineers glanced nervously towards Dobson, a representative of British policy, and Harriet said: ‘Darling, if you want to see the film, you must come now.’
Guy wanted to see the film, but he also wanted to stay and talk. He looked like a baby offered too many toys.
‘Come along,’ said Harriet and, to encourage him, she strolled on with Clarence out of the hotel. When Guy joined them he had brought Dubedat along too.
Clarence had his car with him. Harriet sat in the front seat beside him, while Guy sat with Dubedat in the back. As they drove across the square, Guy drew information from Dubedat. He asked him first where he came from.
Harsh and nasal, with a slight north country accent, Dubedat’s voice came reluctantly from a corner. ‘I’m a scowse,’ he said. ‘From the dregs of the Liverpool soup.’
He had won a scholarship to a grammar school, but at the school he had found not only the boys but the masters prejudiced against him. Everywhere he had gone, it seemed, he had met with prejudice.
‘What sort of prejudice?’
‘Social,’ said Dubedat.
‘Ah!’
By the time they had reached the cinema, Guy was no longer interested in the film. ‘You go,’ he said to Harriet and Clarence. ‘I want to talk to Dubedat. We’ll meet afterwards at the Doi Trandafiri.’
Clarence protested, very annoyed, but Guy was too entranced to listen. Dubedat, looking smug, followed them across the road.
Clarence said: ‘It was Guy who wanted to see this film, not me.’
‘Would you rather go to the Doi Trandafiri?’ Harriet asked.
‘What! And listen to the confessions of Dubedat?’
The film was an involved and almost motionless domestic drama. Harriet’s French was unequal to it and the Rumanian underlines did not help her much. It was preceded by a French news film that showed shots of the Maginot Line where trucks sped on rails through underground arsenals and barracks. There were vast stores of frozen meat and wine. A voice declared: ‘Nous sommes imprenables.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Clarence gloomily.
Behind the French lines soldiers filed through woods white with rime. They stood about, drinking from mugs and beating their arms for warmth while their breath clouded out on to the frozen air.
There was a little applause, but most of the time the audience shuffled and coughed, as bored by the war as were the idle men at arms.
Harriet and Clarence emerged, depressed, from the cinema. As they entered the Doi Trandafiri, an ancient beggar plucked at Clarence, repeating: ‘Keine Mutter, kein Vater.’
‘Ich auch nicht,’ replied Clarence and, cheered by his own wit, he turned smiling to Harriet: ‘I never give to beggars, on principle.’
‘On what principle?’
‘They bring out the worst in me. They make me feel like a fascist.’
Harriet laughed, but uneasily, recognising in Clarence something of herself. But because she loved Guy, she could feel safe. If she loved herself she would be lost indeed.
The interior of the Doi Trandafiri, with its yellow grained wood and horsehair sofas, the chess-sets and dominoes on the tables, the racks of newspapers mounted on batons, the faded photographs of writers, actors and painters, had a shabby, comfortable atmosphere of Mitteleuropa. It was a cheap café. In term-time it was crowded with students.
Guy and Dubedat were settled in the wide curve of the corner window. When the others sat down, Guy said delightfully: ‘Dubedat has been telling me he lives at the Dâmboviţa; actually in the Calea Plevna, with a family of poor Jews.’
‘The poorest of the poor,’ said Dubedat with glum satisfaction, ‘and the only decent folk in this dirty, depraved, God-forsaken capital.’ Fixing Clarence with a watery pink eye, he added, apparently in special reference to him: ‘A city of the plain.’
‘Oh, really!’ Clarence, picking up a copy of the Bukarester Tageblatt, retired behind it in disgust.
Guy brushed aside the annoyance of the newcomers: ‘He doesn’t mean any harm. You must hear about life at the Dâmboviţa.’ Guy swung round on Dubedat: ‘Tell them about the night the rats came in through the skylight.’
Dubedat said nothing. Harriet was about to speak but Guy held up his hand. Gazing, aglow, at Dubedat, he coaxed: ‘Tell them about the mad beggar who drank silver polish.’
Dubedat emptied his glass but remained silent. Clarence snorted behind his paper. When it became obvious that Dubedat was not to be persuaded, Guy, unaffected by rebuff, repeated his revelations for him while Dubedat, rather drunk, settled down into sleep.
They were as interesting as Guy promised, yet Harriet listened with impatience. At the same time she wondered whether she would have disliked Dubedat so much had his company not been forced upon her.
The difficulty of dealing with Guy, she thought, lay in the fact that he was so often right. She and Clarence could claim that their evening had been spoilt by the presence of Dubedat. She knew it had, in fact, been spoilt not by Guy’s generosity but their own lack of it.
When it was time to go, Dubedat had to be roused and supported out to the car. They drove down through the Dâmboviţa area, which even at this hour was lively, with the brothels noisy and peasants and beggars wandering about in search of some night
cover from the cold.
Wakened and questioned in the Calea Plevna, Dubedat managed to give his address. Guy said he would see Dubedat to his room on the top floor and wanted Clarence to come with him. Clarence insisted that they could not leave Harriet alone at such an hour, in this district.
When Guy and Dubedat had gone in, the other two sat for some time in silence. Suddenly, out of his thoughts, Clarence laughed and said in affectionate exasperation: ‘Guy is an extraordinary man with all this giving and expecting no return. Do you understand it?’
‘It’s partly pride,’ said Harriet, ‘and a habit of independence. He wants to be the one to give because in the past he was always too poor to repay.’
Upset by this rationalisation of Guy’s virtue, Clarence sat up and said in reprimand: ‘He’s a saint. In fact, a great saint. I often feel I’d like to give him something to show how much I admire him. But what can one give a saint?’
Considering this question in a practical way, Harriet said: ‘There are a great many things you could give him. Because he comes from a poor family, he has never had any of the presents that boys get as they’re growing up. You could give him something useful – a set of hairbrushes or a fountain-pen or a shaving-brush …’
‘Really!’ Clarence interrupted with scorn. ‘Fancy giving Guy something like that! I thought of giving him a real present – two hundred pounds, say, so he would have something behind him if he needed it. But, of course, he wouldn’t take it.’
‘I think he would. It would be wonderful.’
‘I couldn’t offer it.’
‘Then why talk about it?’
Another long silence. Clarence sighed again. ‘I really want to do something for someone,’ he said, ‘but I let all my friends down in the end.’
‘Oh, well!’ Realising that all this had merely been an exercise in self-mortification, Harriet left it at that.
When Guy returned to the car, he said: ‘We really must do something for Dubedat.’
Harriet said: ‘What could we do? He’s an exhibitionist. One should never separate an exhibitionist from his way of life.’
‘How else can he live?’ Guy asked. ‘He has no money.’
‘Yet he smokes like a chimney.’
‘Oh, tobacco is necessary to him. From each according to his ability: to each according to his needs. We should offer him our spare room.’
‘I couldn’t bear it,’ said Harriet, with such decision that Guy let the matter drop. She hoped she would hear no more of Dubedat, but next morning Guy mentioned him again: ‘We must ask him here on Christmas night.’
‘It’s impossible, darling. The table only seats six. We’ve asked Inchcape and Clarence, and you asked Yakimov.’
‘That leaves room for one more.’
‘I’ve invited Bella.’
‘Bella Niculescu!’
‘I suppose I can invite a friend?’ said Harriet. ‘Nikko has been called to his regiment. Bella will be alone.’
‘All right.’ Guy could not fail to respond to Bella’s situation, but he added: ‘What about Sophie?’
‘Why should we ask Sophie?’
‘She’ll be alone, too.’
‘She’s in her own country. She has friends. Bella’s need is greater than Sophie’s.’
It was agreed at last that Sophie and Dubedat should be invited to come in after dinner. Both accepted when telephoned by Guy.
13
Yakimov was the first to arrive at the flat on Christmas night. He brought with him a thin, tall, narrow-shouldered, young man whom he introduced as Bernard Dugdale. Dugdale was a diplomat passing through Bucharest on his way to Ankara.
Barely touching Harriet’s hand he sank into the only armchair and there he lay, seemingly lifeless except for his eyes, that roved around in critical appraisal of his surroundings.
Harriet hurried to Despina in the kitchen. When she explained there would be seven instead of six for dinner, Despina treated the emergency as a joke. She put a hand on Harriet’s arm, squeezed it affectionately, then set off down the frosted fire-escape to borrow dishes from a neighbour’s cook. When Harriet returned to the room, Inchcape and Clarence were entering from the hall. Yakimov, who had settled beside the electric fire with a glass of ţuică, appeared abashed by the sight of Clarence.
Clarence said when introduced: ‘We have met before.’
‘So we have, dear boy. So we have!’
Inchcape, looking in amusement from one to the other, noticed Dugdale and suddenly stiffened. When he learnt that this stranger was a diplomat, he asked: ‘You came by train?’ set on edge by the possibility that this young man might have been granted a priority flight over Europe.
Dugdale, weary but tolerant in his manner, admitted he had come by train: ‘A somewhat hazardous journey at the moment.’
‘In what way hazardous?’ Harriet asked.
‘Oh, one thing and another, you know.’ Dugdale implied that he had passed through perils the others could not even guess at.
When the introductions were completed, both Inchcape and Clarence seemed to withdraw from the party. It was some moments before Harriet realised they were annoyed at finding other guests present. The original plan had been for a ‘family’ party within the organisation and no one had told them of the change. While standing, each stared down at the floor. When invited to sit down, Clarence took himself to the fringe of the group and remained silent, his head back against the wall. Inchcape, his legs crossed at the knee, turned up his elegant toe and stared at it, disguising his exasperation with an appearance of amusement.
Before anyone could speak again, Despina sped through the room, banging doors after her, to admit Bella. Bella entered with Nikko behind her.
Her Nikko, she explained, had been restored to her only half an hour before. As she apologised for bringing him unexpectedly, she beamed about in pride of him. Nikko was less composed than his wife. He was, no doubt on Bella’s advice, dressed informally. He kept his head lowered while he glanced anxiously at the dress of the other men, then, reassured, he turned on Harriet, bowed and presented her with a bouquet of pink carnations.
When they were seated again, Inchcape, his lips depressed, looked under his brows at Clarence. Clarence, eyes wide, looked back. They were surprised at seeing, of all people, the Niculescus, and were, of course, displeased. Harriet was interested to note how similarly the two men reacted. Critical as each was of the other, there they both were withdrawn, suspicious and hard to mollify – not that she had time to mollify anyone at that moment.
Despina, enjoying her own resource, collected the smaller chairs from under the guests and took them to the table, then she sang out: ‘Poftiţi la masă.’ On the table, among the Pringles’ white china and napkins, were two yellow plates with pink napkins. Among the six chairs were the kitchen stool and the cork-topped linen box from the bathroom. This was the first dinner-party Harriet had ever given. She could have wept at its disruption.
When they were all seated, there was not much elbow room at the table. Nikko, pressed up against Yakimov, kept giving him oblique glances and at last blurted out: ‘I have heard of the famous English Prince who is so spirituelle.’ Everyone looked at Yakimov, hoping for entertainment, but his eyes were fixed on Despina, who was carrying round the soup. When the bowl reached him, he filled his plate eagerly and emptied it before Guy had been served. He then watched for more.
Guy asked Nikko if there was any news of the Drucker family. Nikko, who had been for a short time an accountant in the Drucker bank, replied with satisfaction that there was none.
‘And the boy?’ Guy asked. ‘I have been hoping to hear from him.’
‘No one knows where he is,’ said Nikko. ‘He is not with Doamna Drucker, that is certain. He has disappeared. But of Emanuel Drucker I am told he is in a common cell with low criminals and perverts. Such must be very uncomfortable.’
‘Very indeed,’ murmured Inchcape with a sardonic smile.
‘Who is this Druc
ker?’ Dugdale asking, looking down with benign condescension upon Nikko.
Nikko swallowed and choked in his eagerness to reply: ‘This Drucker,’ he said, ‘is a big crook. A powerful lady – we do not name her – demanded of him certain holdings in Rumanian oil. He had been skinned before. Although he describes himself as pro-British, his business is with Germany – such a thing is not uncommon here – and he thinks Germany will protect him. So he refuses. He is arrested. He is jugged. Each minute a new charge is cooked for him – treason, forgery, plotting with Germany, plotting with Britain, black-market deals and so on. One would be enough. He is a Jew, so his possessions anyway are forfeit. His son has disappeared. His family has fled. His wife is demanding a divorce. The man himself? He will be in prison for life.’
‘Without trial?’ Clarence asked, scandalised.
‘Certainly not,’ said Nikko. ‘This is a democratic country. There will be a trial. A great trial. A trial that will squash him flat.’
Dugdale gave a high neigh of a laugh. ‘Delicious!’ he cried.
Clarence asked: ‘You are amused by a system of government that permits wrongful arrest, wrongful seizure of property and imprisonment for life on faked charges?’
Dugdale turned slowly to examine Clarence and smiled slightly at what he saw: ‘Aren’t we in Ruritania?’ he said. ‘What do you expect?’
Nikko, looking in consternation from Dugdale to Clarence, tried to reprove both at once: ‘This is not a bad country. Many people come here as guests. They make money, they live well, and still they criticise. One admires England. Another admires France. Another America. But who admires Rumania? No one. She is a cow to be milked.’
The truth and vehemence of Nikko’s statement brought the table to a stop. After a silence, Harriet asked Dugdale if he thought he would enjoy Ankara.
‘Things could be worse,’ he said. ‘My first appointment. I was offered Sofia – a deadly hole. However, I exerted a little pull and landed Ankara. It’s an embassy. I’m not dissatisfied.’
Yakimov, who had just filled his plate with turkey, taking most of the breast, said: ‘Let’s face it, dear boy. An embassy is better than a legation.’ Having thus contributed to the conversation, he set about his food again.
The Balkan Trilogy Page 18