The Balkan Trilogy

by Olivia Manning

  The Baron brushed this query aside: ‘People in our position can dispense with such convenances,’ he said, and Yakimov agreed with enthusiasm.

  They were approaching the salon entrance where some young men stood on guard. Yakimov, keeping close to his companions, still had hope of entering under their auspices, but the Princess was having none of that. He had been rewarded enough. She stopped, took her furs out of his arms, and said: ‘Well, toot-el-ee-ooh, as you English say. Do not forget my two-three tickets,’ and she handed the furs to Steinfeld. Yakimov knew himself dismissed.

  He watched as the couple reached the salon entrance. There they were stopped and made to produce their invitations. There was no sign of a buffet inside and the guests were drinking wine. Deciding the ‘do’ looked a pretty poor one, Yakimov went into the English Bar.

  At this moment the Pringles, crossing the square, heard behind them the furious and persistent hooting of an old-fashioned motor-horn. They moved to the pavement. The hooting persisted. Supposing it was some sort of anti-British demonstration, they did not look round. Britain was rumoured to be trying to sell her oil shares to Russia and the Rumanian Cabinet had declared it would take steps to prevent any such perfidy. Anti-British feeling was growing stronger.

  The hooting, drawing nearer, demanded attention, and the Pringles turned to see an old, mud-coloured car being driven at them by Toby Lush. Toby grinned. Inchcape had approved his appointment and he had started work at the University. He stopped the car. Confident of welcome, he thrust out his disordered, straw-coloured head and shouted ‘Hello, there!’

  ‘Why, hello,’ said Guy.

  Beside Toby sat Dubedat. Between the two assistant teachers there had sprung up one of those close, immediate friendships that puzzle everyone but the pair concerned. Harriet had not only been puzzled by it, but rather annoyed. Seeing Toby as a comrade in danger, she had been prepared to accept him into her circle, but she was not prepared to accept Dubedat.

  Sitting now in the sunken car seat, Dubedat did not greet the Pringles but stared straight ahead, his profile, with its thin hooked nose and receding chin, taut and disapproving as ever.

  They had stopped in the centre of the square, beside the statue of the old king who rode a horse too big for him. Cars were parked round the pediment. Toby said: ‘I’ll leave the jalopy here and stretch my legs.’

  The Pringles had been invited by David to the English Bar and it was evident the two assistant teachers were coming with them. Harriet looked at Guy and as he avoided her eye she knew he had invited Toby to join them. If she had asked him ‘Why?’ he would probably have replied ‘Why not?’ Surely anyone would agree that it was better to drink with several people than with just one or two?

  Guy, delighted to have more company, walked ahead with Toby while she, left to follow with Dubedat, found herself wondering, not for the first time, whether life with Guy was not more often an irritant than a pleasure.

  She glanced at Dubedat, noticing a smile lingering round his lips – ‘like the grime left by bath-water,’ she told herself – and felt sure he was aware of her irritation. That irritated her more. He had nothing to say. She did not attempt to break the silence.

  Dubedat, an elementary school-teacher from Liverpool, had been ‘thumbing’ his way through Galicia when war broke out and been given a lift in one of the refugee cars that streamed down to Bucharest when Poland collapsed. Describing himself as a ‘simple-lifer’, he had gone about Bucharest in shorts and open-neck shirt until the winter wind forced him into a sheepskin jacket.

  His appearance had improved since those early days. He had been teaching at the University for nearly a year now and as a result of prosperity had given up the ‘simple-life’ outfit, and was wearing a suit of khaki twill. It looked very grimy. He no longer lived in the Dâmboviţa area, but had rented a modern flat in the centre of the city. Toby had moved in with him. Guy used to excuse Dubedat, saying that his old lodging did not give him opportunity to wash, but it seemed to Harriet that his personal aroma was much as it used to be. Or was it merely an emanation of her own dislike of him?

  Ahead, Toby, moving with exaggerated strides, was giving crows of nervous laughter. Despite the heat, he still wore his tweed jacket with its patches of leather. As he walked, he scuffed his brogues in the dust, one shoulder drawn up, his fists bagging out his pockets. She heard him say: ‘Don’t want to be a bottle-washer all my life.’

  ‘Even in these times,’ Guy replied, ‘we must expect a lecturer to have a degree.’

  Dubedat, beside Harriet, snorted his private disgust at this statement.

  They had reached the hotel, where the striped awning was out, the carpet down and a gigantic Rumanian flag hung the length of the façade. People had gathered round to watch events. A lorry arrived and from it jumped a dozen young men in dark suits, who at once began pushing back the docile onlookers and forming a cordon of six on either side of the pavement. Before anyone could inquire into this behaviour, a Mercedes drew up and a man alighted – a small, lean man of unusual appearance. The cordon at once flung up arms in a fascist salute, sharp, businesslike and un-Rumanian, and the new arrival responded, holding the salute dramatically for some moments, his head thrown back so all might see his hollow, bone-pale face and lank, black hair.

  Guy whispered: ‘I believe that’s Horia Sima.’

  Whoever he was, he was clearly an intellectual and a fanatic, someone totally different from the lenient, self-indulgent Rumanian males now strolling in the Calea Victoriei. He dropped his arm, then strode to the swing door. He gave it a push, treating it as an unimportant impediment, but the door was not to be coerced. It creaked round slowly and he was forced, in spite of himself, to shuffle in at its pace. The young men, following after, did no better.

  Harriet, as she watched, could hear Toby gasping nervously at his pipe. ‘Never seen the like,’ he said. The English party, much sobered, entered the hotel hall as the Guardists went striding into the main salon.

  David was in the hall. Guy asked him: ‘Was that Horia Sima?’

  David nodded. ‘He’s joining the Cabinet. That’s the excuse for the reception, of course, but it’s really a gesture of defiance. I wonder how His Majesty’s going to take it.’ David gave Dubedat an unenthusiastic ‘Hello’, then looked blankly at Toby whom he had never seen before.

  Guy introduced them, saying: ‘Toby comes from Cluj. I thought you might be interested to hear what’s going on there.’

  ‘Oh!’ said David, and he said nothing more.

  They went into the bar, where Guy bought a round of drinks.

  Toby had evidently heard of David, for he kept close to him, and with eyes bulging excitedly asked: ‘Is it true they’re starting concentration camps in the Carpathians?’

  ‘I’ve never seen them myself,’ David said, keeping his gaze on his glass.

  Toby continued to ask questions about the country’s situation and its dangers, receiving answers that were brief and discouraging, while Dubedat stood on one side, obviously annoyed by Toby’s eagerness and David’s lack of it.

  As soon as Guy entered the conversation, Dubedat took the opportunity to pluck at his friend’s arm, at which Toby turned with a jerk and, seeing Dubedat’s frown, asked in a fluster: ‘What is it, old soul? What’s the matter?’ Hissing through his teeth so he looked like an angry rat, Dubedat made a movement of the head that directed Toby to step aside with him. Puffing and spluttering in apprehension, Toby let himself be led off.

  ‘Where did you pick up that impossible ass?’ David asked Guy.

  Guy looked surprised. ‘He’s working for me. He’s not a bad chap.’

  David lowered his voice. ‘I’ve something to tell you. Klein has gone.’

  ‘He’s left the country?’

  ‘No one knows. He might have been arrested, but I don’t think so. I think he’s crossed the frontier into Bessarabia. There’s a secret route over the Pruth: thousands are going, I’m told. Anyway, I doubt whether we
’ll ever see him again.’

  Guy nodded in a sad approval of this escape and Harriet thought of how Klein had several times advised her to wait and see the break-up of a country – ‘revolution, ruin, occupation by the enemy – all so interesting’; but he had not waited himself. She felt disconsolate at this flight, as though an ally had abandoned them.

  While the others talked, she glanced around the bar, seeing, but avoiding seeing, Yakimov, who was with his Rumanian friends. Clarence was sitting alone at one of the tables. She had heard nothing from him since their evening in the park and now when she looked at him he avoided meeting her eye.

  Something in the odd turn of his head made her think of those boys described by Klein who, violently raped during their first days in prison, had acquired a taste for the indignity and afterwards offered themselves to all comers. Clarence, too, had been raped. His spirit had been broken by physical violence. As Harriet made a move towards him his eyes slid sideways, his expression became furtively defensive as though at a threat of chastisement both feared and desired.

  Galpin entered briskly, his girl-friend Wanda at his heels. He wore an air of waggish self-congratulation that meant news. Harriet returned to hear what he had to say.

  The heat of the day hung clotted in the bar. Although Rumanian convention did not permit men to appear in any sort of undress, they might, in mid-summer, wear their jackets cape-fashion. In Hadjimoscos’ group, only Yakimov was lax enough to do this. His tussore coat, hanging limp and frayed from his shoulder-bones, permitted his neighbours to note that the silk of his shirt had rotted away under the armpits. The shirt was a deep Indian yellow, and he wore with it not a tie but a neckcloth of maroon velvet. The neckcloth seemed to Hadjimoscos excessively daring and he had been brought to tolerate it only by the assurance that it came from the most expensive outfitters in Monte Carlo.

  Hadjimoscos merely changed for the summer from a suit of dark wool to one of dark alpaca. He said he had never before spent a summer in Bucharest and he frequently described the heat as incroyable. That evening he was in low spirits, as were Palu and Horvatz. No one had indicated to them that their presence was desired at the reception. Yakimov had spent most of his thousand lei on drinks for his companions, but their gloom persisted. ‘It looked a pretty dull party to me,’ he said.

  Ignoring Yakimov, Hadjimoscos moaned to Palu and Horvatz: ‘We may take it that we members of the old aristocracy are not in favour.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ said Yakimov. ‘The Princess was invited.’

  For some reason this remark, intended to console, merely angered Hadjimoscos who turned on Yakimov, saying: ‘The Princess, I can assure you, was invited merely as the companion of Baron Steinfeld. Since his losses in Bessarabia the Baron has thrown himself heart and soul into the Nazi cause, with the result that, unlike us members of the old aristocracy, he is très bien vu with the Guard.’

  ‘Really, dear boy,’ Yakimov protested out of his bewilderment: ‘I don’t know what you’re all so worried about. Apparently these Guardists were put down by the King – a lot of them were shot or something. How could they suddenly become so important? What do you care whether they invite you to their junketings or not?’

  ‘Believe me,’ Hadjimoscos said, ‘the day is fast coming when those they do not recognise may as well be dead.’

  Impressed by the solemnity of Hadjimoscos’ statement, Yakimov began for the first time to think seriously about the Iron Guard. He remembered how, during his brief period as a journalist, he had, on Galpin’s advice, written dispatches condemning in violent language the murderers of Calinescu. The chief villain had been someone called Horia Sima. The dispatches had not been allowed to leave the country. What had become of them? A chill pang struck the pit of his stomach, and as he stood like the others with an empty glass in his hand he began to feel as gloomy as they did.

  ‘Well, well,’ Galpin said throwing his thumb back over his shoulder, ‘if that lot knew what I know, there’d be no reception tonight.’

  Everyone looked expectantly at him.

  David asked, smiling: ‘What’s happened now?’

  ‘The Rumanian ministers have been summoned to Salzburg – the Hunks and Bulgars, too. Herr Hitler is ordering them to settle their frontier problems.’

  ‘Is that all?’ said Harriet.

  ‘It’s enough,’ said Galpin sharply: ‘What are Rumania’s frontier problems? Simply other people’s demands. All she wants is to hang on to what she’s got. Now, you wait and see! There’s going to be trouble here.’

  David’s smile had changed to a look of startled interest. ‘When did you hear this?’ he asked.

  ‘A moment ago. The Cabinet’s been summoned. I met my scout in the square. He’s got a contact in the palace. It’s hot news, but I needn’t try to send it. The authorities are trying to keep it secret. Look at them,’ he said, and they all looked through the open door of the bar at the guests passing on their way to the main salon. ‘The poor bastards! They think they’ve got on to the band-wagon. They’re calling it the New Dawn. And here’s their Führer once again demanding a sacrifice in the interests of Balkan peace.’

  David sniggered into his glass. ‘Perhaps the Führer is not finding world dictatorship so easy after all. I imagine, if he could he’d shelve all these problems until the war was over, then settle them his own way. But Hungary and Bulgaria are not having that. They are demanding immediate payment for their support.’

  ‘What about Rumania?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘She’s not in a position to demand anything.’

  Clarence had joined them to ask what the excitement was all about. When she told him that the Rumanians had been summoned to a conference at Salzburg, he shrugged slightly, having expected worse. She, too, felt that in a world so full of dangers those that did not immediately affect them could be put on one side.

  He remained on the fringe of the group and Harriet, realising he was more dispirited than usual, said: ‘What’s the matter?’

  He looked up, responding at once to her sympathy: ‘Steffaneski left this morning. He’s going to try to join Weygand. That’s the last of my Poles.’

  ‘We’ll all have to go sooner or later.’

  ‘He was my friend.’ Clarence hung his head, repudiating consolation.

  Harriet said: ‘You have other friends.’ He did not reply but after a moment, nodding at Guy and David, he said: ‘They’ll go on talking all night. Why don’t you come and have supper with me?’

  She recognised this as a peace offering and refused it regretfully: ‘David has invited us out, so I’m afraid …’

  ‘Oh, don’t apologise.’ Clarence turned his face away. ‘If you don’t want to come, someone else will.’

  Harriet laughed. ‘Who for instance?’ she asked.

  Clarence sniffed and smirked, so she realised, not without a touch of pique, that he really had some substitute up his sleeve. She could see he was waiting for her to ask who it was. Instead she moved away from him, giving her attention elsewhere, and found herself listening to Dubedat, who had by now had several drinks handed to him.

  Taciturn when sober, garrulous when drunk, he was keeping Toby away from the others with a stream of talk. His subject at the moment was poverty, his own poverty, a condition which he had once flaunted as a virtue.

  Before the war he had climbed arduously into a scholarship worth £150 a year. He had become an elementary school-teacher. Remembering his description of the Dâmboviţa Jews as ‘the poorest of the poor and the only decent folk in this dirty, depraved, God-forsaken capital’, Harriet realised that his attitude, like his dress, was changing. Now he was saying: ‘God, how I hate poverty. It’s not only an evil, it’s a disease and if you don’t get rid of it, it becomes an incurable disease. It rots your guts. You become gutless. You crawl. You don’t give a damn for yourself. Any way of escaping it is excusable. When you’re poor you can only afford to mix with people as poor as yourself. If they’re stupid, they b
ore you. If they’re intelligent, they’re discontented and depress you. So you never escape. Your nose is kept firmly down in the dirty water of reality. It’s the greatest destructive force in the world, poverty. Half the world’s intellect has been blunted or destroyed by it. None of us escape from it whole. Even the elephant hides are marked by it.’

  All this was spoken rapidly, in a hectoring tone that Harriet recognised as the tone in which he had played Thersites in Guy’s production of Troilus. He had excelled in the part, and something of it seemed to have entered into him. Here, she thought, was a transformed Dubedat, a Dubedat who had found eloquence.

  The main salon must have overflowed, for the guests could now be seen standing about in the hall. Soon the hall was also crowded. Suddenly the occupants of the bar were startled to hear a chorus of singing from both salon and hall. Community singing at an Athénée Palace reception!

  People looked at one another as they recognised the song which the members of the Iron Guard had been advised to sing ‘only in their hearts’.

  ‘Capitan-ul, Capitan-ul,’ came from the resplendent guests outside.

  Before any of the English could say anything the man whom Galpin called his scout appeared struggling in through the press at the bar door. Once through, he paused to straighten out his wrinkled cotton jacket, then sidled over to Galpin. Galpin bent down to receive the news, his eyes roving about with intent attentiveness.

  ‘Well,’ he said when all had been told, ‘this is really something! Didn’t I tell you there’d be trouble? A voice has been raised, a solitary but significant voice – and it has called on the King to abdicate.’

  His listeners gazed at him, too startled to comment. He went on to explain that, seeing the Cabinet ministers arriving, people had collected outside the palace. ‘Then the news began leaking out. People realised the next question was going to be Transylvania – and suddenly someone bawled out “Abdicati”.’

  David said: ‘Good God!’

  ‘What happened then?’ Guy asked.