The Balkan Trilogy

by Olivia Manning

  The court door was thrown open and two warders emerged.

  Harriet, who had seen Drucker only once, ten months before, remembered him as a man in fresh middle age, tall, weighty, elegant, handsome, who had welcomed her with a warm gaze of admiration.

  What appeared was an elderly stooping skeleton, a cripple who descended the steps by dropping the same foot each time and dragging the other after. The murmurs of ‘Drucker’ told her that, whether she could believe it or not, this was he. Then she recognised the suit of English tweed he had been wearing when he had entertained the Pringles to luncheon. The suit was scarcely a suit at all now. As he approached, she noticed his trousers were so worn at the knees that she could see, as it bent against the cloth, the white bone of his knee-cap, but the broad herringbone pattern showed through the grime.

  From the bottom step he half-smiled, as though in apology, at his audience, then, seeing Harriet, the only woman present, he looked puzzled. He paused and one of the warders gave him a kick that sent him sprawling over the narrow pavement. As he picked himself up, there came from him a stench like the stench of a carrion bird. The warder kicked at him again and he fell forward, clutching at the van steps and murmuring ‘Da, da,’ in zealous obedience.

  As soon as the van doors closed on him, Harriet, unconscious now of the ferment of the pavements, hurried back to the Calea Victoriei. By the time she reached the end of it, she had decided she could safely deceive Sasha. He was never likely to see his father again.

  There was now a considerable crowd in the square. Approaching her block of flats, she glanced up at the roof and saw Sasha on the parapet, staring down towards her. When she reached him, she was able to say convincingly: ‘Your father looked very well.’

  ‘You really saw him?’ He had jumped down at the sight of her and brushed his cheeks with the back of his hand, but she could see he had been crying. He asked eagerly: ‘And were you able to speak to him? Did you tell him I was living here.’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  ‘I am sure he was pleased.’

  ‘Very pleased. I can’t stay, I’m afraid. Guy is bringing a friend in to supper,’ and she went to avoid answering further questions.

  The friend was David Boyd whom Harriet had not seen since their last meeting in the English Bar. He had then gone for a ‘bird-watching week-end’, which had become so protracted that Guy had at last telephoned the Legation to ask for news of him. Foxy Leverett’s secretary would say nothing but ‘The Legation is not alarmed by Mr Boyd’s absence.’

  When David telephoned that morning Harriet had felt relief at his safe return, realising he had become important to her as one of their small and dwindling community. His sound nerves were comforting. And he was Guy’s friend. Whoever might desert them, David, she was sure, would stay to the end.

  While awaiting the men, she heard a sound of agitation in the square and was about to send Despina to discover the cause of it, when Guy and David came in through the front door. David was talking loudly: ‘It’s exactly what Klein predicted. You remember his image of the great fortune? Well, this is the last of it down the drain. The country is falling to pieces.’

  As they entered the room the two men, both large, their dissimilarities masked by sunburn, looked remarkably alike. They differed only in the colour of their hair. Guy had become bleached by the sun, David had remained very dark. His black curls glistened with moisture, and moisture lay along the ridge of his large dark chin. Both were carrying their jackets caught under their elbows. They had been walking and their shirts were soaking. A smell of sweat entered with them.

  Guy said: ‘The terms of the settlement are out. Rumania has to cede the whole of Northern Transylvania: the richest part of it.’

  ‘Quite a nice bit of territory,’ David said, snuffling in delight: ‘Area about seventeen thousand square miles, population two and a half millions. But it means more than that. The Rumanians are emotional about Transylvania, “the cradle of the race”. This means trouble – as I imagine His Majesty will soon discover.’

  Harriet asked: ‘What’s happening outside now?’

  ‘People are weeping in the streets.’

  Harriet, shocked, felt like weeping herself. If asked, she would have said she expected nothing different and yet she had, she realised, ingested the baseless, febrile hopes that had lately possessed the Rumanians.

  While they ate supper the sun slipped down behind the sunset clouds, heaped, livid, in the west, their gloom hung over the square. The crowds seemed muted now as by catastrophe. Even the traffic had stopped. Harriet, with little appetite for food, felt, as she had felt after the earthquake, a desire to be in the open and touch the ground.

  She said: ‘But are the Rumanians bound to accept this?’

  ‘What else can they do?’ David asked. ‘The terms were dictated by Ribbentrop and Ciano. The Rumanian ministers were told that if they did not accept, their country would immediately be occupied by German, Hungarian and Russian troops.’

  ‘The Rumanians might fight,’ said Harriet.

  Eating heartily, exhilarated by events, David said in tolerant amusement at her folly: ‘A war between Rumania and Germany would be like the life of primitive man: nasty, brutish and short.’

  ‘Why are the Rumanians being treated in this way?’

  ‘They must be asking that themselves. I suppose they’re being made to pay for their old friendship with Britain. There’s also a story going round that Carol, while pretending to play ball with Hitler, was in fact trying to form a military alliance with Stalin.’

  ‘Do you think that’s true?’ Guy asked.

  ‘Whether true or not, it will be believed. Carol is a clever man whose behaviour from beginning to end has been that of a fool. The worst thing is that this division is not going to solve any of the Transylvanian problems. Hitler is simply cutting the baby in half. But what does he care? He’s keeping the Hunks quiet; and if he ever wants their help, he’ll probably get it.’

  They took their coffee out on to the balcony where the twilight had almost turned to dark. The chandeliers were alight inside the main rooms of the palace. A great crowd filled the square. The stunned silence was breaking now and a sense of perturbation came up upon the air. The shadows below were moving; someone was addressing them, then a single tenor voice was lifted in the national anthem that began ‘Tresca Regili’ – Hail the King!

  The first words were scarcely out when the singing was lost in a hubbub of angry shouting. The word ‘abdică’ rose above the uproar and was taken up and repeated in different parts of the square, gathering volume until it seemed all the country’s protest was resolved into the single demand that the King be king no longer.

  13

  The week that followed was a trying one for Yakimov. Whenever, on his way to and from the bar, he tried to cross the square, he was harangued and buffeted by people demonstrating for or against the King – usually against. Leaflets were pushed into his hand in which Carol was condemned as a traitor. The Guardists declared they had proof of his attempt to form an alliance with Russia. This shocking act of treachery, they said, had alienated their German friends. In view of this the Axis decision on Transylvania had been a just one. The country had paid for the sins of its ruler.

  The Guardists, however, were the only ones who had a good word for the Axis these days. So this, people said, was how the Führer treated his children! This was their reward for sending their beasts, crops and oil to Germany! The truth was, Hitler had failed in his attempts to invade Britain, and had turned, in spite, against Rumania! Yakimov had actually seen a swastika torn from a car and trodden underfoot, but the sight had merely increased his trepidation at these disturbances. ‘Quel débâcle!’ he said, ‘quel débâcle!’ and it was no longer a little joke.

  Hadjimoscos especially upset him by describing the frightful consequences should the King be dethroned. Ignored by the Guardists and having nothing to hope for from them, Hadjimoscos had become a fervent royalis
t. The departure of the King, he declared, would bring ‘absolute anarchy’. ‘We of the old aristocracy,’ he said to Yakimov, ‘would be the first to suffer. You, as a member of the English ruling class, would face immediate arrest. The Guardists are frantically anti-British. I would not put it past those fellows to erect the guillotine. It will be la Terreur all over again, I assure you. We are in this together, mon prince,’ and he gave Yakimov’s arm a squeeze, for the Rumanians, in their bitterness against Germany, were remembering their attachment to their old ally.

  Britain had declared against the division of Transylvania and suddenly everyone was saying that, in spite of everything, Britain would win the war and restore all Rumania’s possessions.

  And perhaps she would! But not in time to save poor Yaki.

  Sunday afternoon being a time when everyone was free, the commotion in the square was much greater than usual. Someone, bawling in the midst of the crowd, was rousing so much anger that Yakimov was prompted to make a detour, but he felt too tired. Bemused from his siesta and the dense heat, he slipped into the crowd and moved vaguely towards the hotel. The going was easy for a dozen yards, then he began to strike impassable knots of people. He changed direction again and again, each time finding the press growing thicker about him. When he glimpsed the speaker – a young man flinging himself wildly about on a platform – he realised he was going in the wrong direction. He attempted retreat, but the ranks had closed in behind him. Here people were not only compacted but, in full hearing of the frenzied oratory, were in a state of furious excitement. Tense, inflamed, straining and shouting, they had no awareness of Yakimov, who, murmuring apologies, began trying to edge out through any crack he could find.

  Suddenly, it seemed to him, his neighbours went mad. They not only shouted, they threw up their arms, shook fists, stamped feet, and he, inadvertently struck and jolted, could only cower and plead: ‘Steady, dear boy, steady!’ As the turbulence grew about him, there was a violent surge forward and Yakimov was carried with it, so tightly held that he could not raise his arms. He felt stifled, not only by the pressure on his frail chest and belly, but by the heat of the crowd and its reek of sweat and garlic. Feeling that his lungs had collapsed, so he could not even call for help; in terror, knowing that if he lost consciousness he would be dragged down and trampled underfoot, he reached out and clung to the man in front of him. This was a large black-bearded priest whose veiled head-gear had been dodging about before Yakimov’s eyes like a ship’s funnel in a gale. The priest was howling with the rest of them – something to do with Transylvania, of course – while Yakimov, certain the killing was about to begin, hung round his shoulders, pleading in a whisper: ‘For God’s sake, save me. Let me out.’

  He was thinking: ‘This is the end for Yaki,’ when he felt a slackening of the frenzy about him. Warning shouts were coming from the edge of the crowd. In a moment, the speaker had dropped from his platform and disappeared into anonymity. People began straining round, and as calls of ‘Politeul’ passed among them the struggle turned outwards. Caught in this new movement, Yakimov, almost dead of compression and fear, held like a drowning man to the priest, who stood still, anchored by sheer weight in the current.

  Through the thinning crowd Yakimov could see the reason for the dispersal. The police were preparing to turn hoses on the demonstrators. As the jets of water were raised, he tried to run with the rest, but now the priest to whom he had clung, clung to him, seizing and gripping his hand to hold him upright as men pelted past them, bouncing against them like boulders in an avalanche. Yakimov, thrown in every direction by these blows, felt as though his arm was being wrenched from its socket. He cried to be released, but the priest held to him, all the while grinning reassuringly at him with gigantic, grey-brown teeth.

  The square cleared. No one remained by Yakimov and the protector from whom he was still struggling to escape. Both of them were soaked. At last the priest thought it safe to let go his hold. Smiling the smile of a benefactor, he brushed Yakimov down, patted him on the back and sent him on his way.

  Yakimov made straight for cover. Stumbling, trembling, dripping with water, he fell into the English Bar, which at that time of day was packed with journalists. Galpin and Screwby were there together with old Mortimer Tufton and the visitors from neighbouring capitals who always turned up when trouble was in the air.

  Yakimov did not wait to see if anyone would offer him a drink. He went to the bar and bought one for himself. He longed to talk of his experience, but those around were too busy discussing what had occurred to notice someone who had been in the midst of it. He swallowed his ţuică, then, trembling and sweating and seeking comfort, he stood as near as he dared to Galpin.

  When Galpin bought a round of drinks, a glass came accidentally to Yakimov, who gulped it down before anyone could take it from him. Short of a drink, Galpin looked round to account for it and, noticing Yakimov, shot out an arm and seized him. ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he said.

  Terror following on terror, Yakimov cried: ‘I didn’t mean to. I thought it was meant for me.’

  ‘Pipe down. I’m not going to eat you.’ Still holding to him, Galpin led him out of the bar into the lobby. ‘I want you to do a little job for me.’

  ‘A job, dear boy?’

  ‘You did a job for McCann once, remember? Well, I want you to give me a hand. I suppose you’ve heard that the Hungarians march into Transylvania on the fifth. I ought to get to Cluj to see the takeover, but I’ve got to stay here in case the balloon goes up. So I want you to go to Cluj for me.’

  Yakimov’s immediate thought was of Freddi, but all the spirit had been shaken out of him. ‘I don’t know, dear boy,’ he said, hesitant. ‘It’s a long journey, and with the country in revolt …’

  ‘You’d be a lot safer there than here,’ Galpin assured him. ‘This is where the trouble will be. It’s all centred round the palace. Cluj is unaffected. Good food, charming place, nice people. Restful journey. All expenses paid. Could you ask for more?’

  ‘What would I have to do?’

  ‘Oh, just keep your eyes and ears open. Get the atmosphere of the place. Look around, tell me what’s going on.’ When Yakimov still showed no enthusiasm, Galpin added: ‘I helped you when you needed help. You want to help me, don’t you?’

  ‘Naturally, dear boy.’

  ‘Well, then … You’d only be away a couple of nights. I must have the news hot.’

  Yakimov, recovering as the attraction of the trip took hold of him, said: ‘Delighted to go, of course. Delighted to help. And, I may say, you’ve come to the right man. I’ve a friend there in a very important post. Count Freddi von Flügel.’

  ‘Good God! The bloody Gauleiter?’ Galpin’s yellow eyeballs started out at Yakimov. ‘You can’t go and see him.’ Then as Yakimov’s face fell, he added quickly: ‘It’s up to you, of course. After all, he’s a friend of yours. That makes a difference. Go and see him if you want to, but leave me out of it.’ Galpin drew out a note-case. ‘I’ll advance you five thousand for expenses. If that doesn’t cover things, we’ll settle up when you get back.’

  Yakimov held out a hand, but Galpin, on reflection, put the case back again. ‘I’ll give it to you when you leave. That’ll be Wednesday. Give them time to get steamed up. You’d better take the midday train. I’ll call for you eleven-thirty, take you to the station myself. Come along.’ He gripped Yakimov as though intending to keep him in custody until he went: ‘I’ll buy you another drink.’

  14

  Awakened by excitement on Wednesday morning, Yakimov was up and dressed before ten o’clock. The idea of Cluj now possessed him. His one thought was to get to safety, Freddi and good food; his one fear that transport might stop before he could set out.

  The disturbances during the last days had been an agony to him. There had been constant uproar in the square. Shots had been fired at the palace. Rumours of every sort had gone round. Antonescu had been summoned to the palace and ordered to form a governm
ent. He had said he would not serve under a non-constitutional monarchy. At this, he had been sent back to prison again.

  Yakimov had scarcely hoped to reach Wednesday alive. And now at last it was Wednesday. The square was quiet. The King was still in his palace and so far as Yakimov was concerned, all was right with the world.

  Harriet was still at the breakfast table when he made his early appearance. She had just heard on the radio that the Drucker trial had ended late the previous evening. Drucker had been found guilty and sentenced to three terms of imprisonment for different currency offences: seven years, fifteen years and twenty-five years to run consecutively. She added these up on the margin of a newspaper and discovered that the banker was to be imprisoned for forty-seven years. And nobody cared, nobody was interested. The court had been almost empty when sentence was pronounced. The trial which was to be ‘the major social occasion of the summer’, had become a hurried, paltry affair, precipitated by crisis and fear of invasion.

  Harriet was astonished when Yakimov told her he was leaving for Cluj. It had never entered her head that he might take himself off, even for a couple of nights.

  She said: ‘Do you think it’s a good idea leaving Bucharest at a time like this?’

  ‘Yaki will be all right. Going on important business, as a matter of fact. Could call it a mission.’

  ‘What sort of mission?’

  ‘’Fraid I can’t divulge, dear girl. Hush-hush, you understand? But between you and me and the gate-post, I’ve been told to keep m’eyes and ears open.’