The Balkan Trilogy

by Olivia Manning

Noticing that she was not listening to their talk, Guy said: ‘She does not attach much importance to passing events.’

  Harriet laughed. ‘You have only to let them pass and they lose their importance.’

  ‘You may pass with them, of course,’ David said with a wry, sombre smile.

  The food was slow in arriving. They had been served with soup. Some twenty minutes passed before the waiter placed their knives and forks, then, at last, came the friptură.

  ‘In its day,’ David said, ‘this restaurant served the best steaks in Europe.’

  ‘What have we got now, do you think?’ Guy asked.

  David sniggered. ‘Apparently some trăsură has lost its horse.’

  The men remembered the spring and early summer of the previous year, when they had often come to the Polişinel garden and talked of the war that overhung them all. Diners would still be arriving at midnight and would remain until the first cream of the dawn showed through the trees. While there was one customer left, the musicians would play a series of little tunes, maudlin, banal, pretty, but, in deference to the hour, they played more and more softly, often breaking off in the middle of a phrase and starting up with something else, or just plucking a note here and there, a token of music, patiently awaiting their reward.

  ‘How shall we reward them now?’ Guy asked. He took out a thousand-lei note.

  Harriet and David looked askance at this extravagance, but he handed it over. ‘For the pleasures that are past,’ he said.

  When they reached the Pringles’ flat, it was little more than eleven o’clock and David agreed to come in for a final drink. The hall was in darkness. The porter had been conscripted long ago and never replaced. They found the lift out of order.

  There seemed to Harriet something odd about the house – perhaps the lack of sound. Rumanians sat up late. Usually on the stairs voices and music could be heard until the early hours of the morning: now there were no voices and no music. The three walked up from one dark landing to another, hearing nothing but their own footsteps. On the eighth floor they saw a light falling obliquely from above.

  Harriet said: ‘It comes from our flat. Our front door is open.’

  They stopped and listened. The silence was complete. After some moments Guy began moving soundlessly up the last flight of stairs with David behind him. Harriet paused, unnerved by the stillness and the sight of the front door lying wide open. No sound of life came from within. Cautiously she went up a step or two so she could see past the two men in the hall. The sitting-room door stood ajar. The lights were on within.

  Hearing her step on the stair, Guy whispered: ‘Wait.’ He gave a push to the sitting-room door: it fell open. Nothing moved inside.

  David said: ‘No need to ask what’s happened here.’

  Guy came out to tell Harriet: ‘We’ve been raided.’

  ‘Sasha and Despina? Where can they be?’

  ‘They must be hiding somewhere.’

  They went through the flat, walking among a litter of papers, books, clothing and broken glass. Drawers had been emptied out, beds stripped, books thrown from shelves, pictures smashed, carpets ripped from the floor. They realised this had been done not in a frenzy of destruction but in a systematic search. The breakages and the disorder were incidental. And for what had they been searching? For something that could be hidden in a drawer or under a mattress – so not for Sasha. But perhaps it was Sasha they had found.

  Anyway, there was no sign of him. His room, like the rest of the flat, was in confusion.

  Guy led the way into the kitchen where the door on to the fire-escape stood open. Here drawers had been emptied, canisters of tea, coffee and dried foods had been turned out in a heap on the floor.

  Harriet looked into Despina’s room. It was empty. Her possessions were gone.

  They went out on to the fire-escape. The well at the back of the house, on to which the kitchens opened, was usually, even at this hour, in an uproar of squabbling and shouting. Tonight all the doors, except their own door, were shut. There were no lights. The kitchens appeared to be deserted.

  Harriet went up the ladder to the roof. The doors to the servants’ huts were closed. Harriet pulled open that which had been used by Sasha. There was nothing inside. She called: ‘Sasha! Despina!’ No one answered.

  They returned to Sasha’s room. The bed-covers were on the floor and, as Harriet piled them back on to the bed, the mouth-organ fell from among them. She handed it to Guy as proof that he had been taken, and forcibly. Under the bed-covers was the forged passport, torn in half – derisively, it seemed.

  Remembering her childhood pets whose deaths had broken her heart, she said: ‘They’ll murder him, of course.’

  ‘No,’ Guy said. ‘Why should they! I’ll go to the Legation in the morning. They’ll make some inquiries. Don’t worry. We won’t let it rest.’

  Harriet shook her head, unable to speak. She knew there was nothing anyone could do. The Rumanian authorities had little enough power against the Iron Guard. The British Legation had none at all. In any case, Sasha was an army deserter. His arrest was legal, and he was without rights.

  David said: ‘I don’t think we should stay here. They’re quite likely to come back.’

  He kept watch on the landing while Harriet rapidly packed her suitcase. Guy put some shirts and underwear into his rucksack then went into the sitting-room and began picking up his books. Some of them had been trampled on and were spine-broken with the marks of heels and footprints on the pages. Recognising the savagery against which he had declared himself, he told himself: ‘The beast has broken in.’ He was thankful that Harriet was going next day. After that anything might happen.

  He managed to fit a couple of dozen books into the rucksack and put six more into his pockets. He picked up a last one and put it under his arm. It contained the sonnets of Shakespeare.

  Before they left the flat, they shut the back door and switched off the lights. They had no time to right the disorder. They left it as they had found it. They reached the street with a sense of having made an escape.

  ‘I felt pretty nervous in there,’ David said.

  ‘God,’ said Guy, ‘I never felt so frightened in my life before.’

  Harriet remained silent until they were in the square, then she said: ‘I can’t leave tomorrow. And now there’s no reason why I should.’

  ‘Oh, you must go,’ said Guy. ‘You have to find me a job. If you stayed, you couldn’t do anything. And Dobson is expecting you at the airport.’

  David’s room contained two beds. Suddenly exhausted from shock, Harriet threw herself on one of them and was asleep in a moment. The men, too alert to sleep, sat up most of the night, talking, drinking and playing chess.

  28

  When she awoke next morning and remembered what had occurred, Harriet was surprised that she felt nothing. She prepared for her departure, no longer caring whether she went or stayed.

  David had been called to the Legation and said goodbye to Harriet in the vestibule. As she and Guy left the hotel, they saw Galpin packing luggage into his car. Guy asked him if he were leaving.

  Galpin shook his head, but said: ‘Something’s in the wind. It’s my hunch the balloon’s going up.’

  ‘You think it’s a matter of days?’

  ‘It’s a matter of hours. Anyway, I’m prepared. I’ll give you a lift if you like.’

  ‘Harriet’s off to Athens this morning. I have to stay.’

  ‘Stay? What for? A bullet in the back of the neck?’

  A rare and peculiar look of obstinacy came over Guy’s face. ‘I’ve a job to do,’ he said.

  ‘Well.’ Galpin moved away, twisting himself into his rain-coat as he went. ‘One person taking no risks is yours truly.’ He hurried back to the hotel.

  Dobson was already on the airfield when the Pringles arrived. The morning was chilly and he was wearing an overcoat with an astrakhan collar. Having been told that Harriet would be accompanied by one of Guy’s stude
nts, he asked: ‘Where’s your young friend?’

  Guy told him what had happened. The student was Sasha Drucker – no point now in hiding that fact. Guy said he intended reporting the matter to the Legation and enlisting the help of Fitzsimon who had played Troilus in his production.

  Dobson listened with an expression, sympathetic but quizzical, which seemed to ask: What did Guy hope for? If the British Legation could no longer protect its own nationals, what could it do for this discredited Jewish youth who had disappeared into chaos? He said: ‘All over Europe there are people like Sasha Drucker …’ He made a gesture of despair at the measureless suffering which in their lifetime had become a commonplace.

  Guy glanced at Harriet, saying: ‘I am sure Fitzsimon will do what he can.’

  Harriet looked away. Believing he was done for, she wanted to turn her back on everything to do with Sasha. She said: ‘I think we should take our seats.’

  Guy, troubled by her lack of emotion, said: ‘Cable me when you arrive.’

  ‘Of course.’ She gave her attention to the airport officials, one of whom went off with her passport. She protested and was told it would be returned to her on the plane.

  When Guy put his arms round her to kiss her goodbye, her main thought was to get the parting over. Dobson took her arm, sweeping her through the last corroding moments by making light of the journey before them. ‘I always enjoy this little hop over the Balkans,’ he said.

  The plane was about to leave when an official entered and, saluting her, presented her with her passport. The doors were closed, the plane slid off. As they rose, Harriet looked down and, glimpsing the solitary figure of Guy, who was watching after her, was stabbed by the thought: ‘I may never see him again.’ Immediately she wanted to return and fling herself upon him. Instead, she opened her passport and saw the word ‘anulat’ stamped across her re-entry visa. She said in dismay: ‘They’ve cancelled my visa.’ Her indifference was shattered. Suddenly in panic at the reality of her departure, she said: ‘But I must come back. They can’t keep me from my husband.’

  Dobson was reassuring: ‘You can get a visa in Athens. The Rumanian consul is a charming old boy. He’ll do anything for a lady,’ and he went on to talk of the Danube, which had appeared below, a broad ribbon with river-craft and strings of oil barges black on its silver surface: ‘Did you know, there are maps dating back to 400 B.C. which show the Danube rising in the Pyrenees?’

  ‘But surely it doesn’t rise in the Pyrenees?’

  Dobson laughed, so delighted by her ignorance that she began to feel at ease. She was grateful for his company. Before the war, when she had travelled about alone, she had enjoyed her own independence. Now she wanted to cling to Dobson as to a vestige of her normal life with Guy. She buoyed herself with the thought that she was on a mission. She had to find a job for Guy and a refuge for them both. She began to think of Bella, who would be the only English woman in Bucharest when her English friends departed. She spoke of this to Dobson, who smiled without concern and said: ‘I told Bella the Legation would take her out if we have to go, but she showed no interest.’

  ‘You could not expect her to leave Nikko.’

  ‘Oh, we would take Nikko, too. They both speak several languages. We could make good use of them.’ Dobson gave a laugh in which there was a hint of annoyance. ‘The truth is, she thinks she’ll be a jolly sight more comfortable where she is.’

  Across the frontier, there was nothing to be seen but a fleece of white cloud through which the hill-tips broke, dark blue, like islands. As the morning advanced, the cloud dissolved to reveal the sun-dried Balkan uplands. Several times the plane, caught in an air-pocket, dropped steeply and there came, detailed, into view, stones, crevices and alpine flowers.

  Sofia appeared amid its hills, a small town, grey beneath a grey sky. It seemed to be the destination of most of the passengers. ‘I wish I were staying here,’ said Harriet.

  Dobson smiled at her absurdity. ‘Athens is delightful,’ he said. ‘You’ll meet the most charming people.’ Preparing to leave her, he saw no reason at all why she should not be happy to journey on alone.

  When the plane landed, Harriet walked with Dobson across the airfield to the barrier. A chauffeur awaited him and as he handed over his luggage, Harriet glanced back and saw that her suitcase had been put out on the grass. Her plane was taxi-ing across the field.

  She gave a cry and said: ‘They’re going without me.’

  ‘Surely not,’ Dobson said, but the plane was already rising from the ground. He spoke to the Bulgarian chauffeur who went to the customs-shed and came back with the information that the Rumanian plane had announced it would go no farther. Passengers for Athens must proceed on the German Lufthansa.

  ‘But why?’ Harriet was alarmed, remembering that Galpin had said: ‘When trouble starts, the air-service is the first thing to stop.’ She asked: ‘What has happened?’ but there was no one who could tell her.

  Dobson said: ‘Probably some rumour has scared them. You know what the Rumanians are like.’

  Harriet said: ‘I can’t go on the Lufthansa.’ She was genuinely afraid. A story going round Bucharest described how some British businessmen in Turkey travelling on the Lufthansa, contrary to protocol, had been taken not to Sofia but to Vienna, where they had been arrested and interned.

  Dobson smiled at her fears. ‘For myself, I’d feel safer on the Lufthansa than on any Rumanian plane.’

  ‘But it’s forbidden.’

  ‘Only in a general way. You won’t be allowed past the barrier here: you can’t return to Bucharest: so you have no choice but to travel in the transport available.’

  The large Lufthansa stood on the airfield with a German official at the steps. Harriet felt sick at the sight of it. Stricken by her own plight, she appealed to Dobson: ‘Please wait with me until I go.’

  He said: ‘I’m afraid I can’t. The Minister’s expecting me for luncheon.’

  Near tears, she pleaded: ‘It’s only about twenty minutes.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Dobson made a murmur of regret. He had lost his lightness of manner and she felt something inflexible beneath the reverence with which he said: ‘I cannot keep the Minister waiting.’

  After Dobson had been driven away, Harriet sat for a while on the bench by the shed and gazed at the German plane. Passengers were beginning to board it and she knew there was no purpose in delay. As Dobson had pointed out, she could neither stay here nor return whence she had come. She knew now what it was like to be a stateless person without a home.

  Five men were filing up the steps of the plane, all, it seemed to her, inimical. Immediately in front of her was a little old man pulling on a string a toy dog, a money-box of sorts. He glanced back at her with a smile and as she noted his straggle of grey-yellow hair, his snub pink face, his wet blue eyes, she thought he looked as sinister as the rest. However, when she reached the official at the step, he produced a British passport and his aspect changed for her. Looking over his shoulder, she read that he was a retired consul called Liversage, domiciled in Sofia, born in 1865. The Germans treated the two British nationals with frigid courtesy. Harriet was thankful for the presence of this old man and his toy dog.

  As they entered the plane, he stepped aside to let her choose her seat, and when she sat down, sat down beside her. He took the toy dog on his knee and, patting its worn hide, explained: ‘I collect for hospitals. Have collected hundreds of pounds, y’know. Thousands in fact. Been collecting for over fifty years.’

  The journey no longer frightened her. She asked herself, was it likely they would divert the plane in order to capture one young English woman and a man of seventy-five?

  As they flew over the mountains, Mr Liversage talked continually, pausing only to receive the answer to some question he had asked. Where was she coming from? Where going? What was she doing in this part of the world?

  ‘Is your husband a ’varsity man?’ he asked. He spoke pleasantly, but the question was clearly im
portant to him. Her answer would place her. She wondered, would a provincial university be described as a ‘’varsity’? She decided to say: ‘Yes,’ and Mr Liversage seemed content.

  Near the Bulgarian frontier, the sky began to clear. Over Macedonia, the plane suddenly emerged into brilliance, coming almost immediately into sight of the Ægean that sifted its peacock blues and greens against the golden shore of Thrace. They passed, almost at eye-level, a mountain like an inverted bucket, but before she could comment on it Mr Liversage had talked them past it. While she looked below, seeing the Sporades fringed purple with weed, lying in shallows of jade and turquoise, Mr Liversage talked of his life in Sofia where he had ‘a nice little place, nice little garden: lived very happily’. But he had been advised to leave. Bulgaria, too, was threatened by the war that crept east like a grey lava to overwhelm them all.

  ‘So here we are!’ he said, his old hand with its loose, liver-spotted skin, patting the dog’s rump. ‘Going to Athens. Probably settle down there. Bit of a lark, eh?’

  Perhaps it was. Harriet smiled for the first time since she had entered the ravaged flat the night before. The memory had begun to retreat as they flew out of the Balkan world, leaving behind all intimations of autumn, returning into summer. Everything below was parched to a golden-pink. The sun, pouring in through the windows, grew steadily fiercer as the day advanced.

  Throughout the journey, which lasted until evening, Mr Liversage held his dog on his knee. He had brought a packet of sandwiches, which he shared with Harriet. Sometimes, as he talked, his hands were tensed about the dog so his knuckles shone, but his manner, matter-of-fact and cheerful, suggested it was for him an everyday occurrence to be uprooted in this way and no cause for complaint. The plane flew due south, showing no inclination to turn from its course. Indeed, Harriet realised, they were already over Athens.

  ‘We will meet again,’ said Mr Liversage as they began to descend.

  Seeing the marble façades and the surrounding hills luminous in the rose-violet light of evening, she was thankful to come to rest in so beautiful a place.