‘Nice town,’ he said: ‘Always liked it. Old stamping ground of your Yak, of course.’
He had left his debts behind and none of his new friends had had time to learn about them. He had found employment. Though his clothes were past mending, they had been cleaned and pressed, and he wore them with an air that proclaimed his sumptuous past. He nodded towards an ornate corner building and said:
‘The G.B.’
‘What happens there?’
‘Dear girl! The G.B.’s the best hotel. The Grande Bretagne you know. Where Yaki used to wash his socks. Intend moving back there when’m a bit more lush.’
Turning into the main road, his steps faltered, his tall, slender body sagged. They had covered perhaps a couple of hundred yards but as he made his way through the crowd, he began to grumble: ‘Long walk, this. Hard on your Yak. Feet not what they used to be. Tiring place, this: uphill, downhill, hot and dusty. Constant need for refreshment.’
They had come in sight of a large café and, giving a sigh of relief, he said: ‘Zonar’s. Their new café. Very nice. In fact, Yaki’s favourite haunt.’
Everything about the café – a corner of great glass windows, striped awnings, outdoor chairs and tables – had a brilliant freshness. The patrons were still dressed for summer, the women in silks, the men in suits of silver-grey; the waiters wore white coats and their trays and coffee pots glittered in the sun. Behind the windows Harriet could see counters offering extravagant chocolate boxes and luscious cakes.
‘It looks expensive,’ she said.
‘Bit pricey,’ Yakimov agreed: ‘But convenient. After all, one has to go somewhere.’ They crossed the side-road and reaching the café pavement, Yakimov came to a stop: ‘If I’d a bit of the ready, I’d invite you to take a little something.’
So this had been his objective when they set out! Harriet understood his form of invitation. He had delivered the message and now she was expected to make repayment. She said: ‘They changed some Rumanian money for me at the hotel, so let me buy a drink.’
‘Dear girl, certainly. If you feel the need of one, I’ll join you with pleasure,’ he sank into the nearest basket-chair and asked impressively: ‘What will you take?’
Harriet said she would have tea.
‘Think I’ll have a drop of cognac, myself. Find it dries me up, too much tea.’
When the order came, the waiter put a chit beside his glass. Yakimov slid it over to Harriet then, sipping his brandy, his affability returned. He said:
‘Big Russian colony here, y’know. Charming people; the best families. And there’s a Russian club with Russian food. Delicious. One of the members said to me: “Distinguished name, Yakimov. Wasn’t your father courier to the Czar?”’
‘Was your father courier to the Czar?’
‘Don’t ask me, dear girl. All a long time ago. Yaki was only a young thing then. But m’old dad was part of the entourage. No doubt about that. That coat of mine, the sable-lined coat, was given him by the Czar. But perhaps I told you?’
‘You’ve mentioned it once or twice.’
‘’Spose you know m’old mum’s dead?’
‘No. I am sorry.’
‘No remittance for Yaki now. Good sort, the old mum, kind to her poor boy, but didn’t leave a cent. Had an annuity. All went with her. Bad idea, an annuity.’
He emptied his glass and looked expectantly at Harriet. She nodded and he called the waiter again.
In the past she had been resentful of Yakimov’s greed, now she was indifferent to everything but the passing of time. Time was an obstacle to be overcome. She wanted nothing so much as to see the airport bus stop at the corner opposite.
‘Look at that chap!’ said Yakimov: ‘The one hung over with rugs. Turk, he is. I knew one of those in Paris once. Friend of mine, an American, bought his entire stock. Poor chap walked home without a rug on him. Caught pneumonia and died.’
She smiled, knowing he was trying to entertain her, but she could not keep her mind on his chatter. She glanced about her, bewildered by her safety, unable to believe in a city so becalmed in security and comfort. Her nerves reacted still to the confusion of their last months in Rumania. As Yakimov talked, the splendid café faded from her view and she saw instead the Bucharest flat as it had been the night before she left, when the Pringles returned to find the doors open, the lights on, the beds stripped, pictures smashed, carpets ripped up and books thrown down and trampled over the floor.
She and Guy had hidden Sasha, a young Jewish deserter from the army. The louts of the Iron Guard, searching for evidence against Guy, had found the boy. Sasha was gone. That was all they knew, and probably all they would ever know.
Yakimov recalled her with a cough. His glass was empty again but at that moment the airport bus drew up and she searched in her bag to pay the bill. ‘I must go,’ she said.
‘Don’t go, dear girl. Plenty of time for another one. That bus waits twenty minutes or more. It’s always there. Just one more … just one more,’ he wailed as she sped off.
Bleakly, he watched her as she crossed the road and boarded the bus. Had he known she would desert him like this, he would not have finished his cognac so quickly.
She took her seat, prepared to wait, she did not care how long. Simply to be on the bus meant another inroad upon time. It seemed to her that when the plane arrived she would have conquered anxiety altogether.
2
Harriet’s plane had been punctual. It had swept down between the hills at a sublime moment – the moment acclaimed by Pindar – when the marble city and all its hills glowed rosy amethyst in the evening light.
Standing on the withered tufts of airfield grass, awaiting the moment as harbinger of Guy’s arrival, Harriet saw the refulgence as a gift for him. But it touched perfection and began to darken; for a little while the glow remained like wine on the hills, then she was left with nothing but her own suspense. Nearly an hour passed before the Lufthansa came winking its landing-lights over Parnes.
At last it was down. She saw Guy on the steps. Short-sighted and lost in the beams of the ground lights, he knew he would never be able to find her, so stood there: a large, untidy, bespectacled man with a book in one hand and an old rucksack in the other, waiting for her to find him. She stared a moment, amazed by reality; then ran to him. When she reached him, she was weeping helplessly.
‘Whatever is the matter?’ he asked.
‘What do you think? I was worried, of course.’
‘Not about me, surely,’ he laughed at her, frowning to hide his concern, and gave her elbow a shake: ‘You knew I’d be all right.’ In his humility, he was surprised that his danger had so affected her. Putting an arm round her, he said: ‘Silly,’ and she clung to him and led him through the shadows to the customs shed.
When the luggage came from the plane, Guy’s suitcase came with it. He had been back to the flat and filled the case and rucksack full of books.
‘What about your clothes?’ Harriet asked.
‘I’ve a change of underwear in the rucksack. I didn’t bother about the other things. One can get clothes anywhere.’
‘And books,’ she said, but it was no time to argue: ‘Had anyone been to the flat?’
‘No, it was just as we left it.’
‘And no news of Sasha?’
‘No news.’
When the bus stopped at the corner opposite Zonar’s, Harriet pointed to the large, brilliant windows with the fringe of basket-chairs, and said: ‘Yakimov’s here. That’s his favourite haunt.’
‘Yaki’s here! How splendid! Let’s get rid of this luggage and go and find him.’
‘Have you any money?’
‘No drachma. But you must have some?’
‘Not much. And I’m dead tired.’
Though impatient to gather this new world to him, Guy had to agree he, too, was tired. The fact bewildered him but on reflection, he said: ‘I didn’t go to bed last night. That may have something to do with it.’
&nbs
p; ‘How did you spend the night?’
‘David and I sat up playing chess. I wanted to sleep at the flat but David said it’d be a damnfool thing to do, so we went to his room.’
‘Did you leave him in Bucharest?’
‘No. His job doesn’t carry diplomatic privilege, so he was ordered to Belgrade. We travelled together as far as Sofia.’ Guy smiled, thinking they had parted like comrades, for they had, as David said, seen the bouleversement through to the end: ‘When we had dinner,’ he said, ‘there were German officers sitting all round us. I’m afraid we were a bit hysterical. I’d made up my mind that, come what may, I would stay on, and David was calling me the Steadfast Tin Soldier. We couldn’t stop laughing. The Germans kept turning round to look at us. I think they thought we were crazy.’
‘If you wanted to stay in Rumania, then you were crazy.’
‘Oh, I don’t know! I hadn’t been ordered to go; but next morning the Legation got on to me and said we were all being turned out. No reprieve this time. David was just leaving for the airport, so I went with him. Young Fitzsimon promised to try to get a message to you.’
‘Yes, someone rang through. Yakimov brought it. You know, he’s terribly important, or so he says. He’s employed at the Information Office.’
‘Dear old Yakimov. I do look forward to seeing him.’
In the dim light of the hotel’s basement dining-room, Guy’s face, usually fresh-coloured, was grey and taut. As they ate, he sighed with weariness and joy, but he had no intention of going to bed. It was early yet and there was no knowing what life might still have up its sleeve.
He said: ‘Let’s go out and see the town.’
They went to Zonar’s, but Yakimov was not there. They walked around for half an hour without meeting anyone known to them – a fact that seemed to baffle Guy – then, at last, he admitted he was exhausted and ready to go back to the hotel.
At breakfast, on his first morning in Athens, Guy said: ‘I must see the Director and get myself a job. Have you discovered anything about him?’
‘Only that he’s called Gracey. Yakimov doesn’t know him and I was too worried to think about anything like that.’
‘We’ll go to the Organization,’ Guy said. ‘We’ll report our arrival and ask for an interview with Gracey.’
‘Yes, but not this morning, our first morning here. I thought we could go and see the Parthenon.’
‘The Parthenon!’ Guy was astonished by the suggestion but realizing the excursion was important to her, he promised: ‘We will go, but not today. For one thing, there wouldn’t be time.’
‘I thought of it as a celebration of your arrival. I wanted it to be the first thing we did together.’
Guy had to laugh. ‘Surely there’s no hurry? The Parthenon’s been there for two thousand years, and it’ll be there tomorrow. It may even be there next week.’
‘So will the Organization office.’
‘Be reasonable, darling. I’m not on holiday. The order was that all displaced men must report to the Cairo office. I’m not supposed to be here. I took a risk in coming here, and it won’t improve matters if I go off sightseeing the minute I arrive.’
‘No one knows you’re here. We could have one morning to ourselves.’ Harriet argued, but faintly, knowing he was, as usual, right. Cairo had become a limbo for Organization employees thrown out of Europe by the German advance and Guy, hoping to avoid its workless muddle, had come here against orders. He could justify himself only by finding employment.
Seeing her disappointment, he squeezed her hand and said: ‘We will have a morning together; I promise. Just as soon as things are fixed up. And if you want to go to the Parthenon – well, all right, we’ll go.’
Harriet found that Guy had already asked the porter the whereabouts of the Organization office and, breakfast over, they must set out without delay. The office was in the School, and the School was in the old district near the Museum. As the porter had recommended, they took the tramway-car which passed the hotel and, seated on the upper deck, they looked down on the pavements crowded in the radiance of morning. Sliding her fingers into Guy’s hand, Harriet said: ‘We are here together. Whatever happens, no one can take that from us.’
‘No one will take it from us,’ Guy said. ‘We are here to stay.’
Harriet was impressed. The fact that Guy was by nature tolerant and uncomplaining gave to his occasional demands on circumstances a supernatural power. She was at once convinced that they would stay.
The streets in the Omonia Square area were unfashionable and decayed, but the School – a large house that stood in a corner site – had been restored to its nineteenth-century grandeur, and there were beds of zinnias and geraniums in the sanded forecourt. The double front-door had elaborate brass-work and glass panels engraved with irises. The inside stairway, carpeted in red, ran up to a main floor where there was another door with glass panels. This was marked ‘Lecture Room’. Looking in through the glass, Harriet saw a man on a platform addressing a roomful of students.
‘Who do you think is lecturing in there?’ she asked in a low voice. Too short-sighted to see for himself, Guy asked: ‘Who?’
‘Toby Lush.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Yes. Toby – pipe and all.’
Guy caught her arm and pulled her away from the door: ‘Do you think they’re both here? Toby Lush and Dubedat?’ he asked.
‘Probably. I remember now that Yakimov said something about Toby being in an influential position.’
Guy was silent a moment before he said firmly: ‘That’s a good thing.’
‘Why is it a good thing?’
‘They can put in a word for me.’
‘But will they?’
‘Why not? I helped them when they needed help.’
‘Yes, but when you most needed help, they bolted from Rumania and left you to manage on your own.’
They were standing in a passage where the doors were marked ‘Director’, ‘Chief Instructor’, ‘Library’ and ‘Teachers’ Common Room’. Before Harriet could make any further indictment of Lush and Dubedat, Guy opened the door marked ‘Library’ and said: ‘We can wait in here.’
A Greek girl sat at the Library desk. She welcomed them pleasantly but seemed shocked when Guy asked if he could see the Director.
‘The Director is not here,’ she said.
‘Where can we find him?’ Harriet asked.
The girl dropped her gaze and shook her head as though the Director were too august a figure to be lightly discussed. ‘If you wait,’ she said to Guy, ‘you may be able to see Mr Lush.’
Guy said: ‘I would rather make an appointment to see Mr Gracey.’
‘I don’t think it is possible. You would have to consult Mr Lush. But I could make an appointment for you to see Mr Dubedat.’
‘Is Mr Dubedat here now?’
‘Oh, no. Not at the moment. He’s very busy. He’s working at home.’
‘I see.’
Harriet murmured: ‘Let’s go.’
Guy looked nonplussed: ‘If we go,’ he said, ‘we’ll only have to come back. As we’re here, we might as well wait and see Toby.’
Guy wandered off round the shelves, but Harriet remained near the door, waiting to see how Toby Lush would behave when he caught sight of them. The two men, Lush and Dubedat, had come to Bucharest from different occupied countries and Guy had employed each in turn. They had become close friends and without consulting Guy or anyone else, they had left together, secretly, fearful of the threatened German advance.
Harriet could hear Toby scuffing in the passage before he entered. He blundered against the door and fell in with it, his hair in his eyes, his arms full of books. He bumped against Harriet, stared at her and recognized her in dismay. He looked round suspiciously, saw Guy and dropped the books in order to grip his pipe. He sucked on it violently, then managed to gasp: ‘Well, well, well!’
Guy turned, smiling with such innocent friendliness that To
by, restored, rushed forward and seized him by the hand.
‘Miraculous,’ gasped Toby, his big fluffy moustache blowing in and out as he spoke. ‘Miraculous! And Harriet, too.’ He swung round as though he had just become aware of her. ‘When did you get here, you wonderful people?’
As Guy was about to reply, Toby shouted: ‘Into the office,’ and rushed them from the Library before they could speak again. Inside the room marked ‘Chief Instructor’, Toby placed them in chairs and seated himself behind a large desk. ‘Now then,’ he said, satisfied, and he examined them, his eyes protruding with the joviality of shock.
‘Who’d’ve thought it!’ he spoke as though doubtful of their corporeality. ‘So you got away, after all?’
‘After all what?’ Harriet asked.
Toby treated that as a joke. While he whoofed with laughter, his coarse-featured, putty-coloured face slipped about like something too soft to hold its shape, and he clutched at his pipe, the only stronghold in a world where anything might happen. He was still dressed in his old leather-patched jacket, the shapeless flannels which he called his ‘bags’ and his heavy brogues, but, in spite of his dress, his manner suggested that he had become a person of consequence. The first greetings over, he sat back importantly in his chair and said to Guy:
‘So you’re on your way to the mystic east, eh? The mystic Middle East, I should say?’
‘No, we want to stay here. Can you arrange for me to see Gracey?’
‘Oh!’ Toby looked down at his desk. ‘Um.’ His head dropped lower and lower while he gave thought to Guy’s request, then he said in an awed tone: ‘Mr Gracey’s a sick man. He doesn’t see anyone in the ordinary way.’
‘What about the extra-ordinary way?’ Harriet asked.
Toby cocked up an eye, took his pipe from his mouth, and said solemnly: ‘Mr Gracey’s injured his spine.’
He pushed his pipe back through his moustache and started to relight it.
‘Who is doing his work while he is unwell?’ Guy asked.
‘Um, um, um, um.’ Toby, sucking and gasping, was forced to abandon one match and light another. ‘No one,’ he said at last and added, ‘really’.
The Balkan Trilogy Page 69