He followed her and took his meal without saying much. She had hoped that, alone here, dependent upon each other, they would be closer than they had ever been. Now it seemed to her she had been nearer to him when he was not here; nearest, probably, when she had imagined him in the Lufthansa above the Aegean. He had only to arrive to take a step away from her.
He was not to be shut up in intimacy. The world was his chief relationship and she wondered whether he really understood any other. His quarrel now was not with her, but with defaulting humanity and he was in retreat from it. And here they were with leisure and freedom – things they had not had before in the year of marriage – and Guy was closeted with his dilemma while she went for walks with a stranger.
6
Next morning, called to the telephone while at breakfast, Guy returned transformed. He took the dining-room steps at a run, his face alight, his whole person animated, and called to Harriet: ‘Hurry up. We’re going to the Legation.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘The Cairo office has approved my presence here. Apparently they’ve got all the chaps they can deal with in Egypt. They don’t want any more. The Legation say I can have some money.’
Harriet walked up with him and waited in the Chancellory while Guy saw the accountant and was permitted to draw on Legation funds. She could hear his voice raised happily in the office and when he came out he was pushing his drachma notes into an old two-penny cash-book which he kept in his breast pocket. He expressed by his action his indifference to money but he was not, Harriet now knew, indifferent to the lack of it.
‘And what do you think?’ he said: ‘Our old friend Dobbie Dobson is being sent here from Bucharest. We’ll have a friend at Court.’
‘Will we?’ Harriet doubtfully asked.
‘Of course.’ Guy was confident of it and walking downhill to the main road, he said: ‘I like Dobson. I do like Dobson. He’s so unaffected and amiable.’
Guy, too, was unaffected and amiable which, considering the poverty in which he had grown up, was a more surprising thing. He had seemed to Harriet to have a unique attitude to life, an attitude that was a product of confidence and simplicity, but she had seen that the simplicity was not as unified as it seemed, the confidence could be shaken. Moneyless, he had remained under cover and now, emerging, he emerged for her in a slightly different guise.
She said: ‘I’m never quite sure with you where showmanship ends and reality begins.’
‘Don’t bother about that,’ he said. ‘Where do you want to eat tonight?’
‘Anywhere but the hotel crypt.’
‘Let’s ask Frewen to supper. He’ll say where we should go.’
At midday they found Alan at Zonar’s, in his usual place. When he received their invitation, he grew red and his face strained into its painful smile with a gratitude that was almost emotional. They could see how deeply he wished for friends. And how odd, Harriet thought, that he had so few and, after all his years in Greece, should be dependent upon newcomers like Yakimov and the Pringles. Was it that he approached people, instigated friendship, but could go no further? She could imagine him with many acquaintances but known by none of them.
He suggested that they go to a taverna where they might see some Greek dancing. He knew one beyond the Roman agora and that evening called for them in a taxi. He handed Harriet a bunch of little mauve-pink flowers.
She said: ‘Cyclamen, already!’
‘Yes, they begin early. In fact, things here begin almost before they stop.’
‘Do you mean the winter stops before it starts?’
‘Alas, no. The winter can be bitter, and it’s likely to come down on us any day now. The weather’s broken in the mountains. Reports from the front say “torrents of rain”. I only hope the Italians and their heavy gear get stuck in the mud.’
They were put down in a wide, dark road where the wind blew cold. Alan led them between black-out curtains into a small taverna where there was only the proprietor, sitting as though he despaired of custom. At the sight of Alan, he leapt up and began offering them a choice of tables set round an open space. The space was for dancing, but there was no one to dance.
When they sat down, he stood for some time talking to Alan, his voice full of sorrow, his hands tragically raised, so the Pringles were prepared for unhappy news long before Alan was free to interpret it. The proprietor had two sons who, being themselves skilled dancers, had drawn in rival performers from the neighbourhood. But now his sons and all the other young men had gone to the war and here he was, alone. But even if the boys were home, there would be no dancing, for the Greeks had given up dancing. No one would dance while friends and brothers and lovers were at the war. No, no one would dance again until every single enemy had been driven from the soil of Greece. Still, the taverna was open and the proprietor was happy to see Alan and Alan’s companions. When introduced to Guy and Harriet, he shook each by the hand and said there was some ewe cooked with tomatoes and onions, and, pray heavens, there always would be good wine, both white and black.
He went to the kitchen and Alan apologized for the gloom and quiet. Seeing him crestfallen, Harriet began asking him about the boys who used to dance here. How did they dance? Where did they learn?
Stimulated at once, Alan began to talk, saying: ‘Oh, all the Greek boys can dance. Dancing is a natural form of self-expression here. If there’s music, someone runs on to the floor and stretches out his hand, and someone else joins him and the dance begins. And then there’s the Zebeikiko! The dance they do with their arms round each other’s shoulders. First there may be only two or three, then another joins and another; and the women clap and … oh dear me! The whole place seems to be thudding with excitement. It stirs the blood, I can tell you.’
‘I would love to see it.’
‘Perhaps you will. The war won’t go on for ever.’
When the wine was brought, Alan invited the proprietor to drink to a speedy victory. The old man held up his glass, saying: ‘Niki, niki, niki,’ then told them the Italians would be on their knees before the month was out. He had no doubt of it.
When he left them, the room was silent except for the purr of the lamps that hung just below the prints pinned on the walls. One print showed the Virgin done in the Byzantine manner; another was a coloured war-poster in which the women of Epirus, barefooted, their skirts girded above their knees, were helping their men haul the guns up the mountainside.
After he had brought in the food, the proprietor retired tactfully and sat at his own table, apparently preoccupied until Alan called to him: ‘Where are all the customers?’
The proprietor sprang up again to reply. He explained that in these times people were not inclined to go out. They would not seek merriment while their young men were fighting and losing their lives.
When the man returned to his seat, Alan gazed after him with a reminiscent tenderness and Harriet said: ‘You love Greece, don’t you?’
‘Yes. I love the country and I love the people. They have a wonderful vitality and friendliness. They want to be liked, of course: but that does not detract from their individuality and independence. Have you ever heard about the Greek carpenter who was asked to make six dining-room chairs?’
‘No. Tell us.’
‘The customer wanted them all alike and the carpenter named an extremely high figure. “Out of the question,” said the customer. “Well,” said the carpenter, “if I can make them all different, I’d do them for half that price.”’
Alan talked for some time about the Greeks and the countryside: ‘an idyllic, unspoilt countryside’. Guy, interested in more practical aspects of Greek life, here broke in to ask if by ‘unspoilt’ Alan did not mean undeveloped, and by ‘idyllic’, simply conditions that had not changed since the days of the Ottoman Empire. How was it possible to enjoy the beauty of a country when the inhabitants lived in privation and misery?
Alan was startled by Guy’s implied criticism. His great sombre face grew dark and he seemed incapa
ble of speech. After some moments he said, as though his vanity had been touched:
‘I’ve seen a great deal of the country. I have not noticed that the people are unhappy.’
There was a defensive irritation in his tone and Harriet would, if she could, have stopped the subject at once, but Guy was not easily checked. Certain that Alan, a humane and intelligent man, could be made to share his opinions, he asked with expectant interest:
‘But are they happy? Can people be happy under a dictatorship?’
‘A dictatorship!’ Alan started in surprise, then laughed. ‘You could call it a dictatorship, but a very benevolent one. I suppose you’ve been talking to members of the K.K.E.? What would they have done if they’d got power? Before Metaxas took over there’d been an attempt to impose a modern political system on what was virtually a primitive society. The result was chaos. In the old days there’d been the usual semi-oriental graft but as soon as there was a measure of democratic freedom, graft ran riot. The only thing Metaxas could do was suspend the system. The experiment was brought to a stop. A temporary stop, of course.’
‘When do you think it will start again?’
‘When the country’s fit to govern itself.’
‘And when will that be? What’s being done to bring Greece into line with more advanced countries? I mean, of course, industrially advanced countries?’
‘Nothing, I hope.’ Alan spoke with a tartness that surprised both Guy and Harriet. ‘Greece is all right as it is. Metaxas is not personally ambitious. He’s a sort of paternal despot, like the despots of the classical world; and, all things considered, I think he’s doing very well.’
Guy, assessing and criticizing Alan’s limitations, said: ‘You prefer the peasants to remain in picturesque poverty, I suppose?’
‘I prefer that they remain as they are: courteous, generous, honourable and courageous. Athens is not what it was, I admit. There used to be a time when any stranger in the city was treated as a guest. As more and more strangers came here, naturally that couldn’t go on; yet something remains. The great tradition of philoxenia – of friendship towards a stranger – still exists in the country and on the islands. It exists here, in a little café like this!’ Alan’s voice sank with emotion; he had to pause a moment before he could say:
‘A noble people! Why should anyone wish to change them?’
Guy nodded appreciatively. ‘A noble people, yes. They deserve something better than subsistence at starvation level.’
‘Man does not live by bread alone. You young radicals want to turn the world into a mass-producing factory, and you expect to do it overnight. You make no allowance for the fact different countries are at different stages of development.’
‘It’s not only a question of development, but a question of freedom; especially freedom of thought. There are political prisoners in Greece. Isn’t that true?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know. There may be, but if people are intent on making a nuisance of themselves, then prison is the best place for them.’
‘They’re intent on improving the conditions of their fellow men.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ said Alan, with the asperity of a docile man attacked through his ideals. He took his dark glasses out and sat fingering them.
Seeing that his hands were trembling, Harriet said: ‘Darling, let’s talk of something else,’ but Guy was absorbed in his own subject. As he spoke at length of good schools, clinics, ante-natal care, child-welfare centres, collective farms and industries communally owned, Alan’s face grew more and more sombre. At last he broke in, protesting:
‘You come from an industrial area. You can only see progress in terms of industry. Greece has never been an industrial country and I hope it never will be.’
‘Can Greece support its people without industry?’
Without attempting to answer, Alan said: ‘I love Greece. I love the Greeks. I do not want to see any change here.’
‘You speak like a tourist. A country must support its populace.’
‘It does support them. No one dies of starvation.’
‘How do you know? Starvation can be a slow process. How many Greeks have to emigrate each year?’
There was a sense of deadlock at the table. Alan put his glasses down, stared at them, then gave a laugh. ‘You’ll have to have a talk with Ben Phipps,’ he said. ‘I think you’d see eye to eye.’
‘Really?’ Harriet asked in surprise.
‘Oh, yes. Ben prides himself on being a progressive.’
‘Surely Cookson wouldn’t approve of that?’
‘He’s not taken seriously at Phaleron. It’s fashionable to be left wing these days, as you know. Phipps is accepted as a sort of court jester. He can believe what he likes so long as he doesn’t try to change anything.’
‘I’d like to meet him again,’ Guy said.
‘I think it can be arranged.’
‘Let’s have another bottle.’
Alan had lost possibility for Guy, but unaware of this, he looked like a boy let out of school and returned to the beauties of Greece, talking at length about his travels on the main-land and to the islands. Guy, sitting back out of the conversation, attended with a smiling interest, viewing him no more seriously than Cookson viewed Phipps.
When they left, the proprietor took their hands and held to them as though he could scarcely bear to be left alone again in the empty silence that had once been alive with music and dancing youths.
There was little traffic outside and no hope of a taxi. Alan, walking ahead, led them through the narrow streets to the Plaka Square which they reached as the air-raid warning sounded. Police regulations required everyone to go under cover during an alert, but the raids, that came every day, were over the Piraeus, and Athenians avoided the regulation if they could. Alan suggested they should sit on the chairs outside the café in the square. They could hurry inside if the police appeared.
The moon, that shone fitfully through drifting cloud, touched the old houses and trees, and the plaque that said Byron had lived somewhere near. The strands of the pepper trees in the central garden moved like seaweed in the wind. It was too cold now to sit out after dark, but the outdoor chill was preferable to the hot, smoky air behind the curtain of the little café.
The café owner, hearing voices outside, looked through the curtains and asked if they would like coffee. Alan explained that they were only waiting for the raid to end. The owner said they might wait a long time and he invited them to take coffee as his guests. The coffee, hot and sweet, came in little cups, and the waiter left the curtain open slightly as a gesture of welcome while someone with a concertina inside began to play ‘Tipperary’ in their honour. They drank down their coffee and ordered some more. The moon disappeared behind cloud and there was darkness except for the crack of light between the café curtains.
Alan said: ‘“They are daring beyond their power and they risk beyond reason and they never lose hope in suffering.”’
‘Thucydides?’ asked Guy. Alan nodded and Harriet begged him: ‘Repeat some of your translations of Cavafy.’
He reflected for a while then began: ‘Why are we waiting, gathered in the market place? It’s the barbarians who are coming today …’ He stopped. ‘It is a long poem; too long.’
‘We have nothing to do but listen,’ said Harriet, and she suddenly realized how happy she was here with Guy, come out of his seclusion to be a companion of this freedom that, having neither past nor future, was a lacuna in time; a gift of leisure that need only be accepted and enjoyed.
Alan was about to start his recitation again when the all clear sounded. ‘Another time,’ he said. ‘Now I must go back and feed my poor Diocletian.’
7
Alan had asked Harriet if she would join him again when he went to the greens and, being told there was a visitor in the hall, she said to Guy: ‘Won’t you come, too?’
Guy, restored to all his old desire for contact with life, said: ‘I’d like to come,’ but runn
ing down the stairs, he stopped and whispered: ‘I don’t want to see him.’
‘Who?’
‘It’s Toby Lush again.’
Guy’s expression, injured and apprehensive, roused her to fury. ‘I’ll deal with him,’ she said. ‘You stay there.’
Toby, in his leather-bound jacket, with his wrack of moustache and hair in eyes, looked like some harmless old sheep-dog. He grinned at Harriet as though he had come on a pleasing errand and seemed startled by her tone when she asked:
‘What do you want?’
‘The old lad. Is he about?’
‘No.’
‘When can I see him? It’s urgent.’
‘You can’t see him. You can leave a message.’
‘No. Have orders to see Guy in person.’
‘He refuses to see you. If you have anything to say, you can say it to me.’
Toby spluttered and shifted his feet, but in the end had to speak. ‘There’s going to be an evacuation ship. It’s all arranged. Dubedat told me to tell you he’s wangled berths on it for the pair of you.’
‘Has he? Why?’
‘It’s your chance, don’t you see? There’s nothing here for you: no job, no money, nowhere to live, and now the Italians invading. You’re jolly lucky to be getting away.’
‘And is Gracey going?’
‘Yes, we’re losing him, sad to say.’
‘And you and Dubedat?’
‘No, we’d go if we could, but we’ve got to hold the fort. The ship’s not for us chaps. The old soul used his influence and they stretched a point because he said you’re stranded.’ Laughing nervously, his moustache stirring, damp, beneath his nose, Toby added; ‘I’d rather go than stay.’
‘You surprise me. The news is unusually good. I’ve been told the Italians are putting up no fight at all. There’s a whole division trapped in a gorge of the Pindus mountains and they’re not even trying to fight their way out.’
‘Oh, you can’t believe those stories. The Greeks’ll say anything. The I-ties may be stopped for the moment, but they’re bound to break through. They’ve got tanks, lorries, big guns, the lot. Once the break comes, they’ll be down here in a brace of shakes. We don’t want to stay here, but we’ve got a job to do.’
The Balkan Trilogy Page 76