Pinkrose had moved off before the words were spoken, yet they reached him. He stopped, looked round and fixed Yakimov in amazement.
Immediately Yakimov’s spirit fell. He said in terror: ‘Only a little joke,’ he pleaded.
Pinkrose went without a word.
Eyes moist, lips trembling, Yakimov said: ‘D’you think the dear boy’s piqued?’
‘He didn’t look too pleased, did he?’ said Alan.
‘It was only a little joke.’
‘I know.’
‘What d’you think he’ll do?’
‘Nothing. What can he do? Don’t worry.’
But Yakimov did worry. Throughout the morning, pondering his folly, he repeated: ‘Didn’t mean any harm. Little joke. Look how he treated your poor old Yak! Telling me about food when I haven’t had a meal for months!’
‘Don’t take it to heart. Worse things are happening at the front. I keep thinking of that proverb: “Better a ship at sea or an Irish wife than a house in Macedonia.”’
Yakimov looked pained. ‘Not a nice thing to say, dear boy. M’old mum was Irish.’
‘You’re right. It wasn’t “Irish”. I’ve forgotten what it was. Probably “Albanian”.’
Nothing would amuse Yakimov. He refused to be comforted. Something in Pinkrose’s face had aroused his apprehensions and, it proved, with reason. At mid-day the office boy entered and said that Lord Pinkrose wished to see Mr Frewen in his office. Surprised by this summons, Alan pulled himself out of his chair and went without a word. Yakimov gazed after him in fear. When he returned, his sombre face was more sombre, but he did not look towards Yakimov and he seemed to have nothing to say. After a while, when marking on a hand map the disposition of the British troops in Greece. he said casually: ‘Yaki, I have to tell you: the job’s at an end. Pinkrose wants you to leave at once.’
‘But he can’t do it,’ Yakimov wailed, his tears brimming over.
‘I’m afraid he’s done it. He telephoned the Legation and told them that there was nothing for you to do. We have to stop the News Sheet, so there’ll be nothing to deliver. And …’ Alan lifted his head and looked at Harriet: ‘I’m afraid he also said that you must go. The work is minimal now. That’s a fact. There wasn’t much I could say to the contrary.’
Yakimov sobbed aloud: ‘Yaki will starve.’
‘Come on,’ Alan said. ‘Pull yourself together. You know we won’t let you starve.’
‘And what about Tandy? I’ve told him I’m indispensable. What will he think?’
Alan took out a five-drachma piece. ‘Go and buy a drink,’ he said.
Harriet and Yakimov left together. Harriet had seen her work coming to an end and accepted dismissal with the indifference of one who has worse to worry about, but Yakimov bewailed his lot so loudly people turned and looked after them in the street.
‘It’s too bad, dear girl; it really is. Thrown out on m’ear just as I was making such a success of things. How could anyone do it, dear girl? How could they?’
This went on till Zonar’s came in sight, then, glimpsing Tandy in his usual seat, Yakimov’s complaints tailed away. His resilience, that had carried him through the shifts and disappointments of the last ten years, reasserted itself and he began to replan his life. ‘Have a friend in India; dear old friend, ’n fact. A Maharajah. Very tender to your Yak. Always was. When the war started he wrote and invited me to his palace. Said: “If there’s a spot of bother in your part of the world, you’ll always be welcome at Mukibalore.” Charming fellow. Fond of me. Suggested I go and look after his elephants.’
‘Would you like that?’
‘It’s a career. Interesting animals, I’m told. Got to think of the future. Your Yak’s becoming too old to rough it. But I don’t know,’ he sighed. ‘They’re large, you know, elephants. Lot of work, washing’m down.’
‘You’d have boys to do that.’
‘Think so? You may be right. I would, as it were, administrate. I’d do that well enough. Got to get there, of course. D’you think they’d fly me as a V.I.P.? No, probably not. Must have a word with Tandy. Now, there’s one that knows his way around!’ They had stopped on the corner and in his enthusiasm Yakimov become hospitable. ‘Come and have a snifter, dear girl.’
‘Not just now.’ Leaving Yakimov in jaunty mood, she wandered on with nothing to do and nowhere to go, but restless with the anxious susceptiveness of someone who has lost something and still hopes to find it. She had heard nothing from Charles and this time she had no hope that, meeting, they would be drawn together again. He would not forgive her. She had nothing to gain by meeting him. Their relationship, without reason, had destroyed itself, yet she longed to come face to face with him. Although she looked for him among the mid-day crowds she was startled, when she saw him, into a state of nausea.
He was standing beside a military lorry in Stadium Street. The lorry was one of a convoy preparing to move off. Harriet, on the opposite pavement, watching him examining a map of some sort, expected him to feel her presence and cross over to her, but she soon saw there was no time for subtleties of that sort. One of the drivers spoke to him. There was a movement among the men. In a moment he would be gone. She ran across the road. Perturbed and breathless, she managed to call his name. He swung round.
‘You’re going?’ she asked.
‘Yes. We’re off, any minute now.’
‘Where will you go? Have you been told? Alan says the English forces are at Monastir.’
‘They were, but things are happening up there. We won’t know anything till we get to Yannina.’ Speaking with even detachment, he smiled formally, a guarded, defensive smile, and moved a little away as though on the very point of taking his departure; but she knew he would not go. This was the last moment they would have here, perhaps the last they would ever have. He could not leave until something conclusive had been said.
‘Is there any chance of your coming back to Athens?’
‘Who knows?’ He gave his brief ironical laugh. ‘If things go well, we’ll drive right through to Berlin.’ He moved towards her, then edged away, suspicious of the attraction that even here gilded the air about them. He wanted to turn his back upon the deceptive magic.
‘I may not see you again, then?’ she said.
‘Do you care? You have so many friends.’
‘They aren’t important.’
‘They only seem to be?’
The argument was ridiculous. She could not carry it on, but said: ‘It was difficult. Among all these alarms and threats, coming and goings, no one has a private existence. When it is all over …’ She stopped, having no idea when it would be over and knowing time was against her. To interrupt a spell was to break it. Whether they met again or not, they had probably come to an end.
The convoy was ready to start. The driver of the first lorry climbed to his seat and slammed his door shut. The noise was a hint to Charles: he must get his farewells over and return to duty.
‘Good-bye, and good luck,’ Harriet said. She put her hand on his arm and for a second his composure failed. He stared into her face, anguished, and she was appalled to realize he was so vulnerable.
There was no time to waste now. He said: ‘Good-bye’ and, crossing the pavement, swung up beside the driver and shut himself in. He could now look down on her from a safe distance, apparently unmoved, smiling again.
Some Greeks had gathered on the pavement to watch the convoy set out. As the first lorry started up, a woman threw a flower into the cabin, the valediction to valour. Charles caught it as it came to him and held it up like a trophy. The lorry moved. The last thing Harriet saw was his hand holding the flower. The second lorry obscured the first. The other lorries followed, driving eastwards, making for the main road to the north.
She went after them, returning the way she had come, and watched them as they went into the distance. With the last of them out of sight, she no longer had any reason for going in that direction, but she had no reason for going in any
other. She had been left alone with nothing to do and no reason for doing anything.
Her sense of vacancy extended itself to the streets about her. It was a grey, amorphous day in which people and buildings had lost identity, dissolving with every other circumstance, into insipidity. The town had the wan air of a place in which human life had become extinct. The streets seemed empty: left there without object or purpose, she felt as empty as the streets.
When she found herself back at Constitution Square, she stopped out of a sense of futility. Why go anywhere? She simply stood until she saw Guy coming towards her. Her impulse was to avoid him, but he had already seen her and as he came towards her, he asked: ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Charles has gone.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He took her fingers and squeezed them, looking at her with a quizzical sympathy as though her unhappiness were something in which he had no part. He was sorry for her. Feeling she did not want this sort of commiseration, she detached her fingers from his hold.
He asked where she was going? She did not know but said: ‘We could see if the Judas trees are coming out.’
Guy considered this, but of course it was not possible: ‘I’ve a date with Ben,’ he said. ‘He’s trying to get a call through to Belgrade. If he can’t reach Belgrade, he’ll try Zagreb. He may be able to find what’s happened to the Legation people.’
‘No sign of David yet?’
‘None; no news of any sort. I’ve met most of the trains. The road beside the School runs straight through to the station, so I can get there quickly. The trains are packed to the doors. I’ve spoken to a lot of people, but there’s such a flap, it’s hard to discover what’s happening inside Yugoslavia. I suppose the Legation will see it out to the end.’
‘But David has no diplomatic protection?’
‘No. Well, I must get on.’ Before leaving, Guy wanted to see her comfortably disposed and said: ‘Tandy and Yakimov are at Zonar’s. Why don’t you go and have tea with them?’
‘No. I won’t be in the office this evening. In fact, I won’t be going back there. My job’s packed up. I think I’ll take the metro home.’
‘Yes, do that. I can’t get back for supper, but I won’t be late.’
Guy sped happily on his way, seeing her problems as settled.
The climbing plant on the villa roof had come into leaf and, spreading over the pergola, was forming a thatch against the sun. It had budded and now the buds were starting to open. The little white waxen flowers had a scent like perfumed chocolate. Anastea had told Harriet that in summer the Kyrios and Kyria would take their breakfast and supper under the pergola at the marble table, and soon the Pringles would be able to do the same thing.
Since the district had taken on the verdancy of spring, its atmosphere had changed. Harriet sometimes walked beside the little trickle that was the Ilissus, or up among the pines that overhung the river-bed. The villa was at last beginning to seem a home, but a disturbed, precarious home. Though it was not within the target area, it was near enough to the harbour to be shaken by gun-fire, and when there were night raids, the Pringles would sit up reading, having no hope of sleep till the ‘all clear’ sounded.
Up among the pine trees she had met a cat which followed her to the edge of the wood but would not come into the open. It was a thin, little, black female, its dugs swelling out pink from the sparse black fur, so she knew it had kittens somewhere. She thought it must have a home in one of the shacks beyond the trees. It was obviously a home where there was not much to eat, but there was not much to eat anywhere these days. Harriet knew the cat’s eager attentiveness was an appeal for food. There was nothing at the villa except the grey, dry tasteless bread they had for breakfast. She took some to the wood and the cat devoured it with savage exultation.
She asked Anastea to whom the cat might belong, but Anastea treated the question with contempt. Seeing Harriet put the bread into her pocket, she grumbled to herself. Harriet did not understand what she said but could guess: if there was bread to spare, there were human beings in need of it.
One day Harriet saw the kittens. She had crossed the wasteland as far as the first of the shacks and when she reached it, she found it derelict. The cat was a wild cat. The kittens were plain, starved creatures, tabby and white, and Harriet wondered how the mother had managed to bring them up; but they played happily in the sunlight, not knowing they were among the underprivileged of the world. One day when Harriet went to feed them, they had gone. The cat was there, perplexed and anxious, but the kittens had disappeared.
When she returned home on the afternoon of Charles’s departure, Harriet had the cat in mind. It gave her some sort of attachment to life. She had fed it before out of a sense of duty to a creature in need; now, suddenly, she felt love for it, and began to fear that in her absence some harm could have come to it. She went first to the large grocery shop in University Street and queued for bread. It was a shop that in peace-time sold only the finest European foods. Now the shelves were empty. Behind the counter there were some boxes of dried figs and a sack of butter-beans. Harriet was allowed a few grammes of each, and because she was English the assistant opened a drawer and took out a strip of salted cod. He cut off a small piece and she accepted it as a sign of favour, although she felt she had no right to it.
Back at the villa, she found Anastea in the kitchen. A little skeleton of a woman in a black cotton dress and head-scarf, she was sitting on a stool, her hands lying in her lap, upwards, so Harriet could see the hard, pinkish skin of the palms scored over with lines, like the top of an old school desk. Her work was finished; she was free to go home, but she preferred to remain amid the splendours of the rich people’s home.
Harriet kept the food in her bag and took it to the bathroom where she cut the fish with scissors and soaked it in the wash-hand basin. When she had got some of the salt from it, she took it to the wood and fed the cat.
28
Some time during the night an anti-aircraft gun was placed on the hill behind the villa.
Guy had almost reached the bus-stop next morning when the sirens sounded. At once the new gun opened up, so close that the noise was shattering. He hurried to the villa where he found Harriet, who had been in the bath, crouching naked under the stairs while Anastea, on her knees near by, was swinging backwards and forwards, hitting the floor with her brow and crossing herself, while she muttered prayers in an ecstasy of terror. The two women were completely unhinged by the uproar overhead.
As Guy stared at them in wonder and compassion, Harriet flung herself upon him crying: ‘What is it? What is it?’
‘Good heavens, it’s only an anti-aircraft gun.’ His own nerves were untouched by the racket but after two hours of it – the raid was the longest of the war – Harriet had become used to it while he, trapped inactive in the villa, felt he could bear no more.
‘We can’t live here with this banging away at all hours. The house has become unlivable-in,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to find somewhere else.’
Harriet, who could scarcely face another move, felt the responsibility of the cat and said: ‘It’s scarcely worth leaving now. We’ve stuck it so long, we might just as well stick it to the end. Besides, where can we go?’ Many hotels had been requisitioned by the British military and those that remained had been packed by repeated waves of refugees. She said: ‘We can’t afford the Corinthian or the King George; even if we got into a small hotel, heaven knows what we’d have to pay now.’
The raid over, they went up to the roof and watched smoke rising in black, slow, greasy clouds from somewhere along the coast. Anastea, who had followed them, said the smoke came from Eleusis where there was a munitions factory. The sight seemed to inspire her and she began to talk very quickly, making gestures of appeal at Guy. Apparently she was urging him to do something, but it was some time before he understood that men of the district were cutting an air-raid shelter in the rock by the Ilissus. The shelter was to contain seats which would be reserved for
those who could pay for them. Anastea had learnt this from the men that morning. When she said she could not afford a seat, they told her to ask Guy to buy her one. How much were the seats? Guy asked and she replied, ‘Thirty thousand drachma.’ Guy and Harriet looked at one another and laughed. The sum seemed fantastic to them, but it had no reality for Anastea. Foreigners who could afford a villa with bathroom and kitchen could afford anything.
‘Do you think the men were pulling her leg?’ Harriet asked. ‘It’s probably thirty drachma.’
But Anastea insisted that the sum needed was thirty thousand. When Guy explained that it was far beyond anything he could afford, Anastea’s face fell dolefully.
‘How old do you think she is?’ Guy asked when she had gone downstairs.
‘She looks eighty but perhaps she’s not much more than seventy.’ Whatever she was, she had been aged out of calculable time by work, hardship and near-starvation. Harriet wondered would she herself, when half a century or more had passed, be so eager to preserve her life. Not long ago, she had spoken of life as a fortune that must be preserved, yet already its riches seemed lost – not squandered or misapplied, but somehow forfeit as a result of misunderstanding. She did not think that any explanation could bring them back and did not, in fact, know what explanation to give.
When Guy set out again, he asked her if she were coming into Athens, too. She could think of no reason for going: she had no job, nothing to do and would have to spend her time walking about in streets that could hold nothing for her. At least, if she remained, she had the cat.
Guy said, as he had said often before: ‘I’ll get back early.’
She laughed unbelievingly, having no faith in these promises, and found him watching her with the same quizzical but detached concern that he had accorded her when she told him Charles had gone.
‘Of course I will,’ he assured her. ‘Tell Anastea to try and find something for supper. We’ll eat at home, shall we?’
‘All right.’ She was pleased, but his insistence that he would indeed return disconcerted her like a solution of a problem that had come too late. The problem did not affect her any longer: it had not been solved but it had, she felt, been bypassed. Much more to the point these days was the question of what to give the cat. She sent Anastea to the shops and when the old woman was safely out of the way, she went to the kitchen and collected some scraps of food, but the cat was not in the wood. She walked to the hut where the kittens had lived. The cat was not there. She stood for a long time calling it, but in the end gave up the search, supposing it had gone off on a food-hunt of its own.
The Balkan Trilogy Page 99