The Balkan Trilogy (82 page)

Guy sat down at the table, saying: ‘I’ll go immediately after luncheon.’

After luncheon he sat on. Knowing how acutely painful the coming interview would be for him, Harriet made no attempt to harry him. She was leaving next day and went into the bedroom to sort out the clothing she would take. After some minutes he followed her in, his face despondent, and said: ‘Perhaps you’d come with me. The fact you are still here might reassure him.’

‘All right, but I must first speak to Sasha.’

She had bought Sasha a small cheap case to hold such clothing as Guy had given him. He wanted to take some of his drawings and, as these would have to be placed flat at the bottom of Harriet’s portmanteau, she went to his room to tell him to sort them out. She found him curled like a kitten on the bed.

She had complained about the constant noise of the mouth-organ and now, his hands wrapped about it, he was playing almost without sound.

His possessions were neatly arranged on the table. The drawings were ready for her to pack.

She said: ‘What is that ridiculous tune you’re playing?’

He took his lips from the mouth-organ to say: ‘“Hey, Hey, Hey, Ionesculi”. Despina sings it.’

She said, trying to speak sternly: ‘You know, when you get to Athens you’ll have to start some serious study.’

He smiled at her over the instrument, then put it back to his lips.

Though it was siesta-time when Guy and Harriet reached the hotel, the hall and vestibule were crowded. Again, as on the day of the arrival of the military mission, the hotel servants could not accommodate a half of those who had come in to drink their after-luncheon coffee.

Galpin, standing in the hall sourly surveying this assembly,
told the Pringles that a rumour had gone round that a high-ranking German officer called Speidel was arriving that afternoon. ‘He’s still young and handsome, so they say. Look at those bloody women! Like a lot of randy she-cats. And there’s that bitch back again, on heat, as usual.’

Princess Teodorescu had entered the hotel. She had returned to Bucharest relying, like the others of her class, on German influence to protect her against the Iron Guard. It was said she had already found a lover among the young German officers, several of whom stood round her while she talked furiously, twitching her shoulders and making frenzied gestures at them. She was wearing a new leopard-skin coat. Was there any more repellent sight, Harriet wondered, than a silly, self-centred, greedy woman clad in the skin of a beast so much more splendid than herself?

Hadjimoscos was of this party. Slipping about on his kid shoes, his plump little body that looked soft, as though stuffed with sawdust, he moved from one officer to another, talking earnestly, lifting his flat, pale Tartar face in rapture, occasionally placing his little white padded hand on a German sleeve. They were joined by a stout, flat-footed man who walked like a peregrine: a noted German financier brought here to advise on Rumania’s disintegrating economy.

‘But’ – Galpin turned slowly and nodded towards the desk – ‘you’ve seen nothing yet. Look who’s over there.’ The Pringles followed the direction of his gaze and saw that the scene was being closely watched by two keen, dog-faced fellows in the black uniform of the Gestapo.

‘When did they arrive?’ Guy blandly asked.

‘No one knows. But they’re not the only ones. There’s dozens of them. You’ve heard about Wanda?’

‘No,’ said the Pringles, feeling they should proceed to Pinkrose but willing enough to be detained.

‘Ah!’ Galpin jerked up his long, morose, dishonest face with an intimation of tragedy. ‘They’ve chucked her out, the bastards.’

So that was another face gone from the English circle.

Pinkrose, when Guy knocked on his door, cried: ‘
Entrez, entrez
,’ in a high, agitated voice.

They found him on his knees, stuffing his clothing into his bag. He was wearing a flowered cotton kimono of a sort worn in Japan by tea-shop girls. He jerked his head round and, seeing the Pringles, seemed startled by their temerity, but he had nothing to say. He returned to his packing.

Guy attempted an explanation of Inchcape’s departure. ‘He hopes to be back very shortly,’ he said.

Pinkrose appeared not to listen. Scrambling to his feet, he stripped off the kimono and pushed it in with the rest. He was wearing shirt, trousers and several woollen cardigans. He hastily got into his jacket, saying: ‘I’m catching the boat-train to Constanza.’ He went round, collecting the last of his possessions, keeping at a distance from the Pringles as though afraid they might seek to retard him. As he moved he said, breathlessly: ‘I take this badly, Pringle. I take it very badly. I shall not forget it. Inchcape has not heard the last of this, not by any means. His man
lied
to me. He repeatedly told me that Inchcape was ill in bed; and all the time he was plotting to slip away to safety – abandoning me, an invited guest, in a strange town where I was liable to be attacked by ruffians. Unforgivable. I travelled several thousand miles to deliver an important lecture and …’

While he recounted again the details of his journey, emphasising its dangers and discomforts, he was ramming a great many small bottles and boxes into a portable medicine-chest.

‘And you, Pringle,’ he said, giving Guy a malevolent glance, ‘
you
were a party to all this. I saw you in the hotel more than once. You did not choose to let me know what was going on. I had to learn from a stranger.’

As Guy, listening with an air of miserable guilt, made no attempt to defend himself, Harriet broke in on Pinkrose to say: ‘Professor Inchcape did not want you to be alarmed. He gave definite orders that you must not be told anything until after he had gone.’

Pinkrose, winding his scarves about his neck, drew his
breath through his teeth, but made no other comment. A small threatening smile hung round his lips. After some moments he said: ‘The whole matter will be fully reported to head office. The board can judge. Meanwhile, I am forced to pay my own fare to Greece. I shall expect to be reimbursed; and I can only hope the Athens office will accord me the courtesy and consideration that has been so sadly lacking here.’

The boat-train to Constanza left at half-past three. Pinkrose had barely time to catch it. That and the fact the Black Sea could be rough at this time of the year caused Guy to find his tongue. He said: ‘Why not wait until tomorrow? My wife is going to Athens by plane. Dobson is also going …’

‘No, no,’ Pinkrose broke in impatiently, ‘I am looking forward to the sea journey. It will do me good.’ He picked up his greatcoat. As Guy stepped forward to hold it for him, he swung away with a look that suggested Guy’s good-natured helpfulness was simply another indication of his duplicity.

A porter entered to collect the luggage. Pinkrose had ordered a taxicab, which now awaited him.

Harriet said: ‘Goodbye.’ Pinkrose shot her a glance, apparently not holding her culpable, and made a movement towards her which, given time, might have turned into a handshake – but he could not wait. Without a word to Guy he was gone.

The Pringles felt a sense of trespass at finding themselves alone in the room. Harriet put her arms round Guy’s waist. ‘Darling, how can I go tomorrow and leave you here?’

‘You’re going to get me a job,’ he reminded her.

Her despondency lifted somewhat as, turning the bend in the stairs, they saw David down in the hall. He had gone ‘to the Delta’ – whatever that might mean – when they went to Predeal and this was his first reappearance. There had been at the back of Harriet’s mind a suspicion that he might not reappear at all. His covert trips at this time could too easily lead to disaster. Or he might, knowing the time was at hand here, have made his way over a frontier. But there he was, looking comfortable and confident as ever, and Harriet felt warmed by the sight of him. As Guy delightedly hurried down
to greet him, David’s small mouth curled at one corner in amusement at his friend’s exuberance. He was about to sign the register and said: ‘I found, when I returned this morning, that the Minerva had given me up for lost. A member of the master race was occupying my room. My baggage had been put into the cellar. Fortunately, when I reached here, a room was just being vacated.’

‘Pinkrose’s room, I suppose,’ Guy said and he described the attack on Inchcape and what he called ‘the flight of the professors’.

Snuffling to himself at the picture of Pinkrose in the Japanese dressing-gown, David said: ‘I know several chaps who’d’ve paid to see that. Pinkrose owns one of the most magnificent houses in Cambridge, but no one ever sees inside it. He’s practically a recluse. The sad thing about all this is that Inchcape is probably his only real friend.’

When he heard that Clarence had also gone, David smiled indulgently. ‘I
liked
old Clarence,’ he said and gave a laugh of surprise at his own admission. He added: ‘I don’t think any of us will be here much longer,’ and the Pringles, knowing he could not tell them any more, asked no questions.

As they moved together through the hall, David caught his breath, seeing for the first time the black Gestapo figures. He raised an eyebrow at Guy, but neither made any comment. They left the hotel with a sense of nothing to do but await an end. They did not want to separate.

David had to look in at the Legation and asked the Pringles to go with him.

Standing at the kerb, waiting for a
tr
ǎ
sur
ǎ
to stop at the hotel, they watched a fleet of Guardist motor-cyclists in new leather jackets and fur caps. They passed uproariously, stern-faced and purposeful, as though on their way to an execution or an interrogation of treachery, but after circling the square at top speed, scattering the pedestrians and driving cars into the kerb, they disappeared whence they had come.

‘Not a useful occupation,’ Harriet said, ‘but it must be great fun.’

Waiting in the
tr
ǎ
sur
ǎ
while David reported his return, Harriet held tightly to Guy’s hand. He said to comfort her: ‘You heard what David said? I may be leaving here sooner than we think.’

‘Um.’ Harriet feared he might stay just too long and never leave at all; but she had ceased to plead with him, knowing he felt bound to see things to their conclusion, whatever the conclusion might be.

When David rejoined them, he said: ‘I have to meet someone, but not yet. Shall we drive up the Chaussée?’

The sun was low in the sky. They had put down the
tr
ǎ
sur
ǎ
hood and they felt in their faces the keen little breeze that would sharpen through the coming weeks into the wind that brought the snow. The Chaussée had already an air of winter. The trees, parched by the fires of summer, were completely bare. The garden restaurants had packed up. The cafés had taken in awnings and parasols: some had closed down altogether. October was here and life had retired indoors.

David said: ‘There’s a belief going round that Germany has important plans for Rumania, that she’ll regain her position in the scheme of things.’ As he sniffed and snuffled, Guy asked: ‘What do you think?’

‘I think the Germans will devour this place, ruthlessly. They’re demanding conscripts now. Not a word about it in the papers, of course, but I’m told the Rumanian peasants are being herded into cattle-trucks and sent to train in Germany. Poor fellows, they go willingly because their officers tell them they’re going to fight for England. They say: “Tell us about these English. How do they look in the face?”’

Harriet said: ‘Do they actually think the Germans are British?’

‘They don’t think. When the times comes, they’ll be told: “This is the enemy. Fight!” and they will fight and die.’

They were now in open country and could see the Snagov woods like a plum-coloured haze in the distance. The Snagov lake reflected a brazen sky. Here and there a window flamed, but the fields, flat and empty, had a dejected air in the rich autumnal light.

David said: ‘I have to meet this fellow at the Golf Club.’

‘The Golf Club!’

David laughed. ‘It’s by way of being a secret meeting. That’s why the Golf Club was chosen.’

‘I’ve never seen the Club,’ Harriet said.

‘Come and see it now. You may not get another chance.’

The Club, that stood behind a zareba of evergreens, had been built in the twenties by prospering English businessmen. With remarkable artistry they had, in this climate of extremes, reproduced the dark brick, moss-patched lawns and dank paths of a late nineteenth-century English mansion. The front door stood open. The house appeared to be deserted. Guy, Harriet and David passed through to the sitting-room which, with two vast French windows opening on to the golf course, extended across the back of the house. It was filled with chairs covered in faded chintz. Small tables were stacked with tattered copies of English journals.

Outside the light was changing. The sun had sunk behind trees so the whole of the green was in shadow. A smell of cold, damp earth entered with the air through the open glass doors. From somewhere upstairs came the brr-brr of an unanswered telephone.

The Pringles did not ask whom David had come to meet, but he said: ‘I see no cause for secrecy. This fellow who’s coming is the chairman of a new advisory committee set up in Cairo. He’s been flown here full of zeal, no doubt imagining even at this late hour something can be done. So remote is diplomacy from reality, H.E. still doesn’t know quite what went wrong, so he’s detailed me to try and explain things.’ Two men had walked around the side of the house. ‘There they are, now,’ David said and went out to join them.

One man was Wheeler, a senior member of the Legation, whom the Pringles had met at parties; the other was a stranger, handsome, of middle height, in early middle age, wearing a dark greatcoat and bowler-hat and carrying a rolled umbrella.

Seeing David, who approached them confidently but with a certain deference, being so much their junior, the two men
paused. When he joined them, they began pacing together, moving slowly fifty yards or so in one direction, then turning and moving back again. The grass, green after the first rain, luminous in the uncertain light, exuded a mist that obscured the distant bushes and drifted about the legs of the men as they strolled about.