‘But it isn’t true.’
‘It is in their eyes. And with us it is certainly true in the case of the Romanian province. Even by the standards of Eastern Europe the Romanian regime is peculiarly disgusting. They have a policy of trying to turn all its people into robots, all the same as each other and all worshipping their abominable dictator, Ceauşescu. To this end the army is sweeping peasants out of their ancestral villages, and bulldozing the houses and settling the people into dreary identical concrete towns, far from their own fields and farms. The English papers have other things to write about, but Mr Jaunis has reliable information that the process has now reached Varina. There has been fighting between the Romanian army and some of our own people in the Lower Olta valley.’
‘But that’s different. They’ve got to fight, haven’t they? I mean if people come to smash your home and drive you away.’
‘Yes, in the end you must fight, though you know that it will only mean the army returning in greater force, with greater ferocity. It has happened before. I told you, small nations have long memories. There were never fewer than nine thousand Germans, well-trained and heavily armed, trying to control our western province in the war, and they still did not succeed.’
‘Isn’t there anything we can do? Us, here? Shall I write to our MP? Oh, there must be a Romanian Embassy. Why aren’t we chaining ourselves to the railings, or something?’
‘By all means write to your MP.’
‘I’ll get Biddie and Angel to write too. I’ll tell them what to say. What about the Embassy?’
‘A vigil is being organized, for next week.’
‘Magic! Can I go? Next week’s half-term, and Momma’s said I can go to London and meet Mollie and Nigel and go Christmas shopping. That won’t take all day.’
Grandad started to say something, and stopped and did his trick with the invisible fingers instead. Then he said, ‘We have got away from the subject. I was trying to explain that there are perfectly honourable Varinian patriots who would argue that the only effective form of protest would be not a vigil but a car bomb.’
‘They can’t! That would be absolutely criminal!’
‘Worse than a crime, a mistake, as Napoleon said.’
‘Did he? He was a jerk anyway. What about the vigil? Is it all right if I go? If we time it right, I could take my sleeping-bag and vigil all night and join up with Mollie and Nigel next day.’
‘No,’ said Grandad sharply, but then shook his head, not at Letta but at himself.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘There isn’t an earthly Momma would let me. I’ll do exactly what you tell me. Things must be quite tricky enough for you already, without me butting in.’
‘I am pleased – oh, far more than pleased – that you should want to learn Formal, and listen to boring lectures about the politics of my country. One day I hope you will be able to go there, to see where you come from. But it is not your country, despite your name, and despite your talking Field as easily as a native. You are an English girl. You will live your life in this country, marry an Englishman, bear English children. That is your future.’
He spoke urgently but sounded grim and tired. Letta looked at him, and saw that for the moment he really seemed to be eighty-something.
‘Did Momma make you say that?’ she said.
He hesitated, shrugged and then said, ‘It was one of the things we agreed. I am not to involve you actively in Varinian politics.’
‘Momma’s much Englisher than I’ll ever be. You can’t tell me what I’m going to be, not even you, Grandad. I’m going to choose for myself. Poppa isn’t English, really.’
‘No, but nor is he Varinian any longer. He is an exile, a citizen of Exilia. There is no country he can ever call home. Perhaps women are more sensible about such things than men.’
‘You aren’t allowed to talk like that any more. The gender police will come after you. Do you know about the gender police? It was something Angel saw in a sketch on the telly. They hang around in plain clothes and pick you up for making sexist remarks.’
‘I will plead senility. Listen, my darling. This is important. Not for what I agreed with your momma, but for your sake and mine. I want you to be very cautious, now that this sort of thing is starting to happen, about how you involve yourself in Varinian affairs. All exile communities are full of factions and trouble-makers, and ours is no exception. Because you are my granddaughter, and the great-great-great granddaughter of Restaur Vax, my namesake, there will always be people trying to use you for their own ends and purposes. I will not have you so used. Do you understand?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Which is about as much understanding as can be hoped for in affairs of this sort.’
‘Are you going to the vigil?’
‘I am booked to inaugurate it by handing in a protest at the Embassy, or at least attempting to, as they will certainly refuse to accept it.’
‘If I fix Momma, can I come with you? I won’t tell anyone you’re my grandad. I’ll just mingle and vigil for a bit.’
‘You must make it clear to your momma that I did my best to dissuade you.’
‘She won’t know you had anything to do with it.’
‘How will you achieve that? It seems highly implausible.’
‘Tsk, tsk, Grandad. You’re not supposed to know anything about it. Just give me Mr Jaunis’s phone number. It’s OK, I’m not going to ring him myself.’
She grinned teasingly at him as she wrote it down, then loaded the tray and took it downstairs. Momma would still be at least half an hour before she got home, so she rang up her nephew Nigel – the one who was three months older than her – and chatted for a bit, then asked if Steff was home.
Steff was Nigel’s father, the older of Letta’s two brothers. Although he’d been grown up when she was born he’d always, ever since she could remember, been her chief ally in the family, especially when it came to getting round Momma about something. She started to explain about the vigil.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘They sent me a leaflet. I actually thought of going. I’m having the day off anyway to look after Donna while Mollie takes you two shopping, but I decided it wouldn’t be much fun for her. Well, what about it?’
She told him. He laughed.
‘I’ll put it to Mollie,’ he said. ‘It sounds just her line of business. What’s the betting she’ll have taken the whole show over by the time Grandad gets there?’
LEGEND
Lash the Golden
WHEN RESTAUR VAX came to Talosh an old woman met him by the gate and knew him. She cast dust on her head and said to him, ‘Your father is dead. The Pasha of Potok came with his bazouks and slew him. Your brother and sister they have taken away. Your roof-tree they have burnt. Your walls they have cast down. Your fields they have ploughed with salt. You have no more place among us.’
‘Why have they done this thing?’ said Restaur Vax.
‘The son of the Pasha was hunting and saw your sister and would have taken her, but your father smote him with his staff and drove him away.’
Restaur Vax stood silent. Then he said, ‘I will not ask you to give me bread, lest the Turks should do the same to you.’
The woman put her hand into her basket and brought out a fresh-baked loaf and broke it in two and gave him half.
‘I and your grandmother drew water at the same well,’ she said. ‘What are the Turks to me?’
Then Restaur Vax climbed the hill and saw the ruin of his father’s farm and wept.1 When he had wept an hour he paced distances this way and that, and then loosed the earth with his sword and uncovered a great stone, but he could not move it with his hands. As he was levering at the stone with a hoe-handle which the Turks had broken, a stranger came down the hill, a man of the old blood2 with yellow hair and beard. He stood two hands’-breadths taller than ordinary men. Though all but bazouks were forbidden to bear weapons, he carried a musket at his back and two fine pistols in his belt. He saw Restaur Vax levering at the stone.