‘What did they guard?’ Harriet asked.
‘Oh, a bridge or a railway-station or a viaduct. It was silly. When the Russians came, the officers just piled into cars and drove away. We didn’t know what to do …’
She saw his face change as this mention of the army’s flight recalled Marcovitch. By now she had heard other stories – of the Orthodox Jew whose skull had been kicked in ‘like a broken crock’; and the distinguished folklorist who, having been beaten by his sergeant, had appeared next day wearing a medal. ‘So you have decorated yourself!’ said the sergeant. ‘No,’ replied the scholar, ‘the King decorated me,’ for which piece of impertinence he had been struck violently across the face.
Nothing very terrible had happened to Sasha himself, but, unprepared as he was, he had been appalled at this treatment of his scapegoat race. He had run away.
He said: ‘I can remember some of the songs the peasants sang. The folklorist used to collect them.’
As he talked, she looked over the parapet and saw Guy crossing the square on his way home. In the early days of their marriage, she would have sped down the stairs; now she leant still and watched him, thinking of Sasha’s theory that Guardism had grown not from the power of its founder but the credulity of his followers. She felt that the argument had, as arguments often did, come full circle. Wonders were born of ignorance and superstition. Do away with ignorance and superstition and there would be no more wonders, only a universe of unresponsive matter in which Guy was at home, though she was not. Even if she could not accept this diminution of her horizon, she had to feel a bleak appreciation of Guy, who was often proved right.
She broke in on Sasha to say: ‘I’m afraid I must go now.’
He smiled, as uncomplaining and unquestioning as the peasants, but as she went he said forlornly: ‘I wish I had my gramophone here.’
‘You should be studying,’ she said, for at her suggestion Guy had set him some tasks: an essay to write, books to read. The books lay scattered over the ground. He had opened them, but she doubted whether he had done much more. ‘Why not do some work?’
‘All right,’ he said, but as she turned to descend the ladder she saw he had picked up his charcoal and was scribbling idly on the wall.
10
One morning, while the city quivered like a mirage in the August heat, Harriet came face to face with Bella in the Calea Victoriei. Bella gave a smile and hurried into a shop. So she had not gone to Sinai after all, but had remained here, like everyone else, the prisoner of uncertainty and fear.
The Rome Conference had broken down. This time no one imagined that that was the end of the matter. There would be another conference. When it was announced, there was no stir and no more talk of defiance. The new Cabinet had announced complete fealty to the Führer and the Führer required a peaceful settlement. A settlement of any kind could only mean Rumania’s loss. Around the cafés and bars this fact was beginning to be accepted with a half-humorous resignation. What else was there to do? Yakimov, inspired by the tenor of conversation about him, had thought up a little joke. ‘Quel débâcle!’ he said whenever opportunity arose: ‘As you walk cracks appear on the pavement,’ and even Hadjimoscos had not the heart to snub him.
The young men still stood with their banners on the palace pavement, supported now by an admiring crowd. As for the King, having made his speech, his declaration of constancy, he had retired into silence, and a song was being sung which David did his best to put into English verse:
The last phrase ‘Eu nu abdic’ was the slogan of the moment. Jokes were told and the point was ‘Eu nu abdic’. Riddles were asked and the answer was always ‘Eu nu abdic’. However recondite, it was the smartest retort to any request or inquiry. It always raised a laugh.
In the face of the threat to Transylvania, no one gave much thought to the southern Dobrudja, but the story went round that the old minister who had wept over Bessarabia, had wept – probably from habit – when the Bulgarian demand was received. He reminded the Cabinet that Queen Marie’s heart was buried in the palace at Balcic and the queen had believed her subjects would safeguard it with their lives. He stood up crying: ‘To arms, to arms,’ but no one, not even the old man himself, could take this call seriously. The queen, though barely two years dead, symbolised an age of chivalry as outmoded as honour, as obsolete as truth.
The transfer of the southern Dobrudja was announced for September 7th.
That, Harriet thought, was one frontier problem peaceably settled, but when she made some comment of this sort to Galpin, he eyed her with the icy irony of one who has good cause to know better.
They had met on the pavement outside the Athénée Palace and Galpin was carrying a suitcase. ‘For my part,’ he said, ‘I’m keeping a bag ready packed and my petrol-tank full.’
‘Oh?’
He crossed to his car and put the case into the boot, then remarked in a milder tone: ‘I thought it darn odd they were willing to settle for that mouldy bit in the south when they could grab the whole coast.’
‘Do you mean they are grabbing the whole coast?’
‘They and one other. I expect it was arranged months ago. When the Bulgars take the south, the old Russkies will occupy the north. Between them they’ll hold the whole coastal plain. It’s a Slav plot.’
When Harriet did not look as alarmed as he felt she should be, he said on a peevish note: ‘Don’t you see what it means? Rumania will be cut off from the sea. The Legation plan is to evacuate British subjects from Constanza. You’ll be one of the ones to suffer. There’ll be no escape route.’
‘We can go to Belgrade.’
‘My dear child, when the Germans march this way, they’ll take Yugoslavia en route.’
‘Well, we can go by air.’
‘What, the whole blessed British colony? I’d like to see it. And anyway, when there’s trouble the air service is the first thing to pack up. I’ve seen it time and again. Well, I’m taking no risk. When I get wind of the invasion, I’m into the flivver and off.’
‘Ah, well,’ said Harriet, attempting to lighten the situation, ‘perhaps you’ll take us with you?’
Galpin’s eyes bulged. ‘I don’t know about that. I’ve got baggage. I’ve got Wanda. The Austin’s old. The road over the Balkans is bad. If we broke a spring, we’d be done for.’ Looking as though she had attempted to take an unfair advantage, he got into the car, slammed the door and drove away.
When she reached the flat, the telephone was ringing. Inchcape was looking for Guy. ‘Tell him I’ll be in after luncheon,’ he shouted and she felt the jolt of his receiver violently replaced.
He arrived while the Pringles and Yakimov were still at table. Guy had scoffed at Galpin’s story of a Slav plot, saying the Russians would not seize territory on which they had no claim. Even if they did occupy the northern Dobrudja, that would not prevent British subjects leaving from Constanza.