‘You mean, he’s probably jealous of your befriending Sasha?’
‘What else?’
Leaving it at that, Harriet said: ‘Perhaps you’re right. But what are we to do now?’
‘We’re not dependent on Clarence. God help us if we were. We’ll try someone else.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll speak to David. Leave it to me and don’t worry.’
Towards the end of the week, the Pringles, about to enter the Athénée Palace, met Princess Teodorescu and Baron Steinfeld emerging. The baron was ordering a string of hotel servants who were carrying luggage out to his Mercedes. The princess stared furiously at the Pringles, making them feel that their appearance at that moment was the final outrage of an outrageous day. The baron, however, greeted them as though feeling some need to explain his departure. ‘We go to the mountains,’ he said. ‘We go late, we go in fear, but we escape the heat. If we stay, we melt away.’
‘Hör doch auf,’ said the princess, pushing him towards the car.
The Pringles, surprised not so much by this belated departure as the fluster attending it, mentioned it to Galpin when they went into the bar.
‘They’re escaping the heat, are they?’ Galpin twisted his lips down in an ironical smile. ‘I bet they’re not the only ones,’ and he went on to explain that the Guardists, having broken into Lupescu’s house, had that morning found a box of letters which incriminated some of the most famous names in the country.
‘They’ve been pretending, the whole lot of them, that they’ve been Guardist all along. They now refer to Lupescu as “the dirty Jewess”, but she’s got the laugh on them, all right. She left this box of letters, open, bang in the middle of her bedroom floor. They’re from people like Teodorescu all addressing her as “ma souveraine” and “your majesty” and saying they couldn’t wait for the day when she would be crowned queen. It’s damned funny, but the Iron Guard isn’t amused. Humour isn’t in fashion these days. I bet there’ll be quite a few of the upper crust moving out of Bucharest to escape the heat.’
The papers announced that the city’s atonement would end on Sunday, the day Queen Helen, the Queen Mother, was returning from exile to reside with her son in Bucharest.
Sunday’s pageantry began with the clatter of horses. The Queen’s own regiment, out of favour since her departure, was galloping across the square in frogged uniforms and busbies, pennants flying, to meet her at the station. The whole city was in the streets to cheer them. Antonescu had promised new order, new hope, renewed greatness, and all, it was believed, would return with the wronged Queen who was the very symbol of the country’s exiled morality. Here was the resolution for which everyone was waiting.
The noise brought Despina from the kitchen. She ran through the room to join Guy, Harriet and Sasha on the balcony, shrieking with delight at the hussars and the flags and the ferment of the square. Here was a new beginning indeed! But even while the dust of the horsemen still hung in the air, the sound of ‘Capitanul’ could be heard swelling from the Calea Victoriei.
The Iron Guard had been silent during the week of atonement. There was a general belief that they were being discouraged while Antonescu was seeking some other agent to police his regime. Whether this was true or not, here they were and something in their bearing had changed. There had always been a touch of defiance about all their marching and singing in the past, but now it was exultant. When they finished ‘Capitanul’, they started on the National Anthem, linking the tunes as though they had a peculiar warranty for both.
Harriet said: ‘I’ve never heard them sing that before.’
The leading Guardists were cheered, automatically, accepted as part of the day’s entertainment, but as the ranks passed stern-faced and contemptuous of the audience, the applause dwindled. People were uncertain what response was required of them, and gradually silence came down.
Guy said: ‘I don’t like the look of this,’ and after a moment, he turned and went into the room.
The Guardists were still passing when a new interest revivified the crowds. The old Metropolitan, bejewelled like an Indian prince, had appeared walking beneath a golden canopy. His followers, who had spent the week trailing round the streets as penitents, in black, were now exultant in cloth of gold. As this dazzling procession appeared in the square, the crowd surged towards it, leaving the Guardists to jackboot their way unheeded.
Sasha, excited by everything he saw, leaned out over the ledge while Despina clapped her hands, jumping up and down and crying: ‘Frumosa, frumosa, frumosa.’
Long after they had circled the square, the priests could be seen, agleam in the sunlight, climbing the rising road to the cathedral. A sound of gunfire announced the Queen’s arrival. At once all the bells of the city rang out and cheers, relayed from the station, were redoubled by cheers from the crowd below. The clangour and chorus of bells cheering drowned the Guardists who lifted their heads, bawling in an effort to be heard.
Harriet looked into the room to say: ‘The Queen is coming,’ and Guy, who had been talking on the telephone, put down the receiver. ‘I’ve just rung the Legation,’ he said. ‘The Iron Guard is in power.’
‘You mean the whole of the Cabinet is now Guardist?’
‘Yes, except for one or two military men and experts. Guardists have been appointed to all the important ministries.’
‘What will happen now?’
‘Chaos, I imagine.’
She took advantage of his disturbed expression to say: ‘You must close the summer school.’
He was about to speak when the cheers started up in the square again and they returned to the balcony to see the hussars escorting the Queen and her son, who were in a gilded coach covered with roses. The coach passed through the square, then went on its way to the cathedral. There was sudden silence, then came the sibilant murmur of the mass relayed through the loudspeakers and as though a wind had passed over it, the crowd sank to its knees. Harriet could see the women pulling out handkerchiefs and weeping in an excess of emotion.
From somewhere in the remote distance there still came on the air the monotonous throb of ‘Capitanul’.
18
Hotel Splendide Suleiman Bay, Istanbul.
Dear Boy [wrote Yakimov]:
Is the old girl sold? If so, get Dobbie to remit cash through bag. Your Yaki is in low water. Food here poorish. Kebabs and so on. The English Colony a funny lot. When I tell them I’m a refugee from the oil fields, no one seems to believe me.
Don’t delay
With the lei,
Your poor old needy Yaki.
Crossing to the corner of the Boulevard Brateanu, Harriet saw the Hispano still in the window, looking immovable, like a museum exhibit. She went in to inquire whether anyone was showing interest in the car. The salesman glumly shook his head.
Each of the showroom windows displayed a portrait of Codreanu. The same portrait stared out from the windows opposite, the empty windows of Dragomir’s, the largest grocery shop in Europe. Queues waited for such food as there was.
The windows rattled as across the square, at sixty miles an hour, a fleet of Iron Guard motor-cyclists sped on their way to the Boulevard Carol where the richest men in Rumania lay under house arrest, awaiting the results of Horia Sima’s inquiry into the origins of all private fortunes. Nothing might be moved from their houses. An armed guard stood at every gate.