Sir Brian, hands together on his umbrella-handle as on a gun-butt, stood upright, head bowed at the neck in an attitude of mourning.
Wheeler cleared his throat, preparing to arrest this indictment, but David was not easily arrested. ‘And,’ he persisted, ‘there were the peasants – a formidable force, if we’d chosen to organise them. They could have been trained to revolt at any suggestion of German infiltration. And, I can tell you, the Germans don’t want trouble on this front. They would not attempt to hold down an unwilling Rumania. As it is, the country has fallen to pieces, the Iron Guard is in power and the Germans have been invited to walk in at their convenience. In short, our policy has played straight into enemy hands.’
Sir Brian jerked up his head. He briskly asked: ‘So it’s now too late?’
‘Too late,’ David agreed.
The chairman gave Wheeler a glance, no longer mischievous. He had asked for facts but clearly felt the facts were getting out of hand. Wheeler, too, was losing patience. ‘I really think …’ he began.
‘Dear me, yes.’ Sir Brian shot out his hand to David, to Guy to Harriet, concluding the discussion. ‘It’s all been very interesting. Very interesting, indeed!’ The charm was well sustained, but something had gone wrong with it. He led the way round the side of the house, the others followed. He was talking, affable again, but his affability was for Wheeler.
It was almost dark. There was no sign of light or life about the house, but the front door still stood open and through it Harriet glimpsed the white jacket of a servant whose keys clinked in his hand. He was waiting to lock up when they, the last of the British, had taken their departure.
While Wheeler opened his car-door, Sir Brian looked back at the three young people and lifted his umbrella-handle to his hatbrim before getting into the car. He did not smile. Wheeler said nothing at all but slammed the door furiously and made off. Watching the red tail-light draw away, Guy said: ‘We’re all in it together, are we? The bastard!’
David remained indulgent. ‘The duplicity of office! And Wheeler is a prize ass. He once said to me: “If diplomacy were as simple as it appears to the outsider, my dear Boyd, we’d never have wars at all.”’
In reaction from a sense of reprimand that touched on their youth, the three, on their way back to the town, laughed uproariously together while the wind blew coldly at them across the dark deserted grǎdinǎs. They were glad to reach the lighted streets.
As they turned into the square, Harriet looked across at the large, brilliant window on the corner of the Boulevard Breteanu and saw that it was empty. The Hispano, that for two months had stood there like a monument, stood there no longer. Guy ordered the trǎsurǎ to stop outside the show-room and went in to inquire. He learnt that the car had been bought by a German officer who had paid the full sixty thousand lei without question, the rate of the Reichsmark being such that the cost of the Hispano was less than the cost in Germany of a toy. The money was being sent to Mr Dobson at the British Legation.
Where were they going to eat? David asked. Harriet wanted to take her farewell dinner at Cina’s or Capşa’s. They decided to drive to Capşa’s.
The main restaurants were always refurbished when they returned indoors for the winter months. There was about them all a sense of a new season that held its own excitements. After the vacancy of the streets, Capşa’s interior, with its red plush and gilt and vast crystal chandeliers, seemed dazzling to the three entering, chilly, from the open trǎsurǎ.
Food now was not only meagre, it was often bad, as though shortage had led to hoarding and hoarding to decay. But Capşa’s, much patronised by the German community, had kept a certain standard. The better cuts of meat were, of course, put aside for high-ranking Germans and their guests, but the open menu usually offered chicken or rabbit, hare in season, and even caviare of a sort. Later in the evening the place would be crowded, but now there were a good many vacant tables.
Seated by the door, accompanied by two of the young officers of the mission, were Princess Mimi and Princess Lulie. Their faces went blank at the sight of the English. As the three advanced, there was a small stir in the room. The head waiter intercepted them with a look of surprised inquiry as though it were possible they wanted something other than food.
Speaking Rumanian, David asked for a table. The head waiter replied: ‘Es tut mir leid. Wir haben keinen Platz.’
David protested in English: ‘But half the tables are unoccupied.’
The other, from past habit, replied in the same language: ‘All are booked. In these times it is necessary to book.’
David opened his mouth to argue, but Harriet said: ‘The food here is deplorable, anyway. Let’s go to Cina’s.’ She turned with the hauteur of the beset and, as she passed the princesses, she caught the eye of one of the young Germans who were watching her with sympathetic amusement.
‘Well, to Cina’s then,’ said David when they were on the pavement again.
‘No,’ said Harriet, near tears. ‘We’ll only be turned out again. Let us go somewhere where we’re not known.’
They decided on the Polişinel, a restaurant dating back to boyar days, once very fashionable, where Guy and David had often eaten when Guy was a batchelor. They found another trǎsurǎ and drove down to the Dâmboviţa.
The Polişinel, built when land was cheap and plentiful, surrounded a large garden site. They went to the main room which, lit by a few brownish bulbs, stretched away into acres of shadow. Only the proprietor was there, dining with his family. At the sight of the foreign visitors, he rose, delighted, and bawled importantly for the waiter. He probably thought they were Germans, but the English, thus welcomed and made to feel at home, forgot their earlier experience.
An old waiter fussed over them, placing them at a window table which overlooked the garden, then hurried to switch on more lights. He brought a large, dirty menu, handwritten in purple ink, and whispered: ‘Fripturǎ, eh?’ It was not a meatless day, but he spoke as though suggesting a forbidden pleasure and the three gratefully agreed to it.
The proprietor bawled again and in trailed a dilapidated gipsy orchestra which, seeing the quality of the company, struck up with spirit.
‘Oh, Lord!’ said David. ‘They think we’re rich.’
‘We are by their standards,’ said Guy.
David pulled his chair round so his back was to the smiling players and did his best to talk above the din: ‘There’s a story going round. Horia Sima and his boys went to the Holy Synod and demanded that Codreanu should be made a saint. The head of the Synod said: “My son, it takes two hundred years to make a saint. When that time has elapsed, return and we will discuss it again.”’
Now that attention had been deflected from the foreigners and their wealth, David settled down happily forgetful of the music. The two men talked about Russia. Neither had visited this country to which they looked for the regeneration of the world, but the previous spring, when Soviet troops were rumoured to be massing for an invasion of Bessarabia, David had reached the Russian frontier. He had stood beside the Dniester and looked across to where there were a few cottages. The only sign of life was an old peasant woman working in her garden.