That he should tell them even as much as this of his travels in Rumania was a sign that their life here was over and his travels at an end.
‘Was it possible to cross into Russia?’ Harriet asked.
‘No, there was no boat or bridge, no means of crossing.’ There was nothing but the water, grey with cold, and ruffled by the bitter wind: and beyond the water league upon league of snow-patched, yellow earth stretching into infinite distance.
Harriet told them about the Jewish frontier village which Sasha had described to her. She said: ‘Were all the Bessarabians as wretched as that?’
‘Perhaps not,’ said David, ‘but they were wretched enough. The majority of them welcomed the Russians. The Rumanians have never learnt to rule by persuasion rather than force. They deserved to lose their minorities: not that their own people get much better treatment. The peasants have always been robbed. Why should they want to work when everything they make is taken from them? They’ve always been fleeced by the tax-collector or the money-lender, their own army or some other army. Now they feed the Germans. They’ve been kept in the position of serfs, yet, given the opportunity, I believe they would prove intelligent, creative and hard-working. In my opinion, the best thing that could happen to this country is the thing they dread most – to be overrun by Russia and forced to adopt the Soviet social structure and economy.’
Guy smiled at a prospect that seemed to him too good to be true. ‘Will that day ever come?’
‘Perhaps sooner than you think. The Rumanians imagine that with German support they can get back Bessarabia. If they try, the result could be a Russian occupation of Rumania, and perhaps of the whole of Eastern Europe.’
A flower-girl came round taking from her basket small bunches of marigolds and pom-pom dahlias which she placed on the tables, then stood at a respectful distance while the diners decided to buy or not. Guy gave her what she had asked – a small sum – but she looked surprised. She had done no more than mention a point from which the bargaining might begin.
Sniffing the bitter, pungent smell of the marigolds, Harriet looked out at the garden, which was pebbled and much cluttered with stone statues. There were several old trees that had reached up beyond the surrounding buildings and now, too tall for their strength, bent and soughed in the wind. On the opposite side of the garden were the once famous salons particuliers, all the windows lit. In some the curtains were drawn as though the rooms were in use. In others the curtains were looped back with heavy cords so it was possible to see gilt and white walls and chandeliers with broken bulbs and lustres missing. Through the nearest window Harriet could see a table ready laid for two and a sofa covered in green satin – a pale, water-lily green, probably very grimy. The rooms had not changed in fifty years and some people said they had not been cleaned either. Harriet was touched to see, as everything broke up about them, this seedy grandeur still limping along.
Noticing that she was not listening to their talk, Guy said: ‘She does not attach much importance to passing events.’
Harriet laughed. ‘You have only to let them pass and they lose their importance.’
‘You may pass with them, of course,’ David said with a wry, sombre smile.
The food was slow in arriving. They had been served with soup. Some twenty minutes passed before the waiter placed their knives and forks, then, at last, came the fripturǎ.
‘In its day,’ David said, ‘this restaurant served the best steaks in Europe.’
‘What have we got now, do you think?’ Guy asked.
David sniggered. ‘Apparently some trǎsurǎ has lost its horse.’
The men remembered the spring and early summer of the previous year, when they had often come to the Polişinel garden and talked of the war that overhung them all. Diners would still be arriving at midnight and would remain until the first cream of the dawn showed through the trees. While there was one customer left, the musicians would play a series of little tunes, maudlin, banal, pretty, but, in deference to the hour, they played more and more softly, often breaking off in the middle of a phrase and starting up with something else, or just plucking a note here and there, a token of music, patiently awaiting their reward.
‘How shall we reward them now?’ Guy asked. He took out a thousand-lei note.
Harriet and David looked askance at this extravagance, but he handed it over. ‘For the pleasures that are past,’ he said.
When they reached the Pringles’ flat, it was little more than eleven o’clock and David agreed to come in for a final drink. The hall was in darkness. The porter had been conscripted long ago and never replaced. They found the lift out of order.
There seemed to Harriet something odd about the house – perhaps the lack of sound. Rumanians sat up late. Usually on the stairs voices and music could be heard until the early hours of the morning: now there were no voices and no music. The three walked up from one dark landing to another, hearing nothing but their own footsteps. On the eighth floor they saw a light falling obliquely from above.
Harriet said: ‘It comes from our flat. Our front door is open.’
They stopped and listened. The silence was complete. After some moments Guy began moving soundlessly up the last flight of stairs with David behind him. Harriet paused, unnerved by the stillness and the sight of the front door lying wide open. No sound of life came from within. Cautiously she went up a step or two so she could see past the two men in the hall. The sitting-room door stood ajar. The lights were on within.
Hearing her step on the stair, Guy whispered: ‘Wait.’ He gave a push to the sitting-room door: it fell open. Nothing moved inside.
David said: ‘No need to ask what’s happened here.’
Guy came out to tell Harriet: ‘We’ve been raided.’
‘Sasha and Despina? Where can they be?’
‘They must be hiding somewhere.’
They went through the flat, walking among a litter of papers, books, clothing and broken glass. Drawers had been emptied out, beds stripped, books thrown from shelves, pictures smashed, carpets ripped from the floor. They realised this had been done not in a frenzy of destruction but in a systematic search. The breakages and the disorder were incidental. And for what had they been searching? For something that could be hidden in a drawer or under a mattress – so not for Sasha. But perhaps it was Sasha they had found.
Anyway, there was no sign of him. His room, like the rest of the flat, was in confusion.
Guy led the way into the kitchen where the door on to the fire-escape stood open. Here drawers had been emptied, canisters of tea, coffee and dried foods had been turned out in a heap on the floor.
Harriet looked into Despina’s room. It was empty. Her possessions were gone.
They went out on to the fire-escape. The well at the back of the house, on to which the kitchens opened, was usually, even at this hour, in an uproar of squabbling and shouting. Tonight all the doors, except their own door, were shut. There were no lights. The kitchens appeared to be deserted.
Harriet went up the ladder to the roof. The doors to the servants’ huts were closed. Harriet pulled open that which had been used by Sasha. There was nothing inside. She called: ‘Sasha! Despina!’ No one answered.
They returned to Sasha’s room. The bed-covers were on the floor and, as Harriet piled them back on to the bed, the mouth-organ fell from among them. She handed it to Guy as proof that he had been taken, and forcibly. Under the bed-covers was the forged passport, torn in half – derisively, it seemed.