‘Got to get these delivered,’ he said: ‘news-sheets put out by the Information Office. Important job. They roped me in as soon as I arrived. Probably heard I’d been a war correspondent. Couldn’t refuse. Had to do m’bit. Well …’ He prepared to remount, holding the bicycle away from him as though it were not only unmanageable but vicious. ‘May say, you’ve got out just in time.’
She caught his arm. ‘Has something happened?’
‘Well, there’s this rumour of a German occupation.’
‘But Guy is still in Bucharest.’
Yakimov, one foot on the upraised pedal, blinked at her, disconcerted, then said: ‘I wouldn’t worry, dear girl. You know what these rumours are.’ He gained his seat and, trembling forward, attempted his baby wave. ‘We’ll meet again,’ he said. ‘I’m always at Zonar’s.’
Harriet stood in the road, looking after him. It was some minutes before all her old disquiet immersed her and she wondered how, in this strange place, where even the alphabet was unknown to her, she was to discover what was happening. Her hotel was small, staid and cheap, a resort of English residents. Someone there might be able to tell her something.
In the residents’ sitting-room, four women sat, each in her separate corner. The gaunt one drinking tea could only be English, Harriet decided and, usually diffident with strangers, she addressed her now without apology or excuse: ‘Can you tell me, please? Is there any news about Rumania?’
The woman looked startled, then reproving of Harriet’s anxious informality. There was a pause before she replied: ‘As a matter of fact, we have just been listening to the news. The Germans have occupied Rumania.’
Clearly it was a matter of no concern to these women. Feeling that she alone knew the reality behind this announcement, Harriet burst out: ‘My husband is there,’ and she remembered how she had thought she might never see him again.
The woman, to whom she had spoken, said: ‘He’ll be put into a prison-camp. You’ll have him back after the war. My husband is dead,’ and having administered this rough comfort, she poured herself another cup of tea.
Harriet went to the hall and asked the clerk to direct her to the British Legation. She made her way through the deserted streets in the afternoon dazzle of salt-white walls, and found that at that hour no one was in the Legation but a Maltese porter. She told him her story, saying: ‘There’s no knowing what the Germans may do to my husband. He’s on a list of people wanted by the Gestapo.’ She pressed her hands over her eyes and choked in anguish, feeling an appalled remorse that she had left him without reflecting on what she might be leaving him to.
The porter, kindly and willing to help, said: ‘Perhaps nothing has happened at all. You know how these stories get around. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll telephone Bucharest. I’ll get through to the Legation and ask for news. I’ll ask particularly about your husband.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘An hour, perhaps two hours. Have tea at a café. Go for a walk. And when you come back, I think there will be good news.’
But when she returned there was no news. The porter had been unable to contact Bucharest. ‘They’ve brought down “the blanket”,’ he said, keeping up a show of optimism, but she could feel his uncertainty. This isolating ‘blanket’ was proof that something had happened or was about to happen inside the country. He promised to try again, and again she set out to wear away time by walking first in one direction, then in another.
As evening fell, she was back at the Legation. The porter could only shake his head. ‘Later,’ he said, ‘I try again.’
Too tired to walk farther, Harriet sat on a bench in the chancellery hall and watched people come and go. The staff had returned and the porter had duties to which to attend. No one spoke to her and she was reluctant to speak to anyone. She could do no good by pestering busy officials. If there were news, the porter would bring it to her. Some time after dark, he came out of his room and looked at her. Embarrassed now because he could do nothing for her, he said: ‘Better go home. Come back in the morning. Perhaps tonight we can get through.’
‘Is someone here at night?’
‘There is always someone here.’
‘Then I can come back later?’
‘If you wish. You might try about eleven o’clock.’
Forced into the street again, she longed to confide her misery and could think only of Yakimov. Suddenly, she saw him as a friend – an old friend. Unlike the women at the hotel, he knew Guy and would sympathise with her dismay.
She ran down the hill to the city’s centre. In the main road she set out to search the cafés, not knowing one from the other. Earlier in the day, people had been sitting out on the pavements, but the evening had become chilly. The chairs were empty. She went into one café after another, hurrying round them, becoming almost frenzied in her search. By the time she came on Yakimov she was trembling in a distress that was near despair.
He rose, shocked by her appearance, and said: ‘Dear girl, whatever is the matter?’
She tried to speak, but, fearful of bursting into tears, she could only shake her head.
‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Have a drink.’
Yakimov’s companion was an elderly man, heavily built, whose white hair looked whiter in contrast with the plum-dark colour of his skin. To give her time, Yakimov said genially: ‘Meet Mustafa Bey. Mus, dear boy, this is Mrs Pringle from Bucharest. She doesn’t really approve of poor old Yaki.’ He smiled at her. ‘What will you drink? We’re having brandy, but you can get anything here. Whisky, gin, ouzo – whatever you like. It’s all on Mus.’
She chose brandy and, as she drank, regained herself sufficiently to talk. ‘About the German occupation of Rumania,’ she said, ‘it must be true. They’ve brought down a “blanket”. You know what that means.’
Mustafa Bey nodded his sombre, heavy head. ‘It is true,’ he said.
Harriet caught her breath and said: ‘What will happen to Guy?’
‘Guy’s no fool,’ said Yakimov. ‘He can look after himself, y’know.’
‘Our flat was raided the night before I left.’ Harriet saw, as she spoke, a tremor touch Yakimov’s face, and she thought of the oil-well plan. The tremor betrayed him. She knew who had taken the plan, but it scarcely mattered. She had much more to worry about.
Yakimov was saying: ‘The Legation’ll look after the dear boy. They got all sorts out of France and Italy. Dobbie’s fond of Guy, and Dobbie’s a good chap. He’d never abandon a pal.’
Harriet said: ‘Dobson’s in Sofia.’
‘No? Dear me!’ No doubt thinking of his sixty thousand lei, Yakimov said to Mustafa Bey: ‘I could do with another, dear boy.’
Mustafa Bey lifted a large mauve hand and signed to the waiter. More brandy was brought.
Harriet, her agitation suspended, felt very tired. She watched the clock on the wall behind Yakimov while he talked of the pleasures of Athens. Food, he said, was plentiful.
‘And there are a lot of our friends here: Toby Lush, for instance.’
‘Is Toby Lush here?’
‘Yes. In a very influential position, I’m told. So’s his friend Dubedat. And a Lord Pinkrose has just arrived from Bucharest. You’ll feel quite at home here when you get settled.’
Harriet nodded. She thought of Guy and thought of Sasha. She wondered if, without them, she would ever feel at home anywhere in the world again. She asked how long Yakimov had been in Athens.
‘Just a week.’ Yakimov had regained the simple grandeur of manner with which he had first assailed Bucharest society, and seemed at home himself in his new haunt which had not yet found him out.