‘Athens,’ Harriet thought: ‘The longed-for city.’
Bucharest had been enclosed by Europe, but here she had reached the Mediterranean. In Bucharest, the winter was beginning. In Athens, it seemed, the summer would go on for ever.
If they could survive till evening, she and Guy would be here together. She imagined his plane where it would be now: in the empyrean, above the peacock blue and green of the Aegean. She willed it to stay on course. He had left the unhappy capital and the maniac minions of the New Order, and now she had only to wait for his safe arrival. Trying to keep her mind on this, her imagination eluded her control. She thought of those who had been left behind. She thought of Sasha.
Yakimov, acting as host and guide, was pointing out places of interest. Modestly conscious of being in a position of vantage, his manner had a touch of the grandiose.
‘Nice town,’ he said: ‘Always liked it. Old stamping ground of your Yak, of course.’
He had left his debts behind and none of his new friends had had time to learn about them. He had found employment. Though his clothes were past mending, they had been cleaned and pressed, and he wore them with an air that proclaimed his sumptuous past. He nodded towards an ornate corner building and said:
‘The G.B.’
‘What happens there?’
‘Dear girl! The G.B.’s the best hotel. The Grande Bretagne you know. Where Yaki used to wash his socks. Intend moving back there when’m a bit more lush.’
Turning into the main road, his steps faltered, his tall, slender body sagged. They had covered perhaps a couple of hundred yards but as he made his way through the crowd, he began to grumble: ‘Long walk, this. Hard on your Yak. Feet not what they used to be. Tiring place, this: uphill, downhill, hot and dusty. Constant need for refreshment.’
They had come in sight of a large café and, giving a sigh of relief, he said: ‘Zonar’s. Their new café. Very nice. In fact, Yaki’s favourite haunt.’
Everything about the café – a corner of great glass windows, striped awnings, outdoor chairs and tables – had a brilliant freshness. The patrons were still dressed for summer, the women in silks, the men in suits of silver-grey; the waiters wore white coats and their trays and coffee pots glittered in the sun. Behind the windows Harriet could see counters offering extravagant chocolate boxes and luscious cakes.
‘It looks expensive,’ she said.
‘Bit pricey,’ Yakimov agreed: ‘But convenient. After all, one has to go somewhere.’ They crossed the side-road and reaching the café pavement, Yakimov came to a stop: ‘If I’d a bit of the ready, I’d invite you to take a little something.’
So this had been his objective when they set out! Harriet understood his form of invitation. He had delivered the message and now she was expected to make repayment. She said: ‘They changed some Rumanian money for me at the hotel, so let me buy a drink.’
‘Dear girl, certainly. If you feel the need of one, I’ll join you with pleasure,’ he sank into the nearest basket-chair and asked impressively: ‘What will you take?’
Harriet said she would have tea.
‘Think I’ll have a drop of cognac, myself. Find it dries me up, too much tea.’
When the order came, the waiter put a chit beside his glass. Yakimov slid it over to Harriet then, sipping his brandy, his affability returned. He said:
‘Big Russian colony here, y’know. Charming people; the best families. And there’s a Russian club with Russian food. Delicious. One of the members said to me: “Distinguished name, Yakimov. Wasn’t your father courier to the Czar?”’
‘Was your father courier to the Czar?’
‘Don’t ask me, dear girl. All a long time ago. Yaki was only a young thing then. But m’old dad was part of the entourage. No doubt about that. That coat of mine, the sable-lined coat, was given him by the Czar. But perhaps I told you?’
‘You’ve mentioned it once or twice.’
‘’Spose you know m’old mum’s dead?’
‘No. I am sorry.’
‘No remittance for Yaki now. Good sort, the old mum, kind to her poor boy, but didn’t leave a cent. Had an annuity. All went with her. Bad idea, an annuity.’
He emptied his glass and looked expectantly at Harriet. She nodded and he called the waiter again.
In the past she had been resentful of Yakimov’s greed, now she was indifferent to everything but the passing of time. Time was an obstacle to be overcome. She wanted nothing so much as to see the airport bus stop at the corner opposite.
‘Look at that chap!’ said Yakimov: ‘The one hung over with rugs. Turk, he is. I knew one of those in Paris once. Friend of mine, an American, bought his entire stock. Poor chap walked home without a rug on him. Caught pneumonia and died.’
She smiled, knowing he was trying to entertain her, but she could not keep her mind on his chatter. She glanced about her, bewildered by her safety, unable to believe in a city so becalmed in security and comfort. Her nerves reacted still to the confusion of their last months in Rumania. As Yakimov talked, the splendid café faded from her view and she saw instead the Bucharest flat as it had been the night before she left, when the Pringles returned to find the doors open, the lights on, the beds stripped, pictures smashed, carpets ripped up and books thrown down and trampled over the floor.
She and Guy had hidden Sasha, a young Jewish deserter from the army. The louts of the Iron Guard, searching for evidence against Guy, had found the boy. Sasha was gone. That was all they knew, and probably all they would ever know.
Yakimov recalled her with a cough. His glass was empty again but at that moment the airport bus drew up and she searched in her bag to pay the bill. ‘I must go,’ she said.
‘Don’t go, dear girl. Plenty of time for another one. That bus waits twenty minutes or more. It’s always there. Just one more … just one more,’ he wailed as she sped off.
Bleakly, he watched her as she crossed the road and boarded the bus. Had he known she would desert him like this, he would not have finished his cognac so quickly.
She took her seat, prepared to wait, she did not care how long. Simply to be on the bus meant another inroad upon time. It seemed to her that when the plane arrived she would have conquered anxiety altogether.
2
Harriet’s plane had been punctual. It had swept down between the hills at a sublime moment – the moment acclaimed by Pindar – when the marble city and all its hills glowed rosy amethyst in the evening light.
Standing on the withered tufts of airfield grass, awaiting the moment as harbinger of Guy’s arrival, Harriet saw the refulgence as a gift for him. But it touched perfection and began to darken; for a little while the glow remained like wine on the hills, then she was left with nothing but her own suspense. Nearly an hour passed before the Lufthansa came winking its landing-lights over Parnes.
At last it was down. She saw Guy on the steps. Short-sighted and lost in the beams of the ground lights, he knew he would never be able to find her, so stood there: a large, untidy, bespectacled man with a book in one hand and an old rucksack in the other, waiting for her to find him. She stared a moment, amazed by reality; then ran to him. When she reached him, she was weeping helplessly.