When he had lived with them, a sort of domestic pet, he had seemed too innocent and unsuspecting to be allowed out into the world alone. He had been brought up in the shelter of a wealthy and powerful family, and though he must have heard the family stories of persecution, he had been insulated against mistrust by his own artlessness. Yet one lie – less than a lie, a hint that he had been betrayed by friends – had precipitated the settled doubts of his race. She was certain that however she argued, she would never convince him that they had had no hand in his arrest. One lesson had been enough. He now accepted the perfidy of the world and acceptance was born in him, an inheritance not to be changed.
She said: ‘If you thought we informed on you, weren’t you surprised when they broke up our flat?’
‘Did they break up your flat?’
‘Surely you saw it happen?’
‘No. Despina opened the door. They came straight in and put on all the lights. I was in bed and they said: “Get up and get dressed”, and they took me away.’
‘So you didn’t see them turning out the drawers and pulling down the books?’
‘No, I didn’t. They did nothing like that while I was there.’
‘They did it after you went. When we came back, the flat was in chaos. We didn’t sleep there. We went to the Athenée Palace.’
He gave an ‘Oh!’ of polite concern, and she knew he would never be convinced. Although his manner was still gentle, his attitude still meek, he saw the truth as he saw it, and no one would change him now.
Looking at his face, the same face she had known in Bucharest and yet a different face, she could see him turning into a wily young financier like the Jewish financiers of Chernowitz who still proudly wore on their hats the red fox fur that had been imposed on them long ago, as a symbol of cunning. No doubt he would remake the fortune that he had signed away. That would be his answer to life. She did not blame herself, but she felt someone was to blame.
She had mourned Sasha – and with reason. She had lost him indeed and the person she had now found was not only a stranger, but a stranger whom she could not like.
She said: ‘Guy will want to see you.’
When he did not reply, she asked: ‘You do want to see him? Don’t you?’
‘We’re leaving here.’
‘Yes, but not at once. There are no regular services …’
‘I mean, we’re leaving the hotel.’ There was an anxious impatience in his interruption: ‘We’re going to stay with some people … friends of my uncle.’
‘I suppose Guy could visit you there?’
‘I don’t know where they live.’
‘If I gave you our address, you could get into touch with Guy yourself?’
He answered: ‘Yes,’ dutifully, and took the address which she wrote down for him. She watched him put it into his breast pocket and thought: now it rests with him.
People were coming and going through the hotel door and Sasha was watching for his uncle’s return. She felt his eagerness to be gone and she knew he did not want to see Guy. Even if she could convince him that they were guiltless, he had left them and did not want to be drawn back to them. And she had no wish to draw him back. Why, after all, should they draw him back? He was not the person they had known.
A man entered the hotel.
‘There’s my uncle,’ Sasha said, his voice rising in relief. ‘I must go.’
‘Of course.’
He leapt away, forgetting to say good-bye. She watched the men meet. The uncle, his shoulders hunched, his head shrunken into the astrakhan collar of his coat, was half a century older than the nephew, yet, seen together, the two looked alike. Their likeness was increased by the sense of understanding that united them. They belonged not to a country but to an international sodality, the members of which had more in common with each other than they had with the inhabitants of any country in which they chanced to be born.
‘Jews are always strangers,’ Harriet thought, yet when Sasha followed his uncle upstairs, she felt a sense of loss.
While taking tea, she had seen Charles leave the hotel. He had run down the stairs, not looking to right or left. He was still pale, still angry. She knew the situation might never be redeemed – and it had all been for nothing. Sasha, knowing she and Guy were in Athens, had made no attempt to contact them. He could have come and gone without their knowing he had even been here. Yet, out of all the seconds in a day, he had chosen that second to appear and estrange her from her friend.
She picked up the book which Charles had left on the sofa and saw it was in Greek. The fact he read this language not as an exercise but as a pleasure seemed to emphasize their division.
An acute sadness of parting and finality came down on her. Her friends were dispersing and she felt that life was reaching towards an end. She thought of Guy and knew that whatever his faults, he possessed the virtue of permanence.
She decided she would not tell him about her meeting with Sasha. She could imagine him trying to override Sasha’s recoil and forcing an understanding; or an appearance of understanding, a pretence that all was well. She could not bear that. Now it would rest with Sasha and if he made no effort to see them, Guy, knowing nothing, would not be hurt.
But, the days passing, she found it impossible to keep from Guy the fact the Sasha was alive.
She said suddenly: ‘Who do you think I’ve seen?’
Guy replied at once: ‘Sasha Drucker.’
‘You’ve seen him? Where?’
‘In the street.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘He told me he was just leaving. His uncle had managed to charter a private plane that would take them to Lydda. I meant to tell you. I forgot.’
‘Did you find him changed?’
‘Yes. Of course, he’s been through the sort of experience that would change anyone. I was glad to know he was safe and well.’
‘Yes. Yes, so was I.’
And by an unspoken consent neither mentioned Sasha again.
It took the Germans forty-eight hours to break through the Greek defences and occupy Salonika.
Vourakis, a journalist who sometimes came to see Alan, told them in the News Room that the Yugoslav southern army had withdrawn, leaving the Greek flank exposed.
‘But the advance was halted. It was halted by Greek cavalry. Real cavalry, you understand! Men on horseback.’
‘For how long?’ Alan asked.
Vourakis shook his head sadly. ‘Why ask for how long? It would be like blocking a howitzer with a naked hand. And there were two forts that held the pass till the area could be evacuated. A hundred men stayed in the forts. They knew no one could rescue them, no help could come to them: they knew they must die. And they died. The forts were destroyed and the men died. It was a Thermopylae. Another Thermopylae.’
Everyone was moved by the sacrifice of the men in the Rupel Pass forts, but the Germans had no time for Greek heroics. Riding over the defenders who had become the wonder of the war, they came with an armoured force which was described by refugees as ‘more powerful than anything the world has ever seen’.
Nothing was known for sure. The news was blocked. As a precaution against panic, the authorities had decided that no one should know anything. The fall of Salonika had been expected, they said. It was inevitable from the first. They might even have planned it themselves. Whether expected or not, no one had been warned and the English who managed to get away left the town as the German tanks came in.
Harriet said to Alan: ‘A friend of ours went up to Salonika. An army officer. What do you think would happen to him?’
‘Oh, he’d have his wits about him: he’d get away.’
Which was exactly what Harriet did not think. She could imagine Clarence, with his self-punishing indifference, remaining till it was too late. But there may have been someone to harry him into a car and drive him to the Olympus line. An imitation officer, he would then be returned to Athens, so they perhaps would see him again one day – a man saved in spite of himself.