Doamna Hassolel broke in quickly to say: ‘Never will I forget how David Boyd was talking of Vâlcov – how he rose at dawn and rowed out alone in the waterways and saw the thousands of birds, and how he saw a big bird called a Sea Eagle. It was so interesting. You would think he would be lonely and afraid in such places.’
Guy said that David had travelled over all the Balkan countries and spoke the language of each.
‘These Balkan countries are wild,’ said Doamna Hassolel. ‘They have dangerous wild beasts. I would not travel here. In Germany it was different. There Willi and I would take out walking sticks and …’ She talked affectionately of life in Germany.
The clock had struck half past two before Doamna Drucker made her appearance. She had not met Guy before, having married Drucker only that summer, but she gave him her hand with barely a glance. She was a few years older than Sasha; not Jewish; a Rumanian beauty, moon-faced, black-haired, black-eyed, like other Rumanian beauties. She wore the fashionable dress of the moment, black, short, tight-fitting, with pearls, a large diamond brooch and several diamond rings. As she crossed to the chair, her body undulating with an Oriental languor, Drucker’s gaze was fixed upon her. Settling like a feather settling, lolling there without giving a glance at the company, she expressed her boredom with the whole Drucker ménage. Her husband asked her if she would take ţuicǎ. She replied: ‘Oui, un petit peu.’
When Drucker sat down again, the little girl patted his arm and whispered urgently to him, but now his attention was only for his wife. Unable to distract him, the child stood looking at her stepmother, her expression pained.
Luncheon was announced. Doamna Hassolel led the way to the dining-room. Drucker sat at one end of the table, but the other end was taken by Doamna Hassolel, who served from a great silver tureen a rich chicken soup made of sour cream. Doamna Drucker sat half-way down the table between Sasha and Flöhr.
Drucker, having Harriet at his hand, began to question her about her impression of Bucharest.
Looking admiringly at his wife, Guy said: ‘Apart from the Legation women, who have diplomatic immunity, Harriet is the only Englishwoman left here.’ Before he could say more, Doamna Hassolel interrupted rather sharply:
‘Surely,’ she said, ‘Doamna Niculesco is here? She is an Englishwoman. You have met her?’ She looked at Harriet, who said she had not. Harriet glanced at Guy, who dismissed Bella, saying: ‘Bella Niculesco is a tiresome woman. You would not have much in common.’
At this Doamna Teitelbaum, whose cheeks hung like curtains on either side of the drooping arc of her mouth, said eagerly: ‘You do not like her? Me neither. Perhaps on you, too, she has tried the snub?’
The Drucker sisters, hoping for scandal, all turned to Guy, who innocently replied: ‘No, but I did upset her once – the only time I was taken to the Golf Club. Bella was supervising the hanging of a portrait of Chamberlain painted by some local artist. A ghastly thing. It was inscribed: “To the Man who Gave us Peace in Our Time.” Chamberlain was holding the flower Safety and had the nettle Danger crushed beneath his foot. I said: “What’s that thing painted with? Treacle?” Bella Niculesco said: “Mr Pringle, you should have more respect for a great man.”’
This story did not meet with the acclaim it would have received in Guy’s more immediate circle. Doamna Hassolel broke the silence by insisting that the Pringles must take more soup. Most of the members of the family had taken two or three plates. Doamna Flöhr had excused herself, saying she was slimming. Harriet tried to do the same.
‘No, no,’ protested Doamna Hassolel, ‘it is not possible. If you grow more slim, you will disappear.’
The soup was followed by sturgeon, then an entrée of braised steak with aubergine. The Pringles, supposing the entrée to be the main dish, took two helpings and were dashed by the sight of the enormous roast of beef that followed it.
‘I went myself to Dragomir’s,’ said Doamna Hassolel, ‘and ordered it to be cut “sirloin” in the English fashion. We are told how you eat much roast beef. Now you must fill your plate, two, three times.’
While the Pringles were silenced by food, the family grew relaxed and even more talkative. Doamna Flöhr said to Harriet:
‘You are looking for a flat?’
Harriet said she had started looking now it seemed they would stay.
‘Ach,’ said Hassolel, ‘the Germans won’t come here. The Rumanians are clever in their way. Last war, they gained much territory. This time they will keep a foot in each camp and come out with even more.’
Flöhr gave a snort of disgust. Speaking for the first time, he said: ‘Such a war! An unexploded squib of a war! What folly ever to start it. The great nations think only of power. They do not think of the ones who suffer for such a war.’
In a conciliatory way, Guy said: ‘They say there will be financial collapse in Germany soon. That might shorten the war.’ He looked round for applause and met only shocked alarm.
Doamna Flöhr, moving anxiously in her seat, cried: ‘It would be terrible, such a collapse! It would ruin us.’
Drucker, lifting his head tortoise-fashion out of his silence, said: ‘That is a rumour put around by the British. There will be no collapse.’ This firm assurance brought immediate calm. Harriet looked at Guy, but he, drowsy with food and wine, seemed unaware of the disturbance he had created. Or perhaps he preferred to seem unaware. It came into her mind that, where his friends were concerned, he was inclined to excuse anything.
Drucker, noticing her look, said quietly: ‘It is true our business is much dependent on German prosperity. But we made our connections long ago. We do not love the Germans any more than you, but we did not cause the war. We must live.’
Doamna Hassolel broke in aggressively. ‘A banker,’ she said, ‘upholds the existing order. He is an important man. He has the country behind him.’
‘Supposing the order ceases to exist?’ said Harriet. ‘Supposing the Nazis come here?’
‘They would not interfere with us,’ Flöhr said with a swaggering air. ‘It would not be in their interests to do so. They do not want a financial débâcle. Already, if it were not for us, Rumania would be on her knees.’
Teitelbaum added sombrely: ‘We could a dozen times buy and sell this country.’
Drucker, the only member of the family who seemed aware that these remarks were not carrying Harriet where they felt she should go, lifted a hand to check them, but as he did so his youngest sister broke in excitedly to urge the pace:
‘We work, we save,’ she said, ‘we bring here prosperity, and yet they persecute us.’ She leant across the table to fix Harriet with her reddish-brown eyes. ‘In Germany my husband was a clever lawyer. He had a big office. He comes here – and he is forbidden to practise. Why? Because he is a Jew. He must work for my brother. Why do they hate us? Even the trǎsurǎ driver when angry with his horse will shout: “Go on, you Jew.” Why is it? Why is it so?’
The last query was followed by silence, intent and alert, as though, after some introductory circling over the area, one of the family had at last darted down upon the carcase of grievance that was the common meat of them all.
Drucker bent to his daughters and whispered something about ‘grand-mère et grand-père’. They whispered back. He nodded. Each took an orange from the table, then, hand-in-hand, left the room.
The talk broke out again as the door closed after the children. Each member of the family gave some example of persecution. Drucker’s long aquiline head drooped over his plate. He had heard it all before and knew it to be no more than truth. Guy, roused by the talk, listened to it with a crumpled look of distress. The only persons unaffected were Sasha and Doamna Drucker. Doamna Drucker looked profoundly bored. As for Sasha – the stories, it seemed, did not relate to him. His thoughts were elsewhere. He was the treasured fœtus in the womb that has no quarrel with the outside world.