‘Dear boy,’ said Yakimov, restored by the sight of it.
‘Just a minute!’ Clarence seemed rather agitated by what he was doing. His cheeks reddened, he fumbled about looking for paper in a drawer. He took out a sheet and wrote an IOU. ‘I am lending you this,’ he said impressively, ‘because you are a friend of Guy Pringle. The money is from funds and must be paid back when your remittance arrives.’
When the IOU was signed and the note had changed hands, Clarence, seemingly relieved by the generosity of his own action, smiled and said he was just going out to luncheon. Would Yakimov care to join him?
‘Delighted, dear boy,’ said Yakimov. ‘Delighted.’
As they drove to Capsa’s in the car which had been allotted to him, Clarence said: ‘I wonder if you know a Commander Sheppy? He’s just invited me to a party. I don’t know him from Adam.’
‘Oh yes, dear boy,’ said Yakimov. ‘Know him well. One eye, one arm – but keen as mustard.’
‘What is he doing here?’
‘I’m told,’ Yakimov’s voice dropped – ‘of course it’s not the sort of thing one should pass round – but I’m told, he’s an important member of the British Secret Service.’
Clarence laughed his unbelief. ‘Who would tell you that?’ he asked.
‘Not in a position to say.’
Capşa’s was Yakimov’s favourite among the Bucharest restaurants. As they passed from the knife-edge of the crivat into a lusciousness of rose-red carpeting, plush, crystal and gilt, he felt himself home again.
A table had been booked for Clarence beside the double windows that overlooked the snow-patched garden. To exclude any hint of draught, red silk cushions were placed between the two panes of glass. Clarence’s guest, a thick-set man with an air of self-conscious pride, rose without smiling, and frowned when he saw Yakimov. Clarence introduced them: Count Steffaneski, Prince Yakimov.
‘A Russian?’ asked Steffaneski.
‘White Russian, dear boy. British subject.’
Steffaneski’s grunt seemed to say ‘A Russian is a Russian’, and, sitting down heavily he stared at the table-cloth.
Defensively, Clarence said: ‘Prince Yakimov is a refugee from Poland.’
‘Indeed?’ Steffaneski raised his head and fixed Yakimov distrustfully. ‘From where in Poland does he come?’
Yakimov, putting his face into the menu card, said: ‘I strongly recommend the crayfish cooked in paprika. And there is really a delicious pilaff of quails.’
Steffaneski obstinately repeated his question. Clarence said: ‘Prince Yakimov tells me he stayed with relatives who have an estate there.’
‘Ah, I would be interested to learn their name. I am related to many landowners. Many others are my friends.’
Seeing Steffaneski set in his deadly persistence, Yakimov attempted explanation: ‘Fact is, dear boy, there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding. Left Poland before things started. Doing undercover work: saw trouble coming: was ordered to get away. White Russian, y’know. So, not to put too fine a point on it, your poor old Yaki had to take to his heels.’
Watching him closely, Steffaneski was waiting for something to come of all this. When Yakimov paused, hoping he had given explanation enough, the Count said: ‘Yes?’
Yakimov said: ‘Got lost on the way down. Ended up in Hungary. Friend there, most generous fellow – Count Ignotus – invited me to stay on his estate. So, the fact was, the estate I spoke of was in Hungary.’
‘So you did not come down through Lvov and Jassy?’ Steffaneski asked with apparent courtesy.
‘No, just dropped straight down to Hungary.’
‘Through Czechoslovakia?’
‘Naturally, dear boy.’
‘How then did you penetrate the German forces?’
‘What German forces?’
‘Can it be you did not encounter them?’
‘Well.’ Yakimov looked appealingly at Clarence, who appeared embarrassed by these questions and answers. As Steffaneski began to harass Yakimov again, Clarence broke in to say: ‘He may have come through Ruthenia.’
‘Ruthenia?’ Steffaneski jerked round to face Clarence. ‘Is Ruthenia not occupied, then?’
‘I think not,’ said Clarence.
For some moments Clarence and the Count discussed, without reference to Yakimov, the possibility of his having passed unmolested through Ruthenia. Suddenly Steffaneski had another thought: ‘If he went through Ruthenia, he must have crossed the Carpathians.’ He returned to Yakimov. ‘You crossed the Carpathians?’ he asked.
‘How do I know?’ Yakimov wailed. ‘It was terrible. You can have no idea what it was like.’
‘I can have no idea? I drive with refugees from Warsaw to Bucharest! I am machine-gunned and I am bombed! I see my friends die: I help bury them! And you tell me I can have no idea!’ With a gesture that implied life was real but Yakimov was not, he turned to Clarence and began to question him about Polish Relief.
Thankful to be left in peace, Yakimov gave his thoughts to the pilaff of quails which was being served.
Despite Yakimov’s recommendation of the Moselle ’34 and ’37 Burgundy, Clarence had ordered a single bottle of Rumanian red wine. The waiter arrived with three bottles which he put down beside Yakimov, who gave him a look of complete understanding.
Steffaneski was describing a visit he had paid the day before to a Polish internment camp in the mountains. When he arrived at the barbed-wire enclosure he had seen the wooden huts of the camp half buried in snow. A Rumanian sentry at the gate had refused to admit him without sanction of the officer on duty. The officer could not be disturbed because it was ‘the time of the siesta’. Steffaneski had demanded that the sentry ring the officer and the sentry had replied: ‘But that is impossible. The officer does not sleep alone.’
‘And so outside the camp I sit for two hours while the officer on duty sleeps, not alone. Ah, how I despise this country! One and all, the Poles despise this country. Sometimes I say to myself: “Better had we stayed in Poland and all died together.”’
‘I couldn’t agree more, dear boy,’ said Yakimov, eating and drinking heartily.
Steffaneski gave him a look of disgust. ‘I was under the impression,’ he said to Clarence, ‘that our talk was to be private.’
A second course of spit-roasted beef arrived and with it the second bottle of wine was emptied. Clarence spent some time explaining to Steffaneski how he was arranging with a junior Minister for the Poles to be shipped over the frontier into Yugoslavia, whence they could travel to join the Allied armies in France. For permitting these escapes, the Rumanian authorities were demanding a fee of one thousand lei a head.
The beef was excellent. Yakimov ate with gusto and was examining the tray of French cheese, when Clarence noticed that the waiter was serving them wine from a new bottle.
‘I ordered only one bottle,’ he said. ‘Why have you brought a second?’
‘This, domnule,’ said the waiter, giving the bottle an insolent flourish, ‘is the third.’
‘The third!’ Clarence looked bewildered. ‘I did not ask for three bottles.’
‘Then why did you drink them?’ the waiter asked as he made off.
Consolingly, Yakimov said: ‘All these Rumanian waiters are the same. Can’t trust them, dear boy …’
‘But did we drink three bottles? Is it possible?’
‘The empties are here, dear boy.’
Clarence looked at the bottles beside Yakimov, then looked at Yakimov as though he alone were responsible for their emptiness.