‘Why?’ Klein opened his pale eyes. ‘What do they matter to you, these Druckers? They have made much money – illegal money. They have lived well. Now they are not so well. Need you weep?’
‘Sasha was a pupil of mine. The Druckers treated me kindly. They were my friends.’
Klein smiled mockingly into Guy’s face. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘how do you reconcile such friendship with your ideas on international finance?’
David snuffled and sniggered at this question, his mouth curling up under his nostrils. With his head down, he looked up in ironical enquiry at Guy, but before Guy had found a reply, Klein, relenting, said: ‘All things, all people – all are so interesting.’
Clarence leant towards Harriet, speaking to her as though she were alone: ‘I must say, I think Guy squanders himself on a lot of people who aren’t worth it.’
‘Well, you don’t do that,’ said Harriet with some derision.
‘Neither do you.’
Harriet put up her hand, warding off this private controversy, so that she could listen to Klein, who had now left the Druckers and was talking of the country’s internal situation.
‘The King,’ he announced, ‘is granting an amnesty to the Iron Guardists.’
David and Guy were astounded by this news. There had been no indication in the press, not even a rumour, that this would be possible.
‘The amnesty is already signed,’ said Klein, speaking quietly, ‘but not yet announced. Wait. Tomorrow or the next day you will hear of it.’
‘But why should he grant an amnesty?’ David asked.
‘Ah, it is interesting. The war is ending in Finland. Any day now the Russians will be free to advance themselves elsewhere. And where will they advance? Here the Cabinet is very nervous. To whom can they look for help? Would the Allies defend Rumania against Russia? If so, how would it be possible? But Germany! Germany could do it, and would do it, at a price. Already the question has been asked: What price? What does Germany demand? And she has answered: First, grant an amnesty to the Iron Guard.’
Clarence drawled crossly: ‘But I thought there was no Iron Guard left.’
‘You believed that? My friend, there are many Guardists, but they are hidden. And in Germany, too, there are many. They fled there in 1938 after Codreanu and his legionaries were shot. In Germany they were made welcome. They have been drilled. They have been trained in the concentration camps. They have become more Nazi than the Nazis. The Germans wish them to return here, for here they will be useful.’
‘But surely,’ Clarence protested, ‘no one wants fascism here. Rumania is still pro-British. There’d be an uproar. There might even be risings.’
‘Britain is loved,’ said Klein. ‘The majority would choose a liberal Government if they had nothing to lose by it. But Russia is feared too much. Great fear can cast love out. Stay here and you will see it happen.’
David said: ‘I told the Legation a year ago that we’d lose this country if we didn’t change our policy.’
Clarence asked, sulkily: ‘What change of policy could make any difference now?’
‘Now, very little. We’ve left it too late.’ David’s agreement was heated. ‘But we need not play Germany’s game for her.’ Taking possession of the talk, David spoke with force and feeling: ‘We support a hated dictatorship. We snub the peasant leaders. We condone the suppression of the extreme Left and the imprisonment of its leaders. We support some of the most ruthless exploitation of human beings to be found in Europe. We support the suppression of minorities – a suppression that must, inevitably, lead to a break-up of Greater Rumania as soon as opportunity arises.’
‘Perhaps the opportunity won’t arise.’
‘Perhaps it won’t. It depends on the conduct of the war. The war will have to move sometime. The deadlock can’t continue and I don’t believe there is a chance of a truce. If the Allies could break through the Siegfried Line and advance into Germany, then they might, without particular injury to British interests, continue their policy here indefinitely. As it is we’re doing the fascists’ job for them. At the first indication of a possible German victory, the whole vast anti-Communist movement here would rise against us.’
‘Do you expect us to support the Communists?’ Clarence asked.
‘Certainly not. My complaint is that, when we could, we did nothing to establish a liberal policy that could save the country from either extremity – Left or Right.’
‘I think you take too black a view of things,’ mumbled Clarence.
‘You, I can see,’ said David, ‘would agree with H.E. The old duffer describes my reports as “alarmist” and files them away and forgets about them.’
‘Hum!’ said Clarence, hiding his annoyance under an expression of superior doubt, then he jumped up, claimed he had a luncheon appointment, and went without saying his good-byes.
David looked after him, smiling in amused pity. ‘Poor old Clarence,’ he said. ‘He’s a bit of a half-baked intellectual, but a good fellow, really. Yes, quite a good fellow!’ and he returned to his condemnation of British policy in Rumania.
PART FOUR
The Fall of Troy
19
The Iron Guard amnesty was announced as the thaw set in. The thaw, arriving late, bringing with it deluge and floods, was the more discussed. The announcement of the amnesty led, not to uproar and revolt as Clarence had predicted, but to a change in the Cabinet and the appointment among the new Ministers of the Guardist leader Horia Sima. The King assured the Allies they need have no fears. The amnesty meant nothing. A few new jokes went the rounds of the cafés. The Rumanians, it seemed, were prepared for anything now.
But the thaw was another matter. As the snow melted and ran from eaves and balconies, the whole city dripped beneath a leaden sky. Most people went about under umbrellas. When the iced surfaces on roads and pavements began to crack, people sank, without warning, deep into slush. Soon the roads were nothing but slush, ice-cold and filthy, that was sprayed by the speeding traffic on to the passers-by.
The sky grew darker and sank lower until it split beneath its own weight and the rain fell in torrents. Rivers overflowed their banks. Whole villages were drowned in a night. Conscripted peasants, having begged leave to help their families, wandered about in search of their homes, finding nothing but a waste of waters. The destitute survivors crowded into the city to replace the beggars that winter had killed.
The Finnish peace treaty was signed. Russia was free for another adventure. The citizens of Bucharest, cooped up in cafés, watching the downpour, passed round rumours of invasion. A reconnaissance ’plane was said to have sighted troops crossing the Dniester. Refugees were streaming towards the Pruth. Detailed descriptions were given of atrocities committed by Russian troops on Rumanian and German minorities. People went fearful to bed and rose to find everything much as they had left it. The rumours of yesterday were denied, but repeated the day after.
During this time there appeared in Bucharest an English teacher called Toby Lush who declared that all Bessarabia was in a ferment, the Russians being expected that very night.
It was thought at first that Lush came from the University of Jassy. Clarence and the Pringles felt much sympathy for any Englishman in a frontier town since hearing that the British Council lecturer at Ljubljana had been seized in the street one night by a German patrol car, taken over the frontier into Austria and never heard of again. However, when they started to talk to Lush, they discovered he came not from Jassy but from Cluj. He had thought that, things being as they were, he would be safer in the capital. After a fortnight, during which all the frontiers remained unviolated, he rather sheepishly said farewell to his new acquaintances, got into his car and returned to his pupils in Cluj.