Peering down over the rail at the end of the terrace, Harriet said: ‘Do you realise there are people still walking in the park? They don’t know what’s going to happen now. They’re afraid to go home.’
Clarence looked down on the moving darkness and said: ‘This is a bad time to be alone,’ adding, after a pause: ‘I need someone. I need you. You could save me.’
She did not feel like discussing Clarence’s personal problems just then. She said: ‘What do you think will happen to us? I wish we had diplomatic protection like the Legation people.’
Clarence said: ‘According to my contract, the Council’s bound to get me back to England somehow or other.’
‘You’re fortunate,’ she said.
‘You could come with me.’
The din from the room was growing. The ferment of the party, that had been precariously balanced, tilting for moments over the verge of depression, had now righted itself. A new abandon had set in. Some of the students were stamping out a horǎ while others were clapping in time and shouting to encourage them. Fitzsimon was still at the pianoforte attempting to produce horǎ music while Sophie, beside him, sang shrill and sharp in imitation of Florica.
Harriet said: ‘Let’s go and watch.’ She tried to move, but Clarence caught her elbow, determined to retain her attention. He kept repeating: ‘You could save me.’
She laughed impatiently: ‘Save yourself, Clarence. You said that Guy is a fool. There may be ways in which that sort of fool is superior to you. You show your wisdom by believing in nothing. The truth is, you have nothing to offer but a wilderness.’
Clarence stared at her with sombre satisfaction. ‘You may be right. I’ve said that Guy was a sort of saint. The world has not been able to tempt him. He may be something – but I’ll never be able to change now.’
‘You’re like Yakimov,’ said Harriet. ‘You belong to the past.’
He shrugged. ‘What does it matter? We’re all down the drain, anyway. Where are we going if we lose England?’
‘Home. And we won’t lose England.’
‘We won’t get home. Here we are, stuck on the wrong side of Europe. Pretty soon the cash’ll run out. We’ll be paupers. No one will start a relief fund for us. We’ll …’
As Clarence’s voice dropped with despondency, the noise from the room was such that Harriet could scarcely hear what he was saying. Suddenly both Clarence and the music were interrupted by a Rumanian voice that screamed above everything else with a rage that was near hysteria: ‘Linişte! Linişte!’
Startled, Clarence released Harriet. As she escaped, she heard him complaining behind her: ‘I think you’ve treated me pretty badly.’
When she reached the room, she saw a little ball of a woman, wearing a dressing-gown, her hair in curlers, who had entered and was storming at Inchcape’s astonished guests:
‘What is it you make here, you English? You have lost the war, you have lost your Empire, you have lost all – yet, like a first-class Power, you keep the house awake!’
For a moment the English were stunned by this attack, then they surged forward calling out: ‘We’ve lost nothing yet.’ ‘And we’re not going to lose.’ ‘We shall win the war, you wait and see.’
Bella’s voice, indignant but still lady-like, rose from the back of the room. ‘The English have never lost a battle,’ she cried.
David amended this with an amused reasonableness: ‘That’s not quite true. We lose battles, but we do not lose wars.’
This authoritative statement was taken up by the others. ‘We never lose wars,’ they shouted, ‘we never lose wars.’
The woman, unnerved, took a step backwards, then retreated rapidly, as Rumanians tended to retreat before assault. When she reached the hall door, she bolted through it and Pauli, laughing, slammed it after her.
‘Rule Britannia,’ commanded Fitzsimon as he re-seated himself at the pianoforte.
There were no more interruptions. The party went on until daybreak. By that time the park was deserted and silence had come down over Inchcape’s room. A number of guests had left. The rest, encouraged by Inchcape, prepared to follow them. Yakimov had slipped off his arm-chair and was lying unconscious on the floor. Inchcape agreed to let him stay there until he waked, so the Pringles left with David.
As they reached the street, the dawn was whitening the roofs. Wide-eyed and wakeful from lack of sleep, Harriet suggested they stroll up to the German Bureau and see what had been done to the map of France. When they reached the window, they saw the dot of Paris hidden by a swastika that squatted like a spider, black on the heart of the country.
They stood staring at it a while. Soberly, Guy asked: ‘What do you think will happen here? What are our chances?’
David pursed his mouth, preparing to talk, then he gave his snuffling laugh. ‘As Klein says, it will be very interesting! The Rumanians had hoped to do what they did last time – keep a foot in both camps. But the Germans have put the lid on that. What they’re organising here is one gigantic fifth column. The King hoped to rally popular support for the defence of the country, but too late. He’s lost the trust of everyone. The régime cannot last.’
‘You think there’ll be a revolution?’
‘Something of the sort. But, worse than that, the country itself will fall apart. Rumania cannot preserve her great fortune. She has been too foolish and too weak. As for our chances …’ He laughed again. ‘They depend on knowing when to get away.’
Guy took Harriet’s arm. ‘We’ll get away all right.’
She said: ‘We’ll get away because we must. The great fortune is life. We must preserve it.’
They turned from the map of France with the swastika at its centre and walked home through the empty streets.
VOLUME TWO
The Spoilt City
To
Ivy Compton-Burnett
PART ONE
The Earthquake
1
The map of France had gone from the window of the German Propaganda Bureau and a map of the British Isles had taken its place. People relaxed. There was regret that the next victim was to be their old ally, but it might, after all, have been Rumania herself.
The end of June brought a dry and dusty heat to Bucharest. The grass withered in the public parks. Up the Chaussée, the lime and chestnut leaves, fanned by a breeze like a furnace breath, curled, brown and papery, and started falling as though autumn had come. Each day began with a fierce, white light splintering in between blinds and shutters. When people ate breakfast on the balconies, there was a smell of heat in the air. By noonday, the ingot of the sun dissolved in the sky as in a vat of molten silver. The roads, oozing tarmac, shimmered with mirages. The dazzle hurt the eyes.
During the afternoon, the hot air concentrated between the cliff-faces of buildings, seemed visible and tangible in the ochre dust-fog. Deadened by it, people slept. When the offices closed for the midday meal, the tramway cars were hung with clerks fighting their way home to darkened bedrooms. At five, when the atmosphere was like felt, the offices reopened, but the rich and the workless remained inactive until evening.