She said: ‘I don’t believe Inchcape thought of this school. He’s lost interest in the English Department. I believe it’s all your idea.’
‘I discussed it with Inchcape. He agreed that one can’t spend the summer lazing around while other men are fighting a war.’
‘And what is Inchcape going to do? I mean, apart from sitting in the Bureau reading Henry James.’
‘He’s an old man,’ said Guy, deflecting criticism as much from himself as from his superior. Since Inchcape, who was the professor, had become Director of Propaganda, Guy had run the English Department with the help only of three elderly ex-governesses and Dubedat, an elementary school-teacher, marooned in the Balkans by war. With uncomplaining enthusiasm, Guy did much more than was expected of him; but he was not imposed upon. He did what he wanted to do and did it, Harriet believed, to keep reality at bay.
During the days of the fall of France, he had thrown himself into a production of Troilus and Cressida. Now, when their Rumanian friends were beginning to avoid them, he was giving himself up to this summer school. He would not only be too busy to notice their isolation, but too busy to care about it. She wanted to accuse him of running away – but how accuse someone who was, to all appearances, steadfast on the site of danger, a candidate for martyrdom? It was she, it seemed, who wanted to run away.
She asked: ‘When does the school start?’
‘Next week.’ He laughed at her tone of resignation, and, putting an arm round her, said: ‘Don’t look so glum. We’ll get away before the summer ends. We’ll go to Predeal.’
She smiled and said: ‘All right,’ but as soon as she was alone she went to the telephone, looking for comfort, and rang up the only Englishwoman she knew here who was of her generation. This was Bella Niculescu, who had very little to do and was usually only too ready to talk. That morning, however, she cut Harriet off abruptly, saying she was dressing to go out to luncheon. She suggested that Harriet come to tea that afternoon.
Harriet waited until nearly five o’clock before venturing into the outdoor heat. At that time a little shade was stretching from the buildings, but in the Boulevard Breteanu, where Bella lived, the buildings had been demolished to make way for blocks of flats, only two or three of which had been built when war brought work to a stop. The pavements were shade-less between the white baked earth of vacant lots.
In summer this area was a dormitory for beggars and unemployed peasants, and the dust-filled air carried a curious odour, sweetish, unclean yet volatile, distilled by the sun from earth saturated with urine and ordure.
Bella’s block rose sheer from the ground like a prow from water. Against its side-wall a peasant had pitched a hut for the sale of vegetables and cigarettes. Several beggars sleeping in the shade of the hut made an attempt to rouse themselves at Harriet’s step and whined in a half-hearted way. One of them was well known to her. She had seen him first on her first day in Bucharest: a demanding, bad-tempered fellow who, recognising a foreigner, had thrust his ulcerated leg at her like a threat and refused to be satisfied with what she gave him. At that time she had been horrified by the beggars, especially this beggar. Having just journeyed three days to the eastern edge of Europe, she had seen him as a portent of life in the strange, half-Oriental capital to which marriage had brought her.
Guy had said she must become used to the beggars; and, in a way, she had done so. She had even become reconciled to this man, and he to her. Now she handed him the same small coins a Rumanian would have given and he accepted them, sullenly, but without protest.
The smells of the boulevard did not enter the block of flats, which was air-conditioned. In its temperate, scentless atmosphere, Harriet’s head cleared, and, stimulated and cheerful, she thought of Bella to whom she could look for companionship during the empty summer ahead. She contemplated their meeting with pleasure, but as she entered the drawing-room she realised something was wrong. She felt so little welcome that she came to a stop inside the door.
‘Well, take a pew,’ Bella said crossly, as though Harriet were at fault in awaiting the invitation.
Sitting on the edge of the large blue sofa, Harriet said: ‘It’s beautifully cool in here. It seems hotter than ever outside.’
‘What do you expect? It’s July.’ Bella pulled a bell-cord, then stared impatiently at the door as though she, who chattered so easily, were now at a loss how to entertain her guest.
Two servants entered, one with the tea, the other with cakes. Bella watched, frowning in a displeased fashion, as the trays were put down. Harriet, discomfited, also found herself at a loss for conversation and looked at an early edition of the evening paper which lay beside her on the sofa. When the girls went, she made a comment on the headline: ‘I see Drucker is to be tried at last.’
Bella inclined her head, saying: ‘Personally, I’d let him rot. He made out he was pro-British, but his rate of exchange was all in favour of Germany. Lots of people say his bank was ruining the country.’ She spoke tartly, but in a refined tone reminding Harriet of their first tea-party when Bella, fearing that her guest might have pretensions to family or wealth, had overwhelmed her with gentility. Eventually set at ease, Bella had revealed a hearty appetite for gossip and a ribaldry which Harriet, in need of a friend, had come to enjoy. Now here was Bella, a great classical statue of a woman in an unnatural pose, again barricaded behind her best electro-plated tea-service. For some reason they were back where they had started from.
Harriet said: ‘I met Drucker once. His son was one of Guy’s students. He was a warm-hearted man; very good-looking.’
‘Humph!’ said Bella. ‘Seven months in prison won’t have improved his looks.’ Unable to repress superior knowledge, she took a more comfortable pose and nodded knowingly. ‘He was a womaniser, like most good-looking men. And, in a way, that’s what did for him. If Madame hadn’t thought he was fair game, she’d never have tried to get him to part with his oil holdings. When he refused her, she took it as a personal affront. She was furious. Any woman would be. So she went to Carol, who saw a chance to get his hands on some cash and trumped up this charge of dealing in foreign currency. Drucker was arrested and his family skedaddled.’
Pleased by her own summary of the circumstances leading to Drucker’s fall, Bella could not help smiling. Harriet, feeling the atmosphere between them relaxing, asked: ‘What do you think they will do to him?’
‘Oh, he’ll be found guilty – that goes without saying. He’ll have to forfeit his oil holdings, of course; but there’s this fortune he’s got salted away in Switzerland. Carol can’t take that, so if Drucker makes it over he might get off lightly. Rumanians are quite humane, you know.’
Harriet said: ‘But Drucker can’t make it over. The money’s in his son’s name.’
‘Who told you that?’ Bella spoke sharply and Harriet, unable to disclose the source of it, wished she had kept her knowledge to herself.
‘I heard it some time ago. Guy was fond of Sasha. He’s been trying to find out what became of him.’
‘Surely the boy bolted with the rest of the family?’
‘No. He was taken away when they arrested his father, but apparently he’s not in prison. No one knows where he is. He’s just disappeared.’
‘Indeed!’ Used to being the authority on things Rumanian, Bella was looking bored by Harriet’s talk of the Druckers, so Harriet changed to a subject which was always of interest. ‘How is Nikko?’ she asked.