Hadjimoscos slowly turned his head, looking surprised at Yakimov’s intrusion. He coldly asked: ‘Is it not evident to you, mon prince, that I am occupied?’ He turned away, only to find his German companion had taken the opportunity to desert him. He gave Yakimov an angry glance.
To placate him, Yakimov attempted humour, saying with a nervous giggle: ‘So many Germans in the bar! They’ll soon be demanding a plebiscite.’
‘They have as much right here as you. More, in fact, for they have not betrayed us. Personally, I find them charming.’
‘Oh, so do I, dear boy,’ Yakimov assured him. ‘Had a lot of friends in Berlin in ’32,’ then changing to a more interesting topic: ‘Did you happen to see the play?’
‘The play? You mean that charity production at the National Theatre? I’m told you looked quite ludicrous.’
‘Forced into it, dear boy,’ Yakimov apologised, knowing himself despised for infringing the prescripts of the idle. ‘War on, you know. Had to do m’bit.’
Hadjimoscos turned down his lips. Without further comment, he moved away to find more profitable companionship. He attached himself to a German group and was invited to take a drink. Watching enviously, Yakimov wondered if, son of a Russian father and an Irish mother, he could hint that his sympathies were with the Reich. He put the thought from his mind. The British Legation had lost its power here, but not, alas, over him.
The English Bar was itself again. The English journalists had re-established themselves and the Germans, bored with the skirmish, were drifting back to the Minerva. The few that remained were losing their audacity.
Hadjimoscos was again willing to accept Yakimov’s company, but cautiously. He would not join him in an English group – that would have been too defined an attachment in a changing world – but if Yakimov had money he would stand with him in a no man’s land and help him to spend it.
Yakimov, though not resentful by nature, did occasionally feel a little sore at this behaviour. Practised scrounger though he was, he was not as practised as Hadjimoscos. When he had money, he spent it. Hadjimoscos, whether he had it or not, never spent it. With his softly insidious and clinging manner, his presence affected men like the presence of a woman. They expected nothing from him. By standing long enough, first on one foot then on the other, he remained so patiently, so insistently there, that those to whom he attached himself bought him drinks in order to be free to ignore him.
Yakimov, entering the bar that morning, saw Hadjimoscos with his friend Horvatz and Cici Palu, all holding empty glasses and watching out for someone to refill them.
He bought his own drink before approaching them. Seeing them eye the whisky in his hand, he began, in self-defence, to complain of the high cost of the visas he had been forced to buy. Hadjimoscos, smiling maliciously, slid forward a step and put a hand on Yakimov’s arm. ‘Cher prince,’ he said, ‘what does it matter what you spend your money on, so long as you spend it on yourself!’
Palu gave a snigger. Horvatz remained blank. Yakimov knew, had always known, they did not want his company. They did not even want each other. They stood in a group, bored by their own aimlessness, because no one else wanted them. To Yakimov there came the thought that he was one of them – he who had once been the centre of entertainment in a vivacious set. He attempted to be entertaining now: ‘Did you hear? When the French minister, poor old boy, was recalled to Vichy France, Princess Teodorescu said to him: “Dire adieu, c’est mourir un peu.”’
‘Is it likely that the Princess of all people would be so lacking in tact?’ Hadjimoscos turned his back, attempting to exclude Yakimov from the conversation as he said: ‘Things are coming to a pretty pass! What do I learn at the cordonnier this morning? Three weeks to wait and five thousand to pay for a pair of handmade shoes!’
‘At the tailleur,’ said Palu, ‘it is the same. The price of English stuff is a scandal. And now they declare meatless days. What, I ask, is a fellow to eat?’ He looked at Yakimov, for all the world as though it were the British and not the Germans who were plundering the country.
Yakimov attempted to join in. ‘A little fish,’ he meekly suggested, ‘a little game, in season. Myself, I never say no to a slice of turkey.’
Hadjimoscos cut him short with contempt: ‘Those are entrées only. How, without meat, can a man retain his virility?’
Discomfited, casting about in his mind for some way of gaining the attention he loved, Yakimov remembered the plan he had found that morning. He took it out. Sighing, he studied it. The conversation faltered. Aware of their interest, he lowered the paper so it was visible to all. ‘What will they want me to do next!’ he asked the world.
Hadjimoscos averted his glance. ‘I advise you, mon prince,’ he said, ‘if you have anything to hide, now is the time to hide it.’
Knowing he could do nothing to please that morning, Yakimov put the plan away and let his attention wander. He became aware that a nearby stranger had been attempting to intercept it. The stranger smiled. His shabby, tousled appearance did not give much cause for hope, but Yakimov, always amiable, went forward and held out his hand. ‘Dear boy,’ he said, ‘where have we met before?’
The young man took his pipe out from under his big, fluffy moustache and spluttering like a syphon in which the soda level was too low, he managed to say at last: ‘The name’s Lush. Toby Lush. I met you once with Guy Pringle.’
‘So you did,’ agreed Yakimov, who had no memory of it.
‘Let me get you a drink. What is it?’
‘Why, whisky, dear boy. Can’t stomach the native rot-gut.’
Neighing wildly at Yakimov’s humour, Lush went to the bar. Yakimov, having decided his new acquaintance was ‘a bit of an ass’, was surprised when he was led purposefully over to one of the tables by the wall. He did not receive his glass until he had sat down and he realised something would be demanded in return for it.
After a few moments of nervous pipe-sucking, Lush said: ‘I’m here for keeps this time.’
‘Are you indeed? That’s splendid news.’
With his elbows close to his side, his knees clenched, Lush sat as though compressed inside his baggy sports-jacket and flannels. He sucked and gasped, gasped and spluttered, then said: ‘When the Russkies took over Bessarabia, I told myself: “Toby, old soul, now’s the time to shift your bones.” There’s always the danger of staying too long in a place.’
‘Where do you come from?’
‘Cluj. Transylvania. I never felt safe there. I’m not sure I’m safe here.’
It occurred to Yakimov that he had heard the name Toby Lush before. Didn’t the fellow turn up for a few days in the spring, bolted from Cluj because of some rumour of a Russian advance? Yakimov, always sympathetic towards fear, said reassuringly:
‘Oh, you’re all right here. Nice little backwater. The Germans are getting all they want. They won’t bother us.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ Lush’s pale, bulging eyes surveyed the bar. ‘Quite a few of them about though. I don’t feel they like us being here.’
‘It’s the old story,’ said Yakimov: ‘infiltrate, then complain about the natives. Still, it was worse last week. I said to Albu: “Dry Martini” and he gave me three martinis.’
Squeezing his knees together, Lush swayed about, gulping with laughter. ‘You’re a joker,’ he said. ‘Have another?’