‘A reception given by the Iron Guard leaders,’ said Steinfeld. ‘An important occasion. Horia Sima is to be present.’
The vestibule was banked with carnations, tuberoses and ferns. A notice informed the public that only ticket holders would be admitted to the main salon, which could be seen through the glass doors already very crowded. Hoping to identify himself with the occasion, Yakimov said: ‘I hear that my dear old friend Freddi von Flügel has been appointed Gauleiter in Cluj. He has asked me up to stay with him.’
‘Gauleiter? Indeed! A position of power,’ said Steinfeld, but the Princess was less impressed: ‘Surely,’ she said, ‘you are an Englishman? Is it correct, in time of war, to visit the enemy?’
The Baron brushed this query aside: ‘People in our position can dispense with such convenances,’ he said, and Yakimov agreed with enthusiasm.
They were approaching the salon entrance where some young men stood on guard. Yakimov, keeping close to his companions, still had hope of entering under their auspices, but the Princess was having none of that. He had been rewarded enough. She stopped, took her furs out of his arms, and said: ‘Well, toot-el-ee-ooh, as you English say. Do not forget my two-three tickets,’ and she handed the furs to Steinfeld. Yakimov knew himself dismissed.
He watched as the couple reached the salon entrance. There they were stopped and made to produce their invitations. There was no sign of a buffet inside and the guests were drinking wine. Deciding the ‘do’ looked a pretty poor one, Yakimov went into the English Bar.
At this moment the Pringles, crossing the square, heard behind them the furious and persistent hooting of an old-fashioned motor-horn. They moved to the pavement. The hooting persisted. Supposing it was some sort of anti-British demonstration, they did not look round. Britain was rumoured to be trying to sell her oil shares to Russia and the Rumanian Cabinet had declared it would take steps to prevent any such perfidy. Anti-British feeling was growing stronger.
The hooting, drawing nearer, demanded attention, and the Pringles turned to see an old, mud-coloured car being driven at them by Toby Lush. Toby grinned. Inchcape had approved his appointment and he had started work at the University. He stopped the car. Confident of welcome, he thrust out his disordered, straw-coloured head and shouted ‘Hello, there!’
‘Why, hello,’ said Guy.
Beside Toby sat Dubedat. Between the two assistant teachers there had sprung up one of those close, immediate friendships that puzzle everyone but the pair concerned. Harriet had not only been puzzled by it, but rather annoyed. Seeing Toby as a comrade in danger, she had been prepared to accept him into her circle, but she was not prepared to accept Dubedat.
Sitting now in the sunken car seat, Dubedat did not greet the Pringles but stared straight ahead, his profile, with its thin hooked nose and receding chin, taut and disapproving as ever.
They had stopped in the centre of the square, beside the statue of the old king who rode a horse too big for him. Cars were parked round the pediment. Toby said: ‘I’ll leave the jalopy here and stretch my legs.’
The Pringles had been invited by David to the English Bar and it was evident the two assistant teachers were coming with them. Harriet looked at Guy and as he avoided her eye she knew he had invited Toby to join them. If she had asked him ‘Why?’ he would probably have replied ‘Why not?’ Surely anyone would agree that it was better to drink with several people than with just one or two?
Guy, delighted to have more company, walked ahead with Toby while she, left to follow with Dubedat, found herself wondering, not for the first time, whether life with Guy was not more often an irritant than a pleasure.
She glanced at Dubedat, noticing a smile lingering round his lips – ‘like the grime left by bath-water,’ she told herself – and felt sure he was aware of her irritation. That irritated her more. He had nothing to say. She did not attempt to break the silence.
Dubedat, an elementary school-teacher from Liverpool, had been ‘thumbing’ his way through Galicia when war broke out and been given a lift in one of the refugee cars that streamed down to Bucharest when Poland collapsed. Describing himself as a ‘simple-lifer’, he had gone about Bucharest in shorts and open-neck shirt until the winter wind forced him into a sheepskin jacket.
His appearance had improved since those early days. He had been teaching at the University for nearly a year now and as a result of prosperity had given up the ‘simple-life’ outfit, and was wearing a suit of khaki twill. It looked very grimy. He no longer lived in the Dâmboviţa area, but had rented a modern flat in the centre of the city. Toby had moved in with him. Guy used to excuse Dubedat, saying that his old lodging did not give him opportunity to wash, but it seemed to Harriet that his personal aroma was much as it used to be. Or was it merely an emanation of her own dislike of him?
Ahead, Toby, moving with exaggerated strides, was giving crows of nervous laughter. Despite the heat, he still wore his tweed jacket with its patches of leather. As he walked, he scuffed his brogues in the dust, one shoulder drawn up, his fists bagging out his pockets. She heard him say: ‘Don’t want to be a bottle-washer all my life.’
‘Even in these times,’ Guy replied, ‘we must expect a lecturer to have a degree.’
Dubedat, beside Harriet, snorted his private disgust at this statement.
They had reached the hotel, where the striped awning was out, the carpet down and a gigantic Rumanian flag hung the length of the façade. People had gathered round to watch events. A lorry arrived and from it jumped a dozen young men in dark suits, who at once began pushing back the docile onlookers and forming a cordon of six on either side of the pavement. Before anyone could inquire into this behaviour, a Mercedes drew up and a man alighted – a small, lean man of unusual appearance. The cordon at once flung up arms in a fascist salute, sharp, businesslike and un-Rumanian, and the new arrival responded, holding the salute dramatically for some moments, his head thrown back so all might see his hollow, bone-pale face and lank, black hair.
Guy whispered: ‘I believe that’s Horia Sima.’
Whoever he was, he was clearly an intellectual and a fanatic, someone totally different from the lenient, self-indulgent Rumanian males now strolling in the Calea Victoriei. He dropped his arm, then strode to the swing door. He gave it a push, treating it as an unimportant impediment, but the door was not to be coerced. It creaked round slowly and he was forced, in spite of himself, to shuffle in at its pace. The young men, following after, did no better.
Harriet, as she watched, could hear Toby gasping nervously at his pipe. ‘Never seen the like,’ he said. The English party, much sobered, entered the hotel hall as the Guardists went striding into the main salon.
David was in the hall. Guy asked him: ‘Was that Horia Sima?’
David nodded. ‘He’s joining the Cabinet. That’s the excuse for the reception, of course, but it’s really a gesture of defiance. I wonder how His Majesty’s going to take it.’ David gave Dubedat an unenthusiastic ‘Hello’, then looked blankly at Toby whom he had never seen before.
Guy introduced them, saying: ‘Toby comes from Cluj. I thought you might be interested to hear what’s going on there.’
‘Oh!’ said David, and he said nothing more.
They went into the bar, where Guy bought a round of drinks.
Toby had evidently heard of David, for he kept close to him, and with eyes bulging excitedly asked: ‘Is it true they’re starting concentration camps in the Carpathians?’
‘I’ve never seen them myself,’ David said, keeping his gaze on his glass.