The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning

Author:Olivia Manning [Manning, Olivia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2012-11-27T22:00:00+00:00

17

Next morning the gaiety was gone and only a few peasants wandered about the square.

Bella, as she had promised, rang Harriet and described how the previous night the Guardists, grown drunk on the day’s adulation, had marched through the ghetto area shouting threats to the Jews.

‘We don’t want all that again,’ she said.

This surprised Harriet who had never discovered in Bella much concern for the Jews. Bella explained that she was worried on her own behalf. In this country of dark-haired Latins, the Jews, contrary as ever, were notably blond or red-haired. As a result, Bella had always been suspect. So apparently, was Guy, the more so as he was reputed to favour his Jewish students.

Bella said: ‘It’s no good telling people that in England it’s the other way round. They don’t want to believe you. They hate the thought of Jews having dark hair. It’s different, of course, with educated Rumanians: the sort we mix with. They’ve travelled and seen for themselves. But these Guardists are riff-raff. They know nothing. They’re ignorant as dirt.’

‘What about Antonescu? Isn’t he red-haired?’

‘Yes, he’s got Tartar blood, but they all know who he is. No one’s likely to make a mistake about him. It’s different for me. Last time they caused trouble, I never went out alone. You’d better be careful.’

‘But I am dark,’ said Harriet.

‘Well, you’d better keep Guy indoors.’

Before Bella rang off, Harriet suggested they might meet for coffee somewhere. Bella said: ‘Not today. Not just yet. Better let things settle a bit.’ She was willing to visit Harriet, but it was another thing to be seen in her company.

Harriet, when she went out shopping, sensed misgiving in the streets. The meat shops were empty. All the stocks for the coming week had been sold to mark yesterday’s rejoicings – and now the rejoicings were over. When would there be more meat? Who could tell? What were people to eat this week-end? No one knew. People were asking what had, in fact, happened? They had exchanged one dictator for another: the known for an unknown who might bring the Iron Guard in his wake.

As though to enhance the anticlimax, Sunday was declared a Day of Atonement. Bucharest must atone for its slaughter of Codreanu and his comrades; for its pro-British past; and its frivolity. The church bells tolled from dawn till late at night. Cinemas, cafés, restaurants, even the English Bar, were closed. Every Rumanian, wherever he might be, was required to kneel down at eleven in the morning and pray to the Guardist martyrs for forgiveness. Processions of black-clad priests, heads bowed, trailed around all day in the glutinous heat.

The gloom was enlivened for the Pringles by a telephone call from Galpin. He wanted Yakimov. Yakimov was not in his room.

‘Where’s he got to?’ Galpin angrily demanded.

Harriet did not know. For the first time, it occurred to her that she had seen nothing of him since Thursday evening. ‘Wasn’t he in the bar yesterday?’ she asked.

‘No. Look here!’ Galpin’s tone was severely accusing.

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