Hadjimoscos, who had made another trip over to the Princess, returned with a bundle of notes. Their hostess, he announced, had a headache, so he would take the bank on her behalf. The bank was for 200,000 lei. He gave Yakimov a smile: ‘You see, mon cher, our game is modest. You cannot lose much. How many counters will you take?’
Yakimov, knowing the croupier received five per cent on the bank, made a wild bid to escape: ‘You’ll need a croupier, dear boy. Why not let your poor old Yaki …’
‘I am croupier,’ said Hadjimoscos. ‘It is the tradition here. Come now, how many chips?’
Resignedly Yakimov replied: ‘Give me a couple of thou.’
Hadjimoscos laughed: ‘Each piece is for five thousand. We do not play for less.’
Yakimov accepted five counters and handed over his receipt for twenty-five thousand lei. Hadjimoscos took his place before the shoe. As soon as he had drawn the cards, he became serious and businesslike. At first the game went much as Yakimov had expected, with the bank increasing steadily and an occasional win for the player on the right. Yakimov, on the left, frequently let his right to play pass on his neighbour. Despite this, he had lost twenty thousand lei in ten minutes. He was resigned to losing all his chips, but with his last five thousand he turned over a seven and a two. At the next coup, Hadjimoscos said: ‘I give.’ The player on the right held a king and a queen: Yakimov held a six and a two. When his next hand proved to be a nine and a ten, the punters began to bet on the left and Yakimov began to regain himself. He was even winning at baccarat: something he had never done before. He used his winnings to increase his bets.
As Yakimov’s pile of chips grew, Hadjimoscos’s manner became increasingly sharp and cold. He dealt with great speed and he brushed Yakimov’s gains towards him in a disapproving way. Hadjimoscos’s face, that ordinarily was as round as the face of a Japanese doll, lengthened and thinned until it might have been the face of the boyar portrayed above the supper buffet. Suddenly, he lifted the shoe and slapped it down again. With no trace of his usual lisp, he announced the bank was broken.
‘I’ll have to see the Princess,’ he said and hurried away. He returned to say the Princess had refused to replenish the bank. He went to the Baron’s elbow and said: ‘Mon cher Baron, I appeal to you.’
With an affable flash of teeth, the Baron replied: ‘Surely you know I never lend money.’ ‘No wonder,’ thought Yakimov, the Baron was ‘complètement “outsider”.’
Hadjimoscos began to appeal elsewhere, while Yakimov, his chips on the table, wished only that he could change them and go. Having little hope of this, he sat on. A withered little man, whose hands had trembled so, he could scarcely pick up his cards, now moved stealthily round the table and murmured to Yakimov: ‘Cher Prince, surely you remember me? I am Ignotus Horvath. We met in the English Bar. I wonder …’ Horvath’s hand, dark and dry as an old twig, hovered near Yakimov’s chips. ‘A little loan. A mere ten thousand would do.’
Yakimov passed them over, then heard a murmur at his other side. Turning warily, he met the black, astute gaze of a woman, lean with age, who leant towards him, attempting a charm that did not come easily to her. ‘I have had such misfortune …’ she was beginning, when Hadjimoscos caught Yakimov’s arm and gave him excuse to turn away.
Hadjimoscos said: ‘I deeply regret, mon cher. I must appeal to you.’
Yakimov was prepared for this. ‘I am willing to take the bank,’ he said.
‘Impossible,’ Hadjimoscos looked shocked. ‘The Princess is always the banker.’
Realising he would be as likely to lose them by playing as by lending them, Yakimov handed over his winnings. He said: ‘Think I’ll take a breather,’ and no one hindered him.
A waiter was carrying round glasses of wine. Yakimov asked for whisky but there was none. The drink was running out. This, he knew, was the time to go, but he was now so weary he could scarcely face the descent to his room. He decided to revive himself with one more drink. He took his glass to a sofa, settled down comfortably, and when the glass was empty, fell asleep.
Some time in the middle of the night he was violently wakened. Half a dozen people, Hadjimoscos among them, were pulling at him. When he was on his feet, they began to rip off his clothes. Bewildered, frightened and still half-asleep, he saw – scarcely believing he saw – that all the guests were naked and shunting each other in a circle round the room. Handled in a frenzied fashion, he looked about for aid. Perhaps ‘Foxy’ Leverett, a fellow Englishman, would rescue him – but Leverett was nowhere to be seen.
When they had exposed and laughed at his long, fragile body, his assailants rejoined the circle and pulled him into it. With the woman behind thumping his buttocks and the woman in front complaining of his lack of enterprise, he spent the rest of the night trudging dismally round, dressed in nothing but his socks and one black shoe and one brown.
5
In front of the University steps, where Harriet waited at noon next day, the gypsies were conducting their flower-market. The baskets were packed as high as hay-cocks with the stiff, tall flowers of the season. Among all this splendour of canna lilies, gladioli, chrysanthemums, dahlias and tuberoses, the gypsies, perched like tropical birds, screeched at the passers-by ‘Hey, hey, hey, domnule! Frumosǎ. Foarte frumosǎ. Two hundred lei … for you, for you, only one fifty! For you, only one hundred. For you, only fifty …’ As the passers-by went on, unheeding, the cry followed, long-drawn, despairing as a train-whistle in the night: ‘Domnule … domnule!’ to be plucked back with new vitality as a newcomer drew near. The bargaining, when it started, was shrill, fierce and dramatic. If a customer chose, as a last resort, to walk away, the gypsy would usually follow, looking, among the pigeon-shaped women on the pavement, long, lean and flashy, like a flamingo or a crane.
The gypsy women all trailed about in old evening dresses picked up from second-hand stalls down by the river. They loved flounced and floating chiffons. They loved colour. With their pinks and violets, purples and greens, their long, wild hair, and shameless laughter, they seemed to have formed themselves in defiant opposition to the ideals of the Rumanian middle class.
While watching the traffic of the gypsies, Harriet saw Sophie arrive among them and start bargaining sharply at one of the smaller baskets. When the deal was completed, she mounted the University steps, pinning one bunch of parma violets into the belt of her dress and another into her bosom. She started an animated waving, and Harriet, standing aside and unseen, looked and saw that Guy had appeared in the doorway. Sophie hurried to him, calling: ‘I say to myself I shall find you here, and I find you. Is it not like old times?’ Her grievance, whatever it was, and the war – both were forgotten.
Guy, seeing Harriet, said: ‘Here’s Harriet.’ It was a mere statement of fact but Sophie chose to take it as a warning. She gasped, put a finger to her lip, looked for Harriet and, finding where she was, took on an air of elaborate unconcern. As Harriet joined them, Sophie gave Guy a consoling smile. He must not, said the smile, blame himself for the mishap of his wife’s presence.
She said: ‘You go for luncheon, yes?’
‘We were going to walk in the Cişmigiu,’ said Guy. ‘We might eat there.’