The café was, as Sophie had said, poor enough, but it had its pretensions. A notice said that persons wearing peasant dress would not be served. The peasants outside, whether they could read or not, made no attempt to cross on to the pier. With the humility of dogs, they knew it was no place for them.
There were a few other customers, all men. Stout and hot-looking in their dark town suits, they sat near the kitchen where there was shade from the chestnut trees.
Guy, exposed out in the strong sunlight, took off his jacket, rolled up his shirt-sleeves and stretched his brown arms on the table so that they might get browner. He stretched his legs out lazily and gazed round him at the tranquil water, the tranquil sky, the non-belligerent world. For some time they sat silent listening to the music, the lap from the rowing-boats and the ping of chestnuts dropping on to the kitchen’s iron roof.
‘Where is the war now?’ Harriet asked.
‘As the crow flies, about three hundred miles away. When we go home at Christmas …’
‘Do you really think we will?’ She could not believe it. Christmas brought to her mind a scene, tiny and far away like a snowstorm in a globe. Somewhere within it was “home” – anyway, England. Home for her was no more defined than that. The aunt who had brought her up was dead.
‘If we could save enough, we could go by air.’
She said: ‘We shall certainly have to save if we’re ever to have a home of our own.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And we can’t save if we’re going to eat all the time at expensive restaurants.’
Guy looked away at this unwelcome conclusion and asked if she knew the name of the piece they were playing on the wireless.
‘A waltz. Darling, we’ll …’
He caught her hand and pinned it down. ‘No, listen,’ he insisted as though she were trying to deflect him from an enquiry of importance. ‘Where have I heard it before?’
‘All over the place. I want to know about Sophie.’
Guy said nothing, but looked resigned.
Harriet said: ‘Last night she said she was depressed because of the war. Was it only because of the war?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Nothing to do with your getting married?’
‘Oh, no. No. She’d given up that idea ages ago.’
‘She once had that idea, then?’
‘Well,’ Guy spoke in an off-hand way, perhaps to hide discomfort. ‘Her mother was Jewish, and she worked on this antifascist magazine …’
‘You mean she wanted a British passport.’
‘It was understandable. I felt sorry for her. And, don’t forget, I didn’t know you then. Two or three of my friends married German anti-fascists to get them out of Germany and …’
‘But they were homosexual. It was just an arrangement. The couples separated outside the registry office. You would have been landed with Sophie for life.’
‘She said we could get divorced straight away.’
‘And you believed her? You must be mad.’
Guy gave a discomforted laugh: ‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t really believe her.’
‘But you let her try and persuade you. You might have given in if you hadn’t met me? Isn’t that it?’ She watched him as though he had changed before her eyes into a different person. ‘If anyone had asked me before I married, I would have said I was marrying the rock of ages. Now I realise you are capable of absolute lunacy.’
‘Oh, come, darling,’ Guy protested, ‘I didn’t want to marry Sophie, but one has to be polite. What would you have done under the circumstances?’
‘Said “No” straight away. One doesn’t complicate one’s life unnecessarily. But she would never have tried it on with me. Knowing I was not susceptible, she disliked me on sight. With you, of course, she thinks she can get away with anything.’
‘Darling, don’t be so harsh. She’s an intelligent girl. She can speak half a dozen languages …’
‘Did you lend her any money?’
‘Well, yes. A few thousand.’
‘Did she pay it back?’
‘Well – she didn’t regard it as a loan.’
Harriet enquired no further but said only: ‘I don’t want to see her every night.’
Guy stretched across the table and squeezed Harriet’s arm. ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘she’s sad and lonely. You can afford to be kind to her.’
Half-heartedly, Harriet said: ‘I suppose I can,’ and let the matter drop.
They had eaten their omelettes and were waiting for coffee, when Harriet noticed two begger children who had climbed up on the pier from the lake and were keeping out of the waiter’s sight. The older child came crawling under the tables until it reached the Pringles, then it stood up, ragged, wet and dirty, thin as a gnat, and clutching the edge of the table with its bird-small hand, began the chant of ‘Mi-e foame’.
Guy handed over his small coins. The child scuttled off and at once its place was taken by the younger child, who, hopping from one foot to the other, eyes on a level with the table-top, kept up, in a sing-song, what seemed to be a long, unintelligible story. Having no more change, Guy waved it away. It flinched from his movement as from a blow, but, recovering at once, went on with its rigmarole. Harriet offered it a piece of bread, then an olive, then a piece of cheese. These offerings were ignored, but the whine went on.
After some minutes of this, Harriet, irritated, hunted through her bag and found an English sixpence. The child snatched it and ran. They had returned to the quiet that came of being surrounded not by land but water, when the music stopped abruptly. The silence was suddenly so dense that Harriet looked round, expecting something. At that moment a voice broke shrilly from the loud-speaker.
The men near the kitchen sat up. One jumped to his feet. A chair fell. The voice spoke again. The waiter came from the kitchen. Behind him, in singlet and trousers, very dirty, came the cook. The man who had jumped up started shouting. The waiter shouted back.
‘Is it the invasion?’ asked Harriet.
Guy shook his head. ‘It was something to do with Cǎlinescu.’
‘Who is Cǎlinescu?’
‘The Prime Minister.’
‘Why is everyone so excited? What did the announcer say?’
‘I don’t know.’
Taking advantage of the distraction, the elder beggar boy had come up under the very nose of the waiter and was now begging urgently, time being short. The waiter went to the rail and shouted down to a man who hired rowing-boats. The man shouted back.
‘He says,’ said Guy, ‘that Cǎlinescu has been shot. They announced that he is either dead or dying. We must go to the English Bar. That’s where you get all the news.’
They left the park by a side gate where a statue of a disgraced politician stood with its head hidden in a linen bag. Hurrying through the back streets, they came into the main square as the newsboys were calling a special edition of the papers. People were thrusting each other aside to seize them, and when they had read a line were throwing the papers away. The square was already littered with sheets that stirred slightly in the hot breeze.
Guy, pushing his paper under his arm, told Harriet: ‘He was assassinated in the Chicken Market.’
As he spoke, a man standing nearby turned sharply and said in English: ‘They say the Iron Guard is wiped out. Now such a thing happens! It can mean anything. You understand that? It can mean anything.’
‘What can it mean?’ Harriet asked as Guy hurried her across the square.
‘That the Germans are up to something, I suppose. We’ll hear everything in the bar.’
But the English Bar, with its dark panelling and palms in brass pots, was dismally empty. The hard shafts of sunlight falling in from high-set windows made the place look like cardboard. There must have been a crowd in recently because the air was heavy with cigarette smoke.