The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning

‘reasonably human’. This constant nervous laughter rippling over his occupational self-possession gave the impression he was more approachable than his kind. At the same time, she realised he was more than a little drunk. She decided he might be an easy acquaintance, but would not be easy to know.
    Chairs were becoming scarce now. Guy had to tip the waiter before he would set out in search of more. When two arrived,Dobson lay on his as though about to slide off it, and stared at a slip of paper he held in his hand. It seemed so to bewilder him that Harriet looked over his shoulder. He was studying his dinner bill.
    Yakimov placed his chair beside Harriet. To Sophie, on the other side of the table, the arrival of these newcomers was, apparently, an imposition scarcely to be borne.
    Harriet said to Yakimov: ‘I saw you on the train at the frontier.’
    ‘Did you indeed!’ Yakimov gave Harriet a wary look. ‘Not to tell a lie, dear girl, I was having a spot of bother. Over m’Hispano-Suiza. Papers not in order. Something to do with a permit. ’Fraid they impounded the poor old girl. Was just explaining to Dobbie here, that little frontier incident cleared me right out of the Ready.’
    ‘Where were you coming from?’
    ‘Oh, here and there. Been touring around. Too far from base when troublestarted, so came in to the nearest port. Times like these after all, a bloke can be useful anywhere. ’S’matter of fact, m’chance came this morning. Ra -ther an amusing story,’ he looked about him to gather in a larger audience and, seeing that Guy was ordering coffee for the party, he said: ‘How about a drop of brandy, dear boy?’
    The waiter placed out some small brandy glasses. ‘Tell him to leave the bottle.’ Then, wriggling in his chair, trying to mould the seat more comfortably to his shape, he lifted his glass to Harriet, drained it and smacked his lips in an exaggerated play of appreciation. ‘Nourishment!’ he said.
    For a moment Harriet thought she saw in him an avidity, as though he would, if he could, absorb into his own person the substance of the earth; then he glanced at her. His eyes were guileless. Large, light green, drooping at the outer corners, they were flat-looking, seeming to have no more thickness than a lens and set, not in cavities, but on a flat area between brow and cheek.
    He refilled his glass, obviously preparing to entertain the company. As Guy gazed expectantly at him, Sophie gazed atGuy. She plucked at his sleeve and whispered intimately: ‘There is so much I must tell you. I have many worries.’
    Guy, with a gesture, cut short these confidences, and Yakimov, unaware of the interruption, began: ‘This morning, coming down early, who should I see in the hall of the Athénée Palace but …’
    Yakimov’s normal voice was thin, sad and unvarying, the voice of a cultured Punchinello, but when he came to report McCann, it changed dramatically. As he reproduced McCann’s gritty, demanding tones, he somehow imposed on his own delicate features the shield-shaped, monkey mug that must be McCann.
    He told the whole story of his meeting with McCann, of the plight of the Poles outside the hotel, of the sleeping girl, the scarf that had been buried with the dead. Although he mentioned, apologetically, that he did not speak Polish, he produced the accent of the angry Pole.
    Guy, in appreciation of this piece of theatre, murmured ‘Marvellous’ and Yakimov gave him a pleased smile.
    The others, though entertained, were disconcerted that such a story should be told like a funny anecdote, but when he opened his arms and said: ‘Think of it! Think of your poor old Yaki become an accredited war correspondent,’ his face expressed such comic humility at so unlikely a happening that they were suddenly won to him. Even Sophie’s sullen mouth relaxed. He united them in the warmth of amusement and, at least for the time, they accepted him like a gift – their Yaki, their poor old Yaki. His