The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning Page A

height, his curious face, his thin body, his large, mild eyes, his voice and, above all, his humility – these were his components and they loved them.
    Dobson had clearly heard the story before. Glancing up from the bill, he smiled at its effect. When the laughter had died down, Sophie, who had not laughed, took the floor with impressive seriousness: ‘It is not so difficult to be journalist, I think. I have been journalist. My paper was anti-fascist, so now things will be difficult for me. Perhaps the Nazis will come here. You understand?’ As Yakimov blinked, appearingto understand nothing, she gave an aggravated little laugh: ‘You have heard of the Nazis, I suppose?’
    ‘The Nasties, dear girl, that’s what I call ’em,’ he giggled. ‘Don’t know what went wrong with them. They seemed to start out all right, but they overdid it somehow. Nobody likes them now.’
    At this Inchcape gave a hoot of laughter. ‘The situation in a nut-shell,’ he said.
    Sophie leant forward and gazed earnestly at Yakimov. ‘The Nazis are very bad men,’ she said. ‘Once I was in Berlin on holiday – you understand? – and a Nazi officer comes with big steps along the pavement. I think: ‘I am a young lady, he will step aside for me’, but no. Pouf! He brushes me as if I were not there and I am flung into the road with the traffic.’
    ‘Dear me!’ said Yakimov.
    As Sophie opened her mouth to talk on, Harriet broke in to ask Yakimov: ‘Are you the man who painted the windows black?’
    ‘Why, yes, dear girl, that was poor Yaki.’
    ‘Won’t you tell us the story?’
    ‘Another time, perhaps. It’s a trifle outré and happened long ago. Soon after m’schooldays, in fact.’
    Sophie, who had been watching Harriet sulkily, now smiled in triumph. Harriet realised, with surprise, that she saw this refusal as a point to her.
    Harriet had failed to consider the possibility of a Sophie. Foolishly. There was always someone. There was also the fact that, whether Sophie had received encouragement or not, Guy’s natural warmth towards everyone could easily be misinterpreted. She had herself taken it for granted that it was for her alone. (She had a sudden vivid memory of one of their early meetings when Guy had taken her claw of a hand and said: ‘You don’t eat enough. You must come to Bucharest and let us feed you up.’) They had slipped into marriage as though there could be no other possible resolution of such an encounter. Yet – supposing she had known him better? Supposing she had known him for a year and during thattime observed him in all his other relationships? She would have hesitated, thinking the net of his affections too widely spread to hold the weighty accompaniment of marriage.
    As it was, she had, in all innocence, been prepared to possess him and be possessed, to envelop and be enveloped, in a relationship that excluded the enemy world. She soon discovered that Guy was not playing his part. Through him, the world was not only admitted, it was welcomed; and, somehow, when he approached it, the enmity was no longer there.
    ‘I imagine’ – Inchcape was speaking to Yakimov, his ironical smile giving a grudging credit – ‘I imagine you were at Eton?’
    ‘Alas, dear boy, no,’ said Yakimov. ‘M’poor old dad could not cough up. I went to one of those horrid schools where Marshall is beastly to Snelgrove, and Debenham much too fond of Freebody. But while we’re on the subject, there’s rather an amusing story about a croquet match played by the headmistress of a famous girls’ school against the headmaster – an excessively corpulent man – of a very famous boys’ school. Well …’
    The story, vapid in itself, was made outrageously funny for his audience by the inflections of Yakimov’s frail voice. Pausing on a word, speaking it slowly and with an accent of a slightly breathless disapproval, he started everyone, except Sophie, first into titters, then to a gradual crescendo of laughter.