The Lives and Times of Bernardo Brown by Geoffrey Household

The only other way to Russia was to swim the river if it was swimmable. There would be searchlights to pick out a head in the water and machine-guns to open up on it. Bernardo had had enough of that. Capitalism, socialism, friendship—none of them were so compelling as his vision of the Dniester in the dark.
    The north express clanked and hissed to a stop. They embraced, and Perico mounted the steps of a third-class coach while the stench of snoring peasants escaped, almost visibly, past him. At the last moment he took out half the money he still possessed and stuffed it into Bernardo’s pocket before he could refuse.
    It was as if luck or Bernardo’s nerve had disappeared with his companion. He left the station and shuffled through the warm dust to a communal well where he sat on the coping wholly occupied by memories of Magda and the dream-like quality of the last twenty-four hours. As usual he was quite unconscious of his appearance.
    A brown-uniformed policeman materialised out of the night, saluted respectfully and was evidently asking who he was or if he needed help. Bernardo, drowsy and careless, made signs and noises to indicate that he had just arrived on the train from Bucarest.
    ‘Otel? Bagajul?’
    The smiling policeman’s meaning was plain. He was eager to show the distinguished foreigner in boots and breeches a bed for the night and to arrange a porter for his baggage. It was Bernardo’s second experience of Romanian helpfulness—genuine but seldom excluding the hope of profit.
    ‘No bagajul ,’ he answered.
    ‘Then what the hell is your lordship doing in this dump?’ seemed to be the next question.
    Bernardo pulled himself together and tried to explain that he had been misunderstood. He had come from Cluj and was waiting for the train to Bucharest. He was English and he did not need a hotel.
    The policeman got it, again saluted and escorted his Englishman to the station—more as a guard of honour than with any suspicion.
    When the midnight train was due, Bernardo tried to buy a ticket. He couldn’t. Perico’s wad of money was all Hungarian except for some small and filthy Romanian paper. He might as well have offered an old sock; nobody knew anything of Hungarian money. At last the dreaded word came out.
    ‘ Pasaportul, vå rog.’
    Bernardo looked through his pockets, pretended horror, called the stationmaster to witness that he had been accompanied by a friend who had gone north to Czernowitz and explained that this friend had both their passports. Most of it appeared to get through, but meanwhile the Bucarest express had come and gone.
    No baggage, no usable money, no passport, but the smart coat, boots and breeches of the landed gentry still proclaimed that though a half-witted foreigner he was respectable and perhaps rich. The policeman led him to the hotel. It was at the entrance to the main street, and Bernardo in happy days when he had never heard of that blasted Zita would have liked the look of it: half a dozen green-shuttered rooms above a little restaurant shaded by a vine.
    The policeman hammered on the door, yelling for Gheorghe.Gheorghe opened up, naked to the waist and remarkably hairy. His two round, expressionless, brown eyes and considerable belly suggested a sleepy brown bear on its hind legs. There was a long conversation. Bernardo nodded and smiled, tried French, got a slightly better result from Spanish, but could not dispel the general air of stern duty whenever the word pasaportul was mentioned. He gathered that he was welcome to stay the night and that there was a jidan —probably a Jew, for Gheorghe spat in the street—who might change his money in the morning.
    So it could be worse. Gheorghe was unshaven and unwashed—as who wouldn’t be when woken up from sleep?—but the white-washed room was clean. A fine green and black rug hung on the wall; a red and white one was spread on the divan bed. Wine, bread and an admirable cold fish were served to him. Gheorghe,