Shadow of a Hero

AUGUST 1990

ST JOSEPH’S SQUARE was the heart of Potok. On one side stood the cathedral, not very grand, crumbly and homely, built of grey-gold stone with three red-tiled domes. Opposite it stood the Palace Hotel, which at first glance looked far more imposing, but at second glance had something fake about it. Steff had insisted on a quick tour of Potok their first evening, before the concert, so that they could find their way round without getting lost, and being Steff he’d already looked everything up in an ancient guidebook. The Palace Hotel, he said, looked like a fake because it was one.

When the War of Independence was over and the Turks agreed to let Varina become semi-independent, provided Restaur Vax went into exile, Bishop Pango had become the first Prince-Bishop. The old Bishop’s Palace had been part of St Valia, which the Turks had destroyed, and there wasn’t enough money to build a new one, so he’d taken over five of the merchants’ houses opposite the cathedral and got an architect to design a grand façade, with a great porch and curling double stairways. The façade was symmetrical, but the houses behind weren’t, so some of the windows were blank, and several of them were half-blank, with bits of the old windows showing behind the new ones. Letta didn’t like anything to do with Bishop Pango, so she thought his palace was just right for the old fraud.

After the First World War, when Varina had been split in three, it had become the Governor’s Palace for the Romanian Province of Cerna-Potok, and when the Germans invaded they’d taken it over as their headquarters, and then the Communist Party had moved in, and now they’d gone and nobody knew what to do with it so some enterprising person had borrowed enough money to buy a job lot of beds and furniture and turned it into the Palace Hotel.

Mollie and Steff had one of the rooms in the University, partly because of Donna and partly so that Mollie could be at the centre of things.

‘Come and pick us up by half-past ten, latest,’ she’d told everyone last night. ‘Grandad’s due to arrive at eleven, and he’s making the opening speech at twelve.’

They set off in good time, with Steff carrying Donna in a backpack, but for once Mollie had got it wrong. Normally it was only ten minutes’ walk to the Square, but not when every single person in Varina seemed to be heading that way. It was difficult to get into the centre of Potok at all, and the nearer they struggled the tighter the crowds were jammed and the slower they all shuffled along.

‘This is no good,’ said Steff, and struck off down a side-alley which led to another street just as solid with people as the first, and so on, with increasing difficulty, until they were right round at the back of the hotel. The policemen who were posted to stop unauthorized people trying to sneak in that way were quite unimpressed by Steff’s pass and told him to go round and try at the front. But when Steff explained he was Restaur Vax’s grandson they became smiling and jolly and insisted on everybody shaking hands with everybody.

One of the policemen led them through the kitchens where a banquet was being prepared, and then through a warren of corridors formed by the five houses needing to be joined up. It didn’t feel much like a hotel, more like depressing old offices or a really dingy school. And then their guide opened a small door and stood aside, and they were in a grand entrance hall with red carpets and gilt mirrors and potted palms and a sweep of stairs with gleaming brass banisters. Fifty or sixty people in their best clothes were standing around. Letta spotted Mr Orestes talking to a large, blond, red-faced man in a bright blue suit. The main doors were open and the midmorning sunlight dazzled in. From where she stood Letta could see one of the domes of the cathedral, but not the Square itself. Despite that, she was at once aware of the immense crowd standing shoulder to shoulder, waiting there. They made a steady murmur, quiet but huge, so that the entrance hall was like the chamber of some giant sea-shell, filled with the shushing mutter of the ocean.

Steff led them to a side-alcove.

‘Hang on here a moment,’ he said. ‘I’ll check where we’re supposed to be.’

Nigel nudged Letta and gestured slightly with his head. She glanced round and saw that they weren’t alone in the alcove. Sitting in a corner on a stiff chair, half-hidden by one of the palms, was Minna Alaya, who had read ‘The Stream at Urya’ the night before. Letta hesitated and went over. Miss Alaya turned her head without moving her body and nodded, like royalty.

‘I just wanted to say how lovely that was last night,’ said Letta. ‘Thank you very much.’

‘Oh, I felt such a fool,’ said Miss Alaya. ‘Imagine! Crying like a baby in front of all those people!’

‘We were all crying too. It didn’t matter.’

‘For you it is permitted, but I am a professional. I cry only to order. You are one of our exiles?’

‘Yes. We live in England.’

‘And you, too, know “The Stream at Urya”? That is good.’

‘I don’t know it by heart. I read it with my grandfather. He’s teaching me Formal.’

‘Good, too. These things must not be lost. And why are you here in the Palace on this grand occasion? Do you perhaps, in England, know my friend Restaur Vax?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact – I mean, we’re trying not to make a fuss about it so we can just be ordinary visitors – but he’s my grandfather. He lives with us in our house.’

Miss Alaya smiled and nodded, royal as ever, but obviously pleased. She glanced towards Nigel, who was rather pointedly looking the other way. Perhaps his English half couldn’t cope with going straight up to famous strangers and starting to chat.

‘And that is another grandson?’ she said.

‘A great-grandson, actually. He’s older than me, but he’s my nephew.’

‘I would like to talk to him, please.’

‘You’ll have to speak slowly. He’s half-English, and his Field isn’t very good.’

Miss Alaya nodded her understanding. Letta turned to beckon to Nigel but he was watching something on the other side of the room, so she went over. He looked round as she came and pointed.

‘See that big guy over there?’ he said. ‘Talking to Hector Orestes? Any idea who he is?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Hector’s fawning like a puppy, far as I can see. Some of the others too. And the big guy’s lapping it up. He doesn’t even look Varinian.’

‘I don’t know. I see Lash the Golden a bit like that.’

‘Another blond thug.’

Nigel knew the Legends only from what Steff had told him. Being dark and slight and cautious, Steff had never had much time for Lash. Letta grinned, and gestured with her head.

‘Minna Alaya would like to say hello,’ she said.

His eyes widened, but he came obediently over and waited while Miss Alaya gravely inspected him.

‘Very like my friend Restaur at that age,’ she said. ‘A distinct family likeness, despite the English blood.’

Nigel hadn’t quite followed, so Letta translated.

‘Tell her she should see Uncle Van,’ he said. ‘He’s supposed to be the spit image.’

Letta did so, and Miss Alaya nodded, still amused.

‘Do you know who that is over on the far side?’ said Letta. ‘The big blond man in the blue suit? I think he looks a bit like Lash the Golden.’

Miss Alaya didn’t bother to turn her head. Her face became severe and her tone chilly.

‘So he would have us believe,’ she said. ‘His name is Otto Vasa. He has made a great deal of money since the war, in Austria, where he lives. It is he who is paying for this festival, out of his own pocket. Tell your grandfather when you see him that he is a dangerous man. He would like to be President when your grandfather is dead. He is not . . .’

She broke off because Steff had arrived to collect Letta and Nigel. Recognizing who they were talking to he gave a foreign-looking little bow and held out his hand, which she touched graciously with the tips of her fingers.

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘We were much moved and honoured by your reading last night.’

‘It is nothing,’ she said. ‘Please convey my respects to your grandfather.’

‘I’m sure he will wish to see you,’ said Steff.

‘He says you’re the most beautiful woman he ever met,’ said Letta.

‘It is true,’ she said. ‘They all said so. Now you must go and prepare to welcome our hero, and I must wait here. This is what it means to be in one’s second childhood – one must learn again to do what one is told. Goodbye.’

‘How did she know Grandad?’ asked Letta as they climbed the stairs. ‘I thought he was just a schoolmaster then, and she must have been famous.’

‘It’s a small country,’ said Steff. ‘Everybody knew everybody, among the intellectuals, at least. And then in the war – she’d been a German film star, remember, so a lot of the German officers had had a crush on her, and she played along and let them think they could trust her, but all the while she was sending information out to the Resistance. The trouble was, when it was over some of the Varinians wanted to shoot her as a collaborator, but Grandad got her out of that . . . all highly romantic and probably untrue, but that’s what Poppa told me.’

‘Of course it’s true,’ said Letta. ‘It’s got to be. It fits.’

‘Only in stories, Sis. In here, apparently.’

They had come to a wide landing with a new red carpet running a few paces to left and right. Beyond that stretched a tattered old brown one. Opposite the top of the stairs were some big double doors, through which came an odour of fresh paint. Letta followed Steff through and found Mollie and Donna in a grand, uncomfortable great room with more of the little gilt chairs, and some shiny tables, and huge gilt-framed mirrors with black blotches on them, and enough flowers for a funeral. Three tall windows looked out onto the Square, with a balcony outside. In front of the middle one was a podium with microphones. The man who’d led them up, some kind of hotel manager, started fussing around opening doors and showing them the rest of the suite. There was a bedroom with a vast pink bed and a lacy pink canopy covered with artificial roses; a little den with a desk and two easy chairs, where a workman was installing a telephone; a terrific bathroom with a bath about eight feet long and four feet deep and several vast brass taps controlling a shower-device which looked like something from a Jules Verne film; some immense cupboards; and yet another bedroom, this time with twin beds but also frothing with lace and roses, pale violet.

Letta had an urge to pretend she was six again and rush round trying out all the beds and turning on the tape and gadgets, but at that point Van came in, tousled and panting, and said, ‘I think he’s almost here. I heard them cheering.’

Nigel began to open one of the windows but Steff said, ‘Hold it, Nidge. That comes later. We don’t want to spoil the great moment.’

Letta craned, but the balcony was in the way so she took off her shoes and pulled one of the idiotic chairs over and climbed onto it so that she could see over the rail. The whole Square was crammed with people. Despite the closed windows she could hear that the cheers were louder and more intense, and over in the far right-hand corner the crowd was churning around. She could see the helmets of outriders trying to force a path through the mass. After them came the roof of a black official car. It stuck still, then moved on, and behind it appeared the cab of a truck, painted black and purple and white, with flags flopping listlessly on either side. Slowly it edged forward. It carried what seemed to be a festival float, swathed in the Varinian colours. The cheering crashed out like falling waters and the crowd became a forest of waving flags. On the float was a platform with a rail round it, and standing there, holding the rail with one hand and waving cheerfully with the other, stood Grandad.

He had to be dead tired, tired with the journey, tired with the sheer emotion of homecoming, but he held himself straight and turned to left and right and waved, and whenever the truck was forced to a halt he bent down to shake a few of the thousands of hands that reached up to greet him. He was wearing a black beret over his bald head, an open-necked shirt and grey slacks. The extraordinary thing, Letta thought, was that he looked exactly like himself, no different from the Grandad who had crumpets with her at tea-time, as if this, too, was something he did every day of his life.

At last the truck moved out of her line of vision. As it did so, she noticed that the colour of the crowd had changed from darker to paler beneath the layer of flags, as all those heads turned to watch it and she was now seeing faces, not hair. The cheering never stopped, but after several minutes its level dipped for a while and rose again. In the quiet spot she could just hear a band playing. That must be the national anthem, as Grandad climbed down from the float and up the steps and turned beneath the porch and stood there waving, while the cheers rose even louder than before, and at last died away as he turned and disappeared into the hotel.

There was a bustle below, but while it was still going on the door opened and Momma rushed in, laughing and crying at the same time, not acting like herself at all, but throwing her arms round everyone and hugging them with easy joy.

‘Isn’t this wonderful!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Letta, darling, how are you? I’m so happy you’re here! We’ve all come home, and you’ve never even seen it!’

‘Is Grandad all right? He’s not too tired?’

‘He’s fine, fine!’

And she rushed away to hug Van and Nigel and the others. After a bit they fell silent and just stood there, too keyed-up for chat or laughter, but listening to the murmurs below and the unending ocean-mutter of the crowd outside.

Time passed. Without warning the doors opened again and Grandad came through, with Poppa behind him.

‘Well, here I am at last,’ he said, smiling and erect. But when the doors closed they all saw his shoulders droop as he let the wave of exhaustion wash through him. Steff had a chair ready and helped him into it. Letta knelt and unlaced his shoes. He leaned back with closed eyes.

‘I would give all Varina for a cup of tea,’ he murmured.

‘Bet you Mollie’s got a Thermos,’ said Poppa.

She had, too. The tension broke and they laughed and talked about their journeys while Grandad sipped at his cup and nodded and smiled, though he still looked almost as old as he really was. But then he began to peer round the room and a curious amusement came into his face.

‘You know,’ he said to no-one in particular, ‘I have spent sleepless nights trying to devise some method of getting a bomb under this floor. This was the German Commandant’s office.’

He handed his cup to Letta, sat up and looked at his wrist-watch.

‘I have a few minutes still,’ he said. ‘Time for a wash, at least. Letta, my darling, in my bag there are clean socks.’

‘I’ll find them. What happens next?’

‘At noon I have to go out onto the balcony and make a little speech. I won’t offer to take you with me . . .’

‘I’d much rather be down there.’

‘Me too,’ said Van. ‘Is that OK, Momma? Mollie? If I take Sis and Nigel down and keep an eye on them? You can find Grandad’s socks, uh?’

‘You may have trouble getting back in . . .’ Steff began.

‘No problem. I’ll find a way. Come on, kids.’

He rushed ahead of them down the stairs, paused, surveyed the group in the entrance hall and plunged through. By the time Letta and Nigel caught up with him he was explaining his needs to the manager, who kept glancing aside, as if he was hoping for an escape-route to open up. Van was relentless. They were Restaur Vax’s grandchildren, so he must find a way of getting them out into the Square and then back in. Rescue! Some kind of minion passed with a cardboard box full of dead flowers. The manager grabbed it from him and gave instructions. The minion, happy to be relieved of his box, led them off into the maze of corridors, down into cellars, and along a stone passage which seemed to take them almost to the end of that side of the Square. Here he unlocked a creaking door and took them deeper down still, switching on lights as he went. This corridor led into a wider space. Along one side were several iron doors with small barred grilles. Their guide walked to one of them, bowed his head, crossed himself and muttered. He crossed himself again as he turned away.

He pointed upwards.

‘That was the Communist police headquarters,’ he said. ‘Here my mother’s cousin died. First they tortured her. I am sorry. You are children. I should not tell you this. But those years are gone. Now it is time to honour the living.’

He led the way up another stair, unlocked a door and led them into a bleak entrance hall with a reception desk and an ancient telephone exchange. A fence of heavy iron bars ran across the hall from floor to ceiling, just inside the door, with a kind of cage like a giant humane mouse-trap to keep visitors waiting till they had shown their passes or whatever and then let them through one at a time. As their guide showed them through a sort of turnstile in this barrier Letta, still shocked and chilly after what he’d said in the cellar, asked him, ‘Where did the Communists come from?’

He stared at her, puzzled.

‘I mean, were they Romanians? Russians? Serbs?’

‘They came from here,’ he said. ‘I know which cell was Illa’s because another cousin told us. He was one of them. He would have liked to help her but he was afraid. We were all afraid. All of us.’

He was a small, plump, worried man, about forty, she guessed. He hadn’t liked telling her what he did, but she could see he felt he had to. She was going to apologize when he smiled and shook his head.

‘Those years are gone,’ he said again. ‘This is a happier day.’

He let the others through the trap and unbolted the door, holding his foot against the bottom so that the people crowding on the top step of the flight that led up to the doorway didn’t tumble through, but had time to stand clear. They looked over their shoulders, surprised, but didn’t stir or make room, so all Letta could see was the solid wall of their backs.

‘Wait,’ said their guide. ‘You come, mister.’

He and Van went back through the trap and returned with four chairs, for Letta, Nigel and themselves. They climbed up with the chill, grim room behind them and the sunlit Square in front, and waited.

They were now at the side of the Square, with the cathedral on their right and the hotel façade stretching away on their left. The cathedral clock stood at two minutes to noon. Many of the crowd had their backs to the hotel in order to watch the minute hand edge round. As it crept towards the mark they began to make shushing noises. The murmur of voices dwindled and died. Silence filled the Square, not mere absence of sound, but positive silence, a great pool of stillness which the Varinians had willed into being and which now lay brimming between the buildings in the sunlight. A baby cried. A far dove called and was answered. The first quarter donged out, followed by a shuffling of feet on stone as the crowd turned to watch the balcony. The central windows were now open. The second quarter donged, but no-one heard the third, or the fourth, or the solid boom of the noon bell, because Grandad was standing on the balcony and the cheering drowned them all. Sheets of flags waved above the close-packed heads, the noise went on and on, unstoppable. Letta half-fell, but their guide caught her and set her back on her chair. She realized that she had been jumping up and down, and her throat was hoarse with yelling. The cathedral clock said almost ten-past twelve, but it seemed to her that Grandad had come out barely a minute ago. She was dazed, drunk, drugged with the shared, immense emotion. A crowd like this could do anything, anything . . .

It was shared too. It wasn’t just a lot of different people’s excitement all totalled up. It was one thing, like the silence had been, something they made between them all. And with it they shared a purpose and a will. Grandad had been making quiet-down gestures with his hands for some time, and they’d paid no attention, but now they had had enough and all together, in a very few seconds, they fell silent. Here and there a hoarse cry of greeting rose, but he waited a moment or two more, raised his head and began.

‘My friends, my countrymen . . .’

Another burst of cheering crashed out, and another after the next few words. They never let him get through a whole sentence, but that didn’t matter. In fact it barely mattered what he said. He was there, officially, to open a festival of Varinian culture, and Letta thought he must have talked mainly about that, but to be honest, she wouldn’t afterwards have been able to tell you what it was about, if anything. All she could have said was that it was wonderful, and that it was in simple Field except for the last three words, and those nobody heard at all because of the crash of cheering that greeted the first Formal syllable. But everyone in the Square knew what he was saying.

‘Unaloxatu! Unaloxotu! Unaloxistu!’

This was the motto embroidered on the battle-standard of the first Restaur Vax. You could see it in the cathedral again, after fifty years, because somebody had managed to hide it away when the Germans came, and kept it hidden all the time the Communists were in power. It was the real thing, Steff said. He’d told Nigel the words meant ‘One nation we were. One nation we are. One nation we will be’, and they did, but the English wasn’t the same, because the una bit meant ‘whole’ as well as ‘one’, and the ‘lox’ bit meant ‘country’ as well as ‘nation’, and in Formal it took only one whole word to say each part (which you couldn’t do even in Field) so that you felt you were making it true by the very way you said it.

At length their guide decided it was time to go back, so he managed to get the door closed and bolted and let them in through the trap, then led them back the way they had come. Letta’s family didn’t go to church, but she remembered a bedtime prayer which Biddie’s mum had said with them when she was staying there last year, and whispered it now as they passed the place with the cells in it. When they got back into Grandad’s room he was still out on the balcony, and the cheering was roaring on, as loud as ever.