The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [179]
When he had finished the recital she said, “Well, I reckon it shouldn’t be hard to fix you up. Go by the Underground.”
Blacker despair in Scott-King’s haunted face told Miss Bombaum that she had not made herself clear.
“You’ve surely heard of the Underground? It’s”—she quoted from one of her recent articles on the subject—“it’s an alternative map of Europe, like a tracing overlying all the established frontiers and routes of communication. It’s the new world taking shape below the surface of the old. It’s the new ultra-national citizenship.”
“Well I’m blessed.”
“Look, I can’t stop now. Be here this evening and I’ll take you to see the key man.”
That afternoon, his last, as it turned out, in Bellacita, Scott-King received his first caller. He had gone to his room to sleep through the heat of the day, when his telephone rang and a voice announced Dr. Antonic. He asked for him to be sent up.
The Croat entered and sat by his bed.
“So you have acquired the Neutralian custom of the siesta. I am too old. I cannot adapt myself to new customs. Everything in this country is as strange to me as when I first came here.
“I was at the Foreign Office this morning enquiring about my papers of naturalization and I heard by chance you were still here. So I came at once. I do not intrude? I thought you would have left by now. You have heard of our misfortunes? Poor Dr. Fe is disgraced. All his offices taken from him. More than this there is trouble with his accounts. He spent more, it appears, on the Bellorius celebrations than the Treasury authorized. Since he is out of office he has no access to the books and cannot adjust them. They say he will be prosecuted, perhaps sent to the islands.”
“And you, Dr. Antonic?”
“I am never fortunate. I relied on Dr. Fe for my naturalization. Whom shall I turn to now? My wife thought that perhaps you could do something for us in England to make us British subjects.”
“There is nothing I can do.”
“No, I suppose not. Nor in America?”
“Still less there.”
“So I told my wife. But she is a Czech and so more hopeful. We Croats do not hope. It would be a great honour if you would come and explain these things to her. She will not believe me when I say there is no hope. I promised I would bring you.”
So Scott-King dressed and was led through the heat to a new quarter on the edge of the town, to a block of flats.
“We came here because of the elevator. My wife was so weary of Neutralian stairs. But alas the elevator no longer works.”
They trudged to the top floor, to a single sitting room full of children, heavy with the smell of coffee and cigarette smoke.
“I am ashamed to receive you in a house without an elevator,” said Mme. Antonic in French; then turning to the children, she addressed them in another tongue. They bowed, curtsied, and left the room. Mme. Antonic prepared coffee and brought a plate of biscuits from the cupboard.
“I was sure you would come,” she said. “My husband is too timid. You will take us with you to America.”
“Dear madam, I have never been there.”
“To England then. We must leave this country. We are not at our ease here.”
“I am finding the utmost difficulty in getting to England myself.”
“We are respectable people. My husband is a diplomat. My father had his own factory at Budweis. Do you know Mr. Mackenzie?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“He was a very respectable Englishman. He would explain that we come of good people. He visited often to my father’s factory. If you will find Mr. Mackenzie he will help us.”
So the conversation wore on. “If we could only find Mr. Mackenzie,” Mme. Antonic repeated, “all our troubles would be at an end.” Presently the children returned.
“I will take them to the kitchen,” said Mme. Antonic, “and give them some jam. Then they will not be a nuisance.”
“You see,” said Dr. Antonic, as the door closed, “she is always hopeful. Now I do not hope. Do you think,” he asked, “that