The Portuguese Escape Read online

  ‘I don’t see what difference two minutes would have made. You exaggerate, Townsend,’ Nixon said discontentedly. ‘You generally do. Anyway what did she mean by saying she “wasn’t recollected”? To recollect means to remember, but you can’t remember yourself.’

  ‘I never heard the word used that way before,’ said Townsend, who had also been struck by the phrase. ‘I assume it’s a Hungarian expression for not having pulled yourself together—if so, it makes sense.’ As the car pulled up outside one of the large bright modern buildings of which the newer parts of Lisbon are full—‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘For mercy’s sake leave the girl in peace till tomorrow, Perce. Will you?’

  ‘All het up, aren’t you?’ his colleague said sourly, getting out of the car. ‘Yeah—I’ve fixed tomorrow morning for the boys. Don’t you butt in on that!’ he added menacingly. ‘Don’t forget it was the Press that got her out!’

  In the other car, spinning over the grey-blue tarmac surface of the speed-way which leads along the estuary of the Tagus from Lisbon to Estoril, more reprehension of Hetta’s refusal to speak to the Press was going on. The girl sat gazing out of the window, delighted by all she saw; the stately houses and black-and-white pavements in the Rossio Square and its adjoining streets—rebuilt by Pombal after the earthquake of 1755 had reduced most of Lisbon to rubble; then the shining river on her left, and to the right the heaped white houses with their coral-pink roofs, rising up against the brilliant blue sky. ‘Oh, but it is beautiful!’ she exclaimed. ‘Lisbon is much more beautiful than Madrid, Mama.’

  ‘Lisbon is one of the most beautiful cities in the world,’ said her mother, rather repressively. ‘But listen, Hetti—of course you have everything to learn about life in the ordinary world, so I shall not hold it against you; but you should not have refused to speak to the correspondents. It was not gracious—they had all come to meet you, and waited a long time.’

  ‘Mama, how could I? I was quite unprepared for this request.’

  ‘You should have consulted me, instead of taking your own decision. I know the importance of these things.’

  The girl turned and looked at her mother.

  ‘But you could not have told me what to say—and surely that was the important thing? I mean, that was what they wanted to hear?’

  The Countess made a small rapid movement of impatience, quickly controlled.

  ‘Dear child, you have a great deal to learn. Probably you don’t realise that getting you out at all took some doing. I had to give a Press Conference.’

  ‘Did you, Mama? How good of you. But today I assure you that I am not equal to it. One should always be sure of saying the right thing, should one not? And this morning I am too tired and also too hungry, as this kind Mr. Waller understood.’

  It was the Countess’s turn to stare at the pale face beside her in the Rolls-Royce—serious, calm, assured. Was that last remark, with its rather damaging implications, made innocently? Innocence gazed back at her from the immense dark eyes, but there was also that troubling assurance, that complete composure.

  ‘Oh well, we’ll leave it,’ she said, rather shortly.

  ‘Yes; and today when I have eaten, and rested, I will recollect myself, so that tomorrow I may be able to satisfy these journalists—and to please you, dear Mama, I hope.’ She turned to the window again. ‘Oh, how beautiful those white waves are, below that big round tower standing in the sea. What is it? I suppose that is the sea? Do you know that I have never seen it?’

  ‘Why, Hetti, you have! We went to Brioni, when you were little.’

  ‘How little?’

  ‘Four or five, I suppose.’

  ‘Ah, well then I have forgotten. But what is the tower?’

  ‘A lighthouse—it flashes at night,’ said the Countess, rather absently. She was wondering which was likely to prove the more disconcerting—Hetta’s tendency to take her own decisions, or her dutiful-daughter attitude. ‘Attitude’ was the word she used in her own mind—she was not very familiar with spontaneity, in herself or in others; she did not, by choice, move in very spontaneous circles.

  ‘And why do the waves break white just there?’ Hetta asked. ‘Not above, not below—just at that point?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  It was a fact that Countess Páloczy had lived for ten years on the Tagus estuary without ever realising that a sand-bar stretches across it, and that the raison d’être of the two lighthouses, one on the great fort of São Julião da Barra, is to draw the attention of ships to this obstruction. How tiresome it was going to be if Hetti was always asking questions and demanding facts, she thought. Oh well, she would have to turn her over to the Monsignor, who knew everything.

  The car presently turned inland past a public garden brilliant with flowers, and drew up before a large modern hotel. Porters and pages in uniform swarmed round the door; more porters and more pages stood bowing as they passed in through the big glass doors. The interior of the Castelo-Imperial is like that of any other super-luxury hotel, except that it is in rather better taste than most, the deep carpets and brocade upholstery of the hall and salons being mainly in a warm grey, with touches of soft pinks and soft blues; the rooms of course vast, but with the undignified low ceilings which hotel architects, forgetting the noise that human voices in bulk make, always seem to design. Hetta’s eyes grew round as she glanced about her on the way to the lift—the enormous spaces of floor, the masses of flowers, the numbers of people and still more of those inclining uniformed attendants, who seemed to have no other occupation. ‘Do they keep so many, just to bow to people?’ she murmured to her mother. The Countess gave a little laugh, not displeased; if Hetta could do an observant ingenue act it would not be at all out of place. But here was the manager, washing his hands and also bowing; she introduced him to Hetta, and he made an elegant little speech of welcome and congratulation before they entered the lift and were borne aloft. In fact, though Hetta did not realise it, most of the occupants of the hotel, and as many as possible of the staff had assembled in the hall simply in order to catch a glimpse of the young lady who had just come out, so romantically, from behind the Iron Curtain.

  Countess Páloczy had a large suite in an upper corner of the big building, looking out on one side over the flowerbeds of the public garden, on the other onto the sparkling estuary—it was even fuller of flowers than the public rooms, and Hetta exclaimed at them in delight. ‘I like flowers—I am glad you do too,’ her mother vouchsafed. The apartment contained a dining-room and a salon, but they took breakfast in a small pretty morning-room; Hetta tucked in thankfully to the omelette which the Countess ordered for her, in addition to the normal coffee and rolls. Then she was led to her own room, where a Portuguese maid had already unpacked her few possessions, and was putting a hot-water bottle into the bed.

  ‘I have ordered a cheval-glass for you, and a proper dressing-table at which you can sit to do your face,’ said the Countess; the only mirror, a small one, stood on a high chest of drawers. ‘This was your father’s room, so it is rather austere.’

  ‘Pappi’s room? Oh then do leave it as it is—I should prefer it so. Darling Pappi—how I wish he was not dead!’ And to her mother’s dismay Hetta Páloczy burst into tears.

  Chapter 2

  Hetta awoke from a long sleep to see Esperanza, her mother’s Portuguese maid, setting down a huge vase of carnations on the businesslike writing-desk which stood under one of the windows. When she sat up and stretched the maid detached a small envelope from the flowers and brought it to the bed. On the card inside, below Townsend Waller’s name, a few lines were scribbled—‘1 shall look in this evening about six-thirty to see how you are, if you are not too tired to see anyone. T. W.’

  ‘Oh, how kind! Please bring the flowers here,’ she said to the maid. Esperanza, who had been with the Countess for some years and had learned a modicum of English in the course of them, brought over the vase, and the girl smelled the strong scent. ‘Thank you. What is the time?�
� she asked. Like most dwellers behind the Iron Curtain she had no watch; the Russian troops, who had arrived in Europe with no watches either, had seen to that. The Portuguese servant, however, had a neat wrist-watch— ‘Five less a quarter,’ she said.

  ‘So late! Can I have a bath?’ She could, in a bathroom next door to her bedroom. ‘Only for the Menina,’ Esperanza explained; ‘the Condessa has her own’—from which Hetta guessed rightly that she herself was the Menina. While the bath was running she fingered the immense bath-towel and the fine linen face-towels, all with her mother’s monogram, with astonishment—they seemed to her almost too beautiful to use. Esperanza meanwhile ran to and fro, bringing in freshly ironed underclothes—Hetta had only two sets, and neither had come up to the maid’s standards of smoothness and cleanliness. Turning off the taps and dashing in bath essence—‘And will the Menina wear her little suit, or the black dress? The dress is pressed.’ Hetta said she would wear the dress—this was in fact her only alternative to the suit. ‘I should like tea after my bath,’ she added.

  ‘Muito bem. In the Menina’s own room?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  Bathed refreshingly in sweet-scented water, dressed in clean under-garments, Hetta, back in her room, lay on the freshly-made bed while she consumed a hearty tea of rusks, marmelada—a sort of quince cheese—and some very rich chocolatey creamy cakes. She was still hungry, and enjoyed it all hugely. As she was finishing the last cake her mother came in.

  ‘Did you have a good sleep?’ she asked kindly.

  While Hetta slept the Countess had persuaded Monsignor Subercaseaux to come round to luncheon, and had poured out her disappointment over Hetta’s refusal to say ‘even one word’ to the journalists at the station, and her general concern about their future relationship. ‘She is so —so independent,’ she said, in tones of dissatisfaction.

  ‘But my dear Countess, how naturally! For ten years she has been without parents—how should she at once show a child’s dependence on your judgement, when for so long she has been thrown on her own resources? You will have to be very patient, and let time, and your own affection and kindness, gradually develop what is usually a normal growth.’ Then he had asked what Hetta was like?

  ‘Oh, small—small, and not pretty,’ the tall once-beautiful woman had replied. ‘But I think she could be made chic’

  ‘You must be patient also with her lack of height and of beauty,’ the priest said, smiling. ‘Beginning now. These first days and weeks are crucial.’ Dorothée—whose real name was Dorothy, but who preferred to sign herself like a Frenchwoman—promised to be patient.

  ‘Show affection,’ the priest further enjoined. ‘Neither of you can have much genuine affection for the other at present, since you are in effect strangers, and both grown women—but you can show it. Affection, after all, is one aspect of charity.’

  The Countess had agreed to all this with suitable humility; later she asked Monsignor Subercaseaux if he had any news of ‘the invitation’.

  ‘Not so far. I understand that the lists are extremely long already—and as I told you before, dear lady, the Bretagnes are very anxious to keep it as far as possible a family affair—indeed so is the King.’

  ‘The Fonte Negras are going, and the Ericeiras.’

  ‘Ah, but Countess de Fonte Negra was a Lencastre, so in a way a relation; and in the case of the Duke of Ericeira there is his position in the Order of Malta—quite apart from the fact that he puts up so many of the guests, here and in his house in Lisbon. Last time I believe he accommodated forty!’ said the priest, laughing cheerfully. ‘You will agree, Countess, that this gives him a certain claim!— though he is not doing so this year; his sister has not been well.’

  ‘Well, I rely on you to do what you can, Monsignor. You know that it means a great deal to me—and I am devoted to little Princess Maxine—she will make a charming bride.’

  However, sitting on a chair in her daughters bedroom three hours later, the Countess was concentrating on showing affection, as her confessor had bidden her.

  ‘I have made an appointment for you for 6.30 this evening with Alfred, the coiffeur,’ she said. ‘Esperanza will show you the way.’ Thoughtfully she studied her daughter’s hair, which was dark, thick, straight, and at the moment merely a heavy mane. ‘Not a permanent wave, I think; but shaped to a rouleau at the back. I wish I could come with you, but I must go to a cocktail at the Belgian Embassy, so I shall have to leave soon after six. But Alfred is very clever about styling, and he will do you himself—so leave yourself entirely in his hands.’ She considered again. ‘Should you like a fringe?’

  ‘Should you like me to have one, Mama?’ Hetta also was anxious to be accommodating, up to a point.

  ‘I am not sure—I should ask Alfred. He is a very good judge. And then we must see about getting you some clothes—of course you can’t go anywhere until you have something to put on. But fortunately there is one really good tailor here, who was with Lanvin for years, and a wonderful woman for blouses; and for petites robes we can get you a few things off the hook in the Chiado.’

  For Countess Páloczy providing pretty clothes was one of the most genuine demonstrations of affection imaginable; Hetta, vaguely recognising this, took her mother’s words in the spirit in which they were meant.

  ‘That will be lovely, Mama. A person from the Government took me to get my suit and the black dress, but of course there was no time to get them altered and they are rather big and bunchy on me.’

  Dorothée opened her eyes wide.

  ‘A person from the Government bought your clothes? What can you mean?’

  ‘Oh yes—they wished me to look nice when I came out, so this woman came and took me to a shop, and bought the suit and jersey, and the dress. But it was all done in a great hurry; and the clothes are not as pretty as yours. I see that,’ said Hetta simply, little realising that her parent’s exquisitely plain grey frock came from Balenciaga. Oh goodness, why couldn’t she have told the Press that this morning, Dorothy Páloczy thought—what a story! Look nice indeed!—she must get that publicised somehow. But mindful of the Monsignor’s exhortations, she said nothing for the moment.

  ‘Well, we’ll have fun together, getting you fitted out,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes, indeed. Mama, do you think I could have a watch or a clock? It is so tiresome not to know the time.’

  ‘Of course. But what became of the little Rolex your father gave you?’

  ‘The Russians took it.’

  ‘Good gracious! Yes, we will get you one tomorrow— and for now’—she went to her own room and returned with a little travelling-clock. Glancing at it—‘I must be off,’ the Countess said. ‘And you’ll go along to Alfred this evening.’

  But at that point Hetta’s spirit of accommodation stopped short. She was determined not to miss the nice American.

  ‘No, Mama. I am too tired tonight. I will go to the coiffeur tomorrow, as early as you wish—but not today.’

  The Countess did her best not to show her vexation.

  ‘You are sure? It is all arranged, and it is not so easy to get Monsieur Alfred himself.’

  ‘I am sorry, Mama, but I am quite sure.’ Oddly enough Hetta’s conscience did not trouble her in the least about this white lie; people who live under Communist régimes soon develop callosities on the conscience.

  The Countess, resignedly, took up the telephone beside Hetta’s bed, cancelled the appointment in fluent French, and made one for the following afternoon. Then she kissed her daughter and went off to her party.

  The moment she had gone Hetta sprang up, put on the government-provided black dress, which was indeed very bunchy, dragged a small cheap comb remorselessly through her thick mop of hair—hair-brushes are of rare occurrence in the People’s Democracies—and then, standing in front of the small looking-glass on her father’s tall chest of drawers, unskilfully applied a little powder to her pale face. The powder was of a rather tawny shade, and as cheap as the comb; like the
black dress it had been provided by the female emissary of the Hungarian Government. About 1943 Moscow started a drive for cosmetics, but the quality was poor—Hetta, after looking at her face covered with Soviet powder, ran to the bathroom for a towel, and rubbed it all off again. ‘It does not match me!’ she muttered disgustedly.

  So it was unpowdered and in all her Communist inelegance that she went through into the drawing-room. Besides the flowers, mostly hot-house white lilac, it was full of signed photographs of celebrities in silver frames, newspapers, and French, English, American, and Spanish illustrated weeklies—there were ho books. She had only been sniffing the cold delicate scent of the lilac for a few moments, and wondering vaguely about her father in such surroundings—as she remembered him he was always knee-deep in books, with a gun somewhere close at hand— when Esperanza ushered in Townsend Waller.

  ‘Well!’ he said, shaking her warmly by the hand—‘You look better. Are you fed, and rested?’

  ‘Yes—both, wonderfully. You were so kind this morning,’ she said, with an earnest sincerity which struck the young man as almost frightening in a girl of her age. ‘And the flowers are lovely—thank you so much.’ She paused.

  ‘Mama is not here,’ she went on; ‘she had to go to a party.’

  ‘I know—the Belgians’ cocktail. I cut it; I wanted to see how you were making out.’

  ‘Please?’ ‘Making out’ quite defeated Hetta.

  ‘Well, getting along,’ he said, laughing—in fact not helping her much. But the mention of the word cocktail caused him to glance round the room. The usual tray with bottles was not there.

  ‘Don’t you want a drink?’ he asked.