Early by a month! Now Kinkovsi remembered.
‘Ah! You must be the Herr from Moscow? The one who made inquiry in April? The one who booked lodgings – but sent no money in advance! Is it you, then, that Herr Dragosani who has the name of the town down the highway? But you are indeed early – though welcome for all that! I shall have to prepare a room for you. Or perhaps I can put you in the English room, for a night or two anyway. How long will you stay?’
Ten days at least,’ Dragosani answered, ‘if the sheets are clean and the food is at all bearable – and if your Romanian beer is not too bitter!’ His glance seemed unnecessarily severe; there was that in his attitude which got Kinkovsi’s back up.
‘Mein Herr,’ he began with a growl, ‘my rooms are so clean you could eat off the floor. My wife is an excellent cook. My beer is the best under all the Carpatii Meridi-onali! What’s more, our manners are good up here -which seems to be more than can be said of you Muscovites! Now, do you want a room or don’t you?’
Dragosani grinned and held out his hand. ‘I was pulling your leg,’ he said. ‘I like to find out what people are made of. And I like a fighting spirit! You are typical of this region, Hzak Kinkovsi: you wear a farmer’s clothes but you’re a warrior at heart. But me, a Muscovite? With a name like mine? Why, there are some who’d say that you’re the foreigner here, “Hzak Kinkovsi!” It’s in your name, your accent, too. And what of your use of “Mein Herr”? Hungarian, aren’t you?’
Kinkovsi briefly studied the other’s face, looked him up and down, decided he liked him. The man had a sense of humour, anyway, which in itself made a welcome change. ‘My grandfather’s grandfather was from Hungary,’ he said, taking Dragosani’s hand and giving it a firm shake, ‘but my grandmother’s grandmother was a Wallach. As for the accent, it’s local. We’ve absorbed a good many Hungarians over the decades, and a good many settled here. Now? – I’m a Romanian no less than you. Only I’m not as rich as you!’ He laughed, showing yellow, worn-down teeth in a face of creased leather. ‘I suppose you’d say I’m a peasant. Well, I’m what I am. As for “Mein Herr” – would you prefer me to call you Comrade”?’
‘Heavens, no! Not that!’ Dragosani answered at once. ‘Mein Herr” will do nicely, thanks.’ He too laughed.
me on, show me this English room of yours . . .’ Kinkovsi led the way from the big Volga to the tall, high-peaked guesthouse. ‘Rooms?’ he grumbled. ‘Oh, we’ve plenty of rooms, all right! Four to each floor. You can have a whole suite of rooms if you like.’ || ‘One will be fine,’ Dragosani answered, ‘as long as it as its own bath and toilet.’ ‘Ah – en suite, is it? Well, then, that’s the top floor. A room with its own loo and bath up under the roof. Very modern.’
‘I’m sure’ said Dragosani, not too dryly.
He saw that the ground floor walls of the house had been rendered and pebble-dashed on top of the sand-coloured cement. Rising damp, probably. But the upper levels showed their original stone construction. The house must be three hundred years old if it was a day. Very suitable. It took him back in time – back to his roots and beyond them.
‘How long have you been away?’ Kinkovsi asked, letting him in and showing him to a room on the ground floor. ‘You’ll have to stay here for now,’ he explained, ‘until I can get the upstairs room ready. An hour or two, that’s all.’
Dragosani kicked off his shoes, hung his jacket over a wooden chair, dropped onto a bed in a square of sunlight where it came through an oval window. ‘I’ve been away half of my life,’ he said. ‘But it’s always good to come back. I’ve been back for the last three summers now, and four more to go.’
‘Oh? Got your future all planned out, have you? Four more to go? That sounds sort of final. What do you mean by it?’