The English Girl (22 page)

‘You fell asleep,’ he tells me. ‘Just for a moment … You play the piano when you sleep. Did you know that?’

‘No. How could I?’ I punch him lightly. ‘I mean, I was
asleep…’

He smiles lazily down at me.

‘You were playing me like a piano. I could feel your fingers moving.’

I wonder what music I was playing. Perhaps the Chopin ‘Berceuse’: I think of its gently rocking rhythms. I have such a sense of peace, of safety – from making love, from falling asleep in Harri’s arms.

I look up at him. His face is shadowed. It’s only six, but it’s dark already. Behind him, through the window, I can see the night sky. The stars are big and glittery, and a white frost feathers the glass.

I’d like to stay here for hours. But he’ll be busy later – even though it’s Saturday, which we usually spend together. There’s a meeting he has to attend.

‘Do I need to go yet?’ I ask him.

He shakes his head. Perhaps he’s as reluctant to leave this bed as me.

‘Let’s stay like this just a little longer,’ he says.

He lights our cigarettes.

‘So teach me something,’ I say.

He thinks for a moment.

‘All right. Today, I shall tell you about one of Dr Freud’s most difficult teachings,’ he says.

‘Difficult to understand? Or difficult to accept?’

‘Both, perhaps,’ he tells me. ‘Troubling. Pessimistic…’

‘I thought most of what he said was pessimistic,’ I say.

‘Have you heard of the death instinct?’ he says.

‘I haven’t. It certainly sounds rather gloomy…’

‘Dr Freud teaches that there is a death instinct in all of us,’ he says.

I press against him, hungry for the warmth that comes off his body. Above us, the pattern the frost makes on the window-glass looks like writing. You can almost imagine that you could read what it says.

‘I thought it was all about sex,’ I say. ‘What drives us.’

He blows out smoke.

‘That’s the drive he calls Eros. And it’s more than sex,’ he says. ‘It’s the urge to life – to joy, to pleasure … But he says there is also a death instinct. A striving in us that compels us towards oblivion. Back towards the original form of things.’

I think of Janika’s mother, and all the young men with no lifelines.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asks me.

‘It’s nothing. Just the cold…’

He wraps his arm around me.

I think about what he said.

‘So it’s like a battle inside us.’ I remember sermons from church in childhood – the cosmic conflict, God and the devil, fighting for our souls. ‘There’s this struggle inside us – between Eros and death?’

‘You could put it like that,’ he tells me.

‘How does it show itself – this death instinct?’ I ask him. ‘When people commit suicide?’

‘That’s an extreme example,’ he says. ‘It also shows itself in our everyday lives. As repetition or retreat.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I tell him.

‘When we go backwards,’ he says. ‘When we retreat to the patterns of the past. Even though they didn’t work for us then, and surely won’t work for us now. When we seek the safety of what we know – although it has hurt us before…’

I stare up at the window-glass, at what the frost has written there. I think of the jealousy I can feel at night, in the dark of my room, the sexual imaginings with which I torture myself. Is it Eros or death that drives me then? The jealousy comes from my love for him; yet the jealousy is a dark thing. Something that makes me destructive, that could even push him away. How can we tell if we’re driven by Eros or death?

I wish I could ask him about this: I wish he’d explain it to me. But I can’t – I don’t want to remind him of this ugly side of myself.

‘You could argue that there is a death instinct in culture, too,’ he tells me. ‘Perhaps especially in German culture. A longing for death. A sense of the seductiveness of death.’

I think of what he has told me about all the cemeteries in Vienna. Of the coffins in the Michaelerkirche, where the floor level has risen because of all the mouldering bones. Of the way the city is built above the dwellings of the dead.

‘Well, the Viennese certainly seem to like a good funeral,’ I say.

He nods. But I sense that that isn’t quite what he meant.

‘I’m going to read you something,’ he says.

He pushes the blankets back, gets up, hunts through his books. His naked skin glimmers palely in the light of the lamp. I think how strange and disconcerting I found his body when I first saw it. Yet now I love looking at him, and all the detail of his body – the lilac veins in his wrists, the shadowy pattern of hair on his chest, his cock hanging long and graceful like the rest of him. But he’s rather serious tonight. I wonder why he’s so serious. It’s as though just talking about this, thinking about it, has induced this solemn mood.

He pulls a book from a pile.

‘This is Thomas Mann, a German writer.’

‘Yes, I know who he is. We studied
The Magic Mountain
at school.’

He opens the book, flicks through.

This must be the look he has on his face when he’s teaching – concentrated, purposeful. I picture him instructing a group of medical students. Imagine him – animated, intense, moving his hands around as he speaks; imagine the students listening, rapt. Then I picture a woman in the group: she’s gazing at him greedily, pushing the sleek raven hair from her face; her mouth is shiny as redcurrants, she runs her tongue over her lips—
Stop it
, I tell myself.

He finds the right place in the book. He sits on the mattress and reads to me.

‘Thomas Mann wrote this in 1914,’ he says. ‘“This world of peace, which has now collapsed with such shattering thunder – did we not all of us have enough of it? Was it not foul with all its comfort? Did it not fester and stink with the decomposition of civilisation?”’

It’s cold in the bed without him. The sense of safety I felt has entirely left me. I pull the blankets close against me.

He reads on, his voice rather quiet.

‘“Morally and psychologically I felt the necessity of this catastrophe, and that feeling of cleansing, of elevation and liberation which filled me, when what one had thought impossible really happened…”’

When he reads those words –
cleansing, elevation, liberation
– I think of Rainer in the Rose Room, when we talked about
The Mock Suns
; when I said that the poet’s vision was like the end of the world, and he said,
A world remade. Is that so terrible, Stella?
I remember the strange light in his eyes when he said that.

‘It makes me think of Rainer,’ I say. ‘Of something Rainer said.’

Harri looks at me with a small, troubled frown, but says nothing.

I pull on my coat. As we go downstairs, the door to the flat bangs back and Lotte bursts in. She’s been to see Gabi, her friend. Eva follows, looking weary.

‘Stella. You can’t go
now
.’

‘I’m sorry, Lotte, I have to. I’m going home for dinner.’

‘But I’ve only just come in … And I’ve got a secret to tell you,’ she says.

‘Ooh. Can you whisper it?’

Lotte pulls my head down towards her.

‘There’s a new rocking horse in the shop. D’you want to see him, Stella? You do, don’t you?’

‘Well…’

‘Mama, Stella wants to see the rocking horse. Can we go and see him? Please?’

‘Lotte – I have to start cooking—’

‘
Please
.’

Eva shrugs and acquiesces – as people usually do when Lotte wants something.

Lotte grabs Harri’s hand.

‘You can come too,’ she tells him.

We follow Lotte downstairs. Eva unlocks the door that leads from the staircase into the shop.

She doesn’t turn on the main shop light; the only brightness comes from the window display. But as we stand there, everything is briefly illumined, as the headlights of a passing car sweep briefly over the shop, and I look around it with delight, this room of beasts and princesses. A witch’s cobweb skirt shivers in a little movement of air.

Lotte takes me to one of the rocking horses. He’s black and shiny and rather fierce; his teeth are slightly bared.

‘He’s very splendid,’ I tell her.

‘His mane is
real
,’ she tells me. ‘It’s made from
real horsehair
.’ She turns to her mother. ‘Can I get up on him, Mama?’ she says.

Eva takes away the wedge that steadies the horse.

Lotte climbs up on the horse, and rocks. Her rocking has a gentle beat, like the beat of a heart. Harri slips his arm around me, and we all stand there for a moment, watching Lotte.

Something scratches at the edges of the peace in the room, some little sound or sense of movement from the street outside. I feel my skin prickle. I turn. But it’s nothing – just dark shapes outside on the pavement, where people are walking past, completely shadowed where they enter the pools of black between the street lamps. I hear their approaching footsteps, which slow as they near the shop window; maybe the people have paused to admire the window display. The footsteps move on a few paces, then stop at the door to the shop. This is odd. Surely they must realise that the shop is shut for the night?

All this happens in such a short space of time, these thoughts moving rapidly through me.

There are sudden loud voices from the street, a spurt of raucous laughter. I have a quick sharp sense that something is terribly wrong. The letterbox clatters: the startling noise makes me flinch, let out a small scream. I hear Harri swear beside me. Something is hurled through the opening – a bottle full of fire. There’s a hot dangerous stink of petrol. The bottle shatters, with a flare of flame, a roar of burning, the rag soaked in petrol setting fire to the floor, the flames rearing up, reaching out towards us. Vast shadows gesticulate wildly over the walls.

I open my mouth, but no sound comes. Eva is calling out in a language I don’t recognise. The fire on the floor is a live thing, the livid flames grasping like hands, violent orange, blue-tinged, menacing. Out of the corner of my sight, I have a quick, startling vision of Lotte: her mouth wide open, the leaping flames reflecting in her eyes. The heat of the fire sears my skin. I’m transfixed; petrified.

Only Harri is moving. He runs to the fire bucket, flings sand onto the fire. The sand glows red, and at first I think that it won’t be enough, the fire will rage, the shop will all be consumed. But as we watch, the fire fizzles and dies. Harri stamps on the remnants of flame. Then it’s all over very quickly. There’s just the stench of petrol and burning, and the black burnt scar on the floor.

I hear Eva’s breath rushing out – as though she’s been holding it in all this time.

Rage seizes her.

‘I could
kill
them. I want to
kill
them. Don’t they get it? Don’t they know we have a right to be here?’ Her hands are clenched into fists, so you can see the white of the bone. ‘That Vienna is our city too? That we
belong
here?’

Her voice is fierce and shrill. I’ve never seen her angry like this.

Harri goes to hold her.

‘It’s all right, it’s over,’ he says.

‘No, it isn’t, Harri. It isn’t over. It won’t ever be over … I
hate
them.’

She pulls away from him. As though she can’t do these two things at once – can’t have her arms round her son while she’s still in the grip of such rage.

‘I hate them,’ she says again, more quietly.

We stand there for a long moment. The air has a choking smell of petrol and charring.

Then Eva turns towards me.

‘Thank God you were with us, Stella.’ Her voice sounds odd: I can hear how dry her mouth is, and I know that the anger has gone from her now, leaving only the fear. ‘If you hadn’t been here—’ She stops, as though her throat is obstructed. She tries again. ‘If Lotte hadn’t wanted to show you the horse, the shop would have started burning and we wouldn’t have known. We wouldn’t have realised until too late. I don’t know what would have happened.’

I think of all the wooden toys – how quickly the place would have burned. I think of Harri in his attic. If he’d been up there and the building was burning, how could he have escaped? My fear is a hand that presses in on my heart. As though it’s still happening.

‘Thank God you were here,’ Eva says again.

I don’t know how to respond. Her saying how grateful she is just makes me feel ashamed. I wasn’t any use at all – I didn’t even think to put the sand on the fire. I didn’t do anything.

I put my arms around Lotte and lift her down from the horse.

‘Why did they do that, Stella? Why did they try to burn down our shop?’

Like me, she’s shivering – not crying.

‘They’re just stupid boys who like to make fire – who think it’s fun,’ I tell her.

‘I’ll call the police,’ says Harri.

‘No.’ Eva is urgent. ‘No, Harri.’ She puts her hand on his arm. ‘I want to leave it,’ she says.

‘We should. You know we should. We have to.’

‘
No
.’

She keeps her hand on his sleeve. I sense that this is part of an old argument between them.

‘We should try to forget about it,’ she goes on. ‘Try to put it behind us. There’s absolutely no point in reporting it to the police. No point at all. They’d never catch them,’ she says.

She’s brisk; she’s in control again. She rolls up the sleeves of her dress, and goes to fetch a bucket and mop.

I don’t understand her. Surely the police would stop the people who did this?

Then I remember how they talked and laughed, and didn’t even bother to run away very fast. As though they felt invincible.

‘I’ll stay. I’ll help you clear up,’ I tell them.

‘No, darling. You’re expected at home,’ says Harri.

‘Well, then, I’ll walk home on my own.’

‘No, Stella. You can’t do that. I’m coming with you.’

‘I’ll be perfectly fine. You’re needed here. If it makes you feel better, I’ll take a taxi,’ I say.

‘Well, if you’re sure…’

He kisses me. He goes to help his mother.

But out on the street, I find I’m not fine at all, in spite of my protestation. I’m trembling, jumping at shadows.