The English Girl (25 page)

I help her lace the boots tightly. Her face shines; all her sadness has fallen from her.

The Stadtpark is silent in the grip of winter. The lamps are lit around the lake and cast little circles of light; elsewhere, the whole place has an unearthly blue pallor. The statues of notable men of Vienna have conical hats of snow, and intricate icicles hang from the banks of the lake. There’s a ghostly music, like chimes of glass, when a slight wind catches them. The patchwork crows of Vienna hop around in the snow. Our breath smokes.

The frozen lake is almost empty – there are just a couple of boys in the distance, and a man who is skating alone. Their figures seem made of night and darkness against the white of the ice. When the boys call out to one another, their voices have a lonely sound, as though they are echoes of just one voice.

At first I take her hand, but she doesn’t want this. Lotte doesn’t have Lukas’s fears: she steps boldly onto the ice. At once she skates fast away from me; her skirt flies out, and her hair, and the bright fringed ends of her scarf. She’s a much better skater than me.

‘Look at
you
!’ I call out to her.

She turns to face me, skating backwards. She grins. Her eyes are full of light.

‘I can do a pirouette. Look…’ She balances on one leg, spins. ‘What do you think? Was that good?’ she calls out, flushed, breathless.

‘That was wonderful!’

‘Look! Watch again!’ She spins faster. ‘Was that good? Was it?’

I watch admiringly.

The light is thickening; there are violet shadows on the ice, and, above, a frail white sketch of a moon in the darkening sky. On the little island in the middle of the lake, the leafless trees hold their branches up to the sky, graceful as the pale nude arms of dancers; there’s a glimmery line of snow all down one side of their trunks. The city seems far away here. It’s very quiet, as though the cold has swallowed up all sound. The air has a raw sweetness.

She skates so fast.

‘Come on, Stella!’

I can’t keep up. I lose my balance, stumble, fall on one knee. It’s surprisingly painful. For a moment I flail around, unable to get to my feet.

The solitary man skates over to me, and offers me his hand. I take it gratefully. He pulls me up.

‘Thank you so much.’

‘You’re welcome, fräulein. My pleasure.’

He holds my hand a little too long; I can smell the brilliantine on his hair. He has a self-confident look, as though he’s used to conquest. He eyes me appraisingly, as though calculating his chances. But then he shrugs slightly – perhaps seeing something closed-off in my face.

‘Enjoy your skating, fräulein.’

He loops away from me, tracing out extravagant shapes on the ice.

But while all this has been happening, Lotte has gone. She’s vanished, into the violet dusk and the silence. I skate out towards the island and the middle of the lake, but I can’t see her anywhere. My heart pounds. My first thought is that she’s died – that she’s fallen under the ice somehow, like Edie Charles at school when I was a child. I have a moment of absolute fear. I try to call her name, but my breath is stopped. There’s a pain like a needle piercing my chest.

All this takes no time at all – just a few seconds; yet it seems to last for ever.

I skate all around the island. And then I see her, way over at the other side of the lake. She must have fallen. She’s sitting on the ice; she’s rubbing her knees. She’s dark in her winter clothes, and small; she must have been hidden in the dark beneath the trees at the edge of the lake. I’d mistaken her for a shadow.

I skate rapidly up to her, my heart thumping.

‘Oh. You’re alive.’

She grins.

‘Of course I’m alive. Really, Stella.’

‘You shouldn’t just go off and disappear like that. It’s really thoughtless. People will worry a lot if you do that…’

There’s an edge of anger in my voice: I’m cross that she made me afraid.

This doesn’t bother Lotte.

‘I didn’t disappear,’ she says. ‘A girl can’t just
disappear
.’

I help her to her feet. I feel the touch of her hand on my hand; and at once I feel ashamed that I let myself get angry like that. Above us, the sky is deepening into night.

‘Lotte, I’m sorry,’ I say.

‘Why are you sorry? It’s not your fault I fell over.’

‘But I shouldn’t have got cross with you … I was stupid, I got frightened. I thought that the ice could have cracked, I thought you’d gone under the ice.’

‘You know I couldn’t,’ she says. ‘The park-keepers check it every day. It’s always safe …
Honestly
, Stella.’ She’s enjoying this. My moment of fragility has made her feel older, and wise. ‘Look, I’m solid. Pinch me. Go on. There. I’m real as anything. I couldn’t just
disappear
.’

‘No. Well, I won’t let you. Not ever. From now on we’ll skate side by side.’

She protests at this.

‘But that’s not fair, Stella! I can skate faster than you!’

‘Too bad,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t intend to let you out of my sight.’

Afterwards, we head back to Mariahilferstrasse, Lotte’s hand in mine. We walk slowly – we both have bruises. There’s a sadness to the snowy streets as night falls. I find I can’t stop shivering. The skating has chilled me, and I can’t seem to get warm.

There’s a scent of plums cooking with aniseed, ginger and cloves.

‘Janika. That smells like the compôte you make for Kaiserschmarrn,’ I say.

Janika nods.

‘Herr Krause is having a special meeting tonight.’

My heart races. I think of the piano bar with the ox-blood velvet curtains; I think of Frank Reece, and what he asked me to do.

‘Frau Krause has very kindly given me the evening off,’ says Janika. ‘I’m going to see
Top Hat
at the cinema. With Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I do so love to see them twirling about.’

Her eyes gleam with anticipation.

Marthe is cleaning in the drawing room; though it already looks immaculate. I offer to help.

‘Well, maybe you could do a little dusting, Stella. If you really don’t mind. Just the tops of the paintings and along the picture rail.’

‘Yes, of course.’

She hands me the feather duster. Outside, snow stitches its pattern.

‘I want everything to be perfect,’ she tells me. ‘Rainer has some people coming round tonight. There’s a visitor from Berlin coming.’

‘Oh. That sounds exciting.’

I hope she’ll tell me more. But she just carries on with her work.

‘So is the visitor staying here in the flat?’ I ask her.

‘Goodness. You and your questions, Stella. No, he isn’t,’ she says. There’s an edge of impatience in her voice. ‘He’s going to be staying at the Sacher Hotel. And now, if you’re happy to finish the dusting, I’ll see how Janika’s doing.’

At six o’clock, Janika leaves, wearing her best hat and coat. We have an early supper of cold meat and bread that she has put ready for us.

Later, I hear Rainer’s friends arriving. They stamp the snow from their feet on the doorstep and peel off their coats in the hall, greeting Rainer in low voices. I don’t hear any laughter.

Marthe is in the dining room, setting the trays.

‘I could help you take the plates in, Marthe,’ I tell her.

‘Thank you, my dear, I know you would. But tonight I’ll manage just fine.’

‘Are you sure? I’m not busy.’

‘Don’t worry, Stella. Really … You can play the piano if you want. It won’t disturb them,’ she says.

I’m surprised: during Rainer’s last meeting, she seemed so glad of my help.

A thought comes to me. Was this Rainer’s doing? Did Rainer tell her not to let me into the room? Because I’m going out with Harri, because of Harri’s
deviant Jewish psychologising
? Because of the way I deceived him? There’s a slight mouse-scurry of misgiving in the corner of my mind.

I spend the evening practising Chopin in the Rose Room.

Much later, when I’m heading back to my bedroom, I encounter one of the men in the hall; he must be going to the bathroom. He’s clean-shaven, with round horn-rimmed glasses. I remember him from the last meeting.

He smiles.

‘Good evening, fräulein. Now, I’m wondering – was that you I heard on the piano?’ he asks.

‘Yes, it was.’

I’m intensely curious about this man. I long to ask about the meeting, and what they’ve been talking about, but I know that would be impertinent.

‘You were playing the Chopin E major Etude, if I’m not mistaken,’ he says.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

I’m impressed that he knows the music.

‘You play very well,’ he tells me. ‘You’ve obviously inherited your father’s musical ability.’

I have a moment of confusion.

‘Oh – I’m not Rainer and Marthe’s daughter.’

‘Please excuse me. I’m so sorry.’

I’m embarrassed for him.

‘I come from England. I’m studying at the Academy. I’m Stella Whittaker,’ I say.

‘Delighted to meet you, Fräulein Whittaker.’

He inclines his head politely, and walks on to the bathroom.

It’s only afterwards that I reflect that he didn’t tell me
his
name – which seems an odd omission in someone so well-mannered.

I go to bed, but can’t sleep.

It’s very late when they leave. I hear the door of the flat open, then the great wooden street door pulled back, the quiet voices in the street, car engines firing.

I get up, go to the window. For the moment, the snow has stopped falling; the moon sails out from the cloud. Vienna looks so beautiful in the moonlight and the snow, everything lucent, glimmering. Up at the end of Maria-Treu-Gasse, I can see the black bulk of the Piaristenkirche, the intricate shapes of its towers and pediment; above, a spray of white stars. Below me on the snowy street, there are shiny dark tracks that the car tyres have made, that glisten in the moonlight.

Two men are standing below me on the pavement. Their cars are waiting for them; all the other men must have gone. They’re smoking, talking in low voices, reluctant perhaps to bring their conversation to an end. I recognise one of them – he’s the clean-shaven man from the hallway, who knew the Chopin E major Etude. As I watch, he turns up his coat collar; it must be bitterly cold in the street. Then he drops the stub of his cigarette, grinds it under his heel. Their discussion is drawing to a close.

I see how the clean-shaven man looks behind him, as though to check no one is there. The street is entirely empty. Then he straightens, pulls back his shoulders.

A small cold hand begins to finger my spine.

He raises his arm in the Hitler salute. As I watch, the other man responds. The street lamp is behind him, and the shadow of his outstretched arm falls on the shining snow like a sword.

Then the clean-shaven man glances upwards: I see his ardent face. I draw away from the window, afraid he could see me watching.

I think of Lukas at Schönbrunn, his thin voice, his wide, appalled eyes.

What if a bad man came into my home? What if they let the wrong person come
in
?

The men climb into their cars, and are driven away. The snow is falling again – small flakes, dry and powdery, like the ash of some great burning. I stand there for a long time. I watch the snow falling and falling, filling in their footsteps and the dark tracks of their tyres; removing every trace of them, as though no one had ever been there; as though I’d dreamed them.

For a long time I don’t sleep.

Vienna is preparing for Christmas.

There are fir trees for sale at the Naschmarkt, wrapped in wide-meshed nets, bringing a resinous scent of forests to the city. In Am Hof Square, there are stalls set up, selling toys and candy and Christmas treats: ragdolls, and gingerbread houses, and tangerines threaded on strings.

Harri and I wander around the stalls, enjoying the toys, though I’ve already bought my gifts for the children from Eva’s shop – a paintbox for Lotte, and for Lukas a gilded toy bugle and drum. There are chestnut sellers, and people selling
Glühwein
– hot spiced wine. We buy paper cups of
Glühwein
. It’s so hot that Harri’s glasses are misted up as he drinks, and it burns your fingers through the cup, but it tastes wonderful – of cinnamon, oranges, rich red wine: the taste of Christmas.

People with armfuls of packages bustle past us, and a choir of children are singing carols in front of the Kirche Am Hof – ‘
Stille Nacht’
and ‘
Es ist ein Ros Entsprungen’
– their voices rising clear and innocent in the frosted air, while above us the indigo winter sky is whitely seeded with stars.

I stay with the Krauses for the holiday. I’d love to go home to see my mother, but I can’t afford the fare.

I help Marthe and Janika decorate the apartment. We spread juniper branches everywhere, and there’s a great Christmas tree in the drawing room, which is ornamented with filigree angels and baubles of Murano glass. Lighted candles glimmer against the dark of the boughs.

On Christmas Eve, there’s a dinner of carp, and afterwards we open our presents, which Marthe has arranged on tables in the drawing room. There are gingerbread hearts with our names on in icing in front of each heap of gifts: Janika has been very busy. I open my mother’s present to me – feeling a guilty pang, thinking how little I think about my home, about Brockenhurst: how Vienna, and Harri, fill my thoughts now. But, opening the wrapping, it’s as though I can see her kind, capable fingers tying the string; and I have a sudden bittersweet sense of her closeness. She’s sent some warm gloves and her fruit cake, my favourite. Lukas thanks me politely for his gift, the bugle and the drum, but his eyes don’t shine, like when I gave him the detective kit. When our presents have all been opened and admired, I play carols on the piano in the Rose Room, and everybody gathers round to sing.

On Christmas Day, Janika cooks a meal of roasted goose, with red cabbage and potatoes roasted in goosefat. She and Dietrich join us at the table. Everyone drinks a lot of wine – Chardonnay from Styria, and Riesling from the Wachau, and delicious local wines from the vineyards on the slopes of the Vienna Woods. Rainer and Marthe are so kind to me, and treat me as one of the family. I keep the memory of the thing I saw behind a locked door in my mind. I try not to think about it.