The English Girl (29 page)

I have to walk fast to catch up with him. My feet slip and slide on the icy pavement, on the compacted snow.

‘Frank – could you wait for me…’

He turns to face me, his expression entirely unsurprised.

I catch up with him.

‘I’ve changed my mind.’ I’m breathless, from rushing in the cold.

‘Good girl,’ he says. ‘I knew you would.’

The thought sneaks into me – that this is why he left the church so abruptly. That he was leaving me alone with my thoughts, to make the decision he knew I was going to make; leaving me to come to him. That he has done this kind of thing often before: he could read me so exactly, he knows how people behave. He knows me better than I know myself. I shiver.

He turns back towards the church, but before we reach it he ushers me off the street and through a high, arched doorway. We go up some wide steps into a cloister. There are worn red flagstones underfoot and, through the windows, tall trees. It’s full of light, and utterly silent. We can’t be seen from the square.

Immediately, he opens his briefcase and slides a folder out. This all happens so quickly. He was completely prepared for this moment, as though all along he knew exactly how I would decide. This is why he left on foot, why he didn’t tell his chauffeur to wait: he knew I would come after him.

All these thoughts racing through my mind. But I’m in too deep now.

He puts down his briefcase, opens the folder. There are photos inside.

‘Stella. Have you seen any of these men before?’

I look at the photographs as he turns them over one at a time. Some are clear; others are indistinct, photographed in the street, covertly – the men unaware, talking to others, going about their business. There are three men that I recognise, one I’m uncertain about. I point to them. It’s so easy: too easy. Like an otter sliding off a rock; like stepping off a high place.

‘Did these men come to the apartment on Maria-Treu-Gasse?’ he says.

‘Yes.’

‘When was this, Stella?’

‘It was a meeting, in the evening.’

‘Can you remember the date of the meeting?’

‘The first meeting was in October.’

‘Can you be more specific?’

‘Maybe six weeks after I got here – mid-October, I think.’

All the time, a little voice protesting in my mind.
They’ve been good to me,
they’ve helped me, they’ve taken me into their home. Without Rainer and Marthe I
wouldn’t be in
Vienna at all
…

‘Where in the house did you see them?’

His voice so easy and even; as you’d talk to a skittery animal you’re worried you’ll frighten away.

‘It was in the drawing room. I went into the room where they were meeting – there were ten men there, I think. Janika – she’s the housekeeper – Janika didn’t serve them. Marthe gave her the evening off, and took the cake in herself, and I helped her.’

‘You said, the
first
meeting. Have there been other meetings while you’ve been living there?’

‘There was another one in December – just after the first snow. But I didn’t go into the room that time. I offered to help, but Marthe told me she could manage on her own.’

‘So you didn’t see into the room at all?’

‘No, I didn’t see into the room. But I do know something about one person who came. Marthe told me that there would be a visitor from Berlin.’

All these things that had sounded so innocent.
Marthe gave her the evening off … A visitor from Berlin…

‘Did you see anyone at all that time? The second time? Going to the house, or leaving?’

‘There’s one man I remember. His picture isn’t here. I met him in the hallway. He had horn-rimmed glasses…’

Frank’s eyes spark. I have a feeling of foreboding.

‘Hair colour?’

‘Ordinary-looking. Grey, I suppose.’

‘A rather high forehead?’

‘Yes. You could say that.’

‘Clean-shaven?’

‘Yes. Yes, he was…’

‘Can you tell me anything more about this man?’ says Frank. ‘Just anything else that you noticed?’

I wish he wouldn’t press me like this. It’s hard to say there’s nothing else. You feel obliged to come up with something.

‘Well – there was one thing. Just a little thing. I told him who I was, but he didn’t tell me
his
name. Which was a little bit odd, I thought.’

‘Did he arrive with anyone?’

‘I don’t know.’

I want this to be over. I want to make a clean breast of it, and go. I want to be out in the street, with the icy air on my face; to breathe in the cold, feel it cleanse me.

I take a deep breath.

‘But I saw him leave, the man I told you about. I was looking out of my window. He gave the Hitler salute.’ The words tumbling out of me.

Something hardens in Frank’s face.

‘Who was he with?’ he asks me.

‘Just another man who’d been at the meeting. Then they both got into their cars.’

Frank closes the folder, puts it back in his briefcase.

It’s done
, I think.
I’ve told him. There’s nothing more to say.

‘That’s incredibly helpful, Stella. Thank you so much. That’s all for now,’ he tells me.

That’s all
for now
?

‘If I need to see you in future,’ he says, ‘I was wondering where we could meet. Ideally not in the middle of town.’

But I’m not going to see you in the future.

‘Perhaps there’s some place you’ve been with Harri?’ he goes on, smoothly. ‘Somewhere really quiet?’

I think of the Zentral Friedhof – the long still avenues, the musicians’ corner. How silent and empty it was, the quietest place in the world.

I hear myself suggesting this.

‘Where are we going?’

‘You’ll see,’ says Harri.

We walk down Schaumburgergasse. It’s an ordinary, quiet street – it doesn’t look very promising. It’s only four o’clock, but it’s dusk, and there aren’t many people about. Two men pass on the opposite pavement; when they speak, their voices are clear yet remote, like voices heard over water. Our feet crunch in the frosted snow, where the pavement hasn’t been cleared.

There’s a high stone wall along the pavement, all hung with frosted ivy. A little way along the wall, we come to a low arched door.

I want to tell Harri what happened – about Frank, and what I told him, in the cloister. I want Harri to make me feel different – less compromised, less unsure. To explain why, though I did what was right, I feel somehow contaminated. I hadn’t known this – that you could do a good thing and feel shamed.
Dirty
, even. This seems so strange to me. And is the opposite also possible? Could you do a bad thing, and feel
pure
?

‘Harri – there’s something I need to talk about…’

‘Me too. But first here’s something I’m going to show you,’ he says.

He pushes at the door in the wall. It isn’t bolted, it opens. Though he has to push quite hard and it only moves a little way: snow must have drifted against it. We edge through the half-open door.

Inside, there’s a neglected garden, all covered over with snow. Such a secret place to find in the heart of the city. The ground feels rough through the snow, as though it’s never tended or mown. We stumble on things that are buried – bushes, stone steps, dead flower-stalks. The surface of the snow is untouched, except for the delicate stitchery of the footprints of birds. A few flakes of snow are falling in a soft, thin silence.

In the middle of the garden, there’s an ornate, abandoned building. Some minor prince’s winter palace, perhaps, its roof caved in and open to the sky – a mouldering remnant of the Vienna of the emperors. There are white stone figures around the edge of the roof – languorous women with breasts as full and heavy as fruit, and with drapery falling from them. They have the air of women lost in a daydream, and snow has lodged in the loops and folds of their clothes.

The wall shuts out all the street noise. It’s so quiet.

‘Oh,’ I say.

He smiles, like someone who has achieved something.

‘I knew you’d like it,’ he says.

‘But aren’t we trespassing? I mean, it must belong to someone.’

‘Doesn’t look like it. It’s just been abandoned,’ he says.

‘How did you know this place was here?’

‘I used to play here sometimes, when I was a kid,’ he tells me. ‘It’s always been like this. You never seem to see anyone here.’

There are trees in the garden – sprawling, never pruned, with mistletoe clumps in their branches; the berries have a milky glimmer in the thickening light. In the shadows under the trees, the snow is the waxy blue of spring flowers.

He takes my hand. We walk towards the small broken palace, stepping softly, as though we might awaken something.

There’s a rotting door, pulled-to, not properly shut. He turns to me, his face a question.

My mind is full of the things I was going to say, that I needed to tell him. But as he turns to me there, I tell myself none of this matters – Frank Reece, Rainer, the thoughts that war in me. Only this matters: this magical place, my lover turning to me, a little snow falling, dusting his hair and his coat. The way he looks at me, the hunger.

‘Darling – shall we?’

I nod.

He pushes open the door.

We find ourselves in an empty room, with a ghost of plaster on the walls. Snow has blown in, and there’s rubbish in the corners – cigarette stubs, a broken bottle. A startled pigeon flies out through a hole in the roof, with a sound like the ripping of cloth, alarming me. The place has a smell at once cold and stuffy, a scent of mould and secrecy.

He moves me gently back against the wall; I feel its chill against me.

I reach out to touch his scarred face, wanting him so much; hesitate.

‘Stella, what’s the matter?’ he says.

‘I’m frightened of hurting you,’ I say.

‘Don’t be,’ he says. ‘You won’t hurt me. You couldn’t.’

He starts to unbutton my coat; he eases his hands inside my clothes. The feel of this stops my breath – his cold hands moving over me, where my skin was warm under my clothes; his fingers opening me, entering me. He moves one finger, tracing out little circles on the small bud of flesh, and I have a sensation of falling; I am utterly lost. When cries start to break from me, he seals my mouth with his mouth. He lifts me up, so I can wrap my legs around him; enters me. His warm slide into me thrills me. He moves so urgently in me; and comes quickly, with a sigh.

Afterwards, we hold one another for a long time.

As we leave the abandoned palace, the snow is falling more heavily, on the mistletoe berries, the languid women, the footprints we made when we came. There’s no wind at all, it’s so still, just the snow falling and falling.

Harri is happy, playful. He takes a stick, writes with the stick in the snow. ‘Ich liebe Stella.’
I love Stella
. This always delights me, his fondness for these impulsive romantic gestures. But I feel a brief, surprising sadness as well, here in the twilight, in the dreaming, buried garden. In the gathering dark, it’s so beautiful, yet also a little deathly. I remember what he told me about the death instinct – the impulse that can undermine and sabotage our lives. Our striving for oblivion. Everything returning to its original form. These ideas seem more real to me here, in the cold and the stillness. The fallen snow has a violet glow in the dusk: it’s a spectral colour, unreal.

We walk back down Schaumburgergasse.

‘Darling, what was that thing you wanted to talk about?’ he asks me.

But after such sweet sex, I don’t want to think about Frank.

‘It can wait,’ I tell him. ‘And you? What about you?’

He makes a little gesture, as though waving something away.

‘That can wait too,’ he tells me.

Should I press him? But I decide to leave it.

The touch of the air is colder, now the sun is setting. My hand in his is warm, but all the rest of my body is chilled. I want to make love with him again – to feel his warmth inside me. All his aliveness.

There’s an uneasy mood in the city.

One morning, a swastika has appeared on a wall in Maria-Treu-Gasse. As I go to catch the tram, I see workmen scrubbing it off. And I hear that gangs of Nazi supporters, like the ones who beat up Harri, are roaming the city more openly. They molest and abuse anyone who they think looks Jewish. They can’t wear the swastika on their clothes – but everyone knows what they are.

I resolve to keep up to date with the news. I need to know what is happening.

When I was in England, I rarely read the newspaper – except for the women’s pages in my mother’s
Daily Mail
, which told you about all the latest fashions, and recommended face exercises and routines to care for your skin. I loved to read about the fashions – the boas of ruffled organza, the backless evening dresses in dove-grey silk marocain – and I practised one of the exercises; it was meant to tighten your jawline, so you’d look good in tip-tilted hats.

But now I read the news reports avidly.

I go to the Frauenhuber after my lesson on Thursday. I feel entirely at home here: Harri’s café has become my café too. The waiters recognise me: there’s a diffident, dignified, white-haired one who always comes to serve me. And I know there’s no risk of running into Anneliese here. I order a coffee and a strudel, and look through the rack of newspapers. They take some foreign newspapers; I choose the English
Times
. Though my German’s so good, I can struggle with the news sections of Austrian papers.

I sit there with my coffee and strudel in the comfortable sepia light, and study the newspaper.

I read that Hitler has dismissed a lot of generals from the army, making himself supreme commander of all Germany’s armed forces. I remember what Benjamin said – that the conservatives in the army would oust him. But now he’s sacked those very people. And he’s recalled his ambassadors to Washington, Rome and Vienna, to replace them with men whose views are more in line with his own.

I try to make sense of all this. None of it seems like good news.

On Saturday, I’m at Harri’s.