Dreams of Innocence

by Lisa Appignanesi

  But Bettina was not to be deflected from her plan to have Anna accompany her to her nurseries. And when the day of the visit finally came, Anna was pleasantly surprised. The nursery hall was brightly painted. Large fairy tale figures paraded round its walls. The children, in their blue smocks, had freshly scrubbed impish faces. As they painstakingly traced letters or animals or played with blocks, laughter would suddenly erupt from them. It was all quite unlike the grey constricting atmosphere Anna had imagined.

  Having introduced them to the two young women who had regular care of the children, Bettina left Anna and Miss Isabel in their hands. It was her afternoon for reading with the older children and as Anna watched her, she noted that Bettina performed this task with particular relish. It struck her as wholly unexpected that Bettina should be so at ease with the children.

  She continued to observe her sister with growing interest. What she saw filled her with a rare admiration. For the first time perhaps, she also found herself genuinely liking Bettina. The thought that it might really be the first time astonished her. But she had no time to pursue it for suddenly there was a commotion at a far corner of the room and one of the teachers came scurrying up to Bettina, whispered in her ear.

  Bettina gestured to Anna. ‘Here, you take over. This is Eva and she’s going to read Little Red Riding Hood to you, best she can. Miss Anna will help you out with the difficult words, Eva. Alright?’ Bettina patted the little girl’s head and strode off. ‘Hans is next, Anna,’ she called over her shoulder.

  Anna concentrated herself on her task, but from the far corner of the room, she heard a wail, ‘It’s true, they did,’, followed by a burst of tears and Bettina’s, severe, ‘Now come with me, Maria.’

  ‘No, I won’t. You’ll hit me.’

  ‘Have I ever hit you?’

  From the corner of her eye, Anna saw Bettina tugging a small tow-haired child along with her.

  It was the end of the afternoon before she had an insight into the cause of the commotion. Mothers were coming to collect their children, heavy sullen women with tired eyes, chirpy girls, hardly older than herself, with spry hats and shop assistants’ manners. Each of these women was politely greeted by the teachers and by Bettina, who also inquired about their health, before turning a child over and occasionally reporting on progress.

  One woman, however, was quietly taken aside and asked to wait. ‘Frau Eberhardt would like a word with you.’

  Anna positioned herself so that she could clearly, if discreetly, hear that word. At the other end of the room, little tow-haired Maria stood cowering at the side of one of the teachers.

  ‘Frau Keller, Maria has been at the centre of a disturbance today,’ Bettina began.

  Plump, large-featured, Frau Keller shot a hostile glance at the little girl, who turned to face the wall.

  ‘She described to the children in great graphic, and I must say, somewhat violent detail, a scene she witnessed between you and your ‘boyfriend’ last night.’

  ‘Why the little vixen. I’ll smack her bottom, teach her some manners, teach her what comes of lying,’ the woman scowled.

  ‘No, no,’ Bettina interrupted, ‘I am not asking you to smack her. What I am asking you is if the child has not imagined the whole thing,’ Bettina drew herself up to her full height and took a deep breath, ‘what I am asking is that you not conduct your sexual relations in front of the child. If you must…’ she waved her hand vaguely, ‘then go to another room. We cannot have such goings on discussed in the classroom.’ She looked at the woman distastefully.

  ‘Another room?’ Frau Keller shot her a hostile glance. ‘Do you think we live in a palace? There is only one room.’ She flushed suddenly, realising what she had admitted.

  Bettina’s colour, too, had risen. ‘Yes, well then,’ she said quietly, ‘restrain yourself, Frau Keller. You don’t want another child to look after single-handedly, do you?’

  The woman seemed to have shrunk. Her face sagged. With a visible effort, she squared her shoulders, ‘No, no, it’s not like that. Fritz and I are to be married. As soon as we have saved up enough money for a bigger flat. As soon as…’

  ‘Yes, yes, but meanwhile,’ Bettina was crisp, ‘I don’t want Maria observing you and reporting to the children. I shall be forced to ask you to take her away.’

  ‘No, no,’ the woman was pleading now. and then with a burst of rage, ‘I’ll teach her, I’ll…’ she waved her fist at the child.

  ‘Maria is not to blame,’ Bettina said sternly. ‘If we have any inkling that you have punished her wrongly…’ she let the threat hang and called the little girl.

  ‘Off you go now, Maria. Remember what I told you.’

  The child nodded, frightened as she took her mother’s hand. The woman gripped the little girl fiercely and then, mindful of Bettina’s gaze, smiled at her in exaggerated fashion.

  ‘Poor little thing,’ Miss Isabel broke the silence. ‘She’s going to get it when she gets home.’

  Bettina shrugged.

  ‘Why?’ Anna intervened, ‘What did she see?’

  ‘Anna, really!’ Bettina looked at her aghast and marched out the door.

  Anna noticed that her sister was shaking. Perhaps she too would be shaking, she thought, if only she had seen what little Maria described. But no one, no one would tell her. It was as if there were a conspiracy formed with the particular aim of keeping her ignorant.

  Bettina continued to shake in the carriage on the way home. To lighten the weight of her sister’s mood, Anna sang the praises of the nursery, said she wanted to return.

  ‘Really?’ Bettina relaxed into cushions, considered. ‘Perhaps it would be something for you to do in Vienna. I know there’s a similar project just beginning. I could find out more.’

  Anna nodded. Then looking out the window, she suddenly exclaimed, ‘Oh there’s the Café Stephanie. Let’s stop and sit, Bettina. I still haven’t been here.’

  ‘Bruno wouldn’t approve,’ Bettina murmured.

  ‘Of course, he would. As much as he would of nurseries,’ Anna smiled. ‘Please. Please, Bettina. Miss Isabel wants to as well.’

  Bettina sighed as Miss Isabel looked demurely away, but she instructed the driver. The three women made their way, Bettina hoped unobtrusively, past the noisy billiard room, past the chess players rapt in concentration, to a corner table. She kept her eyes down, made certain that she and Anna faced away from the milling crowd in the room: it really didn’t do for a respectable young woman of Anna’s age to be seen amongst the motley regulars of the Stephanie, whatever Anna thought.

  But no sooner had they ordered than a familiar voice addressed them from behind.

  ‘May I?’

  Without waiting for a response, Johannes Bahr pulled a chair up to their table.

  ‘Decidedly a pleasant surprise,’ he leaned lazily back into his chair. ‘What brings three such charming ladies into this smoky den?’

  ‘I had to visit, just once,’ Anna beamed, and babbled on. We’re on our way home from Bettina’s nursery. And what a time we’ve had.’ Before Bettina could stop her she had recounted the highlights of the afternoon up to and including Bettina’s confrontation with Frau Keller.

  A frown darkened Johannes’s face. He gazed at Bettina. ‘You shouldn’t have reprimanded the child. Made her think she had seen something evil, said something bad. Surely you know better.’

  Bettina bristled at this public reproof.

  ‘What do you know about the education of children, Herr Bahr?’

  ‘Frau Eberhardt behaved with absolute correctness,’ Miss Isabel intervened loyally. ‘I can tell you if it had been one of my charges, I would have…’

  Johannes cut her off. His eyes blazed.’The child had seen something absolutely natural, was naturally curious, naturally excited. Why distort it all by punishing her? Aren’t sexual relations between men and women something natural? Don’t we all partake of them?’

  Anna held her breath.

  ‘Herr Ba
hr, really!’ Miss Isabel exclaimed.

  Bettina’s voice when it came was cold but even. ‘I did not chastise the child for what she had seen, but her mother for allowing her to see. Nonetheless, the girl had to be told that it is not permissible to recount such things in public. It disturbs the other children, disrupts the class.’ Her head high, she turned to Anna and Miss Isabel, ‘I think we had better go.’

  ‘Disturbs the children? Disrupts?’ Johannes’s lips curled in irony. ‘Isn’t that precisely what we need? A little disturbance, a little disruption, to break the stranglehold of hypocrisy.’

  Bettina rose imperiously. ‘Good day, Herr Bahr.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps,’ Anna murmured, as she followed her sister.

  He gave her a quick questioning glance and then turned to block Bettina’s path. ‘You don’t understand. I need to make you understand.’ He lowered his voice, ‘Come tomorrow, Bettina. It’s important.’

  Bettina flounced past him. Only in the carriage did she speak and then simply to utter a scathing, ‘Artists!’

  ‘Yes,’ Miss Isabel filled in for her. ‘One has to forgive them a great deal.’

  Beneath the show of imperturbability, however, Anna noticed that there was once again a quiver in the gloved hand Bettina raised to straighten her hat.

  When Johannes answered the knock at his door the following afternoon he fully expected to see Bettina. But it was the younger von Leinsdorf sister who confronted him, her cheeks glowing pink, a wildness in her eyes. His first impression was that something dreadful must have happened, that Bettina was sending him a messenger. But Anna conveyed nothing of the kind.

  ‘Will you invite me in?’ she asked softly after she had denied being sent to him. She was filled with the excitement of her adventure. She had stolen away from the house when the others thought her resting and made her way swiftly through grey drizzle, oblivious of anything but her destination.

  Johannes stood back and let her pass.

  She threw a lingering glance at the canvas on the easel and then confronted him.

  ‘I wanted to speak to you. Speak to you alone.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. You see, I’m so ignorant and you, you know so much about things,’ she finished a little lamely.

  Johannes was aware of a sense of mounting discomfort. ‘What things?’

  ‘Things,’ Anna gestured abstractly. ‘You know, things we were talking about yesterday.’ She turned away from him, unsure now, and then suddenly, as if a momentous decision had been taken, turned back, blurted out, ‘Do you know, I saw you that night, by the lake, naked?’ Tawny unblinking eyes gazed at him.

  ‘I know,’ he murmured, recognizing he would have preferred not to. He felt strangely reticent with this beautiful young woman, for she was beautiful, he acknowledged, but still just a slip of a girl. A sense of foreboding passed through him. He shook it off. ‘Please, will you sit down.’ He pulled a chair up for her, pausing for time, watching the unconscious seductiveness of her gestures. What did she really want of him?

  ‘I wasn’t intending to be seen,’ he shrugged.

  She laughed filling the room with a throaty sound.

  ‘I know. But now you must tell me.’

  ‘Tell?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, I’m to be married soon, you see, to become someone’s property,’ she laughed again, quoting him, ‘and…’

  ‘Then your husband will tell you, show you rather. The showing will be more effective,’ his voice was cold. It was as if Bettina stood at his shoulder.

  Anna looked crestfallen.

  ‘You, yes particularly you, will learn very quickly. Now, I think you should go.’

  He hadn’t intended to sound so cruel. Her candour moved him. But words would never do for her, he realised. And he wasn’t prepared, here, now, to give more, to take what she perhaps didn’t know she was offering. It troubled him a little - as if he had suddenly become the living disproof of his own ideas. A hypocrite, like the rest, but in reverse.

  ‘What will I learn?’ she murmured.

  He tried to keep his voice even. ‘You will learn about passion,’ he said lightly, softly. He touched her brow where it had furrowed, smoothing it. Warm, silken skin. ‘If you’re lucky.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘If not, we may still meet again. Now you must go.’

  The brightness had gone out of her. She had the air of a forlorn child, reluctant to move from a place of warmth.

  ‘Will you paint me?’

  Then he remembered. That was what was at the base of his hesitation, not Bettina. Johannes shivered. It was long ago now. He had been young, a mere twenty, just beginning his life as a painter. The girl had wanted him to paint her, had offered herself. Their love had lasted as long as the time of the painting and then, by mutual agreement he had thought, it was over. But it wasn’t. She had written to his father, talked of broken promises, a child pending, demanded money. His father had intervened, apportioned blame while sneering at wild oats, paid money, assumed power. It was that he couldn’t forgive. The paternal assumption of power, the making ordinary, the tidying away. The woman pretending meekness, running to the man with greater power, complicit with him. There had been no child. Only a woman calling a father into existence, activating him.

  He looked at Anna, her youth. No, he would have none of that anymore. Experienced women were the ones for him. And that usually meant married women. Women who had known the price of chains knew the value of freedom. Their fathers were close at hand in the person of their husbands. They didn’t need to call any others into existence.

  ‘Will you?’ Anna repeated.

  He gazed into those thick-lashed animal eyes. ‘Perhaps. One day.’ He took her hand to lift her from the chair, to signal that it really was time to go. A surprisingly firm hand it was, yet soft. Was he wrong about her?

  He didn’t have time to consider it. There was another knock at the door. He knew in the way that he sometimes knew things with a certainty before they happened that it would be Bettina.

  That elegant, intelligent face met his with a question, then looked beyond him. There was an audible gasp.

  He stood back, an initial foreboding quickly replaced by a sense of exhilaration in what would inevitably be a dangerous moment.

  ‘Come in, Frau Eberhardt,’ he pronounced her name with added formal emphasis. ‘I have a guest as you can see.’

  ‘So this is where you are,’ she addressed only Anna.

  ‘This is where we both are.’

  Johannes could only admire the younger one’s courage. There was not a trace of guilt on Anna’s animated features.

  ‘And what may I ask are you doing here alone?’

  ‘I’m not alone,’ Anna smiled, ‘as you can see.’ She almost skipped with delight at her own impudence as she came towards her sister. ‘I hoped Johannes might paint me. A wedding present for Bruno. Don’t you think it’s a lovely idea?’

  Johannes chuckled. The girl had flair. He had to give her that. ‘I have told Anna, Herr Adler might not think it appropriate.’

  Bettina scrutinized them both. ‘I don’t think it’s appropriate. What can you be thinking of Anna?’

  The girl shrugged and then said with a petulance, the reality of which he couldn’t be quite sure, ‘But you’re sitting for him, aren’t you.’

  ‘Certainly not. In any case it would hardly be the same.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Anna held out that firm little hand of hers. ‘I guess we have to go. Goodbye Johannes.’

  Bettina’s gaze as she approached him covered him with contempt. He had the distinct sense that he might have lost her. And he didn’t want that. No. She was too fine. He squeezed the hand she gave him. ‘Anna has reason, you know, to suspect you might be sitting for me. I’ve done a little sketch. You might want to see it.’ He said it as a last resort. He never showed his work, unless it was finished to his satisfaction.

  He felt her stiffen with that nervousness which also signalled her arousal. But she cut him.<
br />
  ‘Another time, perhaps.’

  He bowed uncharacteristically. ‘Perhaps when I come back then. I’m away for a few days. An exhibition opening in Vienna.’

  There was momentary confusion in Bettina’s face. Then she caught herself. ‘Perhaps. Come Anna. The carriage is waiting.’

  ‘Vienna?’ Anna held back, ‘Oh do come and call on us,’ she beamed him a parting smile.

  Johannes, gazing after the two sisters, wished that he could invisibly perch between them and listen to the dialogue which would ensue. He smiled to himself, had the sudden and now rare urge to write. A little story about two women. It tickled his fancy.

  But he set the wish aside as a whim, a mere indulgence. Instead, as if he had suddenly been jolted by an electric current, he picked up a sketch pad and with thick, rough strokes mapped out an idea for a painting: two women wandering in opposite directions, lost in a wood where bare trees were just curling into bud. For the time being, he utterly forgot their living incarnations.

  Chapter Three

  Bruno Adler had long imagined for himself a triumphant social moment exactly like this one.

  A gracefully arched rococo hall resonant with the sound of violins, its gilded mirrors lit by a bevy of crystal chandeliers. Women swirling in clouds of silk and satin and tulle, their smiling faces arched towards the immaculate men who held them in their arms - but turning, when they saw him, to deepen their smiles and gesture their appreciation. The dowagers in heavy velvet keeping the waltzes time with their ornate fans, nodding their approval as he passed the stiff chairs on which they rested their bulk. The cream of Viennese society, all bows and charm and courtesy. And all put in motion by him. For him, because he had made his way into the inner sanctum. Because he had married the daughter of Count von Leinsdorf. Anna von Leinsdorf, from today, Anna Adler.

  He looked at her now twirling in the arms of a young uniformed lieutenant, the creamy white train of her dress of old lace in her gloved hand, her eyes sparkling with the animation of the dance. So beautiful, like a porcelain figure fashioned by a master craftsman. His palms grew moist, but he stopped the urge to break in on them, to put his arm round her. There would be time, plenty of time now. She was his.