Dreams of Innocence

by Lisa Appignanesi

  ‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’

  He gazed down at her pert face uncomprehendingly.

  ‘It’s our anniversary,’ she laughed, snuggling her face into his waist.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘How inconsiderate of me.’

  ‘Silly Bertie.’ She pounded his bare chest, ‘But still a handsome man, after all these years.’ She began to kiss him, quick little biting kisses, all along the length of him until he moaned with the pleasure of it, wanting her so much it shamed him. She lifted a leg astride him, touched herself, rubbed, rubbed, her face a mask of lewdness. Then she took his penis in her hands, began to hum, stroking to the rhythm of her hum, her eyes glinting, wicked. ‘Brown-eyed Bertie…’ She let the words shape themselves in his own mind. He sat up abruptly, responding unthinkingly to her attack, taking her loosened hair in his hands, tugging, tugging, until her eyes glowed with tears and she was down, down beneath him. ‘Yes, yes, Bertie’ she whispered. ‘Put it in. It’s a red letter day. Now, now.’

  He plunged inside her savagely, punishing, rubbing out the melody, pressing again and again. ‘Brown-eyed Bertie, it makes him steam,’ she writhed beneath him, brought his mouth down to her nipples, wanting him to bite. She dug her nails into his back, finding the point just there between his buttocks, so that when he came to her cries, her song, he felt utterly emptied out, devoid of worries, blissfully spent.

  He left her asleep, her body spread wantonly over the bedclothes, but her face in repose was strangely innocent. Bruno looked away, suddenly hating himself. He would send her flowers tomorrow, dozens of roses, put a little extra in the account. For a moment he wondered how she would spend the day, but no that was nothing to do with him. With a feeling halfway between disgust and desire, he put her firmly out of his mind.

  At the apartment in Alleegasse, he let himself in quietly, poured a drink. He felt wide awake. He would work, read through one of the reports from the Lemberg factory in Galicia. He was worried about the progress of things there. There had been a strike, nothing serious, part nationalist protest. But he preferred his workers to be content. He thought for a moment again of Lotte, then, with a sigh, picked up his briefcase.

  As he walked down the corridor to his study, he was startled to see a light glimmering from beneath a door. Anna’s room. Strange. They must have forgotten to turn it off after the examination. Yes, that had been today. He should have telephoned her. He felt guilt rise painfully inside him. Poor little Anna to be subjected to such things.

  He opened the door. She was there. She must have been too tired to return home. He gazed at her for a moment in the soft lamplight, the shining hair spread out on the pillow, that pure golden face, the arm curved softly over the duvet. How beautiful she was. For a moment, as he watched her utter stillness, his pulse quickened. But then she moved, murmured something, seemed troubled. The quickening died away. He stroked her hair tenderly. Poor little Anna, poor little wife, to be subjected to all this. Perhaps - the thought suddenly presented itself to him - perhaps he didn’t really want the children. With a shudder, he remembered his first wife, the pain, the terrible awesome sight of that tiny blue creature.

  He turned away from her, not wanting to contaminate her with that vision. Softly, fearfully, he stole from the room.

  Anna woke early, thrilled to find Bruno ensconced at the breakfast table, his head buried in the newspaper. She kissed him daringly on the hair. ‘Surprise, I’m here.’

  Bruno smiled at her. ‘I know. I paid you a little visit last night.’ He looked at her questioningly.

  ‘I went to the opera.’ She misinterpreted his gaze. ‘To treat myself. On Frau Hofer’s invitation,’ she babbled gaily recounting the evening. ‘We must go more often Bruno.’

  He took it as a criticism, was stiff in his reply. ‘Of course, my dear. If that’s what you’d like. When there’s time. Which reminds me, there’s a note in the post again from your Aunt. She insists that we come on Friday, particularly you.’

  ‘Why not?’ Anna, having originally refused the invitation, now acquiesced quickly. ‘And I…we might just as well stay on here until then, mightn’t we? I’m so enjoying being here.’

  Her tawny eyes were brighter than he had seen them in months.

  ‘Of course, my dear, whatever you choose.’

  ‘Oh good,’ she clapped her hands in a wave of exuberance.

  How easy it was to make her happy, Bruno thought. But he had to ask her. He broached it delicately, ‘And was there anything else yesterday?’ he sipped the bitter-sweet coffee.

  ‘The doctor, you mean?’ she laughed again, utterly untroubled. ‘He pronounced me perfect.’

  ‘Which you are,’ Bruno was quick to confirm the verdict. ‘Altogether perfect. But…’

  She made a little moue, ‘But he said he would try to speak to you, said you were a man who was always in a hurry.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bruno allowed himself a chortle. ‘In too much of a hurry. It’s my ripe age, Anna. So much riper than yours.’

  Their eyes met. Of course, Anna thought, she had never considered it before. His impatience had to do with his age. How stupid of her not to realise.

  In that bright look, Bruno shivered as if an icy hand had suddenly caressed his spine. No, perhaps he didn’t have much time. He sprang into action to eradicate those thoughts. Work called. His office. He frowned, pulled his watch out of his pocket. ‘I musn’t keep Herr Gellner waiting. Goodbye, my dear.’

  Anna followed him to the door, watched him don the hat, the coat, the butler proffered. ‘You’re very handsome, Bruno,’ she said timidly.

  He had already half-forgotten her, but his face softened as he looked at her now. He paused. ‘Perhaps I’ll arrange for a concert tonight. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  Anna nodded.

  ‘Wear that pale green dress I like so much,’ he smiled, marking a decolletage in the air with his hands. ‘Show everyone how very perfect Frau Adler is.’

  Anna lazed away a little of the morning and then, feeling the hours until evening beginning to weigh on her, she picked up the telephoned without thinking and rang Frau Hofer: Katarina, she schooled herself. She would ask her advice on what exhibitions to see.

  ‘Why come with me instead, if you like.’ Katarina’s voice was warm on the telephone. ‘I was thinking of seeing what some of the students at the Akademie are up to. Let me think, first there’s the Professor. Then… about two say. I’ll collect you.’

  Anna broke out into a merry whistle. That was all that was wrong with her. She was lonely. She needed a friend.

  Never having been to school, she had never had many friends of her own age or otherwise. But somehow, at her Aunt’s she hadn’t noticed, had been happy enough with the routine of governesses and crowded evenings, interspersed by plenty of daydreaming. But now, now that she was married, the daydreaming didn’t seem enough. Katarina would be a friend. Anna felt it.

  The two women, as they paraded through the Akademie’s atelier, had something of a disruptive effect on the young men who were meant to be concentrating on an exercise in still life. Katarina, striking in a tight bodiced rose dress which emphasized her dramatic colour, spoke in low tones, but was not averse to waving her parasol to stress her points. Anna, light on her feet, quick to respond, was as enthralled by her friend as by everything she saw before them. She realized that it was only because of Katarina’s friendship with the master, that they had been permitted entry.

  ‘I wish I could do something like this,’ Anna stopped behind one of the students and waved her hand at the canvas.

  ‘Why, I’m sure you could,’ Katarina grimaced a little. ‘No, no, I’m serious. They’ve started a class for women now. We could ask about it.’

  ‘Bruno would never allow it.’

  Katarina looked at her strangely. ‘My dear, there is nothing husbands will not allow, as long as one knows how to ask.’

  ‘Perhaps for you,’ Anna murmured.

  ‘
For any woman,’ Katarina laughed. ‘I think you and I need to have a little talk. About husbands. About marriage.’

  She said it so lightly, but Anna felt that she had nonetheless been disloyal to Bruno. Back in the carriage, she turned to her new friend. ‘It’s not that Bruno isn’t good to me.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Katarina patted her hand. ‘He’s a fine man. Charming. Clever.’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna murmured.

  ‘It’s just that all marriages go through a few teething problems.’

  ‘All?’ Anna echoed.

  ‘Don’t look so surprised.’ Katarina chortled. ‘Show me ten happy young marriages in all Vienna and I’ll show you ten liars.’

  Anna’s face fell.

  ‘Don’t look so heartbroken, my dear. It all improves, the edges soften. In time.’ She took her hand again, squeezed it, met Anna’s eyes with her own dark ones. ‘But we’ll talk again.’

  They had arrived at Alleegasse.

  ‘Come and see me on a quiet afternoon. Next Wednesday, perhaps?’

  ‘May I?’ Anna gazed up at her new friend. She could already hardly wait.

  Tante Hermine’s salon was as always, as crowded with ferns as it was with people. When Anna and Bruno arrived, the venerable woman was holding court in her great Biedermeier chair, her corseted girth swathed in reams of dark satin.

  She waved them over to her. ‘So you’ve come, good, good. There’s someone here who particularly wanted to meet you.’ She tapped Anna on the shoulder with her fan. ‘Stand up straight, girl,’ she whispered and then in her normal resonant tones, added, ‘An old friend of your mother’s. From England. She married into the Beauchamps.’ Tante Hermine gestured for Bruno to help her up. She moved heavily, refusing his arm, leaning on her cane, guiding them towards the other end of the room.

  Anna, somewhat taken aback, wondered what on earth she would say to the woman. She tried hard in those few moments to remember her mother, but all she could come up with in certainty was the portrait. It had displaced the living presence.

  ‘Why it’s uncanny,’ she heard a tall erect woman with dark hair, murmur in English. She was standing with her back to the window, gazing at her as if she had seen an apparition.

  ‘Lady Charlotte, this is Anna, Lisabeth’s younger daughter.

  ‘You hardly need to tell me,’ the woman kissed her on both cheeks.

  ‘And her husband, Bruno Adler,’ Tante Hermine added as an afterthought.

  ‘A pleasure, Lady Charlotte,’ Bruno was punctilious.

  There were tears in the woman’s eyes. ‘You’ll excuse me, but it’s as if time hadn’t passed, as if Lisabeth were standing here before me.’ She dabbed at her eyes. ‘Come, tell me about yourself.’

  What Anna wanted more than that was to hear stories about her mother. And at last, after her Aunt had left them, after the string quartet had finished its performance, they came. They sat in a little group facing out towards the woods.

  ‘I left for England, just after Lisabeth was married to your father, Lady Charlotte began. ‘We corresponded, of course, but it wasn’t the same. Before that,’ her eyes grew misty, ‘we saw each other almost every day. We lived next door to each other you know. She played the piano, so wonderfully, even then. I sang. We used to fantasize about running away from home and becoming artistes.’

  Anna laughed.

  ‘Yes, yes, we were quite serious, tried dressing up as boys to see if we might pass, found out how much it would cost to travel to Paris.’

  Lady Charlotte smiled. ‘Silly, schoolgirl whims. It never came to anything, of course. Lisabeth got married instead.’ A shadow passed over her face. ‘And then Bettina came along. I left for England, but that’s another story.’

  Anna was touched by the sadness in her face.’Please will you come and visit us while you’re in Vienna.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Lady Charlotte promised, composing her face. ‘And you must both visit me in England. But first, I’m going to Munich. I shall call on Bettina, of course.’

  Leaving her, Anna felt tearful, she didn’t quite know why. She so rarely thought of her mother, her life. At least now she knew that her mother had had one real friend.

  And it was friendship which preoccupied her until Wednesday arrived at last and she rang Katarina’s bell.

  Vibrant in a flowing lemon yellow tea gown, Katarina opened the door to her herself. ‘I’ve given Martie the afternoon off, so we can have a proper tete-a-tete.’ The word on her lips took on the sound of high intrigue, so that Anna felt excitement war with her shyness.

  This time Katarina ushered her straight into her study. On the table stood a bowl of pale peach roses surrounded by smooth ceramic coffee cups, biscuits. Katarina poured, motioned Anna towards an arm chair, served coffee, sat opposite her. Her eyes were warm, expectant.

  ‘So, my newly married young lady, tell me all about it.’

  Awkwardness came over Anna. She searched for words, couldn’t find her tongue, finally simply shrugged.

  Katarina’s laugh tinkled musically. ‘It isn’t that bad, is it?’

  ‘No, no,’ Anna murmured. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Well then?’ Katarina paused, put a cigarette in a long golden holder, waited. ‘Perhaps it will prove easier if I tell you about my marriage first?’

  Anna nodded.

  ‘Well, mine is a fine marriage, a typical marriage, let no one say otherwise.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘A perfect social contract. I brought the culture, Hansel brought the money. I run the house, organize the higher things in life, provide society, entertainment. And he pays. A better ordering of things one couldn’t imagine. He is a happy man.’

  ‘I never thought of it like that.’ Anna was lost in her irony. She felt miserable, stumbled for words.

  Katarina leaned forward and took her hands. ‘Everything is simplified, my dear, if you choose to understand marriage for what it is.’

  ‘And the more intimate things?’ she murmured. ‘Where do they come in?’

  ‘Ah, there’s the rub.’ Katarina swung her long legs onto the chaise longue and leaned back. ‘A social contract can’t cover everything.’

  Anna hesitated. ‘You don’t have children?’

  ‘No.’ she faced her again, a little rueful. ‘But luckily for me, Hansel has two boys. They’re already in their twenties. We get along quite well now. And of course it means there’s no pressure on me.’ She looked at Anna expectantly but Anna avoided the question. Instead she asked,

  ‘And love?’

  Katarina burst into laughter. ‘That, my dear, is a very large subject. I love Hansel well enough.’

  ‘But do you…’ Anna gestured vaguely, not knowing quite how to broach the subject.

  ‘Do we have sexual relations?’ Katarina put it for her blatantly.

  She flushed.

  ‘That is really what you want to talk about, isn’t it?’ her voice was soft now.

  Anna turned her eyes away, nodded.

  Katarina paced for a moment. Anna could hear the swish of her dress behind her. Then a cool hand, stroking her hair, gently, soothingly.

  ‘Is it so very bad then?’

  She felt the tears leap to her eyes. The sympathy in that murmuring voice, the caress in her hair, that delicate scent propelled them. Something, some image rose to the cusp of her mind, then vanished.

  ‘It’s… I don’t know how to describe it. I feel so reduced. It’s always so dark and I feel suffocated and…’ She put her hands over her face.

  ‘Poor Anna.’ The hand stroked her hot temple. ‘No pleasure.’

  There was silence for a moment. Then Katarina moved round to face her, lifted her chin, so that Anna had to look at her. Dark eyes examined her, probed. Only after what seemed a very long time, did she speak, and then her voice had a husky ring to it.

  ‘Would you like to learn about pleasure, Anna?’

  Anna hesitated, then nodded, swayed by the voice, uncertain of its intent.

  ‘Come then,’ Kat
arina smiled a different smile, took her hand, led her upstairs. ‘This is to be just between us. But I think, I have a sense, that a little lesson in pleasure won’t go amiss.’

  ‘My bedroom.’ Katarina opened a door. ‘Look around, make yourself comfortable.’

  Anna looked, saw a bed covered with a coral spread, a vast mirror which reflected another Klimt, its lavish central figure decked out like some ceremonial peacock, a chaise longue covered in striped satin. She perched on it.

  Katarina walked over to her boudoir, dabbed a little perfume behind her ears. Then slowly, she unpinned her thick dark hair, and began to brush it rhythmically.

  Anna watched, mesmerized by her movements.

  Katarina caught her gaze in the mirror, chuckled throatily. ‘The first part of the lesson, Anna, consists in seeing just how very beautiful we are.’ She pulled her up and positioned her in front of the mirror. ‘You’ll tell me if I do anything that displeases you,’ she murmured.

  Slowly, with intense care, she began to unclasp the many hooks and buttons of Anna’s dress. The air around them grew still, expectant, broken only by the sound of Anna’s sudden intake of breath as cool fingers found bared skin. The dress fell to the floor in a heap.

  Katarina smiled dreamily, busying herself with Anna’s bodice, smoothing the lace, inadvertently touching her breast. Anna stepped back.

  ‘No more?’ There was a challenge in Katarina’s dark eyes.

  Anna didn’t answer, waited, unsure, wanting that tingle again, that unknown leap of her flesh, not wanting it.

  Katarina took her hands, ‘You do it. Watch,’ she whispered. Standing next to her, her eyes on Anna’s in the mirror, she shed her tea gown in one swift gesture. Beneath, she was wearing only a silk chemise and Anna could see the outline of her long legs, the full breasts. She lifted her hands to them, moved fingers in a slow circular motion. Her back arched, her lips curled into a smile. ‘Don’t be shy, little Anna. Here, I’ll help you.’

  Quickly she loosened Anna’s stays, folded her arms round her so that her hands encircled her breasts, pressed, moved. Anna felt a strange tugging sensation in her loins. Without thinking, she covered Katarina’s hands with her own, squeezed them closer.