Dreams of Innocence

by Lisa Appignanesi

  He would have given anything to make love to her, to learn the inner recesses of her pleasure, the secret motions which made her what she was. But he had too much respect to force her. And nothing, he sometimes thought dismally, to offer. When she was sitting for him and his desire for her grew too great, he would lope off across the grounds, and run, run until the moment had passed, coming back to her like a chastened schoolboy. He wondered if she had any idea what was going through him. Though he knew, not only from the time she had touched him, but from a hundred other little indications, that his desire was returned. That fuelled his work, making his imagination and his fingers leap in unison with an energy he no longer remembered.

  In the early morning hours of a Friday some twelve days into his stay, Johannes woke from sleep to the sound of rumbling thunder. He looked out of the boathouse’s small window to see lightning forking out of the dark sky. The rain would come pounding down soon, and perhaps if he were lucky would continue at least until mid-afternoon, so that Trübl would not need his services.

  Bright-eyed, Johannes quickly gathered a sackful of colours and brushes, and a large rolled drawing which had been lying in wait. Then, with a bound, he rushed towards the house, depositing his materials in the extension, before running to the shed, where he knew the sacks of plaster had been stored since before the war. Two trips were necessary to cart the materials and the ladder into the house, but he managed it, just as the first drops of rain came pelting down.

  As night receded, he had applied his first coat of plaster to an area just beneath a curving arch.

  By the time Anna came down to breakfast, a stretch of wall was covered in drawing of a reddish brown colour. She looked at him in amazement.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Johannes smiled down at her from the top of his ladder. ‘I had once promised Klaus a fresco and at last, I’m ready to do it. I can’t stop. I have to work while the plaster is wet.’

  She left him only to come back minutes later carrying a bowl of warm milk and some rolls. ‘Breakfast?’

  ‘In a moment.’

  She placed the tray on the table and sat to watch him. The energy of his quick fierce strokes fascinated her, as did the certainty of his movements.

  When he stepped down from the ladder to gulp his breakfast, he asked, ‘Like it? It’s you, you know. You’ll see it in a little while.’

  She watched him for the length of the morning, saw the sinopia take shape, herself stretched out on a grassy slope, flowers wreathing her, her hair growing into the ground. And then Johannes covered over part of the drawing with another thin coat of plaster.

  ‘And now for colour, I should get at least this section finished by tonight,’ He rubbed his shoulders, moved his head round in a circle. ‘Almost as hard as digging,’ he smiled at her. ‘Let’s just hope the weather doesn’t mean the whole thing flakes off by next week.’

  He applied the colour, greens, swirling, almost blue and then brashly yellow, the ripe peachy hues of skin, poppy red flowers, and stark brilliant whites, hawthorn on a late afternoon. After a while, tears leapt into her eyes, she didn’t know why.

  ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she murmured. ‘Just want to check on the grounds.

  The rain had stopped, but the sky still swirled with dark clouds, and the ground sloshed beneath her steps. In a daze, she couldn’t fathom, she fed the goats, brought the horses a fresh bale of hay, and then walked out towards the lake. There she stopped aghast. The tears she had held back now poured down her cheeks. A bolt of lightning had split an old oak. A vast branch, a part of its trunk had toppled through the cluster of hawthorn bushes right into the midst of their secret knoll. It was ravaged now, exposed, like the pale splintered wood of the tree. She touched its bark, shuddered. Slowly she walked back to the house. It was like a sign, she thought. She had been too carefree, too happy.

  She didn’t want to disturb Johannes, but she couldn’t restrain herself from telling him.

  He glanced down at her, ‘I’ll be through in an hour or two. We’ll go and see about it then.’

  ‘Alright,’ she murmured. The tears leapt into her eyes again.

  ‘Anna, Anna,’ he clambered down the ladder, ‘What is it?’ He had never seen such anguish on her face.

  She rushed into his arms, wept, the sobs shaking her frame. He stroked her hair, kissed her tears, murmured over and over again, ‘What is it Anna? Tell me.’ But she was mute. He held her tightly and as he held her, the passion rose in him, so fiercely that he thought it would smother him. He looked into her brimming eyes, ‘I don’t know if I can go on like this much more Anna. I’ll have to go.’ He edged into a corner of the room and turning away from her covered his face with his hands.

  It was then that they both heard it, the sound of a car hooting through the stillness.

  ‘Bruno,’ Anna murmured. Her face white, she rushed away from him and fled to her room.

  Twenty minutes later, she was down in the pretty pastel drawing room. Her face scrubbed, a fresh high collared muslin blouse neatly tucked into her full trim skirt, her hair pinned up, she put her hands out to her husband.

  ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Bruno. I wanted to tidy up for you. We get a little sloppy in our ways with all the work here.’

  ‘You look lovely, Anna. A relief for tired eyes,’ he drew her into his arms, kissed her hair.

  She rested against his solid mass. Bruno, she thought, a bulwark between me and Johannes. She lifted her face to him, examining him. ‘You do look tired, Bruno.’

  He smiled, ‘It’s been a long drive. The rain was dreadful. And the road was littered with soldiers. There seem to be as many of them on leave as at the front,’ he chuckled a little grimly. ‘At one point I had four of them in the car and it didn’t seem right not to drop them where they wanted to go.’

  Anna sat down beside him. ‘Johannes Bahr is on leave too. He was wounded at the front. He’s staying in the boathouse,’ she said it as casually as she could, happy that the words had tripped off her lips without stumbling.

  ‘Oh?’ Bruno leaned back into the sofa. ‘Poor man. Still he’s lucky to be alive. There were more Germans killed in those first months of battle than they like to tell us.’ He stared bleakly into the middle distance. ‘But we don’t want to spoil our few days together by talking about the war,’ he smiled at her. ‘How have you been my little one? You’ve grown even more beautiful I think.’

  Anna laughed. ‘It must be the work.’ She counted on her fingers, ‘Carrots, beats, beans, marrows, potatoes, apples, we’ve harvested them all. But Bruno, how terrible,’ she leapt up, ‘we haven’t even offered you a drink, and you so tired.’

  ‘A Schnapps, my dear, would be very nice,’ he looked after her. Yes, he was tired, he thought, tired to his very marrow. Tired of the endless and probably fruitless attempts to save his remaining factories, tired of the bravado of the war, the emptiness of the patriotic sloganizing of the press, tired of the hatreds. While war raged on the outside, the various nationalities in the Hapsburg Empire raged against each other on the inside. There was a tide of pan-Germanism spreading through the country, with its rhetoric of superiority, purity. And where did that leave him as a Jew? He had once been proud of his native city, whatever its problems. He had thought of it as an international capital, with its mixture of peoples, its lazy tolerance, its fine newspapers, its bubble of art and ideas. But now, two years into this blasted war, and everything was hatred and pettiness.

  He drank down the proffered Schnapps in one mouthful and smiled unseeingly at Anna. Yes, he felt almost too tired for any of it now. He forced himself to focus on her lovely face. Perhaps he should ask her to come back to Vienna with him. She would cheer him. No, he thought, remembering how pinched she had looked in the winter months. That would be too selfish of him.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to have a wash and a rest before dinner, Bruno. Frau Trübl is fluttering round the kitchen like a hen gone mad, not knowing quite what to d
o to welcome you. I should go and help her.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps that would be best,’ he patted her hand, downed a second Schnapps.

  ‘Your room’s all ready. She’s seen to that.’

  Bruno climbed the stairs tiredly. He already felt himself drifting off to sleep.

  The table was set in the formal dining room. Frau Trübl had insisted on that and on the large candelabrum and the best silver. Meanwhile, old Trübl had gone to warn Johannes in the boathouse that they had a guest and that they would be eating punctually at eight. Anna didn’t stop him. Nonetheless, Johannes appeared a little late. She averted her eyes, not certain how to greet him. But Bruno was welcoming. He stretched out his large hand and grasped Johannes’s warmly.

  ‘It must be a relief to be here away from the front. Like a little bit of paradise.’

  Johannes looked at him queerly, ‘Yes, it is that,’ he acknowledged.

  ‘I was sorry to hear from Anna that you had been wounded.’

  ‘Oh,’ Johannes shrugged it off. ‘I fared better than many.’ He glanced at Anna. She was crumbling a roll in her plate, her eyes downcast. The perfect wife. His heart felt as if it were seizing up. But he couldn’t bring himself to hate Adler. He didn’t know whether it was the other man or himself who had changed, or simply the blunting effect of the war, but he felt less hostility than he remembered feeling for him. He was talking about the eastern front, the Austrians now.

  ‘Yes, I’ve just come back from Lemberg. It’s sheer chaos. Did I tell you, my dear?’

  Anna shook her head, her nervousness growing at the very mention of that name.

  ‘Well, as you know the Austrians took it back again from the Russians. And now my factory has been turned into a barracks. You’d think they’d want steel. But then, efficiency was never high on my country’s list of priorities. And it’s true, the place was a shambles and there are only women and old men to do the work now. Nobody wants money. Only food.’ He shook his vast head grimly and threw back half a glass of wine. ‘Still, what was I saying, oh yes, the barracks. Well, the chaos. Half the soldiers can’t understand the officers and vice versa.’ He lowered his voice confidentially, ‘While I was there, a lieutenant shot himself after his ranks had failed to follow orders. He simply couldn’t bear it anymore.’

  Johannes found himself warming to the man’s garrulousness.

  ‘Not like that in the German army, is it?’

  ‘No,’ Johannes agreed. ‘We understand each other perfectly well. When we can hear each other, that is.’

  Bruno laughed, stopped himself, ‘It is important still to be able to joke, isn’t it?’ he looked at them both questioningly. ‘Sometimes, with some of my acquaintances, I find myself laughing alone. And they give me such severe looks.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Johannes laughed with him. They clinked glasses, tossed back the wine.

  Bruno chewed reflectively on what passed for beef. ‘Whatever the outcome of the war, I don’t think the old Empire will last. Perhaps it’s for the best. When it takes twenty-three bureaucrats to process a single tax payment, something has gone seriously wrong, don’t you think?

  Johannes chuckled, nodded.

  ‘And when a country has three million civil servants and spends far more money on its bureaucracy than its army, it shouldn’t really go to war!’ Bruno downed the rest of his wine, poured more for all of them, ‘Still, I’m overstepping myself. Far be it from me to tell my betters what to do.’

  ‘Sometime we’ll have to tell them,’ Johannes sounded a new note.

  ‘Still a revolutionary, eh, Johannes? I may call you that, mightn’t I? God knows, I might even be on your side if this war ever ends.’

  As they chatted, Johannes tried to catch Anna’s eye. He met with no success. She was being resolutely the wife, avoiding him.

  So that was that, he thought. He would leave tomorrow. He felt as if another part of him were dying. Too bad. He would have liked to have finished that fresco.

  With an effort he rose to his feet, ‘I had better get back,’ he said mustering his voice to politeness.

  ‘Let me walk a little of the way with you, Johannes. I need some air. Anna, will you join us?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’m a little tired now,’ her laugh was brittle. ‘We wake so early here.’

  ‘Not tomorrow,’ old Trübl grunted. ‘Tomorrow you are not to get into those trousers. Not with your husband here.’

  Anna flushed, No, of course not. Goodnight,’ she walked slowly from the room, only breaking into a run when she reached the stairs.

  Bruno left Johannes half way to the boathouse and then strolled in the opposite direction. He had drunk too much and talked too much. It wasn’t dignified. But it was happening to him more and more these last months. He kicked the loose gravel on the path. He was being infected by the general madness. Still, this evening had been a pleasure. It was always such a pleasure to be with his darling Anna. And that young Bahr hadn’t turned out to be such a bad fellow, a little surly at times, but then they all had good reason for surliness these day.

  Bruno walked. He wasn’t in the least sleepy now. Perhaps he should go to Anna. No, he would wait a little, until she was asleep. Then he could gaze his fill of her. She grew more beautiful each time he saw her. Then perhaps… but no. There was really no need of that. The idea of a child had ceased to drive him. It was as if the war had eaten up the future, along with his will. Yes, that was it.

  A light drizzle began to fall and Bruno hurried towards the house. He would sit in the library for a while, find a little Schnitzler story of a shop-girl or a de Maupassant to tickle his fancy, something quite removed from the war. He let himself into the library and gazed at the shelves. Simmel, Weber, Bölsche, a host of naturalists. Didn’t his in-laws have any light reading at all? Finally he found a volume of Balzac in French. He eased himself into a leather chair and began. But the words didn’t hold him and when he closed his eyes, the world span. Restlessly he got up. He would go into that oversized extension that Anna so loved and examine Klaus’s rare species. Perhaps they were faring better through this war than he was. Bruno chuckled to himself.

  He opened the large double doors to the room and searched for a light, tripping over something before he found it. A ladder. There was work going on here. He looked at the tins of colour on the floor. Perhaps that Bahr fellow was finishing up what he had left incomplete. Bruno’s eyes travelled up the wall. A mural. Unfinished, that too. He gazed at it and then his fists clenched. Anna. It was Anna.

  He sat down heavily in the nearest chair and stared at the image in disbelief. She was naked, her bosom barer than he had ever seen it, covered only by swirling grass. It was all so vivid, he felt she would move if he touched her. Bruno rubbed his eyes. She must have posed for him, naked, like that.

  Rage flooded through him. He bounded up from his chair, looked more closely. No, there was more to it than that. That face, the throat flung back, the fanning hair, the half-closed eyes. That look of ecstasy. Pain gripped him, clutching at his throat, making him dizzy. That look of ecstasy could only mean one thing. He had seen it, seen it on Lotte’s face. But never, never on his wife’s.

  His wife had coupled with Bahr. Bruno let the thought sink in, paced like a caged animal. The slut. Suddenly, he gripped a tin and threw it violently at the image. Red paint splattered over Anna’s breast, like blood. He watched its progress. A mere slut, he repeated to himself over and over. And he had thought her so pure, so innocent, had never wanted really to touch her, to sully her.

  With a wail which seemed to split him in two, Bruno lumbered up the stairs. How could she? His Anna with another man. His mind was in turmoil as if the very foundations of his life had been shattered and columns were tumbling round him. He could hardly breathe, was blinded by the dust. All he could see was that look of ecstasy on her face. His Anna, his angel, a whore. He slammed his fist on the bannister.

  He would show her, show her how one treated whor
es. He opened the door to her room. Dark. Perhaps she was with him right now, out there in the grass. He would find her, both of them, tear them to shreds. No, no, first he would tear her clothes, those frivolous little bodices, those nightgowns, with which she sheltered herself from him. Shakily, Bruno lit the candle on the nearest table. No, she was here, turning over in the bed, her eyes fluttering open.

  ‘Bruno,’ she stretched her arms out towards him.

  A real slut. She would have anybody. Everybody. Two at once. His breath came in gasps. In a step he was beside her. He slapped her across the face, watched her recoil. But she didn’t make a sound. Yes, she knew her guilt. A guilty whore. He ripped the blankets off the bed and with a savage gesture, split open her nightgown. There they were, the breasts that other man had painted, fondled. Perfect. He saw them through the other man’s eyes, saw the taut stomach, the golden skin. Suddenly he felt himself grow hard, so hard his trousers rubbed harshly against him.

  ‘Bruno, what is it?’

  That voice again, so caressing, but she was trying to hide herself from his gaze, pulling the nightgown round her.

  ‘Slut!’ the word that had been swirling round his head at last found release on his slurring lips. He repeated it again and again as he shed his jacket, his trousers, forced her hand round his jutting penis, gripping it there with his own. The sensation of her fingers round him, so gentle, almost made him swoon. But he didn’t want that, didn’t want that lying gentleness. His hands bit into her shoulders, pressing her down, down on her knees. ‘Take it,’ he groaned, ‘Take it in your lying mouth.’ She bent her head back to look up at him, but he wouldn’t meet those deceitful eyes. ‘Take it.’

  Her hand curled round his penis and then he felt her lips closing round him, so moist, so soft. He moaned. Yes, she knew what to do, the slut. His eyes closed, he pushed against her, heard her sob, felt the lips drawing away. No, not yet. Not yet. She had leapt away from him, up onto the bed. He caught her hands, pulled her down forcing her legs apart. How soft she was, compliant really. A true whore. He thrust into her again and again, painfully, so that the punishing hurt him, covered her breasts with his hands, bit at them, bit hard, found her mouth, probed, probed. The liar. His hands circled her throat. How easy it would be to snap it. But her arms were round him now, pummelling his back, and there was a tremor inside her he had never felt before. And then the pressure rose from his spine, rose, rose, burst through him, making him helpless. With a sob, he heaved into her, pushed, pushed, moaning, ‘Slut, slut.’