The Novel in the Viola

by Natasha Solomons

  ‘Fraulein? Another drink?’

  I looked down at the full glass in my hand. ‘No. Thank you. I’m fine. All topped up.’

  A flicker of confusion showed on the man’s face – clearly I had summoned him for my amusement. I flushed, and muttering some apology hurried out of the drawing room. I lingered in the hallway, listening to the snatches of chatter floating from the next room. ‘Max Reinhardt is to leave for New York next week, I hear . . . Oh? I thought it was London.’

  I closed my eyes and fought against the impulse to stick my fingers in my ears. The kitchen door was firmly shut but emanating from it was a series of clatters and bangs and some of Hildegard’s more colourful curses. No one, not Rudolph Valentino, not Moses himself, could have persuaded me to enter the kitchen at that moment.

  From my vantage point, I saw Margot and Robert whispering in the corner, hand in hand. I had it on good authority that flirting with one’s spouse in public was the depth of ill manners (with someone else’s husband it was perfectly fine, of course) but once again, Anna informed me that within the first year of marriage it was quite acceptable. I hoped Margot had written their first anniversary in her diary along with a note to ‘stop flirting with Robert’. She would be in America by then, and with something like regret I realised I would not be able to tell her to behave. I must write and remind her. Although, I mused, it was possible Americans had different rules, and I wondered if I ought to point this out to her. At that moment, I was feeling charitable towards my sister. While at most parties I watched as the men swarmed around Margot and Anna, tonight I had caught little Jan Tibor surreptitiously glancing at my bosom, and I felt every bit as sophisticated as the others. In the darkness of the hall I puffed out my chest and fluttered my eyelashes, imagining myself irresistible, a dark-haired Marlene Dietrich.

  ‘Darling, don’t do that,’ said Anna, appearing beside me. ‘The seams might pop.’

  I sighed and deflated. My pink sheath dress had once belonged to Anna, and although Hildegard had let out the material as much as she could, it still pinched.

  ‘It looks lovely on you,’ said Anna, suddenly conscious that she may have wounded my feelings. ‘You must take it with you.’

  I snorted. ‘For washing dishes in? Or for dusting?’

  Anna changed the subject. ‘Do you want to ring the bell for dinner?’

  The bell was a tiny silver ornament, once belonging to my grandmother, and tinkled a ‘C’ sharp according to Margot, who had perfect pitch. As a child, it had been a great treat to put on my party frock, stay up late and ring the bell for dinner. I would stand beside the dining room door, solemnly allowing myself to be kissed good night by the guests as they filed in for dinner. Tonight, as I rang the bell, I saw all those parties flickering before me, and an endless train of people walking past me, like a circular frieze going round and round the room, never stopping. They chattered loudly, faces pink with alcohol, all obeying Anna’s dictate of gaiety.

  My family was not religious in the slightest. When we were children, Anna wanted Margot and me to understand a little of our heritage and at bedtime told us stories from the Torah alongside tales of ‘Peter and the Wolf’ and ‘Mozart and Constanze’. In Anna’s hands, Eve was imbued with the glamour of Greta Garbo, and we pictured her lounging in the Garden of Eden, a snake draped tantalisingly around her neck, a besotted Adam (played by Clark Gable) kneeling at her feet. The Bible stories had the wild and unlikely plots of operas and Margot and I devoured them with enthusiasm, mingling the genres seamlessly in our imaginations. Eve tempts Adam with Carmen’s arias and the voice of God sounded very much like The Barber of Seville. If anyone had asked Anna to choose between God and music there would have been no contest, and I suspected that Julian was an atheist. We never went to the handsome brick synagogue in Leopoldstadt, we ate schnitzel in non-kosher restaurants, celebrated Christmas rather than Chanukah and were proud to be amongst the new class of bourgeois Austrians. We were Viennese-Jews but, up till now, the Viennese part always came first. Even this year, when Anna decided we would celebrate Passover, it had to be a party with Margot in her wedding sapphires and me wearing Anna’s pearls.

  The long dining table was covered with a white monogrammed cloth, the plates were gold-edged Meissen and Hildegard had polished the remaining family silver to a gleam. Candles flickered on every surface, a black rose and narcissi posy (rose for love, black for sorrow and narcissi for hope) rested on each lady’s side plate, and a silver yarmulke on each gentleman’s. Anna insisted that the large electric lamp be left off and candles provide the only light. I knew that it was only partly for the atmosphere of enchantment that candle glow casts, and more practically to hide the gaps on the dining room walls where the good paintings used to hang. The family portraits remained: the one of me aged eleven in my flimsy muslin dress, hair close-cropped, and the images of the sour-faced, thin-lipped great-grandparents with their lace caps, as well as great-great-aunt Sophie oddly pictured among green fields and a wide blue sky – Sophie had been agoraphobic, infamously refusing to leave her rancid apartment for forty years, but the portrait lied, re-casting her as some sort of nature-loving cloudspotter. My favourite was the painting of Anna as Verdi’s Violetta in the moments before her death, barefoot and clad in a translucent nightgown (which had fascinated and outraged the critics in equal measure), her eyes beseeching you wherever you went. I used to hide beneath the dining room table to escape her gaze, but when I emerged after an hour or more, she was always waiting, reproaching me. The other paintings had gone, but they left reminders – the sun-bleached wallpaper marked with rectangular stains. I missed most the one of the bustling Parisian street in the drizzle; ladies hurried along a tree-lined boulevard, while men in top hats clutched black umbrellas. The shop-fronts were red and blue and the ladies pink-cheeked. I had never been to Paris but this had been my window. I shrugged – it shouldn’t matter now whether the paintings were here, since I would not see them. But when leaving home one always likes to think of it as it ought to be, and as it was before, perfect and unchanging. Now, when I think of our apartment, I restore each picture to its proper place: Paris opposite the painting of breakfast on the balcony (purchased by Julian as a present for Anna on their honeymoon). I have to remind myself that the pictures had vanished before that last night, and then, with a blink, the walls are empty once again.

  The chairs scraped on the parquet floor as the men helped the ladies into their places, gowns catching on chair legs and under feet, so that the hum of chatter rippled with apologies. We all peered round the table with interest, hoping that ours would be the amusing end of the party and the others did not have better dinner companions. Herr Finkelstein adjusted his yarmulke, so it neatly covered the bald disc on his head. The men alternated between the ladies, stark in their black and white, ensuring that none of the women’s rainbow dresses clashed beside one another. Anna and Julian sat at opposite heads of the table. They exchanged a look and Anna rang the silver bell once more. Instantly the diners fell silent and Julian rose to his feet.

  ‘Welcome, my friends. This night is indeed different from all other nights. In the morning my younger daughter, Elise, leaves for England. And in another few weeks, Margot and her husband Robert, depart for America.’

  The guests smiled at Margot and then at me, with envy or pity I could not tell. Julian held up his hand and the hum of conversation dulled once again. He was pale, and even in the half-light I could see beads of perspiration on his brow.

  ‘But the truth is, my friends, we already live in exile. We are no longer citizens in our own country. And it is better to be exiled amongst strangers than at home.’

  Abruptly he sat down, and wiped his forehead with his napkin.

  ‘Darling?’ said Anna, from the other end of the long table, trying to keep the note of anxiety from her voice.

  Julian stared at her for a second, and then recollecting himself, stood up once more, and opened the Haggadah. It was strange – until t
his year we had always hurried through the Passover Seder. It had become a kind of game, seeing how fast we could race to the end, reading quickly, skipping passages so that we could reach Hildegard’s dinner in record time, preferably before she was even ready to serve it, causing her to puff and grumble. This night we paused and, by tacit agreement, read every word. Perhaps the God-fearing among us believed in the prayers and hoped that due to their diligence, He would take pity. I did not believe this, but as I listened to stout Herr Finkelstein singing the Hebrew, double chins trembling with fervour, I was torn between scorn at his religious faith (I was Julian’s daughter after all) and a sense of congruity. His words licked around me in the darkness, and in my mind’s eye I saw them shine like the lights of home. I pictured Anna’s Moses, a hero of the big screen (James Stewart, perhaps) leading the Jews into a rose-red dessert and then something older, a glimpse of a story I had always known. As a modern girl, I fumbled with my butter knife, embarrassed by Herr Finkelstein’s chanting. He gazed heavenward, oblivious to the dribble of schmaltz wobbling at the side of his wet lips, and I wanted him to stop, never to stop.

  We murmured the blessings over the cups of wine, and the youngest, Jan Tibor, started the ritual of the four questions: ‘Why is tonight different from all other nights? Why tonight do we eat only matzos?’

  Frau Goldschmidt pushed her reading glasses up her nose and recited the response: ‘Matzos is used during Passover as a symbol of the unleavened bread that the Jews carried with them when they escaped out of Egypt, with no time for their uncooked bread to rise.’

  Margot snorted. ‘A Jewish household with empty cupboards? Not even a loaf of bread? Seems unlikely to me.’

  I kicked her under the table, hard enough to bruise her shin, and I felt a small pulse of satisfaction as she winced.

  ‘Elise. The next question,’ said Julian, in his no-nonsense voice. He held up a sprig of parsley and an eggcup brimming with saltwater.

  I read from the worn book in my lap: ‘Why is it that on all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs, but on this night we eat only maror, bitter herbs?’

  Julian placed his book face down on the table, and looked at me as though I had really asked him a question to which I wished to know the answer. ‘Bitter herbs remind us of the pain of the Jewish slaves, and the petty miseries of our own existence. But they are also a symbol of hope and of better things to come.’

  He did not glance at the Haggadah, and as he continued I realised that the words were his. ‘A man who has experienced great sorrow and then has known its end, wakes each morning feeling the pleasure of sunrise.’

  He took a sip of water and dabbed his mouth. ‘Margot. The next.’

  She stared at him, and then glanced down to her book. ‘Why is it that on all other nights, we don’t dip our herbs at all, but on this night we dip them twice?’

  Julian dipped a sprig of parsley in the pot of sweet charoset and leant across the table to hand it to me. I popped it into my mouth and swallowed the sticky mixture of apples, cinnamon and wine. He bathed a second piece of parsley in the saltwater and gave it to me, watching as I ate. My mouth stung with salt, and I tasted tears and long journeys across the sea.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Enough clouds for a spectacular sunset

  After dinner, Margot and I stole onto the balcony. The rich beef stew had been one of Hildegard’s best; I wanted to cram myself with the taste of home while I still could. Margot tossed a few cushions onto the floor, and we sat side by side, looking at the shaking leaves on the top of the poplar trees.

  ‘You will write, Bean,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I shall try. But I expect to be rather busy with bridge parties, lawn picnics and such.’

  To my surprise, Margot clutched my hand. ‘You must write, Elise. No joking.’

  ‘Fine. But my handwriting’s terrible and I don’t plan on improving it.’

  ‘That’s all right. It will give Robert something else to complain about. And you know how happy that makes him.’

  My litany of faults had provided Robert with another source of interest, and consequently I felt he ought to show a little more gratitude towards me. The balcony doors creaked and Anna stepped out. Margot and I shuffled along to make room for her on our bed of cushions. I kicked off my shoes, which were starting to pinch, and wiggled my toes in the cool night air. Anna had painted my toenails scarlet, and I thought they looked very fetching – it seemed a shame to wear shoes at all.

  ‘You are to take the pearls with you, Elise. Hildegard will sew them into the hem of your dress tonight.’

  ‘No Mama, they’re yours. I have the gold chains if I need money.’

  I reached for Anna’s hand, wishing that she would be quiet. Lights glinted in the apartments across the street, and where the curtains were not drawn we watched a marionette show of silhouettes perform rituals of daily life: maids drew baths or cleared away the supper trays, an elderly lady took three tries to climb into her raised bed, a dog sat in a chair by an open window, and a man all alone and naked except for his hat paced to and fro, hands clasped behind his back. This vantage point had been my and Margot’s favourite for many years, and we had glimpsed countless dramas play out across the street. When we were children we would squabble and scratch at one another’s faces, but dusk produced an inevitable truce, and we would creep out onto the balcony and sit beside one another in companionable silence and watch the show. It seemed almost inconceivable that it could continue without me. I looked down at my beautiful red-painted toes for comfort.

  ‘The pearls are yours,’ said Anna. ‘I gave the sapphires to Margot as a wedding gift and it is right that you should have the pearls.’

  ‘Stop it,’ I snapped. ‘Give them to me in New York.’

  Anna fiddled with the hem of her gown and said nothing.

  ‘Why do you want me to have them now?’ I asked. ‘You’re not going to forget to send for me, are you? How can you forget me? You promised, Anna. You promised.’

  ‘Darling! Calm, please.’ She laughed at my outburst. ‘Of course I won’t forget you. Of all the silliest things.’

  ‘Elise, you’re not easily forgotten,’ said Margot. ‘You’re her daughter, not a pair of gloves.’

  I folded my arms across my chest, shivering in the crisp night air and struggled against the urge to cry. My family did not understand. They might be leaving, but they had each other. Only I was alone. I fretted that they would forget about me, or worse, discover that they liked it better without me.

  From my position on the cushions I edged closer to Margot, greedy for her warmth.

  ‘Oh look,’ she said, pointing at a balcony on the top floor, where a prim, uniformed maid held a curly-haired poodle over the edge of the parapet so it could tinkle. A yellow arc rained down on the pavement below.

  Anna hissed her disapproval. ‘Ach, have you ever seen such laziness!’

  ‘I think it’s highly original, and as such I applaud it,’ I said.

  ‘God help the family you end up with,’ said Margot.

  My retort was cut short, as Julian called us to come inside: ‘Darlings, the photographer is here.’

  I can’t help wondering if perhaps I remember that last night so vividly because of the photograph. We all gathered in the drawing room, the tables pushed back against the wall, chairs laid out in higgledy rows. Lily Roth used her feather fascinator as a pointer to organise us into position, and barked at the gentlemen to extinguish their cigars and cigarettes. Margot and I allowed ourselves to be directed to low stools near Julian and Anna. I still wasn’t wearing any shoes, and hid my bare feet under my long dress. Margot and I huddled conspiratorially, giggling as the elderly ladies fussed and fidgeted and insisted that they be seated with their husbands or sons or nearer the back where their wobbling jowls would be less on display.

  Photographs are so strange; they are always in the present tense, everyone captured in a moment that will never come again. We take them for posterity, and a
s the shutter blinks, we think of the future versions of ourselves, looking back at this event. The photograph I have of the party is one snapped while we were waiting for the official picture to be taken. The flash exploded in a burst of light and caught us unawares. Margot and I sit whispering together, paying scant attention to the others, perhaps laughing at Lily conducting the crowd with her feather or the unnoticed gravy stain on Herr Finkelstein’s white shirt. I only realised when I looked at the picture how alike Margot and I were. Her hair is pale, and mine dark, but our eyes are the same, and except for a slight babyish roundness to my face, we are mirror sisters.

  Jan Tibor watches us from the edge of the crowd. Anna and Julian are side by side, close and yet not quite touching, both watching some forgotten drama that is taking place outside of the frame. Anna wears her arctic fox jacket fastened with a diamond clasp, snow-white fur brushing her throat, silk gown spilling out from underneath. Her brown eyes are uneasy, and brow slightly furrowed. Julian leans towards her, handsome, unsmiling. His legs are crossed, and his left trouser has ridden up, showing a flash of unseemly sock, which I remember as virulent yellow. He disliked wearing black tie or tails, so always sported some small rebellion. By some trick of the photographer, only Anna and Julian are in sharp focus; the rest of us cluster around them, mortals at the feet of the white queen and her black-haired, cross-gartered prince.

  I couldn’t sleep. I knew the moment I closed my eyes it would be morning and time to leave. I kicked off the bedcovers, climbed out of bed and crept into the silent hall. A pair of stray brandy glasses lay discarded on the windowsill at the far end, catching the light as dawn sneaked into the east, peeking between the gaps in the terraces. ‘Busy old fool, go back to bed,’ I grumbled at the sun, and padded into the kitchen, closing the door. Hildegard’s kitchen faced west, so it was comfortingly dark, and night-time still. It was a cramped room, built without regard to the convenience of the chef, but Hildegard was a sorceress when it came to cooking, and an endless stream of delicacies flowed from her lair. She had cleaned away the debris from the party, the wooden tops were scrubbed and leftovers carefully removed to the pantry. I decided upon a midnight – or rather five in the morning – snack and slipped into the larder.