The English Girl

by Margaret Leroy

  On a narrow path that winds through a tangle of tropical trees, he pulls me to him. He kisses me; then he starts to unbutton my blouse.

  ‘Harri – someone might see…’

  ‘There’s nobody else around,’ he says. ‘We could do anything here.’

  A thin heat moves over my skin.

  There, where the orchids open their purple throats, he slides his hands inside my clothes. I move my hand against his erection, thinking how daring we are. Then not thinking any more.

  I hadn’t known that a woman could feel a hunger like this.

  Another day, he takes me to a cemetery off Leberstrasse. This is an essential pilgrimage for a musician, he says: the place of Mozart’s burial. We walk between crumbling headstones, which are overgrown with lilac bushes. In spring, when the lilacs blossom, the air must be swollen with scent.

  He shows me the site of the paupers’ grave where Mozart’s body was thrown. It’s twilight, and a nightingale is singing, loud in the stillness; you can hear all the effortless loveliness of the music that pours from its throat.

  ‘It’s so sad,’ I say, ‘to think of Mozart thrown in an unmarked grave. You feel – I don’t know – that the death should be fitting, that it should reflect the life. That there should be a sense of completion. But often there isn’t, I suppose.’

  ‘Mostly there isn’t,’ he says. ‘We want to make a life into a story. But often it isn’t like that…’

  He looks sad. I wonder if he is thinking of his father.

  There are many crypts and cemeteries in Vienna, he tells me, as we travel home. Some of them lie directly beneath the city itself; this whole splendid city is built above the dwellings of the dead – crypts, plague pits, burial vaults. The Habsburgs, he tells me, are buried beneath the Kapuzinerkirche – well, parts of them are there, at least: their hearts are in silver containers in the Augustinerkirche, and their intestines in copper urns beneath the Stephansdom. This sounds rather gruesome to me. And under the Michaelerkirche, he tells me, there are corpses in half-open coffins; you can still see their jewelled rings and the rich, dull embroidery on their clothes; and the floor level there has been raised by the dust from other mouldering bodies.

  I shiver. ‘That sounds so creepy.’

  He grins. I can tell he enjoys this – making me shudder.

  I think of all the things that lie beneath Vienna – the catacombs, crypts, sewers. A world that’s kept concealed by just a foot of earth and stones. Such a thin membrane between the daylight world and what’s hidden – the airy streets where we walk, and the things that lie beneath: bones, excrement, dead people. All the things we strive to keep buried.

  The weather is still gorgeous – summer clinging to autumn’s skirts – and the roses are still blooming in the Volksgarten. Their colours dazzle – red as the mouth of a glamorous woman, and salmon pink, and saffron. He takes photos of me on his Leica camera, standing in front of the flowers. He gives me lots of instructions.

  ‘Turn your head a little – look over there, at the fountain … There, that’s perfect … You look wonderful just like that – the way the sun catches your hair…’

  Afterwards, we have coffee at the Café Frauenhuber.

  A woman comes rapidly up to our table. She’s wearing a clingy dress of shantung silk that is really very low-cut. She’s flushed, a little agitated.

  Harri gets to his feet politely.

  ‘Please excuse me…’ The woman speaks in heavily accented German: I think she’s probably French. She has a smell like a sweet shop. ‘I may have left my handbag here. May I…?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he says.

  As she bends, leans forward, to look beneath our table, you can see the deep valley between her breasts. I think of the marble nymph at Schönbrunn, who looked so demure but whose nipples were pushing through the white folds of her clothes, hard and clear as pebbles. Harri is staring.

  The woman’s handbag isn’t there. She straightens up.

  ‘I’m so sorry to have disturbed you,’ she says.

  ‘Not at all,’ says Harri.

  I see how his eyes follow her as she walks away.

  I know what any clever woman would say. Goodness, she was lovely. And what a wonderful figure she had … Defusing it. But I can’t.

  ‘You liked her.’ My voice is ugly, accusing.

  He shakes his head.

  ‘No, Stella.’

  I bite my lip. I try to make myself stop.

  ‘Yes, you did. I could tell.’

  He shrugs slightly.

  ‘Well, maybe – just a little bit. Stella, you know how men are. We look at women. That’s how we’re made,’ he tells me.

  ‘You could at least try to control that when you’re with me,’ I say.

  My voice is harsh. I sound stern, schoolmistressy.

  ‘It’s just a transient thing. It’s not important.’ He sounds a little exasperated. ‘I’d have completely forgotten by now – if only we weren’t having this conversation,’ he says.

  I clamp my lips together. If I said something, it would be horrible. I swallow down the dangerous words that rise in me like bile.

  I finish my coffee, which suddenly tastes bitter.

  As we leave the café, he wraps his arm around me. I’m trying to hold myself rigid, but I feel how my body responds to him, as always – softening, warm, fluid.

  He ruffles my hair.

  ‘I’m sorry I upset you,’ he says. ‘It’s you I love, Stella. You know that, how much I love you. You really don’t need to torment yourself with these thoughts.’

  It’s the way he says torment. Almost as though he knows the things I can think in the dark of my room. The way they torture me.

  My jealousy starts to seep away.

  ‘I can get so possessive,’ I tell him. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He pushes the hair from my face.

  ‘You don’t need to say sorry for being possessive,’ he says. ‘I love being possessed by you. But I hate to think of you being troubled by these thoughts, when there’s no need to be…’

  We pass a florist’s, which has buckets of flowers out on the pavement. There are dahlias, asters, velvet-faced sunflowers, their colours so dense you feel, if you touched them, the stain might come off on your hand.

  ‘Wait here,’ he says. ‘Just here on the pavement. Don’t move.’

  He rushes into the shop, comes out with flowers for me – carnations, wrapped in white tissue paper.

  I’m charmed by his impulsiveness.

  ‘Thank you.’

  I press the flowers to my face, breathe in their scent of cloves. We walk on through the lengthening shadows.

  But it isn’t over quite yet, in my mind.

  ‘Can I ask you one thing?’

  He nods, but he has a wary look.

  ‘Do you ever…’ I know it would be better not to say this. Much better. But I can’t stop myself. ‘Do you ever think of other women when we’re – you know, when we make love?’

  He puts his hands on my shoulders, turns me round to face him.

  ‘With you in my bed? Why on earth would I do that? Do you have any idea how much I want you? How much I love you?’ he says.

  And in that moment, I do know. In my heart of hearts, I know he loves me.

  On a golden October afternoon, we take a tram to the Vienna Woods, and climb the Kahlenberg, Vienna’s tame mountain. It’s a stiff climb, and my legs are aching when we get to the top. It’s a wonderful clear day, the air pristine as spring-water. He shows me the Alps – far away to the south, on the rim of the world, blue as woodsmoke; you can just make out the patches of glittery snow on their peaks. He tells me how the ancient roads to Styria, Carynthia and Italy all lead in that direction. I hear these names with delight – they sound like poems to me.

  Then he points to the east, where the brown lowlands stretch towards Hungary. I remember what I learned from the atlas, which I studied before I came here. How Vienna is at the crossroads of Europe, the p
lace where east meets west. I think of Janika, whose village is there, far far off in the unguessable distance, where everything blurs to the misty grey-blue of rosemary flowers. The Hungarians, Harri tells me, have brought many good things to Vienna – fat cattle, paprika, syncopation, strong wines. Bikáver, that the English call Bull’s Blood. The golden wines of Tokaj, which Janika told me about. Médoc Noir – rich, dark red, and sweet, coating your tongue black.

  And he tells me about the hoards of other invaders or immigrants who have come here. About the Turks, who were forever attempting to conquer Vienna. About the many Jews who came to Vienna from eastern Europe, at the end of the nineteenth century. How they came from Galicia, driven out by pogroms – which I hear about with horror, knowing nothing about them – or from small villages in Bohemia and Moravia, the shtetls, where they lived in terrible poverty. How when they arrived here, they spoke Yiddish, and the men all wore caftans and had long curly hair.

  ‘Like my grandfather,’ he says. ‘When he first came to Vienna he used to sell second-hand clothes.’

  I put my arm around him, sensing a sadness in him.

  I try to picture it all – these great movements of men and women across this shimmering landscape, history moving like wind through cornfields. Thinking of wave after wave of people breaking over Vienna. I have a sense of the smallness of people, of our insignificance. How transitory our life is. How fragile we are.

  22

  Marthe is putting lilies into a vase. The flowers are palest pink, the petals thick as vellum, with a smudge of pollen the colour of rust in their throats. She’s arranging and rearranging, trying to get them just right.

  ‘I wanted to let you know, my dear. There’ll be a meeting here tonight. Rainer has some people coming.’

  ‘A meeting? What kind of meeting, Marthe?’

  She frowns slightly. I can tell from her expression that she’s surprised I asked. Perhaps I wasn’t quite polite.

  ‘Goodness. You and your questions, Stella!’ For a moment, she sounds like my mother. ‘They’re just some men he knows. They have some very important things to discuss. They’ll be meeting here in the drawing room, at eight o’clock,’ she says.

  This tells me nothing, just makes me more curious.

  A delicious smell wafts through the apartment – a scent of spices and fruit. I go to the kitchen.

  Janika is stirring the pot on the stove.

  ‘What are you making, Janika? That smells so good,’ I say.

  ‘It’s the plum compôte for Kaiserschmarrn. That’s one of our Viennese desserts – rather like French pancakes,’ she says.

  ‘What makes it smell so wonderful?’

  ‘I put in a little spice,’ she says. ‘Cinnamon, cloves and aniseed and ginger. And one of the pits from a plum stone, to give an almond flavour.’

  I go to look in the pot. The plums have turned a luscious ruby-red colour.

  ‘Mmm … I’m really looking forward to dinner tonight.’

  But when I turn to her, I see the speck of doubt that floats in her eye.

  ‘I’m sorry, Fräulein Stella. I’m afraid the Kaiserschmarrn is for the meeting,’ she says. ‘It’s Herr Krause’s favourite. But if you like, I could put a little piece aside for you.’

  ‘Thank you. That would be so lovely of you, Janika.’

  The smell of stewing fruit wraps around us. I breathe in the rich, spicy scent.

  We have dinner early, with no Kaiserschmarrn. Rainer joins us, but seems preoccupied.

  After dinner, I hear cars drawing up in the street, the door to the apartment opening, murmured greetings. Later, going to the bathroom, I pass the drawing-room door. I can hear men talking, but I can’t make out their words. I linger for a moment. They’re speaking softly, yet their voices sound somehow urgent to me; they interrupt one another; there’s an unending rhythm of talk. And there’s something else I notice about these overheard voices. I have some sense of what men are like together – how they relax as they rarely will in the company of women; how they laugh more loudly, how they laugh at different things. But there’s no laughter from the drawing room.

  I imagine Marthe finding me here: how she might scold me. But I listen a moment longer, trying to hear what they’re talking about.

  Marthe is in the dining room, a little frown etched in her forehead. She has two trays, with plates and forks. She’s serving the Kaiserschmarrn. They’re like torn-up pancakes, dusted with icing sugar, and she puts a spoonful of glossy plum compôte onto each plate. It all looks so delicious and my mouth fills with water. Marthe straightens things on the tray, her fingers fluttering like trapped insects. Everything has to be perfect. I wonder why she doesn’t give this task to Janika.

  ‘You look so busy, Marthe. Can’t Janika help you?’ I ask her.

  ‘I’ve given Janika the evening off,’ she tells me.

  This seems an odd thing to do, when there’s this important meeting.

  ‘Perhaps I could give you a hand. I could take in one of the trays.’

  ‘Thank you, Stella. I’d be so grateful.’

  She takes one tray, and I follow with the other. She knocks at the door of the drawing room and pushes it open. I hear the tail end of a sentence – someone talking about the danger of intellectualism. I don’t know what this means. The talking stops as we enter.

  The men are seated in a circle. There are ten of them, and Rainer. I notice at once that there is an intensity to them, a veiled excitement: not one of them is leaning back in his chair. The air is blue with smoke, and dense with warm male smells – of ambergris, sweat, leather, and the luxurious scent of cigars.

  Rainer nods briefly at Marthe, and all the men say thank you politely as we hand round the dessert. Otherwise they say nothing. It’s a moment of suspended animation – a tableau from a drama that will continue the instant we close the door. Rainer doesn’t introduce me, so they probably think I’m the maid, and they scarcely seem to notice me; there are no appraising glances. Yet in spite of this, I sense a kind of seductiveness in the room – a thrill of secret purpose.

  I follow Marthe back into the hallway, close the door.

  ‘What’s the meeting about, Marthe?’

  ‘Male talk. They put the world to rights,’ she says.

  ‘Is it to do with Rainer’s work in the civil service?’ I ask her.

  ‘I think it is, yes, Stella.’

  She’s like water trickling through my hands – there’s nothing to hold onto.

  ‘Do they talk about politics and running the country?’ I say.

  ‘I don’t know exactly,’ she tells me.

  She makes a slight gesture, as though to show how little she knows. The shadows of her fingers flicker over the wall behind her. I think of a game children play with a candle, where you make shadow shapes with your hands – a wolf, the mouth of a crocodile. Something predatory.

  ‘But surely he would have told you what the meeting was for?’

  Her eyes widen, as though I have said something shocking.

  ‘Well, not in detail, Stella.’ Her voice is brisk. ‘Why would he? He understands these things so much better than I ever could do,’ she says.

  I notice a little pulse that flickers under her eye.

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true, Marthe.’

  ‘You see, Stella – I really don’t think we women are meant to examine these things. Women aren’t meant to be political. That would rob us of our dignity. We have our own God-given sphere,’ she says.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Without women, the world wouldn’t carry on turning,’ she says. ‘They need us – to run the house, to put food on the table. Where would they be without us?’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ I say vaguely. Trying to be conciliatory: I know I’ve spoken out of turn.

  But I’m rather shocked. How can she say this? It’s 1937: women are allowed to think for themselves. Why doesn’t she want to know what’s happening in her drawing room?

  ‘
I don’t approve of women doing men’s work, Stella,’ she says.

  She speaks with finality, as though it is all decided. But I notice the blotches that come in her cheeks, as red as lily pollen.

  She turns, and goes to the bathroom. Through the door, I can hear how she washes and washes her hands.

  I lie in bed, but sleep won’t come. I think about Marthe. I wish she wouldn’t just acquiesce to Rainer. I’m sorry for her – but I don’t quite respect her. Sometimes I feel that she and Rainer have little connection at all. That Rainer needs a different kind of wife – someone stronger, more articulate, more sure of her opinions. Someone able to speak his language, to enter his world. A modern woman.

  I lie for a long time, sleepless. I stare up at the ivory harp of reflected light on my ceiling, at the shifting patterns that spider over the walls where the street lights shine through my thin curtains. I start to see shapes in the darkness – faces, grasping fingers. I remember how as a child I was scared of a crack in my wall, always afraid it might suddenly open and something start to ooze out. I couldn’t have named what I feared – in my mind I called it the Thing: something shapeless, formless; appalling. I hear the clock of the Piaristenkirche chiming one o’clock.

  At last I hear the men leave – their quiet farewells at the door; silence as they go downstairs; then their footsteps on the pavement as they walk to their waiting cars. Their footsteps are clear, percussive, sounding too loud in the hush of the night. People don’t stay up late in Vienna; it seems that only these men are awake, while everyone and everything is fast asleep around them. The engines start up, the cars move off, their sound is swallowed up by the silence, and then there’s just the vast quiet of Vienna at night – all around, the city slumbering like a castle in a fairytale, blown about with thistledown, spellbound and unaware.