The English Girl

by Margaret Leroy

  I feel a surge of nausea, remembering the last time I saw Anneliese. No, I don’t want to bring her. In fact, I never want to see her again.

  But at once I wonder – could I invite Harri? This could be the perfect time to introduce him to them. I think of spending the whole evening dancing with him; of his hand pressing warm on my shoulder blade, to lead me into the waltz.

  ‘Oh. Maybe. Thank you.’

  Harri takes me to the American Bar in Kärntner Durchgang.

  The bar is tiny, dim, intimate, all onyx and black marble, with mirrors everywhere, everything reflected, so the room seems to extend for ever, like something seen in a dream. We order gin martinis.

  I ask about the party, but Harri says he can’t come – he’s arranged to meet up with some friends from the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Stella.’

  ‘So am I. It won’t be the same without you,’ I say.

  I feel a tug of disappointment. Yet mixed in with it, perhaps a thread of relief. After what happened with Anneliese, I’m wary.

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be a good evening,’ he says. ‘People here love a party. They love dancing as they love life. Well, maybe more than life … There’s an extraordinary story about the Prussian War…’

  I sip my cocktail. It’s rather sour, and fragrant with gin, and makes me feel very grown-up.

  ‘First, you’d better remind me who was fighting who,’ I say.

  ‘It was the middle of the last century. The Viennese were fighting the Prussians. The Prussians were advancing, but it was the season for balls. And the Viennese just went on dancing. Even though the advancing Prussians were only two hours’ march away…’

  ‘Oh my goodness.’

  I remember something he told me: People can know things and not know them – both at the same time.

  ‘Well, I hope you have a good time at your party,’ he says. ‘But not too good a time.’ A slight rueful smile. ‘Just don’t go falling in love with some other bastard, all right?’

  He says it lightly. But then he reaches out and cups the side of my face with his hand; his touch feels serious. I feel the thrill in my stomach.

  Now he’s the one who’s jealous, and I rather like this.

  Marthe takes me to Vogel’s to hire our fancy dress outfits. It’s a shadowy shop on Spiegelgasse, with many racks of costumes – lavish gowns for women, trimmed with feathers and gems; and for men, there are uniforms of the old Imperial guard, from the time of Vienna’s greatness, all braid and glamour.

  Herr Vogel greets us. He smells of some syrupy-sweet cologne, and his pale eyes linger on me.

  Lukas is full of yearning.

  ‘Why can’t I dress up, Mama? Why can’t I come to the party?’

  ‘You can when you’re older,’ says Marthe.

  He walks along a row of costumes, and stops at a soldier’s uniform.

  ‘Papa was a soldier, in the Great War,’ he tells me. ‘Wasn’t he, Mama? He fought all our enemies, and he had a very big rifle,’ he says.

  It’s strange to think about the Great War – when Austria was Britain’s enemy. With a slight lurch of the stomach, I think of all the brave British soldiers who died. Of the war memorial in Brockenhurst, with all the New Forest names. I try to imagine Rainer in the Great War, fighting on the opposite side – this charming man who sings Winterreise so beautifully. It’s so hard to make sense of.

  But I push the thought away from me. All those things are over and done with now: we live in modern times. The old enmities are past now.

  ‘So, Stella, what takes your fancy?’ asks Marthe.

  But I’m dazzled, I can’t choose.

  Marthe pulls out a flowergirl costume, holds it up to my face. The bodice is a soft dusty-pink, and it has a full floaty skirt, made of patchwork scraps of rich fabric. The costume comes with a basket of long-stemmed magenta silk flowers that look so real you feel you could smell them. The outfit makes me think of the gypsy at the Westbahnhof – how she looked at me in that startled way, and I never asked what she saw.

  I try on the costume in the changing room. As I move, the full skirt makes a soft shushing sound like a sigh.

  When I step out into the shop, Herr Vogel’s eyes are on me.

  ‘So beautiful, fräulein. If I may…’

  He rearranges the bodice. I can feel his hot breath on my skin.

  I look at myself in the long mirror. I love the outfit.

  But when I turn to Marthe, I’m aware of a shadow crossing her face. Perhaps the costume doesn’t suit me as well as I thought.

  ‘Goodness, you look lovely.’ She clears her throat. ‘You look just like your mother in that. She was a beautiful woman – Helena. Well, I’m sure she still is…’

  But there’s a reserve in her, when she says this, and red blotches come in her face. The thought slips into my mind that maybe Marthe didn’t like my mother very much. But if she didn’t, why would she be so generous to me?

  ‘So is that the right one for you, Stella?’

  ‘Yes, I love it.’

  For herself, Marthe chooses a Roman costume.

  ‘All these drapes are very forgiving, when you’re as stout as me,’ she says.

  She comes out of the changing room, gives herself a disparaging look in the mirror.

  ‘You look really lovely,’ I tell her.

  And she does – shapely, in a way she never looks in her cable-stitch jumpers and loden skirts: an imposing Roman matron.

  Back at the flat, I hear her in the bathroom: the water splashing into the basin; how she pulls out the plug, then refills the basin again and again. As though she’s trying to wash the world from her hands.

  30

  We work on Liszt in my lesson – ‘Les Jeux d’Eau à la Villa D’Este’. The Fountains at the Villa D’Este. The music transports me: I imagine the dreaming gardens of the villa, the warm wind that plays with the fountains, a sudden startle of birds. Everything dancing and sparkling in the Mediterranean sunshine. I’ve never been to Italy, but I can picture it as I play.

  I’m pleased with my performance. I hardly make any mistakes, and I relish the ripple and flow of the music. But afterwards, Dr Zaslavsky sits quietly for a moment.

  ‘Technically, this is progressing. But the phrasing is rather self-indulgent, Fräulein Whittaker,’ he says.

  I find myself wishing that he was more open to my style of playing. I love romantic, emotional playing – the kind of interpretation that wears its heart on its sleeve. I love to play with a lot of rubato, where you pull the rhythm around to be as expressive as possible. But to him, restraint is everything.

  I should be accustomed to his criticisms by now. I should have learned to steel myself. But when he points out my flaws, it hurts as much as ever it did.

  Afterwards, I see Anneliese sitting on the steps in Beethovenplatz. She’s wearing new shoes: they have T-straps, and delicate cut-outs, and a very high heel, showing off her dancer’s legs. But to me she’s not so pretty now. It’s such a strange thing – as though her appearance has actually changed in some way.

  I hesitate. I don’t know what to say to her. Part of me misses our friendship, all our hushed, intimate conversations; and part of me is furious, wishing never to see her again.

  She turns as I approach. She’s been waiting for me. We say hello, tentatively. Neither of us smiles.

  ‘I can’t stop, I’m afraid,’ I tell her. ‘I can’t have coffee today.’

  Her mouth is tight.

  ‘Well, I’m in a bit of a rush myself, as it happens,’ she says.

  She opens her bag, and I’m worried she’s going to take out the book she told me about, the one about the Jewish–Bolshevik conspiracy: that she’ll try to lend it to me. But instead she takes out her compact and flicks it open and studies her face in the mirror. I wonder if it’s so she doesn’t have to look at me.

  I was too abrupt with her. However angry I am, I don’t want to feel I’ve been rude.

&nb
sp; ‘The thing is – we’re having a party,’ I tell her. ‘A party for Marthe’s birthday. On Saturday. A fancy dress party.’

  There’s a slight gleam of interest in her face. She snaps her compact shut and puts it away.

  ‘So what are you going as? No, let me guess. A shepherdess? A milkmaid?’

  ‘A flowergirl,’ I tell her.

  ‘That sounds perfect. I’m sure you’ll look frightfully sweet. You do innocence so perfectly…’

  I’m aware of the thought that’s lurking under her words. That I’m too innocent, ignorant even – because I don’t see the world the same way as her.

  ‘I have to buy Marthe a present,’ I say.

  ‘Well, then. You’d better go and buy your present, Stella,’ she says.

  ‘I like your new shoes,’ I tell her.

  She looks down at them – surprised, as though she only just remembered them.

  ‘Oh. Thanks, Stella … Sometime you’ll have to tell me how the party goes.’

  I nod vaguely. Though I don’t intend to.

  ‘I like a good party,’ she tells me. There’s a touch of yearning in her voice. ‘Once I went to a party in this gorgeous flat on Wipplingerstrasse. I had a rather good outfit – a gown of black ciré satin, with a lovely close fit, and an ostrich feather boa.’ Her mouth puckers, as though she is hunting a lost taste. ‘And there were all these little orange trees, and they’d scooped out the fruit and filled them with fondant. It was heaven,’ she says.

  ‘It does sound nice,’ I tell her.

  Most of the leaves have gone from the plane trees now, but a few dry leaves still fall, sad remnants of autumn’s glamour. In front of the violin shop on the far side of Beethovenplatz, a woman is sweeping the leaves from the pavement. In the silence that stretches out between us, you can hear the long, slow strokes of her broom.

  Anneliese puts out her hand and touches my arm – the lightest touch, as though there’s a stain on me that might come off on her skin.

  ‘Stella.’ She’s speaking almost under her breath. ‘Everyone thinks it,’ she says.

  She leaves without saying goodbye. I hear the percussive click click of the high heels on her new shoes, as she walks away from me.

  31

  I go to find Marthe, with my present. It’s a little statuette of the Virgin and the Christ Child, which I bought in a shop of curiosities on Johannesgasse. The statuette seemed perfect for Marthe when I bought it: the Virgin so graceful, cradling the Child, such a gentle, sad look in her face. But now I feel less certain – I’m worried what Marthe will think.

  She’s in the drawing room. She has her legs up on a footstool, to ease the ache of her varicose veins. She’s stitching a square of tapestry, which shows a fairytale cottage, with curly red gables, and yellow rambling roses over the door.

  I give her the gift in its box.

  ‘To wish you Happy Birthday,’ I say.

  ‘Oh Stella, you shouldn’t have…’

  She opens the box, takes out the Virgin and Child. She looks a little startled.

  ‘That’s so lovely, Stella. Thank you.’

  She runs her finger gently down the folds of the Virgin’s veil. Her eyes shine, too brightly. Suddenly, unnervingly, the tears spill down her face.

  I’m horrified.

  ‘Marthe – what is it? What have I done? I’m so sorry…’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘I’m being so silly,’ she says.

  ‘No, no…’

  She scrubs her face with her handkerchief. There are red fever spots in her cheeks.

  ‘I think you understand people very well, don’t you, Stella? I think you see into people.’

  I’m not sure how to respond.

  ‘I don’t know that I do,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, I think you do,’ she tells me. She holds the statuette close, cradling it to her. ‘The thing is…’ The words seem to catch in her throat. She tries again. ‘The thing is – I lost a child, Stella.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’

  I feel terrible that I’ve given her something that upsets her like this.

  ‘I’m perfectly fine, now,’ she tells me. ‘We have Lukas now, of course, and he was such a precious gift. This all happened quite a while ago, before we had Lukas,’ she says.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again.

  I put my hand lightly on her shoulder. She stiffens slightly, but then she rests her hand on my hand for a moment. A patina of sadness seems to spread out over the room.

  ‘She was a little girl, stillborn,’ she says. ‘She was lovely – I thought she was lovely. Her tiny fingers and toes, and a little shock of black hair. But she was just a little – deformed…’

  ‘Oh.’

  My heart is beating too fast.

  ‘She was Mongoloid, Stella.’

  She’s speaking so softly now. But I can tell that the word has a bitter taste in her mouth.

  I’m startled she’d talk so openly about such a terrible thing. People usually keep such things hidden.

  ‘It must have been so very sad for both of you,’ I say.

  But I’m not sure that she hears me. She puts the statuette down.

  ‘We had waited such a long time, Stella,’ she says. ‘So many long years of waiting.’

  ‘Yes. That must have been hard.’

  ‘I wanted to call her Christa. Even though she was stillborn, I wanted to give her a name. But Rainer told me I shouldn’t name her. Rainer said…’ I see her throat ripple as she swallows. ‘He said that the child was better off dead.’ She’s moving her hands together, as though she is wringing out cloth – as people will wring their hands when they grieve. ‘He was right, of course. But it hurt, at the time. It did hurt. When he said that.’

  ‘Yes, of course it would.’

  ‘He’d get so cross with me, if I talked about her, and called her by her name.’

  I feel so helpless. I don’t know the right words to say, to comfort her.

  ‘Men are different about these things, Stella,’ she says. ‘They aren’t like us. They don’t have tender hearts, like women … It’s different if you’ve carried that child inside you all those months.’

  ‘Yes, of course, it must be.’

  She takes out her handkerchief again, blows her nose vigorously.

  ‘Rainer says things sometimes, and I’m sure he doesn’t mean them … Men do say things without thinking,’ she says.

  ‘Yes, they can do.’

  ‘I was so angry with him. I shouldn’t have been, but I was. Now I think that perhaps he was right. When he said we wouldn’t have wanted to raise a child with a deformity. An imperfect child…’ She turns a little away from me. ‘But to me…’ Her voice just a whisper. ‘The thing is, Stella, to me she looked perfect,’ she says.

  She folds up her handkerchief and puts it away. When she speaks again, her voice is hoarse, as though saying all this has made her throat sore.

  ‘I shouldn’t really be telling you these things, my dear,’ she says.

  ‘It’s all right. Really,’ I tell her.

  ‘Do you mind not telling Rainer that I told you this?’ she says.

  ‘Of course. I won’t say anything.’

  Against the wall, there’s a little French desk with clawed feet. The wireless is kept there. She puts the statuette carefully down on the desk, in front of the wireless.

  ‘She’s so lovely. Thank you, Stella.’

  She picks up her tapestry frame. I leave her stitching the fairytale cottage.

  Later, I think about what Rainer said, about the stillborn child. How brutal his words were. It might have been what many people would think; but he shouldn’t have said it to her, not in that direct way. Not when she’d only just lost the child; not when her grief was so raw.

  Yet it’s hard to imagine him being so harsh – he seems so charming, so kind. He would have been upset, of course; perhaps he didn’t know what he was saying. Perhaps Marthe exaggerated. And of course the child if she’d
lived would have spent her life locked away in some bleak institution – a life scarcely worth living, shut off from the joys of the world.

  But somewhere inside myself, I know I’m just making excuses for him.

  32

  Saturday. All day there are preparations. Marthe has hired some extra staff for the party, and the flat is full of strangers, whistling, calling to one another, rolling up rugs and carpets, bringing in tubs of planted flowers – freesias, carnations. The whole place smells of sweet pollens.

  We have a quick meal at six o’clock – cheese and cold sausage and bread. Then I go to get ready.

  I put on the flowergirl outfit, enjoying the way the skirt swings out and sighs as I move. But my face looks too pale against the bodice. I take out the lipstick I bought because it was like Anneliese’s. I smooth on the tulipy colour, not thinking; then rub it off with my hand. I don’t want to look like Anneliese.

  I decide to tie my hair back with a ribbon. My hair is only just long enough to be pulled back in this way, and it looks pleasingly old-fashioned – the way women used to look years ago, before everyone had their hair bobbed.

  I peer at myself in the mirror on my dressing table. There’s something harsh about the neckline. I take my mother’s flowered scarf and knot it round my throat. But I can’t see the full effect in here.

  I walk along to the Rose Room. The antique rug has been taken away, the piano pushed to one side. The music stands and chairs are already set up for the band; but for the moment the room is empty. I glance at the music set out on the music stands. All the favourite waltzes – the Strausses, Franz Lehar: A Thousand and One Nights; The Merry Widow. The lilting rhythm that pulses in the lifeblood of Vienna. I can’t wait to be dancing.

  I study myself in one of the mirrors. I’m pleased. My mother’s scarf is perfect with the costume. It’s so pretty, with its print of blurry pastel flowers, forever on the point of melting.

  There’s a footstep behind me. Rainer. I can see him in the mirror, but for a moment he doesn’t see me. He’s dressed in a uniform of the old Imperial Guard, like the ones at Herr Vogel’s shop; he has a fur-trimmed cloak with gold frogging. He’s chosen well; he looks imposing. But there’s something unsteady in his walk: I wonder if he’s been drinking. I’ve never seen him the worse for drink before, and it comes to me that perhaps he doesn’t enjoy this kind of occasion. He’s a rather serious person: perhaps he finds parties too frivolous.