Playing this game, I was always a bit more frightened than I should have been.
48
At the start of January, I meet Harri at the Frauenhuber.
‘I’ve got something for you,’ he says.
‘Me too.’
‘Well – ladies first, don’t you think?’
He hands me his gift. It’s in a little black box; inside, there’s tissue paper, which makes an expensive rustle as I open it out.
It’s a pendant – a little bird studded with sapphires, on a fine gold chain.
‘Ooh.’ I touch it with one finger. ‘That’s so beautiful. Can I put it on now?’
‘Yes, of course.’
I wrap the chain round my neck.
‘You’ll have to fasten it for me.’
He comes to stand behind me. I lift the hair from my neck and he fastens the catch, his fingers warm against me. This feels astonishingly intimate, in this public place. Heat rushes through me.
I take out my compact to look at myself in the mirror.
He smiles.
‘You look so lovely. It matches your eyes.’
‘I love it,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’
I give him the present I’ve bought for him, a book of Shakespeare sonnets that I found in the bookshop in Franziskanerplatz.
‘This looks wonderful,’ he says. ‘Thank you, darling.’
He opens it up, looks through.
It should feel perfect – the two of us in the peace of our favourite café, so happy to be together, sharing the presents we’ve bought; but somehow it doesn’t. Harri is rather quiet, and his eyes are ringed with dark. There’s something absent in him – something I can’t reach.
I put my hand on his.
‘You look so tired,’ I tell him. ‘You must have been working terribly hard.’
He takes off his glasses and moves his hands over his face.
‘Yes. I have been, I suppose.’
The door swings back as somebody enters, bringing with them a gust of cold air, that rustles the tissue paper on the table, and rifles through the open pages of the poetry book.
‘There’s something else, isn’t there? What is it? You have to tell me,’ I say.
He hesitates. I have a sudden sick feeling – that this is something about me, about us; that everything is unravelling, coming undone.
Then he shrugs slightly.
‘Just the usual crap in the press,’ he says.
I give a small sigh of relief. At least it’s nothing to do with us. Nothing to come between us.
‘The usual?’
‘Well, worse, really, if I’m honest,’ he says. ‘In the Wiener Neueste Nachrichten and the Reichspost.’
I know that these are two of Vienna’s most widely read newspapers.
‘Why? What were they saying?’ I ask him.
‘They both said much the same thing. In their New Year messages. Calling for government action to stop the immigration of Jews. And to reassess the rights of the Jews who are here to remain.’
He runs one finger across a page of the book of sonnets. Though his hands are restless as ever, his voice is heavy and tired.
‘Oh. That’s horrible.’ My words sound empty. ‘But – they always say those things, don’t they?’
‘Well – there have always been people who’ve thought these things in Vienna. As in the case of your friend…’
He leaves the sentence hanging. He’s never mentioned Anneliese, never blamed me. I feel myself flush with shame at the memory.
‘But it’s getting worse, Stella. Things that used to be partly hidden are out in the open,’ he says.
‘But it’s what their readership expects, surely? A bit of a rant.’ I remember what Marthe said about Germany. ‘You know, a bit of rabble-rousing. Isn’t it? It doesn’t mean anything’s going to happen…’
He doesn’t say anything, just sits there.
I put my hand to the pendant. It feels unfamiliar, not part of me yet, the metal still cold on my skin.
He stirs a little, clears his throat. He isn’t looking at me.
‘People are leaving,’ he says. ‘People I know. Other doctors.’
A tremor goes through me.
‘Leaving? Leaving Vienna, you mean? Where are they going?’
‘They’re finding jobs in England or America. If you’re qualified, it’s not so hard to get a visa,’ he says.
‘Oh.’
I wonder what that would be like – to leave. I remember how homesick I felt here in Vienna at first. Even knowing my home was still there, for me to go back to – all the safety of Brockenhurst, and of my mother’s arms: even knowing that, it was hard. I try to imagine how it would be to leave everything you knew, perhaps for ever: your home, your friends, your family, the life you’d been building for years. Your lover. This gives me a hollow, bleak feeling.
‘But that must be so hard. It’s like – well, exile.’
‘Yes, it is,’ he says.
‘Surely that’s a bit hasty, isn’t it?’
He doesn’t say anything.
I think of what Frank told me. In a country just two hours away by train, a country that shares a language and culture with our beloved Austria, terrible things are happening. Jewish doctors are being treated like pariahs, many of them incarcerated … Jewish doctors like your boyfriend…
We put on our coats; I try to push the thought away. Things aren’t that bad, I tell myself. It won’t happen; it can’t happen – not here in Vienna. I think of the things that Benjamin says. That all will be well, that the Germans are a sensible nation. That Hitler won’t last, because the Germans will surely see sense in the end.
After the sepia gloom of the Frauenhuber, the brilliance of the winter light narrows our eyes. The wind is bitter.
‘Harri,’ I say, in a little shred of a voice, as we walk down Himmelpfortgasse. ‘Have you ever – you know, wondered…?’
He puts his arm around me.
‘No,’ he says. ‘No, I haven’t.’
I want to say more. I want to pull him to me, to clasp his face in my hands. You won’t do that, will you? You won’t go. You won’t even think about it. You won’t leave me. Promise me. But I know I can’t say that – mustn’t say it. I swallow down the words.
I decide I need to be better informed. In a shop that sells international newspapers, I buy the English Times.
There’s a piece by Douglas Reed, the Vienna correspondent for the newspaper. He’s responding to the articles that Harri told me about.
The bulk of opinion in Austria sympathises with the views of these two newspapers, which has nothing to do with anti-Semitism …
I think of Anneliese in the Ladies’ Room at the Landtmann. Maybe people don’t always say it, but they think it.
I read on.
Of late years the Danubian and Balkan capitals have been flooded with immigrants from Germany and Poland, a fair proportion of whom have criminal records, and a closer scrutiny is inevitable sooner or later in all these countries …
The implication is clear. It’s as Hitler says: Jews are criminals.
I feel a kind of shame, when I read this. I’d thought that the British were better than that.
49
Harri takes me to see Giselle at the Burgtheater. I love everything about it – the music, the touching story, the dancers with their eloquent hands and their frail white dresses like clouds.
Afterwards, we’re about to go home, making our way through the glamorous crowd in the foyer, when I notice Frank Reece, on the other side of the room. He’s wearing a dinner jacket and an elegant white silk scarf, but he looks somehow dishevelled even in these formal clothes. My pulse skitters off, remembering the piano bar at the Klagenfurt Hotel. I’m worried that he will come across and try to speak to me. But he acknowledges me briefly, just a nod and a smile, as though I’m someone he’s met only once and doesn’t know very well. I’m relieved. I haven’t yet told Harri about him – perhaps because the memory of
that afternoon gives me a feeling of shame. As though I’m somehow tainted by what he asked me to do.
Stepping out of the theatre, we enter a different world – darkness, a cold that makes your teeth hurt. In the pale light of the street lamps, all the colour is leached from people’s faces and clothes. We head back towards Harri’s house, the crowds thinning out behind us.
There’s a thin snow on the pavements: you have to walk very carefully, or your feet could go slipping away. I have my hand in Harri’s; I can feel his warmth through my glove. I think of the bed in the attic room, of his body wrapped all round me, of the abandoned way he moves inside me just before he comes. I want to be there now, this instant. I know he’s thinking the same.
The Ring skirts the Volksgarten. The gates are still open. Through the gates, it’s all monochrome: the trees and bushes are black, the gravel paths and snowy lawns have a faint white glimmer. A few lamps stand in pallid circles of light.
‘It would be quicker to go through there,’ I say. ‘We would get back sooner.’
He smiles at me.
‘I’d like to get back sooner,’ he says.
We turn into the Volksgarten. But at once I regret that I suggested this. It’s much darker here, and the traffic noise seems surprisingly distant. It’s strange how suddenly and completely you can leave the city behind. Our footsteps are loud on the frosted snow. The bushes crouch like animals; the standard roses, pruned and leafless, stand in ranks by the path, as though awaiting some solemn event. We pass the frozen fountain, which has an otherwordly glitter in the thin light of the lamps. There’s a thread of apprehension woven into my happiness.
In the dark where the lamplight doesn’t reach, Harri stops to kiss me. I pull away from him quickly, pull at his hand.
‘No, Harri. Let’s get through here as fast as we can. I don’t like it…’
He’s amused.
‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ he says.
I know I must sound foolish; but I can’t help feeling scared.
And then we come out through the wrought-iron gates to the brightness and noise of the Ring. There are cars, fiakers, lighted windows. A tram trundles past. A woman walks towards us, with a very small dog on a lead. I feel a surge of relief. All the breath I didn’t know I was holding rushes out of my mouth.
We cross the Ring, walk on past the Naturhistorisches Museum towards Mariahilferstrasse. The streets are quiet. Everyone in Vienna goes to bed so early.
It happens on Stiftgasse.
I notice three men who are walking towards us along the pavement. They seem to have come from nowhere. They’re in no hurry at all, in spite of the chill of the air: they have the swagger of young, rough men who feel the streets are theirs to rule. They aren’t making any concessions; they don’t make those slight adjustments that people usually make, approaching you – don’t move to one side of the pavement or lower their eyes; don’t stop staring at us. I feel a shimmer of fear; then tell myself not to be scared. We are out on the street now – what could happen? Though when I glance around me, I see there is no one else in sight; the street is entirely empty now.
All three have caps pulled low over their eyes, their faces shadowed. I’m most aware of the man on the right. He’s a bruiser, with broad, solid shoulders; he has a crooked, broken nose. Between them, the three of them stretch across the pavement, blocking our path. I’m trying not to catch their eyes, to make myself tiny, a little speck. But I know their eyes are still fixed on us. They slow as we draw near.
I hear Harri swear under his breath, feel his hand tighten in mine. I’m startled, sensing the hesitancy in him – in Harri, who always knows what to do. My heart bangs around in my chest.
I move to the right to edge past the men, pull Harri with me; but the heavy man steps sideways, blocking our way. We can’t push past him. All three stand there; their eyes don’t leave us.
The man in the middle is less substantial – lean, bony-faced, narrow-hipped. There’s a languid quality to his movements, but I can sense he’s in charge. He steps forward.
‘Well. A little tart and a filthy Jew.’
He smiles. His smile chills me.
Harri drops my hand, pushes at my shoulder.
‘Go, Stella. Just go. Run.’ His voice is urgent, full of breath, full of fear. ‘It isn’t you that they want.’
‘I wouldn’t say that exactly,’ says the man on the left, who has a jagged scar down the side of his face. He makes an obscene gesture, jabbing a finger in the air. The heavy man laughs loudly. The ringleader just smiles.
I hesitate.
‘Stella. Go.’
But I can’t go, can’t leave him there. Suddenly, all the fear is gone: my mind is a red blur of rage. I could kill them. I take a step towards them.
The big man grabs me, wrenches my wrists behind me. I notice with a small distant part of my mind that this hurts. His hot, meaty breath is on me.
The man in the middle just watches; he still has that lazy, chilling smile. Then he steps almost languidly forward, rips Harri’s glasses from his face, drops them, stamps on them.
I open my mouth. I’m about to say, You mustn’t do that. Please. He can’t manage without his glasses…
The ringleader smiles again at Harri, stands there for a moment; then, with a sudden explosion of movement, he punches Harri’s face.
The sound is shockingly loud in the stillness. Harri is silent, staggers back. Blood pours from his nose and his mouth.
I’m trying to scream out: Stop it stop it stop it … But I have no breath, and my voice is blotted up by the night. The man who is holding my wrists slams one hand over my mouth.
The thin man and the man with the scar hit Harri again and again. Harri’s face splits open, more blood spurts. His arms flail. He reaches out in a desperate gesture – as though for something to cling to. I know he is desperately trying not to fall to the ground. Because if he falls they will kill him.
I bite hard on the hand that is pressing into my mouth. The man holding me swears, but doesn’t loosen his grip on my wrists.
The ringleader draws back for an instant. They’re going to go, I tell myself. They’ll stop, they’ll run away. Please God make them run away…
He puts his hand to his belt. I see the flash of a blade, thin, bright, deadly. Harri holds his hand in front of his chest, as though defending himself: the blade slices into his arm. The pain seems to stun him. He lurches, topples, falls. I hear the crack as his head hits the ground, feel it all through my body. His eyes are shut, his body curled up, his hands pressed over his face. He’s moaning.
Don’t let them kick at his head. Please God. I’ll do anything you want of me. But please God, please listen to me. Please. Just don’t let them kick at his head…
A car approaches, slows. I see faces turned in our direction – wide-open mouths, wide eyes. I feel a quick surge of hope: that the car will stop, the people will come to our rescue. I will this to happen, with all the force of my mind. But the car picks up speed, drives rapidly on, the faces at the windows turning away.
But something has shifted; the men pull back. As though they’ve been reminded of the other world out there – the orderly, civilised world where the rule of law still applies. Casually, the ringleader slides his knife back into his belt.
Then it’s as though something occurs to him: I see the thought move over his face, swift as a shadow. As I watch, he unbuttons his flies. I know what happens now: I know he is going to rape me. I steel myself: I am hard, cold, clear; unafraid. I don’t care what he does, if only he’ll stop hurting Harri. Nothing else in the world matters.
But he has no interest in me. He stands astride Harri and urinates into his face.
‘Fuck off out of Vienna, Jew,’ says the man.
The one who is holding me releases his grasp and shoves me towards Harri.
The three of them walk briskly off and disappear into the night.
I kneel beside him. I can smell the sour smel
l of urine and the coppery smell of his blood. His eyes are shut. There’s a bubble of blood at the side of his mouth, and blood is seeping out of the cut in his arm; it has a black look in the lamplight. I take my handkerchief from my bag and try to staunch the bleeding, but there’s too much of it, and the cloth is instantly soaked. My heart judders, my head is empty. I can’t tell how bad his injuries are; I don’t even know how to tell if he is still alive. I don’t know anything.
He moans, his eyelids flicker. Thank you, God.
A man and a woman turn the corner ahead of me. They’re only a few yards away, walking in our direction. They’re respectable-looking, the woman in an expensive Persian lamb coat. But seeing Harri and me, they cross to the other side of the street. I call out.
‘Excuse me. Could you help me?’
I realise I’m speaking in English, as though all the horror has wiped the German from my mind. I call out again, in German. But they turn hurriedly into Lindengasse without even looking at us.
My mind is a haze of fear now – all the fear I didn’t feel while it was happening seizing me, paralysing me. I try to make myself think – to remember where there’s a phone kiosk, so I could call the police. But even if I could remember, I can’t leave him: the thugs might come back. And I can’t abandon him here like this – bleeding, terribly hurt.
Someone else walks past on the opposite side of the street. He looks like a businessman – overcoat, trilby, rolled umbrella.
I stand up, call out.
‘I’m so sorry. But could you please call an ambulance? I need an ambulance…’ I’m shouting as loud as I can. But my voice is frail and shaky and swallowed up by the dark. ‘Please.’
The English Girl Page 21
