The English Girl

by Margaret Leroy

  ‘But I thought we had something special.’ My words are high, shrill, full of protest.

  ‘We did. I mean – we still do. Of course. And I so wish that the world were different – that we could just be an ordinary couple, just stay here in Vienna. But that isn’t the world we’re living in. I’ve thought and thought about it and I have to leave,’ he says.

  The hot perfumed air nauseates me. I picture her in Harri’s attic bedroom, her long white body draped across his bed – our bed; her long white languid limbs wrapped round him. I think of what he said to me just a few moments ago. Sometimes there are things that are too hard to say. And the longer you leave it the harder it gets. The words burn into me.

  ‘So this was all just a way for you to be with her?’ My voice hard, ugly, accusing.

  ‘No. No, of course not.’

  But the thing has its claws in me.

  ‘Were you never going to tell me?’

  ‘Stella. I knew you got jealous.’ He’s measured, placating. It’s the way he must talk to his patients, his soothing, therapeutic voice. It just makes me more angry. ‘I knew you’d be upset if I told you,’ he says. ‘That you’d jump to the wrong conclusion. So I put off telling you. I didn’t want to upset you, just before we had to part—’

  His voice breaks. I can see the tears that glitter in his eyes.

  ‘I loved you so much,’ I tell him.

  I turn and walk away.

  I hear his footsteps behind me.

  I turn, put up my hand.

  ‘No. No. Don’t follow me.’

  When I step outside the glasshouse, the bitter air slams into me, freezing the tears on my face. I walk off rapidly, weeping.

  Part V

  5 March 1938 – 15 March 1938

  59

  I tell Marthe I won’t be coming to dinner – that I think I’m ill, I can’t eat.

  ‘Oh, Stella. You don’t look well, I must say. You’re awfully pale. Should I call the doctor?’

  ‘No, don’t worry. Really. It’s probably just a chill.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure. Best stay well away from Lukas till you’re better.’

  ‘I don’t suppose that Lukas could catch what’s wrong with me. But I’ll be careful.’

  ‘You’re always so considerate, Stella. I’ll have Janika bring something light along to your room.’

  I lie on my bed. Sometimes I weep. Sometimes I pound my fists on my pillow. I watch the devastating picture-show that is spooling out in my mind. I see them on the boat together, sailing to America; he pulls her to him and holds her close, sliding his finger down the linked pearls of her spine. I see them on the street in Baltimore; he cups her face with his hands, kisses her, consuming her, searching her mouth with his mouth. I see them in a room together. They shut the door on the world, he goes to her, tears off her clothes. She’s like the women in the magazine that Kitty Carpenter stole – her pale body shockingly lovely. He’s so hungry for her.

  I can’t bear this. I grind my face into the mattress.

  But occasionally the feeling will recede for a moment or two, and in those moments I want him so much I can’t breathe. I don’t know whether I’ll ever see him again, and the thought fills me with sadness. What if I misread everything? What if he was telling the truth, and he loves only me? I think of the touch of his hand, pushing the hair from my face. I remember making love with him in the ruined winter palace, all around us the hush of the garden, secret under the snow. Have I wantonly destroyed the most precious thing in my life?

  And then the tiger leaps again, digs its claws in. I see Ulrike as I saw her at the Kunsthistorisches Museum – her soft raven hair, her lips like redcurrants; how she walked quite slowly across the room, drawing every man’s gaze. Any man would want her.

  And beyond that picture, something else, at once vivid and very remote. An image from long long ago, imprinted on my memory. A woman in an open-top car – so young and lovely, laughing, her glossy red mouth open, her long dark hair flying back. Taking the one I loved away from me.

  There’s a knock at my door. It’s Janika, with food on a tray, and a cup of hot chocolate.

  ‘You just get back in bed, Fräulein Stella.’ She plumps up my pillows, settles me; she puts the tray on my lap. ‘This should help a bit,’ she says.

  ‘Yes. Thank you so much.’

  She looks at me thoughtfully.

  ‘You’ve got a chill, Frau Krause tells me.’

  ‘Well, sort of…’

  Her eyes are on me, warm, and brown as leaves in autumn.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking,’ she says, a little tentative, ‘but are you having trouble with that special young man of yours?’

  I wonder if she has the sight, like her mother.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ I say.

  She thinks for a moment. She’s frowning very slightly.

  ‘He sounds like a good man,’ she says.

  I nod mutely.

  I have a sudden urge to confide in her – to ask her what I should do. She’s always so kind to me. But how could she advise me, when her world is so different from mine; when she talks about the evil eye, and werewolves; and believes there is a shadow soul that can leave the body in sleep, a separate, perilous part of us, that’s invoked in curses, and feared?

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘Well, drink up your chocolate, Fräulein Stella. They say chocolate’s good for healing hearts. Just you drink it up and have a good rest, and perhaps it won’t all seem quite so bad in the morning,’ she says.

  60

  But in the morning it still seems as bad; and the next day, and the next. I feel unreal. As though I’m cut off from the world behind walls of glass, so I can still see out, but can’t touch. Or as though I’m sleepwalking through my life.

  And, like a sleepwalker, I’m passive, unable to act. There are things I have to do, but I don’t do them. I know I should give Frank Reece the information I have. But I put it off. It’s still over a week till the date in the diary – the date of Rainer’s next meeting. There’s time enough; and Frank can always contact me.

  There’s no chance to talk to Rainer either. He’s out a lot, he’s rarely home for meals; and he has a preoccupied look, his wintry eyes veiled, as though his thoughts are somewhere else entirely. And he never comes to the Rose Room when I’m practising any more; there’s never a time when he and I are alone. In a way, I’m relieved – I don’t feel strong enough to talk to him, to start the conversation I know we need to have.

  I just get on with my practice and give Lukas his English lessons. And Friday edges nearer, the day when Harri will leave. I think of this, and grief moves through me, and a terrible doubt. What if I got it all wrong? What if I misunderstood him? Am I really going to let him leave without seeing him again?

  Then I remember the time he left me waiting at the Frauenhuber, because Ulrike had talked to him, and he’d got rather carried away; and the jealous rage rushes in again.

  I lurch from one thought to the next. I don’t know what’s true any more. About me, about him – about both of us. And the anger I feel towards my mother seems to fuel the fire – because she too kept secrets from me.

  On Thursday, I rise early, to prepare for my lesson.

  I open my curtains, look out. Just as yesterday and the day before, there’s white frost, white sunlight, a high blue luminous sky. But the street looks very different. There are Austrian flags hanging everywhere and fluttering when the breeze takes them, the familiar bands of colour, red-white-red. Up at the end of the street, I can see more flags in the trees in front of the Piaristenkirche. The flags give the street a busy, cheerful, carnival look. There must be a festival happening that I know nothing about.

  I have breakfast with Marthe.

  ‘What’s happening, Marthe?’ I ask her. ‘Why are there all those flags in the street? Is it a saint’s day or something?’

  ‘Oh, you’ve noticed, have you, Stella? There’s to be a referendum. Chancell
or Schuschnigg made a speech in Innsbruck last night.’

  She licks her lips, which are shiny with grease, from the fatty ham she’s been eating.

  ‘A referendum?’

  ‘It’s a vote, Stella. It will take place on Sunday. All citizens over twenty-four will be able to vote.’

  ‘Oh. So it’s like an election? That seems very sudden.’

  Marthe shakes her head slightly. She cuts a neat square of bread.

  ‘It’s not exactly like an election. We’ll be asked to vote on just one issue. Whether Austria should remain independent,’ she says.

  ‘Oh. Well, that’s quite straightforward, isn’t it? Everyone will want that, won’t they?’

  ‘People do seem to be getting very excited,’ she says.

  I want to know more. I leave early. I will go to the Frauenhuber before my lesson, and read the newspapers.

  There’s a thrilled, feverish mood in Vienna. Austrian flags fly everywhere, and people have stencilled huge portraits of Dr Schuschnigg on the walls of buildings. There are lorries draped in flags and packed with smiling men and women, who hand out leaflets all urging you to vote yes. There are posters that say, With Schuschnigg for a free Austria! People are painting yes on pavements and walls, and white crutched crosses, the symbol of the Fatherland Front. You can almost breathe in the excitement: it hangs like a smell of smoke on the air. People saying, in so many ways: We don’t want Hitler here. We refuse to be part of the Reich.

  But I’m cut off from all the fervour, and not just because this isn’t my country. I’m separate and miserable, behind my walls of glass.

  The Frauenhuber is unusually quiet. I order my coffee, and choose an Austrian newspaper, which will be more up to date than The Times.

  There are quotes from the Chancellor’s speech. It sounds very stirring. Austrians will be asked whether they are for a free, independent, social, Christian and united Austria – yes or no? The Chancellor ended his speech with the words: ‘Men – the hour has struck!’

  The white-haired waiter brings my coffee. He notices what I’m reading.

  ‘Some good news for once, fräulein,’ he says. ‘It’s our chance to say what we want. For our future, for Austria.’

  I’m slightly taken aback. He’s always been so reserved and correct; he’s never talked to me like this before.

  ‘Yes, it certainly seems exciting,’ I say.

  ‘Those words that Dr Schuschnigg used,’ says the waiter. ‘Men – the hour has struck! They’re the words that Andreas Hofer used when he called his peasant soldiers to arms. Back in the last century. They were fighting Napoleon. Hofer is a hero of the Austrian Tyrol,’ he tells me. ‘Those words mean a lot to us, fräulein.’

  His eyes are watery, a little too bright: I can see how much this moves him. I’m startled, to see him so emotional.

  ‘So how will people vote, do you think?’ I ask him.

  He’s sure to know: a waiter will have his ear to the ground. He’ll have heard what people are saying.

  He opens out his hands – as though this is entirely obvious.

  ‘Everyone will vote yes to independence,’ he says. ‘We’ll be all right now, fräulein. You’ll see. Herr Hitler will have to back off, when he sees how united we are.’

  I wonder if Dr Zaslavsky will say something about the referendum. Whether he will share in the mood of confidence and excitement; whether he too will be hopeful, like the waiter – that things will be sorted out now, that Austria’s relationship with the Third Reich will be clarified.

  But he says nothing about it – he is exactly the same as always. Sometimes I wonder if he’s at all aware of what’s happening in the world – even though he’s Jewish, and all this must surely matter to him. But music is his life: perhaps everything else seems superfluous.

  If anything, he makes me work even harder than ever. I play the Chopin F minor Fantaisie, a piece of music I love, but I don’t play well: I sleepwalk through my lesson. He criticises my phrasing, my pedalling, everything.

  ‘The sound is foggy. This is one of your vices, Fräulein Whittaker – the overuse of the pedal. Pianists use the pedal to cover a multitude of sins. Today, you will play entirely without pedal,’ he says.

  I hate this. You need the sustaining pedal to hold the texture together. It makes the sound richer, more resonant. For the rest of the lesson I feel naked, all my errors exposed.

  At the end of the lesson, Dr Zaslavsky shakes his head a little.

  ‘There is no heart in your playing today, Fräulein Whittaker,’ he says.

  ‘No. I know. I’m sorry…’

  Afterwards, as I walk downstairs, the music we worked on plays and replays in my mind. I remember learning the Chopin Fantaisie when I first met Harri. How I played the music with passion, because I was falling in love. Such a sense of loss washes through me.

  61

  I cross Lothringerstrasse, walk slowly past Beethovenplatz. I find that I am crying: my tears are cold on my skin. All around, the ferment of patriotism. An aeroplane flies over, showering leaflets onto the streets; a lorry passes, full of young people shouting political slogans. Red white red until death! On the edges of the pavement, the crusted snow catches the sun and glitters.

  ‘Stella.’

  The street is noisy with traffic and shouting. But I can still hear my name. I spin round.

  He has his coat collar turned up, and his face is pale with cold. He’s been waiting.

  ‘Stella,’ he says again.

  That way he says my name – as though he doesn’t want to let go of it. And there’s such uncertainty in his voice – I can hear that he doesn’t know what will happen, doesn’t know whether I will respond.

  There’s no process of thought, no decision. I just move straight into his arms. Clinging to him. Feeling his warmth all around me. Breathing in the scent of his skin.

  ‘Darling,’ he says.

  I’m crying. He kisses the tears from my face.

  ‘I’m so sorry I upset you,’ he says.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ I say. ‘So sorry about everything…’

  His hands, his warmth, his mouth on my skin: these things tell me how he loves me. My rage and jealousy suddenly seem mysterious to me. It’s as if I’ve had a fever, and am now recovered, the images that plagued me bizarre and extravagant as a delirious dream.

  ‘Stella. Listen.’ He cups my face in his hands. ‘I’ve something to tell you, my dearest. I’ve changed my mind,’ he says.

  For a moment this doesn’t make sense to me.

  ‘You’ve changed your mind? About what?’

  ‘About leaving Vienna. I’m not going to leave after all.’

  ‘You’re not?’

  ‘I was being too pessimistic. I see that now, and I’ve made my decision. I’m going to stay here with you.’

  Joy rushes through me, when he says that – a soaring, sparkling happiness. I’m a bird in the blue air above the snow-bound city. My spirit glitters like the frozen fountains in the sun.

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Oh.’

  He loves me. Only me. Nothing else in the world matters.

  As we reluctantly move apart, I glimpse Anneliese out of the corner of my eye, coming out of the Academy, crossing the road. She’s wearing a black sable hat that flatters her vivid colouring. I know that she must have seen us, but she doesn’t turn or smile, just keeps on walking.

  Sometimes we have to work with them. But we don’t have to fuck them.

  In a shadowy corner of my mind, a small cold drip of fear. For a moment, I don’t say anything.

  But then I look around me, at the banners, streamers, balloons. I let myself be reassured.

  ‘Anyway, it’s going to be all right, now, isn’t it? Here in Vienna?’ I say. ‘With the referendum happening?’ I think of the waiter in the Frauenhuber. ‘Everything will be all right now. Everyone will vote yes…’

  He kisses me.

  ‘Whatever happens, we’ll be together,’ he says.

 
We stand looking at one another, there in Beethovenplatz, the white sun shining on us. I feel complete again, as though his closeness makes me whole.

  ‘I’ve taken the rest of the day off,’ he tells me. ‘We could go back to the flat. Shall we?’

  But he already knows my answer.

  We walk to his flat through the carnival streets, past the posters, the flags, the slogans; the people painting yes on the pavements; the whole wide world saying yes. And now I’m so moved by what’s happening here – people coming together, working together, united: seeking to keep their country safe. These proud people proclaiming: Our country is our own. Putting their mark on everything. Yes to independence. Yes to Austria. This is how it should be. This is how it will be.

  We pass a group of young men shouting Schuschnigg slogans. ‘Hail Schuschnigg! Hail Liberty!’ Their faces glowing. I share in their excitement, feeling that this beautiful city is my adopted home – the place where I have become a woman, where I have learned to love. In a rush of warmth, I feel such love for this country, these people. It’s as though my love for Harri is too large to be contained. Loving Harri, I love anyone.

  ‘Frank Reece once said there was a lot of support for Hitler in Vienna,’ I say. ‘But there isn’t really, is there? I mean – just look at all this…’

  Harri nods, doesn’t say anything. My hand is in his, his fingers pressed between mine.

  At the flat on Mariahilferstrasse, we enter quietly, creeping in like thieves, feeling thrillingly illicit. Eva is in the shop and Lotte is at school. Benjamin is in his armchair as always, but he’s fast asleep; his newspaper has fallen over his face. The room is cold and Harri puts a rug across his grandfather’s knees. The old man doesn’t stir.

  As we go through the door to the attic room, we step out into sunlight. On this beautiful March day, the room is astonishingly bright. There’s a spring intensity to the sunshine, even though it’s so cold: the days are lengthening, soon the thaw will be here. Everything is so clearly shown, everything clearly defined, every speck, every dustmote. You can see the dirt in the corners, where Eva hasn’t recently cleaned. You can see the flaw in everything.