The English Girl

by Margaret Leroy

  He stands up, brisker.

  ‘It’s over, Stella,’ he says.

  He stubs out his cigar with a small, emphatic gesture, pushing it into the ashtray, grinding it down.

  I feel a shudder go through me.

  He turns to me.

  ‘Stella. For goodness’ sake.’ As though he reads my thought. ‘There’s no need to be so melodramatic. I’m not going to hurt you,’ he says. He makes a small gesture, as though swatting an insect away. ‘You were young, you were easily led. And the times for skulking around are over and done with, thank God. No more hiding. But I want you out, Stella – in a couple of days at the most. You can’t stay here, in my apartment.’

  Despair washes through me.

  ‘But I can’t go, I can’t leave Vienna.’ My voice high, shrill, pleading. ‘I have to stay, to search for Harri. Please. Just let me stay a week or two. I won’t get in your way.’

  ‘No. It’s impossible.’

  I’m desperate. I feel him slipping away from me. I stand up, go to him, clasp the bare skin of his wrist.

  ‘Please help me. Please. You have to help me.’ There’s a sob in my voice, and I don’t try to hide it; I let him see my desperation. ‘You have to help me find Harri. There are people you can speak to.’

  ‘No, Stella.’ But he doesn’t take his hand away.

  ‘You’re my father. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

  Pleading with him. This is the only leverage I have – to make him help me. I keep my hand on his wrist.

  There’s silence between us for a moment. I steel myself. I expect him to say no, that our blood-tie means nothing to him.

  ‘Of course it does.’ Surprising me. ‘Of course it means something.’

  His stern expression softening, as though he responds to my touch. His head is close to mine: I can smell his cologne, like incense, and the smoke on his breath.

  ‘I’d have liked to have raised you.’ His voice low, rather gentle. ‘I can’t deny it, I’d have liked that, Stella. You’re beautiful, you’re gifted – in many ways, the perfect daughter,’ he says. He gives a small, wry smile. ‘We could have performed a lot of Schubert together, couldn’t we?’

  He waits for my reply.

  ‘Yes, we could have,’ I say.

  ‘I would have been so proud of you – of all the talent you have. Lukas, bless him, hasn’t a musical bone in his body – well, he takes after his mother, I suppose. They’re a rather prosaic crew – that Saxon family of hers … I’d have liked to have shared in your achievements, to have been part of all that.’

  His eyes on me. There’s a glimmer of warmth in his gaze. I feel almost close to him for a moment.

  I feel a little surge of hope. He cares for me; he’s going to help me. He will look after me, solve everything, in spite of what he believes.

  We stay like that for a moment – my hand on his wrist, him looking down at me.

  Then he straightens, peels my fingers like bandages from his skin. He turns from me. He picks up his brandy, swilling it round in the glass.

  ‘And, trust me, it would all have been different if I’d had a hand in your upbringing…’ He raises his glass, gulps down what’s left of his brandy. He puts the glass down on his desk, with a clear, hard, brittle sound, like a small bone breaking. ‘If I’d brought you up, you’d never have fallen in love with a Jew…’ He looks directly at me then. His eyes pierce me. ‘I had to do something, Stella. I had to save you from yourself. You would have utterly destroyed your life, by following this path. I couldn’t let that happen.’

  As I realise what he’s telling me, bile rushes into my throat.

  I stagger to the bathroom and vomit into the sink.

  71

  Monday. I set out for Morzinplatz.

  The streets are empty. It feels more like a Sunday; all the schools and offices seem to be shut.

  There’s a little dirty snow underfoot, not frozen hard, but still slippery. As I walk down the flight of steps by the Ruprechtskirche, I feel my feet sliding; I have to hold tight to the rail. You can see the Danube Canal from here, the water a chalky grey-green, the wind ruffling and creasing its surface, and the trees on the bank, their leafless, intricate branches scratching the sky. The wind is fierce off the water, and litter is swirling around. There’s a sheet of newspaper caught against a lamp-post; it has ecstatic headlines from a few days ago, about the referendum, and it flaps and flutters helplessly, like a broken-winged bird.

  The steps take me down to Morzinplatz and the Hotel Metropole. The square is full of activity: there are knots of soldiers, and big limousines that pull up outside the hotel. There are many black and red swastika flags that hang from the hotel facade, and crack and snap in the chill wind. A little grey sleet is falling.

  I stand on the opposite side of the square. I stare at the hotel, trying to see through the windows. From down here, you can see the chandeliers that hang from the ceilings, but you can’t see whether there are any people in the rooms. Is Harri somewhere in there? Would I be able to sense it if he were near? I reach out to him, longing for him, holding him in my mind: I will him to know that I am searching for him. But I have no sense of his presence – feeling nothing but fear.

  There are SS men with swastika armbands coming and going, and guards with guns on either side of the doors – tall, muscular men who glance round the square, on the lookout for anything suspect. This square looks like a foreign land. This isn’t the Vienna that I knew any more.

  I feel so young and small and afraid. I have to steel myself to do this. Eva said they wouldn’t talk to her, but I’m not Jewish, and I have a British passport, and Britain surely still stands for something, in this changing world. They might listen to me where they wouldn’t listen to her. And it can’t be true what she said – they can’t forbid visits to prisoners. And they surely must tell you the charge, and when the case will be heard.

  I don’t know how to approach this. Perhaps I should march straight in through the doors – confident, as though I have every right to be there. But I know they’d stop me – might even shoot me. There are no women around: I’m conspicuous. I’ve only been here a few moments, but already the guards at the doors have become aware of me. I can see them staring in my direction.

  I approach the guard who is nearer. I have my passport in my hand.

  ‘Excuse me – I’m so sorry to bother you.’

  I flash him my most dazzling smile, though the corners of my lips are quivering.

  There’s a gleam of interest in his eyes. He doesn’t tell me to go.

  ‘I need to speak to someone official,’ I say.

  He shakes his head slightly.

  ‘That isn’t possible, fräulein.’

  ‘Please listen,’ I say. ‘I can tell you’re a helpful person. I need you to help me; I need to go in the hotel. A friend of mine has been arrested – there’s been a dreadful mistake.’

  ‘Fräulein—’

  ‘I’m British.’ I wave my passport at him. ‘I need to see my friend. You must allow visits, surely?’

  He says nothing.

  ‘I need to explain what has happened to someone in authority.’

  His eyes run up and down my body. I try to smile again, but my mouth is trembling too much.

  ‘I know that everyone must be busy, when you’ve only just arrived. I promise I won’t take up too much of anyone’s time. I just need to see someone official. When I explain how it happened, I’m sure that they’ll understand…’

  He’s looking over my shoulder now, scanning the square. But I’m encouraged, that at least he hasn’t sent me away. Though with a cool, detached part of myself, I know that this means nothing. He probably just enjoys talking to women: that’s why he is taking his time.

  I try again.

  ‘My friend was arrested because someone gave his name to the authorities. But the person who did this had malicious intentions. My friend is entirely innocent. He’s not a Bolshevik or anything. He wasn
’t involved in any political movement…’

  The soldier doesn’t respond.

  ‘Perhaps my friend could be bailed?’ My voice is thin now, shaky. ‘If bail is required, I could speak to people he knows. I could ask people at the hospital – he’s a doctor, my friend is a doctor…’

  My voice dries up. I’ve run out of breath, out of words. There’s only one thing left to try.

  ‘Maybe I’ll just go in then?’

  I take a step towards the doors of the hotel.

  He raises his gun.

  ‘You can’t go through,’ he tells me.

  I back away, put up my hands in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘All right – I won’t go through. I’ll write a letter. Could you tell me who I should write to? Could you give me a name?’

  ‘You need to leave this minute,’ the soldier says. ‘You’ve been loitering here too long.’

  His voice is changed: it’s hard, threatening. He’s just been playing with me. He was only pretending to listen; he never intended to help.

  As I turn away, I see someone else come up to the doors of the Metropole. A man, grey-haired, smart, prosperous, in a greatcoat of good black wool.

  ‘I need to speak to the authorities…’ He’s using almost exactly the same words I used. ‘I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’m afraid there’s been a mistake…’ He’s obsequiously polite, but I can see all the anguish in his face. ‘I have money.’ He takes out his wallet. ‘I need to speak to someone official,’ he says.

  Above him, the great black swastika flags are cracking like sails in the wind. The soldier gestures the man away with his gun.

  72

  I climb slowly back up the steps by the Ruprechtskirche, heading towards Mariahilferstrasse. I walk slowly, heavily. I feel as though a leaden weight is pressing into my chest.

  I cross the Hoher Markt. It’s more sheltered here, and the touch of the air is less bitter out of the wind. The bells of the Stephansdom are ringing: they have a triumphal sound, peeling out over the city, as though ringing in some great day of celebration.

  The streets are busier now, the pavements filling up, though most of the shops are shuttered. These aren’t Saturday’s marauding gangs, but orderly, respectable people. Many have their children with them, because the schools are closed. They’re dressed in their Sunday best, though it’s Monday, and some of the women have bunches of flowers, their hot-house colours startlingly bright against all the grey of the day – Vienna’s great grey buildings, the dirty snow underfoot. You can smell the polleny sweetness of the flowers as people pass. There’s a festive feeling to it all – as though these people are off to watch a carnival parade.

  I come to Dorotheergasse, where the florist’s is open. As I pass, I hear the clang of the doorbell as someone comes out of the shop.

  ‘Stella!’

  I turn.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ she says, smiling.

  ‘Hello, Anneliese.’

  I paste a smile on my face.

  She has a hat of vermilion velvet with a little spotted veil, and she’s holding a bunch of tulips; their petals are red and frilly, like the skin inside a mouth. I wonder if she chose the flowers to tone with the hat. Her handbag and her camera are hanging from her arm.

  ‘So, Stella. How lovely to see you.’ She’s flushed, bright-eyed, beneficent. ‘How are you?’

  As though everything’s right between us; as though the incident in the Landtmann never happened at all.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  ‘Where are you off to?’ she asks.

  ‘There’s someone I have to see,’ I tell her.

  ‘Can’t it wait?’

  ‘Not really.’

  I see the expression that flickers over her face. Guarded, disapproving; the faint outline of a frown. She knows this must be something to do with Harri.

  ‘You won’t be joining us, then,’ she says.

  But I don’t know where she’s going, or what she’s talking about.

  I feel agitated. I’m desperate to get to Mariahilferstrasse – so I can talk to Eva, so we can plan our next move. But I don’t feel I can just walk off: Anneliese was once my best friend.

  ‘Joining you where?’ I ask her.

  She puts her hand on my arm. She’s wearing elegant gauntlet gloves that have a fringe of black fur.

  ‘Stella – are you all right?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘No, I thought not. You don’t look too good, to be frank. You need some colour in those cheeks. Are you sickening for something?’

  ‘Yes, maybe.’ It seems easiest.

  ‘Poor Stella. What an unfortunate time to be ill.’

  She’s standing close. Her smell of peach preserves wraps round me. I feel a brief, stupid urge to tell her everything that’s happened, a flicker of nostalgia for the way things used to be.

  ‘I still think you should come and join us,’ she says. ‘As long as you’re still on your feet…’

  I’m puzzled. She sees this, smiles indulgently.

  ‘Honestly, Stella. I can’t believe you haven’t heard. It’s such a special moment. The Führer is arriving in Vienna today. His motorcade is coming.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Stella, where have you been hiding? You really didn’t know?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘You ought to be there, you really should. It’s history being made.’

  ‘Yes, it is, I suppose.’

  We stand there for a moment. I sense how she wants to win me over – to persuade me of the rightness of her opinions, to share in her world.

  I hunt around in my mind for something else to say.

  ‘I like the flowers,’ I tell her, vacuously.

  She nods. ‘They’re pretty, aren’t they? I was really lucky to get them. Business is brisk in there today.’ She indicates the florist’s with an extravagant wave of her hand. ‘He said he’d never seen anything like it. He thinks they’ll soon be sold out.’

  ‘Oh … And I see you’ve got your camera.’

  She nods. Her eyes gleam. ‘The whole thing should look gorgeous – you know, all the soldiers and uniforms and people throwing flowers. If only I had a movie camera…’

  I remember how she yearned to make films, like Leni Riefenstahl. Not all our dreams are good dreams.

  She puts her hand on my arm. ‘So how about it? I can’t persuade you?’

  ‘No. Really.’

  She shakes her head a little.

  ‘Oh Stella. Sometimes I don’t understand you at all. I mean, we’ll be able to tell our children about it … Wouldn’t you like that? Don’t you want to be able to tell them: Yes, I was there?’ She looks in my face. Her voice hardens slightly. ‘No, you just don’t see it, do you?’

  She moves a little away from me. She puts up a hand and adjusts her hat, so the veil falls over her eyes.

  ‘I suppose I’d better be going. There are people from the Academy that I’m meeting up with,’ she says. ‘They’re saying that the motorcade will be coming round the Ring, and we want to get a good vantage point. It wouldn’t do to be late.’

  She walks briskly away from me.

  73

  I walk on to Eva’s, picking my way through the crowds. I think back over our conversation.

  It’s history being made.

  Anneliese was right about that, at least. Everything is different now; and this recognition feels important to me. Because you can only survive in this new world if you know that; if you know in the depths of your being how utterly everything is changed.

  At the flat on Mariahilferstrasse, Eva calls through the door.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me. Stella.’

  She unlocks the door and takes me into the living room.

  It all looks much as usual. Benjamin is sleeping, his newspaper propped against him. Lotte is painting a cat picture at the table; she has the paintbox I gave her for Christmas, and water in a jar. She looks up, doesn’t smile.
Her eyes are red and raw from crying.

  ‘Lotte’s off today,’ says Eva. ‘The schools are closed for the day. Now, Lotte, I want you to go to your bedroom—’

  ‘No. I’m not going. I’m staying here. I want to talk to Stella.’

  Eva makes a slight gesture of acquiescence; she’s too exhausted, too overwhelmed, to protest. We sit down at the table.

  Lotte grasps my hand.

  ‘Have you found him?’ she says.

  I see all the hope that burns in her eyes.

  ‘Not yet, but I’m doing my best.’ I try to keep my voice level. ‘First I asked a man that I know, but he said he couldn’t help me…’

  I stumble over the words. I wonder if I should tell Eva that it was Rainer who did this, who had Harri arrested. But I can’t bear to tell her.

  ‘Then I went to the door of the Hotel Metropole,’ I say.

  ‘Goodness, Stella. That was brave,’ says Eva.

  ‘Why was it brave?’ asks Lotte.

  ‘There are soldiers with guns there,’ says Eva.

  Lotte shrugs.

  ‘Maybe Stella wasn’t bothered. Maybe she wants to find Harri more than she’s frightened of guns.’

  ‘It wasn’t any use, though,’ I say. ‘It’s just as you said, Eva – they wouldn’t tell me anything. They wouldn’t let me inside. I’m so so sorry.’

  Eva gives a small, sad shake of the head.

  ‘Well done for trying,’ she says.

  We sit for a while, in a heavy, defeated silence. Outside, you can hear the people passing on the pavement, and all the bells of the city, ringing in the new world.

  Lotte gives up on her painting. She’s moving the paintbrush round and round in the jar, making small waves in the water. Absently, as though she’s not aware of what she’s doing. Round and round. The water splashes.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Lotte. Don’t do that,’ Eva says sharply. ‘It gets on my nerves.’