by Eva Ibbotson
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You went to Schloss Uferding. It belongs to my cousin and he’s let it to a man from Wiener Neustadt who makes saucepans. A very good fellow — and patriotic, as you see. The horse is for his mother-in-law: an undemanding animal. I’m so glad you didn’t like the place. It’s a sort of joke; quite well done, I suppose, and we liked the funny fountains when we were children. I haven’t been there for years. It’s Burg Uferding that is my home.’
My lover continued to be so entertained by his supposed birth in the state bed of Prince Eugene and his wild rides, ventre a terre, on the gelding of the saucepan manufacturer’s mother-in-law, that the love we made that night was distinctly on the rococo side. Afterwards I said: ‘I promise I won’t go there, I’m through with sentimental journeys. But what is the Burg like? The place where you do live?’
He rolled on to his back. ‘Quite small. High up. There’s a single tower . . . wooden . . . a courtyard. The rooms are a bit cramped . . . there’s a smell of leather and wood.’ He wound one of my curls round his finger. ‘The stables are almost as big as the house,’ he said, and grinned.
I was satisfied. In such a place I could see him and — just as important — I could see Hatschek.
The Kaiser has departed for his villa in Bad Ischl, and God help the poor chamoix which, for the next month, he will pursue relentlessly in lederhosen. They say he has run out of wall on which to stick their horns. Well, all of us have problems.
His departure is always the signal for the city to empty for the summer. Most of my clients have houses in the mountains or by a lake. Frau Hutte-Klopstock is going back to the High Tatras. The glacier named after her proved to be so small that it melted, and she and her husband are going to try and find glory by pioneering a different route.
Leah Cohen spends the summer on the Bodensee. She came to invite me to go with her, but though I shall close the shop for two weeks at the end of the month, I shan’t go away. There’s a lot of work to be done on the Huber trousseau, and I love these weeks of high summer: the dark trees trembling in the breeze that you can scarcely feel down below; the quietness.
‘How is the psychoanalysis?’ I asked her. ‘Does it help?’
Leah has been getting so depressed and having such bad dreams, that her husband has sent her to Professor Freud in the Berggasse for treatment.
‘Well, it doesn’t help my depression — but then I know why I’m depressed. It’s because I don’t want to go to the Promised Land and dig holes for orange trees. But I must say it’s simply marvellous for the feet! You know how my ankles kept swelling after Benjamin, and an hour on the couch is simply bliss!’
Professor Starsky is going to a conference on Herpetology in Reykjavik, and the English Miss will spend August on the moors near the Scottish border where her people live. A friend is going to take the setter bitch into the country while she is away which will give Rip a chance to pull himself together. Inflamed by the heat, his passion has broken all bounds. As soon as the bitch appears, he pounds across the square and weaves hysterically in and out of her legs. To see the stomach of your beloved arching high above you, as unreachable as it is desired, cannot be easy, and it is no wonder that as he lies panting in the shade of the chestnut trees, he is inclined to be short-tempered.
Herr Heller never goes away. His dusty shop is like the shell of one of Professor Starsky’s reptiles. Even when he leaves his books just to go and stand outside on the pavement, he somehow looks unprotected and a little lost. He’s going to have a hard time with his granddaughter, though. The Schumachers left yesterday with forty-five pieces of luggage for a fortnight in Ascona, so Maia won’t have anyone to bully into making yurts.
My neighbour on the other side, Herr Schnee, has had a splendid piece of luck! The tackroom and workshops of the stables housing the horses of the Carinthian Jaegers has been destroyed by fire and he has a big order for new harness in time for a state parade in October. His nephew is a cornet in this crack regiment which puts the Cossacks to shame for style and ostentation: shakos with golden plumes, dolmanyis, breeches of white kid, and he’s threatening to line up his horses outside his uncle’s shop for a fitting!
‘On my fiftieth birthday, this is to be —’ said Herr Schnee, drawn out of his usual crustiness by this event. ‘He’s a wild lad; I wouldn’t be surprised if he meant what he said!’
Tomorrow I’m going to do battle with Nini!
My God — you’d think I was proposing to crucify the girl. Of course I realize that no one with Hungarian blood in them can be regarded as normal but my suggestion that Nini should go away to the country and have a holiday while I closed the shop was received as if I’d threatened to do her a frightful injury.
‘Why? Why should I go away?’
‘Because you need a break; because you’ve been working very hard; because the heat is impossible.’
‘I don’t want to go to the country. I don’t like the country. I never know what to do when I’m there. Walking up a mountain, walking down again, what’s the point? Anyway why should I have a holiday when there are families living six to a room who can’t even afford the tram fare to the Prater? I don’t see what I’ve done to be sent away.’
For heaven’s sake, Nini, I’m offering you exactly the conditions you’re fighting so hard for for the poor and the oppressed. The Cohens have offered to have you, so have the Schumachers — or I’ll pay for a room for you in a pension.’
‘What about Gretl? Why doesn’t she have to have a holiday?’
‘Gretl doesn’t spend her nights in stuffy cellars planning to blow up the bourgeoisie. Anyway she’s having the fortnight off to prepare for her wedding.’
‘Ha!’ said Nini. I saw her point; Gretl very much likes being engaged — the ring, the status — but she doesn’t show the slightest hurry to name the day. ‘And anyway,’ Nini went on, ‘something very interesting is coming up in Ottakring.’
This, unfortunately, I knew to be true and it was one of the reasons I was determined to send her away.
‘Nini, I’m not prepared to argue. I’m closing on the twenty-second and you’re going away.’
She flounced off in a temper, wearing white pique, to paste slogans on a railway bridge. When she returned, however, she was in an accommodating mood.
‘One of the men told me about a summer camp for workers’ children on the Grundlsee. It’s run by an international welfare organization. Children come from all over the world, and doctors and students and counsellors look after them. They want people to wash up and do the chores, I wouldn’t mind that.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘That’s settled.’
I haven’t said anything to Jan Kraszinsky about my efforts on Sigismund’s behalf which is as well because there’s been no sign of Van der Velde.
‘We have money for six more weeks,’ he said when I met him in the paper shop.
The child is practising something which seems to smoothe out everything inside one very gently, yet at the same time makes one feel as though there are bubbles inside one’s nose, so I suppose it is by Mozart.
Oh God, I don’t know how to write this . . .
I felt it the last time I lay in Gernot’s arms; I knew it was there, the ultimate horror waiting to strike. Only it isn’t I that have been struck down; not this time. It is Alice.
Two days ago, Rudi Sultzer collapsed in his office. They thought it was the heat and he was taken home to the Garnisongasse to rest. Laura gave him vegetable juice and read to him from Faust and said it was nothing serious, but the doctor, when he came, disagreed with her. Rudi’s heart was tired and he needed absolute rest. Then yesterday morning he had a second attack and this time an ambulance took him to the Municipal Hospital. His heart was not just tired, it was failing, and he lay propped on pillows, blue-lipped and scarcely conscious, fighting for his life.
‘He looks so small, Frau Susanna,’ said Edith, who had hurried in on the way home from the hospital to cancel her fitting. And almost no hair. I hadn’t realized how much hair he’d lost. It’s a terrible place, that hospital. Nothing prepares you.’
No, nothing. And certainly not Laura Sultzer or Beowulf.
‘What do they say about his chances?’
She shook her head. ‘They don’t say much — but they don’t expect him to recover, I know.’
‘Is he in a public ward?’
‘No, he’s in a room on the second floor overlooking a dark courtyard. Oh God, it is an awful place to die, that hospital!’
I let her cry, patted her shoulder, but my mind was fixed on one thing only: how to help Alice.
For all of yesterday, all of today, Alice has sat on a wooden bench in the hospital waiting room, waiting for the moment when she could rise with the other visitors, summoned by the bell, and go to bid her love goodbye.
It never came, this moment, nor would it. Two visitors per person is the iron rule in that barrack and in case of serious illness, only relatives. Alice knew this as well as anyone, she expected no miracles, but it was impossible for her to leave the building in which he lay.
‘Does he seem at peace, your father?’
Edith frowned. ‘I don’t know . . . it’s so difficult for him to breathe. He said something to my mother . . . something about not having been worthy of her. But he didn’t finish it properly . . . he seemed to lose interest as he said it . . . as though it was too difficult, or not important. Then once or twice I thought he was looking for someone. Not my mother or me. Someone else. Perhaps I was imagining it.’ She picked up a pincushion and began to denude it of pins. ‘No, I wasn’t imagining it.’
I waited, afraid even to move.
Edith gulped and went on quickly. ‘I saw a woman in the waiting room in the hospital. She was sitting there in a white dress with a flowery hat. I thought I’d seen her before once, when Father had pneumonia. She was standing down below in the street and it was raining. She just stood there — she’d forgotten her umbrella and the rain completely ruined her hat. I remembered it because it was a pretty hat, like . . . ’ She broke off, flushing, and turned away.
I made up my mind.
‘Fraulein Edith, you love your father, I think?’
‘Yes. When I was little we used to do a lot of things together, but my mother felt that . . . I mean, my father was not very spiritual,’ said Edith, her voice trailing away.
‘Well, listen; you have a chance to do something for your father. It’s not something any young girl could do, but you have been brought up to be broad-minded and aware of . . . ’ Here I faltered, unable to imagine that Edith had been brought up to be aware of anything as simple as the relationship which existed between Alice and her father. ‘I think that the person your father was looking for is the woman you mentioned. She is someone he has known a long time and been fond of, and I think he’d like to say goodbye to her.’
‘Oh, but I couldn’t! I couldn’t bring . . . how could I? My mother would never —’
‘This has nothing to do with your mother. Nor with you, really, Edith. You only have to mention to the doctor or the ward sister that your father has a relative who lives in the country and would like to say goodbye. It would all be over in a few moments.’
‘No, I can’t do that. I can’t. My mother . . .’
‘Very well.’
I rose and opened the door for her.
‘You do understand?’ The Bluestocking turned to me, mottled but obstinate.
‘Yes, yes.’
I had already forgotten Edith.
It took me an hour to walk round the hospital, question the porter, get my bearings. Then I went to the waiting room.
Alice was still sitting upright on the wooden bench, shivering in her pretty dress.
‘Sanna! Oh God, Sanna. What are you doing here?’
‘I’m going to take you to Rudi.’
‘You can’t,’ she said wearily. ‘No one is allowed in except relatives. And they always come, both of them. It’s only right; they’re family. Only . . . ’ Her lips began to tremble. ‘I thought if I could see him just once more. Just to . . . thank him . . . that then I could bear it.’
‘Well, you’re going to see him. I told you. Now. Get up,’ I said firmly, as if to a child.
She rose, shaking her head, and picked up the bunch of cornflowers that lay beside her. ‘I brought them because when we first met . . . ’But this did not seem to be a sentence that one finished.
I led her through an archway into the main corridor, green-painted and deserted but for an orderly pushing a patient on a trolley. Beneath the grey blanket shrouding the figure, one foot protruded. Now to the left, up the first flight of stairs; I’d done my homework; there was no need to ask the way.
Another long corridor, past doors open to sights I prefer not to remember. The smell of chloroform, of lysol . . . Alice, I think, was aware of nothing, her only terror that we would be stopped before she reached her love.
‘Excuse me, but visitors are not allowed at this hour.’ A starched sister, all bristles and authority.
I smiled. ‘We’re not visiting a patient, sister. We’re visiting Professor Mittelheimer.’
My smile, that of a third-class houri in the red-light district of a minor provincial town, was an accident brought on by nerves, but it disconcerted the Sister so much that she let us pass. With the reputation of the poor Professor (whose name I had got off a notice board) in ruins, we went up a second flight of stairs.
We had reached the private room. (Please God let it work! Let her see him just once more.)
‘I’m sorry, but nobody is allowed past —’
Beside me, Alice faltered, missed her step. It was too cruel when we were almost at Rudi’s door.
And then a second nurse, senior to the first, coming out of her office. ‘Unless one of you is Herr Doktor Sultzer’s sister from Prague?’
I gestured to Alice.
‘That’s all right then. The Herr Doktor’s daughter telephoned us to expect you. Only a few minutes though. He is very ill.’
(Oh Edith, how I wronged you. I will be your friend for life.)
She led us to the room where Rudi lay. I stepped aside and Alice went forward to the bed. When she bent over him and saw the unmistakable signs of death, the colour drained from her face and I moved towards her, afraid that she would faint.
Then somehow — I don’t know how she did this — she reassembled from the terrified stricken woman she had become, her charm, her beauty. Alice put up her hand to flick back the wisp of veiling on her hat. She laid the cornflowers on the counterpane. She smiled. Properly, I mean. Naturally. Then she said: ‘Rudi?’
Not in a desperate way; not calling him back from limbo. She said it as you say it when someone you love lies beside you on the pillow and it amuses you to say his name.
So he came back. For lamentations and guilt he had not returned, nor had the ministrations of the doctors brought him back, but Alice called him lightly, cheerfully, and he came. Not at once . . . slowly. His eyes opened . . . focused. And when he realized that she was there, really in the flesh and not a mirage, and looked at her, she must have had all the reward that women like us can ever hope to have.
So far we could still have been watching a man taking leave of a beloved sister. The smile on the dying man’s face could have been the tender smile of a fond older brother remembering childhood games. The silly pet name he now spoke softly into Alice’s ear as she bent over him might have belonged to their nursery games, though it would have been an unusual nursery. But now Rudi Sultzer very slightly turned his head and as Alice brought her mouth towards him and kissed him gently on the lips, the Herr Doktor’s hand moved up f
rom the coverlet . . . sought something . . . found it.
Not her soft hair beneath the hat, nor her sweet mouth. Something that represented a more lasting sanctuary, a memory of all that was good on this earth: her breast.
‘Ah,’ said Rudi with infinite content.
It was only when I heard the hiss of outrage behind me that I realized that Edith Sultzer had come into the room.
Rudi never regained consciousness after Alice’s visit. He died quietly in the early hours of the morning and in the evening Alice was on stage in a gold bolero and red velvet skirt singing of love and lilac blossom in Waltzertraum.
She was in the second row as usual. She’d put on a lot of make-up and she sang nicely and I don’t know if anyone noticed anything, but I did. Something had happened to her mouth; something that can happen gradually with age or overnight with grief.
Herr Huber was beside me. He’d driven us to the theatre and been a tower of strength. It wasn’t till I caught the scent of his Hungary water and saw that he had laid his snow-white handkerchief in my lap, that I realized tears were running down my face.
I hadn’t cried till then. It was my business to help Alice, not to cry. But it was too much, suddenly; the glimpse I’d had of the future. My sweet and pretty friend in the back row among the village elders with her spinning wheel, singing year in year out about the spring . . .
In the last few days I’ve cancelled all but my most important clients and left the shop to Nini so that I could be with Alice.
This secret mourning is very hard. In the Garnisongasse, Frau Sultzer mourns loudly and in public. Her husband’s colleagues come to commiserate, relatives appear. No doubt the Group, who thought so little of Rudi in his life, are busy writing poems in his praise or trailing dark sprays of ivy through the flat. Does Laura put up notices saying: Silence! Frau Sultzer is remembering her husband? I don’t know. There has been no sign of Edith since she hissed away in fury down the hospital corridor.