The Girl, the Dog and the Writer in Lucerne

by Katrina Nannestad

  ‘But what on earth for?’ asked Tobias.

  ‘For being rude,’ said Freja, ‘and grumpy and bossy and running off without you and Finnegan and . . . and . . .’ Freja’s eyes welled up with tears yet again. ‘And for not telling Clementine I love her.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ sighed Tobias. ‘It has been a sad and difficult day, and we have all been out of sorts. Even Lady P snapped at one of the nurses, and you know what a kind old brick she is! But you, old chap, have no need to feel bad about anything.’

  ‘But Clementine . . .’ A tear dribbled down Freja’s cheek.

  Finnegan leaned forward, snuffling about until his wet nose found its way into Freja’s ear. The girl smiled despite her heavy heart.

  ‘Clementine knows that you love her,’ said Tobias. ‘It is, of course, jolly nice to say it from time to time, but a day without saying “I love you” is not going to make a scrap of difference. Why, Finnegan has never told you he loves you and yet you could not possibly doubt his love and devotion.’

  ‘Boof!’ said the dog.

  ‘And take Vivi, here,’ said Tobias, now turning his attention to the pretty chef for the first time since his arrival. ‘I’m madly in love with her. Desperately, crazily in love. In fact, I could not live without her and hope to spend the rest of my life with her. But I haven’t told her that yet. I mean, I have, of course, said, “I love you.” But the lifelong devotion is yet to be spoken out loud. Nevertheless, I suspect that Vivi knows this to be the case . . . at least, I hope she does . . . and I am just looking for the right moment to . . . well . . .’ Tobias stared up at the pear-and-bluebird chandeliers. He tugged at his ear. He poked at the plate of chocolate truffles, picked up a Dusty Fluff, sniffed it and sneezed. Loudly. Wetly.

  Freja and Vivi burst out laughing, and Finnegan barked.

  Freja said a silent thank you yet again that Tobias was a part of her life, no matter how confused she might be about why he was a part of her life. He was kind and caring and seemed always to bring a burst of joy with him. Even in the strangest and saddest of moments.

  When the laughter settled, Freja slipped off her chair and offered it to Tobias. ‘Perhaps I could bring you a mug of hot chocolate from the kitchen, Tobby,’ she said. ‘Daniel has taught me how to make the perfect hot chocolate by slowly melting Berna’s Best chocolate in full-cream milk. And François-Louis showed me how to whisk the cream in a chilled glass bowl until it is fluffy enough to drift across the top of the hot chocolate like a cloud drifting across the Alps on a light summer breeze.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ cried Tobias. ‘Sounds delicious. And poetic. And very Swiss! I’ll take two — one for me and one for my beautiful companion.’

  ‘Boof!’

  Tobias nodded. ‘Yes, yes! And a bowl of whipped cream for my hairy companion.’

  Freja giggled. She kissed Finnegan on his shaggy grey head and dashed away to the kitchen. She moved about, breaking chocolate, pouring milk, stirring, whisking cream, feeling relaxed and happy once more as she lost herself in the hot chocolate ritual. ‘Happy food,’ she murmured.

  A sudden flash of red caught Freja’s eye. Moving to the glass wall, she peered into the shop. A new customer had arrived, a woman with flaming red hair and matching red lipstick. A black mole sat on her chin, just below the right side of her mouth. On her head, she wore a small black hat with a veil that fell across her face, down to her nose.

  It was the woman who had been in Leckerbissen two days ago. The one who had ordered a large and delicious slice of chocolate gâteau and a mug of hot chocolate, yet had not taken a single nibble, lick or sip. Why had she returned to the chocolate shop if she did not like chocolate?

  Freja watched as the woman now walked around Leckerbissen’s shelves and tables, her eyes dashing back and forth, her hands rubbing nervously together.

  The back of Freja’s neck tingled. She could not say why, but it was enough to draw her through the glass door and into the shop, where she stood quietly behind the chocolate doll’s house, watching, listening, learning.

  ‘Herzlich Willkommen!’ sang Frau Niederhauser through a mouthful of chocolate. ‘May I help you, Fräulein?’

  ‘Oh yes, please!’ The woman spoke with an American accent, the voice of a movie star. ‘That gâteau with the chocolate curls looks sensational. What’s it made of?’

  ‘You have good taste,’ cooed Frau Niederhauser. ‘The gâteau is made from our finest Swiss chocolate, Margrit Milk. There is Margrit Milk in the cake, Margrit Milk in the fluffy chocolate cream and Margrit Milk in the glossy ganache. And the chocolate curls on top — made by our smallest chocolatier here, Fräulein Freja Sweet-tea — are pure Margrit Milk.’

  ‘Sounds perfect!’ cried the woman, her hands twitching. ‘I’ll take it.’

  Frau Niederhauser smiled. ‘I am sorry, Fräulein, but the cake is already spoken for. It is waiting here for a dear customer. We can, however, make you another one, just the same. It can be ready by Monday.’

  The woman’s cheeks coloured and her hands rubbed and fidgeted apace. ‘But I have heard so very much about the Margrit Milk chocolate here,’ she said, ogling the gâteau. ‘I’d really like that cake. I don’t suppose . . .’

  ‘I’m so very sorry,’ said Frau Niederhauser, ‘but I can offer you some Margrit Milk in another form.’

  The woman’s eyes lit up and her smile stretched wide. ‘That would be splendid,’ she drawled.

  Frau Niederhauser walked along the shelves and returned with a bowl of small chocolate buttons and a silver dish of paper-thin chocolate feathers.

  The woman’s face fell. ‘No, thank you,’ she sighed.

  ‘But they are delicious!’ cried Frau Niederhauser. ‘Here. Taste one. Taste ten! They are free, from Leckerbissen to you, to show you that the Margrit Milk chocolate is delicious and irresistible in any form.’

  But the woman pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head. Freja leaned forward and stared. What sort of person turned down ten free chocolates?

  ‘Bitte,’ coaxed Frau Niederhauser, smiling, arching her eyebrows and holding the chocolates forth.

  ‘I said no!’ shouted the woman. She threw her hands up, flinging the glass bowl of buttons and the silver tray of feathers into the air. ‘Oh my! I am so sorry!’ She jumped backward, banging against the cake table. Herr Basil’s beautiful Margrit Milk gâteau slid off its stand and fell to the floor with a plop.

  Freja gasped and ran forward to rescue what she could, but the woman, flustered and apologetic, beat her there.

  ‘Oh me! Oh my!’ the woman drawled. ‘I’m so very, very sorry. I’m such a klutz. Let me help with this disastrous mess.’ But instead of making things right, she dithered and blustered, her hands plunging deeply, ripping and crumbling the layers of cake, her fingers squelching the chocolate cream, her knees crushing the chocolate curls, until all that remained was a mound of crumbs and mush. ‘Oh dear. Oh me! Oh my! Look what I have done!’ she hollered, sifting the mess through her fingers, time and time again, as though eager to demonstrate her complete and utter clumsiness.

  Rising to her feet, she wiped her filthy hands on Frau Niederhauser’s apron and cried, ‘I’m so terribly embarrassed!’ She opened her handbag, took out some money and tucked it beneath a plate of chocolate éclairs. Then, turning around, she slipped on a blob of chocolate cream and stumbled against the doll’s house.

  ‘Nooo!’ shouted Freja.

  But, thankfully, the doll’s house was safe. The woman giggled nervously, straightened one or two pieces of chocolate furniture, muttered, ‘So desperately sorry,’ three more times, then fled from the shop.

  It was not until Freja and Frau Niederhauser had cleaned away the sad remains of Herr Basil’s gâteau that Freja stood up and looked at the doll’s house once more. She was so very relieved that it hadn’t been broken. François-Louis would have been devastated. She would have been devastated.

  Freja leaned forward and smiled as her eyes ran across each of the rooms — t
he lounge room, the kitchen, the bedrooms, the library, the bathroom, the attic. Beautiful, she thought, but . . .

  She scrunched her nose and looked into each room once more. Everything was in its place — the sofas, the chandeliers, the harp, the pot plants, the toilet and its tiny roll of chocolate toilet paper. Even the chocolate dining suite was there — François-Louis had replaced the gobbled table and chairs with his new ones just half an hour ago. So why didn’t it look right?

  Freja stepped back and shrugged. She was about to return to the kitchen, when it struck her.

  ‘Oh!’ she gasped. ‘There’s nobody home. The Margrit Milk people are all gone!’

  CHAPTER 29

  The little things that matter

  Half an hour later, the girl, the dog and the writer said goodbye to Vivi and wandered away through the Kornmarkt, the Weinmarkt and Mühlenplatz. As they neared the River Reuss, the sound of the water rushing through the weir grew louder. Freja’s steps slowed. When they reached the Spreuer Bridge, she came to a complete standstill.

  ‘Boof!’ Finnegan nudged Freja in the back, but she dug in her heels and stayed put.

  ‘Everything okay, old chap?’ asked Tobias.

  Freja frowned. She tugged at one ear, then the other. She squatted a little so that she could see the Totentanz paintings on the gables. At the first glimpse of the nasty skeleton, she stood up straight and shuddered. ‘He’s definitely headed up the hill,’ she murmured.

  Turning to Tobias, she said, ‘I think I might go back to the clinic and tell Clementine I love her.’

  Tobias delivered Freja to the front door of the clinic. Dragging Finnegan, whimpering and whining, back down the steps, he cried, ‘Alone time, old chap! That’s what you need. Time to say the important things to Clementine. The secret things. Or just the silly things you might be embarrassed to say in front of Finnegan and me, like, “Look at this melted chocolate behind my left ear, Clementine. I wonder how that got there!” or, “Oh no! I have my boots on the wrong feet and I am wearing my shirt inside out and back to front!”’

  Freja smiled despite her thumping heart.

  ‘And it might be rather nice,’ Tobias babbled on, ‘a novelty, in fact, to spend some quiet time in the room without the distraction of a dog chewing on the bandages and the nurse’s shoelaces and the wheels of the bed.’

  ‘Woof-boof!’ Finnegan snapped at Tobias’ nose.

  ‘Don’t you snap at me, you naughty dog!’ cried Tobias, wagging his finger in the air.

  Finnegan licked the finger, then ripped a button from Tobias’ shirt. He spat it out onto the ground, sniffed it, licked it, then ate it.

  Freja giggled.

  ‘Besides,’ said Tobias, now dragging Finnegan by the collar, ‘I have some very important research to do — about turrets and windows and whether one thrashes about in the air differently if one falls from a great height or is pushed from a great height. I’ll be back to fetch you when I am done!’ And he disappeared down the street, his voice fading as he wondered out loud about plummeting from a turret, and the sound that would be made on landing, and whether it might be a thud or a plop, a boing or a splat, or perhaps even a splash if one was lucky enough to land in a fountain.

  Freja walked into the clinic, up the stairs and along the corridor, still smiling and sometimes giggling a little. ‘Thank you, Tobby,’ she whispered. For she knew that the writer had just used his wits and his words and Finnegan’s naughtiness to cheer her up so that she would arrive at Clementine’s bedside feeling cheerful and strong.

  Entering the room, she waved at Lady P and walked straight to Clementine. She took Clementine’s hand in hers and pressed it to her cheek.

  ‘I love you, Mummy Darling Heart,’ Freja whispered.

  Clementine’s eyelids fluttered.

  Freja waited, willing the eyelids to open, the blue eyes to sparkle. But the movement stopped and the pale thin face remained a blank.

  ‘I love you, Clementine,’ said Freja, a little louder now.

  ‘Good girl,’ cooed Lady P from her bed.

  Freja pressed Clementine’s hand to her heart and turned to Lady P. ‘It doesn’t feel enough,’ she whispered.

  ‘But “I love you” is everything!’ said Lady P. ‘I would give anything to be able to tell my dear Lord P “I love you” one more time. I would do anything to hear him say, “I love you, Magnificent Margaret!” one more time.’

  Freja nodded. ‘I just wish I could talk to her like we used to, about normal things. At night we’d chatter about how the glaciers in Norway sparkle beneath the midnight sun, or how the newly hatched puffins we’d seen that day were as fluffy as rabbits, or how good baked beans taste when eaten straight from the can by an open fire, or how tangled my curls were after a day of watching musk oxen out on the windy tundra.’

  Lady P smiled. ‘They sound like very special things!’ she cried. ‘Not at all normal.’

  ‘They were normal for us, living in the Arctic wilds,’ said Freja.

  Lady P nodded. ‘But you can still talk to Clementine now. Who knows? She may even be able to hear you. Tell her about your day — what you have done, who you have seen, what you have eaten.’

  ‘It feels odd,’ she whispered, ‘talking to someone who doesn’t answer . . . doesn’t even smile or frown or nod.’

  ‘Hmmm, I can understand that,’ said Lady P.

  Freja placed Clementine’s hand gently back on the bed and sighed.

  ‘I know!’ cried Lady P. ‘Why don’t you tell me about your day? I’ll smile and frown and nod and talk in all the right places, and Clementine will still be here for the whole thing. It won’t be the same as the good old days in the Arctic, but it might feel a little bit normal once you get going.’

  Freja smiled. ‘I’d like that!’ She pulled a chair across the room and sat between the beds so she was facing both Lady P and Clementine, and began to recount her day — or, at least, the bits she was glad to recall. Starting with the crêpes Suzette and the flaming palm tree, she moved on through the chocolate curls and the truffles and the disaster with Herr Basil’s gâteau, then finished with Tobias and his bold and surprising declaration of eternal love for Vivi. ‘It was almost like a proposal,’ said Freja. ‘Except he didn’t ask Vivi if she felt the same way.’

  Freja glanced across at her mother and whispered, ‘Oooh, I’m not sure I should have said that last bit about Tobias and Vivi. It might be upsetting for Clementine.’

  ‘I think Clementine would be delighted for Tobias and Vivi,’ said Lady P.

  Freja scrunched her nose. ‘But Clementine loves Tobias,’ she whispered. ‘It’s in her eyes, her voice, the way she touches his hands and his face. Anyone can see it!’

  ‘Yes, Freja,’ agreed Lady P. ‘Clementine and Tobias love each other dearly. They have been through so much together as children that an unbreakable bond has been formed. They are devoted to one another — Hero Boy and Reskew Girl forever! But they are not in love.’

  Freja stared from Lady P to Clementine, then back to Lady P. She opened her mouth and closed it again. Finally, she leaned forward and hissed, ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive,’ said Lady P. ‘I’m quite clever about such things, you know!’

  Freja’s entire body sagged with relief. ‘Love, but not in love,’ she murmured. ‘Huh!’

  ‘But tell me more about this woman with the red hair,’ said Lady P. ‘She sounds intriguing — like a strange and exotic animal! Perhaps a little like the puffins or the walruses you and Clementine have observed in the Arctic.’

  Freja nodded, now starting to enjoy the sharing of her day, detail by detail. ‘She had long red hair — very, very red — and red lipstick — even more red than her hair — and a beauty spot to the right of her mouth. No, the left of her mouth. No, the right!’ Freja paused and felt a little poke at the back of her mind.

  ‘Go on,’ coaxed Lady P.

  ‘She was American,’ said Freja, ‘and didn’t really seem to like chocolate. The
last time she visited Leckerbissen, she ordered a slice of chocolate gâteau and a mug of hot chocolate, but didn’t taste either.’

  ‘Perhaps she didn’t know how to eat without smudging her very, very red lipstick!’ suggested Lady P. ‘I once ordered a bowl of noodle soup in Hong Kong and didn’t take a single slurp. I realised when it was placed before me that I could not possibly eat without noodles and soup splashing all over my white silk frock. It would have been a wardrobe disaster! So I pushed the bowl aside, paid the bill and caught a rickshaw down the street to a little English teahouse, where I ordered three date scones and gobbled the lot!’

  ‘I don’t think it was the lipstick,’ said Freja, ‘because one could definitely pop a little chocolate between one’s lips without smudging or smearing anything. You see, today Frau Niederhauser offered her a chocolate button and a chocolate feather, but she turned them down.’ Freja’s blue eyes widened and she cried, ‘What sort of person says no to a free chocolate? Everyone likes chocolate! Absolutely everyone! Even people with very, very red lipstick.’

  ‘Jane didn’t like chocolate,’ said Lady P. She frowned, the bandages on her forehead wrinkling. ‘How very odd that I should recall that now! There is so much I have forgotten, but I do remember this. Jane did not like chocolate because she was allergic to it. One bite and she would break out in hives. Big red hives all over her face. Dreadful business.’

  ‘The red-haired lady didn’t like chocolate, but she still wanted to buy Herr Basil’s special chocolate gâteau!’ said Freja. ‘Isn’t that a bit silly?’

  ‘Perhaps it was a gift,’ said Lady P.

  ‘Perhaps,’ agreed Freja. ‘And then, when she knocked the cake onto the floor, she made an astonishing mess of it. She couldn’t have ruined it more completely if she had tried.’ Freja paused again, feeling another annoying poke at the back of her mind.

  ‘And she had this thing she did with her hands,’ Freja continued. ‘She fidgeted and rubbed them together . . . Like this.’ She demonstrated with her own hands. ‘As though she was nervous . . . As though she was a marmot!’ Freja burst out laughing as the comparison sprang into her mind.