The Longest Winter

by Mary Jane Staples

  He’s getting on very well with Anne, I think. I wonder if they would suit each other? Anne is so happy with life’s blessings and James, I fancy, has just enough of the devil in him to keep her interested, happy but not disturbed. Ludwig would make a very cheerful husband, probably, if she chose him. Myself, I’m sure I’d want more from a husband than simple cheerfulness. I’d like him to be intellectual, conversational and extremely fond of my poetry. I should wish to like him very much but not be off my head about him, as I think that is too unsettling for a wife. What is Anne saying to James now?

  Anne was asking James if he had been to Oxford or Cambridge. James, held by her blue-green eyes, came out of an agreeably mesmerized state to say, ‘At Edinburgh University no one’s ever heard of Oxford or Cambridge. Would you care to dance, fairest of Vienna’s blossoms?’

  ‘How can I say no to that?’ said Anne.

  They glided away, melting into the whirling kaleidoscope of movement and colour, prompting Ludwig to offer his arm to Sophie.

  ‘Thank you, Ludwig,’ she smiled, ‘how timely. Anne and James have launched themselves into perpetual motion, and we must fly after them.’

  They flew. Into the gyrational gaiety of the waltz.

  ‘What did Sophie mean by that?’ asked Helene of Carl.

  Carl, putting out his slim, gold-tipped cigarette, said, ‘Nothing painful, dear girl. May I have the pleasure?’

  ‘Oh, that would be nice,’ said Helene and was on her feet in an eager gush of frothy pink. She adored Carl. But then she adored most of the young men she knew. She had no brains at all but was of such a generous disposition that her mental vacuity was always forgivable. She was due to be adored herself by a senior army officer who considered brains in a woman entirely undesirable and who accordingly decided Helene would make an eminently suitable wife. And she did. But at the moment, in this summer of 1914, she was flirtatiously and archly happy in company with Carl and the others.

  Anne was warmly vivacious to dance with and James, whirling around with her, was frankly captivated by the atmosphere she and all his new friends created. True, they were without serious responsibilities, they did not have to work, to toil, to labour, they only had to live, and they lived fully, gaily and extravagantly. The von Korvacs were among the leading families of Vienna, and around Sophie and Anne moved the most eligible men. They were not always at home when he and Carl were tinkering with the Benz in the evenings, they were out at summer balls. He had no false ideas about his own eligibility. He was a friend of the family and it stopped at that. He had nothing to offer an aristocratic Austrian woman which he would not have to work for. His father would not make him more than a reasonable allowance if he got married, but would pay him well if he went back into the business. But however well that was, he could not see it keeping Anne or Sophie in the luxury they were used to. He was not even sure he would go back into the automobile industry. He had turned his back on it to be as irresponsible as his aristocratic friends for a year, and the longer he was away from it the less it appealed to him as a career. If he did go back he would set his creative sights on the development of noiseless engines and on the social desirability of turning the motor car into a vehicle with as much grace and elegance as a carriage. I’m so damned old-fashioned, he thought, that I’m almost an anachronism. Or a freak.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Anne, spinning with him, her eyes full of the joys of waltzing.

  ‘Horses and carts.’

  ‘You are funny. Horses and carts indeed. You mean a carriage and pair, that’s the gracious phrase.’

  The chandeliers of bright, glittering light revolved, the swirling dresses foamed with colour and Sophie went spinning by in the arms of Ludwig. A little later, when they had all recovered their breath, James said to her, ‘Sophie, will you engage again? Will you join the hoi polloi with me?’

  ‘Join it?’ Sophie’s smile was sparkling. ‘James, I am the hoi polloi, don’t you know that?’

  He found her an elegance of poetic motion, her dark shining hair regally dressed, her gown shimmeringly clasping her slender body.

  ‘James, you’re very accomplished.’

  ‘I manage to keep up? Good,’ said James.

  ‘Quite truthfully, you know,’ said Sophie, ‘I haven’t been to this dance hall since I was a girl.’

  ‘That must have been quite three months ago,’ said James.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, head back, eyes brilliant, ‘you’re much more gallant than when you nearly ran us down in your two-wheeler. What a beast you were then. Your language was dreadful.’

  ‘So was your driving, you came round that blind bend like a racing chariot—’

  ‘That was Ludwig. I was an innocent passenger.’

  ‘You were nearly an innocent victim,’ said James. She was laughing at him, it was in her eyes, her smile. ‘What an air you have, Sophie.’

  ‘What kind of an air?’

  ‘Oh, full of the dash of the hoi polloi.’

  Sophie laughed. It was true she had not been to the Dianabad for two or three years, and she was surprising herself in her enjoyment of it tonight. She observed James with interest. Ludwig always looked clean-cut and freshly shaved. James had a thinner face and a slight hint of blue shadow. Ludwig was an entirely likeable young man. James was definitely a trifle devilish, with little glints in his eyes. A tiny suspicion darted into her mind, a suspicion that she might be more susceptible than she thought. She was perfectly happy with life, perfectly content to wait for an intellectual and sophisticated suitor to arrive on her doorstep, and she did not think James quite fell into this category. He was very adult, of course, and slightly whimsical, but the picture she carried in her mind of a prospective husband, while not sharply clear, was based on a learned, professorial figure, a university lecturer, perhaps, a man of dry, academic wit. She looked at James again as they came off the floor. He had rather a good profile but was as darkly visaged as a Corsican freebooter. She had thought him a brigand when she first saw him.

  ‘James,’ she said lightly as he escorted her through the retiring dancers, ‘do you have any scoundrelly ancestors?’

  ‘On my father’s side I think we had some clansmen hanged,’ said James, ‘and on my mother’s side we had two or three Regency highwaymen who just escaped the gallows.’

  ‘I expect you’ve inherited a sense of adventure, then,’ said Sophie. ‘I am not so fortunate. My family on both sides has been terribly dull and respectable.’

  ‘You’ll get over it,’ said James.

  They danced the evening away, all of them. The Dianabad, where ‘The Blue Danube’ had first been played, gathered them into its melodious and infectious embrace and poured them finally into the clear, cooling atmosphere of the summer night.

  Carl drove the Benz home. Sophie sat between him and James. Before he was dropped off at the school James said to her, ‘Sophie, if someone told you that a good archduke is a dead one, what would you think?’

  ‘I’d think I was listening to an anarchist,’ said Sophie, ‘or to someone who really meant it’s a bad archduke who’s better dead. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, just curiosity.’

  Chapter Four

  Night after night the Benz carried the six of them into the brightly lit playground of Vienna. They dined, they danced. James spent precious capital. No one ever asked about money, who would pay or who could not.

  They went to see The Merry Widow. Anne said they must take James to that. It was traditional. She had seen it often but would always see it again. Sophie had seen it twice and said she really preferred Rossini. James had not seen it at all but said he quite liked Gilbert and Sullivan.

  ‘Who,’ said Sophie in demurest tones, ‘are Gilbert and Sullivan?’

  ‘I think they move furniture,’ said Carl.

  ‘You’re all infidels,’ said James.

  And they went another night to Grinzing, the garden village on the outskirts of Vienna, where people from a
ll stratas of society met on equal terms. The air was warm and sweet, Grinzing itself so picturesque that James wished he had brought his sketchbook. The place was famous for its arboured wine gardens, wherein the music of zithers and harmonicas encouraged the wining and dining patrons into singing as well. The clear evening turned into fairyland night.

  ‘Hans Andersen slept here, I presume,’ said James.

  ‘Did he? I’ve never heard,’ said Ludwig.

  ‘If he didn’t,’ said James, ‘he missed a large slice of magic.’

  ‘I don’t think the magic is just Grinzing tonight,’ said Sophie.

  ‘No, indeed,’ said Anne.

  Helene and Carl were singing. Ludwig was looking at Anne. Sophie was looking at James. The wine was putting dreaminess into her eyes.

  ‘It’s Grinzing, the night and my friends,’ said James.

  ‘Ah,’ said Sophie to Anne, ‘he did not take too long to catch on.’

  ‘It must be obvious, even to James, that we are rather special,’ said Anne. ‘I am almost matchless.’

  ‘I am matchless without qualification,’ said Sophie.

  ‘You’re both nicely mellow,’ said James.

  ‘He’s not terribly trustworthy with his compliments, is he?’ said Anne. ‘James,’ she said, ‘will you come to Ilidze with us? We are going in a week or so and you would love it there.’

  ‘I am asked myself,’ said Ludwig, ‘but can’t get there until the beginning of July. You must go and keep them in order, James. They run about wildly in Bosnia.’

  ‘I appreciate the invitation very much,’ said James, ‘but there’s the school. The term doesn’t close until late July. I’m committed until then, do you see?’

  Sophie, who had been thinking about asking her parents to invite James, felt a little twinge of disappointment. She also felt slightly disgusted with herself for not having had the sense to realize his teaching post meant he would not be free to join them, anyway.

  Anne said, ‘Oh, but you must come, James, you must talk to Frau Harrison.’

  ‘Anne, he can’t do that,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Can’t you, James?’ said Anne.

  ‘Not really,’ said James, and Sophie thought that while the rest of them sailed blithely through the summer days he alone had been making a worthwhile contribution to life in his teaching of children. Compared with James, she thought, I’m not much more than a butterfly. Perhaps that is what he thinks I am. Perhaps that is what he thinks Anne is. Perhaps that is why he doesn’t take either of us seriously. ‘All the same,’ she heard him saying, ‘it’s nice to know I was invited.’

  Colonel Dimitrijevic Apis had satisfied himself that the death of Franz Ferdinand was now of major political importance. For there was a growing belief that the archduke, when he became Emperor, meant to make generous concessions to Bosnia. That would not suit Serbia at all. Greater Serbia would only come about when Bosnia in disaffection threw off the Austrian yoke to unite with Serbia. The major reforms Franz Ferdinand had in mind would eliminate the causes of disaffection and turn Bosnia into a co-operative province of the Austrian empire. That made the archduke a serious and unacceptable threat to Serbian ambitions. Many Bosnians might be ready to assassinate a tyrant. Not so many would consider murdering a man whose reforms would be benevolent. Franz Ferdinand must go before he grew a halo, while there were still Bosnians who believed he had horns. Bosnians must do it. Not Serbians. Serbia must not be directly implicated.

  Sarajevo would present the perfect opportunity and the right timing.

  Colonel Dimitrijevic’s principal assistant in the Black Hand was a kindly officer and gentleman, Major Voja Tankosic. Major Tankosic was good to his family, contributed to charities and went regularly to church. He also held incorruptible political beliefs. Therein lay his Mr Hyde. For the sake of his beliefs he would unhesitatingly shed his everyday cloak and reveal the man willing to plot murder.

  It was Major Tankosic whom Colonel Dimitrijevic placed in charge of the arrangements for the Sarajevo operation. This meant that Tankosic was responsible for the recruitment and briefing of a suitable number of dedicated assassins. He had seen to this. He reported to his chief early in June.

  Dimitrijevic never concerned himself directly with anything but objectives. Everything bearing on the achievement of an objective he left in the hands of others, and kept his own clean. Nothing that was relevant to preparations and arrangements could be traced back to Dimitrijevic. From Major Tankosic he wanted to hear only that everything was proceeding satisfactorily. Tankosic was naturally inclined to say more than a bald yes. He had done a lot of work. He wanted his chief to know that. He began to talk about his band of recruited assassins.

  ‘How many are there?’ asked Dimitrijevic brusquely.

  ‘Twelve. Not all will go. Only the best of them. I anticipate seven or eight. All these will be in Sarajevo on the day, positioned at different points along the route the archduke will take to and from the City Hall.’

  ‘It will be enough if only one of them is in the right position as long as he is in the right frame of mind at the right time,’ said Dimitrijevic.

  ‘One will be.’

  ‘One must be.’

  ‘With seven or eight to rely on we could not duplicate our chances of success much more,’ said Tankosic. He went on to say that he was particularly impressed with three of the men. Nedjelko Cabrinovic, Trifko Grabez and Gavrilo Princip. They were the very stuff of fearless bomb-throwers. ‘And there’s one man coming from Vienna with a fine, fierce reputation. Boris Ferenac. Success is assured, Colonel.’

  Dimitrijevic, icy in his distaste at having unwanted and paltry details thrust on him, said, ‘I’ve heard of assured success before. Events usually prove it to be the father of certain failure.’

  ‘Failure is written in many men,’ said Tankosic solemnly, ‘and is allowed for in some of ours. But if as many as six fail, Cabrinovic will not. Nor will the eighth man, Boris Ferenac, providing he can slip the police and reach Sarajevo. You’ll excuse me now? My wife and I have to go to a meeting in aid of church missionaries in Africa. A dreadful place for missionaries, Africa.’

  Sophie had been shopping with her mother. They had bought themselves new hats. Her mother’s was a colourful extravagance of lemon silk and pink and red blossoms. Sophie’s was a little round boater-style creation in pale green that perched to tilt. She glimpsed Anne in the gardens, sitting at the ornamental white table. She put the hat on and glided out. She stopped. James was there, sitting in a farther chair, a sketch block on his knees. Anne was posing for him. Sophie felt a small pang. It discomfited her because it hurt a little. They had not seen her. She took off the hat and walked up to them. It was rather unkind of James. Well, unfair, then. He was flaunting his art in a way she could not with hers. Would you like me to sketch you? was a much more acceptable question than Would you like to see some of my poems? One was flattered quite genuinely if one was asked to pose, but one was likely to make oblique comments if asked to read someone’s poetry. Oh, what is the matter with me, I’m being stupid.

  ‘Sophie?’ Anne turned. Her hair was shiningly brushed and drawn over her ears and black-ribboned at the neck. She looked incomparably fair and priceless. ‘James is sketching a little portrait of me.’

  ‘How nice,’ said Sophie. ‘Please, would anyone like to read some of my poetry?’

  James looked up. He was in a white silk shirt and grey trousers, which was casual to the point of bohemianism in the well-dressed environment of the von Korvacs. The white shirt emphasized his darkness.

  ‘I’d like to, Sophie,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t serious,’ said Sophie. ‘What has happened to your school?’

  ‘Half-day,’ said James, ‘and I was serious about your poetry even if you weren’t. Let me see some, won’t you? I’d like to take it away with me and read it at leisure.’

  ‘It will be very punishing on your leisure,’ said Sophie, and went behind him to look over his
shoulder. He was using a soft black pencil and his sketch of Anne had reached the stage of distinctive likeness. Already it was a light but exquisite little portrait, thought Sophie, he was catching Anne’s warm, alive look with only the black lead of a pencil. Perhaps it was a light, gifted labour of love. He and Anne got on so well with each other. Impulsively, generously, Sophie said, ‘Oh, James, that is going to be so good.’

  ‘Is it? May I see?’ said Anne in pleasure.

  ‘Well,’ said James. He sounded as conservatively reluctant as any artist preferring to keep the sitter away from the work until it was finished and he himself satisfied. But he pushed the sketch block across the table to Anne and she looked at what he had done so far.

  ‘James, that is me?’ she said.

  ‘It’s supposed to be when it’s finished.’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ she said, ‘and I’d be happy with it as it is.’

  ‘It isn’t finished,’ he said and took the block back.

  ‘You will sketch Sophie too, won’t you?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said James.

  Sophie felt shocked and really hurt. Even if he was in love with Anne he did not have to be as unkindly discriminating as that.

  ‘Oh, James doesn’t sketch hideous women,’ she said.

  James smiled and shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sophie, I meant I already have a sketch of you. I had one of Anne too but wasn’t happy with it. So I thought I’d get her to sit still for a while and give myself a better chance. Would you care to see the one of you?’

  ‘As you are caring to see some of my poems, yes, I would, please,’ said Sophie, the hurt melting away.

  He leafed back a few pages and showed her the sketch of herself. It made her feel warm with pleasure. Perhaps it flattered her, she wasn’t sure, but if it was what he really thought she looked like then his artist’s impression of her was very very acceptable. She had not seen pencil used so giftedly.