The Longest Winter

by Mary Jane Staples

James, divested of his greatcoat and cap, was ushered in. The spacious room was cold, the fire tiny, meagre. The baron and baroness were on their feet, receiving him formally. He was older, harder, but very recognizable, his dark hair falling familiarly across his forehead. But his squadron leader’s uniform was a reminder of a war lost and an empire gone. The regime they had loved, honoured and served had been catapulted into oblivion. James had had a share in that.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ he said.

  The baron inclined his head but did not offer his hand. Nor did the baroness extend hers. Whatever liking the baron had had for James had been worn away. Not by defeat alone. The baron could understand defeat, could accept an honourable one. But Austria faced unimaginable humiliation. He found that unforgivable in the Allies. The fate of what remained of the once great Habsburg empire was to be decided by political opportunists like Clemenceau and Lloyd George. Neither the baron nor his wife could forget the part Britain and James himself had played in Austria’s destruction and their own ruin, and they could not advance their greeting beyond polite stiffness.

  ‘You are well?’ said the baroness with a civility that was painful.

  James knew that the restraint of similar civility on his part would get him nowhere. He had not come merely to exchange awkward courtesies.

  ‘Well? No, I’m not,’ he said, ‘I’ve been in Vienna three days and I’m sick, devastated. It’s taken me all those three days to find the courage to call on you. I’ve been talking to people and I know you’ve had an unbearable war. But I haven’t had the happiest of times thinking about you.’

  ‘We have grown older more quickly, perhaps,’ said the baron, ‘but at least we aren’t lying dead in some mountain crevasse or some muddy trench. We have survived, but I’m not sure whether survival is going to be endurable. There is so much talk about recrimination when already so many lives have been lost and so much destroyed that might have been spared.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said James, who had had four years he would rather forget.

  ‘But the war itself, that is over, thank God,’ said the baroness. She had lost much of her lustre and well-being. She was starved of the warm flesh that had given her figure its look of handsome maturity. She looked like a woman robbed of something dear and precious. Old and golden Austria had died on her. She had never thought the day would come when she and her family and servants had to go their separate ways each morning in search of food. Coffee, on which the Viennese doted, over which they had spent so many enchanted hours, days and years, had long since disappeared. Sometimes one was lucky enough to get a substitute, although one did not feel fortune’s blessings when one was drinking it.

  James did not look as the Austrians did, she thought. He looked neither hungry nor bereft, though there was something about him which had not been there before. A hardness, a quality of implacability, as if in all his purposes he would always get that which he most wanted.

  ‘Carl, Sophie and Anne,’ he said with an interest he did not disguise, ‘may I ask about them?’

  He was aware he had not been invited to sit down. They had received him but it was beyond them at the moment to make him comfortable. Clearly they did not wish him to prolong his call. He understood. But he would have liked them to know he was grieving for Vienna too.

  ‘Carl is well, Sophie and Anne are well,’ said the baron, but it was another politeness, wooden and lacking conviction. The baroness’s mouth trembled.

  ‘Are they well? Please tell me,’ said James.

  ‘Carl,’ said the baroness and swallowed. ‘Carl has a bad chest wound. He’s down there, in some mountain village. We had a telephone call about him yesterday. There’s a girl who is desperately worried about him and we’ve been trying so hard to find out if we can get him home. But it’s easier these days to move heaven and earth than bring a wounded man home from the Alps. And Anne is—’

  ‘A moment, Baroness.’ James was on to the baroness’s vulnerability. He was here to campaign for Sophie. He had quickly found out that the baron’s elder daughter was still unmarried. He meant to campaign without qualms. ‘This mountain village. Where exactly is it?’

  ‘It’s called Heiligenblut, it’s impossibly out of the way, north of Lienz.’ The baroness knew there was a reason, other than polite enquiry, for the question. The Allies were the conquerors, the men of power, and James represented that power. A little flame of hope sprang. ‘The girl is Italian. I can’t think how Carl came to be mixed up with an Italian—’ She stopped.

  James, knowing why she had stopped, said with a faintly ironic smile, ‘Yes, there were Sophie and I, we became very mixed up too. Loving one’s enemies is very painful, Baroness, I assure you. Perhaps that is what this girl has found. We’ll see. Can Carl be reached?’

  He was so decisive, like a sudden clear strength in the house.

  ‘There is a telephone number we have tried to call back,’ said the baron, ‘but there are always breakdowns, breakdowns.’

  ‘Will you let me have it?’ said James. ‘I want Carl to stay where he is. I’ll not have him shunted about. I’m serving on the Allied War Relief Commission and there are some things we can get done that you probably can’t.’

  Perceptibly the baroness softened. The flame of hope burned brighter.

  ‘Could you, James?’ His name slipped out. ‘Would it be possible? The Italian girl said he intended to march his company home to Vienna, she said he would kill himself doing that.’

  ‘I rather fancy Carl might be going for what we call kill or cure,’ said James. ‘I’ll get him to stay where he is if that means we reduce the odds. Give me that telephone number. What is the girl’s name, if she’s the one who does the talking?’

  ‘Pia Amaraldi,’ said the baron and gave James the number.

  ‘James, we would dearly like to have Carl home, to look after him here,’ said the baroness in impulsive gratitude. ‘We could not thank you enough. He has fought such a good fight for us, for Austria, all these years.’

  James thought. He knew he could forge his re-entry into the family. But it was not that alone. It was Carl, whom he had known and liked, one of the few who had fought all the way through.

  ‘Then he deserves better than a telephone call,’ he said, ‘though I’ll make that first. Then I’ll go myself. If necessary I’ll take a staff car and a couple of men. I’d like to see Carl. I presume,’ he said with the ghost of a smile, ‘that I’ll have to transfer to a horse and cart at some stage. If I can find a horse that hasn’t been eaten. Salzburg, that’s the place. Will you leave it to me?’

  The baroness glanced at her husband. Ernst was still a little aloof.

  ‘We will be happy to leave it to you, James,’ she said, ‘and you will sit down for a moment, won’t you?’

  ‘I don’t think I should stay, not this time,’ said James. ‘There must be an interval for adjustment, especially when things are so bad for you. I can’t expect you to behave as if nothing has happened. I shall be in touch. Meanwhile, Anne and Sophie? Will you tell me how they are?’

  ‘Anne is here,’ said the baroness, ‘but Ludwig, her husband, we last heard of in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp. But since their revolution we’ve heard nothing, nothing at all. And Sophie—’

  ‘Yes?’ said James, noting her hesitancy and the baron’s stiff silence.

  The baroness could have said that Anne believed Sophie had been waiting all these terrible years for him, but she herself was doubtful whether the feelings of either of them had survived. So she said only, ‘Sophie is out, James.’

  ‘How is it you’re a member of this Commission?’ asked the baron, breaking his silence.

  Again the suggestion of a reminiscent smile from James.

  ‘I went into the lion’s den,’ he said. ‘That’s to say, I had an interview with my father. I wanted to get back to Vienna as soon as possible. The one way of ensuring that was to get myself appointed to the Commission. Some string-pulling was necessary. Because of
what his infernal machines meant to the war effort, my father is able to corner the right people in the corridors of power. I don’t make a habit of asking him to use his influence on my behalf. Let me be frank, Baron. For once, I didn’t hesitate. There’s Sophie, you see.’ He caught the baroness’s startled look. ‘I’m still not cured of Sophie. I’ve spent four years thinking about her. That’s ridiculous? Perhaps it is. But there’s no one else. Only Sophie.’

  The baron took off his glasses and polished them. The baroness did not know whether to be helpful or discouraging. But after four years, four long and tragic years, his first thoughts had been of them, his first suggestion that of helping Carl. She could not give him discouragement. While she could not forgive his country, she could begin to forgive him. All his hopes, in any case, were entirely in Sophie’s hands. Someone must tell him where he could find her.

  ‘James—’

  ‘We are very reduced.’ Her husband’s quiet interruption seemed to convey the message that discouragement was necessary. ‘And we can expect no concessions from your side, we can only look forward to losing what little we do have left.’

  ‘You must know, Baron,’ said James, ‘that if it were all in my hands you would get your empire back.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the baron with a touch of reminiscence himself, ‘we did have a talk once, I recall—’

  But Anne came into the room then. She saw James. Her eyes widened and misted, her mouth quivered. James felt a shock, a pang. Her parents were thin. Anne was thinner. Youth and beauty had been fined down by the tragic consequences of Sarajevo. If only he had been closer to that student, Princip. If only.

  Anne had suffered heartache as well as hunger. Heartache for her lovely Austria and for Ludwig, who might be dead or just alive. But she could not be bitter towards James. There was the war, yes, but there were so many other memories, all drenched with the fragrance of summer. She came up to him, she smiled and put out both her hands. He took them and pressed them with unchanged affection. Theirs was a gesture of peace and reconciliation.

  ‘My dear Anne,’ he said.

  ‘It’s over at last, isn’t it?’ she said unsteadily. ‘And you are up and we are down. Oh, we are very down but we shall be up again. James, I am so glad to see you, so glad you came through it all and have come to see us.’

  James thought her almost heartbreakingly courageous. The war had laid its cruellest hands on women like Anne.

  ‘And I am very glad to see you,’ he said.

  ‘You and I, we aren’t too old to do things better, are we?’ she said. ‘We will see there are no more wars, that friends don’t have to fight each other, won’t we?’

  ‘I shall never again fight my friends,’ said James.

  ‘Anne,’ said the baroness, not far from tears, ‘James is going to help us get Carl home. He’s on the War Relief Commission and means to go and find Carl himself.’

  ‘I’m in a position to oil wheels, you see,’ said James, ‘and I’ll bring Carl home, I promise, even if we both have to ride back in a turnip wagon.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll do it,’ said Anne with an overbright smile, ‘it will be nothing to the man who downed Avriarches and dropped in for schnapps with a divisional colleague of Colonel Moeller’s.’

  ‘Oh, he got to know about that, did he?’ said James, gratefully aware of a warmer atmosphere.

  ‘He wrote to Sophie about it,’ said Anne, who felt sure she knew why James was back. ‘He was only sorry you did not give him the opportunity to offer you his own schnapps.’

  ‘In a war,’ said James, ‘who needs friends with enemies like Colonel Moeller? Do you know if he’s all right? I’d like to think so.’

  ‘Oh, he was bearing up very well the last time we heard, about five weeks ago,’ said Anne. ‘James, could you do something about my poor Ludwig? Could you, please?’

  ‘Everything I can, but it’s going to be a lot more difficult.’

  ‘I know,’ said Anne, ‘but I’m going to pester you about it, I’m not going to be at all proud. I mean, you’re still our friend, there’s only been a long nightmare in between, hasn’t there?’

  ‘Yes, Anne. Which is why something positive must be done about Ludwig as well as Carl.’

  Ludwig at this moment was nearing Bratislava in Hungary. He had a right leg as stiff as a board, his stout crutch having become a close friend. He was in company with a thousand other Austrian scarecrows, who had been marching for months across revolutionary Russia.

  ‘James,’ said Anne, ‘you are going to be a great surprise to Sophie, you know. And you will have to wear a thinking head on your shoulders.’

  ‘Is it possible to see her?’ asked James and looked at the silent baron. The baron said nothing. The baroness left it to Anne, who had no reservations.

  She said, ‘If you want to see her now, she’s at Sacher’s. She went there, she said, to celebrate honest misery with sorry friends. Perhaps you’ll be in time to save her from actual lamentations, James, and to bring her home. She said she would not be late. We are staying home to be privately miserable, although now you’re here to help us, I don’t think we’re quite as miserable as we were.’

  ‘I think I’ll go to Sacher’s,’ said James and looked at the baron again. The baron smiled wryly.

  ‘I advise patience and understanding,’ he said.

  ‘I advise love, James, unqualified and unconditional,’ said Anne.

  ‘Go to Sacher’s, James,’ said the baroness softly, ‘and thank you for remembering us.’

  Sophie, keeping a promise to her convalescent friends, was celebrating catastrophe with them in the red and brown bar of Sacher’s Hotel. The bar was full and therefore warm. It was one of the few places still retaining an air of gracious living, Frau Sacher still dispensing service, though not from the same bountiful cellars, with old-world charm. The portrait of Franz Josef was still on the wall. Perhaps it would soon come down. Perhaps in the new order of things it would have to. British and French officers were present. Serving on the Commissions, they had begun to frequent Sacher’s. Sophie took absolutely no notice of them. She would not look at them. Especially she would not look at the British. She wondered how any of them could come among a starving populace with their well-fed robustness. There were Viennese women with them, women who were defiant of disapproval because they were lonely and hungry and hoped that some time during the evening their escorts would lead them to food.

  Sophie sat at a table with her friends. She was tautly thin but just as striking, her features almost aquiline from privation so that her eyes looked hugely luminous in her pale face. Other eyes, discerning eyes, might have perceived the blank emptiness behind the luminosity.

  With her wounded companions she drank wine. Frau Sacher saw to it that she got the best of what was available, for the men were her guests and Baroness Sophie von Korvacs would not be disposed to accept less than that for any of her friends. With these friends she shared the wine, with them she toasted their battles, their wounds and their future, although they knew and she knew that there was no future. She was vivacious, amusing, fascinating, beautiful. They all loved her. How were they to know she felt even emptier than they did? Their eyes were on her, smiling at her, admiring her, and the words fell from her lips in brittle streams.

  ‘So, you see, my courageous ones, what is there to worry about for any of us? We are as far down as we can go, aren’t we? We have nothing. We have even lost Hungary, which fed so well at our imperial table. Therefore, this must be our last night of sorrow, for from now on there is only one way to go and that is up. The mightiest ship can capsize but it can sink no further than the seabed. How is that for a solace to take back with you tonight? It should be good enough to put you to sound, happy sleep, don’t you agree? I shall sleep without a care in the world and when I next come to see you I hope you’ll be dancing.’

  ‘Will hopping do?’ smiled a man with a smashed kneecap.

  ‘I will hop with you,’ said Sophie and smi
led in return, though she wanted to weep, to weep for all of them, all the crippled, unsung heroes of Austria. But she had kept every tear at bay for four years. And James would not be shedding any, not that man of iron. If he were still alive he would be ablaze with medals, and in triumphant London the women would be around him like dazzled moths, reaching for him, kissing him. Let them, let them! Vienna was an empty shell, holding nothing to draw him back. But perhaps, when the city was at its darkest and coldest, his ghost would stand on her doorstep. Only his ghost. Austria, whom he had rejected, whom he had helped to crush, would never allow his living body to enter her borders. For four years he had been in desertion of Austria and of her too. He had left her to eat her heart out. She had no heart now. No love could survive years as interminable and as bitter as these. There were no emotions, no vibrations, only a terrible, desolating sense of unending winter. She smiled again, looking at the bottles. They were empty too, except one. ‘There, you see, that is the last of the wine. Drink it, my very good friends. Do not drink to the emperor. We have no emperor. But if you must drink to one Habsburg, drink to Franz Josef, the old and august one, for he polished our jewel very brightly for us.’

  But they drank to her. And Sophie smiled brilliantly for them.

  She rose to her feet. Despite an empire lost, despite her frozen heart, she looked in her dark, glossy-feathered hat and pre-war fur coat, and in her starved, slender beauty, as if she alone personified the memory of proud and imperial Vienna. Every Allied officer there raised his eyes to her. She saw none of them, she looked through all of them. She smiled again at her convalescents and said goodnight to them.

  She turned to go and looked into the face of James.

  Her cold blood rushed. A sensation, almost of eerie fright, struck. His was the dark, drawn face of ravaged but triumphant Mars. Richthofen had not got him, then? No. It was Richthofen who had fallen from the sky.

  ‘Sophie?’ A quiet appeal for reconciliation. ‘May I take you home?’

  Strange fire touched her ice. But there was so much pride in her, so much bitterness, so much defeat. And he had come back in the arrogance of the uniformed victor. She looked at him out of huge, blank eyes.