Airs Above the Ground

by Mary Stewart

  At length we emerged from the narrows into an open square where an old well stood, and seats were set under the trees that surrounded the cobbled space. Ahead of us a church lifted a pretty onion spire with a gilt arrow from weathercock. The road divided to either side of the church.

  I said: ‘I think we’d better stop and ask the way. If we go up the wrong street among these crowds, heaven knows where we’ll get to before we can turn.’

  He drew carefully in to the side, stopped in the shade of a plane tree, and leaned out of his window. He hadn’t far to go for help: a cheerful trio of women was passing the time of day in the middle of the road with half a dozen children skirmishing round their skirts. They all answered him at once, with explicit gestures, while the children, apparently stricken dumb and paralytic at the sound of Timothy’s accent, crowded round, staring at us with round blue eyes.

  At length he drew his head in. ‘Don’t tell me,’ I said, ‘let me guess. It’s the road to the right.’

  He grinned. ‘And we can’t miss it. They say it’s very nice along there, and quiet, because the other road’s the main one. I say, I like this place, don’t you? Look at that thing in the middle, the well or whatever it is, with that wrought-iron canopy. It’s rather fine. Gosh, do you see that Konditorei, the baker’s shop with the café tables inside? I could do with some of those cakes, couldn’t you? We could come out and buy something as soon as we get settled . . .’

  He chattered on, pleasantly excited, leaning out of his window in the hot sun. But I had ceased to listen, or even to see. The pretty village, with its lively, milling crowds, had faded away, to become a shadowy background only for one person. I had seen Lewis’s blonde.

  She was pausing beside the well to speak to someone, an old woman in black, who carried an armful of flowers. She was half facing the other way, and was some forty yards off, but I thought I could not be mistaken. Then she turned, and I was sure. This was the girl I had seen on the news reel. Moreover, in the flesh, and in the bright light of day, she was prettier even than I remembered. She was of small to medium height, with a slender curved young figure, and fair hair tied neatly back in a pony tail. Gone was the kinky look that the waterproof and dishevelled hair had given her; she was charmingly dressed now in the traditional white blouse, flowered dirndl, and apron. She looked about eighteen.

  As I watched her, she bade a laughing goodbye to the old woman, and came straight towards the car.

  ‘Tim,’ I said softly, ‘pull your head in and shut the window. Quick.’

  He obeyed immediately.

  ‘That girl coming towards the car, the pretty one, the blonde in the blue dirndl – that’s the girl I saw in the news reel. No, don’t stare at her, just notice her, so that you’ll know her again.’

  She came straight towards us, through the banded shadows of the tree trunks, and passed the car without a glance. I didn’t turn, but I saw Tim watching her in the driving mirror.

  ‘She’s going straight on down the street. Shall I wait?’

  ‘Yes. Try to see where she goes.’

  After a pause he said: ‘I can’t see her any more, there are too many people milling about, but she was heading straight down the street, the way we came in.’

  ‘Towards the circus field?’

  ‘Yes. Would you like me to do a quick “recce” and see just where she goes?’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Sure thing.’ He was already half out of the car. ‘I’ve always fancied myself in the James Bond line, who hasn’t? You stay there and pay the parking fine.’

  The door slammed behind him. I tilted the driving mirror so that I could watch his tall young figure striding back down the middle of the street with all the magnificent local disregard for traffic. Then he, in his turn, was lost to view.

  I leaned back in my seat, but not to relax. It was no surprise to feel myself trembling a little as my eyes reluctantly, yet feverishly, searched the crowds.

  It was true, then, that my eyes had not deceived me: so much of it was true. Now that I had this confirmation, I found it a profoundly disconcerting experience. The sight of Lewis and the girl in the dark cinema, that flickering brief scene still echoing with ugly tragedy and made more mysterious by its foreign setting, had been like a dream, something distant, unreal, gone as soon as seen, and believed no more than a dream in daylight. And as always, the light of day outside the cinema had set the dream even further apart from the world of reality. My own hasty action in coming out to Austria had seemed even while I did it as unreal as the dream itself; and up to now the enchanting strange prettiness of the country had helped the illusion that I was still far astray from reality.

  But now . . . Oberhausen, the circus, the girl herself . . . And next, Lewis . . .?

  ‘What, no parking ticket?’ It was Tim, back at the window.

  ‘No parking ticket. You made me jump. I never heard you.’

  ‘I told you I’d found my vocation.’ He folded his length beside me into the driving seat. ‘I shadowed your subject with the greatest possible skill, and she did go to the circus. I think she must belong there, because she went straight in through the gate and then round towards the caravans. The village people – quite a lot were there with children – were being allowed in, but they all went to the other side; there’s a menagerie or something there, open to the public. There was a man taking the money at the gate, but I didn’t ask questions. Was that right?’

  ‘Yes, quite.’

  ‘And I’ve got news for you. They’re leaving tomorrow. There was a sticker across the poster, last performance tonight at eight o’clock.’

  ‘Oh? We’re just lucky, then. Thanks a lot, Tim.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. It was fun. I tell you, I’ve come to the conclusion I’ll be wasted on the Spanish Riding School. James Bond isn’t in it – though as a matter of fact, Archie Goodwin’s my favourite detective; you know, Nero Wolfe’s assistant, handsome and efficient and a devil with women.’

  ‘Well, now’s your chance,’ I said. ‘If we don’t fall over Lewis pretty soon, I’ll send you after the girl.’

  ‘What they call “scraping an acquaintance”? Can do,’ said Tim cheerfully. ‘Golly, if this road gets much narrower, we’ll scrape more than that . . . Wait a moment, though, I believe this is it.’

  The Gasthof Edelweiss was charming, and, in spite of its name, without a hint of chichi. It was a long, low, single-storeyed house, with a shingle roof where doves sunned themselves, and window-boxes full of flowers. It lay at the very edge of the village, and in fact the road petered out in front of it to continue on past the house as a country track leading to some farm. Between house and road lay a space of raked gravel where tables stood under chestnut trees. There were a few people sitting there over coffee or drinks. Between their feet the doves strutted and cooed. Swallows, thinking already perhaps of the hotter south, wheeled and twittered overhead. One could smell the pines.

  Timothy and I were offered adjacent rooms, giving on the wide veranda at the back of the house. Here the windows faced the fields, and the small spotless rooms were very quiet. Mine had a pinewood floor scrubbed white, with two small bright psuedo-Persian rugs, solid pine furniture, and one reasonably comfortable chair. There was a really beautiful old chest of dark wood with painted panels, a rather inconvenient wardrobe, and a lot of heavy wrought-ironwork in the lamp brackets, and on the door, which was studded and barred like something from a Gothic cathedral. On the walls were two pictures, bright oily colours painted on wood; one showed an unidentifiable saint in a blue robe killing a dragon; the other a very similar saint in a red robe, watering some flowers. It seemed that in Austria there was a pleasantly wide choice of saintly qualities.

  I unpacked quickly. I had thought I would be glad to be alone, just to think about what was to come, but in fact I found that I was refusing to think about it. I had, as it were, switched my mind out of gear and was concentrating only on folding away my clothes, on selecting somethi
ng fresh to wear, and on the drink which I would shortly have with Timothy under the chestnut trees.

  But when I was ready to go, I still lingered. I pushed the long windows wide, and went out on to the veranda.

  This was set only two or three feet above ground level, so that immediately beyond the rail, and directly, it seemed, beneath one’s feet, the fields began. These had been recently mown, and the almost forgotten smell of new-mown hay filled the late afternoon. Beyond the stretches of shorn velvet the river ran, sunk deep in trees, and behind this feathered girdle of ash and willow rose the pines, slope after slope to the silver mountain tops. One side of the valley was deep in shadow. It was nearly half past six.

  A sound made me look round. Timothy had come out of his window on to his section of veranda. He had put on a clean shirt and looked alert and excited.

  ‘There you are, I thought I heard you. I wondered if you’d decided what to do next?’

  ‘Actually, I hadn’t. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a dead loss. I haven’t got over seeing that girl. It was a bit of a facer if you want the truth, like seeing a ghost.’

  ‘You mean you didn’t really believe in her till now? I know exactly what you mean,’ added Timothy surprisingly. ‘I felt a bit the same about Christl. But you know, I don’t know why you’re worrying, not about her . . . I mean, if there was any connection . . . seeing them together on the news reel like that . . . it wouldn’t be—’ He hesitated, trying to choose his words, then abruptly abandoned finesse. ‘Dash it, she may be pretty and all that, but you don’t need to worry about her! You’re beautiful! Did no one ever tell you?’

  It was a fact that, now and again, people had; but I had never been so touched – or so completely deprived of speech.

  I said eventually: ‘Thank you. But I – it’s not just that side of it that’s worrying me, you know. It’s just that I’ve no business to be here at all, and now I’m not so much wondering how to find him as what in the world to say to him when I do . . .’ I turned my back to the fields, and straightened up with what might pass for decision. ‘Oh, well, it’s done now, and the circus is the obvious lead. Did you say it started at eight? Then we’ve plenty of time. We can have a meal and talk to Frau Weber, and then walk down through the village. If this village is anything like our village at home, the bush telegraph’s faster than the speed of light. In fact, if he’s here still, he probably knew all about us within thirty seconds of my signing the hotel register.’

  ‘If this is the last performance, they’ll start the pull-down the minute it’s over, and they’ll be clear of the place by morning.’ He eyed me. ‘I thought – shall I just go along there now, and see about getting tickets?’

  ‘But if they’ve been stuck here a week there’ll be no rush, and—’ I laughed. ‘Oh, I see. Well, why not? If you do track down “the subject”, you won’t do anything rash, will you?’

  ‘The soul of discretion,’ he promised. ‘I won’t say a word. I’ll be back in good time for dinner.’

  ‘I bet you will,’ I said, but he had already gone.

  5

  I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.

  Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing

  The shadows of the chestnuts lay lightly across the café tables, and there was a slight warm breeze which fluttered the red checked cloths. Curled in the roots of one of the trees, an enormous St Bernard dog slept, twitching slightly from time to time in his dream. The place was quiet and very peaceful. I sat sipping my vermouth, telling myself that I must think, must think . . . and all the time my eyes were fixed on the street up which presently, I was sure, Lewis must come.

  So strong was my imaginative sense of his presence that when, in fact, Timothy reappeared, coming at high speed up the street, I was almost startled to see him. Next moment I was genuinely startled to see who he had with him. Not Lewis, but – inevitably, it now seemed – Lewis’s blonde.

  Next moment they were standing beside the table, and Timothy was performing introductions.

  ‘Vanessa, this is Annalisa Wagner. She belongs to the circus . . . You remember we saw a circus in the field the other side of the village? Miss Wagner, this is Mrs—’ Too late, he saw the pitfall. He stopped dead.

  I said, watching the girl: ‘My name is March. Vanessa March.’

  ‘How do you do, Mrs March?’ There was no flicker of expression outside the normal noncommittal politeness. She had, I noticed sourly, a charming voice, and her English was excellent.

  ‘Won’t you join us for a drink, Miss Wagner?’

  ‘Why, thank you. If you would please call me Annalisa?’

  Timothy said. ‘What will you have?’

  ‘Coffee, please.’

  ‘Only coffee? Not a vermouth or something?’

  She shook her head. ‘You’ll find that we circus people drink very little. It’s something that doesn’t pay. Just coffee, please.’

  Timothy lifted a hand to the passing waitress, who responded immediately – an unusual circumstance in any country, but in Austria (I had already discovered) a miracle. It seemed he was even going to pass the waiter test with honours. He and the girl sat down, Timothy telegraphing ‘Over to you’ with a subdued air of triumph that had nothing to do with the waitress, Annalisa with a smile and a graceful spread of the blue-flowered skirt.

  Seen at close range, she was still very pretty, with an ash-blonde Teutonic prettiness quite different from Christl’s. One could not picture Fräulein Wagner as altogether at home in a kitchen. She would seem more in place among those slim, tough beauties who win Olympic medals for skating, or who perform impossible feats of skill and balance in the slalom. I wondered if the impression of fragility and helpless appeal that I had got from the news reel had been assumed for Lewis’s benefit, or if it had merely shown up in contrast to his size and air of tough competence. Or perhaps – I realised it now, more charitably – she had just been caught in a moment of shock and distress. It appeared that it was her circus, after all.

  I said as much. ‘Your name’s Wagner? The circus must belong to you, to your family?’

  ‘To my father. Timothy says that you are coming to see it tonight?’

  ‘Yes. We’re looking forward to it. We’ve only just arrived, but I understand that you are leaving tomorrow, so we don’t want to miss you.’

  She nodded. ‘We move on tonight, after the show. We have already been here too long.’ I waited, but she did not pursue this. She asked: ‘You are keen on circuses?’

  I hesitated, then said truthfully: ‘Not altogether. I’ve never liked performing animals much, but I love the other acts – high wire, trapeze, the clowns, all the acrobats.’

  ‘Not the horses?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t count the horses as “performing animals”! I meant bears and monkeys and tigers. I love the horses. Do you have many?’

  ‘Not many, we are a small circus. But a circus is nothing without its horses. With us they are the most important of all. My father works the liberty horses: we think ourselves they are as good as the circus Schumann, but of course, we have not so many.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to seeing them, I always love them, and they’re my friend’s ruling passion.’

  She laughed. ‘I know. I found him down in the horse lines. I don’t know how he got in.’

  Timothy said: ‘I took a ticket for the menagerie, but you couldn’t expect me to look at parrots and monkeys when I could see the horses just round the corner.’

  ‘No, it is not a good menagerie, I know. It is just a side-show for the children.’

  I said: ‘What good English you speak.’

  ‘My mother was English. I still get plenty of practice, because a circus is a very mixed place, really international. We have just now all sorts: the clowns are French, and the high-wire act is Hungarian, and the trampoline artistes are Japanese, and there is a comic act with a donkey, which is English, and an American juggler – besides the Germans and Austrians.’

&nb
sp; ‘United Nations,’ said Tim.

  ‘Indeed.’ She dimpled at him. ‘And on the whole really united. We have to be.’

  ‘Have you an act yourself?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. I help my father with the liberty horses . . . and there is a sort of rodeo act near the beginning. But my own act is a riding one. I have a Lipizzan stallion—’

  ‘You have a what?’ Timothy’s interruption was robbed of rudeness by his obviously excited interest.

  ‘A Lipizzan stallion. This is a breed of horse—’

  ‘Yes, I know about them. I’m hoping to get to Piber to see the stud, and later on to see a performance in Vienna. But do you mean you have a trained stallion? I didn’t think they ever sold them.’

  ‘He is trained, yes, but not at the School. My grandfather bought him as a four-year-old, and my uncle trained him . . . and me also.’

  ‘In high school work?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And you have a riding act of your own? You’re a – a what is it? – an ecuyere?’

  She had soared, I could see, in Timothy’s estimation, from being ‘the subject’ or ‘Lewis’s blonde’, to star billing in her own right. I realised that my own estimate of her had been right: a young woman who was capable of the concentrated skill and strength needed to put a high school stallion through his paces was about as fragile as pressed steel. ‘Gosh!’ said Timothy, glowing with admiration.

  She smiled. ‘Oh, not what you will see in Vienna, I assure you! None of the “airs above the ground” except the levade, and sometimes the croupade . . .’ She turned to me. ‘This is a leap right off the ground where the horse keeps his legs curled up – is that the word?’