by P. G. Glynn
Arriving home armed with numerous parcels, Otto headed straight for his suite only to find that the door to the Rosenzimmer was locked. It had never been locked before. Knocking, he called in puzzlement: “Will someone please hurry up and let me in!”
He heard the key turn after a bit and then Mama was standing in front of him. She whispered: “This is Marie’s doing, to discourage Lenka’s visits. I’ll leave you to it.”
Something in her demeanour warned him that Marie might be less than welcoming, but he was still surprised by the ferocity of his wife’s glare as he entered their bedroom. “Is that any way to greet me?” he asked her, noticing that she was holding a very small someone who rather resembled a monkey. “See, I’ve brought gifts for both you and the baby.”
“Are gifts supposed to compensate for your being a week late?”
“A week?” he queried innocently. “Is that how long it has been? Time certainly flies when one is shopping.”
“You should be shot!”
“That’s a bit strong.”
“It’s excessively weak, if you ask me, but there simply aren’t words to convey my sentiments.”
“So this is Carla,” he said, risking an approach to the bed and looking from mother to daughter, “a derivative in more ways than one of Charles. We must hurry up and give her a brother.”
Now Marie was all but dumbstruck. “A brother? If you had the first idea of what I went through to have her, you’d know that those are quite the most unfeeling, boorish words you could utter. I’ll tell you exactly why we won’t be giving Carla a brother. It’s because I intend never – no, never – again letting you anywhere near me.”
“Never?” an amused Otto queried.
29
She was waiting in the wings. Soon, soon she would be with him. Was there any higher state of bliss than the knowledge that she would shortly be clasped in his arms again? She didn’t think there was. She didn’t believe there could be.
Guy, who was waiting with her, asked: “Where’ve you been?”
She answered: “I was living in another country, but I’m back now – back to stay.”
An incredulous smile stole over his face. “That makes me so happy. I wasn’t sure, you see, that you’d ever come back to me. I’ve missed you, Marie.”
“And I’ve missed you, too – oh, how I’ve missed you!” She hugged him, asking: “Has he missed me, do you think?”
“He?” Guy looked perplexed for a moment. “Oh, I suppose you mean Father. There are tears in his eyes sometimes. Might they be tears of missing?”
“They might,” she told him tenderly, stroking his soft cheek. “They might indeed.”
She gazed across the stage to where Fagin and Bill were huddled together discussing Oliver. Bill had not seen her yet. He had no idea she was back from Bohemia. How would it be when he saw her?
Her heart raced in anticipation for it was almost time to stroll on. He would turn expecting to see Dolly but Marie would be there in the shoes she had made her own. Would his pleasure on seeing her make him fluff his lines for the very first time? No, because above all else he was an actor just as she was an actress. They would speak to each other, as they always had, through the script … and she would express with her eyes her overwhelming need of him.
He was turning. His eyes were wide with surprise. His arms were opening though that was not in the script. She was running … running …
“Bill … oh, Bill!”
She clung to him and there was desperation in her clinging, for he was retreating. Try though she might she could not stop his retreat … could not hold on to the dream.
But someone was holding her. So she had not been dreaming! Bill was here and all was well for he wanted her quite as much as she wanted him. “Have we both died and gone to heaven?” she whispered.
“Not yet, but we’re on our way there,” Otto said, intensely aware that she had not been speaking to him. “Come with me.”
Opening her eyes and trying to deal with reality, Marie saw that it was still virtually dark and that she was in her bedroom in Schloss Berger, where Otto was suddenly urging her to get up and get dressed. “Whatever are you doing?” she queried as he left their bed and reached for his trousers. “It’s the middle of the night … surely?”
“No,” he told her, “it’ll soon be dawn. So hurry or we’ll miss it.”
“It?” she asked, half-asleep and totally bewildered.
“The chance to say ‘goodbye’ to Bill.”
“I don’t want to say ‘goodbye’ to him.”
“Then Auf Wiedersehen at least. Come on, Liebchen.”
Intrigued, and not wishing to risk another dream from which she would have to awaken, she went with him after first checking that Carla was fast asleep. Marie had now bowed to pressure from Mama and allowed a sweet girl, Eva, to help care for the baby. When Carla was born Marie had had no idea how demanding babies could be … and she preferred sharing the responsibilities with a paid employee to sharing these with members of Otto’s family. Mama, Anna and especially Lenka seemed forever to be hovering and trying to take over from her as Carla’s mother. But there was going to be no takeover and Marie had come to regard Eva as an ally in her guardianship of Carla. Perhaps Eva would even be willing to travel to England with them once the baby was old enough to cope with all that travelling. Such a journey was of course still in the future. More immediately Marie knew that Eva was nearby and quite capable, when necessary, of giving Carla her six o’clock feed.
They left the castle without seeing a soul along the silent corridors and were soon walking in the gentle warmth of the new morning. Where, Marie wondered, were they going? Whatever else could be said of life with Otto, it was seldom dull … and there was something in favour of being up at an hour when the air was so fresh that, even from a distance, she could smell the wisteria growing over the castle’s south wall. She could also still see the stars, which were fading fast, and the moon that was almost full. Might Charles be looking at the moon, or was he asleep and dreaming of Nancy as she had just dreamed of Bill? It had not seemed like a dream. It had seemed more like a soul-meeting. Had she run to him in spirit, or must she admit to having merely dreamed?
Marie had been meeting Charles during sleep quite regularly since receipt of Nell’s letter. Typically Nell had been last to respond to Marie’s card telling her of Carla’s birth. Never one to put pen to paper unless there was no escape from so doing, she had written long after Uncle John’s missive which, without a full stop or comma anywhere, had rhapsodised over the new filly’s arrival … and asked when he was due to be introduced to her. Mam, typically, had been more concerned with the chickens’ recent reluctance to lay than with the new baby, while Alice’s focus had been on hats rather than on Carla.
Lucy, however, had waxed lyrical about having been raised to ‘aunt’ status … and had added her hope that Marie was happy ‘over there in Bohemia’. As for Nell – she had written stiffly and formally and not at all how she spoke. Limiting herself to few words, she had congratulated Marie and Otto on the birth of their daughter before penning the phrase that had permeated Marie’s brain: ‘Dolly’s up to her old tricks and C.B. is struggling’. What exactly did she mean? Marie had replied immediately requesting more information – and asking whether Nell had told Charles about Carla – but none had been forthcoming to date. It was just too frustrating. Oh, to be back there sharing in the cut and thrust of the theatre instead of stuck out here, so horribly far from everyone!
“I shan’t ask where your thoughts are,” Otto told her, taking her hand as they started up the pine-clad hill behind the castle, “because I know the answer. I also know that they won’t always be with him. My time will come and, when it does, you’ll wonder why it took you so long to love your husband.”
“I shall?” Marie smiled, pitying him his wishful thinking. They were passing the little pumpernickel house, with its red roof and white walls, and its prettiness made her momentari
ly regret that Carla would not play here as Otto and his brothers had done before her. It was so appealing, with child-sized furniture – even functioning miniature clocks – including beds where the boys had been permitted to sleep occasionally, that generations of children would find it endlessly fascinating. But she was forgetting that once they lived in London they would sometimes come visiting. Carla could play here then. “We’ll see.”
“Your eyes have been closed,” he told her serenely, “both to me and to Bohemia. They might, though, be due to open.”
They climbed and kept climbing, through the bluish haze enveloping everything and between the spruces populating the hill. Otto was more athletic than Marie, whose legs in addition were considerably shorter than his, but she trod the soft red earth with resolution. If he could maintain such a pace so could she, albeit somewhat breathlessly.
They paused for breath by the statue of St Joseph, whose neck was adorned with a chain of fresh marguerites and wild pansies. After telling Marie that it was Mama who kept the saint supplied with necklaces Otto said: “She’s been making this pilgrimage ever since first finding Joseph here in the woods, soon after arriving as Vati’s bride. She seems to have special feeling for him – for Joseph, I mean, although I assume she also felt something for Vati, if not enough,” he ended with a grin, “to give him necklaces.”
“Were they happy together, your mother and father?”
“As far as I could tell, although Vati died when I was too young to know him very well.” Otto hesitated momentarily before adding: “He was a bit of a lad, I gather.”
“With women?”
“Let’s just say that he liked them. I understand from Ludwig that he was something of a ladies’ man.”
“And all his sons take after him,” Marie observed drily, “with the possible exception of Ludwig, since he’s too repulsive ever to attract women even if he’s attracted by them. Lenka obviously went for something other than looks when she married him. It’s odd, isn’t it, how very different he is from you and Rudolf?”
“Yes, it is,” Otto agreed, thinking back at the mention of Lenka to his feeling of relief that her midriff had not started to swell as a consequence of their ski trip to Jan’s cabin. How relieved he had been … and how determined never to indulge his lust in such a manner again! “He must be a throwback to some former generation because he isn’t even slightly like Vati or Mama, either in looks or – as far as I can gather – in character. I sometimes find it hard to believe that Mama is his mother.”
“Is she? I mean, after she suffered her miscarriages couldn’t he have been … ”
“ … adopted? How I wish that were a possibility! It would give me endless scope for tormenting Ludwig. But Mama is totally opposed to adoption. I’ve often heard her say that whereas bad blood isn’t evident in a baby it manifests eventually, rendering the risk of taking on someone else’s child too great. That’s strange, isn’t it, considering the number of ‘orphans’ she raises?”
“Not especially. You can’t compare animals with babies. Crikey, I hope Carla isn’t crying for me! It feels funny, leaving her entirely to Eva. Perhaps we … ”
“ … should trust the nanny,” Otto said swiftly, tightening his clasp on Marie’s hand and keeping his feet resolutely on course. He had had more than enough of taking second or third place. It was past time to have his wife to himself for a change. With no more than token resistance from her they were soon entering a dark conifer forest where trees grew very close together, the law requiring that for each one felled two seedlings were planted. While some spruces were taken for pit props in the thinning out process the main crop was left to grow for forty years. They grew in straight rows, forming green corridors and now towering over Marie and Otto, their tops seeming to meet in a lofty ceiling.
Gazing up in awe Marie brought to mind Thomas Hood’s poem, words from which she softly recited: “‘I remember, I remember the fir trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops were close against the sky: it was a childish ignorance, but now ‘tis little joy to know I’m farther off from Heaven than when I was a boy.’”
“You never were a boy, Gott sei Dank!” Otto commented. “God did right by me when he decided you should be born a girl.”
“Oh, He did, did He?” Marie asked skittishly.
A roe deer sprang from between the trees and then, in a series of stylish springs, disappeared from their realm of vision. After watching it in appreciative silence, Otto asked Marie: “Have you any more poetry for me?”
Happy to oblige, she smiled. “‘I remember, I remember where I was used to swing, and thought the air must rush as fresh as swallows on the wing; my spirit flew in feathers then that is so heavy now, and summer pools could hardly cool the fever on my brow.’”
Extraordinarily, as they reached a clearing, a solitary swallow lifted off from a treetop to soar heavenward. Now, as if signalled by the swallow’s flight, a faint blush touched the sky. The pervading blueness was suddenly tinged with pink and birds were singing. A new morning was being born.
Marie watched, stunned, as the still hidden sun thrust up its rays from behind the purple mountains. The rays became flames. These burned far beyond Russia – beyond the earth, at the very heart of the universe. Now the tip of a vivid amber arc appeared, lifting in unworldly splendour to bring its own drama first as an exotic curve on the horizon and finally climbing to be a complete and separate entity. While climbing against the backdrop of the sky it spread reddish light that illumined the distant peaks, bathing them in its glow before the red turned to gold. “Oh,” Marie breathed, at last able to speak, “it’s all so astounding! We take it completely for granted, don’t we, that the sun will rise each morning? It never occurs to us that each sunrise is miraculous.”
“True,” Otto agreed smilingly, “and perhaps there’s another miracle awaiting us.”
Wondering why she was trembling, she again went where he led. This seemed somehow … meant. They entered a glade encircled with young firs and carpeted with velvety grass. Herrnpilze peeped from beneath the lower branches of the trees but these went unseen as Otto tenderly took an unresisting Marie in his arms. She seemed to melt … offering herself. He could feel her full breasts pressed against him. These were concealed, though, by her dress. He wanted to see them … needed to see his wife unclothed and defenceless. How long he had waited for her to be truly receptive … truly his!
Now, poised on the brink, he was glad he had been patient. It had been worth the wait, to undress her slowly and know that she was willing for him to do so. More than willing, for she was helping him … helping him explore every inch of her sun-kissed skin and marvel over it. There were no stretch marks and her stomach was as flat as if Carla had never occupied her womb. Caressing the hair where Marie’s legs met he then moved his finger into the cleft … stroking … probing …
As Marie started to moan he rose and cupped her breasts, which were heavy with milk. Cupping them and licking each nipple in turn, he soon began suckling – a baby again, a man wanting all he could have from his woman.
She was completely naked now, as was he. They were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, watched perhaps by the birds, the rabbits and foxes. Were they all watching – all God’s offspring – as he gently lifted Marie aloft before lowering her on to grass soft with moss?
She too was soft – softer than he had ever known her – and she was also wanton. For his every need she had an answer, as he had for hers – and oh, how her answers enchanted him! Marie, soon to be wholly his, was a sorceress and he was bewitched. Such adventurous things she did, her body craving his. Who would have believed this?
Otto would have, for hadn’t he known all along that beneath her cool exterior boiled a cauldron? Yes, he had … and … it was boiling over. He was ready for her. Oh, the sweet rapture as they surrendered … together!
+++++
Lenka’s daughter was crying. It was agonising to hear her cries and not run to comfort her
. Lenka wondered how much more she could bear. No-one should have to suffer as she was suffering over Marie and Carla.
Why was it not obvious to everyone that the child was with the wrong mother? It should be. Lenka was meant for motherhood, whereas that bitch Marie …
There weren’t words with which to express her contempt for the woman who had borne Otto’s baby. How had it happened that his seed had been planted in Marie when it was Lenka he loved … Lenka who was his rightful wife and his child’s rightful mother? A terrible mistake had been made and it was Lenka who was paying. She paid every day and every night of her life, her nightmares beginning when the days’ events ended.
Otto had told her, when they waltzed together at the Imperial Palace in Vienna, that she was his woman and that he would love her forever. She still waltzed with him in her dreams before descending into the darkness of the present. Because of Vati and the path he put her on, she was condemned to exist in the dark and listen to orders from some unknown source.
She had been ordered to kill the incubator and would have succeeded in killing her had Mama not been there. Nobody but Lenka knew that Marie was just the incubator and that her function was now over. Nobody but Lenka knew, either, of the voices telling her to do things.