by Eva Ibbotson
Just before dawn he came to the river he would follow south towards its source. He dismounted and walked Rocco up and down before he let him drink.
There was grass by the bank and an oak tree, its branches hanging over the water. He tethered Rocco so that he could crop the turf. Then, using the saddlebag as a pillow, he lay down and slept.
Next morning the map showed him the route he had to take, across the wheat fields and orchards of central Germany and into Moravia – part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – which he would have to cross to reach the Danube.
The distance was awe-inspiring; he only had enough money to buy oats for Rocco and a little food for himself and the horse was too young to be ridden hard.
But gradually he found himself enjoying the journey. Rocco’s alert ears, his steady high-stepping gait affected Zed. He rode him through woods, scattering herds of wild boar, and along streams where herons stood, one-legged, waiting for prey. Sometimes they had to take busy roads, jostled by donkey carts and drays, but mostly Zed found bridle paths and quiet lanes. There were bad days when the rain came down steadily and other days where there was nowhere to buy food and Zed watched Rocco graze with envy in his heart. Once a man in a loden cape stopped to question him, suspicious of a shabbily dressed boy on such a fine horse. Once they were followed by two infuriated dogs, great shaggy Komondors guarding a flock of sheep, but Rocco broke into a gallop and the dogs turned back.
But it was not the mishaps or dangers that troubled Zed; it was his thoughts. He still found it difficult to dismiss Annika from his mind. Memories of the silly Viennese song she had hummed when she polished the floors at Spittal, the look in her eyes when she first saw Hector, wouldn’t leave him.
There was nothing he could do for her, he told himself again and again. He had only known her a few weeks. She would be all right; she would manage.
It was just that she had been – a friend.
The last week of the journey was desperately hard; both he and Rocco were getting very tired. As they stumbled over the steep hills and through the rocky gorges of Moravia there were times when Zed thought he could not let the horse go on.
Then one morning he rode down from the hills between fields and orchards coming into blossom, and saw before him the wide, slow-moving Danube, with its barges and pleasure steamers and tugs. This was the most important waterway in Europe. The towpath east led to Hungary and the plain where his gypsies were camped.
The towpath west followed the river to Vienna, where the Danube flowed through the city’s heart.
Zed dismounted and stood looking at the water. He stood there so long that Rocco became impatient, gently butting Zed with his head.
‘All right,’ said Zed to his horse, and got back into the saddle. ‘Let’s go.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ANNIKA’S SURPRISE
In Spittal it had started to rain again. The frogs trod on each other’s backs and however many the storks ate, or the cats killed, there were always more. The season for shooting ducks was over, so Uncle Oswald shot land animals instead: hares, rabbits and what he called vermin, which seemed to be anything that got in the way of his gun. Gudrun missed Hermann and mooched about, waiting till she could go back to the hunting lodge. The new servants were efficient but unfriendly.
Annika was lonely. She had been sure that the farm would be put right now that there was money again, but she was wrong. No new livestock was bought in, none of the buildings were mended. Wenzel had a boy from the village to help him, but there was less and less to do. There were rumours that Edeltraut was going to buy a motor and the carriage horses would be sold. The stork house stayed empty.
A week after Zed had run away, Bertha’s brother came to collect the three-legged dog. Hector travelled in style, lying on a pile of sacking, his head resting on the sock-suspender, his eel trap by his side.
Annika ran down to say goodbye, leaning over the side of the cart to stroke Hector’s woolly head.
‘Is Bertha well?’ she asked, and the old man said, yes, and she had sent her love.
He didn’t mention Zed and nor did Annika. No one, she found, was talking about Zed.
‘The poor dog is going away?’ said a voice behind her, and Annika turned to find a girl with flaxen plaits wound round her head, and large blue eyes. She was carrying a pail with her lunch in it and was on her way to the village school at the head of the lake. Annika had met her often on the road and smiled at her. Her name was Frieda.
Annika sighed. ‘Yes,’ she said sadly. ‘Everyone’s going away.’
Frieda looked at her with sympathy. ‘Why don’t you come to our school? It’s nice. We’re going to make wreaths to decorate the church for Easter.’
‘I’d love to come. But . . .’ She shook her head. ‘Perhaps I could ask again.’
It was from Frieda that Annika had learned what was to happen to the farm.
‘There will be no animals, my father says. They’ll all be sold and there’s going to be sugar beet instead. Lots and lots of sugar beet.’
Annika had not heard this. ‘Really? Are you sure?’
Frieda nodded. ‘There’s a lot of money in sugar beet. It goes to the factory in Posen to be squeezed and sugar comes out.’
She picked up her pail again and trotted off, leaving Annika with her thoughts, which were not cheerful. She had heard a lot about sugar beet from Professor Julius, but nothing that had made her feel it would make up for living animals.
It was extraordinary how much she missed Zed. After all he had stolen her trunk and lied about it and fled in the night, taking a horse which did not belong to him. How could she miss him so badly?
But she did. It was impossible to believe that she had known him only for a few weeks. He had taught her so much; as soon as she was with him life became interesting: there was work to do and a future to think about. Sometimes she even wondered if what he had done was so terrible. If the little gypsy girl who had wanted to give her a kitten was now wearing Great-Aunt Egghart’s fake earrings, was that such a crime? And then Annika would reproach herself, because theft was theft and could never be excused.
Her nights were strange now: sometimes she woke and thought she could hear Rocco’s hoofs as he galloped past the window. And once, as she drifted off to sleep, she had the dream she’d had so often in Vienna: a carriage drew up outside and a woman got out, grandly dressed in furs. ‘Where is she?’ she said. ‘Where is my long-lost daughter?’
But after that everything went wrong because when she came forward into the lamplight, she turned into a dumpy woman in a cheap woollen overcoat and a brown felt hat, and she did not smell of exotic perfume but of vanilla and green soap and freshly baked bread.
When she had this dream Annika felt guilty and ashamed, especially as her mother was being so loving to her, and seemed to understand exactly how she felt about Zed.
‘My poor darling, I know so well what you are going through. I too have been betrayed by people I was fond of and trusted.’
‘My father?’
‘Him too – and my husband. He has written to tell me that he will never return to Spittal.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Edeltraut shrugged. ‘One must be brave. You must use what Zed has done to make you strong. And perhaps he is best where he belongs.’
‘With the gypsies?’
‘Of course. Learning to make his living in all sorts of disreputable ways. Rocco must of course be brought back – we cannot allow him to steal a valuable horse and go unpunished – but after that . . .’ She sighed. ‘I told my father you couldn’t tame a gypsy boy, but he wouldn’t listen.’
During these lonely days Annika spent more and more time wondering about the surprise her mother was planning for her. It was getting closer, Edeltraut said, very close, but there were preparations to be made which could not be hurried.
‘Oh, I do hope I can bring it off,’ she said. ‘It will be so wonderful for you!’
Sometimes w
hen she was alone with her mother, Annika would try and guess.
‘We’re going on a journey to Africa to see lions?’ she would suggest, and her mother would smile and shake her head.
Or: ‘I’m getting a little boat with a red sail to take me over the lake?’
Or: ‘My friends are coming from Vienna on a visit?’
But always her mother would shake her head and say, ‘No, it’s better than that!’
Then came the day when Gudrun and her parents moved back to the hunting lodge and Annika and her mother were alone.
And at dinner that night, Edeltraut raised her glass to drink a toast. Her eyes sparkled, she was flushed with excitement.
‘ To your surprise, my dear,’ she said, stretching her hand across the table to lay it on her daughter’s. And as Annika looked at her, she said, ‘Yes, my darling child, I’ve done it! I was so afraid I’d have to disappoint you, but they’ve agreed. Come upstairs where we can be quite private. Oh, Annika, you’re going to be so pleased!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE HARP ARRIVES
Ellie was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the black recipe book which had belonged to her mother and her mother’s mother before her.
She’d got the book down because she wanted to check the quantities of sugar that were needed for some apricot preserve she was making. She had found the amounts almost at once, but now, some ten minutes later, she was still sitting with the book in front of her, and the page open at the entry that Annika had copied in on Christmas Eve.
‘A pinch of nutmeg will improve the flavour of the sauce,’ she read, for perhaps the hundredth time since Annika had gone.
Easter was over. On the Thursday before the holiday weekend, the emperor had given out purses to the poor and washed the feet of the twelve needy gentlemen who had been brought to him from almshouses in the city. Some of the needy gentlemen had enjoyed having their feet washed by the emperor, and some had not, but that was neither here nor there because the feet-washing was a tradition and had to be carried on.
After that, on Good Friday, the paintings and crucifixes in the churches had been shrouded in purple and the sounds of the street became muffled while the citizens mourned the death of Christ. And then on Easter Sunday the bells had pealed out joyously, there was music everywhere, the sun shone and everyone in Vienna seemed to have a new hat.
Ellie had done her best with Easter. She had not bought a new hat because her brown felt hat was only ten years old and had plenty of life in it still, but she had done all the things she had done the year before and the year before that. She had hard-boiled eggs for the little Bodek boys to paint; she had baked Easter muffins for Pauline and her grandfather, and a simnel cake for the professors, and she and Sigrid had taken flowers to the church.
But nothing gave her any joy.
‘I have to get over it,’ Ellie told herself. ‘It’s over two months since she went. Why doesn’t it get better?’
But it didn’t get better. If anything, missing Annika got worse.
There was a knock at the back door and Pauline came in carrying her scrapbook and a pot of glue. Since Annika had gone she came quite often to work in Ellie’s kitchen.
‘Have you had a letter?’ she asked.
Ellie closed the book. ‘No. Have you?’
‘No. And Stefan hasn’t either.’
‘It’s not so long since she wrote.’
‘It’s longer than it’s ever been,’ said Pauline. ‘Perhaps her mother has sent her into the forest with a huntsman and told him to kill her and bring back her tongue, like in the stories.’
‘For goodness’ sake, Pauline, what’s the matter with you? What have you got against Frau Edeltraut?’
‘She’s an aristocrat; they’re always doing things like that. Look at Count Dracula. And that horrible perfume she wears, like mangled wolves.’
But Sigrid came in at that moment and told Pauline to stop upsetting Ellie. Hating people helped some people, but it only gave Ellie a stomach ache.
Pauline put down her scrapbook and the pot of glue and reached for the scissors. She had found a story she liked very much, about a little boy who had climbed into a hot-air balloon and been carried away, but a crippled lady had raced after it in her wheelchair and managed to get hold of the rope and hold on . . .
For a while there was peace as Sigrid started on the ironing and Ellie went back to the stove. Then Professor Gertrude’s bell sounded from her bedroom. It was not her usual gentle ring but louder and more insistent.
‘Something’s the matter,’ said Sigrid.
They trooped out into the hall and found Professor Gertrude, still in her dressing gown and slippers.
‘It’s come!’ she said agitatedly. ‘I saw from the window! It’s come!’
No one asked what had come. Only one thing could make Professor Gertrude run round the hallway like a headless chicken, with her grey plait hanging down her back.
Her new harp. The great concert-grand harp ordered from Ernst and Kohlhart months ago; the largest and most valuable instrument of its kind in the city.
A ring on the front door was followed by a volley of thumps. Sigrid opened it to reveal an elegant delivery van with the words ‘Instrument Makers to the Imperial Court’ scrolled on the side, and two men wheeling an enormous wooden case towards them. It was painted a shining black, and the heavy clasps that fastened it were gold; it might have been the coffin of an exotic giraffe.
‘We’ll have to leave it at the door,’ they said. ‘We’ve got to take the trolley back,’ and with much muttering and heaving they set their load down on the pavement, presented Professor Gertrude with the receipt to sign, and pocketed their tip.
Professor Julian and Professor Emil were both out, but Gertrude knew exactly what to do.
‘Fetch Stefan,’ she ordered – and Pauline ran off across the square.
Stefan was always fetched when something heavy had to be dealt with; he was by far the strongest of the Bodek boys, and he came at once. Behind him, although he had told them to stay at home, ran two of his younger brothers, Hansi and Georg.
Sigrid had already moved the hall table and the umbrella stand. Ellie took away the potted palm.
‘You take the back end,’ Professor Gertrude ordered Stefan, ‘and I’ll take the front.’
‘Let me,’ began Sigrid, but Professor Gertrude waved her away.
Even for Stefan the weight was enormous, but he managed to lift the case, and Professor Gertrude, walking backwards, made her way upstairs. On the third stair her bedroom slipper came off, on the sixth she became entangled with her dressing-gown cord, but she carried on, stepping bravely backwards with her bare foot.
At the landing they stopped. Gertrude’s door was wedged open, but would the case go through?
‘I think it would be best to unpack it here,’ said Stefan, lowering the case.
On these matters Stefan was always listened to. Professor Gertrude took the keys hanging from one of the clasps and slowly, solemnly, she unlocked the case.
The inside, padded with gold-and-burgundy brocade, was unbelievably sumptuous. The harp itself was wrapped in a shawl of ivory silk, a present from the makers to those who bought this precious instrument.
Stefan lifted it out and carried it into Professor Gertrude’s room. Then he came out again, the door was shut, and everyone went back downstairs, knowing that this was a time when Gertrude needed to be alone.
In the kitchen, Ellie started to brew coffee and reached for the tin of biscuits, which she kept for the little Bodek boys, but when she turned round there was no sign of them. Stefan was there, and Pauline, but not Georg – and not Hansi, and this was strange because Hansi suffered terribly from hunger and usually stationed himself by Ellie’s biscuit tin as soon as he arrived.
‘They must have gone home,’ said Stefan. ‘I’ll go and see.’
He came back, looking puzzled. ‘They’re not there.’
They searched the down
stairs rooms, the yard . . . But before they had time to become anxious, a kind of scrabbling sound came from the upstairs landing.
The harp case was where they had left it, flat on the ground. Sigrid lifted the lid. Inside the two little boys lay curled together like puppies.
‘It’s our house,’ said Georg blissfully. ‘It’s the best house in the whole world. We’re going to live in it for ever and ever.’
The following day was a Sunday and Pauline and Stefan set off early to tidy up the hut. Even though they couldn’t do plays without Annika, they still liked to use it for picnics and meetings with carefully chosen friends.
There were signs that the deserted garden was not going to be theirs for much longer. The barbed wire over the gate to the drive had been removed, perhaps to let the lorries through when the workmen came. Ye t on this fine spring morning it was still very quiet and very beautiful. There was dew on the grass; a thrush sang on a branch of the cedar.
They walked past the pond, past the ruined steps. . .Then Pauline stopped dead. ‘There’s something behind the house. A wild animal. I can hear it snorting. I’m going home.’
But before she could turn and run, the wild animal appeared.
His rich coat was lit up by a shaft of sunlight; his black mane and tail rippled like silk. Because he was hobbled he could only walk at a measured pace, but he came on steadily, his ears twitching with curiosity and interest.
‘I only like horses when they’re in books,’ said Pauline and backed away.
But Stefan now was staring at the door of the hut.
‘I think the padlock’s been—’ He broke off. ‘My God! Look!’
He had pushed open the door. On the floor, wrapped in the old grey blanket, and fast asleep, lay a completely unknown boy.
Three hours later, the compound behind the professors’ house, which Ellie and Sigrid kept so tidy, looked like a junk yard. An old wardrobe, a washstand, a mangle and several portraits of the professors’ grandparents in oils were stacked beside the wall, and on the blue bench where the servants liked to sit were the little Bodek boys, their eyes on the door of the shed, which had been turned back into a stable. The lady in the paper shop was there too, ready with advice because she had grown up on a farm, and looking placidly over the half-door was Rocco, chewing a carrot.