Love Is My Reason

by Mary Burchell

  For years afterwards he was always able to recall the scene in its smallest detail, and always with a stab of pain for the fact that Anya was simply leaning against the wall, crying quietly, without apparently even the means of grieving in comfort. Beside her stood the woman he had seen the previous evening. But although she looked compassionately at Anya, she did not seem to have any words to meet the situation. Perhaps there were no words. At any rate, David himself did not pause to find them. He simply crossed the room and, gently putting the woman aside, took the weeping girl in his arms.

  “Herr David—” She turned and hid her face against his shoulder, with a sort of childish relief. “Oh, I’m so glad you came.”

  “I’m glad too,” he said. And, in spite of whatever fresh complications might be arising, he found that in some strange way that was the truth.

  He stroked her bright hair as though she were indeed a child, and after a minute he said gently, “Try not to feel too much alone. I promised—your father I would look after you, and I meant it.”

  The quick, grateful pressure of her hand on his arm was the only answer to that. And so, spurred on by the necessity of making some decision, he went on presently, “I think, Anya that for a few days at any rate, I had better take you away from here.”

  “Where?” She looked up, wide-eyed and a trifle apprehensive.

  “To the hotel where I am staying. My aunt is with me there, and she is very kind. We will look after you until we can decide something about your future.”

  “And—him?” She made a pathetically diffident little gesture towards the curtained middle cubicle.

  David was not, or thought he was not, a specially imaginative man. But in that moment he knew exactly what she meant. Penniless and forlorn herself, she was asking, wordlessly, for some sort of tenderness and respect towards the mortal remains of the man she had known as her father.

  “If you will trust me,” he said quietly, “I will see to it that your father is buried with friendliness and dignity. I’ll interview the camp Kommandant presently, and I’m sure that everything can be arranged as you would wish. Will you come with me, Anya?”

  “I think it would be best—when you have collected whatever you want to take. I can always bring you back to fetch anything else later, of course.”

  “I haven’t much,” she said simply. And for the first time since he was a boy he felt a lump come into his throat.

  “Very well. Will you fetch what you want?”

  She went into the end cubicle obediently, and he stood and waited for her. But it was only a very few minutes before she came out again, carrying a poor little shabby case, tied with a piece of rope.

  David took it from her, however, as though it were a fitted dressing-case, and asked gently, “Are you ready to come now?”

  “May I—go in and see him again?”

  “Of course, my dear, if you want to.”

  “Will you come?”

  He hesitated, and then said, “Would you like me to?”

  “I think,” Anya told him diffidently, “that he would have liked you to.”

  “Very well,” David said at once. And he came with her into the small cubicle, where Ivan Beran lay in the peace and majesty of death, beyond the reach now of any of the cares that had fretted him for so long.

  She stood for some moments in silence, without tears now, and then she said, half to herself,

  “He needs no passport where he is going. No one will ever call him a displaced person again. He has his place at last. It was better so.”

  “Perhaps.” David put his arm round her, and when he thought she had stayed as long as was good for her, he gently drew her away.

  They paused for a minute in the outer room, while Anya said good-bye to the other woman. Then he took her downstairs and out to the car, where Robin Drummond was still waiting patiently.

  If he was surprised when David announced that he was taking Anya back to the hotel, he did not show it. He merely said, “You take the car, then. I’ll find the camp Kommandant and make some sort of report.”

  “Thanks.” David was brief but grateful. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. And meanwhile will you make it clear that Anya’s father was a friend of mine and I should like everything arranged on that basis.”

  “Very well.” Again the doctor displayed no surprise. He gave Anya’s arm a reassuring pat, and then David and she drove away together.

  They said very little on the short drive to the hotel, and, by the time they arrived at the Drei Kronen, David saw that she was beginning to show signs of strain. There was no colour at all in her face by now, and shadows were beginning to darken under her eyes.

  “Try not to be frightened,” he told her, as they entered the hotel. “My aunt is really more like my mother than just a casual relation, and she will be kind to you.”

  “Thank you,” whispered Anya, with a wan smile. And then he took her up to the pleasant suite which his aunt occupied.

  Fortunately she was there in the sitting-room, busily writing letters, for she was an indefatigable correspondent to a large circle of friends. She looked up as they entered and, with the quick instinct of the truly kind and capable, she evidently took in the situation, even before David presented Anya with a few words of explanation.

  Whatever Lady Ranmere’s feelings might have been about her nephew’s wisdom, or lack of it, in becoming involved in this situation, it was not in her to be indifferent in the face of real distress, and she greeted Anya with kindness and sympathy.

  “Can I leave her with you, Aunt Mary, for the present? I have to go back and arrange about everything,” David explained.

  “Yes, of course. I'll see she has something to eat”—Lady Ranmere was a great believer in the simple consolation of nourishment in moments of distress—“and I’ll keep her here so that no one will disturb her.”

  “Thank you.”

  He smiled gratefully at his aunt, and then turned to take Anya’s hand. Perhaps if his aunt had not been there he might even have kissed her pale, upturned face. But Lady Ranmere’s brisk kindliness had put everything on a more normal basis. So he contented himself with a warm pressure of her hand, then went away, back to the camp, to help Robin Drummond with whatever formalities there might be.

  To his relief, and a little to his surprise, he found the camp Kommandant a correct and not unkindly man. That a couple of well-dressed Englishmen should apparently wish to take over the funeral arrangements of one of the least of his charges impressed the Kommandant, and he was co-operative in every way.

  He could not hide his surprise, however, when David explained that he and his aunt wished to keep the girl with them at their hotel, at any rate until the funeral was over, and that after that they would arrange something for her future. Possibly at this point he rather doubted the existence of any aunt—for the life of a camp Kommandant does not dispose one to view one’s fellows in a trusting light—but it was not his affair. So long as the records were correctly kept and there was no disturbance within the camp, his duty was discharged.

  At the end of the interview, when everything had been arranged as suitably and decently as goodwill and money could ensure, David said, “I am interested in this family. If you have any official records of them, I should very much appreciate an opportunity to see them.”

  For answer, the Kommandant took from a tall cupboard beside him a thick file, labelled simply “A-D”, and, flicking through the pages came to a brief entry, which he obligingly presented for David’s inspection.

  So meagre, so impersonal. Just the name Ivan Beran followed by the place and date of birth—Odessa, 24th June, 1902—and the bare information that he had been transferred from Eldenborg Camp on a date about three years previously.

  Then, in a separate paragraph—“Anya Beranova, daughter of above. Born—” And suddenly, with a terrible pang David realized that today was her birthday and she was just eighteen.

  “It’s her birthday,” he said, aloud and
in English. To which Robin Drummond replied, “Poor little devil.” While the Kommandant waited politely until the Englishmen had finished what they wanted to say about the records.

  “Thank you.” David returned the register, and got up to go. He had not really expected to find out anything about her real origin in anything so formal as a camp record, but he had felt bound to ask.

  There was nothing further to arrange just then. The funeral had been fixed for a couple of days later, and the details attended to by David with a meticulous care that evidently slightly surprised Robin Drummond. They bade the Kommandant a courteous good-day and, as they walked back to the car, across the dusty quadrangle, Robin said,

  “What do you intend to do about the girl, David?”

  “I don’t know,” David confessed. “I only know I am not going to let her come back here.”

  “It’s not too easy to absorb any of these people into the ordinary life of the community, you know. Years of camp life unfit them for responsibility or an independent existence.”

  “She is eighteen,” David replied. “Today,” he added, biting his lip. “Normally speaking, she has her life in front of her. Do you suggest she should spend the rest of it in a place like this?”

  “No, no. Of course not.” The other man was rather shocked by the suggestion. “I’m only warning you that you’ll come up against a lot of difficulties.”

  “I’ll tackle them as they come along,” David replied.

  “Well, good luck, my dear fellow.” Robin Drummond sounded cordial, but a little as though he were glad the responsibility was David’s rather than his. “If there’s nothing else I can do for you, I’ll drive back to the hotel with you, pick up my own car and push off for Munich once more.”

  “You won’t stay for dinner?”

  “Not unless you need me. They’re doing Arabella at the Munich Opera House tonight. And though it’s all a pale shadow or what it used to be in Clemens Krauss’ time, Arabella remains one of my operatic loves—if only for my youthful memories of Ursuleac in the part.”

  “Very well.” David smiled slightly. “I won’t take up your evening as well as your afternoon. And I’m eternally grateful to you for all your help.”

  His friend disclaimed any thanks, adding—which was true enough—that the interest of the case was its own reward. And then they drove back to the hotel, where they amicably parted company, Robin driving off at a great rate towards Munich, while David garaged his car.

  But even then he did not go immediately into the hotel. Instead, he walked along the main street of the town, until he came to a shop which he had heard Celia praise highly. He went in, and, to the bright-eyed minx behind the counter, he said, “I want a birthday present for someone who is eighteen today.”

  “Your sister or your fiancée, mein Herr?” enquired the girl, smiling knowledgeably and a little impudently.

  “Neither. But she is very sad, and no one else has remembered her birthday, I think.”

  “At eighteen? That is too bad, mein Herr!” The girl was genuinely sympathetic and shocked. “Then she must have something beautiful to cheer her, and soft to console her, and gay because she is so young.”

  “That sounds about right.” David smiled slightly. “Can you find anything that fulfills all that?”

  “But of course!” And, as though she were a youthful and faintly buxom fairy godmother, the girl produced from a deep drawer behind her the most exquisite rainbow-hued stole in finest Italian silk.

  “See—” She tossed it round her to show him its wonderful width and length. Then she gathered it together and ran it through her thumb and finger, to show him its fineness. “No one could wear that and be sad.”

  “You’re a good saleswoman,” David said, and smiled again—but mostly because he was thinking how beautiful Anya would look with that iridescent cloud of colour round her.

  He never queried the price, and did not blench when the girl apologetically volunteered it. He merely said, “I’ll take it,” and waited a little impatiently while the stole was wrapped up. For suddenly he was eager to get back to the hotel and see how Anya was faring.

  When he entered the Drei Kronen five minutes later, the first person he saw was his aunt. But before he could ask the anxious question which sprang to his lips, she said reassuringly, “It’s all right. She is asleep. I think she was exhausted, both with the shock and not enough sleep last night. Poor child, she didn’t tell me much, but she must have had wearing time lately.”

  “I hope it’s going to be better now,” David replied.

  But if Lady Ranmere wondered a trifle apprehensively exactly what he meant by that, she forbore to ask, for she was a wise woman and knew that nothing drives people more surely into defiant action than a demand that they should define their intentions when they are still doubtful about them themselves.

  “You’re sure she will be all right alone?” David pressed her.

  “Quite sure. She is sleeping on the sofa in the sitting-room. Suppose we go and have a drink and see what the others are doing? I could do with a sherry, and I imagine you’ve reached the whisky-and-soda stage after your experiences today.”

  David laughed and, leaving his parcel at the desk for the time being, accompanied his aunt into the lounge, where they found the other members of their party.

  Apparently Lady Ranmere had already managed to give them some idea of what had happened, for they all, even Bertram, appeared anxious to hear more about David’s charge.

  He gave them a brief account of the afternoon, and felt grateful to Mrs. Preston when she said, as though defending him, “I don’t see that you could have done anything else but bring the girl back here with you.”

  Celia said nothing, and he was not sure that she agreed with this view.

  “Where is she now? And what happens next?” enquired Bertram.

  “She’s asleep in my sitting-room.” Lady Ranmere took the explanations on herself, before her nephew could. “By and by, if she feels like seeing anyone else, we will bring her downstairs for dinner. Otherwise, she can have something quietly in her room. I’ve arranged for her to have the room next to mine, so that she won’t feel lonely.”

  David gave his aunt an affectionate smile and whispered, “Thanks. You think of everything.”

  “And is she staying indefinitely?” enquired Celia. Not argumentatively, but as though the information interested her.

  “Until after the funeral anyway,” David said. “And after that we’ll have to see.” He was not quite sure himself what he meant by that. But fortunately, before anyone could ask him to be more explicit, Mrs. Preston, who was sitting beside him, addressed him in a low, urgent voice.

  “You weren’t able to—to find out anything more about her, I suppose?” she said, nervously playing with the fob brooch in which she wore her son’s photograph.

  “I’m sorry—no.” David knew from that nervous movement where her thoughts were. And, however illogical her ideas might be, he could not help looking with closer attention than ever before at the thin-faced, handsome man who smiled from the little photograph.

  “Anya’s so-called father died without my speaking to him again, you know,” he explained. “But if there is any way of finding out anything more, I certainly shall do so, if only for my own satisfaction.”

  She murmured, “Thank you,” and suddenly stopped playing with the brooch, as though guiltily realizing what she had been doing. Then he noticed that Celia was glancing in their direction, and though she smiled at her mother, she also shook her head.

  For a short while David made himself enter into the general conversation around him. But presently he got up and said in an undertone to his aunt.

  “I’m going upstairs, to see she is all right. She may be frightened if she wakes and finds herself alone in a strange place.”

  And without waiting for any objection to that, he went out of the lounge, collected his parcel from the desk, and went quickly upstairs to his aunt’s sit
ting-room.

  He had already conjured up such an anxious picture of her, frightened and alone, that he was relieved to find Anya sleeping quietly on the sofa, as his aunt had described. Her long dark lashes lay tranquilly on her pale cheeks, and the gentle rise and fall of her breathing was unhurried and peaceful.

  For quite a few minutes he watched her, fascinated to find that, freed from her cares in sleep, she did not look so different from other girls of her age. No longer was she unbearably pathetic. And, for the first time, he found himself thinking.

  “She isn’t essentially a melancholy creature. She could be gay and happy. I believe she could even laugh quite easily.” And suddenly he was overwhelmed by the desire to see her gay and happy.

  Without knowing quite why, he unwrapped his gift and spread it out on a chair near the sofa, so that it was within easy reach of her hand. The light from the window caught it and drew a dozen scintillating shades from its shimmering depths, and he thought, with satisfaction, that it would be something nice for her glance to light upon when she opened her eyes.

  He would have liked to be there when that happened, but already he had lingered long enough, he supposed. And then, just as he turned to go, she stirred slightly, and so he drew to one side out of her range of vision and watched.

  For a few moments after she opened her eyes, she lay there—wondering, perhaps, where she was. Then her attention was caught, and with a soft exclamation of pleasure, she put out her hand and touched the silk. Only the lightest touch—certainly not the touch of possession—but infinitely delicate and caressing and appreciative.

  Perhaps he made a slight movement at that moment. At any rate, she turned her head and, seeing him, smiled. He came forward then and, leaning his hands on the back of the sofa, looked down at her and asked, “How do you like your birthday present?”

  “My—birthday present?”

  “Yes. It’s your birthday today, isn’t it?”

  She gave a mystified little laugh and said, “How did you know? I—I had forgotten it myself.”