The English Girl

by Margaret Leroy

  ‘I couldn’t possibly,’ I say again.

  ‘You are grateful to these people who took you in,’ he says. ‘I understand that. But there is a greater good, Stella.’

  I shake my head; keep shaking it.

  ‘It’s about – well – honour,’ I say. Then I’m embarrassed how pompous that sounds.

  ‘Yes, it is, Stella,’ he says. Entirely serious.

  I don’t say anything.

  He waits, just goes on waiting. The silence stretches out between us and threatens to swallow me up. Till I feel I have to break it.

  ‘Anyway – what if I did what you asked, and Rainer or Marthe found out?’

  At once I wish I hadn’t said that. He leans towards me. His face softens. He knows I have made a concession.

  ‘What I’m asking you to do is very simple,’ he says. ‘There’s absolutely no reason why they should find out. Though any course of action can carry a risk.’ He taps ash from his cigarette into the ashtray. He isn’t looking at me now: he watches the ash intently. ‘When you start looking around you, anything can happen. You may notice things that you’d rather you hadn’t found out.’

  That sounds so glib, I think.

  ‘I’m not going to look,’ I tell him. ‘You mustn’t speak as though I’ve agreed.’

  He smiles. The smile is conciliatory, perhaps a little condescending. It makes me feel like a child. I feel briefly, hotly, angry.

  ‘Believe me, Stella, I know just why you’re hesitating. I can quite understand you being reluctant to see Rainer in those terms. I can see this is a shock for you. You’re right to think about it carefully,’ he says. ‘Yet, the thing is, Stella…’ He’s speaking rather softly now. ‘If this were happening where you live, I don’t think you’d choose to turn a blind eye.’

  I don’t like the way he talks about me hesitating, not deciding. As though he seems to think that in the end I will say yes. But I’m not going to do that – not today, not ever.

  We’re quiet for a moment. The piano music swirls around us: Wine, Woman and Song. Johann Strauss and the dream of Vienna, its waltzes, palaces, flowers: everything lilting, gracious.

  ‘I can’t possibly do this. I’m saying no,’ I tell him.

  His kestrel eyes are on me. There’s a new sternness in him.

  ‘Stella. In Germany – a country just two hours away by train, a country that shares a language and culture with our beloved Austria – terrible things are happening. Jewish doctors and artists and university teachers are being treated like pariahs – many of them incarcerated. This is what will happen here when Hitler marches in. Jewish doctors, for instance, will be prevented from working – will be imprisoned, maybe sent off to some brutal forced-labour camp … Jewish doctors like your boyfriend,’ he says.

  I stare at him. A chill runs through me. It’s not because of his vision of the future, which I refuse to believe. Nothing like that could happen here, in this genial, civilised place. No one really believes that’s going to happen. The chill is because of what he knows about me – about Harri. Has he seen me out with Harri? Has he been spying on me?

  ‘I’m going to give you this,’ he says. He takes his card from his wallet. ‘It has my telephone numbers at the Embassy and at home. But I’d ask you to keep it concealed, if you would.’

  I take the card, hold it lightly, as if it could burn me.

  ‘If you change your mind, you should get in touch,’ he tells me. ‘Or even if you’d just like to talk some more about these things.’

  I pick up my handbag, open it. I put his card in an inner pocket of my handbag – feeling uneasy, as I do this. As though the simplest action has too much significance. As though in hiding the card as he asked, I have already conceded something.

  ‘You should think over what we’ve talked about. And I know you will do that,’ he says.

  I finish my cocktail quickly, look pointedly at my watch.

  ‘I have to go,’ I tell him. ‘It’s late. It’s later than I thought.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, it is, Stella.’

  37

  Afterwards, travelling back home, I have such a sense of shame. I’m ashamed that I listened to Frank as I did – that I didn’t just walk out on him. And the more I think about what he told me, the more I refuse to believe it. Rainer is a good man, I tell myself. There must be some rumour that Frank’s got hold of, that has no basis in fact. He’s suspicious of everyone: it would be in the nature of the work he does, to think the worst of people. It’s all some terrible misconception.

  But I’m troubled by what he said about Hitler’s designs on Austria, remembering that this is something that Eva also fears.

  Marthe is in the drawing room, her feet up to ease her varicose veins. She’s working on her tapestry.

  ‘Marthe – someone I talked to…’ I clear my throat, start again. ‘He said that some people think that Austria won’t remain independent for long. That it could become part of the German Reich.’

  She nods. She carries on with her stitching, lifting her hand high, pulling the thread through the cloth, so the needle glitters and dives like a little fish in the lamplight.

  ‘Well, Stella – people have different opinions on that,’ she says.

  ‘But what do you think, Marthe?’

  ‘We’re as German as they are, of course…’

  ‘But it’s an entirely different country.’

  ‘Of course. But there are people who feel there’s no sense in the present arrangement. That it doesn’t make sense for us to be divided up as we are. Some people feel – well, that the things that are happening in Germany – they aren’t all negative things…’ She’s tentative, as though she’s not sure what I’ll think. ‘There’s a lot of rabble-rousing, of course. But good things as well, Stella. There are people here who would like to be part of all that,’ she says.

  It’s not the answer I’d expected. I expected her to say – What nonsense, of course we’ll stay independent.

  ‘Do they? Do they really feel that?’

  ‘I’ve got family in Germany, of course. My cousin Elfi,’ she says.

  I remember how Elfi came to visit, the afternoon when I went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, when I first met Harri.

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘Elfi lives in Frankfurt.’ The needle glints like the scales of a fish, leaping up into light. ‘And she says how things have improved: the unemployed taken off the streets and given a wage and useful work. It was terrible there, with all the unemployment before. That’s good, surely? To provide productive work for people? So their families have enough to eat?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose. Yes, of course…’

  ‘We could do with some decisive action like that here in Austria, with so many poor people out of work. And then there are the youth movements. Elfi says it’s good for young people to be given a purpose in life. She says her sons have really come out of themselves, since getting involved … And there are lovely cheap holidays for hard-working people, of course.’

  ‘Oh. Are there?’

  Marthe turns her tapestry over, finishes off, cuts the thread. She puts the cloth away in her sewing basket. She hasn’t answered my question; she hasn’t said what she thinks. It’s all just other people’s opinions.

  ‘And now I really must get on, Stella,’ she says.

  38

  ‘What are you making, Janika?’

  ‘It’s Linzertorte. I’ll show you how, if you like, Fräulein Stella,’ she says.

  ‘Thank you. I’d love that.’

  ‘It’ll be good to know – for when you are married,’ she says.

  When you are married. The words conjure up a sweet vision – of a candlelit table, and Harri and our dinner guests, and me in my dress of cornflower crêpe, bringing in the dessert.

  ‘Here – you can roll out the pastry for me,’ she says. ‘It’s a special pastry, made with ground almonds and hazelnuts.’

  ‘What’s the secret of making good pastry
, Janika?’ I ask her.

  ‘It helps if your hands aren’t too warm. You need cool hands for pastry,’ she says.

  I roll out the pastry carefully, trying not to touch it too much.

  A soup made with trout and carp and paprika is simmering on the hob. Janika goes to inspect it.

  ‘Janika – what do people here think about Austria’s future?’ I ask her.

  She turns to me. She looks wary.

  ‘What do you mean exactly, Fräulein Stella?’ she says.

  ‘Someone said this thing to me – that Austria might become part of the German Reich at some point. I mean, you talk to a lot of people, when you’re out and about at the market. You must know what people are thinking…’

  ‘Well, there are certainly people who say that. We must pray to Our Lady and all the saints that it never happens,’ she says.

  She fingers the silver crucifix that hangs at her throat, in a small self-comforting gesture.

  ‘I talked to Marthe about it,’ I say.

  Janika’s skin colours.

  ‘Marthe said there are people who think that it isn’t entirely bad. The Third Reich. What’s happening in Germany,’ I tell her. ‘Her cousin Elfi says that. That there are some good things about it…’

  I shouldn’t have mentioned Marthe. Janika’s face is closed now.

  ‘Well, some people say one thing, some say another.’ She’s backtracking carefully. ‘I really don’t know about politics. Frau Krause understands all those things so much better than I do,’ she says.

  I feel I’ve mishandled things horribly – that it wasn’t fair of me to ask for her opinion. I know how deep her loyalty to Marthe goes – how she’d never oppose her.

  We work in silence for a moment. You can hear the icy rain lashing the windows, and the coals that shift in the range. It feels awkward between us. I want to move away from this difficult subject. I hunt around in my mind for something less troubling to say.

  ‘I’d love to know more about your village, Janika,’ I tell her.

  ‘So what would you like to know?’ she asks me.

  ‘Well … I always love anything to do with magic,’ I say.

  Janika smiles. She’s more at ease now. She thinks for a moment.

  ‘In my village, Fräulein Stella, we believe that there are two souls. That everyone has two souls – an ordinary soul, and a shadow soul,’ she tells me. ‘And we believe the shadow soul can leave the body in sleep.’

  ‘Oh. That’s fascinating.’

  ‘People fear the shadow soul. It’s invoked in curses,’ she says.

  ‘Do you fear it, Janika?’

  She considers this.

  ‘The whole idea scared me when I was little,’ she says. She smiles with faraway eyes, remembering. ‘Sometimes I tried to stop myself falling asleep. I worried my soul might leave my body and never come back.’

  ‘Did they really teach you that, growing up? About the shadow soul?’

  It seems a rather disturbing idea, to teach a little child.

  She nods. ‘My mother told me this.’

  ‘Tell me about your mother,’ I say. ‘Tell me about your family.’

  ‘Well, my father was a carpenter, and my mother kept the house. But my mother did other work as well.’ A little uncertain – as though she’s not sure how much to tell me.

  ‘What kind of work?’ I ask her.

  ‘You see, Fräulein Stella, there wasn’t a doctor in my village,’ she says.

  ‘So she helped ill people?’

  Janika nods. ‘She helped pregnant women, and she could deliver a baby. And folk came to her with their problems. She had the gift,’ she says.

  ‘The gift? What kind of gift?’

  ‘She could see things,’ says Janika.

  ‘Oh.’ This thrills me. ‘What kind of things did she see?’

  ‘She saw the returning dead, sometimes.’

  Janika’s voice is level. But my skin prickles at the thought.

  ‘That sounds so frightening,’ I tell her.

  ‘Sometimes, perhaps. Not always. She saw my father after he’d died. This wasn’t a dream, she was wide awake – awake as you or me.’ Janika is utterly matter-of-fact. ‘He came and sat on the foot of her bed. He smelt of palinka – that’s our apricot brandy – and linseed oil, she said. Like I told you, he was a carpenter, Fräulein Stella … He spoke to her gently. It comforted her, she told us … He’d been in the ground ten weeks when he came.’

  ‘Oh my goodness.’

  We are quiet for a moment, and the winter rain beats at the window.

  Janika comes to look at my pastry.

  ‘That’s good, Fräulein Stella. Now we can put the Linzertorte together,’ she says.

  ‘And your mother – could she tell people’s fortunes?’ I ask.

  Janika nods.

  ‘She would study the lines on people’s hands. She could read their futures in their palms.’ Janika fetches a knife, a pie-dish, a jar of raspberry preserves. There’s a slight frown etched on her forehead. ‘Till she started seeing all these young men with no lifelines. Young lads who came to consult her, and she found she couldn’t see the lines in their hands. She decided to give up the work for good. She thought her gift had left her.’

  ‘Oh. Can that happen? If you have a gift like that, can it leave you?’

  Janika places the pie-dish on the rolled-out pastry. She cuts around the dish with her knife to make a perfect disc, slides the pastry onto the rolling pin, then eases it into the pie-dish. She starts to crimp the edges. Her eyes are downcast, heavy with thought.

  ‘The thing is, Fräulein Stella, this was in 1913,’ she tells me.

  I feel a chill go through me.

  Janika eases the seal of paraffin wax from the top of the jar, and spoons the preserves into the pie-crust. Then she shows me how to shape the remaining pastry, to make a lattice to go on top of the pie. She puts her hand on mine to guide me.

  ‘You’ll be a good pastry-cook, Fräulein Stella. You’ve got cold hands,’ she says.

  39

  ‘You fell asleep,’ he tells me. ‘Just for a moment … You play the piano when you sleep. Did you know that?’

  ‘No. How could I?’ I punch him lightly. ‘I mean, I was asleep…’

  He smiles lazily down at me.

  ‘You were playing me like a piano. I could feel your fingers moving.’

  I wonder what music I was playing. Perhaps the Chopin ‘Berceuse’: I think of its gently rocking rhythms. I have such a sense of peace, of safety – from making love, from falling asleep in Harri’s arms.

  I look up at him. His face is shadowed. It’s only six, but it’s dark already. Behind him, through the window, I can see the night sky. The stars are big and glittery, and a white frost feathers the glass.

  I’d like to stay here for hours. But he’ll be busy later – even though it’s Saturday, which we usually spend together. There’s a meeting he has to attend.

  ‘Do I need to go yet?’ I ask him.

  He shakes his head. Perhaps he’s as reluctant to leave this bed as me.

  ‘Let’s stay like this just a little longer,’ he says.

  He lights our cigarettes.

  ‘So teach me something,’ I say.

  He thinks for a moment.

  ‘All right. Today, I shall tell you about one of Dr Freud’s most difficult teachings,’ he says.

  ‘Difficult to understand? Or difficult to accept?’

  ‘Both, perhaps,’ he tells me. ‘Troubling. Pessimistic…’

  ‘I thought most of what he said was pessimistic,’ I say.

  ‘Have you heard of the death instinct?’ he says.

  ‘I haven’t. It certainly sounds rather gloomy…’

  ‘Dr Freud teaches that there is a death instinct in all of us,’ he says.

  I press against him, hungry for the warmth that comes off his body. Above us, the pattern the frost makes on the window-glass looks like writing. You can almost imagine that you cou
ld read what it says.

  ‘I thought it was all about sex,’ I say. ‘What drives us.’

  He blows out smoke.

  ‘That’s the drive he calls Eros. And it’s more than sex,’ he says. ‘It’s the urge to life – to joy, to pleasure … But he says there is also a death instinct. A striving in us that compels us towards oblivion. Back towards the original form of things.’

  I think of Janika’s mother, and all the young men with no lifelines.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asks me.

  ‘It’s nothing. Just the cold…’

  He wraps his arm around me.

  I think about what he said.

  ‘So it’s like a battle inside us.’ I remember sermons from church in childhood – the cosmic conflict, God and the devil, fighting for our souls. ‘There’s this struggle inside us – between Eros and death?’

  ‘You could put it like that,’ he tells me.

  ‘How does it show itself – this death instinct?’ I ask him. ‘When people commit suicide?’

  ‘That’s an extreme example,’ he says. ‘It also shows itself in our everyday lives. As repetition or retreat.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I tell him.

  ‘When we go backwards,’ he says. ‘When we retreat to the patterns of the past. Even though they didn’t work for us then, and surely won’t work for us now. When we seek the safety of what we know – although it has hurt us before…’

  I stare up at the window-glass, at what the frost has written there. I think of the jealousy I can feel at night, in the dark of my room, the sexual imaginings with which I torture myself. Is it Eros or death that drives me then? The jealousy comes from my love for him; yet the jealousy is a dark thing. Something that makes me destructive, that could even push him away. How can we tell if we’re driven by Eros or death?

  I wish I could ask him about this: I wish he’d explain it to me. But I can’t – I don’t want to remind him of this ugly side of myself.

  ‘You could argue that there is a death instinct in culture, too,’ he tells me. ‘Perhaps especially in German culture. A longing for death. A sense of the seductiveness of death.’