Staff Nurse in the Tyrol (12 page)

As they left the last child, Stefan walked beside Sonia down the length of the ward. He smiled at her.

“It is so hot, is it not? Tonight we shall try to find a cool place to meet my friends. I make the rounds on the other wards and meet you on the terrace just after the hour of six. Okay?”

Sonia nodded, ignoring the prick of conscience that troubled her. But Stefan hadn’t said anything about a meeting, only about getting to know his friends. Anyway she hadn’t promised Michael anything. Besides, he wouldn’t want to bother with her now that he had Greta to think about.

Sonia brushed the damp curls back from her forehead. Another five minutes and Sister Therese and Greta would be back. It was one of the few days she could remember that she had been guilty of watching the clock. She heard a stir at the end of the ward and the children’s voices calling out excitedly. Who could it be? She glanced up from the linen that she was folding, and saw Michael walking down the ward toward her. For a moment she knew a moment of fear, of longing to run away, and then she pulled herself together. She was being silly. Of course he couldn’t know that she was going contrary to his wishes.

“You’re off now, aren’t you? Going out with Stefan?” His tone was kind, but some curious feeling of guilt made her flush.

“Yes, he’s taking me out to supper.” She tried to keep a defiant note out of her voice. After all, she
was
going out to supper with him, and she didn’t really have to mention meeting his friends afterward.

“That should be nice.” He sounded like some polite stranger. “Don’t forget what I warned you about, will you?”

“No, I won’t,” she said, firmly stifling a tremor of uneasiness. Distant footsteps sounded and Michael shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll be off. Take care of yourself.”

There was only the flutter of the curtains by the balcony door to suggest that anyone had been there. Sonia went to hand over to Sister Therese, with Greta acting as interpreter whenever she ran into difficulties with a phrase.

Stefan was waiting for her on the terrace. He glanced admiringly at her dress. “The yellow roses on your dress—they appear to be so real that one could almost pluck them. Tonight I think that you will enjoy the evening.” He smiled a little. "I promise that there will be no unfortunate happenings and I will bring you back safely. That Michael, he is so insistent. It is as if he thinks that I wish to bring you into danger.”

Michael must have spoken to him after he had left the ward. He must regard her as an irresponsible child, someone not to be trusted to make her own decision.

“I don’t know why he makes such a fuss,” she said lightly. “I’m quite safe with you.”

Stefan laughed gaily. “Michael is the old stick-in-the-mud ... the old fusspot, eh?” He put his hand over his heart in an extravagant gesture and bowed. “I will guard you with my life.”

Sonia smiled at him. “I am honored. I thought your life belonged to your country.”

She instantly regretted her tactless remark. The gaiety had been swept from his face as if by a sponge, and his dark eyes held a steely glitter.

“You do well to remind me. I shall not forget again. Come! The tram comes swiftly.”

Sonia hurried after him. Why had she been so stupid? Would she ever learn not to use words that spun these foreigners from a happy-go-lucky mood to deep depression? With a start she realized that for the first time she was thinking of Stefan as a foreigner. Was her blind, senseless love for Michael accentuating her own Englishness? By the time they had reached the tram, Stefan had recovered his good spirits and kept her amused with stories of his student days.

“Where are we having supper?” she asked him as they got off the second tram in the Maria-Theresienstrasse.

The thoroughfare was crowded, and even in her thin, cotton dress Sonia could feel the lingering heat that rose from the sidewalks, although the sun had already slipped behind the mountain barrier.

Stefan took her arm and guided her across the street. “I take you to a little restaurant. It is the Arcades
—unter den Lauben
as the Austrians say. Near is the Golden Roof that no doubt you have seen many times. They serve Hungarian dishes and there is a band that plays Hungarian music. It is a pleasant place to meet one’s friends. It is safe.”

For a moment she wondered if she had imagined that he had put some emphasis on the word
safe
and then decided that it must only be some trick of pronunciation. Michael’s warning kept recurring with annoying persistence as she followed Stefan through the dimness of the Arcades, down a long passage, up steps, down steps, until at last they emerged into a
large room softly lit with shaded lamps where people sat around small tables and musicians played haunting music. She wondered whether the restaurant was above or below street level. It must be the thickness of the ancient walls that kept out the summer heat, because she felt almost too cool.

A waiter hurried over to greet them. He spoke to Stefan in some language she did not recognize. It must be Hungarian, Sonia thought, and she felt more of a stranger than she had since she arrived, Were all the people sitting at those tables talking with such fervor Hungarians? It was almost as if she had stepped onto a magic carpet and had been transferred through the Iron Curtain in the twinkling of an eye. It must be the effect of that lugubrious music. She tried to repress a shiver. Then the band swung into a gay swirl of fiddles, and the atmosphere seemed to change. The groups of plotters were transformed into laughing people with no thought of revolution marring their pleasure. How ridiculous could she be!

She followed Stefan to their table and began to look around with fresh eyes. Several of the occupants of other tables seemed to know Stefan and called noisy greetings across to him. She guessed they were also speculating about her identity.

“They are excited that an English girl has come to their restaurant,” Stefan explained.

“Don’t tourists come here?” She knew that it was a foolish question, but she had the feeling that if she didn’t make ordinary conversation the room might make that frightening metamorphosis again.”

Stefan shook his head. “This place is not for them, not for strangers.”

Why had he used that phrase? “Then why have you brought me?” Her lips felt dry.

He was busy studying the menu while a waiter hovered at his elbow. “You are my friend. That is sufficient.”

For a moment she had to fight back a feeling of panic. Then it disappeared as Stefan in a normal conversational tone asked her what she would like to eat. Every now and again during the evening that feeling of panic would recur, without reason and without cause. It was nothing that Stefan said or did, or indeed that anyone else said or did. It was an impression that they were all waiting ... waiting for someone ... waiting for something to happen ... she didn’t know. Stefan was attentive. He was happy, almost excited, but not from drinking wine. She noticed his glass was nearly full. They had reached the coffee stage when a change came over the room. But it wasn’t the frightening one that she had sensed when she had first entered. It was a stir as if everyone was breathing more quickly than they had been the moment before. There was a rustle of movement as if they were all turning to watch the door. There was a hush as people lost interest in whatever they were talking about. Only the music went on, but the tune had altered from a dreamy one to a quick martial beat that held the echo of marching feet and the clatter of arms.

“What is ...
?
” Sonia started to speak.

“Hush!” Stefan breathed rather than spoke the words, and his hand was heavy on her arm.

There were the mixed sounds of footsteps, of voices that whispered, coming closer ... coming down the steps that led into the restaurant. A man entered; there were others behind him, but they went unnoticed. All eyes were on the man. He was of medium height; slimly built, with thin features, but it was the look of intense vitality about him that arrested one’s attention. It was as if he were consumed by some inner force that affected everyone near him. No one stood up to greet him. No one spoke. No one moved, but it was as if the whole room had bowed down and paid homage to him. Then, conversation began again as if it had never ceased, the musicians were playing a po
p
ular waltz and the waiters were scurrying about just as before.

“Who was he?” Instinctively Sonia whispered the words.

Stefan frowned a little. “It is wiser that you do not know his name—his family are still in Hungary—but you may call him Otto when he comes over to our table. I have told him about you.”

“But why?” She tried to conceal her astonishment.

She was almost sure Stefan was avoiding her eyes.

“It helps if English people of position know something of our struggle,” he answered somewhat vaguely. “I do not mean what has already occurred ... that is history ... but of what we attempt to do with our future.”

“But why me?” She didn’t know why she was persisting.

“Because you are the daughter of a man with wealth. Greta explained to me that is the director of many firms.”

For a wild moment she wondered what idle boast of hers had been so distorted by the other girl. “But lots of men are directors,” she attempted to explain.

“Hush, it is not the time. Here comes ... Otto.”

Stefan was standing up and pulling Sonia to her feet. Then Otto was bending
over her hand and kissing it with a quick fervor that made her want to snatch it away.

“Stefan tells me that your great-grandmother was Hungarian.” His English was perfect, but it had a brisk clipped effect that made it sound as menacing as machine-gun fire.

So that was the
reason ...
the real
reason ...
and all that was English in her rose in rebellion against this implication of relationship.

She smothered the fear that hammered at her senses. “She died a long time
ago ...
before I was born.”

“So you did not know her. What a pity! What was her name?” Again the staccato patter of words was flung at her.

She hesitated. “I’m not absolutely sure, but I think it was something like Herthe or
Horthe.”

There was a gleam of approval in the pale blue eyes that bored into hers.
“So ...
you have the blood of one of our great families in your veins. That is good. We must talk again.”

He moved on to the next table and Sonia collapsed into her seat, feeling that her knees couldn’t support her another moment. She sensed that Stefan was beaming at her.

“He approves of you. That is good. I was not sure whether I should bring you; now I know that I did right. You can help.”

“What do you mean?” Sonia demanded.

But Stefan refused to be drawn. He picked up his glass. “We must drink to ... the day.” He waited impatiently until she had raised hers reluctantly. He said something rapidly in what must be Hungarian and then touched glasses with her.

She became aware of the chink of glasses and a murmur of voices that was rising like a chant all around her. Then Stefan drained his glass. With a sudden, fierce movement, he flung it on the stone floor. That splintering sound was echoed and re-echoed around the room as everyone else did the same. As she clutched her glass with trembling fingers Sonia wondered stupidly if hers was the only unshattered glass in the restaurant. But it was as if the violence of the action had released some hidden tension. Voices lifted again, but in gay exhilaration this time.

“Can we go home, Stefan?” She felt suddenly exhausted by all this turmoil of strangeness.

He looked absolutely horrified. “No one goes until he goes.” he sensed her surprise. “Perhaps it seems strange to you, but it means that no one can leave
to ...
betray him.”

The word seemed to hang in the air like a barrier between this alien world and all the sane, safe, familiar things that she knew. So Michael had been right when he had warned her. He had known that there might be danger. For a long aching moment she wished that he would come and rescue her from this foolish, frightening predicament in which she found herself, thanks to her own stubborn stupidity.

She knew that she was being childish and silly, and that her imagination was rapidly wiping all sanity from her thoughts. How could she go on talking sensibly to Stefan as if nothing had happened?

But suddenly there was a scuffle. The sound of upraised voices mingled with the crash of a table being overturned and the tinkle of broken glass. She could see the flash of a knife. People were rising to their feet and shouting. She was out of her seat in a flash, slipping through the crowd, and then she had reached the steps and was running up them. She could hear voices calling after her frantically, sense hands stretched to snatch her back. She ran along that long passage, up and down steps. Her ears were always listening for the pounding of feet behind her. Was that someone behind her now, or only the beating of her heart echoing and re-echoing? Then ahead of her she could see the lights of the Arcades, and there were people passing back and forth; ordinary friendly people. There was cool air on her face, and she could stop running now.

Before she could carry out her thought someone clutched at her and put a hand over her mouth to smother her frantic scream.

“Be quiet, you silly little fool! It’s me, it’s Michael! Stop struggling!”

His arms were like steel around her and as realization crept into her frenzied brain she gradually quietened.

“Michael! Michael!” She seemed to be murmuring it endlessly, as his hand stroked her hair gently.

At last she was able to lift her head and gaze up at him. In the store window beside them she could see the reflection of their faces, hers so pale and tear-stained, his pale too and very stern. Before she could ask why he was there when she needed him so desperately, there was a movement in the doorway behind them, and Stefan emerged into the light.