Authors: Margaret Leroy
‘Wait here,’ he says. ‘Just here on the pavement. Don’t move.’
He rushes into the shop, comes out with flowers for me – carnations, wrapped in white tissue paper.
I’m charmed by his impulsiveness.
‘Thank you.’
I press the flowers to my face, breathe in their scent of cloves. We walk on through the lengthening shadows.
But it isn’t over quite yet, in my mind.
‘Can I ask you one thing?’
He nods, but he has a wary look.
‘Do you ever…’ I know it would be better not to say this.
Much
better. But I can’t stop myself. ‘Do you ever think of other women when we’re – you know, when we make love?’
He puts his hands on my shoulders, turns me round to face him.
‘With you in my bed? Why on earth would I do that? Do you have any idea how much I want you? How much I love you?’ he says.
And in that moment, I do know. In my heart of hearts, I know he loves me.
On a golden October afternoon, we take a tram to the Vienna Woods, and climb the Kahlenberg, Vienna’s tame mountain. It’s a stiff climb, and my legs are aching when we get to the top. It’s a wonderful clear day, the air pristine as spring-water. He shows me the Alps – far away to the south, on the rim of the world, blue as woodsmoke; you can just make out the patches of glittery snow on their peaks. He tells me how the ancient roads to Styria, Carynthia and Italy all lead in that direction. I hear these names with delight – they sound like poems to me.
Then he points to the east, where the brown lowlands stretch towards Hungary. I remember what I learned from the atlas, which I studied before I came here. How Vienna is at the crossroads of Europe, the place where east meets west. I think of Janika, whose village is there, far far off in the unguessable distance, where everything blurs to the misty grey-blue of rosemary flowers. The Hungarians, Harri tells me, have brought many good things to Vienna – fat cattle, paprika, syncopation, strong wines. Bikáver, that the English call Bull’s Blood. The golden wines of Tokaj, which Janika told me about. Médoc Noir – rich, dark red, and sweet, coating your tongue black.
And he tells me about the hoards of other invaders or immigrants who have come here. About the Turks, who were forever attempting to conquer Vienna. About the many Jews who came to Vienna from eastern Europe, at the end of the nineteenth century. How they came from Galicia, driven out by pogroms – which I hear about with horror, knowing nothing about them – or from small villages in Bohemia and Moravia, the
shtetls
, where they lived in terrible poverty. How when they arrived here, they spoke Yiddish, and the men all wore caftans and had long curly hair.
‘Like my grandfather,’ he says. ‘When he first came to Vienna he used to sell second-hand clothes.’
I put my arm around him, sensing a sadness in him.
I try to picture it all – these great movements of men and women across this shimmering landscape, history moving like wind through cornfields. Thinking of wave after wave of people breaking over Vienna. I have a sense of the smallness of people, of our insignificance. How transitory our life is. How fragile we are.
Marthe is putting lilies into a vase. The flowers are palest pink, the petals thick as vellum, with a smudge of pollen the colour of rust in their throats. She’s arranging and rearranging, trying to get them just right.
‘I wanted to let you know, my dear. There’ll be a meeting here tonight. Rainer has some people coming.’
‘A meeting? What kind of meeting, Marthe?’
She frowns slightly. I can tell from her expression that she’s surprised I asked. Perhaps I wasn’t quite polite.
‘Goodness. You and your questions, Stella!’ For a moment, she sounds like my mother. ‘They’re just some men he knows. They have some very important things to discuss. They’ll be meeting here in the drawing room, at eight o’clock,’ she says.
This tells me nothing, just makes me more curious.
A delicious smell wafts through the apartment – a scent of spices and fruit. I go to the kitchen.
Janika is stirring the pot on the stove.
‘What are you making, Janika? That smells so
good
,’ I say.
‘It’s the plum compôte for Kaiserschmarrn. That’s one of our Viennese desserts – rather like French pancakes,’ she says.
‘What makes it smell so wonderful?’
‘I put in a little spice,’ she says. ‘Cinnamon, cloves and aniseed and ginger. And one of the pits from a plum stone, to give an almond flavour.’
I go to look in the pot. The plums have turned a luscious ruby-red colour.
‘Mmm … I’m really looking forward to dinner tonight.’
But when I turn to her, I see the speck of doubt that floats in her eye.
‘I’m sorry, Fräulein Stella. I’m afraid the Kaiserschmarrn is for the meeting,’ she says. ‘It’s Herr Krause’s favourite. But if you like, I could put a little piece aside for you.’
‘Thank you. That would be so lovely of you, Janika.’
The smell of stewing fruit wraps around us. I breathe in the rich, spicy scent.
We have dinner early, with no Kaiserschmarrn. Rainer joins us, but seems preoccupied.
After dinner, I hear cars drawing up in the street, the door to the apartment opening, murmured greetings. Later, going to the bathroom, I pass the drawing-room door. I can hear men talking, but I can’t make out their words. I linger for a moment. They’re speaking softly, yet their voices sound somehow urgent to me; they interrupt one another; there’s an unending rhythm of talk. And there’s something else I notice about these overheard voices. I have some sense of what men are like together – how they relax as they rarely will in the company of women; how they laugh more loudly, how they laugh at different things. But there’s no laughter from the drawing room.
I imagine Marthe finding me here: how she might scold me. But I listen a moment longer, trying to hear what they’re talking about.
Marthe is in the dining room, a little frown etched in her forehead. She has two trays, with plates and forks. She’s serving the Kaiserschmarrn. They’re like torn-up pancakes, dusted with icing sugar, and she puts a spoonful of glossy plum compôte onto each plate. It all looks so delicious and my mouth fills with water. Marthe straightens things on the tray, her fingers fluttering like trapped insects. Everything has to be perfect. I wonder why she doesn’t give this task to Janika.
‘You look so busy, Marthe. Can’t Janika help you?’ I ask her.
‘I’ve given Janika the evening off,’ she tells me.
This seems an odd thing to do, when there’s this important meeting.
‘Perhaps I could give you a hand. I could take in one of the trays.’
‘Thank you, Stella. I’d be so grateful.’
She takes one tray, and I follow with the other. She knocks at the door of the drawing room and pushes it open. I hear the tail end of a sentence – someone talking about
the danger of intellectualism
. I don’t know what this means. The talking stops as we enter.
The men are seated in a circle. There are ten of them, and Rainer. I notice at once that there is an intensity to them, a veiled excitement: not one of them is leaning back in his chair. The air is blue with smoke, and dense with warm male smells – of ambergris, sweat, leather, and the luxurious scent of cigars.
Rainer nods briefly at Marthe, and all the men say thank you politely as we hand round the dessert. Otherwise they say nothing. It’s a moment of suspended animation – a tableau from a drama that will continue the instant we close the door. Rainer doesn’t introduce me, so they probably think I’m the maid, and they scarcely seem to notice me; there are no appraising glances. Yet in spite of this, I sense a kind of seductiveness in the room – a thrill of secret purpose.
I follow Marthe back into the hallway, close the door.
‘What’s the meeting about, Marthe?’
‘Male talk. They put the world to rights,’ she says.
‘Is it to do with Rainer’s work in the civil service?’ I ask her.
‘I think it is, yes, Stella.’
She’s like water trickling through my hands – there’s nothing to hold onto.
‘Do they talk about politics and running the country?’ I say.
‘I don’t know exactly,’ she tells me.
She makes a slight gesture, as though to show how little she knows. The shadows of her fingers flicker over the wall behind her. I think of a game children play with a candle, where you make shadow shapes with your hands – a wolf, the mouth of a crocodile. Something predatory.
‘But surely he would have told you what the meeting was for?’
Her eyes widen, as though I have said something shocking.
‘Well, not in detail, Stella.’ Her voice is brisk. ‘Why would he? He understands these things so much better than I ever could do,’ she says.
I notice a little pulse that flickers under her eye.
‘I’m sure that’s not true, Marthe.’
‘You see, Stella – I really don’t think we women are meant to examine these things. Women aren’t meant to be political. That would rob us of our dignity. We have our own God-given sphere,’ she says.
‘I suppose so.’
‘Without women, the world wouldn’t carry on turning,’ she says. ‘They need us – to run the house, to put food on the table. Where would they be without us?’
‘I know what you mean,’ I say vaguely. Trying to be conciliatory: I know I’ve spoken out of turn.
But I’m rather shocked. How can she say this? It’s
1937
: women are allowed to think for themselves. Why doesn’t she want to know what’s happening in her drawing room?
‘I don’t approve of women doing men’s work, Stella,’ she says.
She speaks with finality, as though it is all decided. But I notice the blotches that come in her cheeks, as red as lily pollen.
She turns, and goes to the bathroom. Through the door, I can hear how she washes and washes her hands.
I lie in bed, but sleep won’t come. I think about Marthe. I wish she wouldn’t just acquiesce to Rainer. I’m sorry for her – but I don’t quite respect her. Sometimes I feel that she and Rainer have little connection at all. That Rainer needs a different kind of wife – someone stronger, more articulate, more sure of her opinions. Someone able to speak his language, to enter his world. A modern woman.
I lie for a long time, sleepless. I stare up at the ivory harp of reflected light on my ceiling, at the shifting patterns that spider over the walls where the street lights shine through my thin curtains. I start to see shapes in the darkness – faces, grasping fingers. I remember how as a child I was scared of a crack in my wall, always afraid it might suddenly open and something start to ooze out. I couldn’t have named what I feared – in my mind I called it the Thing: something shapeless, formless; appalling. I hear the clock of the Piaristenkirche chiming one o’clock.
At last I hear the men leave – their quiet farewells at the door; silence as they go downstairs; then their footsteps on the pavement as they walk to their waiting cars. Their footsteps are clear, percussive, sounding too loud in the hush of the night. People don’t stay up late in Vienna; it seems that only these men are awake, while everyone and everything is fast asleep around them. The engines start up, the cars move off, their sound is swallowed up by the silence, and then there’s just the vast quiet of Vienna at night – all around, the city slumbering like a castle in a fairytale, blown about with thistledown, spellbound and unaware.
I drift off to sleep, then jolt awake from a nightmare, a dream of suffocation – a sense of something soft and stifling in my mouth and my throat. Not all our dreams are good dreams.
There’s a footfall behind me. I pause in my playing, spin round in the seat.
It’s Rainer. He has a slight, quizzical smile.
‘Stella. Could I interrupt you for a moment?’ he says.
‘Yes, of course.’
He takes out two cigarettes, hands me one. As he leans towards me to light it, the incense smell of his cologne wraps round me.
I’d like to ask about last night’s meeting. But something stops me. I think of Marthe’s flurried gestures and the colour that came in her face when I asked her what they talked about.
‘So, you’ve been going to more concerts, I gather, Stella?’ he says.
‘Yes – it’s been wonderful.’
‘Excellent. And your friend, who likes Leni Riefenstahl – I’m not sure you told me her name…’
‘She’s called Anneliese Hartmann.’
I feel a small stirring of guilt. He thinks I’m going out with Anneliese.
‘And how is Fräulein Hartmann?’ he says.
‘She’s very well, thank you.’
He nods, companionable. Something is different in him today. He’s expansive, pleased with himself. He rests his elbows on the piano, smoking.
‘So. What do you hope to do with your life, Stella? Is it the piano above everything?’
‘Well…’ These are big questions. ‘One day, I’d like to get married, of course, and have children. One day – but not for a while.’
‘I’m glad to hear you want a family. It’s important for clever young women like you to pass on all that talent … But I’m guessing that for now it’s all about the piano for you?’
I nod.
‘It’s my ambition to play professionally,’ I tell him.
‘I admire you for that,’ he says. ‘It takes dedication. Music, as your mother said, is a hard taskmaster…’ A small smile plays on his lips. ‘But not
too
hard, I’m thinking. You’re looking well on it, Stella. Vienna suits you?’
‘Oh yes, I
love
it.’ I hear the ardour in my voice; I worry he will hear it too – that he will guess about Harri. I feel a little surge of discomfort, thinking how I’m keeping this hidden. But it’s just a temporary thing: soon I’ll tell them all about him, introduce him. Very soon … ‘I’m so lucky to be living here. It’s so beautiful – this apartment, Vienna, all of it…’
‘Vienna is certainly lovely to look at,’ he says. ‘Yet – you don’t feel there’s something complacent about this beautiful city of ours?’
‘Not really – but then I’m new here.’
A small frown. He taps ash into the ashtray. The cool morning sun that spills through the long windows is thinning with winter’s coming. Where it falls on him, you can see all the angles and planes of his face. In certain lights, there’s something almost hungry-looking about him.