The Glass Room (22 page)

‘Historical perspective.’ The ceiling lights gleam on Oskar’s bald head. He holds out his hands, as though to display perspective, an abstract idea resting between his palms. ‘After the war we — that is the poor benighted inhabitants of this country — thought ourselves to be at the culmination of some historical process. But we were wrong. Actually we find ourselves in the middle of a process with no idea what the end will be.’

‘What process?’ Hana asks. ‘Darling, you are being opaque.’

‘The dissolution of the Empire, of course. We thought — we were naive enough to think — that it was all over. The Emperor has gone, Woodrow Wilson has spoken, the principle of self-determination has been established, and that’s it. Bye bye the dual monarchy and all that went along with it; welcome Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria and goodness knows how many other little statelets. But we were wrong. We weren’t at the end of a process, we were merely in the middle. That’s what I’m saying. It’s like a happy couple strolling through the countryside. They think they’re in a pretty little piece of woodland and after a while they’ll break out onto a sunny pasture. But actually they have entered a dense forest and it stretches hundreds of miles ahead. And they have no idea of the end.’ He lifts his brandy glass to his mouth. ‘If there is an end.’

Liesel gets up and walks over to the windows. ‘An end to history? Of course not.’ She presses the button and waits while the central pane slides gracefully down into the basement and opens the room to the cool air of the evening. ‘Let’s talk about something else. It’s always politics. Politics, politics, politics. Let’s talk about people.’

‘We
are
talking about people,’ Oskar insists. ‘Politics is people.’

‘How’s your refugee lady?’ Hana asks, ignoring her husband.

‘Katalin?’

‘It’s Katalin now, is it? Should I be jealous?’

‘Don’t be silly, darling. She’s a common little thing but really quite bright. And tough. When you think what she’s been through. She has done some wonderful work for me. You know she used to work for Habig? Making hats. And then dressmaking with Grünbaum or someone. One of those houses. I mean, quite a talent. And then all this happens and she’s just thrown on the mercy of others …’

Thus set on a new course, the conversation shifts, first to the contingent trials of Katalin and then, to Viktor’s relief, to the self-imposed trials of another pretty little thing, Vitulka Kaprálová. ‘Have you heard?’ Hana asks. They haven’t, of course. They wait on Hana for gossip, for distraction, for delicious morsels of scandal. ‘Well, you know about her affair with Martinů, don’t you?’

‘Only because you told us.’

‘Don’t be silly, darling. Everyone knows it. So she’s there in Paris in the arms of the doting Martinů, leaving his wife all alone in their country house, and then something happens — we know not what, perhaps the wife cut up rough — and she’s off on an extended holiday with a new boyfriend.’

‘A
new
one?’

‘Some unknown engineering student she met. His name is Kopec, apparently. From Prague. Anyway, off she goes, to Italy and the south of France, abandoning poor old Martinů to his wife.’

‘How do you know all this?’ Liesel asks.

‘A little Parisian bird tells me. Then, apparently, she gets back from her holiday and falls straight back into Martinů’s arms again. And now — well you’ve got to hand it to her — now the little
koketa
sets off, with Martinů in her baggage, to London, to that music congress. You heard about that from Kaprál himself, didn’t you? Everyone was there. Hindemith, Britten, Bartók, the American Aaron Copland, all of them. And our little minx actually opened the congress with the ‘Military Sinfonietta’, the piece she conducted in Prague last winter. Can you believe it? Taking the music world by storm and Bohuslav Martinů by the balls.’

‘Hana!’

‘Well I don’t know how else to put it. The poor man’s completely infatuated. They say the stuff he’s writing now is full of coded references to her.’

The gossip goes on, the suggestions and the intimations, the life of a young country stumbling to its death. People and politics dissected and discussed in the cool spaces of the Glass Room, while outside the storm gathers.

‘By the way, there’s a problem with Liba,’ Liesel says, later when Oskar and Hana have gone and she and Viktor are upstairs. They are in her bedroom, the quiet box of her bedroom, the plain white box which contains the most intimate secrets of their marriage, the delights and disappointments, the silent revelations that they share but never talk of.

‘You’re avoiding the issue,’ Viktor says. ‘The issue is what is happening to this country. It will affect us all, Liesel. We must talk seriously about leaving while there is still a chance.’

He’s in his pyjamas, sitting in an armchair smoking. She is standing in the doorway to the bathroom, her head wrapped in the turban of a towel. She is naked. There is something clumsy about her nakedness, the wide hips, the rough beard of duncoloured hair between her thighs, her breasts like wayward eyes. Once she had been shy of his seeing her like this. Now she doesn’t even realise she is doing it.

‘I’m not avoiding any issue. You see, Liba’s engaged to be married. She told me the other day. It’s all a bit of a rush and I think she’s pregnant although she denies it. Anyway, the point is, not only would she not be able to come with us to look after the children if we did leave, but she’s actually handed in her notice. She was awfully upset about it, said how much she loves the children and all that kind of thing, but Jan — that’s his name — works in Prague. I mean he’s with his regiment at the moment, of course. But he lives in Prague and she feels duty-bound to be with him.’ She towels herself dry, briskly rubs her head and stands there with a frizz of damp hair about her face. ‘And so I thought, what about Frau Kalman?’

Viktor is dumbstruck. What exactly is his wife suggesting?

‘Ottilie and Marika get on remarkably well, and Katalin is a wonderful mother despite all her trials and tribulations. Martin adores her. What do you think?’

What does he think? He thinks the immediate thoughts of a liar: how to react appropriately, how to make the unnatural appear natural, a process that carries with it the seeds of its own destruction, the premeditated act betraying itself as unnatural precisely because it is premeditated. A conundrum.

‘Don’t you like the idea?’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘I can tell by your expression. You’re not impressed.’

‘Well, does the woman have any experience?’ He is not used to dissimulation but he discovers a natural talent for it. ‘I mean, we’re talking about a nanny, aren’t we? Does she know what’s involved? What is she? A seamstress? Hardly a qualification. And does she have references?’

‘You make it sound like a job application.’

‘It is precisely that.’ It is precisely something imprecise: it is a whole universe of possibilities. The possibilities confound him. His wife shrugs her way into a silk nightdress. The material — pale ivory — clings to hips and breasts and belly. He senses, as though it is something that operates independently of his mind, something extraneous, the growing insistence of an erection. How curious that arousal should come when she dresses rather than when she is naked.

‘There’s also the question of what happens to Katalin and her daughter if we do leave.’

‘Do we have an obligation to her?’

She looks at her husband with an expression close to outrage. ‘Sometimes you appear so heartless, Viktor. Of course we have an obligation. In abstract terms we have obligations to all refugees, and we try to discharge those obligations by supporting the various organisations that we do. But we also have precise and personal obligations to those we know and hold in regard.’

‘You sound like a moral philosopher.’

‘You sound like a cold fish.’

‘So you hold Frau Kalman in regard?’

‘Don’t you? I think perhaps you do.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘She’s an attractive woman. Men like attractive women. I have noticed the way you look at her.’

He laughs. ‘Ergo I should want Frau Kalman to become the children’s nanny? Don’t be ridiculous. Liesel, I don’t know enough about her to judge one way or another. I know that she has been living in the
chata
for the last few months and I know that your mother doesn’t like her. And you apparently do.’

‘My mother didn’t like you either, at first. So that puts you in the same boat. Anyway, what do you propose doing about her and her daughter? Are you happy to abandon them? All these things that happen to the Jews — that’s why you are talking about going, isn’t it? Are you happy to leave those two and have such horrors happen to them? Could you face yourself? Look, why don’t you go and have a word with her? Talk to her a bit. See what you think.’

He considers this possibility amongst the galaxy of possibilities, a universe of possibilities greater than anything he might have imagined. ‘Have you mentioned this to her?’

‘Not specifically. We’ve talked in general terms of what she might do, where she might go. I suggested Palestine. She says she’s looked into that. Apparently there are Zionists trying to drum up support amongst the refugees — the Germans and Austrians are even encouraging it, did you know that? Apparently they even have an office for Jewish emigration in Vienna. But she says that the British have quotas and it’s not easy to get in …’

‘I’ll go and have a word with her.’

‘But be kind. You’re not interviewing someone for the firm. You’re looking for someone who might be an addition to the family.’

The
chata
stands quietly in its envelope of hedge and grass. Beyond it lie the gardens of the big house, and the house itself staring blindly out at the silent morning. Behind him, from the upper garden, comes the distant noise of the children playing — Ottilie and Marika, and Martin’s voice raised in some kind of protest against the girls.

She gives a start of surprise when she sees who it is at the door. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks and there is almost panic in her tone, as though he might do her violence.

‘Liesel suggested I come. So I’m here by right, as it were. She has a proposal to make.’

‘Proposal?’ She stands aside for him to come in. There is an awkward moment when they pass in the cramped space, their hands almost touching, her face looking up at him as though she might be offering it to kiss. Then she moves away from him to sit at the table, quiet and composed, her hands folded in her lap, while he remains standing. If someone were to come in now they would never guess that anything has ever passed between them. It looks like an employer about to question the maid. ‘What did she want you to tell me?’

She refuses his offer of a cigarette, but he takes one for himself. It interests him to see that his hands are quite steady, the flame of the lighter quite still as he raises it. ‘What do you call her?’ he asks through the smoke. ‘Frau Landauer? Or Frau Liesel?’

‘I suppose, Frau Landauer. I don’t really know.’

‘Frau Landauer wants to take you with us.’

‘With you? What do you mean?’ She frowns. ‘Where to? Where are you going?’

‘I’ve already told you. We’re going to Switzerland. We’ve just discovered that Liba is leaving us to get married, and Liesel had this idea that you could take her place looking after the children.’ He sits opposite her across the table. ‘What do you think? Come with us when we leave. You and Marika of course. Would you do that?’

Bewilderment, suspicion, a whole cluster of confused emotions cloud her face. ‘
She
had this idea? Or was it yours?’

‘Hers alone. I had no part in it. I promise you that. It was her suggestion.’

She looks away, out of the window at whatever lies beyond, a stretch of lawn, the tall box hedges that cut the
chata
off from the main garden. He has never been able to get the measure of her. What does she want? What will make her happy? ‘I’ve told you that we don’t have any papers.’

‘I’m sure something can be done. They can give you something they call a Nansen passport. I’ve already spoken to people in Prague. The Human Rights League can organise things.’

‘You’ve already done it?’

‘Just in general terms, just to see if it is possible. Look, Kata, I want you to come with us. I want to help you.’

‘Is that all you want to do?’

‘You know it’s not.’

‘Then what?’

‘You know what. You know what has been between us. You cannot just pretend that it didn’t happen’

‘And you want that again? A little bit on the side whenever your wife is out of the house?’

‘Don’t speak like that.’

‘But it’s true, isn’t it?’

‘It’s more than that. It’s …’ His fluency deserts him. He fumbles for words.

‘What is it, then? Love? Is that what you’re trying to say?’

‘Yes, perhaps that’s exactly what I’m trying to say.’

She laughs. She is bright and sharp, that is what he loves in her. Her mind is as quick and neat as her body, the two things united into something he has never met before. ‘If it’s love then leave your wife and come away with me.’

‘You know I can’t do that.’

She gives a bitter laugh. ‘I know you
won’t
do it. I’m trapped, aren’t I? I tried to escape, but I failed.’

‘You’re not trapped. You’re as free as a bird. I promise you that. Whatever you want to do, I will pay for it. I paid you once to walk out of my life. I’ll do the same again if that is what you want. But I’m asking you to come with us.’ He pauses, and corrects himself. ‘Begging,’ he says. ‘I’m begging you.’

Viktor stands in the Glass Room looking out at the view that was once a wild hilltop panorama and now is something framed and therefore tamed, in the way that the ocean appears tamed when viewed from the bridge of a ship. He has always liked the ship analogy. Despite being a citizen of a country that has no shoreline, he feels an affinity with the sea. The Glass Room is the bridge and the floor above a promenade deck, with cabins for the passengers. The sound of the wind in the trees is a sea sound and the house itself is a ship pitching out into the choppy waters of the city with the wind beating about the stanchions and bulkheads. And ahead is the storm.