In the Claws of the Eagle (12 page)

Erich took out a notebook that he had bought in Mödling before he had left; he had been impressed by Klaus’s efficient little black notebook. He planned to keep a journal. On the first page he had written his name and address. Now he turned the page and wrote the date:
3 August 1928
, then he looked at his watch. He could hardly believe it, it was only eight o’clock; Mother would just be getting up, so he added:
08.00 arrived at the summit of the Kleinkogel, 1,201 metres
. He decided that the fact that his starting point, the lake, was at 712 metres was an
unnecessary detail. The climb had taken less than an hour. Now what? Perhaps he should describe the scene.

Five minutes later he was still sucking his pencil. A sentence would start in his mind but by the time he had got to the end he would have forgotten the beginning. Without thinking, he began to sketch the view from the peak. His pencil just seemed to know what to do. He looked at the finished drawing in
surprise
; it was really quite good. The tops of the pine trees that were clinging to the rock face at his feet made a good
foreground
. There in the centre of the frame towered the Loser, which was just beginning to catch the morning light. Tumbling crags and tongues of trees led the eye down to the still lake, where he had sketched in the upside-down reflection of the glowing peak above. He had enjoyed that! When he got down he would ask Mother if he could have one of her sketchbooks.

He got up to brush away the little bits of lichen that were sticking to his front. Time stretched away to infinity all around him. There were mountains to climb, forests to explore, and salt mines to visit. Realising he was hungry, he cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted: ‘Comingggggg!’ as if his mother would hear him far below.

Suddenly there was a rustle and a deep croak. A raven as black as coal launched itself from the rocks beneath his feet. With a few deft strokes of its wings it rose up past him. He stepped back in surprise. On and up it rose to where it was joined by another. Again that deep croak; it was as if they were talking about him. Hastily he pulled on his shirt; it felt cold on his back. He hurried down, feeling a like a guest that has
overstayed
his welcome.

By the time he was running down through the meadow to the chalet, however, he was in high form again. Coming down had taken half the time it had taken him to go up. There was a smell of sausage in the air and he was ravenous.

The doorbell of the apartment rang insistently, as though someone were keeping a finger pressed on it. There was no sign of Lotte, so Izaac reluctantly put down his violin and opened the door. Uncle Rudi and Nathan were waiting on the landing. Uncle Rudi wasted no time on explanations but pushed past Izaac.

‘Find Lotte and borrow her wireless,’ he said urgently. ‘I can’t think why you don’t have one yourselves.’ Izaac’s father was still at breakfast when they all trooped in. He looked up, puzzled. Nathan plugged in the wireless. ‘Come, David, listen to this!’ said Rudi. The set emitted a cacophony of hisses, crackles and pops while he searched for the English language station he was looking for. ‘Let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth!’

The newsreader’s accent was American:

Click! Uncle Rudi switched the radio off. They all
straightened
up, looking at each other, and then at Uncle Rudi, their natural leader in matters of business.

‘How serious is it?’ Mother asked.

‘They say that brokers have been jumping from the
windows
,’ he said gravely. ‘But it’s the thousands of small
investors
I’d worry about.’

‘Will it happen here?’ she asked.

‘Yes, indeed. London is in turmoil. It’s only a matter of hours before it hits here, Judit, that’s why I came. A bit of prudence now could save misery later. If people have to economise, the first things to go will be the ‘luxuries’, and those, I’m afraid, include the services of the piano-tuner – that’s us – so let’s sit down, list our resources, and decide what’s best to do.

For a successful family business, their resources were modest enough. Their apartments, workshop and pianos were relatively safe, but the senior members of the family all had shares in companies just like the ones that were crashing on the stock exchanges.

‘We must sell these, even if we make a loss!’ Uncle Rudi urged. ‘The question is, what to do with the money?’

‘Why not bank it?’ Izaac suggested. All the proceeds from his concerts were deposited in a small bank near their apartment.

‘I’m sorry, Izaac, but you must get your money out of that bank as soon as possible. Small banks will be the first to go. Even the large ones are in danger of collapse.’ Izaac had the horrible feeling that he was walking on quicksand that was about to engulf him.

‘Well, what about banknotes – money?’

‘Not worth the paper it’s printed on.’

There was a pause, and then Mother said, ‘What about gold?’

Uncle Rudi positively beamed on her.

‘Yes, Judit! Gold never really loses its value. It’s portable, and it’s the one thing people want in a crisis. If I move fast – today – I will buy all the gold I can get before the price goes through the roof.’

Uncle Rudi reported back that evening, muttering darkly about scoundrels and sharks, but when Nathan pointed out that his investment had already more than doubled in the day, he polished his bald head until it shone.

‘Can we see it?’ asked Judit.

‘I’m afraid I put it straight into a safe deposit. Ha, ha … it’s worth its weight in gold, you see!’

Erich could see a light bobbing towards him down the tunnel. He bent diligently to his work, bedding the sleepers of the small underground railway into the solid salt of the tunnel floor. Holiday jobs were hard to come by here, and indeed throughout Austria. The Great Depression that had followed since the Wall Street Crash two years ago was biting throughout Europe. His work in the salt mines was important and he wanted to make a good impression.

‘Erich Hoffman?’ A voice called.

‘Yes?’

‘I have a message for you.’

Erich put down his tools and hurried down the tunnel. The golden salt crystals glinted from the light mounted on his helmet. He couldn’t see who was calling until his own light lit up the face of the mine supervisor.

‘You’re wanted in the office, Hoffman, something urgent. Follow the railway tracks, and don’t bloody well get lost!’

The mine extended for kilometres into the hill here, with tunnels and caverns like burrows one on top of the other. These were connected by wooden slides so that the miners could get to work, whizzing down from level to level. The long walk back up was less fun. He assured his supervisor that he knew the way, and set off towards the mine entrance. What could be the matter? Spreading his arms wide he could just about touch the walls on each side. Clunk! His head hit the ceiling and his headlamp nearly went out. He felt in his pocket for his safety candle and matches.

He emerged into the blinding light to find one of his father’s forestry workers at the entrance. The lorry was there, engine running.

‘It’s your father, Erich,’ the man explained as Erich climbed into the cab beside him. ‘He was trying his hand at tree felling when he collapsed; blue in the face he was. We didn’t like to move him. He said you’d know what to do. It’s only half a mile from here.’ The lorry pitched wildly as the driver turned into a rutted forest road. ‘He shouldn’t be expected to do work that’s too hard for him!’ the driver worried.

Erich managed a wry smile. Typical – even now Father denied his condition; he hadn’t told the men.

A minute or two later Erich was kneeling beside his father’s prostrate form. ‘Where’s his lunch bag?’ he demanded. They had it in a second; he snatched it and began to burrow
frantically
for the little bottle of pills that should be there. He found it right at the bottom, and to his relief there was one left. With the help of the anxious men, he sat Father up. Erich placed the pill on his father’s tongue and got him to swallow it with a drop of water. It took some minutes before the dreadful blue-grey drained from his face.

The men cheered when he opened his eyes. ‘He should stay in the office and leave the hard work to us,’ they whispered to Erich as they lifted him into the lorry.

As the lorry ground up the hill to the house, Father asked, ‘Are we home, Erich? I’ll be all right with a little rest. Don’t let Mother get on to Mr Solomons.’ He smiled. ‘He might be cross with me.’

Erich felt his jaw tighten. He hated the thought that Mr
Solomons
kept Father on the payroll out of kindness; and being grateful didn’t help him on these occasions. He wanted to be angry. Solomons
might
be a nice man but, according to Klaus, he was part of the great Jewish conspiracy. You don’t get smoke without a fire, Grandpa Veit would say.

Mother hurried over, wearing her painting smock, and immediately shepherded Father to bed.

‘No more heavy work,
ever
, Mr Hoffman!’ said the doctor, once he was satisfied that his patient was out of danger. Erich saw him off but didn’t go back into the house. He hadn’t
realised
what a fright Father’s collapse had given him. Grandpa Veit had always implied that Mother was, in some way, at fault for Father’s weak heart, but Erich wanted someone else to blame. Damn Solomons for sending him up here into the mountains, and why hadn’t the office in Mödling been re-built? Some nonsense about the insurance not paying up if the fire was deliberate. He remembered the speck of paint he had found on his hand when he had shaken hands with Klaus that night. But perhaps Solomons really had burned the yard
himself
for the insurance? Tomorrow was Saturday, if Father was out of danger then, there was a hike he’d been promising
himself
to do: a wide sweep right around Altaussee Lake, taking in as many of the surrounding peaks as he could. He’d walk off his depression. He went into the house, absentmindedly
rubbing
at his hand where the paint had been.

As Erich knew it would, his black mood had long lifted by the time he was swinging gratefully down the slope, having taken in his own little Kleinkogel peak on the way. The rhythm of walking, fresh air, and unfolding views had washed his mind. He could see the house now but was too pleasantly tired to run. Suddenly his legs stopped moving. There was a car
outside
the house. The doctor’s? No, he had a Citroen. It was Mr Solomons’ surely. His hands clenched. Someone must have told him about Father’s attack.

He began to walk quickly and silently over the mown grass of the meadow. The curtains of his parents’ bedroom were closed; the doctor had prescribed a sedative and Father was probably sleeping. But those in the living room, Mother’s studio, were open. He paused to look inside. Mother was
talking
to Mr Solomons; it looked as if she had been crying. She wiped her eyes. Suddenly the Jew reached out his arms; Mother turned into his embrace and put her forehead on his shoulder. Confusion seethed in Erich. What right had this man, Jew or no Jew, to presume that just because he had been kind to Father he had any right to lay his hands on his mother! With bold strides Erich marched up to the house and opened the door.

Waves of relief and contentment swept over Helena. How perfect for her two protegés: Izaac, twenty-two, dark and lithe, and Gretchen, eighteen, a striking beauty, her hair tamed in coils of gold, to finish their Austrian tour here in the famous Marble Hall of Salzburg’s Schloss Mirabell. While they had played a programme of Bach, Handel, Mozart and
Beethoven
, the light from the high French windows had faded,
letting the glow from the glass chandeliers take over, first to pick out the gilt on the marble walls, then to catch the moving gold of Gretchen’s hair as she bent to the final chords of the sonata. Helena waited through the four-second pause that the sophisticated Salzburgers allowed for the notes to die away, then relaxed. The applause was full and generous. Salzburg approved.

Izaac reached out for Gretchen’s hand; she curtsied while Izaac bowed. How nice they looked together. At least here in Austria they could still play together. Helena seethed when she remembered the refusal she had got from a venue in Munich, just across the border in Germany: ‘Due to racial
considerations
we regret … ’ If she could have got her hands on that Nazi! But something was happening here in the hall. People in the audience were turning towards her. Izaac was beckoning. Good heavens, he wanted her to come up on the platform! She gathered up her scarves and made her way up to join them. As she walked on stage, the audience rose as one; they were standing for her … for them.

A last call, a last bow, Helena and Gretchen turned to leave the platform. As Izaac followed them, he turned and did
something
his concertgoerss had come to expect; he kissed his hand to the audience as if they alone were honoured. Helena knew perfectly well who he was kissing his hand to; she indulged him, and didn’t object.

The last thing that Erich expected when he went to be
interviewed
for a place in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna was a full-scale row between his examining professors. There were three of them: Professor Boden, head of the Academy, Herr Komanski, master of painting, and a guest professor, Herr Frimmel, from the Academy of Art in Munich. It had all been
going well. He had come into the interview room to find the contents of his portfolio scattered all over the table. They seemed to like his Altaussee paintings in particular. Professor Boden had hesitated over his only watercolour, a sketch of a bridge over the River Traun.

‘This is pretty, but is it good? It is difficult to judge
watercolours
because they have to be done so quickly; it can be just luck.’

‘You have made mistakes before!’ said the German acidly.

Erich looked up in surprise. The man reminded him a little of Klaus, he was a lot younger than the two Viennese
professors
. Suddenly the air was crackling. Komanski replied, ‘Ah! You mean Herr Hitler. We turned him down because he had no talent, I’m afraid.’

Frimmel went rigid. ‘I am deeply offended by that, sir, where is your respect for our Chancellor?’

‘Just as an artist, just as an artist he’s … well …
scheiße
!’ Herr Komanski enjoyed his reputation for bad language.

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen!’ interjected Professor Boden, but the damage had been done.

‘If you wish to see his talents, Herr Komanski,’ Frimmel said coldly, ‘just look over your border to see what we are doing in Germany!’