The English Girl (34 page)

I just get on with my practice and give Lukas his English lessons. And Friday edges nearer, the day when Harri will leave. I think of this, and grief moves through me, and a terrible doubt. What if I got it all wrong? What if I misunderstood him? Am I really going to let him leave without seeing him again?

Then I remember the time he left me waiting at the Frauenhuber, because Ulrike had talked to him, and he’d got
rather carried away
; and the jealous rage rushes in again.

I lurch from one thought to the next. I don’t know what’s true any more. About me, about him – about both of us. And the anger I feel towards my mother seems to fuel the fire – because she too kept secrets from me.

On Thursday, I rise early, to prepare for my lesson.

I open my curtains, look out. Just as yesterday and the day before, there’s white frost, white sunlight, a high blue luminous sky. But the street looks very different. There are Austrian flags hanging everywhere and fluttering when the breeze takes them, the familiar bands of colour, red-white-red. Up at the end of the street, I can see more flags in the trees in front of the Piaristenkirche. The flags give the street a busy, cheerful, carnival look. There must be a festival happening that I know nothing about.

I have breakfast with Marthe.

‘What’s happening, Marthe?’ I ask her. ‘Why are there all those flags in the street? Is it a saint’s day or something?’

‘Oh, you’ve noticed, have you, Stella? There’s to be a referendum. Chancellor Schuschnigg made a speech in Innsbruck last night.’

She licks her lips, which are shiny with grease, from the fatty ham she’s been eating.

‘A referendum?’

‘It’s a vote, Stella. It will take place on Sunday. All citizens over twenty-four will be able to vote.’

‘Oh. So it’s like an election? That seems very sudden.’

Marthe shakes her head slightly. She cuts a neat square of bread.

‘It’s not exactly like an election. We’ll be asked to vote on just one issue. Whether Austria should remain independent,’ she says.

‘Oh. Well, that’s quite straightforward, isn’t it? Everyone will want that, won’t they?’

‘People do seem to be getting very excited,’ she says.

I want to know more. I leave early. I will go to the Frauenhuber before my lesson, and read the newspapers.

There’s a thrilled, feverish mood in Vienna. Austrian flags fly everywhere, and people have stencilled huge portraits of Dr Schuschnigg on the walls of buildings. There are lorries draped in flags and packed with smiling men and women, who hand out leaflets all urging you to vote yes. There are posters that say,
With Schuschnigg for a free Austria
! People are painting yes on pavements and walls, and white crutched crosses, the symbol of the Fatherland Front. You can almost breathe in the excitement: it hangs like a smell of smoke on the air. People saying, in so many ways:
We don’t want Hitler here. We refuse to be part of the Reich.

But I’m cut off from all the fervour, and not just because this isn’t my country. I’m separate and miserable, behind my walls of glass.

The Frauenhuber is unusually quiet. I order my coffee, and choose an Austrian newspaper, which will be more up to date than
The Times
.

There are quotes from the Chancellor’s speech. It sounds very stirring. Austrians will be asked whether they are for a free, independent, social, Christian and united Austria – yes or no? The Chancellor ended his speech with the words: ‘Men – the hour has struck!’

The white-haired waiter brings my coffee. He notices what I’m reading.

‘Some good news for once, fräulein,’ he says. ‘It’s our chance to say what we want. For our future, for Austria.’

I’m slightly taken aback. He’s always been so reserved and correct; he’s never talked to me like this before.

‘Yes, it certainly seems exciting,’ I say.

‘Those words that Dr Schuschnigg used,’ says the waiter. ‘
Men – the hour has struck!
They’re the words that Andreas Hofer used when he called his peasant soldiers to arms. Back in the last century. They were fighting Napoleon. Hofer is a hero of the Austrian Tyrol,’ he tells me. ‘Those words mean a lot to us, fräulein.’

His eyes are watery, a little too bright: I can see how much this moves him. I’m startled, to see him so emotional.

‘So how will people vote, do you think?’ I ask him.

He’s sure to know: a waiter will have his ear to the ground. He’ll have heard what people are saying.

He opens out his hands – as though this is entirely obvious.

‘Everyone will vote yes to independence,’ he says. ‘We’ll be all right now, fräulein. You’ll see. Herr Hitler will have to back off, when he sees how united we are.’

I wonder if Dr Zaslavsky will say something about the referendum. Whether he will share in the mood of confidence and excitement; whether he too will be hopeful, like the waiter – that things will be sorted out now, that Austria’s relationship with the Third Reich will be clarified.

But he says nothing about it – he is exactly the same as always. Sometimes I wonder if he’s at all aware of what’s happening in the world – even though he’s Jewish, and all this must surely matter to him. But music is his life: perhaps everything else seems superfluous.

If anything, he makes me work even harder than ever. I play the Chopin F minor Fantaisie, a piece of music I love, but I don’t play well: I sleepwalk through my lesson. He criticises my phrasing, my pedalling, everything.

‘The sound is foggy. This is one of your vices, Fräulein Whittaker – the overuse of the pedal. Pianists use the pedal to cover a multitude of sins. Today, you will play entirely without pedal,’ he says.

I hate this. You need the sustaining pedal to hold the texture together. It makes the sound richer, more resonant. For the rest of the lesson I feel naked, all my errors exposed.

At the end of the lesson, Dr Zaslavsky shakes his head a little.

‘There is no heart in your playing today, Fräulein Whittaker,’ he says.

‘No. I know. I’m sorry…’

Afterwards, as I walk downstairs, the music we worked on plays and replays in my mind. I remember learning the Chopin Fantaisie when I first met Harri. How I played the music with passion, because I was falling in love. Such a sense of loss washes through me.

I cross Lothringerstrasse, walk slowly past Beethovenplatz. I find that I am crying: my tears are cold on my skin. All around, the ferment of patriotism. An aeroplane flies over, showering leaflets onto the streets; a lorry passes, full of young people shouting political slogans.
Red white red until death
! On the edges of the pavement, the crusted snow catches the sun and glitters.

‘Stella.’

The street is noisy with traffic and shouting. But I can still hear my name. I spin round.

He has his coat collar turned up, and his face is pale with cold. He’s been waiting.

‘Stella,’ he says again.

That way he says my name – as though he doesn’t want to let go of it. And there’s such uncertainty in his voice – I can hear that he doesn’t know what will happen, doesn’t know whether I will respond.

There’s no process of thought, no decision. I just move straight into his arms. Clinging to him. Feeling his warmth all around me. Breathing in the scent of his skin.

‘Darling,’ he says.

I’m crying. He kisses the tears from my face.

‘I’m so sorry I upset you,’ he says.

‘I’m sorry too,’ I say. ‘So sorry about everything…’

His hands, his warmth, his mouth on my skin: these things tell me how he loves me. My rage and jealousy suddenly seem mysterious to me. It’s as if I’ve had a fever, and am now recovered, the images that plagued me bizarre and extravagant as a delirious dream.

‘Stella. Listen.’ He cups my face in his hands. ‘I’ve something to tell you, my dearest. I’ve changed my mind,’ he says.

For a moment this doesn’t make sense to me.

‘You’ve changed your mind? About what?’

‘About leaving Vienna. I’m not going to leave after all.’

‘You’re
not
?’

‘I was being too pessimistic. I see that now, and I’ve made my decision. I’m going to stay here with you.’

Joy rushes through me, when he says that – a soaring, sparkling happiness. I’m a bird in the blue air above the snow-bound city. My spirit glitters like the frozen fountains in the sun.

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Oh.’

He loves me. Only me. Nothing else in the world matters.

As we reluctantly move apart, I glimpse Anneliese out of the corner of my eye, coming out of the Academy, crossing the road. She’s wearing a black sable hat that flatters her vivid colouring. I know that she must have seen us, but she doesn’t turn or smile, just keeps on walking.

Sometimes we have to work with them
.
But we don’t have to fuck them
.

In a shadowy corner of my mind, a small cold drip of fear. For a moment, I don’t say anything.

But then I look around me, at the banners, streamers, balloons. I let myself be reassured.

‘Anyway, it’s going to be all right, now, isn’t it? Here in Vienna?’ I say. ‘With the referendum happening?’ I think of the waiter in the Frauenhuber. ‘Everything will be all right now. Everyone will vote yes…’

He kisses me.

‘Whatever happens, we’ll be together,’ he says.

We stand looking at one another, there in Beethovenplatz, the white sun shining on us. I feel complete again, as though his closeness makes me whole.

‘I’ve taken the rest of the day off,’ he tells me. ‘We could go back to the flat. Shall we?’

But he already knows my answer.

We walk to his flat through the carnival streets, past the posters, the flags, the slogans; the people painting yes on the pavements; the whole wide world saying yes. And now I’m so moved by what’s happening here – people coming together, working together, united: seeking to keep their country safe. These proud people proclaiming: Our country is our own. Putting their mark on everything. Yes to independence. Yes to Austria. This is how it should be. This is how it will be.

We pass a group of young men shouting Schuschnigg slogans. ‘
Hail Schuschnigg! Hail Liberty!
’ Their faces glowing. I share in their excitement, feeling that this beautiful city is my adopted home – the place where I have become a woman, where I have learned to love. In a rush of warmth, I feel such love for this country, these people. It’s as though my love for Harri is too large to be contained. Loving Harri, I love anyone.

‘Frank Reece once said there was a lot of support for Hitler in Vienna,’ I say. ‘But there isn’t really, is there? I mean – just look at all this…’

Harri nods, doesn’t say anything. My hand is in his, his fingers pressed between mine.

At the flat on Mariahilferstrasse, we enter quietly, creeping in like thieves, feeling thrillingly illicit. Eva is in the shop and Lotte is at school. Benjamin is in his armchair as always, but he’s fast asleep; his newspaper has fallen over his face. The room is cold and Harri puts a rug across his grandfather’s knees. The old man doesn’t stir.

As we go through the door to the attic room, we step out into sunlight. On this beautiful March day, the room is astonishingly bright. There’s a spring intensity to the sunshine, even though it’s so cold: the days are lengthening, soon the thaw will be here. Everything is so clearly shown, everything clearly defined, every speck, every dustmote. You can see the dirt in the corners, where Eva hasn’t recently cleaned. You can see the flaw in everything.

We make love on the mattress, in the light that pours through the glass from the blue shining sky. I’m very aware of my nakedness in the clarity of the light – of the banality of my body, my blotchy skin, pale nipples, the goosebumps on my thighs. I feel a thread of embarrassment. When we make love, I’m usually too lost to be very aware of being naked, but today I feel it – feel somehow too open, exposed. He rises above me, entering me, our faces moving apart. His face is darkly shadowed; behind him, the dazzle of the sky, so bright it makes my eyes hurt. I look in his face, that I love so much, and see the damage in him. His scars have a raw, broken look, as though he’s still bleeding, not properly healed.

I prefer this room at night, in the light of the moon and the stars, when you can’t see things so clearly.

Friday morning. I practise in the Rose Room, but it’s hard to concentrate on the music. I can hear lorries going down Lange Gasse, their loudspeakers blaring out slogans, and, above, an aeroplane flying low over the roofs. In the street below my window, people have painted slogans and crosses, and many flags are flying. Even inside the apartment, there’s a tense, expectant mood.

When I go to the bathroom, I can hear music from the kitchen. Janika must have the wireless on. I’m curious.

She’s at the table, preparing a chicken for the oven, pulling out the innards. The liver is on a plate beside her; it’s a glossy purple colour, and lies in a small pool of blood. She looks up, gives me a guarded smile. She doesn’t turn off the wireless.

I stand close to the range, enjoying its warmth. On the wireless, there are none of the usual programmes; instead, there’s martial music – some familiar, vibrant march. Outside, through the window, another pellucid blue day.

‘Well, you’re certainly looking better. That’s good to see,’ she says.

‘Yes, I am. Thank you.’

But there’s a hesitancy in her.

‘Fräulein Stella.’ There’s a catch in her voice. She sounds too solemn. ‘There’s something I ought to tell you. Something rather worrying that I heard at the market,’ she says.

‘Was there? What did you hear?’

‘Some news that’s rather depressing. People were saying the referendum is going to be postponed.’

I don’t believe this. I’m too happy to believe it.

‘No, it can’t be,’ I say at once. ‘I’m sure they wouldn’t do that. Not after all this build-up.’ I think of all the fervour on the streets – yesterday, when Harri came to find me, when we went back to his room. The sense of thrill, all the strangers talking together. All the campaigning, that we can still hear faintly from outside. ‘I mean, everyone’s so excited. Everyone wants a chance to vote.’