The English Girl (8 page)

‘Yes. A little…’

‘I was fortunate. But he’s very ill now, sadly, and doesn’t teach any more.’

‘I don’t know much about him,’ I say. ‘Only what everyone knows…’ My voice fades.

I’m embarrassed – thinking what it is that
everyone knows
. That Dr Freud says that the sexual drive is pre-eminent: that the instinctual life is what drives us, shapes us, makes us who we are. I feel my face burn so red it must be drawing everyone’s attention.

But he’s looking past me, glancing over my shoulder. Perhaps he’s lost interest in me, because I can’t talk about Dr Freud.

He clears his throat.

‘Well, I see my friend is here…’

I turn, look where he is looking. I see that
yes
, his friend is a woman, and
yes
, she is beautiful. She’s long-limbed, glossy, beautifully groomed. She has raven hair cleverly twisted in a knot in the nape of her neck, and her lips are gorgeous as the shiny reds in the Cranach painting of Judith. She’s wearing a foxfur jacket over a dress of black shantung silk that has the dull, prismatic sheen of oil on water.

It’s over. I’ve been so stupid. How could I ever have imagined he would be interested in
me
?

‘It seems I have to go already,’ he says, ‘and we have only just met … It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Stella.’

A little thrill goes through me, hearing my name in his mouth. He sees this.

‘I may call you Stella?’ he asks.

As though we may meet again. But I don’t see how that could happen.

‘Yes. Yes, of course you can.’

I know I must look dejected. I try to paste a cheerful smile on my face.

The woman walks rather languidly across the gallery towards us. All the men in the room are turning to stare.

He’s half-turned from me already. But he doesn’t move away quite yet.

‘So, Stella. Do you often come here on Saturday afternoons?’ He speaks so casually. As though this question is of no consequence. As though this isn’t the most important question I’ve ever been asked.

‘Well. I’ve never been before,’ I say carefully. ‘And there’s such a lot to see…’

He nods. ‘Far too much for one visit.’ His voice almost playful. The words spiralling down between us, feather-light on the glimmery air. ‘You might want to come again, perhaps next Saturday afternoon?’ He glances at the painting behind us. ‘And Cranach’s
Paradise
is always worth another look…’

He doesn’t say goodbye.

I stand there, trying not to stare, as he goes up to the woman, kisses her hand. A little bud of hopefulness is opening out in me. I find myself praying:
Please give him to
me. Please, God
. I picture God in my mind. He has flowing red robes and a white forked beard, like the God in the Cranach painting.
If you give him to me, I promise I’ll never ask
for anything else. If you give him to me, nothing else will ever matter as much. Please.

I watch as he walks out of the room, arm in arm with the raven-haired woman.

‘Anneliese. There’s something I’m dying to tell you.’

We’re in the Landtmann, after my lesson.

‘This thing happened,’ I tell her. ‘In the Kunsthistorisches Museum. I went to look at the paintings…’

She’s wearing the hat I rescued, and she has ruby and diamanté earrings, that glitter as she turns her head and send out small shards of light.

‘And I left my umbrella behind,’ I say, ‘so I had to go back. And I met … I met…’

‘Ooh.’ She’s intrigued, her liquorice-dark eyes gleaming. ‘How exciting, Stella. And is he good-looking? I mean, this is a “he” we’re talking about?’

‘Yes. Yes to both questions.’

Just talking about him makes my pulse race.

‘So – when are you going to see him again?’

‘Well, I don’t know if I am.’ I suddenly feel I’ve presumed far too much. ‘He sort of suggested meeting again – but it was all terribly vague. I’m not even sure if he really liked me. He said I was very reserved…’

Her dark eyes sparkle with laughter.

‘Stella. That’s what they always say when they want to seduce you.’ she says.

I’m startled that she’s so direct. People don’t talk like this in Brockenhurst. But mixed in with my amazement, there’s a little tremor of hope.

‘D’you really think so?’

She nods. The skin crinkles in little laughter lines at the corners of her eyes.

Our Esterházytorte and coffee arrive.

‘Well, don’t stop there, Stella. Tell me more. So what’s he like, your mystery heart-throb?’ she asks.

‘Well.’ I sip my coffee. I don’t know where to begin. ‘He was very polite—’

‘Oh,
Stella
. You’re just so English, aren’t you? It’s really terribly sweet. What I meant was – what exactly does he
look
like? What’s the attraction?’

‘Dark. Tall. Kind of intelligent-looking…’

Her face falls slightly. She obviously finds this unsatisfactory.

‘And what does he do? Did you find that out?’ she asks me.

‘He’s a doctor.’

‘Ooh. Clever hands. What could be nicer?’ she says.

She’s outrageous. The thought sneaks into my mind – that she might be
experienced
. I don’t know if I dare ask.

‘Anneliese – have you ever … you know…?’

I’m trying to say it casually, as though I talk like this all the time. But I feel the heat rush to my face.

‘Oh Stella, you’ve gone all pink,’ she says, rather delighted. ‘Have I had sex, you mean? Of course I have. Haven’t you?’ She looks at me thoughtfully, then shakes her head, with a slight rueful smile. ‘No, I don’t suppose you have, have you?’

‘I’ve always imagined I’d wait till I get married,’ I say.

‘Well, that’s what everyone says. But it isn’t always what happens … Everyone’s doing it in Vienna, Stella – mostly with people they shouldn’t be doing it with.’

‘Oh.’

I think of the things I’ve been told, growing up. The warnings about what men are like – their uncontrollable urges, their dangerous wandering hands. The thrilled, appalled whispers about girls who went all the way.

I tell Anneliese these things. She listens; a little smile plays on her face.

‘We all get given the lecture,’ she tells me, when I’ve finished. ‘But you really don’t need to bother too much about any of that. Today, everything’s different. We’re the new generation, Stella – the post-war generation. All that stuff’s so outmoded. We can do what we want.’

‘D’you really think so?’

‘Trust me, Stella. There aren’t any rules any more. Don’t let other people dictate to you how to behave. You have to be your own woman … Though you have to be careful, of course. You know – use something.’

‘
Use
something?’

Kitty Carpenter told me that you’d be safe if you stood up straightaway afterwards. Other girls said that was crazy – you needed to use a vinegar douche.

Anneliese leans towards me. I breathe in her scent, like sun-warmed peaches.

‘Use a French letter,’ she murmurs.

‘Yes, of course,’ I say, as though this is entirely obvious.

I feel horribly ignorant. I think of the things my mother told me – of an awkward conversation we had, before my periods came. ‘There are things you need to know, Stella. About your body, about what happens between a husband and wife…’ She was doing her mangling as she talked: she wasn’t looking at me, and there was something resigned, worn-down, about the angle of her shoulders. She said it was important for me to understand these things: ignorance could have terrible consequences. She’d once known a girl who’d killed herself when her first period came, believing herself to have contracted some terrible, shameful disease … So she told me what to expect, and we were both of us very embarrassed. I wanted her to stop, but there was more that she felt she should say. ‘And sometimes, to be honest, it will be the last thing you feel like. If you’ve got a small child and you’re exhausted. But you must never refuse your husband. Always remember that, Stella. It’s the woman’s responsibility. It’s up to the woman to keep the marriage going,’ she said.

Sitting there in the Landtmann, I see this scene in my mind; and remember how I’d sensed a kind of sadness in her, and how I’d been unnerved by a brief little stab of a thought. Was my parents’ marriage perhaps less perfect than I’d always supposed?

I don’t tell Anneliese any of this.

Anneliese has finished her coffee and cake. She opens her bag on the table, so I can see all her things – the silver compact, the bottle of Mitsouko. She takes out her lipstick and smooths it on, her lips puckered as though she is blowing a kiss to herself. Then she snaps the lipstick shut and gives me a vivid, tulipy smile.

‘But apart from being careful – well…’ She makes an expansive gesture. ‘You can do what you like. Why not? That’s my philosophy, Stella,’ she says.

This conversation thrills me.

The air is warm as summer. I decide to explore for a while before I head back home.

I wander the cobbled streets of the inner city, and find myself in a small, rather intimate square. This is Franziskanerplatz. A great grey church looms over the square, the Franziskanerkirche. There’s a fountain with a figure of Moses. I dip my hand in the water; it’s bitter, in spite of the warmth of the day.

In a courtyard leading off the square, I can see a little bookshop. On a sudden impulse, I walk through the entryway into the courtyard, which is as still and immaculate as a painted room. White pigeons preen on the balcony rails, shuffling and softly cooing; it sounds as though the air is breathing. Shadow lies over the courtyard, but high above there’s a square of luminous sky.

The bookshop is dimly lit and cluttered, and has a rich, complex smell – of dust and moulds and beeswax polish. I pass shelves of fairytale books, and can’t resist flicking through one of them. I come on a coloured plate of a princess, with hair of an indigo darkness and a rather witchy smile. The princess reminds me of someone; for a moment I can’t think who, then I realise it’s the woman Harri Reznik met at the gallery. I snap the book shut and put it rapidly back on the shelf.

I look for books on psychoanalysis. I want to learn more about Dr Freud – for when I see Harri again. I correct myself –
just in case
I see Harri again. Crossing my fingers superstitiously.

I find a thick volume, called
Die Traumdeutung
. The title intrigues me – the book is all about dreams. I open it up. The German looks quite readable, but it’s a very long book, and I know I’d struggle with it.

The bookseller examines me with an air of mild surprise. His eyes have a dull translucence, like a sucked boiled sweet.

‘I don’t suppose you have this book in English?’ I ask him.

He frowns slightly.

‘Are you sure this is what you want, fräulein? We have many books more suited to a young person such as yourself.’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ I tell him.

He finds me a translation.
The Interpretation of Dreams
. I’m delighted. I count out my money, feeling a quick surge of triumph.

After dinner, in my bedroom, I open
The Interpretation of Dreams
.

There are many dreams described, and Dr Freud’s analysis of them. The analysis is complex and intricate, but again and again he says that all dreams are wish-fulfilment. This interests me, yet it troubles me, too: it doesn’t entirely make sense.
Some
dreams maybe: I’ve sometimes dreamed that my father has come back to life. But so many dreams are unpleasant. I think of the dream of suffocation I had a few nights ago. Not all our dreams are good dreams.

I flick through the book, reading at random where something catches my eye. There’s a dream that sounds pretty, flowery. A woman about to be married dreamed of making a floral arrangement, an elaborate confection of violets and pinks, which she placed in the centre of her table. According to Dr Freud, the dream expressed her bridal wishes: the centre of the table represented herself and her genitals. When she discussed the dream with Dr Freud, the violets made her think of the English word ‘to violate’. He says that the dream embodied her thoughts on the violence of defloration, expressing her fears and her longings in the language of flowers.

I’m a little shocked by this, but I don’t stop reading.

My eye falls on a dream with a striking image – a young child set on fire.

A man’s child had died, and the body was laid out, surrounded by tall lighted candles. The man went to sleep in the neighbouring room; and dreamed that his child was alive again and standing next to his bed. The child caught his arm and whispered:
Father, don’t you see that I’m burning?
And in the dream he saw that the child was indeed all on fire. The man woke from the dream, and noticed a glare of light through the door. He rushed into the neighbouring bedroom; a candle had fallen, the dead child’s shroud was ablaze. Dr Freud explains that even this dream had wish-fulfilment in it – because in the dream the man had thought that his lost child was still living.

Yet the story seems so full of sadness. The image haunts me – the man fast asleep in his bed; the child talking so calmly, trying to wake him. Burning.

Saturday afternoon, and I can’t decide what to wear: none of my clothes seem smart enough. In the end, I choose my grey flannel suit, like last week, and try to dress up the outfit, with a ring my mother lent me and a single strand of pearls. Doing these things, I’m caught in a daydream – of his voice, his touch on my skin. Then I take the tram to the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

The weather is still very fine. Bars of sunlight fall through the windows of the galleries; they seem almost tangible – as though they could leave a golden stain on your hand. I can’t quite believe that I might soon see him.

I make my way straight to the Cranachs; but Harri Reznik isn’t there. I walk slowly round the gallery, trying to look casual. Perhaps what he said was a throwaway comment, entirely without significance. Perhaps it wasn’t an invitation at all …

I sit for a while near
Paradise
, where I met him before. But today, this picture no longer delights me: the naked bodies seem pornographic, the decoration self-indulgent. Harri Reznik isn’t coming. I’ve been deluded: I’ve been living in a fantasy world. I promise myself I will never again be so stupid, so misguided. But in spite of my resolution, I feel a sadness close to tears.