The Vienna Melody (48 page)

“Isn't it so, it does depend on you?” he asked as Selma walked towards him, waving her hand.

Accustomed as she was to his skipping premises, she answered, “Of course; on whom should it depend?”

“On others. On the State. On God.”

“I'm not informed as to God and State. But as to others—no.”

“What if, let us say, they are losing our land for us? Or—or—let us say—one's love for another person?”

She smiled in the way which transfigured her face so beautifully. “The land one has lost one finds again. Love does not get lost.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

One day Selma found she could barely move her left arm. It must have been due to the constant draught she was in on the huge Burgtheater stage; for some time she did not deem it necessary to consult a physician. Old Dr. Herz had given up his practice completely, and ms successor had the reputation, according to Number 10, of “making complications.” It was only when her brother-in-law Dr. Baier came up from Salzburg that she asked him casually for advice. By then the troublesome condition had already lasted a number of weeks. It was especially inconvenient on the evenings when she played Saint Joan, because she was obliged to hold Dunois' banner in her left arm while she used her right for her sword.

It was neuralgia, in the opinion of brother-in-law Baier, who had watched over the last hours of Francis Joseph and who since then had preferred to treat the members of the aristocratic and clerical circles of the small town of Salzburg, where people still went to mass. He advised diathermy.

It did not help. The longer Selma subjected herself to this treatment the more stubborn the uncomfortable, albeit painless, ailment became, and it was no longer just the upper arm but her left hand as well which she could barely control.

Obviously no one must know about this or her triumph as Saint Joan would have gone for nothing; she would have had to go on the sick list and someone else would have taken over her part. She kept it a secret even from Hans, who was worried by any kind of illness. Her secret triumph had been to win back his confidence after that night he came home from the war, and it was coincident with the first. Since then Hans had been so proud of her. After the opening he had said to her, “I admit it is more important to be a genius than to be a mother.” It was his way of begging her pardon, and with that their conversation of that first night was wiped out.

It was only now, in their daily life together, that she realized completely how lovable he was. There was hardly a trait in him that she would have liked to see changed. He still had his boyish idealism, with its firm conviction that everything can be “made better”—a piano factory, a state, human beings; his easily aroused enthusiasm; his typically Austrian way of swinging from optimism to pessimism, and his un-Austrian, almost touching steadfastness. Never an excuse; tactful to a degree. Were it not for his hot temper and slight conceit, Selma's critical estimate would have pronounced him faultless. What she liked most about him was his adherence to things that were real and his aversion to all pretence. Also he was the handsomest man she knew.

“Hand me the saucers,” requested her mother-in-law, for a tea-table was being festively arranged in celebration of Professor Stein's eightieth birthday. Simmerl and his wife were on their annual pilgrimage to Mariazell, where their daughter performed certain duties in a convent. And Martha Monica, as usual, had not finished dressing. So Selma had been asked to come up to lend a hand.

“You needn't make me feel, with every saucer you hand me, how you look down on this trivial occupation,” Henriette said. “It would be lovely, but unfortunately we can't all be geniuses.”

For the first time Selma felt pain in her arm, and although she ascribed it to her nervousness, it cost her an effort each time she used her hand. “It's much simpler, Mother,” she declared. “I'm a lamentable housekeeper.” And she handed her mother-in-law the beautiful old Viennese porcelain with the beehive mark.

“Fuss!” Henriette answered, using the expression of Franz's which, when she was young, had annoyed her. In Selma's presence, however, she unconsciously took the part of the house against an outsider, as had been done by others to her for so long. She had made an effort, as best she could. For Hans's sake she had tried to like her daughter-in-law. Sometimes she had persuaded herself that she did like her. But as time went on she did not succeed. There was no doubt that her daughter-in-law had taken her son away from her. Besides, Selma used every means to belittle and to question what she had done for Hans. “You didn't educate him for life,” she had dared to tell her!

“Professor Stein doesn't look his age at all,” Selma said.

The fact that the whole house was celebrating her father's birthday was to Henriette a personal triumph. “Be a dear and go and get the whipped cream,” she said in a more friendly tone, for she felt she had rather let herself go.

The whipped cream stood ready in the kitchen, and all Selma had to do was stretch out her right hand for it. Nothing could be simpler. All there was to do was to lift a hand, pick up a small, light silver jug, and carry it into the dining room.

Suddenly this simple act became an insoluble problem. As Selma went to stretch out her right hand it refused to obey.

“Do hurry,” Henriette called from the dining room. “They will be here any minute. You know how punctual they are!”

Selma struggled with the silver jug. Then suddenly, as the weakness had come in her right hand, it vanished. With a sense of infinite relief the young woman picked up the jug and hurried back with it. “You're not exactly quick,” commented Henriette. “Has Hans not been able to train you? He's coming, isn't he?”

Hans came, but the punctual ones were there ahead of him. Otto Eberhard and his wife Elsa were the first of all. Immediately following came Franz, Professor Stein, Peter, and Annemarie. The Drauffers and their twin sons followed (Fritz's wife, the dancer, had to look after two-year-old Raimund, their son, or at least, that was how Fritz excused her not taking part in the family festivities). The last guests to arrive were the Widow Paskiewicz and Martha Monica. Peter's children were to come after the tea had been served and recite poems. With Hermann, the only person who arrived late, the complement of the grown-up residents was full.

“I haven't yet been able to see
Saint Joan
,” said Otto Eberhard, who was sitting on the left of the hostess, to Selma as she poured him some tea. He was five years older than the birthday celebrant, and to him a person of a mere eighty years seemed an inexperienced creature, as to Aunt Sophie, in her day, Poldi, her factotum, had seemed a raw recruit. He scarcely ever encountered the actress. Since one met people who were lacking in all manners everywhere nowadays—ministers who had been shoe merchants in Graz, chiefs of departments who ate with their knives—Otto Eberhard no longer went into society. He sat erect, in his impeccably spotless black coat, which had grown a shade too large for him, his whiskers freshly clipped, and in his buttonhole the rosette of a commander of the Order of Francis Joseph.

“You will see it some time,” Selma said. She could not quite bring herself to call this severe old gentleman “Uncle Otto Eberhard.”

“But you've missed a great deal,” remarked the always gracious guest of honor, seated on his daughter's right, as he unfolded his damask napkin, in the corner of which was pinned a rosebud. He put the rose in the buttonhole of his stylishly cut suit and helped himself to tea. “You are incomparable in this role,” he said, complimenting his grandson's wife. “I shall surely go again to sec the play.”

“Yes. She was splendid,” Henriette admitted.

Every bit of praise directed at Selma, who for the first time was being confronted by the solid majority of the house, was pleasing to Hans. Wasn't it the devil that so much importance was still put on whether the house praised or blamed
a person! He sat next to Fritz, who indulged in sarcastic
comments.

“I have read the play,” remarked Otto Eberhard. “I can't say I like it. Now, Schiller's
Maid of Orleans
—”

“On the other hand,” Fritz anticipated softly.

“On the other hand,” continued the retired Public Prosecutor, “is incomparably better.”

“If I may say so, Papa, I think you're mistaken,” said his son Peter. This stout gentleman let one feel, with every word he uttered, the importance of the position he occupied in the Ministry of Instruction. He had survived the Reds there, and his attitude showed that he was determined to survive every one else who did not understand the gentle art of governing. Without him neither the ex–shoe merchants who became Ministers, nor the other questionable political amateurs could take a single step on the slippery parquet of administration without stumbling at every step over paragraphs. “I consider it an outstanding modern play,” he added, with the knowing air of a man entrusted with the cultural affairs of his country.

“How can you—”

“Say such a thing,” Fritz again anticipated.

Annemarie, who had come from Potsdam, near Berlin, really did not disappoint him. She reproached her husband with his preference for the English play. With the best will in the world she had not been able to discover anything in it but bombast and cynicism. Nor had the production been done to her satisfaction.

Hans's eyes narrowed.

“Keep your mouth shut,” warned his former mentor. “Annemarie is undoubtedly one of the stupidest women in five continents.”

“All this is only being said on Selma's account!” declared Hans. “Well,” Fritz agreed, unmoved, “she will survive it. For her career, what you and I think of her still is more important. And we think she is a genius.”

“Who is a genius?” Hermann asked in the midst of his conversation with his cousin Otto, who wore a blond beard in the fashion of the late Lueger, Vienna's most popular burgermeister.

“Selma,” Fritz explained defiantly.

“Sure,” Hermann agreed. “I must confess it's been a long time since I have been as thrilled by anything in the theater as by her Saint Joan. An absolutely top-notch achievement.”

“I'm glad,” Selma told her brother-in-law.

Hans, too, was so surprised and pleased by his brother's enthusiasm that he decided not to tell him how offensive he had found the radio program arranged by him the day before; Hermann was no longer employed at the factory, but for some time had been assigned as assistant to Captain Kunsti, head of the program department of the Vienna Radio Station “Ravag.” In this capacity he not only arranged “Austrian Broadcasts,” directed against the people who wanted to tamper with Austrian independence, but also he found opportunity to give free rein to his rather suddenly developed literary inclinations. He had recently appeared in print in an article calculated to curry favor with the
Neue Freie Presse
, in which he put forward the assertion that Saphir and Daniel Spitzer, the fathers of the “Vienna
feuilleton
,” were “the wittiest minds of Austria.”

“Why didn't you invite Selma to participate in your broadcast last night if you admire her so?” asked Fritz, with embarrassing directness. “She would have been an oasis in your desert of mediocrity.” Hermann nodded with an expression of resignation. “You know my chief. No relatives! Otherwise it smacks immediately of influence!”

“Well, in the first place, I don't think Selma needed the job,” explained the musician, “and secondly, as far as family influence is concerned, you need have no sins of omission on your conscience. Don't you agree, Peter? I don't think you did Hermann much harm when he was trying for a job at Ravag.”

“Do you really get so much enjoyment out of always playing the enfant terrible?” asked his cousin. “I should think that some time or another one would outgrow one's short trousers.”

Franz had rapped on his glass sharply. He was sitting beside his sister-in-law Elsa, and he pointed to Professor Stein. This is the important person here, was what he meant to indicate. Do think of him at least. His face, with its twisted, paralysed mouth, was hardly more than skin and bones.

The birthday guest had a different point of view. “Let the youngsters argue, Franz!” To him they were still youngsters, and all his life he had encouraged discussion among youngsters.

Henriette shook her head. She was annoyed by the lot of laudatory remarks about Selma. If this went on she would not only dominate Hans but Number 10 as well. “I don't think you have passed the cake to Uncle Otto Eberhard,” she said pointedly to her daughter-in-law.

Hans thought that the disfavor apparent in his mother's remark was all but unbearable. She did not dare to say a single word against Martha Monica, who sat there like a guest when she might just as well be helping to pass things. Yet no matter what Selma did she could not overcome Mother's aversion; and witnessing such things made him feel his love for his mother growing cold. On the other hand, surely the remark about the cake could not account for such an alarming change in Selma's expression. He was on the point of getting up and rushing over to his wife, who had grown terrifyingly pale, when she began to smile once more and was going round from guest to guest. Besides, Martha Monica was now helping her at last.

“Anything wrong?” he asked softly when she came to him.

“Why?” she replied, put a piece of cake on his plate, and was already standing by the next person.

“Martha Monica,” Otto Eberhard said severely.

“Yes, Uncle?” answered the girl who was following Selma and pouring Malaga into small glasses.

“You have a magnificent string of pearls.”

“Gorgeous,” Elsa and Annemarie said in admiring unison. But Widow Paskiewicz remarked, “I've been thinking all the time—it really looks almost like tke necklace of Empress Elizabeth.”