The Boy at the Top of the Mountain (10 page)

He felt like an idiot.

‘Can we go now?’ he asked as she paid the bill.

‘Yes, of course,’ she replied. ‘Are you hungry? Should we get some lunch?’

Pierrot didn’t need to think about this. He was always hungry, and when he told her this, Beatrix laughed out loud.

‘Just like your father,’ she told him.

‘Can I ask you something?’ he asked as they entered a café and ordered soup and sandwiches, and his aunt nodded her head.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Why did you never come to see us when I was little?’

Beatrix considered this, but waited until the food had arrived before speaking. ‘Your father and I, we were never very close as children,’ she said. ‘He was older than me and we had little in common. But when he went to fight in the Great War, I missed him terribly and worried about him all the time. He wrote letters home, of course, and sometimes they made sense but sometimes they were rather incoherent. He was badly injured, as you know—’

‘No,’ said Pierrot, surprised. ‘No, I didn’t know.’

‘Oh yes. I wonder why no one ever told you. He was in the trenches one night when a group of British soldiers attacked and overpowered them. They killed almost everyone, but somehow your father managed to escape – although he took a bullet to his shoulder that would have killed him had it been a few inches to the right. He hid in the forest nearby and watched as the soldiers dragged one unfortunate young boy from his hiding place – the last surviving soldier from that trench – and argued over what to do with him before one of the English simply shot him in the head. Somehow Wilhelm made it back to the German lines, but he’d lost a lot of blood and was delirious. They managed to patch him up and send him to the hospital for a few weeks, and he could have stayed – but no, he insisted on returning to the Front when he was better.’ She looked around to make sure that she was not being overheard and lowered her voice, almost to a whisper. ‘I think that his injuries, coupled with what he saw that night, did great damage to his mind. After the war he was never the same. He grew so angry, so full of hatred towards anyone he thought had cost Germany her victory. We fell out over it: I hated to see how blinkered he was, and he claimed that I didn’t know what I was talking about since I had never seen any of the action.’

Pierrot frowned, trying to understand what she meant. ‘But weren’t you on the same side?’ he asked.

‘Well, in a way,’ she replied. ‘But, Pieter, this isn’t a conversation for now. Perhaps when you’re older I’ll be able to explain it better to you. When you understand a little more of the world. Now, we need to eat quickly and get back. Ernst will be waiting for us.’

‘But his meeting won’t be over yet.’

Beatrix turned and stared at the boy. ‘He didn’t have any meeting, Pieter,’ she said, her tone growing a little angry now, the first time he had heard her speak like this. ‘He is waiting in the same spot where we left him and he will be there when we return. Do you understand me?’

Pierrot nodded, a little frightened. ‘All right,’ he said, deciding not to bring the subject up again even though he knew what he had heard and there was no one in the world who could tell him differently.

One Saturday morning a few weeks later, Pierrot woke to find the house in uproar. The senior maid, Ute, was changing the linen on the beds and opening all the windows to let air into the rooms, while Herta was rushing around in a flap, her face even redder than usual, sweeping the floors and bringing out the mop and bucket to wash them clean.

‘You’ll have to fix your own breakfast today, Pieter,’ said Emma, the cook, when he went into the kitchen. There were baking dishes everywhere, and the delivery man from Berchtesgaden must have already made his way to the top of the mountain, for crates of fresh fruit and vegetables were spread across all the work surfaces. ‘There’s so much to be done and not a lot of time to do it in.’

‘Do you need any help?’ he asked, because this was one of those mornings when he’d woken up feeling rather lonely and couldn’t face the idea of sitting around doing nothing all day.

‘I need a lot of help,’ she replied, ‘but from a trained professional, not a seven-year-old boy. Perhaps later on there’ll be something you can do for me. In the meantime, here’ – she took an apple from one of the boxes and tossed it across to him – ‘take this outside with you. It’ll keep you going for a while.’

He made his way back into the hallway, where Aunt Beatrix was standing with a clipboard in her hand, running her finger down a list and ticking things off as she went.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘Why is everyone so busy today?’

‘The master and the mistress are arriving in a few hours,’ she replied. ‘We received a telegram from Munich late last night and it caught us all unawares. It’s probably for the best if you just stay out of the way for now. Have you had a bath?’

‘I had one last night.’

‘All right. Well, why don’t you take a book and sit under one of the trees. It’s a beautiful spring morning, after all. Oh, by the way . . .’ She lifted the pages of her clipboard and extracted an envelope, holding it out to Pierrot.

‘What’s that?’ he asked, surprised.

‘It’s a letter,’ she said, her tone growing stern.

‘A letter for me?’

‘Yes.’

Pierrot stared at it in surprise. He couldn’t think who might have written it.

‘It’s from your friend, Anshel,’ said Beatrix.

‘How do you know?’

‘I opened it, of course.’

Pierrot frowned. ‘You opened my letter?’ he asked.

‘And a good thing that I did,’ said Beatrix. ‘Believe me when I tell you that I am only looking out for your best interests.’

He reached forward to take it and, sure enough, the envelope had been sliced open at the top and its contents taken out and examined.

‘You need to write back,’ continued Beatrix. ‘Today, preferably. And tell him never to write to you again.’

Pierrot looked up at her in amazement. ‘But why would I do that?’ he asked.

‘I know it must seem strange,’ she replied. ‘But letters from this . . . this Anshel boy could get you into more trouble than you realize. You
and
me. It wouldn’t matter if his name was Franz or Heinrich or Martin. But Anshel?’ She shook her head. ‘A letter from a Jewish boy would not go down well here.’

A huge row erupted just before noon as Pierrot was kicking a ball around the garden and Beatrix came out to find Ute and Herta sitting on a bench at the rear of the house, smoking cigarettes and gossiping as they watched him.

‘Look at the two of you just sitting there,’ she said angrily, ‘when the mirrors haven’t been polished, the fireplace in the living room is filthy and no one has brought the good rugs down from the attic yet.’

‘We were just taking a break,’ said Herta with a sigh. ‘We can’t work every minute of the day, you know.’

‘You don’t! Emma said you’ve been out here sunning yourselves for half an hour.’

‘Emma is a sneak,’ said Ute, folding her arms defiantly and staring off in the direction of the mountains.

‘We could tell you things about Emma,’ added Herta. ‘Such as where the extra eggs go and how bars of chocolate keep going missing from the pantry. Not to mention what she gets up to with Lothar the milkman.’

‘I’m not interested in tittle-tattle,’ said Beatrix. ‘I just need to make sure everything gets done before the master arrives. Honestly, the way you girls carry on, sometimes I feel like I’m in charge of a kindergarten.’

‘Well, you’re the one who brought a child into the house, not us,’ snapped Herta, and there was a long silence as Beatrix stared at her furiously.

Pierrot came over, intrigued to see who would get the better of this exchange, but when his aunt saw him standing there she pointed towards the house.

‘Go inside, Pieter,’ she said. ‘Your room needs tidying.’

‘All right,’ he said, turning the corner but staying hidden out of sight so that he could overhear the rest of the conversation.

‘Now, what did you just say?’ Beatrix asked, turning back to Herta.

‘Nothing,’ said Herta, looking down at her feet.

‘Do you have any idea what that boy has been through?’ she asked. ‘First his father leaves and is killed beneath the wheels of a train. Then his mother dies of tuberculosis and the poor boy is sent to an orphanage. And has he caused even a moment of trouble since his arrival here? No! Has he been anything but friendly and polite, despite the fact that he must still be grieving? No! Really, Herta, I would have hoped for a little more compassion from you. It’s not as if you’ve had the easiest life either, is it? You should understand what he’s going through.’

‘I’m sorry,’ muttered Herta.

‘Speak up.’

‘I said I’m sorry,’ said Herta a little louder.

‘She’s sorry,’ echoed Ute.

Beatrix nodded. ‘All right,’ she said, her tone growing a little more conciliatory. ‘Well, let’s have no more of these nasty comments – and certainly no more idleness. You wouldn’t want the master to hear about any of this, would you?’

Both girls jumped up in fright when she said that, and stamped their cigarettes out beneath their shoes before smoothing down their aprons.

‘I’ll polish the mirrors,’ said Herta.

‘And I’ll clean the fireplace,’ said Ute.

‘Fine,’ said Beatrix. ‘I’ll see to the rugs myself. Now hurry up – they’ll be here soon and I want everything to be perfect.’

As she walked back towards the house, Pierrot ran inside and reached for the sweeping brush in the hallway to take to his room.

‘Pieter, dear,’ said Beatrix. ‘Be a darling and fetch my cardigan from my wardrobe, will you?’

‘All right,’ he said, leaning the broom back against the wall as he made his way to the end of the corridor. He had only been in his aunt’s room once before, when she gave him a tour of the house during his first week, and it had not been particularly interesting, containing much the same things as his own – a bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a jug and bowl – although it was the biggest by far of the staff rooms.

Opening the wardrobe, he retrieved the cardigan, but before leaving he noticed something he had not seen on his first visit. Hanging on the wall was a framed photograph of his mother and father, arm in arm, holding a small baby wrapped in blankets. Émilie was smiling widely, but Wilhelm looked downcast and the baby – Pierrot himself, of course – was sound asleep. There was a date inscribed in the right-hand corner –
1929
– and the name of the photographer –
Matthias Reinhardt Photography, Montmartre
. Pierrot knew exactly where Montmartre was. He could remember standing on the steps of the Sacré Coeur church while his mother told him how she had come there as a girl in 1919, just after the end of the Great War, to watch Cardinal Amette consecrate the basilica. She loved to wander through the flea markets, watching the artists as they painted on the streets; sometimes she, Wilhelm and Pierrot would spend an entire afternoon just strolling around, eating snacks when they grew hungry, before making their way back home. It was a place where they had been happy as a family; when Papa was not as troubled as he would one day become; before Maman had fallen ill.

Leaving the room, Pierrot looked around for Beatrix but she was nowhere to be seen, and when he roared out her name she appeared quickly from the front parlour.

‘Pieter,’ she cried. ‘Don’t ever do that! There can be no running or shouting in this house. The master can’t abide noise.’

‘Although he makes plenty of it himself,’ said Emma, stepping out of the kitchen, drying her wet hands on a tea towel. ‘Doesn’t mind throwing a tantrum whenever he feels like it, does he? Shouts his bloody head off when things aren’t going right.’

Beatrix spun round and stared at the cook as if she had lost her mind. ‘One of these days that tongue of yours is going to get you into a lot of trouble,’ she said.

‘You’re not above me,’ replied Emma, pointing a finger at her. ‘So don’t act like you are. Cook and housekeeper are equal.’

‘I’m not trying to be above you, Emma,’ said Beatrix in an exhausted tone that suggested she had endured this conversation before. ‘I simply want you to realize how dangerous your words can be. Think whatever you want, but don’t say such things out loud. Am I the only person in this house who has any sense?’

‘I speak as I find,’ said Emma. ‘Always have done, always will do.’

‘Fine. Well, you speak like that to the master’s face and see where it gets you.’

Emma snorted, but it was obvious from the expression on her face that she would do no such thing. Pierrot began to worry about this master. Everyone seemed so afraid of him. And yet he’d been nice enough to allow Pierrot to come to live there. It was all very confusing.

‘Where’s the boy?’ asked Emma, looking around.

‘I’m right here,’ said Pierrot.

‘So you are. I can never find you when I want you. It’s because you’re so small. Don’t you think it’s about time you grew a little bigger?’

‘Leave him alone, Emma,’ said Beatrix.

‘I don’t mean any harm. He reminds me of those little . . .’ She tapped her forehead, trying to remember the word. ‘Who are those little fellows in that book?’ she asked.

‘What little fellows?’ asked Beatrix. ‘What book?’

‘You know!’ insisted Emma. ‘The man arrives on the island and he’s a giant compared to them, so they tie him up and—’

‘Lilliputians,’ said Pierrot, interrupting her. ‘They’re in
Gulliver’s Travels
.’

Both women stared at him in surprise. ‘How did you know that?’ asked Beatrix.

‘I’ve read it,’ he said with a shrug. ‘My friend Ansh—’ He corrected himself. ‘The boy who lived downstairs from me in Paris had a copy. And there was one in the library in the orphanage too.’

‘Stop showing off,’ said Emma. ‘Now, I told you that I might have a job for you later on, and I do. You’re not squeamish, are you?’

Pierrot glanced towards his aunt, wondering whether he should go with her instead, but she simply took the cardigan from him and told him to follow Emma. As they walked through the kitchen, he breathed in the wonderful scent of baking that had been going on there since early morning – a mixture of eggs and sugar and all types of fruit – and looked eagerly at the table, where teacloths were spread over the plates concealing all their treasures.