The Star of Kazan (25 page)

Ellie had done her best with Easter. She had not bought a new hat because her brown felt hat was only ten years old and had plenty of life in it still, but she had done all the things she had done the year before and the year before that. She had hard-boiled eggs for the little Bodek boys to paint; she had baked Easter muffins for Pauline and her grandfather, and a simnel cake for the professors, and she and Sigrid had taken flowers to the church.

But nothing gave her any joy.

‘I have to get over it,’ Ellie told herself. ‘It’s over two months since she went. Why doesn’t it get better?’

But it didn’t get better. If anything, missing Annika got worse.

There was a knock at the back door and Pauline came in carrying her scrapbook and a pot of glue. Since Annika had gone she came quite often to work in Ellie’s kitchen.

‘Have you had a letter?’ she asked.

Ellie closed the book. ‘No. Have you?’

‘No. And Stefan hasn’t either.’

‘It’s not so long since she wrote.’

‘It’s longer than it’s ever been,’ said Pauline. ‘Perhaps her mother has sent her into the forest with a huntsman and told him to kill her and bring back her tongue, like in the stories.’

‘For goodness’ sake, Pauline, what’s the matter with you? What have you got against Frau Edeltraut?’

‘She’s an aristocrat; they’re always doing things like that. Look at Count Dracula. And that horrible perfume she wears, like mangled wolves.’

But Sigrid came in at that moment and told Pauline to stop upsetting Ellie. Hating people helped some people, but it only gave Ellie a stomach ache.

Pauline put down her scrapbook and the pot of glue and reached for the scissors. She had found a story she liked very much, about a little boy who had climbed into a hot-air balloon and been carried away, but a crippled lady had raced after it in her wheelchair and managed to get hold of the rope and hold on . . .

For a while there was peace as Sigrid started on the ironing and Ellie went back to the stove. Then Professor Gertrude’s bell sounded from her bedroom. It was not her usual gentle ring but louder and more insistent.

‘Something’s the matter,’ said Sigrid.

They trooped out into the hall and found Professor Gertrude, still in her dressing gown and slippers.

‘It’s come!’ she said agitatedly. ‘I saw from the window! It’s come!’

No one asked what had come. Only one thing could make Professor Gertrude run round the hallway like a headless chicken, with her grey plait hanging down her back.

Her new harp. The great concert-grand harp ordered from Ernst and Kohlhart months ago; the largest and most valuable instrument of its kind in the city.

A ring on the front door was followed by a volley of thumps. Sigrid opened it to reveal an elegant delivery van with the words ‘Instrument Makers to the Imperial Court’ scrolled on the side, and two men wheeling an enormous wooden case towards them. It was painted a shining black, and the heavy clasps that fastened it were gold; it might have been the coffin of an exotic giraffe.

‘We’ll have to leave it at the door,’ they said. ‘We’ve got to take the trolley back,’ and with much muttering and heaving they set their load down on the pavement, presented Professor Gertrude with the receipt to sign, and pocketed their tip.

Professor Julian and Professor Emil were both out, but Gertrude knew exactly what to do.

‘Fetch Stefan,’ she ordered – and Pauline ran off across the square.

Stefan was always fetched when something heavy had to be dealt with; he was by far the strongest of the Bodek boys, and he came at once. Behind him, although he had told them to stay at home, ran two of his younger brothers, Hansi and Georg.

Sigrid had already moved the hall table and the umbrella stand. Ellie took away the potted palm.

‘You take the back end,’ Professor Gertrude ordered Stefan, ‘and I’ll take the front.’

‘Let me,’ began Sigrid, but Professor Gertrude waved her away.

Even for Stefan the weight was enormous, but he managed to lift the case, and Professor Gertrude, walking backwards, made her way upstairs. On the third stair her bedroom slipper came off, on the sixth she became entangled with her dressing-gown cord, but she carried on, stepping bravely backwards with her bare foot.

At the landing they stopped. Gertrude’s door was wedged open, but would the case go through?

‘I think it would be best to unpack it here,’ said Stefan, lowering the case.

On these matters Stefan was always listened to. Professor Gertrude took the keys hanging from one of the clasps and slowly, solemnly, she unlocked the case.

The inside, padded with gold-and-burgundy brocade, was unbelievably sumptuous. The harp itself was wrapped in a shawl of ivory silk, a present from the makers to those who bought this precious instrument.

Stefan lifted it out and carried it into Professor Gertrude’s room. Then he came out again, the door was shut, and everyone went back downstairs, knowing that this was a time when Gertrude needed to be alone.

In the kitchen, Ellie started to brew coffee and reached for the tin of biscuits, which she kept for the little Bodek boys, but when she turned round there was no sign of them. Stefan was there, and Pauline, but not Georg – and not Hansi, and this was strange because Hansi suffered terribly from hunger and usually stationed himself by Ellie’s biscuit tin as soon as he arrived.

‘They must have gone home,’ said Stefan. ‘I’ll go and see.’

He came back, looking puzzled. ‘They’re not there.’

They searched the downstairs rooms, the yard . . . But before they had time to become anxious, a kind of scrabbling sound came from the upstairs landing.

The harp case was where they had left it, flat on the ground. Sigrid lifted the lid. Inside the two little boys lay curled together like puppies.

‘It’s our house,’ said Georg blissfully. ‘It’s the best house in the whole world. We’re going to live in it for ever and ever.’

The following day was a Sunday and Pauline and Stefan set off early to tidy up the hut. Even though they couldn’t do plays without Annika, they still liked to use it for picnics and meetings with carefully chosen friends.

There were signs that the deserted garden was not going to be theirs for much longer. The barbed wire over the gate to the drive had been removed, perhaps to let the lorries through when the workmen came. Ye t on this fine spring morning it was still very quiet and very beautiful. There was dew on the grass; a thrush sang on a branch of the cedar.

They walked past the pond, past the ruined steps. . .Then Pauline stopped dead. ‘There’s something behind the house. A wild animal. I can hear it snorting. I’m going home.’

But before she could turn and run, the wild animal appeared.

His rich coat was lit up by a shaft of sunlight; his black mane and tail rippled like silk. Because he was hobbled he could only walk at a measured pace, but he came on steadily, his ears twitching with curiosity and interest.

‘I only like horses when they’re in books,’ said Pauline and backed away.

But Stefan now was staring at the door of the hut.

‘I think the padlock’s been—’ He broke off. ‘My God! Look!’

He had pushed open the door. On the floor, wrapped in the old grey blanket, and fast asleep, lay a completely unknown boy.

Three hours later, the compound behind the professors’ house, which Ellie and Sigrid kept so tidy, looked like a junk yard. An old wardrobe, a washstand, a mangle and several portraits of the professors’ grandparents in oils were stacked beside the wall, and on the blue bench where the servants liked to sit were the little Bodek boys, their eyes on the door of the shed, which had been turned back into a stable. The lady in the paper shop was there too, ready with advice because she had grown up on a farm, and looking placidly over the half-door was Rocco, chewing a carrot.

But Zed was in Annika’s bed in the attic, lost to the world.

‘He’s come from Annika,’ Pauline had said excitedly, running into Ellie’s kitchen.

‘He’s got something to tell us; he’s ridden all the way from Spittal.’

Ellie had gone out and looked carefully at the boy standing in the yard, holding on to his horse. He was grey with exhaustion, and so thin that his cheekbones seemed to cut into the skin.

‘Is Annika hurt?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Or ill?’

Zed shook his head.

‘Well, then, you’ll let Stefan look after the horse; his uncle’s a blacksmith, he knows what to do. As for you, you’ll go straight in the bath while I get you some breakfast. Drop your clothes on the floor. Frau Bodek will find something for you to wear; her eldest is about your size. And then into bed.’

‘But I have to—’

‘You don’t have to do anything,’ said Ellie, ‘except do as you’re told.’

So now Zed slept, and the household waited.

It was late afternoon before he woke. Clean clothes lay on the chair beside his bed. He got up and looked out of the window at the view Annika had described to him – and suddenly he was glad that he had come to Vienna. They would not believe him when he told his story – no one would believe him – but he was glad that he had come.

First though he had to see to his horse.

He hurried down and into the yard. As soon as Rocco saw him he went into his ‘Where have you been?’ routine, whinnying, butting Zed with his head, stamping his hoofs . . . But the show he put on as a deserted horse was not convincing. A piece of apple hung out of his mouth; Stefan’s uncle had brought straw for bedding; there were oats in his manger . . . and on the blue bench sat the Bodek boys, holding the fresh supply of carrots they had begged from Ellie in case he was overcome by hunger.

And now everyone was gathered round the kitchen table, waiting to hear Zed’s story: Ellie and Sigrid, Stefan and Pauline – and the professors, who had suggested that they come downstairs, knowing how much Ellie hated the drawing room.

‘I don’t know if you’ll believe me,’ Zed began. ‘Probably not, but what I’m telling you is the truth.

‘When Annika came to Spittal everything was run down, the farm and the house . . . everything. There were holes in the roof, the servants had been laid off, the food was awful. The very first day I met Annika she was eating mangel-wurzels.’

Ellie made a shocked noise, but Zed went on.

‘Annika thought that perhaps that was the way the aristocracy lived – toughening themselves up, not lighting fires, eating turnip jam.’

Another exclamation of horror from Ellie. ‘You can’t make proper jam from turnips,’ she said, but Professor Julius gave her a stern look and she fell silent.

‘I knew what was the matter,’ Zed went on. ‘Frau Edeltraut’s husband was a gambler and there was absolutely no money left, but nobody explained this to Annika and it wasn’t for me to tell her. Her mother didn’t want Annika to get mixed up with the servants, but Annika likes to be busy and she came down to the farm to help me, and we became friends. And then Frau Edeltraut and her brother-in-law and her sister went off to Switzerland. They went on urgent business, they said – and when they came back everything was different.’

‘In what way?’ asked Professor Emil.

‘Well, they were all wearing new clothes and they seemed to be in a very good mood and they’d brought presents. Expensive presents except for Annika’s. She got galoshes that were too small for her,’ said Zed, scowling for a moment as he remembered this. ‘And then they started engaging servants and mending the roof and Hermann – Annika’s brother – was got ready to go to a cadet school where the fees cost a fortune. And Frau Edeltraut told Annika that her godfather, who lived in Switzerland, had died and left her all his money. A lot of money. She said he was called Herr von Grotius and they had gone to Zurich to give him a proper funeral.

‘I’d never heard anyone speak of him, but I didn’t think too much about it till the Egghart girl came and attacked Annika and accused her of stealing her great-aunt’s trunk.’

‘Loremarie attacked Annika?’

No one had heard this. The Eggharts were still away.

‘Where was that?’

‘At Bad Haxenfeld. She didn’t attack her exactly, but she accused her in a coffee shop and Annika was very upset because she didn’t know anything about it. And Annika’s mother said no one at Spittal knew anything about a trunk and she defended Annika, and the Eggharts slunk off. But then . . .’

Zed had fallen silent, wondering again if anyone would believe the next part of the story. Why should they believe a boy they knew nothing about?

‘Has Annika said anything about a dog . . . about Hector?’ he went on.

Pauline nodded. ‘He had an accident when he was a puppy and he has a leg missing. She likes him a lot.’

‘Well, we were walking with the dog along the lake, Annika and I . . . and suddenly Hector pounced on a leather box, and inside was a photograph of the old lady that Annika used to read to before she died. The Eggharts’ great-aunt. Annika had seen it before and she knew it was from the trunk and she was very upset because she had told Loremarie that the trunk hadn’t got to Spittal. And I think it upset her altogether, remembering, because she was really fond of the great-aunt. La Rondine, she called her. It means a swallow and—’

‘Yes.’ Everyone round the kitchen table was nodding. ‘She talked about her a lot. She thought she could stop her dying,’ said Sigrid.

‘Go on with your story,’ said Professor Julius.

‘Well, we thought it must mean that the trunk had arrived at Spittal after all and someone had thrown it into the lake. But it didn’t make sense. I asked Annika to tell me what had been in it, and it didn’t seem to be anything that mattered except to the old lady. And to Annika because she’d loved her. But I’d been uneasy about . . . everything really – and I told Annika not to say anything to her mother, and I would see what I could find out. But it was no good telling Annika not to tell things to her mother. She worships her,’ said Zed, and heard Ellie give an enormous sigh. ‘She did tell her and the next thing was that Frau Edeltraut and her brother-in-law came down late at night and said they’d made enquiries and the people at the station had sworn that I’d collected the trunk, and they were going to call the police and have me arrested.’