The Star of Kazan

  Frau Edeltraut got Annika’s name from him and went away to think. A relative? A close relative. Why not a very close relative? Why not her mother? She was desperate enough to try anything.

  It was only then that she consulted Pumpelmann-Schlissenger, who was known to do ‘unusual’ jobs, and promised him a share of the fortune if he would help her to trace the details of Annika’s birth and adoption and provide her with the necessary papers.

  When she arrived at the professors’ house, two weeks later, it was as a woman who, against all odds, had found her long-lost child.

  It had been difficult to interest Annika in what was to happen to the money for the jewels which Frau von Tannenberg had not yet sold.

  She had started by saying that she didn’t want the money. ‘I don’t need it for anything,’ she had said. ‘And I don’t want to punish her. She may not have been my mother but I thought she was.’

  But Pauline said that that was nonsense. ‘You need it to pay for Stefan’s training as an engineer for a start.’

  They were all in the kitchen, as they so often were these days.

  ‘I wouldn’t take money from Annika,’ said Stefan.

  ‘Yes, you would. If it was a loan. And you need it to pay back Ellie’s savings,’ Pauline went on.

  ‘And there’s Professor Gertrude’s harp,’ said Stefan.

  ‘Isn’t there anything you want for yourself?’ asked Zed.

  Annika grinned and looked sideways at Ellie.

  ‘Maybe a mechanical egg-beater?’ she suggested.

  And waited while Ellie’s eyebrows drew together in a frown and she said, ‘Over my dead body.’

  All the same, it seemed as though Annika would get some money in the end whether she wanted it or not, because the Eggharts were now on the warpath. As the truth came out about Frau von Tannenberg’s activites, they were once again making it clear that the famous trunk had belonged to their great-aunt.

  ‘She was OUR great-aunt so it was OUR trunk,’ they pointed out in case anybody had not heard this yet.

  They also threatened to dispute the will on the grounds that the old lady had not been right in her head before she died.

  ‘One of the maids said she spoke about a rose garden in the sky,’ said Frau Egghart, ‘which shows she was wandering.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Pauline. ‘There is a rose garden in the sky above Merano. It’s a glacier, very high, which turns a rose colour in the evenings and that’s what they call it. It’s in the guidebook.’

  But the Eggharts were not easy to shake off.

  ‘If Annika won’t take the matter any further we will take steps ourselves. It is outrageous that the woman should get away with her crime,’ they told the professors.

  The professors felt the same, so in the end it was agreed that while Frau von Tannenberg should keep what she already had – ‘because of Spittal,’ said Annika. ‘It would be awful if everything fell down again’ – the rest of the jewels should be sold and the money divided between Annika and the Eggharts.

  Pauline of course thought this was monstrous, but it was the Eggharts who were going to consult the lawyers and brief them and take all the steps that would be necessary to keep the police out of the investigation, and everyone knew that if it was left to Annika she would do nothing. Annika was to get a small allowance each month and a lump sum for the loan to Stefan, and the rest would be put in a trust for her till she was twenty-one.

  ‘Actually,’ said Annika, ‘if there’s enough money in the end maybe we could buy the house in Merano with the weathervane shaped like a crowing cock and Ellie and Sigrid could live there when they’re old. All of us could. It would be nice to have a rose garden in the sky.’

  Found Day had come round again, and with it the Found Day treat.

  Annika knew exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to take everybody on the Giant Wheel in the Prater for a celebratory lunch high above the city.

  And there was something she wanted to do when she got up there, but she didn’t mention this to anyone in case it didn’t work, or people thought she was silly, or both.

  Everyone was to come who had been to see the Lipizzaners the year before, and of course Zed. The treat needed a lot of preparation because they had to rent the special carriage used for wedding parties, which was bright red and had a crown painted on the outside. Unlike the other carriages, which only had wooden benches and sealed windows, the wedding carriage was furnished with a long table screwed to the floor, benches covered in velvet, and velvet curtains – and it had one window, high up, which could be opened.

  By paying extra – by paying quite a lot of extra – the carriage could be stopped at the highest point – sometimes for a few moments, sometimes for much longer. If the full price was paid it would stay suspended at the highest point for a whole hour, and the other passengers had to wait down below. Stefan’s father had arranged everything for them.

  Annika and Ellie and Sigrid were up at dawn on the day, packing cold pheasant in aspic and ham strudels and salads of cucumber and radish. They piled chocolate mousse and vanilla puffs into boxes, and made lemonade, and wedged the professors’ champagne into a silver bucket filled with ice.

  And Annika bought two big bunches of summer flowers from the old flower seller in the square, because there could be no proper celebration without flowers on the table, and found two heavy vases that would not fall over as the wheel went up into the sky.

  They piled into three hansom cabs and drove to the Prater, and Stefan and Zed unloaded the hampers and then Annika and Ellie and Sigrid set the long table with a white damask cloth and put the flowers in the vases and slowly, very slowly, in regular jerks, the famous wheel rose up, and then up again, and up once more.

  The food on the table held steady, the professors walked from side to side pointing out places that mattered to them, and Annika remembered the last time she had been on the wheel by herself, and thought how fortunate she was to grow up in this place.

  At the highest point the carriage stopped with a little click and they hung suspended in space.

  Ellie, however, did not permit long sightseeing sessions.

  ‘The meal is ready,’ she said firmly, and at these important words the professors left the window and everybody seated themselves at the long table – and ate.

  But after the last of the chocolate mousse had been scraped from the dishes, and the last sip of wine had disappeared down the professors’ throats, Annika got to her feet.

  ‘There’s something I wanted to do when I was up here last time,’ she said. ‘Only I couldn’t. So I’m going to do it now. Would you please pass me the vases – both of them?’

  So Professor Gertrude pushed down the vase opposite her, and Zed pushed over the one which was next to him – and everybody watched as she took all the flowers out of both vases and patted the stems dry with her napkin.

  Then she gathered up the blooms and walked over to the side of the carriage with the one small, high-up window which could be opened – and asked Stefan to open it.

  ‘I think I can reach.’ she said. ‘Yes. Just. Could you hand me the flowers one by one please? I don’t want to knock anybody out.’

  So they passed her the flowers they had brought, and Annika stood on tiptoe and strewed them – the blue irises, the pink tulips, the marigolds and larkspur and zinnias, the delphiniums and the sweet-scented stock . . . strewed them and scattered them over the golden city which was her home once more.

  The wind had dropped; the flowers fell gently. Some swirled away on air currents to the city’s edge, but most fell down over the roofs and booths of the funfair, and the people who saw them looked up for a moment and then went back to their work as though this kind of thing was no more than they deserved. And one – a large red tulip – fell on the turf path of the Prater where Rocco had reared up to save the life of a small fat boy in a sailor suit.

  And it so happened that Fritzi, in the same sailor suit, was walking with hi
s mother and his sister in her pram, as he walked each afternoon along the path that he had walked along that day, when a large red tulip descended and fell at his feet.

  Fritzi had learned not to let go of his mother, but he picked the tulip up with his free hand and examined it.

  ‘Mine,’ he said – as he had said that day when he found the big red ball.

  But this time no thief came running towards him to deprive him of his spoils.

  Fritzi was pleased. There is a lot you can do with a tulip – fill the flower cup with sand, hold it aloft by the stem like a sword, put it over your shoulder like a rifle . . .

  ‘Mine,’ he said again, and his mother nodded, for it did not seem to her at all surprising that the heavens had opened and thrown a flower at the feet of her magnificent son.

  This, after all, was Vienna.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  HERMANN CHANGES HIS MIND

  Edeltraut was standing by the window of her drawing room, looking out at her estate. Though it was summer now, the lake was still grey; a cold wind rippled its surface.

  She was alone. Uncle Conrad was leaving Bad Haxenfeld, to follow the dentists to a newer, more fashionable spa in the south. The dentists had convinced him that the waters were hotter there, and smelt stronger, and the treatment was more up to date.

  At least that was what the Baron had told her, but she knew he was angry with her for having pretended that Annika was her daughter, for having deceived the family about Annika’s birth.

  Mathilde too was angry. She had been fond of Annika, she said. It was all right to ‘borrow’ the belongings of a true daughter, but not to pretend to have a daughter and take her away from those who loved her.

  Edeltraut thought this was nonsense. She had so nearly succeeded in her plan. If only she’d had that wretched dog put down when Hermann had first tied a firecracker to his tail . . . And if she’d succeeded, everyone would have grovelled at her feet.

  But it was no good thinking about the past. Only the future mattered now, and the future was Hermann and Spittal, and the great inheritance of the von Tannenbergs. There had always been von Tannenbergs at Spittal. Always. Since the first Ritter von Tannenberg had conquered this marshy corner of Norrland and built his great fortified house and dug his moats and put iron studs on his doors, there had been von Tannenbergs with their proud flag fluttering in the wind.

  And there always would be von Tannenbergs. Everything she had done, she had done for Hermann. In five years he would ride in at his gates, a fully commissioned officer, and she would hand him the keys of his kingdom. Lieutenant Hermann von Tannenberg, her son, Master of Spittal and its villages and forests and fields.

  And after Hermann would come his sons and his son’s sons – and then she could die content.

  She put on a shawl and went out of doors to stand on the terrace. The pike plopped in the water, the storks were wading in the ditch, picking off the last of the frogs. At least she had made the roof sound, and repaired the stonework. Spittal would be safe now for many years.

  She was still standing there, lost in her dream, when she heard a carriage turn into the courtyard and went to see who could be calling at this time of day.

  The carriage was unfamiliar but the letters on the side made her heart pound. St Xavier’s Military Academy for the Sons of the Nobility.

  The carriage stopped and two men in uniform got out: a captain with a weather-beaten face and the ribbon of the Iron Cross on his chest, and a young lieutenant who turned and spoke to someone huddled on the back seat.

  The huddled figure straightened itself and stepped out on to the cobbles.

  It was Hermann.

  Not in his St Xavier uniform with the cap and the swagger stick and the shiny boots . . . Hermann in a cloth jacket and trousers, with a woollen cap pulled over his forehead. He looked pale and ill, and when his mother went towards him, he turned away.

  ‘Hermann!’ she cried. ‘What has happened? Why are you here?’

  The boy did not answer, and she saw that he was trembling.

  ‘May we have a few words with you in private?’ said the captain.

  Frau Edeltraut led them into the drawing room. ‘What is it?’ she cried again. ‘Is he ill?’

  The captain bent his head. ‘Yes, you could say that. It would be the kindest way of putting it. We have had to expel him, Frau von Tannenberg. He is not suitable for St Xavier’s.’

  ‘Not suitable! What are you saying? He has thought of nothing but the army all his life.’

  ‘Nevertheless he is quite unsuited to army life. I’m afraid the boy is a coward and a weakling. There will be a report from the principal which we will send to you. But there are no circumstances under which we would allow him to return to St Xavier’s.’

  She went on anxiously questioning them, but they would say no more and left again without saying goodbye to Hermann.

  ‘I knew the Freiherr,’ said the captain as he climbed into the coach. ‘This would have been a sad day for him.’

  She found Hermann on the terrace, staring sightlessly at the lake.

  ‘Hermann, I can’t believe this. You wanted nothing except to be a soldier, all your life.’

  Hermann turned his head. There were dark circles under his eyes and he was very thin. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said.

  ‘But, Hermann . . . do you mean you want to stay at home and look after the estate? If you do, maybe we could—’

  ‘No, I don’t want to do that. I want to be a painter.’

  Edeltraut was completely at a loss. ‘You want to paint houses?’

  Hermann sighed. ‘No, Mother. I want to paint pictures. I want to go to Paris and study to be a great painter. Karl-Gottlieb is going to live there. You remember KarlGottlieb? He wrote and told me what kind of tooth mugs I had to bring to St Xavier’s. He was the only one who tried to help me.’ Hermann faltered, then went on in a low voice. ‘When I first came the other boys pushed me on to the ledge outside the dormitory window and shut me out. It was very narrow and very high up – three floors. You had to stand there all night and not make a sound. It was a test . . . an initiation. But after a few hours I got giddy and I was sure I was going to fall . . . and I called out and shouted, and a teacher came and let me in again. After that none of the boys would speak to me. Except for KarlGottlieb. Then he ran away. Even though his father’s a field marshal and very high up. When he’d gone they used to hang me from the hooks on the cloakroom wall and pretend to charge me with their bayonets.’ Hermann’s voice shook.

  Edeltraut tried to take this in. She had thought of anything except that her son would turn out to be a coward. ‘You’re being quite ridiculous, Hermann. No von Tannenberg has ever been a painter.’

  ‘Then I will be the first. Karl-Gottlieb has a sister who has a studio in Paris – she’s very modern – and she would help us. We think we could find some more people to join us and then we could become a famous group of artists.’

  ‘Hermann, you’re mad. There have always been von Tannenbergs at Spittal. Always.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But if you sold Spittal there would be enough money to pay for our painting lessons, and you could come and have a flat near us. We’d let you attend our exhibitions and everything.’

  Edletraut tried to gather herself together. ‘My poor boy, you have lost your reason. There have been von Tannenbergs at Spittal since—’

  Hermann put a hand on her arm. ‘I know, Mother,’ he said patiently, and she saw that a little colour had returned to his face. ‘I know there have always been von Tannenbergs at Spittal. But that doesn’t mean that there have to go on being von Tannenbergs at Spittal. You must see that. Karl-Gottlieb says there have been von Tannenbergs at Spittal for long enough, and I entirely agree with him.’

  Three weeks later, Annika came downstairs to find a letter from Gudrun, who wanted Annika to send her some more kerchiefs like the one she’d give her at Felsenheim and a snood for her hair.

  There has been a
terrible row here, she wrote. Hermann came home – he’s been expelled and he’s going to Paris and Aunt Edeltraut is going with him. She tried to make my father come too, but he said there was nothing to shoot in Paris except people so he’s staying with us. Mama won’t speak to Aunt Edeltraut ever again, she says, because of trying to take away her husband and also because she thought you really were her niece and she had got fond of you, though I can’t see how Aunt Edeltraut could have known that they gave her the wrong birth certificate.

  Spittal has been sold to a man who makes saucepans. He made Aunt Edeltraut sell him the family crest too, the one about ‘Stand Aside, Ye Vermin Who Oppose Us’, because there are people who pretend to make better saucepans than him and they are vermin, he said.

  He’s very rich and has a son who is a bit older than me. Of course I couldn’t ever marry anybody who is lowly born – at least I don’t think I could – but he is very handsome. I suppose you couldn’t send me a lace collar like the one you had on your brown velvet dress as well? We don’t seem to have any money for clothes again, but Papa says we won’t have to dig a bear pit, at least not yet.

  With best wishes,

  Gudrun.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  THE EMPEROR’S HORSE

  The arcaded palace of a prince, now the royal stables, was lit by pools of light from the gas lamps on the walls. From the chapel further down the road came the sound of the Vienna choirboys singing vespers.

  There was the smell of straw, of saddle soap . . .

  A lone dark horse was walking down the well-worn path towards the great double door, which opened now from the inside. The boy leading the horse walked steadily on, but just before he reached the door he turned and waved.

  The people clustered on the pavement waved back. They waved back hard. A row of little boys, silent for once because the occasion was so important. A girl with frizzy hair who was frowning because it had all become rather solemn and after all a horse is just a horse. A lady to whose long black skirt there clung the fragments of a buttered roll.