‘It’s a perfectly ridiculous idea,’ she’d said to Bennet, when he told her of FitzAllan’s determination to show the children a proper slaughterhouse. ‘A man who eats nothing but nut cutlets wanting to expose them to all that.’
Bennet agreed. ‘I told him in any case that hiring a bus would be far too expensive.’
But here he had been undermined by Herr Tauber, who was married to Lieselotte’s aunt and had come to work in the grounds after Marek left. The beneficial mafia operated by Lieselotte’s relatives was growing, and Herr Tauber now offered his bus for the price of the petrol only, if it would help the school.
Even so, the headmaster would not have given his consent, but to his amazement a number of the children – apparently led by the tender-hearted Flix – came to him and said they wanted to go.
‘It would help us in understanding our parts in the play,’ they said, echoing what had seemed to be FitzAllan’s idiocy.
So it was agreed and then of course just before they were due to go, FitzAllan succumbed to a frightful migraine – or so he said.
Ellen had not intended to pull FitzAllan’s irons out of the fire for him but for some reason the children had been very disappointed at the idea of cancelling the trip – and the truth was that she herself felt guilty about her reluctance to visit the Carinthian Municipal Abattoir. She was after all not a vegetarian – quite the contrary: her Boeuf en Daube had won first prize at the Lucy Hatton School of Household Management – yet she had never seen how the wretched beasts she cooked so readily were dispatched.
So she had agreed to go and now was bitterly regretting it.
They had passed Klagenfurt and the sanatorium where Chomsky still lay surrounded by devoted relatives. The last time Ellen had visited him they were debating whether to take Laszlo off to a spa to recuperate and had asked her if she would like to accompany him on the journey as his nurse.
If only she could trust Isaac to be sensible. She had left him with Lieselotte, determined to venture into Kartoffelpuffer, but he had begun to give up hope of Marek and was talking about getting away on his own.
Sophie, sitting in the row in front, turned around.
‘Have you got a sick bag, Ellen?’ she asked, and Ellen handed her the last one in her basket.
What was the matter with everyone?
As so often with Sophie, she was trying to reconcile her warring sides. In England she read school-girl stories in which sneaking and telling tales was the worst thing that could be done, but in Vienna with her father, it was breaking the law that was unforgivable. What if they caused Ellen to be put in prison? They didn’t put children in prison but they put them in awful places – Borstal and worse. Should she tell Ellen what was hidden in Flix’s basket beneath the picnic food and her rolled-up raincoat, or in Frank’s? All of them had pliers and wire cutters but Flix and Frank had great files, and a handsaw.
Flix had planned it all. She was going to release the Judas sheep and shoo it away into the forest. ‘Then the other sheep will follow,’ she’d said, ‘and while the men are chasing them the rest of you can free the animals in the trucks and in the pens.’
Sophie had wanted to help – one simply had to after FitzAllan had explained about the way the steers were stunned and had their throats cut while their hearts were still beating because that way the blood drained away better, as though animals were a kind of sewage. But she couldn’t help wondering if it was going to be as simple as that: the stampeding beasts, the furious men, the blood . . . Oh God, what shall I do? thought Sophie, and was angry with Ursula, who had said from the start that it was silly and wouldn’t work. She’d come along, but she wouldn’t help in any way and she seemed to be the only person who wasn’t feeling ill.
Another child put up his hand.
‘Herr Tauber, I think we’d better have a break,’ said Ellen. ‘Do you know a suitable place to stop?’
He nodded. ‘There’s a garage at the bottom of the hill with a place to park. They have a fruit stall and toilets.’
‘Then we’ll pull in there if you’ll be so kind.’
They drove into the forecourt.
‘You can all get out and stretch your legs,’ said Ellen. ‘But five minutes only – we have to get on. Anyone who wants to go to the toilets –’
But the children, for once, were not heeding her. Leon had given a shout and tumbled down the steps, Sophie followed and then all of them were rushing headlong towards the petrol pump in the far corner, where a tall man was standing talking to the attendant.
Marek was not pleased to see them come. He had finished with the school, and the events of last week had shown him how important it was that he involved no one in his concerns. But as more and more children ran towards him, he found himself smiling at their affection and enthusiasm.
‘Where are you off to?’ he asked, and they told him, excitedly, confusedly. Something fell from Frank’s pocket and the boy picked it up quickly but not before Marek had seen what it was.
‘Ellen’s taking us,’ said Sophie, and the worried look returned to her face. ‘It was meant to be FitzAllan but now it’s her.’
Marek looked across at the bus and saw Ellen standing on the steps. He had forgotten the way her hair fell asymetrically, more of it to the left side of her face. Remembering how she had yelled at him the last time he saw her, he waited – but she came down and walked towards him and said, ‘Could I speak to you alone? Just for a moment?’
‘Of course.’
He shooed away the children and together they walked to where they could not be overheard.
Then: ‘I have him,’ she said very quietly. ‘I have your friend.’
Marek gave a half shake of the head. Her words made no sense to him.
‘I have Meierwitz,’ she repeated. ‘He’s with me, working in the kitchen.’
But the transition was too sudden. He had left Isaac in his mind, shot down in the forest; he could not believe her.
‘I left him with Lieselotte. She’s teaching him to make Kartoffelpuffer.’
The Kartoffelpuffer achieved what her assurance had been unable to do – no one invented that unnecessary way of dealing with potatoes – and now at last Marek heard her words and believed her, and understood that the impossible had happened and his friend was safe.
‘Oh, Ellen,’ he said.
Then he took a step towards her and, uncaring of the watching children, took her in his arms.
FitzAllan lay back on the pillows and covered his forehead with a languid hand. He had drawn the curtains, but enough light came through to hurt his eyes whenever he opened them. The purple zigzag stage of his migraine had passed but his head ached unbearably and he felt sick.
It was the strain, of course: the strain of pitting his will against the staff and children who baulked him at every turn as he tried to put into practice his ideas. Strain always brought on one of his attacks, and Tamara’s tantrum when he had felt compelled to shorten her ballet once again had made him worse.
But at least he had prevailed in the matter of the slaughter-house visit. Bennet had opposed him – everyone had opposed him, but he had won. Even now the children were being shown around the Carinthian Municipal Abattoir and perhaps that would get them to give some decent performances.
The castle was wonderfully quiet. They wouldn’t be back till the evening and if he could get some sleep now he might be fit for work again tomorrow. He drifted off in a day dream of acclaim in which theatre producers congratulated him on what he had achieved with inferior material, and offered him work in Paris, London and New York. ‘The risks you took were entirely justified,’ they said.
He was woken by a door slamming; the sound of excitable voices. The corridors had filled once more with children. It must be the ones who had not gone on the trip – the bus couldn’t possibly have returned yet. But he thought he heard Frank shouting, and then Bruno . . . and both of them had signed on to go.
Flinching as he turned on the bedside li
ght, FitzAllan looked at his watch. Half past five. They must have run round the slaughterhouse in record time. There was a brief knock at the door, and Ellen entered.
Even in his feeble condition, FitzAllan noticed that she looked cheerful. She looked, in point of fact, radiant, and the director, who did not like her, felt unaccountably nervous.
‘I’ve brought you a present!’ she announced. ‘Shut your eyes and put out your hand.’
‘I can hardly bear not to shut them,’ said FitzAllan in a failing voice. But he put out his hand and felt a small, softish object placed in his palm.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a boa constrictor,’ said Ellen tenderly.
In spite of himself he gave a scream and dropped it, and Ellen reproachfully put it back in his fingers. ‘I’ll open the curtains so you can see it properly. It’s made of marzipan.’
‘No!’
‘Well, I’ll describe it to you. I don’t know if it’s authentic – I think Herr Fischer hasn’t seen a real one, but it’s better than authentic. It’s curled round on itself and has green zigzags and yellow diamonds and you can see its split tongue as clear as anything. All of us bought marzipan animals in Klagenfurt from Herr Fischer’s shop. Marek gave every single child some money to do it and it’s really interesting what they chose. Sophie has a crocodile and Leon chose a snail – not at all what I’d have expected, and –’
‘Wait. Why did you go to the patisserie in Klagenfurt? I don’t understand.’
‘Well, after Marek told us that the slaughterhouse was closed because of foot and mouth disease –’
‘What!’ FitzAllan forgot his migraine, sat bolt upright and groaned. ‘But that’s nonsense. I checked it yesterday.’
‘Oh, it only happened this morning. Marek came from there – he brought Professor Steiner back and they went right past it and there were huge notices saying CLOSED. I assure you,’ said Ellen sweetly, ‘that it’s true.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Well, you can ask Marek.’
And if I hadn’t been going on your stupid trip I might have missed him, thought Ellen, and smiled at FitzAllan with ineffable joy. He would have dropped Steiner and gone away again and I wouldn’t have seen him and he wouldn’t have hugged me and thanked me for saving his friend and Isaac wouldn’t be hopping up and down now in Chomsky’s room. ‘I must go and serve supper,’ she said, ‘though I doubt if anyone will eat very much. It was a sort of party we had after Marek told us we couldn’t go, oh it was lovely – and so interesting! I think if I was Professor Freud I wouldn’t waste so much time finding out what people had seen their parents do and about incest and all that – I’d take them to Herr Fischer’s shop and see what they chose. You wouldn’t believe it but Frank didn’t pick an animal at all – he chose a conker. Just an ordinary brown marzipan chestnut – there was a tree in his mother’s garden, he said, when he was small! And Sophie ate her crocodile then and there in two big bites; I was really encouraged – I think she may be getting just a little bit tough inside.’
At the door she paused and smiled once more at the patently uninterested invalid. ‘If you want to know what animal I bought,’ she said dreamily, ‘I didn’t buy anything. I already have one, you see. I have a ladybird!’
The shutters were closed tight over the windows of Steiner’s little house. The boat in which Ellen and Isaac had rowed across was hidden in the Professor’s boat-house. The night was dark and moonless; hardly a ripple stirred the water.
Ellen had intended to let Isaac go alone; the reunion between him and Marek was something she thought should be conducted in privacy, but Isaac was not interested in privacy. He wanted her to come to Steiner’s house; he wanted her to come everywhere with him always. So Ellen had busied herself checking the dressing on the Professor’s wound and making coffee in the little kitchen while Isaac and Marek exchanged their memories of that frightful night. Now, over a glass of cognac, the map spread out on the table, they were discussing the next stage: Isaac’s escape from Central Europe.
‘The river line is still intact,’ said Marek. ‘Uri goes down once a week with the logs; he’ll take you. But how to get you into Poland? We can’t use the van any more, Franz is dead and they’ve doubled the guards. We’ll have to go properly armed this time and –’
‘Well I think that’s completely silly,’ said Ellen.
‘Oh you do?’ said Marek. ‘You’ve a better idea, I suppose?’
‘Yes. It’s what I was going to do if you’d turned out to be dead,’ she said.
‘Well I’m not dead, so take that wistful note out of your voice.’ And then reluctantly: ‘All right then; how were you going to get Isaac into Poland?’
‘In a train. In a first-class sleeper. A wagon-lit, preferably with Lalique panels and Art Nouveau lamps, because I’m interested in Secessionist architecture,’ she said primly. ‘He wouldn’t be able to go to the dining car, because being a serious mental case he would have to stay in bed, but I would, because nurses are allowed to eat – and they do quail’s eggs in aspic on the Warsaw Express, I’ve heard, and I’ve never tried them.’
They all stared at her. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Chomsky,’ said Ellen. ‘That’s what I’m talking about. They were thinking of taking him to a spa to recuperate. There’s one there in Poland.’ She pointed to a place near a bend on the Vistula river. ‘They offered me the chance to accompany him as a sort of nurse and it so happens that I have his passport, so why shouldn’t Isaac go instead? Could you get the photo changed?’
‘Not in a hurry. The man who did the forgeries is the one they caught.’
‘Well, it might not matter – Isaac’s the same age as Chomsky, and it would be night time and he’d have his head bandaged.’
‘It’s still a risk,’ said Marek. ‘And not one that you will take. Get his passport and give it to me and –’
‘No,’ said Ellen. ‘I won’t. You can come along and start shooting people or hanging them out of windows if things go wrong but I’m going to be Isaac’s nurse.’
‘I would like her to be my nurse,’ said Isaac – and Marek turned on him angrily.
‘Be quiet, Isaac. This isn’t a joking matter. I’m sorry, Ellen, but I absolutely will not allow you to become involved any further. I shall always be in your debt but –’
‘Allow!’ said Ellen, putting down her glass. ‘Allow? How dare you speak to me like that? I nearly turned Isaac over to the police because you didn’t trust me enough to tell me what you’re doing.’
‘Ellen, this is no job for –’
‘Don’t!’ She turned on him furiously. ‘Just don’t dare to say this is no job for a woman. My mother and my aunts didn’t get kicked by police horses and thrown to the ground for you to go round treating me as an imbecile. Furthermore if war comes no one will bother to distinguish between men and women. Ask the women of Guernica whether anyone cared what sex they were when they bombed the market place. Getting Isaac out is part of fighting Hitler and I won’t be left out of it.’
She broke off and they turned to look at Steiner. The old man was leaning back in his chair and laughing at some personal and highly amusing joke.
‘Wonderful!’ he said. ‘Milenka would be delighted. You should really take her to Pettovice, Marek. She and Ellen are sisters under the skin.’
Marek frowned, remembering his first sight of Ellen at the well and how he had thought that one day he might do just that.
‘Don’t you see how unbearable it is for me to put you into danger?’ he said in a low voice.
But she gave no quarter. ‘Don’t you see how unbearable it is for me not to be allowed to help?’ she answered. ‘Isaac and I are friends.’
Friends? thought Marek, caught by the passion in her voice. Or something more? He had seen how Isaac followed her with his eyes.
He picked up his glass, drained it and smiled at her. Then: ‘Since you seem to be an expert on Chomsky’s passport, di
d you happen to see what he put under Distinguishing Characteristics?’
She beamed back at him. ‘My Hungarian’s not very good but I did look and he hasn’t mentioned it. Which is just as well. Not that Isaac will be travelling in his swimming things, but all the same . . .’
Isaac turned over in his bunk and gazed, from under the huge bandage which covered his head, at Ellen. The soft light of the luxurious sleeping compartment shone on her fluted cap, her snowy apron. She looked like a nurse specially lowered from heaven for his benefit and he did not know how he could bear to leave her.
‘You’re being angelic, again,’ he said.
‘Hush. You’re supposed to be asleep.’
Everything had gone smoothly. Marek had hired an ambulance and booked the sleeper. He himself had driven them to the station wearing a Red Cross armband, and they had settled Isaac into his quarantined compartment. Then Marek had driven the ambulance away, and returned dressed in his own clothes with his pigskin suitcase and his passport which stated truthfully that he was Marcus Altenburg, a musician. If asked he would have said that he was travelling to a music festival in Warsaw, but he was not asked.
Ellen could see him now, standing in the corridor unobtrusively keeping watch. He had booked a first-class compartment next to Isaac’s and hers, and seemed to have it to himself. After they left the train, he and Isaac would go on on foot and she would return to Hallendorf.
Isaac, wearing a spare pair of Chomsky’s pyjamas, lay back on the pillow. He was certain that he would be apprehended, either at the two checkpoints they faced on the train or as he reached the Baltic, and if they tried to send him back to Germany he had decided he would kill himself.
But meanwhile there was Ellen.
He put out a hand and she took it and held it. She could see his thoughts working across his face as clearly as if he had uttered them.
‘Ellen, if I get out. . .’
‘When.’
He managed a smile. ‘When. Why don’t we start a restaurant? I think I’d make quite a good chef.’
‘Maybe. But you’re a violinist.’