Jo Nesbo - The Redbreast

The head waiter cleared his throat. Helena realised that he had been unimpressed by Uriah's rank of Vizekorporal and was perhaps puzzled by the strange foreign name in the book.

'Your table is ready. Please follow me,' he said with a strained smile, picking up two menus on his way. The restaurant was packed.

'Here you are.'

Uriah smiled at Helena with resignation. They had been given an unlaid table beside the swing door into the kitchen.

'Your waiter will be with you in a moment,' the head waiter said and evaporated into thin air.

Helena looked around and began to chuckle.

'Look,' she said. 'That was our original table.'

Uriah turned. Absolutely right: in front of the orchestra a waiter was already clearing a table set for two.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I think I might have put Major before my name when I phoned to book. I was relying on your radiance to outshine my lack of rank.'

She took his hand and at that moment the orchestra struck up a merry Hungarian Csardas.

'They must be playing for us,' he said.

'Maybe they are.' She lowered her eyes. 'If not, it doesn't matter. They're playing gypsy music. It's wonderful when it's played by gypsies. Can you see any?'

He shook his head, his eyes intent on studying her face as if it were important he registered every feature, every crease of skin, every strand of hair.

'They've all gone,' she said. 'Jews, too. Do you think the rumours are true?'

'Which rumours?'

About the concentration camps.'

He shrugged.

'There are all sorts of rumours during war. As for myself, I would feel quite safe in Hitler's captivity.'

The orchestra began to play a song for three voices in a strange language. A couple of people in the audience sang along.

'What's that?' Uriah asked.

A Verbunkos? Helena said. A kind of soldiers' song, just like the Norwegian one you sang on the train. Songs to recruit young Hungarian men to the Rak6czi war of independence. What are you laughing at?'

At all the unusual things you know. Can you understand what they are singing too?'

A little. Stop laughing,' she sniggered. 'Beatrice is Hungarian, and she used to sing to me. It's all about forgotten heroes and ideals.'

'Forgotten.' He squeezed her hand. As this war will be one day.'

A waiter had arrived unobtrusively at their table and coughed discreedy to signal his presence.

'Meine Herrschaften, are you ready to order?'

'I think so,' Uriah said. 'What would you recommend today?'

'Hahnchen'.

'Chicken. Sounds good. Could you choose a good wine for us? Helena?'

Helena's eyes scanned the list.

'Why are there no prices?' she asked.

'War, Fraulein. They vary from day to day.'

And what does Hahnchen cost?'

'Fifty schillings.'

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Uriah blanch.

'Goulash soup,' she said. 'We have already eaten today, and I hear that your Hungarian dishes are very good. Wouldn't you like to try it too, Uriah? Two dinners in one day is not healthy.'

'I…,' Uriah began.

And a light wine,' Helena said.

'Two goulash soups and a light wine?' the waiter asked with a raised eyebrow.

'I'm sure you understand what I mean,' she gave him the menu and a beaming smile, 'waiter.'

She and Uriah held each other's gaze until the waiter had disappeared behind the kitchen door, then they began to giggle. 'You're crazy,' he laughed.

'Me? It wasn't me who booked Zu den drei Husaren with less than fifty schillings in my pocket!'

He pulled out a handkerchief and leaned across the table. 'Do you know what, Fraulein Lang?' he said while drying her tears of laughter. 'I love you. I really do.'

At that moment the air-raid siren sounded.

When Helena thought back to that evening she always had to ask herself how accurately she remembered it; whether the bombs fell as close as she recalled, whether everyone had turned round as they walked up the aisle in the Stephansdom. Even though their last night in Vienna remained veiled in unreality, on cold days it didn't stop her warming her heart on the memory. And she could think about the same tiny moment that summer's night and one day it would evoke laughter and the next tears, without her ever understanding why.

When the air-raid siren sounded, all other sounds died. For a second the whole restaurant seemed to be frozen in time, then the first curses resounded beneath the gilt vaulted ceiling.

'HundeP

'Scheifie! It's only eight o'clock.' Uriah shook his head.

'The English must be out of their minds,' he said. 'It's not even dark yet.'

The waiters instantly busied themselves at the tables while the head waiter shouted curt orders to the diners.

'Look,' Helena said. 'Soon this restaurant will be in ruins too and all they are interested in is getting customers to settle their bills before they run for cover.'

A man in a dark suit jumped up on to the podium where the orchestra was packing away its instruments.

'Listen!' he shouted. 'All those who have settled their bills are requested to make their way immediately to the nearest shelter, to the underground near Weihburggasse 20. Please be quiet and listen! Turn right when you leave and then walk two hundred metres. Look for the men with red armbands. They'll show you where to go. And stay calm. The planes won't be here for a while yet.'

At that moment they heard the boom of the first bombs falling. The man on the podium tried to say something else, but the voices and screams drowned him out. He gave up, crossed himself, jumped down and made for the shelter.

There was a rush for the exit where a crowd of terrified people had already gathered. A woman was standing in the cloakroom screaming, 'Mein Regenschirm!-my umbrella!' But the cloakroom attendants were nowhere to be seen. More booms, closer this time. Helena looked over at the abandoned table next to them where two half-full glasses of wine rattled against each other as the whole room vibrated in a loud two-part harmony. A couple of young women with a merry walrus-like man in tow were on their way towards the exit. His shirt had ridden up and a beatific smile played around his lips.

Within minutes the restaurant was deserted and an eery silence fell over the place. All they could hear was low sobs from the cloakroom, where the woman had stopped shouting for her umbrella and had rested her forehead on the counter. Half-eaten meals and open bottles were left on the white tablecloths. Uriah was still holding Helena's hand. A new boom made the chandeliers shake and the woman in the cloakroom came to and ran out screaming.

'Alone at last,' Uriah said.

The ground beneath them shook and a fine sprinkling of plaster from the gilt ceiling glittered in the air. Uriah stood up and held out his arm.

'Our best table has just become free, Fraulein. If you wouldn't mind…'

She took his arm, stood up and together they walked to the podium. She barely heard the whistling sound. The crash of the explosion that followed was deafening, the plaster from the walls turned into a sandstorm and the large windows giving on to Weihburggasse were blown in. The lights went out.

Uriah lit the candles in the candelabrum on the table, pulled the chair out for her, held up the folded napkin between thumb and first finger and flipped it open to lay it gently on her lap.

'Hahnchen und Pradikatwein?' he asked, discreedy brushing fragments of glass off the table, the dinner plates and her hair.

Perhaps it was the candles and the golden dust glittering in the air as dark fell outside, perhaps it was the cooling draught from the open windows giving them a breather from the hot Pannonian summer, or perhaps it was simply her own heart, whose blood seemed to be raging through her veins in an attempt to experience these moments more intensely. But she could remember music, and that was not possible as the orchestra had packed up and fled. Was she dreaming it, this music? It was only many years later, before she was about to give birth to a daughter, that she realised what it must have been. Over the new cradle the father of her child had hung a mobile with coloured glass marbles, and one evening she had run her hand through the mobile and had immediately recognised the sound. And knew where it came from. It was the crystal chandelier in Zu den drei Husaren which had played for them. The clear, delicate wind chimes of the chandelier as it swung to the pounding of the ground, and Uriah marching in and out of the kitchen with Salzburger Nockerl and three bottles of Heuriger wine from the cellar, where he had also found one of the chefs sitting in the corner with a bottle. The chef didn't move a muscle to prevent Uriah from taking provisions; on the contrary, he had inclined his head to show his approval when Uriah showed him which wine he had chosen.