Мариус Габриэль - The Ocean Liner

‘For heaven’s sake, Masha!’

‘Yes. I think I was a little hysterical by then. I was only seventeen, remember. And in those days, one didn’t really know what could happen.’

‘He could have smashed your face.’

‘He just stared at me, as though I were some kind of strange insect. Then he demanded to know if I was not ashamed to be destroying the career of so promising a young officer. I asked what he meant. He said that Rudi would be dishonourably discharged for going out with a Jewish girl, and would never be trusted with any kind of authority as long as he lived. As for marriage, that was out of the question. It would not be legal. If I did not leave Rudi, he would be finished. He would never serve the Reich. He would be disgraced, perhaps even imprisoned. Then this man lit a cigarette and told me to make my choice, there and then.’

Rachel didn’t take her eyes off Masha. ‘What did you do?’

‘I walked home and I told my mother not to let Rudi in the house again. From then on, whenever he called, they said I wasn’t home. I could hear my mother crying on the doorstep. Rudi wrote letters, but I didn’t answer them, though I read them all before I burned them. For a long time he would stand outside the house the whole weekend, looking up at my window. I would try not to look at him through the curtains, because I didn’t want him to know I was there. But I couldn’t resist. He was all I wanted to see. He was—’ there was a catch in her voice. ‘He was everything to me.’

Rachel touched her hand gently. ‘My poor Masha.’

‘And then one weekend he stopped coming. His friends told me that his boat had been sent on manoeuvres in the Atlantic and that he would be gone for several months. I don’t know if it was true or not. In any case, I never saw him again.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Masha wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘Isn’t that a very silly, pointless story?’

‘It’s a Berlin story.’

‘You know the Franz Lehar song? In the magic glimmer of the silver light, it was nothing but a dream of happiness .’

‘Perhaps you will come across him again one day.’

‘I don’t think that is very likely, do you? By now, of course, he has been called up to fight. Perhaps he will die. Perhaps his submarine has already been sunk by the British. He may be at the bottom of the ocean. Or in another girl’s arms. Who knows? He’s not mine any more and I shouldn’t care. The whole thing seems now like something I saw in the theatre, or in a dream. How much changed in Germany over the last three years, Rachel. Everything went dark as fast as night coming on a winter’s evening.’

‘Yes,’ Rachel said quietly, ‘it did.’

‘You are very sympathetic,’ Masha said. She put her hand almost timidly on her cousin’s and looked into her rather angular face. ‘I wish I’d known you better, earlier.’

Rachel looked down at the delicate hand that was laid over hers. Slowly, she covered it with her own. ‘I wish that, too.’

‘We should have been friends a long time ago.’

‘Well…’ Rachel didn’t continue. Despite much in common – youth, music, culture – the two girls had been kept apart by their families. Or rather, Masha knew that Rachel had been kept away from her, on account of the mysterious ‘danger’ that had never quite been explained. And though Rachel could certainly be sarcastic, Masha was very glad of her company now. She did not think she could have faced this momentous voyage alone.

They sat in silence for a while, each lost in her own thoughts. Then the sound of the dinner gong, being beaten by a steward along the corridor outside, roused them.

‘Come on,’ Rachel said, withdrawing her hand and patting her cousin’s shoulder, ‘let’s see what jokes the chefs have played on us tonight.’

Stravinsky had slept as he always did these days, fitfully and disturbed by dreams of death from which he awoke filled with a pervasive sense of dread. He stood at the washstand, fastening his bow tie with the aid of the mirror there. His fingers shook slightly. His own face stared back at him, pasty, reptilian. He was still a sick man, whatever lies the doctors told him.

The German boy was dressing, too. He had an unexpected gift for silence, the German boy. He hadn’t made a sound while Stravinsky slept. Perhaps they taught them that in the Hitler Youth: knowing when to keep your mouth shut. He’d been afraid that the boy would be a nuisance, but to the contrary, he was as unobtrusive as the best sort of servant; and like the best sort of servant, apparently eager to wait on Stravinsky hand and foot. Perhaps they taught them that, too, in the Hitler Youth. He had been brushing his own blazer carefully and now, without asking or being asked, he began to brush Stravinsky’s dinner jacket.

‘That’s very kind,’ Stravinsky said, watching the boy in the mirror, past his own haunted reflection. ‘You are a thoughtful boy.’

‘Do you have children of your own?’ the boy asked.

Stravinsky concentrated on his bow tie. ‘I had two sons and two daughters. One of my daughters is dead, now.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Ludmila.’

‘Was it a long time ago?’

‘A year ago.’

The boy considered. ‘Was she sick?’

‘We were all sick. My wife, my daughter and I.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He inspected Stravinsky’s dinner jacket minutely for specks of dust. ‘Did your wife die, too?’

‘Yes. My wife died, too. She died a few months after my daughter. Now I am alone.’

‘What did she die of?’

‘Enough questions, Thomas.’

The boy looked up quickly from his task. His eyes were a sharp, pale grey, his close-cropped hair white-blonde. Freckles were scattered across the long, fox-like nose. He was an absolute example of Aryan boyhood. ‘I ask too many questions,’ the boy said. ‘I was always told this. I apologise.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Stravinsky turned from the washstand. ‘You are very quiet while I sleep, for which I am grateful.’ The boy helped him on with his dinner jacket, straightening the sleeves and adjusting the lapels with his thin fingers. ‘How do I look?’

‘ Sehr ausgezeichnet .’

Stravinsky fitted a cigarette into the little ebony holder and lit it. The first lungful of smoke produced a racking bout of coughing. He tasted the salt in his mouth and spat dark clots of blood into the basin. The boy observed this but did not comment. ‘It was tuberculosis,’ he said at last, rinsing the crimson stains away. ‘We all had it. But you are safe. They say I am cured.’

‘I think you are dying.’

Stravinsky tried a second inhalation. ‘You are as silent as the grave for hours, Thomas, but when you do talk, you are damned direct.’ He coughed up more blood and spat into the basin. After a while, the coughing eased and he was able to endure the smoke in his lungs.

‘Have the doctors advised you to smoke?’ Thomas asked, frowning.

‘They’ve advised me very strongly not to smoke. But—’

‘But you don’t listen to them.’

‘I have a symphony to write.’

‘Do you need to smoke to write a symphony?’

‘It’s a symphony in C. The C stands for Cigarettes.’

‘Are you joking?’

‘Not at all.’ Stravinsky finished the cigarette and consulted his watch. ‘We mustn’t be late. We should go.’

‘I am ready.’

As they walked to Katharine’s cabin, Stravinsky had his hand on the boy’s shoulder for support. He felt weak and a little confused. The crowding of the ship was abominable. Everyone was in a fervour which would not abate, he supposed, until they had left France. Katharine was ready when they arrived, wearing a formal, dark-green gown which exposed her slim shoulders, of which she was rather proud.