Eva Ibbotson - A Song For Summer

“It doesn’t seem fair.”

“No. But what’s fair about life-turning a nice bloke like Isaac into an outcast because he’s got a nip in his foreskin.” She broke off. “Sorry, don’t mind me. But I can tell you, when I met Marcus at the station and he asked me if I’d be willing to make a bit of a diversion if it was needed so as to help Isaac get through, I was as pleased as Punch. And I’ll tell you though you haven’t asked: no, I didn’t do it with Marek, not on the train-not ever, in point of fact, though I’d have done it like a shot. It was strictly business.”

Ellen smiled at her, “I wish you’d stay longer, Millie. You’ll be so tired travelling back tonight.”

But Millie shook her head. “I have to go, Ellen, but if ever you come to Berlin…”

“Or you to London.”

There was a knock at the door and an elderly maid announced the arrival of the taxi for the station.

The girls embraced.

“Take care,” said Millie. And at the door: “Are you in love with Isaac?”’

Ellen shook her head. “No. I’m terribly fond of him, but—”’

“Oh that!” Millie waved a dismissive arm. “He’s got it badly over you.”

“It’s just because I found him and sheltered him.

As soon as he’s out in the world again he’ll forget me.”

“Maybe.” Millie put on her scarlet beret, adjusted the angle. “What’s funny is that I don’t see Marek trying to be a tree.”

The dining room of the Kalun Spa Hotel was a cavernous room whose heavy swagged curtains, dim chandeliers and dusty Turkish carpets gave off an air of sombre melancholy. It was as though here the authorities had finally given up hope of putting the town on the map of Great Spas of Europe, had accepted the fact that Queen Marie of Rumania or Alfonso of Spain would never now drink the evil waters of the pump room. The few diners already assembled were in the last stages of disintegration, sitting in wheelchairs or precariously propped on cushions with their walking frames beside them; the smell of hydrogen sulphide blotted out the odour of frying onions from the kitchens and the waiters were as ancient and arthritic as the guests.

Entering the dining room, Ellen saw Marek at a table by the window scribbling something in the large menu, bound in maroon leather, provided by the management. As she reached him, and he got to his feet, she realised that what he had been writing, between the announcements of liver broth with dumplings, boiled beef with noodles and other delights- was music; and for a moment she felt as though a door had been opened on his other life; a life from which she must always be excluded whatever he wrote on menus.

“Please don’t let me disturb you,” she said.

He shook his head, put away his propelling pencil. “It’s of no importance. I’ll finish later.”

“Like Mozart,” she said.

He grinned. “Oh, exactly like Mozart.”

“I mean he was supposed to write anywhere and not mind being disturbed.”

He shrugged. “It’s not so mysterious, you know, composing. If you were writing a letter and I came in, you wouldn’t fuss.” He pulled out a chair for her. “You look charming. Where did you get that delightful dress?”’

“I made it; the material comes from an old sari; it’s a Gujerati design.”

Marek raised his eyebrows. The workmanship of the short blue silk jacket, the swirling skirt with its stylised design of roses and stars and tiny birds, was remarkable. “I’m afraid you’re unsettling the old gentlemen. I can hear the crunch of vertebrae as they try to turn their heads.”

“Perhaps it’s you they’re looking at because you’re healthy and can get in and out of your dinner jacket by yourself. It makes one feel guilty, doesn’t it?”’

“Our turn will come,” said Marek. “And Isaac? Is he on his way?”’

She shook her head. “He got ambushed by the masseuses. I think the excitement of having someone with an otorhinolaryngological complaint went to their heads. They’re giving him a special supper in his room and weighing him and God knows what. I tried to persuade him to come down but he saw two people he thought were policemen in the corridor. I’m sure they were only fire engine inspectors, but I think the thought of tomorrow is making things hard. It must be so awful to start running again.”

“He’ll be all right, you’ll see. Let me pour you some champagne. The wine list was not encouraging but this is Dom Perignon, and it makes a very acceptable aperitif.”

They clinked glasses. “Water is for the feet,” she said obediently. And then: “Where does it come from, that toast?”’

“I got it from Stravinsky. He always says he conducts best with a couple of glasses of cognac inside him. Mind you, I could show you a place where water isn’t for the feet.”

“At Pettelsdorf.” It was not a question. “Yes. There’s a well in a field behind the orchard-it has the clearest and coldest water in Bohemia. The village girls go there after their wedding and draw a glass of it to take to their new husbands. It’s supposed to ensure a long and faithful marriage.”

Not only the village girls, he thought. Lenitschka had told him of his mother, making her way between the apple trees, shielding her glass, when the Captain brought her as a newlywed from Prague.

But their waiter had now managed to reach their table. He seemed to be in his early eighties; his grey face suffused with anxiety as he set down their plates of soup. Beneath the circles of congealing grease, they could make out a posse of liver dumplings, like the drowned heads of ancient ghouls.

“At least one doesn’t feel that Isaac is missing anything,” said Ellen. “I promised I’d go up later and see that he’s all right. A nurse shouldn’t abscond to the dining room like this.”

“I’m glad she has. I shouldn’t like to dine in this place alone.”

“I just want you to know that if Isaac can get himself to England my mother and my aunts will put him up till he finds his feet. Or sponsor him. I’ve written to them.”

“And they’ve agreed?”’

“I haven’t heard yet-I only wrote a few days ago. But you can rely on it.”

“A compliment-that you can speak for them so certainly.”

“Well, I can. It’s not being in need that’s the problem in Gowan Terrace. It’s not being in need.” She bent her head, frowning momentarily. She had still not answered Kendrick’s letter begging her to come to Vienna. And because Gowan Terrace made her think of her brave mother’s insistence on facing facts, she said: “Have you booked your passage yet?”’

“There’s a boat sailing from Genoa on the tenth. I’m trying to get a berth on that.” And then: “I’m running away.”

“That isn’t a thing you usually do, I imagine.”

“No. But the Americans were very good to me; there’s an orchestra there that I shall enjoy licking into shape-and once I’m there I can put pressure on my parents to join me.”

They had been talking German throughout the journey on account of Isaac, and without thinking he had continued to do so though they were alone. Now he thought how sweet and funny it sounded, this intelligent girl speaking so softly and fluently but with a trace of an accent that seemed to come less from England than from some Austrian country province that he could not place.

“You know, your German is amazing. You can’t have learnt it at college?”’

“No. I learnt it from my grandfather’s housekeeper. I wanted her to be my grandmother — she had to be. Talking to her was like entering another country, a country I needed.”

He nodded, remembering suddenly the words of a pedantic professor in Berlin. “Love is a matter of linguistics,” the old man had said. “It is completely different in French or German or Spanish… even in the dark, even when no words are spoken.”