Eva Ibbotson - A Song For Summer

He broke off, ashamed. They walked on for another hour and came to a clearing. Piles of felled timber were being pushed down a wooden chute towards the water, steadied by men in dark hats and sideburns wielding their long spiked poles. More men, calling to each other in Yiddish, were balancing on the logs already in the river, getting ready to surround the floating island with a ring of chains. A raft with an open-sided lean-to on the deck was moored by the pontoon bridge; inside they could see piles of sacking and a crate of chickens.

“That’s where you’ll sleep,” said Marek, grinning. “But don’t worry-the chickens won’t trouble you for long; they’re the larder.”

On a slight rise, commanding a view of the river in both directions was a neat wooden hut surrounded by a fence, the only permanent structure in this floating world. Uri, the overseer, was old and had laid claim to a piece of Polish earth. There were sunflowers in the tiny garden and a plot of vegetables. He had been married once and came here between journeys.

He was waiting, sitting on a wooden bench. Marek’s greeting was in Polish-neither he nor Isaac spoke more than a few words of Yiddish.

“I thought you wouldn’t come,” said Uri. “There were troubles,” said Marek.

“Yes. There are always troubles. So this is the man.”

“Yes.”

Uri nodded. He had blue eyes, unexpected in the dark bearded face. Isaac stood before him with bowed head. Alienated, grateful and apprehensive, he said: “I have only the ordinary words. Thank you.”

He spoke in German but Uri understood. “It is enough.” He pointed down to the bustle of the river. “We leave in the morning; there’s another load coming down, still.”

“You’ve a fine team,” said Marek, looking with admiration at the men freeing a log jam that had built up round the end of the raft. To make the journey which so appalled Isaac had been Marek’s dream since childhood.

“Yes. They’ll be knocking off soon; the light’s going.”

He led them into the hut; there was a table spread with newspaper, a few chairs, a bunk bed. On the walls were hooks for coats, lanterns; on a shelf, lay something wrapped in a shawl from which Isaac averted his eyes.

Uri went to a ramshackle cupboard and took out a grimy vodka bottle and three glasses which he filled almost to the brim.

“Lechaim!” he said, and they raised their glasses and repeated the age-old Hebrew toast: “To Life!”

The men came up later when they had washed and said their prayers. Marek had brought what he could carry: smoked sausage, tobacco, a few small gifts… Another bottle of vodka was produced; they drank it neat with pepper. When they talked it was in Yiddish with a smattering of Polish, a few words of German, but they did not talk much; they ate and drank and watched their protege’ and the man who had brought him.

But when the level in the bottle had sunk almost to nothing, Uri rose and went to the shelf at the back and fetched something wrapped in a piece of coloured cloth.

“Do you play?”’ he asked Isaac, carefully unwrapping the violin.

Marek watched with narrowed eyes. He had told the old man nothing about Isaac; only that he was a Jew and a fugitive.

Isaac pushed back his chair, trying to distance himself from the object on the table.

“No,” he said violently. “No, I do not play.”

There was a murmur of disappointment. Uri spread out his fingers, bent with rheumatism, to show why he could no longer make music.

And suddenly Marek was filled with rage. He got up, towering over Isaac, and the words he spoke were spat at him as to an enemy.

“How dare you!” he said to the man who was his dearest friend. “How dare you be so arrogant-so mean and ungiving. They’re risking their lives for you and you’re too small-minded to play for them.”

Isaac was dumbfounded, cringing in his chair. “I told you… I can’t… my hands…”

“I’m not interested in your hands. No one is interested in them. Dear God, I’m not asking you to give a concert performance. These people are tired-they want a fiddler. A fiddler on the roof as your people have always had-but I suppose you’re too grand for that.”

Isaac had grown white with shock. Marek’s contempt had never been turned against him before. The men were silent, not understanding.

“Oh go to hell,” said Marek, turning away.

But Isaac had picked up the violin… the bow… he was testing the strings. An old country fiddle, but lovingly cared for. He put it to his chin; began to tune it.

Then again he lost heart, put it down. But now it was too late; the men were watching him; he saw the hunger in their eyes. He could not speak to them, he knew nothing of their religion.

But he knew their music.

He did not even know that he knew it till he began. What grandmother, what ancient retainer in some shetl had hummed the lullaby he played now? Where did it come from, the lilting wedding song that followed? Isaac’s fingers found the old dances, the old serenades… they found the music that the Zigeuners had borrowed from the Jews, and altered, and given back again… and the melodies crooned beside the wagons that made their way west across the steppes, fleeing from pogroms…

His fingers were stiff but it didn’t matter; the vodka had helped, and Marek’s rage.

When he stopped at last they didn’t thank him or clap. They blinked themselves back into the world and sighed-and one man, toothless and scarred, leant forward and touched him for a moment on the arm.

“Wait,” said Isaac. “I’ll play you one more tune. A new one.”

Uri translated; the men settled themselves again. But after he had retuned the fiddle, Isaac didn’t start at once. He went to the door and opened it wide to the starry night.

The men were puzzled. They had enough fresh air in their lives; the whine of the mosquitoes, the cry of a forest animal in pain filled the room.

But Isaac wanted the river. He wanted to look out on it as Marek had looked out at the Hudson all that time ago.

Then he began to play.

The villa which Count Stallenbach’s cousin had put at Brigitta’s disposal was sufficiently comfortable for the diva and her party to spend another week by the Wörthersee even after the search for Marcus had ended in failure.

Now however their return to Vienna could not be put off any longer. Leaning back on the cushions of the first-class compartment, Brigitta surveyed the rehearsals which awaited her with deep foreboding. They had given her the Hamburg beanpole for her Octavian, the répétiteur was new and inexperienced, and her deadly rival was already spreading slanders about the state of Brigitta’s voice.

But the real disaster was Feuerbach. Attempts to get the regular conductor of the Philharmonic to return from his summer engagements abroad had failed, and she was supposed to work with an opinionated upstart who wasn’t fit to have charge of a band of superannuated dustmen.

Staub, sitting beside her, was regretting the failure of their quest. He had worked on his libretto solidly… had framed the story of burning Troy in the words of the soldier in the wooden horse returning home and trying to get someone to listen to him. A sort of Ancient Mariner whom no one heeded, except one small boy. Altenburg would have loved it, he was sure.

Benny as usual was doing his sums. He would stay for the gala and then leave for the States. Brigitta on her own was no use to him; maybe he could get her a short tour as a Lieder singer next year but that was the extent of it.

“All change next stop. All change at St Polzen,” said the guard, coming down the corridor. Why this obscure town had been chosen as an important railway junction, no one had ever discovered; certainly it wasn’t for the facilities it offered to travellers.