Eva Ibbotson - A Song For Summer

“You’d think they could run a direct service to Vienna,” grumbled Brigitta, and stood by while the men took down her hat boxes, her make-up case, her furs and portmanteau. Ufra, who travelled third class with the dog, put on her coat.

The train slowed down… stopped. Ufra opened the carriage door and Puppchen leapt down, gave vent to a frenzy of barking, tugged the lead out of her hand and raced across the platform.

“For goodness sake-can’t you control the wretched animal,” scolded Brigitta, descending in her turn.

Her maid stood looking after the dog, now leaping up and down in front of a man sitting alone on a wooden bench.

“No,” said Ufra. “As a matter of fact, I can’t.”

Marek had travelled overnight from Warsaw. He had seen Isaac off down river and now had broken the journey at this junction where he had left his father’s car when he’d picked up the ambulance. He only had to go across the road, fetch the car and drive to Pettelsdorf to pick up his things and say goodbye to his family. He had already taken his leave of Steiner — and of Hallendorf.

But he was tired now that the adventure was over, and for a moment he sat down on a bench in the sun. There was a train to Hallendorf in twenty minutes-he could get on it and in three hours be there. Would she be serving supper at the hatch, her burnt curls hidden under her hygienic hat… or leading her modest girls into the lake? Closing his eyes, he let the memories come: Ellen garnering gym shoes that first morning… feeding Aniella on cornflowers… taking a splinter out of Sabine’s foot.

And then he was back in the sulphur-smelling garden at Kalun as she lifted her face for his kiss-and this now was not remembering, it was “being there”. During those moments as he held her in his arms he had wondered if at last he need no longer envy his parents; if he too had found the supreme simplicity of a total and committed love. Leading her back to her room afterwards, putting the key in the lock for her, he had begun to speak-and then the neighbouring door had opened and Isaac had appeared, tied up in some ridiculous medical corset, and as Ellen went forward to help him, the moment had passed.

Marek had not answered Isaac’s appeal by the river. He did not believe that self-sacrifice was a sound principle on which to base one’s life. And yet… As they had washed in the stream that first morning, Marek had seen the concentration camp mark branded on Isaac’s arm. Was something special owed perhaps to such a man?

Ten minutes before the train came back… he could still go. There was nearly a fortnight before he sailed; much could be sorted out in that time.

But now, on the other platform, a train was drawing in-not the one to Hallendorf, but the one from there. How absurd that everyone had to change always in this uninteresting little town.

A carriage door opened. Marek heard the fierce yapping of a little dog and then the creature was upon him, leaping up, rolling over, wagging his tail in a paroxysm of welcome.

And after him, of course, came Brigitta, her arms thrown out.

“Marcus! Darling! But this is incredible! We’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

Staub came forward to shake hands, then Benny, much hampered by the antics of Puppchen, whose sole achievement seemed to be to remember Marcus for remarkable periods of time.

“It’s a miracle!” said Briggita. “It’s destiny, finding you. A portent. Now I know you’ll come to Vienna and—”’

“I’m sorry, Brigitta, but you’re mistaken. I’m going home and then to America.”

“But you can’t! You can’t! You tell him about the gala, Benny. Tell him about Feuerbach.”

“It certainly seems to be bedlam there,” said Benny. “If you could come even for a few days…”

“I’m sorry,” Marek repeated. Of the group surrounding him, he was the most pleased to see the little dog he had bestowed on Brigitta all those years ago: the dog and Ufra, for whom he had always felt respect.

“Well, at least, darling, come and have some coffee. Please. We’ve an hour to kill,” begged Brigitta, who was convinced that no man could remain even a few minutes in her presence and not be persuaded to do what she wanted.

“All right, Brigitta.” There were limits to churlishness. “We’ll have a coffee for old times’ sake.”

As they made their way across the square, he heard the little train for Hallendorf come chugging in.

Fate had spoken and it had spoken rightly. For after all, what bound him was not just loyalty to a friend who had suffered. It was not the mark branded on Isaac’s arm; it was the moment when Issac had turned to him in the hut, his face alight for the first time in weeks, and said: “I told you, didn’t I? I told you I’d play the premiere!”

He had played only the theme of the slow movement, but was enough.

From this man, whose musicality and dedication had somehow survived through so much hardship, one did not snatch what he believed was his fulfillment and his future.

Two days after Ellen returned from Kalun, Bennet gave an assembly which she found a little disquieting.

It was about a Greek warrier called Philoctetes who was bitten in the foot by a serpent and abandoned by his friends on a lonely island because they couldn’t stand the stench from his wound. True, the story ended happily: finding they needed him to fight the Trojan War, his companions returned and after much grovelling persuaded him to sail with them to Troy where he dispatched Paris with his bow and arrow, thus bringing the whole sorry business to an end.

But the somewhat lachrymose way in which the headmaster dwelt on the abandoned hero’s wounds and his friends’ ingratitude was not at all in Bennet’s usual style and Ellen was not surprised, when she spoke to Margaret, to hear that the secretary was getting very worried.

“It’s that wretched FitzAllan and his play,” she said. “He carries on as though there’s nothing else in the world and asks for more and more. Everyone’s told him the money just isn’t there. And Tamara’s chasing after him in the most blatant manner, trying to save her stupid ballet.”

“Surely he wouldn’t—”’

“Oh no, not him. He’s far too selfish to notice anyone else, but really her sunbathing is getting perfectly ridiculous. She went and laid herself down right in the middle of David Langley’s fruit fly experiment, even though he labelled it quite clearly.”

“I tell you one thing, Margaret, if I ever catch her sunbathing on Kohlröserl I won’t answer for the consequences,” said Ellen.

“I wish Bennet wouldn’t worry about the play so much. His own workshop on The Winter’s Tale is what they’ll come for anyway in the Summer School.” She looked admiringly at Ellen. “I must say, your fringe is quite enchanting. What a strange boy Bruno is.”

“Yes, indeed.”

Coming into her room on the night she got back, Bruno had found Ellen trying to repair the damage done by the crêpe suzette. He had watched for a moment as she tried to level out the mangled curls and then shaken his head.

“You want to cut more off. A lot more.” “What do you mean?”’

Words were not Bruno’s coinage. He took the scissors from her and told her to shut her eyes. It was not easy sitting still while this badly behaved boy cut off what felt like large chunks of her hair but she did it, while the other children watched in silence.

But when he had finished and Ellen went to the mirror, she found herself smiling with surprise and pleasure. He had reduced her damaged curls to little half-moons and brought more hair in to make a tousled, tentative fringe which lapped her brows and echoed the gold-brown of her eyes. If she looked like a courtesan who had just got out of bed, she looked like a very expensive one.