The Star of Kazan

34 Stefan Confesses

‘She’s back,’ said the lady in the paper shop, handing a copy of the Vienna News to the cab driver who had come in from the rank for his morning paper.

‘Annika’s back,’ said Josef, bringing a jug of coffee to Father Anselm, who always had his breakfast in the cafe.

‘Have you heard? Annika’s come home,’ said the old flower seller, tying up bunches of sweet peas.

The postman knew; so did the milkman. The stallholders in the market had sent a basket of fresh fruit. The little Bodek boys trotted back and forth with messages of goodwill. Though the Eggharts were still away, their maid Mitzi called in daily for bulletins.

But Annika slept. She lay under the white duvet in her attic, and slept as deeply as if she had been enchanted and the professors’ house was ringed by a hedge of thorns.

It was the old family doctor, called out to Annika after she had been carried up to her bed, who had come up with a phrase which was a godsend to those who were protecting Annika.

‘She has nervous exhaustion,’ he had said. ‘She’s to be kept absolutely quiet. Don’t tell her anything; just let her rest.’

The phrase ‘nervous exhaustion’ travelled round the square. No one knew what it was, but it sounded serious and kept visitors at bay.

It was three days since Annika had been rescued from Grossenfluss. The first time she woke she sat up, terrified, thinking she was still back at the school. Then she felt the warmth of her duvet and saw the familiar bars of light through her shutters.

She was safe; she was home — and she let her head fall back on to the pillow.

When she woke again, she knew where she was in an instant and remembered everything. She had run away and defied her mother. Soon now she would have to face the consequences.

But just as she began to be anxious, Ellie came in with a tray. A croissant warm from the oven, fresh raspberry juice, a poached egg in a glass.

‘You’re to stay quiet,’ she said. ‘You’re not to get up yet.’

And all that day, and the next, whenever Annika started to fret, Ellie appeared as if by magic with chicken soup, a ripe peach or a piece of milk-bread spread with butter.

‘Go to sleep,’ she’d say, whenever Annika started to ask questions — and Annika did. She had not been told yet that Zed was in Vienna; she knew nothing about the suspicions surrounding her mother or that the jewels in Fräulein Egghart’s trunk were real.

And while she slept, her friends waited.

For Zed, the waiting was hard. He was still sleeping in the bookshop and working in the professors’ house, but he was anxious to be on his way. The image of the two men in their brown uniforms haunted him. He only took out Rocco at night, and he was packed and ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Yet he could not bring himself to go without saying goodbye to Annika.

Pauline too found waiting difficult. She had looked up ‘nervous exhaustion’ in the medical dictionary and she did not think much of it.

‘I don’t really want to have a friend to whom one has to bring soup,’ she said to Ellie when she met her going upstairs with yet another tray. ‘Soup is for old ladies.’

Though he too was waiting for Annika to wake, Stefan kept away from the professors’ house. The journey back from Grossenfluss with Professor Gertrude and the shattered, bloodstained remnants of her golden harp had not been happy, and since her return she had stayed in her room and brooded.

The harp was not insured, and the men who had made it for her said it could not possibly be mended. In any case, who would want to play a harp to which pieces of the headmistress’s unpleasant skin and hair had stuck? Because of Stefan’s clumsiness Professor Gertrude — who had owned the most exotic and expensive harp in Vienna — was back to playing the old pedal harp she had had for fifteen years.

It was true that the tone of her old harp was very beautiful — after all this time, the sounding board had curved gently so as to give the special resonance that old instruments acquire. And it was true, too, that her old harp was easier to take to concerts and made it possible for her to move more freely round her room. All the same, she could not bring herself to speak to Stefan and he was banished from the house.

Then on the third day after her return from Grossenfluss, Professor Gertrude crept up to Annika’s attic and opened the door. As she tiptoed over to the bed, Annika woke and suddenly sat up.

‘It was dark plum jam,’ she said — and her voice was full of joy. ‘That’s what I couldn’t remember, for the stuffing!’

Then her head fell back and in an instant she was asleep again.

That afternoon Professor Gertrude sent for Stefan.

‘I wondered if you had anything to tell me about the… accident,’ she said to the boy who stood before her.

Stefan cleared his throat. ‘Yes,’ he said, summoning up his courage. ‘It wasn’t an accident. I did it on purpose.’

The professor nodded. ‘I know,’ she said.

‘You know? How? When?’ Stefan could not believe his ears. ‘When did you…?’

‘Not at first. I was too distressed — but soon afterwards. I have known you since you were a few weeks old and you have never been a clumsy boy.’ She stopped for a moment, looking him up and down. ‘There are children who don’t know — “push” from “pull”, but you’re not one of them. I understand you have been troubled in your mind, so I wanted to tell you that you did right.’

‘It was because of Annika,’ he stammered. ‘I thought once they knew we weren’t meant to be there we’d be turned out without a chance to get to her. The only thing seemed to be to make a diversion and hope—’ He broke off. ‘I’d have done anything to get Annika out.’

‘Yes,’ said the professor. ‘You did right. It was the most expensive instrument I’ve ever owned and it can’t be mended — but you did right to push it down the stairs.’

In the end it was Rocco who got Annika out of bed.

‘I keep hearing Rocco whinnying,’ she said restlessly to Ellie. ‘Even in my sleep I hear him. They say all horses sound the same, but it isn’t true.’

Ellie made up her mind. ‘It is Rocco,’ she said.

And she told Annika about Zed’s journey and that they were sure he hadn’t taken her trunk, but she said nothing about Frau von Tannenberg.

‘Well, if he didn’t, I don’t care who did,’ said Annika. ‘Who cares about a trunk of old clothes?’

Ten minutes later she was dressed and out in the stable yard.

‘He remembers you,’ said Zed, as Rocco rubbed his head against Annika’s arm.

‘I certainly remember him,’ said Annika. ‘Oh, I can’t believe you’re here and Rocco’s here; it’s like magic, finding you in Vienna.’

She had forgotten her fears, and her fatigue. Seeing Zed when she thought he was gone forever made everything right. Now she said, ‘You’re staying here, aren’t you, Zed? You’re staying in Vienna? Ellie says you can find plenty of odd jobs to do and the professors don’t mind stabling Rocco.’

‘Annika, I can’t.’ Zed had turned his face away so that she did not see how much he minded the thought of leaving. ‘I have to go and find the gypsies. We could be in trouble here, Rocco and I, if I stay.’

‘But why? What sort of trouble?’

‘There were two men — special police I think, or informers. They saw me when I was riding Rocco in the Prater and they kept staring at me and they wrote things down in their notebooks. And I saw one of them again; when I was teaching Rocco to do a collected trot on that piece of waste ground behind the museum, and I was sure he was going to come up to me, but someone came and talked to him and I got away.’ He paused, rubbing Rocco’s neck. ‘You’ve got to remember, Annika, I stole Rocco. The Master bought him for Hermann, not for me. The police must have been told to look out for me — and if Rocco is taken back to Spittal he’ll be sold to anyone who wants him, and I’ve got to see that doesn’t happen. I chose Rocco when he was a foal — and I suppose I chose him again when I took him away. Maybe stealing is a kind of choosing.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to go to prison.’

‘Yes, I see. But couldn’t you just stay a little longer? I want to know about your journey. And I want to show you Vienna. You have to go on the Giant Wheel in the Prater, and down the Danube in a paddle boat — Oh, a lot of things.’ And as Zed remained silent. ‘Please, Zed?’

‘I wanted to see that you were all right and you are, but now I must go.’

‘Just for a few more days?’ she pleaded. ‘No one will find Rocco in our backyard.’

‘It isn’t that I want to go, Annika. Everyone has been so kind — everyone. I haven’t had a home since the Master died… Well, never mind all that. I’ll stay till the end of the week but no longer than that. And all right, we’ll all go on the Giant Wheel. I suppose no one is allowed to leave Vienna without going on that!’