The Redbreast

31

The Lang Family's Summer Residence,

Vienna. 25 June 1944.

Helena was studying herself in the bedroom mirror. She would have preferred to have the window open so that she could listen for footsteps on the gravel drive, but Mother was very precise about the blackout. She contemplated the photograph of Father on the dresser. It always struck her how young and innocent he looked in the picture.

She had fastened her hair with a slide, as she always did. Should she do it differently? Beatrice had taken in Mother's red muslin dress so that it fitted Helena's tall, slim figure. Mother had been wearing this dress when she met Father. The thought was curious, remote and in a way quite painful. That might have been because when Mother told her about that time it was as if she were talking about two different people-two attractive, happy people who thought they knew where they were going.

Helena loosened the hairslide and shook her brown hair until it was in front of her face. The doorbell rang. She could hear Beatrice's footsteps in the hall. Helena fell backwards on to the bed and could feel the butterflies in her stomach. She couldn't help it-it was like being a love-sick fourteen-year-old in a summer romance again! She heard the muffled sound of talking from below, Mother's sharp, nasal voice, the clatter of coat-hangers as Beatrice hung his overcoat in the wardrobe. An overcoat! Helena thought. He had put on his overcoat even though it was one of these warm, sultry summer evenings they didn't usually have before August.

She waited and waited, then she heard Mother's voice calling:

'Helena!'

She got up from the bed, fixed the slide into position, looked at her hands, repeated to herself: I have not got big hands, I have not got big hands. Then she cast a final glance at the mirror-she was attractive!-took a trembling breath and went out of the door.

'Hele-'

Mother stopped calling as soon as Helena came into view at the top of the stairs. Helena cautiously placed one foot on the top step; the high heels she normally ran downstairs in suddenly seemed shaky and unsteady.

'Your guest has arrived,' Mother said.

Your guest. In another context Helena would probably have been annoyed by Mother's choice of expression to emphasise that she did not perceive the menial foreign soldier as a guest of the house. But these were exceptional times, and Helena could have kissed her mother for not being more difficult. At least she had gone to receive him before Helena herself made her entrance.

Helena looked across at Beatrice. The housekeeper smiled, but there was the same melancholic tinge to her eyes that her mother had. Helena shifted her gaze to Him. His eyes were shining and she seemed to feel the heat from them burning in her own cheeks. She had to lower her gaze to the brown, clean-shaven throat, the collar with the double 's's and the green uniform which had been so creased on the train but was now freshly pressed. He held a bouquet of roses in his hand, which she knew Beatrice would already have offered to put into a vase, but he had thanked her and asked her to wait so that Helena would see them first.

She took another step. Her hand rested lightly on the banister. It was easier now. She raised her head and encompassed all three of them in one look. And suddenly she realised in an odd way that this was the most beautiful moment of her life. For she knew what they saw and how they were reflected in it.

Mother saw herself, her own lost youth and her dreams coming down the stairs; Beatrice saw the girl she had brought up as her own; and he saw the woman he loved so much that he could not hide it behind Scandinavian embarrassment and good manners.

'You look wonderful,' Beatrice mouthed. Helena winked in return. Then she was down.

'So you found the way, even in the pitch dark?' she smiled at Uriah.

'Yes,' he answered in a loud, clear voice, and in the high, tiled hall the answer resounded as in a church.

Mother talked in her sharp, slightly piercing voice while Beatrice floated in and out of the dining room like a friendly ghost. Helena couldn't take her eyes off the diamond chain Mother wore around her neck, her most precious piece of jewellery which was only taken out on special occasions.

As an exception, Mother had left the door to the garden ajar. Cloud cover was so low that they might get away without any bombing tonight. The draught from the open door caused the flames of the stearin candles to flicker, and the shadows danced on the portraits of serious men and women bearing the surname of Lang. Mother had painstakingly explained to him who was who, what they had achieved and from which families they had selected their spouses. Uriah had listened with what Helena thought resembled a tiny sardonic smile, but it was difficult to be sure in the semi-darkness. Mother had explained that they felt a responsibility to save electricity with the war on. Naturally she didn't mention the family's present economic circumstances and that Beatrice was the last remaining servant of an original staff of four.

Uriah put down his fork and cleared his throat. Mother had placed them at the top of the long dining table. The young ones faced each other while she sat at the other end.

'That was delicious, Frau Lang.'

It had been a simple meal. Not so simple that it could be interpreted as an insult, but not so ostentatious that it might give him reason to believe he was a guest of honour.

'That's Beatrice,' Helena said with warmth. 'She makes Austria's best Wienerschnitzel. Have you tried it before?'

'Only once, as far as I know. And it doesn't bear comparison with this one.'

'Schwein! Mother said. 'The one you ate was probably made with pork. In this house we only eat veal. Or, at a pinch, turkey.'

'I don't recall any meat,' he said with a smile. 'I think it was mostly egg and breadcrumbs.'

Helena laughed softly and received a swift glare from her mother.

The conversation had flagged on a couple of occasions during the meal, but after the long intervals Uriah tended to pick up the threads as often as Helena or her mother did. Helena had already decided before she invited him to dinner that she would not let what Mother thought bother her. Uriah was polite, but he was a man from a simple farming background, without the refinement of nature and manners that was concomitant with an upbringing in an elegant house. She had hardly needed to worry, however. Helena was amazed at Uriah's unconstrained, worldly-wise deportment.

'You're probably planning to work when the war is over?' the mother asked, putting the last bite of the potato into her mouth.

Uriah nodded and, while Frau Lang finished chewing, he patiently waited for the inevitable next question.

'And what work would that be, if I might ask?'

'Postman. At least, I was promised a job before the war broke out.'

'Delivering the post? Don't people live a terribly long distance from each other in your country?'

'It's not that bad. We settle where we can. Along the fjords, in the valleys and other places protected from the wind and weather. And then of course there are some towns and larger places too.'

'You don't say. Interesting. May I ask if you are a man of means?'

'Mother!' Helena stared at her mother in disbelief.

'Yes, my dear?' Mother dabbed her mouth with her napkin and waved to Beatrice to remove the plates.

'You make it sound like an interrogation.' Helena's dark eyebrows formed two 'v's in her forehead.

'Yes,' Mother said, raising her glass, with a beatific smile to Uriah. 'This is an interrogation.'

Uriah raised his glass and returned the smile.

I understand you, Frau Lang. She is your only daughter. You are entirely within your rights. Well, I would say it is even your duty to be absolutely clear about what kind of man she has found herself.'

Frau Lang's narrow lips had formed into a pout to drink, but the wineglass stopped in mid-air.

'I am not well-off,' Uriah went on. 'But I am keen to work. I have a good head on me and I will manage to feed myself, Helena and undoubtedly several more. I promise to take care of her as well as I can, Frau Lang.'

Helena felt an intense desire to giggle and at the same time a strange excitement.

'Oh my goodness!' the mother exclaimed and put down her glass again. You're going a bit too far now, young man, aren't you?'

'Yes.' Uriah took a large swig and stared at the glass. 'And I have to say again that this is a really good wine, Frau Lang.'

Helena tried to kick his leg, but she couldn't reach under the wide oak table.

'These are strange times though. And there is so little of it.' He put down the glass, but continued to hold it in his gaze. The tiny hint of a smile Helena thought she had seen had disappeared.

'I have sat talking with my comrades on evenings like this, Frau Lang. About all the things we would do in the future, what the new Norway would be like and all the dreams we would realise, some great and some small. A few hours later they lay dead on the battlefield, without any future.'

He raised his eyes and looked directly at Frau Lang.

'I move quickly because I have found a woman I want and who wants me. A war is raging and all I can tell you about my future plans is so much eyewash. I have an hour to live a life in, Frau Lang. And perhaps that is all you have too.'

Helena shot a rapid glance at her mother. She seemed stunned.

'I received a letter from the Norwegian police today. I have to report to the field hospital at Sinsen school in Oslo for an examination. I'll be leaving in three days. And I was thinking of taking your daughter with me.'

Helena held her breath. The wall clock's ponderous tick boomed in the room. Mother's diamonds continued to glitter as the muscles under the wrinkled skin of her neck tightened and relaxed. A sudden gust of wind from the garden door caused the flames to lie flat and the shadows to leap between the dark furniture. Only the shadow of Beatrice at the kitchen door seemed to stand completely still.

'Apfelstrudel,' Mother said with a wave to Beatrice. A Viennese speciality.'

'I would like you to know that I am really looking forward to it,' Uriah said.

'Yes, and so you should be,' said Mother, forcing another sardonic smile. 'It's made with apples from our own garden.'