The Star of Kazan

9 The Giant Wheel

At the end of February the funfair in the Prater, which had been closed in the winter, prepared to open once again. This meant taking the tarpaulins off the roundabouts, reassembling the shooting booths and checking the machinery of the famous Giant Wheel with its large, closed carriages.

And on the last Saturday before the fair opened officially, the men who worked there, like Stefan’s father and the other groundsmen and mechanics and carpenters, were allowed to invite their family and friends to come to the Prater free.

Stefan went, but his elder brothers all had Saturday jobs, so Annika went with him. Pauline too was invited, but she knew that the day would mostly be spent on the Giant Wheel, which she found alarming and far too high, and her grandfather was expecting a new delivery of books, so she stayed at home.

Pauline was right. Annika and Stefan went round on the Giant Wheel three times, but then Stefan caught sight of the engineer who serviced it and went off to talk to him — so that the last time Annika went up, she was alone.

Perhaps it was because of this that she saw everything so vividly.

There is a moment when each carriage stops with a little click and just hangs there in space. The music ceases, one can hear the wind — and there beneath one lies the whole city. To the east, the Danube, to the north and west the Vienna Woods… and to the south (but one has to look very hard for this) just a glimpse of the white peaks of the Alps, where the snow is everlasting.

Everything she saw now seemed to be part of her own life. The spire of the cathedral where, on Easter Sunday, Aunt Gertrude had knelt on a dead mouse… The roofs of the palace where the emperor slept on his iron bed, and the Spanish Riding School where his Lipizzaners had danced for them…

The copper dome of the art museum where Uncle Emil had told her so many important things about the painting of human flesh, and the opera where he had picked Cornelia Otter out of a chorus of thirty well-covered village maidens and decided to adore her.

She ran from side to side, looking, looking… Here was the park of the Belvedere, where soon now she would go and search for the first violets… and the pond in the Volksgarten where they had found an injured duckling and brought it to Ellie to heal. Beyond the marshy islands on the Danube ran the great plain which stretched all the way to Budapest and — nearer again — the graveyard where Sigrid’s uncle was buried after he ate twenty-seven potato dumplings in a row and fell senseless to the ground. And Annika, on a level with the clouds, thought of her friend, the Eggharts’ great-aunt, who had swung and strewn high over the stages of the world — and she had a great longing to break the windows of the carriage and strew something marvellous over the city: flowers, thousands and thousands of flowers, which would land in the wintry streets to please the people who lived in Vienna and had made it beautiful.

‘Oh, Stefan, we’re so lucky,’ she said, when she was down again. And as he looked at her puzzled she added, ‘To live here, I mean. To belong.’

Afterwards it seemed strange to her that she had said those words on that particular day.

They got off the tram a stop early because the snow was almost gone at last and the sun was shining.

‘Goodness,’ said Annika, as they turned into the square. ‘There seems to be a meeting.’

There were certainly a lot of people standing by the fountain: Josef from the cafe, with his mother wrapped in a shawl. Father Anselm from the church. The Eggharts’ maid, Mitzi. Frau Bodek, with the baby in the pram and the three-year-old Hansi clinging to her skirts, and not only Pauline but Pauline’s grandfather, who hadn’t been seen outside his shop in months.

And in the centre of the group was the coal-man, who had been delivering bags of fuel to the professors’ house, and to whom they were all listening.

‘I tell you,’ he was saying, ‘there was Ellie slumped at the kitchen table, crying her heart out, and Sigrid looking at me as though she’s never seen me before, when I’ve been to their house once a week for the past—’

He broke off. His listeners had turned and now everybody could see Annika and Stefan coming towards them. The coal-man fell silent. Everyone fell silent except Hansi, who wailed, ‘I don’t want Ellie to cry, I want her to make buns.’

Annika stopped.

‘What is it? What’s happened?’

‘You must go home, Annika, they’re waiting for you,’ said Pauline’s grandfather in a solemn voice.

Now she was very much afraid. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked again. And as no one answered her she said, ‘Will you come with me, Pauline?’

Pauline stepped forward, but her grandfather put a hand on her shoulder. ‘No. Pauline, you stay here. Annika’s family—’ He stopped himself. ‘They… will want to have Annika to themselves today.’

Annika was already running across the square. She threw open the kitchen door, and what the coal-man had said was true. Ellie was slumped at the kitchen table, her face was blotched and, most extraordinary of all, she wasn’t doing anything. Not beating something in a bowl, not kneading dough, not slicing vegetables. Sigrid sat in the wicker chair; her hands too were empty and she seemed to be staring at something no one else could see.

‘What is it — what’s happened? Why will no one tell me anything?’ said Annika, throwing her arms round Ellie. ‘Are the professors all right? Has someone died?’

Ellie managed to shake her head. ‘No one’s died.’ She loosened Annika’s arms. ‘You’re wanted in the drawing room.’

‘In the drawing room?’

So something serious was the matter. The servants never went into the drawing room except to dust or clean. As a matter of fact the professors did not go into it much themselves; it was a dark and formal room, not welcoming like the other rooms in the house.

Sigrid roused herself enough to lunge at Annika’s hair with the comb she kept in her overall pocket. Then she said, ‘Go on; you’ll do.’

Annika went through the green baize door, along the corridor, up the first flight of stairs. She knocked, entered and curtsied.

Professor Julius and Professor Emil stood on either side of the writing desk, which was covered in official-looking papers. They seemed somehow smaller than usual, and this was because, standing between them with her back to the door, was a very tall woman wearing a dark fur cloak and a hat with osprey feathers.

‘Come along in,’ said Professor Julius, and his voice seemed strange; a little husky. And then, ‘This is Annika.’

The woman turned. She had very blue eyes, but her brows were black and the crescent of hair showing under her hat was black also. With her strong features and her height, she looked to Annika like a queen.

The woman stood absolutely still and gazed at her. She lifted up her long arms so that her cloak spread out on either side like a pair of wings, blotting out the two professors. And only then did she say the words of Annika’s dream.

‘My child,’ said the tall woman, ‘my darling, darling daughter — have I really found you at last?’

And she stepped forward and took Annika into her arms.