The Star of Kazan

25 Annika’s Surprise

In Spittal it had started to rain again. The frogs trod on each other’s backs and however many the storks ate, or the cats killed, there were always more. The season for shooting ducks was over, so Uncle Oswald shot land animals instead: hares, rabbits and what he called vermin, which seemed to be anything that got in the way of his gun. Gudrun missed Hermann and mooched about, waiting till she could go back to the hunting lodge. The new servants were efficient but unfriendly.

Annika was lonely. She had been sure that the farm would be put right now that there was money again, but she was wrong. No new livestock was bought in, none of the buildings were mended. Wenzel had a boy from the village to help him, but there was less and less to do. There were rumours that Edeltraut was going to buy a motor and the carriage horses would be sold. The stork house stayed empty.

A week after Zed had run away, Bertha’s brother came to collect the three-legged dog. Hector travelled in style, lying on a pile of sacking, his head resting on the sock-suspender, his eel trap by his side.

Annika ran down to say goodbye, leaning over the side of the cart to stroke Hector’s woolly head.

‘Is Bertha well?’ she asked, and the old man said, yes, and she had sent her love.

He didn’t mention Zed and nor did Annika. No one, she found, was talking about Zed.

‘The poor dog is going away?’ said a voice behind her, and Annika turned to find a girl with flaxen plaits wound round her head, and large blue eyes. She was carrying a pail with her lunch in it and was on her way to the village school at the head of the lake. Annika had met her often on the road and smiled at her. Her name was Frieda.

Annika sighed. ‘Yes,’ she said sadly. ‘Everyone’s going away.’

Frieda looked at her with sympathy. ‘Why don’t you come to our school? It’s nice. We’re going to make wreaths to decorate the church for Easter.’

‘I’d love to come. But…’ She shook her head. ‘Perhaps I could ask again.’

It was from Frieda that Annika had learned what was to happen to the farm.

‘There will be no animals, my father says. They’ll all be sold and there’s going to be sugar beet instead. Lots and lots of sugar beet.’

Annika had not heard this. ‘Really? Are you sure?’

Frieda nodded. ‘There’s a lot of money in sugar beet. It goes to the factory in Posen to be squeezed and sugar comes out.’

She picked up her pail again and trotted off, leaving Annika with her thoughts, which were not cheerful. She had heard a lot about sugar beet from Professor Julius, but nothing that had made her feel it would make up for living animals.

It was extraordinary how much she missed Zed. After all he had stolen her trunk and lied about it and fled in the night, taking a horse which did not belong to him. How could she miss him so badly?

But she did. It was impossible to believe that she had known him only for a few weeks. He had taught her so much; as soon as she was with him life became interesting: there was work to do and a future to think about. Sometimes she even wondered if what he had done was so terrible. If the little gypsy girl who had wanted to give her a kitten was now wearing Great-Aunt Egghart’s fake earrings, was that such a crime? And then Annika would reproach herself, because theft was theft and could never be excused.

Her nights were strange now: sometimes she woke and thought she could hear Rocco’s hoofs as he galloped past the window. And once, as she drifted off to sleep, she had the dream she’d had so often in Vienna: a carriage drew up outside and a woman got out, grandly dressed in furs. ‘Where is she?’ she said. ‘Where is my long-lost daughter?’

But after that everything went wrong because when she came forward into the lamplight, she turned into a dumpy woman in a cheap woollen overcoat and a brown felt hat, and she did not smell of exotic perfume but of vanilla and green soap and freshly baked bread.

When she had this dream Annika felt guilty and ashamed, especially as her mother was being so loving to her, and seemed to understand exactly how she felt about Zed.

‘My poor darling, I know so well what you are going through. I too have been betrayed by people I was fond of and trusted.’

‘My father?’

‘Him too — and my husband. He has written to tell me that he will never return to Spittal.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Edeltraut shrugged. ‘One must be brave. You must use what Zed has done to make you strong. And perhaps he is best where he belongs.’

‘With the gypsies?’

‘Of course. Learning to make his living in all sorts of disreputable ways. Rocco must of course be brought back — we cannot allow him to steal a valuable horse and go unpunished — but after that…’ She sighed. ‘I told my father you couldn’t tame a gypsy boy, but he wouldn’t listen.’

During these lonely days Annika spent more and more time wondering about the surprise her mother was planning for her. It was getting closer, Edeltraut said, very close, but there were preparations to be made which could not be hurried.

‘Oh, I do hope I can bring it off,’ she said. ‘It will be so wonderful for you!’

Sometimes when she was alone with her mother, Annika would try and guess.

‘We’re going on a journey to Africa to see lions?’ she would suggest, and her mother would smile and shake her head.

Or: ‘I’m getting a little boat with a red sail to take me over the lake?’

Or: ‘My friends are coming from Vienna on a visit?’

But always her mother would shake her head and say, ‘No, it’s better than that!’

Then came the day when Gudrun and her parents moved back to the hunting lodge and Annika and her mother were alone.

And at dinner that night, Edeltraut raised her glass to drink a toast. Her eyes sparkled, she was flushed with excitement.

‘ To your surprise, my dear,’ she said, stretching her hand across the table to lay it on her daughter’s. And as Annika looked at her, she said, ‘Yes, my darling child, I’ve done it! I was so afraid I’d have to disappoint you, but they’ve agreed. Come upstairs where we can be quite private. Oh, Annika, you’re going to be so pleased!’