A Song for Summer

Ellen was spending rather a lot of time with the tortoise. I hope it's not too late, thought the headmaster, and made his way slowly upstairs towards his apartment. The Polovtsian dances had passed the languorous phase and reached the barbaric and shimmering middle section during which Tamara usually paused to cover herself in Bessarabian Body Oil.

"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds ..." murmured Bennet, and opened the bedroom door.

It was not exactly too late. Marek's absence did not blot out the world for Ellen, though it took a little more concentration than formerly to become one with the skimming swallows, the stars crowding the night sky outside her window. It was not his absence that grieved her so much, for she had known he would not stay; it was the way that they had parted. Bennet had taken her into his confidence; she knew now just how dangerous was the work on which Marek was engaged, and that she had sent him away yelling like a fishwife was hard to bear. She had gone over the next day to apologise but Steiner's house was shuttered, the door locked and the van gone.

Fortunately there was so much to do that she had little time to brood. Both pupils and staff were throwing themselves into work for the play but the atmosphere was stormy. The director removed the tambourines from the girls in the Salvation Army on the grounds that they were too cheerful; children fell off the stage, dazzled by the searchlights that played on the capitalist oppressors; and the tiny, curly-haired Sabine from Zurich was forgotten in the darkened theatre, left hanging in a muslin bag to represent a side of pork after FitzAllan had tried out the disposition of the meat hooks.

The staff fared little better. Hermine had been reproached by the director for being too emotional.

"But for me it is emotional ... to feel the pre-slaughtering fear ... the twitching of the limbs ... the flow of blood," said poor Hermine, whose baby, while perfectly willing to bite into a ham sandwich, showed absolutely no inclination to be weaned.

It was Chomsky, however, about whom the greatest anxiety continued to be felt. With Marek gone there was no one to help him with the welding of the three-tiered struts and the first attempt to lift them on to the stage had been disastrous. From swimming three times a day, Chomsky now swam four and since the weather had turned cool and cloudy, Ellen became seriously concerned for his health.

Aware, perhaps that Abattoir was not proceeding quite as smoothly as he had hoped, FitzAllan now came to Bennet to tell him that he thought it essential that those children taking part in the play should visit an actual slaughterhouse.

"There is a certain lack of authenticity in some of the performances which I'm sure could be put right by total immersion in the mise en sce@ne," said FitzAllan.

"I'm afraid that would be an expensive business--we'd have to hire a bus for a start," said Bennet, "and I have to point out that we already have

an increase of thirty per cent in vegetarianism since rehearsals began."

But FitzAllan was adamant. "Time spent in research is never wasted," he said, waving a slender hand.

From the uproar of Abattoir, Ellen escaped sometimes to Lieselotte's house on an alp above the village, where Lieselotte's family always welcomed her with open arms: Frau Becker was teaching her to make Mandelschnitten and Zaunerstollen and Lieselotte's brothers and sisters never tired of hearing stories about the school. Knowing how much Bennet wanted the villagers to be involved, Ellen had hoped that the Beckers would be able to come to Abattoir but it turned out that the play was due to open on the name day of Aniella.

"Of course I'm very sorry," said Lieselotte with a mischievous smile. "We would very much have liked to come, but it's a special day for us, you'll understand."

"Of course. What happens on Aniella's name day?"'

"Oh, we carry her picture round the church and sing some hymns. Her relics too. She has very nice relics: not toe bones or finger nails but a piece of veiling from her wedding dress, and a circlet of pearls. I don't think it's enough, but you know how people are: so lazy."

It was when she was coming down the mountain after one such visit that Ellen met Sophie and Ursula running towards her.

"Guess what, Ellen--Chomsky's had a nervous breakdown! A proper one!" said Sophie, her eyes wide and alarmed.

"An ambulance came and took him away. He's gone to a nursing home in Klagenfurt. I expect they'll put him in a straitjacket." Ursula was gleeful.

"It was the scaffolding. FitzAllan yelled at him and he began to sob and wave his arms about and then he sort of dropped on the floor and shrieked."

"Oh poor Chomsky!" Ellen was devastated.

"And Bennet wants to see you," said Sophie. "He said to come as soon as you got in."

"This is a bad business, Ellen," said the