A Song for Summer

The Kartoffelpuffer achieved what her assurance had been unable to do--no one invented that unnecessary way of dealing with potatoes--and now at last Marek heard her words and believed her, and understood that the impossible had happened and his friend was safe.

"Oh Ellen," he said.

Then he took a step towards her and, uncaring of the watching children, took her in his arms.

FitzAllan lay back on the pillows and covered his forehead with a languid hand. He had drawn the curtains, but enough light came through to hurt his eyes whenever he opened them. The purple zigzag stage of his migraine had passed but his head ached unbearably and he felt sick.

It was the strain, of course: the strain of pitting his will against the staff and children who balked him at every turn as he tried to put into practice his ideas. Strain always brought on one of his attacks, and Tamara's tantrum when he had felt compelled to shorten her ballet once again had made him worse.

But at least he had prevailed in the matter of the slaughterhouse visit. Bennet had opposed him--

everyone had opposed him, but he had won. Even now the children were being shown around the Carinthian Municipal Abattoir and perhaps that would get them to give some decent performances.

The castle was wonderfully quiet. They wouldn't be back till the evening and if he could get some sleep now he might be fit for work again tomorrow. He drifted off in a day dream of acclaim in which theatre producers congratulated him on what he had achieved with inferior material, and offered him work in Paris, London and New

York. "The risks you took were entirely justified," they said.

He was woken by a door slamming; the sound of excitable voices. The corridors had filled once more with children. It must be the ones who had not gone on the trip--the bus couldn't possibly have returned yet. But he thought he heard Frank shouting, and then Bruno ... and both of them had signed on to go.

Flinching as he turned on the bedside light, FitzAllan looked at his watch. Half past five. They must have run round the slaughterhouse in record time. There was a brief knock at the door, and Ellen entered.

Even in his feeble condition, FitzAllan noticed that she looked cheerful. She looked, in point of fact, radiant, and the director, who did not like her, felt unaccountably nervous.

"I've brought you a present!" she announced. "Shut your eyes and put out your hand."

"I can hardly bear not to shut them," said FitzAllan in a failing voice. But he put out his hand and felt a small, softish object placed in his palm.

"What is it?"'

"It's a boa constrictor," said Ellen tenderly.

In spite of himself he gave a scream and dropped it, and Ellen reproachfully put it back in his fingers. "I'll open the curtains so you can see it properly. It's made of marzipan."

"No!"

"Well, I'll describe it to you. I don't know if it's authentic--I think Herr Fischer hasn't seen a real one, but it's better than authentic. It's curled round on itself and has green zigzags and yellow diamonds and you can see its split tongue as clear as anything. All of us bought marzipan animals in Klagenfurt from Herr Fischer's shop. Marek gave every single child some money to do it and it's really interesting what they chose. Sophie has a crocodile and Leon chose a snail--not at all what I'd have expected, and--"'

"Wait. Why did you go to the patisserie in Klagenfurt? I don't understand."

"Well, after Marek told us that the slaughterhouse was closed because of foot and mouth disease--"'

"What!" FitzAllan forgot his migraine, sat bolt upright, and groaned. "But that's nonsense. I checked it yesterday."

"Oh, it only happened this morning. Marek came from there--he brought Professor Steiner back and they went right past it and there were huge notices saying CLOSED. I assure you," said Ellen sweetly, "that it's true."

"I don't believe it."

"Well, you can ask Marek."

And if I hadn't been going on your stupid trip I might have missed him, thought Ellen, and smiled at FitzAllan with ineffable joy. He would have dropped Steiner and gone away again and I wouldn't have seen him and he wouldn't have hugged me and thanked me for saving his friend and Isaac wouldn't be hopping up and down now in Chomsky's room. "I must go and serve supper," she said, "though I doubt if anyone will eat very much. It was a sort of party we had after Marek told us we couldn't go, oh it was lovely--and so interesting! I think if I was Professor Freud I wouldn't waste so much time finding out what people had seen their parents do and about incest and all that--I'd take them to Herr Fischer's shop and see what they chose. You wouldn't believe it but Frank didn't pick an animal at all--he chose a conker.

Just an ordinary brown marzipan chestnut--there was a tree in his mother's garden, he said, when he was small! And Sophie ate her crocodile then and there in two big bites; I was really encouraged--I think she may be getting just a little bit tough inside."