A Song for Summer

Marek had tried to persuade Millie to stay till the morning and travel back part of the way with Ellen; the girls seemed to get on well together. But Millie had an engagement in a Berlin cabaret; she was returning in a few hours on the sleeper. Ellen had suggested she come and rest in her room but though Millie came she was not exactly resting. She was in fact sprawling on Ellen's bed, chain-smoking de Reskes and reminiscing about the days in Berlin when she had known Marcus von Altenburg and his friend.

"They were such fun. You should have seen Isaac in his evening clothes all dolled up for a concert--he always had a white carnation; it had to be white, red wasn't any good--and handmade shoes. You'd think he was a proper little monkey but when he played-- my God, it would make the hair stand up on the nape of your neck. That soulful music and then he'd be out on the town till the small hours, dancing and cracking jokes. It's awful to think what they've done to him."

"Do you ever think of leaving Germany?"'

"I think of it. But I've a mother and a brother --my father pushed off. Working in the cabaret helps ... and sometimes ... you know, I get other work. I can make good money like that." She stretched out her arm and watched the gold bangle on her wrist with pleasure. "He had no call to give me this; he paid me for what I did and I'd have done it for nothing. But Marcus is like that; he'd give anyone the skin off his back. People used to think he was rich, but he wasn't, he just never seemed to count up what he had."

"How long did you know them in Berlin?"' "Oh, most of the time Marcus was there--and I went on seeing Isaac till the Nazis came. They were such friends those two; it did you good to see them. So different ...

Isaac never stopped finding people to help Marcus; it was he that got him a break as a conductor. And they weren't ever jealous of each other like people so often are when they're in the same line of business.

Even over women, though it must have been hard for Isaac."

"What must?"'

"Well, he'd pick up some girl in a nightclub maybe and bring her back to his table, and chat her up--he was always falling for women--and Marcus wouldn't say much; you could see him making himself quiet, sort of trying to be like one of his trees so that Isaac could have her, but by the end of the evening it was Marcus the girl wanted."

"It doesn't seem fair."

"No. But what's fair about life--turning a nice bloke like Isaac into an outcast because he's got a nip in his foreskin." She broke off. "Sorry, don't mind me. But I can tell you, when I met Marcus at the station and he asked me if I'd be willing to make a bit of a diversion if it was needed so as to help Isaac get through, I was as pleased as Punch. And I'll tell you though you haven't asked: no, I didn't do it with Marek, not on the train--not ever, in point of fact, though I'd have done it like a shot. It was strictly business."

Ellen smiled at her, "I wish you'd stay longer, Millie. You'll be so tired travelling back tonight."

But Millie shook her head. "I have to go, Ellen, but if ever you come to Berlin ..."

"Or you to London."

There was a knock at the door and an elderly maid announced the arrival of the taxi for the station.

The girls embraced.

"Take care," said Millie. And at the door: "Are you in love with Isaac?"'

Ellen shook her head. "No. I'm terribly fond of him, but--"'

"Oh that!" Millie waved a dismissive arm. "He's got it badly over you."

"It's just because I found him and sheltered him.

As soon as he's out in the world again he'll forget me."

"Maybe." Millie put on her scarlet beret, adjusted the angle. "What's funny is that I don't see Marek trying to be a tree."

The dining room of the Kalun Spa Hotel was a cavernous room whose heavy swagged curtains, dim chandeliers and dusty Turkish carpets gave off an air of sombre melancholy. It was as though here the authorities had finally given up hope of putting the town on the map of Great Spas of Europe, had accepted the fact that Queen Marie of Rumania or Alfonso of Spain would never now drink the evil waters of the pump room. The few diners already assembled were in the last stages of disintegration, sitting in wheelchairs or precariously propped on cushions with their walking frames beside them; the smell of hydrogen sulphide blotted out the odour of frying onions from the kitchens and the waiters were as ancient and arthritic as the guests.

Entering the dining room, Ellen saw Marek at a table by the window scribbling something in the large menu, bound in maroon leather, provided by the management. As she reached him, and he got to his feet, she realised that what he had been writing, between the announcements of liver broth with dumplings, boiled beef with noodles and other delights-- was music; and for a moment she felt as though a door had been opened on his other life; a life from which she must always be excluded whatever he wrote on menus.

"Please don't let me disturb you," she said.