The Star of Kazan

The train went no faster than it had done when Ellie and Sigrid had taken it to the mountains all those years ago. Pauline had been with them often since then, on Annika’s Found Days, but never alone. Still, she set off on the familiar walk to the village and everything was there: the cows with flowers hanging out of their mouths, the goat bells up in the high pasture, the pine-scented breeze.

In the village she stopped at the post office and asked if she could be directed to the house of the midwife.

‘I’ve got a message from someone in Vienna who wants to thank her for delivering her baby,’ she said.

The postmistress was helpful. ‘It’s the little house at the end of the street on the right. There’s a carving of a donkey on the gate, and a peach tree in the garden.’

The house was nice; there was a little boy playing on the grass who reminded her of the Bodek boys. The midwife was preparing lunch for her family, but she invited Pauline into her kitchen and poured her a glass of milk.

But it seemed quite quickly that something was wrong. She did not remember a baby she had delivered twelve years ago because she had only been working in Pettelsdorf for four years.

‘And the nurse who worked here before me has gone to Canada,’ said the midwife.

Pauline tried to fight down her disappointment. The trail had gone completely cold.

‘That would be Amelia Plotz then?’ she said. ‘It’s Amelia Plotz I’m looking for.’

The midwife put down her spoon. ‘Amelia Plotz? Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, well . . . she’s here – she lives about half an hour’s walk away up the hill. But I don’t know—’

‘Will she see me?’ asked Pauline.

‘Yes and no . . . I can’t really explain.’

She gave her instructions, and a doughnut, and Pauline set off up the hill. The empty road leading to nowhere gave Pauline another panic attack: she felt as though she had been cut off forever from the safety of her home. But she sat down on a kerbstone and took some deep breaths and then she could go on again.

Amelia Plotz’s house was rather a sad little one. It stood on the edge of a river which had cut its way deep into the hill. The windows were dirty and the cat that slunk past her as she knocked on the door was thin and wild.

But that was nothing to what she found when the door opened and an old woman with a tufty grey moustache and rheumy eyes asked her what she wanted.

‘I wondered if I could see Amelia Plotz? Are you—?’

The old woman cackled. ‘No, I’m not Amelia, the Lord be thanked,’ she said. ‘What do you want with her?’

‘I have a message from someone in Vienna.’

The woman with the moustache gave her a sharp look. ‘Well, you can talk to her if you like. She doesn’t get many visitors.’

Pauline followed her up a narrow flight of stairs. There was a smell of cat, and of other things that Pauline was careful not to give words to.

‘A visitor for you, Amelia,’ shouted the old woman.

She could have saved her breath. Amelia was propped against soiled cushions on a vast armchair which only just accommodated her bulk. Her white hair was loose; her eyes stared into space. She took absolutely no notice of Pauline or of the woman who had spoken to her.

‘She’s got a message for you,’ shouted the moustached lady.

Amelia Plotz’s vacant eyes continued to stare at nothing. A drop of spittle came from her mouth.

‘What happened to her?’ asked Pauline.

‘She’s been like that for twenty years or more,’ said her carer. ‘Had a stroke and never recovered. She can’t speak, can’t hear . . . Looking after her is a nightmare, I tell you, but what can you do, she’s my sister.’

Pauline stared at the wrecked figure in the chair. So when Annika was born, she had already been like this.

‘Can she write?’ asked Pauline. ‘Could she write her name.’

The old woman stared at her. ‘Funny you should ask that. There were some people who came a few months ago – said they’d a few bits for her left by a patient years back and she had to sign a paper. They helped her to write her name. Well, they held the pen really and wrote for her. The poor old thing didn’t have an idea what she was writing. We’re still waiting for the things.’

‘Was it a tall, very stately woman with a German accent?’

‘Yes. And a man with her, very smartly dressed. Looked like a frog, but you could see he was a gentleman. A lawyer, he said he was. He wouldn’t let me into the room to see the paper – said it was private. You might as well get a dog to sign a paper, but I didn’t tell him that.’

C

HAPTER

F

ORTY

-

ONE

T

HE

D

ANUBE

S

TEAMER

The river boats that carried passengers up and down the Danube were named after members of the Austrian royal family. The boat Annika was due to travel on was the Empress Elisabeth, and it was the newest and smartest of the river fleet. The steamer was bedecked with flags, her funnel was striped in the black and red and white of the House of Austria. The cabins were roomy; there was a sun lounge and a restaurant on the foredeck.