The Star of Kazan

‘No, not yet. Then the vampires came. Six huge vampires. Harpies with fangs and claws. His relatives. Two sisters, an aunt, three cousins . . . They turned me out of the house – they wanted to sell it at once and get the money. So I went back to Paris. I tried to get back to work, but ten years is too long to be away from the theatre and I wasn’t so young and pretty any more. It was a difficult time. But I still had my jewels – the harpies couldn’t take them away from me. I’ll tell you about my . . . jewels when you . . . come again.’

And almost at once she was asleep.

The weather now became very hot and all the important people left Vienna to go on their summer holidays.

The most important person of course was the emperor, who put away his military uniforms and the helmets he wore to attend to his duties and went off to his villa in the mountains, where he put on lederhosen and embroidered braces and pretended to be a peasant.

Ellie was always pleased when he went away.

‘The poor old man: all those parades and processions and him with his bad back.’

When the emperor left Vienna, so did the courtiers and the civil servants and the bankers and the opera singers.

And so did the Lipizzaners – who were most certainly important – who went off to the high pastures to rest and grow strong on the rich grass. Their grooms led them through the quiet streets at daybreak, to the special train that was kept for them, and the Viennese heard them and smiled because it meant that the holidays had begun.

The professors too went away. They always went to the same place, a quiet hotel in Switzerland, where they swam up and down a dark-green lake and read their books. Though the holiday was not a complicated one, getting them off safely was hard work. Annika’s job was to search their long woollen bathing costumes for moth holes, through which somebody might see pieces of their skin, while Ellie oiled their boots and Sigrid ironed Professor Gertrude’s dirndls, which were of the stately kind, with black aprons and many pleats.

And the Eggharts left in their canary-yellow motor car, which was quite a performance because Loremarie and her mother had to wrap their heads in layers of veiling to protect them from the dust, and Herr Egghart had to find his gauntlets and his goggles and his leather driving coat, and poop the horn loudly to make sure everyone would get out of the way before he even got in. They had rented a house in Bad Haxenfeld, a famous spa in Germany where sulphurous water gushed out of the rocks and people sat in mud baths up to their necks and were massaged and pummelled and put on diets.

‘I feel absolutely exhausted, having that old woman in my house,’ Frau Egghart told her friends before they left. Actually all she had done was to go up to the attic once a week and stand by the door with her handkerchief over her mouth as though old age was catching – but her friends were very sympathetic.

Because they had rented a house, the Eggharts took all their servants except the youngest of the maids, who was left in sole charge of their great-aunt. The people in the square were shocked by this, but for Annika it was a relief. She could go over when she liked and stay as long as she wanted. Loremarie had not left any money for the holidays, but Annika had almost forgotten that she was ever paid.

Ellie had taken a pot of her scented geraniums and some fruit to the old lady, and she tried to warn Annika.

‘You mustn’t be sad when she goes,’ Ellie told her. ‘She’s very tired and she’ll be glad to slip away.’

‘No, she won’t,’ said Annika furiously. ‘She’s only tired because the weather’s so hot. When it gets cooler she’ll be better again; she’s NOT going to die!’

And Ellie shook her head because it was impossible to convince Annika that she was not in charge of the world.

Meanwhile, in her attic, the old lady was coming near the end of her story.

‘I went to live in a little room on the Left Bank and I was all right. I bought a dog.’

‘What kind of dog?’ asked Annika eagerly.

‘A little schnauzer. I would have liked a big one, but not in the middle of town.’

‘Yes, schnauzers are good,’ said Annika and sighed, for her quest for a dog of her own was not making any progress.

‘So I was all right. I still had my jewels you see. I still had the Star of Kazan and the butterfly brooch and the diamond tiara and the rings . . . I used to look at them, when I was alone. They were so beautiful. And while I had them I was still rich – very, very rich. But of course one by one I had to sell them to buy food and pay the rent.’

‘Were you very sad?’