The Star of Kazan

‘I’m coming back,’ she cried. ‘I’m coming back often and often. My mother says I can.’

Why did no one listen; why did no one understand that she was coming back?

‘Yes, dear; of course you’re coming back,’ said Ellie quietly.

Then the carriage was at the door. Though Annika had already taken leave of everyone, they had all gathered in the square to wave. The same people as had been there just a few days ago, when she and Stefan had come back from the Prater. The Bodeks with the baby, Pauline and her grandfather, Josef from the cafe . . .

Annika climbed into the carriage, where her mother sat waiting. As it clattered away across the cobbles, the Bodek baby in his pram began to scream. He screamed and he screamed and he screamed long after the carriage had turned into the Keller Strasse and was out of sight.

Nobody hushed him. Instead, as he became more and more purple with sorrow and rage, they nodded their heads.

‘Exactly so,’ they said to each other. ‘Yes, yes, exactly so.’

C

HAPTER

E

LEVEN

J

OURNEY TO

N

ORRLAND

They had travelled all morning and for the best part of the afternoon. The train was stuffy, but when her mother opened a window the wind that blew in seemed to be full of knives.

Annika had looked out eagerly as they had crossed the Moravian hills, stopped at pretty towns with onion-domed churches and trundled over gorges cut by rushing rivers. Now, after several hours, she was getting sleepy and the landscape had changed. As they went north, and still further north, there was just a wide plain with patches of trees and pools of water circled by dark birds. Snow still lay in the hollows and the gnarled trees were bent by the wind. This was Norrland and the site of her new home.

Frau Edeltraut had said little on the journey; just smiled at Annika from time to time and reached out to pat her hand – and Annika was free to imagine what she would find . . . the farm, the dogs and horses . . . and Hermann . . . A brother: she had not dared to imagine a brother in her dreams.

They did not go to the dining car; just bought some rolls from a woman with a basket at one of the stations, and Annika remembered hearing that aristocrats did not get hungry like other people, nor did they mind being uncomfortable. The seats of the railway carriage were surprisingly hard.

The light had begun to fade by the time the train stopped at Bad Haxenfeld, and they climbed down on to the platform. It was bitterly cold and a strong smell of rotten eggs drifted over from the town. Rather a grand town it seemed to be, with big hotels and a casino, so the smell surprised Annika. Was it the drains?

‘That’s the sulphur you can smell,’ said her mother. ‘It’s in the water – it gushes out of the rocks above the town and that’s why people come here to take baths in it and get cured. Sulphur is good for a whole lot of diseases. I have an old uncle who lives in one of the hotels here; he has arthritis.’

Annika nodded. The Eggharts came here too, she remembered. They had been at Bad Haxenfeld when news reached them of the old lady’s death.

As they crossed the platform to leave the station, a large number of men in dark suits – thirty at least – got out of the back of the train. They had badges pinned to their lapels and obviously belonged together.

‘I think they must be dentists,’ said Frau Edeltraut. ‘Unless they’re undertakers, but I believe my uncle said dentists. They come here for conferences. One month it’s dentists, one month it’s undertakers or locksmiths or bank managers. They stay in the hotels and take the waters and talk about teeth or coffins or whatever.’

Annika watched the men, still streaming out of the train. As they alighted, uniformed porters with the names of the hotels on their caps fetched their trunks and suitcases out of the luggage van and trundled them out of the station, and the dentists followed. Tall dentists, small dentists, fat dentists, thin dentists . . .

‘I didn’t know there were so many dentists in the world,’ said Annika.

On the road outside the station a large closed carriage with two horses was waiting. It was painted black and on the side Annika could just make out the von Tannenberg crest – the same crest that had been on her mother’s handkerchief.

The carriage was old, with a musty smell and leather seats. The coachman was old too and when he had raised his hat and nodded to Annika he fell silent. People did not seem to talk so much here in the north.

They left the town behind them and drove for more than an hour in the gathering dusk. Annika could just make out the same clumps of gnarled and wind-blown trees; the same patches of wind-ruffled water. Then it became too dark to see and she leaned back against the cushions and closed her eyes.