The Star of Kazan

As for Professor Emil, he missed Annika for different reasons. Just after she went, the museum had shown him a new painting of three bare-footed ladies dancing in a meadow and asked him if he thought it was a genuine Titian. He had known at once that it was not because of the way the feet were painted – Titian never used models who were pigeon-toed. This was the kind of thing that Annika would have understood at once, and he was getting ready to hurry home and tell her before he remembered that she was gone.

The people in the square did not make things any easier. The lady in the paper shop said she was not at all sure that the climate of north Germany would suit Annika; Josef from the cafe said he did not like the way the Emperor Wilhelm was carrying on, and Frau Bodek said they could say what they liked but the baby missed her.

Then the first letters came from Spittal. Pauline and Stefan carried theirs to the hut so as to compare notes and both agreed that Annika’s letters were strange.

It had been difficult to stop Annika from talking when she was excited about something, but she wrote about her new life in a careful sort of way, rather as if she was writing an essay for school.

What she made clear to both of them was that she was very happy. In Pauline’s letter she had underlined the word ‘very’ and in Stefan’s letter she said she was very happy indeed. She wrote about her marvellous and amazing mother, who looked after Spittal all by herself, and she wrote about Hermann, who was going into the army and did press-ups and bayonet practice in his room. She wrote about how big Spittal was and how brave the aristocracy were, not minding about being cold and never having pudding and she described the bear pit in the hunting lodge into which a drunken labourer had fallen.

Hermann showed me the family crest and the motto. It says, ‘Stand Aside, Ye Vermin Who Oppose Us!’ Vermin is anybody who gets in the way of the von Tannenbergs, he said.

There were some crossings-out in both letters. Something about Jesus having been a carpenter, which they couldn’t read or make out properly, and a few lines about the farm, and the stable boy who looked after Hermann’s horse.

After that came the questions. These flowed on in quite a different way, as though she had written them quickly without thinking. Had the baby’s teeth come through? What was Pauline reading? How were the goldfish in the fountain? Had Loremarie got a new governess?

‘Do you think she’s all right?’ asked Stefan.

‘Of course she’s all right,’ said Pauline, sounding cross. ‘Why shouldn’t she be?’

Ellie and Sigrid had hoped to read their letter quietly by themselves, but the postman had spread the news that Annika had written and presently the kitchen filled with people who demanded to know what she had said. Mitzi from the Eggharts’ house, Josef from the cafe, the lady from the paper shop . . .

‘Well?’ they asked. ‘Is she happy?’

‘She is very happy,’ said Ellie firmly.

She knew that this was so because Annika had said so in her first paragraph, but she found the letter puzzling and wasn’t quite sure what to tell them.

For Annika had found it difficult to explain certain things to Ellie: the dead birds with pellets . . . the leaking roof . . . She asked if Ellie could send her some chilblain ointment; she described the lake, which was large, the frogs, which were hatching, and a beautiful bay horse, which belonged to Hermann but was looked after by the stable boy. Her mother had said she might soon have a pony of her own.

After that, she exploded with questions. Her questions to Pauline and Stefan took a whole page; her questions to Ellie sprawled over three. Was the geranium cutting growing? Did Uncle Emil manage his cravats? What was the flower lady selling? Had Cornelia Otter started to sing again at the opera? How many letters had Uncle Julius written to the newspaper? Was Ellie going to bake a poppy-seed strudel for the end of Lent? Had the asparagus seller come to the market yet . . . ?

And right at the end she told them once again how very much she was enjoying her new life.

A week after Annika’s letters came, a serious-looking man in a dark suit, carrying a briefcase, rang the bell of the professors’ house.

‘I’m looking for the guardians of Annika Winter,’ he said. ‘I believe this is the right address?’

Sigrid, who had answered the door, turned white.

‘Is she . . . has something happened? An accident?’

‘No, not at all. I represent the firm of Gerhart and Funkel in the Karntner Strasse and we have some business with her. Perhaps I could come in?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course, I’m sorry.’

She showed him into the drawing room and fetched the professors, and after a short time both Sigrid and Ellie were sent for.