The Star of Kazan

Frau Edeltraut sat at the dressing table of her room at the Riverside Hotel, brushing her hair. Bottles of scent and ointments, her silver combs, her powder puffs were spread out in front of her; sunlight filtered in from her private veranda with its deckchairs and pots of hanging carnations. Oswald was in an adjoining room, gazing at the paddle steamer and the colourful pleasure boats on the river through his binoculars.

Mathilde had been difficult, before they left for Vienna.

‘I don’t see why you should use Oswald all the time to fetch and carry for you,’ she had said, glaring at her sister. ‘Oswald is my husband; he doesn’t belong to you.’

‘I never said he did. If it’s of any interest to you, I find Oswald extremely dreary. He has no breadth – no vision,’ said Edeltraut. ‘But I need him for this last journey to Vienna. Once we have Annika back at Spittal I will find a person to be with her at all times and see that there’s no more nonsense. If necessary . . .’ But this was a sentence she did not finish, since Mathilde was weak and dithery and had been fond of Annika. ‘And I have to point out that you were pleased enough to come to Zurich and spend my money.’

‘Your daughter’s money, you mean.’

Edeltraut ignored this. ‘If the truth came out you’d be in quite as much trouble as Oswald and myself.’

‘No, I wouldn’t. I didn’t steal the trunk. And Gudrun knows nothing about it, nothing at all.’

‘Well, of course not. Nor does Hermann. One would hardly bring children into something in which secrecy is essential. But I tell you, if we don’t get Annika away from Vienna, and quickly, and make sure she cannot escape again, everything we have worked for could fall to the ground.’

‘Well, all right,’ said Mathilde sulkily. ‘But this is the last time – and I shall expect you to bring back a present for Gudrun. I suppose you won’t go back to the Hotel Bristol.’

‘You know perfectly well that I can’t go back to the Bristol,’ said Edeltraut, who had left without paying her bill.

‘Well, in that case why don’t you stay near the river instead? There’s a good hotel by the Danube – the Riverside. Oswald thinks we need a new boat for the lake and there’s a boat-builder near there.’

‘Oh, Oswald wants me to buy him a boat now, does he?’

But she did in fact book two rooms at the Riverside Hotel on the edge of the city, and when she and Oswald arrived in Vienna she was glad she had done so, because the weather was fine and warm and the hotel, with its verandas over the water and its riverside walks and its view of the landing stage where the steamer unloaded its cargo of passengers, was a very pleasant place to be.

‘I have business to attend to in the morning, as I told you,’ Edeltraut told her brother-in-law when they arrived. ‘I shan’t need you for that. But in the afternoon I want you to come with me to fetch Annika. I have full legal rights as her mother, but I don’t trust these professors.’

‘You don’t think they suspect something?’

‘Don’t be silly, how could they? Zed’s with the gypsies in Hungary and no one else knows anything.’

So now she was busy creating herself in readiness for another day. Her morning dress of coral silk was protected by a chiffon peignoir; her coral earrings and matching necklace were waiting on the jewellery stand. She had powdered her face and darkened her eyelashes. Her long hair, washed the night before by the hotel hairdresser, hung loose down her back and she was brushing it. One could never brush hair hard enough, or for too long.

She was interrupted by a knock at the door and a hotel page announced that there was a young lady to see her.

‘Did she give her name?’

‘No, madam. She’s very young; just a child. Shall I send her up.’

‘Yes, you had better do that.’

Annika had been awake the whole night. The professors’ accusations went round and round in her head, and every time she pushed them away they came back again.

The professors were lying; they had to be. They may not have meant to lie but they had lied just the same. It was not possible that her mother was a thief. If she was guilty, she had not only stolen the trunk but blamed Zed for the theft – and that was impossible.

Annika remembered the joy of that first meal in the Hotel Bristol, the excitement and pride of finding that she belonged to such a beautiful woman. The hope with which she had travelled to Spittal . . .

Perhaps Uncle Oswald had done it? He was always doing things for her mother; yes, it could be that. And her mother hadn’t known till it was over.

Oh God, she had to believe that her mother was good. How did people live if they thought their mother was dishonest?

As soon as it was light Annika had got dressed and crept out of the house. She had to see her mother at once and she had to see her alone and find out the truth. Nothing mattered except that.

The journey to the Riverside Hotel was long and wearisome: the tram to the terminus, then the little train which steamed along the Danube, and a dusty walk from the station to the hotel.