The Star of Kazan

‘But you see, Annika, the lawyer had found out something else about you. An old lady who lived in the square had left you a trunk full of keepsakes; the will was still being proved and you knew nothing about it. Then, when I went back to Spittal to get ready for your arrival, my uncle told me the story about La Rondine’s jewels and that they were real but nobody knew it.

‘Of course I should have told you – but I didn’t know if the story was true; the jewels might have been fakes, as everyone believed. And I had this dream, Annika – the dream of making Spittal great again and you and Hermann living there in comfort. I have made a will, you know, leaving you a share of Spittal. Not just Hermann, you. Oh, Annika, I have been so very foolish.’

‘I would have given you the jewels for Spittal. I would have given you everything I had,’ said Annika quietly.

‘I know – oh, I know now, my darling. But remember, I hardly knew you then. I could see that you were sweet and pretty, but a little girl can have her head turned by sudden wealth. I should have trusted my own daughter – my own flesh and blood – but I had been hurt so much.’

Annika was very tired. Something seemed not to fit, but she was too weary to work it out.

And Edeltraut’s eyes had filled with tears again. She put a hand on Annika’s shoulder. ‘We could start a new life together, you and I. We could make my dream for Spittal come true together. There is a lot of money left, and you shall decide how it is spent. Without Hermann I am so very much alone. Say it isn’t too late. Say you’ll come, my darling. I need you so very much.’

‘I won’t go back to Grossenfluss. Not ever.’ In spite of her exhaustion, Annika’s voice was firm.

‘No, no, of course not. It was wrong of me to think that you might be happy there. I thought you needed companionship of your own age, but the school has changed completely in the last few years. I should have taken you there and seen for myself instead of letting you go with Mathilde; I have been guilty there too – dreadfully guilty. You shall never go back there, I swear it.’ She had found another handkerchief and managed to smile through her tears. ‘My poor, pale darling, don’t stand there by the door. Let the sun warm your face, come out on to the balcony.’

Annika let herself be led out of the French window. In front of her was the dazzling water with its gaily painted boats. Tulip trees were in flower along the bank; children splashed in the shallows. The world was still there and it was very beautiful.

‘Look, there’s the steamer just going off to Regensburg.’

Annika nodded. ‘It’s the Princess Stephanie.’

Her mother had put her arm round her and her scent stole into Annika’s nostrils.

‘There’s so much to see, so much to do. Couldn’t we do it together?’

Still Annika was silent. She did not think that she had ever been so tired.

‘I’ve had such an idea,’ said Edeltraut eagerly. ‘We could go back home on the steamer. Go back by river. The boat goes quite a long way into Germany, we’d have days on the water before we had to change to a train. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You like travelling by boat.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll come then, my darling? You’ll forgive me?’ She stretched out her hands imploringly and looked deep into Annika’s eyes. ‘Because if I don’t have your forgiveness I don’t know . . . how I shall live.’

C

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Nobody could believe it.

‘You’re not going to do anything about the jewels? You’re going to let her have them and say nothing?’

Everybody was amazed and distressed, but Pauline was furious.

‘You must be completely mad,’ she said.

They had all gathered in the courtyard to find out where Annika had been.

‘Would you give your mother up to the police?’ asked Annika. ‘Would you, Ellie?’ She turned to the professors. ‘Would you?’

For a moment she had silenced them. Ellie remembered her mother, who had once taken a small wilted sprig of parsley hanging down from the side of a market stall because the stallholder was busy serving a queue of customers and she was in a hurry. The following day she had sent Ellie to walk five kilometres in the heat down a dusty road to find the woman and pay her.

‘You see,’ said Annika, ‘you wouldn’t. Not your own mother.’

But what they minded – what was almost impossible to understand – was that Annika was going back of her own free will to Spittal. She wasn’t even going to try and stay in Vienna.

‘She asked me to forgive her; she went down on her knees to me.’

Pauline snorted and the professors frowned at her, but it was true that they too were very much upset. They had given Annika a way out and she had not even tried to take it.

‘It’s just snobbishness,’ said Pauline. ‘You really like being a “von” and having people bow and scrape to you. You must like it or you wouldn’t be so feeble.’

‘No.’ Annika’s wretchedness was beyond tears. ‘I don’t like it.’