Nini blew her nose. ‘Have you ever heard of the Frankenheimer Merchant Bank?’
‘Just about. It’s an American bank like J. P. Morgan or Rothschilds, isn’t, that it?’
‘Yes, that’s it. Well, Daniel owns it. Or rather his father does, but Daniel’s the only son and he’s all set to take over. There isn’t just the bank; they own some other vile capitalist consortium. I wormed it all out of Daniel — at first he didn’t seem to think it mattered. They have a house on Fifth Avenue and another on that island where all these swinish people go — the Vanderbilts and all that crowd. His mother’s the patroness of some music school in New York. He thought I’d like her. God, a patroness … can’t you see her with her great bosom full of jewels getting out of her limousine and all the poor little children bowing and scraping on their violins and being patted on the head? And Daniel spends a month every year doing something like this: working with children, or last year he worked in an old people’s home in France — and the rest of the year he’s in the bank grinding the faces of the poor and making millions.’
‘And what did he say when you told him how you felt?’
‘He didn’t think it mattered. He said I could be an Anarchist just as well in New York. He said Marx said the revolution would begin in America and if it came it meant that people wanted it and he’d hand over the bank or go bravely to the guillotine — well, he’d go to the guillotine whether bravely or not — but till then he thought there was no point in upsetting his father who’d slaved to start the bank, and anyway he said he liked figures — he liked the way they worked. And he just kept saying… we… we belonged together and it was to do with my soul and my eyebrows and when you met someone like that and let them go, it was a bad deed… it was wrong, a sin. But it’s a lot wronger to own a bank and grind the faces of the poor, I think. And we argued and argued and I couldn’t make him see. So I just packed my bags and went. There were plenty of people to do the washing up; a whole new lot had come from Germany. And I’m really perfectly all right. Absolutely fine. Only I would very much like to be busy, if you don’t mind, so if you didn’t send Magdalena’s tea gown to be embroidered but gave it to me, we could save a lot of money…’
Magdalena’s wedding dress is really far too magnificent for a small private wedding with only one bridesmaid in attendance. In designing it I had responded to her beauty and Herr Huber’s wishes, rather than the occasion.
But it is not too magnificent for the church.
Outwardly the Capuchin Church is a narrow, faded building, squeezed in between others on the west side of the Neuermarkt. Inside, too, it is austere with only the dark brown of the marquetry work behind the altar for decoration.
But to walk down the aisle of the Capuchin Church is to walk on the whole history of the Empire, for below in the crypt lie the bodies of all the Habsburgs who have ruled over Austria. Maria Theresia lies there in a vast sarcophagus, entwined in statuary with her husband, and Leopold I who saved us from the Turks. Crown Prince Rudolf sleeps in the crypt, wept over by parties of tourists; and Napoleon’s sad little son, the King of Rome whose cradle they adorned with a thousand golden bees to bring him luck and happiness, but to no avail.
Somehow it seemed to me suitable that the eerie Magdalena with her mad religiosity and her extraordinary beauty should walk to her bridegroom over the buried bodies of more than a hundred Habsburg kings.
Since the ceremony was to be small and private, a rehearsal hardly seemed necessary but when Herr Huber suggested it, I agreed with alacrity. Anything to banish the spectre of the tall, dark man who had bent over Magdalena with such unmistakable tenderness beneath the acacia in St Oswald’s garden.
For once, Frau Winter, overcoming her scruples about Herr Huber being in trade, attended with her twin boys, for there was to be a luncheon afterwards provided by the butcher. And Frau Sultzer arrived with Edith. She came on the tandem, and it was nice of her for Rudi has not been dead a month and I’m not so foolish as to imagine that in her own way she does not grieve. As usual her arrival caused a certain consternation; as usual she unstrapped her briefcase from the carrier so that Schopenhauer could be assured of her attention, even in church.
But only one briefcase… Edith, as she followed her mother, had a naked and vulnerable look.
‘Is it finished then? The essay?’
‘Yes, I handed it in last week.’
The Bluestocking looked tireder and plainer than ever: a different girl from the one who had chatted so happily to Herr Huber’s sisters in Linz.
Magdalena, wearing white, seemed thoroughly at home in the sombre church, talking animatedly to the priest about music for the service, lighting candles at the side altar, dropping on to her knees to pray. If only I hadn’t seen what I had seen at St Oswald’s, it would have convinced me thoroughly, this piety of hers.
I’d brought Nini along and the measurements for Magdalena’s train. There would be no problem with the dress; there were very few steps; a girl with Magdalena’s grace would manage without help.
‘You’ll have to stay about eight paces behind Magdalena,’ I said to Edith. ‘There’s no need to lift the train — it’ll fall into its own lines — just see, that it’s clear as you come through the door and then when you get to the altar, arrange it on the steps before you stand aside.’
Herr Huber, of course, should not have been present at all. But one can hardly expect a man to pay for the trousseau and take on the care of the bride’s family, and have nothing to do with the arrangements. Now he sat squeezed into one of the side pews and followed Magdalena’s every movement with his eyes.
It hadn’t seemed necessary to rehearse the procession, but it so happened that the organist was in the church, and at a word from the priest he went up to the organ loft and started to play the Bach passacaglia which Magdalena had chosen for her entry.
It was strangely exciting, the sudden music; it made it real. Magdalena felt it too, I think, for she lifted her head and began to walk up the aisle in perfect time to the music.
And counting carefully, making sure she kept the right distance, Edith, with her pigeon-toed gait, fell in behind her.
Herr Huber, I’m sure, made no sort of gesture; he saw nothing but his bride, but after a few paces, Edith suddenly stopped.
‘No,’ I heard her say in a frenzied whisper. ‘No, I can’t, Magdalena. You mustn’t have me as a bridesmaid. You mustn’t.’
Magdalena turned.
‘You mustn’t,’ Edith repeated. ‘Don’t you see, it’ll be a farce. You’ll spoil it for him. He’ll see you come and then me behind you. He’ll be sick. Everyone’ll be sick.’
I moved quickly towards her, expecting hysterics. But Magdalena was looking at her friend with the bewildered look of someone woken too suddenly from a dream.
‘Who? Who’ll be standing there? What are you talking about?’
‘Herr Huber of course. Your bridegroom.’ It was Edith’s turn to look confused.
Magdalena, with an almost visible effort, brought herself down to earth. ‘I want you to be there, Edith,’ she said to her friend. ‘I need you to be there.’
She had spoken with certainty and kindness. Edith steadied herself and the procession continued — but to me it was as if Magdalena had proclaimed her passion to the world. For one thing was certain: the figure she’d imagined waiting at the altar as she fixed her eyes raptly on the crucifix might be her chosen bridegroom — but it was not Herr Huber from Linz.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like actually to see the Taj Mahal. I’ve read so much about it, seen pictures in the Illustrierte Zeitung. But when one got there in the moonlight would there be an anticlimax? Can it be as white and majestic as everybody says?