Or was it?
I lifted my head. ‘Sigi,’ I said. ‘I can’t come and live with you in your house. In any house. I can’t.’
He had started to eat. Now he put down his fork.
‘Why can’t you? Why?’ The husky croak was very faint now, scarcely audible.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I’m going to tell you something that nobody else knows — not Nini, not anyone in the square — and you must tell no one. You see, I have a daughter.’
And as the café emptied, I told him the whole story. To this foreign child whom I now loved, I spoke as I had spoken only once before, to Gernot von Lindenberg that first time in the rain-swept hunting lodge. I told him of my daughter’s birth, her loss, the agony of seeing her once again in Salzburg and leaving her.
‘I don’t know where she is now, Sigi, and she’s not small any more, but I still hope… I still wait for her to come back to me. And if she came… if she needed me… and found you there instead, it would hurt her so much. She might come one evening to the window and see us having supper together and she would say “My mother doesn’t need me, she has another child.”’
He understood. His dream died and he grew pale, but he understood. ‘If it was your mother, Sigi… if she had lost you when you were little, she would wait always, wouldn’t she?’
‘Yes, she would wait.’
Then… listen to this… he felt in his pocket and he handed me — he handed me — his handkerchief because I was no longer in control. So I’ve done something, haven’t I? Surely, God, you can say I’ve done something for this child whom I found so ragged and unkempt? I’ve hurt him, I’ve handed him over to an unscrupulous man — but I’ve taught him about handkerchiefs!
I seem to have stumbled on another impasse. Marie Konrad came to see me this afternoon.
I’ve always liked Peter Konrad’s wife. A good mother, a good wife, pretty and entertaining. I’ve been to her villa in Schünbrunn for dinner, and we meet sometimes in theatres or restaurants.
Still I was surprised when she asked if she could speak to me alone. We’re acquaintances rather than friends.
‘I’m sorry to come like this,’ she said when we were settled upstairs. ‘I feel ashamed… but… I’m frightened. Yes, to tell the truth, I’m frightened and I came to ask if you could help me.’
‘I’d like to help you,’ I said, mystified. ‘But how?’
She had begun to fidget with her reticule, to smooth down her perfectly smooth collar. Then she lifted her head and I saw that she was blushing.
‘By not taking the job my husband offered you in the store,’ she blurted out. ‘That’s how you could help me, Frau Susanna. That was what I came to ask you to do.’
I didn’t at all understand what she was trying to tell me. ‘But why? How would that help you? Have you someone else for whom you want the job?’
She shook her head. ‘It isn’t that.’ She was dreadfully ill at ease and I was becoming increasingly puzzled. ‘It’s Peter. He’s a good husband — a very good husband — but he looks so distinguished, and well… he’s susceptible. There have been affairs, of course, but they didn’t last. But if you came to work with him, if he saw you every day and stayed behind with you to consult and so on, I know… I just know how it would end. And this time it would be serious.’
‘Frau Konrad, I assure you, on my honour that I have never and would never —’
She interrupted me. ‘No, no — I don’t mean you. I’m not accusing you of anything. I know you would do what you could to stop it — but you’re not like the others and he has always… felt attracted to you. You should have heard how he spoke of you after he took you to the Opera. The way you walked up the staircase… the Arab who wanted to buy you with camels. And a Field Marshal in full uniform — a Field Marshal — picking up your handkerchief.’
I winced as the knife went in, but Marie noticed nothing.
‘He doesn’t know yet; he thinks it’s just admiration. But I know — and I’m afraid. Seeing you all the time, sharing your interests…’ Her head was bent; she laced and unlaced her fingers. ‘You can’t help it — you’re so beautiful.’
‘Am I?’ I said, suddenly flooded with bitterness. ‘Are you sure? Am I still beautiful?’
She looked up, staring intently at my face. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘You look tired now, but it doesn’t matter. It’s your bones and the way you move… and your smile.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘Oh God, it’s really so awful isn’t it, this love.’
‘Yes, it’s fairly awful.’ I walked to the window, looked out at the square I’ve loved so much, turned. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell him no. I’ll refuse. But he must still take Nini if she wants it.’
‘And you won’t say that I’ve been?’ she begged.
‘No, of course not. Don’t worry, I’ll find an excuse.’
‘You’re so good. So good!’ She tried to take my hands but I shook my head and freed myself. I was good once, in a village behind the hill in Salzburg, and it has nothing to do with something so trivial as this.
All the same, I don’t quite know what is to happen now, or where I shall go.
At eleven this morning a carriage stopped outside my shop and a woman got out. She was in early middle age, slim and small, with an unremarkable face which nevertheless seemed familiar and a look of purpose and intelligence.
She greeted me, gave no name, removed her furs — and I gasped. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but you must tell me. Who made that dress?’
She smiled. ‘It’s good, isn’t it. So simple…’
‘Yes, but that kind of simplicity… And I’ve never seen worsted used like that; only in clothes for men. It’s French?’
‘Yes. Her name is Coco Chanel. She makes hats in the Avenue Gabriel and a few dresses privately for people she knows. She’s only a girl still, but there’s no doubt she’s a genius.’
The perfection of the beige wool dress so hypnotized me that it was a while before I realized that I had a wealthy customer with impeccable taste, but alas too late. My stock is practically exhausted.
‘I’d like to see some evening dresses. Is there anything you could show me?’
‘Very little, I’m afraid.’
I explained the situation and she nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve heard. I’m so sorry, it’s such a delightful square. Still, now that I’m here I’d like to see what you’ve got.’
‘There’s a green taffeta and a white silk. I’ll fetch them and —’
She interrupted me. ‘I’d like to see them on the model, please.’
‘Very well.’
I found Nini and told her to put on the green taffeta, and in spite of her troubles she swept into the salon with her beaky nose in the air, handling the rustling train with her old bravura.
‘Yes, I like it. Could it be altered quickly? I leave tomorrow.’
Nini had been revolving in the centre of the room. Now she wheeled round, walked over to the woman in the gilt chair and addressed her with a sudden and most disconcerting rudeness.
‘Did he send you?’ she asked, at her most Magyar and insolent.
She had met her match. The woman in the Chanel dress drew together eyebrows that were only slightly less arrogant than Nini’s.
‘Nobody sends me,’ she said icily. ‘I am here on business.’
‘But you’re his sister, aren’t you?’
The change was remarkable. The woman’s face puckered up in a smile, the eyes shone. ‘Ah, that was beautiful,’ she said appreciatively. ‘I shall dine out on that!’ Her voice now was gentle, she had seen the wretchedness in Nini’s face. ‘I’m his mother, actually.’
‘Oh. How… how is he?’
Frau Frankenheimer shrugged. ‘He’s back in New York and working very hard. His father’s pleased to have him back; he’s put through some useful deals already. So are the eligible girls of our circle. Invitations pour through the letter box…’