She broke off deliberately and, ignoring Nini, said: ‘Actually I didn’t come here primarily to buy a dress and certainly not to talk about my son. I came to ask you about a child who used to live opposite. A pianist, Sigismund Kraszinsky. I was told that you knew him well, that he owes his career to you.’
‘No, not that. But, yes, I know him.’
‘Well, the problem is this. I heard him in Paris a few weeks ago and offered him a place in the school I help to run in New York. It seemed to me that he was exactly the sort of child we want: highly talented but in need of a very thorough grounding in musical techniques. And in need of a stable background in which to develop — the school is residential; any child who enters it is cared for till he’s ready to make his debut. However, the boy refused. He said he had to make money, a great deal of money. He seemed to be obsessed by that.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I see.’
‘So I left it — in any case we have far more applicants than there are places. But a few days ago, just as I was leaving Paris, I had a cable. Apparently the child has changed his mind and he now wants to come. I’ve talked to Van der Velde and he’ll let him go — he knows by the time we’ve finished with him he’ll be worth a fortune and he can take some of the credit. But… I don’t know how to put this without sounding priggish… though we offer a highly technical curriculum, we do try to develop the idea of a talent as a gift from God, something that carries certain obligations. And if there’s something money-grubbing in the child himself — if money is the prime objective, which would be perfectly natural given his background — then I don’t think he’d fit in.’
‘No, no, no!’ I came towards her; I think I was wringing my hands. ‘No, he’s not like that at all! Listen, please listen. Let me tell you why he wanted money.’
Once I began to talk I couldn’t stop. I told her everything about Sigi — our first meeting by the fountain, the day at the Prater, the accident — and the last evening at Sachers. ‘That’s why he wanted money, you see. Not for himself — never for himself.’
When I finished she rose and laid a hand on my arm. ‘I won’t tell you that you are going to be proud of him because I know you are already. I won’t even tell you that the world will hear of him, because you know that too. I’ll just tell you that we’ll look after him as you would have done… you or the red-haired angel.’
Then deliberately shrugging off emotion, she became practical.
‘Now the only question that remains is how to get Sigismund to New York. I’d like him to go at once because term begins next week and I’ve lured Leschetizsky over to take a master class. But I’m not going home yet — I’m on my way to St Petersburg; I still have grandparents there, they’re in their eighties and I’ve promised to visit them before it’s too late.’
‘Sigi’s too young to travel alone,’ I said.
She nodded, holding my eyes.
‘Yes, definitely. Daniel will meet him and take him to the school, but I’ll have to try to find someone to go with him on the boat. The uncle’s going back to Preszowice, and anyway he’s useless. Well, no doubt something can be arranged.’
There was a rustle of taffeta as Nini stirred in the green dress.
‘I could take him,’ she said gruffly. ‘If you like. Just take him over and maybe stay for a short time, if Frau Susanna can spare me. Just for a visit.’
‘Would you?’ Frau Frankenheimer was entirely matter of fact. ‘That would certainly solve the problem.’
And she began to discuss the alterations to the green dress — but it was at this point that I remembered something Daniel had said. Something about wolverines…
It all happened so quickly after that.
Less than a week after Frau Frankenheimer’s visit, I stood on the platform of the Westbahnof saying goodbye.
Nini was shivering in her cloth coat. She has sold the Russian sable and given the money to the family of the little boy who lost his legs.
‘You’ll be cold on the boat,’ I said. ‘Let me lend you my shawl.’
She shook her head. ‘I’ll wrap a rug round me,’ she said, and I saw her swaggering round the deck, starting a new fashion for steamer-rug cloaks.
‘It’s only a visit,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Of course.’
‘And anyway you’ll come. It would be a marvellous place to have a shop, New York.’
‘Yes, marvellous.’
We’ve said these things to each other a hundred times since Frau Frankenheimer’s visit. We had to.
The guard came along the platform, calling to the passengers to take their seats.
‘Goodbye, Nini.’
We hugged each other quickly, and then she climbed into the train and waited for the boy.
A stupid, concert-going lady had presented him with an outsize bouquet of hothouse flowers. As I bent down to him, his face was almost hidden by the outsize blooms.
‘We’ll meet again, Sigi. We won’t lose each other. Not you and I.’
He said nothing. This child of all children knew how easily people are lost. As I kissed him I heard for the last time that husky, almost inaudible croak.
‘I hope she comes soon.’
‘Who, Sigi?’
‘Your daughter.’
‘Yes, I hope so too.’
But she could have come running down the platform with outstretched arms and I wouldn’t even have seen her, as I stood watching the train go out and waving, waving…
There were a number of things I needed as I came back from the station: oblivion, a hot bath, a large glass of Gretl’s uncle’s eau de vie — but not, God knows not — Frau Egger pacing dementedly between the packing cases.
‘Oh there you are, Frau Susanna! Thank heavens! I’ve been so distracted… I don’t know what to do. I’m at my wits’ end!’ But this was too much.
‘Frau Egger, your husband has destroyed my livelihood and made a great many people most unhappy — I really cannot discuss any more intimate details of —’
‘No, no. It isn’t that! It’s far worse! I know I shouldn’t come to you, but I have no friends, and it’s all to do with the buttons he says, and now he’s gone completely mad. He’s going to fight a duel!’
‘A duel?’
She nodded. ‘This afternoon, in that meadow by the Danube Bend where they used to fight — except that I think it’s a corporation dump now, but that wouldn’t stop Willibald.’
I sighed and removed my coat. ‘You’d better come upstairs. And try to be calm — just tell me what happened, quietly.’
It had begun just before Christmas, she said, with the arrival of a mysterious stranger late at night asking to see her husband.
‘He didn’t give his name, but he was the kind of person one admitted,’ said Frau Egger.
The man was closeted with Egger for an hour and after he left, the Minister was in a dreadful state, white, shaking, hysterical. And the next day he said he had to go abroad on urgent business.
‘He wouldn’t tell me what it was or why he had to go, but from the way he packed all the valuables, even my pearls, I knew he meant to flee the country.’
‘But what about his work at the Ministry?’
‘I don’t know about that. He went on going to his office, but I don’t know what he did there. He was quite wild all that week — furious and frightened at the same time. And then just before he was due to leave Vienna, something extraordinary happened. We were having lunch and a military parade went by outside the window. It was the Carinthian Jaegers marching with a full band and you know how smart they are.’
‘Yes.’ I had good reason to know that.