‘Nonetheless,’ says Clara, attaching herself again to me and scratching delicately at my wrist with her thumbnail, ‘it should not stop you ascending, Count.’
Stefanik is dismissive.
‘A white flag would do it,’ says Langenscheidt, his little body all a-quiver. ‘Wave a white flag!’ Schummel argues that for Count Stefanik to rise above the walls of Mirenburg brandishing a white flag might mislead Holzhammer into believing the entire city had surrendered and that would not be sporting. Indeed, it could be exceptionally embarrasing to everyone.
The aviator sighs. ‘My balloon stays where it is.’ He signals to Lotte and Hyacinta, both beautiful natural blondes, and with the briefest of acknowledgements to the rest of the company, departs upstairs with them. I take a glass of red Graves from the buffet which tonight has been placed near the window. As always the windows are thickly curtained in red velvet glowing like a fresh rose. I smell patchouli, and woodsmoke from the fire, the cheeses and cold fowl on the table, and I am now completely relaxed, no longer so eager to return to my two girls. Clara comes to eat another peach. ‘It’s my third. Aren’t I greedy? They’re all the way from Africa, I believe.’ I wonder why she is pursuing me. I have no desire, tonight, to enjoy her special talents. She fixes me with a compulsive eye. Or perhaps it is Alex she desires, having heard about her from Therese. ‘I so enjoy Count Stefanik,’ she says, ‘don’t you? He is absolutely committed to the idea of powered flight. He calls it heavier than air? What does that mean?’
‘Such machines are notional, and probably not possible. It means to fly like a bird, which is heavier than air, not like a dirigible, which contains lighter than air gas.’
‘What?’ she exclaims with a laugh designed to please and flatter me. ‘Are we all to be angels?’
‘Some of us are already so blessed,’ I say with reluctant and unconvincing gallantry, looking up eagerly as the doors open and a woman enters. It is Princess Poliakoff, but now she no longer has her son with her. I cannot leave, for she has seen me and will be suspicious if I repeat my ploy of the previous evening. I smile at her and go to greet her.
I do not recognise her thin female companion. ‘Sent on,’ she says of the boy, to Vienna. I couldn’t risk an encounter
Holzhammer. He holds such awfully long grudges. Do you know Rickhardt von Bek, Diana? Lady Cromach.’ We are introduced. Lady Diana Cromach is a writer, a correspondent for several English and French journals. A Lesbian, she lives in Paris. ‘What brings you to Mirenburg, Lady Cromach?’ I enquire in English. ‘I am a professional vulture,’ she says. ‘The whiff of blood and gunpowder, you know. The war.’ Everyone seems to be babbling tonight. The salon is fuller than usual. Someone has placed a record on the cabinet phonograph in the corner. It plays a sentimental German song. All at once the place has the atmosphere of a provincial wedding-breakfast. Lady Cromach wears her dark curls close to her head, a circlet of pearls. She has an oval face, a rounded chin, grey-green eyes, a strong nose and a slightly down-turned but full mouth, very flexible for an Englishwoman. Her family estates are in Ireland. She is almost as tall as me and has an excellent, if slight, figure in an ivory gown trimmed with very light brown lace. Her voice is soft. Every statement seems full of implicit irony, no matter how banal it sounds on the surface. Has she learned to modify an otherwise mundane personality by cultivating this mannerism or is she really as clever as the Princess now insists? ‘Have you read her articles for the Graphic or La Vie Francaise? So perceptive! She is a seeress. You are a Cassandra, my dear.’ The Princess is plainly intoxicated with her friend. In her black costume she contrasts so emphatically that I smile and tell them I feel I am addressing a pair of chess queens. This pleases the Princess who laughs coarsely. ‘But we play a game without kings, dear Ricky.’ At this, Lady Cromach smiles and looks down at her fan. I find the Englishwoman, with her boyish shoulders and gestures, extremely attractive and give her more of my attention than I Wieve she desires. I am at my most charming, but she is not charmed, though she seems pleased to acknowledge the effort I am making and so is, I believe, flattered at least. Princess Poliakoff notices and almost growls at me. ‘Where is your little nigger tonight, Ricky?’
‘Resting,’ I reply. Lady Cromach displays more curiosity than before and it is my turn to smile a little. Doubtless she has heard an elaborate story from the Princess but only now believes it. Such apparently unconscious confirmations give substance to the most outrageous lies. I feel satisfied on a number of levels and my spirits lift considerably. I have excited Lady Cromach’s imagination; I have become interesting to her. I offer them both my cigarette case but Lady Cromach does not smoke and Princess Poliakoff prefers her little cheroots. She is quick to introduce her Diana to a safer acquaintance and once again I find I am with Clara, whom I now believe is either a little drunk or has made use of the box of cocaine for which she is well-known. She has never shown such interest in me before and I cannot understand why she is attracted to me tonight. She has an eye for vulnerability. Can I seem vulnerable to her, when I am so full of confidence? The phonograph is playing a Strauss waltz. ‘It is like a Friday or a Saturday,’ remarks Clara. ‘Not like a Wednesday at all.’ She is pleased, but I am beginning to feel slightly irritated and claustrophobic. All the same Clara’s pursuit has its effect. I have no intention, however, of returning to Alexandra with the marks of a birch on my behind; not yet. ‘You are looking so beautiful tonight, Ricky,’ says Clara. ‘You have only to ask Frau Schmetterling and I could join you a little later.’ I laugh. ‘You are after my—’ I hesitate. She makes a movement of triumphant withdrawal and our eyes meet even as she straightens her back. ‘We shall have to see,’ I say. ‘But I think it could be arranged.’ We all seem to be playing the same game tonight. And Clara grins, biting her lower lip, and winks. She is off into the press. I am alone. My first impulse is to leave quietly but before I know it I have crossed the carpet to where Princess Poliakoff and Lady Cromach, arm in arm, are amusing themselves at the expense of a red-faced dodderer who has mistaken them for whores. ‘I do hope we shall meet again, I tell them. I kiss their hands. Princess Poliakoff is a little cold, but I am under the impression that Lady Cromach has almost imperceptibly squeezed my fingers. To the strains of the waltz I make a lighthearted departure and spring up the stairs to our room. I find with disappointment that my little girls are asleep. Alexandra has her mouth open and is snoring. She looks, as she often does, like a replete rat, and I turn my attention first to her youthful flesh, then to Therese who, in sleep, seems slightly puzzled, just a trifle worried by something, and yet her lips are innocently curved in a smile. Alexandra opens alarmed, accusatory eyes, then composes her features in a way I have only seen on a much older woman. ‘I wish I could join you down there,’ she says. ‘You’ve enjoyed yourself, haven’t you?’ Her voice is low and loving. ‘I was missing you.’ I lean down to embrace her. Therese grunts and stirs but does not wake up. ‘I think we should go,’ I say. ‘Are you satisfied.’
‘With Therese?’ She frowns. ‘Oh, yes. We’ll come again tomorrow, shall we? For a different lady?’ I am indulgent. ‘You don’t think we should rest, be by ourselves, at least until Friday or Saturday?’ She is displeased. ‘But it is getting so exciting. Are you bored already?’ I shake my head. ‘Not bored. Merely patient.’
She puts her feet to the floor and looks at herself in the mirror. ‘What’s wrong?’ I reassure her and, of course, within moments am promising her that we shall return tomorrow, that I will speak to Frau Schmetterling before we leave. I would do anything to preserve this dream and will avoid, if I can, any hint of conflict between us. ‘You are a wonderful, wonderful friend.’ Naked, she raises herself to put her arms around my neck. ‘I adore you. I love you so much, Ricky.’ I kiss her violently on the mouth and then pull away from her, attempting gaiety. ‘Get dressed. We must slip into the night.’ Sadness and distress have invaded me so swiftly that I am angry, as if faced with a physical enemy. Much as I control myself she notices. When she is ready for the street she says quietly. ‘Have I upset you?’ I deny it, of course. ‘Not at all. I met an old buffoon downstairs who insisted on boring me about the war. He all but ruined my evening.’ She becomes tactful. ‘Perhaps you’re tired of our adventure? Perhaps we should rest tomorrow, after all.’ But I am by now fierce in my insistence that we continue. ‘You’re certain you want to?’ she says. ‘Of course,’ I reply. The anger fades. She appears to be mollified. I, in turn, become astonished at how easily she can be reassured. But she is a child. It is experience which encourages us to pursue our suspicions; that and the memory of past pain. She has not known pain. Only boredom. In a woman of my own age I should sense an echo, some form of sympathy. But with Alexandra there is no sympathy. And I continue to conspire in her ignorance because it is the child I love. If she were to become a woman I should lose interest in her in a matter of weeks at the most. We persist in a conspiracy in which I alone am guilty, for I know what I am denying her. I refuse my own reason. I refuse to consider any sense of consequence. She is what I want. I will not have her change. And yet I have no real power in the matter. I can only pray the moments will last as long as possible for it will be Alexandra, in the end, who will make the decision either to stop dreaming or, more likely, substitute one dream for another. I look carefully at Papadakis’s sallow, bearded face. At the deep hollows under his morbid eyes whose melancholy is emphasised by the spectacles he affects. Even the grey streaks in his beard have an unhealthy look, as if a saprophytic plant invades it. He turns away from my stare to pick at something with a quiet, fussy movement. I have made him self-conscious. I enjoy my moment. ‘You should take more exercise,’ I say. He grunts and shifts towards the shadows: a need to hide. His shoulders seem to become more stooped than usual. I am driving him into the darkness where he feels safest. ‘Have you been looking for the evidence again?’ I ask. ‘I have told you, the photographs are not in the house.’ He pushes back the heavy green curtain which covers the door of my bedroom. He disappears behind it. I pause to refill my pen. Alexandra is petulant. Her full lips turn downward and she pulls a hand through wet hair. Her skin seems to have lost its lustre this afternoon. Her shoulders and her breasts in particular have a lifeless look: a wax statue. ‘You are eating too much custard,’ I call after Papadakis. ‘Too much bread and jam!’ Alexandra pulls herself together, evidently displeased with her own mood.