Airs Above the Ground (8 page)

The Gasthof Edelweiss was charming, and, in spite of its name, without a hint of chichi. It was a long, low, single-storeyed house, with a shingle roof where doves sunned themselves, and window-boxes full of flowers. It lay at the very edge of the village, and in fact the road petered out in front of it to continue on past the house as a country track leading to some farm. Between house and road lay a space of raked gravel where tables stood under chestnut trees. There were a few people sitting there over coffee or drinks. Between their feet the doves strutted and cooed. Swallows, thinking already perhaps of the hotter south, wheeled and twittered overhead. One could smell the pines.

Timothy and I were offered adjacent rooms, giving on the wide veranda at the back of the house. Here the windows faced the fields, and the small spotless rooms were very quiet. Mine had a pinewood floor scrubbed white, with two small bright psuedo-Persian rugs, solid pine furniture, and one reasonably comfortable chair. There was a really beautiful old chest of dark wood
with painted panels, a rather inconvenient wardrobe, and a lot of heavy wrought-ironwork in the lamp brackets, and on the door, which was studded and barred like something from a Gothic cathedral. On the walls were two pictures, bright oily colours painted on wood; one showed an unidentifiable saint in a blue robe killing a dragon; the other a very similar saint in a red robe, watering some flowers. It seemed that in Austria there was a pleasantly wide choice of saintly qualities.

I unpacked quickly. I had thought I would be glad to be alone, just to think about what was to come, but in fact I found that I was refusing to think about it. I had, as it were, switched my mind out of gear and was concentrating only on folding away my clothes, on selecting something fresh to wear, and on the drink which I would shortly have with Timothy under the chestnut trees.

But when I was ready to go, I still lingered. I pushed the long windows wide, and went out on to the veranda.

This was set only two or three feet above ground level, so that immediately beyond the rail, and directly, it seemed, beneath one’s feet, the fields began. These had been recently mown, and the almost forgotten smell of new-mown hay filled the late afternoon. Beyond the stretches of shorn velvet the river ran, sunk deep in trees, and behind this feathered girdle of ash and willow rose the pines, slope after slope to the silver mountain tops. One side of the valley was deep in shadow. It was nearly half past six.

A sound made me look round. Timothy had come
out of his window on to his section of veranda. He had put on a clean shirt and looked alert and excited.

‘There you are, I thought I heard you. I wondered if you’d decided what to do next?’

‘Actually, I hadn’t. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a dead loss. I haven’t got over seeing that girl. It was a bit of a facer if you want the truth, like seeing a ghost.’

‘You mean you didn’t really believe in her till now? I know exactly what you mean,’ added Timothy surprisingly. ‘I felt a bit the same about Christl. But you know, I don’t know why you’re worrying, not about
her
. . . I mean, if there was any connection . . . seeing them together on the news reel like that . . . it wouldn’t be—’ He hesitated, trying to choose his words, then abruptly abandoned finesse. ‘Dash it, she may be pretty and all that, but
you
don’t need to worry about her! You’re beautiful! Did no one ever tell you?’

It was a fact that, now and again, people had; but I had never been so touched – or so completely deprived of speech.

I said eventually: ‘Thank you. But I – it’s not just that side of it that’s worrying me, you know. It’s just that I’ve no business to be here at all, and now I’m not so much wondering how to find him as what in the world to say to him when I do . . .’ I turned my back to the fields, and straightened up with what might pass for decision. ‘Oh, well, it’s done now, and the circus is the obvious lead. Did you say it started at eight? Then we’ve plenty of time. We can have a meal and talk to Frau Weber, and then walk down through the village. If this village is anything like our village at home, the
bush telegraph’s faster than the speed of light. In fact, if he’s here still, he probably knew all about us within thirty seconds of my signing the hotel register.’

‘If this is the last performance, they’ll start the pull-down the minute it’s over, and they’ll be clear of the place by morning.’ He eyed me. ‘I thought – shall I just go along there now, and see about getting tickets?’

‘But if they’ve been stuck here a week there’ll be no rush, and—’ I laughed. ‘Oh, I see. Well, why not? If you do track down “the subject”, you won’t do anything rash, will you?’

‘The soul of discretion,’ he promised. ‘I won’t say a word. I’ll be back in good time for dinner.’

‘I bet you will,’ I said, but he had already gone.

I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.

Shakespeare:
Much Ado About Nothing

The shadows of the chestnuts lay lightly across the café tables, and there was a slight warm breeze which fluttered the red checked cloths. Curled in the roots of one of the trees, an enormous St Bernard dog slept, twitching slightly from time to time in his dream. The place was quiet and very peaceful. I sat sipping my vermouth, telling myself that I must think, must think . . . and all the time my eyes were fixed on the street up which presently, I was sure, Lewis must come.

So strong was my imaginative sense of his presence that when, in fact, Timothy reappeared, coming at high speed up the street, I was almost startled to see him. Next moment I was genuinely startled to see who he had with him. Not Lewis, but – inevitably, it now seemed – Lewis’s blonde.

Next moment they were standing beside the table, and Timothy was performing introductions.

‘Vanessa, this is Annalisa Wagner. She belongs to the circus . . . You remember we saw a circus in the
field the other side of the village? Miss Wagner, this is Mrs—’ Too late, he saw the pitfall. He stopped dead.

I said, watching the girl: ‘My name is March. Vanessa March.’

‘How do you do, Mrs March?’ There was no flicker of expression outside the normal noncommittal politeness. She had, I noticed sourly, a charming voice, and her English was excellent.

‘Won’t you join us for a drink, Miss Wagner?’

‘Why, thank you. If you would please call me Annalisa?’

Timothy said. ‘What will you have?’

‘Coffee, please.’

‘Only coffee? Not a vermouth or something?’

She shook her head. ‘You’ll find that we circus people drink very little. It’s something that doesn’t pay. Just coffee, please.’

Timothy lifted a hand to the passing waitress, who responded immediately – an unusual circumstance in any country, but in Austria (I had already discovered) a miracle. It seemed he was even going to pass the waiter test with honours. He and the girl sat down, Timothy telegraphing ‘Over to you’ with a subdued air of triumph that had nothing to do with the waitress, Annalisa with a smile and a graceful spread of the blue-flowered skirt.

Seen at close range, she was still very pretty, with an ash-blonde Teutonic prettiness quite different from Christl’s. One could not picture Fräulein Wagner as altogether at home in a kitchen. She would seem more in place among those slim, tough beauties who win
Olympic medals for skating, or who perform impossible feats of skill and balance in the slalom. I wondered if the impression of fragility and helpless appeal that I had got from the news reel had been assumed for Lewis’s benefit, or if it had merely shown up in contrast to his size and air of tough competence. Or perhaps – I realised it now, more charitably – she had just been caught in a moment of shock and distress. It appeared that it was her circus, after all.

I said as much. ‘Your name’s Wagner? The circus must belong to you, to your family?’

‘To my father. Timothy says that you are coming to see it tonight?’

‘Yes. We’re looking forward to it. We’ve only just arrived, but I understand that you are leaving tomorrow, so we don’t want to miss you.’

She nodded. ‘We move on tonight, after the show. We have already been here too long.’ I waited, but she did not pursue this. She asked: ‘You are keen on circuses?’

I hesitated, then said truthfully: ‘Not altogether. I’ve never liked performing animals much, but I love the other acts – high wire, trapeze, the clowns, all the acrobats.’

‘Not the horses?’

‘Oh, I didn’t count the horses as “performing animals”! I meant bears and monkeys and tigers. I love the horses. Do you have many?’

‘Not many, we are a small circus. But a circus is nothing without its horses. With us they are the most important of all. My father works the liberty horses: we
think ourselves they are as good as the circus Schumann, but of course, we have not so many.’

‘I’ll look forward to seeing them, I always love them, and they’re my friend’s ruling passion.’

She laughed. ‘I know. I found him down in the horse lines. I don’t know how he got in.’

Timothy said: ‘I took a ticket for the menagerie, but you couldn’t expect me to look at parrots and monkeys when I could see the horses just round the corner.’

‘No, it is not a good menagerie, I know. It is just a side-show for the children.’

I said: ‘What good English you speak.’

‘My mother was English. I still get plenty of practice, because a circus is a very mixed place, really international. We have just now all sorts: the clowns are French, and the high-wire act is Hungarian, and the trampoline artistes are Japanese, and there is a comic act with a donkey, which is English, and an American juggler – besides the Germans and Austrians.’

‘United Nations,’ said Tim.

‘Indeed.’ She dimpled at him. ‘And on the whole really united. We have to be.’

‘Have you an act yourself?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I help my father with the liberty horses . . . and there is a sort of rodeo act near the beginning. But my own act is a riding one. I have a Lipizzan stallion—’

‘You have a what?’ Timothy’s interruption was robbed of rudeness by his obviously excited interest.

‘A Lipizzan stallion. This is a breed of horse—’

‘Yes, I know about them. I’m hoping to get to Piber to see the stud, and later on to see a performance in
Vienna. But do you mean you have a
trained
stallion? I didn’t think they ever sold them.’

‘He is trained, yes, but not at the School. My grandfather bought him as a four-year-old, and my uncle trained him . . . and me also.’

‘In high school work?’

She nodded.

‘And you have a riding act of your own? You’re a – a what is it? – an
ecuyere?
’

She had soared, I could see, in Timothy’s estimation, from being ‘the subject’ or ‘Lewis’s blonde’, to star billing in her own right. I realised that my own estimate of her had been right: a young woman who was capable of the concentrated skill and strength needed to put a high school stallion through his paces was about as fragile as pressed steel. ‘Gosh!’ said Timothy, glowing with admiration.

She smiled. ‘Oh, not what you will see in Vienna, I assure you! None of the “airs above the ground” except the
levade
, and sometimes the
croupade
. . .’ She turned to me. ‘This is a leap right off the ground where the horse keeps his legs curled up – is that the word?’

‘Tucked under him,’ supplied Tim.

‘His legs tucked under him, and lands again on the same spot. We tried to teach him the
capriole
, where he leaps in a
croupade
and then kicks the back legs straight out, but this is very difficult, and he cannot do it, so now I leave it alone. It is my fault, not his.’

In view of the admiration in Timothy’s eyes I half expected him to contradict this, but he didn’t. He was,
like her, dedicated enough to know that it is never the horse’s fault.

She added: ‘But in the other exercises he is wonderful. He is one of the Maestoso line, Maestoso Leda, and he is so musical . . . but there is no need for me to tell you. You will see him for yourselves tonight, and if he is good tonight I will try the
croupade
, especially for you.

We murmured our thanks. Tim’s eyes were shining. I was going to have my work cut out to keep Annalisa as Suspect Number One in my Case of the Vanishing Husband.

He was saying: ‘I can hardly wait. Was he with the other horses? I didn’t see him.’

‘You were at the wrong end of the stable.’ She dimpled at him again, charmingly. ‘You should have trespassed first at the other end. Yes, he is there. Would you like to come round tonight after the show and see the horses? There will be time before we pull down.’

‘You bet I would!’ Then recollecting himself, with a glance at me, ‘Vanessa –?’

‘I’d like to very much,’ I said. ‘How many have you?’

‘Altogether twenty-seven, and then the ponies. The liberty horses are very good ones, you’ll like them, Timothy, they are palominos, and we have twelve, very well matched. There will be only ten of them fit to work tonight, but it is still very beautiful to watch.’

‘“Fit to work”?’ I asked, wondering if she intended what the phrase implied, or if her English had its blind moments. ‘Is there something wrong with the others?’

‘Not really, but they’re so valuable that one must be extra careful. There was an accident last week, and some of the horses were hurt. One of the wagons caught fire in the night, quite near the stable lines, and some of the horses injured themselves, with fear, you understand.’ She added, quietly: ‘But it was more serious than a few horses hurt. There were two men in the wagon, and they were killed, burnt to death.’

‘How very dreadful. How did that happen?’

‘We are still not very sure.’ I thought she was going to stop there, but then she lifted her shoulders in a shrug and went on: ‘But if you are staying in the village, you will hear all about it, everybody in Oberhausen talks about nothing else for a week. This is why the circus has had to stay here so long, because the police came, and made inquiries.’ She made a little face. ‘That is what they call it, “making inquiries” – hour after hour they asked questions and raked about and only today they say, “Tomorrow you may go. It is over.”’