Nick S. Thomas

Vienna


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      “Goodnight, dear.”

      Soon the compartment was dark and quiet, with the even hum and racket of the train deeper than true silence. It was a neutral sound that could be all the right chords to the simple refrain of a symphony in the mind, or a background of summer birdsong, or the chanting of a crowd, or the blare and clatter of midday traffic in a city long ago.

      Herbert knew that he would sleep badly, but the memory that caught him was one he didn’t expect. He was tempted to curse his daughter-in-law, poor innocent fool that she was. Oh, how unfair, he thought, how very unfair. She couldn’t know, even if she were told. She could never see her husband, barely seven years old, using his turn on the telephone from an English prep school a hundred miles from home . . . Miles, little Miles Christie, Christie, M., sobbing and desperate, demanding to know why his parents had done this terrible thing to him. Suddenly Herbert had understood, had pictured perfectly the classroom in which he, too, had learnt his first words of Latin, the new vocabulary striking his small son like a cane, the bored schoolmaster on the look-out for cheap laughs, and the remorseless ridicule at which small boys excelled. Then Frances had put down the phone, and turned in distress to her husband, with a question made redundant by that far belated rush of intuition;

      “Herbert, Herbert, why on earth didn’t you tell him?”

      Until then he had believed that the name would be a source of pride, and a cherished gift, and now it would bring sorrow, perhaps for a terrible week or two, before the boy came home again. He would learn to cope, of course, but what would he think of his father now? Herbert closed his eyes, and opened them again to darkness. He still didn’t know the answer to that question. He had been sure, for a while, that his son was quieter, and talked to him less, but small changes were quickly lost in the rush of growth. He would never know, now, whether his gift had done more harm than good in the end; he would never really have known that. All he had done was to illuminate a difference between father and son, and the times of their growing up. For big, strong Herbert had suffered no bullying at a school still uncritically Christian, while his more bookish son had developed different, more subtle resources at the dismal dawn of a more sceptical age; and, within months of that awful day, everyone was to know him as Mickey Christie. The gift had been buried, perhaps for good.

      Herbert turned, and stared unhappily into the darkness of his wife. Sometimes memory was just a random spin on a wheel of failure. And he couldn’t even trust the detail; buildings, weeks and conversations conflated in the press of a mind crowded by age. A moment’s pain could fill a night, but to relive a month might only take a fraction of a second’s dream. Yet he must pursue this mood, work it out, exhaust it. In the solitude of the night his life and his memory were the same. There was nowhere else to go, whether he slept or not.

      3

      Even before she opened her eyes Elspeth fully knew that she was awake, and that the morning had arrived. She stirred and looked about her. She had never before seen Frances asleep, and was struck by the resemblance between mother and son; both slept on their backs, maintaining the same expression of grumpy boredom through the night. Herbert was different, lying half on one side, brow furrowed, mouth open a little, but perfectly still. After a moment she remembered what it was that he evoked; the crusader killed in battle, preserved in stone above his own tomb in the English church where she was married. She must remember to write that down.

      As quietly as she could, Elspeth slipped from her overcoat and let herself out of the compartment. No one else seemed to be moving yet, although the day was shockingly bright. The train was moving slowly, easing, perhaps, into its last stop before Vienna. Soon the adventure would begin in earnest. She decided to go to the end of the carriage for some fresh air, and found she wanted to skip along the corridor, giggling with childish excitement. This was nothing to be ashamed of; she laughed affectionately at herself, and walked, trailing her hands along the wall and the window sills, ready to laugh again at anything that happened next.

      By the time she reached the plated joint between the carriages the train had almost stopped, and there, standing at the open door, ready to step off, was a figure she would have hoped to see, if she could have imagined him. She gasped, and felt a little thrill of gratitude for this perfect sight to begin the day.

      He was tall and dark and young, and wore a moustache. His uniform was topped by a long blue cape, with a braided collar and epaulettes, and a peaked cap. Beneath the cape were two perfectly polished black riding-boots. Soldier? Band-leader? Elspeth didn’t care. He stood on the step, looking eagerly toward the station, proud and happy, unconscious of the anachronism of his appearance, though not of its splendour. He smiled at her, with his eyes narrowed against the wind, a flirtatious smile of contentment with his smartness and his health and the freshness of the early morning, and Elspeth smiled back.

      ln a moment they stopped, and the blue uniform flourished and disappeared, leaving her standing with her heart beating fast, the beat of a little girl with a crush. And she knew that she would never forget that brilliant snapshot, framed so perfectly in the doorway of her first European train.

      4

      Mickey leaned on the rail of the narrow balcony five floors above the street, and felt his mood brightening with the day. The pain at the back of his head was still there, but it was good to be off the train at last, and so far from all the ordinary things. Perhaps unplanned holidays were a good idea after all. In the room behind him the little sounds of unpacking suddenly stopped.

      “Mickey? Mickey, honey? Do you think I’m going to need this?”

      Without turning he said;

      “No, I’d leave it at home if I were you.”

      “Funny. Funny guy.”

      “That’s me.”

      It was the best kind of spring day now, clear blue sky and lots of it, with no tower blocks to get in the way. Indeed Vienna seemed to be a bit on the small side, in every dimension, for a capital city. Then again, the scale of the streets was deceptive, row upon row of big square buildings with roofs a size too small, giants’ cottages artfully converted to five or six floors for human use. The buildings were not the same height, but they were all of a piece, standing shoulder to shoulder with no gaps to be filled by the nasty little shops and foul alleys of central London. Yet there was nothing austere about this smartness. Most of the blocks sported some hint of baroque around the windows or the guttering, some little touch of wedding cake to brighten the façade. There was also, in the view from Mickey’s balcony, a fair sprinkling of Austrian flags, red, white, red, gathered, three at a time, in white mountings on the walls to advertise particular historical interest.

      It was a jolly-looking place, dated but full of life, like an old lady who had kept her health and wits and sense of humour, and was generally described as ‘wonderful’. Mickey’s smile sagged a little then, as he thought of his mother, and then instantly, again, of London.

      He turned at the sound of the doors to the balcony on his left being opened, and smiled hello at his father.

      “All right in there, Mickey?”

      “Yes, fine. I’ve left the unpacking to the little woman.”

      “Very wise.”

      Mickey smiled again and looked away. It was a joke he could have shared with any man.

      “Lovely view,” he said.

      “It’s just the city, you know. A view of the streets. Still, yes, it is rather fine in its way, I suppose.”

      “Can you tell me about any of it?”

      “Gosh no. Have a look at your guide book. I’d probably get it all wrong, what I think I can remember. That’s St. Stephens over there, of course. That big spire. The official centre of town.”

      “What period?”

      “Oh, all sorts. Quite a lot of the fabric must be new.”

      “Really?”

      “Oh yes. Last time I