after a long illness in 1953 and Herr Lang the same
autumn in a car accident. Helena sold the business
in 1955 and left the country without any
explanation to anyone. I can remember the day. It
was 15 May, Austria’s liberation day.’
Fritz saw Harry’s curious expression and
explained.
‘Austria is a little unusual. Here we don’t
celebrate the day Hitler capitulated, but the day the
Allies left the country.’
Beatrice spoke about how she had received news
of Helena’s death.
‘We hadn’t heard from her for more than twenty
years when one day I received a letter postmarked
Paris. She was there on holiday with her husband
and daughter, she wrote. It was a kind of final
journey, I realised. She didn’t say where she had
settled down, whom she had married or what
illness she had. Only that she hadn’t long to live
and she wanted me to light a candle for her in
Stephansdom. She was an unusual person, Helena
was. She was seven years old when she came to
me in the kitchen and turned these grave eyes on
me. “Humans were created by God to love,” she
said.’
A tear ran down the old lady’s lined cheek.
‘I’ll never forget it. Seven years old. I think she
decided then and there how she was going to live
her life. And even though it definitely wasn’t as
she had imagined and her trials were many and
sore, I’m convinced she believed it to the bottom
of her heart all her life – that humans were created
by God to love. That’s how she was.’
‘Do you still have the letter?’ Harry asked.
She wiped away her tears and nodded.
‘I have it in my room. Let me sit here and
reminisce a little. We can go there afterwards. By
the way, this will be the first hot night of the year.’
They sat in silence, listening to the rustle of the
branches and the small birds singing as the sun
went down behind Sophienalpe, as each of them
thought of those gone before. Insects jumped and
danced in the pillars of light under the trees. Harry
thought about Ellen. He spotted a bird he could
have sworn was the flycatcher he had seen pictures
of in the bird book.
‘Let’s go,’ said Beatrice.
Her room was small and plain, but light and snug.
A bed stood against the back wall, which was
covered with pictures of all sizes. Beatrice
rummaged through some papers in a large
dressing-table drawer.
‘I have a system, so I’ll find it,’ she said.
Naturally, Harry thought.
At that moment his eyes fell on a photograph in a
silver frame.
‘Here’s the letter,’ Beatrice said.
Harry didn’t answer. He stared at the photograph
and didn’t react until he heard her voice right
behind him.
‘That photograph was taken while Helena was
working at the hospital. She was beautiful, wasn’t
she?’
‘Yes, she was,’ Harry said. ‘There’s something
oddly familiar about her.’
‘Nothing odd about her,’ Beatrice said. ‘They’ve
been painting her on icons for almost two thousand
years.’
It was a hot night. Hot and sultry. Harry tossed and turned in the four-poster, threw the blanket on the
floor and pulled the sheet off the bed as he tried to
shut out all his thoughts and sleep. For a moment he
had considered the minibar, but then he
remembered he had taken the minibar key off the
ring and handed it in to reception. He heard voices
in the corridor outside. Someone grabbed the
handle of his door and he shot up in bed, but no
one came in. Then the voices were inside, their
breath hot against his skin, the ripping sound of
clothes being shredded, but when he opened his
eyes he saw flashes of light and he knew it was
lightning.
A rumble of thunder, sounding like distant
explosions, came first from one part of town, then
another. He went to sleep again and kissed her,
took off her white nightdress. Her skin was white
and cold and uneven from sweating, from the
terror; he held her for a long, long time until she
was warm, until she came back to life in his arms,
like a flower filmed over a whole spring and then
played back at breakneck speed.
He continued to kiss her, on the neck, on the
inside of her arms, on the stomach, not with
insistence, not even teasingly, but half to comfort
her, half comatose, as if he could vanish at any
moment. And when she followed, waveringly,
because she thought it was safe where they were
going, he continued to lead her until they arrived in
a landscape not even he recognised, and when he
turned it was too late and she threw herself into his
embrace, cursing him, begging him and tearing at
him with her strong hands until his skin bled.