The Flames, page 11
Adele extinguishes the glowing embers underfoot.
‘Thank you for getting me here. I won’t forget that doctor’s face in a hurry, as we made a dash for the exit!’ Adele laughs. ‘I’m grateful. But please, leave me to my own devices. There’s no need for you to waste any more of your time.’
‘I’m not going anywhere until I see for myself what all the fuss is about,’ Eva retorts. ‘You are going to tell me who that woman on the poster is, and why this artist means so much to you, aren’t you?’
As Adele takes a breath, ready to begin, the queue surges forward into the foyer. A man behind the counter beckons to Eva with an impatient flick of his wrist.
Moments later, she is back. Adele is waiting, her nervousness written across her face.
‘We have them,’ Eva says, wielding two tickets. ‘You’re ready?’
‘I guess it’s now or never. But wait! I can’t be seen in this state.’ The old woman smooths the white hair around her face, brushes her sparse eyebrows with the tip of her finger, then adjusts her shirt beneath her cardigan. She draws herself up as straight as she’s able, and attempts a coquettish skitter across the grand marbled opening room of the museum.
It takes everything she has left.
Eva follows in her wake.
GERTRUDE
1
January 1899
‘Egon, my heart is wild,’ Gertrude whispers into the darkness. ‘It’s racing so fast.’
The shapes of her words emerge in the cold air, then sink into the night. The candle was extinguished hours ago, and the little girl stares into the flat, faceless dark. She pulls her woollen blanket over her nose. It’s rough and smells of horses. She’d woken to a sound – a bark, a thud, followed by scraping. Fear hammers in her heart and pulses in her ears. Something is coming to get her. It’s outside the door.
Only Egon can make her safe. But her big brother is snoring, in and out, in and out. She sneaks her hand across the gap between their beds and finds his elbow under the layers. She doesn’t want to be caught by Melanie. Her sister sleeps on her back, her arms above the coverlet, in the bed by the door. She’s the oldest. Gertrude will be five in April, Egon is eight, and Melanie will turn thirteen next month. She’s the grumpiest, firing up whenever Gertrude or her brother makes a noise. It’s because of her they’re so frequently punished.
Gertrude digs her fingers into her brother’s warm armpit and bumpy ribs.
Egon stirs. ‘Hush, Gerti,’ he murmurs, his eyes tightening. ‘Go back to sleep.’
‘There was barking, and the door rattled and—’ Gertrude takes in the smallest breath.
‘Mother will stop telling us her folk tales if all they do is scare you,’ Egon whispers. ‘You’re not a baby. There’s no such thing as dragons or witches or water sprites.’
‘I know that!’ Gertrude sticks out her lower lip. It’s not evil sprites with green hair and bulging eyes that she’s worried about. It’s monsters that are real, such as the farmer’s dog with its sharp teeth: Gertrude trembles as, in her mind, she sees it crossing the top fields of Tulln, the neat country town in which they live. The dog rustles through dry crops to reach the train tracks, ambling along the metal lines, past rows of tidy houses and the dozen dotted cottages that belong to their closest neighbours, towards her station home. She imagines it prowling past the ticket office, then up the cold stone stairs, coming closer and closer to their first-floor apartment. Her father is the stationmaster – a man respected for stopping the trains at precisely the right time, and signalling them on their way with a firm blast of his whistle.
Gertrude pictures the dog’s fleshy gums dripping as it approaches her door, its nose hooked on her scent. ‘Something is coming to bite me,’ she whimpers, giving up any attempt at being brave. Tremors reverberate through the floorboards, but it can’t be the long, thundering night train as that passed by hours ago, and there won’t be any passenger trains breaking the silence until daylight. Dozens of trains pass through this farming town each day, ferrying huge wagons of cargo from mountain villages and countryside settlements further along the route. After Tulln, the trains head off in the direction of Vienna, the Empire’s glittering capital, then travel on to a port on the Danube.
The Danube, Gerti has learnt, is the mighty river that snakes from the Black Forest to the Black Sea, all across Austria. Tulln, the town where she was born, is famous, or so Mother’s fable goes, as the place where, once upon a time, the feared warrior Attila the Hun met Kriemhild, the princess who would become his wife.
Gertrude’s blankets are suddenly too tight. She wriggles out.
‘I won’t let anything hurt you, I promise,’ Egon mumbles, pushing her hand off his arm as he turns his nose to the wall. ‘Count backwards to help you sleep, as I taught you.’
‘Zehn, neun, acht, sieben …’ Gertrude counts, her mouth forming the words but no sound coming out. Sleep is as distant as Vienna, at the far end of the tracks.
Instead, Gertrude draws her brother’s face in her mind: his eyes – dark and large, then the strong nose that’s emerging from his squashed-up boy-face. His ears, they’re too big, and his lips resemble the plump slugs in the garden. But the hair is easy – a mess of dark curls and sticky-out bits that refuse to be combed. Egon teases her that her hair is the colour of a fox’s bottom – brown spiked with bits of orange.
They’re inseparable. Egon has told her that when they’re older, it will seem as if they’re the same age. They’ll both be grown-ups and will be allowed to do anything they want.
She wriggles in the firm bed, her toes tingling with the night chill. Gertrude cannot remember a single day when he wasn’t in her life, in front of her eyes, being Egon. All the memories that dance in her head include her brother. Like the time they escaped from the house when Father was busy, Egon carrying Gertrude on his back, through the yard at the back of the station, where chickens scratched in the dirt for grain, past the paddock where a horse with a sandy mane thumped its hoof on the ground, until they found a hollow in a hedge in the far field. They’d burrowed inside, arms grazed by brambles, wet leaves stuck to scabs on their knees.
It was worth it, because in their hiding place they could not be seen. Melanie wouldn’t pinch her. Mother couldn’t shout, and Father wouldn’t be able to sit Gertrude on his lap and stroke her hair, even when she didn’t want that.
Egon had brought a handkerchief of stolen sugar with him that day. He’d untied the string, licked his finger, then dipped it inside. He’d held it up for her to admire, then popped it in her mouth. The sweetness melted on her tongue.
‘More!’ Gertrude had said, addicted.
‘You’re already as sweet as sugar,’ Egon teased.
Gertrude had bitten his finger.
Another memory. This time when Egon had done something silly: he’d dangled his sister by her ankles out of the window in Mother and Father’s room, the one overlooking the station platform.
‘I’ll hold you,’ he’d said. ‘You mustn’t squirm.’ Gertrude, hands placed on the windowsill, had leaned out. She could see the tops of the passengers’ hats as they read their newspapers and checked pocket watches; she saw the signalmen with their flags, and the pedlars and traders, lumpy, heavy sacks at their feet. The hand of the large platform clock pointed to the sky.
Gertrude had looked at her brother. ‘It’ll be fun,’ he’d said. ‘You’ll see the world upside down.’ Egon always wanted her to see the world in new ways. ‘First, put your head out, then put your weight on the ledge,’ he instructed.
Her brother pushed the curtains aside and she sat on the windowsill, facing him. She’d pushed off her shoes and peeled off her long socks. Egon took her left foot in his hand and blew noisily into the curve of her sole. She giggled and kicked.
‘Are you ready? Remember, no wriggling!’ He gripped her long skirts and ankles.
‘I’m ready,’ she’d said, bouncing on her bottom.
‘Now, lean back, Gerti. Just let go.’
Gertrude had closed her eyes and taken a deep breath, holding it to show how brave she was. Then she had leaned back and out. Her brother’s hands were tight around her ankles. Gertrude could feel the knobbles of the brickwork against her spine, the roughness of the wooden window frame through the material on her thighs. She’d opened her eyes.
‘Oh! The sky is green! The fields are blue.’ The sound of passengers below reached her ears, some speaking languages she didn’t understand. The blood had rushed to her head and she felt heavy. ‘Make it go away!’ she shouted, but the hissing, huffing chug of an approaching train drowned her out. The force of it passing whipped her skirts from Egon’s grasp and they had fallen around her head, obscuring her, revealing her legs and torso, her frilly knickers and the pip of her belly button. Egon’s grip had slipped.
He grabbed at Gertrude, catching her around the waist, clawing and dragging her back into the room, her cries muffled by the layers of material. They’d fallen against each other, panicked, before giving way to shrieking, shuddering laughter.
The bedroom expands again, and from the dark, Gertrude listens out for her fear. It is gone. There are only the ugly noises of the family – Melanie grinding her teeth until they squeak, Egon rustling his dirty feet against his ankles. Gertrude must close her eyes, for soon the trains will come rattling past, like the sound of galloping horses. That’s when the three children must get out of bed, and a new day will begin.
As the youngest, Gertrude must help Mother prepare breakfast: usually it is toasted hausbrot, or oats thickened in milk, or bacon dumplings. Gertrude brings salt, butter, curds and cold meats to the table. She lays five places: Father at the head; Mother closest to the stove; she and Egon always sit next to each other, with a view of the trains; and finally, one for Melanie, furthest from the heat. Father comes in from signalling. He’s very important and everyone has to do as he wishes, even if they don’t want to. He wears a long coat. It has twelve shiny buttons. His hat is embroidered with gold and he wears white gloves that rarely get dirty.
Father makes the rules. He makes them outside the walls of their home and he makes them inside, too. Gertrude doesn’t understand them all. She and Egon are never able to keep track of new ones. Father says those two make up their own. He says it as if it were a bad thing, but it doesn’t sound so bad to Gertrude. If she made the rules, Egon would be allowed to draw all day and she’d eat sweets for breakfast. Father brings them home from his trips to Vienna. He buys her brother pieces for his toy train set from a shop near Franz Joseph Station, and her Swiss truffles and marzipan, but she’s only ever allowed one sweet at a time and always after dinner.
Egon is very good at drawing. He uses pencils, thick crayons or ink, and draws on newspapers and in the backs of books, which makes Father angry. But it’s as if her brother has magic in his fingers. He began by drawing the trains with his finger on the windows, but now he spends all his spare time on the platform, sketching the machines with their enormous wheels and wagons. But Father doesn’t like it. He thinks Egon should be studying, so his drawing is becoming their secret.
Gertrude enjoys playing with pencils, too. Her drawings are careful, but she doesn’t practise, so she can’t make them sing the way Egon can. If she were in charge, Egon could have all the paper he wanted; he wouldn’t have to steal it or draw on newspaper, and Father wouldn’t thrash the backs of his legs. Father would say that Egon’s drawings were very good indeed and hang them outside for all the passengers to admire.
Egon draws Gertrude when he comes home from school, throwing his cap into the corner – quick pencil sketches that take minutes and are nothing more than playing. She’s his favourite thing to draw, and, because of that, Gertrude has learnt to get what she wants.
‘I promise you my share of the marzipan after Father’s next trip to Vienna,’ Egon says.
Gertrude’s eyes light up, but she shakes her head.
‘I promise you one item from my collection of blue things.’ Egon has a precious box of objects he has collected – wild flowers, which he showed Gertrude how to press between the pages of a heavy book; a gemstone from Krumau, where Mother was born; the cracked shell of a bird’s egg. Gertrude envies his collection – she particularly wants the eggshell – but she shakes her head.
‘I promise …’ Egon looks for inspiration. ‘Gerti, I promise … that one day, when we’re older, we’ll move to Vienna and live in a beautiful apartment together, just the two of us.’
She considers his words, feels the weight of them. It’s the biggest prize.
Gertrude takes up a pose against the wall that she knows her brother will appreciate.
And at dinner, she holds Egon’s hand under the table, tighter than ever. This is a promise she’ll never let him break.
2
December 1899
‘Hurry, children, or we’ll miss the fireworks,’ Mother says. ‘Tonight’s a very special occasion. You’ll stay awake later than usual, for a start, so no tears, Gertrude! And you’ll be spending time with the other children in the village. There’ll be singing, dancing, the Danube waltz. I hope you’ve practised, Adolf – I want to have you spin me like you used to when we were first married. Aren’t you excited?’
‘I’m certainly glad to have the evening off. No trains until the morning.’
‘No trains until next year,’ Egon says.
‘No trains until the next century!’ Melanie corrects.
‘That’s right. It’s not a normal New Year’s Eve,’ Mother explains, crouching to straighten Gertrude’s ribbon. ‘It’s not just the end of one year and the start of the next. We’re tipping over into a whole new century. The twentieth century. Imagine that …’
‘It’ll be as blighted and blemished as the nineteenth century, no doubt,’ Father says.
‘Oh, Adolf, you promised you’d be in a good mood tonight.’ Mother stops to look at him. ‘I want us to embrace the future.’
‘We must have faith that the years to come will be better than the past.’
‘Who knows what the twentieth century might bring? All I pray for is the health of my children. There’s nothing I want more than long lives for the three of you, successful marriages and legions of babies for Melanie and Gertrude. And a solid career for Egon, of course. That’s my wish.’ Mother wipes away a tear and tries to smile.
‘I’m never getting married,’ moans Gertrude.
‘And I won’t have children,’ says Melanie. ‘I’ve seen how they come out.’
‘Well, we can count on Egon, at least,’ Mother says. ‘A gypsy woman in my hometown once told me I’d have a son, that he’d be the joy of my old age.’
‘Enough of your superstitions, Marie. You’ll follow in my footsteps, my boy,’ Father says, turning to Egon. ‘A career in the railways. You’ll do me proud.’
In a rare moment of affection, Father swings his son around, then lifts him up and carries him on his back. Gertrude prickles with jealousy. Egon wraps his arms around his father’s neck, clinging on, puffing out his cheeks at her, and grinning with smug satisfaction.
Melanie and Gertrude hold their mother’s hands.
Father has promised many times that he’ll see to it that his son takes over the running of Tulln station one day. But Egon has told Gertrude a secret: he’s never going to be a stationmaster. He hates the local primary, he can’t concentrate, and he forgets most of what he’s taught. He’s lonely and shy and the other boys throw things at him. Egon has tried to imagine himself in his father’s shoes – the trousers with pressed lines down the front, the spotless shirt with double cuffs, the blazer with gold embroidery along the shoulders – but even with the lure of the accompanying sword and feathered hat, her brother cannot picture himself in his father’s place.
Her brother will have to become a very important person in the Imperial-Royal Austrian State Railways – a chief inspector like Uncle Leopold, a man they’ve heard about but never met; or someone who designs railroads, like their grandfather Karl Ludwig Wilhelm Schiele, although he died a long time ago.
In the distance, music can be heard, as families from all around the town gather for the biggest party in shared memory. Mother hurries them along, her heels tapping.
Gertrude looks up, imagining the burning light and crashing colours of the fireworks that she has been told are coming. But all she sees are clouds, moving across the moon.
3
April 1904
‘I’m not a doll, you know,’ Gertrude says, covering her eyes with her hands as her brother moves her elbows into position above her head. She sticks out her lower lip. Gertrude is the shape of a smooth seed. She’s full of potential – ready to burst into energy that can’t be contained. Egon is drawing her on the occasion of her tenth birthday. He arrived home that afternoon on the train from Klosterneuburg. The journey takes less than an hour. He has been sent there to study at the grammar school, where he lodges with the local master blacksmith during term time. It’s an improvement on his last school, in Krems, Gertrude remembers, where her brother used to live with a widow whose skin, he said, looked like uncooked cake.
Gertrude misses her brother terribly when he’s not around.
Now she watches Egon study the shape of her, all of her, except her face, which she always turns away from him. Gertrude’s skin is cream and mottled pink. Her knees are ruby. Egon searches out her shadows: navy in the crevices between her fingers, blades of indigo behind her ears, the sapphire of her tummy button. She knows how to hold herself perfectly still for his eyes. He gets frustrated; he says that he’s unable to capture things like ‘the movement of her flesh’, ‘the spark of liquid in her eyes’ or the ‘flaming orange hair that blooms all around her head like a halo’. He stabs at the paper with his pencil, then crumples it and tries again.
