The Flames, page 12
They are in the attic room – with its dusty windows, sealed boxes and old furniture draped with sheets – where Egon often retreats to draw. From the small window, Gertrude can see the train tracks below. She’s feeling bored and hungry, is ready to stop, when the door bucks against its frame.
Someone on the other side is trying to open the door and, surprised to find it locked, is trying again, only harder. There’s another thud. Gertrude freezes. Egon grabs his materials and leaps towards the cupboard under the eaves, where he stuffs his drawings under a loose floorboard.
‘Boy? Open up. Get out here at once,’ Father says.
Egon throws Gertrude her dress. ‘Hurry,’ he instructs.
‘Come out!’ Father says again. ‘What in heaven’s name are you doing in there?’
Egon gestures to his sister to hurry. Gertrude fumbles with the fabric, trying to arrange it so she can get her arms and head through. If Father sees her like this, he’ll beat Egon.
‘Egon Schiele!’ their father barks. ‘I will break down this door.’
The floorboards creak on the other side.
Would Father be taking off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves?
Gertrude still hasn’t managed to wriggle into her dress.
‘Must I warn you again?’
The fabric rips slightly as Gertrude struggles with it, but it is insignificant compared to the sound of wood buckling and splitting under a grown man’s weight. Their father bursts into the room, the door hanging defeated on its hinges.
Gertrude realizes she has the dress on back to front; its high neckline is choking her.
Egon’s hands are balled into fists at his side.
‘You scared us,’ Gertrude says, breathless.
‘It’s Gerti’s birthday, we were just playing a silly game,’ Egon explains.
Splinters of wood are caught on Father’s shirt collar and in his hair. He dusts himself down, breathing hard from his efforts. He glares at Egon and his youngest daughter, then looks around for evidence of their corruption.
‘Your hands,’ he demands. Gertrude holds her long fingers out for inspection while Egon wipes his as firmly as he can against the back of his trousers. When he presents them to his father, they are shaking. Lead is smudged into his fingertips. ‘My only son,’ Father continues. ‘You disobey me. You keep secrets. You make a mockery of my rules. And you’re encouraging your sister to be as wild as you are.’
‘I’m sorry, Father.’
‘Where are they?’ he demands. ‘Hand them over, or I’ll pull up every floorboard.’
Gertrude shuffles further into the corner, her hand on the peeling wallpaper. Egon sways.
‘Bring me your damned drawings. Or there will be consequences.’ The skin around Father’s nostrils is stretched wide.
‘No,’ Egon says.
Her brother sticks out his chin and Father’s closed hand smashes against it, striking him to the ground. Gertrude cries out.
‘You’re a wilful, disobedient young man,’ he says to his son. ‘You’ve hardly impressed with your grades; your report card is abysmal. We sent you to the grammar school in Klosterneuburg – after that embarrassing fiasco, being expelled from Krems – hoping for the best, and now you must repeat the year. We can’t keep paying for private tutors to prop you up. At your age, I’d given up playing with a pencil. I didn’t have all the opportunities you have; I had to apply myself. I had to show respect towards my father. Your mother has indulged you for too long. She has encouraged this excessive drawing. You’re a Schiele! We’ve much to be proud of in our lineage. People expect a great deal from us, here in Tulln and beyond.’
Gertrude knows how much Egon wants to please their father, how he has tried to follow the path he has chosen for him. Her brother adores the man, despite his bouts of anger. She knows he craves his approval, but he can never be the person Father wants him to be.
Egon glances at her. Gertrude sees herself through his eyes: her body hugging the wall, in the back-to-front dress, her head twisted round, as if the pieces of a puzzle have been badly put together. There is a redness creeping from her brother’s mouth, edging along his jaw. In his anger, Father lifts a heavy boot.
‘No!’ Gertrude says. ‘I’ll get them. Don’t hurt him, please, especially not on my birthday.’
Father kicks the broken wood of the door instead, glaring at his daughter.
‘You’ll find me in the kitchen,’ he announces.
Egon curls up into a tight ball, his arms wrapped around himself, his fingers on his temples. Gertrude runs to the moth-ridden cupboard before her brother can protest. She removes the piece of wood that covers the space where Egon hides his precious things. She pulls out a wad of papers – some huge, covered in detailed drawings of the trains that stop for an extended break in front of their home; others small and controlled – a black feather with white spots, a pebble with intricate markings. Egon has filled page after page. Gertrude removes the most recent ones that her brother hurriedly hid, stuffing them back into the gap before replacing the wood.
Egon’s eyes watch her as she leaves the room.
In the kitchen, Gertrude pushes the drawings into Father’s hands. Then she sits at the top of the stairs, out of view, to see what he’ll do next.
Father settles at the table and looks through his son’s work.
‘It’s a calamity, Marie, this blasted obsession.’
‘You mean Egon’s drawing?’ Her mother tries to smile.
Father cradles his head. ‘How is it possible that our son is such a disappointment?’ Mother takes a seat. ‘We were so happy when he was born – finally, a living boy! But he keeps letting us down. You’re failing him, Marie. You and your peasant ways.’
‘My father, need I remind you’ – Mother sets her shoulders straight – ‘was a respectable, wealthy man, with much by way of property.’
‘The way things are done in Krumau are not to be tolerated in a modern Austrian household. Your Bohemian superstitions and bad habits should be forgotten by now – all that singing to the children, telling them your ridiculous folk tales … why, they only succeed in making Gertrude cry in the night. You shouldn’t be encouraging this artistic streak.’
‘But what harm does it do?’
‘Moments ago, I had to break into the attic.’ Mother’s eyes widen. Father takes a glass and fills it with amber-coloured liquor, then knocks it back. ‘Our children were bolted inside, doing God knows what.’
Gertrude strains closer so as not to miss a word.
‘It’s her birthday, her tenth birthday, Adolf. You know how significant that is, how painful it is for me. I almost can’t bear to celebrate it. Anyway, I’m sure they were only playing.’
‘I won’t allow it. They’re being corrupted. Heading for ruin. All that boy thinks about is drawing! His grades are appalling. Every day, he’s threatened with expulsion. How else will he progress, if he doesn’t knuckle down and study? I’m at my wits’ end.’
Mother’s face is heavily lined. There are black shadows under her eyes.
‘I’ll talk to him again,’ she sighs.
‘You have to go further than that. There can be no half measures. It’s time we drew our own line – no more drawing! Not under this roof. He’ll get ten strokes of the cane for every picture he produces. He must resolve never to pick up a pencil again.’
Mother makes a slight movement and leans over the table to look at some of Egon’s sketches.
‘He does have talent …’ she ventures.
Father leaps up, towers over her and leans in, his mouth close to her face. ‘If he continues, I’ll cast him out on to the streets for bringing shame to the Schiele name. And I’ll dismiss you, for being a weak mother, incapable of raising the son I deserve. Is that what you want?’
Mother shakes her head fearfully.
‘Then get rid of these.’
She tucks Egon’s drawings into the pocket of her apron.
Gertrude feels a lurch as Father shakes his head and gestures to the stove.
‘No,’ Gertrude whispers.
But Father’s thin mouth is set. A vein throbs in his neck. Mother seems smaller than before as she pulls the papers from her apron. She closes her eyes.
‘Egon would draw with his own blood if he had to,’ she whispers. ‘He’d etch lines with a knife on his body if he hadn’t pencil and paper.’
‘Are you disobeying me?’
‘This is your dreaded sickness talking, Adolf, flaring up again, making you cruel.’
‘Keep your voice down!’ he hisses, his face twisted with disgust. ‘My only insanity, right now, is that boy.’
Mother turns her back on him, and steps towards the kachelofen, with its licking fire.
‘What will become of us if you have another episode?’ she insists.
‘All you need to concern yourself with is that our son be set on a respectable path. Or I’ll see to it that you rue the day you married me.’
Mother laughs bitterly, and opens the grate. She pushes Egon’s artworks into the flames. The papers immediately begin to split and curl.
‘Now, there’s a good wife.’ He steps towards her, puts a hand on her lower back, and brings his face close to her cheek.
‘You’ve got what you wanted,’ she says, rubbing her wrist and pulling away.
Father checks the time, returns his watch to his pocket, then downs another glass of the amber liquid.
Gertrude, tears on her lashes, tries to back away without making a sound, hoping the wood won’t creak under her weight. She returns to Egon, who is still lying in a tight knot on the floor. She kisses his shoulder and fits her body around the curve of his spine.
‘Mother burned your drawings,’ Gertrude whispers.
‘No …’ he whimpers. ‘How could she?’
‘You don’t deserve any of this.’
‘I will never, ever forgive her,’ Egon says, his voice splintering like the door.
4
May 1904
‘If I find you, I win. Make sure you find a good hiding spot. That’s the game, Gerti.’
‘But why can’t we play here?’ Gertrude stares at her hands.
Egon says it’ll be fun, but what will she do by herself while her brother is searching for her? It’s such a waste, not being together, on one of the rare days when he’s home from school. Gertrude misses him.
‘Why don’t you do the seeking, then, if you’re going to pull such an ugly face?’ he says, spinning her by the shoulders so that she is facing the wall. ‘Cover your eyes and count to one hundred. Then you open them and try to find me.’
‘But where will you be?’
‘I could be anywhere.’
‘I won’t have to look outside, will I?’
‘The fun is in not knowing.’
Gertrude frowns, thinking of all the places Egon might hide. There’s one place he certainly won’t choose: Father’s study – with its bottles of waxy-smelling cognac, his prized collection of fossils and precious minerals, and a huge map showing the reach of the Imperial-Royal Austrian State Railways – is strictly forbidden to his children.
‘Don’t look so miserable. This is what normal children do.’
The Schiele children have rarely been allowed to play with their neighbours in Tulln. Father thinks the local children are a bad influence.
She pouts. ‘If I can’t find you quickly, will you come out? Then you can draw me.’
‘Try playing the game, for once. You might enjoy it.’
Gertrude squints, then starts counting. Egon waves a hand in front of her face to check she cannot see, and she pushes him away.
‘Keep them closed!’ he shouts as he leaves the room.
Gertrude counts to twenty, then walks over to the window. She pushes a dried, lifeless fly to the floor with her finger. She goes to the door and turns the handle. The empty apartment, as she walks around it, feels different, as if her brother could be anywhere, watching her. She steps into each room to see if Egon has made it easy, yet she knows he won’t have hidden anywhere obvious. He’d rather hitchhike to Vienna and be gone for three days than be found in the wardrobe in the first three minutes.
She tries the door to Father’s study, but it’s locked.
In the pantry, Gertrude pulls off a chunk of bread, which she dips in honey. She walks out on to the platform, and looks at the faces of the people waiting for the next train.
She checks their childhood hiding place under the hedge, then starts walking towards the main streets of Tulln, unsure if she should stray this far from home. Suddenly she glimpses Egon’s tufty hair as he peeks from behind a wall. She races to catch him, but before she can put her hands on him, he’s gone. She spots the flap of his long black coat and launches after him. He’s twenty steps ahead by now and moving fast. He’ll be taking the path to the Danube. She can catch up with him there and put a stop to this silliness.
But where he should be going left, the dark figure turns right. He’s halfway up the hill now, heading away from the busy Hauptplatz, away from the bridge that crosses the river, and towards the abandoned stone fortress that is Tulln’s Roman tower. She should have guessed! From there, once upon a time, a thousand Roman soldiers kept watch on the barbarian tribes across the river.
Gertrude speeds up and feels the heat and tightness in her calves as she climbs the incline. Is he heading towards the vineyards where they have, in the past, crept under the dusty vines and stuffed handfuls of grapes into their every pocket? At the top of the hill, Gertrude spots his face in profile, before he dashes away again, down a narrow alley. She’s hot on his heels, but the distance between them is increasing.
The sound of her footsteps echoes off the arched brickwork as she runs through the alleyway. When Gertrude emerges into the light once more, she stops. Sad, angelic faces; ivy covering weather-whitened tombs. She treads carefully, her breath catching in her throat.
What if there comes a day when she can no longer find him, when he is lost to her?
A hand reaches out and touches the back of her neck.
‘Found you!’ her brother smirks. She punches him in the chest.
‘You scared me! Anyway, I found you!’
‘It took you long enough.’
‘I don’t like it here,’ Gertrude says, looking around.
‘I know, but I’ve got something to show you,’ he says, suddenly serious.
He leads her to a white headstone, with two words on it: FAMILIE SCHIELE.
‘Grandfather isn’t buried in Tulln,’ Gertrude says, looking carefully at the grave.
‘It’s time you met our sister,’ Egon says.
Gertrude touches the headstone and looks at her brother.
‘You’re teasing me!’ she insists, her eyes watering.
‘Elvira,’ he says. ‘She was the oldest. She died, aged ten, when I was little.’
‘But that’s how old I am!’
‘That’s why you need to meet her now.’
‘Elvira?’ Gertrude says, the syllables sharp. ‘Why haven’t I heard her name before?’
‘Mother was sad, so Father forbade us from mentioning her. There were three years between her and Melanie …’
‘But you could have told me.’
‘I hardly remember her. I wasn’t even four when she got sick.’
‘I wasn’t born then?’
‘Mother was pregnant with you. Elvira died in September 1893, and you didn’t arrive until April the following year.’
Gertrude considers this information, her breath shallow. ‘So I took her place? There’d have been four of us? Melanie wasn’t always the oldest? Was Elvira bossy, too?’
‘She was kind and quiet. You’d have liked her,’ her brother replies.
‘Did you like her more than you like me? Would you have preferred it if she’d stayed?’
‘That’s a silly question. I was too young to remember Elvira ever playing with me. Even before she got ill, she spent a lot of time in bed. Then one day, she just wasn’t there any more.’
Fat tears run down Gertrude’s cheeks. ‘So we can just disappear? Her name’s not even on the gravestone. Will that happen to me, now I’m ten? No one will ever speak of me again?’
‘I’ll make sure that you’re remembered, don’t worry about that, Gerti.’
‘You’re meant to say I won’t die. Not aged ten. Not ever!’
‘This is where we’ll all end up, sooner or later. In the same patch of earth as Elvira. Melanie once told me that there were three other babies – all boys, born between her and me – who never cried and were taken away in a bucket.’
‘Other brothers?’ Gertrude wipes her nose with her knuckles.
‘Melanie thought I’d be another blue baby. Maybe that’s why she’s never liked me.’
‘I wish it was Melanie who’d died!’
‘You don’t mean that.’ Egon brushes away an insect that has landed in his sister’s hair. ‘If I die first,’ he says after a pause, ‘I promise to come back and haunt you. So you’ll never have a quiet moment.’
‘I’d like that,’ she sniffs. ‘But you can’t die until you’re old – and not before me.’
Egon pulls his sister into a hug, then pinches her ear. ‘We’ll die together, how about that?’ He offers his hand so they can shake on it. ‘On the same day. We’ll be very old and it will be after a long and happy life.’
Gertrude rubs her eyes, then shakes her brother’s hand.
She touches the headstone again, a look of confusion crossing her face, then stoops down and puts her index finger in the mud. ‘Elvira,’ she writes with her finger across the white stone, beneath the engraving – knowing full well the letters will be washed away with the rain.
5
June 1904
Gertrude wants to send a letter to Egon, to his address in Klosterneuburg. She doesn’t want to write to tell him of the things that occupy her day, of her life in Tulln, how it goes on without him, as there’s nothing to report. Instead, she intends to place her hand on a piece of blank paper, spread her fingers wide, and draw a line around it. She knows he’ll like that. Gertrude tries the door to Father’s study. For once, it’s unlocked.
