weekend soon. I don't remember when, but you will be hearing from her.'
Helena waited until the chauffeur had got out and opened the door for her before saying, 'Do you know why the dressage horse threw you to the ground, Herr Brockhard?'
She could see in his eyes that his temperature was rising again.
'Because you looked it in the eye, Herr Brockhard. A horse perceives eye contact as provocative, as if it and its status in the herd are not being respected. If it cannot avoid eye contact, it will react in a different way, by rebelling for example. In dressage you don't get anywhere by not showing respect, however superior your species might be. Any animal trainer can tell you that. In the mountains in Argentina there's a wild horse which will jump off the nearest precipice if any human tries to ride it. Goodbye, Herr Brockhard.'
She took a seat at the back of the Mercedes and, trembling, breathed in deeply as the car door was gently closed behind her. As she was driven down the avenue in Lainz Zoo, she closed her eyes and saw Andr6 Brockhard's stiff figure obscured by the cloud of dust behind them.
34
Vienna. 28 June 1944.
'Guten Abend, meine Herrschaften.'
The small, slim head waiter made a deep bow and Helena tweaked Uriah's arm as he couldn't stop laughing. They had been laughing all the way from the hospital because of the commotion they had been causing. It turned out Uriah was a terrible driver and so Helena had told him to stop whenever they met a car on the narrow road down to the Hauptstrafie. Instead Uriah had leaned on the horn, with the result that the oncoming cars had driven into the verge or had pulled over. Fortunately there were not that many cars still on the road in Vienna, so they arrived safe and sound at Weihburggasse in the centre before 7.30.
The head waiter glanced at Uriah's uniform before checking, with a deeply furrowed brow, the reservations book. Helena looked over his shoulder. The buzz of conversation and laughter under the crystal chandeliers hanging from the arched yellow ceilings supported on white Corinthian pillars was only just drowned out by the orchestra.
So this is Zu den drei Husaren, she mused with pleasure. It was as if the three steps outside had magically led them from a war-ravaged city into a world where bombs and other tribulations were of minor importance. Richard Strauss and Arnold Schonberg must have be en regular patrons here, for this was the place where the rich, the cultivated and the free-thinkers of Vienna met. So free-thinking that it had never crossed her father's mind to take the family there.
The head waiter cleared his throat. Helena realised that he had been unimpressed by Uriah's rank of Vizekorporal and was perhaps puzzled by the strange foreign name in the book.
'Your table is ready. Please follow me,' he said with a strained smile, picking up two menus on his way. The restaurant was packed.
'Here you are.'
Uriah smiled at Helena with resignation. They had been given an unlaid table beside the swing door into the kitchen.
'Your waiter will be with you in a moment,' the head waiter said and evaporated into thin air.
Helena looked around and began to chuckle.
'Look,' she said. 'That was our original table.'
Uriah turned. Absolutely right: in front of the orchestra a waiter was already clearing a table set for two.
'Sorry,' he said. 'I think I might have put Major before my name when I phoned to book. I was relying on your radiance to outshine my lack of rank.'
She took his hand and at that moment the orchestra struck up a merry Hungarian Csardas.
'They must be playing for us,' he said.
'Maybe they are.' She lowered her eyes. 'If not, it doesn't matter. They're playing gypsy music. It's wonderful when it's played by gypsies. Can you see any?'
He shook his head, his eyes intent on studying her face as if it were important he registered every feature, every crease of skin, every strand of hair.
'They've all gone,' she said. 'Jews, too. Do you think the rumours are true?'
'Which rumours?'
About the concentration camps.'
He shrugged.
'There are all sorts of rumours during war. As for myself, I would feel quite safe in Hitler's captivity.'
The orchestra began to play a song for three voices in a strange language. A couple of people in the audience sang along.
'What's that?' Uriah asked.
A Verbunkos? Helena said. A kind of soldiers' song, just like the Norwegian one you sang on the train. Songs to recruit young Hungarian men to the Rak6czi war of independence. What are you laughing at?'
At all the unusual things you know. Can you understand what they are singing too?'
A little. Stop laughing,' she sniggered. 'Beatrice is Hungarian, and she used to sing to me. It's all about forgotten heroes and ideals.'
'Forgotten.' He squeezed her hand. As this war will be one day.'
A waiter had arrived unobtrusively at their table and coughed discreedy to signal his presence.
'Meine Herrschaften, are you ready to order?'
'I think so,' Uriah said. 'What would you recommend today?'
'Hahnchen'.
'Chicken. Sounds good. Could you choose a good wine for us? Helena?'
Helena's eyes scanned the list.
'Why are there no prices?' she asked.
'War, Fraulein. They vary from day to day.'
And what does Hahnchen cost?'
'Fifty schillings.'
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Uriah blanch.
'Goulash soup,' she said. 'We have already eaten today, and I hear that your Hungarian dishes are very good. Wouldn't you like to try it too, Uriah? Two dinners in one day is not healthy.'
'I…,' Uriah began.
And a light wine,' Helena said.
'Two goulash soups and a light wine?' the waiter asked with a raised eyebrow.
'I'm sure you understand what I mean,' she gave him the menu and a beaming smile, 'waiter.'
She and Uriah held each other's gaze until the waiter had disappeared behind the kitchen door, then they began to giggle. 'You're crazy,' he laughed.
'Me? It wasn't me who booked Zu den drei Husaren with less than fifty schillings in my pocket!'
He pulled out a handkerchief and leaned across the table. 'Do you know what, Fraulein Lang?' he said while drying her tears of laughter. 'I love you. I really do.'
At that moment the air-raid siren sounded.
When Helena thought back to that evening she always had to ask herself how accurately she remembered it; whether the bombs fell as close as she recalled, whether everyone had turned round as they walked up the aisle in the Stephansdom. Even though their last night in Vienna remained veiled in unreality, on cold days it didn't stop her warming her heart on the memory. And she could think about the same tiny moment that summer's night and one day it would evoke laughter and the next tears, without her ever understanding why.
When the air-raid siren sounded, all other sounds died. For a second the whole restaurant seemed to be frozen in time, then the first curses resounded beneath the gilt vaulted ceiling.
