'Probably in an hour or two.'
She hesitates. Her voice becomes faint as the line fades. 'You are bringing your friend?'
'I am afraid that I have no choice.'
'I will see you at lunch-time,' she says.
While Alexandra sees to the packing, I make enquiries after Caroline Vacarescu. She has not returned to the hotel, says the manager. I pay my bill with one of his blank cheques. He continues to apologise so much I feel sorry for him and am able to smile cheerfully enough. 'Please don't worry. I will be back here, I am sure, within a couple of weeks.' I do not inform him of my destination. Alexandra and I are about to disappear. If we should be discovered, when the War is over I can always make her father an offer. I can marry her and save the scandal. But for some reason I do not tell Alexandra of my plan as, with boxes and trunks in three cabs, we flee the ruined Liverpool to the sanctuary of Rosenstrasse.
CHAPTER THREE
The Siege
The atmosphere at Rosenstrasse had become increasingly convivial during that first week of bombardment and, even though the shelling has stopped and the Siege proper has begun (the city now has an air of desperate calm) this mood remains with us. It is Friday, October 29th 1897. Seven of us who are permanent residents have taken to eating together, rather like passengers on a small ship or guests at a provincial boarding house. Frau Schmetterling presides: our landlady, our captain. Alexandra continues to be my secret and grows resentful of her exile from the public rooms. She is beginning to exhaust me. Clara has developed a habit of keeping her company, largely I suspect to relieve me. 'The child is bored. I'll take her for a stroll,' she says, or, 'I've invented a new game for our little girl.' At night Alexandra and I sleep together as usual, reserving our evenings for 'adventures'. We go out rarely. Mirenburg has become depressing. I cannot stand to see the boarded windows and doors, the sandbags, the rubble. We have now enjoyed, singly or in combination, almost all Frau Schmetterling's whores. The only other residents who hardly ever make an appearance at the table together are Princess Poliakoff and Lady Cromach. The Englishwoman is frequently out, presumably gathering material for her articles. I lunch Alexandra goes with Clara to Falfnersallee'to look for bargains'. I enjoy a good bortsch and a veal cutlet. 'Mister' and Trudi wait on us. Frau Schmetterling is kind to both of them. Occasionally 'Mister' will be asked to join us, but usually he smiles and refuses, preferring the company of Chagani, the brooding ex-acrobat, who sometimes assists him. His gentleness can be disconcerting, even sinister. His drunkard's face, so youthful and open, and at the same time so cruelly ruptured, expresses a peculiar eagerness. The ruined veins, the rough, red flesh, the set of his soft mouth and the watery innocence of his eyes give immediate notice of his despair, his determination to remain in some way unprotected against the terrors of the world and so, surely by an effort of will alone, retain the untroubled perceptions of boyhood. Elvira, Frau Schmetterling's daughter, sometimes dines with us. When she and 'Mister' are together she seems the more mature; a self-possessed, tiny version of her mother. 'Mister's' expression becomes softer, more attractive, in her company. Madame's chow dogs, black and unpredictable, complete the menage, panting around our feet as if they are waiting for one of us to drop dead. The Dutch banker, Leopold van Geest, sallow and animated, wearing a sort of invalid's blanket-jacket, cuts enthusiastically at his meat. He has decided that it will be at least a month before Berlin sends help. 'The Prince should have made a Treaty with one or another of the Powers. Then Holzhammer could not have acted at all. Badehoff-Krasny was too confident. He thought he stood on a platform balanced over the torrent. But it was a tightrope, yes? He leaned back to relax and - Pouf!' He gestures dramatically with his fork. 'Now the Germans will let him drown a little before fishing him out. They want the best terms, after all.' He shrugs. He has a wife and thirteen children in the Hague and is in no hurry to return home.
'The whole city could be destroyed within a month,' says Rakanaspya in that husky voice of his. The anarchist has been placed under a sort of house-arrest by the police. Frau Schmetterling had agreed to his staying'so long as he behaves himself,' she said. 'We want no morbid subjects discussed here'. He wipes his lips and beard with his napkin. 'All those poor people dead while kings and princes play at diplomacy!' Frau Schmetterling catches his eye and utters a small cough. He sighs. Caroline Vacarescu, beside him, is sympathetic. She, too, is on sufferance, having been released from custody four days ago. She is dressed magnificently as usual. She has no intention, she assures us, of lowering her standards. Her face is heavily made-up. Mueller was tried by military tribunal last week and executed for espionage. The papers have been emphatic: his fate was an example to others. Some of us are a little uneasy in her defiant, knowing presence. Count Belozerski, the eminent Russian novelist and the most recent arrival, leans his handsome face over the table and murmurs in French: 'I have never seen so many dead soldiers.' He was turned back from the walls while trying to leave Mirenburg. He alone has witnessed the reality outside and is allowed to say more than anyone on the subject. Frau Schmetterling indulges him because she admires, she says, his mind. But she is also impressed by his connections and his beauty. His pale blond hair, together with his slightly Oriental cast of features, give him a striking and dominating appearance. He is tall and slender and his military stance is tempered by a natural grace which serves to soften the first impression of a distant and somewhat menacing figure. Count Belozerski is proud, he says, of his Tartar forebears. He sometimes refers romantically to his 'Siberian blood'. He is in all important respects a gentlemanly European. 'Of the best type,' says Frau Schmetterling. Caroline Vacarescu also dotes on him, but Belozerski has confided to me that he is determined to have nothing to do with her. 'Her selfishness,' he told me last night, 'is mitigated only by her recklessness. Of course both qualities are alarming to a man like myself. One should be in love with such women in one's youth. To take up with the likes of Caroline Vacarescu in middle-life is to risk too much. My cousin was, short while, involved with her. She almost ruined him. She is the most extravagant creature I have ever known and I Prefer to admire her from a distance.' I, of course, feel friendly towards her, but that could be because I have nothing that she would want. It is my belief Count Belozerski is attracted to her. He is a little inclined to overstate his case. He adds: 'One is dealing, as a novelist, all day with ambiguities, with problems of human character. One does not need any more ambiguities in one's life.' Perhaps he is right. I am not a novelist. I tell him I thrive on ambiguity. For me a woman must always have it or she is not attractive to me. He laughs. 'But then for you life is a novel, eh? Thank God not everyone is the same, or I should have no readers.'
'The hospitals cannot cope with the wounded.' Egon Wilke sits immediately to the left of Frau Schmetterling, across from Belozerski. He is a stocky fellow, with the body and bearing of an artisan. His hands are huge and his large head has brown hair, cropped close to the skull. He wears a sort of dark pea-jacket and a white cravat. He is an old friend of Frau Schmetterling's, apparently from the days when she ran a house of an altogether different character in Odessa, where criminals had gathered. These acquaintances from her past are usually discouraged from visiting Rosenstrasse, but Wilke, who has been introduced to the company as a jewel merchant, is the exception. Frau Schmetterling is evidently very fond of him. He saved her, it is rumoured, from ruin (perhaps prison) in the old days and lent her the money to start the Rosenstrasse house. He always stays with her when visiting Mirenburg and, like me, is treated as a favoured client. He behaves impeccably, never bringing his business to her house, though he is almost certainly still a successful thief. He chews his food thoughtfully, takes a sip of wine and continues: 'They are requisitioning convents, private houses, even restaurants, I have heard. These Mirenburger soldiers, poor devils, aren't used to fighting.'
Frau Schmetterling says firmly: 'We know how hellish it is a( the defences, and I am sure we sympathise, but this is scarcely appropriate conversation for luncheon.' Wilke looks almost surprised, then smiles to himself and continues to eat. There is not much else to talk about. We have no real information
Holzhammer has made a grandiose declaration in which he has praised his own sense of humanity and love of beauty in stopping the bombardment'to give Prince Badehoff-Krasny time to reconsider his foolish and unpatriotic decision which is causing misery to so many'. He claims that most of Waldenstein is now his. The newspapers on the other hand are continuing to report failing morale and shortage of supplies amongst the rebels. The peasants and landowners have all deserted Holzhammer, they say, and he is entirely reliant on his 'Bulgarian butchers', his Austrian cannon. Prince Badehoff-Krasny took his State Carriage into the streets during the bombardment and rode the length of Mirenburg, from the Cesny Gate to the Mirov Gate, waving to cheering crowds. Deputations of citizens have signed oaths of undying loyalty to the Crown and the Mayor has sworn to take
