The Morning Gift

Chapter 23

It was Paul Ziller who introduced Heini to Mantella.

‘He’s a very good agent. A bit of a thruster, but they have to be. Why don’t you go and see him?’

‘Do you use him?’

Ziller shook his head. ‘He’s only interested in soloists and celebrities.’

‘Well, you could be a soloist.’

‘No. I’m an ensemble player.’ Ziller was silent, pursuing his thoughts. Returning to the Day Centre to re-establish his claim, he had found, among the wash basins, an emaciated and exceedingly shabby man playing the cello — and playing it well. This had turned out to be Milan Karvitz from the Prague Chamber Orchestra, just returned from the International Brigade in Spain… and Karvitz, in turn, had brought along the viola player from the disbanded Berliner Ensemble. The three of them played well together though it was a tight fit in the cloakroom, but the repertoire for string trio was limited and now a man had written from Northumberland where he was working as a chauffeur. Ziller knew him by reputation — a fine violinist, an unselfish player — but it was out of the question. He could never replace Biberstein; never. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, pulling himself out of his reverie, ‘I’ve spoken to him about you. Why don’t you go along?’

Mantella, though brought up in Hamburg, was a South American by birth, with an olive skin, a pointed black beard and a legendary nose for sniffing out talent. In Heini, presenting himself the following day in the elegant Bond Street office, he at once saw possibilities. The musical gift could not be in doubt — all those medals from the Conservatoire and a debut with the Philharmonic promised in Vienna — but more importantly, the boy had instant emotional appeal. Even Mantella, however, could not get a concert for a pianist unknown in England and not yet established on the continent.

He had, however, a suggestion to make.

‘There’s an important piano competition here at the end of May. It’s sponsored by Boothebys — the music publishers. They’re big in the States and here too. No, don’t look like that; it may be commercially sponsored, but the judges are absolutely first class. They’ve got Kousselovsky and Arthur Hanneman and the Director of the Amsterdam Conservatoire. The Russians are sending two candidates and Leblanc’s entered from Paris.’

‘He’s good,’ said Heini.

‘I tell you, it’s big. After all, Glyndebourne is run by auctioneers! The commercial sponsorship means that the prizes are substantial and the press is getting interested. The finals are held in the Albert Hall — they’ve got the BBC Symphonia to accompany the concertos — and that isn’t all!’ He paused for dramatic effect. ‘Jacques Fleury is coming over from the States!’

That settled it. Fleury was one of the most influential concert impresarios in the world with houses in Paris and London and New York. ‘What are the concertos? I could learn a new one, but I’ve only got a rotten little piano and I’d rather play something I’ve studied.’

Mantella pulled out the brochure. ‘Beethoven’s Number 3, the Tchaikovsky Number 1… Rachmaninoff 2… and Mozart Number 17.’

Heini smiled. ‘Really? Number 17? The Starling Concerto? Well, well!’

Mantella’s glance was sharp. ‘What do you mean, the Starling Concerto?’

‘The last movement is supposed to be based on the song of a starling Mozart had. My girlfriend would want me to play that — I used to call her that… my starling — but it isn’t showy enough. I’ll play the Tchaikovsky.’

‘Wait a minute — didn’t I see something in the papers? Did she ever work as a waitress?’

‘Yes, she did. She still does in the evening, but she won’t for long; I’ll see to that.’

‘I remember… some article by a chap who went into a refugee café. There was a picture… lots of hair and a snub nose.’ Mantella twiddled his silver pencil. The girl had been very pretty — girls with short noses always photographed well. ‘I think you should play the Mozart.’

Heini shook his head. ‘It’s too easy. Mozart wrote it for one of his pupils. I’d rather play the Tchaikovsky.’

‘You can give them the pyrotechnics in the preliminary rounds. You get the chance to play six pieces and only two of them are obligatory: a Handel suite and Beethoven’s Hammerklavier. You can dazzle them with Liszt, Chopin, Busoni… show them nothing’s too difficult. Then when you’re through to the finals come on quietly and play the Mozart.’

‘But surely —’

‘Heini, believe me; I know what I’m talking about. The Russians will go for Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff and you can’t beat them. And we can use the story — you and the girl. Your starling. After all, we’re not just trying to win, we’re trying to get you engagements. America’s not out of the question — I have an office there.’

‘America!’ Heini’s eyes widened. ‘It’s what I’ve dreamt of. You mean you’d be able to get me a visa?’

‘If there’s enough interest in you. Fleury could fix it if he wished. Now here are the conditions of entry and the dates. There’s a registration fee, but I expect you can manage that.’

‘Yes.’ The Bergers were funny about Dr Friedlander — they wouldn’t take anything from him, but that was silly. The dentist was musical; he’d be glad to help.

‘Good.’ Mantella rose as a sign that the interview was over. ‘Come back next week with the completed form — and bring the girl!’

Heini left the office in a daze. Passing Hart and Sylvesters in Bruton Street, he stopped to stare at a pair of hand-stitched gloves in the window. Liszt had always come onto the platform in doeskin gloves and dropped them onto the floor before he went to the instrument. He was glad Mantella had mentioned Liszt — he’d play the Dante Sonata; it was hellishly difficult but that was all to the good. It was time virtuoso playing came back into fashion. People like Ziller were all very well, but even the greatest musicians had not been averse to an element of showmanship.

How pleased Ruth would be that he had decided to play the Mozart! Well, Mantella had decided, but there was no need to mention that; no point in depriving her of the happiness she would feel. And if it meant America! They would be married over there — he’d rather dreaded a scrappy wedding in the squalor of Belsize Park.

Abandoning the hand-stitched gloves, dreaming his dreams, Heini made his way to Dr Friedlander’s surgery in Harley Street.

‘She’s done it!’ said Dr Felton gleefully, pushing away the pile of exam papers he had been marking. He’d checked and double checked to make sure he’d been completely fair, and he had. Ruth had beaten Verena Plackett by two marks in the Marine Zoology paper, and by three in the Parasitology.

‘Which, considering what she’s been up against, is quite an achievement,’ said Dr Elke, inviting her fellow members of staff to a celebratory glass of sherry in her room.

They had all been worried about Ruth who had been found asleep in various unexpected places in the college and had ended up in the Underground terminus of the Northern Line after a longer night than usual discussing the fingering of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier.

‘And Moira’s decided to adopt!’ said Dr Felton, in the grip of end-of-term euphoria. ‘So no more thermometers!’

The marks, when they went up on the board, gave general satisfaction. Verena was top in the other two theory papers and since one of these was Palaeontology, she was content. Sam had done unexpectedly well, and both Huw and Janet were comfortably through.

But it was Pilly’s results that were the most surprising. She had failed only the Physiology practical in which she had fainted while pricking her finger to get a sample of blood, and was to be allowed to take her Finals without a resit.

‘And it’s all because of you, Ruth,’ said Pilly, hugging her friend.

The party on the last day of term was thus a cheerful affair. Heini came, and even those of Ruth’s friends who had been critical of his demands were charmed by his broken accent and wistful smile. Since his meeting with Mantella, he had been in excellent spirits and when Sam produced a pile of music from the piano stool and begged him to play, he did so without demur.

Quin, on the same evening, had been bidden to a pre-Christmas gathering of eminent academics at the Vice Chancellor’s Lodge. Arriving purposely late, he paused for a few moments outside the lighted windows of the Union Hall.

Heini was at the piano and Ruth sat by his side. She wore the velvet dress she had worn on the Orient Express and her head was bent in total concentration as she followed the score. Then she rose, one arm curved over the boy’s head… her fingers, in one deft movement, flicked the page.

‘You have to be like a wave when you turn over,’ she had told him on the train. ‘You have to be completely anonymous.’

Quin walked on across the darkened quadrangle. It seemed to him that he had never seen an action express such dedication, such gracefully given service — or such love!

Christmas Eve in the Willow would have surprised passers-by who were given to understand that it was a refugee café largely frequented by displaced persons and run by austere and frugal spinsters.

The tables had been pushed to the edge of the floor and in the centre stood the tree in all its festive glory. This tree had not been dug out of the garden of Mrs Weiss’s son, Georg, while her daughter-in-law slept, though the old lady had been perfectly willing to attempt this foul deed. It had been bought in a shop, yet it was Mrs Weiss who was its source. A week before Christmas the hard-pressed Moira had paid a secret visit to Leonie and struck a bargain. A liberal sum of money which Moira could well spare if Leonie could guarantee that her mother-in-law was out of the house for the whole of Christmas Eve.

‘I’ve got some people coming in — clients of George’s; important ones. You understand?’

Leonie, at first, had been inclined to refuse, but on reflection it seemed to be a fair bargain. She herself, while still prosperous and in her native land, would have paid twice what Moira was offering to be sure of Christmas Eve without Mrs Weiss. She took the money and went shopping with the old lady for the tree, the silver tinsel, the candles, the spices, the rum…

Now the café was a bower of green, the glockenspiel of the banker’s wife set up a sweet tinkling over the hubbub of voices… Voices which were stilled as Miss Maud, now primed in the mysteries of an Austrian Holy Night, handed the matches to Ruth.

‘Careful!’ said Professor Berger, as he had said every year since Ruth was old enough to light the candles on the tree.

He had travelled overnight on the bus from Manchester and would greatly have preferred to be at home with his family, but now as he looked at the circle of faces and touched his daughter’s head, he was glad they had come together with their friends.

‘I never seen it like that,’ said Mrs Burtt. ‘Not with real candles.’

And Miss Violet and Miss Maud forgot the needles dropping on the floor and the wax dripping on to the tablecloths and even the appalling risk of fire, for it was beyond race or belief or nationality, this incandescent symbol of joy and peace.

Then came the presents. How these people, some of whom could scarcely afford to eat, had found gifts remained a mystery, but no one was forgotten. Dr Levy had discovered a postcard of the bench where Leonie had been overcome by pigeons and made for it a wooden frame. Mrs Burtt received a scroll in which Ruth, in blank verse, proclaimed her as Queen of the Willow. Even the poodle had a present: a bone marrow pudding baked on the disputed cooker at Number 27.

But Heini’s presents were the best. It had occurred to Heini that while he was borrowing money from Dr Friedlander for the competition, he might as well borrow a little extra for Christmas, and the dentist had been perfectly happy to lend it to him. So Heini had bought silk stockings for Leonie and chocolates for Aunt Hilda and a copy of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius for the Professor who was fond of the Roman Stoic. This had used up more money than he expected and when he went into a flower shop to buy red roses for Ruth, he found the cost of a bunch to be exorbitant. It was the assistant who had suggested a different kind of rose — a Christmas rose, pale-petalled and golden-hearted, and put a single bloom, cradled in moss, into a cellophane box — and now, as he saw Ruth’s face, he knew that nothing could have pleased her more.

After the presents came the food — and here the horsehair purse of Mrs Weiss had turned into a horn of plenty, emitting plates of salami and wafer-thin smoked ham… of almonds and apricots, and a wild white wine from the Wachau for which Leonie had scoured the shops of Soho.

But at eleven, Ruth and Heini slipped out together and walked hand in hand through the damp, misty streets.

‘It was lovely, wasn’t it?’ said Ruth. ‘And you look so elegant!’ On the first day of the holidays, she had returned to the progressively educated children of the lady weaver and used the money she had earned to buy Heini a silk scarf to wear with his evening clothes. ‘But, oh if only it would snow! I miss snow so much — the quietness and the glitter. Do you remember the icicles hanging from the wall lamps in the Hofburg? And the C Minor Mass coming out of the Augustiner chapel, and the bells?’

They had reached the door of Number 27. ‘I’ll play it for you,’ said Heini pulling her into the house. ‘Come on! I’ll play the snow and the choirboys and the bells. I’ll play Christmas in Vienna.’

And he did. He sat down at the Bösendorfer and he made it for her in music as he had promised. He played Leopold Mozart’s ‘Sleigh Ride’ and wove in the carols that the Vienna Choirboys sang: ‘Puer Nobis’ and the rocking lullaby which Mary had sung to her babe… He played the tune the old man had wheezed out on his hurdy-gurdy in the market where the Bergers bought their tree — and then it became Papageno’s song from The Magic Flute which had been Ruth’s Christmas treat since she was eight years old. He played ‘The Skater’s Waltz’ to which she’d whirled round the ice rink in the Prater and moved down to the bass to mime the deep and solemn bells of St Stephan’s summoning the people to midnight mass. And he ended with the piece he had played for her every year on the Steinway in the Felsengasse — ‘their’ tune: Mozart’s consoling and ravishing B Minor Adagio which he had been practising when first they met.

Then he closed the lid of the piano and got to his feet.

‘Ruth,’ he said huskily, ‘I liked your present, but there is only one present I want and need — and I need it desperately.’

‘What?’ said Ruth, and her heart beat so loudly that she thought he must be able to hear.

‘You!’ said Heini. ‘Nothing else. Just you. And soon please, darling. Very soon!’

And Ruth, still caught in the wonder of the music, moved forward into his arms and said, ‘Yes. It’s what I want too. I want it very much.’

Quin’s Christmas Eve was very different.

He had walked since daybreak and now stood on the top of the Cheviots looking across at the rolling slopes of blond grass bent by the wind and the fierce storm clouds gathering above the sea. Tomorrow he would do his duty by his parishioners, read the lesson in church, and accompany his aunt to the Rothleys’ annual party — but this day he had claimed for himself.

Yet when he began to apply his mind to the problem which had brought him up here, he found there was no decision to be made. It had made itself, heaven knew when, in that part of the brain so beloved of Professor Freud.

Instead of thought came images. A steamer to Dar es Salaam… the river boat to Lindi… a few days with the Commissioner to hire porters. And then the long trek across the great game plains on the far side of the Rift. He had dreamt of that journey when he was working in Tanganyika all those years ago — and if Farquarson was telling the truth… if there really was an outcrop of fossil-bearing sandstone in the Kulamali…

As he saw the landscape, so he saw the people he would take. Milner, of course, and Jacobson from the museum’s Geology Department… Alec Younger, back from the East Indies and longing to be off again… Colonel Hillborough who’d had his fill of administration and would harness the resources of the Geographical Society to the trip… And one other person; someone young to whom he’d give a break. One of the third years, perhaps. It would depend on the exam results, but young Sam Marsh was a possibility.

Africa had been his first love: the bone pits of Tendaguru had set him on his way professionally and if this was to be his last journey it would be a fitting end to his travels. There were other advantages in going to Kulamali. The territory was British ruled and from it one could go through other protectorates back to the sea. No danger then, if war came, of being locked up as a foreigner. He’d be able to make his way back home and enlist.

Another decision, seemingly, had already been made in some part of his mind. This was not a journey to be packed into the summer vacation. He was leaving Thameside, and leaving it for good.