The Star of Kazan

‘I haven’t gone yet,’ he said.

But tears had come into her eyes. ‘Oh, what’s the matter with me,’ she said, brushing them away angrily. ‘I hardly ever cried in Vienna.’

‘You’re homesick.’

‘How can I be? I’m at home.’

But after lunch, carrying on with the task she had set herself, she felt cheerful again. She cleaned out the bedrooms, lugging the stepladder along the landing so that she could dust high up, and polishing the mirrors. Then Zed returned with a pot of cottage cheese.

‘Bertha hung up the sour milk before she went and it’s ready; you can have it.’

‘Good. I’ve found some big potatoes. I’ll bake them and fill them with the cheese.’

Zed nodded. ‘They’ll go well with the fish.’

‘What fish?’

‘The fish we’re going to catch this afternoon, using your Uncle Oswald’s punt.’

Zed wasn’t boasting. He had the punt ready in the boathouse, with Hector lying curled up as far as possible from the tackle.

‘It’s all right,’ Zed said. ‘He’ll be quiet; he knows you don’t retrieve fish.’

Soon they were in the middle of the lake, putting out their lines. It was lovely to be outside, seeing the house from the water, floating on the reflected clouds.

Zed caught two pike and she caught a small perch, and though she knew that Gudrun and Hermann were watching them out of the window, she didn’t mind.

Later, when Zed had cleaned and filleted the fish, and they were sizzling in the frying pan, Gudrun appeared once more at the door.

‘Oh, goodness, I do love fried fish,’ she said.

‘They’re nearly ready,’ said Annika. ‘Tell Hermann and you can take your helpings through.’

‘Perhaps Hermann would come and eat in here if I asked him. It’s so nice and warm.’

But at that moment the sound of the gong pealed through the house. It was Hermann making it clear that the von Tannenbergs did not slum it in kitchens, and Gudrun scuttled away to follow her hero into the dining room.

The next day Annika got up early and went on with her tasks. When she came to think about lunch she found that Zed had shot and skinned a rabbit, and in the overgrown vegetable patch she pulled up some of last year’s sprouts. ‘What is that?’ Gudrun asked later, helping herself to a thinly sliced white root which Annika had served as a salad.

‘It’s a new vegetable – I can’t remember the name,’ said Annika. ‘It’s good, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Gudrun, and took another portion of mangel-wurzel.

On the third day Annika was hardly recognizable as the quiet girl drifting through empty rooms. She was working from dawn till dusk, and as each meal approached she and Zed pitted their wits against the empty larder. That afternoon a pedlar came to the door and she bartered Professor Gertrude’s manicure set for a box of gingerbread and a bag of rice.

And she made soup. She made soup of absolutely everything she could find and Zed teased her about it, pretending he could taste firewood and the bristles of her broom – but he ate it. No one trained by Ellie could fail to find something with which to make soup.

‘Have you ever thought of marrying a Canadian settler?’ Zed asked her when he found her chopping what seemed to be the last onion in Spittal.

She shook her head. ‘Why a Canadian?’

‘Haven’t you ever wanted to go there? To the north-west – the coast is full of islands and there’s forest for miles and miles and everybody’s equal there.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

But that night she took a lamp to the library to look for an atlas. She found one too, which had not been sent to be rebound or cleaned in Bad Haxenfeld, and looked up the coast of British Columbia. Zed was right. It looked wild and beautiful, but her mother would never leave this place. If there was one thing Annika had learned, it was that there had been von Tannenbergs at Spittal for 500 years.

Annika had put off cleaning the library. It was never used and even colder and danker than the other rooms. But there were some beautiful old pieces of furniture there – in particular a large carved desk with numerous drawers and claw-footed legs that had belonged to the Freiherr. Nobody had used it since his death; it had been completely neglected and Annika did not feel that this was right.

She mixed a fresh consignment of beeswax, decanted a jar of silver polish, and made her way to the library.

There was a bunch of keys in one of the pigeonholes, but none of the drawers were locked. One by one she pulled them out and stacked them carefully on the floor. Then she began on the desktop, the back, the legs, dusting, polishing – and polishing again.

When she had finished she turned back to the drawers. Though they were empty they still had their lining paper – paper almost as thick as vellum with a design of fleur-de-lis. It would be a pity to throw it out; she would wipe it as best she could, and replace it.