The Star of Kazan

She did not sit down – there was nowhere to sit. She stood and she waited all morning, and at lunchtime the maid from the inn brought her a bread roll, but she shook her head. If Annika came past she did not want to be eating, she wanted to see.

In the early afernoon, it began to rain. Ellie had no umbrella but she did not notice her discomfort. All she thought about was whether they would take the girls out in spite of the weather.

She stood there till dark, but Annika did not come. When there was no hope she went back to the inn and allowed the maid to bring her hot soup. She had expected that the professors would have returned to Vienna but they were still there.

In the morning she took up her vigil again. No one came in the morning, and no one came in the early afternoon and Ellie went on standing there.

Then at three o’clock on the second day of Ellie’s watch, the side door of the palace was opened and a line of girls in black cloaks and black bonnets came slowly down the avenue . . .

Since she had given up hope, Annika had only one aim: not to be noticed. So she shuffled through her day, from the moment the bell shrilled at six in the morning and the girls lined up in the washroom for their turn with the jug of cold water and the cake of slimy soap, to the same bell shrilling them into bed at night.

All the same, she was noticed.

‘Number 127 isn’t settling too well,’ said the matron to Annika’s form mistress. ‘She’s very thin and pale.’

‘Give her some cod liver oil and malt,’ said the form mistress. ‘Force it down her throat if she won’t take it – she’s probably anaemic.’

There was no need to force it down Annika’s throat – she didn’t want to end up like Minna, who still sometimes had last night’s supper served up to her at breakfast and then again at lunch. She obediently gulped the vile stuff down – but it made no difference. Each day she became more listless and quieter.

But it wasn’t till the school went for a walk one afternoon that she became really frightened.

She was walking with a girl called Flosshilde, who hardly ever spoke. Annika’s hands were folded, as were the hands of all the girls; she walked with a straight back.

At the front of the line was Fräulein Heller, who had flat feet; at the back was Fräulein Zeebrugge, who wheezed.

It was a misty day. Yesterday’s rain had passed but the air was moist.

They reached the end of the avenue and prepared to turn to the left. There was a tree by the gate and somebody was standing under it. Standing very still, just looking . . .

Annika stopped dead – and from behind her Fräulein Zeebrugge shouted, ‘What are you doing, girl? Keep moving, you’ve upset the line!’

So Annika moved on, and passed the woman who stood there – and it was then that she realized she was going mad.

Because she had seen Ellie. She was absolutely sure she had. And Ellie was 1,000 kilometres away in a city she herself would probably never see again.

Ellie was in Vienna.

‘She can’t stay there,’ said Ellie. ‘She can’t stay in that place a day longer.’

Professor Julius and Professor Emil looked at each other in dismay. They had packed their suitcases and asked the innkeeper for the bill. The summer term at the university began the following week.

And now Ellie wasn’t just being difficult. She was being impossible.

‘She’s ill,’ said Ellie. ‘She’s ill inside her head.’

‘Ellie, you only saw her for a few moments, muffled up in a cape on a foggy day. You said so yourself. How can you tell that she’s ill?’

‘I can tell,’ said Ellie. ‘If her mother won’t take her away then we’ll have to.’

‘I suppose we could inform her mother and—’

‘There’s no time for that,’ said Ellie, who had never before interrupted her employer. ‘And her mother thinks it’s a fine place; Gudrun said so.’

‘Look, we have to get back to Vienna,’ said Professor Julius. ‘We can return later—’

‘I’m not moving from here without Annika,’ said Ellie.

The professors stared at her, baffled. When your cook turns into a kind of tigress it is not easy to know what to do for the best.

‘I’ll rescue her myself if I have to,’ said Ellie. ‘I’ll get a ladder.’

The professors shook their heads and went into the parlour to discuss what to do.

‘It’s not going to be easy leaving her here,’ said Julius. The thought of Ellie on top of a ladder climbing through a window at Grossenfluss was not a calming one. ‘But I don’t see what else we can do.’

Emil nodded. ‘I imagine she’ll see sense soon. But I think we should definitely write to Frau von Tannenberg and ask her to find out if Annika is happy. This is an

entirely different matter to that of the jewels, which can be

left to the police.’

The maid with whom Ellie had made friends came in to

wipe down the tables and straighten the chairs.

‘Would you want any help with your luggage, sirs?’ she

asked the professors.

‘No, no; we’ve only our overnight things. Will you make