Roots of Evil(31)

‘Miss Nina’s parents were important and wealthy,’ Alice said, her eyes inward-looking, her head leaning back against the cushions in her chair. ‘And she had a great many beaux.’

This was a new word. ‘“Bow”?’

‘No, a French word.’ Alice wrote it down, the singular and then the plural. ‘In those days it meant suitors. Boyfriends. Young men wanting to marry her – it might have been the money that attracted a lot of them, of course, although she was very pretty. The master held a great many receptions for her; dinners and soirees – that’s a musical evening. There was always so much music in Vienna in those days. Famous singers and musicians came to the house to give recitals or concerts.’

‘But the night he came—? That wasn’t a musical night, was it? It was a grand ball, that night, wasn’t it?’

‘It was a very special night indeed. The ball was to begin at ten, but I helped Miss Nina to dress much earlier. She was wearing white, spangled with hundreds of tiny stars, with a gauze stole around her shoulders—’

‘Gross.’

‘Yes, I know it sounds gross to you, but it was what young ladies wore in those days, and it was very beautiful. Miss Nina looked beautiful that night – at least, at the beginning of the night she did. A little plump thing she was, but with a tiny, tiny waist, and masses of fair fluffy hair. I remember we threaded thin silver strands through her hair, with tiny seed pearls. Real pearls, they were, of course.

‘And when she was ready I went to the top of the stairs with her, to watch her go downstairs to help greet the guests. Can you visualize it? There was a great sweeping stairway with gilt banisters on both sides, and banks of flowers in huge tubs everywhere, and a chandelier overhead, all sparkling and glistening. Big double doors at one end, opening on to the ballroom: the musicians were already in there, and they were playing something – Strauss, it was. It was always Strauss in Vienna.’ She smiled as if at a private joke. ‘And I was only just seventeen, and I had never seen anything like it. I thought I had fallen into fairyland.’ For a moment, it was not an ageing lady with silver hair and creases at the corners of her eyes and mouth who sat there; it was a young girl, wide-eyed with awe.

‘Miss Nina went down the stairs just as the guests were arriving,’ said Alice. ‘She was deliberately late, which was naughty of her, because as the daughter of the house she should have been with her parents in time to welcome everyone. But she used to do things like that, to attract people’s attention.’

‘And you saw all the people coming to the ball.’

‘Yes, I saw them all. Richly dressed ladies, and men in formal evening wear. Some army officers – Germans, very smart and correct.’ She paused, and for a moment something crept into her voice that was no longer the soft story-spinning tone. ‘Members of the Reichstag were there as well, because Miss Nina’s father had important government connections.’

‘The Reichstag?’ The word was unknown but it was an uncomfortable one; it seemed to have brought a sudden fear into the warm comfortable sitting-room. Like when your stomach flutters and you know you’re going to be sick. Like when your skin prickles because there’s something unpleasant in the room with you – a scuttly spider that you’re afraid to rout out…(Or like when you lie under the sheets, pretending not to be there, praying not to hear the angry voices downstairs, or the menacing footstep on the stair…)

But this word, this Reichstag, was something even bigger and more important than that. It was something to do with those old snatches of television newsreels, with the black and white images. Something that happened before I was born…


Alice only said, ‘The Reichstag was the German equivalent of the English parliament,’ but the hardness was still in her voice. ‘But also among the guests that night was a young man with dark hair and golden-brown eyes.’ The softness came back into her tone so that it was possible to relax again. ‘He was wearing a white tie and tails – all the men wore that, in those days; I expect I can find a photograph somewhere to show you what it looked like – and he was the most handsome man I had ever seen. I thought he must be a prince, or a duke at the very least.’

She paused, but it was unthinkable to interrupt at this point, even though this was clearly the young man Mother had talked about: the young man who had not been allowed to marry Alice. Had they clung together and sobbed, like people in films or on TV did? Had they vowed that one day they would find a way to be together? But it did not seem as if they ever had, because Alice lived on her own out here.

Alice said, ‘The footman took his cloak and he was about to go into the ballroom with his friends. But then he turned and looked up the stairs. Miss Nina was still only halfway down, and at first I thought he was looking at her.’

‘But he wasn’t, was he? He was looking at you?’

The smile slid out, slightly mischievous. ‘Yes. He was looking at me.’



It was impossible to explain – even to this odd, extraordinarily intuitive child who had become so very dear – how one had felt in that moment, or to describe the mingled emotions of excitement and soaring joy and triumph, because the unknown young man had not even seemed to see the rich, beautiful Nina; he had looked straight at the little servant-girl, the drab-haired, drab-garbed little sparrow who had been standing quietly and rather humbly in the shadows. Alice had been humble in those days, because she had been trained to be.