In the Claws of the Eagle Read online

  They were all there, even the baby, plus Lotte, for whom it was a welcome break from cooking. Helena looked down the table, pleased with her organisation. She could see Izaac at the far end of the table, alone but apparently content. The band began to play and people from the surrounding tables abandoned their wine glasses and their steins of beer to get up and dance.

  Izaac had thoughtfully left a space for Louise on the end of the bench. She looked up at the dusking sky between the grapes ripening on the trellis above, and then watched the dancing. The men wore white shirts, lederhosen, and long white socks, while the girls looked enchanting in their lovely dirndls, brightly coloured skirts with matching bodices, white blouses with puffy sleeves, and aprons. They were quite like some of the costumes she had worn in Holland. The men did the vigorous dancing with a lot of stamping and thigh slapping; the girls joined in, but more sedately. Even though Louise knew how hot those costumes must be, she still wanted to join in. After so much classical music the four-square music had her feet tapping.

  At a lull in the dancing, a group of youngsters began to chant; Izaac told her to watch. A boy and girl stood up, laughing with embarrassment. Each held a glass of wine in one hand. Then, careful not to spill a drop, they linked arms. While their friends sang, they drank a toast to each other from their linked glasses. Having done that, they kissed and sat down, laughing, to a round of applause from everyone present. Louise was a little bit shocked; they had kissed each other on the lips, in front of everyone!

  ‘Are they getting engaged?’ she asked Izaac, remembering how Reynier, her supposed fiancé, had tried to kiss her in the market place in Delft in order to shame her into marrying him. When she had let Pieter, a mere apprentice, kiss her once on the walls of the town, they both could have been denounced from the pulpit next Sunday for lewd behaviour.

  Izaac laughed. ‘No, it’s called Brüderschaft. They are drinking to their friendship. It means they can now call each other “du” instead of the formal “sie” for “you”. They are officially friends now, that’s all.’

  Louise absorbed this information slowly. How wonderful that a boy and girl could show simple affection for each other without a virtual commitment to marriage. She thought of Annie, dear Annie, she would never have understood. For Louise, on the other hand, it felt as if the chains and shackles of her upbringing were being finally loosened, and she could be herself.

  Madame Helena waited at the vineyard gate for Izaac to come up. He thanked her for the party.

  ‘Izaac, I’ve been thinking that we might start on the Beethoven sonatas for your Austrian tour when I get back next week.’

  ‘But Madame, we have a piano, but no pianist.’

  ‘I have an idea about that; you should have a regular accompanist, you know, but we’ll talk about it later.’ She looked up. ‘The harvest moon. Now’s the time to walk, while the heat has gone out of the day, but I must be up early tomorrow. Good night.’

  Izaac’s moon-shadow stretched in front of him, an exclamation mark on the white track. He watched Louise looking after Helena, a slight smile hovering on her face.

  ‘Louise,’ he said. ‘Let’s walk; as Helena says, it is cool and the moon’s bright as day. I promise I’ll talk about nothing but Stravinsky!’

  ‘Oh no!’ she laughed and they turned away from the house and up the path leading into the Vienna Woods.

  Louise, who had seen Izaac charm whole audiences in their seats, failed completely to recognise when she was being charmed herself. She didn’t mind where they went, or what they did, she just felt gloriously liberated. All she wanted from Izaac was simple friendship, like she had seen between the youngsters at the Heurige.

  He started off conscientiously talking Stravinsky, but soon abandoned it in favour of a demonstration of Nathan having a tickling session with his baby. Then, by some trick, he got her talking about Pieter, and they both laughed at her description of Pieter absentmindedly walking off into space when halfway down the steps from the wall in Delft. She told him about Gaston’s father, who talked to his grapes as if they were school-children. Then of Colette, who she had loved as the sister she had never had.

  The black and white of their moonlit world made it easier for her to talk of things that had been taboo to her for years, like poor abused Jacquot, and the Count du Bois, though here she did not tell all. It was such a relief to be herself again. By common consent they made for a place in the woods that they both liked, where there were the ruins of a castle, and a semicircular clearing looking out over the town below. They stood looking down on the roofs, silver in the moonlight.

  Louise turned back into the clearing to find that Izaac, attracted by any stage, had positioned himself in the middle of it. It wasn’t, however, the familiar Izaac that she saw there but the ‘General’ from their Volksgarten days – the old tyrant after all these years still guarding the Emperor’s precious grass from little boys.

  He slipped effortlessly from one sketch to another, doing his duck act for her again, and then becoming Helena battling with her scarves in a wind. Finally he changed into someone she had never seen before: a pathetic little fellow with pointed-out toes and a walking stick. Who gave a shy smile, then plucked up courage, and blew her a kiss. Louise, charmed, returned this. So he plucked up courage again, came a little closer, and blew her another. Then he was holding up his cheek; laughingly she bent towards him.

  CHAPTER 12

  Evil Planting, New Growth

  The shadows came on them from all sides, silently on gym shoes. Louise stepped back, terrified, as they formed a ring about Izaac.

  ‘And what the hell do you think you are doing? Are you bloody mad, acting like an idiot? This is our place, our territory; you ask permission before you come up here on Saturday nights, alright!’

  The voice came from a young man, seventeen perhaps, with striking blonde hair showing white in the moonlight. He was pushing his way through the ring of boys who made up the circle. He produced a flashlight and shone it full in Izaac’s face.

  ‘Well, damn me; we’ve got a bloody Jew. Hey, lads, we’ve got ourselves a Yid, a kosher bloody Yid. Erich, kick up the fire, we must entertain our guest here.’

  Louise noticed a boy standing a little apart from the rest, a younger version of the blonde leader, thirteen perhaps, a brother surely. He uncovered some ashes and coals, added twigs, blew on them, and soon had a bright flame licking the thicker branches that he piled on top. The leader went on: ‘Well, lads, this is special, let’s be hospitable. Form a circle and let Mr …?’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘Abrahams,’ Izaac muttered.

  ‘Abrahams! The very founder of the tribe, if I’m not mistaken. Now, Mr Abrahams, perhaps you would tell us what you were doing acting like an idiot in our forest?’

  Louise couldn’t hear Izaac’s reply, but the young man declaimed it for the benefit of his own small audience: ‘“Acting” boys, he was “rehearsing”, for one of his nasty little ceremonies perhaps. Widen the circle; Mr Abrahams is going to do a little acting for us.’ There were nine or ten of them, all aged between eight and twelve, hitching back to widen the circle. Their disciplined silence was menacing.

  ‘Mr Abrahams will now give us his impression of … what shall we ask? How about a money lender, something familiar to him?’

  Izaac was standing still, obviously trying to maintain his dignity. ‘Run,’ Louise willed, but Izaac didn’t respond.

  ‘Come on, boys. Mr Abrahams is shy. Show him your stings boys, just show.’

  There was a lightning ripple of movement about the circle and a dozen scout knives glinted in the cold light.

  Izaac had no choice. He made an unconvincing show of counting money.

  ‘Not good enough, Mr Abrahams, we have seen you; you can do better than that. More Scrooge, please. Stings again, boys.’

  Izaac obliged, he had to, and Louise turned away so he didn’t have to be humiliated in front of her.

  ‘Splendid, we have an evil
genius on our hands.’ Then the young man clapped his hands to his head as if he had just thought of something. ‘What am I forgetting, our guest must be entertained. Food for the poor starving fellow, Anton. We have some nice pork rashers, I believe, run and get them.’

  Louise, looking in desperation for any way for Izaac to escape, noticed that the boy, Erich, was standing back from the circle. He didn’t seem to be enjoying what was going on; it was as if he was a little embarrassed by it. The fire flared up, lighting Izaac’s face; the boy took a step forward and peered closely at him. Now he stepped through the gap made by Anton’s departure and whispered in the leader’s ear. The young man frowned, then shrugged.

  ‘While we’re waiting for his dinner to cook, Erich here would like to see Mr Abrahams play the violin for us…Erich is very cultured.’ The boys sniggered.

  Louise could see Izaac looking, first at his tormentor, then at the younger boy. With a movement that reminded her of the day the great Fritz Kreisler had encouraged Izaac as a petrified youngster, he lifted an imaginary violin to his chin and laid his bow on the strings. The boy mouthed ‘play’ and he did. It was only a bar or two before the boy turned to his leader and drew him by the arm out of the circle. What was going on? Two fair heads leaned together. There was a moment of argument, then the leader turned; Louise saw a flash of anger on his face that chilled her to the core. However he soon got it under control.

  ‘Game over, lads,’ he called out. ‘Mr Abrahams goes home hungry. Stand up and escort him to the edge of the clearing. Don’t touch him, but make sure he knows how welcome he has been.’ In a second the boys were on their feet, circling and jeering Izaac as he walked out of the clearing.

  ‘Yid Yid, spit in your hood.’

  Louise felt sick. It was as if a sewer had suddenly unblocked.

  Izaac staggered from the clearing back onto the path they had come up. The boys stopped there but they continued to chant. ‘Don’t run,’ Louise urged, though she guessed that the boys would do what they were told; they were like trained dogs. She could see Izaac shaking from shock. She took his arm and steadied him.

  The boys scampered to heel at Klaus’s command. They stood quivering with excitement, as silent now as they had been vociferous moments before.

  ‘Gut! Ins bett!’ ordered Klaus. His arm shot up in the Nazi salute. ‘Heil Hitler!’

  ‘Heil Hitler!’ they chorused, their small right arms rising like daggers. Klaus dropped his salute and they scurried off to their tent. Erich was impressed and a little frightened, but he realised that he was in trouble. He wanted to explain, because this new friendship meant a lot to him, but Klaus ignored him and walked stiffly past him to the edge of the clearing, where he stood looking out over the town. Erich followed, but halted a cautious few paces behind him. Then, without warning, Klaus span about to face him, his face livid with anger. Erich lurched. The moon was sculpting Klaus’s face into a death’s head; his eyes glinted cold and hard from smudged sockets.

  ‘Never… never interfere with my orders again!’ he hissed at Erich, stepping forward a pace. ‘I ordered the baiting of that Jew, and you interfered! I decide what the boys do, I tell them how to do it, and I order them to stop, without any interference from you or any milk-sop boy who hasn’t the stomach for the task!’

  Erich, frozen with surprise, wondered where his friend of only minutes ago had gone, but yet there was something familiar about Klaus’s behaviour that held him. When he took another step towards him, Erich knew. This was what Grandpa Veit did: made one retreat till one’s back was against the wall, so Erich held his ground.

  ‘I just thought you didn’t know who he was!’

  ‘Get this into your head. It doesn’t matter who he is, or what he is. He. Is. A. Jew!’

  ‘Yes, but he’s our Jew. That’s what Mother says. She says he is probably the greatest violinist in Austria today. Don’t you have respect for music in Germany?’ This change of direction seemed to surprise Klaus.

  ‘Why do you say Germany?’

  ‘You have the kids saluting Hitler. You are Austrian, but you behave like you’re a German.’

  ‘I belong to the future, Erich, when Germany and Austria will come together to form the greater Reich, we have one language, therefore we are one people. Ein Volk, ein Reich – One People, one State, remember? Together we can conquer the world or enough of it to survive. The British, the French and even the Dutch have their empires and their colonies. We need room to live and to expand, Lebensraum is what we need, Erich. Listen to me, and learn.’

  Erich felt a surge of anger. ‘I know my own language, Klaus,’ he snapped, ‘and I know your Ein Volk, ein Reich, but do you really hope to achieve this by setting small boys to bait our greatest violin player?’ He was surprised at his own vehemence, but saw his dart strike home. The cold stare in Klaus’s eyes shifted, and he turned abruptly to look out over the town. Erich watched as the rigidity went from his friend’s shoulders. When Klaus turned, the light fell more kindly on his face. Erich felt a flood of relief. The older boy reached forward and gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze and shake.

  ‘You are good for me, Erich. We will need people like you in the new Reich. At the moment we haven’t got time for culture; it’s numbers that matter. Take the Brown Shirts – a thousand voices, ten thousand salutes, but they are like corn, easily cropped.’ He dropped his voice. ‘There’s an elite growing about the Führer, Erich: men of iron, yes, but of culture too. They will be the new standard, you will hear more of them: they are called the SS.’

  While he talked, he was guiding Erich over to a log, polished by the seats of lovers for over a hundred years, and they sat down.

  ‘You wonder where my allegiance lies,’ he went on. ‘As I told you, I live in Germany with my father now. I just come here as a penance to see my mother and my brat half-sister who does nothing but play the piano. Father wants me to train for the SS. I like the uniforms – black as sin.’ He chuckled. ‘These boys of mine are just a hobby; they have their uses, but they, like the Brown Shirts, are scum. They’d have burned old Solomons’s timber yard down there just for the fun of it without any help from me.’

  Erich remembered the smear of yellow paint he had found on his hand after the fire. So that’s where the paint had come from – Klaus – when they had shaken hands up here on the night of the fire. He didn’t say anything. His feelings about the fire were confused. His parents thought that Mr Solomons, the timber merchant, was wonderful, while Grandpa Veit thought that he had started the fire himself to get the insurance. So Klaus was behind it; one in the eye for Grandpa Veit. Now Klaus was asking him a question. ‘Tell me about yourself, what do you want to do with life, Erich?’

  Even while he told him, Erich realised that he was making it up as he went along. He had never seriously thought about his future. The timber yard perhaps … but now that had been burned, so he said the first thing that came to mind.

  ‘I want to study art.’ Why had he said that? It had never occurred to him before.

  ‘What! Art and music! You are cultured.’ Klaus was laughing at him. Erich felt his ears glow with anger; he didn’t like his idea being laughed at; he had meant what he said.

  ‘Yes. My mother is an artist, modern, but I like the old masters. I’d like to work in one of our big galleries.’

  ‘Did you know that the Führer was an artist? A good one too. He wanted to study in Vienna, but they turned him down. He’s not forgiven them. But you look fit, Erich. You wander in the woods on your own …’ He tapped Erich on the chest. Then laughed: ‘There is a core of steel here, isn’t there? I can sense it.’ Erich wasn’t aware of any core of steel, but he wanted to please his friend.

  ‘I like climbing over roofs at night!’ he chuckled, and Klaus gave him a resounding thump on the back.

  ‘That’s more like it!’

  What was there about his using the roof rather than the door that attracted attention? First Grandpa Veit, though he said nothing, and now
Klaus. Erich didn’t much like his grandfather, and he was a little frightened of Klaus, but he wanted their approval. He was ready to go now, but Klaus anticipated him; Erich’s education was not yet complete.

  ‘You want to go, I know, but we have a little unfinished business…about your Jew.’ Erich’s heart sank. He didn’t want to talk about the Jew or anyone else – there was too much new going on in his head – but he realised Klaus would not be put off. He shrugged. Klaus went on, ‘You know of the conspiracy, don’t you, the great Jewish conspiracy? A worldwide movement designed to lead to the gradual destruction of the Aryan peoples by the Jewish race. Not by confrontation – they’re cowards – not by war, but by infiltration, and ultimately by poisoning.’

  ‘But Klaus,’ Erich protested. ‘Izaac Abrahams is a violinist, a musician. And, when you think about it, half our geniuses in any field you mention are Jews.’

  ‘Precisely, Erich, don’t you understand? How can one race suddenly produce these automatons? Think … if you want to produce more milk you breed cows that produce more milk; if you want geniuses for some evil purpose you breed them. How they do it we don’t know, but go into any bank, and they are there behind the counter; go to a lawyer and he will be a Jew. We, Erich, we spring from the pure Aryan stock that spread civilisation across the western world. That was the first thing I thought when I saw you that night when you came up here. You and I, we have the stamp: the fair hair and blue eyes that show that we have been bred true. No virtue to us, but we have responsibilities. We are the inheritors, Erich, but our culture is being infiltrated, our genes are diluted, and our society polluted by their evil genius.’