Capital Union, A (18 page)

Mrs Ogilvie was sitting at the kitchen table cutting the flaps off a bullock’s heart, and smiled to herself as I read the Professor’s letter out loud. The oatmeal stuck to her fingers as she pushed it into the cavity, and sewed up the hole. The water was already boiling on the stove. She dropped the heart in, and set her timer for an hour, twisting the face on the clock forward. ‘How exciting,’ she said, wiping her hands on a clean dish towel, ‘but I wonder if he has got the wrong end of the stick?’

‘Why would you say that?’ I asked.

She picked up a knife and began to scrape some potatoes, dipping the blade in cold water to rinse off the skin. ‘Only that we have lived together all these years and you have never once mentioned Jeff, unless you were asked.’

‘Haven’t I?’

‘No, Agnes. Never once. I have a good ear for these things. Call me an old romantic. I would know if you missed your husband.’

I rolled some breadcrumbs together on the table. I didn’t want to look up. I squashed the doughy bread flat.

‘You don’t need to tell me, if you don’t want to. Are you going through to Edinburgh?’

‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘I should look in on the tenant and see that the old place is okay.’

‘You do that,’ she said. ‘And if ever that burden, whatever it is, gets too heavy to carry alone, then you know you can share it with me.’

‘I know,’ I said, and she reached out and touched my cheek with a starchy finger from the potatoes. ‘That’s cold,’ I said, jumping up.

Mrs Ogilvie had decided to take wee Dougie to play with her sister’s bairns while I got the train to Edinburgh. I was curious to meet the Professor, and see the flat I’d tiptoed round come to life. I took out my darning as we travelled past the still
sleeping
Ochils, dozing as if they had all the time in the world to stretch out a lazy hand and swat the raindrops, which bit at their necks like midges. They shrank grain by grain and were
carried
unnoticed into the Forth and out to sea, where they would disappear forever. They didn’t care, but time was passing faster for me. I felt older since I had become a mother, strained with worry for Dougie’s future without a father, although there was no shame in that as there once was. There were fatherless bairns running about all over the country, happy shadows of their lost parents; fathers blown limb from limb on the battlefield, and if their paternity was ever in doubt, not one of the mothers would admit to those snatched moments with American GIs at the dances. Every child was held up as a testament to his tragic father, no questions asked. Only the men who returned counted the dates off on their fingers over pints in the pub, and in the end they smiled drunkenly at the memory of their own snatched moments, and agreed that it was war, after all, and best not remembered too closely. At least it was life.

The pill box still stood at the West End when I walked up from Haymarket to catch the tram from outside St John’s, and when the door opened on the upstairs flat that had so many memories for me, I saw that Professor Schramml had eyes as black as coal and the kindest face I had ever seen. He kissed my hand with old world style and led me into his drawing room, which had been polished until it shone. The neighbours’ flats opposite were still obscured by heavy net curtains, but he had pulled his aside and fresh branches of pink blossom stood on a carved table in the window.

‘I am glad to meet you, Professor,’ I said. ‘Jeff was gey fond o’ you. He told me how you used to put the world to rights as you walked to work.’ I had put away the bitterness. I wasn’t that lassie any more.

‘I must offer you my most sincere condolences,’ he said. ‘It was an agony to me to hear of his suffering from Sylvia and be so far away in Geneva. You must have been very upset.’

‘Aye, it was a difficult time,’ I replied, as honestly as I could.

He patted my hand and poured me a glass of cherry brandy. ‘A little schnapps?’ he asked.

The glass was like a giant’s thimble. He drained it in one with a shout of ‘
Prosit!
’ and waited for me to do the same. I took a sip and then, as he gestured to me to up-end the glass, I drank it down. The clear liquid bit at the back of my throat as if it could burn away the lie of the last days of my marriage to Jeff. He refilled the glasses. ‘What would Mrs MacDougall say, Professor?’ I said. ‘It is only two in the afternoon.’

‘That dear lady believes I can do no wrong. Is it any wonder that I am forced to seek refuge from my angelic reputation in a little earthly pleasure?’

I laughed, drained the second glass too fast, and choked. ‘Coffee?’ he asked.

I nodded. He brought through a little, silver percolator with two wee china cups and a jug of cream. ‘It is
wunderschön
to be reunited with my possessions,’ he said. ‘I missed them, but my time away was a small sacrifice compared to those others made.’

‘I have a confession, Professor,’ I said. ‘I am sorry I
borrowed
your dictionary and lost it.’

‘And why would you have need of a German dictionary in Scotland? Did you think the defences wouldn’t hold?’

I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t told anyone about Hannes. He had cost me dear. ‘I borrowed it to help someone, a friend.’

‘A friend?’

‘Someone who became a friend to me when I needed one.’

‘Indeed.’ He smiled and passed me a small plate of biscuits. They were shaped like crescent moons. ‘Ein Kipferl?’ he asked.

They were sweet and buttery. ‘My late wife taught me how to make these when we were courting. I feigned interest in home baking to see her lick the mixture from her fingers, and hoped to wipe the flour from her nose. There is no limit to what a man will do for love, or the price he might have to pay.’

He tapped his waistline and pinged the elastic of his red braces. ‘I dare say Mrs MacDougall’s stair cleaning rota, which she delights in enforcing, will soon have me trim again.’ He put a biscuit in his mouth and chewed. ‘I really don’t see why we can’t pay someone to do it.’

‘Hadn’t you noticed there was a war on, Professor?’

He laughed. ‘If I closed my eyes, I could believe the dear lady was standing before me,’ he said. ‘You are quite a mimic.’

‘I believe she has high hopes of your skill with a duster.’

‘I like to make an effort for my neighbours,’ he said, and looked at me with his head on one side. ‘You are very beautiful, Agnes.’

I blushed.

‘I can see why you would be well loved.’ He stood up. ‘More coffee?’

At that moment, I heard a key in the door. The Professor walked into the hall. ‘
Grűss Dich
,’ he said in his warm voice.
‘Schöner Spaziergang? Unser Gast ist schon angekommen.’

It was strange to hear German in the flat. A picture of Hannes lying injured in bed flashed before my eyes, and then Professor Schramml came back into the room, followed by a
man holding a coat over his arm. ‘There is someone I would like you to meet,’ he said, and stepped aside.

The man behind him was tall and dressed in a navy-blue suit. His brown eyes looked earnestly into mine and he held out his hand. It was Hannes. My hand shook as I took his and he bowed over it. There were tears in his eyes when he
straightened
up. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and passed it to me. I dabbed my eyes. I felt like I was seeing him for the first time, as if I could look at him and not be letting anyone down. I felt shy.

‘Surprise, no?’ said the Professor, like a child who had arranged a Christmas present in secret and hidden it behind the tree.

Hannes sat in the seat opposite me and stretched out his long legs. I had never seen him at ease before. He had been taut with fear, trapped as I had been. Now he was himself. I blew my nose again.

‘Oh, it is too much of a shock,’ said the Professor in dismay. ‘If only my wife had been here, she would have known what to do.’

‘I wanted to thank you,’ said Hannes, in slow English, looking straight at me.

‘Yes, he wrote to me. A most expressive letter
telling
all about the
kleine Schottin
who saved him, like a Flora MacDonald, although he was not a prince. Perhaps you believed him unworthy of your kindness? How could you know the true man? He was a Nazi then, as most were, but you must believe he didn’t choose it.’

‘Were you a Nazi?’ I asked.

‘I was a Messerschmitt test pilot.’

‘Not a very good one,’ I said.

He looked more hopeful, and stopped twisting the watch on his wrist.

‘Ah, the
wunderbares
Scottish sense of humour,’ said the Professor. ‘I have missed it. But all joking aside, this man only just survived the war himself.’

I looked at Hannes. He was very thin.

‘I was captured in Russia,’ he said, and his hand shook as he reached for the cup Professor Schramml had placed in front of him.

‘Yes, he weighed just seven stone when they released him. He was lucky to get out at all.’

‘So you didn’t get back to your farm from Ireland?’

‘I tried, but they came for me and said the land would be confiscated if I didn’t fly again. They didn’t want to lose one of their pilots. We were only just mastering the machines. They were too fast to control at first.’ He put the cup back on the table. ‘I am ashamed now, Agnes. Bad things happened that I couldn’t stop. Maybe you don’t want to speak to me? Can you forgive me?’

‘I am happy to see you,’ I said.

He looked less uneasy and moved forward on his seat.

‘You see,’ shouted the Professor. ‘I told you not to worry. He wrote to me and apologised for using my flat during my exile. I had to meet the man who was rescued by the good fairy downstairs and, of course, I wanted to meet you, my dear.’ He poured another round of schnapps. ‘
Slainte mhath
,’ he said. ‘Down the hatch. If only Jeff could be here.’

I exchanged a look with Hannes. He had spared the Professor the story of Jeff’s breakdown before going to prison; the day my husband stopped being a friend to me. Hannes’ hand twitched, as if he wanted to reach out to me. I wanted to hold his strong fingers and sit in silence with him. Professor Schramml stood up. ‘Perhaps I should leave you two alone. After all, I am new to you both and you are old acquaintances. I shall go down and discuss the finer details of stair cleaning with my mentor, Mrs MacDougall, and come back a better man.’

Hannes moved onto the sofa with me and we sat
awkwardly
together. ‘Would you like to walk?’ I asked.

He nodded and stood up before following me out. I led him up onto the Blackford Hill and we stood at the top
looking
out over the Forth estuary. He turned round to look at
the Pentlands and rubbed his forehead. I wondered where his plane had come down.

‘Do you remember the accident?’ I asked. The hills were folded like meringue, tinged brown.

He shook his head. ‘I only remember waking up in bed and seeing Mrs MacDougall with a pair of scissors. I thought she was going to kill me, but then she cut off my clothes.’

‘She was probably planning to eat you.’

‘Then it was lucky for me that you were there.’

He took my hand. ‘Schramml told me that Jeff died. Were you friends again after… that night?’

I shook my head and looked out over the hills. A red kite hovered over the golf course.

‘Mein aufrichtiges Beileid.’
He paused. ‘My deepest
sympathy
. Agnes, my English isn’t very good. I learned it so I could speak to you one day; to say thank you.’

‘There’s no need. You saved me, Hannes. I had a debt to pay. Call it fate. I had been thinking of sending you to the
hospital
, and you would have ended up in a POW camp.’

‘Perhaps that might have been better. I could have been near you.’

‘You were married.’

‘No. I wasn’t.’

‘But what about Liesl?’

‘My niece.’ He smiled. ‘I thought you might be less scared of me if you thought I was married.’

‘You could hardly walk. Why would I be scared of a man armed only with a nightshirt?’

He laughed and pulled me closer. ‘
Du bist immer noch meine kleine Zauberin
.’

‘Please don’t talk German.’ I looked over my shoulder, but the nearest person was on the way down the hill, calling to their dog, which ran in and out of the yellow gorse.

‘I am sorry. You enchant me.’

‘There’s still a lot of bad feeling,’ I said.

‘It was a long war. Do you hate me?’

‘No. I don’t hate you.’

‘But you hate Germany? Austria?’

‘No. I don’t understand them.’

‘It was a bad dream,’ he said. ‘We didn’t wake up in time.’

I put my finger over his lips. ‘We are at peace now,’ I said. I wondered if I would have felt the same if any of my family had been killed at the Front. I couldn’t work out when the man became the nation, and the nation became the man. It was chance which side we were born on. What choice did we have?

He held my hand as we walked down the hill, over the springy turf nibbled short by rabbits. The sun turned the Forth turquoise near the Isle of May, and Arthur’s Seat rose up above the red cliff face of the Salisbury Crags. He asked me the names of everything as we walked, and I was free to tell him. I let go of his hand as we reached the street. Mrs MacDougall might be watching, or we might be seen by Mrs Black, if she was still alive. I didn’t want to upset them. Professor Schramml still wasn’t back when we got in. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed five, and I had to go to the station to get the train. ‘Where can I find you, Agnes?’ he asked. ‘I wrote my address in the dictionary. I hoped you might contact me after the war.’

‘My mother burnt the dictionary.’

‘Was she very angry? Was Duncan?’

‘They still won’t talk to me.’

‘You are alone?’

‘No. I have friends in Stirling.’

‘Is that far away?’

‘No, not far.’

‘I have to go back to Vienna tomorrow, to Neustift. I got a short pass. They still don’t trust us.’

‘Well, you can’t blame them.’

‘Can I write to you?’

I pulled on my gloves and looked up. We were both reflected in the mirror. ‘Yes. Professor Schramml has my address.’

He kissed my hand. ‘
Auf Wiedersehen
. Until we meet again.’

‘Goodbye, Hannes.’

He helped me into my coat in the hall and his fingers brushed my neck, but I opened the front door without turning round. He watched me walk down the spiral stairs. Professor Schramml came out of Mrs MacDougall’s flat, straightening his tie. ‘She is very strict with me,’ he said, and laughed, before kissing me on both cheeks. ‘We will meet again very soon,’ he said. ‘You can talk to me of my dear friend, Jeff.’

I had almost reached the end of Canaan Lane when I heard feet running behind me. I paused and looked back. The shrubs were the same as all those years ago, reaching over the wall with twisted fingers full of flowers. ‘Agnes, Agnes,’ Hannes was calling. He was running like the wind. ‘Mrs MacDougall said you had a child. You never told me.’

He gripped my arms. ‘Is it a boy? A
Mädchen
… a girl?’

‘Let me go. It is a boy. Called Dougie, after Douglas Grant.’

‘Who is Douglas Grant?’

‘He was Chairman of the SNP during the war. The Scottish Nationalist Party. Jeff was a member, but don’t ask me about that time. I don’t want to remember it. I didn’t even go to see my tenant today. Goodbye, Hannes. I have to catch my train.’ I held out my hand, but he took it in both of his. I pulled it away. ‘Don’t ask me any more questions.’

‘
Bitte
,’ he said. ‘Please speak to me, Agnes.’