As I was leaving the church I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Van der Velde, fatter and more prosperous-looking than ever.
‘I was just going to call on you,’ he said, bending over my hand.
‘Good God! What brings you here?’
‘I came to hear the choirboy. They said he was good and he is, but he’s too old for me. By the time I’d built him up he’d be finished.’
He suggested a cup of coffee and I led him to Joseph’s. Somehow I didn’t want him in my flat.
‘And Sigi?’ I asked when we’d been served.
‘Well, you’ll have read about him. He did the German tour… Berlin, Frankfurt, Dresden, Dusseldorf… Then Switzerland and Paris… He gives a concert every few days and they do well.’
‘You’re pleased then?’
‘Yes and no. Mostly no. He’s insatiable. Wants more and more concerts — he’d play every day if I could get a hall. And he has to be paid in cash. This skinny infant insists on payment in gold coins. He screws them out of me after every performance — won’t wait till the end of the month.’
‘You’ve met your match, then,’ I said smiling.
‘It isn’t so funny,’ said Van der Velde angrily. ‘The critics are beginning to turn on me — this heartless impresario dragging the poor child round Europe. He ought to have time to study, to mature, they say. Well it isn’t me, it’s him. Oh, I admit I do all right out of him, but I’m not stupid. I know if he plays too much they’ll tire of him. But you tell that to the boy. His contract’s up in a fortnight and if he asks for any more money I’m going to turn him over to Meierwitz — he’s a Jew, he can deal with a kid that haggles like a stallholder in an Arabian souk. And I’m sending Uncle back to Poland.’
I asked a question that I regretted as soon as the words were out of my mouth.
‘Does he ever mention me?’
‘No,’ said Van der Velde. ‘Never. But he knows about the square. I showed him a newspaper.’
As we rose he said, ‘He’s coming back to Vienna, you know. Playing at the Redoutensaal on Friday. If you want a seat just mention my name at the box office.’ He bent over my hand again, then turned it so that he could kiss the inside of the wrist… that old tired trick. But I let him. It seems that these days I have nothing to defend.
I have decided not to go to the concert. It is over, Sigi’s story and mine.
I decided it — but when Friday came, I went.
That he was playing at the Redoutensaal shows how important he has become since his debut. It’s the most beautiful of our concert halls, in a wing of the Hofburg itself, and perhaps the best loved by the Viennese.
I thought there would not be a seat; I’ve never trusted Van der Velde to keep his word, but when I gave my name I was handed a ticket straight away.
The hall was full. Many in the audience were the usual fashionable, gushing women in Chez Jaquetta’s clothes, but not all. I found myself next to an old man with a full beard like Brahms, and remembered that I’d had him pointed out to me as Hans Klepstedt, the Director of the Liszt Academy of Music.
Then Sigi came on to the platform. I thought there must be some change, but he was just the same. His hair was a little longer, his concert master’s bow a little deeper, but that was all. Van der Velde had followed my lead over his clothes: the high-necked blouse, the dark trousers were a copy of the ones I’d made for him.
I bent my head, not wanting to be seen, and he began to play. Mendelssohn, Schumann, Hummel… and Chopin, of course. I doubt if he will ever be allowed not to play Chopin. Then the interval, and prolonged applause, but beside me the man with the beard frowned.
‘You didn’t enjoy it?’ I asked him.
‘Yes, yes. It was enjoyable. But he plays too much. The Mendelssohn was not prepared. They say he only learnt it three days ago.’
‘But he has talent?’ I asked as sharply, as anxiously, as any doting parent.
‘Oh yes. Undoubted talent. Exceptional talent. But he should have time to study, to reflect. Van der Velde will ruin him if he goes on driving him like this.’
‘They say the boy himself wants to keep on playing.’
The white eyebrows rose, the great beard waggled to and fro. ‘Really? That surprises me. He is a genuine musician, he must know what he is doing to himself.’
Sigi came back and played the rest of the programme. The applause at the end went on and on; he was recalled for one encore, for two, for three… The women in particular would not let him go and clapped their gloved hands; bunches of flowers were brought in from the wings.
I slipped away, certain that I had not been seen. It was snowing, but I turned my collar up and plunged my hands deeper into my muff, needing to walk through the lamplit streets, needing the air.
A number of carriages passed me; then one which slowed down in front of me, stopped… The door opened and someone jumped down: someone muffled and very small.
‘Why did you hurry away?’ asked Sigi. ‘Why didn’t you wait?’ And as I looked at him, finding no words, he said: ‘We have to eat Indianerkrapfen, don’t you remember? You said in the Prater that we would.’
‘Yes, Sigi. I remember.’
The carriage had driven away. In search of chocolate eclairs, at eleven o’clock on a winter’s night, we went to Sachers.
They recognized him — from the posters, from the concert, I don’t know. The head waiter bowed and addressed him as Meister Kraszinsky and a fat lady in a mink coat came over and asked him for his autograph.
‘Is it nice being famous?’ I asked him.
He shrugged. ‘It is necessary if I am to make enough money.’
‘Why do you need so much money, Sigi? Why so much?’
‘Why?’ He looked surprised. ‘So that I can buy for you a house, of course. A house with a shop in it because you have lost yours.’
Thank heaven the waiter came then for our order. It gave me a few moments, at least, to control myself.
‘Wait, Sigi. Is that why you’ve been working so hard and giving so many concerts?’
‘Yes. But it doesn’t matter because it will be so beautiful, the house, and the shop will be beautiful too.’ He leant across the table. ‘It will be by a lake and there will be a balcony so that you can look over the water and see when I am coming home in the boat from my concerts. And on the other side, not by the water, will be the shop with yellow curtains like you have now. I saw such a house in Switzerland — ah, it was beautiful! It was like looking in a cave in the Grottenbahn. And Nini can come too if you wish it, and I will buy you a dog like… like Rip but with proper legs.’
I saw it as he spoke. I saw the house as he did, lit like a cave in the Grottenbahn and I tell you this: I wanted it. I wanted to live with him in a house by a lake with a dog with proper legs. I wanted to stand and watch him come home across the water to a meal I had made for him, and a glowing stove. I wanted it very badly.
Our order came and as the waiter set down the round, cream-filled puffs doused in ink-black chocolate, I knew that never in my life would I eat another Indianerkrapfen. And all the time my frantic thoughts went round and round. How could it be done? How could I set him free for his life without hurting him unbearably? How could I cut the shackles from this child whom life had already dealt the most terrible of blows, and not reject him. It was impossible.