Burning Secret Read online

  “Well, Mama, then you must tell me everything! All about the elephants and everything else!”

  “Yes, I will, my dear.”

  “And at once! Later this evening!”

  “Yes, yes, but off you go to bed now. Off you go!” Edgar admired himself for succeeding in shaking hands with the Baron and his Mama without going red in the face, although the sob was already rising in his throat. The Baron ruffled his hair in a friendly manner, which brought a smile to Edgar’s tense face. But then he had to reach the door in a hurry, or they would have seen big tears rolling down his cheeks.

  5

  THE ELEPHANTS

  HIS MOTHER STAYED DOWNSTAIRS sitting at the table with the Baron for a while, but they were no longer discussing elephants and hunts. Now that the boy had left them, a slightly sultry note and a sudden touch of awkwardness entered their conversation. Finally they went out into the lobby and sat down in a corner. The Baron sparkled more brilliantly than ever, she herself was a little merry after those few glasses of champagne, and so the conversation quickly assumed a dangerous character. The Baron could not really be called handsome, he was merely young and looked very masculine with his brown, mobile, boyish face and short hair, enchanting her with his lively and almost over-familiar movements. By now she liked to see him at close quarters, and no longer feared his glance. But gradually a tone of audacity crept into what he was saying, bewildering her slightly, rather as if he were reaching out for her body, touching it and then letting go again. There was something extraordinarily desirable about it all that sent the blood flying to her cheeks. But then he laughed again, a light, unforced, boyish laugh which gave all these little liberties the easy appearance of childlike play. Sometimes she felt as if she ought to stop him with a curt word of reproof, but as she was naturally flirtatious she was only intrigued by those suggestive little remarks, and waited for more of them. Enchanted by the daring game, she ended up trying to emulate him. She cast him little fluttering glances full of promise, was already offering herself in words and gestures, even allowed him to come closer. She sensed the proximity of his voice, she sometimes felt his breath warmly caressing her shoulders. Like all gamblers, they forgot the time and lost themselves so entirely in ardent conversation that only when the lights in the lobby were dimmed at midnight did they come to their senses with a start.

  She immediately jumped up, obeying her first impulse of alarm, and suddenly realized how daringly far she had ventured to go. She was not unaccustomed to playing with fire, but now her excited instincts felt how close this game was to becoming serious. With a shudder, she realized that she did not feel entirely sure of herself, that something in her was beginning to slide away, moving alarmingly close to the whirlpool. Her head was full of a bewildering mixture of fear, wine, and risqué talk, and a muted, mindless anxiety came over her, the anxiety she had felt several times in her life before at such dangerous moments, although never before had it been so vertiginous and violent. “Good night, good night. We’ll meet tomorrow morning,” she said hastily, about to run away, not so much from him as from the danger of that moment and a new, strange uncertainty in herself. But the Baron took the hand she had offered in farewell and held it with gentle force, kissing it not just once in the correct way but four or five times, his quivering lips moving from her delicate fingertips to her wrist, and with a slight frisson she felt his rough moustache tickle the back of her hand. A kind of warm, oppressive sensation flew from her hand along her veins and through her whole body. Hot alarm flared up, hammering menacingly at her temples, her head was burning, and the fear, the pointless fear now ran right through her. She quickly withdrew her hand.

  “Ah, stay a little longer,” whispered the Baron. But she was already hurrying away, with awkward haste that made her fear and confusion very obvious. The excitement that her partner in conversation wanted to arouse filled her now, she felt that everything in her was topsy-turvy. She was driven by her ardent, cruel fear that the man behind her might pursue and catch her, but at the same time, even as she made her escape, she already felt some regret that he didn’t. At that moment, what she had unconsciously been longing for over the years might have happened, the adventure that she voluptuously liked to imagine close, although so far she had always avoided it just in time: a real, dangerous relationship, not simply a light flirtation. But the Baron had too much pride to run after her and take advantage of the moment. He was certain of victory, and would not pounce on the woman now in a weak moment when she was tipsy; on the contrary, he played fair, and was excited only by the chase and the thought of her surrender to him in full awareness. She could not escape him. The burning venom, he could see, was already running through her veins.

  At the top of the stairs she stopped, one hand pressed to her fluttering heart. She had to rest for a moment. Her nerves were giving way. A sigh burst from her breast, half in relief to have escaped a danger, half in regret, but it was all confused, and she felt the turmoil in her blood only as a slight dizziness. Eyes half-closed, she groped her way to her door as if she were drunk, and breathed again when she held the cool handle. Now at last she was safe!

  Quietly, she opened the door of her room—and next moment shrank back in alarm. Something or other had moved inside it, right at the back of the room in the dark. Her overstrained nerves cried out, she was about to call for help, but then she heard a very sleepy voice inside the room saying quietly, “Is that you, Mama?”

  “For God’s sake, what are you doing here?” She hurried over to the divan where Edgar lay curled up in a ball, just waking from sleep. Her first thought was that the child must be ill or needed help.

  But Edgar, still very drowsy, said in a slightly reproachful tone, “I waited so long for you, and then I went to sleep.”

  “But why?”

  “Because of the elephants.”

  “What elephants?”

  Only then did she understand. She had promised the child to tell him about them this very evening, all about the hunt and the adventures. And the boy had stolen into her room, naïve and childish as he was, waiting for her to come in perfect confidence, and had fallen asleep as he waited. His extravagant behaviour made her indignant—although it was really with herself that she felt angry. She heard a soft murmur of guilt and shame within her and wanted to shout it down. “Go back to bed, you naughty boy,” she cried. Edgar stared at her in surprise. Why was she so angry with him when he’d done nothing wrong? But his surprise made the already agitated woman even angrier. “Go back to your room at once,” she shouted—furiously, because she felt that she was being unjust. Edgar went without a word. He really was extremely tired, and was only vaguely aware, through the mists of sleep closing in, that his mother had not kept her promise, and wrong had been done to him in some way or other. But he did not rebel. Everything in him was muted by weariness, and then again, he was very angry with himself for going to sleep up here instead of staying awake. Just like a small child, he told himself indignantly before he fell asleep again.

  For since yesterday he had hated his own condition of childhood.

  6

  SKIRMISHING

  THE BARON HAD SLEPT BADLY. It is always risky to go to bed after an adventure has been left unfinished; a restless night, full of sultry dreams, soon made him feel sorry he had not seized the moment after all. When he came down in the morning, still in a drowsy and discontented mood, the boy ran straight to him from some hiding place, gave him an enthusiastic hug, and began pestering him with countless questions. He was happy to have his great friend to himself for a minute or so again, not to have to share him with Mama. His friend was to tell stories to him, he insisted, just to him, not Mama any more, because in spite of her promise she hadn’t passed on the tales of all those wonderful things. He besieged the displeased and startled Baron, who had some difficulty in hiding his ill humour, with a hundred childish demands. Moreover, he mingled these questions with earnest assurances of his love, blissfully happy to be alone
again with the friend he had been looking for so long, whom he had expected since first thing in the morning.

  The Baron replied brusquely. He was beginning to feel bored by the way the child was always lying in wait for him, by his silly questions and his unwanted passion in general. He was tired of going around with a twelve-year-old day in, day out, talking nonsense to him. All he wanted now was to strike while the iron was hot and get the mother alone, and here the child’s unwelcome presence was a problem. For the first time he felt distaste for the affection he had incautiously aroused, because at the moment he saw no chance of shaking off his excessively devoted little friend.

  All the same, the attempt must be made. He let the boy’s eager talk wash over him unheeded until ten o’clock, the time when he had arranged to go out walking with the child’s mother, throwing a word into the conversation now and then so as not to hurt Edgar’s feelings, although at the same time he was leafing through the newspaper. At last, when the hands of the clock had almost reached the hour, he pretended to remember something all of a sudden, and asked Edgar to go over to the other hotel for a moment and ask them there whether his father Count Grundheim had arrived yet.

  Suspecting nothing, the child was delighted to be able to do his friend a service at last and ran off at once, proud of his dignity as a messenger, racing along the road so stormily that people stared at him in surprise. He was anxious to show how nimble he could be when a message was entrusted to him. No, they told him at the other hotel, the Count had not arrived yet, and indeed at the moment wasn’t even expected. He ran back with this message at the same rapid pace. But the Baron was not in the lobby any more. Edgar knocked at the door of his room—in vain! He looked in all the rooms, the music-room, the coffee-house, stormed excitedly away to find his Mama and ask if she knew anything, but she had gone out. The doorman, to whom he finally turned in desperation, told him, to his astonishment, that the two of them had left the hotel together a few minutes ago!

  Edgar waited patiently. In his innocence he suspected nothing wrong. They couldn’t stay out for more than a little while, he was sure, because the Baron wanted to know the answer to his message. However, time dragged on and on, hours passed, and uneasiness crept insidiously into his mind. Besides, since the day that seductive stranger had come into his guileless little life the child had been in a permanent state of tension, all on edge and confused. Every passion leaves its mark on the delicate organisms of children, as if making an impression on soft wax. Edgar’s eyelids began to tremble nervously again; he was already looking paler. He waited and waited, patiently at first, then in a state of frantic agitation, and finally close to tears. But he still was not suspicious. His blind faith in his wonderful friend made him assume that there was a misunderstanding, and he was tormented by a secret fear that he might have misunderstood the Baron’s message.

  What seemed really strange, however, was that when they finally came back they were talking cheerfully, and showed no surprise. It was as if they hadn’t particularly missed him. “We came back this way hoping to meet you, Edi,” said the Baron, without even asking about the message. And when the child, horrified to think they might have been looking for him in vain, began assuring them that he had come straight back along the high street, and asked which way they would have gone instead, his Mama cut the conversation short. “Very well, that will do. Children ought not to talk so much.”

  Edgar flushed red with annoyance. This was her second mean, despicable attempt to belittle him. Why did she do it, why was she always trying to make him look like a child, when he was sure he wasn’t one any more? Obviously she was envious of him for having such a friend, and was planning to get the Baron over to her side. Yes, and he was sure it was his mother who had intentionally taken the Baron the wrong way. But he wasn’t going to let her treat him like that, as she’d soon see. He would defy her. And Edgar made up his mind not to say a word to her at their table in the dining-room; he wouldn’t talk to anyone but his friend.

  However, that turned out to be difficult. What he least expected happened: neither of them noticed his defiance. They didn’t even seem to see Edgar himself, while yesterday he had been the central point of their threesome. They both talked over his head, joking and laughing together as if he had vanished under the table. The blood rose to his cheeks, there was a lump in his throat that choked him. With a shudder, he realized how terribly powerless he was. Was he to sit here and watch his mother take his friend away from him, the one person he loved, while he was unable to defend himself except by silence? He felt as if he must stand up and suddenly hammer on the table with both fists. Just to make them notice him. But he kept himself under control, merely laying his knife and fork down and not touching another morsel. However, they also ignored his stubborn refusal of food for a long time, and it wasn’t until the next course came that his mother noticed and asked if he didn’t feel well. It’s so horrible, he thought, she always thinks the same thing, she asks if I don’t feel well, nothing else matters to her. He answered briefly, saying he didn’t want any more to eat, and she seemed satisfied with that. There was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do to attract attention. The Baron seemed to have forgotten him, or at least he never once spoke a word to him. His eyes burned worse and worse, spilled over, and he had to resort to the childish trick of raising his napkin quickly to his face before anyone could see the tears trickling down his cheeks, leaving salty moisture on his lips. He was glad when the meal was over.

  During it his mother had suggested a carriage drive to the village of Maria-Schutz together. Biting his lower lip, Edgar had heard her. So she wasn’t going to leave him alone with his friend for a single minute any more! However, his hatred was roused to fury only when she said to him, as they rose from table, “Edgar, you’ll be forgetting all about your school work, you’d better stay in the hotel today and catch up with some of it!” Once again he clenched his little fist. She was always trying to humiliate him in front of his friend, reminding everyone in public that he was still a child, he had to go to school, he was merely tolerated in adult company. But this time her intentions were too transparent. He did not answer at all, but simply turned away.

  “Oh dear, I’ve hurt your feelings again!” she said, smiling, and added, turning to the Baron, “Would it really be so bad for him to do an hour or so of work for once?”

  And then—something froze rigid in the child’s heart—the Baron, who called himself his friend, who had joked that he, Edgar, was too much of a bookworm, agreed with her. “Well, I’m sure an hour or two could do no harm.”

  Was it a conspiracy? Were they really both in league against him? Fury flared up in the child’s eyes. “My Papa said I wasn’t to do any school work while I was here. Papa wants me to get better here,” he flung at them with all the pride of an invalid, desperately clutching at his father’s authority. It came out like a threat. And the strangest part of it was that what he had said really did appear to discompose them both. His mother looked away and drummed her fingers nervously on the table. There was a painful silence. “Just as you say, Edi,” replied the Baron at last, forcing a smile. “At least I don’t have to take any examinations myself, I failed all mine long ago.”

  But Edgar did not smile at his joke, just scrutinized him with a longing but penetrating glance, as if trying to probe his soul. What was going on? Something had changed between them, and the child didn’t know why. His eyes wandered restlessly, and in his heart a small, rapid hammer was at work, forging the first suspicion.

  7

  BURNING SECRET

  WHAT’S CHANGED THEM so much, wondered the child, sitting opposite them in the carriage as they drove along, why aren’t they the same to me as before? Why does Mama keep avoiding my eyes when I look at her? Why is he always trying to make jokes and clown about like that? They don’t either of them talk to me the way they did yesterday and the day before, it’s almost as if they had new faces. Mama has such red lips today, she must have painte
d them. I never saw her do that before. And he keeps frowning as if I’d hurt his feelings. But I haven’t done anything to them, I haven’t said a word that could annoy them, have I? No, I can’t be the reason, because they’re acting differently with each other too, they’re not the same as before. It’s as if they’d done something they don’t like to talk about. They’re not chattering away like yesterday, they’re not laughing either, they’re embarrassed, they’re hiding something. They have a secret of some kind, and they don’t want to share it with me. A secret, and I must find out what it is at any price. I know it must be the sort of thing that makes people send me out of the room, the sort of thing books are always going on about, and operas when men and women sing together with their arms spread wide, and hug and then push each other away. Somehow or other it must be the same as all that business about my French governess who behaved so badly with Papa, and then she was sent away. All those things are connected, I can feel that, it’s just that I don’t know how. Oh, I wish I knew the secret, I wish I understood it, I wish I had the key that opens all those doors, and I wasn’t a child any more with people hiding things from me and pretending. I wish I didn’t have to be deceived and put off with excuses. It’s now or never! I’m going to get that terrible secret out of them. A line was dug into his brow, the slight twelve-year-old looked almost old as he sat there brooding, without sparing a glance for the landscape unfolding its resonant colours all around: the mountains in the pure green of the coniferous forests, the valleys still young with the fresh bloom of spring, which was late this year. All he saw was the couple opposite him on the back seat of the carriage, as if his intense glances, like a fishing-line, could bring the secret up from the gleaming depths of their eyes. Nothing whets the intelligence more than a passionate suspicion, nothing develops all the faculties of an immature mind more than a trail running away into the dark. Sometimes it is only a flimsy door that cuts children off from what we call the real world, and a chance gust of wind will blow it open for them.