The Green Table E-Book

Tricia Durdey

• Herausgeber: Cinnamon Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 373

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

When Hedda Brandt and other members of Kurt Jooss's dance company flee Germany for Holland in 1933, Hedda imagines she is going to a place free from the prejudice and threats that have overtaken her country. There they perform the celebrated anti-war piece 'The Green Table'. Staying behind to teach dance when Jooss and other members leave the Netherlands for England, Hedda encounters Katje, a girl who has seen and been enthralled by the performance and wants to learn to dance. But these are dangerous times and as Nazi Occupation changes all their lives, Katje watches her brother being drawn into Nazi sympathies fuelled by his admiration for his German piano teacher, Erik Weiss, a difficult man who also poses questions for Hedda. Determined to defy new regulations that demand dance should conform to rigid ideology, Hedda is drawn towards resistance, but with her life more and more at risk, matters are only complicated by the prospect of love with a much younger man, Kai Hoffman, whose family have befriended Hedda. Against a background of oppression, disappearances and terror, Hedda and Katje assert the power of dance, resistance and life in this gripping debut novel that takes real events and characters as its starting point. Poignant, sometimes harrowing, and exquisitely written, this is an extraordinary story from a convincing writer. Follow the story in the next generation with The Dancer at World's End, Tricia's latest novel.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue — 1933

Part One — 1939 Amsterdam

Part Two — 1940

Part Three — 1941

Part Four — 1942

Part Five — 1943

Part Six — 1945

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

THE GREEN TABLE

TRICIA DURDEY

Published by Cinnamon Press

Meirion House

Tanygrisiau

Blaenau Ffestiniog

Gwynedd LL41 3SU

www.cinnamonpress.com

The right of Tricia Durdey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. © 2015 Tricia Durdey

ISBN 978-1-909077-91-1

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book may not be lent, hired out, resold or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers.

Designed and typeset in Garamond by Cinnamon Press. Cover design by Adam Craig © Adam Craig.

Cinnamon Press is represented by Inpress and by the Welsh Books Council in Wales.

Printed in Poland.

For Wolfgang Stange and Amici Dance Theatre

Prologue — 1933

Germany

Herr Brandt threw his newspaper down, took off his glasses, and peered at his daughter, Hedda, so it seemed for a moment as if his exasperation was directed at her.

‘What’s the matter with people?’ he said. ‘They’d do better enthralled by a farmyard pig.’

The morning sun caught the edge of his sunken face, his grey temples. How vulnerable he looks, Hedda thought, for all his rage.

‘The Little Chancellor, strutting about, puffed up with his grandiose ideas. All this adulation he inspires is not only idiotic, it’s extremely dangerous.’

He spoke with such vehemence that Hedda had to smile despite everything. He never voiced Hitler’s name. It was always the Little Chancellor, or the LC, spat out like a bad taste.

‘He’ll be our downfall. But nobody listens to an old man. If only we lived a hundred years or more, we might actually learn something. That would be progress.’ He settled back in his chair and sighed. ‘So what’s the news with the dance company?’

‘It’s not good. Kurt Jooss called me into the office after rehearsal. You know he was asked to dismiss Fritz Cohen, our composer, I told you that, and he refused, of course. Well the Bigwigs haven’t let it go. They’ve now demanded that our Jewish dancers are dropped too.’

‘I’m sorry, very sorry. How did Herr Jooss seem?’

‘He’d rather disband the whole company than dismiss anyone. He’s very concerned.’

‘I’m sure he is. There will be repercussions.’

‘I know Papa. The costumes and sets are packed for the tour already, in case we have to leave in a hurry.’

For a moment mischief brightened Herr Brandt’s eyes.

‘So inspired of Jooss to imitate the Little Chancellor and his cronies – very clever choreography indeed. Of course the LC and Co can’t have liked it greatly, prestigious prizes or not. Nobody likes being laughed at.’ He chuckled. ‘But it’s a serious matter, very serious. I’m concerned for you.’

‘I’ll be all right. They won’t be interested in me.’

‘Don’t be naïve, Hedda. Leave naivety to your sister.’

He looked at her sharply, then eased himself out of his chair. He moved across the room gripping the furniture to steady himself.

‘Well we can still have coffee and a slice of Frau Muller’s cherry cake to cheer the morning. You must be hungry after rehearsal.’

‘I’ll make coffee.’

‘No. You sit there. You look worn out, my girl.’

From the kitchen she heard him opening cupboards, the rattle of the cutlery drawer, sounds she had known all her life. Am I naïve, she wondered? Papa has always seemed so courageous to me, but if he considers me naïve, I’m sure he is too – certainly where his own actions are concerned.

As Herr Brandt shuffled back with a tray of coffee and cake, he asked ‘Have you told your sister all this?’

‘No. She’s so touchy these days. You know that. She might suggest Kurt should have obeyed orders, and I’ll fly into a rage and it will end with a quarrel.’

‘Tell her. Might bring the foolish girl to her senses. She’s as besotted with the LC as the rest of the country. How can I have bred such a girl?’ An expression of mock despair crossed his face. ‘What will we all do, Hedda? I’m an old man. I didn’t survive the Great War to see my country rush headlong towards another disaster.’

‘You’re not that old yet.’

‘I feel old. My bones ache with outrage.’

She laughed.

‘Well mine ache with dancing, every day and night.’

She poured the coffee, passed him a slice of cake.

‘Delicious cake, tell Frau Muller. I didn’t realise I was so hungry.’ She had rushed for the tram straight after Kurt had told her the news. There had been no time to stop at the coffee shop by the studio.

They were quiet as they ate. Out in the garden she heard the soft calling of a wood pigeon in the apple tree.

‘You must be careful too, Papa,’ she said, thinking how he would be unable to keep his mouth shut.

He appeared not to have heard.

‘You’re like me,’ he said. He leant back in his chair. His hand holding the plate relaxed, so crumbs of cake fell into his lap. ‘That child is so proud and angry, your mother used to say, not like a little girl should be. I’d always take your side. It’s a good anger, a righteous anger, I’d tell her. Don’t ever lose your anger.’ Absently, he brushed the crumbs to the floor. ‘Do you know how loved you are, Hedda?’ he said after a moment.

She was jolted by his words. Her eyes filled with tears.

‘Why are you saying these things? I’m not going away.’

‘Don’t ever forget.’

She turned to look through the window at the golden-leaved poplars.

‘It’s a beautiful day,’ she said.

Frau Muller was polishing the dining room table the next day when Hedda let herself into her father’s house.

‘You’ve just missed him,’ she said. ‘He was off early to see an old friend in the country. He said he’d be staying there for dinner. No need for me to cook tonight, he said.’

‘Thank you. I’ll just use the telephone.’

Hedda left the room to avoid further conversation with the old lady. Perhaps it would be less painful not to see her father, not to have to say goodbye face to face. She sat down at his desk and took a sheet of paper.

My dearest Papa, It’s all happened sooner than any of us thought. Yesterday evening Kurt received a message by telephone from a friend who has inside information. His friend said it was imperative we leave the country immediately. Kurt told us this morning after class. They’ve ordered his arrest. We leave tonight for Holland. I’ll write as soon as I can.

Look after yourself.

Your Hedda.

She read it back. It sounded so perfunctory. She rubbed her eyes, realised she’d been holding her breath. He would understand she couldn’t write what she really felt. She put the note in an envelope, and telephoned her sister.

‘Can you meet me in town there’s something I need to tell you? Today… as soon as you can…I’m at Papa’s. He’s fine. He’s gone out …yes it is urgent.’

Hedda could hear a tone of excitement in Gitta’s voice. Despite complaining it was short notice, and how busy she was, Gitta couldn’t hide her curiosity.

They met in a café by the rehearsal rooms. Gitta was already waiting. Poised, and perfectly dressed in a cream linen dress, she turned the pages of a book. Her coat was draped over the back of the chair. She looked Hedda up and down as she approached, so Hedda was immediately aware how untidy and worn she must look, still wearing her work dress under her jersey.

‘I came to say goodbye, Gitta, at least for the time being,’ she said, as she positioned herself so she could see everyone who came through the door. Briefly she told Gitta the situation.

‘But what are you saying? It can’t be so bad that you must run off without even waiting for Pa to come back from a day in the country?’ Gitta’s hands clasped the coffee cup, but she didn’t drink. The coffee grew cold. ‘So I’m left to look after him alone? Sometimes I don’t understand you.’

Hedda recognised her petulant expression – a glimmer of the child in the adult face. Gitta had no idea how shocked and frightened Hedda felt.

‘No you don’t understand, do you?’

‘And why can’t you wait until after Mari’s birthday? She expects you to come for tea. You said you would. At least wait until then, if you must go.’

‘I haven’t forgotten. Thankfully I bought her present early.’ She took Mari’s small parcel from her bag. It was very pretty – a glass bead necklace for her little niece. She’d wrapped it in pink silk and tied it with a green bow. ‘Tell her I had to go away, but I’ll come back just as soon as I can.’

‘Where are you going anyway?’ Gitta interrupted.

‘The Netherlands – to begin with.’ She glanced round the café.

‘Don’t be so melodramatic, Hedda. There’s nobody listening.’

‘Ssh. Please speak quietly. Imagine if you were in Kurt’s situation. You’re given orders, and you refuse to obey. Kurt made a personal visit to the Arts Bureau to defend the integrity of the company. I’m afraid it only made things worse. They’ve drawn up a list of others, as well as Jews, who must be dismissed – the wording was homosexuals and other degenerates.’

‘But if Jooss has refused, then they can’t do anything, can they? Why would they anyway? You’re not that important.’ Gitta took a mirror out of her handbag, and dabbed at her face with her handkerchief. ‘You can’t be leaving just because you don’t like being told what to do?’

‘We’re all in great danger,’ Hedda answered. ‘They’re hardly likely to ignore Kurt now, especially with his high profile.’

‘I don’t believe it’s as bad as this. You exaggerate.’

‘And you’re just locked in your cosy little world of husband and pretty house…’

‘You’re so angry. Why are you always so hard on me?’

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to quarrel, especially now.’ She reached to touch her sister’s arm. ‘But don’t you see what’s coming, even though awful things have happened to so many people already? Or do you just choose to ignore it?’

Gitta put away her mirror, and reached round for her coat.

‘You always quarrel with me. I always think it will be nice to see you, then you criticise me for everything – the way I live, my husband. Sometimes I think you’re jealous.’

‘Gitta, I just can’t believe that you don’t feel the tension. You know how bad it’s been recently for Papa’s Jewish friends. There is no time for long good-byes. Kurt is in very grave danger. We all are. There’s no question of him going alone.’

Gitta’s cheeks flushed. She wouldn’t look at Hedda.

‘But you are going though Papa has been unwell, and without saying good-bye to him. You’ll break his heart.’

‘He’ll understand. I saw him yesterday. We talked then. Am I to stay and get myself arrested? I’d be no use to anyone then. That’s how serious it is. Gitta say goodbye to me. Wish me a safe journey.’

Gitta turned away.

‘I must get home. I’ll be late for lunch as it is.’ She stood up. ‘You’re all running away. How cowardly.’

The last Hedda saw of her was her gloved hand on the glass door, the fall of her blue cashmere coat as she stepped out into the street; her elegant, beautiful sister. In her haste, she’d left behind the birthday parcel for her little girl.

Hedda sat at the café table, looking at Mari’s gift. She had no strength to follow Gitta, her limbs felt heavy and weak. She couldn’t bear Mari to think she didn’t care. She’d have to run to the post office with the parcel before going home. She must write a letter to her friend, Monicke, who shared her apartment. And there was the packing. What should she pack, what does anyone take when they don’t know when, or if, they’ll return? I wish it hadn’t been like that with Gitta, she thought, but I’m glad I didn’t tell her too much. She’s so influenced by Ernst and I don’t like him at all. I never have. She can’t be trusted to keep her mouth shut. How can she be so blind? Or does she believe herself, and her little family, immune?

There was no time to lose. She couldn’t sit all day staring at the grain of the table, listing things to do. She sprang up and strode to the door, pulling on her coat as she went. Only later she realised she’d forgotten to pay for their coffees.

In her small suitcase, on top of her nightwear, underclothes, and dancewear, Hedda folded her best winter dress, a warm jersey and her notebook. She was indecisive and confused. Surely she would be home again soon? It wouldn’t matter that she took so little with her.

She wished Monicke would return early from visiting her mother. Monicke would be talkative and reassuring. She’d make her a mug of hot chocolate, and sit on the bed watching her pack, and making practical suggestions.

She looked around the room, letter to Monicke on the mantelpiece, next to an envelope with rent for the landlord. Her eyes settled on a porcelain vase her mother had given her the year before she died. She loved its rounded shape, the pale blue-green glaze. She looked more closely and saw where the light fell on its smooth surface, a miniature image of the world outside; the blaze of setting sky behind dying leaves, the church spire, the brilliant blur of a tram passing. She moved slightly and there was the tiny reflected interior of her room – the long window, the table with autumn crocuses, the shelf overfilled with art books.

She picked up the vase, held it to her forehead feeling its coolness, thinking to take it wrapped in her warm jersey. But that was absurd.

The rain started as Hedda left home. By the time she reached the tram stop it was falling heavily – unexpected after such a beautiful day. She found a window seat, and watched the familiar streets fly past, trying to record the cafés, shop-fronts and gardens in her memory, in case she was away too long.

The opening music of The Green Table sang in her head, the percussive chords before the lights went up, and the frivolous tango began. She went back to the night of the competition in Paris, waiting off-stage with the rest of the company, her face tight under the mask, her white-gloved hands, the stage pistols ready. It had felt intoxicating, despite their nerves. How jubilant they’d been when they heard Kurt had won. That was only May, but in so short a time everything had changed. It seemed long ago.

She saw two of the other dancers at the station. They were buying cigarettes at the kiosk under the arch. Dietrich looked at her, nodded, without smiling. She wanted to say something, then didn’t, and he passed by. They’d agreed to travel singly or in pairs, to avoid drawing attention. It was safer that way until they crossed the border. Darkness had fallen, the rain a fine mist under the streetlight. She stopped, checked her documents again, thought she’d lost her ticket, but found it in the pocket of her coat.

She sat in the corner of the carriage. It was damp, with the smell of wet wool, and burning coal. She lowered her head and tried to shut out the night, to feel herself in her bed at home, warm, drifting into sleep. The hiss of steam startled her and she opened her eyes to see the man opposite take a meat pie from his knapsack and tuck into it regardless of everyone around him. She watched in fascination. He ate like a pig. She felt sickened. He had the bulbous face of a German peasant.

Her father would be home from his day out. He’d pour himself a brandy and go into his study, as he always did. He’d find her note. Oh Papa.

She must have moaned aloud. The man with the pie stared at her with curiosity. She averted her eyes; saw her reflection in the window of the carriage, pale and tense – for a moment the face of a stranger.

She looked at her watch. In a few hours they would arrive – Amsterdam, and the early September morning, a place of safety. But she couldn’t see beyond the night. She should try to sleep. Damp rose from the floor of the train into her boots. She felt so cold.

Amsterdam – Katje

If she nodded her head and blinked as fast as she could Katje found she could make the choir jump up and down. They looked so funny with their mouths opening and closing, jumping along with the music. Werner prodded her, and she turned round and made angry eyes at him. He brought his hand to his mouth, his giggles bubbling between his fingers.

‘What?’

‘Why are you nodding?’

‘Because I want to.’

How serious they all were – all of them – even Werner when he practised the piano, sitting straight-backed in the cold parlour, playing the same little tune over and over, as she stepped round the edges of the carpet making her dances – Werner trotting out to his lessons with his music tucked under his arm, his face solemn with concentration.

Slow down, you talk so fast. Gabbling Katje. When they knelt and said prayers, their voices a low drone, she wanted to laugh loudly, like Aunt Minna.

Katje’s mother didn’t approve of Minna, who was not a real aunt but an old family friend from America. Minna spoke American English – so fashionable, so loud.

Aunt Minna took her on the tram to the Dance Club. Minna’s gentleman friend picked her up and whirled her round and round until she was dizzy and the room spun. His whiskers scratched her cheeks, and he smelt of cigar smoke and sour spit. When he stopped, she could see his shiny pink gums and the gold pieces in his teeth.

‘My, you’re a heavy girl,’ he said.

They talked on and on until their voices became serious, and their smiles disappeared. ‘The Dutch will preserve their neutrality,’ someone said, and then they were quiet for a moment.

Neutrality. What did it mean? Katje danced along the edge of the ballroom floor, wobbling as she walked, and falling over. ‘Neu-tral-ity,’ she sang. Everyone laughed, so she did it again.

‘You’re a little clown,’ Minna said.

One night Aunt Minna took her to see a ballet. ‘A treat for my girl who is always dancing.’ The theatre was ivory and gold, with red velvet seats. Katje kept very still then, in the scratchy seat, in her best dress, Minna’s mint-scented fur coat against her face, and the sniffs and sighs of the audience all around her. She watched the dancers – the men with their white gloves, masked faces, and tight black suits. They bowed from the hip, heads nodding, and their thin legs pranced with pointed toes. They waved their arms wildly as if they were shouting ‘Listen to me. No, listen to me. You will listen!’

‘You’re very quiet, my little one,’ Minna said to her, when it was over.

The moon shone behind the trees in the square. They waited by the stage door in the damp cold as the dancers and musicians came out chattering, arm in arm, in their long drab coats. One of the dancers, a small lady with wavy black hair, smiled at her and asked if she’d enjoyed the dancing. Minna asked her to write in the programme.

Katje played in the bedroom later that night. Her hairbrush was a pistol; her bed was the Green Table. She pranced around on the balls of her feet, jumped up and bounced on the mattress, and thudded back down to the floor again, waving her arms and shaking her fists like the Gentlemen in Black. La-la la la la, she sang. Then she drew the hairbrush from the belt of her dressing gown. Bang bang – she shot a bullet into the ceiling.

She imagined Death, wearing long black boots and the face of a skeleton, bursting through the door in a cloud of smoke, and she threw herself face down on her bed.

Amsterdam – Hedda

A small crowd had gathered in the square, waiting in the cold to greet the dancers as they left the theatre. They applauded, smiling, when they saw Kurt Jooss.

‘I think they love us,’ one of the dancers said. ‘It’s like Paris all over again.’

Chattering and laughing, they drifted past the fountains, towards the bar of the American Hotel. Hedda, trailing behind, was stopped by a tall woman in a fox-fur coat, holding the hand of a little girl. They wanted her to sign the programme. The woman spoke English. As Hedda wrote her name, the girl looked up at her with a rapt expression. She had blue eyes, a very Dutch face, Hedda thought, like a Vermeer painting. She bent to speak to her.

‘Did you enjoy the dancing?’ she asked, in hesitant English, hoping the child would understand.

The child nodded vigorously, and hopped from one foot to the other in her excitement.

‘Where’s your next show?’ the woman asked.

‘We go to France, and Belgium, and then to America.’

‘Oh, but I’m from America. You must be sure to have a great time. They’ll absolutely adore you there.’

‘Thank you.’ Hedda shook the hands of the American lady and the little girl, and wished them goodnight. As she neared the hotel, she glanced back. They were standing at the tram stop. The child, seeing her, jumped up and waved. Then a tram drew up and she lost sight of them. Suddenly light-hearted, she ran up the steps, into the yellow-green glassy interior of the American Hotel.

She left the bar late, tired and giddy with drink, to walk back to her lodgings. Kurt, staying in the same district, said he would go with her. She was glad, feeling the need of his company. They’d had no chance to talk recently.

‘I like this city,’ she said, as they turned away from the brightness of the square.

‘Me too. It has a distinctive smell. Have you noticed?’

‘Water and decaying leaves, or is it the sea? If I could paint I’d be happy here. Flat sky and land, and all this water, and the light that changes all the time. I’d walk with my head up, looking at the clouds between the gables.’

‘You have such a way of seeing things,’ he said. ‘Like an artist, even if you don’t paint.'

They walked slowly, looking down into the dark water lapping against the lock gates on Singelgracht.

‘And they loved us, didn’t they?’ she said, but he had stopped to look back at the clock tower of the American Hotel, and more distant still – beyond the fountains – the glittering of chandeliers through the windows of the theatre. He seemed distracted. ‘You must be worried all the time, Kurt?’ She was talking too much – the performance, too much wine after days of anxiety, the release of tension. She wasn’t considering him, his responsibilities.

‘Let’s keep walking. It’s getting cold.’ They crossed the canal and the tramline, and walked in the direction of the park gates. ‘We can cut across the park.’

‘We left Germany just in time,’ he said, as they turned into the park. ‘I heard the Gestapo came for me the next day.’

‘Oh no – a terrible thought – if you’d delayed.’ She wanted to take his arm, as an old friend, but felt awkward. She kept her hands in her pockets.

‘Have you thought what you’ll do, after the American tour I mean? You’ll never be able to go back, I suppose.’ But that seemed too final, too awful. Things had to change for the better one day, surely?

‘I have friends in England, in Devon. They live on a large estate, with gardens and outbuildings. They’ve offered me a place I can live and teach, where the whole company can have a home. They’re so incredibly kind. I haven’t told anyone else, Hedda. Please don’t say anything yet.’

England – so far away. She had often thought she wanted to leave Germany, until now, the reality, the thought of her father – they had always been close, and he would miss her terribly. He’d sent a telegram. LC in ascendance. Bleak. Understand no return. Am with you always. Love. Did he mean that he understood, or that she must understand? She missed their long discussions, and arguments, his passion. She missed the untidy warmth of his house.

‘I should go home,’ she said. ‘Was I a coward to leave?’ She hadn’t intended to voice her thoughts.

He stopped abruptly.

‘Not unless we’re all cowards,’ he said. ‘I don’t think there’ll be any going back to Germany. Not for a long time. Not as things are.’

‘I didn’t mean...oh I don’t know what I think.’

They walked on slowly.

‘Listen Hedda, if you go back, even if they leave you alone, you’ll never work as a dancer again, nor teach or choreograph. Not in Germany.’ He offered her his arm.

‘What other work would I do? Maybe there’s something.’

‘You’ll always dance,’ he said. ‘It’s in you so deeply. You’d be unhappy with anything else.’

‘You’re right.’

The park was quiet, the city traffic distant. The sound of their boots striking the path was rhythmic. Their breath too – a slower rhythm, enduring, relentless.

‘For me dancing is essentially moral,’ he said after a while. ‘It would be unworkable to stay in Germany under Nazi rule, even if this hadn’t happened.’

‘Dancing is essentially moral,’ she repeated quietly, seeing no need to ask him to explain.

They came to the other side of the park. A gust of wind shook the dry twigs of the shrubbery. Hedda shivered. The lighted windows beyond the gates looked warm and welcoming as they went through onto Van Eeghenlaan, and turned towards Jacob Obrechtstraat.

They slowed down, having almost reached Hedda’s lodgings. A tram rattled past the Concert Hall, then the sound of someone walking fast, a woman’s footsteps, more urgent than their own. How long will the other choreographers last in Germany – Laban, Wigman – Hedda wondered? How long before they too displease the Little Chancellor?

‘You’re a very great choreographer,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you know that. People will talk about you in years to come. They’ll write books about your work. I’ve loved working with you, every hour of it.’

‘Thank you. You sound as if you think it’s over,’ he added after a moment.

‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Nothing seems clear. My future – I don’t know…’

‘We’ve become exiles, Hedda. Overnight.’

They embraced and parted at the corner of her street. She watched him walk away, his easy grace – until his figure blurred into the darkness. I admire him so much, she thought. He’s made me the dancer I am. Life in another dance company, without him, was unimaginable.

She unlocked the door. A lamp had been left on in the hall, but everyone must be asleep, there was no sound. She crept up to her room.

Before making her way along the landing to the bathroom, she undressed, switched off the bedroom light, and looked out from her balcony at the quiet tree-lined street, so far from home. She longed for the warmth of another body to lie beside her.

Part One — 1939 Amsterdam

The Dunes

‘Werner, come out! It’s a wonderful night.’ Katje whispered. ‘Are you awake?’ She opened her brother’s bedroom door.

Werner sat cross-legged on the bed in his nightshirt, bent over his book in the lamplight.

‘There’ll never be another night like this.’

‘I’m reading.’

‘You’ve all the time in the world to read.’ She leapt into the room and onto his bed. ‘I just can’t sleep. I’ve been trying for such a long time. What are you reading?’ She took the book from him. ‘Poetry.’ She threw it down, stood on the bed and bounced from foot to foot as she leaned out of the open window. ‘The moon has made a sparkling path across the sea and the pine trees are majestic. There – that’s poetry for you.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘What do you think? Pa will have locked the door and I don’t want him hearing me getting out that way.’ She climbed onto the sill.

She heard Werner laughing as she jumped from the window and landed in the bed of sea grass and hollyhocks. She staggered to her feet and brushed the sand from her knees, then set off at a canter out through the wicket gate and across the beach. Behind her the wooden houses squatted amongst the trees in the lee of the wind. The lights were out. Nobody but Werner knew she wasn’t asleep in her room.

Under her feet she felt the hard ribs of sand where the tide had receded, and there, far away, the line of darkness where sky met sea. Gazing up, she saw thousands of stars, and in a moment she knew everything – terror and happiness and awe, the very meaning of life itself – though she had no words to say. She started to dance, a gawky, twirling, staggering step, forward and back, splashing, knees high, into the waves and back, over and over.

She didn’t see Werner until she was dizzy with glee, her pyjamas splattered with salt water. He was standing wrapped in the blanket from his bed, watching her. She ran to greet him.

‘Did you jump from the window too?’

‘I went very quietly through the door.’

‘So did you see my dance? My wondrous dance. You know, I think anything could happen tonight, as if the whole world is about to change. Even my skin’s tingling with anticipation.’

‘You looked funny. I’m glad nobody else saw you. Don’t hang onto me. You’re wet.’

He pushed her away but she kept on jabbing him and laughing until the blanket unravelled and slipped off his shoulders.

‘It’s a warm night. You’re like a skinny old man.’ She shook it out and wrapped it around the two of them.

They walked back up the beach and stopped short of the house, turning back to the shelter of the dunes, listening to the distant boom of the sea.

‘I love that sound. It’s the sound of summer. I hope life does change, but whenever I’ve thought so before, everything ends up going on in the same dreary old way. Do you know what I mean?’

Werner shrugged.

‘Remember Aunt Minna?’

‘Oh yes. Mother never approved.’

‘I wonder why they were ever friends in the first place. What happened to her?’

‘She went back to America I suppose. They fell out anyway before that. Don’t you remember Mother and Father talking about her?’

‘I liked her. Everything was fun when she was around. She took me to the Stadsschouwberg once to see the strangest ballet. There was Death, wearing a skeleton costume, and funny men in suits.’

‘It was after that I think that they stopped seeing her. They got angry about something. I can’t really remember.’

Werner disentangled himself from the blanket and trod the slithery sand to the top of the dune, and Katje followed grumbling about their parents, as she so often did, their father’s strictness and their mother’s old-fashioned ways. Sometimes Werner would join in, but tonight he seemed distracted. After a while they lay down in a hollow in the sand dunes. Covered in the blanket, staring up at the sky, they fell silent.

Katje twisted round to look at her brother.

‘What are you thinking?’ she asked at last.

‘About music.’

‘You’re always thinking about music. What in particular?’

But he was lost to her. She watched his eyelashes flickering, the deep shadows over his fine-boned face. It was a strange face, so different from her own – delicate and intense. He wasn’t aware of her scrutiny. She could tickle his face with the long sea grass and he wouldn’t do more than brush his hand over his cheek as if a fly crawled over him. He’s mysterious to me even though he’s been beside me all my life. I suppose I would die for my brother.

She flung herself onto her back and thought about what it would feel like to die for love. But it would be impossible to know, of course. If you were dead you’d stop feeling.

Herr Weiss

One spring morning, Hedda Brandt arrived at her dancing school on the Amstel at the same time as a man who was walking from the opposite direction. They converged at the stone steps leading to the front door. He wished her good morning, and stepped back to let her go ahead of him.

‘You must be Fraulein Brandt,’ he said. ‘Erik Weiss, piano teacher. I rent a room in the basement. I moved in last week.’

‘You’re German too,’ Hedda said. ‘It’s always nice to meet someone from home.’

He was a tall, striking-looking man in his early-thirties, heavy featured, and slightly balding, with an upright bearing. He wore cologne with a sharp clean fragrance.

‘I’ll be teaching on Monday and Wednesday. Pleased to meet you.’

His hand was dry and cool.

The following Monday evening, weary before cycling home, Hedda paused in the hall. Whoever was playing sounded very accomplished, she thought. Herr Weiss must be an excellent teacher.

‘I’m looking for an accompanist for my Friday and Saturday classes,’ she said, next time they met. ‘My last one left a couple of months ago and my dancers are getting rather bored of me banging a drum. I thought you might know of someone suitable, perhaps one of your students.’

He replied by letter at the end of the week. He would be happy to be considered for the post himself.

For the first month Hedda scarcely exchanged a word with Erik Weiss. He always arrived and left promptly. He was remote with the children, and had an air of arrogance, but she couldn’t fault his playing. He was by far the best accompanist she’d ever employed.

‘Could you stay on for another hour next Friday?’ she asked. ‘I need to work through a piece for a recital. I will pay you, of course.’

‘Willingly,’ he said, with a perfunctory smile.

‘A Chopin Mazurka – here’s the score if you want to look through it.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ he replied.

After classes the following week, she made him coffee to drink whilst she stretched at the barre.

‘Now I need to mark the dance for space and timing,’ she said. ‘Could we just try with you playing up to tempo?’

He played, and she walked through the piece.

‘Now dance,’ he said, when she’d finished. ‘That was just playing at it.’

‘I was only marking,’ she said, laughing, though surprised by his impertinence. ‘I’ll gladly dance.’

She expected him to leave as soon as she’d finished rehearsal, but he asked if she’d mind if he stayed longer, no fee required. ‘Let’s try to improvise together,’ he said.

‘I’d love that,’ she answered.

He started to play. She stood listening, then began to walk round the studio, letting her hands follow the shifting moods and rhythms of his music, until her whole body was caught up in it and swept along. At times he let the music die away, and watched her as she moved in the brief silence, then he’d start to play again, just as she slowed to stillness. After a while it became unclear who was leading, and she felt heady and intoxicated, pushing her body harder than she had in months, flinging herself into falls, and extensions, and defying gravity as she leapt.

He stopped abruptly. Exhausted and surprised by the sudden conclusion to his playing, she slumped against the barre to get her breath.

‘It’s been a long time since I’ve worked like that with someone,’ she said. ‘It feels so good.’

He closed the lid of the piano and crossed the studio to stand beside her. His close proximity discomfited her. She turned to look out over the river in the twilight – the lights from the houseboats glowing through the great elm trees.

‘Come for a drink with me,’ he said.

‘Oh but I’m not dressed properly,’ she said, flustered.

‘I’ll wait while you change.’

She saw no reason to refuse. It would be interesting to get to know him.

Hedda left her bicycle at the studio – Herr Weiss never cycled anywhere. He thought cycling was vulgar, he told her. They walked, with little conversation, to Café de Zwart on the Spui. It was a warm evening and people sat out under the awning.

‘I come here after my rehearsals in the English church – the Begijnhof. You must know it?’

‘Certainly. I think I’ve walked, or cycled, every street of this city.’

He ordered a bottle of Bordeaux.

‘I never drink beer. Are you happy with wine?’

She wondered if his brusqueness betrayed insecurity. Or was it a supreme sense of superiority?

They sat at a round table in the corner where the window looked out onto the square. The candlelight gave warmth to his features. He drank his first glass quickly, and poured another. She was more cautious, aware how the first sips of wine went to her head. She waited to see if he would make conversation. Pre-occupied, he tapped a rhythm on the edge of the table.

‘It’s good to meet a fellow German, to speak my own language again,’ she said, with some sense of irony, since he’d scarcely spoken. ‘Do you miss Germany?’

‘Not remotely. I’ve been back from time to time, concerts and such like, but I’ve lived here all my adult life. I arrived when I was fifteen.’

‘Ah, Germany was very different then, when we were young.’

His eye sockets were deep and dark ringed. He took another drink, and for the first time since they’d sat down gave her his attention.

‘You are going to ask why I’m here, fellow Germans always do. I’ll tell you as briefly as I can.’

How patronising he is, and clumsy in his manner to the point of rudeness, she thought. Instead of feeling annoyed, she was amused by her desire to put him at his ease.

He spoke in a precise, affected way. ‘I was brought up in Cologne. I was a choirboy, then a soloist. I took piano and organ lessons from the organist. Music was my life. Music will always be my life.’ As he spoke he pressed his fingertips together, slowly flexing and extending his hands.

‘Do you still sing?’

‘Never since my voice broke. I had the most perfect voice, angelic, as only boys’ voices can be. I was much praised. It changed – overnight, it seemed. Oddly I hadn’t anticipated how brutal that would be.’

‘But surely young men can develop into fine singers if they’re taught properly?’

He closed his eyes briefly, as if irritated or pained by her comment, before continuing to narrate the events of his life.

‘I adored my mother. She died of a miscarriage when I was fourteen. I found her lying in her own blood. I still dream of it. My father was remote. He drank too much. We didn’t like each other.’ His hands trembled. He put them down flat on the table. ‘I came to The Hague to live with my aunt. I’ve never seen my father since.’ He drained his glass.

Hedda didn’t know how to respond – shocked at the thought of his mother, sympathetic words seemed inappropriate. He got up abruptly.

‘Excuse me a moment.’

He spoke briefly to the barman, and went out. How odd he is, Hedda thought, rattling off his life story like that. What does he want? Looking out of the window, she saw him in the square pacing around, hands behind his back.

When he returned his manner was quite changed.

‘I needed a breath of air. You made me talk of the past, Miss Brandt. You listen too well. Now you must tell me why you are living away from Germany when you miss it so much.’ He spoke with a touch of sarcasm.

‘I didn’t say I missed Germany.’

‘Not in so many words, but I can see you do.’

She looked at him in surprise. She supposed there was no need to be guarded with a fellow German. She told him briefly why she had left Germany.

‘So I went to England with Jooss and the company. But I was unhappy there – for various reasons it didn’t work out. I returned to the Netherlands. I feel closer to home here. Once I’d established my work in Amsterdam, I planned to go back to see my father. I was prepared to take the risk. Then he was arrested.’

She stopped. He was inspecting his fingernails, pushing back the cuticle of his forefinger.

‘A political prisoner?’ he asked, bringing his attention back to her.

‘Yes. He died in prison.’

‘Then we both have our sorrows, Miss Brandt. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t call me Miss Brandt. Not in that way,’ she said, irritated by his affectation.

‘Hedda Brandt,’ he said more gently. ‘If I may?’ He took her hand and kissed it with theatrical exaggeration. ‘Why the Norwegian name?’

‘My father’s choice. He said it was prettier than Hedwig. He loved Scandinavia too.’

‘Hedda – the warrior. We should have another bottle of wine.’

‘Oh no. I must go home. I’m very hungry.’

‘Then you must eat. I’ll order something for you.’ His smile made him boyish and attractive. ‘Please stay. I’m enjoying this so much.’

Enjoying – he hadn’t appeared to enjoy anything so far.

‘I’ll stay just a while longer, but I won’t eat now. I must get home soon.’

‘I relish watching you teach,’ he said. ‘You are rather marvellous, you know – with those mothers too. How ghastly they are, some of them. Who is this?’

Drink had transformed him. His face had changed, as if a layer of hardness had peeled away leaving him less defined, his features more mobile. Cheeks flushed, he mimed with such accuracy one of the mothers ushering her shy daughter into the studio, that Hedda had to laugh.

‘She’s the Nanny Goat. She bleats.’

‘I do see what you mean.’

‘Oh I have names for them all – Suet Pudding, Carte Blanche, the Bad Fairy…’

‘Please stop. I can see it all too clearly. I won’t be able to face them tomorrow.’

He didn’t stop. He made her laugh with his finely observed caricatures, until her face ached.

‘Oh I see you in an entirely new light now,’ she said. ‘And for me?’ she asked. ‘Do you have a name for me?’

‘Of course I do,’ he said, looking her full in the eyes. ‘But don’t worry, you would be flattered.’

But he would not tell her.