The pass lay under the snow. When the summer came, if it ever did again, the melted snow would leave a rich green. But every winter was so long it seemed interminable. Locked in by the snow and the mountains, the pass was also barricaded by the iced sandbag bastions of war. On the north side were the Austrians, on the south side stood the Italians. Great barrier webs of barbed wire guarded the sandbag blockhouses and climbed the slopes on either side of the pass. The wire was draped in snow, which hung frozen from every strand.
For over three years they had fought for that pass, the Austrians in an endeavour to open up one more route into Italy, the Italians to get a footing on the soil of the Trentino region of the Tyrol. In France the opposing armies fought each other from trenches. In the Alpine territory the Austrians and Italians engaged in bitter and protracted mountain warfare. The men of both armies performed prodigious feats, whether at high or low altitudes, and amid conditions of intense cold, icy storms and enemy fire. They fought for and from ledges scarifyingly precipitous, they fought as they were commanded to, clinging to positions that were death-defying. Guns were dragged up to heights of three thousand feet, and from there they blasted cannonades that made massive mountains tremble.
Here, around the pass and for the pass, the Austrians and Italians had long set the pattern of attritional warfare. They had climbed the slopes and cut the wire, they had climbed higher and crawled along ledges and ridges to bypass the defenders, and when bright light came they had been literally shot off the mountainside by those who waited on their own ledges. They had attacked massively in attempts to smother the barbed wire and overrun the iron-hard sandbag walls, and they had died. When they used gunfire to smother the wire in rock, snow and ice they only left it quivering. Sometimes, because it was so difficult to move the guns once they were in position, opposing batteries ventured into the more devastating realms of war by trying to blow each other to pieces. Frequently the echoing, vibrating thunder of the guns brought in its wake the slow, rolling, snowballing thunder of avalanches, the gigantic walls of falling white liable to bury friend and foe in awesome impartiality.
The winter of 1918 had come early. It was bitter and biting even during the first days of October. The snow-covered strands of barbed wire began to create their patterns of strange beauty. The men looked lean, gaunt, and were burned black by the Alpine sun and winds. Sometimes only the fact that the Austrians stood north of the pass and the Italians south distinguished one from the other.
What counted was attrition, what counted more was to endure and survive attrition. They knew that. So they hated each other. They also, at times, loved each other. In this region, where fighting for every foothold was a hazardous exploit in itself, they were brothers as well as enemies. They all knew it was easier and safer to sit on the side of a mountain and wait for the other man to come than to go to him. The generals did not quite see it like that. They did not have the same attitudes as the men. They were not afflicted by boredom and a conviction that today was forever, that the war for the pass and the pass itself were symbolic of hideous permanency. The mountains would not change shape, nor the valleys, and therefore the pass was as it always had been and always would be. It could not be reduced and the war could not end.
‘This is a pass that can never be taken, so what is the point of still trying to?’ asked the Austrian commander of his staff.
‘It makes the Italians worry about us,’ said his staff.
The Italian commander said to his deputy, ‘What is the use of any further offensive?’
‘It doesn’t do to let the Austrians think we’ve given up,’ said his deputy, ‘and I’ve heard that General Ponticori is considering the very original tactic of a night attack.’
‘I hope he’ll be here to lead it himself,’ said the Italian commander, ‘it will be very original indeed then.’
Despite the fact that the war was going so badly for Austria, the empire almost bankrupt, in their tremendous and prolonged mountain war with Italy the hardened Austrian troops yielded nothing. In this sector their headquarters were in the mountain village of Oberstein. Out of the line and into Oberstein marched the 3rd Company of the 54th Regiment for a brief rest. In command of the 3rd was Carl. Major Carl Korvacs. He had been campaigning in the mountains for the last three years after a year of fighting the Russians in Galicia. He was twenty-eight. He might, to the careless young, have been any age. His face, tanned to burnt mahogany, was drawn and bleak, etched by the bitter winds into hard lines. His blue eyes had long lost their warmth. They reflected the grey of wintry war as he marched his men through the snowy streets of the attractive little town.
He had not seen Vienna or his family for a long time. A respite for a week or ten days in Oberstein was as much as he and his men could hope for, and even then they would be subject to instant recall. The mountain ridges above the pass awaited their return. They were hungry for the warm bodies of men, those ridges, although a man did not stay warm for long. The living lay almost as stiff and cold as the dead after a while. The dead lay with ice and snow embalming them, preserving them, turning them so purely white that they no longer made an impact on the eye. But eventually they would be gone, most of them, unclamped from their icy tombs by the compassionate hands of men whose duty it was to somehow climb down to them. And those who could not be reached simply stayed where they had fallen, as whitely mantled as the mountains until warm summer uncovered them.
Carl still believed in Austria. But he no longer believed in the war. His only affections were for his men, for their courage and endurance, for their acceptance of the impossible and their attempts at the impossible. His was an established, experienced company, full of veterans who had survived every risk, every hazard, every engagement, and senior officers knew that Major Carl Korvacs and the 3rd could achieve that much more than other companies. But there was something about Major Korvacs which made them prefer to give him his orders by a runner or by a field telephone. To stand face to face with him could be a little uncomfortable. His eyes could convey a cold blankness even as he was saying, ‘Yes, Herr Colonel.’
He hated the pass. It represented the eternal stalemate and all mountain regiments disliked it intensely, although there were no areas of conflict they actually loved. A few months at the pass drained a man of what were left of his caring emotions and wrapped him about with a shell of indifference.
He saw his men quartered in the wartime barracks before making his way to a house called Rosa Bella. He was to be billeted there for his rest period. The name itself, Beautiful Rosa, was sickly. His orderly, Corporal Jaafe, was already there, having gone on ahead to make sure things were right for him. Carl was not as tolerant of imperfections as he had been. The years of irresponsible rapture had gone, and for ever.
The house was imposing, its overhanging Tyrolean roof declining steeply, its timbers weathered and mellow, its chimneys smoking and creating circles of warm dampness in snow that still managed to cling. Corporal Jaafe opened the door to him. The square hall shone. The walls were adorned with pictures which Carl guessed were family portraits. The Trentino region of the Tyrol was Italian-dominated but still part of the Austrian empire. Some of the Italians, calling themselves patriots or irredentists, occasionally threw bombs as a sign that they wished the Trentino region to join with Italy, but the Tyrol was Austrian and had been since 1363, when by amicable arrangement it came under the jurisdiction of Duke Rudolph IV of Austria.
Carl, observing the paintings, noted that the faces were all Italian. Although the Tyrolean Austrians and Italians co-existed they never managed to look like each other. The Italians were as dark as those in Rome.
He stripped off his gloves and entered the drawing room. There Corporal Jaafe helped him off with his greatcoat. There stood a young woman. She was as stiff as a poker, inasmuch as her rounded form would let her be. She wore a crisp white blouse and black skirt. Her dark hair was neatly braided, and her eyes, overwhelmed by soft black lashes, were slumbrous with the smouldering hostility of the Tyrolean Latin for the Austrian overlord. Carl had seen that look before. He was not impressed. He turned to Corporal Jaafe.
‘This is an Italian house,’ he said in German.
‘This is our house,’ said the young woman in Italian.
‘What is wrong with the house of good Tyroleans?’ asked Carl of Jaafe.
Jaafe knew he meant an Austrian family’s house.
‘Herr Major,’ he said, ‘as I understand it there’s no other house—’
The young woman interrupted, again in Italian. ‘We are good Tyroleans in this house.’
‘Who is this person?’ asked Carl.
‘She’s Fräulein Am—’
‘I am Signorina Amaraldi.’
Carl turned to her. Her dark fiery eyes clashed with his indifference. They were immediate antagonists, except that he cared very little and she cared passionately, patriotically. She was hotly Italian, which meant, as far as he was concerned, that it took little to make her spit and scratch.
‘Are you an Austrian subject?’ he asked.
‘That is what our papers say.’
‘Then speak German,’ said Carl, ‘or you will not be heard. You have a grievance, obviously. What is it?’
Pia Amaraldi, nineteen, an educated and intelligent young woman and an avowed irredentist, could speak the official language very well, but was not going to yield to a brusque command from a hard-faced Austrian major.
‘I have a protest, not a grievance,’ she said, still in Italian.
‘I did not catch that,’ said Carl. He handed his cap to Jaafe.
Pia’s crisp blouse stirred as her simmering fires grew hot.
‘You have heard everything else I said.’
Carl could not be bothered to argue with her. They all had some complaint or other, those who were pro-Italy, stupidly forgetful of the fact that they were better off under Austrian rule than they would ever be under that of the erratic Italians. Italians would never make good politicians, only opera stars. They should stick to opera and leave politics and bombs alone.
‘Very well,’ he said curtly, ‘what is your protest?’
‘That we have told the military authorities more than once that we have no room to house soldiers. Now they have ignored us and ordered us to find room for you. There is no room.’
‘Have you been spared billeted men up till now?’
‘Yes.’ Proud, defiant, she was not afraid to let him know which side she was on.
‘Then you’ve been fortunate, fräulein. Show me the house.’
‘That is not necessary.’ It was another protest. ‘You may take my word for it.’
‘I can’t,’ said Carl, ‘not without overriding the decision of the billeting officer. I’ll see for myself. You may lead the way.’
She turned with an angry swish. She began with the ground floor, with the dining room, study, kitchen, outhouse and a sitting room. In the latter with its view of the mountains were two people, a handsome middle-aged woman and a twelve-year-old girl. Pia did not introduce them. Carl asked who they were.
‘My mother and sister.’
Carl nodded briefly to them.
‘I am Major Korvacs,’ he said, ‘I shall be staying here for a while.’
Pia’s mother inclined her head. The girl smiled hesitantly, shyly. Pia frowned at her.
On the first floor were five bedrooms. He looked into all of them. Three bore the mark of occupancy.
‘As well as your mother and sister, who else lives here?’ he asked.
‘I do,’ said Pia.
‘Who else?’
‘There are relatives,’ she said.
‘No doubt.’ The Italians were well known for the numeracy of their relatives. ‘Living here?’
‘They come to visit, to stay. Where are we to put them if you leave us no room?’
‘I shall leave them one room. I shan’t be here more than a week or so. I’m not on a long holiday. If I were I should be in Vienna, not here. What is this fuss you’re making? Three of you and five bedrooms. And what is upstairs?’ He pointed to the short flight leading to the second floor.
‘There is only an attic up there,’ said Pia, smouldering and fuming.
‘Let me see it.’
‘What is the point?’ she said angrily. ‘You have made your decision.’
He regarded her coldly. Angrier, she led the way up the stairs to a small dark landing. ‘There,’ she said, ‘see for yourself if this is fit for anyone to sleep in!’ She flung the attic door open. He looked in. It was full of junk, with an old bare truckle bed turned on its side against a wall. A small gable window let in grey light.
Carl, thinking of cold mountain bivouacs, said, ‘There are worse places.’
She stalked away, she swished down the stairs. He followed. On the ground floor she turned to him.
‘I am allowed to protest?’ she said. ‘Well, I have protested. You have decided. Supper is at seven.’
‘You may dine without me. I shall be in bed.’
He was stiff and weary. The cold took time to thaw out from the bones. Corporal Jaafe prepared one of the spare bedrooms and half an hour later Carl was beneath the sheets and asleep. He slept solidly through the night.
The morning was crisp and clear. He saw the soaring white heights through the window, icy peaks ranging the wintry blue sky. Corporal Jaafe, arriving early from the barracks, brought him his hot shaving water.
He was spruce when he entered the dining room. A buxom woman in a white cap and front bobbed agitatedly to him. No one else was present.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘Maria, signore— Herr Major.’ Flustered, she bobbed her way out. Pia came in, clad in a dress of dark blue trimmed with white. She looked richly brunette.
‘Good morning,’ she said, ‘that was Maria, our maid.’
‘She wasn’t here yesterday.’
‘She doesn’t live in now, she has her widowed mother to look after.’ Pia hesitated, then said, ‘Herr Major, I must apologize.’
He did not want apologies. He did not want to have to participate in trivial pleasantries. He wanted a few days doing nothing, thinking of nothing.
‘There’s no need,’ he said.
‘I was very rude to you,’ she said, ‘I am sorry.’
She was attractively penitent. He recognized it as a pose. Her hostility yesterday had been far more sincere.
‘You’ve breakfasted?’ he said.
‘My mother and sister have, I have not.’
‘Do you object to my sitting down with you?’
She saw that her apology had been wasted. She flushed. ‘No,’ she said touchily, ‘I’ve no objection.’
She sat at one end of the table, he the other. Maria brought them coffee, rolls and some cheese. The coffee was weakly redolent of ground acorns, the bread black. Carl made no attempt at conversation. He ate the sparse meal without fuss and drank the coffee without comment. Pia watched him from under lowered lashes. He was not like most Austrian officers she knew, with their gallantries she thought shallow. Major Korvacs looked as if he had stopped treating life as a ballroom and war as a game long ago.
He rose to his feet as soon as he had finished.
‘Thank you,’ he said politely.
‘If you wish the use of the drawing room?’
‘Thank you, no. My own room is adequate and comfortable. I wish only to reside in your house, not to occupy it.’
Pia flushed again, hating him.
‘I see,’ she said.
He left the house a few minutes later. She watched him from a window. He walked briskly, stick in his gloved hand, his greatcoat buttoned to the neck against the cold. He would be a problem, she thought. He was arrogant enough not to care that he was in a house where he was unwanted.
Carl made the rounds of his resting men. They were in a relaxed mood at the moment, glad to be free for a few days from the soul-destroying atmosphere of useless conflict. They knew he would look in on them, but said little. He had made them the hardiest and toughest of mountain units, and if he was a more demanding officer than others, he was also one of the most respected. He had been promoted company commander two years ago. No further promotion happened. He had grown out of the acceptable mould. It did not worry him. His disbelief in the war as a great crusade had not affected his belief in his men. He knew Austria could not last much longer. He would be happy to finish the war as commander of the 3rd. He would be happy to finish it alive. But after four years each new day shortened the odds. Three times he had been wounded. The fatal bullet must be lurking somewhere.
He dropped in at Headquarters and lodged a curt complaint with the billeting officer, Major Wessel. To the effect that company commanders in from the line should not be housed with Italian families. That he would welcome arrangements to quarter him elsewhere.
‘Impossible, Major Korvacs,’ said Major Wessel. He saw the cold glint in Carl’s eyes. ‘True, true, I know that’s a word you don’t recognize but unfortunately I have to. However, I’ll do what I can.’
‘Thank you. At a pinch,’ said Carl impassively, ‘I’ll share with you.’ It was common knowledge that Major Wessel was very comfortably lodged.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ repeated Major Wessel, equally impassive.
‘I’m sure you will,’ said Carl.
He took a long walk in the cold, crisp air, leaving Oberstein well behind. The mountain road, narrow, drew him upwards. The sky was an icy blue, the peaks brilliantly glacial. He went on until he had a clear view of the pass, away to the left, to the south. He stopped, turned and looked. He grimaced. That was what had drawn him. The unbreachable pass. He had left the ridges only yesterday, and gladly. But there it was, a sweeping white valley, the trenched lines black, like a series of dark winding gashes in the snow. He could not see the barbed wire but he knew it was there, extending far up the slopes. The sandbag emplacements looked ridiculously tiny. How deceptive was distance. He looked at the heights which, on either side of the pass, defied the most agile of mountain fighters. He wondered if it mattered now. It mattered to the respective corps commanders. One or the other would mount a new attack any moment. Whose turn was it?
The Italians’ turn, he thought.
He returned to the house just before lunch. He glimpsed Signora Amaraldi at the front window. The door was opened by Maria. She looked flushed and upset. Pia swept into the hall, the skirt of her dress offendedly rustling.
‘Major Korvacs, your servant—’
‘Do you mean my orderly, Corporal Jaafe?’
‘Yes, I do mean him,’ said Pia. ‘I do not mind him helping in the kitchen, but he is not here to run things or to take liberties. There will be no peace unless you make this clear to him.’
‘Corporal Jaafe has a few duties here to attend to,’ said Carl, ‘but he’s not known for being tactless. I’ve never had any trouble with him.’
‘But you are not Maria,’ she said with meaning. ‘Maria is a good Catholic.’
‘So is Corporal Jaafe,’ said Carl. Hardened by four years of savage war, he felt this kind of complaint was a trivial absurdity. His expression told Pia so, but she stood up to him.
‘He has insulted Maria.’
‘How?’
‘By forcing his attentions on her, by kissing her.’
‘Oh?’ His sardonic scepticism could not have been more pronounced. His reactions to the whims of women were no longer basically chivalrous. ‘That has upset her?’
‘Do you doubt it?’ flared Pia.
He did. The complaint was not that Jaafe had kissed the maid, but that he was Austrian.
‘She made it clear to him he had offended her?’
‘She made it very clear. To him and to me.’
‘Then I expect Corporal Jaafe feels as hurt about it as she does. To my knowledge she’s the first woman he’s kissed who didn’t like it. Maria can therefore consider she’s given as good as she got.’ He walked to the stairs.
‘Major Korvacs!’ Pia’s voice shook with anger.
‘Fräulein?’ he said politely, turning. The German form of address raised her temper higher. She knew it to be deliberate.
‘I’ve always understood,’ she said, ‘that whatever the circumstances no Austrian officer would give one less than ordinary courtesy.’
Carl considered the point.
‘I accept your rebuke, Fräulein Amaraldi. I’ll speak to Corporal Jaafe. If he’s there, please ask him to come up to my room.’
Corporal Jaafe, when he presented himself to Carl, wore the old soldier’s air of innocence, a time-honoured façade one tacitly accepted without being required to believe in it.
‘What’s the trouble?’ asked Carl.
‘Trouble, Herr Major?’
‘In the kitchen.’
‘Ah, the kitchen.’ Jaafe seemed relieved that there was no more to it than that. ‘Well, where else should I polish your buttons and clean your boots, Herr Major, where else should I press your—’
‘I understand all that, Corporal Jaafe, but exactly why is there a complaint laid against you?’
‘She is very Italian, Herr Major.’
‘Who is very Italian?’
‘The maid. Maria. She waves her arms about like a Neapolitan. I’ve only to put my head round the door and she’s flapping about like an alarmed chicken and crying, “Out, out.” If she could she’d have me shining your boots outside in the snow, which—’
‘Which is out of the question, of course. It seems they don’t like what they think is your proprietary air.’
‘Herr Major, I merely come and go.’
‘Quite so.’ Carl allowed himself the flicker of a smile as the corporal polished a brass knob of the bedstead with the subconscious gesture of a man who automatically aimed for lustre on the face of metal. ‘It goes without saying that you’d not force your attentions on the maid.’
‘Herr Major?’ Corporal Jaafe was the soul of innocence.
‘Yes, what happened?’ asked Carl.
‘Ah,’ said Jaafe as if remembering a trifling incident. ‘Well, this is how it was, Herr Major. As you know, a woman who flaps her arms and runs about falls over herself like a blind acrobat. The least a man can do when this occurs is to catch her, and to be frank, Herr Major, it occurred this morning.’
‘She fell over herself?’ Not a muscle moved in Carl’s face. ‘And you caught her?’
‘Fortunately, I was close enough to. But she’s not a small woman, Herr Major, and as I caught her a little collision took place.’
‘A collision?’
Corporal Jaafe coughed in the best interest of credibility.
‘You’d not believe it, Herr Major, but it resulted in a kiss.’
‘Your lips collided with hers? Extraordinary,’ said Carl, ‘and normally, no, I’d not believe it. In future perhaps it would be better to let her fall about. Similar collisions must be avoided.’
‘Very good, Herr Major.’
Lunch took place in an atmosphere of contrived politeness, Pia addressing most of her remarks to her mother, who did not seem as if she considered this a favour. She appeared to be a quiet figurehead against the stronger personality of her daughter. The younger girl, Mariella, sat with her eyes on her food most of the time, though she occasionally essayed a shy glance at the uninvited guest. The fare was plain. No one had had anything better for months. Carl made no conversation at all. Not until Mariella was excused to go off to afternoon school did he mention that he had spoken to Corporal Jaafe.
‘Thank you,’ said Pia. Her mother gave Carl a little nod of acknowledgement. Since the absence of the father, wherever he was, placed the mother at the head of the household, Carl addressed his next remark to her.
‘However, Signora Amaraldi, Corporal Jaafe’s duties require him to use the kitchen from time to time. This is understood?’
Pia’s mother, fingering the silver crucifix that hung from its fine chain and rested on the bodice of her black dress, smiled and said without animosity, ‘Of course, Major Korvacs.’
Pia cut in a little testily, saying, ‘As long as he does not give Maria orders or offend her in any way, Corporal Jaafe may use the kitchen, yes.’
‘I think your mother and I have already agreed on that, fräulein,’ said Carl, and that brought her hot blood rushing. He was daring to put her into what he thought was her place and to provoke her further by calling her fräulein when he had just given her mother the courtesy of the Italian form.
‘My mother, Major Korvacs, knows I am to be consulted too on all domestic matters.’
‘As you wish.’ He refused to attach any importance to it.
He was on his way out again after lunch when Pia appeared in the hall. She attempted a conciliatory smile.
‘Please, I must apologize again,’ she said, ‘I must not get so cross, I realize things are as difficult for you as for us.’
‘By comparison with other things,’ said Carl, ‘there’s nothing here I find difficult. And is it so difficult for you, having one officer in your house and one corporal who merely comes and goes?’
‘We are trying to adapt ourselves,’ she said.
Carl, not disposed to engage in more trivialities, said, ‘Where is your father?’
She hesitated before saying, ‘He’s not here.’
‘Is he in the army?’
Again she hesitated. Then, ‘Yes.’
He was prompted to ask, ‘Which army?’
‘The Italian army,’ she said defiantly.
His blue eyes were cold. A number of Tyrolean Italians had evaded service with the Austrians to go and fight for Italy.
‘Your father is an Austrian subject. If he’s captured he’ll be shot. You realize that?’
‘We all realize it.’ But she spoke quite proudly.
Carl left the house to stroll around the small snow-encrusted town. There had been a fresh fall in the night, but it was sunny now, the air invigorating, the layers of snow crisp and sparkling. Soldiers of various mountain units, taking a brief rest from the front line, were casually abroad. They were not noisy. They were men whose eyes seemed set deep in their faces, men aware they were still alive. It was often difficult, out there on the icy, bitter ridges, to decide whether one was surviving or not. One often felt dead. Oberstein represented bright, sunlit proof on a day like this that ordinary life and everyday occupations still existed. Civilians went about their business, farmers went up to sheds to see that their cows were still safe and warm under cover, and women queued at the shops for what was going. And the little cafés were always full, mostly of soldiers, though not offering the kind of coffee the Tyroleans were used to.
Carl got a little tired of returning salutes. He might have gone back to the house, to lie on his bed and think of nothing as he had promised himself. But that, if one indulged it too much, brought on a kind of moribund mentality which could eventually turn a man into a manic depressive. He had seen that happen to officers and men drained mind and body by months of mountain slogging, by the feeling they were in a war that had no end. At first, morose moods alternated with bursts of irritation. Later, introspective silences set in, became prolonged, and finally every emotion lay inert.
He might have joined fellow officers in the club set aside for them, but they would want to talk of the ifs and buts of war, they would want to talk of Vienna and the old days, and he was unable to engage in such conversations. He thought of his family. They were the only real figures to which his mind could relate. He had not been able to get to Vienna for fifteen months. He knew he might never get back. He could think about that without fear or prayers now. But he wanted to survive, to live on, to see his family again. Fortune had favoured him so far and his every instinct bore on self-preservation, probably because the margin of luck grew daily narrower.
He thought of Sophie. She would be suffering because of what the war was doing to people, to her. The rest of the family would be suffering because of what it was doing to Austria. Sophie’s letters – she wrote frequently – were affectionate, descriptive and without heroics. She touched a little on her war work, but did not relate it to the glory of Austria, only to plain necessity. Anne had lost Ludwig to the Russians. Not permanently, perhaps, but unhappily. Sophie had lost her love to the British. That had to be permanent.
Looking back at the way he had parted from James, he could see only his own pompous absurdity. He could not clearly remember how James had taken it. Fairly quietly, he thought. He rather wished he could go back and say a different goodbye. He was older now, he had grown up. After four years a man did not indulge in a daily hate of the enemy. The hate only came alive when shot and shell were murderously piecemealing comrades and the only desire was to pay back in kind. Hate was impossible to sustain, and the things governments and generals said to whip it up were an embarrassment to most soldiers.
He was out of the little town now. In front the vista was one of ascending slopes and eye-hurting brightness. The sun was low, a huge disc of golden light tinted with winter red. He shook his head at himself, turned about and made his way back. He stopped at a café reserved for officers and had a cognac. He nodded to some he knew but did not sit with them. He was not sure exactly when he had shed the exuberance of patriotism for the mantle of disillusionment. Perhaps, while he still had some kind of exuberance, he should have married. There was a fundamental necessity about marriage, the one institution that remained stable through every crisis of civilization, the link between a man and a woman that stayed unbroken in spirit when the mightiest of other institutions were tumbling and crashing.
He had known a woman, the widow of a fellow officer in Innsbruck. Gerda, widowed for two years. Fragilely blonde in her black lace and desperately young. Wanting love. She was unlike Sophie, whom he thought independent enough, when all was said and done, to make her own life. He mentioned Gerda in this vein in a letter to Sophie, and Sophie in her reply had said, ‘You are very wrong to assume it is easy for me to contemplate a life in which only my own face stares at me from my mirror.’
He did not feel himself able to offer marriage to Gerda, for of all things that embraced the risk of making her a widow again. But he offered himself. Her gratitude for purely physical love softened him for the brief time he spent with her, and at the end she neither begged him to return nor made any kind of claim on him. She only said, ‘Thank you, Carl.’ If the war did not prove fatal to him he thought he owed it to her to go back to Innsbruck. It was unimaginative to think marriage was advisable only within the context of mutually glorious love. He knew enough about life and people now to realize marriage was a creative state, not an Arcadian one, that each marriage was a tiny but vital factor in the whole structure of civilization. Each broken marriage was like a small link snapping.
He was walking again, back to the house through the snowy main street. In front of him he saw a young girl carrying her school satchel. Her dark hair hung in pigtails down her back. She was walking slowly. He recognized her as Mariella Amaraldi. He knew it was churlish to wish he did not have to bother with her. He caught her up.
‘Good after-school time, Signorina Amaraldi,’ he said in Italian.
She was startled. She was shy. She threw him a quick upward glance. She was a pretty young thing.
‘Oh, signore. That is,’ she said hastily, ‘I mean Herr Major.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Life should not be as complicated as that for the young.’ He smiled.
‘Yes. I mean no.’ She was flushed. She was also shivering, despite her warm coat and stout boots. She should not, he thought, be as susceptible to the cold as this.
‘Aren’t you well?’ he asked kindly.
‘It’s nothing, signore.’
But it was not nothing. Her shivers were acute. He knew the feverish mountain chill that could take the hardiest men by surprise.
‘You must see your doctor,’ he said, ‘where does he live?’
‘Over there.’ She pointed.
‘Come, I’ll take you,’ he smiled. One should not afflict the young with disillusionment.
Mariella did not argue. She went with him. Old Dr Caporal had come out of retirement two years ago, because the younger doctor had gone off to serve with the Army Medical Corps. The housekeeper answered the door. She was sorry but the doctor himself was not very well at the moment and was in bed. Was it serious?
‘My young friend has a chill, I think,’ said Carl. The woman brought them in and asked them to wait. She went upstairs, came down after a minute or so, went into the surgery and reappeared with a bottle of medicine.
‘The doctor said this will do her no harm, whatever is wrong with her. If it is serious he will do what he can to see her. Tomorrow, perhaps.’
‘Thank you. Something is better than nothing,’ said Carl. He showed Mariella the bottle of medicine and they went on their way. She was shivering feverishly as she tried to thank him. He put an arm around her shoulders and hurried her home. He had to carry her up the steps to the front door. He glimpsed a face at the window, the moving curtain. Signora Amaraldi herself opened the door.
‘What is wrong, what has happened to Mariella?’ she asked in concern.
‘A chill, I think. She’s been to the doctor, we have some medicine.’
Pia appeared. She was instantly hostile.
‘What are you doing with Mariella? Put her down.’
Carl felt icily angry that they should let their prejudices govern all their reactions.
‘Don’t be foolish,’ he said, ‘the child is ill. I’ll carry her up to her room, if you wish. Do you have hot-water bottles? She should not be put into a cold bed.’
‘Who are you to tell me how to look after my own sister?’ Pia was hotly Italian. And he to her was an Austrian wolf, her pretty sister a trapped fawn. ‘Put her down.’
‘Give her to me,’ said Signora Amaraldi in maternal worry.
Carl was incredulous at such behaviour, at the Italian insistence that anything was better for Mariella than help from an Austrian. It was bigotry gone mad.
‘I’ll put you down, Mariella,’ he said gently.
The shivering girl, arms around his neck, had tears of distress in her eyes.
‘Stop it,’ she cried to Pia, ‘he has been kind to me. Let him take me up.’
Her mother, reading the implications of the girl’s flushed skin and uncontrollable shivers, said quietly, ‘Herr Major, if you will carry Mariella up to her room I shall be grateful. I’ll see to the hot-water bottles.’
Pia, chastened, followed Carl as he carried Mariella up the stairs to her room.