Ruth knew exactly how to quieten him during those last moments before a concert or an exam. She brought along a set of dominos and they played for a while, or she just sat silently with her hands folded and that marvellous hair of hers bright and burnished, but taken back with a velvet band so that it didn’t tumble forward and distract the audience. Ruth made sure he had fresh lemonade waiting for him in the interval; he never had to think about his music, it was always there and in the right order. And now, glancing in the mirror, he saw that his carnation was listing quite noticeably towards the left!
‘Five minutes,’ called the page, knocking on the door.
‘My handkerchief!’ said Heini suddenly in a panic. The white one in the pocket of his dinner jacket was there, of course, but the other one, the one with which he wiped his hands between the pieces . . .
Mali flushed and jumped to her feet. ‘I’m sorry . . . I didn’t know that I . . .’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He found the one his stepmother had washed for him, but cotton, not linen. The Bergers’ maids always laundered his handkerchiefs; they smelled so fresh and clean with just the lightest touch of starch: Ruth saw to that.
It was time to go. Professor Sandor put his head round the door. ‘Bartók is here!’ he said, beaming – and Heini rose.
The applause which greeted him was loud and enthusiastic for Heini Radek was an amazingly personable young man with his dark curls, his graceful body. This was how a pianist should look and in Liszt’s city comparisons were not hard to make.
Heini bowed, smiled at a girl in the front row, again up at the gallery, gave a respectful nod in the direction of Hungary’s greatest composer. Turning to settle himself on the piano stool he found that Mali, her Adam’s apple working, was leaning forward in her chair. He had told her again and again that she had to sit back, that the audience must not be aware of any figure but his, and she jerked backwards. It was unbelievable – how could anyone be so gauche? And she had drenched herself with some appalling sickly scent beneath which the odour of sweat was still discernible.
But now there had to be only the music. He closed his eyes for a moment of concentration, opened them – and began to play.
And Professor Sandor, who had slipped into the front row, nodded, for the boy in spite of all was very, very musical and the persuasion, the work, he had put into arranging the concert had been worthwhile.
It was after three encores, after the applause and the flowers thrown onto the platform by an excited group of schoolgirls, that Heini thought of Ruth again. She always waited for him wherever he played – unobtrusive, quiet, but so very pretty, standing close by so that he could smile at her and claim her, but never crowding in when people wanted to tell him how much they had enjoyed the music. And afterwards she would take him back to the Felsengasse and Leonie would have his favourite dishes on the table, and they would talk about the concert and relive the evening till he was relaxed enough to sleep. Or if he was invited to a party, to people who might be useful to him, Ruth slipped quietly away without a word of reproach.
Whereas Mali now was waiting for praise, her eyes worried behind her spectacles. ‘Was it all right?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘Everything was all right, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said, managing to smile, and then returned to greet his well-wishers, and to receive their volatile greetings, so different from the well-bred handshakes and heel clicks of the Viennese.
But late that night, returning home, he realized again how bereft he was. That his father would be working late in his editorial office he knew, but his stepmother too had gone out. True she had left a note and a pot of goulash on the stove, but Heini had never had to return to an empty house.
He was out on the moonlit verandah when his father came through the French windows carrying two glasses of wine.
‘How did it go?’
‘Pretty well, I think.’
‘I’ve heard good things already on the grapevine. You’ll go far, Heini.’
Heini smiled and took his glass. ‘I miss Ruth,’ he said.
‘Yes, I can imagine,’ said his father, who had met Ruth in Vienna. ‘If I were you, I’d marry her quickly before someone else snaps her up!’
‘Oh, they won’t do that. We belong.’
Beside him, Radek was silent, looking down at the lights of the city in which he had lived all his life. A man of fifty, he looked older than his age and troubled.
‘How’s it going with your visa?’
‘All right, as far as I know.’
‘Well, don’t delay, Heini. I don’t like the way things are shaping. If Hitler moves against the Czechs, the Hungarians will try and get a share of the pickings and that means kowtowing to the Germans. There aren’t any laws against the Jews yet, but they’ll come.’ And abruptly: ‘I’ve taken a job in Switzerland. Marta is going ahead next week to find us an apartment.’
