Читать книгу World War 2 Thriller Collection: Winter, The Eagle Has Flown, South by Java Head - Jack Higgins, Justin Richards - Страница 29

1922

‘Berlin is so far away and I miss you so much’

The Austrian countryside was bleak and cold, and by five o’clock in the afternoon the darkening sky was streaked with the red light of the setting sun. Martha Somló and Harald Winter had skated round and round long after all the other skaters – villagers mostly; the Viennese did not come this far to find ice – had gone.

She loved the hiss of the blades cutting into the ice, and the way her face tingled in the cold wind. She loved the harmony with which they moved together, and she enjoyed Harry’s arm firmly around her waist as they raced across the ice at reckless speed.

The dinner they were served in the private rooms upstairs at the White Horse was simple country food, but there was nothing better than a veal stew on a cold winter evening. They had their warm apple strudel, and tiny glasses of powerful Schwarzbeer schnapps from the nearby farm, while sitting in front of a roaring log fire. The logs were trimmings from the orchard, the smoke smelled of the fruit, and the sap still inside the wood made the fire crack and bang and throw sparks.

‘Must you go back tomorrow?’ she asked. They had been in bed. Now she was sitting on the floor by his feet, naked except for an ornate gypsy-style shawl that she’d wrapped herself into. He’d made her scrub off all the powder, cream, and lipstick. He cared nothing about the new fashions: in Harald Winter’s world only whores and chorus girls painted their faces.

‘I shouldn’t have stayed so long,’ said Harald Winter.

‘Why are you selling the bank?’ Every time she passed the bank in Ringstrasse she felt proud of knowing Harry.

‘Only my share of the bank.’ He stared into the fire as if hoping to see a bright future there.

‘Why?’

‘It will make no difference to us, little one. I will still come to Vienna.’ He touched her hair gently, and she closed her eyes as he stroked her head.

‘But not so often.’

‘I am not rich any more,’ said Winter. He was rich, of course, very rich by the standards that most people employ to measure wealth. But he could not provide Martha with the luxuries – the carriage and servants – that she’d once enjoyed, and he felt humiliated by his economies.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. She turned to look at him by the light of the flames. He looked tired and ill, but she knew now that Harald Winter’s business setbacks affected him in the way that other men are affected by infirmities or disease. ‘I’ll always be here waiting.’

‘I’m setting up a trust fund for you in Switzerland,’ he said. ‘It will be enough to live comfortably whatever happens.’

‘You are a wonderful man, Harry. What would I do without you?’

‘Many people say things will get even worse. Some of the banks might crash. It’s better to sell.’

‘Berlin is so far away, Harry, and I miss you so much.’ He leaned forward and bent over to kiss her. If only it could be like this forever, he thought. But, just as quickly, the thought was gone. Harald Winter would find life like this unendurable after a week or so, and he was sensible enough to know that.