The Song of the Wren Read online

  For four mornings the sun had the brilliance and heat of full summer. The surface of the lake had a sparkling glassiness that almost hurt the eyes. On the fifth day clouds started to gather early on the highest crests of the mountains and well before noon a gusty coolish breeze was blowing sharply down the lake from the west.

  When a sharper sweep of wind suddenly blew several sheets of sketching paper across the hotel lawn George Graham leapt up from his chair and started to gather them up.

  When he took them across the lawn to her he began – to say something about the inadequate nature of his German when she interrupted with a smile that came only from her lips, stained now to a deep purple, and not in the remotest degree from her eyes:

  ‘That is most kind of you,’ she said in English. ‘I am very grateful.’

  ‘The breeze,’ he said, ‘is rather strong this morning.’

  ‘Yes. I feel rain in the air. I hope the weather is not about to break.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Usually the weather remains good here until at least November.’

  ‘So this is evidently not your first visit?’

  ‘No. I have been twice before.’

  ‘So? Well, it is very beautiful.’

  During this formal, even slightly stiff exchange he found himself increasingly surprised and fascinated by what he saw on her sketching pad.

  She was drawing not the landscape of cream-white Italian villas, black pencil-straight cypresses and the white and scarlet sails of a few yachts tacking in the breeze across the lake, but the profile of a girl. It too was formal. In its rather wooden way it might have been a portrait of herself, twenty-five years younger.

  ‘Please don’t look too much at my work. I am not good. It is merely to pass the time.’

  ‘I am fascinated,’ he said. ‘I mean because you are sketching something that isn’t there.’

  ‘I am not good at landscapes, you see. They rather bore me.’

  ‘May I ask who is the girl?’

  ‘My daughter.’

  ‘Of course I can’t tell if the likeness is good, but she looks attractive.’

  She put a grape into her mouth, went through the sensuous act of slowly eating it, at the same time regarding him with eyes completely cold.

  ‘You find it so?’

  ‘I was going to say that she looks a good deal like you.’

  ‘Perhaps the compliment is a doubtful one.’

  ‘I assure you it wasn’t intended to be.’

  Suddenly there was no sun. The breeze blew quite cold. She glanced at her wrist watch.

  ‘I find it not too pleasant any more.’

  ‘No. It’s one of those days when you are glad you have a car. Did you bring a car?’

  ‘No. I flew.’

  ‘I think I shall have a drive somewhere this afternoon. Have you seen the new big dam they have built up the valley? It’s really quite magnificent.’

  ‘No. I have not seen it.’

  ‘You really should. Perhaps you would care to come and see it with me this afternoon?’

  She put another grape into her mouth, again went through the sensuous, disturbing act of eating it and then said, rather hesitantly he thought:

  ‘That is very kind of you.’

  ‘Does that mean that you would like to come?’

  ‘I will come. Yes.’

  ‘Ah! but I said would you like to come?’

  A spasm of sunlight broke through the cloud and illuminated the lake, the cream-white villas and, through a narrow break in the arbour of vines, her face. For a brief moment or two he could have sworn that there was the slightest flush under her cheekbones.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I would like to come.’

  ‘There isn’t much water coming down at this time of year,’ George Graham said. ‘In fact almost none at all.’

  He had parked his car at a point where the full dry bowl of the dam stretched across the valley between gigantic limestone fists of rock. On all sides stiff blackish pines, interspersed with many Spanish chestnuts, their leaves already partly brown, covered the almost perpendicular mountain sides. The dam had the appearance of a great arena, dramatic but deserted, waiting for some sensational act to begin.

  By now the wind of the morning had dropped. The afternoon air had about it a tight uncanny quietness. By contrast the voices of George Graham and the German woman seemed extraordinarily magnified.

  ‘Shall we move on?’ she suddenly said. ‘I can hardly bear to look down.’

  ‘Yes. I am not all that fond of heights myself.’

  ‘And yet you come to look at the dam.’

  ‘It fascinates me.’

  They walked back to the car. They got in and the German woman said:

  ‘Where does the road lead to?’

  ‘Nowhere. There’s a village a few miles up the valley and shortly afterwards the road stops. I’m glad to see you brought a coat. It sometimes gets very cold at the top of the valley’.

  He started the car and then began to drive up the new, smooth, well-engineered road.

  ‘Anyway if it gets cold we can always go into the trattoria and have hot coffee,’ he said. ‘They have very good mountain cheese there too. And marvellous bread. The best bread you ever tasted.’

  Now and then an angler came into view, wading in the mountain stream between whitish, water-smoothed slabs of rock.

  ‘They have wonderful trout too. Quite pink. Like salmon.’

  Soon the conversation between them died from sheer formality. For some minutes he searched for a new line of talk and at last said:

  ‘By the way how old is your daughter?’

  ‘Trüdi is twenty-five.’

  ‘She looks rather older than that in your picture.’

  ‘Perhaps that is my fault.’

  ‘Incidentally I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Gerda. Gerda Hauptman.’

  ‘Mine’s George Graham. I must say I still think you and your daughter are very much alike.’

  ‘So? Well, you will be able to judge for yourself next week when she arrives. That is to say if you are still here.’

  ‘Yes. I shall be here.’

  Twenty minutes later he was parking the car in the centre of the last village at the head of the valley.

  ‘What would you like to do?’ he said. ‘Have something to drink? Or walk? It’s possible to walk for quite a way yet.’

  ‘I prefer to walk I think.’

  As they started to walk he suddenly noticed that she had left her coat in the back of the car.

  ‘You’ve left your coat. You’ll need it I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh! no. I never feel the cold.’

  She was wearing a dark green woollen sweater with a dark brown skirt. In the sweater her bust stood out strong and handsome.

  For twenty minutes or so they walked steeply upward on a dry stony path, by the river that was now no more than a gentle, limpid trickle. By this time the afternoon, far from becoming the cold one he had predicted, had become sunny and, in the clarified air, quite hot.

  ‘Shall we sit down?’ he said. ‘There’s a rock there that’s almost like a seat.’

  ‘Yes. Shall we do that? You see, after all it’s quite hot in the sun.’

  Sitting on the rock she adopted a pose of embracing her legs about the knees. The clean profile of her face and the blonde mass of her head had more than ever a look of being intensely luminous. He felt himself stirred by this and said:

  ‘So you react to heights very much as I do.’

  ‘When I was younger I did a good deal of mountain climbing but I never quite got over that odd feeling of—’

  ‘They say that mountain climbing is really a substitute for something else.’

  ‘So? For what?’

  ‘In the case of a man the mountain is a woman.

  She laughed full throatedly. ‘Oh! that’s a ridiculous idea.’

  ‘I don’t think so. For instance—’

  ‘Yes?’


  ‘For instance when I sit here with you it’s quite different from—’

  He suddenly broke off and put his hands on her shoulders and then firmly on her strong fleshy upper arms. In return she made no movement. She simply held him fully but coldly with her eyes.

  When he finally leaned forward in an attempt to kiss her she held her face averted.

  ‘Do you always regard women so freely?’

  ‘I find you very attractive.’

  ‘Don’t you see I am wearing a wedding ring?’

  ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean—’

  ‘You have no need to be anxious about that matter. My husband is dead.’

  He still held her by the upper arms and she in turn still held her face averted.

  ‘Tell me something,’ he said. ‘You’re still young and very attractive. Doesn’t the fact of no longer – I mean that there’s no love—’

  ‘It is surely very natural.’

  ‘Then let me kiss you.’

  She suddenly stood up, smoothing her skirt into place with her hands.

  ‘Not today. I am sorry. But not today.’

  Twice during the next four days they walked up the same mountain path. Twice on the way back they stopped at the village trattoria to eat great hunks of rough-crusted bread and a soft sharp local cheese and drink a few glasses of dark red wine. On the second of these afternoons she suddenly said:

  ‘Well, Trüdi will be here tomorrow. That is if she doesn’t miss the train.’

  ‘Have you any reason to think she might miss the train?’

  ‘It would be exactly like her. She will probably forget to change at Domodossola and go on to Milan.’

  ‘I would drive you to Domodossola to meet her. I have nothing else to do.’

  ‘That would be pampering her.’

  Whenever she spoke of Trüdi her entire manner seemed to change. She spoke with an impatience slightly touched with contempt. As they finished the last of the bread and cheese and wine that afternoon she even went so far as to say:

  ‘Oh! let us change the subject. The young are so possessive nowadays. Don’t you think?’

  He had no idea what to make of this remark and made no answer.

  On the way back down the valley her manner underwent another change. She seemed to exude a sort of brooding warmth. She had, he thought, never seemed so feminine. The habitual coldness of the pale blue eyes was actually replaced by tenderness.

  She then drew his attention to a curious and ancient bridge, built of stone and in the shape of a high narrow bow, that spanned the river two kilometres above the dam.

  ‘I have always wanted to see what there is on the other side of that strange little bridge,’ she said.

  ‘Well, then, we must go and see.’

  He stopped the car. They got out and walked across the bridge, stopping halfway for the briefest interval to look at and listen to the narrow white torrent of water squirming swiftly through the marble-like rocks below.

  On the other side the path disappeared into a steep stretch of woodland. Dark regiments of pines shut out the sun. Fifty yards up the path stood a small open wooden shack and he said:

  ‘Well, now we know what’s here.’

  ‘Yes. It looks as if it were built for woodmen.’

  They sat on the seat inside the hut. Again he could strongly sense the new warmth in her, now so tangible that he actually felt capable of touching it with his hands. In turn she looked at him for some moments with unbelievable softness, and he suddenly felt moved to kiss her.

  Before accepting his kiss she said simply:

  ‘Your touch is very warm.’

  After he had kissed her at considerable length she gently broke away and said:

  ‘I thought a great deal about what you said the other day.’

  ‘About love?’

  ‘About love.’

  ‘It was true?’

  ‘It was true. Last night I couldn’t sleep and I went out and sat on my balcony. It was very warm. There is a big palm tree just under the window and they’ve put a light in it. The palm is in flower and under the light the flowers look like – oh! rather like a shower of fireworks.’

  He sat completely entranced by this quite new vision of her, so opposite to the former stiff, cold Teutonic, regimented air.

  ‘That was a very beautiful kiss you gave me just now,’ she said. ‘Why are you waiting so long before you give me another?’

  Again he kissed her. Far below, the coursing of the river was like an echo of his own heart racing against hers.

  Next morning they drove to Domodossola to meet the train. The road, going through remote villages, through countryside that seemed forgotten, was ill-paved and in places grass-grown and treacherous.

  It seemed almost as if all this might have been responsible, in her, for another change of mood. A grey gloom had settled on her. The warm intensity of her manner during the previous afternoon had given place to something curiously cryptic and dry.

  ‘Why we are doing this I can’t imagine. She is probably still in Munich.’

  ‘Well, we shall soon know.’

  ‘She forgets as easily as other people breathe. She will forget her own name one of these days.’

  As they went through the next village it occurred to him that possibly a glass of wine, or perhaps a cognac might do something to change her mood. When he suggested it she simply replied:

  ‘No. It might mean that we ourselves would miss the train.’

  They drove on for another five kilometres or so before she spoke again.

  ‘I ought to warn you,’ she said, ‘that she doesn’t speak very good English.’

  ‘Not like you. Where did you learn yours?’

  ‘I had a good teacher.’

  At the station they waited a mere three minutes before the train came down from the direction of the Simplon. And suddenly, as it drew to a standstill, he half-wished he had never come. In turn she stood nervously locking and unlocking her fingers.

  There then emerged from the train a figure that astonished him. Dressed in a light peach-coloured costume and carrying a small blue suitcase, she walked along the platform with poise, gracefully. He had prepared himself for something awkward, even gawky, a sort of gauche schoolmistress. Now she was revealed as a slightly taller, much slimmer, much less Teutonic figure than her mother. Her hair was several shades deeper than that of her mother’s too.

  Then an odd scene occurred. The two women greeted each other with such coldness, with neither handshake nor kiss, that there was a tangible feeling of animosity in the air.

  ‘This is Trüdi, Mr Graham.’

  ‘I am pleased to know you, Mr Graham,’ the girl said.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘May I take your suitcase? We have a car.’

  ‘That is most kind of you.’

  The excellence of the English was his second cause for astonishment. He took her suitcase. The warmth with which she smiled at him in return amazed him yet a third time.

  He put the suitcase into the boot of the car and then held open one of the rear doors so that she could get in. Instead of doing so she paused and said:

  ‘Do you mind if I sit in the front? I’m inclined to get car sickness if I sit in the back.’

  ‘By all means.’

  The next thing he knew was an almost violent slam of the rear door as her mother got into the back of the car.

  He then held open the front door and the girl got in. He too got in, started the car and then said:

  ‘That back road is positively ghastly. I really don’t think I could face it again. Shall we go back by the lakeside? What do you say, Mrs Hauptman?’

  ‘As you wish.’

  At this point the girl gave him a sudden strange look of disbelief. Completely mystified, he also completely failed to understand it until some time afterwards.

  Meanwhile, as they drove down through woods of acacia to the lakeside, she continued to astonish him. She chatted quickly, even volubly
, perfectly at ease. The surface of the lake sparkled in the midday sun. Oleanders, cream and pink and white, were still in prolific bloom. Over and over again she said how beautiful it all was but from Mrs Hauptman there came not even a solitary syllable of any kind.

  As the three of them got out of the car at the hotel he said:

  ‘Perhaps you would both care to join me in a drink before lunch?’

  ‘Not for me,’ Mrs Hauptman said. ‘I am rather tired.’

  The girl said: ‘Lovely idea. I’m dying of thirst.’

  Without another word Mrs Hauptman left them and presently he and the girl were sitting on the hotel terrace. He raised his hand to summon a waiter and said:

  ‘What will you drink, Miss Hauptman?’

  ‘Oh! something long and cool.’

  ‘Cinzano with ice and soda perhaps?’

  ‘That will do splendidly. Incidentally my name is not Hauptman.’

  He was too astonished, this time, to speak.

  ‘It is Johnson. You see,’ she said, ‘I am half English.’

  He pondered on the mysterious nature of all this during lunch, which he ate on the terrace, alone. The girl too sat alone. Mrs Hauptman did not appear.

  Having finished his lunch he went over to the girl and said:

  ‘I wondered perhaps if you’d care to take coffee with me? We could have it in the garden. It’s rather nice down there.’

  ‘Thank you. Yes.’

  In the garden he said:

  ‘Shade or sun?’

  ‘I think shade. It’s really quite hot now.’

  When the coffee finally came the waiter put it on one of the stone tables under the pergola of vines. Many fallen grapes lay on the ground, on the table and on the stone seats, like so many small black-purple birds’ eggs.

  She picked up one of these, pressed it to her lips and proceeded to go through precisely the same act of pressing it to her lips as in an act of kissing, exactly like her mother, and then eating it, skin, flesh, pips and all. The sight of her doing this woke in him an extraordinarily warm sense of intimacy and she said.

  ‘They are wonderfully sweet. And sort of perfumed.’