The Devil's Harmony, page 4
There was often other music, though. The crowd sometimes started singing, and the singing reached inside the house. Katya said it was revolutionary songs that were being sung – revolutionary was a new word which could be stored away and the meaning found out later – but Zena said the crowds had been drinking and dancing half the night, never mind engaging in other activities which she would not give name to and especially not in front of an innocent child. Still, very likely the guards would have been out and fired a few shots into the crowd to send them about their business.
But sometimes a man was out there who played music that was so beautiful that it painted marvellous pictures in your mind. Listening to it, you could believe you were gazing across a lake, or walking through a beautiful autumn forest with crunchy golden leaves and sunlight filtering in overhead. You could feel happy or excited or so brave that you could do anything in the world and fight all kinds of enemies.
Katya said it was music to melt your bones, and that you would follow the musician anywhere for the rest of your life, just so you could hear him play his violin. He nearly always came late at night, and it was wonderful to lie in the narrow bed in the little room just off the scullery, and listen to him playing.
* * *
Lucek Socha read the email carefully. It was from someone in London called Phineas Fox, and it had been forwarded by Nina Randall from the archives office here in Warsaw.
It had been sent written in English, and Lucek could probably have just about understood it for himself because he had acquired a small smattering of English at university in Łódź, but Nina had made a translation. It was very nice of her to have gone to so much trouble.
Mr Fox had written:
Dear Lucek,
I’ve been handed the portfolio/scrapbook you found recently, and which you very thoughtfully took to the archives office and Nina Randall.
Nina sent it on to her old professor at Durham University – he is very knowledgeable about music influences during World War II and she thinks it might be linked to those years. Professor Liripine has asked me to help him verify some of the documents in the scrapbook – a fascinating task, as you’ll imagine. With that in mind, I wonder if you would be able to contact me, to let me know a little more about the actual discovery? The professor is fairly sure that you found it in or around the quarter known as the Street of Music.
If you can let me know anything at all about your discovery, no matter how small or how insignificant it might seem, I would be immensely grateful. For instance, was it actually buried under anything, such as collapsed walls? Could it have been part of some kind of archive department of its own? – perhaps amongst old records from the Library itself?
I’m keen to explore all possibilities, although I’m considerably hampered by not knowing any Polish! However, Nina has kindly said she will be happy to act as interpreter whenever necessary.
I look forward to hearing from you, and thank you again for rescuing this very intriguing piece of the past.
With very best wishes,
Phineas Fox
Nina’s email said:
Lucek – I know that Professor Liripine wouldn’t have involved anyone who wasn’t authentic, so I think Phineas Fox can be trusted. I’ve looked at his website – it doesn’t give many details, and it’s more of a calling card than an actual site – but he’s apparently a researcher and historian specifically in the music field. He’s written several books which were quite highly praised. He also seems to have contributed to a scholarly sounding reference book about musicians exiled by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s, so if it really was the ruins of the Chopin Library where you found the scrapbook, this could be very much his glass of vino.
I would like to keep you updated on anything that they uncover, if that’s all right?
Hope to see you soon,
Nina
The ‘see you soon’ part of Nina’s note was excellent. Lucek was glad he had taken the scrapbook to her offices, and that he had been directed to her room. He was even more glad that he had managed to wash off most of the dust in the builders’ tiny Portakabin, and that he had made an attempt to tidy his hair, which, as usual, was standing up in a toffee-coloured tuft at the front. It did not make him look serious and responsible, which he thought was how he ought to look in an archives office, but it could not be helped.
Nina had been friendly and interested in the scrapbook, and they had got on rather well. So Lucek would reply to her email, and he would reply to Phineas Fox, as well. He thought his English might just about be equal to a reply, but since Nina had offered to act as interpreter, it would be perfectly reasonable to ask for her help. She had said she hoped to see him soon, so he might even offer to buy her lunch. There was a really nice coffee place just along from her offices – one of the nice old fragments of the city that had survived. They did delicious pastries at lunchtime. Or would Nina think he was getting above himself to suggest that? She had seemed to have quite an important position at the archives department, so she might only be wanting to be kind to someone who reminded her of her own student days.
It was, though, quite exciting to have met someone like Nina. Lucek had expected her to be a dumpy academic with pudding-basin hair – certainly not a lady who was only ten; well, all right, perhaps twelve – years older than himself. She had vivid blue eyes and fair hair that caught the light. She had been born and had grown up in England, but she had Polish connections, which she was very proud of, and she spoke really good Polish. She was just about bilingual, really.
Lucek had not expected any of this to happen when he went to work on the building site. It had been casual work, just for a few weeks, just to earn a bit of money, and he probably would not have done it if the builders had not been working in the area that was called the Street of Music. Lucek loved the Street of Music. When he was small Aunt Helena used to take him there and tell him stories about its past.
‘It’s the old Warsaw,’ she said. ‘Wealthy people once lived here. Merchants and scholars and writers and even noblemen.’
Lucek loved going there. They usually took rolls and fruit for a picnic lunch, and sat on one of the wooden benches looking across a small garden, and Helena told him how a marvellous mansion had once stood here.
‘It was known as the Chopin Library, and famous musicians performed there – including Chopin himself, of course. Can’t you almost imagine that all the music that was played over the years must have soaked into the pavements and the stones and into this very square where we are now?’
But sometimes, after these visits, Helena had nightmares. She had two rooms of her own at the top of his parents’ house, but Lucek’s bedroom was directly below them, so he knew about the nightmares. She would talk – ramblingly and even a bit wildly – about music that contained terror. Sometimes Lucek’s mother went up to her. Afterwards, Helena would go over to the little cottage piano she had in her room, and play gentle, quiet music. Lucek was always glad when she did that, because it meant the nightmare had gone. He liked falling asleep to the music, too. He thought Helena played very well.
‘We have to make allowances for her,’ his mother said to him, once. ‘She has no memory of her real family – she was found as a very small child in ruined buildings, somewhere near the Street of Music. It was my grandmother who found her and took her in – your great-grandmother, Lucek. But she never knew who her family were, or what happened to them – I think that’s why she keeps going back to that part of the city.’
‘To try to find out?’
‘Yes. I don’t think she ever will, though. And it was a long time ago and dreadful things happened in those years, so perhaps it’s better not to know.’
Lucek’s parents were interested when he told them about the scrapbook. They were pleased that a fragment of Warsaw’s past might have been found, and they were impressed that the scrapbook had been thought of sufficient importance to be sent to an English professor.
Helena was interested in the scrapbook, as well. She found an old map, so Lucek could explain where he had found it.
‘I can’t tell from this,’ said Lucek, helplessly. ‘It’s all different now. Office blocks and things.’
‘Functional, but ugly,’ said Helena. ‘It’s a pity you let go of the scrapbook, though. I’d like to have seen it. There might have been something I would have recognized. A clue – something that would tell me about my family. I don’t mean ghosts. In any case, if there ever were any ghosts out there, I should think they fled when the builders arrived.’
Lucek had a sudden cartoon-image of ghosts skipping nimbly through ruins that had been their home, tucking their shrouds about their waists and indignantly telling one another that ruins were one thing, and it was all very well to stay on in the hope that the glittering, music-filled days might one day return, but you could not be expected to haunt grey office blocks with soulless furniture and strange machines. The small image pleased him. He would describe it to Nina Randall; she would enjoy it.
He was starting to feel a bit guilty about taking the scrapbook to Nina’s office. Helena often thought she might have come across a clue to her past – she never had, but supposing this time there might have been something? The site had been little more than rubble – there had just been that part where a floor seemed to have caved in, or maybe it was that an old wall had been smashed down, exposing some of the old timbers and sections of stonework. And there the scrapbook had been, lying half in and half out of what looked like a large metal cupboard – maybe an ancient filing cabinet or even a safe. Its door had been hanging off, and Lucek had clambered across the debris to retrieve the scrapbook – which was really more like an artist’s portfolio. It had probably been a mad thing to do, but so little of Warsaw’s past had survived that it seemed a shame not to rescue something that might contain fragments of its history. It was virtually impossible to find photographs or newspaper cuttings of the old Warsaw now – and especially of the Street of Music. Older people might have such things, but they would be in private photograph albums.
Photograph albums. Lucek considered this for a moment. Were there any photograph albums in this house that might be worth looking at? He had never thought about old photographs before, but finding the scrapbook and meeting Nina had fired his imagination. And old photographs could be interesting – they might be things he could let Nina see. But where would they be stored? In the back of a wardrobe or under a bed? What about the small room near the stairs – it was not much more than an oversized cupboard, used for stashing things that nobody could think what to do with. He ran down the stairs there and then, because there was no point in sitting around thinking about things when you could be doing them.
The half-room, half-cupboard was very cluttered. The walls were lined with shelves which held box files, labelled with things like Utilities, or Guarantees, and Insurance Policies. There were no photograph albums anywhere, although there were some boxes pushed back against the wall that looked promising. Lucek, still fired up with the idea of finding something, dragged a discarded vacuum cleaner out of the way, and moved two large refuse bags containing old clothes, destined for the charity shop. In novels people searching for clues to the past went into attics – they had to fight through swathes of cobwebs and explore ancient trunks big enough to contain bodies, or they opened old desks with secret drawers and concealed compartments. It did not seem to be in keeping with that tradition to have to negotiate around disused vacuum cleaners and bags of old jumpers.
But eventually he managed to drag the boxes out, and to sit on the floor to investigate. They were filled with books, but you never knew what might be between the pages of old books, so he riffled through the pages. But there were no old love letters or mouldering documents with intriguing glimpses of faded handwriting and fragments of sentences about fortunes left to secret mistresses, or plans to topple dynasties. There were certainly no photographs. It seemed that all you got for being romantic and impulsive were indignant spiders scuttling out of their homes, and clouds of dust that made you sneeze. Rather glumly pushing the vacuum cleaner back in its corner, he wondered whether Nina Randall would approve of people who were romantic and impulsive. He had an uneasy suspicion that she was more likely to say, with a tolerant smile, that they were traits you had to expect in young people, and that Lucek would grow out of them. This was such a depressing thought that Lucek kicked a bag of discarded shoes crossly against the wall, and in doing so dislodged a folded piece of faded velvet – somebody’s old bedroom curtains, probably – then saw that it had been draped over a battered cardboard box jammed against the wall. The box might as well be checked – it looked as if it contained more books, but you never knew.
The box did contain more books, but they were not what Lucek had expected to see. They were children’s books, and they were very old indeed. The covers were faded and the pages were yellowed and foxed, but it was still possible to see that they were beautifully illustrated.
But – and this was the strangest thing of all – they were all by Russian authors. Pushkin, Aleksei Remizov, and several others Lucek had not heard of. Even stranger, they were not translations – he thought they were all in the Russian language. He flipped through several, then sat back on his heels, frowning, because as far as he knew, his family had no Russian connections whatsoever. The books looked expensive. The paper was still satiny, and there were really beautiful illustrations to most of the stories. He managed to make out some of the publication dates, and thought that the books were over a hundred years old. They had lasted well. The box had not, though; it was practically disintegrating, and the cardboard lid had half fallen off. Lucek folded it back and in doing so saw that across it was written in large letters, ‘Helena’.
Lucek carried the box up to Helena’s rooms and set it down on the floor.
She was sitting in the chair by the window, reading and listening to music. The light slanted across the chair, showing the good bone structure of her face, and giving a gloss to the smooth, once-dark hair that she wore brushed back from her forehead. Lucek thought, as he had thought a few times, that when she was young, she must have been very good looking. He wondered why she had never married. Perhaps there had never been any man who had been able to understand, let alone share, her strangenesses.
Helena stared at the box, then reached down and took several of the books out. ‘Where on earth did you find these? I’d forgotten all about them.’
‘You know what they are?’
‘Not exactly. But I remember them turning up,’ she said. ‘A large parcel – I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight at the time, and nobody had ever sent me a parcel before.’ She was turning the pages of the top book. ‘They’re all in Russian – you realized that?’
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t know about people speaking different languages in different countries at that age,’ she said. ‘I thought they might be written in a magic language, but that I might one day understand it – that’s something that I do remember. Children believe in magic, of course – at least, they did in those days, I’m not so sure about now.’ She turned several more pages. ‘The firebird,’ she said, softly, her fingertip tracing an illustration on one of the pages. ‘I think there are several stories in Russian culture and literature about firebirds.’
Her expression was absorbed, and Lucek thought: she doesn’t understand the Russian text, any more than I do. But this is taking her back. But how far and how clearly is it taking her?
Helena said, suddenly, ‘There was a note inside the parcel. I can remember your great-grandfather reading it to me. It said something like, “Books stored with me during the war – believe they belonged to Wyngham family of Causwain, and that there is a connection to you. Thought you would like to have them. Very best regards”.’ She frowned. ‘I remember your great-grandfather saying it was a very nice thought by someone – someone who must be a complete stranger,’ she said.
‘Was there any signature?’ asked Lucek, eagerly.
‘I don’t think so. I forgot about the books over the years, but when your parents moved here I found them again. I was grown up then, so I suddenly saw them in a different light. And that reference to the books having possibly belonged to my family – well, I wondered if they might provide a link to the past – even after so long. There didn’t seem to be any way of tracing who had sent them, but there was the name – Wyngham. And Causwain sounded like a place. And so it is. I had to look on several atlases – no internet searches in those days! – but in the end I found it. It’s a very small place in England – at least, it was small then. That year I sent a Christmas card and inside it I wrote that I had found the name of Wyngham and Causwain among some old family papers during a move, and it sounded as if there might be a family connection.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘I assumed I was writing to someone who wouldn’t understand Polish, so I wrote in English, very simplistically. Probably the grammar was appalling, because I just lifted the words piecemeal from a Polish–English dictionary.’
‘But if there was no address, where did you send the card?’ said Lucek.
‘I addressed the envelope to Mr or Mrs Wyngham, at Causwain, England. On the map it looked as if Causwain was tiny and I didn’t think Wyngham was a very common name. I wasn’t very hopeful, and I didn’t really expect a reply.’ She paused. ‘But I did get one,’ she said, ‘although it didn’t tell me anything. It just said it was nice to hear from someone in this country, but that there was no knowledge of any family connection, or of the books. It was signed by a Thaisa Wyngham. I wrote back to ask if there were any older members of her family who might know something, but she replied that her parents were long since dead and there was no other family. After that, somehow we fell into the way of exchanging Christmas cards every year. I didn’t ask any more questions – it didn’t seem as if she knew anything and there was always the language obstacle. But I liked the small contact each year. And I liked the idea that some long-ago child would have read the books – or been read to from them.’
