The Morning Gift Read Online Free PDF Page A

a certain triumph, his recognition, for much had happened to the pretty, prattling child with her flaxen pigtail. A kind of Rapunzel situation had developed with her hair; still blonde, but loose to below her shoulders and shot through with colours that were hard to name… ash… bronze… a sort of greenish gold that was almost khaki. Inside its mass as she waited, perhaps, for a prince to ascend its tresses, was a pale triangular face with dark smudged eyes.
    'What were you playing?' he asked. She looked down at the keys. 'It's the theme of the last movement of the G Major Piano Concerto by Mozart. It's supposed to be based on the song of a starling that - ' Her voice broke and she bent her head to vanish, for a moment, into the privacy accorded by her tumbled hair. But now she, too, recalled the past. 'Of course! You're Professor Somer-ville! I remember when you came before and we were so disappointed. You were supposed to have sunburnt knees and a voice like Richard the Lionheart's.' 'What sort of a voice did he have?' 'Oh, loud! Horses used to kneel at his shout, didn't you know?'
    Quin shook his head, but he was amazed, for she had pushed back her hair and smiled at him - and in an instant the beleaguered captive in her tower vanished and it was summertime on an alp with cows. It was not the eyes one noticed now, but the snub nose, the wide mouth, the freckles. 'Of course, it was the degree ceremony today, wasn't it? My father tried to contact you while he was still allowed to telephone. Did it go all right?'
    Quin shrugged. 'Where is your father?'
    'He's in England. In London. My mother too, and my aunt… and Uncle Mishak. They went a week ago. And Heini as well - he's gone to Budapest to pick up his visa and then he's joining them.'
    'And left you behind?'
    It didn't seem possible. He remembered her as, if anything, over-protected, too much indulged.
    She shook her head. 'They sent me ahead. But it all went wrong.' It was over now, the pastoral time on the alp with cows. Her eyes filled with tears; one hand clenched itself into a fist which she pressed against her cheek as though to hold in grief. 'It went completely wrong. And I'm trapped here now. There is nobody left.'
    'Tell me,' said Quin. 'I've plenty of time. Tell me exactly what happened. And come away from the piano so that we can be comfortable.' For he had understood that the piano was some special source of grief.
    'No.' She was still the good university child who knew the ritual. 'It's the Chancellor's Banquet. There's always a dinner after the honorary degrees. You'll be expected.'
    'You can't imagine I would dine with those people,' he said quietly. 'Now start.'
    Her father had begun even before the Anschluss, trying to get her a student visa.
    'We still hoped the Austrians would stand out against Hitler, but he'd always wanted me to study in England - that's why he sent me to the English School here after my governess left. I was in my second year, reading Natural Sciences. I was going to help my father till Heini and I could…'
    'Who's Heini?'
    'He's my cousin. Well, sort of… He and I…'
    Sentences about Heini did not seem to be the kind she finished. But Quin now had recalled the prodigy in his wooden hut. He could attach no face to Heini, only the endless sound of the piano, but now there came the image of the pigtailed child carrying wild strawberries in her cupped hands to where he played. It had lasted then, her love for the gifted boy.
    'Goon.'
    'It wasn't too difficult. If you don't want to emigrate for good, the British don't mind. I didn't even have to have a J on my passport because I'm only partly Jewish. The Quakers were marvellous. They arranged for me to go on a student transport from Graz.'
    As soon as her departure was settled, her parents had sent her to Graz to wait.
    'They wanted me out of the way because I'd kicked a Brown Shirt and -'
    'Good God!'
    She made a gesture of dismissal. 'Anyway, after I went, my father was suddenly