Vienna, at the beginning of the 20th century, is an exhilarating social whirl, a city of ideas, of music, of groundbreaking art. Into this world come four women, each with a story to tell. In a city like Vienna, everything seems possible – until an act of betrayal changes everything.
Prologue
4 May 1968
“The women crash together, a blur of twisted limbs and contorted
faces. Eva opens her eyes to the lilac sky. There’s blood in her
mouth, on her knuckles, and her corduroy dress is ripped. She curls in,
wheezing, one hand on her stomach, then straightens her glasses,
cursing the crack in one lens. She watches the wheel of her bicycle
spinning its slow, ticking orbit. A form comes into focus, a few metres
away – an old woman on the ground, her mouth ajar, misaligned teeth
poking from behind flaccid lips.
It all comes back. The last thing Eva had seen in the seconds before
the collision was a pair of watery eyes, widened. Hands raised to a
mouth. The white-haired woman had appeared out of nowhere, dashing
through a gap between parked cars, barging into her.
Eva had been distracted as she’d cycled home along this residential
backstreet in Vienna’s leafy Hietzing district. She’d argued at lunchtime
with the man she’d made a tentative life with. They’d met in a
coffee shop near where she worked as an assistant at a store selling
second-hand books in a tourist-crammed area of the Innere Stadt. But
what should have been a moment for intimate revelation had become
fraught with recrimination. Eva had run from the café and her lover
had let her go. She’d been rehashing the day’s argument, reliving the
things she’d said, thinking about the things she should have disclosed.
The next thing she remembered was the blurred flash of a figure running
into her path.
She’d gripped the brakes, tried to swerve, but their momentum was
unstoppable.
‘Oh, no, are you hurt? Can you hear me?’ Eva asks now, lowering
herself to the woman’s wounded frame. ‘I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you
until it was too late,’ she adds.
The woman doesn’t move. Her silence is numbing.
Eva stares into the face of her victim, with its high cheekbones and
sunken sockets. Blood oozes from the woman’s forehead, vivid against
pale hair. Her skin is cool to the touch, a sickly mauve, and a pungent
smell, like old soil, radiates off her. Eva notices the ragged clothes and
black-rimmed fingernails. A thin-soled shoe, lined with newspaper,
has fallen off and the toe of the bared foot is ugly, its bunion oversized
and ruby.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ Eva whispers, rubbing her dark hair from
her eyes, willing herself to concentrate. She searches for a passer-by,
anyone who might help them. A light appears in the window of one of
the grand apartment buildings overlooking the street, but nobody
appears. She staggers over and presses the dozen brass buzzers.
‘Call for an ambulance, please!’ she says into the intercom, but hears
only static.
The skies are darkening and threaten rain.
Eva returns to the woman and leans in, her heart pounding, listening
for any signs of life. She shakes her, gentle but insistent. Silvery
moths loosen from the seams of the woman’s coat, startled by the light.
The bag the woman had been carrying is ripped, its contents scattered
across the road. Eva searches for a clue to the woman’s identity.
There’s a bundle of letters, tied in a ribbon, the ink faded, but nothing
else by way of identification.
Please, I beg of you, write to me, any response will do . . . Eva deciphers
the old-fashioned handwriting on almost translucent paper. It’s
unbearable to have this rift between us. I need forgiveness. Eternally,
your loving sister . . .
‘Edith?’ Eva says, pocketing the letters, her eyes on the old woman
once more.
It’s then that the muscles at the edge of the old woman’s lips flicker.
Eva starts, encouraged by the movement. She grasps the old hands,
which are rough like bark.
The woman’s eyelids flash open, revealing dilated pupils. A violent
rasp comes from her mouth as she bares her gums. For an unspeakable
moment, Eva believes this shrunken, injured stranger might be capable
of sinking teeth into her flesh.
‘Get your filthy hands off me!’ the woman barks. ‘I’m not dead yet,
you know! Even if you’ve damn well given it your best shot.’
Eva backs away as the victim struggles to her feet and brushes herself
down, rubbing her elbow, then her lower back.
‘I was only trying to help,’ Eva tries, by way of apology.
‘You call this helping, do you?’ The old woman tests her frame like a
bird before flight. She puts a hand to her head and winces as she sees
the blood on her fingertips. ‘You didn’t see me, did you?’
‘You just appeared out of nowhere,’ Eva replies.
‘Oh, invisible, am I?’
‘But you ran into me!’
‘Fifty years I’ve been searching.’ The white-haired woman fixes her
with a razor-sharp glare. ‘Since before you were even born!’ Her arthritic
fingers move in a flourish. ‘And then you come along and knock
me down, almost kill me, just as I lay eyes on her again.’
“I knocked her to the ground. She wasn’t responding at first, she was out cold for a few minutes. I tried to help, but she’s not the type to accept it. She seems confused.’”
Eva feels as if they’re being watched and turns, but nobody’s there
– only a tree with loose bark beside a poster for an art exhibition, pasted
to a whitewashed wall.
‘You’ve no idea!’ the older woman continues. ‘No idea at all. All the
sacrifices I’ve made, everything I’ve suffered, the heartbreak, every
day, searching for a single glimpse of her. Then finally, here she is, after
all this time. Look, goddamn it! There she is, exactly as she has always
been.’ Her breathing is ragged and a sob punctuates her words. ‘I’m
seventy-eight, with nothing to call my own. I’ve lost it all, ruined. If I
were to lose her, too, on top of everything . . .’
‘Please, let me help you. What is it that you’ve lost?’ Eva asks, disorientated
by the weft of the stranger’s sentences, the peculiar
desperation of her words.
Panic streaks across the old woman’s face as she dips her fingers
down the front of her blouse. She fumbles for a moment, then the fear
fades as she pulls out a chain. On it is a gold band. She clasps it, her
eyes closed, pressing it to her lips.
The rain begins. Crows, cawing from the roof of Schönbrunn Palace,
rise and circle in flight.
‘Edith?’ Eva asks gently, touching the woman’s arm.
The old woman’s lip quivers. ‘Whatever would you call me that for?’
‘I saw your name on these letters.’ Eva holds out the bundle and they
are snatched away.
‘You have no right to look at those!’
Eva is hurt and unsettled. She hears the unmistakable sound of an
ambulance siren.
‘With any luck, that’s coming for you,’ Eva says, to reassure the
woman, and herself. ‘Somebody must have called for help.’ She looks
up at the windows of the apartment building. ‘They’ll want to take you
to the hospital, just to check you over,’ she adds. ‘You’ll get all the help
you need there.’
‘Genug ! Nein !’ the old woman shouts, jumping back and trembling.
‘I won’t go! You can’t make me!’
The blue light of the rettungswagen reflects off the cobblestones as it
turns into the street. Eva hurries over to the vehicle, as a driver and his
assistant step out of it.
‘There was an accident,’ she explains to the two men. ‘I’m not hurt,
at least I don’t think so.’ She glances at her shoulder. ‘But I cycled into
her.’ She gestures to the white-haired woman, who has hobbled over to
the poster. ‘I knocked her to the ground. She wasn’t responding at first,
she was out cold for a few minutes. I tried to help, but she’s not the type
to accept it. She seems confused.’
‘You’ve done all you can. We’ll see to her from here,’ the driver replies.
The injured woman is pressing her hands against the exhibition
poster. It depicts a young model, her cheeks flushed, an intense, uncertain
look in her eyes.
‘Junge Dame ? Hello?’ the man tries as he approaches. ‘How are you
feeling? We can see that you’re hurt. Your head is bleeding. We need to
take you to hospital. Let’s get you out of this rain, shall we?’
‘Nein ! Nein !’ the woman says fearfully, recoiling.
‘This is for your own good, meine Dame.’ He places a hand on her
shoulder.
‘Get off me! Don’t you dare. You can’t make me go back there.’
‘Come now, let’s not be like that. You must be in a lot of pain. We
only want to help.’
‘I’ve done without anyone’s help for long enough,’ she snaps.
The two men flank her, their shoulders above her head, their feet
planted, mouths set.
‘We’ll take care of things from here,’ they reassure Eva. ‘If you’re feeling
well enough, you can go on home.’
They take the older woman by the arms and lead her towards the
rear of the ambulance. They’re gentle but firm. But she is ferocious.
She fights and twists, kicks and squirms. Her eyes lock on to Eva’s.
‘You, girl! Help me!’ she shrieks as she’s forced through the vehicle’s
doors. ‘Do something, please! I’ve nothing left! No one will help me! I
didn’t make it up.’ She thrusts a fist in the direction of the poster. ‘This
proves it. I’m not mad! We existed. You can’ t—’
“The last time a person spoke her name, the word was delivered as a bullet – an order, an insult, disgust stitched between its letters. Then it was forgotten entirely.”
The doors slam and that haunting glare is gone.
Eva is ashamed that she feels relieved. She has enough to deal with,
without all this. Still, her heart is racing and she can’t shake a gnawing
feeling of guilt. She tells herself she has helped this strange woman, but
perhaps she has only succeeded in making things worse for her. Eva
swallows and turns to the uncertain smile of the figure on the poster.
The driver starts the engine. ‘Wait! Stop!’ Eva shouts. She runs over
to the ambulance, banging a fist on the back.
But the vehicle is moving, the siren starting up as it speeds away.
She has no name to go on.
Eva is exhausted, utterly spent, aware that the rain has soaked her to
her bones. Her stomach aches in a new way. She considers her bicycle
– another thing, along with her glasses, she can’t afford to repair. She will
have to walk the broken frame home, a journey that’ll now be much
longer than expected. She’ll find no words of reassurance there.
Then she sees it.
There, on the ground, between the cobbles, is a glint of gold. Eva
bends to pick the object up. It’s a long, antique necklace. The clasp has
been pulled apart but the chain is twisted around the scuffed metal of
a round-edged band. It is still warm to the touch. Eva holds it up
between her thumb and finger. Inscribed inside, in elegant cursive, are
two initials: E & E.
Or is it E & A? The second letter isn’t clear. It looks as if it could have
been scratched over, or reshaped, by the tip of something sharp.
The ring belongs to the old woman who ran into her. Eva only wants
to forget her and get on with the rest of her life, as best she can, but
she’s haunted by the rapture that had lit up the woman’s face as she
held this item to her lips only moments before – and the terrified look
in her eyes as she was locked away. Eva grips the band. The weight of
it in her palm offers strange comfort. She knows how it feels to lose
something, for a piece of you to be missing.
Eva accepts what she must do: somehow, soon, return the ring to its
rightful owner.
***
Inside the ambulance, the old woman is strapped quickly and gracelessly
on to a stretcher and secured in place. She aches with new-found
knowledge. She was there, before her very eyes, after years of searching.
There’s a dull pain in her breast. And suddenly, a loud, insistent
banging on the rear door of the ambulance. Above all the racket, that
blasted plain-faced girl, the one who’d been dashing along on the
bicycle, is demanding to know her name. But it’s too late for such
things. As they speed towards the hospital, the siren continues its
unholy wail, promising to part the traffic, carrying her away from the
only thing that matters.
What does her name matter now? I could be anyone in this world
for all people care, she thinks. It has been decades since anyone wanted
to know who she was. The last time a person spoke her name, the word
was delivered as a bullet – an order, an insult, disgust stitched between
its letters. Then it was forgotten entirely.
Did she ever really exist? Yes. She knows that now. And her life
before . . .
As the stretcher is pulled from the ambulance, she can’t help but
hear a dreamy echo of her name’s three lilting syllables, like champagne
bubbles popping on her tongue.
She remembers it the way he said it. The thrill of it being whispered,
the promise once carried within it, the desire she knows it provoked.
The phantom sound touches a space that has long been numb: the part
of her that holds the capacity for joy.
‘Adele?’ she remembers, in a wave of wonder, as a face peers down
at her. ‘A- dé-le,’ she repeats and her consciousness begins to drift, a
smile across her bloodied, torn face. ‘Why, yes, that’s it. My name, if
you must know, is Adele. Adele Harms. And don’t you damn well ever
forget it.’
Extracted from The Flames by Sophie Haydock, out now.
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