Free School for Love by Olivia Manning Page A

As though they were boys of the same age, he said: ‘I wonder if we could get some coffee?’
    ‘But we never have coffee at night.’
    ‘This is a special occasion. I bet Nikky’s making some for himself – he always does; I’ve
smelt
it. If Frau Leszno is in bed, he might make us some. You go, Felix, you can get round him.’
    Felix, startled and yet flattered by this mis-statement, whispered: ‘Oh, he wouldn’t let me have any.’
    ‘Go on,’ said Mr Jewel. ‘He’s not a bad sort.’
    Against his own judgment Felix went out to the kitchen. Before he reached the kitchen door he heard Miss Bohun’s voice coming from Frau Leszno’s room and he paused, on the point of escape. Miss Bohun was speaking sternly, ‘. . . whatever the excuse, Frau Leszno, never – I repeat,
never
– again send in and say in front of visitors you are unwell. It’s letting the side down.’
    Then came Frau Leszno’s high whine, but Felix could not hear what she said. ‘As far as the attic is concerned,’ Miss Bohun replied: ‘I can’t make any promises, but I’ll think about it. I’ll
think
about it.’ The door opened. Miss Bohun hurried off without seeing Felix. He put his head in the kitchen. Only Maria was there, washing the dishes.
    ‘Where’s Nikky?’ he asked.
    ‘Gone out a long time,’ she replied.
    ‘Mr Jewel would like some coffee.’
    ‘Coffee!’ repeated Maria, willing enough, too new to know the regulations. She looked round the dark, dingy kitchen and fixed her eyes on a cupboard. ‘No key. Coffee, tea, rice, sugar – all locked up.’
    ‘Oh, thank you,’ Felix replied politely and went back, glad he had done what he had been asked to do.
    ‘Humph,’ said Mr Jewel, ‘that’s that. Anyway, let’s sit somewhere a bit more comfortable.’
    He and Frau Wagner took seats at either end of the horsehair sofa. Felix sat in one of the arm-chairs with wooden arms. They were near the fire now and Mr Jewel shook himself with a noisy shiver as he felt the heat.
    ‘Like an ice-box over there,’ he said.
    Frau Wagner made no reply to him, but turned to Felix with an air of great interest and asked: ‘Tell me, what will you do when you grow up?’
    ‘I don’t know. I’ve got to go into the army.’
    ‘But the war will be over first, surely?’
    ‘I might go in, anyway. I want to be a veterinary surgeon. I’ll have to pass exams, of course.’
    ‘So? In England veterinary surgeons are gentlemens, perhaps?’
    ‘I suppose so. My uncle’s a vet.’
    ‘So?’
    Since Miss Bohun left, Felix had felt a tension in the room. Perhaps for no reason other than that he had promised to stay in, he wanted to go out. Frau Wagner seemed to have nothing more to say but she smiled whenever he glanced at her. Mr Jewel was occupied with his pipe that he held in two pieces in his hand. He put a pipe-cleaner through the stem. The cleaner went in white and came out brown, then he blew through the stem, joined the twopieces together and blew again. When he was satisfied, he got out an old tobacco pouch and started to fill the pipe. It all took a long time. Felix looked at the clock. It was only half-past seven and Miss Bohun would not be back for two hours or more. He moved restlessly in his seat, feeling like a prisoner.
    ‘Before you came here, you lived in Baghdad?’ enquired Frau Wagner. ‘Perhaps you had a nice home there?’
    ‘We only lived in a
pension
.’
    ‘Ah, a
pension
, but that is nice. And have you lived all the war in Baghdad?’
    ‘Yes. At first we had a house of our own, but when my father was killed, my mother could not afford it, so we went to a
pension
.’
    ‘He was killed!’ Frau Wagner shook her head in regretful sympathy. ‘Such a bad thing! How came it so?’
    ‘The Iraqis shot him,’ said Felix, gazing intently at a piece of string he had found in his pocket. He started tying knots in it. There was a lot to tell about his father’s death but his whole attitude expressed unwillingness