Free Strange Music by Malcolm Macdonald Page A

than the Old Karl. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have asked if I’d realized. Cheers!’
    â€˜Double damn you!’ She laughed and accepted the toast. ‘Cheers! Felix has not yet . . . what would the word be . . . assimilated? digested? . . . his time in Mauthausen. He was plucked from the staircase of death by a communist who knew of his pre-war support of workers’ rights in Paris. He was taught carving – a masonry sort of carving – by a Nazi who knew he was a fine artist and thought that was more important than being a quarter-Jew. And he was taken from there to the diet experiment by another Nazi who wanted to save Felix for the same reasons, even though he was an SS doctor. Artist Felix thinks those actions were his by right, but human Felix cannot accept that he had any right to be saved when so many good friends were murdered, especially as he was so indifferent to the fate of the Jews before the Gestapo told him he was one himself. He just says, “We survived. They didn’t. It’s over. Look forward. Get on with it.” That’s Felix.’
    â€˜And what’s so wrong with that?’
    â€˜What’s wrong is that he doesn’t know which life to get on with – the life of nineteen thirty-six or the life of nineteen forty -six. And if you want to know something that really is none of your business – he’s thinking of becoming a practising Jew.’ She slumped. ‘Damn! This was going to be such a jolly evening!’
    Upstairs, Pippin began to cry.
    Faith knew exactly where to find Felix – up in the Johnsons’ at the top of the house. Even when he and she had been lovers, he had always gone to Marianne for ‘an impartial opinion,’ as he called it. Willard called it ‘touching base with Europe.’ She didn’t think there was any sort of sexual, or even romantic, element in their relationship; in a way, it was too deep for either sort of involvement – more like kinship than desire.
    She paused at the first-floor landing, outside the door to Chris Riley-Potter’s and Nina’s. Here the choice was to go directly up the new flight of stairs to the Johnsons’ or take the old way, which led through the Palmers’.
    She chose the Palmers’, with some vague hope of buttonholing Nicole on the way up. Standing there in the passage, irresolute, she heard Nicole singing that lullaby Willard had taught the whole community: Don’t wander away love . . . She stood outside the nursery door, entranced, for Nicole had a strangely compelling singing voice, with all the femininity of Josephine Baker but edged with the stridency of Edith Piaf.
    Nicole was jealous of life – her own life. She never lingered to gaze fondly at her little darling if her singing had already sent him – and young Tommy – to sleep; instead, as now, she backed away toward the door, singing the final line again and again until she was out on the landing.
    â€˜Oh!’ she cried out in surprise, catching Faith on the threshold.
    â€˜That was just so beautiful,’ Faith told her. ‘Actually, I was on my way up to see if Felix was with the Johnsons, but I wanted first—’
    â€˜He’s with Marianne, I think. Willard’s in town, closing some big deal, Marianne says.’
    â€˜But I wanted to ask you first about . . . well, what sort of mood he’s in – Felix, that is. He didn’t want to watch these films of Angela’s – and having seen them, I can quite understand—’
    â€˜You saw them?’ Nicole was aghast.
    â€˜I saw two – and that was more than enough. Eric’s still there, in case . . . you know?’ She wound an imaginary handle beside her head. ‘I just wonder if you saw Felix on the way up . . . and whether he said anything?’
    Nicole shrugged. ‘I’ve been bathing Andrew and Tommy and putting them to bed. Lena’s gone to the