Free The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain Page B

barricade was finished, Gustav felt so tired that he thought he might fall over. He wanted to run a bath, to wash himself clean of all that had happened to him in the last twenty-four hours, but he was afraid that if he did this, he might slip under the water and drown. So he just took off his clothes and crawled into his bed. He said a prayer for Emilie and fell asleep.

Pharma
Matzlingen and Bern,
1951
    GUSTAV GOT USED to surviving on school dinners and on the parcels of food given to him by Max Hodler. Almost invariably, Max included a tin of bratwurst and this Gustav would cradle to his body before opening it. He thought Max Hodler was probably the kindest man in Switzerland.
    Sometimes, he was invited to tea with Anton and Adriana at Fribourgstrasse 77 , where he would stuff himself with cherry tart and Florentine biscuits and listen to Anton practising for the piano competition. He told Anton that he couldn’t concentrate on Debussy very well, like he couldn’t concentrate on history lessons any more, nor even on mathematics. All his mind could think about was food. Perhaps he hoped, as he said this, that Anton would say, why don’t you come and live with us, then?
    But Anton just swivelled round on the piano stool and said, ‘Well, you know, in the war, millions of Jews were put in camps where they starved to death. At least you’re not starving, Gustav.’
    ‘Why were they starved to death?’
    ‘Because Jews are hated. That’s what Papa says. They are hated all round the world.’
    ‘I don’t hate them.’
    ‘I know you don’t. But lots of people do. Your mother does.’
    It was a Saturday morning in early summer when Emilie Perle walked back into the apartment. She stood at the door to the parlour, looking all around her in surprise. ‘It smells nice and clean,’ she said. ‘I suppose Frau Krams got everything sorted out for me, did she? I must be sure to thank her.’
    ‘No,’ said Gustav. ‘She helped me do the washing and ironing, that’s all. I did the mopping and the dusting and everything. I put clean sheets on your bed.’
    Emilie sat down and looked at Gustav. ‘You’ve got thin,’ she said.
    ‘I’m all right.’
    ‘I didn’t worry about you. You told me in your note that the Zwiebels were taking care of you.’
    ‘Oh yes, they did,’ lied Gustav. ‘And now something exciting has happened to Anton. He’s been chosen to go in for a children’s piano competition in Bern. He had to get through “heats”, but he passed them. He’s going to play Debussy at the Kornhaus.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Emilie. ‘Well, that’s nice.’
    ‘You could come with me to Bern, to hear him play.’
    ‘I don’t know about that. First things first.’
    She began to walk about in the apartment. Her hair was freshly shampooed and clipped back in a girlish tortoiseshell slide. She said to Gustav, ‘When you’ve been ill for a long time, everything looks strange, as though you’ve never seen it before.’
    ‘Would you like something to eat, Mutti?’ asked Gustav.
    ‘What have we got to eat?’ said Emilie.
    ‘A tin of bratwurst and a tin of sauerkraut. And a slice of cherry tart that I saved from tea at the Zwiebels’.’
    ‘That sounds very nice,’ said Emilie. ‘All they seemed to give us in the hospital was soup and more soup.’
    Gustav selected a tray and put a clean tea cloth on it and placed a glass of water by the plate of bratwurst and sauerkraut. He added a clean table napkin. He wished he had a little posy of flowers to put beside it. But still, the sight of the tray of food gave him pleasure.
    Emilie smiled as she took the tray from him. This was the first time Gustav had seen her smile in a long time. He wanted to ask her if everything was going to be all right now, if she would find a job and get money, if things were going to be as they’d been before, with her stockings hanging on the string over the bath, and fresh knödel made for supper on Mondays. But he guessed that