A Glove Shop In Vienna by Eva Ibbotson Page B

retired from the chorus of the Opera, took little interest in her appearance. Death, however, was a different matter. Now, as she lay gasping on her pillows in a nightdress of lilac crepe de Chine, she nevertheless managed to give precise instructions to Herr Kugelheim.
    ‘You will, of course, make absolutely certain that I am dead. You know how to do this?’
    Herr Kugelheim, ancient, bandy-legged and servile, clutched his curling-tongs and muttered something about mirrors.
    ‘Then two low curls on the forehead. Low, and a plaited chignon in the nape. Have you got that?’
    I, meanwhile, had been sent to fetch the cats. Wotan and
    Parsifal presented no problems. Huge, neutered tom-cats, they were perfectly prepared to finish their cream at the foot of Tante Wilhelmina’s bed. Siegfried, however, was another matter. Siegfried’s operation had not been a success and he was absent on the tiles.
    By the time I had returned from an unsuccessful search, most of the relatives sent for by my mother had arrived, and in hushed whispers were assembling in the bedroom. It is naturally with hindsight that I see the grouping as having the weight and dignity of a Delacroix or Titian. In the centre, of course, lay Tante Wilhelmina, the lamp falling on her ravaged features and heaving breast. Behind her, the hairdresser; across her feet, the cats. At the back of the room, in shadow, a respectfully doleful row of servants. Leaning against the wardrobe, a creaking cousin, male, from Plotz…
    Kneeling by the bed itself, hiccuping with grief, was Tante Wilhelmina’s adopted daughter, Steffi; a blonde, kind, silly woman, her trusting sea-cow eyes brimming with tears. By the window Steffi’s husband, Victor Goldmann, a Jewish violinist from the Philharmonic, surveyed the scene like a flayed, El Greco martyr.
    Tante Wilhelmina stirred and groaned. Silence fell. A waiting silence.
    As though on a cue that only she could hear, my mother now stepped forward.
    ‘
Gnadige Frau
,’ she said, leaning over Tante Wilhelmina, ‘if you will forgive the impertinence, I think the Herr Professor should be sent for. I think your husband should be here.’
    Then: ‘If you… insist,’ said Tante Wilhelmina, speaking with great difficulty. ‘I… don’t wish it… personally. But if… you insist.’
    A sigh of relief seemed to pass round the room. Tante Wilhelmina stretched out a failing arm and reached for the note-pad on her bedside table. ‘I AM DYING ,’ she wrote in indelible pencil and underlined each word.
    My mother tore off the paper and handed the message to me. At a nod from her, I ran downstairs and knocked on the door of Uncle Ferdi’s study.
    Uncle Ferdi had been sitting there quietly, his bald head gleaming in the lamplight. Now he peered at the note through gold pince-nez, blew softly through his moustache, sighed, nodded — and followed me upstairs…
    And if all this seems a little odd, the explanation is very simple. Tante Wilhelmina and Uncle Ferdi had been married for thirty years. And for twenty-nine of these, they had not exchanged a single word.

    No one knew what Uncle Ferdi had done, only that it was very, very bad. That somehow he had hurt and humiliated Tante Wilhelmina to such an extent that she had never been able to forgive him. There had been no scandal, no break-up. They lived under the same roof and when she wanted anything she sent him notes, first through Steffi (adopted from an orphanage mainly for the purpose), later through me. But from that day to this no word had passed between them.
    And now, with Uncle Ferdi sitting sadly in the big carved chair which had been placed in readiness for him, the deathbed could begin.
    I was ten years old and very nervous. A bit ghoulish, too, as I leant against my mother’s skirts. What would happen? Would she scream or gasp or…
rattle
? Would there be blood?
    Well, what happened was that Tante Wilhelmina
forgave
people.
    She forgave everybody. She forgave the maids for