Electra

She lived in a grand mansion in Vienna. Vienna was in Austria, and Austria was the greatest nation in the world, the Danube the greatest river, the waltz the greatest dance, and the gray-eyed Viennese the greatest people. She could see the blue Danube from her bedroom. Sitting in the window seat, she could see the pleasure boats which cruised astride the waves. There were Hapsburgs in those yachts and wittelsbachs, archdukes and margraves. Sometimes even the emperor was there standing on the deck in the guise of a junior officer. She liked him best in that guise. He looked happier without the crown on his head. She supposed the emperor was unhappy with his crown though she could not figure out why. It was a beautiful circlet of gold and diamonds, with rubies at the rim. The diamonds came from Africa, wherever this Africa was, and were cut in Antwerp which she knew was somewhere in Belgium.

Belgium. There was Belgian lace on her frock, and she liked to eat Belgian chocolates. Once, she had visited a family friend in Liége and spent an enjoyable holiday there. Another time during that trip, she had gone to Mass in a cathedral in Ghent--Ghent with its narrow streets and medieval buildings. Did that mean she was Belgian? But no, she was Viennese. She lived and danced and gazed upon the Danube here. She was most definitely a Viennese.

At the moment, she heard Strauss playing downstairs. There was a ball that night. This was her favorite waltz, Kaiser Waltzer. She wished she could go down and dance, but it was late, and most of the guests did not appeal to her. Many gentlemen wore stern expressions, gave hesitant smiles, and always talked about politics. There was some matter about Hungary and empire which occupied every man's waking thoughts. It bored her very much to listen to the constant stream of names of strange people and even stranger cities. What did she care for Budapest and Belgrade when Vienna was enough?

And then all the women were busy trying to make the gentlemen notice them. That was very funny. There were dowager duchesses and the daughters of princes and fair-haired frauleins who smiled, winked, and chattered while they danced. They did the most absurd things with their eyelashes, making them flutter like the wings of butterflies. But there were real butterflies, orange with black markings or blue-green with purple specs, in the garden. And if they were not doing that, then they waved their fans, smelled their bouquets, or, with grand carelessness, tossed their heads back and said, "O! How tedious everyone is tonight. If I were not already expected to be at the palace tomorrow morning, I would blow out my brains."

She never did any of that. She did not have to. She could just walk into a room, and all the faces would turn to her. The women, before smiling halfheartedly, were startled upon seeing her while the men, noticing her and the reaction of their female company, laughed. Some of the more playful gentlemen even approached her, bowed, and begged for a dance, calling her their "little lady." She was happy to partake of this game but ended up rebuffing most of the advances, from a native timidity as well as a little egoism in the power of refusal. She was not breaking any hearts when she, giggling with merriment, was ushered out of the ballroom, but she liked to think she was. It gave her much satisfaction to think she, this little Viennese, could snub the emperor without reprisal, though she had never tried.

There was one man whom she could not refuse, however. This particular man, with his fair hair and dusky eyes, attracted her like no other. He was an officer and a count, but she was rather inattentive to ranks of nobility and evinced no sign of pride in giving pleasure to a titled aristocrat. His fringed epaulets and honorary ribbons were his only recommendations. She liked contemplating them at length, for he looked quite dashing in his military uniform of white and red. What was more, he was the kindest, gentlest, and friendliest of all the men at the balls or evening parties, always ready with a compliment on how beautiful she looked that night, how the little white flowers in her hair resembled a halo and made her like an angel.

No one else said those things to her, nor gave her gifts as he did with her. He placed boxes of sweets filled with bonbons and nougat in her hands; silver chains from which hung crystal pendants around her neck; and satin slippers on her feet. She was convinced she was an archduchess to him.

Someday in the future, when she was a great lady wrapped in furs and dripping with diamonds, she would tell him. She would tell him how she felt. She would explain to him that she had been drawn to him for many years, that there had been no other. Out of all the men in the Habsburg court, among the first aristocrats of Austria, she had decided on him. He would be honored. He would bend over her and plant a kiss on her hand. She would make sure he was never bothered by Budapest and Belgrade and that he remained happy in Vienna, pleased to give her gifts of jewels and chocolates. Until then, she would wait.

She would wait. She had to. It would be too indecorous now to proclaim her feelings. There was another woman, a beautiful countess, who shared his affections. This countess was very rich and exquisitely polite. If he was not speaking with her, then he lavished all his attention on the countess who, it seemed, received finer gifts from him--perfume from Paris, which was a lovely city in France, golden bracelets, shapely bottles filled with a liquid called grüner veltliner, and big bouquets of red roses from the imperial gardens. He could not only give the countess presents but could also kiss her on the lips, running his hands through her hair, the curls adorned with pearl ornaments. She wished she had pearl hair ornaments. No, she wished she could go to Paris. Or rather, she just wanted the countess to be gone. Was she jealous? Of course. The dusky-eyed man could not belong to them both.

The waltz was ending. Voices rose up in conversation, and feet traveled to the supper room. Gloved hands held flutes of Champagne to the lips or else clutched a fan behind which a pair of wistful eyes peered. It was late then, but it was even later now with the completion of the Kaiser Waltzer. Despite this, the orchestra was preparing itself for another number. She could hear the strings lifted up in a high note before launching into a fast polka. The Danube looked blue and purple under the moonlight. She was sleepy, sitting there on the window seat. Stroking the velvet drapes, her eyes closed, and she sank into a tranquil slumber, all of Vienna waltzing about her. "Good night," she said to no one in particular.

She woke up to a fresh morning in late June. It was summer. She suspected she would soon be going to Graz where she would exchange the grand city mansion for the country seat. There was a manor with red walls and Lipizzans in the stables. The rolling green hills extended beyond the banks of the Mur, past the ruins of the schloss, to the border of Hungary. She could swim in the lakes, lapping the azure water under an azure sky, watching the clouds drift on by as she floated on the little waves. And then there was the park where she could walk between marble statues and fountains. Graz. It was her favorite watering place.

But she was still in Vienna. To be exact, she was still in her chair at the dining table finishing a collation of milk and bread and a piece of apple strudel, a remnant of the previous evening's festivities. The door which communicated to the drawing room was open, allowing her to overhear a conversation, though it was conducted in soft, urgent voices.

"Why?" the first voice inquired. "What has happened."

"The archduke is dead, meine frau."

"What? Franz Ferdinand, dead? No, it cannot be."

"And his gräfin as well."

"Impossible!"

"I fear it is the truth. The palace has just received a wire, and all of Vienna is in an uproar."

"But who, and why?"

"A Serb, a Bosnian to be precise. As to why, I suspect to make trouble for us here. Belgrade has never been very cooperative."

"This is unbelievable. What is going to happen now?"

"We go to Berlin and ask the kaiser for help of course."

A sigh.

"Come now, we cannot punish Serbia without assistance, and the Germans are our best hope."

"The Germans? You want to get the Germans involved? This is a matter for Austria though."

"It is a matter for Serbia as much as it is for Austria. They have killed our heir, and we must avenge the loss but not alone. It would be madness otherwise."

There was a sharp intake of breath, followed by, "Are we contemplating war?"

"Yes."

There was a brief pause while the owner of the first voice thought on the situation.

"Are we in danger here?"

"Not at all, meine frau. I shall not leave you if you were. Vienna will be safe in the coming months I promise. It will be a short, localized war, to be concluded before Christmas."

"But you are to be gone? And, mein graf, how long do you plan to be absent?"

"Not long, frau, but I am needed elsewhere. My captain will no doubt expect me, as does my fatherland."

"But ..."

"I shall be home very soon. Do not worry. Remember nineteen-twelve and how short it was. It will be like that. Please, frau, it will be all right very soon."

"If it must be that way, then go. I shall not detain you."

"You could never detain me. You love Austria as much as I do. Take courage, frau. It will all be over, and I shall return to you in time for us to celebrate new year's together. I bid you goodbye then."

"A moment, Felix."

The retreating footsteps paused for a moment. "Please, be careful."

"Aye, but of course, Helena."

"Goodbye, mein graf."

The archduke was dead? Dead, like her copper spaniel that had died after foaming at the mouth, or dead like the day as the setting sun tinges the Danube's water a reddish-orange? All the same, the archduke was dead. When she heard that, she lost appetite for the sweet-smelling strudel before her, the steam still swirling up from the flaky crust. Such a thing could not simply be true. The archduke was well last time she remembered seeing him. It was during the winter, a silver-white winter, when she had gone to visit her cousin Marie, and they had gone sledding with him. She smiled at the memory. Marie had been deathly afraid while in the sled, her slim shoulders quivering under her ermine. The archduke laughed and instructed her cousin to hold on tight as they descended the mountain, a feeling of freedom and exhilaration coursing through the veins of each person on board. After their sleigh ride there was hot chocolate and sugar cookies to be enjoyed in the garden over stories about hyacinth girls and Phoenician sailors told by a sad poet who played on a Stratavari from time to time. She wished it was spring then, so she could go and pick some purple hyacinths.

That is all she had, purple hyacinths, the memory, and the unexpected summer rain. The archduke was dead, and it could still rain? Her future emperor was no more, and the heavens were indifferent enough to shower them in a warm mist that smelled of the earth and, as a more subtle note, a little of the hyacinth-scented soap with which she used to wash her hair whose wetness she dried before the fire of green and orange flame that licked the marble mantel carved into fantastic sea creatures. It was raining in Vienna. It was raining in Graz. It was raining everywhere, in Berlin, in Belgrade, in Liége, in Paris, and, yes, even in Africa from where the diamonds of the emperor's crown came. She would have to find out where exactly Belgrade was. For now, she was cold and scared of the rain pattering on the roof and by the earnest voices of the conversation she had overheard. She pushed the plate of strudel away, sipped the last of her milk, and ran to her bedroom.

There was no ball that evening though one had been scheduled. There was no ball the next day, nor the next, nor even the next month. There was no journeying to Graz to swim in the azure lakes or ride the white Lipizzans along the banks of the Mur. She missed the Kaiser Waltzer already. The Danube was a leaden gray under the cold sunlight. The greatest river in the world had lost its purple-blue shimmer. Why was the sunlight cold? Sunlight should be warm and golden, but it was the summer rain that was warm but not for long.

Austria declared war on Serbia. Germany declared war on Russia. Then Germany declared war on France. Britain declared war on Germany. Austria declared war on Russia, and yet it rained. She could almost feel the drops falling on her face, dripping off her lashes while she sat, silent and still, in her window seat, the palm of her small hands pressed to the cold glass of the bay. She was very sad because Vienna was sad. She did not know how a city could look sad, but it must be so. All was gray and sepia and taupe. All the people looked sad, sighing as they did when they read the morning papers, not as when they smiled while dancing to the waltz with the same playful name. They were cold also, shivering in their sables and minks. The artists were no longer in the coffeehouses. Instead, they were out in the streets joined by the students, who should have been in the standing rooms of the Staatsoper or the university, with rallying cries and calls to arms. Where had Strauss and Mozart gone? The only music was the pacing of footsteps in the bedchamber of a lady whose son had parted with her to accompany his father, the coaxing speeches of the recruiting officers, and the one-two beat of the military marches. She sighed, too.

She missed him, he with the kind smile and gentle caress on her cheek before she went to bed. He had left her like all the other men had left their mothers and wives and mistresses. The tip of her sharp little nose touched the glass, and she fought not to sneeze from the coldness. He had left her in this grand mansion in Vienna with the countess and servants her soul company. She exhaled and watched the cloud of vapor condense on the window pane before drawing a circle in which she inscribed a five-pointed star. It was getting too much for her. She was expected to dine with the countess at the great long table, to sit with her at the fireside, and to play with her on the virginal in the music room, empty activities which bored her and brought her close to the beautiful countess who diverted his attention from her. She could not endure it and so sequestered herself this way in her bedchamber, curled up in the velvet drapes on the window seat with the liberty to look down upon the sad city below her sill. The only thing remaining was to wait, wait for him, wait for snow, wait for Christmas, anything that would break this silent spell of loneliness.

Near the end of November she was convinced the countess had done it--had driven him away. He would never return now because he would associate her, who was innocent, with the countess. She became hostile toward the only other aristocrat in the mansion and avoided her. Whenever the countess traversed the hallways rereading a letter, she hurled herself into the next open doorway and locked herself in. At mealtime, she wolfed down her repast before scurrying away, never offering a word of greeting nor of departure. The virginal annoyed her, and she made sure to destroy the quills that the countess used to play upon the wiry strings. In such a time of silence, the two hardly exchanged any dialogue, leaving the servants to act like ambassadors between them. All was quiet.

Once the countess, desperate to talk with her, clutched her shoulders and demanded to know why she, she who used to be so chatty before, no longer spoke. She wriggled free of the hold and fled to the ballroom which was perhaps the last room in the mansion that still carried with it happy memories, recollections of life before the hyacinths wilted and the sunlight became cold; before, when he embraced her every morning, and she gave him butterfly kisses at night, her fluttering lashes softly tickling his neck--happy memories of laughter and smiles and chocolate bonbons and glittering Viennese society. Absently, automatically, in the darkness, she flounced around the perimeter of the marble dance floor, humming the Kaiser Waltzer under her breath, her arms raised as if in the hold of an invisible partner whom she envisioned with dusky eyes and fair hair. Then ... Then, she paused. Her arms lowered, and she hurried to the heavy doors, pressing her ears to the orange-yellow satinwood. There were voices, subdued voices, in the hall traveling to the sitting room. She listened carefully, not daring to breathe.

"You did not mention you would be coming home in your last letter," said the countess.

"Before, we had not lost Galicia."

"What!"

"It was a miserable , wretched retreat, damn those Russians. I think it was the first time I was ashamed of being an Austrian."

"Oh god. Is there ... Is there anything that can be done?"

"I do not know, frau, but for the time being I am on leave."

He had returned. He was unhappy. That was clear, but he had returned! The doors to the ballroom burst open, and she sprinted to the sitting room, crying, "Papa! Papa!" She saw him with the countess seated in an armchair by the fire, and, thinking nothing of her actions, threw herself into his arms. "Papa!"

"What? Oh, my little Catrinka," he of the dusky eyes said, stroking his daughter's hair. The little girl in his hold sniffed and looked up at her father with a questioning expression on her small face. "My little darling Catrinka, how are you?"

Seeing this display of filial love, the countess understood and stepped back involuntarily, her thin hand covering her lips. She sighed then and smiled wanly to herself. "She has missed you very much, Felix."

"And have you, Helena?" he asked of his wife whom he noted was still beautiful, though a little plaintive about the mouth, the corners upturned in a sad way.

She approached the armchair, fell to her knees, and held one of his hands in both her own. "More than you can know, Felix. These past months have been—“

"Do not say it," he said, squeezing her hand. "I am sorry. Forget I asked it."

"Sorry for what, Papa?" The little girl with the satin hair ribbons tugged at his sleeve, trying to get him to look at her.

"Nothing, nothing at all," he answered.

The countess rose slowly to her feet, her silken skirts rustling with her movements. She bent down to kiss him on the cheek and whispered into his ear, "I shall be in my bedroom if you should need me, mein graf. Otherwise, I leave you two here."

She turned to quit the sitting room when he said, "Helena."

She paused, surprised at his peremptory tone. Her daughter was playing with one of his bright red honors, running her fingers along the soft fabric and, what was more, was smiling, even giggling from time to time. She looked happy after a long while. No doubt her father's unexplained absence and the bleakness of the city around them had caused her to retreat into herself and, needing to make sense of the situation, led her to antagonize her mother who had endeavored in all the ways she knew how to bring her little girl out of her low spirits. Sitting in her father's lap in the warm firelight had done more in a few minutes than music and fine food over the last weeks. The countess' hand was already on the doorknob when she replied, "She has missed you more than I have, Felix. Please, please stay with her and talk to her. Tonight is the first time I have seen her laugh since the archduke died."

"That long?" he inquired, remembering back to the day when he opened the wire containing the dire news.

"She loves you very much, Felix, and you her I am certain.. Tell her the story about the Russian princess who lives in an amber palace and the tsarevich who gives her a fire bird for a bouquet of hyacinths to take back to his kingdom in Siberia."

"But ... But, Helena."

Shrugging her shoulders, she slunk away. "Good night, Felix. I shall wait for you."

"Papa."

"Fraulein Catrinka is a very selfish little girl." Gently, he coaxed his decoration from her hands and pinned it to his breast. "What is this I hear of you wanting me all for yourself?"

She blinked, unable to answer him. But she laughed nevertheless. She remained in his arms as he told her stories about ballerinas and sleigh rides until she fell asleep and the fired had died to a few embers. For a moment, a touch of amber gold had replaced the leaden gray.