The Last Telegram. Лиз Тренау

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СКАЧАТЬ After a couple of verses the boys came to join us, starting to hum along and sing the chorus with us.

      When we sang the words ‘dillied and dallied, dallied and dillied’, they started to giggle. ‘What is “dilly dally”, please?’ Walter asked. I struggled to find a polite explanation.

      ‘It means they spent a lot of time hanging around drinking, or talking, or …’

      John interrupted, saying something in German, and they guffawed like schoolboys. Next time we repeated the chorus they made cheeky kissing noises and Father frowned in gentle reproach.

      After three more numbers Mother declared she’d reached the end of her repertoire and went to make tea. As the others drifted back to the warmth of the fire, Stefan stayed by piano, apparently lost in his own thoughts. Then he seemed to settle something in his mind and looked at me briefly with a slight smile before pulling out the stool and sitting down, tentatively spreading his hands over the keys. Something tugged in my heart as I noticed for the first time the perfect pink ovals of his nails at the end of each long, elegant finger.

      He played a few scales and then, haltingly, started to pick out a tune I recognized as the opening bars of the Moonlight Sonata. Muttering at his mistakes and pausing to remember each following phrase, Stefan stumbled on, but his arpeggios sounded more like a doleful trudge than the calm moonlit landscape Beethoven had intended.

      After a few minutes, he took his hands from the piano and sighed, lowering his head. The untrimmed wisps of dark hair curled down his neck and over his collar, and I felt a surge of sadness for this strange boy, so far from home.

      ‘Play us the jazz,’ Kurt said.

      Stefan looked up at me.

      ‘This is okay for you?’ he asked. ‘You like the jazz?’

      ‘Very much,’ I said, smiling encouragement.

      Stefan turned back to the keyboard, took a deep breath, and launched into an exuberant ragtime piece. The solemn struggle with Beethoven was transformed into the joyful freedom of jazz. The fingers on Stefan’s right hand moved so fast they became a blur as the left hand stretched into successions of complex chord sequences.

      Everyone in the room started to move; heads nodding, feet tapping, even Father’s knee was jiggling. The rhythm was irresistible.

      ‘Remember those Swing steps, Lily?’ John leapt up and took my hand as we clumsily tried to approximate the dance we’d learned on New Year’s Eve. Kurt and Walter watched for a moment and then came to join us, doing their own wild version, waving arms and legs around without any regard for the rhythm.

      From the piano, Stefan shouted, ‘Swingjugend, swing. Swing heil!’ Kurt and Walter raised their arms in mock-Nazi salutes and repeated ‘Swing heil! Swing heil!’

      Mother’s eyebrows raised in alarm.

      ‘What that all about?’ I shouted to Kurt.

      ‘American jazz. Banned by the Nazis,’ Kurt shouted back.

      ‘Why is it banned?’

      He shrugged. ‘Stefan plays it for – what do you say?’

      Stefan stopped playing and swivelled round. In the sudden stillness his voice was firm and clear, ‘We play it because it is not allowed.’

      ‘Who’s we, Stefan?’ John asked.

      ‘Swingjugend.’

      ‘Until they were arrested,’ Kurt said, almost under his breath.

      ‘“Arrested”?’ I repeated, failing for a moment to understand the full import of the word.

      Stefan glowered at him. ‘They just gave us a beating. As a warning.’

      It was such a shocking image none of us knew what to say next. My mind whirled, trying to understand. How could the police – or was it soldiers? – be so violent against young boys, just for playing music? The sense of menace seemed to seep into the room like a poison.

      Mother spoke carefully, ‘Are you saying that the police beat you and put you in prison, Stefan?’

      Stefan nodded. ‘The SS,’ he said. ‘But we were not in prison for long. It was just a warning.’ He paused and then went on, ‘That is why I had to leave Germany.’

      ‘You poor boy,’ she murmured. ‘No wonder …’

      ‘Were you all members … of this group?’ I stuttered.

      ‘Only Stefan,’ Kurt said. ‘We do not know about it till he tell us.’

      ‘There is no Jugend where we live,’ Walter added.

      ‘Perhaps we make our own group, here in Westbury?’ Kurt smiled, and the tension in the room started to settle. ‘Can he play some more?’

      Stefan looked at Father, who nodded.

      This time we listened quietly. It didn’t seem right to dance. Trying to make sense of what the boys had told us, I began to understand why this music was so important for Stefan. The baby grand had never known such spirited, emphatic playing. It was an act of protest and defiance, seeming to drive the menace out of the room.

      After a few minutes he stopped, and we all applauded and cheered. As Stefan straightened up from a mock-formal bow, I saw for the first time his face fully illuminated with happiness.

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