Zadruga Read online

  ‘And what if von Hötzendorf or nasty old Franz Ferdinand talk about Bosnia?’ Natalie persisted belliger ently. ‘Am I not to say anything then?’

  ‘No!’ Katerina went cold at the very idea. ‘You are not to say one word about the present political situation. It shoudn’t be difficult. No-one else is going to bring up such an emotive subject.’

  She was wrong. Count Conrad von Hötzendorf brought up the subject almost immediately.

  ‘You must make your government understand that the Habsburg empire will tolerate no trouble from Slav nationalists, either beyond its borders or within,’ he said cholericly to her father as drinks were served before dinner.

  Katerina shuddered and looked towards Natalie to see if she had overheard. Natalie hadn’t. She was chattering to Countess Lanjus and Katerina joined them, leaving her father to the difficult task of both upholding his government’s stance towards fellow Slavs in Bosnia and disassociating it from any illegal, terrorist activity.

  Despite the pleasant conversation she was having with the Duchess’s lady-in-waiting, Natalie was no longer truly enjoying herself. Sarajevo’s heat and humidity, coupled with the shopping trip to the bazaar, had tired her. There were no shoals of dashing young officers present and even if they had been, they would all have been Austrian, a fact which had not earlier occurred to her. The Duchess was now very firmly at her husband’s side and so there was no opportunity for further cosy chats about her children.

  As Katerina and the Countess began to talk of silks and dressmakers she looked around the room, seeking for diversion. The Archduke and Duchess were deep in conversation with Sarajevo’s mayor. Natalie averted her eyes quickly from the royal presence. Franz Ferdinand was just as stuffy and pompous as she had anticipated he would be and at the thought of all he represented she felt quite ill. Not as ill, though, as she would have felt if Gavrilo had realized she was a member, however reluctant, of the Archducal party.

  She wondered again what he was doing in Sarajevo. He had said he was coming to Bosnia on a training exercise and she had thought a training exercise meant practising guerilla tactics in the Bosnian mountains. Then she remembered that he had once attended high school in Sarajevo and that he probably still had lots of friends in the city. Was that why he didn’t want her to speak of their meeting to anyone? Because he was absent without leave from the training exercise, visiting friends?

  A majordomo-like figure announced that dinner was served and the Archduke and Duchess led the way into the opulent dining-room. Natalie sighed. It was going to be a long tedious evening with nothing to look forward to but the visit next day to a school and a hospital.

  The school was an Augustinian convent school and after

  acknowledging what Natalie thought were the far too long speeches

  of welcome, the Duchess handed out small presents to the pupils, pictures of the Archducal family for the older children, candy for the little ones.

  In the afternoon, with the visit to Sarajevo’s hospital behind them, the Duchess’s party returned to Ilidze and Natalie accompanied her mother for a stroll in the nearby park.

  ‘I wish I’d been able to bring Bella with me,’ she said wistfully as a small girl ran past them, a puppy at her heels. ‘She’ll be missing me and pining.’

  ‘She’ll be doing no such thing,’ her mother said briskly. ‘She’ll be eating a proper diet for once instead of having her teeth ruined with chocolate biscuits and she’ll be having to do as she’s told for a change, which will be very good for her.’

  That evening dinner had again to be endured in the Archduke’s presence. All through the long meal Natalie wondered where Gavrilo was dining. No doubt he would be at a kafana similar to the Golden Sturgeon, making one cup of coffee last an entire evening and fiercely discussing the cause of Slav nationalism with old school-friends. Looking around the high-ceilinged room, catching scraps of boring conversation about manoeuvres and the rose gardens at the Archduke’s favourite residence, the estate and castle of Konopisht and of how the German Emperor intended visiting there in the very near future, Natalie wished fervently that she was in a smoke-filled kafana with Gavrilo.

  Seeing the glum expression on her face Katerina leaned towards her. ‘Cheer up,’ she whispered encouragingly. ‘There are only another two days to endure and it isn’t as difficult a situation for us as it is for Papa.’

  The next morning the Archduke and his aides again left early in the morning for the army manoeuvres which were taking place in remote and mountainous countryside. The only gentleman not to accompany the Archduke was Alexis Vassilovich. Despite both the Archduke’s and Count von Hötzendorf’s satisfaction at being able to talk unofficially with a representative of that thorn in their flesh, the Serbian government, they had no intention of allowing him to view Austrian army manoeuvres.

  As Alexis had too much sense ever to have expected to be invited to the manoeuvres, he was indifferent to his exclusion from them. The visit was going far better than he had privately hoped. Despite von Hötzendorf’s warmongering belligerence, Franz Ferdinand’s conversation was full of sound common sense. If any man was going to be able to solve the nightmarish problem of Slav dissatisfaction within the empire it was the Archduke and as far as Alexis was concerned, the sooner he became Emperor, the better.

  All the next day Natalie was perturbed by the genuine warmth with which the Duchess was greeted in Sarajevo wherever she went. Her own liking for the Duchess had not diminished in the slightest but it was worrying that Sarajevans, chafing under the Habsburg yoke, should also apparently like her unreservedly.

  ‘Perhaps it is because they know that even when the Archduke is Emperor, she will not have the title Empress,’ Katerina said when she broached the subject to her. ‘I know that the Archduke isn’t fooled by all the flags and bunting. After all, the civic authorities are in Austrian pay and they are the ones who have arranged it all. Papa told me both the Archduke and the Count are horrified by the lack of security precautions, especially as it is so well known that Sarajevo is a hotbed of Slav nationalism. Apparently when Emperor Franz Josef visited four years ago an entire Austrian garrison lined the streets and hundreds of suspected subversives were taken into custody. Nothing like that has been done for this visit. Papa says the only police on duty are the local police and they are Slav, not Austrian.’

  Natalie was glad to hear it. It meant that when the day came when Bosnia rose in force against her Austrian masters and when Russia and Serbia came gloriously to her aid, Sarajevo’s police force would not be a problem, but an asset.

  Her rare attack of despondency came to an end the next night

  when dinner was a far more glamorous affair, with civic dignitaries

  from far and wide in attendance. The Sarajevo garrison band were colourfully arrayed on the hotel lawn and the dining-room windows were thrown open so that the melodies they played could be clearly heard. There were tunes by Schumann and Franz Lehar and Strauss and when ‘The Blue Danube’was played she was reminded of her mother’s Summer Ball and of Julian Fielding so romantically proposing to her.

  She looked across at Katerina, wishing that she could share her secrets about Gavrilo and Julian with her and saw that Katerina was listening to the gentleman seated next to her with a dreamy, far-away expression in her eyes. The gentleman in question was a boring-looking dignitary, bald and fat and at least fifty and Natalie dismissed any idea of his being the object of Katerina’s reverie.

  ‘… and so your warnings about our being in danger in Sarajevo were quite wrong after all,’ the Duchess was saying to a stern-faced gentleman seated across the table from her. ‘It just goes to show that things don’t always turn out the way you think they will. Everywhere we have gone here we have been greeted with friendliness and cordiality and we are very happy about it!’

  ‘Who is the gentleman the Duchess is speaking to?’ Natalie asked her next-door-neighbour.

  The Archduke’s junior aide was more than happy to en
lighten her. ‘Dr Sunaric, Vice-President of the Bosnian parliament. He was very nervous about the Archducal visit. He thought the locals were in an ugly mood and …’ He broke off in embarrassed confusion as he remembered Natalie’s nationality.

  ‘And what?’ Natalie prompted impatiently, uncaring of his faux pas.

  The aide, sensing that no offence was going to be caused and wanting to remain the object of her undivided attention, said, ‘… and he thought the Archduke and Duchess faced definite danger from Slav nationalist fanatics.’

  Natalie regarded him pityingly. ‘Slav nationalists are not thugs,’ she said as if speaking to a three-year-old child. ‘When we choose to fight the Habsburgs it will be with an army and…’

  The aide’s eyebrows rose nearly into his hair. Natalie, realizing that her remark had been a severe breach of good manners, seated as she was at a Habsburg dinner table, had the grace to blush. ‘It will happen one day,’ she said defiantly, but choosing her words with more care. ‘Serbians and Bosnians, whether Orthodox or Moslem, will be united.’

  ‘And Catholic Croats and Slovenes and Montenegrins?’ The junior aide was regarding her with a mixture of amusement and genuine curiosity. ‘What about them?’

  ‘They will be united with us as well. We will all be united, irrespective of religion, in a great kingdom to be known as Yugoslavia …’

  ‘Natalie!’ The agonized warning hiss was from Katerina. Natalie looked around, saw that her mother was frowning fiercely at her and regretfully abandoned the subject so dear to her heart.

  ‘Tell me what it’s like to be one of the Archduke’s aides,’ she said to her new acquaintance who at least was not bald or fat or nearly fifty. ‘Do you spend much time in Vienna? Is it as elegant as Paris?’

  ‘Thank goodness today is our last day,’ Katerina said next morning as they dressed. ‘With a little luck we should be on the train home by mid afternoon.’

  Natalie breathed in as Helga laced her into a corset that reduced her naturally slender waist to a minuscule eighteen inches.

  ‘It isn’t another hospital again, is it?’ she asked ill-humouredly. ‘Why do hospitals always smell so vile? Why can’t antiseptic be rose-scented?’

  Katerina smiled her slow, gentle smile. ‘It isn’t another hospital,’ she said to Natalie’s relief. ‘There’s to be a brief reception at the City Hall, a visit to the National Museum and then lunch at the governor’s residence.’

  ‘And then the Archduke and his party return to Vienna?’

  Katerina nodded. ‘And we return to Belgrade.’

  ‘Good.’ Natalie had enjoyed the previous evening and the flattering attention she had received from the Archduke’s personable young aide, but she was missing Bella and the novelty of being part of the Archducal party, in however unofficial and minor a capacity, was fast fading.

  ‘There are to be six official cars in the procession,’ Paul Nikitsch-Boulles said to Alexis, ‘plus a car for yourself and your family. The mayor and the commissioner of police will ride in the lead car. The Archduke and the Duchess will be in the second car with General Potiorek and Count Harrach. In the third car will be Count Boos-Waldeck, Countess Lanjus and the General’s adjutant, Lieutenant Colonel von Merizzi. The remaining three cars will bear various members of His Highness’s and General Potiorek’s suites and your own car will bring up the rear. It has been arranged that the Archduke and his entourage will travel from Ilidze to Sarajevo by train in order that an official reception can take place at the station. The procession including the car that will take you and your family down to Sarajevo, will commence from the station and travel along a pre-arranged route to the City Hall.’

  Alexis nodded. Like Natalie, he was looking forward to the moment when he would step aboard the train for Belgrade. It was a fiercely hot day and though there was a pleasant breeze in Ilidze, he knew there would be none in Sarajevo.

  Grateful that the car hood was down Alexis shepherded his family into the waiting Daimler.

  ‘… and he thought Belgrade not sophisticated because it doesn’t have an opera-house as Vienna does,’ Natalie said indignantly to her mother as she recounted some of her conversation with the Archduke’s aide.

  The chauffeur put the car into gear, pulling away from the hotel, picking up speed swiftly as the road began to wind steeply down to the valley floor.

  ‘He isn’t Austrian,’ Natalie continued, not wanting her family to think she had been voluntarily consorting with the enemy. ‘He’s French. Don’t you think it strange that the Archduke should have an aide who is French?’

  Alexis made a non-committal noise, his thoughts on the report he would be making to Prime Minister Pasich when he returned. Zita made no reply at all. She was thinking of how much she liked the Duchess and of how unfair it was that her marriage was marred by her not being treated as the wife to the heir of a throne should be treated. Katerina was also silent, lost in private thoughts and Natalie lapsed into silence, gazing at the glorious scenery, wondering if Bella was missing her.

  The city, in its mountain bowl, was as stiflingly hot as Alexis had anticipated as their car brought up the rear of the Archducal procession. Habsburg yellow and black flags drooped from windows, streamers decorated the streets, spectators stood in clusters staring curiously, some even cheering.

  ‘Over there, across the bridge, is the new army barracks,’ Alexis said to Zita, pointing the building out to her as their Daimler trundled leisurely down Sarejevo’s broadest street on its way to the City Hall. On their left hand side were shops and cafés and the majority of onlookers were standing there, in the shade of awnings. On their right was a narrow pavement, an embankment, and the glittering olive waters of the Miljacka river.

  The bomb, when it came, came from the left.

  Alexis was aware that something was wrong a second or so before the explosion. There was a faint, detonating sound, as if a tyre had blown out and he half expected to see one of the cars in front swerve to a sudden halt. Instead he saw a small black object fly through the air, quite obviously aimed at the Archducal motor car. Seconds later there came an explosion that brought the four cars in front of him to chaotic, panic-stricken stops.

  ‘Alexis! For the love of God! What’s happened?’ Zita demanded white-faced as their car skidded to a standstill.

  ‘Christ only knows! A bomb …’

  ‘There are people hurt, Papa!’ Though many people had immediately begun to run from the scene, others were milling around prone and bleeding figures on the pavement. Katerina began to scramble from the car, intent on giving what help she could.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ Alexis shouted at Natalie as she began to follow.

  ‘But, Papa…’

  ‘DO AS I SAY!’

  Natalie fell back in her seat, as shocked at having her father speak to her in such a way as she was at the outrage that had just taken place.

  ‘Stay here!’ Alexis said tersely to Zita and then, satisfied that his family were unhurt, he vaulted from the Daimler and sprinted up the smoke-filled street towards the Archducal car.

  It had swerved to a halt several yards ahead of the car that had been following it. With vast relief Alexis saw that both the Archduke and the Duchess were still seated and that they were looking back over the folded-down hood of their car at the scene behind them, their expressions shocked and deeply anxious.

  ‘It’s Merizzi who’d been hurt!’ General Potiorek was shouting. ‘Where the hell is Fischer?’

  Dr Fischer, the Archduke’s doctor, was running from his own car to the General’s as fast as his stout physique would allow.

  ‘Let’s get everyone away from here!’ Alexis shouted to the agitated Potiorek. ‘There may be another attempt!’

  In the car, Countess Lanjus was attempting to staunch the flow of blood from the back of Merizzi’s head with a handkerchief.

  ‘The car is damaged,’ Potiorek said tersely as Fischer scrambled into the car. ‘The engine is dead.’

  ‘Th
en get everyone transferred to the other cars,’ Alexis ordered, not caring that his speaking to a general in such a manner was a heinous breach of protocol. ‘Can Merizzi be moved?’

  Fischer nodded, his face grey. It could have been the Archduke who had been injured. If he had been, he might have died. And if he had died he, Fischer, would have gone down in history as the man who failed to save him.

  Other people were racing to the scene. An Austrian general Alexis had never seen before was saying competently, ‘Ambulances for the injured are on their way. I’ve telephoned the garrison hospital and all available army surgeons are also on their way.’

  ‘Thank God,’ Alexis said shakily, his heartbeat beginning to steady. ‘Were any members of the public killed?’

  ‘I don’t think so. My name is Appel. I’m the commanding general of the local army camp. I was following you on my way to my office just off the Quay.’

  ‘The Quay?’ Willing hands were assisting Countess Lanjus into one of the other cars. Merizzi was in the professional care of Dr Fischer. The Archducal car had already left the scene.

  ‘Appel Quay. The street we’re in.’

  Alexis looked around him dazedly seeing, as if for the first time, the many bridges and the wide, shimmering river.

  ‘My name is Vassilovich,’ he said, ‘Alexis Vassilovich.’

  ‘Tell your driver to continue straight to City Hall,’ Appel said as with a scream of tyres ambulances began to arrive. ‘God knows what sort of a greeting the Archduke is going to receive when he arrives. No-one will have been able to tell officials there what’s happened. They’re going to learn the news of the attempt on the life of the heir to the throne, from the heir to the throne himself!’

  Unsteadily Alexis made his way back to the Daimler. Katerina had already returned to it, the hem of her pink silk dress thick with dust from kneeling beside the injured, scattered bloodstains on the skirt.