selfless woman, not interested in her appearance, aside from neatness. On the voyage they began to look more and more like identical twins than ordinary sisters, the fall in aura in one was met by a rise in energy and aura in the younger one, sharing between them a wariness in manner, in movement, dress, unsmiling speech. The straight line of the canal looked out of place in the sand: a human effort, an alteration. Nature prefers to follow the contours. Nature is lazy, it makes its own way. The Dutchman said to Delage, “I come from a horizontal country. The slightest movement is instantly noticed. We see things clearly. If Holland had mountains and valleys my wife would not have left me.” Elisabeth whispered in Delage’s ear that she came from a country of mountains, there’s hardly a flat piece of land in all of Austria, she whispered, she wasn’t about to run away, and the warm breath in her ear seemed to confirm it. She had arrived in the morning at the hotel in one of the family’s Mercedes with chauffeur to take him on a tour of the city, “My mother no doubt thought you needed educating,” looking at him closely. “She talked me into it. She didn’t need to, really.” A sudden smile. To Delage, she looked like difficulty, a troubled young woman. “Is your mother still speaking to me?” “And why wouldn’t she be?” At that time, Delage found he was thinking about her mother, Amalia, altogether too much, he also thought, husband in tow, while her daughter displayed a shapely, careless attractiveness, taking him to every composer’s house she could think of, especially if it included anantique piano, which it invariably did, as well as the gold-plated harp on its stand in the corner, beginning with Mozart’s rooms behind the dark cathedral, it took all morning, many of the greatest composers lived and worked at some time in Vienna, often changing addresses. She had thought of everything, itself a statement of some kind. A corner table had been booked in a fancy restaurant. “My mother suggested we have lunch here. She is giving to you a lot of attention.” And to join in, or outdo the power of her mother, Elisabeth von Schalla leaned forward, enticing Delage down to what lay waiting in shadow beneath her dress, the position of the chairs made it difficult for Delage to avoid. Delage became aware of certain familiar stages, which he knew were easily crossed. They shared a bottle of Moselle. “I should be doing the rounds of the piano people. Not that anyone’s shown the slightest interest in what I have to say. I don’t know what’s the matter with the people in this place. Have their imaginations come to a grinding halt? Fossilized,” he threw in for good measure. Elisabeth had no interest in pessimism, Delage had to be careful, even if he was exaggerating, he was doing his best not to dwell on her face, avoid the eyes, he assumed she didn’t have a job of any sort, all the time in the world on her hands, an old phrase, he meant to ask what she did all day, it would have been fun showing a man from far away the hidden parts of her city. “I’ve been told to show you the house the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein designed. If you think our house is a mess, wait till you see this. He designed it for his sister.” That was when Delage introduced his own sister who lived in Brisbane,explaining his irritation, it was more incomprehension than irritation. “Now there’s a woman who never lets up. I don’t know why she has to carry on,” he said. She was always wanting to be involved in his life, while he wanted her to leave his life, or at least not be so involved. They crossed the Ringstrasse. “My mother admired Wittgenstein’s intentions, but not the result. I think it would be like living in an office building. The Wittgensteins are related, on her side.” It became difficult to concentrate, the idea of turning composers’ houses into holy houses with perfect wallpaper, bare desk and
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