Madensky Square (31 page)

The little fat man nodded. I was sure he was the chiropodist: he looked kind, like someone acquainted with ailing feet. ‘Herr Egger impaled himself on the Marshal’s sword.’

‘Nonsense,’ snapped the Captain. ‘If he’d done that the Marshal would have been able to pull back. He deliberately failed to beat off an intended feint attack that was only meant to keep him at a distance. It was not the action of a gentleman.’ The chiropodist looked shocked. ‘Frau Egger, your husband died a glorious death by his own will. You must accept his choice.’

‘Yes… thank you. And the Marshal ?’ ‘Very distressed,’ said the Captain. ‘Naturally.’ Gernot von Lindenberg now appeared between the trees. He did not look distressed. He looked tired, angry – and alive! ‘This is a bad business,’ he said. He pulled back a corner of the blanket, let it drop. ‘You’d best take him straight to the mortuary.’

‘But sir, if we are going to hush this up -‘ ‘It no longer amuses me to hush things up, Captain. I shall make my report direct to the Kaiser.’ And to the chiropodist and Egger’s other second, who had just been sick behind a tree: ‘This matter is entirely my responsibility, gentlemen. Your names need not appear.’ Then he caught sight of me, approached, bent over my hand. ‘Madame, I am sincerely desolated. I did everything to avoid the conflict and everything to avoid serious bloodshed, but your husband was a skilful fencer. If I’d guessed his intention I could have thwarted it, but it never occurred to me. I trust you will allow me to see you safely home?’

I bent my head, allowing it. We walked some way in silence, his hand under my arm. When we were out of earshot he dropped my arm abruptly and turned me round to face him.

‘Are you mad, Susanna ? Are you absolutely out of your mind? What do you mean by coming here? I’ve spent three interminable months keeping away from you so that I could tie this business up without involving you and now you come here like a madwoman in a novel and -‘

‘I’m veiled,’ I said crossly. ‘How did you know me?’

‘How did I know you? How did I
know
you? Dear God grant me patience!’

We had reached his carriage. The man in the driving seat jumped down, saluted – and grinned at me. Another person undeceived by my disguise.

‘Hatschek,’ I said, ‘oh,
Hatschek
!’

The carriage was closed and snug. Gernot drew the curtains and we drove slowly back towards the city.

‘It was bad when you didn’t come, Susanna,’ he said quietly. ‘It was very bad.’

‘Oh God, darling, it was bad for me too – you can’t imagine how bad – but I couldn’t help it.’ And I told him about Sigi and the accident.

‘Yes. I know. I trusted you. I knew you’d come if you could.’ I hung my head. I hadn’t trusted him. ‘I thought that you no longer… that because I had failed you… you didn’t want…’

‘You thought
what
?’ he said furiously. ‘You were capable of that… meanness… after twelve years of knowing me? My God, don’t we have enough difficulties in our life without that kind of rubbish? Every meeting is like wading through shifting sand to an oasis. Don’t you ever do that again, Susanna. Don’t you ever dare to doubt me!’

Then he told me what he had been doing.

From Trieste he’d been sent straight to Potsdam for another useless conference with Wilhelm’s lackeys. It was the end of October before he got back to Vienna, to find that Egger had got his way about Madensky Square at last.

‘And I just saw red. That swine isn’t going to lay hands on her shop, I thought. I’d suspected there was something disreputable in his past ever since you showed me that button, so I planned a quixotic little enterprise: confronting Egger, offering him a chance to cancel his plans and leave the country, or face exposure and ruin.’

‘Blackmail you mean?’

‘What words you use! Anyway if I’d known what was to come I’d have let your shop go hang and set you up in a villa in Hitzing like all good mistresses. First of all I had to get evidence that he was the man I thought he was and that meant going off to Moravia and searching the records in the barracks, and tracking down people who might have known him. I’d never have done it without the Countess von Metz. Her brother was Colonel in Chief there and she was indefatigable. Incidentally I wish you could have seen Elise trying to get the name of her dressmaker out of the Countess! You’d have enjoyed that.

‘It was December before I had what I wanted – and all the time I kept away from you – it only needed Egger to connect my interest in the square with you and I lost any leverage I had. He’d have dragged you into the mud in no time. Anyway, I went at night to confront him and it all seemed perfectly straightforward. He was obviously terrified and he said he’d rescind his plans and go. And then a week later he suddenly arrived and challenged me. I thought he’d gone completely mad, but there was no way of shaking him off. I suppose in his way he loved the army and preferred death to dishonour.’ ‘But what had Egger done ? What did you find out ?’ Gernot opened his cigar case. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you.’

In the year 1882 the Pressburg Fusiliers were stationed at Gratzislek, in Eastern Moravia. There was only one other detachment stationed there: the 19th Imperial Uhlans under the command of Colonel von Metz, the Countess’s brother who was a martinet and unpopular with his men. Nor was the social life of the garrison town exactly scintillating. There was one cafe, one hotel… and as far as the eye could see, flat country which in summer became a dust bowl, and in winter a desert of ice.

Into this unprepossessing place there moved a merchant who had acquired the local schloss, a run-down gabled monstrosity in which he proposed, by painstaking bribery, to ennoble himself and his wife.

The wife, who was pretty, was even more bored than the soldiers. The merchant was frequently away in Prague or Budapest or Vienna, and she began to flirt her way through the garrison’s officers. Most of the men seemed to have taken her measure, but one fell seriously for the lady and a proper liaison began.

‘You can guess who it was, can’t you?’

‘Egger?’

Gernot nodded. ‘Only he had a different name then.’

The lady was expensive. She didn’t so much want furs or jewels as to get out of Gratzislek as far and as fast and as often as she could. Lieutenant Egger spent his free time wining and dining her, ran out of money… saw a rival begin to gain on him. Even then, it seems, he had a head for figures. He was in charge of the mess funds… he began to borrow money. A little at first, then more and more.

‘It’s an old story. It happens in every mess at some point. One minor crook. They’re found out, sometimes they shoot themselves, sometimes there’s a duel. Mostly they’re just removed one night, stripped of their rank, not seen again. But Egger was cunning. He managed to frame his corporal, the chap who helped him with his accounts. The man he accused was a poor devil – a Jew from some obscure place in Ruthenia who lived for the army, but was never really accepted – oh, read the Dreyfus case; it’s all in there. The corporal was confronted with his crime and went back to his hut and cut his throat. Which of course was seen as proof of guilt. Everything would have gone on as before, but the lady came to see the Colonel. She knew Egger had been borrowing money and the corporal had been engaged to one of her servants.

There was an investigation but before he could be brought to trial, Egger vanished. A couple of years later the regiment was disbanded and no one heard of him until he reappeared under a different name, married a wealthy woman and started to crawl his way up the Ministry.’

‘I see. And you got proof of this?’

‘I and the Countess. She remembered a man in her brother’s regiment who’d known him and we managed to track him down. It’s to her you’ll owe your shop, Susanna, as much as to anyone.’

‘Are you sure Egger’s plans will be cancelled? Will the square really be safe?’

He nodded. ‘Heinrid will leap at the chance. There’ll be some kind of face-saving manoeuvre about unexpected expense and so on, but it’ll be all right, you’ll see.’

‘And the duel? Will it mean trouble for you?’

Gernot shrugged. ‘I may have to resign.’

‘Oh,
no
!’

He took my hand, decided I didn’t need my glove, removed it.

‘There’s no need to look like that, my love. I can live without the army. If I’m right about what’s coming I’d a great deal rather be in Uferding planting trees than sending men half my age out to be slaughtered. And it would be easier for us to meet.’

We jolted on towards the lights of the town. ‘You know, Susanna,’ he said, ‘it isn’t warm, passionate women like you who make the Great Lovers of this world. It’s cold-hearted devils like me who are generally bored or discontented and frequently both. When it all stops for us, the ennui, the frustration… when we find a place of sanctuary, then we’re totally caught. Yes, we’re the ones to watch where loving is concerned.’ He leant his head against the back of the seat and I saw the weariness in his face. ‘It isn’t every day I kill someone,’ he murmured. ‘One loses the habit.’

‘You could sleep, Gernot. Close your eyes. I’ll wake you when we’re there.’

His head turned. He frowned.

‘Try not to be stupid,’ he said – and took me in his arms.

March 1912

Madensky Square

Vienna

I woke early today, just a year since I started to keep this journal. Looking out of the window I could see the pigeons stirring on the General’s head and hear the plash of the fountain into which people have started throwing coins, for it is becoming known, our square. When Alice moved in next door, using Rudi’s money to start her millinery business, the fashionable world really took notice. The best dress shop and the best hat shop side by side – outfits that could be designed,
in toto
– brought the carriages smartly to our door. We’re being sensible, Alice and I, keeping our businesses separate, not knocking down the wall between us, but knowing what friends we are makes life agreeable for our customers. And oh, it is lovely having her so close!

The door of the apartment house opposite opened and the red setter bitch walked regally down the steps and sat yawning in the sun. She is no fetcher of newspapers and frankly she is losing her looks. When the English Miss agreed to model in my shop, she moved into the attic flat and asked Frau Hinkler whether, for a suitable fee, she’d mind the dog. Frau Hinkler made it clear that no dog could be of the faintest interest to her after Rip, but in three months the bitch has acquired the stomach of an alderman and the smug expression of someone whose lightest wish is someone else’s command.

The English Miss, of course, is a sensation. Is it being brought up on an island surrounded by heaving water that gives the British that look of dreamy unconcern ? I could put her in a shroud and my customers would clamour for it.

The choristers were out early, walking across to sing the morning service in St Florian’s. Ernst Bischof’s voice broke at last; he is no longer there. The new soloist is fat, solemn and good, and frankly Helene and I are finding this a little dull.

Joseph, wiping the tables on his terrace, looked disgruntled as well he might for his mother, who retired to bed when Egger’s plans for the square were published, liked it so much there that she has not got up again and he’s had to pay someone else to work in his kitchen.

The church clock struck the half hour, and punctual to the minute the door of the Schumachers’ house opened and Lisl handed Herr Schumacher his walking stick and hat. It was clearly one of the days on which the timber heiress was to accompany her father in order to soak up the necessary impressions in the yard, for her bassinet was loaded into the carriage, and then the nursery maid hopped in beside the coachman.

Professor Starsky came next, looking up at my window. A menagerie owner is deluging him with goitrous axolotls which he sends ‘Express’ from Pest, but not ‘Express’ enough. At least Laura Sultzer no longer brings terror to the poor man’s heart. Laura was so angry when her daughter insisted on marrying a pork butcher that she took the Group to the villa in St Polten where she discovered she had healing powers, and is now becoming an expert on herbal remedies, particularly worts.

The Professor raised his hat; I waved. He’s coming to supper next week and so is Alice, but though Alice has been so wonderful, understanding how much I miss Nini, offering to mind the shop whenever I am called away ‘on business’ (but she has guessed, of course; she guessed years ago) she has not been entirely cooperative about the Professor.

‘I’ll come to supper,’ she said, seeing through me as usual, ‘but I have to make it perfectly clear, Sanna, that the Professor is
yours
.’

I dressed quickly and went downstairs. There were two letters. One was from Leah Cohen who is standing up well to the hard work and simple living conditions, but badly to a Madame de Rubin on a neighbouring settlement who gets her orange-planting clothes sent out from Paris.

The other was from New York. It was very thick and when I opened it I found three sheets of music paper covered with notes. I’ve become a kind of Razumovsky, you see, for Sigi has started to compose and though I can’t read the music and certainly can’t play it, I’m exceedingly honoured. With the new etude inscribed to me was a note from Nini who is putting Daniel through the maximum inconvenience by suggesting that they live in sin in a cold water apartment in the Bronx. Personally, in this struggle, I back the wolverine who wants an official daughter-in-law to show off to her friends, and wants her soon.

Have you asked her yet
? was the P.S. on Nini’s letter, and the answer is, no I have not. Frau Egger has adapted well to widowhood. She has resumed the petit point which she used to enjoy as a girl and I am about to be presented with a footstool cover depicting two pheasants and a deer. But no, I have not found the opportunity to ask this burning question and I doubt now that I ever will. Nini and I are destined to go to our graves, I fear, without learning about Herr Egger’s Nasty Little Habit.

The salon was bright with sunshine, the narcissi that Old Anna brought me yesterday were bunched in their alabaster bowl. I went through into the workroom where the dummies of my regular customers greeted me like old friends. Frau Hutte-Klopstock’s was draped in the white muslin that is to make her look like Debussy’s Melisande. Edith Huber’s was clad in a grey alpaca dress which might have been worn by that low-spirited English governess, Jane Eyre.