Nothing So Strange (18 page)

We were in his sitting room within an hour. The baroque furnishings, so
typical of the age in which these luxury hotels were built, seemed strangely
inappropriate to the heaviness in our minds; and I never see a Buhl writing
desk now without remembering one on which, at the end of the interview, Brad
wrote his signature.

He and my father shook hands as we entered, then my father glanced along
the corridor before closing and bolting the door. “The chambermaid comes in
at such odd moments,” he said, playing down his precautions. “She’s quite
dumb, but it would be a nuisance.”

He settled himself in an easy chair. “Tell me, Brad,” he began abruptly,
“what’s the real thing you’re after?”

I suppose the question seemed so general that Brad hesitated—perhaps
he even wondered if it had anything at all to do with what was uppermost in
his mind.

My father went on: “What I mean is, does your wife come first in all
this?”

“Of course!” The reply was decisive enough now.

“All right. So you have one aim only—to get her out of trouble and
resume your life with her?”

“Absolutely.”

“And you’d do anything possible for such a thing to happen?”

“Look here, Mr. Waring, you don’t have to waste time asking me questions
like that….”

“Please … let me deal with this my own way. I want to be quite sure that
in bringing these accusations against Framm you’re actuated solely by a
desire to come to your wife’s defense.”

“That’s right.”

“You’re sure you’ve no
personal
interest in substantiating them?
You’re not thinking of your professional standing—anything of that
sort?”

“Not a bit.”

“As a matter of fact, you never had, prior to the … er … the attempt
on Framm’s life … any idea of bringing a civil suit against him?”

“Never.”

I intervened. “Pauli urged him to, but he refused. It wasn’t the kind of
thing he could be bothered with. That’s not to say that Framm wasn’t guilty.
There’s plenty of evidence—”

“Please, Jane…. This is between Brad and me. I just want to be certain
of his position.”

“He’s told you. He wants to save Pauli, that’s the only thing that matters
now.”

Brad nodded emphatically.

“All right. Then I can put forward a proposition … and one which, if he
accepts it, will enable Pauli to join him in some other country within a few
months.”

As the full meaning of this came to him, Brad’s face was illumined. He
made as if to get up and seize my father’s hand but I tugged at his
sleeve.

“I’ll do
anything
” he muttered. He had no voice for more.

“First of all, this is what will happen if you agree to the proposition.
Your wife will be brought to trial and found guilty, but there’ll be medical
evidence that she’s insane. She’ll then be sent to some place of detention
for a time. However, after a reasonable interval she’ll be allowed to leave,
provided she doesn’t stay in Austria…. You understand?”

Brad still could not reply. I had never seen him so moved.

I said: “He understands. Now what is it he has to do?”

“I’m coming to that. It’s quite simple and if he feels as he says, he can
have no possible objection. What the … er … the authorities will require
is a statement from him … as a matter of fact, I have it here with me
now—all he has to do is to sign it … a simple statement to the effect
that there’s no truth whatever in his wife’s accusations against Framm.
That’s all.”

Brad looked up, but I could not read what was in his mind.

I said bitterly: “I see. They want to whitewash Framm’s reputation.”

“Put it that way if you like. The main thing is that they’re prepared to
pay for it by giving Brad what he says
he
most wants.”

“So he has to go into court and swear his wife’s a liar?”

“I doubt if there’ll be any need for that. She may not even have to
testify. I expect Brad will just read his statement and that will be all
that’s necessary.”

“Let me see it. You said you have it here.”

“Certainly.” My father went to his briefcase, took out a large Manila
envelope and passed it over. I read for a moment, then exclaimed: “Why, this
is the biggest swindle I ever heard of! Brad has to give his whole case away
and gets nothing in exchange! There’s not a mention of any promise to release
Pauli.”

“There couldn’t be. That sort of thing never gets into a document….
However, I understand on quite high authority that what I have said will be
done.”

“What high authority?”

“I don’t see that it matters, but one source is Professor Framm
himself.”

“I thought he was dying.”

“They say now he has a slight chance of recovery.”

“But what guarantee has Brad?”

“None at all. He just has to take somebody’s word.”

“For what it’s worth.”

“Yes.”

“And how much is that?”

“You can judge as well as I can.”

“Did you see Framm?”

“I saw his representative.”

“But supposing they break their word? Brad’s got no redress. He’s giving
away everything … everything that could possibly help her at the
trial!”

My father said grimly: “What you must remember is that
nothing
can
help her at the trial—except this signed paper. If he doesn’t sign,
she’ll be found guilty after a short hearing and the sentence will be carried
out. Assuming that Framm doesn’t die, the penalty for attempted murder is, I
believe, from ten to fifteen years.”

“You think they’d do that?”

“I can’t see anything to stop them. Framm’s an important man—and
going to be more so if he lives.”

All this time Brad had said nothing. He had listened in a half-bewildered
way, sometimes nodding or shaking his head. Now, however, he reached over and
snatched the paper from me. He went over to the Buhl desk and I followed him,
grabbing the paper back. “Don’t do anything yet, Brad—we’ve got to
think this out—we need at least a day to decide in—we’ll take
this with us and come back tomorrow—”

My father snapped: “That won’t do. You have to decide now. I promised an
answer this morning.”

“Then let me call Bauer. He’s the lawyer. Brad oughtn’t to sign anything
without consulting him first.”

“He can’t do that either. If anyone else moves in you might as well tear
it up right away, signed or unsigned. This isn’t a matter for lawyers….
It’s what you might call … well … well….” There was a saving irony in
his voice as he added: “A gentlemen’s agreement?”

“With the only gentleman in the case offering everything in exchange for
nothing.”

“I don’t think we can gain much by going over the whole ground again. For
one thing, there isn’t time.”

“Why is there such a hurry?”

“People who can conquer a country in two days get the habit of being in a
hurry.”

There was silence after that, during which my father fidgeted impatiently.
If it were true that he was being pressed for an answer, I could well
understand his mood, for it was the kind of situation he would find
humiliating as well as irksome.

At length Brad muttered almost inaudibly: “How long was it you said …
till they release her?… A few months?”

My father nodded.

“She’s going to have a baby in September.”

I turned to Brad, wanting to say something quick and warm, but the words
would not come at such a moment; I could only smile at him in case he looked
my way.

My father said quickly: “I think you can count on it she’ll be with you
before then.”

“Then I’ll sign.”

So he did so, at the Buhl desk, with the scratchy hotel pen. My father
verified and witnessed the signature, then put the document back in his
briefcase and grabbed his hat and coat. We all went out together. As we
stepped from the elevator on the ground floor he said: “Good-by, Jane …
Brad…. I think we probably go in different directions….”

We let him walk ahead through the lobby on his own, while we pretended to
study the list of entertainments on the hotel notice board.
The Great
Ziegfeld, Romeo and Juliet
, and
Scarface
were among the movie
attractions.
The Magic Flute
was at the Opera House. But the little
cinema round the corner where I had seen some of the best French and
pre-Hitler German films was now, it appeared, closed until further
notice.

I was due to leave the next morning for Rome, where I had people to
interview for a magazine. As I should be away about a week Brad took me to an
appropriate farewell dinner at a small Italian restaurant near the Stephans-
Dom; we drank a bottle of Chianti and he grew cheerful towards the end of the
evening, as one who has taken the only possible course and might as well hope
for the best from it. I agreed with him it had been the only possible course.
After the strain of recent weeks, it was perhaps natural to react
excessively, though even while he was doing so the more sober part of himself
made the necessary corrective. “I’d better not let myself go,” he said,
midway through the second bottle. “It would be too bad if I caught myself
feeling grateful to these sons of bitches….”

It was near midnight when we separated outside my hotel. “Anyhow,” he
said, having talked all round the compass and back again, “I’m glad Framm’s
got an outside chance. Not that he deserves it, but he’d be a loss to
science….”

Those were practically the last words Brad spoke to me for years, though I
was far from guessing it then. He was a little drunk and would have kissed me
good night, perhaps, but for knowing he was a little drunk.

From my room a few minutes later I telephoned the Bristol, thinking that
my father deserved at least the few words of thanks I had till then had no
time to convey. But a voice told me in unctuous German that he had left a few
hours before by the Orient Express for Paris. I waited a few more minutes,
then telephoned again and asked for Madame Larousse. The same voice told me
she had left a few hours before by the Orient Express for Paris.

I remembered also for years those parting words of my father’s: “Good-by,
Jane…. I think we probably go in different directions….”

I think we always have.

High authority, as he had tactfully called it, kept its
word at the trial,
which came up a few weeks afterwards. Pauli did not testify, and Brad gave
his stipulated evidence—legally irrelevant, the judge observed, but
desirable in order to refute certain mischievous rumors that had been widely
circulated by enemies of the Gross-Deutschland. Pauli was then declared
guilty but insane, and the whole thing was over within a matter of hours. The
newspapers gave great prominence to the high character of Professor Framm, so
strikingly vindicated by his American colleague and assistant, and the total
impression was that the two of them had been bosom friends, that the young
man had unfortunately married a homicidal lunatic, and that thanks to the
large- hearted wisdom of the new regime such a distressing matter was being
wound up both equitably and expeditiously—in contrast, doubtless, to
what would have happened earlier or elsewhere. I think also that anyone
unacquainted with the inside story (which meant nearly everyone) could easily
have concluded that this young American was a warm sympathizer with the
Gross-Deutschland, its policies, personalities, and plans for the future. The
court proceedings were stage-managed with extreme skill, and Brad’s
statement, read by him in English, sounded much more emphatic in the German
translation that immediately followed.

I heard all this from Bauer, because when I tried to return to Vienna from
Rome, the German consulate refused to renew my visa. Certain articles of mine
in the American press had, it appeared, made me
persona non grata
with
the Nazis. So I went to Switzerland and there waited for Brad, if he should
care to join me for a time; but he wrote that he would rather save his money
for a long holiday with Pauli as soon as she was released. That made me
insist on lending him a thousand dollars, which he returned, and when I sent
it again even more insistently he returned it with a note in which he laid
bare the entire state of his finances. He had about five hundred and thirty
dollars, he said, which he reckoned ample for all expenses until he found
another job; and for any emergency he owned twenty shares of A.T. and T.
Common which his uncle in North Dakota (the amateur geologist) had willed him
before he died. I thought it was a good stage in our relationship, if not a
romantic one, that he should give me details of this sort.

I did not hear from him again, and several of my letters were returned as
undeliverable. I wrote to Bauer for news, but also without answer.

Then one evening at a London cocktail party I met a half-tipsy Englishman
lately in Austria who said he had a vague idea he had heard somewhere that
Pauli was dead. I didn’t tell him that my interest in her was in any way
personal. It was a noisy party and I had to yell the next question in his
ear. “And her husband? Did you hear anything about
him
?”

He yelled back: “Well, he practically ditched her, didn’t he, at the
trial?… American chap…. Don’t know what’s happened to him since.” He
flicked an olive stone into an ashtray and ventured: “Maybe he went back to
America….”

I woke to see the hostess nudging me. “Sorry to trouble you,
but we’re coming down at Palmdale. There’ll be a bus to take you into
Burbank…. It’s on account of fog.”

She moved to the passenger in front and delivered the same message. The
plane was already noticeably descending and instruction to fasten seat belts
came on while I was blinking myself awake. I felt a little irritated at the
thought of a long bus journey and wondered whether the studio would have sent
a car to meet me at Burbank.