Requiem in Vienna (15 page)

“I merely hope to ascertain the truth.”

“About what?”

Instead of answering the man’s questions, Gross merely rose and nodded politely. “I thank you for your time, Herr Hassler. As you say, I shall let you get on with your work now.”

“You can tell Montenuovo and his crowd that I am one journalist who won’t be cowed. I will keep printing the truth until Mahler is sent packing.”

The final words were spoken to Gross’s back as he passed the surprised face of the secretary in the outer office.

In Altaussee the next day, Thursday, Werthen was struggling with a recalcitrant bicycle. He had not ridden a bicycle since he had grown out of knee pants. It was hardly his idea of a good time, but here he was pumping with alacrity to simply keep up with Mahler, an experienced cyclist. They had set out an hour ago from the Villa Kerry. Made aware of Werthen’s decision to return to Vienna, Mahler decided their farewell outing should be memorable. It was as if the composer were punishing Werthen for his imminent departure. Mahler was the sort of man, Werthen had decided, who interpreted the slightest change of plans that might cause him any inconvenience as a sign of betrayal. The
world revolved around him. Anything disturbing the orderly rotation of his one-man solar system was anathema.

The leather saddle bit into Werthen’s scrotum painfully; his thighs were beginning to cramp from the long uphill climb—they were following an oxen trail that traversed the southern base of the Loser mountain. The trail switched back and forth in endless zigzags, but the gradient was still arduous. Mahler reveled in the exercise. Werthen felt sweaty and miserable, but he plowed on, not one to give up or to be outdone.

Mahler continued to pull farther and farther ahead. Werthen soon lost sight of the black-clad musician, who had gained enough distance to be on the far end of each turn, already around the western corner when Werthen appeared around the eastern and vice versa.

With Mahler out of sight, Werthen tried to divert himself from the unpleasant task at hand by reviewing the events of the past days. He stopped the bike, dismounted, and began walking with the cycle at his side, maintaining a brisk pace despite an ache in his damaged knee.

He had received Berthe’s answering telegram on Tuesday evening, and was deeply disappointed that he no longer had a ready excuse for returning to Vienna earlier than planned. However, he had put his best face on and met the new employee, Wilhelm Tor, at the train station in Altaussee, and received the Mahler file from him. It took Werthen only a few minutes to understand why Berthe had settled on this fellow, the polar opposite of Ungar. She would have felt compassion for his rather shy demeanor, Werthen knew. But speaking with him, Werthen decided that Tor seemed a solid enough man. Not someone you would want to share a bottle of wine with, but then he was meant as an employee, not an intimate.

It was much too late on Tuesday for Tor to attempt returning to his home in Linz. Instead, Werthen booked him a room at his hotel, though one not quite so regal as his own. In the morning
Tor volunteered to copy over some of the materials, for he had reviewed the file on his lengthy train trip. Werthen was more than happy for the assistance, as he needed to be in attendance at the Villa Kerry first thing in the morning. He gave Tor directions; the man would later deliver his copies to the villa before catching the noon train.

Then, approaching the Villa Kerry on Wednesday morning, Werthen had noticed several bicycles, recent purchases, lined up against the wall of the building. Mahler was obviously planning on more brisk physical exercise than he had heretofore been taking.

Inside the villa that morning, Werthen was surprised at its transformation. Suddenly the place was filled with visitors, all descending on Mahler and his family at once. Arnold Rosé, suitor to Mahler’s sister, Justine. He was a handsome, solidly built man and with his neatly trimmed Vandyke beard looked more like a doctor than a musician.

Seated across from him were Regierungsrath Leitner, the conductor Hans Richter, his enormous beard the repository of
semmel
crumbs, and a fourth man, the famous tenor Baltazar Franacek. Coffee cups in the rustic Gmunden pattern littered the dining table.

This gathering pleased Werthen, for he thought it might provide him the possibility of interviewing Richter and Franacek, both of whose names had been mentioned in connection with disputes with Mahler. Leitner, though the only one of the men at the table to know Werthen, studiously avoided acknowledging him. There seemed no question of introductions, so Werthen was about to take up his post at the door with barely a nod at the quartet of men when Mahler himself appeared at the top of the stairs, his suit rumpled and hair looking as if it had not seen a brush in days.

“Oh, good, Werthen. You’ve arrived. You know these chaps, I assume.” He waved a bored right hand at the four men. In his fingers he held a half-consumed piece of Turkish delight.

“No, not actually,” Werthen replied, casting a sly smile at Leitner, who should now have to suffer for his bad manners.

Mahler had made the introductions himself, careful to refer to Werthen simply as his lawyer.

While Rosé was there to spend holiday time with the family Mahler, the other men, it turned out, had come on business.

As the day progressed, one after the other of these three men had private meetings with Mahler. The volubility of the exchanges grew in intensity from Richter, who had come to formally announce his departure from the Hofoper and whom Mahler vociferously accused of betrayal, to Leitner, who came to argue a matter of too much sick leave granted to one of the sopranos, and finally to Franacek, whose demands for an increase in salary turned into a shouting match, clearly heard throughout the house.

As each in turn made their departure, Werthen attempted a brief word. Richter turned out to be the biggest surprise, for when Werthen made a discreet query as to their argument, the burly conductor had broken into a wide smile.

“Well, there was no cause for harsh words on my part, I can assure you. Herr Mahler has done me the supreme favor of first of all becoming director of the Hofoper, a position they were hoping to saddle me with. I hasten to add, Advokat, that the political wrangling accompanying such a position is neither to my liking nor to my talent. Thus the good Herr Mahler saved me from a miserable fate. And now he has made my conducting position rather untenable as well, for he has assumed most of the Wagnerian material, my forte.”

Richter cast another broad grin at Werthen, and then tapped his nose conspiratorially. “But again, he has been at my service, for I have long desired to leave Vienna for the more welcoming climes of London, where I am in great demand. Mahler has thus given me the excuse I have needed to break my contract. There are those who might say I wish Herr Mahler ill, but why I ask, when he has been such a boon to me?”

And with that the portly gentleman left, laughter trailing behind him.

Leitner was hardly so cheerful, merely shooting Werthen a tight-lipped nod and saying a curt good day to him, and Franacek, too, displayed great displeasure at his meeting, being in such a hurry that Werthen had no time for a brief conference.

“The man is impossible,” the tenor said, as he swept his Panama hat from the elk horn hat rack and made his departure, almost knocking down Wilhelm Tor, who was at that very moment making his entrance to the villa.

Mahler had been a mess the rest of the day, for the village band had begun by the time his visitors had departed and any thought of composing was lost for the rest of the day. Tor made his departure quickly, presumably to take the same train the other three were going to catch at midday.

Werthen had spent a restless night Wednesday, but by the next morning he had finally made his decision: it was a return to Vienna for him. Especially so since the arrival of the telegram from Gross telling him of the meeting with Prince Montenuovo and the fact that the gendarmerie would be taking over the duties of protecting Mahler soon.

Of course such information did not settle well with Mahler, especially following so closely upon his other contentious interviews. He had taken Werthen’s news this morning as an act of treachery. Thus the punishment of this grueling bicycle ride.

It had begun to mist now. So engrossed had Werthen been in his own thoughts that he had not even noticed the change in the weather. Their sunny day had been quickly replaced by mountain fog followed by a mist so dense that it soaked through their clothing. Werthen increased his walking pace, but did not bother remounting the bicycle. He expected Mahler to be on the return run of his journey at any moment.

Instead he heard faint noises ahead of him. It sounded like a man’s voice, but he was not sure. There was, however, a distinct
sound of panic in it. He tried to move more quickly, but it was awkward walking with the bicycle, its pedals forever knocking against his shins. Then he heard the voice clearly.

“Help! Help!”

It was Mahler. He dropped the bicycle and began running up the track to the sound of the calls. His foot caught a large stone in the path and he fell to his hands and knees, scraping his palm on an exposed root. He got to his feet and once again began running toward the shouts.

Finally, coming round a western bend in the switchbacks, he caught sight of Mahler, or rather of the man’s bike. It was wrapped around a tree trunk at the very edge of the trail, dangling over a precipice. He charged on to the bicycle and there was Mahler, several meters below the bicycle, clinging to a cluster of branches of alpine blueberry, his oval glasses askew and a look of panic on his face.

“Thank God you finally got here, Werthen. I don’t know how much longer I can hang on.”

Werthen said nothing as he quickly surveyed the scene. The edge of the trail was scree and provided little good footing. Below Mahler was a drop of several hundred meters; the accident could not have happened at a worse section of the trail.

“Don’t just stand there, man. Help me.”

Werthen moved back up onto the track.

“Where are you going? Stop. Help me.”

He was concentrating too hard to bother responding to Mahler. Instead, he went back to the bicycle and wrapped it more tightly around the trunk of the white fir, then tested it. It held. He quickly unbuttoned his leather suspenders, tying the two straps together in a square knot, and then tying one end to the bicycle frame. He jerked on what was now a life rope several times to make sure it was steady, then made his way back down to where Mahler dangled.

Werthen wrapped the leather end of his braces around his left
hand several times, inching toward the blueberry bush that was providing Mahler with his support. Loose rock spilled downward beneath his feet, falling over Mahler, but now the composer saw what Werthen was attempting and remained quiet, clutching at the branches for all he was worth. Werthen could see that the low bush was beginning to come out by the roots.

Slowly he inched his way toward Mahler, not wanting to loosen more rock. Each step became an agony of caution. Suddenly he could go no farther, for the assembled line of suspenders had played out its length. Yet he was still just out of reach of Mahler.

He rapidly unwrapped one loop of the suspender from his left hand, gripping it now solely in his palm. He reached his right hand out for Mahler, touching the sharp angles of the blueberry brush and finally grasping a wrist.

“When I say go, you try to thrust upward. Understand?”

Mahler, his eyes wide, nodded.

Werthen made sure his left hand had a good grip on the suspender. He spread his legs wide to get as solid a base as he could, hoping only that his bad right leg would not give out on him. Then, tightening his grip on Mahler’s wrist, he shouted, “Go!”

He gave a mighty tug and at the same time felt Mahler attempting to shove upward, but not letting go of the bush.

“I’ve got you,” Werthen hissed. “Let go of the bush. Try to find a foothold.”

He tugged and struggled to pull Mahler up. For an instant, his right knee failed him, almost buckling. Then he shifted weight to his left, uphill leg, bracing himself.

The composer gave a mighty grunt as he began to claw his way up from the overhang. Finally he was able to swing a leg over the ledge and Werthen knew they had won. But Mahler did not rest until he had crawled his way up to the path again. Then he rolled over on his back and began to laugh hysterically.

Werthen was panting. He sat in the mist by the trunk of the tree and began inspecting Mahler’s bike.

“This was no accident,” he suddenly said.

Mahler ceased his laughter, rolled over onto his belly, righted his glasses, and looked up at Werthen.

“I was coming back down for you. Coming around that corner. I couldn’t brake.”

“No wonder,” Werthen said, holding up the severed end of one of the brake cables. “It’s been cut almost clean through. It would not withstand more than a few attempts at braking.”

“But who—?” Mahler began, then thought better of the question.

Who indeed? Werthen asked himself. They were not lacking for suspects now after the houseful of visitors.

Walking their bikes back down the mountainside, the mist ceased as quickly as it had begun and the sun once again came out. Toward the bottom of the switchbacks they passed another bicycling party, a gaggle of laughing young men and women.

Werthen was startled to see among them none other than Alma Schindler. She looked as surprised as Werthen, and when he was about to call out to her, she shook her head, then began laughing overloud at some comment one of her male companions made.

No, Werthen thought as they continued walking. They were most definitely not lacking in suspects.

A
ny one of them had the opportunity,” Werthen said. “The bicycles were lined up outside the villa.”

“But how to know which one to tamper with?” Gross said. “That was either devilishly clever or very lucky.”

“Mahler is not a tall man. Anyone with basic knowledge of bicycling could determine which bicycle was intended for him.”