Vienna at Nightfall

by Richard Wake

  The foreign correspondents got a summary of that briefing: it was a long-planned meeting at Hitler's invitation, and Italy and Hungary were aware of it, and it was meant as a way of strengthening the existing ties between the two countries, and the ultimate communique that was issued would emphasize the need for continued Austrian independence.

  The news that Old McGee brought in his winded sprint from the telegraph office was the official government communique:

  "The Austrian Chancellor, accompanied by Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Schmidt, today visited Herr Hitler at Obersalzberg on his invitation. Herr von Ribbentrop and Herr von Papen were present. This unofficial interview resulted from a mutual desire to discuss all questions concerning Austro-German relations."

  To which, the Times of London replied, "McGee, you didn't need to run for that."

  But what did it all mean? I know what I thought -- that Schuschnigg was bending over for the corporal -- and most of the correspondents seemed to be thinking the same thing. The problem was that nobody knew anything, so it was hard to know how to shade the story. Because of the time difference, the Americans had more time to wait for developments -- or at least for the early editions of the morning papers for any hints. Some of the correspondents thought Hitler was in a weak position after he shook up the army and fired Blomberg and Fritsch, and so wasn't in a position to bully Schuschnigg about anything, but that was precisely backward to me. Cornered assholes just became bigger assholes in my experience. Hitler had no reason to make nice.

  So this was all being debated when Leon walked in. He had a copy of the Telegraf, not his newspaper, in his hand. He was the only Vienna reporter in the cafe, the rest working their own sources.

  He handed the paper to The New York Times. "It's been confiscated by the government, but I got one."

  A torrent of "holy shits" rained down as they all crowded around. Government censorship was a way of life in Vienna -- Schuschnigg was a dictator, too, but without the little mustache and with a tiny bit of sympathy for the Jews -- but this was big.

  "Why confiscate it? What do they have?"

  Leon flattened the paper on a table and then pointed to about the eighth paragraph of the story, in which the reporter quotes Adam as saying the reason for the meeting was a fear that Italy and England were about to start getting cozy with each other.

  The Times of London said, "Well, did he say it? Were you at the briefing."

  Leon said, "Yeah, I was there. And, yeah, he said it. But it was off the record -- and nobody here quotes me or my paper on that, got it?."

  They all nodded. Leon made eye contact with all of them individually before continuing.

  "Adam said other stuff off the record, too. It's in the jump," he said, turning the page and pointing to the spot where the story continued. "He said Schuschnigg wanted to tell Hitler that he was being as lenient as he could with the Nazis here, but the bombings and the wrecking of Jewish businesses were becoming too big a problem to ignore."

  The Baltimore Sun jumped in. "So what do your guys think? What do you think."

  Leon stopped for a second, gathering himself. "I'm not sure. But if I had to guess, Schuschnigg left with his pants around his ankles. When I hear 'Hitler's invitation,' that means 'Hitler's summons' to me. I don't know what that might mean, but can you honestly see him standing up to Hitler about anything?"

  Around and around it went. Several of the correspondents left to attend the annual Press Ball, where the heurige was free, and there perhaps would be some new details to emerge. Kids the correspondents used as runners from the telegraph office brought bits of news, and copies of the first editions of the morning papers. They talked, and read, and sifted through the facts that they had and the suspicions beneath the facts, and then left in ones and twos to go across the street to type up their stories in the little cubicles set up for them in the press room. There, they would wait for any news from the ball attendees, and then send what they had by telegraph. I sat and drank with Leon, talking about this and that, watching as the correspondents acknowledged him with a pat on the shoulder or a nod of thanks as they left to write. He was basking. He was so in his element.

  32

  Heading home, I decided to stop for one more at Max's, the definition of a dive, maybe 20 feet wide and 50 feet deep, most of the space taken up by the bar and 10 stools, with a little bit of room to walk behind the stools and a hole-in-the-floor toilet in the back. The only customer snored quietly at the last stool. Heinz, the bartender, was washing glasses and genuinely seemed happy to see a live body.

  "Herr Doctor Alex," he said, mocking me with the honorific. Doctor of what? Pimpography?

  Heinz got me a drink and then pointed to the newspaper on the bar and the headline about the meeting with Hitler. "Schuschnigg -- what do you think?"

  "Other than that he's a lying sack of shit?" I really did enjoy that phrase.

  Heinz laughed but then got serious. "You travel. You talk to people. What do you think is going to happen?"

  I was about four drinks deep, and this conversation was suddenly approaching a tricky area. If you knew you were talking to a closet Nazi, you tried to be as non-committal as your conscience would allow. Same with staunch supporters of the government. With monarchists, you mostly told the truth but always found a way to mention the good old days. And if you knew you were talking to a closet Socialist or a Jew, you motherfucked Hitler with alacrity, albeit in sotto voce. The whole thing was complicated, and getting more tangled all the time, but getting through a conversation without somebody standing up and storming out had become a practiced skill and a sign of good breeding, kind of like knowing which fork to use for the salad.

  I didn't think Heinz was Jewish, but I took a shot. What the hell -- if he ended up hating me, there was another dive bar on the next block.

  "We're screwed. You know it. I know it. Schuschnigg knows it. Hitler knows it. The only question is the timing."

  Heinz' face fell. "You really think so?"

  "I really do. The Germans are coming -- if for no other reason than they need our money to pay for all of the fucking tanks they're building. Maybe Schuschnigg can make a deal where he hands over the gold in exchange for the Wehrmacht staying on the other side of the border -- but really, how could that even work?"

  "It would be like cutting off our balls at the whorehouse door. At that point, I mean, what's the point?"

  I let that one kind of hang in the air, as vivid as it was nonsensical. Heinz went back to his sink at the other end of the bar. There wasn't a lot more to say. I always enjoyed my conversations with Heinz because they were always about sports or women, and I was always already kind of drunk and having one more before heading home, and I barely even remembered them the next day. This one, I would remember. That was true even after a familiar face came through the door and sat down beside me.

  "Ah, fuck," I said.

  "And good evening to you, too," he said, slightly slurring. He was as drunk as I was.

  "Were you following me?"

  "Nah. I just figured I'd take a shot. You're a pretty predictable character, you know? So give me the microfilm, and I'll leave you alone."

  "You think I have it on me?"

  "Well, do you?"

  I looked down at my feet. Same shoes. "Well, now that you mention it."

  Tradecraft and secrecy take a back seat to expedience when there is alcohol involved, so I just took off the shoe and peeled up the leather strip. I looked over at Heinz, and he was washing glasses with his back to us. The light snorer at the end was still snoring.

  I handed over the small envelope, which disappeared into my contact's pocket. He got up to leave, but I stopped him. "Sit. Have a drink. I have something to ask you. Like, I don't even know your name. What should I fucking call you?"

  "How about 'Sir'?"

  "How about fuck you."

  He laughed, whatever his name was. "I just saw a movie, 'A Day at the Races.' Very funny. Call me Groucho Ma
rx."

  "So, Groucho ..." With that, I began to lay out the story of Uncle Otto. I tried not to leave anything out, from the first phone call from the Cologne police to the chance meeting with Detective Muller in Herschel's. I tried to be as analytical as I could, given my biases and my emotional involvement. When I finished, we were quiet for a minute or two while Groucho processed everything I had said.

  Finally, he spoke. "So you're thinking Gestapo, right?"

  "The suicide just doesn't make enough sense. I mean, it makes a little bit of sense, but not enough. Muller obviously thinks it's the Gestapo or he wouldn't have brought it up and whispered the whole thing as if one false word could get him strung up. That's how you read it, right?"

  "Yeah. I wasn't there, but the way you tell it, it makes sense. Except for one thing -- why Uncle Otto? Why would the Gestapo want to kill a semi-retired guy who sells...what's that shit called that you sell?"

  "Magnesite."

  "Right, magnesite. Hell, you guys are pretty much members of the Nazi's team --"

  "Wait a minute --"

  "No, you fucking wait a minute. You sell them the shit that keeps the blast furnaces humming in their steel mills. They need you. I'm surprised they don't stop the train every time at Passau and board a hooker for your exclusive use on the rest of your journey. I mean, why do you think we picked you? You have as much cover and as much protection as just about any businessman who travels to Germany these days."

  I knew this, of course. It was bad enough when I allowed my mind to wander in that direction, but I couldn't stand hearing it out loud. I wonder if everyone thought that, deep down -- Leon, Henry, Johanna? The truth is, I didn't want to know. The courier work was, in a way, my silent atonement. And I was just drunk enough that I felt like shoving it back in Groucho's face. But I didn't. The whole thing had become such a chore. Just living had become exhausting.

  I said, "Look, if that's all true, then Otto had the same protections that I have -- even more, because he was older and more respected by the clients, and he still had a couple of the biggest clients. It just doesn't make sense."

  "Unless it was a jealous husband. I mean..."

  "Look, let me tell you about Otto. He might have been a little reckless when it came to women, but I've really thought hard about this, and there's just no way he would have gotten himself killed over a piece of ass."

  "So, what then?"

  I asked what I had been wanting to ask all along. "So was he working for you guys? Or the Austrians? And could the Gestapo have found out?"

  Groucho stopped, slugged down his drink, shrugged on his coat.

  "There's no way -- and I would know. I know who our guys are, and I know who Austria's guys are, and he wasn't one of them."

  "What, do you all have a little spy club where you compare notes, all with the same outfits and a secret handshake -- Groucho, Chico, Harpo? Fuck you."

  "I'm telling you, he wasn't working for us. I never even heard of him until we started looking at you as a possibility and checked your background. That's the truth."

  With that, he turned and walked out of the bar. Maybe it was the paranoia of drink, but I didn't feel as if he was telling me the whole story somehow. Then again, it wasn't the first time I had felt that way.

  33

  The train ride out to the western edge of the city, to the Pfarrwiese, took about a half-hour, give or take. With each stop, the cars became more crowded, the singing louder, the clapping more insistent. SK Rapid was the working class team from Vienna, and the Pfarrweise was their home ground. Seeing as how the serious drinking had not yet commenced, things were relatively orderly on the train. Given that Rapid was running away with the league that year, it was all good.

  The Pfarrwiese was in Hutteldorf, the section of the city where Henry grew up and where his father established himself in the mobster trade. I was meeting Henry at the stadium, where his family held season tickets. It was February in Vienna, gray and miserable, the sky spitting just a bit of icy rain, not enough to keep you inside but an amount that would assure an afternoon's misery. Thank God Henry's seats were on the side with the small roof overhead.

  Hutteldorf was what you might imagine a working-class neighborhood to look like, crowded and clean and proud, where the kids played football in the street in front of mothers sweeping the sidewalks in front of six-story apartment houses, one after another after another. Late in the afternoon, they were joined by the men, many returning from the big oil and gas works. But there were a dozen major factories in the area, even after the Hutteldorfer brewery closed. It put a pinch on the local economy -- and made the availability of spectators' post-game refreshments a little more complicated, seeing as how its beer garden abutted the stadium grounds -- but as Henry said, "Hutteldorf takes care of Huttledorf," and there were fewer of the obviously unemployed out there than you saw closer to the center of the city.

  I met Henry at the ticket booth and headed for the covered stand. He stopped me. "First half with the people," he said, pointing toward the open side, the side with no seats and no roof.

  "Really?" I said, holding out my hand to catch the falling ice.

  "First half. Then you can rest your pampered ass."

  The standing area at Pfarrweise was notorious throughout Austrian football and had been for my whole time in Vienna. People were packed into the sloping terraces beyond all reason -- singing, chanting, cursing, drinking to fabulous excess, and relieving themselves in place when necessary. But they weren't savages. As the guy in front of us demonstrated about two minutes after the opening whistle, a person could roll up a newspaper and piss into the funnel that they had created, sparing his neighbors of any splashing before daintily dropping the sodden mess at his feet.

  Henry watched and laughed. "You know, I was confirmed when I was 12, and my father taught me how to shoot a revolver when I was 14, but I didn't really feel like a man until I was 16 and he let me stand on this side of the ground. Right about here."

  In about the 20th minute, this big, lumbering forward began to lumber forward for Rapid. At 6-foot-2, he was half a head taller than his next tallest teammate, easy to follow as he made his way from the center line, weathering one tackle and niftily shifting and avoiding another -- niftily for his size, anyway -- and launching a right-footed blast from the edge of the box and into the top left corner. It was Franz Binder, the leading scorer in the league, and it was 1-0, Rapid.

  As they chanted his nickname -- "Bim-bo, Bim-bo..." -- Henry leaned in and said, "I think he has 11 goals in nine games. You'd need a pole-ax to stop him."

  We grabbed a beer and switched sides at halftime, sitting under cover in Henry's prime seats. He seemed nostalgic the whole day, and then he told me why: he had just sold the bar.

  He saw the shock on my face and held up a hand. "It's done. I got the money on Friday. I agreed to keep running things for a while, but it's over. The last of the Fessler empire is gone."

  He stopped, laughed at himself. "Empire. I mean, that's the way we always thought of it -- the old man, all of us. He had the numbers business here, and a little protection, and the little dive bar, and things were fine. But when he decided to take the business inside the Ringstrasse, it was a huge decision. I was only 3 or 4 when they did it, but my mom used to talk about the stress of it all. Some people in Hutteldorf thought he was putting on airs, 'too good for us now.' But my dad saw it as a business opportunity after this whole family that had a piece of everything inside the Ring died in a big fire in '03. He also saw it as the natural progression for his ambitions and his family. But he never forgot this place. He always hired from the neighborhood."

  My turn to laugh. "Except the girls."

  It was a more significant operation inside the Ring -- the bar with the back rooms, the gambling well beyond a simple numbers game, the protection more widespread, extending up Mariahilfstrasse, a couple of miles past my house.

  "So it's all gone?"

  Henry nodded. "You know we sold
off everything except Fessler's, and my dad took that money with him to Zurich, besides what he already squirreled away over the years -- and it was a big fucking squirrel. He's fine. He couldn't spend it all if he wanted to. And he gave me Fessler's, to do with what I wanted. Well, I have."

  I was still surprised. Henry was good at the bar business, and I thought he liked it. I knew he didn't want the rest of what his father did or the reputation it left him with, and his father knew that, too. Henry thought the gambling hurt weak people -- it always bothered him, especially when he had to help with collections. He once told me he never beat anybody unconscious and considered that to be some kind of moral victory. But he hated it, and he hated the protection worse. He never admitted it, but he was relieved when his father and his Nazi fears left town in 1936.

  But why sell the bar? And why now? Some of this had to be because of Liesl. We had all grown to like her a lot, partly because of who she was and what she believed -- she referred to Hitler as "Herr Book Burner" -- but mostly because of the bond she had built with Henry. They were so obviously in love that there was no chance Henry was packing up and leaving Austria if she wasn't going with him.

  Just as he was about to answer, the clapping began. For the last 15 minutes of every game, Rapid fans joined in a rhythmic, almost hypnotic clapping ritual. It began years ago, in a game where the team came from behind after the clapping started, and it became a tradition -- and people looked at you suspiciously if you didn't at least half-heartedly participate.

  So we clapped, and Henry talked. "Look, the old man was right -- Hitler's coming. That shit in the paper today, I don't care what Schuschnigg says -- Hitler's coming. I sold for a decent price -- my father would say it was a shitty price, but it was OK, more than OK, and it was in cash, and the cash is already in a bank in Bratislava. My whole account here, I emptied almost all of that, too. I'm set up for my next move. I wouldn't mind if it were here, but I'm just not sure it can be in Vienna anymore."