Nothing So Strange

by James Hilton

  He walked through the town and took the train to Lauterbrunnen. By evening he had reached the high ground. He was a good climber, though not quite an expert. After a night at the Roththal Hut he crossed the rock and ice aręte to the main peak of the Jungfrau, climbed it, and made a descent towards the Jungfraujoch. By that time he was at a point of uttermost physical exhaustion, and the last hours across the glacier were endured amidst a peculiar vacuum of sensation that left his mind swinging clear like a compass needle. It was then that he reached a decision.

  He took the cog railway down from the Joch through Scheidegg and Wengen; by midnight of that second day he was in his bedroom at the pension. There he slept off his tiredness, packed his bags, and told the proprietress that he had to leave for good. She was a friendly woman, who had grown to like him during his weeks with her; he had never talked much about himself, but perhaps she sensed there was something wrong and wondered if it were money trouble—so many people nowadays couldn’t get their funds out of other countries. If that were so with him, they could come to an arrangement; she told him this, but he said it wasn’t money, he had to leave for another reason.

  He then made the long roundabout train journey through Lucerne, Zurich, and Sargans, to the frontier at Buchs. He wondered if he would have trouble there, but his former Austrian visa was apparently still good, and at Feldkirch the uniformed official stamped it without comment.

  A day later he reached Vienna. He found a room at a cheap hotel, slept, and was up early.

  Bauer’s office was occupied by another firm; they very pointedly could not tell him where Bauer was. He then tried Bauer’s apartment, with the same result. But there had been a tired elderly secretary named Sylvie; he had once had to leave some of Bauer’s papers at her home, so he remembered where it was. He now went there again. She was very nervous on seeing him, admitting him reluctantly into the small shabby apartment. She said she didn’t know anything, couldn’t remember anything—all Bauer’s papers had been impounded; she herself was Aryan and had been promised a job in the Deutsche Bank—it must be understood that she retained absolutely no connection at all with her former employer’s business affairs.

  “I’m not asking you about them. I just thought you might be able to tell me where Bauer is.”

  He placed money on the table with a gesture he disliked all the more in such surroundings; at least, if one bribed, one ought to do so handsomely and without the indecent help of another’s obvious poverty. But the small sum was all he could afford. He said: “I’m not mixed up in politics—never have been. I just want a talk with him, that’s all.”

  “Unfortunately, sir….” She began to slide the money back across the table.

  “That’s too bad.”

  “I am very sorry, sir.”

  He got up briskly and left the money where it was. “All right. I don’t blame you…. I’m staying at the Kaiserling Hotel on the Laudongasse if you change your mind…. Good day.”

  * * * * *

  Next he went to the American Embassy. The young man who listened to him there was polite but not very helpful.

  “But Mr.—Dr. Bradley—what is it you expect us to do?”

  “I want to find out some details about my wife’s death.”

  “But on the evidence of this letter….”

  “I’m not satisfied with this letter.”

  “Have you made any personal inquiries of your own?”

  “That’s what I want to do. They didn’t send for me in time. Not even for the funeral. I thought you might be able to help me. I’m an American citizen.”

  “But your wife, I understand, was Austrian….”

  “Does that matter?”

  “Unfortunately, so far as we are concerned, it leaves us without much locus standi. And this private arrangement you claim to have had with the authorities could hardly be made a basis for any….”

  “Sure, I know all that. I don’t expect you to declare war or send a gunboat up the Danube.”

  He knew that from then on the young man’s only aim was to get rid of him.

  “Frankly, Dr. Bradley, I don’t know how we can help you. If you were contemplating a return to America, you might try to interest someone in Washington….”

  “Meaning that you’re not interested here?”

  “It isn’t that at all. But for certain things it is almost a disadvantage to be on the spot. Of course if your request were for something definite, practical….”

  “It is. An autopsy.”

  “Autopsy?”

  “That’s what you have when you want to find out how somebody died, isn’t it?” No point now in lengthening the argument.

  But the young man was still polite. “A formal request for additional information can be lodged with the authorities, but even then….”

  “They’ll take no notice of it—is that what you mean?”

  “I was about to say that without supporting evidence you could hardly expect….”

  He went away with growing awareness that he had been rather stupid and probably unfair.

  When he returned to his hotel he found a message that someone had telephoned in his absence but would call again later. The second call came during the afternoon; it was a woman’s voice that sounded as if it might be Sylvie’s with an attempt at disguise. The voice told him that if he still wished to meet the person he had asked for, he would find him at a certain street corner in the Leopoldstadt district at ten-thirty that night.

  He kept the appointment, and after a few minutes of waiting a man touched him whom he did not at first recognize. Then he saw that it was Bauer dressed in rough clothes with a beard grown stubbly; he would have passed for an out-of- work laborer. He took Brad along a side street and presently down some steps to a slum basement. Noisy voices could be heard from the next room. “Speak quietly in German,” Bauer said. “Would you like some beer?”

  “No, thanks. Why are you like this?”

  “I am on my way out of this country. The police are looking for me, but I hope to be in Bratislava within a few days. I have friends there. You must forgive me for making you wait at the corner. I had first to make sure that it was you.”

  “I understand.”

  “Now tell me why you are here again. It is an unfortunate country to return to.”

  “I want to find out about Pauli.”

  “I am sorry to say she is dead.”

  “I know that. I was waiting in Switzerland for her to join me—that was the arrangement. Then they sent me a letter. It said she died in a hospital at Wiener-Neustadt.”

  “Have you got the letter?”

  “Yes.” He passed it to Bauer, who read it and gave it back without immediate comment.

  “Well?” Brad said at length.

  “What is there to say, my friend?”

  “Ought I to believe it?”

  After another pause Bauer answered: “Perhaps yes—for your own peace of mind.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Bauer gave a shrug which Brad had already begun to adopt for his own use; it was a gesture of not knowing where to begin in the enumeration of losses, problems, tragedies, injustices; the Masonic sign between those who accept despair but refuse defeat. Ever since those moments on the glacier Brad’s mind had been building a framework within which he could come to similar terms with events; but this framework was so strange at first that nothing seemed strange inside it, neither Bauer with dirty nails and patched clothes, nor a basement cellar in which one lit a solitary candle on a table and saw the cockroaches scurrying into their holes.

  He repeated: “What do you mean?”

  Bauer replied in a whisper: “I know she did not die in Wiener-Neustadt. She died at Graz. She was sent there about a month ago.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “We have ways of finding out these things.”

  “What else have you found out?”

  Again the shrug.

  “Who is responsible?�
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  Bauer gave him a long look and answered: “Who do you think, my friend?”

  “Framm?”

  “He was in Berlin when she died.”

  “Does that answer the question?”

  Bauer said after another pause: “I wonder whether you are wise in asking it. The thing is done and cannot be undone. You are an American—you can go back to your own country where things like this do not happen. And if I were you—”

  Brad interrupted: “I must know. Framm had motives—she knew a great deal about him—against him—and if he could not silence her—”

  “Please do not speak so loudly. And I do not want you to stay long here…. Yes, he had motives…. And when you leave you had better go alone.”

  “One more question…. Was it pneumonia?”

  “It may have been. But that would not affect the issue.”

  “Because it was due to something else—something that led to—”

  “In one way or another it should not have happened, my friend. I would rather leave it at that … for your sake.”

  “Bauer, I want information, not sympathy. You have evidence against Framm?”

  “We have enough—of the kind of thing one gets. Much of it would be inadmissible in a court of law—if there were any left that deserve the name.”

  “Doesn’t interest me—I’ve had enough experience of courts. I want to know for my own … for reasons of my own. Was Framm responsible? Yes or no? Or can’t one get that sort of answer out of a lawyer?”

  Both men’s nerves were risingly on edge. Bauer stood up, leaned across the table, and seized Brad with both arms. “For God’s sake, man, talk softer!… What do you want from me? I have told you enough. Do you want me to say there is a hundred per cent proof when there is only … perhaps … ninety- five?”

  Brad subsided. “I am sorry. Thank you. I now understand.”

  “Then you had better go.”

  Brad proffered his hand, which Bauer took. “Again I am sorry. Your legal mind and my scientific mind do not condemn easily…. It is good of you to have arranged this meeting. I hope it has involved no risk to you.”

  “Perhaps not much, since there are many of our friends in Leopoldstadt. It is unfortunate, however, that the wrong impression was given at the trial…. Most of them would not trust you now.”

  “Perhaps the other side does, and that will not be so unfortunate.”

  “I see your point. But do not look for certainties—only probabilities.”

  “That’s beginning to be good advice even in mathematics.”

  Bauer smiled then, the first time, and Brad shook his hand again, wished him luck, and climbed to the street.

  * * * * *

  He spent several days after that in a solitude of thought. Aware that he would never tackle a scientific problem before minutely scrutinizing all the elements in it, he realized that his own problem required no less, perhaps more. It appalled him now to recollect his naďve approach to Sylvie and the man at the Embassy—truculent as well as naďve, which was a bad mixture. There must be no more such improvisations, he decided, but a clear blueprint in his mind for every possible behavior; he must be attitude-perfect, not merely word-perfect, when the moment came.

  He knew already that Framm was back at the laboratory, having made a remarkable recovery. There were frequent references to him in the newspapers— gossip that he might shortly organize an Austrian branch of the Reichsforschungsrat, a report from Berlin that he was in line for an appointment there. It was this latter, with its likelihood of an early departure from Vienna, that made Brad speed up his intention.

  He called at the laboratory one morning in August. It was like stepping back into his own past to climb the familiar steps to the portico, push open the swing doors, and walk the length of the corridor. But there was an iron gateway now to intercept a visitor to the main building, and a tough-looking trooper of the new regime eyed him up and down when he gave his name and said he wanted to see Dr. Framm. “You’ll have to wait,” the man muttered, and began some complicated telephoning. Presently he said: “Dr. Framm will see you in an hour’s time. Will you wait here or come back again?”

  “I’ll come back again,” Brad said.

  He walked about the hot streets, rehearsing any number of parts. When he returned to the gate the man was ready for him, unlocked it, and led the way to the room Brad knew so well. It was large, with an enormous littered desk, high bookshelves, various tables of instruments, and a few worn and nondescript chairs. Along one entire wall was a blackboard scribbled over with mathematical oddments: Framm liked to work out his thoughts in chalk rather than pencil; it made for easier erasure, and also saved his eyes from overstrain. Another wall contained a huge and evidently recent map of the combined Germany and Austria. Except for this, there was not much change in the appearance of things; but in any event the change in the professor himself would have demanded first attention.

  Reports of Framm’s recovery had led Brad to assume that he would look much the same. Actually, in some ways, he looked better now; he had lost surplus weight, and the slight physical excess of every feature-quality had been fined down to a spiritual extreme. The large strong nose seemed longer because it was thinner, the eyes were more sunken and gleamed brighter, so that their ranging glance had a mystical aspect superimposed on the merely magisterial. And all this because of a punctured lung, Brad reflected; it was almost as if the man’s personality had put suffering itself to work to make himself more remarkable.

  When he saw Brad he got out of his chair, and the whole effect was then concentrated; he looked fabulously aquiline as he held out a bony hand. But he had not changed in another way; charm came out of him as before, an instant distillation. “Well … well … Bradley! … How … how generous of you to come….”

  “I hope you’re better,” Brad said.

  “Yes, I’m pretty well. Not so fat, as you can see, but that’s all to the good…. Now tell me how you are.” Brad hesitated, a little dazed by the reception, not because he had expected anything different, but because (he now realized) he had been quite incapable of expecting anything at all; but he held to his resolve to talk little about himself and nothing at all if in doubt about his answers. Then Framm went on: “Come, come … there are things we have to say and it is well to get them over…. First, I was distressed indeed to hear of your wife’s death. There are words that would put that more fulsomely, but I know you would not care for them…. Second, your publicly expressed loyalty gave me the keenest gratification, and I only regret you had the ordeal of displaying it in such sordid and tragic circumstances…. And third … I was—and of course you must have realized it—deeply grateful for your help in those electromagnetic researches that have lately attracted some notice….”

  He reached to a shelf and took down a volume, opened it and found a page. “Here … you see?” Brad saw it was an official collection of the lectures delivered to a Berlin scientific society; one of them was Framm’s lecture, and at the conclusion of it there was a sentence expressing “sincere gratitude to my American assistant and co-worker, Dr. Mark Bradley, for his aid in the preparation and assembly of these results.” Brad remembered Bauer’s remark that if such an acknowledgment had been made there would have been no case at all, either legal or ethical, and that if Framm had been really smart he would therefore have made it. So now it appeared that Framm had made it, at any rate in time for the issue of an official text; probably he had done so deliberately when there seemed to be a chance of the matter being raised as part of Pauli’s defense.

  Brad smiled and handed back the volume. He wondered if if would be possible to find out definitely that the acknowledgment had not been made in the original spoken lecture. Not that he cared at all, except to the extent that it revealed Framm’s behavior.

  Framm went on: “I’m sorry you haven’t been with me lately—you’d have been interested in one little matter…. Perhaps you remember this equation….”
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br />   He swung round to the blackboard, grabbing a piece of chalk and a duster. The blackboard had hardly any room on it, and it had always been his habit to begin at the top, writing with one hand, while he rubbed away space with the other. From the back, with both arms thus outstretched, he looked like a scarecrow, and that would have been the time to kill him, except that as soon as this occurred to Brad, the hands stopped moving, and an image in his mind changed from a scarecrow to a crucifixion. Then came an equally odd idea—that it was taboo to kill a professor while he was writing on a blackboard; it would be like killing a priest while he was at his prayers.

  Framm swung round. “Now, Bradley, this is the point….”

  He swung back to the board and resumed rapid movement with both hands. When he next turned round there were lines of equations. “Look that over,” he said suddenly, throwing down the chalk and duster. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  He went out and Brad had a feeling that the absence was deliberately timed, though for what purpose he could not decide. He stared at the equations, unable to summon enough concentration to give them meaning; it was months since he had done anything more mathematical than check his change; his mind for this sort of thing was tired, clogged, out of gear. But all at once something turned over like a rusty key in a rusty lock; he reached for paper and pencil on the desk and began copying the top line. He could work only on paper himself.

  Presently Framm came back. “Well, how goes it?”

  Brad said: “Extraordinary—that’s the one thing that bothered me all the time—I wasn’t sure of it till I read your lecture. Then I knew I’d been right.”

  “But you hadn’t been. Neither had I. Because look….” And he went to the blackboard and wrote again for several minutes; then he explained and they argued for several more minutes. It had to do with contravariant tensor densities. Finally he said: “I shall issue the correction in time for any reprint. Will you set it out?”