Thomas Ochiltree

by Death Waltz in Vienna

  The colonel stared at him in silence. Was what the colonel had just said all that he had to say? Was his life to be dismissed with one sentence like that? Good God, surely he deserved more than that, whatever the colonel thought of him.

  “They said it was outrageous for an accused criminal to try to make a deal like the one you suggested.”

  Somehow, von Falkenburg knew that the colonel was going to say something more: the one sentence more which would tell him of his fate.

  “Believe me, I had to argue hard for you.”

  Von Falkenburg let out his breath – which he suddenly realized he had been holding – with an audible sound. That phrase “I had to argue” which the colonel had just spoken implied that the arguing had been necessary to achieve a concession that had finally been granted.

  “And in the end, I won them over.”

  So he had a week of life before him! A week with Helena, and perhaps – although it was the longest of shots – a chance to prove his innocence.

  “Thank you, Colonel, thank you,” von Falkenburg said, too overwhelmed in his relief for his gratitude to be diminished by the fact that the colonel had really been arguing with Military Intelligence on behalf of his own hopes of promotion rather than for von Falkenburg’s life as such.

  “Hmmmphhh,” the colonel said, shoving a piece of paper forward across the top of his desk.

  The sight of the paper brought von Falkenburg back to earth a good deal harder than he had hit it that time Resi’s saddle-girth had broken when he was out riding.

  The paper was, of course, the text of the confession that he had to sign. In his joy at hearing that he had been granted a week’s life, von Falkenburg had momentarily forgotten it. Just as he had forgotten that even a week, after all, finally comes to an end.

  “Did Major Becker draft this?” he asked as he read the statement.

  Von Falkenburg was not the least surprised to hear that the answer to that question was yes. The confession was written with a perverse, vindictive thoroughness that reminded him well of the major. Every incriminating document that von Falkenburg had seen was mentioned, and others as well.

  To see the monstrous lie set out in such exact and convincing detail made von Falkenburg’s skin crawl. It was utterly incredible that he, who had always served Emperor and army loyally, was going to have to put his name to such a document.

  Grimmest of all was the last sentence: “I further acknowledge that in seeking to conceal the above, I perjured my word of honor as a gentleman, having given it solemnly to my colonel.”

  It was absurd, he knew, that that clause stuck in his throat more than did the confession of having spied for Austria-Hungary’s mortal enemy, but it did, nevertheless.

  “So I must sign this?”

  “Major Becker said you were to copy the whole thing out by hand.”

  “Major Becker is very thorough. Doubtless he will one day be a field marshal. Sorry I won’t live to see it,” von Falkenburg said. The colonel’s expression did not change.

  Von Falkenburg sat down at a table and began to copy the document. When he came to the statement of having broken his word of honor he had a hard time forcing the pen forward.

  He looked over the paper. Not very tidy handwriting, but at least it did begin four finger widths from the top, three from the left edge. Proper Austro-Hungarian margins for his own death warrant.

  Then he took the pen up again and wrote across the bottom, “Captain Ernst von Falkenburg.”

  So, it was done. Incredibly, as he looked down at the document he had the impression that the presence of his signature at the bottom made its contents at least half true. He handed it back to the colonel, along with the copy he had taken the text from, which the colonel put in the fire. The look on the colonel’s face was not the look of triumph Major Becker’s would have worn if he had been present, however. It was rather a look of embarrassment.

  Von Falkenburg realized that this whole business with the confession – which was, of course, postdated by one week – made the colonel very uneasy. Presumably, in fact almost certainly, he believed its essence to be true, but the circumstances of its signing were hardly above board. For the colonel too, then, honor was not just a set of mechanical rules of behavior, for all his lack of imagination.

  “Captain,” the colonel said slowly, “Military Intelligence wants this back at once. What you say now can do nothing to help you, because there is nothing I can do in that regard.” For the first time, there was almost a trace of sympathy in the colonel’s voice.

  “Yes, Colonel, I understand.” Von Falkenburg sensed that the colonel was struggling with an unfamiliar situation.

  “You confess in this document to having perjured your word of honor. But although, God knows, the proofs regarding the espionage seem clear enough, I know that you have not perjured your word of honor to me, because so far I have not asked for it.”

  There was a pause, then the colonel went on, “I would like to ask you for myself, for my own peace of mind…do you give me your word of honor that you are innocent?”

  “Yes, Colonel. I give you my solemn word of honor as the son of my father, and as the descendant of all the von Falkenburgs who went before. My word of honor as a gentleman, and as an officer in the Imperial and Royal Army.”

  After the deceit of that hideous false confession, it was glorious to be able to speak the truth for its own sake.

  It was obvious that his tone of voice – at once solemn and joyous – made an impression on the Colonel.

  “If you are telling the truth, von Falkenburg…good luck.”

  “Thank you, Colonel.”

  “But if you fail to clear yourself – and for the life of me I don’t see how you can – will you, even if you are innocent, take the gentleman’s way out?”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “Word of honor?” the colonel asked, and added, “you have your week even if you refuse to give me your word of honor that you will shoot yourself, for a word of honor given under constraint is meaningless.”

  “My word of honor, Colonel,” von Falkenburg said softly. That truly burned the last bridge behind him. He had known he would kill himself rather than face trial, had even attempted to do so. But now, now that he had freely given his word, a change of mind would mean betraying something which to his own surprise he found to be more precious than his life. The fearful threat to his outward honor presented by the false confession – the threat which he could only counter with success in his quest or with his own blood – just made him all the more aware of what his real honor was.

  “You may go, von Falkenburg,” the colonel said, with a different tone in his voice than he had used the day before when he had said the same words.

  Von Falkenburg had a hard time restraining himself from running back to his room. Not a second was to be lost. When he got there he took out a piece of notepaper and scribbled on it, “Dearest Helena, I adore you! Please let me make my apologies in person for taking my leave so brusquely this morning. Death has deferred collection for a week.” He thought of adding, “and may even cancel my debt completely,” but decided against it. There was no point in tempting fate.

  He sent Schmidt off with the note. Then he telephoned Lieutenant Field Marshal von Pritterberg. Getting through to him was difficult enough, but not impossible: the old man was due to retire in a few months, and despite his lofty rank did not have terribly much to do. He had been his father’s best friend ever since cadet school, and had always told von Falkenburg to come to him for help if he ever needed it. Not that he would have been able to suppress the charges against him, or would have wanted to, if he had known of them and seen the evidence. But there was one important service he could render.

  “Herr Feldmarschalleutnant,” von Falkenburg explained, “there is a man under arrest on serious charges….”

  “Not a friend of yours, I hope, young fellow.”

  “No, no, not at all.”

  “Glad to hear
it. You young officers sometimes get yourselves into some pretty scrapes. I remember when I was your age….”

  Von Falkenburg bit his thumb with impatience.

  “Anyway,” he finally got a chance to say, “it’s very important that I see this man. He’s at the military prison on charges of espionage.”

  “You interested in spies and jailbirds, young fellow?”

  “Not usually, Herr Felmarschalleutnant, but my honor is involved.”

  “Ah, honor,” the old man said. “An officer can’t be too careful of his honor, I always say. I hope you young fellows haven’t started overlooking that. Say, you haven’t done anything dishonorable, have you?”

  “No. I give you my solemn word as an officer.”

  The word of his late best friend’s son was sufficient for the old man, particularly since it could literally never occur to the old officer that the younger von Falkenburg – with whom he had played when the latter was a small child – could possibly do anything wrong.

  “Well, young fellow, your word of honor is good enough for me any time of the day,” Lieutenant Field Marshal von Pritterberg said. “I’ll do what I can to help.”

  * * *

  Honor. As von Falkenburg rode in a cab out to the military prison, he reflected how even though von Pritterberg had been his father’s best friend, the old man would have refused to lift a finger to help him if he had dishonored himself, just as he would not sit down at the same table with a dishonored man, or shake his hand. For a man of their social class, to be without honor was to be nothing. An untouchable – and rightly so.

  As it was, von Pritterberg had quickly obtained the authorization. He normally had nothing to do with military prisons and military justice, but his godlike rank carried the needed weight with a prison commandant caught by surprise.

  “You were wise to have the War Ministry phone to tell me you were coming, Captain,” the major commanding the prison said as he greeted von Falkenburg, “since my instructions were that Lieutenant Röderer was to have no visitors. Not that I think he would want to receive any.”

  The contempt with which the commandant pronounced Lieutenant Röderer’s name showed, by its contrast with the cordial tone he used for von Falkenburg, that so far he did not have any inkling of the charges against the latter. So far, von Falkenburg realized, he was ahead of the pack.

  Lieutenant Röderer. The man who for some unaccountable reason was willing to give perjured testimony to destroy the life of someone he had never met. It was fortunate, von Falkenburg realized, that there was only one person being held in the prison on espionage charges, as von Pritterberg had learned on calling. Fortunate, but not surprising, for espionage was hardly an everyday occurrence in the Austro-Hungarian army.

  The soldier who had led von Falkenburg down a long, dreary corridor flanked by stout doors stopped in front of one and opened it with a large key.

  “Thank you,” von Falkenburg said. “Now please leave me alone with the prisoner.”

  Röderer looked the part. The traitor. The ruined officer. The congenital no-good who was finding his own level again.

  He was both handsome and intelligent-looking in a way. But even the matte, listless manner in which his hair fell across his forehead suggested weakness. As did his overly-delicate hands. And the way he sat on his bunk. Von Falkenburg looked him in the eyes, expecting the characteristic to be most evident there, but strangely enough, it was not. Instead, the eyes had a curious, wild intensity, a look of agitation and excitement, and a peculiar glitter.

  “The captain will excuse my appearance,” Röderer said sarcastically, rising from his bunk and making a vague gesture with his right hand.

  Röderer’s tunic was unbuttoned, showing a non-too-clean shirt underneath. Von Falkenburg knew that officers under charges were expected to maintain normal standards of appearance. But perhaps the prison commandant thought Röderer was beneath worrying about.

  “It’s hard to be a fescher Leutnant when you’re in the clink,” Röderer said. And certainly, a less “stylish lieutenant” could hardly be imagined.

  “Of course, you dashing regimental officers don’t think we Staff officers can ever be fesch. That’s why you call us the bottle-greenies.”

  Röderer’s tunic was indeed the bottle-green of the Staff Corps, rather than dark blue, like von Falkenburg’s.

  “On the other hand,” Röderer went on, “the bottle-greenies think that they are far superior to the regimental officers. Indeed, some of them even thought that being on the Staff was so marvelous that I didn’t belong there.”

  Röderer laughed – a short, unpleasant laugh that revealed his teeth – and made a sweeping gesture to indicate the walls of his cell. It was as if the fact that he was in jail disproved the contention of those who thought that he did not belong on the Staff.

  Von Falkenburg noticed as he listened to Röderer that the man had a very broad Viennese working-class accent.

  “What did you want Röderer? Money?” von Falkenburg asked.

  “Ah, money. Money’s always nice,” Röderer said with a grin every bit as disquieting as his laugh had been, “but it wasn’t really, really the money. Do you want to know what it really, really was?”

  Röderer paused for effect, like an actor, and then shouted, “I wanted to screw your whole Austro-Hungarian army!”

  Röderer’s strange, ingratiating self-depreciation was suddenly transformed into hysterical rage, which was immediately followed by a fit of sobbing.

  Von Falkenburg shifted uncomfortably on his feet. He had imagined the interview differently.

  As it was, he could guess at least part of the truth, although it would do him no good. Röderer, as his accent clearly indicated, came from the working class. Somehow he had gotten into the cadet school. Perhaps he had had an ambitious mother – there were “officer mothers” just as there were “stage mothers.” At any rate, once commissioned, he had slaved and slaved, always trying to prove that he was brighter and harder working than his peers. And as a result, he was wound up on the Staff. Von Falkenburg could imagine the ecstasy Röderer must have felt when he was selected for the War College, the fantasies he had doubtless had of one day becoming a field marshal. It was true that regimental officers made fun of the Staff, but that was mostly out of envy.

  Then Röderer had found that he could not put his social background behind him, brains or no brains, hard work or no hard work. The Emperor loved to say that all officers were equal, and that their position in society was equivalent to that of a nobleman. But in the real world, things did not work like that. Röderer, with his working class mannerisms and bad accent had not fit in, and had fretted himself to pieces.

  Yet, von Falkenburg realized, there had to be more to it than that. There had to be something else that Röderer blamed the Army for, and that had turned him into a traitor.

  Von Falkenburg noticed that Röderer’s eyes now seemed to be almost glowing. Was that excitement, or…what? There was sweat on Röderer’s forehead, and a febrile agitation to his movements. The memory of things a medical friend of his named Rubinstein had once told him began to return to von Falkenburg.

  “Did you…did you bring it?” Röderer asked anxiously, the ingratiating note back in his voice.

  “No,” von Falkenburg said, beginning to guess what Röderer was referring to, but puzzled by the request.

  There was a look of panic on Röderer’s face.

  “Who’s going to bring it? It is going to be brought, isn’t it?” he asked desperately.

  “I have no idea, Röderer.”

  The man looked at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, then screamed “you’re lying! I know it! You just want to torture me!”

  He clutched von Falkenburg’s tunic with a frenzy that made it hard for von Falkenburg to push him away. Then all of Röderer’s wild energy seemed to evaporate at once, and he fell back on his bunk, burying his face in his hands and sobbing, “I don’t understand! I don’t understand!” />
  So, von Falkenburg realized, that was it. Morphine, or something similar. The miraculous powder which took away the pain of existence. Röderer – who had doubtless turned to it to ease his professional and social anxieties and had come to blame the army for his addiction – was finished on this earth.

  Then von Falkenburg remembered that he too was finished if he did not get some information out of the man. Röderer’s outburst suggested he had indeed engaged in criminal activity of some kind. But he was obviously incapable of having forged the evidence against von Falkenburg. There had to be others behind Röderer who had used him, and those others were the persons whom von Falkenburg had to discover.

  “I’m von Falkenburg. The man you have falsely accused of being your accomplice.”

  A broad smile spread over Röderer’s sweat-covered, haggard face.

  “So, the elegant captain will soon be joining me here,” he said with evident satisfaction. Von Falkenburg. Very feudal. Mama was doubtless a fine lady, not a laundress.”

  For a brief moment the satisfaction appeared to override the terrible physical hunger which was consuming Röderer, even though his hands still shook. But soon the hunger worked its way to the surface again, like a stain on a wall working its way through a coat of fresh paint. A grimace covered the man’s face, and it was only the tone of his voice that allowed von Falkenburg to realize that the grimace was supposed to be an ingratiating smile.

  “Perhaps if you could get me some….”

  “No.”

  “Then get out, you bastard,” Röderer screamed, “Get out! Out! Out!”

  Von Falkenburg realized that at present there was nothing to gained from Röderer. He might as well go.

  The ride back to the Rossauer Barracks was a depressing one. The interview with his accuser had been useless. It was clear that Röderer – who had not even known who he was until he identified himself – had simply been told by others to accuse him. But who were they, and why had they singled him out as their victim? Now that he had failed to obtain any useful information from Röderer, he did not have a single idea how to pursue his investigation.