Novak came to find me, and we went to meet the others at the designated place. In front of the cistern. Already waiting there were Princess Maria Augusta of Thurn and Taxis, Count Schmettau, Baron Schmeddle some, and the three members of the vampire commission. Counting myself and Novak, there were eight of us.
Schmidlin called out to the guards, and the great doors of the King’s Gate swung wide open.
3
No, I didn’t know General Marulli then, nor did I ever meet him. Do you think we should have met?
That’s not what I think. I think it was for the best, the way things actually were. Even in the idle hours when my mind wanders through the past and all that happened, among the friends and faces I knew long ago, I realize I made no mistake, considering what I knew at the time. By the time I found out, it was already too late. That’s the nature of knowledge – it always comes too late. If we knew beforehand it would have to come from another mind, either God’s or the Devil’s, it doesn’t matter which.
Why do I say in the idle hours, you ask?
Because all the thinking and all the knowledge in this world comes from having too much time and being bored. That’s why the poor are simple fools and the nobility are high-minded and progressive.
What happened next?
It’s not far from the fortress to Dedinaberg. I exchanged a few words with everyone in turn, but mostly with von Hausburg. My conversation with Count Schmettau ended the moment we left Unter Ratzenstadt.
I no longer remember how the talk turned to the deadly sins, although it struck me at the time that they were one of von Hausburg’s favourite topics.
4
Von Hausburg on the Sin of Pride
‘In my dealings with people I encourage and support egotism and vanity. And pride – whether overweening or under. I fill their sails. They take to it quickly, like mariners with a fresh wind at their backs. Full sail ahead they make their self-satisfied way over the open seas, knot by knot. What a delight! Months away from any safe harbour, the stars changing places overhead and the great waves cavorting and gambolling like a court jester before a king. The straining white canvas carries them ever closer to the line where the waters meet the heavens. Have you ever been out on the water in a little boat?
‘And then, when their souls are swirling like the whirlpool, when the anchor has not tasted brine for many a day, when dry land has been lost to sight and they begin to fancy themselves their own captains and masters, no longer creatures who walk the ground but beings that float, that fly along under the heavy sails, that’s when I tell them. It was I who set you here. It was I who poured out the great oceans beneath you, and filled the sails, and cast you off.’
‘But when they run into a storm, don’t the same full sails that were carrying them along now drag them down, straight to the bottom of the wide open sea?’ I asked him.
‘He wouldn’t have it any other way. He won’t let them drop their sails. He won’t. It’s not me. I’m not the one who speeds them on their way and calls up the winds. For at his word the winds leap up and grow strong. He abhors the sails, straining at their crosspieces. No one drops sails in time. He won’t allow it. He delights to see ship and sailor sink beneath the waves.’
5
At the time I did not understand that the ‘he’ von Hausburg spoke of was, in fact, the Devil.
No, I didn’t mean that von Hausburg was the Devil. I meant that the Devil is the one who won’t allow the sailors to drop sails when a storm comes along.
Why do I think that? Because only a devil will not forgive. If any of them was a devil, I’d say it was Count Schmettau.
6
We rode along for some time, and then we halted at the top of a hill. It all looked the same to me, fields and woods, with a stream here and there. It was a lovely day, surprisingly peaceful and clear after the storm of the night before. There was a slight new chill in the air.
We drew up, and Baron Schmidlin immediately came to help me down. I asked whether we were stopping to rest, adding that there was no need as far as I was concerned and that we could simply keep going. Schmidlin looked at me oddly and said that we had arrived.
‘Arrived where?’
‘In Dedinaberg.’
‘I don’t see any houses.’
‘Your Highness, there are no houses here in the way we understand the word. The Serbs make their homes in huts and pits. For Your Highness we have chosen the best … the best place to spend the night.’
I looked around and saw a wretched little hovel that I would have ridden right by without noticing, just like most of the things in life we fail to notice until someone points them out to us. And somehow it always turns out that they didn’t matter anyway. All by ourselves we notice what really matters to us.
A peasant appeared out of nowhere. He was very old and weathered, dirty and in tatters. He bowed low to the ground and began to speak to Baron Schmidlin. Or, rather, it seemed that Baron Schmidlin was asking questions, and the peasant was answering. The peasant kept his eyes on the ground and wrung his hands as he spoke in the way of all base and servile people. I was suddenly overcome with disgust as I watched them and wanted to take a walk among the trees. At least there was no dishonour in nature. I even thought it might be better to sleep under the trees than in such vile company, among those wicked peasants and devilish counts.
Why didn’t I?
Because it was too cold.
Dangerous?
At the time I saw no danger. By the time I realized, it was just as dangerous outside as within.
But Count Schmettau invited me to go inside, and as I didn’t want to behave like a spoiled and capricious princess, I stepped into the hut.
It was warm inside. There was a fire going. A dirty old woman was cooking something that gave off a bad smell. In the room were three other women, two men and three children. There was no furniture, except for a three-legged stool. Dirty rags were heaped in the corners, and the only weak illumination came from the cooking fire. There were no windows.
But the room was much bigger than I would have expected from the outside. I was still hoping that there was a better place for us to spend the night. I couldn’t believe that my husband would allow me to sleep in such a hovel.
Very soon, however, I understood that he wanted to show me … that he wanted to show me that my wishes came of sinful pride and vanity. I wanted to be loved and was dissatisfied with my lot, while these people, these peasants, had barely a place to live, let alone any hope of being loved.
Yes, it seems there is one lesson I have never learned, and that I shall never make a good Christian, for I still believe quite firmly that poverty cannot abide love. The only thing poverty can stand is more suffering.
‘Not to worry, it’s only for the night, and we shall take our meal in the open air. Everything is nearly ready,’ said Baron Schmidlin, and I ran outside in relief. Sure enough, in a little clearing some ten steps away, the servants were setting up the tables. On another occasion I might have been surprised at eating outside, especially at that time of year, but at the moment I was just grateful for the idea.
‘The meal is not quite ready. Might I suggest a short stroll?’ said the count whose name I’ve forgotten. It was one of the two men who had come with the doctor, Count Radetzky. The one with the red wig. I took his suggestion, as I had nothing else to do. He offered his arm. We went into the forest. He didn’t speak. I appreciated his silence. I assumed he was thinking about something, and I didn’t want to interrupt him. I had my own thoughts to occupy me. Thoughts about love. About how close I was to the ideal love, how I still believed in such a love, unlike most women of a certain age, and how I knew the man of my life, and how that man was actually mine, and how it was all still in vain. Better not to have known all this. Better to have been empty-headed and content to dine on rich foods, to wear the finest dresses and costly pearls. Better to have been satisfied with the occasional touching, sentimental novel like the ones deli
vered by the Thurn and Taxis couriers. Better to …
‘Did you know Count Wittgenau?’ the count asked me suddenly after we had gone quite some distance into the forest.
‘No. I saw him only a few times before his disappearance.’
‘And have you seen him since he appeared again?’
‘Appeared? Has Count Wittgenau really appeared since … since his death?’
‘Yes,’ he said coldly. ‘Count Wittgenau has appeared since his death.’
‘Where?’
‘Here.’
‘And where has he gone now?’
‘Nowhere. He was dead. You know nothing about it?’
‘No,’ I said.
He turned abruptly, and we headed back. I didn’t know what to ask him, and he said nothing else. And so without speaking we made our way back to that hovel.
The first thing I saw was von Hausburg. He was sitting on the ground with his servant standing over him. It seemed that von Hausburg had been taken quite poorly. He was holding his head in his hands. He might have been crying.
I passed by him, wanting to go all the way around the hut and have a look at the exterior. I walked along one side: mud and wattle, a wooden beam or two. And just as I was coming to the corner I heard Schmidlin’s voice. He was speaking Serbian with a man I didn’t know and kept repeating the one word I was able to understand.
The word was diskrecija, discretion.
In fact, both of them were saying the word over and over. They were raising their voices. The Serb had an odd way of pronouncing it, actually, more like diskrrecija.
As for Schmidlin’s being able to speak Serbian, that came as a surprise to me.
I wasn’t able to figure out what called for so much discretion. I really couldn’t speak Serbian at all. Perhaps our visit to the village. Perhaps the investigation at the mill. Perhaps the vampires. Or something, perhaps, that I knew nothing about. When that possibility occurred to me I began to worry. With all that had been happening, the only thing I could be sure of was the existence of another stream of events, flowing under our feet, one I could not follow because I had not known it was underneath us.
Yes, just what I said. Underneath us.
TWO
1
I had no appetite, I remember perfectly well. And Schmettau had brought along his Chinese cook again. A year earlier, when the Chinaman was preparing his first meal for the court, I had tried to persuade my husband to dine with the rest of us, even if it meant going a day without wild game. He’d made a cutting reply:
‘Like Chinese food, do you? Had it as a child in Regensburg, no doubt. Speciality of Bavarian cooks, was it?’
‘Would you have me spend my whole life eating only the same things I had as a child?’
‘Now do you see why I hate you? You’re a dangerous woman. Always changing.’
Sorry?
You didn’t know that my husband hated me? Well, really, it was common knowledge in Vienna. Yes, he hated me.
He hated me. He’d go for days without speaking to me. I was alone. Alone in rooms of Baroque looking-glasses and servants. I used to race furiously up and down the hallways in my younger days, but gradually in my solitude I grew slower and calmer. Months went by. I’d stop and look wherever it seemed reasonable. Afterwards I would sit on the garden swings. That’s when the first officer came to call. He was pleasant and spoke to me. I soon realized that he’d been sent to seduce me and become my lover. After his failure came others. Most of them Serbs, probably to add to my humiliation. Who?
Who indeed. Why should I have been any different from the other ladies at court? They were all deceiving their husbands. Have you any idea how dangerous it can be not to succumb to sin in a place where everyone else is quite given over to it? The scorn hung over me, even when everyone at court was fast asleep.
Those unfortunate women, the ones they used to pillory for having children out of wedlock – even they could not have felt more singled out than I. They at least knew the truth about the mob, that the hypocrites throwing stones and rotten fruit were just as sinful as themselves. And there’s nothing wrong in knowing that. I was not only held up to ridicule but I knew I was better than the rest of them, and this knowledge would lead me down to Hell much faster than their petty intrigues and adulteries ever would.
Is not pride the greatest of sins? People repent of gluttony and avarice, they repent of wrath and adultery and despair, but they rarely repent of their pride. And if they do repent of pride it’s not because of Our Lord’s commandments but because of whatever their pride happens to cost them.
Yes, officers were sent to call on me. And everyone knew, and everyone found it most amusing. They’d lay wagers on the Serb who would win me over. Many thalers were lost on Vuk Isakovič, who had boasted that I would be unable to resist him. He was also said to resemble my husband, for reasons I have never understood.
He was vile. Not so much because of his appearance, although he was dirty like all the Serbs, but because he would cringe like a slave before Alexander and his whims, even as he was lording it over his own people like the most terrible master, tormenting and plundering them.
In the eyes of the Serbs, who is to blame for all that happened? Isakovič and the other Oberkapitäne, not us. We came to them as enemies from the very beginning, not to free them from the Turks but to take Serbia from them.
But still, the Serbs were better off with us than with the Serbs themselves. Several months after the events I’ve been describing I asked Patriarch Vicente Jovanović to exercise the Church’s influence with Serbian women to put a stop to the practice of giving birth in the bushes, hidden away from prying eyes, as if childbearing were something shameful. Children were dying, and women were dying.
After I’d sent the letter and word got out the Oberkapitäne were angry, for why should some Austrian princess care how peasant women went about having their children? It was a Serbian custom, and there was no reason to change it. Once they started to give birth indoors it would be only a matter of time before they’d want to stop working while they were with child, or they’d be asking for pretty dresses or some such. Their lot was to suffer. As long as they were suffering they wouldn’t get it into their heads to ask for things. They’d do as they were told.
But where was I?
2
No sooner had the gates swung open than I wanted to turn back. Inside the fortress was my cosy room, the sheets still warm on the bed; peace and quiet. Later there would be goulash of venison, thick Hungarian wine and a barmaid. Everything simple, easy and lovely. Easy things are lovely.
And when the doors were opened and we were put out in the city everything seemed so harsh and difficult. Whenever I passed through that gate I never knew whether I was coming in or going out. Out, of course, from the fortress, but also in. Into the city, obviously, but where else? All the fun had suddenly drained out of everything, the made-up vampires, the mill, even the princess. But I couldn’t turn back; something was driving me onwards, some power that takes people by the hand and leads them to ruin. Other people think that power is me.
And as we left the fortress further and further behind the knot of anxiety grew ever tighter in my stomach. Even Novak kept turning in his saddle, as if making sure that no one was following us, or trying to remember every inch of Kalemegdan, the King’s Gate, the southeast bastion with its curtain wall and great ramparts.
We hadn’t ridden far when we began to climb along a steep cobbled way that was bristling with beggars, all of them afflicted in mind or body. It hardly seemed the place for begging. Who would stop to let them have a cent while struggling towards the top? Only later did I understand: what’s uphill for some is downhill for others, and the real business probably came from those who were making their quick and easy descent. From experience I know that no one shares like those who are on the way down. And not just their money but their feelings, too.
Why I noticed one beggar-girl out of the whole lot, I couldn’t sa
y. She was dirty and in rags, barefoot, a girl who would never grow up no matter how long she lived. For good old Fishmouth takes away some people’s reason even before they learn to speak and to believe in him. She was standing there, her hands stretched out towards us. The dim-witted eyes were already regarding us with gratitude. Perhaps gratitude was the only thing that soul could express. As if being deprived of reason were not enough, the girl was also mute, as evidenced by the tossing of her head and the gaping O of her mouth.
‘Am I the one to blame for this?’ I asked Novak, who maintained a prudent silence.
And then the princess did something that made me very happy. She indulged the most un-Christian of her traits. She stopped her horse, got down clumsily, went to the girl and began to caress her and kiss her forehead. She pressed a few coins into her hand. I couldn’t see how much it was, although I wanted to. She embraced and kissed her again, although I didn’t see her wipe her mouth afterwards. Then she clumsily climbed back into the saddle and spurred her horse on.
What a wonderful feeling! I was delighted to share it with the princess. Such a lofty, mighty feeling! From her place on high she had looked upon the suffering of the body, the even greater torment of the spirit and got rid of some pocket change she wouldn’t need anyway. Now she felt so light, so noble, even a bit self-sacrificing – considering the bother she’d had dismounting and hoisting herself back into the saddle. Refreshed in spirit, she could ride right back into her high station among the blue-bloods where she belonged, something she’d never lost sight of even for a moment.
Fear and His Servant Page 10
