I Confess

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  "Yes?" I said.

  She started and blushed crimson.

  "Oh, excuse me," she said, obviously embarrassed.

  I continued to smile. "Well, what is it?" I asked.

  "Nothing," she said hastily and turned her attention back to her typewriter. "Please excuse me." And she went on with her letter. Then a bell rang. She got up, opened a door, looked into the room, and I heard a man's voice. She turned to me, "Please Mr. Frank ... Mr. Lauterbach is ready jto see you." As I walked past her I tried to get another good look at her, but she moved her head sideways, quite ostentatiously. I could smell her. She smelled young and clean. She was still blushing, and I could hear her close the door quickly behind her.

  Jacob Lauterbach came toward me. His office was just as lavishly outfitted as his reception room, with the same patrician elegance. He was a heavy-set man with a walrus moustache and very large hands which were covered with brown liver spots. He walked stooped forward slightly, like a bear, and thick, wiry black hairs protruded from under his cuffs. "Please sit down, Mr. Frank," he said po-htely. "My friend Mordstein told me to expect you. Do you have the baggage ticket with you?"

  "Yes."

  "May I see it, please?"

  "Do you have the money?"

  "Of course. I'm going to give it to you in checks."

  "And the sum?"

  "To begin with—one hundred and twenty thousand schilUngs. That's correct, isn't it?"

  "Yes," I said. "That would be the first installment of twenty thousand marks."

  "Exactly." He pressed a button: The door opened and the blonde girl walked in. "The checks for Mr. Frank, please," said Lauterbach.

  She went out again.

  "I am giving you four checks," he said, "on four different banks."

  "But the banks are closed in the afternoon," I said.

  He smiled. "I know. So?"

  "Then perhaps we'd better postpone the transaction until tomorrow morning. Then you can come with me."

  "Why?"

  "So that when we have cashed the last check, I can give you the ticket."

  "You don't trust me, Mr. Frank?"

  "I don't know you," I replied. "Would you behave differently in my place?"

  "No," he said, "and that's why I have notified all four banks. The money is there and we can get it now in spite of the fact that it is afternoon. And I'll be glad to drive you in my car."

  "Fine," I said. "And no hard feehngs?"

  "Of course not."

  The blonde girl came in again. She walked up to Lauterbach without looking at me, in fact she again seemed to be anxiously avoiding my eyes. Just in front of me she tripped over a crease in the carpet and one of the checks she was holding fell to the ground in front of me. I leaned forward to pick it up.

  "Thank you," she said, as she took it from me but still with her face turned away. A strange girl, I thought. She gave Lauterbach the checks. "Anything else?" she asked.

  "No thank you."

  She went out again.

  "When can you let me have the second installment?" I asked.

  "In ten days."

  "Not earlier than that?"

  "I'm sorry—no."

  "That's a nuisance."

  "Do you need the money earlier?**

  "Yes."

  "I'm very sorry, Mr. Frank," he rose, "but it may be for the best. You should take things easy for a while. I think that might be advisable at this point."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Just what I said. Vienna is a beautiful city. There's a lot to see. Can we go now?"

  I nodded. He walked ahead of me through the oflBce where the young girl sat. "Good night, Miss Wilma," he said.

  "Good night Herr Ingenieur. You're not coming back?"

  "No."

  We had reached the door. "Good night," I said.

  There was no reply. I turned around. She was sitting in front of her typewriter, her huge grey eyes fixed on me. Her lips moved. I could see them form the, words 'good night', but no sound came. Then she looked down again and began to tjpe. I closed the door.

  T was given the money, no complications whatsoever, and I gave Lauterbach the ticket for one of the two packages in Munich. We agreed to meet again in his oflBlce in ten days. Then he drove me to my hotel.

  Yolanda was waiting for me. She had been lucky and had found an apartment in a small palais, in a district where diplomats resided. The house belonged to an old countess who was leaving Vienna to spend six months on one of the Upper Austria lakes. Yolanda had spoken to Tier. We could rnove in at once. The rent was high, but the apartment was beautiful and had every convenience. On Tuesday I drove there with Yolanda, to assure myself that the place was right for us, and on Wednesday we left the hotel and moved into 112 Reisnerstrasse.

  It was a three room apartment on the first floor. The

  countess accepted our payment of two months rent in advance, introduced us to the janitor, and departed around noon after leaving us the keys. Her train left at two p.m. We had evidently made an excellent impression on her.

  That afternoon I went into the city to see a tailor and order a few suits. All I had was what I was wearing and some underwear, I had left everything else behind m Griinwald. Yolanda had brought most of her things with her. I bought quite a lot of things and took a taxi with all my parcels. Before leaving the city, I bought an evening paper. On the second page I found it: "Incredible bank embezzlement, Frankfurt-Munich." So there it was.

  In the taxi I hastily read the account, then I had the man stop and bought the other evening papers. When I got home, Yolanda and I read them. They all said more or less the same thing: With an extraordinarily cunning ruse, a certain James Elroy Cliandler had managed to embezzle the sum of two hundred thousand marks from a Munich bank. Since the Saturday on which this had taken place. Chandler, an American citizen, had disappeared. It was suspected that he had fled the country with false papers. The embezzler's wife had been interviewed by the police and had been cleared of any suspicion or foreknowledge. The search for the fugitive was on, and there was every reason to believe that an arrest would be made in the near future. After that the account was pretty generalized and—for me—satisfactory. There was no mention of my illness nor of Yolanda's disappearance. It was the typical report that appears in every country in the world when the police have no clues and couldn't be further away from "an arrest in the near future."

  "But you can see," I said, "that we've got to be patient. I would also like to wait until my hair has grown in again and I don't have to wear a wig. Besides, Lauterbach won't have the second installment until ten days from now."

  She nodded. "I understand. And I do feel safer here than in the hotel. But please, Jimmy, please, please, don't let us stay here one day longer than is necessary."

  "Are you so afraid?"

  She nodded.

  "Of the police?"

  She shook her head.

  "Then of what?"

  She bit her lip and was silent.

  "TeU me."

  Again she shook her head. In the next moment the doorbell rang. We stared at each other.

  "Who could that be?"

  "I have no idea."

  I could see how her fingers were beginning to flutter again.

  "Do you want me to open?"

  "Wait," I walked over to the window and stood on one side of it and looked out into the street. Opposite the house one lonely street lantern was alight, and beside it, leaning against a garden wall, stood a young man, looking up at our window. He was smoking a cigarette and was wearing a light coat. "The poUce?" whispered Yolanda who had come to stand beside me.

  I shrugged. "Let me open the door," I said and walked toward it. Meanwhile the bell rang again, this time longer. I unlocked the door and opened it. The hall was empty.

  This was eerie. "Hello!" I called.

  No answer.

  "Hello? Is anybody there?"

  Then I saw her. She was standing flattened against the wall nex
t to the door, her face red with embarrassment and scarcely daring to look at me.

  "Yes . . . it's me," she stammered in a voice I could barely hear. "Please forgive the intrusion."

  "Well, come on in, Miss Wilma," I said, baffled.

  After having introduced her to Yolanda, in the course of which I found out that her name was Parisini, there followed a long silence. Yolanda had got over her excitement and was looking at Wilma with a mixture of curiosity and irritation.

  "Well," I said, "what brings you to us, Miss Parisini?"

  "I... I... all I wanted," she started to say, miserably, and stopped. "No," she said, near tears now, "I can't tell you. It's so crazy, I can't begin to tell you. Oh my God, whatever made me come!" She shook her head like a desperate child and breathed a deep sigh. She didn't seem to have the courage even to look at us. There she sat in her trench coat, on one of the beautiful baroque chairs, her knees jammed together, her hands folded, a colorful scarf tied around her head. (She had refused to take off her coat.) "No," she murmured, as if all were lost, "I can't talk about it. I hadn't imagined it would be so difficult. But now . . . now I see that what I wanted to do . • ."

  Yolanda looked at me. I shrugged helplessly. Yolanda leaned forward. "How did you find out where we hved?" she asked. A typical feminine question, I thought admiringly—sensible and logical, and Miss Wilma gave her a sensible and logical answer. "I asked at the Hotel Sacher." She looked up for the first time and tried to smile. Yolanda smiled back. "And?" she asked in an encouraging tone.

  "And then I talked to Felbc about it "

  "Who is FeHx?"

  "A friend. He said I should try it. I told him he should

  come with me, but he said it would be better if I went alone." She was looking at me again, her fresh young cheeks still suffused with a blush. "I didn't know you were married, Mr. Frank."

  "What's that got to do with it?" asked Yolanda, still smiling.

  "If I had known, gnddige Frau, I wouldn't have come."

  "You wouldn't?"

  "Certainly not, gnddige Frau'' Wilma's voice rose. "Never!" She looked from Yolanda to me and bit her lip. "Oh my God, but this is embarrassing! Nothing like this has ever happened to me before!"

  Yolanda's smile was almost motherly. At that moment she looked very attractive. "How old are you anyway?" she asked.

  "I beg your pardon?" Now Wilma was staring at her.

  "How old are you?"

  "Nmeteen."

  "Nineteen," Yolanda repeated and moved her chair a little closer to Wilma's. "And why did you come? Don't you want to tell us?"

  "Yes, I do," said Wilma heroically.

  "So?"

  Wilma looked at me. "I was going to ask you to go to the theatre with me."

  "Oh," said Yolanda.

  "And you too, gnddige Frau, Both of you, of course. Only I didn't know that you existed, gnddige Frau. Now that I do, I want to invite you both."

  It was my turn to smile. "That's very sweet of you, Wilma, but why me ... that is, us?"

  I thought she was adorable but I did get the impression that she was a very eccentric young lady. Perhaps she had never outgrown her adolescence, or—a possibiMty—she was a bit touched? She had to be a little crazy to call on a strange man like this, in a strange house, alone, after dark, to ask him to go to the theatre with her. Suddenly Yolanda's presence was calming and I was glad she was

  there. Just then the young lady burst into tears. She simply laid her head on the table in front of her and sobbed!

  I was startled. "For God's sake, what's the matter?" I cried, trying to pull her up.

  Yolanda pushed me aside. She sat down on the arm of Wilma's chair and stroked her head. "Come, come," she said, as one speaks to a small child. "What's so terrible? Can't you teU us?"'

  Wilma shook her head and continued to let her head lie face down on the table. Yolanda gave me a look. "Cognac," she said.

  I wasn't sure that this was the right medicine for a young girl in Wilma's situation, but I walked over to the small table on which the bottle stood and poured a glass. As I was doing so, I happened to look out onto the street The young man was still standing there, beside the lantern, looking up at our window. He wasn't smoking any more but had rammed his hands into his coat pockets. I could feel my armpits sweating, and drank the cognac myself.

  Then I filled the glass again and brought it to Yolanda, "So," she said, raising Wilma's head gently, at the same time looking at me for a moment, then in the direction of the window. I nodded. She stroked Wilma's tear-stained face and said quietly, "There now. Drink this down."

  Wilma did so obediently and swallowed the wrong way. "Ooh, it's sharp," she said, coughing. Suddenly I found her unbearably childish and felt sure she was putting on an act

  "Miss Wilma," I said. "You have had enough time to get over your embarrassment. I really must ask you to tell me at last what you want from me."

  For a moment my own voice startled me. It sounded harsh, almost brutal, and I hadn't meant to be brutal. Wilma's reaction was surprising. She evidently wasn't used to cognac. Her eyes gUttered and she looked at me almost challengingly as she threw back her head and said, "I was going to ask you for money," which was followed by a pretty impressive pause.

  "For how much?" I asked.

  "For four thousand three hundred and fifty schillings," she repUed precisely.

  "I thought you wanted to go to the theatre with us— that is, with my husband," said Yolanda.

  "That too," said this strange girl. "First I wanted to go to the theatre with him and then I wanted to ask him for money." '

  "But how did you decide on us, of all people?"

  "Because I wrote . . ." she began, and stopped. "Please could I have another cognac?"

  "Of course, my child," said Yolanda.

  I gave her the bottle.

  Wilma drank down the glass Yolanda filled for her in one gulp, then exhaled loudly through clenched teeth. She looked very funny and I found myself smiling broadly. I had bigger and better worries, but I couldn't help myself—I liked the girl.

  "What did you write?"

  "I wrote out the checks for you, Mr. Frank." Her light eyes were looking at me with undisguised honesty. "Already on Saturday. The checks Mr. Lauterbach gave you. A hundred and twenty thousand schillings. All Saturday I could think of nothing else. That evening I told Felix about it, then we talked about it all Sunday. Should I try it, shouldn't I try it? On Tuesday I decided I'd let it depend on what you looked like."

  I smiled. "Yes. I remember.'*

  "I was terribly ashamed of myself," she said.

  "What are you two talking about?" asked Yolanda,

  "I looked at your husband...." Wilma began.

  "Miss Wilma looked at me...." We began and stopped simultaneously.

  "Yes?" said Yolanda. She wasn't smiling any more.

  "Miss Wilma looked me over rather thoroughly when I went to see her boss."

  "I see," said Yolanda and walked over to the window. "And did my husband pass the test?" She was looking out into the street. I watched her. She turned around and nodded as I had done. So the man was still standing there.

  "Yes," said Wilma, and looked at me; suddenly her face was glowing. This time / felt myself redden.

  "So why didn't you come right away?"

  "I couldn't," she said, "because I liked you too much."

  "And if you had liked me less, you would have come right away?"

  "Of course," she said. "In your case I really didn't want to come at all after I knew what you looked like. And I told Felix so. I just can't, I told him. I could with anyone else, but not with hhn. And I didn't do it; I didn't come."

  "Until this evening," said Yolanda and walked away from the window.

  "Yes," Wilma nodded sadly. "Not until this evenmg. I kept hoping for a miracle, that we'd get the money from somewhere. But tonight is the last night, and the money never came. If we don't pay tomorrow, they'll close the theatre on us. Four days be
fore the opening night. You understand? Four nights before we open with Felix's fixst play."

  "Who will close the theatre?"

  "The manager."

  "Of what theatre?" I asked.

  '^We have a small theatre—Felix and I and a few others, a show case, really, in the basement of the Cafe

  Schubert. Studio 52 it's called. I don't suppose you've ever heard of it."

  "Oh yes I have," I said and Yolanda gave me a look.

  "But you've never been there."

  "Unfortunately not."

  Wilma nodded sadly. "We can't draw a crowd," she said. "That's how we got into debt."

  "What debt?"

  "We haven't paid the rent for ten months."

  "Aha," I said.

  "And now, just when we're ready to put on Felix's play, the manager says he'll close us down if we don't pay up. We have until tomorrow evening," she added. "And of course we can't make it." After which there was a short pause.- Yolanda looked at me. This time I looked away.

  "Just a minute," said Yolanda. "There's something I don't understand. I thought you were Mr. Lauterbach's secretary."

  "lam."

  "But..."

  "But that's only my secondary job. Professionally I'm an actress. But with that I can't earn enough. I get paid next to nothing at the studio. I have a few radio engagements and now and then, if I'm lucky, a small part in a play. There are a lot of us in the same position. Most of us have a job on the side."

  "And you can manage that?" I asked, astonished. "I mean, you have the time?"

  "It doesn't work out too well," she said. "I've had difficulties with Mr. Lauterbach. I wouldn't be surprised if he let me go any day."