Vienna Secrets lp-4

by Frank Tallis

  His statement seemed to repel Anna, physically. She rocked backward before slowly recovering her original position. Even though Professor Priel’s injunction to respect the Kusevitskys’ fraternal bond was sounding in her head-indeed, perhaps because of it-she found herself saying, “This has something to do with your brother, doesn’t it? He has never liked me.”

  Gabriel was about to protest. He raised his arm energetically, but then allowed it to drop. “We have much to do. Not for ourselves, but for the good of our people.” Anna was unsure whether he was referring to himself and his brother or to himself and her. “It was wrong of me to pursue your affection,” Gabriel continued. “The time is not right. I am sorry, Anna. Please forgive me.”

  “Am I to understand that you wish to end our…”-she was suddenly lost for words, and ended the sentence with a sterile noun-“association”?

  The young doctor nodded.

  Anna was not accustomed to being dismissed in such a peremptory fashion. All her other suitors had been rejected by her. The reverse was unthinkable. Her response, therefore, was rage, followed by a show of defensive indifference. “Very well,” she said. “If that is how you feel, you’d better go.”

  “Anna…” Gabriel made a few faltering steps toward her.

  “Please,” she said. “Do not insult me with an apology.”

  Kusevitsky bowed and walked stiffly to the door.

  “Oh, and incidentally,” Anna added, “it was I who pursued your affection, not you who pursued mine.”

  Kusevitsky accepted this emasculating barb and left the room. Anna listened for the sound of the apartment door, and then allowed herself to burst into tears.

  She ran from the parlor, down the hallway, and into her bedroom. Standing by the window, she concealed herself behind the curtain and watched Gabriel’s diminutive figure cross the road below. Something caught in her chest, a more pitiful emotion that made itself known through the maelstrom of anger. She noticed something: a man-who must have been standing in a doorway-emerging and walking after Gabriel. It looked as though he had been waiting for the young doctor to come out. Her thoughts were interrupted by a timid knock on the door.

  “Fraulein Anna?” It was the maid. “Fraulein Anna? Are you all right?”

  “It’s for the best,” said Asher Kusevitsky, handing his brother the bottle of schnapps. “You did the right thing.”

  Gabriel took a swig and wiped his lips on his sleeve. His purple necktie was loose. He pulled it off, examined it for a moment, and then tossed it aside.

  “We cannot… must not be distracted,” said Asher

  “Yes,” said Gabriel. “Of course.” After a pause, he added, “I dreamed of Mother and Father last night.”

  “Did you?” said Asher. “How strange. So did I. The old house?”

  “Yes.”

  “They came for them… carrying torches… and I watched the house burn. Mother called out to me.” Gabriel bit his lower lip. “‘Leave,’ she said. ‘Run.’”

  “It was the same for me too.”

  “What? She mentioned Vienna?”

  Asher shook his head. “No.”

  “I heard her quite distinctly. She said, ‘Run, run… Leave Vienna.’”

  The playwright stood up and extended his hand. Gabriel grabbed it and pulled himself up. “We’re not going anywhere,” said Asher. “No more running-ever again. We have work to do. Work will set you free!” he said, quoting the title of an old novel.

  75

  After a meal at the little cafe by the Anatomical Institute-two fat bratwurst, a pile of sauerkraut, and a dollop of mustard-Liebermann returned to his room at the hospital. He reviewed his case notes and then tried to distract himself by reading; however, he found that he was unable to concentrate. That afternoon he had received two letters. The first was from the chancellor’s secretary, requesting his attendance at the next hospital committee meeting, and the second was from the aspirant, Edlinger: WHAT I DID WAS WRONG. MEET ME BY THE NARRENTURM TONIGHT AT TEN-THIRTY. WE MUST SPEAK. WE MUST SPEAK. THERE IS SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW.

  It read more like a plea for help than a repentant man’s promise of restitution. The inclusion of Edlinger’s statement in the dossier sent to the security office indicated that he had probably been courted by Christian Social activists; however, he was young-rash-and might have regretted his decision to become involved in the von Kortig affair. Perhaps his political masters were making demands that he was now less willing to go along with? Or perhaps they had revealed the true scope of their ambition, and Edlinger was having scruples? Edlinger was a hotheaded young man with a reputation for dueling. Nevertheless, it was rumored that he rarely drew his sword to defend an ideal. It was almost always because of a lady.

  At first Liebermann was disinclined to meet with Edlinger. If the aspirant had gotten himself into trouble, that was his problem. He could always relieve his guilty conscience by confessing to a priest! Moreover, Liebermann did not believe that Edlinger could tell him anything that he hadn’t already guessed. Yet, as the day progressed, curiosity got the better of him.

  At ten-fifteen he placed his journal and the two letters in his bag. He locked his desk, extinguished the gaslight, and left his room.

  The General Hospital was not a single building but a group of interconnected structures, with a hinterland of clinics and university institutes to the north. Liebermann made his way through a complex maze of corridors that eventually took him out into an open space surrounded by various outhouses and a high stucco facade.

  The night was cold. Overhead, slow-moving clouds were limned with the silver valance of a hidden moon.

  Liebermann’s breath condensed on the air, and through the dissolving haze he saw the Narrenturm-the fools’ tower. Five stories high, its hooplike structure resembled a guglhupf cake (a correspondence that had provided students with a serviceable sobriquet for well over a hundred years). Its curved, dilapidated brick wall was featureless except for a uniform girdle of equidistant slit windows. The absence of any ornament suggested penal austerity-incarceration and hard labor. Yet the Narrenturm had once been the most important psychiatric hospital in the world, attracting not only distinguished doctors but also interested members of the public. Its unique design permitted visitors to circumambulate its corridors and view the unfortunate inmates in their cells as if they were animals in a zoo.

  In spite of its historical importance, the Narrenturm now stood on a neglected plot of scrubby grass that was littered with the detritus of construction work: wooden planks, steel drums, and broken slates. A washing line had been attached to a crumbling pillar, and undergarments floated above the ground like the pale body parts of dismembered ghosts.

  Only a few windows on the stucco facade opposite were illuminated, but Liebermann’s eyes swiftly adapted to the darkness and he was able to find a way to the Narrenturm with relative ease. He had been standing there for only a few moments when he heard the sound of a restive horse: the jangle of a bridle and the stamping of hooves.

  Perhaps Edlinger had already arrived and was waiting on the other side?

  Liebermann walked to the back of the building, but could see very little: a clump of trees, more building materials, and the faint outline of additional outhouses. He tried to check the time on his wrist-watch, but the meager light was insufficient.

  Again-the jangling bridle.

  Peering across the open space, Liebermann thought he detected some movement, a piece of the night-even darker than its background-detached and expanding. The moon emerged momentarily from behind its cloud and clarified the world: an old man, wearing a frock coat and a massive beaver hat, was heading toward him. He was making slow progress, stooped over a walking stick, and he carried a substantial book under his other arm.

  “Excuse me… is that someone there?” The voice was thin, and the effort of speech seemed to make the old man cough.

  Liebermann tutted. This is most irritating.

  He walked out to meet
the old fellow. As he approached, he noticed the coiled sideburns of a Hasidic Jew.

  “Do you need some help?”

  “Yes,” said the old man. His breathing was labored, and he spoke with a pronounced Eastern accent. “I need a doctor…”

  He coughed again and dropped his book to the ground. As he moved to pick it up, Liebermann stopped him.

  “Please, allow me.”

  Liebermann crouched down, sensed a sudden flurry of activity, and remained conscious just long enough to recognize the magnitude of his stupidity. Then everything turned black.

  76

  Rabbi Seligman shook his head. “Leave us? Why must you leave us?”

  Kusiel shifted uncomfortably. “My sister’s ill.”

  “I didn’t even know you had a sister.”

  “Yes, a sister and two brothers.”

  “Why can’t you go back home, attend to her, do whatever’s necessary, and then come back? I’m sure we could find someone to help maintain the synagogue in your absence.”

  “Thank you, Rabbi. That’s very kind of you. But she’s very ill.”

  “Couldn’t your brothers look after her?”

  “They’ve moved away. She’s on her own.”

  “In which case, why don’t you bring her back here? We could look after her. My wife would be only too pleased to-”

  “She wouldn’t want to come. She’s like that, stuck in her ways.”

  The rabbi shook his head. “But how will you survive?”

  “I’ve saved a little. And I’ll get a job.”

  “In rural Galicia? At your age?”

  Kusiel replied with a shrug as if to say, Maybe. Why not?

  The rabbi looked at the caretaker anxiously. “How much have you saved?”

  “Enough.”

  “Are you sure? Look…” The rabbi squeezed his shoulder. “If you need more…”

  “No,” said Kusiel sharply. “I couldn’t.”

  “All right,” Seligman continued. “But if you find yourself in difficulties?”

  “I’ll write,” said Kusiel.

  “You promise?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll sleep more soundly knowing that.”

  The old man smiled sheepishly and lowered his gaze. There was something about his inability to hold Seligman’s look that made the gentle rabbi uncharacteristically suspicious.

  “Kusiel,” he said, hesitantly, “you’re not leaving Alois Gasse because of that… business in the attic room?”

  The caretaker sighed. “No, of course not.”

  The rabbi nodded. “We’ll miss you.”

  At midnight Kusiel was leaning over a bridge, looking into the murk of the Danube Canal. He found the old key in his pocket and dropped it into the water. It didn’t make a sound, and he did not see it disappear. When he put his hand back into his pocket, he closed his fingers around a roll of banknotes. It was more money than he had ever before seen in his life.

  77

  Liebermann opened his eyes, but he could not see clearly. His vision was blurred. Two strips of luminescence were separated by a vertical band of darkness, and everything expanded and contracted with the agonizing throb in his skull. The pain was so intense, so all-consuming, that he could not think. He was no longer a person. He was a mute sensorium, receiving impressions but unable to reflect on them. Then there was nothing.

  When he opened his eyes again, he was vaguely aware that time had passed. His vision was still blurred, but the detonations of pain were not so harrowing. He set about assessing his situation.

  He could not move his legs.

  He could not move his hands.

  Liebermann could move his head from side to side, but it made him feel very nauseous. After some preliminary tests of this type he concluded that he was sitting on a chair and that his legs and hands were tied together. But when he rotated his wrists, he could not feel the bite of rough hemp. There was no chafing. Something, it seemed, had been placed between the bindings and his skin: something soft, like muslin. It struck him as odd.

  He closed his eyes, rested them for a few seconds, and opened them again.

  The vertical band of darkness directly in front of him began to resolve itself into a more precise form: a human figure-seated, legs crossed. On a workbench behind the figure were two paraffin lamps, one at each extremity. Liebermann strained to see more clearly. Outlines became more defined, and gradually details appeared-the man’s hat, coat, beard, and coiled sideburns.

  A Hasid…

  The same person, most probably, who had knocked him out.

  “Where is Barash?” said Liebermann. His voice sounded glutinous, each syllable poorly articulated. His tongue felt enlarged, and he could taste blood in his mouth.

  “Who?”

  “Your rebbe. Where is he?”

  The Hasid did not reply. Instead, his hands went to his right ear and he detached the hanging sideburn. He then repeated the action on the left side. Leaning back, he dropped the gray coils onto the workbench and removed his hat. A bald dome caught the light. Liebermann squinted and craned forward. It was Professor Priel.

  Liebermann glanced around the room. There were no windows. The only pieces of furniture were the workbench, the two chairs on which they were sitting, and a potbellied stove. Some machines that would not have looked out of place in a factory were freestanding. There were also some sheets of metal, chains, and panels of wood scattered about the floor. Propped up against the wall was something that Liebermann was not very surprised to see, even though it appeared quite incongruous within its surroundings: a barrel organ.

  “Yes,” said Priel, observing Liebermann closely. “You were correct. Mechanical advantage. Any technical-school student would be able to explain the principle and build a device to demonstrate it.”

  “The Vienna golem,” said Liebermann, his eyes lingering on the lacquered box.

  “Indeed.”

  Portable and inconspicuous. It was an inspired piece of deception.

  “So,” said Liebermann, “which plague column have you chosen for me? Lichtental? Dornach?”

  “No, Herr Doctor,” said Priel. “Your body will not be found at the foot of a plague column. Your body will be found-whole-on the shores of the Danube. You are going to commit suicide.” On Priel’s lap was Liebermann’s journal. “She must be a remarkable person, this Englishwoman of yours, Miss Lydgate, your unattainable object of desire. However, anybody reading these lines would conclude, as I did, that your attachment to her has become quite unhealthy: joyless, obsessional, morbid. I cannot open a newspaper these days without reading of yet another young fellow who has exchanged unrequited anguish for oblivion. It appears to be the fashion. Love is everything, and to live without love is not to live at all. I blame Goethe.”

  The professor removed his pince-nez and cleaned the lenses with a handkerchief.

  “I take it that you haven’t spoken to Inspector Rheinhardt about your most recent speculations?” He licked his fingertip and turned some pages. “Yesterday’s entry in particular.” He put his pince-nez back on and stuffed the handkerchief into his frock coat pocket. “I’m afraid you really were getting far too close to the truth, Herr Doctor. Far too close.” The professor tore out the page he was reading, crumpled it up, and threw it onto the floor. Then, perusing another section, he added, “I’ll make the ink run in a few places. Tears, you see? A little touch to emphasize your deteriorating mental state. What with the von Kortig affair and this pitiful preoccupation with the young Englishwoman…” His sentence trailed off. He was thinking aloud rather than addressing his prisoner.

  Liebermann understood now why Priel had wrapped his, Liebermann’s, wrists in muslin. It was to protect his skin! There would be no marks, no impressions left by the cords to show that he had been tied up! A flare of outrage, bracing and astringent, dissipated his stupor. He felt obliged to do everything in his power to spoil Priel’s carefully constructed plan. He was still very weak from concussion,
but, summoning what little reserves of strength he possessed, he pulled his hands hard apart and began to rotate his wrists. Perhaps, if he generated enough friction, he could produce a small amount of grazing, sufficient to give Rheinhardt cause for suspicion. It would be difficult to accomplish as, in order to avoid detection, he would have to keep the rest of his body still, and the task would take time. It was essential, therefore, to keep the professor talking.

  “Professor Priel?”

  The professor looked up from the journal.

  “Was I correct in my assumption?”

  “What?”

  “Were the murders of Brother Stanislav, Councillor Faust, and the procurer Jeheil Sachs intended to revive memories of the Prague golem, your purpose being to provide the Jews of Vienna with a symbol of empowerment?”

  Priel nodded, but his expression declared that he was contemplating a more comprehensive answer. After a brief pause, he added, “I also hoped that some-the Hasidim, for example-would take a more literal view of the evidence. I hoped that they would actually believe that a kabbalist of Rabbi Loew’s stature had returned to protect them, which, I gather, has indeed transpired. A people need to be strong in their faith to survive. I have made a good start with the Hasidim. I am confident that the wider community will follow.”

  “I do not consider the promotion of superstition an achievement, Herr Professor.”

  Priel shook his head. “The irrational is an essential part of human nature. To overlook the irrational is to overlook the greater part of our constitution. I would have thought that you, a psychiatrist conversant with the works of Professor Freud, would appreciate this important point.”

  “Professor Freud indeed acknowledges the irrational, as the principal cause of psychopathology.”

  “That may be so, but Professor Freud’s objectives are somewhat different from mine.”