Return to Vienna

by Nancy Buckingham

  “Come on, we’d better make a dash for it.” He grabbed my hand, and together we ran across to the car, the cobblestones wet and slippery under our feet.

  There were far fewer people around now, though it was not very late. The bright night life of Vienna belonged to a world that I wasn’t part of anymore, and it seemed that ordinary folk thought more in terms of a good night’s sleep. Here beyond the inner city I was a bit lost. We drove through quiet streets, at intervals crossing the more brightly lit tram routes. I got my bearings again when we reached Josefstrader Strasse, and I glimpsed the famous old theater where Max and I had once gone with a party to see a new play that was considered rather daring.

  Steve said suddenly, “Suppose I give you a ring in the morning and see how things are going?”

  He was clearly bothered about leaving me to fend for myself in Vienna, perhaps remembering that I’d never shown much independence when my husband was alive. Max had always said that he liked a woman to be feminine and not too self-sufficient—and how was Steve to know that there was a stronger side to my nature?

  “There’s no need,” I pointed out. “I’ve promised to ring you, and I will. Let’s leave it like that, Steve.”

  “I suppose I’ve got to.”

  And then we were drawing up outside the Mahlerhof. Instinctively I looked for the gray Volkswagen. It wasn’t there, and none of the cars parked along the curb appeared to be occupied. But I couldn’t be sure.

  Steve got out and came with me as far as the vestibule. By now I was feeling rather ashamed of myself, and badly wanted to part from him on a good note, to gloss over the prickliness that had sprung up between us.

  “Thanks, Steve, for taking me out this evening. I’m sorry about Mitzi—it was my fault, really.”

  “No, it wasn’t. God knows why I didn’t brush them off. I could’ve, easily.” He hesitated, then said sadly, “Funny the way you always go and hurt the one person you . . . the one person you hate like hell hurting.”

  “Let’s forget it, Steve.”

  He nodded, and held open the inner glass door for me. As I was going past him, he reached out with his free hand and took my arm. For a few moments we stood together in the doorway, both of us aware of the surging tension. I felt a swift sympathy for Steve, a tender compassion. I regretted now that I’d ever, even partially, accepted Max’s view of him as stick-in-the-mud. Tilting my head, I gently put my lips to his cheek, and in answer his fingers tightened upon my arm.

  “I’m sorry, Steve,” I murmured as I slipped away from him into the hotel foyer. The door swung shut behind me with a quiet hiss.

  Why had I apologized, I wondered. And why had I kissed him? What did I mean to convey—what new problems might I be creating for myself? I was a fool and worse, I thought angrily, because Steve could so easily get it all wrong.

  The night porter was at the desk, his round face beaming, his eyes friendly behind steel-framed spectacles. As I went over, he discreetly tucked out of sight the frankfurter he’d been nibbling.

  “Guten abend, meine Dame.”

  I gave him the number of my room. He took the key from the board behind him, escorted me politely to the ancient lift, and put me safely into the cage.

  The dimly lit corridor on the second floor was empty, and so silent that I felt impelled to tread softly.

  Reaching my room, I turned the heavy door key gently and squirmed as it grated in the old-fashioned lock. When I switched on the light, the three-branched central fitting threw a harsh shadowless glare, so I crossed quickly to add the softer glow of the bedside lamp.

  And in those first brief moments I sensed that something was wrong.

  I studied the room more closely, trying to discover what it was. The bedclothes were turned down now —that was the only change I could actually detect. The fawn rep curtains were drawn, but I had done that myself to shut out the man in the building across the way.

  The feeling of disquiet clung to me as I undressed and put away my clothes. The arrangement of my things in the drawers was somehow not quite my way; dresses and skirts hung in neat order—too neat. I had always been a reasonably tidy person, but such precision was not like me.

  By the time I was ready for bed, I knew without doubt that my room had been thoroughly and minutely searched. I found myself trembling, my hands clammy. The feeling of being spied on was something I’d never experienced before, and it terrified me. For several minutes I sat on the edge of the bed, in the grip of a numbing fear. But then I made an effort to pull myself together—in the job I was doing, such things were likely to happen. It was the speed of it that had so upset me. Being followed and watched, having my room turned over. And all in the space of my first few hours in Vienna!

  It occurred to me that I might get some clue from the porter downstairs. I pushed the bell and slipped into my robe. I had to wait quite a time before there was a tap on the door.

  “Hereinkommen!” I called.

  His mild face, very faintly aggrieved, peered around the door inquiringly. I asked him who had been in my room while I was out.

  “Nobody, meine Dame. Who should have come?”

  “The chambermaid, for one.”

  “Ach, ja!” He inclined his head and reduced his German to a snail’s pace, as if I were half-witted. “But naturally, the girl must come in.”

  “But nobody else?”

  He spread his hands. “Who else?”

  “Did anybody ask for my key?”

  He shook his head, shocked.

  I gave up. “Danke, that is all,”

  “Bitte, meine Dame. . . .” He was bewildered, I knew, wondering if he had properly understood this peculiar Englishwoman.

  I gave him time to get out of hearing, then firmly locked the door on the inside. There was something else that I wanted to check. Switching off both lights, I went over to the window and drew aside a curtain. The street was pretty dark, but as my eyes accustomed themselves, I picked out one of the parked cars that looked like a Volkswagen. It could have been gray.

  Chapter 6

  I was too tired not to sleep well. I awoke feeling heavy, but at the same time instantly aware of my situation and surroundings. I knew it was morning by the daylight filtering through the curtains. A brisk tapping on the door made me realize it must have been a previous knock that had wakened me.

  I said to come in, then remembered that the door was locked, so I had to climb out of bed. It was the chambermaid with my breakfast tray. She was a pretty blond, well built and bouncing with energy.

  “Guten morgen, meine Dame”

  I thought she might be able to throw some light on who had searched my room. But when I asked if she’d been on duty the previous evening, she shook her head, saying with a laugh that she had been to the Prater fair with her boyfriend.

  When the maid had gone, I poured myself a cup of milky coffee and tried one of the semmels, crisp and still warm from the bakehouse. With butter and cherry jam it tasted delicious, but I found I wasn’t hungry. I finished it only because I knew I ought to eat something.

  What was I to do today? Would Richard contact me? We’d made no definite arrangements, no agreement that I should stay in at certain times. But if my guess was right and he was having me tailed, he would always know exactly where to get hold of me.

  I told myself that it was no use sitting around wasting the whole day, Saturday being a useful day of the week for renewing old acquaintances. When I was dressed, I would make some more phone calls. But there was no hurry, as it would hardly be considered decent to ring anyone before ten.

  It was earlier than that when a porter came up with a message for me. I was required on the telephone.

  Taking the stairs for quickness, I wondered if Steve had decided to call me after all. I’d told him not to, very definitely, but somehow I wasn’t angry at the thought. It would be nice to hear his warm, reassuring voice again just for a few minutes’ chat, but of course I’d stick to my guns and refuse to meet him t
oday. Then, as I turned and sped down the last flight, I realized the caller was more likely to be Richard Wilson. Well, at least it would be a relief to have some definite instructions from him.

  But it was neither of them. A woman’s shrill voice answered me in a flood of excitable German.

  “Jessica, liebling! How wonderful that you are back here in Vienna. I am so delighted I cannot tell you. We have missed you so very much, you were always such a lively and happy girl. . . .” Her voice dropped suddenly to something more suitable. “We were all so desolate about dear Max, you cannot imagine! Why must such things always happen to the nicest of men? But it is over now, libeling, and you are back with us, and that is good.”

  “Who is it?” I asked faintly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t quite recognize your voice.”

  She was reproachful, then forgiving. “You do not remember Gretl Kolbinger! Ach, but then so much has happened since we last spoke.”

  “Gretl! Of course! I’m afraid the line isn’t very good. How on earth did you know I was in Vienna? I arrived only yesterday afternoon.”

  “An encounter with Mitzi Flamm at the Strip Bar X last night.” She gurgled with laughter. “My dear, two men in tow—but then, I suppose you saw them too. Would you believe it, she told me right there in front of them that she couldn’t decide which one to let take her home. I’m simply dying to find out which one she chose.”

  Gretl was the wife of an up-and-coming television executive, and I remembered her as likable and friendly, with a relish for spicy gossip. I used to think her great fun. Even Mitzi Flamm, to an extent, had been fun. Now, suddenly, their frothy sophistication had gone flat on me.

  But I had to cling to this contact with Gretl, who was at the hub of our old set. The Kolbinger residence, a modern villa out toward the Vienna Woods, had always been quite a place for parties. Any excuse for a get-together had been good enough for Gretl and Otto. A birthday or anniversary—in a crowd like ours there was always one in the offing; somebody’s promotion; a new television discovery of Otto’s to be celebrated. Or just that the Kolbingers felt in the mood to mix.

  Sure enough, an invitation was issued right away. “Tonight we give a party,” Gretl trilled, “Just a little one. And you will come, of course,”

  “Thanks, I’d love to.”

  “It will be such fun. Lots of men to help you forget.”

  “But I have no wish to forget, Gretl.”

  “No, of course not,” she said more soberly. “You and Max were very close. You always seemed to share everything, nicht?”

  “Yes ... yes, we did.”

  I felt a stab of pain, because at one time I’d thought this was true, and now I knew differently. Then it struck me that Gretl’s remark, apparently so innocent, could be the very feeler I was waiting for. It seemed unlikely that Gretl was one of Max’s undercover contacts, but it was just possible. I decided to feed her something solid to bite on.

  “Max and I didn’t have any secrets at all from each other—but then, I expect it’s the same with you and Otto.”

  There might have been a cautious split-second for consideration before she said quickly, and on a gayer note, “Well, not secrets, Jessica—not ones that matter!” Her laugh rippled lightly. “And as for Otto, he has become so fat lately that I hardly need to be jealous anymore.”

  We talked for a while longer, then Gretl announced she would send a car for me at eight o’clock.

  “Oh, but there’s no need for that,” I said. “It is such an easy journey by bus.”

  Gretl snorted delicately. “It shall not be said that my guests have to arrive by bus! Someone will volunteer, I promise you. One of the men.”

  It was useless to fight her on the point. I just had to hope that my conscripted chauffeur would be someone I already knew.

  I decided to spend the rest of the morning shopping. With autumn approaching, there were several things I needed, and I’d not had time to think about clothes before leaving London. Fortunately I was all right for cash. When Richard Wilson had called the second time, to discuss final arrangements, he’d given me fifty pounds.

  There was no sign of the gray Volkswagen as I left the hotel. But there were plenty of other cars around, and a few bystanders. Any of them might be on my tail. There was nothing I could do about it now, but I began to long for Richard to get in touch, so I could confirm that my shadow was a friend.

  The rain had persisted overnight, and it was a dull and uninviting morning. I hurried along the narrow streets to the Alser Strasse, and found I could get a number-eight bus right through to the city center.

  It seemed sensible to head for the glossier shops within the circle of the Ringstrasse, because I might with luck be spotted there by people who knew me. The sooner I got through this hateful job I’d come here to do, the better. Then I could return to my anonymity in London.

  Without really thinking, I got off the bus in the Graben, and to my dismay, found myself looking slap at the Pestaule, the great baroque Trinity Column erected in thanksgiving for escape from the plague. I’d forgotten for the moment that it was there. It brought a nightmare reminder of that other Trinity Column in Langenlois, which Max and I had been looking at only seconds before the crash....

  I fled, diving blindly into the first turning I came to and it was quite a while before I was calm enough to think again about shopping.

  The prices seemed sky high—now that I no longer had Max to pay the bills and encourage me to be extravagant. In the end I began to strike through to the Mariahilfer Strasse, where I knew I’d find cheaper things in the big stores. I was in a side street, momentarily lost and about to ask the way from a passerby, when a car pulled up alongside me.

  “Taxi?”

  Rather surprised because I’d not noticed prowling cabs in Vienna before, I shook my head.

  “Es ist nass” said the driver, pointing out the obvious. I knew very well it was raining.

  “Nein, danke. . . .” ‘Again I shook my head, and began to walk on briskly, though I still wasn’t sure which way I wanted to go.

  He kept abreast of me, leaning across and speaking confidentially. “Herr Wilson sent me.”

  I stopped again, my heart pounding. It was what I’d been waiting for, but somehow I hadn’t expected anything quite like this.

  I asked eagerly, “Are you to take me to him?”

  “Westbahnhof?” he said loudly, as if answering me. “Ja, ja!”

  I got into his cab and settled back in the seat. The Westbahnhof, he’d said. Well, probably a mainline station was as good a place as anywhere for us to meet. An inconspicuous sort of rendezvous, where everyone would be too intent on their own business to worry about a man and a woman talking together.

  But I soon realized that we weren’t heading for the station. In fact, I got hopelessly confused by the route we took, which seemed to wind around in a crazy fashion. Once we swung into an underground car park, racing down the ramp and zigzagging through lines of cars and out through another exit. We turned into a narrow cul-de-sac and waited there a minute or so; when the driver reversed out, he took the opposite direction. Obviously, he was shaking off any possible pursuit.

  I got back my bearings as we crossed one of the bridges high over the Danube—the very unblue Danube, even grayer than usual on this wet morning— and then we plunged straight on through a district I didn’t know at all.

  Without any warning the taxi stopped outside a very ordinary cafe in a very ordinary street. It was called Mirabel, I remember. The driver, who hadn’t said another word since I’d got into the cab, jerked his thumb as a signal for me to get out.

  “In the cafe?” I asked.

  “Ja!” he said, with distaste.

  I got out and asked what the fare was. Still presenting the back of his head to me, he mumbled that there was nothing to pay. It was as if he wanted to avoid me seeing his face too clearly, and I recalled that when he’d first approached me his cap had been pulled down to one side and his profile
half-hidden by a shielding hand.

  Even if I’d wanted to get a better look at the man, it was by now too late. The taxi swerved out from the curb and streaked off, disappearing around the first corner.

  I was alone on the pavement. It had begun to rain more heavily, and there were few people in sight. The area was only partly residential. Opposite was a building like a warehouse, and next to it a used-car lot. There was a dreariness about it all that wasn’t the Vienna I used to know.

  The windows of the cafe were steamed up so that I couldn’t see through them. It took quite an effort to muster courage enough to enter the place.

  The door was stuck, swollen by the humid atmosphere. I had to push it hard, and then it suddenly gave way, nearly throwing me inside. I scanned the place quickly. The counter was mounted with a huge espresso contraption, watched over by a fat and dark-haired woman. There were perhaps ten tables, only two of them occupied. One man alone, and a group of three. Not a sign of Richard Wilson.

  I dared not ask for him; that might be quite the wrong thing to do. Should I order coffee and wait? The cafe wasn’t exactly sleazy, but neither was it quite the place for a girl on her own.

  “Jessica!”

  I spun around, and there he was, rising from a small table tucked away behind the door. He wore the same belted trench coat, the fawn gabardine stained darker on the shoulders by the rain, his brushed-back hair looking even sleeker now that it was wet. His long lean face split into a happy smile of greeting.

  “Darling! I thought you’d never get here!” He spoke in English, loud enough for everyone to hear. Then, reaching out his arms to me, he muttered quickly under his breath, “I’ve got to kiss you, to make it look right.”

  It all happened too quickly for me to act up to Richard’s lead, but my relief at seeing him there could have passed for delight. I was held tight in his arms, and his lips found mine and lingered. Not too long, but long enough to demonstrate that this was more than just a friendly kiss.