Return to Vienna

by Nancy Buckingham

  “I hardly like to impose on you, Herr Hellweg.”

  “You will not be imposing. It is a pleasure.” He smiled. “And anyway, I am here already to fetch you. It is the simplest thing that you should come.”

  “Well, thank you. . . . Thank you very much. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  He came to the door of the lounge and held it open for me, and I felt his eyes watching as I went over to the desk. I told the porter that owing to something unexpected cropping up I was leaving immediately, and asked to have my bill made out. He scratched his head, bewildered by such a request after midnight. It turned out that it would not be possible, unless he were to wake the manager, who did indeed sleep on the premises. . . .

  I agreed that such an inconsiderate step wasn’t necessary. Instead I gave the porter two one-hundred-schilling notes, plenty to cover the amount of my bill, and said I would call in sometime for the refund. He was obviously fascinated by the various possibilities of the situation. I asked him for writing paper and an envelope and scribbled a note to Steve, to be handed over when he called in the morning. Then I hurried up to my room, taking the stairs rather than the ancient lift.

  About a quarter of an hour later I left the Mahlerhof. The porter carried out my luggage and received a tip from Herr Hellweg that made him touch his forehead.

  The car we got into was the same as thousands of others to be seen in the streets of Vienna—a German Ford, I think. I remembered how Steve had spoken of the Hellwegs’ car as a “fantastic red Maserati,” and wondered what had happened to that. But I didn’t inquire, not wanting to admit to Leopold that I’d discussed him and his wife with Steve. As we slipped quietly through the sleeping city, the very streetlights seemed dimmer, and the occasional pedestrian had a furtive, hurrying air.

  Earlier, up in the hills with Steve, there had been a sort of magic in the night, in spite of all the tension and those bitter words between us. But now the magic had gone, though the stars were still there, and the thin crescent moon.

  Leopold said, “I telephoned Ilse while you were packing. She was most glad to hear that you had agreed to stay with us.”

  I made a vague sound to indicate that I was grateful. There was no doubt about it, this man intimidated me. And so did his wife.

  From the passenger seat I couldn’t see into the rear-view mirror. I was anxious to know if Richard’s man was on our tail. It would have been reassuring, somehow. Once, pretending to shift my position, I managed to turn enough to glance back. Some way off I thought I saw the lights of a car rounding the bend we had taken a moment before, but there were still a few other cars about, and it might have been anyone. I could only hope.

  Soon we had left the last outskirts of the city behind us, and our speed mounted on the motorway that curved away into the darkness ahead. Leopold was making an effort to be pleasant, I realized that. He was solicitous for my comfort and assured me that I would be able to go straight to bed as soon as we reached the house.

  “It is very late. I expect you are tired.”

  “I am, rather,” I admitted. “It’s been a long day.”

  “And what have you been up to?”

  I was startled by his question, and showed it by my hesitation. He added apologetically, “I just meant, did you go shopping, or sightseeing?”

  “Oh, I see! A little of both, actually.”

  “You ladies!” He gave a gentle chuckle. “You can never resist buying new clothes.”

  I considered the role I was playing, and said regretfully, “Window shopping, really. I can’t afford all those lovely things in the smart shops anymore.”

  There was a tiny pause, filled, it seemed to me, with significance. Then he said almost under his breath, “A sad state of affairs which will soon be remedied.”

  Was it a question, or not?

  The note of the engine was deep, the song of a car let off the city leash. The speedometer needle surged up toward the hundred-and-thirty-kilometer mark.

  Chapter 10

  I came awake gently to the unhurried sounds of the countryside. It wasn’t exactly quiet, for the birds were making lots of noise.

  My bedroom was large and handsomely furnished. The early sun, muted down to a glow by the yellow damask curtains, found every corner and filled the room with a golden promise. The atmosphere was right for contentment, yet the uneasiness I’d felt the night before came back, growing keener with each passing minute.

  When I’d arrived with Leopold Hellweg, his wife had been waiting up for us. I couldn’t fault Ilse’s behavior, though her welcome was hardly warm. I declined her offer of coffee or a drink, and she had brought me straight up to this room.

  I’d been so tired last night that I’d not even bothered to unpack my things. I got out of bed and rummaged in a suitcase for my robe. Then I went to draw back the curtains. I had to shield my eyes against the bright sunlight for a moment before I could look out at the view. The window opened onto a stone-balustraded balcony, and I stepped outside.

  The air was brisk, but the sun was warming it quickly. Beyond a steeply terraced garden stretched the woods, flaming with autumn color, the night’s dew steaming in a lazily hovering mist. It was the nearest thing to a fairyland that I had ever seen.

  I was on the second floor. Below me was a wide paved area set with marble urns holding scarlet geraniums, and delicate wrought-iron tables and chairs all painted a sparkling white. Leopold Hellweg sat at one of the tables, reading a newspaper. He was wearing an elegant silk dressing gown patterned in subdued blues and greens. He looked a lean and fit man for his years, rather handsome in an austere way the graying hair at his temples giving him that extra touch of distinction.

  He must have heard me, for he glanced up and smiled. “Guten Morgen, Frau Varley,” he said, rising to his feet. “I trust you slept well?”

  “Thank you—very well.”

  “That is good! I will send the girl up with your breakfast, if you wish it.”

  “Thank you,” I said again.

  “And you must come down whenever it pleases you. We ask you to feel perfectly free while you are staying with us.”

  He disappeared into the house. Scarcely five minutes later there was a light tap on the door, and a maid brought in a tray with fruit juice, little rolls and sweet butter, and Kaffee mit Milch.

  I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, since there was absolutely no hurry. Later, as I got dressed, I began to consider how Richard would get in touch with me. I felt sure that he must know I was here, but in view of the secrecy involved, there were problems ahead. If necessary, I decided, I’d have to take a trip into Vienna, which would give him a chance to have me picked up by taxi as before.

  By ten o’clock I felt it was time to show my face downstairs. I knew I had to tread a careful line. Outwardly, I would show gratitude to the Hellwegs for their kindness in sheltering me like this. But not far below the surface, and clearly visible, there must be the tacit acceptance that I was really here for quite a different reason. Protection by all means—while we built up sufficient trust to lay our cards on the table.

  I must be alert to match every advance the Hellwegs made. But I had to avoid going too fast for them. If they were going to arrange contacts with anticomrmmist groups on the other side of the Iron Curtain, then they’d want to be very positive about me first.

  The house was quiet, carpeted, luxurious. A ten-foot-wide staircase with carved balustrades on either side led down to a big square hall paneled throughout in polished pine. A huge enameled stove, eight feet high and decorated with hunting scenes, stood in one corner.

  A voice from behind made me swing around. “And how do you like our Tyrolean hall?” asked Leopold.

  “Is that what it is? Such a lovely warm color. I was wondering about the style.”

  He laughed. “We have all styles at the Villa Imwald. I think the architect must have been practicing, trying out a little of everything.”

  “It’s very beautiful, to judge from what I�
��ve seen.”

  “You are most kind!” He laughed again. “But perhaps the old place does have a quaint charm of its own. Permit me to show you the rest of the villa.”

  He took me around the ground-floor rooms, and I saw at once that however much of an architectural jumble the house might be, there was no stinting on comfort. It had two small sitting rooms as well as the large formal drawing room; a library lined with white shelves and leather-bound books; an extravaganza of a dining room in full-blown rococo style; a billiards room, which didn’t interest me. We strolled through a domed conservatory full of exotic hothouse plants and out to a second terrace that overlooked a large swimming pool.

  Ilse Hellweg was just emerging from another door, wearing a short red-toweling beach wrap.

  “Guten Tag, Frau Varley . . . Jessica. So Leopold is showing you around?”

  “Yes, I’ve been admiring it enormously. And what a glorious position you have, overlooking the woods like this.”

  She nodded carelessly. “Ja, that is so. Do you care for swimming?”

  “I do, but I’m afraid I’m a bit of a coward. I like to swim only when it’s really warm.”

  “The pool is heated.” Her tone suggested that of course the pool was heated. That nothing associated with her would be less than super quality.

  I smiled. “Then I’d like to try it sometime, if I may.”

  “Why not now?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t pack a swimsuit.”

  “I have plenty. Leopold, tell Maria to fetch some for Jessica.”

  When her husband had gone into the house, Ilse remarked: “Max was a very good swimmer, nicht?”

  That was like a blow on the chin, not intended as such, but painful just the same. On several occasions I’d suggested to Max that we might spend a fine Sunday at the Gansehaufel lido, swimming and idling in the sun. But somehow it had never fit in with his other plans. It was only during our holiday, in those final two weeks of his life, that I discovered that Max swam like a dolphin. By the clear sparkling lakes of the Salzkammergut we at last got around to having those lovely lazy days I had dreamed of, and in Max’s expert hands I found an exciting new confidence in the water.

  But apparently Ilse Hellweg had known all along that my husband was a fine swimmer.

  “I ... I expect he sometimes swam here?” I said, trying hard to sound no more than pleasantly interested.

  “But naturally.” Ilse rippled out a light laugh. “He used to come often.”

  Leopold appeared again and dropped a pile of three or four swimsuits on a table. “Take your pick from these, Frau Varley.”

  “Thank you.” I sorted out a turquoise-and-white-striped one and held it up against me. “I think this should do nicely.”

  Ilse nodded indifferently. “Go up and change now.”

  I ran upstairs to my room, and in a few minutes was down again, carrying a bath towel. Ilse and Leopold were where I’d left them, talking. Seeing me, Ilse slipped off her wrap to reveal a slinky black wet-look swimsuit. The cleavage was daring, but beyond that it had the sort of simplicity that costs money. She didn’t just look good in it, she looked devastating. For the second time she was putting me in the shade. Beside her I felt gauche.

  And this, presumably, was the way she’d looked when Max had come here to swim.

  Leopold had fetched himself a drink, and was settling in a chair beside the pool. I said, “Aren’t you coming in too, Herr Hellweg?”

  “No, my dear, I never swim. Ilse must find herself a friend if she wishes not to swim alone.” He smiled swiftly. “Today, she has you.”

  And on other days she’d had Max. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, there was something I felt I had to know. Ilse Hellweg and Max, in those days before he’d met me, had they ever . . . ?

  It was crazy. She was Leopold’s wife. And yet I knew how little that might mean to some of these people.

  Max and Ilse. Why was this hateful suspicion eating into my mind? It wasn’t just the way she looked in a swimsuit, but the way she’d laughed when speaking of him coming here often. It was almost as if she wanted me to know, as if she were deliberately telling me.

  Had she loved Max too, like Mitzi Flamm? Had she been jealous when he’d got married to me? But looking up at Ilse as she clambered laughing from the pool to stand poised on the edge before she dived again, seeing her long slender body with the golden tan, her perfect teeth, and jet black hair gleaming wetly, I found it impossible to imagine her ever feeling jealous on account of another woman.

  It wasn’t until lunchtime that we got down to serious conversation. The meal was served by a stout white-jacketed manservant who moved around unobtrusively. That was the way of this house. There were other servants, several of them, but they seemed to keep discreetly out of sight.

  The three of us were sitting companionably at one end of the long table in the ornate dining room. We had finished a delicious thick vegetable soup, and were now served with pork cutlets and noodles and a crisp green salad. Ilse started talking without any preamble, just as if it were a continuing theme.

  “Max was a clever man, Jessica.”

  I was wondering what to answer to that, when Leopold gave a soft chuckle. “This wife of his will prove to be clever also, I think.”

  Was this the green light they were giving me?

  I said warily, “If I can complete what Max had started, then I shall feel he didn’t lose his life for nothing.”

  “You must not expect too much.” Leopold’s voice was a little on the sharp side. There was a reprimand in it.

  “I don’t.” Steadily I met the eyes of each of them in turn, trying to convey that they could trust me as they had trusted Max. “I feel, though, that if I can only pick up some of Max’s threads, I’ll be moving in the right direction.”

  “Have you considered,” asked Leopold with a serious face, “that to follow your husband’s footsteps too closely could lead you into great danger?”

  “Naturally, I’m aware of the danger. That’s why I’m taking refuge in your home, surely?”

  There was a silence, and we all pretended to be eating our lunch. I made some comment about the excellence of the food, but neither Ilse nor her husband seemed to hear me.

  Eventually Leopold said, “For the time being I think it will be safer for you to remain within the house and immediate garden. There is nothing, I take it, that requires your presence in Vienna?”

  I had already phoned Klara Hutyens to say that I was staying with friends in the country and would have to beg off her dinner party that evening. Klara assured me that it mattered not in the least, though I sensed that she was a little bit put out.

  “Apart from the Hutyens,” I told Leopold, “I hadn’t fixed any other dates. I’ll be very pleased to stay around. I’m sure you have everything here I could possibly want.”

  Surprisingly, this answer didn’t seem to please the Hellwegs altogether, but they made no comment. The rest of lunch passed off smoothly enough, though I was aware of us all three feeling our way carefully. After coffee we split up, and I thought it would be nice to lounge on the terrace with a book. Unluckily, though, my ability to read wasn’t up to my spoken German. I selected a novel from the library which looked fairly light, and settled down to wrestle with it—for the good of my soul.

  In fact, it quickly sent me off into a doze. I came to with a start, conscious of a shadow falling across my face. It was Leopold.

  “I am so sorry to awaken you,” he said, “but you have a visitor.”

  That brought me to life as effectively as a sharp slap.

  “A visitor . . . ?”

  Leopold’s dark eyes were watchful. “Perhaps you would like me to send him away. I could easily inform him that you are indisposed, or ...”

  I interrupted. “Who is it?”

  There was distaste in every line of his face. “It is this man who used to be your husband’s assistant. This Steve Elliott.”

  “Steve!”

  Ju
st the mention of his name was enough to send me rocketing sky-high. But for all my delight I felt helplessly angry. His coming here like this could only ruin everything. It could scare off the Hellwegs just when we seemed to be getting close to an understanding.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Herr Hellweg,” I said quickly. “Steve had no right to come here like this. I’ll go and send him away at once.”

  “There is no need, I can give him your message.”

  Angry though I might be, I wasn’t going to have Steve packed off like that. I stood up. “No, I’ll tell him myself, if you don’t mind.”

  Leopold didn’t move, and short of pushing him out of the way, I couldn’t get past. He obviously wanted to say something more, but seemed to be hesitant about it. In the end he asked thoughtfully, “Where exactly does Herr Elliott fit into the picture?”

  “He doesn’t fit in anywhere. I got to know him as Max’s assistant at British Electronics, that’s all. And when I was in the hospital he was extremely good to me.”

  Still Leopold stayed put. His voice was slightly edgy. “He was with you last night at the Kolbingers’. And now he has driven out here to see you.”

  I saw that Leopold would refuse to believe me, however much I denied that Steve had any significance in my life. It seemed best to be quite straightforward. The truth couldn’t do any harm.

  “I ... I think he’s become rather fond of me,” I said. “He saw a good deal of me when I was ill—almost every day. . . .”

  “You mean he is in love with you?”

  “No, that’s putting it much too strongly. Maybe Steve imagines he could be one day, if I encouraged him.”

  “And do you encourage him, Frau Varley?”

  I was able to meet Leopold’s frowning gaze steadily. “No, I don’t. Quite the reverse, in fact.”

  Leopold continued looking at me for a few dragging seconds, then with a brisk nod he turned and led the way into the house. As I followed him, I began to wonder if what I had just said was actually the truth.