Return to Vienna

by Nancy Buckingham

  But later, during our last few days, he had stopped bothering, as if his capricious enthusiasm for angling had finally wilted. I’d been so unsurprised at the time that I hardly even registered the fact.

  Now I remembered, and understood.

  Excitedly, but with a dragging weight of pain, I put my thoughts to Steve.

  He sat up alertly. “You mean, if we can pin down the exact point Max lost interest in his fishing gear, we don’t need to bother with the places you went to before?”

  “That’s right. It cuts down the range of possibilities enormously.’’

  The whole project seemed so clear to me now, so obvious. The task of recovering the hidden scrolls looked almost like child’s play.

  Steve asked, “Whereabouts were you when Max had this change of heart?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him, and stopped short. I just didn’t know the answer. The two parts of the holiday were now clear in my mind—the before and the after. But as for the precise moment when the switch had occurred, fog seemed to be blurring my memory.

  Steve was very patient. “Let’s work forward a day at a time and see if you can think of anything that helps. You said that from here you went back and stayed the night at St. Gilgen. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  I didn’t have any trouble remembering that night. A quiet room in a pretty lakeside hotel. Max and me. And in the morning a leisurely breakfast on the terrace, everything fresh with dew and the sun glittering across the mountain-circled lake. We ate delicious alpine-strawberry conserve with our rolls, and Max had teased me about looking so sleepy.

  “We must get to bed earlier tonight, darling.”

  My mind went jumping forward, one day, two days.

  “We stayed at Bad Aussee,” I told Steve, “and did a trip to some lakes. I remember the guide telling us a story about some of Hitler’s treasure chests being hidden in one of them.”

  “There’s no reason why it should have meant anything special to Max, though. A lot of stories like that go floating around.”

  “I know. But the point is, Max still had his fishing kit with him all that day. I remember he spent a few minutes practicing casting from a jetty....” I sighed. “I suppose he had to make some sort of show for my benefit.”

  Steve nodded. “We’re making progress. What did you do after that?”

  “We stayed at the same place for another day. Max was very impressed with the remoteness of some of the country around there.” I frowned, concentrating. “But he was still taking good care of the carryall when we left Bad Aussee; I’m sure of that.”

  “Where did you head for then?”

  Suddenly, there it was in my mind in stereoscopic detail; at the end of a road that had whittled itself down to just a track. A tiny Gasthaus buried deep in a fold of the pine-clad mountains. And Max and I the only guests. I asked myself if it could really have been the heaven I remembered, and knew at once that it had been so. I wanted to cry.

  I said to Steve, “It was a small inn, rather isolated. We made it our headquarters for several days while we explored the district on foot.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Max—walking.”

  “He thoroughly enjoyed it. At least, he seemed to at the time.”

  That had been its special delight for me. For Max, my city-loving husband, to find such pleasure in the simple things. Four whole days spent just rambling, with homely picnic lunches of sausage and cheese and rough black bread, and a bottle of beer apiece. We’d swum in the tiny lakes and lazed in the sunshine. And when the sun began to drop behind the mountain peaks, we’d wandered back to our lamplit refuge, where our smiling hosts had a good substantial supper ready. Afterward we’d spent a couple of hours drinking lager beer in company with two or three local men who had tramped in from farther down the valley, dressed in their leather breeches and feathered hats. Again and again we had listened to the proud story of how the Emperor Franz Josef himself had shot the fine stag whose antlers spread above the stove.

  And then, early, we’d made our way upstairs to the tiny room and its vast soft bed. “You could get lost in this, my darling,” Max had murmured on a smothered laugh from deep in his throat. “That’s why I’m holding you so close.*’

  Four days. Four nights.

  I’d been sad when it came to an end. At breakfast following the most perfect day of all, Max had announced abruptly, “We’d better be heading back to civilization again.”

  “Oh, no, Max, not yet. Please let’s stay here a bit longer.”

  I remembered the way he’d smiled at me, fondly, ready to humor my whims. “How long?”

  I’d suggested as long as I’d dared. “Two more days—couldn’t we? It’s so lovely here, and it’s not as if we had anything special planned.”

  There had been laughing exasperation in his voice. “All right, then—two more days.”

  But I’d not been able to stick it out. Suddenly he was the old Max again, restless and edgy without bright lights and slick-talking people. After just one more night—an unhappy night when we’d lain apart in the great wide bed—I gave in. First thing in the morning, I’d said, “Maybe we’ve been here long enough, after all. I’m ready to move on, darling, whenever you like.”

  The relief on his face made the sacrifice worthwhile. We had started off within the hour, heading back to Salzburg, and then on to Linz, covering the tourist haunts as we came across them, and hardly using our legs anymore. No longer was it just the two of us together in a lovely mountain wilderness.

  But Max had been happy, and that made me happy, too. . . .

  “Jessica.” I felt Steve’s hand on my forearm, bringing me back to the present.

  “Sorry, I ... I was trying to think.”

  “Did anything special happen while you were up there in the wilds?”

  It sounded like a macabre joke. But I knew what Steve meant. I said slowly, “Max was still keeping the carryall with him all the time. We must have covered miles and miles, but it went everywhere with us.” I remembered pulling his leg about it once—and only once. Max had been short with me, and I couldn’t bear that. If a subject made him touchy, then it was barred. I’d never risk upsetting him.

  My brain was too full of tormenting images for reasoned thought. I had to struggle, screwing up my mind in concentration. Then suddenly I was out in clear hard daylight, and I knew.

  I had a vivid mental picture of the brown canvas carryall lying where Max had hastily flung it down, its top unzipped and a rod end spilling out. That day I was the one who’d remembered it as we started walking back.

  But now that I was sure, I still hung back from telling Steve. To return to that very spot, that secret paradise Could I bring myself to do it?

  I had to.

  “I know where it was Max hid the scrolls,” I burst out.

  Steve jumped. “You do! Tell me….”

  “It was at a place we found when we were walking. A tiny lake. I went to sleep. . . .”

  “And that was when he did it?”

  “Yes . . . yes, that was it. After I woke up ...” I choked, because it hurt me so, touching the memory of that time. “After I woke up, he ... he wasn’t interested in the fishing gear anymore,”

  Steve opened up the map, spreading it across the table.

  “This little place you stayed at—we’ll get up there right away. Perhaps I’d better ring them.”

  I smiled, a sad smile. “There’s no phone, Steve. No electricity. You could hardly even call it a road.”

  “We’ll just have to take a chance, then.”

  Max and I had taken a chance. The little Gasthaus had looked so deserted, basking gently in the afternoon sunshine, that we were half-afraid it was abandoned. But our welcome had been full of charm, the innkeeper’s plump wife clucking her tongue with pleasure.

  I said to Steve, “I expect they’ll be able to put us up, especially at this time of year.”

  We got moving right away. At Ischl we stopped for nece
ssary equipment—a knapsack, a large-scale map, a flashlight, shoes fit for walking rough mountain paths. With a prudent eye on the weather, we bought rainwear, too.

  By the time our shopping was done, we needed a breather. Dumping everything in the car, we strolled down to the esplanade beside the river. It was still raining slightly, so we couldn’t sit outside on the cafe terrace. That was a lucky break.

  I was sipping good hot coffee when through the window I spotted a chubby figure strolling along under the trees. A familiar figure!

  I clutched Steve’s sleeve. “Look who’s going by. It’s Otto Kolbinger!”

  “Hell.” Frown lines scored his forehead. “Thank the Lord he hasn’t seen us yet. We’ve still got a chance.”

  “But it’s just coincidence, Steve—surely?”

  He shook his head. “No, he’s after us, all right.”

  “How can you be so certain? There must be a hundred things that might bring Otto here. I mean, his job in television. ... Or he might even be on holiday.”

  Steve was craning his neck to see farther along the road. “You might be able to explain Otto away, but I’m afraid he isn’t alone….”

  “Who is it?” I gasped on a rising tide of fear. Then, “Oh,my God, he’s just met up with Leopold Hellweg. It means they’re right on our tail.”

  Chapter 18

  Steve organized the getaway operation with the smooth efficiency I had come to expect of him. In less than half an hour, both of us in goggle sunglasses and I a head scarf too, were driving out of Bad Ischl in a different car. He had parked his Mercedes at one garage and hired a Volkswagen from another.

  “We can’t be sure just how much they know,” Steve explained, “but this should help confuse the issue.”

  “How could they have tracked us down, Steve? And so quickly?”

  He gave a grim smile. “They must have a bigger organization than we realized. Unless it’s just sheer bad luck that they happened to hit this very town.”

  “But you don’t believe that, Steve?”

  “No, I don’t believe it.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Carry on as planned. If this place we’re heading for is as isolated as you say, then it’ll take them quite a while to catch up with us.”

  We took the road southward out of Bad Ischl, heading for Hallstatt and the road to the west. I found I could remember the route and didn’t need a map to direct Steve. I said suddenly, “I can’t get over it being Otto Kolbinger. To think that he’s tied up in this horrible business!”

  “I don’t know why you’re so surprised. I’d not exactly call friend Otto a glorious example of Austrian manhood, would you?”

  “He’s always seemed harmless enough to me. I know he and Gretl went a bit wild sometimes, but...”

  “Your trouble, love, is that you insist on looking at people through rose-tinted specs. That lot—the Kolbingers and their crowd—are just about as rock-bottom as you can get,”

  I was silent, thoughtful. After a moment I said, “I suppose the invitation to their party was all a put-up job, so they could introduce me to the Hellwegs.”

  “Naturally.”

  “That reminds me—you never explained how you came to be there. You’d not been to their place before.”

  “Well, there always has to be a first time for everything.” He said it casually, but I could sense he was treading warily.

  “Come off it, Steve, you’re dodging the issue.”

  “All right, then. I wanted to keep an eye on you. That’s why I went.”

  “But how did you know that I was going? I didn’t tell you.”

  “You aren’t going to like this much. . . .” He flashed me a sideways glance. “I bribed the hotel porter to keep tabs on you and let me know what phone calls you got.”

  “Steve!”

  “Now, don’t blow your top, love. God knows I didn’t enjoy spying on you. But the way you were acting, fending me off all the time, was really worrying. It looked to me as if somebody named Gretl Kolbinger needed looking at.”

  My swift surge of outrage died at birth. But for Steve’s persistent meddling these last few days, I would still be at the mercy of the Hellwegs. The thought of his caring, of his intense concern for me, sent a warm and lovely tingle through my body.

  He was grinning. “The porter told me that a Frau Gretl Kolbinger had been on the phone and asked you to a party. So I gave her a ring and wangled myself an invitation, offering to pick you up on the way.”

  I grinned too, just to myself. “So that accounts for the cross-talk act with Gretl when we arrived. I wondered what it was all about.”

  Dark clouds were massing overhead, heavier than ever, and the rain came slashing down. By the time we turned on to the hairpin road toward Hallstatt Lake we already needed headlights. Steve hadn’t much attention to spare for talking.

  It was almost totally dark when we reached Gosau. Knowing what still lay ahead, I felt nervous. Those few kilometers up the rough-surfaced track to the Gasthaus had been tough to negotiate even on a fine sunny morning.

  “Let’s stop the night here,” I urged Steve. “There’s sure to be somewhere in a village this size.”

  But Steve wanted to press on. He didn’t say so, but I guessed he thought the darkness and rain offered the best chance of getting right away into the mountains without leaving a trail that could be followed by someone as determined as Leopold Hellweg.

  The rain became heavier, and the car roof sounded like a tin drum. Swirls of water flowed across the road so that it was almost like driving along the course of a river.

  At last, slithering on a tight bend, we turned into the final stretch—the little track that clambered its hazardous way up the steep and twisting valley and ended at the inn.

  For a while the surface was tolerable, but it rapidly deteriorated. In this awful weather I was amazed that Steve managed to keep going. Often I couldn’t make out the track at all through the streaming windshield.

  Steve still sounded cheerful. “It can’t be far now. We’ll soon be having a drink and something to eat. Then you’ll feel better.”

  I voiced the uneasy thought that had worked its way through to the top of my consciousness. “It’s such a tiny place, Steve, so they’re bound to remember me —and Max. If I tell them he’s dead, what are they going to think? And if I don’t tell them . . . well, that would be worse still.”

  Steve said quietly: “I’ve been wondering about that myself. Perhaps we’d better make out that we’re brother and sister. You could tell them you so enjoyed the remoteness of this place that you wanted to come back again.”

  I hung back from committing myself. There was something curiously distasteful about pretending Steve was my brother.

  “Must we?” I said at length.

  “I don’t feel like your brother, goodness knows! But they’ll be simple country people, and we don’t want to shock them.” He laughed ruefully. “We’ll have to give them some sort of explanation, and it can’t possibly be the true one.”

  I had to agree, though I still hated the idea.

  Fretting over this, I was suddenly plagued by a host of minor worries, too. Like having a puncture—that would be sheer hell. And how about gasoline? Even the sight of the fuel gauge hovering well above the halfway mark didn’t satisfy me—they were so often inaccurate. And the engine, whining steadily in low gear—what if it suddenly decided to quit?

  Steve remained calm and unbothered. “Isn’t that a light up ahead?”

  A timber building with a low-pitched roof showed up in the beam of our headlights. It was good to see a sign of habitation.

  “I remember now,” I said. “I believe a forestry worker lives there. We’ve got about another couple of kilometers to go.”

  As we passed the little house I saw two heads silhouetted against yellow lamplight. It wasn’t surprising the occupants were curious, hearing a car in this back-of-beyond on such a filthy night.

  The last kilom
eter was the worst of all. Some of the gradients were fearsome. At one point the rear wheels started spinning uselessly, churning up the muddy surface. I thought we were stuck, but Steve worked the car back and forth to make a channel, and we escaped in a sudden surge forward. Around a last awkward bend, and there ahead the Gasthaus lights were like a harbor to a sailor on a stormy night.

  They heard us arrive. ‘The door was flung open as we pulled up. Regardless of the pouring rain the innkeeper ran out to help Steve with the bags, hurrying us into shelter.

  Of course they recognized me instantly, the lean Herr Krikl and his ample wife. They were far too polite to ask outright what could have brought me back here with another man. And I was too exhausted to try to explain.

  Steve came to my rescue. “I do hope you can put us up for the night. My sister is very tired, and . . .”

  “Your sister?” Still not fully understanding, they already felt reassured. Eagerly they urged us into the little low-ceilinged barroom, which smelled comfortably of woodsmoke. Of course they could accommodate us. It would be a positive pleasure to have us stay with them. An honor.

  Explanations, it was unspokenly agreed, could come later. Right now, we clearly needed food and warmth. Water for baths would be heated instantly, our rooms made ready. Meantime, would we like a glass of something? A little bit of sausage, maybe, if we were hungry? The supper that would follow, Frau Krikl promised, would be something worth waiting for.

  Bowing and smiling, the charming couple bustled away, and we were left alone in the cozy room. The fierce lashing of wind and rain outside made me wonder that we had survived. I sipped the potent apple brandy and began slowly to relax. I felt myself floating away into a sort of waking doze.

  I heard the chink of a bottle on glass as Steve poured himself another tot of brandy, and it was a homely comforting sound. Those evenings Max and I spent here had been filled with a simple natural gaiety. One time a man from away over the mountain had brought his accordion and we’d all sung, Herr and Frau Krikl included, and got a little tipsy. And then, still quite early, the few customers had set out on their long trek home, and Max and I had gone upstairs to bed.