The Second Rider

by Alex Beer

  He ran his hand over each child’s head and left the apartment without another word.

  10.

  Anatol Czernin stood on an upside-down fruit crate at the edge of Holzplatzl, where the local forest owners came to sell bundles of firewood, and blew on his fists. It was one of those mornings when it was so cold he couldn’t feel his toes or the tip of his nose. The cobblestones were covered with frost, and the breath of the people who walked around the market square formed little clouds in the air.

  Nobody was paying attention to him. They passed by as if he were invisible. There were too many of his type. Broke war returnees who couldn’t find jobs and muddled through as day laborers, scavengers, or beggars. Not much of a life, but what else could they do? There were worse occupations—like Harri Zeiner’s trade. No wonder he’d become a little peculiar.

  Harri, the paranoid bastard, had shown up at his place the night before, hysterical. He’d dreamed up some crazy story about Jost being killed, whereupon they confronted the supposed killer. As if he had nothing else to worry about. At least there’d been a warm meal in the offing.

  The thought of food brought Czernin back to the here and now. He was hungry and needed money. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he called out, clapping his hands together. “If you would give me your attention for a moment . . . ”

  Two snotty-nosed children stopped and stared at him with open mouths.

  “Stop a minute,” he called after a group of women. “I’m about to perform the street ballad of the six killers. Guaranteed to entertain. It’ll give you shivers down your spine. And if you like it, you can thank me with a coin or two . . . ”

  It took a while, but finally a small group of curious onlookers gathered around him. Czernin took off his hat and placed it in front of him and began to sing an old folk song:

  Es klopft so grauslich an der Tür:

  Ach, Weib, geschwind, öffne hierfür.

  Vielleicht ist es ein armer Mann,

  der sonst kein Obdach finden kann.

  A ferocious knock was at the door:

  Woman, he said, go open henceforth,

  could be it’s a man so poor,

  he’s unable to find another shelter.

  He cleared his throat. The cold had gotten to his vocal cords, and snippets of memories flashing through his head made his throat tighten.

  Das Weib das ging und eilt sogleich,

  bekommt in der Tür schon den ersten Streich.

  Sie morden Herrn und Knecht

  und Magd und rauben bis in den hellen Tag.

  The woman she did and off she dashed,

  and for it she was the first to be slashed.

  They murdered man and minion and maidservant too,

  and looted until the day sky was blue.

  “Boo,” one of the two children protested, holding his hands over his ears. “He’s singing it wrong.” The little brat threw a rock at him and then ran off, laughing.

  “Es war heut Nacht ein Angstgeschrei . . . ” he continued singing, “There was a cry of fear last night,” but the crowd had lost interest and wandered off in all directions.

  “A few hellers,” he called, holding up his hat. “You heard the first two verses, after all.” He was ignored; it was as if he didn’t exist at all. “Fine,” he mumbled. “Guess it’ll have to be the other method.” If they wouldn’t give him money voluntarily, he’d just have to take it.

  He kicked the fruit crate angrily, as if it were responsible for his lack of success, and then he tromped across the street to the Kosmos cinema. The matinee was about to start. He bought a ticket with the last of his money and sat down in one of the rear rows. Soon the lights would go out and the guests would shift their attention to the screen—then it was easy pickings.

  Much to his enjoyment they were showing a historical film, and he watched the start of it spellbound before he finally began to dedicate himself to the other viewers’ belongings.

  First he carefully pulled the purse of the woman sitting in front of him under the row of chairs, removed everything he deemed valuable, and then shoved it back into place. He repeated the procedure with an old woman sitting a few seats to the right, who grunted rapturously whenever Emil Jannings appeared on the screen in the role of King Ludwig.

  Grinning with satisfaction, Czernin leaned back to count his loot when he suddenly felt a cord around his neck. Sorry, he wanted to say. I’ll give it all back. But all that escaped his mouth was a gasp. He grabbed at his neck and tried to get his finger under the cord but wasn’t able to. Help! he wanted to scream, somebody help me! but he couldn’t produce so much as a peep.

  So he’d nicked a few things—that was no reason to choke him half to death. What was wrong with people?

  Czernin felt the pressure in his eyeballs, desperately mobilized his last reserves of energy, and kicked the chair in front of him.

  “Shhh,” was the only reaction he got.

  The assailant could let up anytime now. He’d learned his lesson. He wouldn’t be so quick to steal in the future. He tried to reach back and attack the choker, but his body was no longer following his commands.

  What was going on? What did the guy want? One last thought went through his head before everything went black: What if Zeiner had been right?

  11.

  The pain in Emmerich’s leg had been overshadowed by the one in his head. The piercing pain in his temples was barely tolerable, just like the throbbing at the base of his nose and the dragging pain in his neck.

  Groaning quietly, he opened his eyes and was suddenly wide awake. This was not his bed, and it also wasn’t his home.

  He sat up and looked around: sunlight pressed through thick full-length curtains and bathed the room in a dim light. He could make out a high ceiling, tiled walls, and two rows of beds lined up close together, from which he could hear moans and snoring. At first glance it reminded him of the homeless shelter which he’d visited two days before—except that it smelled different here. Clean and sterile. Clinically clean. He was lying in an infirmary.

  What had happened?

  His memories consisted of scattered images which made no sense. There were turnips, wine, amputated arms, and murdered men all whirling around in his mind.

  He touched his head and felt a thick bandage, which brought back another image . . . a bandaged man at his kitchen table. Xaver Koch.

  This image let loose an avalanche—Sander’s appearance at the station house, Luise’s desperate facial expression, the children’s dismay, his wordless exit, the visit to Beppo’s Bar . . .

  “Good morning!” A nurse in a high-necked, floor-length outfit pulled back the curtains, and Emmerich covered his face with his hands to protect his eyes from the bright light. “Aha,” she said, pressing her lips tightly together. “Our liquor casualty has come back to life.”

  “Coming back from the dead is all the rage at the moment.”

  Emmerich pushed back the covers and looked down. He had on a white knee-length garment that reminded him of a nightgown. A peek down the neck hole confirmed what he feared: he was completely naked beneath the gown. Even his lucky charm was gone. His heart skipped a few beats. He had never taken off the necklace. Never. The little silver amulet, a snake biting its own tail, had been found in the basket in which his mother had abandoned him. It was his most valuable possession and meant the world to him.

  “We don’t want to catch a chill, do we?” The matronly nurse pushed him back onto the hard mattress and covered him again.

  “What happened? Where’s my pendant, and my suitcase? Where are my clothes? And can I have something for the pain, please?” Emmerich tried to come across as embarrassed and friendly.

  The nurse seemed immune to his charm, because she just unceremoniously stuck a thermometer in his mouth.

  “I asked you something,” Emmerich mumbled, grabbing
her by the arm. Since he felt too weak to fight, he gave good behavior a try. “Please, it would be most charming of you.”

  This time she softened. “You can thank your guardian angel,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “You were found in the gutter. Drunk as a skunk, half naked, and with a big bump on the back of your head. You were nearly frozen to death. I don’t understand why they don’t introduce Prohibition here. Like in America. The devil lives in the bottle.”

  Someone must have attacked him and robbed him, and he’d been too bleary from liquor to defend himself. Could it really be true? Had he really lost everything all on one day? His new family, his home, his clothes, and his money? He could barely grasp the magnitude of the events.

  Emmerich began to explain that he was not a member of the brotherhood of booze but then let it be. He was too depleted to give a lecture, and the nurse wouldn’t believe him anyway.

  She took the thermometer out of his mouth and looked at it. “Let’s see whether your guardian angel also protected you from typhoid.”

  “Do I look like a typhoid?”

  “You don’t look like a typhoid, you catch it. But I think you’ve gotten lucky again. And now bed rest is the thing for you.” She expertly straightened out the bedcovers. “Oh yes. . . as far as the pain medication . . . here . . . ” She conjured a small glass ampule from her pocket and handed Emmerich two white tablets. “A doctor will look in later, examine you, and take your information.”

  Emmerich swallowed the pills, closed his eyes, felt a warm cloud slowly envelope his psyche, and laughed involuntarily. Life was and remained a miserable bastard.

  Once the woman had finally left the room, he sat back up again. He would have liked to stay in bed, but he didn’t want anyone to figure out his identity. A member of the police force picked up in the street half-naked and blithering drunk. Nobody could find out. His job, which he had put at risk the day before, was all he had left.

  He looked at the thermometer and declared himself healthy. Thanks to the pain medicine, standing up was no problem, and he tottered around the room on somewhat wobbly legs. They could have left him his socks. If he ever got his hands on whoever was responsible for this . . .

  “Where you going?” asked another patient.

  The devil didn’t live in the bottle, he lived in his nosy fellow men.

  “To the lavatory.”

  “That’s what the bedpans are for.”

  “Too small.”

  “You can’t just leave the room,” nagged the irritating fellow, sitting up. “Unless you want to catch your death.” He motioned at the thin hospital gown that Emmerich had on.

  “What’s it to you?”

  Emmerich opened the door to the room a crack and hurried out once the coast was clear. The stone floor was ice cold. He opened one door after another until he finally stumbled upon a laundry room. He slipped in but realized there were no civilian clothes stored there, just hospital uniforms. He rummaged through the things, pulled out a few that looked the right size, and ended up putting on a flimsy pair of white pants and a doctor’s lab coat. Now he just needed something for his feet. He couldn’t find any socks, but there was a pair of boots on the floor.

  Emmerich picked them up and muttered. Fate wasn’t treating him kindly. Not just because the shoes were too small, but because they were combat boots. Leather was rare, so they’d started to sole shoes with wood. Wooden soles weren’t only uncomfortable, they were loud. But what else could he do? He squeezed his frozen feet into the clunky footwear, took off his bandage, and went back out into the hall.

  Clack went his boots with every step, clack, clack, clack. He put his hands in his pockets and lowered his head.

  “Guten Tag, Herr Doctor,” a nurse rushing past greeted him.

  Emmerich hit upon an idea. There was pain medicine here, and he would certainly be able to use some numbing agents in the coming days—for his body and his mind.

  He soon found himself in another storeroom where there were crates full of medicine. The stuff the woman had given him seemed good, so he looked for little glass ampules.

  “Who have we got here?” he said when he located the right tablets. “Heroin, from Bayer.” So that was the name of the wonder drug.

  He gulped down another pill and grabbed as much of the stuff as he could. It would have to suffice for now. Clack, clack, clack went his boots again as he headed for the exit. The ampules of heroin in his pocket clinked quietly in rhythm.

  “Hey, you. Stop!” Emmerich thought about running, but realized that he wouldn’t get far with his damaged leg and the too-small combat boots. He sighed and turned around. The man who was standing in front of him—apparently a doctor—looked at Emmerich reproachfully. “Where are you going?”

  Emmerich already saw himself dishonorably discharged from duty, fighting over an entry card for the homeless shelter. “Me? I just wanted to step out. Get a breath of fresh air. The sick can be a handful.”

  The doctor looked him over through his round wire glasses. “You’ll have to get used to it,” he said finally. “Or opt for a different career.” He pointed to a large double door in front of which a group of lab coat wearers had assembled. “The teaching rounds begin,” he pulled out a silver-plated pocket watch, “ . . . right now.”

  His severe look reminded Emmerich of some of the commanders he’d served under during the war, and he had to resist clicking his heels together and saluting.

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “What are you waiting for? Punctuality is a virtue.” His tone left no room for protest.

  Emmerich put his hands in his pockets, held the heroin to his body so the bottles wouldn’t make any noise as he walked, and joined the group—Chief of Medicine Dr. Klein, thirteen students, and him.

  Klein, whose physical presence did justice to his name, spoke at length about the history and the various departments of the hospital, bored the group with a talk about the prevention of epidemics, and finally went into an encomium about the war.

  “The war, which is cursed by so many, was actually an unexpected and unparalleled opportunity to advance basic medical research and to gain unique new insights into the human constitution.”

  I would have happily foregone those insights,” mumbled Emmerich, who was standing between two men with slickly oiled hair nodding their heads euphorically. They looked at him with consternation and exchanged knowing glances between themselves.

  “First and foremost the areas of bacteriology and clinical surgery can without a shadow of a doubt be considered victors of the war,” the Chief of Medicine continued his paean, and Emmerich was getting itchy.

  When the speech was finally over, feverish applause broke out and Emmerich took a tentative step backwards. Clack.

  “Where are you going?” asked one of the oily men. “The teaching rounds are starting now.”

  “Just to stretch my leg for a moment. It was wounded in the oh so wonderful war.”

  The stuck-up bastard looked at Emmerich’s leg and took a disdainful glance at his boots. The guy himself was wearing an immaculate pair of pants made out of thick wool and ankle-high leather shoes that seemed to be competing with his hair to see which could glisten more. His lab coat was flawlessly clean, and on his ring finger was a thick signet ring that he managed to move at every possible chance into the field of vision of whomever he was speaking to.

  “Well, then, congratulations. In that case you’re already accustomed to infirmity.” The pomaded stallion shoved Emmerich into the next room hard enough that he nearly stumbled into the Chief of Medicine.

  “Since when did they start accepting guys like him into the medical school?” Emmerich heard the guy whisper. “What an embarrassment.”

  “He’s obviously useless,” answered the guy’s sidekick. “Did you get a look at his hands? He’s got the paws of a worker.”
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  Emmerich was standing directly between Dr. Klein and the group of students, and he could feel all eyes on him. “So,” he said, trying to sound enthusiastic, “let’s go!”

  The teaching round was like a stroll through the zoo. The patients were exhibited and gaped at like exotic creatures, and then they were talked about as if they weren’t even there.

  “Here you can see a typical case of Reiter’s Syndrome as a consequence of dysentery,” lectured Dr. Klein about a distraught, unsettled-looking old man. “Can anyone tell me the classic Reiter triad?”

  Emmerich cowered and stared at the floor as arms went up all around him. He’d been able to dodge all the questions up to now, and he prayed that the round would soon be finished.

  “Infections in the eye, the urethra, and the joints,” called out the oily little smarty-pants looking very proud of himself. After he’d earned a mild nod from Dr. Klein, he turned to Emmerich. “I’ve been watching you. You don’t know anything at all, do you?”

  The group wandered to the next bed, and Dr. Klein turned his attention to a young man who at first looked fully healthy. He handed over the patient’s file and it made its way around the group.

  “Who would like to give it a try?”

  “This man hasn’t had a turn.” Emmerich’s new friend pointed at him. “We wouldn’t want to leave anyone out. Now that Austria is a democratic republic and everyone has the same rights.”

  Laughs rung out, and Emmerich, who had gradually worked his way to the back, was pushed forward again. This was it. His cover was about to be blown.

  “What is your diagnosis?” asked Dr. Klein, handing him the file.

  Emmerich, who was now the center of all attention, feverishly looked over the paper while trying to think of a way out of his predicament.

  “Do you not know, my good man?” called the showboat, grinning hammily.

  “The diagnosis, please,” Dr, Klein demanded.