Mephisto Waltz

by F. R. Tallis

  “What about you?”

  “No. I won’t be getting a cross or ribbon to pin on my chest. But Brügel did say that he will be recommending me for promotion.”

  “Promotion—to what post?”

  Rheinhardt looked at his shoes bashfully. When he spoke, he sounded a little bemused and his voice uncharacteristically high. “Commissioner.”

  Liebermann was suddenly sitting bolt upright—his eyes wide open. “I’m sorry?”

  The policeman raised his fist to his mouth, coughed, and repeated the words with more authority. “Commissioner.”

  Liebermann leapt off his chair, grasped Rheinhardt’s hand and shook it with unconscionable violence. “Oskar, that is truly marvelous. Congratulations. Commissioner Rheinhardt—oh, how I like the sound of that.” The shaking continued. “I am so pleased for you—Else must be delighted!”

  “Max—my hand . . .”

  “Yes, of course.” Liebermann released his grip and stepped back. “Congratulations.”

  “My appointment won’t be for several years.”

  “But if Brügel recommends you.”

  “I will be appointed—yes.”

  Liebermann looked at his friend more closely. “You don’t seem—”

  “Happy? No—I’m happy. Certainly I’m happy. But to be commissioner of the Viennese security office is a great responsibility. And I will miss being out and about on the streets, offering inducements to my informants and interviewing suspects.”

  “You won’t have to sit behind a desk all day like Brügel. That was his decision.”

  “There will be so much administrative work—so many forms and papers.”

  “Then you will have to appoint deputies. You’ll be a new kind of commissioner—more active, more engaged with your men. You will be the most impressive and popular commissioner this city has ever seen.”

  Rheinhardt’s cheeks filled with air. They deflated slowly. “I suppose it is time to move on. And when I become commissioner, young Haussmann can step into my shoes,” Rheinhardt grinned. “Detective Inspector Haussmann. He means to marry the girl he’s been seeing—the pretty dancer I met at the hospital. The rise in salary will be timely.”

  Liebermann felt a lump rising in his throat. It was so typical of his generous-spirited friend to accept the burden of additional responsibilities more readily because others might benefit.

  “Max.” Rheinhardt smiled and lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes. “Thank you. Your assistance has been invaluable.”

  Liebermann felt somewhat embarrassed. He was already attempting to disguise a surfeit of emotion. “Not every policeman is astute enough to recognize the importance of psychological insight. Whatever I have achieved—as your consultant—is entirely to your credit.”

  They shook hands again and returned to their seats where they talked excitedly for a full hour about how the security office might be modernized under the wardship of the newly appointed Commissioner Rheinhardt. By the time they had exhausted the topic, the room was dense with smoke and the brandy decanter was almost empty.

  There was a long period of silence.

  “Oh, I forgot to mention,” said Rheinhardt. “I received a note from Miss Lydgate.”

  “Did you?” said Liebermann, innocently.

  “Yes,” Rheinhardt continued. “Concerning the heat sensitive ink. She kindly conducted an analysis and concluded that it is made by dissolving copper in hydrochloric acid—with a little nitrate of potassium. These chemicals are diluted with water until writing is no longer visible. However, heat will make such writing reappear—and it will fade again when cold. Ingenious, but . . .” Rheinhardt turned and looked at his friend. “I’m sure you know that already. She must have told you by now.”

  Liebermann shifted uncomfortably. “Err . . . yes, yes. She has told me.”

  Rheinhardt held up a red hair and pulled it tightly between both hands. Even though it was a single strand, the firelight made it shine, brightly. “I am a detective after all, and the evidence is now overwhelming.” Rheinhardt dropped the hair and raised his glass. “May your life together be long and happy.”

  SEVENTY

  Lutz Globocnik was seated at a table in a crowded beer cellar in rural Bohemia. He was trying to write a letter but the noise was rather distracting. A short distance from the village was a garrison town. Consequently, the beer cellar was full of soldiers. Most of them were drunk. Even so, their disorderly behavior was good-humored and the general atmosphere convivial.

  A group of senior ranks were cajoling a young private to stand up and sing.

  “Come on, Lojzik, get up, will you?”

  “Sing us a song for Gods’s sake.”

  “What’s the matter? Shy are we?”

  “If you don’t get up and sing right now I’ll have you doing latrine duty for a week!”

  The unfortunate Lojzik stood up and his comrades started clapping. He opened his mouth and filled the room with his sweet, youthful tenor. The song was about Franz Javurek, the hero of Sadowa—an artilleryman with “The Battery of the Dead.” After his head was blown off by a Prussian shell he remained at his post:

  A u kanonu stal a furt jen ladoval.

  He stands by the cannon and goes on loading.

  When Lojzik finished his song, the artilliary men—stirred by sentiments of martial virtue—cheered and stamped their feet.

  “Another round . . .”

  “Come here, boy! Wet your whistle and give us another.”

  “Zuza! Another round.”

  A waitress came forward carrying a tray full of tankards. She had to move swiftly to avoid being grabbed. She was quite pretty.

  Globocnik returned his attention to his letter. It was addressed to Herr Doctor Liebermann. He felt rather bad about absconding. He shouldn’t have run off like that and he owed the young doctor an apology. After all, the treatment had been very effective. He had been very confused and upset and the hypnosis had definitely made him feel a lot better. For a period of time the world had seemed strangely altered and he hadn’t been able to think straight. He had lost the ability to discriminate between dreams, wishes, and reality. But when those terrible memories were restored it was like the pieces of a puzzle falling into place. His sense of self returned—he knew who he was again—and what he must do. And Liebermann had been very kind, he realized that now.

  When he looked up again, Globocnik saw that the waitress was smiling at him. She dodged another rapacious hand.

  He was going to put Vienna behind him. He’d never been very happy there. He was going to seek out his uncle who owned a small farm north of the garrison town—and ask for a job. Working behind a desk hadn’t been good for Globocnik and the prospect of honest toil was very appealing—his lungs full of fresh, country air, the sun on his back. He would become fit and strong—a new man.

  The waitress had noticed his tankard was almost empty and she arrived at his side with another bottle of beer.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “Writing to your sweetheart?”

  “No,” Globocnik replied. “I don’t have a sweetheart.”

  “That’s just as well then.” What did she mean by that? He looked up at her—puzzled. The girl smiled again and he noticed the redness of her lips and the whiteness of her teeth. Her hazel eyes were large and attractive. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Lutz,” he replied.

  “Well, Lutz. I’m free in another ten minutes. Do you fancy a stroll?”

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Mendel Liebermann had commandeered Amelia’s attention for most of the evening, and throughout dinner, Liebermann’s mother, Rebecca, had eyed the conferring pair with uneasy vigilance. Occasionally, Mendel’s voice had risen above the hubbub and certain words had become clearly audible: “Capital accounting,” “surplus expenditure,” “accrued liabilities.” He was obviously subjecting a new business idea to the exacting test of Amelia’s forensic scrutiny. When the family retired to the receptio
n room, Liebermann’s mother had positioned herself apart. Amelia, observing Rebecca’s remove, had crossed the room to sit at her side. A conversation had started that appeared, from a distance, to be alarmingly intense.

  When the head servant arrived to announce that Liebermann’s carriage was ready, Rebecca embraced Amelia with affection. It surprised everyone present. Liebermann exchanged perplexed glances with both of his sisters. His mother kissed him and whispered in his ear, “Be good to her.” He felt a little annoyed. Admittedly, his last engagement hadn’t ended very well, but surely his mother didn’t think he meant to make a habit of disappointing potential brides.

  On Concordiaplatz, Liebermann and Amelia climbed into the waiting carriage. Liebermann switched on the electric light and knocked on the woodwork. Slowly, the vehicle began to move forward and accelerate. The horse whickered and the sound of clopping hooves became louder as they turned into a narrow street.

  “I’m sorry about my father,” Liebermann said. “He always wants to talk business.”

  “I really don’t mind,” Amelia replied. “It is a pleasure to apply oneself to challenging problems—and the unfamiliar obliges one to make full use of one’s intellectual armamentarium. It was a pleasing exercise.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Most stimulating.”

  Amelia shifted toward Liebermann along the seat and the red leather of her new boots appeared from beneath the decorated hem of her velvet skirt. A thrill of concupiscence erased the contents of Liebermann’s mind and it was only after a significant hiatus that he had recovered the necessary wherewithal to ask his next question. Affecting an air of blithe nonchalence, Liebermann said, “So . . . what did you talk to my mother about?”

  “You, mostly,” Amelia replied.

  “And what, exactly, did she have to say about me?”

  “A great deal, in fact. She expounded at some length.”

  “Are you at liberty to disclose what was said? Or must I respect confidentiality?”

  “I do not believe it was your mother’s intention to establish a secret alliance.”

  “I am glad to hear it.”

  Amelia’s gaze was clear and penetrating—her metallic eyes vivid in the hard, electric light. “She talked about your childhood, how you behaved as a boy and how you worried her so much, because you were always running off and she was never quite sure where you were, and how remonstrating had little effect, because even then, you were extermely stubborn and inclined to ignore good counsel. She was particularly anxious when you attended university, because she was sure that you would purposely provoke members of the nationalist fraternities and receive a fatal injury in a duel. Did you have duels at university?”

  “I may have,” said Liebermann, his expression mysteriously defiant.

  Amelia considered Liebermann’s response for a few seconds and a deep furrow appeared on her forehad. She nodded and continued, “Your mother is of the opinion that you seek trouble, and, in this respect, you have not changed very much since your early adolescence. She then spoke of your association with Detective Inspector Rheinhardt, and how she is perfectly aware that your work for the security office is dangerous. Your attempts to present matters otherwise, she humbly suggested, would be an insult to any mother’s intelligence, let alone one who knows her son as well as she does. Finally, she said that although she loved you and was very proud of you, sometimes she doubted whether having a clever and spirited son could ever be adequate compensation for all the worry—and that even though you are a psychiatrist you probably know less about women than you think. Particularly so with respect to what women actually want. I’m paraphrasing of course.”

  “I see,” said Liebermann. “Forgive me, but I can’t help feeling that my mother’s account of my history and character, although no doubt commendably frank, could be reasonably judged as erring on the side of the critical.”

  “You understimate her, Max.” Liebermann gestured for Amelia to continue. “She was never concerned about my suitability. And the fact that I am not Jewish did not trouble her in the least. No. She was worried about whether I truly understood what to expect when we are married.”

  Liebermann sighed. “I’m not going to change. It’s just the way I am. And when Rheinhardt is commissioner he’ll need me even more.”

  “So,” said Amelia, “you are happy to concede that your mother has a point?”

  “I suppose she does.”

  “You intend to place yourself at Rheinhardt’s disposal for the foreseeable future?”

  “There will always be peril, danger, and narrow escapes.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  Unable to resist her lips a moment longer, Liebermann drew the curtain and they kissed.

  NOTE ON HISTORY AND SOURCES

  Elisabeth, the Empress of Austria, was assassinated in Geneva on September 10, 1898, by the young Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni. Lucheni originally went to Geneva in order to kill the Duke of Orléans but he was was unable to locate the pretender to the French throne. Lucheni decided to assassinate Elisabeth instead when he discovered in a newspaper article that a glamorous woman who traveled under the name of Countess von Hohenembs was none other than the Empress of Austria and staying at the Hôtel Beau-Rivage. An account of Elisabeth’s assassination can be found in The Reluctant Empress: A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria by Brigitte Hamann. Aspects of Elisabeth’s beauty regimen and neurasthenia are considered in Vienna’s Most Fashionable Neurasthenic: Empress Sisi and the Cult of Size Zero by Sabine Wieber; one of many informative articles to be found in Journeys into Madness: Mapping Mental Illness in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (edited by Gemma Blackshaw and Sabine Wieber).

  Professor Mathias’s rubber gloves were invented in 1889 by William Stewart Halsted, chief surgeon of the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

  The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents by Alex Butterworth is a compelling history of radical politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It contains much incidental detail of interest to a novelist. Radical gentlemen, for example, often encouraged their wives to take lovers in order to demonstrate their wholesale rejection of bourgeoise values and show their commitment to sexual equality.

  Professor de Cyon (1843–1912) was a Russian French physiologist born in a part of the Russian Empire that is now Lithuania. He was a harsh marker of academic essays and as a consequence he was often pelted with eggs and gherkins by students. He was a pioneer of cardiography and was one of the first to suggest that a cardiograph might also be used as a lie detector. Cardiographs at the beginning of the twentieth century were complicated and ramshackle pieces of aparatus requiring the patient to sit with limbs immersed in tubs of water. My description of an early cardiograph is not fully accurate. Several operators were required and Amelia’s “procedure” has been abbreviated to expedite the narrative.

  The spa town that Professor Seeliger visits is fictional but based on real exemplars. An interesting chapter on the rise of health tourism, titled “Travel to the Spas” by Jill Seward, can be found in the above mentioned Journeys into Madness.

  In 1904, Emil Kläger, a journalist, and Hermann Draw, a court clerk and amateur photographer, explored and recorded the night life of the Viennese underworld. They were guided by a known criminal who wore brass knuckles to deter potential assailants.

  The first commerically successful calculator appeared in office environments in 1851. W.T. Odhner began manufacturing calculating machines in 1886 and in 1892 he sold his patent to Grimme, Natalis & Co. A.G. of Braunschweig. These machines were for sale in Germany and neighboring territories. The Odhner style calculator was marketed as a Brunswiga and some twenty thousand were sold between 1892 and 1912.

  The Jagiellonian dynasty lasted from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries and Princess Zymburgis was renowned for her physical strength.

  The battle of Tannenberg, also known as the first battle of Tannenberg,
the battle of Grunwald, or the battle of Žalgaris, took place on the July 15, 1410, during the course of the Polish-Lithuanian War.

  The Siege of Szigetvár is named after the fortress of Szigetvár in Hungary which blocked the advance of the Ottoman invasion under the command of Suleiman in 1566.

  Lev Hartmann was born in Archangel in 1850 and died in England in 1913 after deportation. He was a member of the executive committee of the People’s Will—a revolutionary and anti-tzarist organization. Hartmann’s attempt with Sofia Pervoskaya to kill Tzar Alexander II by blowing up the tzar’s train took place on the night of November 19, 1879. The fourth carriage was carrying fruit conserve and was on its way to supply the imperial palaces in the Crimea. The tzar had changed trains and was already in Moscow. The People’s Will finally succeded in their efforts to assassinate Tzar Alexander II on March 1, 1881. He was killed with a canister grenade thrown by Ignacy Hryniewiecki (Grinevitsky) (1856–1881).

  Emperor Franz Josef was very fond of early morning visits to his “friend,” the actress Katharina Schratt, who lived at Gloriettegasse 9. Subjects would often gather by the royal carriage to catch a glimpse of the emperor. A full account of the emperor’s relationship with Katharina Schratt—and their breakfast arrangements—can be found in The Emperor and the Actress: The Love Story of Emperor Franz Josef and Katharina Schratt by Joan Haslip.

  The two inalienable heirlooms of the house of Habsburg were once part of the “thaumatological collection.” They are the Holy Grail (an agate bowl in which the letters XRISTO appear in the agate veins when held in a certain light) and a unicorn horn (which was made into a scepter). They are now exhibited as part of the imperial object collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

  Although Judge Weeber intends to look for the skeletons of Ottoman camels on the Eastern battlefields after his retirement, he probably wouldn’t have found many in 1904; however, it might just have been possible, as skeletons of men and camels were being found centuries after the Ottoman conflicts.