by Frank Tallis
Liebermann turned and walked back across the room. He sat on a stool, opened his bag, and pulled out a large green volume.
“Then why, Herr Sommer,” said Liebermann, “were you so anxious to acquire this?”
The color drained from the mathematics master's face.
“What… what is it?” The hollowness of Sommer's voice betrayed the insincerity of his question.
“Thomas Zelenka's Hartel and Jacobsen dictionary.”
For several seconds the mathematics master presented a blank visage—as if the efferent nerves supplying his face with emotional expressivity had suddenly been severed with a cheese wire. Then, quite suddenly, a burst of galvanic twitches preceded a loud exclamation.
“Ah yes—of course,” cried Sommer, clapping his hands together. “You must have heard something or other from that boy Wolf!”
“Indeed,” said Rheinhardt.
“Yes.… you see, it's a rather expensive dictionary and one that— I'm ashamed to say—I recommended to Zelenka. I should have given the matter more thought, particularly given Zelenka's enthusiasm for the sciences. As you know, Zelenka came from a poor family, so, on my return from Linz, I naturally wanted to make sure that this very valuable item had been safely returned—with the rest of his effects—to his parents. I made some inquiries and discovered that the dictionary had gone missing. I suspected that Wolf was the culprit—and subsequently challenged him. He protested his innocence and made some idle threats.” Sommer paused to shake his head. “Such a disagreeable boy. Now it seems that you have succeeded where I failed. How did you know that Wolf had it? I'm intrigued.”
Liebermann leaned forward and dropped the dictionary on Sommer's lap.
“The number pairs that appeared in the marginalia of Zelenka's exercise books—written in your hand, and his—correspond with the location of certain words in this dictionary. The first number refers to the page; the second number refers to the precise position of a particular word. Herr Sommer, we know what you were writing to each other. We now understand the… nature of your relationship.”
Sommer looked up at the young doctor. A faint smile flickered across his face, and a sound escaped from his mouth—an incomplete, forceful exhalation that carried within it a musical note of surprise. In spite of its brevity, this small vocalization was curiously dramatic, communicating both shock and resignation. The smile faded, and Sommer's features crumpled. He buried his head in his hands and began to sob.
“You knew that an autopsy would take place,” Liebermann continued, “and that the cuts on Zelenka's body would be discovered. However, you reasoned that these wounds would most probably be attributed to bullying, persecution, or torture—rather than to an erotic predilection. To reinforce this misconception, you wrote to the Arbeiter-Zeitung, in the guise of a former—and disaffected—pupil, Herr G. In this article, you denounced the culture of cruelty at Saint Florian's, and made reference to an invented punishment—'doing the night watch’—which had supposedly caused the accidental death of an unfortunate Hungarian boy called Domokos Pikler. In fact, Pikler did not fall to his death—he jumped. He suffered from suicidal melancholia. Your ruse was extremely effective. You did not fail to observe the cardinal rule of successful dissimulation: the inclusion of at least some of the truth.”
The mathematics master looked up and pulled the sleeve of his quilted jacket across his nose, leaving a trail of mucus on the faded silk. On his eyelashes, the remnants of tears caught the fading light.
“What did I do wrong?” Sommer asked Liebermann. “I did not coerce Zelenka. I did not force him. He wanted to do those things. He was a young man—but not so young as to be unconscious of his own actions, and insensible of their consequences…. I did not corrupt him. Our physical intimacies—however repugnant you might find them—created bonds of affection. Deep bonds. I know you will recoil if I claim that we knew love. You have opinions, no doubt, concerning the degree to which love can exist under such circumstances. We inverts are disqualified, on medical grounds, from admission into the higher realms of emotional life… although greater men have disagreed with that view in the past. Have you read the Erotes by Lucian, Herr Doctor?”
“No.”
“Two men debate the merits of loving boys compared to loving women. The defender of love for women argues that such love serves procreation, and is therefore more natural—a superior love. But his opponent reverses the argument. He agrees that love for boys is indeed a cultural rather than a natural phenomenon. But this shows that those who practice love for boys—or who have the imagination to derive pleasure from unusual acts—rise above nature. Love for boys is not yoked to primitive, animal passions. When the imaginative lover makes love, he does so with his aesthetic sensibilities fully engaged. When he makes love, he is—in a way—creating a work of art. He rises above the carnal. When the dialogue of the Erotes reaches its final pages, an adjudicator concludes that love for boys is the natural predilection of philosophers. It is the highest love.…”
Sommer clenched his fist.
“What did I do wrong?” He repeated his question. “You are a doctor and will describe me as a degenerate, an invert, a deviant. But may I remind you that it was Becker who killed Zelenka, not me! Respectable Dr. Becker, who would never have attracted such degrading appellations. And is it so very wrong to try to preserve one's position, one's livelihood? Had I been candid, I would have lost everything. You are fortunate, Herr Doctor, that your erotic instincts are directed toward socially acceptable aims. You did not make that choice—as I did not choose to be as I am. We are simply what we are—and what I am was not always judged to be bad. That is only the opinion of doctors in these modern times, and one day, opinions may change again. Therefore, do not judge me so unkindly.… The moral heights that you occupy are not so elevated as you think.”
Liebermann did not respond. Instead, he stood up and addressed Rheinhardt.
“I'll wait for you outside.”
66
LIEBERMANN GAZED OUT OF the carriage window.
The day was at its end and the hills had become shadowy and indistinct. He noticed the light of a fire—a speck of orange in a sea of darkness—and wondered who might be out there at this time. The temperature had dropped, and the landscape was looking particularly inhospitable.
“Cigar?”
Rheinhardt leaned across and offered him a Trabuco.
“Thank you,” said Liebermann. The young doctor struck a vesta and bent forward, allowing the end of his cheroot to touch the flame. “I still can't believe I was so slow-witted,” he said out of the side of his mouth. “I should have realized the significance of Zelenka's injuries as soon as you showed me the mortuary photographs— particularly those crural lacerations!”
“I must confess,” Rheinhardt responded, “I did not know that people did such things.”
“Then you should read the late Professor Krafft-Ebing's Psycho-paüiia Sexualis. It contains several cases of a similar type. For example, number forty-eight details the circumstances of an unfortunate gentleman whose young wife could only achieve sexual satisfaction if permitted to suck blood from a cut made on his forearm. The Psychopathia also contains numerous accounts of vampiric lust-murder.”
“Vampiric lust-murder?” Rheinhardt repeated slowly.
“Oh, yes… case nineteen: Leger—a vine dresser. He wandered in a forest for eight days until he came across a twelve-year-old girl. He violated her, tore out her heart, ate it, drank her blood, and buried her remains.”
Rheinhardt shook his head. It was remarkable how medical men— when confronted with the worst excesses of human behavior— could describe such horrors in the same impassive tone that they also employed when enumerating the symptoms of pleurisy or indigestion.
“What would make a man do such a thing?” Rheinhardt asked.
“A postmortem conducted by the great Esquirol,” Liebermann replied, “found morbid adhesions between the murderer's cerebral membranes and the
brain.”
“Could Sommer suffer from similar adhesions?”
“I very much doubt it—he is no murderer. His predilection for blood is probably best construed as a kind of fetish… posing no more of a threat to society than another man's insistence that his mistress should always wear a short jacket.” Liebermann drew on his cigar and became pensive. “I cannot recall whether Krafft-Ebing ever reported hemo-erotic tendencies in an individual whose sexual orientation was already inverted. If not, then a thorough study of Herr Sommer might make an original and instructive contribution to the literature. What will happen to Herr Sommer now?”
“His final words to you were very powerful—and I could see that you were moved by his appeal. However, the fact remains that the man abused his position. He assaulted a pupil—for that is how the authorities will view his degeneracy. He spread malicious rumors about Zelenka and Frau Becker—which had fatal consequences. He was prepared to falsify Wolf's examination results, and he submitted an article to the Arheiter-Zeitung, the sole purpose of which was to confuse a police inquiry. I would say, without fear of exaggeration, that Herr Sommer's prospects are not good. Incidentally,” Rheinhardt continued, tilting his head to one side, “how did you discover that the Arbeiter-Zeitung article was written by Sommer?”
“When we first visited Herr Sommer, I observed his name—Herr G. Sommer—painted by the door. The article in the Arbeiter-Zeitung was by Herr G. This coincidence did not escape my notice. Perhaps Herr Sommer was unable to stop himself from signing the article with his own initial because of some strange compulsion—or perhaps he just made a thoughtless error, a slip.” Liebermann rested his cigar in the ashtray, which was positioned in the carriage door. “Or perhaps,” he continued, “Herr Sommer reasoned that no one would expect a man intent on deceit to implicate himself by employing his real initial—and he therefore acted counterintuitively as a subtle ruse. Whatever the psychic mechanism underlying his action, he succeeded in rousing my curiosity. Human beings are always revealing their secrets in the little things that they do.”
The young doctor shrugged and recovered his cigar. He then held up the cheroot and smiled, as if to say, There will even be a reason why I put this down only to pick it up again!
“Had Herr Sommer not written his article,” Liebermann continued, “things might have turned out very differently. After all, it was Herr Sommer's article that resulted in your reassignment to the Saint Florian case.”
“Indeed,” Rheinhardt replied. “Zelenka's death would have been attributed to natural causes, and the investigation would have ended quite prematurely.”
Rheinhardt twirled his mustache and emitted a pensive growl.
“What?” Liebermann asked.
“I was just thinking. It's odd, isn't it, that my reluctance to abandon this case was due—at least initially—to Zelenka's youth? I found it difficult to accept the death of a…” He hesitated before saying “child.” Then, pronouncing the words with bitter irony he added: “The death of an innocent! And yet… This same angelic-looking boy…” His sentence trailed off into an exasperated silence.
“Professor Freud,” said Liebermann softly, “does not believe that we humans ever enjoy a state of grace—a period of infantile purity. He is of the opinion that we can observe presentiments of adulthood even in the nursery. The toddler's tantrum prefigures murderous rage… and even the contented sucking of a thumb may provide the infant with something alarmingly close to sensual comfort and pleasure.”
“I find that hard to accept,” said Rheinhardt.
“Well—you are not alone,” said Liebermann, grinning.
When Liebermann entered his apartment, he discovered that his serving man—Ernst—had left an envelope for him, conspicuously placed on the hall stand. Liebermann opened it and discovered a note inside. He recognized the small, precise handwriting immediately. It was from Miss Amelia Lyd gate: an apology—and an invitation.
67
GEROLD SOMMER SAT AT his table next to a pile of exercise books. He had already finished marking most of them, but there were a few that he hadn't yet looked at. Given his predicament, he had been surprised to find that his thoughts had kept returning to this unfinished task. The sense of incompletion had been so persistent, so troubling, that in due course he had dragged himself from his reading chair where he had sat brooding, and repositioned himself at the table where he was now working.
The work he had set concerned triangles. In his most recent class, he had shown the boys how to calculate the area of a triangle using the method attributed to Heron of Alexandria. Sommer remembered standing by the blackboard, chalk in hand, looking at their bored faces, and saying in a conversational manner: This attribution is probably incorrect, as Archimedes almost certainly knew the formula, and it may have been employed by many anonymous mathematicians before him.…
This nugget of information had not made the subject any more interesting for the boys. Indeed, one of them—a scrawny fellow with greasy hair—had covered his mouth to disguise a yawn.
It was extraordinary, Sommer pondered, how so many people— boys and men alike—found mathematics tedious. It was such an elegant subject. In any right-angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Where else could you find such universal certainty, such indisputable truth, such perfection?
Sommer opened the first exercise book, which belonged to Stojakovic. He was gratified to find that the Serbian boy was deserving of a good mark. He liked Stojakovic. The other exercise books contained work of varying quality, but Sommer was a conscientious teacher. He made an effort to write something helpful or encouraging whenever he could—even if he knew the boy concerned to be innumerate and uninterested.
Triangles…
Herr Lang, Frau Becker, Zelenka…
Dr. Becker, Zelenka, Frau Becker…
Frau Becker, Zelenka… myself.
Sommer dismissed these intrusive triangulations from his mind. He did not want to think about such things.
When he had finished marking the exercise books, the mathematics master unwrapped some bread and cheese (which he had collected from the kitchen earlier) and opened a bottle of Côte de Brouilly The wine had been a gift from his uncle Alfred, and Sommer had been saving it for a special occasion. It was dark, full-bodied, and left a fruity aftertaste. After drinking only two glasses, the mathematics master collected his personal papers together and examined them to make sure that his affairs were in order. He then wrote a brief note addressed to his mother, apologizing for his conduct, and another addressed to a friend in Salzburg, which made reference to an outstanding financial debt that he wished to be settled. He then pressed the muzzle of a pistol firmly against his temple and pulled the trigger.
His eyes remained open.
68
AS LIEBERMANN MARCHED THROUGH the streets of Alsergrund, his thoughts took the form of questions and doubts: moreover, his general disquietude was exacerbated by an unpleasant fluttering sensation in his chest. It made him feel light-headed and breathless. He put his hand in his pocket and touched Miss Lyd gate s note.
He wondered why he had accepted her invitation, when he might just as well have replied with a polite refusal. Even though it had been his intention to decline, Liebermann had found himself writing courteous phrases that moved—inexorably—toward a bald statement that she should expect him at the appointed time.
What was Miss Lyd gate s purpose? Would she give him some indication, however small, of her changed circumstance, or would she eschew mention of her romantic involvement altogether, choosing instead to pour tea, offer biscuits, and share with him her latest philosophical enthusiasm. He was not sure he could tolerate such a conversation. The temptation to press her for some revelation—or even a complete confession—might be too powerful to resist.
Liebermann was surprised by the strength of his feelings—and shamefully aware of their proprietorial nature. He thought of Professor Freu
d, the most rational of men, driven to the very brink of demanding satisfaction—because of jealousy. He thought of Dr. Becker, motivated to kill another human being—because of jealousy. And he thought of himself, reeling away from the Café Segel, delirious with disappointment and rage—because of jealousy.
It was an ugly destructive emotion, and as a civilized man he felt obliged to overcome his primitive urges. Yet the desire to possess a woman exclusively was an indelible feature of the male psyche, and to repress such feelings would simply promote—according to Professor Freud—the development of hysterical and neurotic symptoms. Modern man must either wallow in the mire of his animal instincts or deny them and become mentally ill.
A fragment of conversation:
That man… The one who stopped you outside Demel's.
What?
The man who called you Amélie—Franz…
Oh yes. Strange, wasn't it?
You knew him, really, didn't you?
Are you jealous?
Liebermann didn't want to be jealous. But there was one thing he didn't want to be even more, and that was mentally ill.
In due course, Liebermann arrived outside Frau Rubenstein's house. He rapped the knocker three times and waited. A few moments later, the door opened and Amelia Lyd gate was standing in front of him. She was wearing a simple white dress and her hair fell in blazing tresses to her shoulders. Her eyes—which never failed to astonish him—seemed to be reflecting a bright blue light: the harsh blue of an Alpine lake or glacier. Unusually, she smiled—a broad, uninhibited smile. Its radiance imbued her face with beatific qualities. Indeed, there was something about her appearance that reminded Liebermann of religious iconography: she might easily have replaced the angel in a Renaissance Annunciation.
