Immortal Muse

by Stephen Leigh

  In the early evening, the avenue was relatively crowded, with carriages passing by and people walking the streets. A few young boys moved among the better-dressed citizens, begging for coins. Gabriele walked toward the tavern slowly, thinking. When one of the boys approached her, she caught him by his thin shoulder. “How would you like to earn five kronen tonight?” she asked.

  He looked at her with a strange melding of eagerness, suspicion, and greed as he wiped a dirty sleeve over a slightly dirtier face. “And how might I do that?”

  “Nothing too hard, and nothing that will get you in trouble with the gendarmerie. What’s your name?”

  “Andre.”

  “Well, then, Andre …” She described Nicolas and Gustav to the boy, handing him a one-krone coin. “That’s your advance. The rest I’ll give you later. Now, I want you to go inside and look for the two men I’ve described. They should be drinking together. I want you to see their faces so you know them. Then come back out here and I’ll give you the rest of your instructions.”

  The boy returned several minutes later, chewing the remnants of a pastry he’d either stolen or bought with the krone. “I saw them, Fräulein. Herr Klimt I recognized; the man with him is dark-haired and short, with sharp eyes and hands that won’t stay still. They’re sitting at a table on the balcony outside the Steindl Room with steins of beer and plates of schmankerln.” He grinned and licked his lips of the pastry crumbs. “It didn’t look like they’ll be going anywhere soon.”

  Gabriele patted the boy’s head. She pointed to the corner just down the street, where a carriage went jangling by. “There’s an inn just around the corner there. You know it, Andre?” He nodded his head vigorously. “That’s where I’ll be. I want you to stay here and watch; if you see either Herr Klimt or the other man leaving, run and get me. Otherwise, I’ll return in two hours, and I’ll pay you the rest of your fee.”

  At one in the morning, after fending off several offers by well-lubricated customers to escort her to their rooms, she paid her bill and left the inn, going back to the Gösser Bierklini. Andre was still there, leaning against the pole of one of the gas lamps that dotted the street. “Herr Klimt and the other man are still inside,” he told her. “I just checked again only a few minutes ago. But their plates have been collected and the bill is on the table.”

  Gabriele thanked him and paid him the remaining kroner for his troubles. She found a shadowed spot at an alleyway entrance half a block up the street and kept watch herself; perhaps fifteen minutes later, she saw Nicolas emerge from the tavern with Klimt. The two conversed for a few moments, then Klimt turned left and Nicolas right, back the way he’d originally come and moving toward Gabriele. The street was now otherwise deserted, and she stepped farther back into the alleyway, drawing the Gasser revolver from her handbag, and putting her back to the wall closest to where Nicolas would pass. She whispered a phrase in Arabic before he could reach her, accompanying it with a wave of her free hand: in response, the night suddenly went eerily silent around her; she could not even hear Nicolas’ footsteps on the stones of the avenue. She saw the elongated form of his shadow, thrown by the gas light, then Nicolas himself, walking quickly down the street.

  She raised the revolver, aimed directly at his back. She pressed the trigger and saw the flame, but there was no report echoing from the flanks of the buildings around them, only silence. Nicolas stumbled, his head craning to look back, his mouth open in a shout, though she could hear nothing: she fired again into the eerie silence, the chambers turning, then yet again, and he went down hard onto the cobbles. Gabriele looked quickly around—the street was still empty. She thrust the revolver back into her handbag, then ran to grab the limp body by the lapels, pulling Nicolas deep into the alleyway, well away from the street. As she did so, the spell of silence vanished; the sound of Nicolas’ body being dragged along the stones sounded impossibly loud, and her breath seemed a roar. Panting, she leaned over the body; the mingled, sharp scent of blood and gunpowder wrinkled her nose, overpowering the other odors of the alley. Her hands were stained with red.

  Nicolas didn’t appear to be breathing, but she knew that already the elixir would be working in his body, repairing the damage and returning him to life. She set down the handbag and removed from it a long, wicked butcher’s knife—she’d left the saber behind as too heavy and obvious to carry in the streets. The butcher’s knife would make the work more difficult and messy, but that didn’t matter. She knelt down on the greasy stones of the alley.

  A carriage rattled past the entrance of the alley; she hesitated, ready to flee, but it didn’t stop.

  As she placed the blade against Nicolas’ throat, his eyes flew open and he took a long, shuddering gasp. Do it. Do it now … She knew she should move before he could speak, but it was already too late. “Perenelle …” His voice was weak, little more than a croak. He moaned, then, and that made her draw back a little. His eyes found hers. “You don’t need to do this.”

  “You left me no choice, Nicolas.” She pressed the blade hard enough that a line of blood trickled down his neck. He was staring at her, watching her. She could feel her hand trembling. She imagined how it would feel: the blade slicing muscle and tendons, severing veins and arteries so that the blood would spurt, slick and hot on her hands. She would hit the cartilage of the esophagus and push through, Nicolas’ life gurgling out, his dying breaths causing the blood to bubble. And finally reaching the bone of the spine, where she would have to saw her way through, with both hands pressing down on the knife to separate the head from the body, as the guillotine had done to Antoine.

  Then it would be over. He would no longer be able to torment her.

  “It tastes good, doesn’t it?” Nicolas grated out. “Like a warm slice of just-baked bread, slathered with butter. I understand.” He gave a hideous, liquid laugh that flecked his lips and cheeks with spots of blood. “It’s the way I am.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m not like you at all.”

  He laughed again. “You are now,” he said, and that angered her enough that she started to press harder on the knife as his hands flailed helplessly on the stones. Blood began to flow.

  “No!” she shouted at his contorted face. “I’m not like you! I’m saving the world from you, from all the rest that you’ll end up killing.”

  “Phah!” he spat. His ruined voice was nearly inaudible. “At least have the courage not to lie to yourself. You’re doing this for yourself.”

  “Hey! What’s going on here?” The shout, from the end of the alleyway, brought Gabriele’s head up. A trio of men stood there, outlined against the light of the gas lamp across the street. They were pointing toward her, and already one of the men was stepping fully into the alley.

  “Help me!” Nicolas’ shout was more a harsh whisper, but it carried. “Murder!”

  All three began to move. Gabriele pressed down hard on the butcher knife, but she couldn’t cut all the way through his neck. She dropped the knife and reached for her handbag, bringing out the revolver. “Stay back!” she told the men. Drunkenly, they stumbled to a halt; one retreated entirely, shouting for help. Gabriele placed the gun directly over Nicolas’ heart. His eyes were open, staring at her above the new red mouth that was his ruined throat. “Remember the pain,” she told him, “and leave me alone from now on.”

  She pulled the trigger, the report muffled against Nicolas’s suit jacket. His body jerked and went still; his eyes closed again. She could hear a gendarme’s whistle tearing at the night, and the sound of running feet. The two remaining men shrunk back in alarm as she brandished the smoking barrel toward them. “Get back, or I shoot!” she shouted at them, and they retreated hastily.

  Then, turning, she gathered her bloody skirts and fled to the far end of the alley, where it emptied out onto the next avenue.

  *

  Back in her rooms, she found herself shaking as she cleaned herself of Nicolas’ blood. A quick charm had masked the blood from the gaze of th
e casual passers-by as she’d made her way home, but the spell had failed as she’d neared her apartment, and she’d been lucky that no one had seen her as she’d run the last few blocks. Verdette watched from a perch on the sink, then padded over to her and jumped into her lap when she finally sat, exhausted and still trembling with emotion, on the couch. She stroked the cat, talking to her as if she could understand. “It was so much harder than I thought it would be. To kill someone—even Nicolas—when he’s looking at you, face-to-face …” She shuddered, remembering, and choked back a sob. “I had him, Verdette. It was over, and I … I waited too long. I failed. I had the opportunity and I couldn’t just do it. I failed.”

  She pressed down too hard on Verdette’s back as she stroked, and Verdette mewled in protest, rising and settling again. “I’m sorry,” she told Verdette, told the air. “I’m sorry.”

  She fell asleep there, finally, with Verdette still on her lap.

  The next morning, she went to Gustav’s studio. He was already there, working with his assistants on preparing a canvas, and when he turned to greet her, she knew that she was already too late. The certainty was there in the smoothness of his skin, in the way his hair had darkened and regained the shore of forehead it had abandoned. “Gustav … What have you done to yourself?”

  “Done?” he answered. “Herr Snra said you would know immediately. Last night over dinner, he told me how you were actually much older than you appear to be, and that you were once lovers, years ago. He said it would be a gift from him to you to have me take the same elixir, rare as it is. I must admit that I feel twenty years old again. I feel utterly marvelous. Oh, he also said to tell you that he wouldn’t be stopping by today; he had another appointment he’d forgotten.”

  So he’s gone … “Gustav, why would you take such a thing from a man you barely know?”

  His eyebrows crinkled quizzically and his head cocked slightly. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t. But he seemed genuine enough, and it was obvious he knew you, and we were drinking, so I wasn’t exactly as cautious as I might have been … Gabriele, why are you crying? I would have thought you’d be happy for me.”

  I should have killed him. I should have done the deed, but it was already too late for Gustav … She sniffed and blotted her eyes with the sleeve of her coat. Her handbag was heavy on her arm, the weight of the revolver an accusation. “I’m glad you feel so well, Gustav. The elixir … I should thank Herr Srna personally. Do you know where he’s staying? I want to meet him again.”

  He was staring at her strangely, but he shrugged. He obviously hadn’t heard of the attempted murder of Srna the night before, though she was sure that he would, soon enough. “Ja, I have his card. Let me see …” Gustav went to the desk in the corner of the studio. “Here it is,” he said, handing the linen rectangle to Gabriele. “You’ll pose for me? I feel such energy to work today.”

  “Later this afternoon,” she told him. “I really must see Herr Srna now, before he leaves.”

  Gustav’s eyebrows rose, but he only shrugged under his painting smock. “Then tell him that I wish to buy more of his gold foil at the price he suggested. I’ll send one of my assistants to him tomorrow with a note from my bank. Will you tell him that?”

  She nodded. “I’ll tell him,” she said.

  “And you’ll come back then and pose for me.”

  “Ja, Gustav. I will.” She stretched out her hand and touched Gustav’s cheek. His skin felt impossibly smooth. Youthful. But he wouldn’t stay that way. Not for long.

  And it was her fault, and she was the only one who could do anything about it.

  *

  The address Gustav had given her was for rented rooms in a building outside the Ringstrasse, a neighborhood that had once been rich but was now slowly declining. The building had originally been a single residence but had more recently been converted into spacious flats. Gabriele checked the gun in her handbag as well as the vials nestled in cotton wool there.

  The concierge at the door was an old man who looked as if he’d been at his post for decades. A bronze tag on his uniform proclaimed that he was Franz. The wrinkled landscape of his face creased into sorrowful folds when she told him that she was here to see Herr Srna.

  “That poor man,” Franz said. “He was nearly murdered last night.”

  “Truly?” Gabriele tried to look appropriately concerned. “So he’s in hospital? Do you know which one?”

  “Oh no, Fräulein, he’s not in hospital, though he probably should be. It was terrible. When they brought him here, his clothing was soaked in blood and he looked near death. He couldn’t walk or talk; they’d had to hire men with a stretcher. He had insisted that the gendarmes bring him here. They woke me up, and my wife and I helped Herr Srna up to his rooms with the gendarmes and the stretcher men. I thought we would be calling for an undertaker within the hour at first. But my wife, she spent most of the night tending to his wounds and bandaging him—he had terrible wounds on his neck. She tried to convince him to call for a doctor, but he wouldn’t let her. He sent her away after she bound up and cleaned his wounds. She’s asleep now, poor dear.”

  He sighed dramatically. Gabriele had the feeling that Franz would talk for hours if she allowed him.

  “If I might go see him since we’re old friends …” she began, but Franz shook his head dolefully.

  “Why, just a few hours ago, Herr Srna left us. He said he had to leave Vienna suddenly on urgent business—and I must say that thanks to my wife’s ministrations, he already looked far better than he had last night, though he was still so weak that he could barely walk with his cane. I had to help him into the carriage, and I could see that he was still in great pain, and his face was nearly as white as my shirt. A hired carriage came and took him away with a few trunks of clothing and possessions; I heard him tell the driver to take him to the train station. He said I’m to sell the furniture he bought, and that my wife and I could keep any pieces that we fancied, in gratitude for our services.” He shook his head sadly. “I’ll miss him. He was a good man, and so talented—did you know he’s a photographer? I can only hope he survives.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Gabriele said, rather more sharply than she intended, and the concierge glanced at her strangely.

  “Forgive my asking, Fräulein, but your name … ?”

  “I’m Gabriele Tietze,” she told him: it didn’t matter anymore. I won’t have that name for very much longer.

  “Ah!” Franz exclaimed. His face brightened. “In that case, I have something for you. Herr Srna gave me this as he left.” He reached inside his jacket and produced an envelope of thick ivory paper, holding it out to her. “He said you’d be here sometime today.”

  Gabriele took the envelope. Her name—her current name—had been written on it in a shaking, uncertain hand. “Thank you,” she told Franz. She found a krone in her coin purse and gave it to him. “For your trouble.”

  Franz gave her a stiff Austrian bow. “My pleasure, Fräulein.”

  Gabriele took the envelope and walked across the avenue to a small park. She sat on a bench there, turning the envelope in her hands for several minutes before opening it. Inside was a folded piece of paper, written in French in the same shaking hand. She read the words there.

  Perenelle—

  I realize that except for an accident of fate, last night would have been my last. You had me, and I should be finally dead. The realization has changed me. As I lay in the alley with that knife against my throat, as I waited for your final thrust and the black oblivion that was to follow, I found myself a changed man.

  Your Gustav is already dead. By now, I expect you know that. He has at best a few years left to him before the flawed elixir takes him. That will have to be my small vengeance, accomplished before I made this decision. I won’t insult you by saying that I’m sorry. I’m not. I’ve not changed that much.

  But you have. As I told you there in that bloody alleyway, I saw myself in your eyes.
I hope you can live with that, Perenelle. I hope it causes you pain.

  However, I do believe that it’s time for us to call a truce in our long war. I will bow to you and acknowledge that you’ve won our final battle. You’ll be pleased, I suspect, to know that I have never before endured such pain as I am currently experiencing. I’m leaving Vienna in order to recover privately, and I’m also leaving behind Anton Srna, so you needn’t bother trying to find me that way.

  In fact, I urge you to not try to find me again at all, and I tell you in turn that I won’t seek you out again, Perenelle. I leave you to your addiction, if you’ll leave me to mine. Forget me, and I will endeavor to forget you.

  After all, we should each have a long time in which to forget.

  It was signed, simply, “Nicolas.”

  She sat on the bench for some time, reading the letter again and yet again, trying to find in its words some solace, some sense of triumph, some satisfaction. “I am not like you,” she whispered to the thin, erratic writing on the page. “I am not like you.” But there was no answer.

  She folded the letter and placed it back in the envelope, then put it in her handbag to nestle next to the revolver there. “I don’t believe you,” she said to the air, as if he were still there to hear her. “I want to, but I don’t believe you. You’ve lied to me too many times.”

  She glanced around the park, at the pigeons feeding there, at the couples strolling through the grounds, at the buildings of Vienna around them.

  She knew what she had to do.