by Rick Blechta
The uniformed driver pulled into a lay-by and switched on the interior light as he lowered the glass window between us. “We have two more hours to travel, Fräulein. The baron asked me to offer some light refreshments. You would like something, ja?”
“Could I have something cold to drink?”
“But of course! Would champagne be agreeable?”
“Champagne would be fine.”
He disappeared around to the trunk of the car for a few moments, then returned bearing a bottle of Bollinger’s bubbly, a crystal flute, and a plate with pâté, cheese and crackers, all on a silver tray. “I have taken the liberty of bringing something to eat also. Is this all okay?” He said the last word with a smile, and I couldn’t figure out if he was trying to be friendly or making fun of the way North Americans speak.
Leaning into the back seat, he pulled open a table-thing that had a slot in which to put the bottle and another for the glass, holding them securely, then he placed the tray of food in the middle.
“Would it be agreeable for me to drive while you eat? The baron is most eager to meet you.”
I motioned vaguely with my hand. “Anything you’d like.”
Even though I’d said I was thirsty, for the first time in my life I let a glass of bubbly go unfinished. The bit of pâté I sampled stuck in my nervous throat as if I were trying to swallow sawdust.
***
I must have dozed off, since I woke with a jerk when the steady thrum of the car’s engine changed its note.
Looking out the window, I saw only a steep hillside on the right and a bottomless chasm to the left. Ahead, the snow-capped heights of the Austrian Alps glistened in the moonlight. I’d assumed von Heislinger would have lived in a city or at least a town, not out in the middle of nowhere.
I tapped on the glass of the driver’s compartment. It dropped down again.
“How much longer until we get there?”
“Schloss von Heislinger is less than one half of an hour away, Fräulein.”
Eventually, we passed through some very ornate metal gates which closed silently behind us, drove along a narrow road lined on both sides by dense fir trees and on through a second set of gates leading into a cobbled courtyard. The limo stopped under a covered entrance which had been designed for a more courtly age of elegant carriages. The driver leaped out to open the door. “Please come with me, Fräulein. The baron is waiting to greet you.”
I bit back a sharp reply like, “If he’s so anxious, why didn’t he come out personally?”
Helping me out of the car, the driver offered me his overcoat, but I refused because the front doors were so close.
And what doors! They were big enough for a fully-grown elephant to walk through. They were obviously built on that scale to intimidate and they did their job on me, all right. As I started up the stairs, violin case firmly in hand, I momentarily squeezed my eyes shut and whispered a silent prayer. In a short while, I would find out whether I’d made the best—or worst decision of my life.
***
I laughed again, utterly charmed by this mysterious aristocrat sitting across from me. He’d been regaling me with funny stories of the many heads of state and important people he knew, while I ate a delicious cold supper he’d had waiting for me at—what else could I call it?—his castle. This time, I eagerly indulged in the champagne.
Baron Rudolph von Heislinger was a far cry from the image that had been flitting through my imagination the past few days. I’d pictured a tall, gray-haired, authoritarian figure who dressed and spoke formally. Silly me.
He was tall (well over six feet), lean, tanned, and quite handsome in an ascetic sort of way. His hair was light brown, his face strong, eyes a startlingly clear blue, and he smiled a lot when he spoke. He wore slacks, a beautifully-tailored shirt and loafers. My guess was he’d probably passed forty.
“So, my dear,” he said, “you must be quite tired from your trip.”
“I thought I was,” I answered, scraping together the last few bits of Liptauer cheese that remained on my plate and popping them into my mouth, “but now that I’ve eaten, I feel wide awake.”
When I’d been ushered into his study, I’d been immediately impressed. From floor to ceiling, the walls, where there weren’t built-in bookshelves, were covered with dark-stained paneling decorated with ornate wood carvings of satyrs, nymphs, trees—all very Tyrolean. The fireplace dominating one wall continued this theme in stone (with the family crest in the middle) as did the desk in front of the windows at the opposite end of the room. The whole effect was like being inside an incredibly ornate cuckoo clock.
The baron reached for the wine bucket at his elbow. “Perhaps a bit more champagne?”
“Only if you’re having some.”
“But of course!” We clinked glasses again, and Baron Rudy fixed me with his baby blues. “To Victoria Morgan and Beethoven.” He swallowed his bubbly in two quick gulps.“It really is late, and you have travelled much this day. I have had a room prepared for you. Why don’t you sleep a few hours, and first thing in the morning, I will show you my little treasure?”
“I’m not too sleepy to at least take a peek at that manuscript. After all, I did come a long way to see it,” I said to my host, and added inside my head, “and quite possibly scuttled my whole career for this.”
“No, my dear, I must insist,” he said firmly. “Morning is only a few hours off. It will wait until then.”
I didn’t see any point in arguing, and besides, regardless of how much I wanted to see the concerto, I had been getting far too little shut-eye the past few days. “All right, but I must insist on calling my husband in Montreal. He will certainly be very worried. I promise I won’t tell him why I’m here.”
I thought for an uneasy moment that this request would also be denied and the anxiety I’d struggled with on the car ride surfaced again, but the baron shrugged and said, “Certainly! A husband must know where such a beautiful wife is at all times. Please use the telephone on my desk.”
We got up and moved across the room where he handed me the phone’s receiver. A servant must have also been summoned at that time, perhaps by a button hidden on the desk, because one slipped in discreetly and began cleaning up the scant remains of my meal.
I dialled Montreal, but by the sixth ring, the answering machine hadn’t clicked in. Why wasn’t it on? And where the hell could Rocky be? It was odd that he shouldn’t be in at—I looked over to the small clock on a brass pen holder and did a quick calculation—eightthirty in the evening. Lately, he’d been spending most evenings reading. An uneasy thought entered my head. I knew he thought that flute teacher at McGill was pretty hot, and she’d gone out of her way to hang on him at the Faculty’s end-of-year barbecue the previous May. I put the phone down rather hard, and Baron Rudy glanced up quickly from where he’d been pretending to look at a book he’d taken from the shelves next to the desk.
“Something wrong, my dear?”
“Yes,” I said, then changed my mind. “No. I’m just a little annoyed. My husband wasn’t home, and the answering machine isn’t turned on. And please stop calling me ‘my dear’? My friends call me Tory.”
He beamed. “I am honoured to be considered your friend, but no... I prefer Victoria. You do not mind?”
I shrugged. “I answer to both.” On the desk was a top-of-the-line laptop computer. “Nice machine.”
“It is brand new. The best of its kind.”
“I know. I have one just like it. It’s the only thing that keeps me on schedule when I’m touring.” Walking over to the door, I picked up Tristan where I’d left him leaning against the wall. “Now, about that bed you mentioned?”
The Baron himself took me on a hike through his vast home, and we eventually came to a wide corridor on the second floor. At intervals along the walls were displays of knives and swords and all kinds of other medieval-looking sharp things.
“Is all this real?” I asked.
The Baron stopped and
took a lethal-looking dagger from its clip on the wall. “But of course,” he said handing it to me. It was sharp as a razor, and I quickly handed it back with a shudder. “I am an avid collector of hand weapons, and mine is one of the finest collections in the world,” he finished proudly. “I would be very pleased to show you the rest before you leave.”
“No thanks! Things you can cut yourself on make me nervous.” As we started off again, I asked, “Do you collect anything else?”
“Yes, but I try not to talk about them. Most people find collecting so dull unless they share the same passion. Tell me, do you collect anything?”
“Only bad reviews.”
***
When I woke up the next morning, the sun had already cleared the mountains across the narrow valley. Looking out through deep, stone-lined windows at the wooded valley floor far below, it surprised me that someone would build so large a structure in such an out-of-the-way place. Around a castle like this, I would have expected an estate: well-tended fields, perhaps vineyards, and well, people. What met my eyes was plenty of trees and rock, and not a whole lot else. This Baron obviously was very rich, and if his house was anything to go by, it wasn’t new money either. Maybe the family fortune was built on timber.
I padded off to the bathroom and took a long shower in one of those contraptions that sprays you from all sides. The ultra-modern fixtures seemed at odds with the rest of my boudoir; canopied bed, tapestries and a pair of rather gruesome paintings of boar hunting.
While drying myself, it dawned on me that I had nothing to wear except a full-length, strapless gown. While appropriate considering the surroundings, it was not too practical. I wasn’t about to spend the day wrapped in a bath towel, so I stood there wondering what I was going to do. The problem was solved when I heard a soft knocking on the door.
Opening it, I found a pretty girl about my own height dressed in a maid’s outfit, her arms full of clothes. “Guten Tag, Fräulein,” she said as she curtsied. “I have some clothing Baron Rudolph with his compliments sends.”
She laid the clothes out on the bed, and I went over to inspect them. It looked almost as if someone had been back to the hotel to get my left-behind clothes. The jeans I picked up, while obviously new, had the softness of ones washed many times already. I asked about it.
“Yes, they have.” The maid smiled shyly. “I did them myself. Twelve times yesterday. The baron personally asked me to see to it. They meet with your approval, ja?”
“They sure do,” I told her, dropping my towel and getting to work. She turned away with a blush, and I felt a twinge of guilt at having made her uncomfortable. The panties were more dowdy than something I would have bought, but the jeans fit nicely, and I chose a pull-over sweater in rich teal, even if it was longer than I the kind I prefer. Then I remembered that Austrians consider it improper for a woman to show her rear end. No one had seen fit to provide a bra, but I’m not big enough in that department for the lack of one to make that much of a difference. As I pulled on the clothes, I asked the maid, “What’s your name?”
“Thekla, Fräulein.”
“Why don’t we drop the ‘Fräulein’ and call me Tory?” I told her with a smile.
Her eyes opened wide in surprise. “I should not. Baron Rudolph would not like it.”
“Oh, come on,” I said as I gave my hair a few swipes with a brush from the dressing table. “How will he know what goes on in my bedroom? Call me whatever he wants out in the halls, but in here it’s Tory, okay?”
She still looked around nervously, then flashed a little conspiratorial smile, saying, “Okay...Tory. Would you like me to arrange your hair for you?”
“It looks that bad?”
Thekla nodded sadly. “Ja. But I will fix it right. You will see.” She sat me down in the chair at the dressing table and began carefully, and relatively painlessly, to work out the tangles. “You have the most beautiful colour of hair,” she said as she worked, “but you should have it more often trimmed. The ends are...ah...”
“Split?” I offered.
“Ja, ja, that is the word, split. Would you like it trimmed by me? I have studied to be a... How do you say it? A dresser of hair?”
“A hairdresser. But it would be too much trouble,” I said, feeling a tad nervous about letting someone I didn’t know loose on my trademark.
“No, you can trust me. I am quite good at it. Even Baron Rudolph has let me trim his hair.
Since the baron struck me as someone who would feel the same as I about his appearance, I gave her a hesitant go-ahead. “Just be careful!”
Thekla smiled happily and whipped out a pair of scissors from a pocket in her apron. After about five minutes of deft snipping, my hair looked far more even. Afterwards, she brushed it until it glowed.
As Thekla stepped back, I turned my head this way and that in front of the dressing table mirror, admiring the effect of the morning sun on the gold highlights among the red. “You know, I often forget why I go through the hassle of wearing it long, but it’s times like this that make me remember.” I looked at her and smiled. “Thank you very much. You’re good. You know that?”
Thekla’s smile broadened. “It is silly to think it, I know, but it is my dream to be a hairdresser someday in Hollywood. Baron Rudolph has told me he will introduce someone to help me.” With a quick curtsy, she scurried to the door, then turned around with her hand on the knob. “Oh! I am almost forgetting, Baron Rudolph would like you to join him in the dining room for breakfast. We have been a long time, so please kindly hurry?”
I threw on some socks and sneakers that had been provided and headed downstairs. Now anyone with a modicum of sense would have been rather freaked out wondering how this guy had found out the intimate details of my clothing sizes and favorite brand of sneakers, but all that was about the furthest thing from my mind as I tripped downstairs to a (hopefully) marvellous breakfast, followed by the chance to look at (and play!) a previously unknown concerto by Beethoven.
The baron’s dining room looked, well, baronial. The table stretching quite a way down its length could easily have seated thirty. Our two places were set at the end, where the sun streamed in through high windows, making the room glow wherever it touched. Actual suits of armour stood on either side of the main doorway by which I’d entered, further reinforcing the feeling of medieval splendour.
The man of the house, dressed more formally that morning in an absolutely impeccable charcoal suit, was busy with a stack of newspapers, but stood as I entered. “My dear Victoria,” he said, “I trust that you slept quite well?”
“Like a log. And thank you for the clothes. That was very kind of you.”
“It was the very least I could do, calling you away as I did at such short notice.” He picked up a small bell next to his plate. It’s metallic tinkle rang louder than I expected, considering its size. A male servant entered from a door behind me. “We wish to eat now,” his master said.
“Very good, Herr Baron,” was the reply, and the man hurried off.
“Now about this concerto,” I said, edging the conversation immediately towards the reason I’d allowed myself to be dragged to a castle in the hinterlands of Austria.
I didn’t have much luck, because at that moment, the servant reentered the room, bearing a huge tray of food. It contained everything I loved, and this time a little alarm did go off in the back of my head, but being absolutely famished, I pushed the unease aside and dug in.
Eventually, I pushed my chair back with a contented sigh, and the manservant began cleaning up. “Now I am sure you are anxious to discuss our little business arrangement.”
I wiped my mouth with my napkin again, sure that I had bits of egg or something clinging to my chin. “Actually, I want to see the goods, if you know what I mean,” I said, smiling.“I came a long way for that.”
“Yes, you have,” he replied, as he got to his feet. “If you would please follow me.”
“Just a minute. I have to get my fid
dle.”
“No need. I will have someone fetch it for you.” Baron Rudy spoke a few words to the servant, who nodded and hurried out.
We walked down a long corridor leading to a distant wing of the building and eventually entered one of the most incredible rooms I’ve ever seen. The wall to my left was completely glass, two tall storeys high, overlooking a vast, walled garden that must be spectacular in summer. Paintings of what I assumed were the baron’s ancestors covered the wall opposite and at the far end of the room there was a stage, bare except for a music stand and a grand piano. Chandeliers hung from the frescoed ceiling and it wasn’t hard to imagine brilliant balls and concerts with royalty in attendance. As I turned to take in the whole room, I spotted behind us the telltale window of what looked like a recording control room.
“Quite the set-up,” I said, impressed.
“Yes,” he answered. “This always was the ballroom, of course, but as I prefer my solitude, we don’t use it for that purpose much any more. The room has fine acoustics, though, so I have had it made over into a recording studio with all the finest equipment, and it is no trouble to fly in the audio engineers of my choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“I invite musicians here to play, musicians who...interest me. Nobody of your stature, however! Perhaps I could impose on you to record a little something for me during your stay?”
“It could possibly be arranged,” I said, returning my host’s smile, although I wasn’t sure if my record company would be thrilled about it.
By that time, we’d reached the stage. Naturally, the piano was world-class. Even the ornate, brass music stand looked like a valuable antique. At the far end of the room, the door by which we’d entered burst open and Thekla, carrying Tristan, came in on the run. Baron Rudy barked at her in German, and she slowed to a more stately pace as if yanked back by the scruff of her neck. She scurried out as quickly as she could once she’d handed over my violin.
