CHAPTER THIRTY
THE SUDDEN ENTREPRENEUR
“AND WHAT BROUGHT you to Vienna, monsieur?” Henker asked. “The pastries?”
Henker and Franz were strolling along Fleischmarkt en route to the theater, and had made no momentous comment to one another except to remark on the coolness of the evening and the possibility that at some point over the next few days Vienna might see a little rain.
“The music, of course,” Franz said. “The home of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss…”
“I was making a little joke,” Henker said. “Although the pastries are remarkable.”
“No question.”
“But they’re nothing compared to French pastries. Am I right?”
“You are, if you’ll forgive my national pride.”
“Forgiven.”
“That’s the fifth time.”
“Monsieur?”
“I was merely remarking to myself that that’s the fifth time people approaching us have chosen to cross the street.”
Henker laughed. “You are paranoid, monsieur.”
“Perhaps.”
“They could have crossed the street for any other reason. Perhaps their destination is to be found on that side of the street.”
“Perhaps.”
They continued their walk, Henker fascinated by the evening breeze rustling the leaves of the new trees along the street, Franz confounded for a way to steer away from the superficiality of their conversation.
“Is tonight to be your final performance, Herr Henker?” Franz asked.
“Oh, no,” Henker said, “I’ll be performing for quite some time yet, I hope.”
“I meant at the Traumhalle.”
“Ah. No, tonight is my penultimate performance. I have had the great fortune to be transferring to Die Feier on Sunday.”
“It is magnificent, this new theater?”
“Opulent, monsieur. Seats three times as many as Traumhalle. Better class of people, too.” He cast a glance at Franz. “Not that I am class-conscious, you understand,” he said. “I’m merely stating it as a fact. It costs more for a seat at Die Feier, and pays more.”
“To the customer?”
“To the artist.”
“Ah.”
“That’s not to say that its artistic dividends are not to the audience’s benefit, too.”
“Of course. Then perhaps I should buy an advance ticket now to celebrate your premiere on Sunday evening.”
“Monday evening, monsieur.”
“But you said—”
“My equipment will be installed on Sunday, but as for me, I never perform on the Sabbath day.”
Franz nodded as if he were in the presence of a great religious sage. “Truly admirable, sir,” he said. “So many of our profession disregard the Sabbath.”
“I’m cheered to see you are of a similar mind.”
“Indeed.”
“Perhaps we’ll see you on the stage of Die Feier one of these days, eh?”
“It is too much to hope.”
“Do you currently have an engagement?”
“Alas, I am currently ‘at liberty,’ as the Americans say.”
“I haven’t seen a verrilionist in years,” Henker said. “I had thought the art had died out.”
“There are one or two of us left.”
“How fortunate. Would you like me to drop a word to the Traumhalle people? After all, with my departure there will be a spot on the bill in need of filling. Would you like that?”
“You humble me with your ongoing generosity,” Franz said. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so bold as to begin my search for stardom in Vienna. I might have done better to have begun somewhere in the provinces.”
“It would seem silly to backtrack now that you’re here.”
“It wouldn’t be too much of a backtrack. I understand there are a few places near the city that might be more amenable to a poor Frenchman who wishes to make music on a rack of wine glasses.”
“More amenable, possibly, but certainly less profitable.”
“Schwechat, for instance.”
Henker glanced at him. “Odd that a foreigner should know of Schwechat,” he said.
“Only by name. I may have misheard.”
“Oh, there’s a fine little theater in Schwechat, all right. Know it well. If you’re truly interested in starting small, maestro, I can put in a good word for you.”
“I would be ashamed.”
“Nonsense,” Henker said. “It’s one artist helping another.”
“But you haven’t seen my act, Herr Henker.”
“How could it be other than delightful?”
“You’re too kind.”
“Whereas you,” Henker said, “have seen mine.”
“Yours?”
“My act.”
“Yes. I did.”
“Does its effect on you remain as profound as you admitted to me this afternoon?”
“It does.”
“I must say, it’s the first time I’ve heard anyone admit that.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s true.”
Franz sensed that Henker was watching him closely, although his attention appeared to be focused on the path ahead.
“Would it be gauche of me to inquire as to the nature of this profundity you experienced?” Henker asked, as casually as if he were asking Franz what he liked about café au lait.
“It wouldn’t be gauche at all,” Franz said, choosing his words with care. “Not between artists. I suppose it’s many things about your thoroughly impressive performance that intrigue me, and give me much to ruminate upon.”
“For instance?”
“How much of it you actually believe.”
Henker stopped and faced Franz. His smile was gone.
“My dear sir,” Henker said. “All of it.”
“Then you believe that the only form of justice that can be visited upon oneself is justice from… within?”
“True justice.”
“With no regard for the law?”
“The law is just that, monsieur. The law. It’s called the law because it is laws upon which it relies, and from which it metes its definition of justice.”
“And therefore it’s biased.”
“Exactly.”
“But aren’t we, as human beings, biased as well?”
“Are we?”
“Of course. We favor ourselves.”
“Do we?”
Franz did not want to be standing there, lingering outside a confectionary. Not because he had anything against sweets, but because the Friday evening parade of Viennese enjoying their leisure seemed out of step with the serious business at hand.
“You like to answer me with questions,” Franz said. “You force me to answer your questions with questions of my own. I observed that we, as people, favor ourselves, and you asked if that were true. I ask you, then: don’t we?”
Henker put up his chin, as if wishing to look down on his companion, but realized that he was exactly the same height as Franz. He looked him straight in the eye.
“Not if we’re honest with ourselves,” he said.
“I take it, then, that you do not favor yourself,” Franz said.
“I treat myself honestly. I know my shortcomings, my deficiencies, my history of sins…”
“Ah, your sins. Which you believe are not truly sins ,but demons.”
Henker shrugged and continued on his way with a faster step, Franz trailing after him.
“You French are quite the philosophers,” he said, and laughed.
“It’s the concept of demons that frightens me,” Franz said.
“But as you’ll no doubt recall, I said the sins of living are both sins and demons.”
“I understand that, but what struck me especially is that you said you think demons actually do exist.”
“They do.”
Franz tried to catch up with him.
“Metaphorica
lly speaking,” he said.
When Henker stopped, Franz nearly ran into him.
“No,” Henker said, his affable demeanor replaced by a gray sobriety. “They exist.”
Two young women, laughing together, looked up and saw Henker and Franz. Their expressions exchanged immediately, and as one grabbed the other by the elbow to steer her across the street, the latter made a hex sign at them.
Henker watched them go.
“It seems you were correct, monsieur,” he said. “People have indeed been going out of their way, but not because of you. It seems I’m now recognized.”
“What do they fear?” Franz asked.
“Everything, if you want the honest truth,” Henker said, and resumed his walk, slower this time, so Franz could keep up with him. “These people are basic, superstitious. Just because they live in a great city like this doesn’t mean they’re any better than bumpkins.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They think I’m the Devil.”
It was Franz’s turn to laugh. “Even now, in the twentieth century? And wasn’t the so-called Devil expelled on the bloody fields of—”
“Let’s not talk about the war, if you please,” Henker said.
“As you wish.”
“And who’s to say I’m not a devil, eh? Let them take to the other side of the street. It won’t make any difference.” A nearby clock tolled the half hour. “We’re nearly there,” he said. “I like to be calm and composed in my dressing room before the show begins, even if it’s some time before I go on.”
He grabbed Franz by the arm and jerked him backward, nearly off his feet.
“Careful, monsieur!” he shouted as a streetcar ground its way past them, its bell clanging furiously.
Franz had not been watching where he was going. He thanked The Hanging Artist.
“Death by streetcar is an embarrassing way to go,” Henker said. “It’s messy, public, completely impersonal, and entirely avoidable. You deserve a dignified death, my friend. And here we are.”
As they approached the Traumhalle, they were accosted by a short fellow in a long yellow coat with a makeshift wooden tray slung around his neck. His underfed face had not seen a razor in days, and his bowler was at least one size too small and ten years out of date.
“Protection!” he bellowed to the crowd waiting to get into the theater. “The very latest in protection against the rampaging evil! Of my own construction, so I can vouch for its authenticity and efficiency! Wearing one myself; and, as you can see, I’m still alive!”
He caught sight of Franz and Henker and came over to them.
“For gentlemen as well as ladies, er… gentlemen,” he said, thrusting the tray at them. “Only five marks. A bargain, considering.”
The tray was filled with little more than scraps of bent tin of various sizes.
“What are they?” Henker asked.
“Anti-hanging devices, sir,” the man said, with a hint of conspiracy. “People are dropping like flies, none of ’em see it coming. It’s the rope, sir, the rope that comes in the night to anyone and everyone, the Devil’s rope that does its business and disappears. Only way to combat it is by having one of these around your throat at all times.”
He took a tin collar from the tray and handed it to Franz.
“This’d do you nicely, sir,” the man said. “Made it myself. Fashioned each and every one by hand. That’s the sign of quality. Try it, sir. No, the other way, sir; the open end at the back of your neck, so the throat’s one-hundred-percent protected. Like a priest, sir.”
“Go on, monsieur, try it,” Henker said. He was holding back laughter.
“I’ve one for you, too, sir,” the man said, rummaging in his tray. “Something a little larger for you, sir, given your size.” He produced one for Henker. “Only five marks. All the same price, no matter the size.”
“Have you sold many, my man?” Henker asked.
“They’re quite popular, sir,” the man said, “and you can understand why. All these killings, people getting hung up like beef, it’s enough to scare the bejeezus out of anybody.” He nodded to the Traumhalle. “It’s that Hanging Artist, sir. Stirred up something, he did, stirred up something terrible. Listen, I’ll tell you what—if you buy the pair, I’ll make it nine marks altogether, as an introductory discount.”
“Have you seen this Hanging Artist?” Henker asked.
“Bless you, no,” the man said. “I haven’t the stomach for show folk.”
Henker paid the man ten marks, insisting he accept the full amount.
“Thank you, sir,” the man said, cheered and possibly amazed by the sale. “And may God watch out for you… not that you’ll need his help, what with one of those around your neck!”
“A word of advice,” Henker said. “Your peak market for your product will be after the performance, so don’t go off to the beer halls once the show starts. Stick around.”
The man smiled and pocketed his money. “Money thanks, sir,” he said, tipping his hat. “I mean, ‘Many thanks,’ sir!” He jingled off to the queue, his sales pitch reinvigorated by the money in his pocket.
“Manus manum lavat,” Henker said. “Words to live by. Come along, monsieur. I’ll get them to give you the run of the theater while I prepare for my performance.”
Franz discovered the tin collar was too large for his coat pocket, and felt a fool for having accepted it.
Even if he hadn’t accepted the thing, he still would have felt a fool.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
BEHIND THE SCENES
BY THE INTERVAL, Franz had been pushed out of the way no less than fourteen times.
Henker had abandoned him after introducing him to the dour stage manager, a humorless man with a walrus moustache and a physique to match. “Anything you say, Herr Henker,” the man—Schmeide—had said before turning to unleash a string of profanities to three younger, trimmer men who were fooling about with a bank of ropes.
“I leave you now,” Henker had said, “to concentrate on my art. I know that sounds awfully pretentious, monsieur, but it’s the truth. I use my early arrival to clear my head of the clangor of the world.”
“How can you concentrate and clear your head at the same time?” Franz had asked, immediately regretting it.
“I concentrate on clearing my head,” the answer had come. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to your own devices. May I be so bold as to request your company back to the rooming house? We’ll wear our tin collars.” He had laughed.
Franz had agreed, and Henker instructed him to meet him at the stage entrance fifteen minutes after the final curtain.
It was his fourteenth shoving aside that introduced him to Julia Dierkop.
“You shouldn’t stand there,” she said, as her three cousins preceded her off the stage and into the dimly-lit backstage area, where they clanked up the spiral stairs to their dressing room. “Oh,” she said, “you’re the new lodger, the Frenchman Frau Alt was telling us about.”
The olio was whisked into the flies and another was dropped into place. The Traumhalle orchestra launched into its intermission music.
“Will you be appearing here?” Julia continued.
“Have we met?” Franz asked.
“Not formally,” Julia said, introducing herself. Franz introduced himself as Choucas and hoped the woman wouldn’t start speaking French to him.
“You’re a friend of Herr Henker?” she asked.
“A recent acquaintance,” Franz said.
“You’ve been to his rooms,” she said.
“I paid a visit this afternoon, yes.”
She was clearly sizing him up. “You’re one of the lucky ones,” she said.
“Comment?” Franz asked, hoping that was the correct word.
“I mean, to make such an influential friend so quickly.”
“He and his sister have been exceptionally gracious to me.”
“You’ve met the sister?”
“Yes, I have. A most congenial woman.”
“You don’t say. Then she really exists.”
“Was there doubt of this?”
“Julia!” came a sharp voice from above. They both looked up; one of the sisters was at the top of the stairs.
“In a minute,” Julia said, and the woman went away. “One of my cousins,” she said.
“The soprano, yes?” Franz said.
“Theoretically.”
“I don’t wish to detain you.”
“You’re not. They want to leave.”
“So soon after your performance?”
“They’re terrified of this place.”
Two men carrying a large flat—representing someone’s artistic idea of a barn exterior—said something rude to them as they stepped aside to let them pass.
“Let’s get out of the way,” Julia said, leading Franz to the stage door. “A breath of fresh air, monsieur?”
Franz followed, because he had nothing better to do than wait around to be bumped again. Once outside in the narrow alley that ran between the Traumhalle and the café next door, Franz noted that the darkness of Vienna matched the darkness backstage.
“I hate this place,” Julia said.
“Vienna?” Franz asked.
“Vienna’s all right, I suppose. I was referring to the theater.”
“The theater as a profession, or this one in particular?”
“I suppose both. But at the moment, I’m referring to this place.”
“Ah. And why the hatred, Madame?”
“Mademoiselle.”
“Pardonnez-moi,” he said, thereby exhausting his knowledge of French.
“It’s dreadful,” Julia said, and Franz wondered whether she shivered from the cool night air or her mood. “It’s not that it’s filthy, or cramped, or old… Most every theater we’ve played in is like that, and one gets used to it, even expects it. No, it’s the aggressive shadows, monsieur.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They’ve come alive, this past month. Sounds insane, doesn’t it?”
“How have they come alive?”
“Something—or some things—are watching us. From every dark corner, from above, from below. They’re staring at us from the orchestra pit, waiting for us up among the bags of ballast.”
“What things, mademoiselle?”
The Hanging Artist Page 19
