A Fatal Waltz (9 page)

“That makes things considerably more difficult, but I have faith. Everyone comes into the Café Griensteidl eventually. Do you see that man over there? With the dark hair and mustache? He’s handsome, isn’t he?”

“Yes, rather,” I said.

“That’s Gustav Mahler. You know his music?”

“Of course I do. Is it really him?”

“Ja
. You want me to introduce you?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“Another time perhaps. But I think you will find the man you seek here. You’ll simply have to join the rest of us, holding vigil all day, every day, week after week.”

“I can’t afford to waste any time,” I said.

“I wouldn’t have thought there was anything a woman like you couldn’t afford.”

Suddenly I felt self-conscious. “I understand that you might think such a thing, but—”

“Again, I do not mean to offend.”

“You need not apologize.”

“Why the urgency to find this man?”

“My friend’s husband stands to lose his life if I’m not quick enough.”

Friedrich whistled and leaned back in his chair. “Who’s after him? It’s impossible to keep track of who’s assassinating who these days.”

“It is?” I asked.

“I’m beginning to think the anarchists are right.”

“The anarchists?”

“Enough spurts of violence will cause the state to collapse, leaving us in blissful anarchy. Or so they’d have you believe.”

“Are they plotting something now?”

“They’re always plotting something.” He smiled. “You know nothing about any of this?”

“No,” I said. “But the man I seek has some connection to anarchists. I’ve got to figure out how to find him.”

“It’s not so easy, or so difficult, for that matter. There are lots of anarchists here. Lots of groups. Some are easy to find, but I don’t see how you’d ever track down one nameless individual.”

“His name—” I stopped myself. I knew nothing about Friedrich; it might not be wise to identify Schröder.

“You don’t need to tell me,” he said. “It’s perfectly understandable.” He put down his charcoal and held up his sketchbook.

I gasped. “It’s as if I’m looking in the mirror!”

“Very well done.” I started at the sound of a familiar voice, and looked behind me to find Mr. Harrison, whose gray eyes were fixed on Friedrich. “Will you excuse us?”

“Selbstverständlich
.” He went back to his own table, taking the sketchbook with him.

Mr. Harrison leaned close to me. “Coming here was a mistake.”

“You prefer a different café?” I asked. “I find that I’ve already grown quite fond of the Griensteidl.”

“You should not have come to Vienna.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“I know why you’re here. You can’t help him, and trying to do so will put in jeopardy not only yourself, but the man whom you hold most dear.”

“And who is it that I should be afraid of?” I asked.

“Me.” He reached into an inside pocket of his jacket, and I saw that he still carried the gun he’d had at Beaumont Towers.

“Take this, and remember every time you see one like it that I’ve been there. I can get to you, Lady Ashton, and those you love, whenever the fancy strikes me.” He rolled something across the table, a small object that I did not identify until it had stopped moving: a bullet.

C
écile and I were snug under heaps of blankets in a carriage, slowing as it reached the Amalienhof wing of the Hofburg Palace, where we were to call on the empress. It was our second full day in Vienna, and already I could see how easy it would be to get caught up in the lovely frivolity of the city. In many ways, it reminded me of the London Season: balls, parties, concerts, the opera. But added to that was the café culture, with which I was much taken, the postcard-perfect architecture of the Ringstrasse, and a lively community of artists. Notably absent, of course, were the matrons of London society. The Viennese had their own rules, but as a foreigner, I found it deliciously simple to do what I wanted without being the target of withering glares on a regular basis.

It had taken me longer than usual to dress for our trip to the palace, a fact that disappointed me, as I liked to believe that I was utterly undaunted by royalty. In the end, I settled on one of Mr. Worth’s creations, a striking gown on which gold embroidery covered a dark burgundy underskirt. Fastened over the high-necked bodice was a trim jacket and overskirt made from soft golden velvet. Flounces at the hips were gathered to reveal the rich burgundy below, and the material from the underskirt, with its lovely embroi
dery, featured again on wide lapels and fitted cuffs. Meg had taken extra pains with my hair, taming my curls in an upswept knot and pinning a darling hat trimmed with wispy feathers to my head. She would not let me leave the hotel until she was confident I could impress the empress.

In contrast, Cécile was nonchalant when choosing a gown. She knew full well that she would be all striking elegance no matter what she wore. Despite her age, her face was still beautiful, her silver hair shone, and her every movement was filled with grace. Furthermore, there was not a single item in her wardrobe unfit for a queen.

She and Sissi had met when they were girls and Cécile was visiting Bavaria. From that time, they corresponded, although they saw each other infrequently. The connection between them, she had told me, was strong, and in difficult times, each turned to the other.

The empress’s eccentricities were as infamous as her beauty was legendary. It was said she maintained her figure with a never-ending series of extreme diets: oranges and violet-flavored ice cream, raw eggs and salt, substituting meat juice or milk for meals. She pampered her face with masks of strawberries or raw meat (although I never quite understood how raw meat fit with pampering), and bathed in water mixed with olive oil or milk and honey.

I had never seen her in person, but when we were girls, Ivy had a postcard that pictured her, and we’d lamented that our own queen was not nearly so lovely. Empress Elisabeth was a vision of royal perfection: a fairy tale. But the woman who greeted Cécile and me after we’d been settled into a formal salon in the Amalienhof bore little resemblance to the figure from the postcard.

“My darling Cécile, I have so longed for you.” She was shockingly thin and swathed from head to toe in black, still mourning the loss of her son, Rudolf, whose death at the imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling had shocked the Austrian nation.

“You should have sent for me sooner. I am distressed to find you in such a condition.”

“Don’t scold me. I can’t bear it. Things are more dreadful here than ever. I don’t know why I ever come back to Vienna. I wish we were still girls, playing in the Alps.”

“How are the horses?” Cécile asked, and the empress’s face brightened at once. They embarked on a spirited discussion of the animals (one of whom was called Nihilist, an excellent name) that lasted nearly a quarter of an hour, neither of them paying me the slightest attention. At last, Sissi sighed and looked at me with eyes void of energy.

“Perhaps you would like to read so Cécile and I do not bore you with tales of our squandered youths.” She waved a slim hand in the direction of a desk in the far corner of the room. “I’ve all sorts of books. Take whatever you’d like.”

“Thank you,” I said. The books piled in neat stacks on the desk caught my interest at once: two volumes of Greek mythology, a copy of Plato’s
Republic
, six volumes of rather sensational poetry, and a copy of the
Odyssey
in the original Greek. The empress was no vapid royal. I flipped through the poetry first, assuming I would not be spending much time reading.

I underestimated how much Sissi had to say to Cécile.

Three-quarters of an hour later, I had come to the conclusion that I’d always underrated the Romantic poets. I was just about to pick up
The Republic
when the conversation on the opposite end of the room grew louder. By
louder
, I mean slightly less inaudible than it had been. I couldn’t understand much of what was being said beyond the word “Mayerling,” and that caught my attention not only because it was a topic Cécile had warned me to avoid, but also because it was also written on a letter that was sitting on the desk.

I—like everyone else in Europe—had read the story of Crown Prince’s Rudolf’s death nearly three years earlier. It was originally
reported that he’d died of heart failure, but rumors of a very different ending were rampant. His mistress, young Mary Vestera, had died the same night, and although the young lady’s name was not mentioned in any papers in Austria, the news I had read in London was full of stories of a lovers’ suicide pact.

Ordinarily, I would not dream of reading someone else’s correspondence, but I found myself leaning forward across the desk, straining to make out the words of the letter while keeping an uneasy eye on Cécile and the empress. I did not want to pick up the letter and risk being caught doing the literary equivalent of eavesdropping. In it, someone was reporting to Sissi that there had been many shots fired at the hunting lodge the night Rudolf died. Trailing at the bottom of the page was the beginning of an intriguing sentence about the motivations of the French and their English compatriots. I longed to turn it over to read the rest, but was not bold enough. What had the French or English to do with Mayerling?

“We’ve ignored you long enough,” Cécile said. “Rejoin us. Kallista is a kindred spirit to you, Sissi. She studies Greek and spends much of her time on Santorini.”

“You are a fortunate girl,” the empress said. “I’ve a castle on Corfu. If I were wise, I’d never venture from its safety.”

“Surely you’re safe in Vienna.” I sat on a chair across from them.

“No one is safe in Vienna.”

I believed her when she said this and agreed even more strongly when, after we left the palace, I saw Mr. Harrison standing across the street, watching our carriage as it pulled away.

“T
HEY’RE A LIVELY GROUP,”
I said as Viktor placed in front of me a cup of hot chocolate mounded with whipped cream. A crowd of gentlemen were passing a stack of loose papers around a table
across the room from me, taking turns reading with mock dramatic emphasis, erupting into frequent laughter.

“Junges Wien
,” the waiter said. “Young Vienna.”

“Avant-garde writers, all of them,” Friedrich said. “They practically live here.”

“The young one—sitting on the far right—has already started publishing poems. I don’t think he’s yet eighteen,” Viktor said. “Hugo von Hofmannsthal.”

“I’d love to read them,” I said. He bowed and disappeared, not responding. I opened a newspaper.

“Hugo von Hofmannsthal is a remarkable talent,” Friedrich said, picking up his sketchbook and setting to work drawing a woman who was sitting at the table next to us, wearing a bonnet of astonishing height. “He’s sure to be an enormous success. If I didn’t like him so much, I’d have to hate him.”

We passed a content half hour. “Do you know this man?” I asked, showing Friedrich a letter to the editor written by Gustav Schröder, whom I suspected at once was the Schröder mentioned to me by Robert. The piece was well written and articulate; if one were debating whether to embrace the principles of anarchy, Herr Schröder’s piece would serve as a deft push towards his side. I was shocked that his views could sound so reasonable.

“Ja
,” he said. “I know Schröder.”

“Does he come here often?”

“To the Griendsteidl?
Nein
.” Friedrich slouched in his chair across from me. “Are you a budding anarchist?”

“Far from it,” I said.

“No. A person in your position would hardly want to lose her status.”

“A person in my position
?” I flung the paper onto the table. “What, precisely, do you think my position is?”

“Your wealth affords you a great deal of freedom.”

“Yes, it does.” I met his stare.

“And you suffer not from the inconvenience of having to work to support yourself.”

“Granted. But my financial situation does not liberate me from the bonds that restrict a woman’s activities.”

“You’ve far more liberty than the poorer members of your sex.”

“Do I? Or is my prison merely more comfortable?”

“No. You’ve infinitely more opportunity. You can travel, pursue an education, socialize with whomever you please.”

“So long as I don’t go too far from the bounds of what is generally acceptable to my peers.”

“And if you went too far? And they ostracized you? You could retreat into your luxurious cocoon and continue to amuse yourself however you wished. I grant you that a woman who measures her self-worth through the eyes of her equals is held captive by society. But you, I think, are not such a woman. You do not crave acceptance, so rejection would not be disaster.”

“Are you an anarchist?”

“No.” He opened his sketchbook and passed it to me. “This is Schröder.”

The face that stared out at me was a hard one, all scowls and lines.

“How can I meet him?” I asked.

“It’s unlikely that he’d come to you at the Imperial,” he said, stirring his coffee.

“I’ll meet him wherever he likes. Can you put me in touch with him?”

“I’ll see what I can arrange and let you know tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

Friedrich sighed and sunk farther down in his chair.

“What’s the matter? You don’t approve of my frolicking with anarchists?”

“Anarchists do not frolic.”

I smiled. “Then what’s the matter?”

“Anna’s here. With her mother.”

“Anna?” I followed his gaze to a young lady seated on the opposite end of the café. Soft brown curls framed her dimpled face, and her cheeks were flushed pink from the cold. Her mother did not share her daughter’s easy good looks. At the moment her eyes, no wider than slits, were focused on Friedrich with violent intensity. She shook her head, stood up, and jerked Anna to her feet, marching her straight out the door.

“Frau Eckoldt detests me,” Friedrich said.

“Why?”

“Because I had the audacity to win her daughter’s love.”

“She objects to the match?”

“To put it politely. My shortcomings are too many to list, although my dubious profession alone is enough to make me unacceptable.”

“She objects to an artist?”

“To a largely unsuccessful, often unemployed one, yes.”

“But if you were employed?”

“I’d still be Jewish.”

“Ignorance and prejudice.” Now it was my turn to sigh. “I’m cynical enough to believe that rampant success would overcome anything she views as a shortcoming.”

He shrugged. “I had hoped to get a commission to paint murals in some of the Ringstrasse buildings, but have had no success.”

“I’ll commission something from you.”

“I don’t want favors.”

“No favors, then. But if I can assist you, you must let me.” I was determined to find some way to help him. “It’s the least I can do to thank you for arranging a meeting with Herr Schröder.”

“Fine, Kallista, so long as you promise not to secretly fund my success as an artist.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. You’ve the talent to manufacture your own success. But it never hurts to let a friend help with your luck.”