Deadly Communion (2 page)

‘Oh, believe me — I have.’ Erstweiler was clearly not referring to the medical investigations.

‘I cannot make a full assessment of your mental state,’ said Liebermann. ‘Unless you make me party to the facts.
All
of them. You say that a declaration of insanity would ease your suffering; however, I am in no position to provide you with such relief — albeit irregular — if you refuse to take me into your confidence.’

Erstweiler pulled at his bristly chin. A long silence ensued. Eventually he spoke.

‘The first time it happened — I wasn’t sure …’ Erstweiler swallowed and his Adam’s apple bounced up and down. ‘I was walking on the Graben when a fiacre passed. I only caught a glimpse of the passenger — and thought it was my brother. We are of the same build and share many characteristics — particularly those typical of my father’s side of the family. He was wearing a fedora hat. I should have realised.’

‘You should have realised what?’

‘We are very similar, physically, but we have always dressed quite differently. Unlike me, he has never — to my knowledge — worn a fedora hat. Besides, he rarely comes to Vienna. It
couldn’t
have been him.’

‘I am not altogether sure—’

‘Please, Herr doctor,’ Erstweiler interrupted. ‘Let me continue. Now that I have started I wish to finish … That evening, I was quite restless. I couldn’t sit down. I tried to read my book but found concentrating impossible. My table is close to the window and — for no particular reason — I pulled the curtain aside and looked out. My room is on the first floor and I found myself looking down at a gentleman standing beneath a gas lamp. He was wearing a fedora.’

Liebermann looked down at his notes again, smiled inwardly and underlined
dementia paranoides.

‘You were being followed?’

Erstweiler rocked his head from side to side. His expression was pained.

‘There was something odd about him. I knew
that
immediately — but it wasn’t until I had observed him standing there for a minute or more before I was really able to identify the cause of my disquiet.’

‘Which was?’

‘He did not cast a shadow. And it was at
that
moment — the precise moment when I realised he had no shadow — that he raised his head and looked up at my window. My heart was beating wildly and my bowels turned to water. His face …’ Erstweiler’s head rocked more violently. ‘It was me, my doppelgänger — my double.’

‘Could you have been mistaken? You were excited, night had fallen …’

‘He was standing directly beneath the gas lamp!’ For the first time a note of frustration had entered Erstweiler’s voice.

‘What did you do?

‘What could I do? I poured myself a slivovitz and huddled on my bed until morning. I passed the night in a state of fearful agitation. You know what it means, Herr doctor, surely, when a man sees his doppelgänger? I am going to die — and nothing can save me.’

D
ETECTIVE
I
NSPECTOR
O
SKAR
R
HEINHARDT
stepped down from his carriage just outside the Court Theatre entrance of the Volksgarten. Two constables wearing long blue coats and spiked helmets stood either side of the gate. They recognised the inspector and clicked their heels as he passed. Hurrying along, Rheinhardt searched his jacket for a box of cigars and sighed when he found the pockets empty. He had left his Trabucos, he realised, on the desk in his study. Above the Hofburg, long flat clouds hung motionless in a temperate sky, the early-morning colours soft and muted.

Rheinhardt had not progressed very far when he heard the sound of someone running up the path behind him. He turned and saw his assistant.

‘Sir!’

The youth’s long legs carried him forward with a steady, confident momentum.

Ah, to be young again,
thought the inspector (although, in truth, his own youthful athletic accomplishments had never been particularly noteworthy).

‘Good morning, Haussmann.’

The young man slowed and came to a halt. He stooped, clasping his knees with his hands. When he had recovered his breath, they proceeded along the path until a grey stone edifice with triangular
pediments and Doric columns came into view. More constables could be seen in its vicinity.

‘Have you ever wondered,’ said Rheinhardt, casually, ‘why we have a Greek temple in the middle of our Volksgarten?’

‘No, sir. I haven’t.’ There was a slight fall in Haussmann’s voice. He knew from experience that such a question was usually followed by a didactic answer. His superior seemed to enjoy caricaturing the speech and manner of a schoolmaster.

‘Well, my boy,’ said Rheinhardt. ‘It was built to house a famous statue —
Theseus and the Centaur
— by the great Italian sculptor Antonio Canova. That is why we call it the
Theseus
Temple. In fact, the building is a replica of an original that stands in Athens: The Temple of Hephaestus.’

‘Hephaestus?’

‘The god of fire and crafts, particularly those crafts which use fire — metalwork, for example.’

‘Is the statue still inside, sir?’ asked Haussmann, feigning interest.

‘No, it was moved to the
Kunsthistorisches
Museum about ten years ago. It’s on the main staircase — about halfway up. Have you never seen it?’

‘I’m not a great lover of art, sir.’

‘You’ve never been to the
Kunsthistorisches Museum?’

‘No, sir. I find old paintings …’

‘Yes?’

‘Depressing.’

Rheinhardt shook his head and dismissed Haussmann’s remark with a wave of his hand.

‘It’s a fine statue,’ Rheinhardt continued, undeterred by his assistant’s philistinism. ‘The mighty hero, Theseus, his club raised, ready to strike.’ Rheinhardt suddenly looked anxious. ‘I take it you know who Theseus is?’

‘Yes, sir. I have a volume of the Greek legends at home. I won it in a poetry competition at school.’

Rheinhardt raised his eyebrows.

‘I didn’t know you wrote poetry.’

‘I don’t, sir. Not now. But at school I did.’

Their conversation was brought to a premature close when a constable, stout and with glowing cheeks, separated from his companions and came to greet them. He introduced himself as Constable Badem.

‘Ah yes, Badem,’ said Rheinhardt. ‘It was you who discovered the body.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The constable’s chest expanded and he stood erect, as if about to receive a medal. Rheinhardt, touched and amused by the young man’s pride, reached out and gripped his shoulder.

‘Well done! The security office is indebted.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Badem, his eyes glinting with emotion. Then, assuming a more detached attitude, the young man added: ‘She’s over there, inspector.’ He raised his hand and pointed towards a row of bushes where his colleagues had assembled.

Rheinhardt left the footpath to investigate.

The woman was lying flat on the grass. Her hair pins had fallen out and dark, abundant tresses framed her face. The disposition of her limbs — legs apart, arms thrown wide — suggested abandonment. Her dress had ridden up over her knees, revealing a pair of striped stockings. Rheinhardt noticed that the soles of her ankle boots were almost transparent and closer examination revealed the presence of a small hole. Her coat was correspondingly threadbare, with frayed cuffs and the tattered remnants of a lining that had long since been removed. She was young, perhaps no more than eighteen, and the whiteness of her pale skin emphasised, by contrast, the artificiality of the carmine powder on her cheeks.

It was an interesting face, sensuous and attractive, but not conventionally beautiful. Her expression in deathly repose suggested disdainful indifference — perhaps even cruelty. Her lips were slightly uneven, twisted, and her nose was too generously proportioned. Yet there was something about these flaws that combined to create an arresting totality.

Rheinhardt kneeled down beside her and searched her pockets for identification, but all he could find was some small change, a handkerchief and two keys. The woman’s hat was lying on the ground a short distance away, next to what looked to the inspector like an item of underwear.

‘She hasn’t been stabbed or shot,’ said Rheinhardt, opening her coat. He could not see any bloodstains on her plain white dress.

‘Strangled, sir?’ Haussmann inquired.

Rheinhardt repositioned himself and looked at her neck.

‘No, I don’t think so. Smothered, perhaps …’

The inspector stood, brushed his trousers, and went over to retrieve the discarded item of clothing. As it unfurled, his suspicions were confirmed. He was holding a pair of red cotton drawers.

Haussmann frowned. ‘Was she … used?’

‘I imagine so.’

The drawers fluttered in the slight breeze. Rheinhardt, feeling suddenly disrespectful, folded the garment gently and placed it back on the grass.

‘Inspector Rheinhardt?’

A man wearing a homburg hat and spectacles was looking over the bushes. It was the photographer. The man’s companion — a teenage boy — appeared behind him, carrying a tripod.

‘Ah, Herr Seipel,’ said Rheinhardt. ‘Good morning.’

‘May we begin, inspector?’

‘Yes, indeed. You may begin.’

Rheinhardt stood back from the corpse. Then he took out his notebook and recorded a few observations before addressing his assistant: ‘Come, Haussmann.’

The two men set off in the directon of the Theseus Temple.

On arriving at their destination, Rheinhardt and Haussmann ascended the wide steps.

The inspector rubbed his hands together and surveyed his surroundings. Directly in front of him he saw the white stucco walls of the Court Theatre and the steeples of the Votivkirche. Turning his head to the left he registered the Gothic spires of the Town Hall and the classical splendour of the Parliament building, on top of which two winged charioteers, struggling to control their rearing horses, faced each other across a tympanum densely populated with marble figures.

‘Have you had breakfast?’ asked Rheinhardt.

His assistant was surprised by the unexpected question, and replied cautiously: ‘No, sir. I haven’t.’

‘Neither have I. Given that we find ourselves so close to Café Landtmann, it occurs to me that we might get something to eat there before we proceed to the Pathological Institute.’

‘Yes, sir — as you wish.’

‘Just a few kaisersemmel rolls.’ The inspector paused, twisted his moustache and, finding the prospect of his imaginary repast inadequate, added: ‘And a pastry, perhaps. I had a rather good plum flan in Café Landtmann only last week.’

They walked around the covered arcade that followed the featureless exterior of the Temple. Neither of them looked up to admire the new and delightful prospects revealed by their circumnavigation: the black and green domes, the baroque lanterns, the blooming flowers and ornamental hedge gardens. Instead, they kept their gazes fixed on the stone pavement, which had been worn by countless predecessors to a silvery sheen.

Haussmann suddenly stepped ahead and squatted down.

‘What is it?’ asked Rheinhardt.

‘A button.’

He handed it up to his superior.

It was large, round, and made from wood.

‘Any footprints?’

Supporting his body with his hands, Haussmann leaned forward and inspected the paving more closely. The position he had assumed — conveying a general impression of sharp corners and angularity — gave him a distinctly feral appearance. He looked like a rangy dog, sniffing the ground. His reply, when it finally came, was disappointing.

‘Nothing.’

Rheinhardt held the button up and said: ‘It’s from her coat.’

W
HERE TO BEGIN, THEN
? With a birth or with a death? And there it is, you see — the two, always together. When does a life begin? At conception? That is a beginning, but it is not necessarily the only one. Nor is there any reason why we should privilege conception. The colour of my eyes, for example, which I inherited from my mother, preceded my nativity. In a sense, the traits that eventually combine to become an individual are already in the world before he or she arrives. Conception is merely the point at which they converge. Therefore, when we are conceived we are as obligated to the dead as we are to the living. I existed — albeit in a rather dispersed form — long before a provincial priest splashed my forehead with holy water and gave me a name. There is no
fons et origo.
I have no beginning.

You want a history. You want chronology. But nothing is ever that straightforward. You see, even starting my story is fraught with philosophical problems. One thing, however, stands out. One thing I can assert with confidence. I killed my mother. Others see it differently, of course, but I can only see it that way. She died minutes after I was ‘born’. Imagine — if you will — the scene: the doctor descending the stairs, my father, rising from his chair, eager, but suddenly confused by the medical man’s expression.
Is the child all right?
The doctor nods:
Yes, a boy. A fine, healthy boy.
My father tilts his head. He knows that something is wrong.
Your poor wife
— the doctor mumbles —
I’m afraid there was nothing I could do to save her.
Swiftly, the doctor recovers
his authority. Some technical talk follows. An explanation — but not one meant to elucidate. That is how doctors are —
you
should know that. He shakes my father’s hand and leaves. My father, shocked, numb, hollow, ascends the stairs and enters the bedroom where the women are still removing the bloody sheets. His wife is dead. One of the women covers the corpse’s face and makes the sign of the cross. She looks at my father and smiles, a merciful, sad, sweet smile, the smile that graces representations of the Madonna, and gestures towards the cradle.
Your son,
she says. My father steps forward and peers at the tiny creature wrapped in swaddling.

You will allow me to make an observation: I have since come to understand that my father’s response to his misfortune was by no means typical. When women die during childbirth, it is frequently the case that loving husbands find consolation in their offspring because something of the beloved is preserved in their person; however, my father seems to have been deficient in this respect. He did not see my mother in me. My presence in the world did not make him feel any closer to her. Quite the contrary. I would say that I merely reminded him of her absence, which made his loss even more painful.