Doctor Criminale (10 page)

At the other end, Codicil had gone quiet again, though I could hear him breathing heavily. Then he coughed suddenly and said, ‘Oh, listen to these importunate blandishments of the media.
Very well, since despite all my best advisings you insist to proceed further, I will offer you a very brief appointment. Let us meet at the Café Karl Kraus. That is near to the Votivkirche
and the Universität. If, that is, you think you can stir your stumps enough to attend there tomorrow morning at eleven of the clock?’ ‘I think I can stir my stumps for that,’
I said, ‘How will I know you?’ ‘You will have no difficulty,’ he said, ‘Just ask for me there, I am not unknown to them, in fact they know me very well. By the way,
remember, it will be my treat.’ ‘And mine too,’ I said warmly, ‘I’m looking forward to meeting you.’ ‘No, you misunderstand my evidently ineluctable
English,’ said Codicil, ‘I am explaining that I am happy to slap up the tab.’ ‘Ah, thank you,’ I said. ‘It is my pleasure,’ said Codicil, ‘Is that
enough? Then Wiedersehen, mein Herr.’

After I had replaced the phone, I sat on the bed for a moment. This was not the kind of conversation I had expected to get into, when Lavinia told me I was going off into life to be a television
researcher. It seemed that Viennese professors had a somewhat different attitude to the media from many of their British counterparts, and I already felt sure I would not get much out of Codicil.
And with no Codicil, there would probably be no way to reach Criminale, maybe no programme at all. I thought I had better consult the Delphic oracle, so I picked up the telephone and rang Lavinia,
over there in her grand-luxe comfort at the Hotel de France. ‘I’m sitting in the bath eating Rumtorte,’ said Lavinia when I reached her at last, ‘Is your hotel full of
Japanese?’ ‘Hundreds,’ I said. ‘Do yours ride up and down in the elevators all the time and giggle?’ asked Lavinia, ‘Mine do.’ ‘Listen,
Lavinia,’ I said, ‘I’ve just been talking to Codicil.’ ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Apparently in Vienna all professors have ex-directory numbers,’ I said,
‘Luckily they use the telephone company as an answering service.’ ‘Does he speak English?’ asked Lavinia. ‘Yes, you could say he speaks English,’ I said,
‘In fact he speaks it far more fluently and fancily than I do.’ ‘Brilliant,’ said Lavinia. ‘I’m not sure it is brilliant,’ I said, ‘He’s
obviously made his mind up to be very difficult. Or more likely he just
is
very difficult by nature and he didn’t have to make up his mind to it at all.’

‘Well, you know what to do, Francis,’ said Lavinia, ‘Get your foot in the door. That’s what we’re paying you all this money for. Just be persuasive and
charming.’ ‘I was,’ I said. ‘Then why is he being difficult?’ asked Lavinia. ‘He says he has more important things to do and he’s not interested in the
blandishments of the media,’ I said. ‘They all say that,’ said Lavinia, ‘I expect he’s one of those old-fashioned profs who pretend to despise television and say they
never watch it. You just have to say you’ll put them on it and they’re licking at your legs straight away.’ ‘Maybe in Britain,’ I said, ‘I don’t think
they’re like that in Austria. Viennese professors have a big sense of their own importance.’ ‘It’s just a question of finding the right approach,’ said Lavinia,
‘Get him to meet you.’ ‘I have,’ I said, ‘I’m having coffee with him tomorrow morning. I thought it might be a good idea if you came along.’

‘Sorry, Francis, terribly busy day, full diary already,’ said Lavinia, ‘You know what to do. Just nestle in his bosom like a viper.’ ‘I have a strange feeling
Codicil’s bosom isn’t the kind of bosom anyone ever manages to nestle in,’ I said. ‘Well, you know you can always come and nestle in mine,’ said Lavinia, ‘Any
time. Oh, and about that, I had this terrible problem getting tickets for the opera. The Japanese had all got there first and bought out the place.’ ‘What a pity, Lavinia,’ I
said, ‘So we have to cancel the champagne?’ ‘No, I got a box for the following night,’ said Lavinia, ‘I daren’t tell you what it cost, but it’s damn near
half the recce budget. Then you can come back after and see my absolutely glorious room. Do you have an absolutely glorious room?’ ‘Not exactly, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘I’m
up in the loft with the pigeons.’ ‘Good,’ said Lavinia, ‘Because we couldn’t have afforded it, not with these opera tickets. Still, I know you’ll love
mine.’ ‘Oh, good,’ I said, ‘Thanks so much for your help, Lavinia.’ ‘Remember,’ said Lavinia, ‘In his bosom like a viper. Night, darling.’

The next morning, I took a hearty European feast in the downstairs breakfast room (ham, cheese, salami, strawberries, melon, yoghurt, bran and buttermilk, if I remember
rightly), and then set out, with plenty of time to spare, for my meeting with Professor Doktor Otto Codicil. By ten thirty I was already in the square outside fragile and mournful Votivkirche. As
I’ve said already, Vienna does not in the end neglect its great men, and not even the one who explored the deeper dreams of the city of dreams, the stranger desires of the city of desire, who
was then expelled by the Nazis, and who ended his days sadly in Hampstead, dying just one year more than fifty years before. The square outside the church, I gathered from my various maps and
guides, had passed through several names and several histories – Dollfuss-Platz, maybe Hitler-Platz, certainly Roosevelt-Platz. Today it was Sigmund Freud-Park; in fact a statue of the old
couch-artist stood there, pigeons roosting on its head, a plaint about human reason on its base. Freud hadn’t liked Vienna; Vienna felt much the same way about Freud. Now, though, he seemed
to be enjoying almost a Mozartian revival. The newest operatic work to open in the city was, according to all the posters,
Freudiana
, and offered ‘the findings of Sigmund Freud,
fantastic dreams’ – I bet – ‘and celestial-sounding music – the ingredients of Vienna’s latest musical.’ Soon, I realized, we’d all be out buying
Freudkugeln (‘the sweet heritage of Sigmund’) and chocolate Wolfmen. So goes the world.

I stood outside the Votivkirche, and looked around. To one side stood the fine late-nineteenth-century buildings of the University of Vienna, decked out, like all university buildings, with its
fair share of graffiti, the quick, modern way to publish. To the other were various notable buildings, and one of them, I suddenly realized, was the Hotel de France. And there, coming out of the
beflagged entrance, ushered by a doorman, I was sure I saw Lavinia. The doorman helped her into a horse-drawn landau, and she jangled off, doubtless on another demanding day of producer’s
duties. Stopping the passersby who were emerging from the metro at the Schottenpassage, I found one who spoke English, and was able to direct me to the Café Karl Kraus. This lay just round
the corner in a sidestreet, one of those grandly elegant Secession cafés of which Vienna is still full. Looking through the window, I saw many tables, each of them overhung with fine brass
lily-shaped lamps. At them, I saw, as I lifted the heavy door curtain and went inside, sat portly middle-aged people, people of substance; the men were mostly in loden coats, the women in
embroidered blouses and porkpie hats with birdfeathers stuck in them. All had big winter boots on, and all of them were drinking coffee and reading newspapers stuck on very long wooden sticks.

An elderly and dignified head waiter approached me; ‘Grüss Gott, mein Herr,’ he said, looking me up and down. ‘Good morning,’ I said, ‘I’m looking for
the professor.’ He looked at me strangely; I saw that many of the customers had set down their cakes and were raising their heads from their newspapers to inspect me. ‘You want the
professor?’ he asked. ‘Yes, please, the professor,’ I said. ‘But, mein Herr,’ he said, ‘all the people here are professors. Over there, Herr Professor Doktor
Stubl, the clinician, over there Herr Professor Magister Klimt, economistic. Over there is Herr Professor Hofrat Koegl, and over there Professor Doktor Ziegler, the famous Kritiker. Bitte, mein
Herr, which professor?’ The professors were now all looking at me interrogatively, as if I had just arrived, late, for a viva on an examination in which I had not done at all well.
‘Professor Doktor Otto Codicil,’ I said. ‘Of course, the professor!’ said the maître d’, ‘He is at his usual table. Please to follow me.’ So I
followed him right through the midst of the prodigious academic gathering to an alcove at the further end of the café, where behind curtains two men sat in conversation over coffee and
cakes.

One was in his fairly late middle years, grey-haired, very large, formidably burly, and wearing an embroidered loden jacket that, for all its spacious fitting, somehow nowhere near contained his
bulk. His companion was a good deal younger, little more than a youth. The maître d’ detained me with his arm for a moment, and went and whispered in the ear of the larger, older man.
He put down his fork, turned, and stared at me analytically for some seconds. Then he rose enormously to his feet, came towards me, and held out an enormous hand. ‘My dear sir,’ he
said, ‘Must I take it you are last night’s blandisher from the world of the ephemera?’ ‘I’m the man from British television,’ I said. ‘Exactly so,’
he said, ‘Professor Doktor Otto Codicil.’ ‘I’m Francis Jay,’ I said. ‘Then please be so kind as to join me at my table,’ he said, ‘But first before
you sit down please meet my assistant, Herr Gerstenbacker. Our excellent young Gerstenbacker writes with me his habilitation and officially assists me in a variety of smallish ways.’

By now Gerstenbacker, too, had risen to meet me, his small face beaming beside and beneath Codicil’s great one. In appearance he seemed no more than eighteen, but he clearly made it his
business to appear much older. He wore perfectly round spectacles, a small moustache, a black jacket, and a high-winged collar with a black bow tie. He bowed at me politely, remained standing to
push my chair into position under me, and then said, ‘Welcome. Please, have a cake.’ ‘Gerstenbacker keeps an eye, or perhaps I had better say an ear, on my English,’ said
Codicil, chuckling. ‘It is not necessary,’ said Gerstenbacker hastily, ‘Professor Codicil has a perfect English. He has once been the President of the Anglo-Austrian Friendship
Society.’ ‘For my sins,’ said Codicil, ‘You must address it sometime. I will merely drop a word to my friend your British Ambassador.’ ‘I’m afraid there
wouldn’t be time for that,’ I said, ‘I’m only here in Vienna for a couple of days.’ ‘Is that really?’ said Codicil, looking pleased, ‘So this is
quite a fleeting sort of a visit, as they say. A here today and gone tomorrow affair.’ ‘Almost,’ I said. ‘Then maybe you will not mind if I am frank at once,’ said
Codicil, looking me over again, ‘To me you are not at all what I expected.’ ‘No?’ I said, ‘What had you expected?’

Codicil leaned forward. ‘I had imagined,’ he said, ‘that someone seriously devoted to the difficult study of Criminale would be, and let me say I mean now no offence, of much
older years and much greater stature. As I say, this means no offence. But you are a young man, no older than Gerstenbacker, a neophyte at the mysteries. Now please, do you prefer this cake, or
that one? Or have both, or something else altogether? No need to hold your horses. Remember, this tab is entirely on me.’ ‘I’d just like coffee, if you don’t mind,’ I
said, resisting this atmosphere of a school treat. ‘I think you like very much our coffee,’ said Gerstenbacker, as Codicil leaned back in his chair and waved his arm imperiously at the
waiter, ‘I know the British admire it very much. I have been there, to your country.’

‘Yes, our young friend Gerstenbacker writes his thesis for me on a very interesting topic, Empirical Philosophy and the English Country House,’ said Codicil, ‘You are familiar
with the British tradition of linguistic empiricism, important, of course, though in no sense as important as that of German idealism.’ ‘But quite important, don’t you
think?’ asked Gerstenbacker anxiously. ‘Absolutely,’ I said. Gerstenbacker beamed. ‘Gerstenbacker’s proposal is that this tradition ignores the major continental
heritage because your philosophers were all aristocrats or persons of Bloomsbury, for whom thinking was part-time,’ said Codicil. ‘The Country House is the home of the amateur
spirit,’ said Gerstenbacker, ‘That is why I concentrate there. Also these are very nice places to visit.’ ‘Of course I have told Gerstenbacker he too is a mere neophyte at
the mysteries,’ said Codicil, ‘Really he must study for ten more years at least before he begins to understand anything. His real life of the mind has yet to begin. Isn’t it so,
Gerstenbacker?’ ‘Exactly so, Herr Professor,’ said Gerstenbacker humbly.

Codicil suddenly turned to me. ‘And so, you think you have read my book?’ he asked. ‘As well as I could,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid my German is nowhere near as
good as your English.’ Codicil beamed, then thought visibly, then frowned. ‘Then you have not read my book,’ he said, ‘To know a book you must know the soul, the heart and
above all the tongue of the writer.’ ‘That’s why I wanted to meet you,’ I said. ‘To gather up my soul, my heart, and my tongue?’ cried Codicil, ‘Believe
me, these treasures are not for sale. They can only be won by a lifetime of effort. And you also say you have read Criminale?’ ‘Quite a bit,’ I said. ‘The matter with Martin
Heidegger?’ he asked. ‘The quarrel over irony?’ I countered. ‘Tell me,’ said Codicil, ‘do you accept that Criminale grasps both horns of the Heideggerian
dilemma?’ ‘Well, perhaps one horn rather better than the other,’ I said. Codicil looked at me, considered, then clapped me heartily on the back. ‘I agree with you!’ he
said, chuckling, ‘Heidegger was too clever an old fox to be defeated so easily. I knew him well, you see.’ ‘Of course the Professor has known everybody,’ said
Gerstenbacker.

‘Including Doctor Criminale,’ I said. Codicil looked coolly at me for a moment. ‘Only so-so,’ he said, ‘We were never what is called intimate.’ ‘I
suppose he was a student of yours?’ I asked. ‘Of mine, no, never, not at all,’ said Codicil, emphatically, ‘I think in your ignorance you mistake our two ages. I am hardly
older than he is. Further when he was here in Vienna after the war he studied only Pädagogie, never Philosophie. I know him only as one scholar knows another. We have had many congresses
together, and so on.’ ‘But he’s in Vienna quite often?’ I asked. ‘Vienna is but one of his many home from homes, you know. Or shall I say homes from home?’
‘Homes from homes?’ suggested Gerstenbacker. ‘And it was on visits like that he gave you the biographical material for the book?’ I asked. ‘A book, well, better call
it a small
hommage
,’ said Codicil, ‘A hat one doffs to an academic confrère. It is hardly the most notable of my works.’ ‘But it’s the key work on him,
and it’s full of good personal information,’ I said, ‘In fact he seems to have told you everything.’