Nothing So Strange (13 page)

“Do you and Framm work together?”

“We have our separate angles of research, but they overlap somewhat the
further one gets.”

“And your own angle … is it coming along well?”

His voice became slightly excited. “Yes, I’d say it is. That’s why I’ve
been working my head off lately. I’m beginning to feel I’m
near
something…. Remember that letter I once wrote you? Well, it’s
like that again, only the whole thing’s bigger. Perhaps soon I’ll be ready to
publish something. Of course it won’t make any headlines.”

“I’m sure it will make one person very happy.”

“Who—me?”

“Actually it was Pauli I was thinking of.”

“Oh, sure—and she’ll deserve it after the way I’ve been neglecting
her lately. We could take a holiday somewhere—go on a real spree. You
might not think it, but she can be very gay at times.”

“Thanks for telling me she’s human.”

“And I’m not—is that what you mean?”

“No, I think you’re
very
human, but you sometimes don’t like people
to know it…. Why didn’t you write to me about your marriage?”

He thought a moment, then said: “I’m wondering why myself. Maybe it was
because of a talk your mother and I once had—that time she came to tea
at my lab. I was so emphatic in saying I’d never marry, so I suppose I
thought it would make me out a fool when I did … though she’s probably
forgotten the whole thing long ago…. Where is she, by the way?”

“In New York.”

“She doesn’t come to England for the summers any more?”

“She didn’t last year and she probably won’t this year.”

“What’s happened to the house at Hampstead?”

“The painter died and the place was sold. My father didn’t know till too
late, or he’d have bought it.”

“Is he in New York too?”

“I think he’s in Paris at present. We don’t keep exact track of each
other’s movements.”

We walked on, through the park to the boulevards. One could feel the rise
of tension like a physical change in the atmosphere, and on the tram there
was some sort of row in progress that we couldn’t exactly diagnose—at
one moment it sounded political, then it turned domestic and seemed to be
concerned with the rival relationships of two women and a man. It went on,
intermittently, till we got out, by which time it was political again; and I
suppose many rows were like that, personal animosities fanned by and fanning
a rising flame.

Pauli had finished typing when we reached the apartment. Brad seemed
anxious to go over what she had done; he gathered up the script and went into
the bedroom to be alone. Pauli then made coffee and talked. She was genuinely
pleased that I had been able to persuade Brad to take even a few hours’
recreation, and I felt she had at last decided I was really a friend and to
be trusted. We discussed the crowds in the park and the incident on the tram.
Till then I had assumed, doubtless because she was always urging me to be
“careful,” that she was nothing but that herself—and especially careful
to avoid taking sides. I did not blame her, though I had made no secret of my
own feelings. But now she told me how warmly and bitterly she shared them. It
surprised me; I had not suspected such partisanship, and I was even more
surprised at the effort she must have made to avoid disclosing it before.
“One has to be careful,” she said again. “It was not that I did not think you
were sincere. But you are American—you are so used to saying anything
you like—anywhere—as you did in the taxi when we first met. I
have waited till you learned a little.”

“I’m glad you think I have, but really, I was always able to keep a
secret—even in America.”

“In America surely there can be no secrets like ours.”

“Not quite like yours. But we have our own.”

“At least there can be no work for the
agent provocateur
.” She
looked all at once conspiratorial, with a darting glance to the doorway as if
to confirm that the handle wasn’t being slowly turned; and I reflected then,
as I have often done, how in moments of complete sincerity yet of rather
unusual tension, so many people adopt the attitudes and gestures they have
seen on the stage. The phrase
agent provocateur
seemed to have touched
off a series of them; presently she became once more her normal
undemonstrative self. “We live in peculiar times,” she said, with apologetic
triteness.

“Yes, indeed.”

“How is your study of the situation progressing?”

“It’s not exactly a study. I’m just looking round and sizing things
up.”

“And writing articles for American newspapers?”

“Yes, a few. They don’t always take them.”

“I read one. I thought it very good.”

This startled me because she couldn’t possibly have seen any in print; she
added, perhaps interpreting my look: “It was one evening we dined at your
hotel and I went up to your room afterwards. There was a piece of typing in
your machine and I could not help seeing it was an article for a
newspaper.”

True, and I could imagine myself doing the same thing in somebody else’s
room, only I doubt if I would have admitted it afterwards. Perhaps this also
she read in my face, for she went on: “I wanted to tell you…. I wanted to
tell you how much I liked it … and also to warn you not to leave things
like that where anyone going into your room can read them…. But I did not
know you well enough then.”

“Well, you do now, thank goodness—and as for leaving papers about,
I’m careful not to do it any more.”

“You are wise. Though of course it will be known what you have written.
The Nazis soon learn who their friends are.”

“But we don’t always learn who the Nazis are.”

She gave me a shrewd glance. “I think you understand things very well. It
is a state of mind, to begin with. Even in the educational and scientific
world you meet with it.” She waited a moment, then said: “Professor Framm,
for instance.”

“Oh? Is he one of them? Secretly, I suppose?”

“I think today he does not mind so much if people suspect it.”

“Does Brad know?”

“Of course. But he says they never discuss politics.”

“So they get along?”

“I would not say they are friends. But doubtless they respect each
other— as scientists.”

“I’m not sure that would be enough for me. Or for you either.”

“That is so…. And I am worried about the position Mark is in. It becomes
more difficult every day. There have already been riots in the university.
The students are divided, so are the professors. It is a grave problem.”

“What do you think he should do?”

“That is hard to say. I am so much against the Nazis myself—I have
reasons that Mark does not have. If there were some other job, in another
country … but that, I know, is not easy to find.”

“You worked for Framm yourself, didn’t you?”

“Formerly.” I waited for her to say more, and presently it came in a
little rush of words through tightened lips. “He does not like me. He showed
that when Mark and I were married.”

“Oh?”

“We had been hoping I might keep the job, so that with the two salaries
there might have been more comfort.”

“I see.”

Though sympathetic, I could not help discounting a little after this
confession, with its mixture of frankness and inconsistency, and its reminder
of what I had seen on the tram—the personal and the political
intermixed, each one inflaming the other. She added, clinchingly: “Well, it
is good that you should know all this, then I do not have to mention him
again.”

The more I saw of Pauli the more I liked her, though the more she told me
about herself the less I felt she gave me her complete confidence. It was a
curious progress into intimacy—she letting me see into her life a
little, I realizing with each new view how much more there was than I had
previously suspected.

The following week I went to Prague. It was the first time
I had been in
Czechoslovakia, and after Austria it was a nerve tonic. The Czechs were
prosperous and cheerful; Hider was unpopular among them, but it was still
possible to believe in the Czech Army and the Czech Maginot Line and to have
confidence in the future. Events, however, provided a fascinating though
ominous drama across the border, for at such a distance the Austrian dilemma
was in sharpest focus—less huge and blurred than in Vienna itself, yet
arresting and of spectacular importance. There could not have been a better
grandstand for an objective view of the European crisis, and as I was staying
at the house of politically-minded people the days passed in a flurry of
discussion, newspaper snatching, and radio dialing. Something would happen
soon; rumors started that the Luftwaffe was already poised at Munich, waiting
for the word; some said that if Austria resisted she would have the support
of both France and Italy. I wrote a few articles for American papers, and for
the first time in my life an editor cabled his acceptance and asked for
more.

One afternoon, at a pavement cafe, I picked up a paper that someone had
left on the table. Every journalist has a technical interest in newspapers,
even in a language he doesn’t read; he likes to see the format, to judge how
modern or antiquated the plant must be, and so on. My own Czech was limited
to a few phrases; I could just make out the general sense of the headlines,
which told of nothing particularly new that day. But on an inside page I
caught a word that leapt to the eye as if it had been printed in red
ink—the word
Framm
, embedded in a half-column of small type
date-lined Berlin. I could not make anything else of it, so I took the paper
to my friends and had them translate. Even for them it was not easy, for it
appeared to be the report of a lecture delivered by Framm to some scientific
group in Berlin—highly abstruse, but apparently of news value. Framm, I
gathered, had done something to correlate a theory of electromagnetism with
some other theory—an achievement which his Berlin audience had received
with all the greater acclaim because of its Viennese origin. It demonstrated,
one was asked to believe, the essential and triumphant unity of pan-Germanic
science.

My friends were cynical enough to suggest that Framm was giving himself a
sweet piece of publicity. They were unqualified to assess the value of his
discovery, but of its timeliness there could be no doubt; for if Hitler
should take over Austria there would be scientific plums as well as other
kinds to be distributed among the faithful. My Czech friends, like Pauli and
Julian, were clearly of the opinion that scientists did not live for science
alone.

That evening I had a wire from Pauli. It asked me to return to Vienna, if
I could possibly manage it, and she would meet me at the station. I felt a
sudden aversion to mysteries, suspense, speculation of all kinds, so I wired
back “Will come if necessary but what is wrong? Is anyone ill?”—which
may not have been too courteous, but expressed some of the irritation I felt.
I didn’t want to leave Prague; I only realized then how refreshing it was as
an antidote. Back after a few hours came the answer: “No illness but please
come it is very important.” So I left the next day, fully prepared for a
small tiff with her if the reason for summoning me were not adequate. I
couldn’t think of anything but illness that would be.

She was a little distraught when we met. She rushed up to
me amongst the
crowd leaving the train and dragged me aside to assure me that Brad wasn’t
ill.

I said: “Of course not—you told me in your wire that nobody was
ill.”

“But I thought you might think I had said that just to reassure you.”

That was too subtle for me. I said: “No, I believed you. Illness isn’t a
thing to fool people about—one way or the other.”

She said: “I am sorry. You are yourself so direct. It is much worse than
his being ill, anyhow. Unless he were
seriously
ill.”

“Just tell me what’s the matter.” I took her arm as we crossed the
concourse; she did not make for the cab rank, but turned into a small
restaurant. It was fairly empty and there was a table in an alcove that
offered privacy. I ordered coffee, and put my hand across the table as I had
done once before to touch hers. It was cold but quite steady; the
distraughtness was in her eyes. They roved over the restaurant as if
apprehensive of who might be within seeing or hearing distance; then they
searched the coffee cups for specks of dirt. She wiped them with a paper
napkin before pouring. “I did not do this when we first met,” she said,
“because I thought you would consider it not good manners. But it is a fact
that they are not very careful in these places.”

I said: “Now, please, what
is
the matter?”

She watched the waiter back to his counter, then produced a folded
newspaper from her handbag. It was a Vienna paper of the previous day; she
passed it to me with her finger marking one of the pages. After a few seconds
I could see that it was just the Framm news over again, in German instead of
Czech and dressed up with a local personality angle.

I said: “Yes, I happened to see this in Prague.”

“There also?”

“Well, it’s news, I suppose. I don’t know how important it is, but Framm
certainly seems to have done himself no harm by bringing it out just
now.”

Her lips tightened. “So you think it is just … a
stunt
?” She
often used words like that, with great deliberation and as if they were bound
to effect some miraculous conveyance of ideas between an Austrian and an
American.

“Perhaps hardly that. There doesn’t seem anything catchpenny about it …
like a cancer cure or a new rejuvenation technique—that’s the sort of
stuff to make the headlines. Electromagnetism is for scientists…. What does
Brad say about it?”

“That is just the point.” She tried hard to be calm. “Because … because
… it is his own discovery …
Mark’s
… and Hugo Framm has stolen
it.” This took a little time to take in, and meanwhile she had to go on
saying the hated word. “Do you not understand? Hugo Framm has
stolen
it. It is Mark’s work, not Framm’s at all.”