Nothing So Strange (24 page)

“Still the casual interest?”

“Yes—if that’s all you want.”

“I’ll let you know someday. I can’t now. But I’ll tell you what happened
after Pauli died.”

He leaned over and took a cigarette out of my pack. “I went a little bit
out of my mind,” he said, lighting it. “That’s what happened—chiefly. I
was waiting for her to join me in Switzerland. The authorities hadn’t let me
see her or even write a letter. I don’t know that she ever knew why it was I
defended Framm at the trial—I don’t suppose they ever told her it was a
bargain to get her released. I expect she died thinking I’d deserted her at
the crucial moment. Probably others thought that too. It must have seemed
strange…. How did it look to you?”

“Well, of course, I knew the reason, so I didn’t think it strange.”

“But others did?”

“Maybe.”

He fidgeted, then added: “Did people talk about it—to you?”

“Sometimes.”

“And you had to tell them they’d got it all wrong.”

“I didn’t tell them anything at first. I didn’t want to queer anything
till Pauli was actually released.”

“But afterwards—when you heard she’d died?”

“Then it was too late for people to be interested. Things are so quickly
forgotten—every journalist finds that out. Even a newspaper sensation
like Pauli’s trial doesn’t leave more than a few scattered recollections….
And besides, there’s another thing. Suppose I’d tried to convince people you
were really
against
Framm and the Nazis, how could I have explained
why you went to work for him in Germany afterwards?”

“So you know that too?”

“I didn’t then, but what if they’d told me?”

He gave me a wry smile. “You’d have been considerably puzzled?”

“I still am.”

“Yet you—you don’t think badly of me?”

“Brad, that’s another thing I’ve learned as a journalist. The world’s so
full of strange actions and strange motives—don’t condemn people just
because they do what you can’t immediately understand. Or even always because
they do what seems to you not good. Wait till they’ve had a chance to
explain.”

“So that’s my chance now?”

“Only if you want it. I’m quite willing to go on taking you on trust.”

“If I told you I worked for Framm in Germany because I planned to kill
him, would you believe me?”

“Yes … but did you?”

“Did I work for him?”

“No. Did you kill him?”

He grimaced. “You’re so damned matter-of-fact, that’s what gets me. You
can take plenty in your stride. I like you for that….”

Tempting though this was as a side issue, what I really wanted was his
story, and soon he began. It came in fragments at first, but not reluctantly.
And he urged that if he wasn’t clear about anything I was to interrupt as he
went along and ask for any further details I wanted. I think my remark about
not condemning people for an absence of apparent motive made him specially
anxious for me to understand his, and sometimes he would pause as if to
invite questions. The whole thing built up to something I can put more
connectedly at this stage into the third person; so here it is.

When the time came near for him to expect Pauli’s release,
Brad went to Switzerland to await her. He had been told he would not be
permitted to meet her in Austria; she would be put on a train under escort to
the Austrian border town of Feldkirch; the train would then take her,
unescorted, across the international bridge to the Swiss border town of
Buchs. The Teutonic exactitude of all this irritated him, yet seemed also a
perverse guarantee of authenticity. At any rate, he would be at Buchs when
the day came.

Meanwhile he found an inexpensive but comfortable pension at Interlaken
and began to plan the quiet holiday they would both have together before the
birth of their child. He chose Interlaken mainly because he knew a doctor
there, but it was also a good climbing center, and during the time of waiting
he built up his own physique after many years of overwork.

The porter brought the letter to his bedroom along with coffee and
brioches. When he saw the postmark “Wien” and the official seal on the
envelope he thought it was what he had been waiting for. A minute later he
knew he must do something drastic with himself or he would go totally mad. It
was the morning of a perfect September day, and out of the window he could
see the mountains. He stared at them for a long time. Then he dressed, packed
a rucksack, put on heavy boots, and told the proprietress downstairs that he
was off for a few days’ climbing. She smiled and wished him a good time.

He walked through the town and took the train to Lauterbrunnen. By evening
he had reached the high ground. He was a good climber, though not quite an
expert. After a night at the Roththal Hut he crossed the rock and ice
aręte
to the main peak of the Jungfrau, climbed it, and made a descent
towards the Jungfraujoch. By that time he was at a point of uttermost
physical exhaustion, and the last hours across the glacier were endured
amidst a peculiar vacuum of sensation that left his mind swinging clear like
a compass needle. It was then that he reached a decision.

He took the cog railway down from the Joch through Scheidegg and Wengen;
by midnight of that second day he was in his bedroom at the pension. There he
slept off his tiredness, packed his bags, and told the proprietress that he
had to leave for good. She was a friendly woman, who had grown to like him
during his weeks with her; he had never talked much about himself, but
perhaps she sensed there was something wrong and wondered if it were money
trouble—so many people nowadays couldn’t get their funds out of other
countries. If that were so with him, they could come to an arrangement; she
told him this, but he said it wasn’t money, he had to leave for another
reason.

He then made the long roundabout train journey through Lucerne, Zurich,
and Sargans, to the frontier at Buchs. He wondered if he would have trouble
there, but his former Austrian visa was apparently still good, and at
Feldkirch the uniformed official stamped it without comment.

A day later he reached Vienna. He found a room at a cheap hotel, slept,
and was up early.

Bauer’s office was occupied by another firm; they very pointedly could not
tell him where Bauer was. He then tried Bauer’s apartment, with the same
result. But there had been a tired elderly secretary named Sylvie; he had
once had to leave some of Bauer’s papers at her home, so he remembered where
it was. He now went there again. She was very nervous on seeing him,
admitting him reluctantly into the small shabby apartment. She said she
didn’t know anything, couldn’t remember anything—all Bauer’s papers had
been impounded; she herself was Aryan and had been promised a job in the
Deutsche Bank—it must be understood that she retained absolutely no
connection at all with her former employer’s business affairs.

“I’m not asking you about them. I just thought you might be able to tell
me where Bauer is.”

He placed money on the table with a gesture he disliked all the more in
such surroundings; at least, if one bribed, one ought to do so handsomely and
without the indecent help of another’s obvious poverty. But the small sum was
all he could afford. He said: “I’m not mixed up in politics—never have
been. I just want a talk with him, that’s all.”

“Unfortunately, sir….” She began to slide the money back across the
table.

“That’s too bad.”

“I am very sorry, sir.”

He got up briskly and left the money where it was. “All right. I don’t
blame you…. I’m staying at the Kaiserling Hotel on the Laudongasse if you
change your mind…. Good day.”

Next he went to the American Embassy. The young man who
listened to him
there was polite but not very helpful.

“But Mr.—Dr. Bradley—what is it you expect us to do?”

“I want to find out some details about my wife’s death.”

“But on the evidence of this letter….”

“I’m not satisfied with this letter.”

“Have you made any personal inquiries of your own?”

“That’s what I want to do. They didn’t send for me in time. Not even for
the funeral. I thought you might be able to help me. I’m an American
citizen.”

“But your wife, I understand, was Austrian….”

“Does that matter?”

“Unfortunately, so far as we are concerned, it leaves us without much
locus standi
. And this private arrangement you claim to have had with
the authorities could hardly be made a basis for any….”

“Sure, I know all that. I don’t expect you to declare war or send a
gunboat up the Danube.”

He knew that from then on the young man’s only aim was to get rid of
him.

“Frankly, Dr. Bradley, I don’t know how we can help you. If you were
contemplating a return to America, you might try to interest someone in
Washington….”

“Meaning that you’re not interested here?”

“It isn’t that at all. But for certain things it is almost a disadvantage
to be on the spot. Of course if your request were for something definite,
practical….”

“It is. An autopsy.”

“
Autopsy
?”

“That’s what you have when you want to find out how somebody died, isn’t
it?” No point now in lengthening the argument.

But the young man was still polite. “A formal request for additional
information can be lodged with the authorities, but even then….”

“They’ll take no notice of it—is that what you mean?”

“I was about to say that without supporting evidence you could hardly
expect….”

He went away with growing awareness that he had been rather stupid and
probably unfair.

When he returned to his hotel he found a message that someone had
telephoned in his absence but would call again later. The second call came
during the afternoon; it was a woman’s voice that sounded as if it might be
Sylvie’s with an attempt at disguise. The voice told him that if he still
wished to meet the person he had asked for, he would find him at a certain
street corner in the Leopoldstadt district at ten-thirty that night.

He kept the appointment, and after a few minutes of waiting a man touched
him whom he did not at first recognize. Then he saw that it was Bauer dressed
in rough clothes with a beard grown stubbly; he would have passed for an
out-of- work laborer. He took Brad along a side street and presently down
some steps to a slum basement. Noisy voices could be heard from the next
room. “Speak quietly in German,” Bauer said. “Would you like some beer?”

“No, thanks. Why are you like this?”

“I am on my way out of this country. The police are looking for me, but I
hope to be in Bratislava within a few days. I have friends there. You must
forgive me for making you wait at the corner. I had first to make sure that
it was you.”

“I understand.”

“Now tell me why you are here again. It is an unfortunate country to
return to.”

“I want to find out about Pauli.”

“I am sorry to say she is dead.”

“I know that. I was waiting in Switzerland for her to join me—that
was the arrangement. Then they sent me a letter. It said she died in a
hospital at Wiener-Neustadt.”

“Have you got the letter?”

“Yes.” He passed it to Bauer, who read it and gave it back without
immediate comment.

“Well?” Brad said at length.

“What is there to say, my friend?”

“Ought I to believe it?”

After another pause Bauer answered: “Perhaps yes—for your own peace
of mind.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Bauer gave a shrug which Brad had already begun to adopt for his own use;
it was a gesture of not knowing where to begin in the enumeration of losses,
problems, tragedies, injustices; the Masonic sign between those who accept
despair but refuse defeat. Ever since those moments on the glacier Brad’s
mind had been building a framework within which he could come to similar
terms with events; but this framework was so strange at first that nothing
seemed strange inside it, neither Bauer with dirty nails and patched clothes,
nor a basement cellar in which one lit a solitary candle on a table and saw
the cockroaches scurrying into their holes.

He repeated: “What do you mean?”

Bauer replied in a whisper: “I know she did not die in Wiener-Neustadt.
She died at Graz. She was sent there about a month ago.”

“How do you know that?”

“We have ways of finding out these things.”

“What else have you found out?”

Again the shrug.

“Who is responsible?”

Bauer gave him a long look and answered: “Who do
you
think, my
friend?”

“Framm?”

“He was in Berlin when she died.”

“Does that answer the question?”

Bauer said after another pause: “I wonder whether you are wise in asking
it. The thing is done and cannot be undone. You are an American—you can
go back to your own country where things like this do not happen. And if I
were you—”

Brad interrupted: “I
must
know. Framm had motives—she knew a
great deal about him—
against
him—and if he could not
silence her—”

“Please do not speak so loudly. And I do not want you to stay long
here…. Yes, he had motives…. And when you leave you had better go
alone.”

“One more question…. Was it pneumonia?”

“It may have been. But that would not affect the issue.”

“Because it was due to something else—something that led
to—”

“In one way or another it should not have happened, my friend. I would
rather leave it at that … for your sake.”

“Bauer, I want information, not sympathy. You have evidence against
Framm?”

“We have enough—of the kind of thing one gets. Much of it would be
inadmissible in a court of law—if there were any left that deserve the
name.”

“Doesn’t interest me—I’ve had enough experience of courts. I want to
know for my own … for reasons of my own.
Was Framm responsible
? Yes
or no? Or can’t one get that sort of answer out of a lawyer?”