Requiem in Vienna (32 page)

“This is terrible,” he said.

“Yes, and it is no time for assumptions and societal or familial niceties. You hired me to do a job and I intend to do it.”

“Well, where were you then when I needed you? Sent your assistant to do the job when I had asked for you.”

Werthen did not want to say the obvious; that no one can save you from a killer who is determined enough or willing to give his own life in the process.

“Tor is a competent man,” Werthen replied.

“For wills and trusts. But I hired you for more than that. Besides, he was late.” Mahler raised his eyebrows at this unpardonable sin.

“I am sure you are familiar with the difficult train connections that need to be made. The railway does not always run on time.”

“A full day late,” Mahler said. “We were expecting him on the Wednesday. In the event, he did not arrive until Thursday, and then had to return to town that very afternoon.”

“The police were there. If they weren’t able to protect you, I doubt I could have.”

“Police.” Mahler almost spat the word out.

“But I have not come about any of this. I want to know about Hans Rott.”

Mahler looked up from the keyboard.

“I am forgetting my manners. Please take a seat.”

He rose from the piano bench and led the way to twin chairs by the daybed. Seated again, he squinted his eyes at Werthen.

“What is it you want to know?”

“Would anybody associated with Rott have cause to do you harm?”

“Maria and Joseph! Is it that old gossip again, following me around like a load of tripe? Enough, I say. I have heard enough of it.”

“So there could be reason?”

Mahler looked as if he might explode; a vein bulged at his temple and throbbed at an alarming rate.

“I will say this only once because you are a virtual stranger to me and my household. You do not know the high value I place on honesty and loyalty. Therefore, in answer to your question, no, there could be no reason a sane person would want to avenge any supposed wrong I might have done to Hans Rott. Art is sacred, Werthen, don’t you see?”

“I am a mere lawyer. Please explain.”

Mahler pursed his lips, not finding the ironic comment at all humorous.

“A man’s artistic work, in this case Rott’s compositions, are like a communion with the great unknown. With the spirit that animates the universe. To steal that work would be a profound sin. I am not talking now of influences. We are all influenced by those persons who have gone before us. We do praise to that person or persons to demonstrate such influence in our work. But to take a man’s notes, to thieve one’s themes or melodies . . . It is unthinkable. Can’t you see that?”

Werthen said nothing. Mahler’s conviction was real enough, though.

“So, no. I can see no reason why anyone connected to Rott would wish to seek revenge upon me. In ways I loved the man. He was the purest of our generation. Perhaps the best composer I have ever known. A simple man, but an artist through and through. I never did him harm. In fact, I was more than generous in my loans to him. He was always short of funds. An orphan you know. And then he had, if I remember correctly, a brother to support.”

“Wilhelm Karl,” Werthen offered. “Did you know him?”

Mahler shook his head. “Never met the man. But as I recall, he was the younger brother. Do I recall hearing he went to America? Probably one step ahead of the bill collector. Or some irate father.”

Werthen considered this.

“Now, dear Advokat. If there is nothing else, I have a performance to prepare for.”

“Really, Fräulein Schindler. I could not accept such generosity.”

Berthe was amazed at the young woman’s cheek. Coming to call once again uninvited and then seemingly disappointed that Karl was not here to greet her. Berthe herself was somewhat unconventional in regard to social etiquette, but even for her this was too much.

“No, no, Frau Werthen—”

“Meisner,” Berthe sharply corrected her. “Frau Meisner.” She felt somehow that this young woman knew her name, but simply refused to use it. Perhaps to make the older woman seem more conventional.

This reproach, however, did not dampen the young woman’s enthusiasm; she was like a puppy with a new bedroom slipper.

“Pardon me,” she said cheerily. “Frau Meisner. But as I was about to say, the tickets will go to waste unless you and your husband use them. Herr Moll, my stepfather, has come down with a nasty summer cold and Maman refuses to leave his side. Besides, now that she is, well, in a certain way indisposed, I imagine she feels better out of society’s curious gaze anyway.”

“Indisposed?” Berthe asked, knowing full well what the euphemism meant. But she wanted Fräulein Schindler to actually say the word. Such a misplaced sense of prudery, she thought. As if having a child were something to be ashamed of.

“Well, pregnant, you know,” the other said.

And then Fräulein Schindler surprised Berthe by bursting into tears.

“Every last bit of Father will be forgotten now,” she moaned between tears.

Whatever Berthe thought of the young woman, it seemed these tears were real enough. And the pent-up emotion behind them. Berthe rose and went to her, sitting beside her on the leather sofa and wrapping a tentative arm around her.

“Now, now,” she consoled, about to tell her something idiotic like it was not worth crying over or not to worry. Instead she said, “Have a good cry.”

As the tears slowly dried up, Alma Schindler looked frankly at Berthe.

“I am filled with apprehension, Frau Meisner. What if Maman dies in childbirth. She is somewhat old to be having another baby, it can be a dangerous procedure. Then I and my sister should be truly orphaned. First my beloved father and now Maman. Or,
and I am not too proud to metion it, with a new baby to care for Maman shall refocus her attention to it. That, too, would be as if I were orphaned. And my stepfather, with this simple act of procreation, will completely supplant my dead father in the affections of Maman. I know I must sound a venal young woman for voicing such fears, but there it is. I should be rejoicing Maman’s new baby. Instead, I dread it.”

Berthe felt her heart opening to the young woman—suddenly seeming so vulnerable. Was this what her father, Herr Meisner, had seen in her the other night? Is that why his heart, too, had opened to Fräulein Schindler?

“I value your honesty, Fräulein Schindler. We have little control over such fears. And I shall share something with you, as well. You see, I am also pregnant and am filled with both joy and yes, fears. I am fearful that when I am a mother, that is all I shall be allowed to be. That motherhood will become some kind of trap where my role is tightly defined by society. Fearful that my husband will also subscribe to such a role for me.”

“You are an ambitious woman, then, Frau Meisner?” Her eyes, still red from crying, sparkled as she said this.

Berthe had never thought of herself in that regard. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose I am. I have a persona of my own, if you understand.”

Alma Schindler seemed almost to wiggle in delight at this utterance.

“Oh, I do so understand. It is what I too feel. And I live in mortal terror lest I fall in love with some man who wants to quash that persona, that spirit.”

“But could you ever love such a man?” Bertha asked, amazed.

“Of course. Every man I have ever been attracted to is a forceful, domineering, creative genius. Such a man wants only one talent in the household.”

Berthe thought that in this case there could hardly be a worse choice for Fräulein Schindler than Gustav Mahler. If ever there
was a man who wanted to be completely in charge of his career and household, it was Mahler.

“That is me,” Fräulein Schindler said brightly. “Full of contradictions. My mind cannot control where my heart leads me.”

“Then I might try muzzling that heart of yours.” Berthe laughed. “At least for the next few years until you have a chance to be on your own, to become your own woman.”

“Please say you will come,” Fräulein Schindler said with real sincerity.

“Come where, my dear?” Herr Meisner said as he entered the sitting room, freshly arrived following an after-lunch stroll. “And, might I add, how charming it is to see you once again.”

“Herr Meisner. Good to see you also.” Like an adolescent, Alma Schindler rose as the older man came to her.

He gestured her to be seated. “Go where?” he asked again.

“I was just trying to convince your daughter to join me at the Hofoper this evening. I have tickets for
Tannhäuser.
”

She quickly explained the sickness in her family and her mother’s reluctance to leave her husband’s bedside.

“A fine idea,” Herr Meisner said. “It would do Berthe a world of good to get out of the flat for an evening. Silly antediluvian notion that a lady must lie in at such a time.”

He stopped suddenly, not knowing if he had misspoken.

“It is all right, Father,” Berthe said, and then added in a joking tone, “I told Fräulein Schindler of my oh-so-delicate condition.”

Herr Meisner smiled at this. “There you are, and what do you think, Fräulein Schindler? Would it not be fine for Berthe to breathe the invigorating cultural air of the Hofoper? Even if it is Wagner.”

“But, Herr Meisner, Wagner is the apogee of art.”

“Apogee, as in a distant moon, Fräulein Schindler?”

She laughed at this. “No, Herr Meisner. You purposely misconstrue my meaning. Apogee, as in apex. And yes, it would be wonderful for Frau Meisner to attend.”

“But you mention both your mother and father unable to use their tickets,” he said.

“I was hoping to induce Herr Werthen to accompany us,” Fräulein Schindler said.

But Herr Meisner merely shook his head at this suggestion.

“Nonsense. Karl is far too busy trying to track this villain down before he makes more mischief. But I, on the other hand, am an old man at loose ends in the great metropolis and only too eager to accompany two young beauties to hear the apogee of music.”

“Father!” But Berthe was not as scandalized as she tried to sound.

Fräulein Schindler looked at her mischievously. “Is it settled then, Frau Meisner?”

“Well,” Berthe began.

“You know Karl’s taste in music goes toward the symphony or chamber music,” Herr Meisner said. “I would be doing him a favor going in his stead.”

“There you have it, Fräulein Schindler. My father has spoken. We shall be delighted to share your seats.”

Werthen’s mind was in a whirl. He walked from Mahler’s flat to meet Gross at the Café Frauenhuber, hoping that the mere physical rhythm of one foot in front of the other would help him put order to the chaos of thought pulsing in his head.

The moment he had left Mahler’s apartment, a statement the composer had made came back to him. Tor had not arrived in Altaussee until last Thursday. At first Werthen did not understand why that should be significant. Perhaps Tor stopped off to see friends on the way. Perhaps he had taken a small, albeit illicit, vacation of a day. He deserved it; he had only to ask Werthen for a holiday. What difference could it make, anyway?

But as he walked on, this small discrepancy nagged at him
until he finally realized its real importance: If Tor had not arrived in Altaussee until Thursday, that meant that he could still have been in Vienna last Wednesday. The day Werthen was attacked at the office.

Another block of walking made Werthen see how utterly ridiculous that was. If Tor had wanted to find some document in the office—say the letter he had sent—then all he had to do was rifle through the drawers when Werthen was not there. There had been ample opportunity for that. No need to call attention to a break-in by turning the office upside down and then assaulting him.

It took a half block more for Werthen to render this argument null. Perhaps Tor
wanted
to call attention to such a break-in, assuming, thereby, that no one would suspect him of it for the very reasons Werthen himself had posited. In other words, Tor had staged a break-in and assaulted Werthen in order to plant a false trail away from himself.

By this time he had reached the Ringstrasse and began navigating the warren of streets toward the café. He recalled now his conversation with Natalie Bauer-Lechner at the train station last Friday night when they had brought Mahler back to Vienna half dead. She, too, confirmed what Mahler said. Werthen had not registered it at the time, but clearly it had been percolating in what the nerve doctors were calling the subconscious.

Natalie Bauer-Lechner had mentioned Tor arriving “yesterday.” Which meant Thursday, not Wednesday. He had heard the statement, lodged it, but only processed it now for its true significance.

Gross was already waiting for him at the café, seated in the same place they had occupied the other day while interviewing Herr Hanslick. Otto, the headwaiter, greeted him with his usual good cheer and promptly brought him a mocha without bothering to ask him.

Werthen could not hold back, but blurted out his suspicions regarding Herr Tor.

Gross merely nodded. “I, too, was cogitating along those lines. The discovery of the given name of ‘Wilhelm’ rather tipped the scales. As with the inversion of the family name, Tor for Rott. Criminals like to keep their aliases as close to their original names as possible to avoid confusing themselves.”

Werthen felt excitement growing in him like a palpable presence.

“So Tor could be the long-lost brother of Hans Rott, avenging his brother for what he thinks is Mahler’s plagiarism. He is about the right age, and Mahler remembered hearing that this brother might have gone to America. Tor spent time in America, or so he told Berthe. My God, Gross, he had ample opportunity, as well. He was on hand each time in the country when there was an attack on Mahler. Before the bicycle accident and then last week before the poisoning.”

He thought for a moment. “But how could he be responsible for the events at the Hofoper itself?”

“This is where our theory of an accomplice must come into play,” Gross responded. “Tor, or Rott, has someone on the inside that is aiding him. After all, it is too much to assume that he had access to the backstage and that no one would have noticed this stranger roaming about.”