The Keeper of Hands (3 page)

She said nothing for a moment. A fly had got into the house and was now busily buzzing in the dusk of the room.

‘It
is
only natural for grandparents to want to be near their grandchild.’

She continued staring at the black expanse overhead.

‘Is there something you’ve been wanting to tell me?’ he asked.

‘Father mentioned that he might be moving to Vienna. Well, not
moving
. Perhaps a
pied-à-terre
to begin with.’

‘Wonderful!’ Werthen groaned. ‘They’ve got us boxed in on both fronts.’

‘It doesn’t have to be like that,’ Berthe said.

‘Don’t you remember the argument over christening?’

‘That was settled amicably enough,’ Berthe said.

‘Yes. But I had to threaten to bring Frieda up a Buddhist unless they stopped intervening. The hypocrisy of it. We’re all Jews – it doesn’t matter whether they are assimilated or not, or if they were baptized Christians or not. Yet they go about playing at being German aristocrats.’

‘It’s their lives, their hypocrisy.’

‘Not when it has an impact on our lives. And let us not forget your father’s insistence on an
aliyah
naming ceremony for Frieda.’

‘But he finds her name so Nordic.’

‘Better Ruth? That is fine, though. I understand his position. After all, he is a leading Talmudic scholar . . .’

‘It’s not about religion. It’s more about tradition for him.’

‘Fine. So now he will be in Vienna part of the time to be close to Ruth.’

‘There is a silver lining,’ Berthe said, turning to him now and placing a kiss on his nose. ‘There is a certain widow he has met . . .’

‘Nuptials in the offing? Sorry. I don’t know why I am being so difficult about all of this. I enjoy your father. I even enjoy seeing my parents with Frieda now and again. It just feels suddenly like the world is crowding in on us.’

She moved against him, putting a soothing hand around the hair at the base of his head. Her fingers felt cool to the touch. Her lips touched his.

‘Not the world,’ she said, moving closer. ‘Just me.’

In the middle of the night Frieda woke them with a cry. Berthe went to her and then came back to their bed with the little bundle of their daughter cradled in her arms.

‘It’s still a strange room to her. She’ll get used to it.’

‘I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘A couple of hours ago, maybe. But now —’

‘There,’ Berthe cooed to the infant as she lodged Frieda between them. She was asleep again in a matter of minutes.

‘I’ve been wondering,’ Werthen began.

‘No more discussion about our parents tonight. Please.’

‘No. About Salten. Was he hiding something, do you think?’

‘You mean when you asked him about his personal contact with the unfortunate young woman?’

‘So you overheard our conversation?’

She ignored this question. ‘Definitely defensive.’

‘Why, one wonders?’

O
n Monday morning Werthen set off for the office first, and would leave from there for his eleven o’clock appointment with Frau Mutzenbacher.

The day was glorious: a shimmering blue sky overhead and a soft warmth already at eight as he made his way down the Josefstädterstrasse. On the opposite side of the street he noticed the same military man he had seen for the past few months. Tall and thickly built, his moustache finely waxed, the patent-leather visor of his peaked cap shiny and without a smudge, as if the fellow put it on only after he had donned the fawn-coloured suede gloves he invariably wore. The greatcoat had long since been relegated to mothballs, Werthen imagined. The captain – for the three stars on his stiff collar indicated that rank – looked resplendent in the green tunic of the General Staff. His meticulously creased blue pantaloons were tucked into low black boots, as gleaming as the visor of his cap. A sword swung from his belt, and on his chest he wore the 1898 Jubilee Medal presented by Franz Josef in honor of the Emperor’s fifty years of service to his country.

This General Staff officer had interested Werthen from the first time he had seen him during the dark grey days of winter. Like Werthen, the officer was an inveterate walker. He stood ramrod stiff yet moved with a seeming casual elegance despite his size. Werthen, who still fancied himself a short-story writer in the odd moment, thought this officer would make a splendid character in a tale of love and regret. He secretly looked for a flaw in the captain as they continued to make their way down towards the Inner City on opposite sides of the street. A gambler, perhaps? There were enough of those in the military; forced to live on impossibly small army pay, many a young dandy had ruined his career attempting to supplement his income at the
vingt-et-un
tables of Baden bei Wien.

Soon Werthen lost interest in this game, however; and also lost sight of the officer as they approached the Volksgarten, since the other man headed off to the Ministry of War offices in the Hofburg while he, Werthen, continued through the park to his law office on Habsburgergasse. He was in an elated mood, looking forward to a new commission, wondering what to expect from Frau Mutzenbacher.

His orders from Berthe before leaving this morning were clear enough.

‘Eyes forward, Karl,’ she had teased.

‘I’m sure the working members of the establishment will still be sleeping, dear,’ he assured her.

Prostitutes were not his style. He neither fancied them nor frowned upon them. They had their job, and he had his. Quite simple, really. He had never sought their services, though once, when Werthen was sixteen, his father had made a clumsy effort at initiating his son into the ways of the world by a visit to a Viennese brothel. One look at the ghoulish eye makeup, however, at the sullen expression of the woman his father intended for him, and Werthen ran out of the place and all the way back to the hotel where they were staying, up from the country for the ball season.

His father never mentioned the incident.

The Habsburgergasse was bustling with activity when he arrived at No. 4. Down the street, Waltrum, the booksellers, had wooden boxes out on the street with second-hand books for sale. The flower shop next door was alive with bunches of lilac in large metal buckets of water, the heavy scent attracting honey bees. The
Portier
of his office building, Frau Ignatz, was out sweeping the cobbled sidewalk in front. The day was so splendid that he would not allow her presence to dampen his spirits.

‘Good morning to you, Frau Ignatz,’ he said, tipping his Homburg as he entered the door.

‘I am not so sure what’s so good about it,’ she said. ‘The refuse that’s left behind on this street is something awful.’

He ignored her remark, taking the stairs at a fast clip until he reached his office. As usual, Fräulein Metzinger had preceded him. She was already at her typewriter, beating out a staccato rhythm on the keys. A far cry from the forefingered typing that was all she had been capable of when she first came to his office. She looked surprised when she saw him.

‘I thought you had an interview this morning.’

There was a small sound of reproach to her comment.

‘I thought I would get some work done here first. The Herbst trust is still in need of that codicil.’

‘It’s been taken care of.’

‘Wonderful. I’ll look at the papers, then.’

‘Sorry to be so curt,’ she said as he was about to walk into his inner office. ‘I feel rather abashed at being caught out.’

‘At what?’

She swept her hand at the typewriter and the stack of letters next to it.

‘This is not office work.’

‘Ah,’ he said, nodding his head. ‘You really do not need to explain, Fräulein Metzinger.’

‘It is for the cause.’

‘I assumed so. You do more than your share here. The Herbst codicil, for example.’

‘Still, it is perhaps not right.’

She was waiting, he knew, for his approval. ‘It is a noble cause,’ he said.

‘The keeper of hands . . .’

‘I beg your pardon?’

She shook her head in disgust, looking at the paper in the carriage of her typewriter.

‘That is what they call the Belgian officer in charge of keeping the cut-off hands of natives deemed too indolent at gathering rubber.’

‘Why ever would they do that?’

‘Cut off their hands? As punishment, of course. King Leopold must have his slaves industrious at all costs.’

‘I meant
keep
the hands. Collect them like that.’

She sighed. ‘Those in charge of discipline make their living by keeping track of punishments. So many crowns for each hand.’

He felt a shiver pass over him.

‘Of course they take the hands of those who have done no wrong, as well. They must make a living, you see. It’s all been documented in Mary Kingsley’s book on Africa and by the reporting of Edward Morel. Even in the novel of that Pole, Conrad.’

‘British now, actually,’ Werthen said. ‘
The Heart of Darkness
.’ Werthen had read it in the English original, in instalments in
Blackwood’s Magazine
, and found it a powerful indictment of the horrors being perpetrated in Africa.

‘But people do not listen. Letters need to be sent to those with power and conscience all over the world, in order to end this savagery in the Congo Free State.’

Werthen swallowed hard. ‘It is a noble cause, Fräulein Metzinger. Keep up the good work. Spread the word.’

But she had already gone back to a furious clacking of keys, quite ignoring him. It had been like this ever since she lost the street urchin whom she had hoped to adopt, a tragedy that set her to fighting for noble causes wherever they might be, from pacifist campaigns to ones against European barbarism in the Congo.

In his office, he sat down at his desk, looking forward to the morning edition of the
Neue Freie Presse.
As per arrangement, Frau Ignatz’s younger brother Oskar should have already delivered the paper
,
but there was nothing on his desk. Oskar was slow – some would say disadvantaged mentally – but dependable. It surprised Werthen that the man had failed in his duties today. He was about to go and inquire about it with Fräulein Metzinger when he heard a commotion from that direction. There was a low mumbling and a higher voice. Surely that of Frau Ignatz? An argument seemed to be ensuing.

Poking his head out of his office, he saw his secretary, Frau Ignatz and Oskar in a tug of war over the
Neue Freie Presse.
Frau Ignatz saw Werthen and sighed.

‘There you are, Advokat. Will you please tell this stubborn man to hand over the paper and go back to bed? He has a temperature of a hundred and two.’

Looking at Oskar, Werthen saw that he was as pale as
Semmel
dough.

‘It’s my duty,’ Oskar countered, his usual booming voice a weak imitation.

‘I heartily agree with the ladies, Herr Oskar,’ Werthen said, approaching the stand-off. ‘I much admire your sense of duty, but you clearly belong in bed.’

He took the newspaper out of the man’s sweaty hand, clapped him on the back, and announced, ‘Back to bed with you. Have you seen a doctor?’

Frau Ignatz snorted at this suggestion. ‘Oskar won’t let the white coats near him. Had a bad fright with one when he was a child.’

‘Well, Oskar, you’re in luck. My friend Doktor Kramer wears a dark coat and knows more about stamps than anyone I know.’ This was Oskar’s passion, and it drew an instant response.

‘He’d know about the Basel Dove? First time they made a three-colour stamp.’

‘Absolutely,’ Werthen said. ‘Now let your sister put you back to bed. And Fräulein Metzinger, could you call Kramer’s office and see if he can pay a visit?’

She nodded, and reached for the telephone even as Werthen was returning to his own office with his prized, but somewhat battered, newspaper.

Werthen spent the better part of an hour perusing the paper. He skimmed over the lead article on Hungary – yet another question about that unwilling partner in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Then read a feuilleton from Pretoria on the war in South Africa, and finally settled into the sports news dealing with the Traber Derby. It seemed much the saner choice, but there was no safe ground today. Details of the Derby simply reminded him of his father, Emile, and his plans to create his own estate in the Vienna Woods with an equestrian area.

Werthen wanted to feel more kindly towards his father, but found it a difficult task.

Looking at the standard clock on the wall in front of him, he saw that he had managed to squander the better part of an hour. He grabbed his Homburg and left. In the reception, Fräulein Metzinger was still at her pile of letters. She did not notice his departure.

The establishment in question, the Bower, was located in a narrow lane in the First District near the Danube Canal. A narrow three-story baroque building, its exterior could have been that of a fashionable men’s club – for, compared to its bleak and dour neighbors, the façade of the Bower was newly repainted in a shade of buttery gold several tones lighter than the Habsburg yellow of Schönbrunn that continued to infect the imperial world. Multi-colored putti frolicked about the heavily shuttered street-level and second-floor windows that housed Frau Mutzenbacher’s establishment. It was clear the brothel was closed, but Salten had told him to simply ring at the front door. He would be expected. He let himself in through the street door and, as Werthen went to the door of the Bower in the vestibule, he heard a tssking of tongue: descending the stairs was an elderly woman about her shopping, reminding him that the third floor was still given over to apartments. She was not too busy to scold him for illicit behavior.

He read the small brass plaque on the door to ensure he was at the right place, pulled the bell, heard it jangle behind the oak doors, and was soon greeted by a man of about forty in suspenders and shirt collar. He looked as if he could use a shave.

‘You’ll be the investigator, then,’ he said.

Werthen had no chance to reply. The man turned and began heading down a long, darkened hallway. Werthen stood uncertainly at the door.