The Silence (6 page)

‘He was a day student.’

Von Dohani’s lips mouthed a silent ‘Oh,’ as if that explained it all. He nodded his head in understanding. Not a noble student, then.

‘That will fall under the purview of Mickelsburg. He makes a special project of the day boys. Not exactly a prefect, mind you, as the day students have no need of one. An advisor of sorts.’

‘Might one speak with Herr Mickelsburg?’

‘Is there some difficulty? I mean, you are an
Advokat
after all.’

Werthen smiled reassuringly. ‘No. No difficulty. Just checking references.’

Another understanding nod of the head from von Dohani. The director rose from the chair, crossed to his desk and checked a large chart that occupied one corner.

‘You’re in luck,’ he said brightly. ‘You’ll find him in the masters’ lounge for his tea.’

Werthen took the directions to the lounge. As he was leaving, he overheard von Dohani speaking to his male secretary:

‘You can send up that chap about the endowment now.’

Werthen went back down the stairs and out into the central yard quickly, hoping to avoid notice by the
Portier.
He crossed the yard to a somber little building tucked under a copse of bare horse chestnut trees. This looked to be a former carriage house converted into a lounge for the professors. The door entered directly into one large salon, part library and part dining hall, whose walls were covered in floor-to-ceiling oak bookcases stocked with uniform titles bound in leather. By the tidy looks of the volumes – everything from the works of Herodotus to Kant – none of the tomes had been recently excavated from their positions on the shelves.

An elderly man sat at a table near the door, professorial-looking if ever Werthen had seen a professor: thickly bearded, rimless glasses, rumpled suit, his concentration fixed upon the print of the thick book spread out before him on the table.

Werthen approached silently, standing in front of the man for a moment before clearing his throat.

‘Herr Professor Mickelsburg?’ he asked in a near whisper.

The man did not look up immediately, so immersed was he in his reading. Then he suddenly noticed Werthen standing in front of him and put body and question together.

‘Mickelsburg? No, heavens no. That’s him over there. And it is Father Mickelsburg, not Professor. Teaches mumbo-jumbo.’

He was indicating a youngish man seated at a table in the far corner of the room. Werthen was surprised to note it was the priest who had hustled past him at the entryway.

He thanked the nameless pedant, but the man was already back to his book, and merely grunted in reply. The professor had lifted the book as if to cover his face. It was a copy of Darwin’s
The Origin of Species.

This time Werthen was less timid as he addressed the young man in the corner.

‘Sorry to bother you during your tea, Father Mickelsburg.’ The priest had a half-eaten piece of
Apfelstrudel
in front of him next to a large glass of buttermilk. ‘Herr Doktor von Dohani suggested I speak with you.’

The priest looked up with large, curious eyes. ‘About?’

‘May I sit down?’

‘Please. Forgive my bad manners. I was just eviscerating this bit of pastry.’

Werthen introduced himself and asked, ‘What can you tell me about Hans Wittgenstein?’

This seemed to amuse Mickelsburg. ‘The abbreviated or long version?’

‘Whatever you can tell me.’

‘Has he got himself into trouble then?’

‘Not trouble. I am just doing some reference checking.’

‘For employment? I assumed he was going – kicking and screaming mind you – into his father’s business.’

‘It is complicated,’ Werthen said.

‘I have the feeling, Advokat, that you are not being quite honest with me. I am young, but I have developed a sixth sense for artifice. Priests and lawyers. We both deal with the lies of men.’

Werthen took a liking to the priest and felt that he could trust him.

‘You’re right. I was hired by Herr Karl Wittgenstein to find his son. I came here hoping to find out if Hans formed any friendships while a student here, someone with whom he might still be friends.’

‘Ergo, someplace that he might be hiding now?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I didn’t think he would be able to last long as a man of business.’ Mickelsburg drank his buttermilk off in one long swallow, and came up for air with a yellowish moustache. Werthen tapped his own upper lip, and the priest dabbed the residue with a napkin.

‘Was there such a friend?’

‘Hans was a unique young man even when a student here. He can play the piano with extreme felicity. Did Herr Wittgenstein tell you that?’

‘I have become aware of the fact. There seems to be a bit of competition for his soul.’

Father Mickelsburg smiled at this. ‘For his earthly ambitions, perhaps. I am not so sure about his soul. I was an advisor to him here, especially when he began to run into trouble academically. He did not take Greek and Latin quite as seriously as his instructors would have wanted. But he could make you weep with his interpretation of the “Emperor” Concerto. He was a most unique young man.’

‘You have said that twice. What exactly do you mean?’

‘You will discover that for yourself when you find him.’

‘So you do not believe he has done himself harm?’

‘Is he capable of suicide, do you mean?’ The priest sniffed at the word as if it were a nasty smell. ‘One never knows, does one? You see our flag outside, I assume.’

‘Yes. I was wondering . . .’

‘In memory of one of our illustrious alumni. He took his own life rather than face public scandal. One would hardly credit him with such a sense of drama as to end his own life.’

‘Are you referring to Councilman Steinwitz?’

Mickelsburg nodded his head solemnly. ‘Yes. A great tragedy. I of course was not part of the staff at the time, but the councilman was in the original classes of day students, along with our mayor. In fact, I understand from the old-timers that the two were great friends here. Such a friendship continued beyond these walls, as it often does. You yourself pointed that out.’

It was difficult to get away from the Steinwitz affair. It seemed to follow one everywhere, Werthen thought.

‘But that was not your question,’ Mickelsburg continued. ‘I am not sure I can tell you what the young Wittgenstein is or is not capable of. He had a certain high sensitivity and temperament.’

The priest seemed to blush as he said this.

‘Did he have a close friend?’ Werthen again asked.

‘Oh, yes. That he did. Another special young man, I should think.’

‘Unique?’ Werthen ventured.

‘Yes, quite. Very close the two were. His name is Henricus Praetor.’

‘Any relation to the surgeon?’ Werthen asked.

A quick nod. ‘Yes. The son. The only son, I believe. Another day student. I heard the young man became a journalist. Yes, they were very special friends.’

Werthen had made arrangements to eat lunch at home today. By the time he finished speaking with Father Mickelsburg, it was twenty past eleven, not enough time to follow any other leads this morning but quite enough for a leisurely walk to the Josefstadt.

He let his mind roam free as he walked, not concentrating on the missing Wittgenstein, but taking in the sights and sounds of this city he loved so. He found that dwelling over-hard on a case produced the same results as when one concentrated too hard on a word that escaped the memory: nothing. Rather, simply take your mind off the problem at hand for a moment, and new avenues open, solutions beckon. Thus by the time he reached his apartment house, Werthen had built up a fine appetite and a real eagerness to see his wife and child again, and more importantly had put the Wittgenstein matter completely out of his mind for a time.

He was full of expectancy as he put the key in the lock to his flat. The door opened from within at this very moment, and Frau Blatschky was there to greet him, a sour look on her face.

‘
Mahlzeit
,’ he said by way of greeting, but she did not look in the mood for either food or greetings.

He sighed, came inside, and closed the door behind him.

‘What is it?’

His housekeeper suddenly broke into tears. He had seen her near to tears only once before, the morning before he fought a duel, and to see her openly weeping was disturbing, as if the emperor himself were breaking down in front of him.

‘What?’ he said again, and gingerly patted the round little woman on her trembling shoulders.

‘Your mother,’ she sobbed. ‘She said she was going to see that you replace me. Called me incompetent.’ Further sobs. ‘Me. Incompetent.’

‘What in the world?’

At that moment Werthen’s mother appeared in the doorway to the dining room.

‘You are making rather a fuss out of nothing, Frau Blatky,’ his mother said. He knew she had purposely mispronounced the woman’s name.

‘Blatschky,
Maman
. Frau Blatschky. And what have you been saying to her?’

He felt himself get hot with anger, and tried to regain control.

‘Oh, she should be at the Burgtheater.’ His mother attempted a light tone. ‘Such a thespian.’

He was growing tired of repeating himself. ‘What did you say?’

His father came into the hallway. ‘That’s not the tone of voice a young man should be using with his mother.’

Werthen let out a long sigh. Things had been so much nicer when they were all estranged.

‘I merely said that your servant needs to run a tighter household,’ Frau von Werthen said.

‘Servant!’ Frau Blatschky all but shrieked.

‘My housekeeper,
Maman
,’ Werthen said, anger seething beneath the surface like a lidded pot on boil.

‘Servant, housekeeper, it comes to the same thing. I simply informed the woman that the table linen is not properly folded. At Hohelände we—’

‘This is not your house,
Maman
. This is my apartment and Frau Blatschky works for me.’

Now his mother began to sob and his father wrapped a consoling arm around her.

‘Look what you’ve done now. My lord, is this the manners they teach you at the university?’

His father was so cut off from reality that it was as if he thought Werthen were still a student. He saw the complete futility of talking to them like rational beings. Instead, he patted Frau Blatschky on the back once more and sent her to the kitchen.

Then turning to his parents he calmly said, ‘I am sorry for talking sharply. It has been a hectic morning for me. I was looking forward to lunch, not domestic drama.’

But that merely set both his parents off again, aggrieved that he accused them of being dramatic. The upshot of it was that they left in a huff.

His father said as he gathered coat and gloves, ‘This is the thanks we get for wanting to be good grandparents. When you can keep a civil tongue in your head, you know where we are staying.’

He felt a small twinge of guilt as they left, but he could live with that. Of course later he would have to pay for these moments of freedom; would have to go to their hotel with flowers and chocolates and beg pardon for being rude. But for now, peace and bliss, and from the smells emitting from the kitchen, the promised special
Gulasch
of Frau Blatschky.

Entering the dining room, he saw that Berthe and her father, Herr Meisner, were already there. It was naptime for Frieda and so a pleasant lunch together was in the offing.

‘Hello,’ Werthen said as he came to his wife to peck her cheek. Only when she stiffened at his kiss did he recognize that the climate in the dining room was no better than it had been in the foyer.

‘Your wife is as stubborn as a donkey,’ Herr Meisner grumbled. With that, he got up and stormed out of the room. Herr Meisner, however, would not be going back to his hotel, for he was staying with them. In the past, such visits had been enjoyable. Now, however, it was one more added strain on their domestic calm.

Herr Meisner and his parents were like oil and water. At first meeting a few days ago, the von Werthens had taken one look at Herr Meisner’s long, almost rabbinical beard, and another at his birth gift – a pair of silver rattles shaped like miniature dreidels – and it was as if they were sea turtles, pulling their necks back into their carapaces.

Herr Meisner, a successful shoe manufacturer from Linz, was also one of the foremost Talmudic scholars in Austria, while Werthen’s parents, offspring, the both of them, of Jewish merchants and bankers, had hidden their Jewish ancestry away in a tightly locked pantry of family secrets. Baptized Protestants, they even had a ‘von’ to their name, earned in 1876, and which Werthen himself refused to use. He and Berthe both despised the hypocrisies of the Austrian social system and its so-called
Dienstadeln
, or service nobility, and were also quite indifferent to religious matters.

At tea the day of Herr Meisner’s arrival, with Berthe holding the gurgling Frieda in her lap, Werthen’s parents queried, almost in a chorus, ‘When is the baptism to be?’

It was as if somebody had broken wind in the august Musikvereinsaal. Silence reigned for a full minute, and then Werthen’s mother began bubbling on about the guest list.

‘We have no such plans,’ Werthen said, hoping to head off what he sensed might quickly become a domestic crisis.

‘No plans?’ his father blustered. ‘Why, boy, you can’t raise the little darling as a heathen. Nor can you deny us the great fun of mounting a celebration. That is the prerogative of grandparents.’

Herr Meisner had cleared his throat at that moment. Werthen hoped for words of wisdom from this wise man who had become a true friend, but the adults just were not doing their job.

Looking at Berthe, Herr Meisner said, ‘I was rather hoping you might decide to raise Frieda in the faith of your fathers.’