Madensky Square

by Eva Ibbotson

  Herr Schumacher is insured of course. Rebuilding of the stables has begun already — but the day after the blaze, Gustav was put in a carriage and returned to his parents. The little girls are delighted; the aquarium has been brought down from the attic — but the problem of the inheritance remains unsolved.

  What is going to happen now about Herr Schumacher’s blood?

  December

  I suppose I should have known. Nini wasn’t just wearing her assassination shoes when she went out, she’d made herself a new velveteen jacket and her eyes were shining with excitement.

  But they do so often. With her fervour, her belief in ‘The Propaganda of the Deed’ whatever that may mean, she often goes to her meetings looking like that.

  It was her half day so she left in the afternoon.

  ‘I’ll be late,’ she said — but she is often late, and I went on with my stocktaking. Peter Konrad has found someone who’ll take my cloth at valuation.

  In the evening I went out to buy a newspaper. On the front page was a picture of what looked like a moustachioed slug, but was apparently Herr Engelbert Knapp, the German arms manufacturer and steel magnate who was arriving in Vienna as a guest of the Austrian Ministry of Trade.

  Even then I felt no disquiet. I had heard Nini rage about Knapp, who is said to treat his workers abominably and recently called in the army to put down a strike in his factory at Essen — but who have I not heard Nini rage about: archdukes, cabinet ministers, financiers?

  There had been some threats to his life by subversive bodies; an extra contingent of police had been detailed to guard his route from the station to the Hotel Imperial . . .

  I don’t wait up for Nini. When I first took her in I set myself the task of leaving her free, so I went to bed at the usual time, but when I woke I knew at once that she wasn’t there. Her bed had not been slept in; her room was bare and tidy. Between the two Anarchist posters, she’d pinned a picture of a candy-striped pinafore cut from a fashion magazine.

  I told myself that she’d found a boy she liked and spent the night with him — not unlikely in view of her determination to forget Daniel Frankenheimer. But for all her wildness Nini is considerate. She’s come in in the small hours, but never as late as this.

  So by the time the pounding on my door started, I was prepared. But it wasn’t the police; it was Lily from the post office, tear-stained and frantic. Her father’s a revolutionary, that’s how she and Nini met.

  ‘They’ve got her, Frau Susanna! They’ve got Nini! They’ve rounded up everybody in the group — as soon as Knapp died they went to the cellar and took everyone.’

  ‘What happened to Knapp?’

  ‘Someone threw a bomb at his car as he was coming down the Ring.’

  I took the paper from her. Assassination Horror screamed the headline. A young man dressed like a student had stepped out from behind a tree as the car slowed down to take a bend, and thrown a bomb. Herr Knapp died instantly, as did his chauffeur. His secretary was seriously injured and so were a number of by-standers. The assassin made no attempt to escape. ‘Long live the poor and the oppressed,’ he’d cried, and biting on a cap of fulminate of mercury which he had in his mouth, he fell lifeless to the ground.

  ‘You must tell me exactly how far Nini was involved,’ I said to Lily. ‘That’s the only way I can help her.’

  ‘I don’t know exactly, Frau Susanna. Honestly I don’t. I know she had to go to a hat shop in the Neuermarkt at three and pick up a message. It was part of a chain of messages, I think. But she couldn’t have been there when the bomb was thrown because she was in Ottakring when the police came and that was miles away. They were all there.’

  Oh yes, I thought wearily. Naturally. They would all assemble afterwards so as to save the police the trouble of rounding them up one by one.

  ‘Where have they taken her, Lily? Have you any idea?’ Lily’s face was grim. ‘She’s at Pechau. They’ve taken her to Pechau.’

  It’s the worst of all the gaols in the city: ancient, rat-infested, notorious. I packed a shawl, some washing things, a basket of food — quite without hope that they would let me see her.

  It takes an hour to drive to Pechau and you can tell that you’re approaching it because even the surrounding streets are dank and squalid and the muffled people who walk in them seem blighted by the proximity of that awful place.

  I had dressed carefully, I spoke carefully, I smiled. This got me past the outer office and into an inner one with a desk and a chair — and an official of the kind I remembered from the days when I had pleaded for particulars about my daughter. A stone-waller, a no-sayer, a cipher whose bumbledom was itself an act of cruelty.

  ‘I have come about my assistant. A dressmaker. A girl I have adopted. I think she was arrested last night in Ottakring.’

  He drew a dossier towards him.

  ‘Name?’

  I gave Nini’s name which is long and very Hungarian. He consulted his papers.

  ‘There is no one of this name here.’

  Oh God, Nini — did you have to give a false name as well as everything else?

  ‘Herr Lieutenant,’ I said, elevating the oaf to officer status, ‘the girl is just twenty years old. She is a minor. Would you allow me to see the prisoners you took last night? That’s all I ask. Justice must be done, I entirely see that; she must take her punishment. But I am, in effect . . . her mother. I only ask to know where she is.’

  I made no attempt to bribe him. The sums involved, the procedure, the donations to the Prison Officers’ Welfare Fund, were out of my reach. I could only entreat.

  ‘You may look at the female prisoners taken last night. Three minutes only. And leave the basket here.’

  I followed a janitor into the basement.

  It’s the smells that tell you first that you are in a place without hope. Unwashed bodies, urine, vomit . . . Then the sounds; moaning, keening, a raucous laughter that is worse than the wails . . . A monotonous, endless banging of something against iron . . . And the cold.

  We had passed through a steel door into the women’s quarters. A series of cages, each the size of the lion’s cage in Schönbrunn Zoo, but filled with women. Some stood by the bars, hanging on with their hands as Alice had stood at Rudi’s funeral; some lay huddled on the ground, rolled up as if to make themselves as small as possible and minimize their wretchedness. A few sat with their backs to the wall, gossiping, not ashamed. These, I supposed, were the prostitutes who were picked up and released at the whim of the police. Nini was not in the first cage, nor in the second, on the floor of which lay a woman so old that it was impossible to believe she was still capable of wrongdoing. In the third cage I saw her at once. She had lost her jacket and her blouse was torn, one spiky shoulder protruded from it. There was a bruise on her forehead and a patch of dried blood. She still wore her assassination shoes.

  ‘Nini.’

  She lifted her head, came towards me. Best not to remember her look as she saw me; I have done nothing to merit that. ‘Oh, Frau Susanna! How did you know?’

  ‘Lily told me. Don’t worry, Nini. I’ll find some way of helping you.’

  She shook her head. ‘The others are all in the same boat. They’re all my companions. I mustn’t get anything they don’t get.’ She pushed her hair out of her eyes — prisoners are not allowed hair pins. ‘But we did it,’ she whispered, ‘we killed the swine!’

  ‘Yes. And a number of other people too. Listen, Nini, you know you mustn’t admit to anything — not even taking messages. Nothing. Not for your sake — you wouldn’t mind being martyred — but because you’ll make trouble for someone else.’

  ‘I know. Don’t worry, they can cut out my tongue.’ Then suddenly her eyes filled with tears. ‘They don’t let us go to the lavatory,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect that. We have to go in a bucket in h
ere. With everyone watching. I expected the beatings, but not that.’

  ‘I’ll get help, Nini; we’ll get you out.’

  But the janitor had had enough. ‘Time’s up. No more talking.’

  I was led back to the office. ‘The sanitation in this prison’s a disgrace,’ I said furiously. ‘I’m going to see that questions are raised in Parliament.’

  He shrugged. ‘No one’ll spend the money. Did you find the girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, they’ll be charged next week. Nothing to be done till then.’

  ‘I’ll be back with a solicitor,’ I said, and left.

  I drove straight to the lawyer who had helped me when I rented my shop. He did not deal in criminal cases, but recommended a colleague in the Borse Platz. The colleague kept me waiting an hour and said he would find it very difficult, on ethical grounds, to defend an Anarchist. Even if he could overcome his scruples, the fee would be very high.

  ‘How high?’ I asked, and blenched as he told me.

  ‘Don’t you have a friend in Important Places?’ he asked, leering at me. ‘They’re worth all of us poor lawyers put together, these important friends.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t.’

  Not any more. Not now.

  Then I drove to the main post office and found Lily behind her grille, and she helped me to send a cable to New York.

  Somehow I’ve crawled through the last three days. I’ve left it to Gretl to explain to my clients what has happened and most of them have been patient and understanding. The Baroness Lefevre even offered to ask her husband to plead for Nini, but when it came to the point the Baron didn’t feel able to intervene on behalf of a girl who wanted to destroy the fabric of society.

  Meanwhile I’ve gone backwards and forwards between the prison and the offices of anyone I thought might possibly help me: lawyers, welfare workers, priests, but nothing has happened — nothing.

  And there’s been no answer to my cable. I hadn’t really expected it.

  I’ve been allowed to see Nini for a few minutes each day. She still holds her head proudly, she still, even in her rags, keeps that extraordinary style, and she’s admitted nothing. There hasn’t been much actual cruelty on the part of the prison staff — it isn’t necessary. The filth, the horrendous sanitary arrangements, the haphazard mingling of sick and deluded women with young girls does its own work. There are bruises on Nini’s face which were not there when she was admitted, but when I asked her how she came by them she only shook her head.

  I’ve decided to swallow my pride and beg that slimy lawyer in the Borse Platz to defend Nini. If I hadn’t been so distraught I’d have realized at once that I only had to sell The Necklace to get his fees. But when I called there this afternoon, he had left for the assizes in Graz.

  This morning I went to the prison early and for the first time found Nini looking frightened. At the back of the cage sat three women, huddled and weeping, with white cloths round their heads — and on one of the cloths, bloodstains.

  ‘It’s typhus,’ she whispered. ‘They’ve found a case of typhus and they’re shaving everybody’s head. They came and did them this morning and the rest of us are going to be done in batches. You should see the wardresses — they have these cut-throat razors and they just shave you to the scalp. They love doing it because it’s what the women mind most of all.’

  It is that that Nini fears: losing her hair — but I know about typhus. I saw our neighbours’ little daughter die of it at Leck.

  Upstairs, the prison officer told me to stay away. The women are now in quarantine.

  I drove back, utterly sick at heart, as near defeated as I remember being. As the fiacre stopped at the corner of the square, I looked out, amazed. It has been snowing for days; the fountain is frozen, there are icicles on St Florian’s head. People hurry across, their footsteps muffled. No one lingers.

  But the square was full of children. I’d heard their shouts before the cab turned in through the chestnut trees and now I saw them in their mufflers and fur hats, bright spots of colour on the whiteness of the snow. They were running and calling out to each other, some were crouched low beside piles of snowballs — one, a ragged little boy I don’t ever remember seeing before had climbed on to St Florian’s shoulders as a lookout and, even as I watched, was brought down by the arrow of an attacker.

  For it was a battle that was being fought — but a battle with rules. The fountain was the stockade in which the besieged American pioneers bound for the Golden West defended their kith and kin. The children’s toboggans had been piled up like covered wagons and from behind them the intrepid settlers fired on their attackers.

  But the Indians were brave too. Screaming their uncouth war calls, they leapt from General Madensky’s plinth, charged from between the chestnut trees . . . Maia’s imagined horse was shot from under her and a Red Indian chorister from the presbytery pulled her on to the back of his saddle and galloped on. Among the settlers I saw — but could scarcely believe my eyes — Ernst Bischof allowing little Steffi to provide him with bullets of snow.

  The door of the Schumachers’ house opened and Helene called the girls in to lunch.

  She might have saved her breath. Mitzi, inside the stockade, was tending the wounded; Resi, who had strayed from the safety of the wagons, was being dragged off to be scalped.

  A prosperous-looking couple crossed the Walterstrasse with a fat little boy in ear muffs.

  ‘Can I play?’ he shouted — and ignoring the protests of his parents, he ran to Madensky’s statue and instantly became an Indian brave.

  I had never seen a game like this. There were scarcely any props: the Indians had no feathers, the settlers no guns — yet so engrossed was each and every child in his part that I could have told exactly what they were doing.

  But now a boy, older than the rest, in a corduroy cap and outsize muffler appeared from behind the statue of St Florian. He must have died earlier, perhaps the better to mastermind the game — and taking heed perhaps of Frau Schumacher’s pleas, he suggested to the settlers a heroic demise, en bloc, and to the Indians a triumphant ride off into the hills.

  Not a boy, I realized as I looked more carefully: a young man. At the same time Nini’s voice sounded distinctly in my head: ‘It was the children that made me notice him.’

  Impossible. I had sent the cable only three days ago. Then he bent down, beat the snow from his trousers . . . and pulled up his socks.

  He had never had my cable. His mother was travelling to Paris on business and he came with her for talks with the European branches of the bank, and because he wanted to see Nini. ‘I’ve bought her a Christmas present,’ he said, stamping his boots clean in my hall.

  I couldn’t believe it. I began to tremble, so great was the relief.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked as he followed me upstairs. ‘There’s something wrong. She’s had an accident? She’s ill?’

  I told him.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I see. That was to be expected, I suppose.’

  ‘Can you help, Daniel? I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried everything.’

  He put an arm round my shoulder. Nini had described him exactly. He was small, he had a snub nose, his eyes were no particular colour and sock suspenders seemed to be foreign to his nature, yet I felt instantly comforted.

  ‘I think we’ll have some lunch,’ he said. ‘I’m staying at the Bristol — they’re supposed to keep a good table. Will you come?’

  ‘No . . . if you don’t mind, not the Bristol. I could make us something here. An omelette?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like that.’

  I was upset that he wanted to have lunch. I wanted him to start at once doing whatever can be done. But when I came to eat I realized that I had been very close to collapse, and perhaps he realized it too, for he watch
ed me closely and made me open a bottle of wine though he himself drank little.

  Not till we had had our coffee did he push back his chair and say: ‘Right. I’d better get going. There’s just one favour I’d like to ask of you. I’d like to see Nini’s room. You see, even if I can get her out, I think she’ll turn against me. She’ll say it was just privilege, the rotten system and so on. So I’d like to be able to imagine her when I’ve gone.’

  ‘I’ll show you. But you won’t be able to imagine her for long. The shop is being pulled down, you see, and most of the square.’

  ‘My God!’

  I took him upstairs. He walked over to the poster which said Property is Theft and the one that said Blood Shed for the Revolution is Blood Shed for Humanity. He touched briefly the lace-edged pillow and the picture of the candy-striped pinafore she’d cut out of Damenmode. He looked at the pile of leaflets urging the textile workers of Ottakring to strike and picked up the silver-backed brush I’d given her last Christmas.

  ‘She’s very tidy,’ he said. ‘Somehow I didn’t expect that.’

  Then he wound himself in to his strange muffler, ready to go to the Bristol. At the door he turned and took both my hands. ‘I promise I’ll refer back to you as often as I can, but this is something that has to be traced out step by step. And it can’t be hurried. Everything has to be just so. If the bribe is too big they get suspicious, if it’s too small they get insulted. If you offer membership of the Jockey Club to someone who wants a permanent box at the Opera you’ve wasted a whole round of talks. And bribes alone are no good — there has to be pressure as well. It can take days . . . weeks . . .’

  ‘How will you start?’

  ‘With the American Ambassador. Thank God he’s in town — and what’s more, he knows my father.’

  ‘But how can you interest a man like that in a girl who wants to blow everyone up? An avowed Anarchist?’