by Eva Ibbotson
‘He didn’t give his name, but he was the kind of person one admitted,’ said Frau Egger.
The man was closeted with Egger for an hour and after he left, the Minister was in a dreadful state, white, shaking, hysterical. And the next day he said he had to go abroad on urgent business.
‘He wouldn’t tell me what it was or why he had to go, but from the way he packed all the valuables, even my pearls, I knew he meant to flee the country.’
‘But what about his work at the Ministry?’
‘I don’t know about that. He went on going to his office, but I don’t know what he did there. He was quite wild all that week — furious and frightened at the same time. And then just before he was due to leave Vienna, something extraordinary happened. We were having lunch and a military parade went by outside the window. It was the Carinthian Jaegers marching with a full band and you know how smart they are.’
‘Yes.’ I had good reason to know that.
‘And Willibald went to the window and suddenly I found he was standing to attention and saluting! And then . . . he went upstairs to the attic and when he came down he was wearing a military uniform. It was much too small for him — he’s put on weight and he couldn’t get most of the buttons done up, but they were the same buttons I found, with Aggredi on them. And then he saluted again and said: “Herr Lieutenant Willibald Egger at your service!” ’
‘I see. So he had been in the army.’
‘Yes. And after that he became quite different: calm and almost dignified and yet . . . sort of mad. He said things about dying for his regiment and bringing down the traitor who had betrayed him and so on. I really feared for his reason and I began to . . . spy on him and to ask the servants to watch him.’ She flushed. ‘They aren’t very fond of Willibald and they’re always ready to listen at keyholes and so on.’
Two days after he had put on his uniform, Egger had driven to a secret destination and when he returned he was more exalted than ever. He fetched his sabres from the attic and he began to make telephone calls to his acquaintances.
‘I heard him talk to Heinrid on the phone — that’s his deputy at the Ministry — to ask if he’d act for him, but Heinrid hates Willibald — he’s opposed him all the time over the plans for the square, and he wouldn’t. But the chiropodist said he would.’
‘I can’t believe this, Frau Egger. No one fights duels anymore.’
‘It’s true, Frau Susanna. I know it’s true. And then yesterday afternoon Willibald made me . . . you know . . . come up to the bedroom. And it wasn’t Tuesday or Friday which is when he does it. Well, you know . . . it was Wednesday. And he kept saying he forgave me.’
‘Forgave you for what?’
‘I don’t know — the buttons perhaps — but he forgave me and he said he’d left me well provided for — though actually the money comes from my side of the family. And why I know it’s serious is because of . . . The Habit. He didn’t try it once, he didn’t even think of it, he was so lit up. And I’m terrified, Frau Susanna; I don’t know what to do! I don’t want him to be killed. I wish he’d never been born but I don’t want him to be killed and I certainly don’t want him to kill anyone else. He’s a good fencer in spite of his stomach — he goes to the salle d’armes once a week . . .’
‘It will be just some harmless quarrel from his student days, perhaps.’
‘No, no, you don’t understand. It’s a Field Marshal he’s challenged.’
I didn’t hear any more, but I wasn’t hysterical, I promise you. I put on my coat, but before I left the house I went down to the workroom and cut off a double length of black veiling which I fixed under my hat so as to conceal my face. It was only then that I ran into the street to find a cab.
It was not the corporation dump — on the contrary. There was a notice saying It is Forbidden to Leave Litter and a smell of gas from a nearby gasometer.
But the rest of it was the exact landscape of the nightmare I’d had when I lay in Gernot’s arms and he’d joked about challenging the man with the camels: the birches, the snow, the carriages of the seconds drawn up by the road — and I knew for certain that the creeping wretchedness of the last weeks had led me to this moment: to Gernot lying dead, his blood staining the ground.
Yet I managed to walk (or rather to stumble, for my double layer of veiling made it almost as difficult to see as to be seen) as far as a tree to which I clung.
At the end of the field on which I stood was a narrow belt of birches, then a meadow beside the river. It was there that they were assembled. I could make out two men in uniform — Gernot’s seconds — and a little round man in a brown overcoat, the chiropodist, perhaps. Another, a tall man in a frock coat and top hat, was bending over a black bag: the doctor. The principals were further off. I just caught a glimmer of Gernot’s scarlet and blue and then it was gone.
I’d intended to throw myself between the combatants, to scream, to threaten to call the police — God knows what I’d intended, but it didn’t matter because all I was able to do was hold on to the tree. Then one of Gernot’s seconds caught sight of me and hurried across: a Captain of Dragoons.
‘Frau Egger! This is terrible. You must leave at once — at once! This is no place for a woman.’
‘I . . . can’t.’
‘My dear lady, I assure you there’s nothing to be anxious about. It’s just a routine matter. The duel was forced on . . . the gentleman for whom I’m acting but he has everything under control. They’re only fighting to first blood — the most your husband will receive is a scratch on the cheek. Now please return to your carriage.’
He left me. I heard someone counting out the paces, heard a word of command. The tree to which I clung was an oak; they’re strong trees, neither of us fell down. I couldn’t see the combatants, but I could hear . . . Hear the clash of the sabres going on and on . . . then an oath . . . a scream . . .
The doctor, his coat tails flapping, began to run.
I didn’t faint. I would have liked to, but I didn’t, and when they brought the stretcher through the birches, I saw that the blanket shrouding the still figure covered also the face.
It was the little fat man they sent to tell me.
‘Madam, we have the gravest news. You must be brave. Your husband is dead.’
‘It was his own choice.’ The Captain of Dragoons who had followed spoke tersely. ‘There’s no doubt about it. Both parties are agreed.’
The little fat man nodded. I was sure he was the chiropodist: he looked kind, like someone acquainted with ailing feet. ‘Herr Egger impaled himself on the Marshal’s sword.’
‘Nonsense,’ snapped the Captain. ‘If he’d done that the Marshal would have been able to pull back. He deliberately failed to beat off an intended feint attack that was only meant to keep him at a distance. It was not the action of a gentleman.’
The chiropodist looked shocked. ‘Frau Egger, your husband died a glorious death by his own will. You must accept his choice.’
‘Yes . . . thank you. And the Marshal?’
‘Very distressed,’ said the Captain. ‘Naturally.’
Gernot von Lindenberg now appeared between the trees. He did not look distressed. He looked tired, angry — and alive!
‘This is a bad business,’ he said. He pulled back a corner of the blanket, let it drop. ‘You’d best take him straight to the mortuary.’
‘But sir, if we are going to hush this up —’
‘It no longer amuses me to hush things up, Captain. I shall make my report direct to the Kaiser.’ And to the chiropodist and Egger’s other second, who had just been sick behind a tree: ‘This matter is entirely my responsibility, gentlemen. Your names need not appear.’ Then he caught sight of me, approached, bent over my hand. ‘Madame, I am sincerely desolated. I did everything to avoid the conflict and everything to avoid serious bloods
hed, but your husband was a skilful fencer. If I’d guessed his intention I could have thwarted it, but it never occurred to me. I trust you will allow me to see you safely home?’
I bent my head, allowing it. We walked some way in silence, his hand under my arm. When we were out of earshot he dropped my arm abruptly and turned me round to face him.
‘Are you mad, Susanna? Are you absolutely out of your mind? What do you mean by coming here? I’ve spent three interminable months keeping away from you so that I could tie this business up without involving you and now you come here like a madwoman in a novel and —’
‘I’m veiled,’ I said crossly. ‘How did you know me?’
‘How did I know you? How did I know you? Dear God grant me patience!’
We had reached his carriage. The man in the driving seat jumped down, saluted — and grinned at me. Another person undeceived by my disguise.
‘Hatschek,’ I said, ‘oh, Hatschek.’
The carriage was closed and snug. Gernot drew the curtains and we drove slowly back towards the city.
‘It was bad when you didn’t come, Susanna,’ he said quietly. ‘It was very bad.’
‘Oh God, darling, it was bad for me too — you can’t imagine how bad — but I couldn’t help it.’ And I told him about Sigi and the accident.
‘Yes. I know. I trusted you. I knew you’d come if you could.’
I hung my head. I hadn’t trusted him. ‘I thought that you no longer . . . that because I had failed you . . . you didn’t want . . .
‘You thought what?’ he said furiously. ‘You were capable of that . . . meanness . . . after twelve years of knowing me? My God, don’t we have enough difficulties in our life without that kind of rubbish? Every meeting is like wading through shifting sand to an oasis. Don’t you ever do that again, Susanna. Don’t you ever dare to doubt me!’
Then he told me what he had been doing.
From Trieste he’d been sent straight to Potsdam for another useless conference with Wilhelm’s lackeys. It was the end of October before he got back to Vienna, to find that Egger had got his way about Madensky Square at last.
‘And I just saw red. That swine isn’t going to lay hands on her shop, I thought. I’d suspected there was something disreputable in his past ever since you showed me that button, so I planned a quixotic little enterprise: confronting Egger, offering him a chance to cancel his plans and leave the country, or face exposure and ruin.’
‘Blackmail you mean?’
‘What words you use! Anyway if I’d known what was to come I’d have let your shop go hang and set you up in a villa in Hitzing like all good mistresses. First of all I had to get evidence that he was the man I thought he was and that meant going off to Moravia and searching the records in the barracks, and tracking down people who might have known him. I’d never have done it without the Countess von Metz. Her brother was Colonel in Chief there and she was indefatigable. Incidentally I wish you could have seen Elise trying to get the name of her dressmaker out of the Countess! You’d have enjoyed that.
‘It was December before I had what I wanted — and all the time I kept away from you — it only needed Egger to connect my interest in the square with you and I lost any leverage I had. He’d have dragged you into the mud in no time. Anyway, I went at night to confront him and it all seemed perfectly straightforward. He was obviously terrified and he said he’d rescind his plans and go. And then a week later he suddenly arrived and challenged me. I thought he’d gone completely mad, but there was no way of shaking him off. I suppose in his way he loved the army and preferred death to dishonour.’
‘But what had Egger done? What did you find out?’
Gernot opened his cigar case.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you.’
In the year 1882 the Pressburg Fusiliers were stationed at Gratzislek, in Eastern Moravia. There was only one other detachment stationed there: the 19th Imperial Uhlans under the command of Colonel von Metz, the Countess’s brother who was a martinet and unpopular with his men. Nor was the social life of the garrison town exactly scintillating. There was one café, one hotel . . . and as far as the eye could see, flat country which in summer became a dust bowl, and in winter a desert of ice.
Into this unprepossessing place there moved a merchant who had acquired the local schloss, a run-down gabled monstrosity in which he proposed, by painstaking bribery, to ennoble himself and his wife.
The wife, who was pretty, was even more bored than the soldiers. The merchant was frequently away in Prague or Budapest or Vienna, and she began to flirt her way through the garrison’s officers. Most of the men seemed to have taken her measure, but one fell seriously for the lady and a proper liaison began.
‘You can guess who it was, can’t you?’
‘Egger?’
Gernot nodded. ‘Only he had a different name then.’
The lady was expensive. She didn’t so much want furs or jewels as to get out of Gratzislek as far and as fast and as often as she could. Lieutenant Egger spent his free time wining and dining her, ran out of money . . . saw a rival begin to gain on him. Even then, it seems, he had a head for figures. He was in charge of the mess funds . . . he began to borrow money. A little at first, then more and more.
‘It’s an old story. It happens in every mess at some point. One minor crook. They’re found out, sometimes they shoot themselves, sometimes there’s a duel. Mostly they’re just removed one night, stripped of their rank, not seen again. But Egger was cunning. He managed to frame his corporal, the chap who helped him with his accounts. The man he accused was a poor devil — a Jew from some obscure place in Ruthenia who lived for the army, but was never really accepted — oh, read the Dreyfus case; it’s all in there. The corporal was confronted with his crime and went back to his hut and cut his throat. Which of course was seen as proof of guilt. Everything would have gone on as before, but the lady came to see the Colonel. She knew Egger had been borrowing money and the corporal had been engaged to one of her servants. There was an investigation but before he could be brought to trial, Egger vanished. A couple of years later the regiment was disbanded and no one heard of him until he reappeared under a different name, married a wealthy woman and started to crawl his way up the Ministry.’
‘I see. And you got proof of this?’
‘I and the Countess. She remembered a man in her brother’s regiment who’d known him and we managed to track him down. It’s to her you’ll owe your shop, Susanna, as much as to anyone.’
‘Are you sure Egger’s plans will be cancelled? Will the square really be safe?’
He nodded. ‘Heinrid will leap at the chance. There’ll be some kind of face-saving manoeuvre about unexpected expense and so on, but it’ll be all right, you’ll see.’
‘And the duel? Will it mean trouble for you?’
Gernot shrugged. ‘I may have to resign.’
‘Oh, no!’
He took my hand, decided I didn’t need my glove, removed it.
‘There’s no need to look like that, my love. I can live without the army. If I’m right about what’s coming I’d a great deal rather be in Uferding planting trees than sending men half my age out to be slaughtered. And it would be easier for us to meet.’
We jolted on towards the lights of the town. ‘You know, Susanna,’ he said, ‘it isn’t warm, passionate women like you who make the Great Lovers of this world. It’s cold-hearted devils like me who are generally bored or discontented and frequently both. When it all stops for us, the ennui, the frustration . . . when we find a place of sanctuary, then we’re totally caught. Yes, we’re the ones to watch where loving is concerned.’ He leant his head against the back of the seat and I saw the weariness in his face. ‘It isn’t every day I kill someone,’ he murmured. ‘One loses the habit.’
‘You could sleep, Gernot.
Close your eyes. I’ll wake you when we’re there.’
His head turned. He frowned.
Try not to be stupid,’ he said — and took me in his arms.
31 March 1912
Madensky Square
Vienna
I woke early today, just a year since I started to keep this journal. Looking out of the window I could see the pigeons stirring on the General’s head and hear the plash of the fountain into which people have started throwing coins, for it is becoming known, our square. When Alice moved in next door, using Rudi’s money to start her millinery business, the fashionable world really took notice. The best dress shop and the best hat shop side by side — outfits that could be designed, in toto — brought the carriages smartly to our door. We’re being sensible, Alice and I, keeping our businesses separate, not knocking down the wall between us, but knowing what friends we are makes life agreeable for our customers. And oh, it is lovely having her so close!
The door of the apartment house opposite opened and the red setter bitch walked regally down the steps and sat yawning in the sun. She is no fetcher of newspapers and frankly she is losing her looks. When the English Miss agreed to model in my shop, she moved into the attic flat and asked Frau Hinkler whether, for a suitable fee, she’d mind the dog. Frau Hinkler made it clear that no dog could be of the faintest interest to her after Rip, but in three months the bitch has acquired the stomach of an alderman and the smug expression of someone whose lightest wish is someone else’s command.
The English Miss, of course, is a sensation. Is it being brought up on an island surrounded by heaving water that gives the British that look of dreamy unconcern? I could put her in a shroud and my customers would clamour for it.
The choristers were out early, walking across to sing the morning service in St Florian’s. Ernst Bischof’s voice broke at last; he is no longer there. The new soloist is fat, solemn and good, and frankly Helene and I are finding this a little dull.