A Chosen Sparrow

by Vera Caspary

  Victor looked at me sadly.

  “He is very good and kind and he loves me.”

  I went on like this, defending my husband and trying in a confused way to make Victor believe that I was not dismayed by his talk about the apartment on the Avenue Niel. The shouts of the farm people faded away, the congregation of birds became silent, the leaves of the chestnut tree ceased to flutter while I dwelt in a world bounded by myself, my problems and my listener. As it happens so often in our Alpine foothills, the weather changed abruptly; clouds heaped up in dark confusion, raindrops fell like leaden coins upon the tablecloth and coffee cups. We ran, huddling our shoulders and ducking our heads, to the house. As soon as we were safe in a small salon whose walls were crowded with amateur watercolors and family photographs, I went on: “I can help him. He needs me.”

  Victor called the maid, asked for a fire in the old porcelain stove. We sat in silence, our chairs pulled close to the heat. Wood crackled, rain beat upon the windows. Victor took a notebook from his pocket, turned over a few pages, said, “I’d hoped you could tell me something about Hempel.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m trying to trace him. He and Metzger were last seen together at Wardenthal.”

  “But that was long ago, when the war ended. So many years. If he and Gerhard haven’t been seen together in all that time, why do you think…“I had to stop. My breath was gone. Within me a vision had risen, Wardenthal, so solid, so overpowering that I saw the man, here before me, his shining eyes reflecting red beams of the fire, his boots gleaming, the three-thonged whip in his clenched hand. I pushed him away, into the deep cavern where he dwelt; rejected, he did not die but lay in wait for his moment of potent resurrection.

  “Think what?” Victor had become impatient.

  I forgot what I had meant to say, but still determined to defend my marriage, answered coldly, “His friend in the Sudetenland was killed in the massacre.”

  “What massacre?”

  “Haven’t you that information in your notebook? Don’t you know how the prisoners and farmers and village people turned on the officers of the camp?”

  “You seem to know more than you did the other day.”

  “We talked about it last night.”

  Victor made no comment, but turned to another page in the notebook. “Konrad Otto Hempel, Kommandant of the extermination camp, Wardenthal, escaped capture by the Russians, but later that year was picked up and imprisoned by the Americans. In the War Criminals Trial in ‘46 he was convicted and sentenced to death, but he escaped again and was next discovered in Vienna living,” he looked up from the notebook to tell me this directly, “as a Jew.”

  “No!”

  “He went to the synagogue on Friday nights and was believed by his neighbors to be one of them, a D.P. who had survived the concentration camps. Called himself Karl Hirsch and worked as a shoemaker. He was…”

  (In Vienna when I was living with the Stompfers I had seen the poor Jews who came back from the camps, dark skeletons of men with black beards and black curls under broad black hats. Herr Stompfer had told me they would take my money and when I saw one, I would cramp my fingers over the few groschen I carried. Perhaps I had seen him, Gerhard’s Konni, in this disguise, perhaps I had run from him to hide in a courtyard or doorway.)

  “…well liked by the neighbors. None of them could believe he was wanted as a Nazi criminal.”

  “He escaped again?”

  “He was never caught. Apparently he’d been warned.

  It seems he had spies among the young men who admired him. He’s said to have had great charm for certain types, almost hypnotic. The record’s not at all complete, but there’s an interesting bit about a twenty-year-old movie usher in Ventimiglia who killed himself when Hempel left him. That’s how it was found out, after he’d gone to Portugal, some snapshots had been taken…”

  “Lisbon, Portugal? At the Esteril.”

  “You know?”

  “Isn’t that the place they all go, the exiles and old kings?” I giggled, trying to appear amused as though Esteril outside of Lisbon was merely a place I had read about in a magazine. Gerhard could have lived happily in the villa overlooking the sea, except that his mother had grown sick of foreign languages and could not digest the oily foods.

  I could not sit quietly and listen to Victor reading his cold facts out of a notebook. I rose, walked about nervously. From the opposite end of the room, my back to Victor, I asked where he had found out these facts while I studied a portrait of two young girls in frilled white dresses and hair ribbons. Victor told my back that there were organizations that kept track of escaped war criminals. “Many of these convicted men are at large, you know, living in foreign countries. And in Germany under assumed names, and here, too.”

  He had come to stand beside me. His hand rested on my shoulder. The two little girls smiled out at a free and happy world. “Right now,” said Victor, his hand tightening on my shoulder, “there are many ex-Nazis walking on the streets here, some criminals who have been convicted, others who ought to have been. Some are useful and highly regarded citizens, policemen, civil servants. They continue to do the jobs they’ve always done. Who else has the experience?”

  “In the government. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “It’s a difficult situation. Complex. The people here don’t always know their own feelings.” He spoke sadly as though he lived here and was involved in the complexity. “They want to forget.”

  “Or pretend they didn’t know.”

  The maid came in with afternoon coffee. She set out the dishes cautiously with respect for the delicate porcelain cups and plates, and with pride in her delicate pastries. Victor ate with gusto, remarking that this was his last taste of Austrian baking. “My mother’s become very American. Buys her cakes in shops.”

  “You must have very fine bakeries in America.”

  “Not like here.”

  “But you prefer to live there?”

  “God, yes.”

  “I should love to see America sometime.”

  “You probably will.”

  This pleasant interlude could not last. We returned to the notebook and Konrad Hempel’s history. Less than two years ago he had been seen in the Salzkammergut, at the Weinstube of a village inn. He had been recognized as the Kommandant of Wardenthal by a lawyer from Lambach, a fine Catholic gentleman who had been one of his prisoners. The Lambach lawyer knew him at once, although he was older and thinner and had dyed his hair.

  Perhaps Hempel had recognized his ex-prisoner, too, for he had left almost at once, “in a black Mercedes car.”

  “There are thousands of Mercedes in this country.”

  “Yes, of course. The lawyer asked about him at the Weinstube but the proprietor and waiters said they had never seen him before and thought he might be a tourist from Germany. He was not seen again.”

  “So it was not certain.”

  “The lawyer reported the alleged appearance of Hempel, who was still supposed to be sought as a war criminal, but he was not found. But the lawyer saw his companion again,” Victor kept me waiting while he lit a cigarette, “a young aristocrat, son of the famous, or infamous, general who welcomed Hitler to Vienna. Von Schamberg.”

  “Please, will you give me a cigarette?” I was proud of the steadiness of my hand as Victor bent over to give me a light. “Please go on.”

  “Wolfgang von Schamberg left Vienna a few days later. He was with a man carrying a passport made out to Kurt Heinrichs. They had tickets for Cairo, but stopped off in Rome.”

  “When was that, Vic?”

  In February of the previous year (the basket of violets had been sent to the Glamour Girl on a rainy night in February) Karl Heinrichs and Baron von Schamberg had departed from Vienna, but had spent six weeks in Rome. Wolfy had returned to Austria but Heinrichs had gone on to Egypt. (After making an appeal and accusation on the long-distance telephone.) In both Rome and Cairo he had spent money freely, lived in sty
le and mingled with important people. “In Egypt,” commented Vic, “his kind is not unwelcome among the Jew haters. And there are many handsome boys available to a man with money.” Henrichs had stayed there less than a year (sick of foreign languages, unable to digest oily foods) and returned to Austria.

  “When, Vic?” But I knew. Once more in February, while I was staying with Frau Mayr after Elfy’s death. Gerhard’s departure had been sudden and there had been a change, too, in his face. On the night I had come home, when Imre ran ahead to warn the dancers, a supper had been arranged. For Gerhard’s wife when he had not known she was coming, and the room had reeked with the scent of Egypt.

  Victor closed his notebook. “That’s it,” he said. “I’d hoped you might know something more.”

  As though I had not been affected by his information I spoke calmly. “I’m sorry I was not of more help to you.”

  He stared hard for a moment, shrugged and remarked that he was sorry he had been obliged to burden me with such unpleasant information. With effort I contrived a smile and promised that if I found out anything that might be helpful to him I would write him a letter. It was then that Frau Nemecek knocked at the door to announce herself, told us that she had been caught in the downpour, but had kept dry under her umbrella. “People laugh at me for carrying it on sunny days, but in this climate you never know. And look what I found.” She had picked a bouquet of wild cyclamen. “It’s late in the year for them, but the woods are quite cool and sometimes they bloom beyond the season. Aren’t they lovely? You would think I had flowers enough in my untidy garden but the wild ones are the most lovable. May I give you these, Frau Leni?”

  “Thank you, Frau Nemecek, but you must keep them for yourself.”

  “Please give me the pleasure, Frau Leni. I know you love them, too. I can see it in your eyes. What beautiful eyes, Vic.” She had put the flowers into my hand. “And if you young people will excuse me now, I have much to do.”

  She left. “Does she know?”

  “What?”

  The question was unnecessary but he was determined to make me speak out. “About my husband? The gossip…”

  “I don’t know. We’ve never discussed it.”

  “People know. Everybody knew all the time and they pitied me.”

  “So that’s it. Injured pride. Is that all this means to you, Leni?”

  “Oh, please.” I stood at the window seeing through blurred glass how the flowers drooped under the weight of rain, how tall trees trembled in the wind. My temper had subsided and with its failure my strength was gone. I shook like the fragile leaves, I rested my forehead against the windowpane, I rejoiced in the slight shock of the cold glass on my skin. “Please, dear Vic, let me have a little peace.”

  “I’m not too sure Liebhofen is such a peaceful place for you, Leni.”

  “Why?” I asked him sharply. “What makes you say that? My husband would not let anything happen to me.”

  “Do you know why von Schamberg went to Berlin?” Victor barely listened when I said that Wolfy had gone to take care of some business for Gerhard, who had recovered many of the family’s Berlin properties. Wolfy’s purpose, he had learned, was to inquire about the activities of Victor Freund, the American journalist who had been gathering material for his book about the neo-Nazis. My old friend Martin Haffner had heard about it and telephoned the news.

  “They don’t like your being so friendly with me, Leni.”

  “I shall go on being friendly with you just the same.”

  I took his hand and held it to my cheek for a moment. Soon afterward I left, wishing him a pleasant journey and letting him kiss me like a fond cousin, but telling him nothing more of what I knew, what I believed, what I intended.

  I was not very certain myself.

  I still wonder how I made the journey back to Altbach. Within my head there was a blank, darkness, a vacuum. My hands trembled, my vision was uncertain. In such circumstances the body functions independently, like a machine or the dogs of Professor Pavlov. To face my husband, to ask questions, to hear the answers, to judge the true and the false, to inform him that I was no longer innocent and, out of all this, to determine action required more courage than I possessed. It isn’t true, it never happened, it’s the day before yesterday.

  Seeking evasion I was happy to find the halls of Liebhofen empty. Like an intruder I slipped up to my rooms unseen. There on the table, in a white jade vase, was the spray of precious orchids and all about me richness, silk cushions and covers on my bed, crystal and gold on the dressing table, my Florentine leather travel case. Contemplation of lavish possessions, reminders of my husband’s generosity and more, of his wish to please me with valuable trinkets, increased inertia, I wished that I might lock the door, stay forever in this tower looking down upon the lake, out at the mountains, upward to the sky.

  I was expected below. Suzi had laid out a printed silk dress. “The gentlemen,” she said, “wish you to join them for cocktails in the Bauernstube.”

  This is a cozy room for drinking and card games and informal suppers. The furniture is of the peasant type, painted with flowers and deer and saints as stiff as wooden puppets. Gerhard was not fond of this simple room, but probably on this evening, wished to avoid the English bar.

  Wolfy had come back. With his usual bounce he skipped across the room to kiss my hand. We inquired courteously after each other’s health, mentioned the unreliable weather and discussed his trip to Berlin. I asked if his business had been successful, he replied that he had achieved his purpose. Except for a slight stiffness of manner, one would have thought that everything had been normal in his absence.

  Gerhard asked, “Did you have a pleasant day, Leonora?”

  “Oh, yes. I went to Salzburg, I had my hair done and a manicure and bought some foolish things.”

  “You were alone?”

  “I saw some friends.” And then, without forethought, sipping vermouth, “Tell me, Gerhard, where is Konni now?”

  The silence was like an end to everything. The wind died, the crickets and owls had become silent, the earth stopped turning on its axis. Altbach is not beneath the airlines and planes are rare, but at this moment a pilot chose to pass over us. Its approach shocked away the silence, and we waited like expectant victims of a bombing while the roar increased and diminished.

  “You saw your writer friend today,” said Wolfy.

  “Yes.”

  “I understand he is going back to America tonight.”

  I noticed a fast, subtle exchange between the eyes of Gerhard and Wolfy. “How did you know that?”

  “Didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know before you left. Please,” I used the long-trained voice of humility, “may I have another vermouth? It is delicious. Is it the kind we have always had or something new?”

  Wolfy said, “Your friend has been making a nuisance of himself with all of his poking and prying. They are very glad in Bonn that he is going home, and I understand that his book will not be allowed in Germany.”

  “Is that so? I understood there was to be a large first printing.”

  “I’m only telling you what I heard. From authoritative sources.”

  I was sorry I had not been more open with Victor. During supper (a stiff session…the weather again, the Berlin Wall, a bronze statuette which Gerhard had wanted Wolfy to look at in Berlin, and which had not been a true Egyptian antique) I could think of nothing but my stubborn pride and the resistance to Vic’s questions. I grew more and more nervous. Gerhard’s elaborate courtesy, Wolfy’s smiles, the soft entrances and exits of Imre, had become unendurable. I felt that I would howl like an animal or jump up and plunge a fruit knife into one of those enemy faces. I listened decorously, I gave soft answers until the sweet had been served, then begged them to excuse me for a few moments before we had our coffee in the salon. From my boudoir I called Frau Nemecek’s house. The maid answered with the timid awe of peasant girls who are still uneasy with the telephone.
She said the Herrenschaft had gone with the American nephew to the airport.

  When I went downstairs I found Wolfy at a two-deck game of solitaire. Gerhard, he said, had been called out suddenly by important business. It was hardly believable at such an hour, but I made no comment. Wolfy asked me to excuse him while he finished the game, but he was still studying the cards when he remarked, “We wish to know exactly what you told the American writer.” His calculated nonchalance made it clear that the question had been premeditated, Gerhard’s absence arranged. The private secretary was there to handle private affairs of unpleasant nature.

  “Has Gerhard asked you to question me?”

  “Your husband feels that it would be disloyal if you were to repeat anything told you in confidence.”

  “Is that so?” I tried hard to match his urbanity. “Well, my husband can be sure I am not disloyal.”

  “A scandal would be extremely unpleasant for you.”

  “For my husband as well. But,” I tried a small laugh but it was edgy, “why doesn’t he tell me this himself?”

  “We would like to know what your plans are.”

  I said that I would prefer to discuss such matters with my husband. Wolfy threw aside the cards and, rising, broke off a small aster from the bouquet, thrust it into his buttonhole and strutted to the mirror. “Your husband wishes you to stay here. Things are to go on as they did before that unfortunate episode.”

  “Are they?” My tone was as haughty as I could make it.

  “That’s your husband’s wish.”

  Knowing that Gerhard had lied, I was not prepared to be soft with him, but certainly I would not have been shaken by such rage as Wolfy aroused. Every moment stiffened my bones. “Why does Gerhard wish me to stay?”

  “You’ll be safer here.”

  “I will be safe! What about him? And the Count von Mefistdorf? Isn’t it his safety that worries my husband?” Language and attitudes became more stilted. “No doubt it will look better for Gerhard with a wife here. There will be less reason for gossip or cause for suspicion.”

  “You live in great comfort here, great style. An aristocrat could not ask for more.” He glanced sideways into the mirror, saw himself with the flower in his coat, complacent, aristocratic, framed by gilded fruits and angels.