The Sensualist

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The Sensualist Page 11

by Barbara Hodgson


  “A museum in Vienna?”

  “No, one in Florence,” she replied. “But it has something to do with one of your museums,” she added, “the Josephinum, the museum of wax anatomical figures.”

  “I don’t know it, I’m afraid. Amusing, isn’t it? I am a native of Vienna, and I don’t know this museum. Where is it?”

  “Near the School of Medicine, very close to here. Maybe,” she calculated out loud, “four blocks away?”

  “I see you are taking notes. You don’t mind me talking to you, do you?

  “No, not at all,” she said.

  “Fine. As I said, I see you are taking notes. Are you a writer? Will you be writing something on our museums? And our pastries?” he added mischievously.

  She laughed again, “No, I’m not a writer, although I am an art historian. I’m here in Vienna looking for my husband.” The honesty. Again.

  “Wonderful,” he said. He took a sip of coffee. “What is your husband’s name?” He flipped open a well-used notebook to which a tiny mechanical pencil had been attached, removed the pencil, licked the end and sat poised to write.

  “Martin Evans,” she said somewhat cautiously. He wrote down the name.

  “Address and telephone number?”

  “Oh, he doesn’t live in Vienna.”

  “That’s too bad.” The gentleman shut his notebook and set it onto the table. “Why are you looking for him here, then?”

  “He was working here.”

  The man picked up the notebook and opened it again. “So he does live here?”

  “No, just temporarily. He stayed in a hotel.” The notebook snapped shut again.

  “Do you know anything about anatomy?” Helen asked him.

  “Oh yes. I look for my skeleton every day when I put on my clothes.” He chortled and patted his broad belly. “But we haven’t confronted each other for many years,” he confided. “Wonderful,” he said again. “I am a writer.”

  “What do you write?” she asked.

  “Non-fiction.”

  “That’s a very large topic. What kind of non-fiction?”

  “People’s lives. I have not completed a book, but I am in the process. It is a life’s work, if I may call it that. Yes, a lifetime work.”

  “Which people’s lives?”

  “Everyone in Vienna.”

  “But that must be almost impossible. How long have you been working on this?”

  “I started when I was twelve years old, at the end of the war, when people could think of other things besides fighting, and I assure you that, although seemingly endless, a project such as this is full of rewards.”

  “What is the purpose of this book?”

  “Purpose? How do I know what the purpose is? It is an interpretation of the telephone directory.”

  “The telephone directory? You work for the telephone company?”

  “Yes, the telephone directory,” he smiled, “and no, I work for myself. I think that telephone directories, regardless of the city, are the most astonishing books ever written. They rival the Bible. Particularly for the characters.”

  “Ah yes,” said Helen, “that’s an old joke where I come from. Telephone books aren’t big on plot or theme but are great on character.”

  “You think that I am joking,” he said indignantly. “I assure you that I’m not. The telephone book would dumbfound you with its complex plots, interwoven intrigues, and highly developed themes. Not a simple book to understand; not a simple book to interpret. May I give you a demonstration?”

  “Yes, please.” Helen, who finished her cornet without even noticing, was enjoying this diversion immensely.

  He turned about in his chair and caught one of the waiter’s eyes. The waiter hastened over and bent slightly to hear the gentleman’s murmured request, then nodded and rushed off. “While we are waiting, may I introduce myself? My name is Herr Thüring.” He offered his hand, which Helen took while introducing herself as “Frau Martin.”

  “Ah, Martin, like your husband’s name.” Herr Thüring frowned, something wasn’t quite right. He opened the notebook again and checked the name he had written. “Is this an unusual custom? The woman takes the husband’s first name?” They both laughed.

  The waiter returned with a well-thumbed directory, an old dial telephone, and another pastry for Helen. While he cleared the table, Helen put her books down on the seat beside her and held her plate and fork in her hand. The waiter stooped behind the chairs to plug the phone in.

  Herr Thüring opened the directory to a page with a bookmark inserted into it and ran his finger down the columns past names with check marks next to them. His finger stopped at the first name without a check mark, one about halfway down the third column of the left-hand page. He turned the pages of the notebook, which was stamped #115 in stencil numbering, and again needlessly licked the end of the pencil before writing down the name, address, and telephone number at the top of the page. While he was doing this Helen asked him how long he had been coming to the café.

  “Oh, since the war, at least. I came here as a little boy with my parents,” he said, his concentration on his writing.

  “That explains why they know you so well here; you didn’t even order the coffee from what I could see.”

  “Hmm?” he asked and then finishing said, “Oh, yes, they know me very well here. This is my mailing address and I make all of my calls from here, not having a telephone myself. In fact, you’re sitting at my table. In fact, I would have said something to the waiter if I didn’t find you such agreeable company.”

  “Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Helen mortified. “No one said anything. I didn’t realize that people had established tables.”

  “Yes, rather like pews in a church, I suppose,” he said. “But as I said, it is of no consequence. Now, I will give you my demonstration. First, however, your German is quite good for conversations of this sort, but will it stand a challenge?”

  “No, I don’t think so, but I could try,” she replied.

  “We will try to find someone who can speak English for you. We’ll start here at Dilsman, E. where I left off yesterday. Nine, two, six, nine, seven, five, one,” he recited as he dialed the number. He waited with the receiver to his ear, smiling at her.

  “Guten Tag,” he spoke into the receiver. “Ich möchte bitte mit Herren oder Frau Dilsman sprechen.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece, “they’re asking me to wait. Hallo? Frau Dilsman? Guten Tag, Mein Name ist Herr Thüring… Ach, Sie kennen meinen Namen? You’ve been waiting for my call? I am honored, dear lady. Do you speak English, by any chance? You do? Wonderful. I am departing from my usual practice and I am showing a young… “ he paused, at a loss for Helen’s nationality, “…English speaker,” he concluded, “how I am developing my book. Do you have time right at this moment to talk to me? I can always call back later if this is inconvenient. Thank you, you are very amiable. She can talk to us right now,” he whispered to Helen, his hand once again over the mouthpiece. He went back to the phone. “Yes, Frau Dilsman, I’ll wait.

  “She’s gone to get the family album. How exciting! I’ve never done this in English. While she’s gone let me tell you what to do. First of all,” he moved the notebook and the pencil over to her side of the table and turned it around so it was oriented correctly for her to write, “ask her questions about her life and note the details in this book. It doesn’t matter if they are incomplete notes—you can do this in point form—I can always telephone her back later and fill in the missing parts. Or, better yet, I can phone her relatives and have their points of view. The first question you must ask her is if she is related to any of the other Dilsmans on this page. From there you may question her whatever as the questions come into your head. I often find that there is no need from this point on to ask anything; the words just flow out. Everyone wants to be in my book.” His attention was drawn once again to the telephone. “Ja, we are ready. You will be speaking with Frau Martin. One moment please, and thank you aga
in. No, it is my honor, goodbye.” He passed the phone to Helen.

  She took it reluctantly, not quite knowing how she got thrown into this situation. With a last, helpless smile at Herr Thüring she spoke in German: “Guten Tag, Frau Dilsman, Ich bin Helen Martin, “ and then continued on in English, “yes, I am very well today, and you? Yes, I agree, the weather is very cold. No, I did not realize that this is an unusually cold winter. Oh, I think I must be lucky, I don’t suffer in that way.” Thüring was gesturing impatiently towards the pencil and the notebook. She looked at him questioningly and then caught on, scribbling quickly, detailing the ills of Frau Dilsman’s life. She wrote silently, cradling the receiver in the crook of her neck. When she had filled two pages she flipped to the next page and moved the telephone to her other ear. She then asked, obeying Thüring’s instructions, “Are you related to any of the other Dilsmans on this page?” This resulted in another torrent of words and Helen ended up listening for half an hour, filling eight pages of the notebook. She finally looked up at Herr Thüring who made a slicing gesture across his neck. Helen interrupted Frau Dilsman as politely as she could, saying that she needed to transcribe what she had written so far, otherwise it would make no sense whatsoever, but that undoubtedly Herr Thüring himself would be calling again with more questions, if she didn’t mind. After a lengthy exchange of thank yous and goodbyes, she hung up. Rubbing her cramped hand and shoulders, Helen smiled at Herr Thüring, “Do you do this every day?” she asked him.

  “Yes, except when I have to go out of town. I don’t want to incur too much expense.” He took the notebook and skimmed through what she had written. “Not bad, a great quantity of detail. I like your style of condensing what they say. You have a flair for this sort of thing, you know. You could write the interpretation of your own telephone directory; I am not at all proprietorial.” He checked off E. Dilsman’s name in the phone book with a flourish.

  “I have my hands full with my own work and with trying to find my husband, I think,” she said. “But I’ll keep it in mind.” She looked at her watch.

  “Now, let’s look for your husband,” he said with a glitter in his eye. “Where did he stay last?”

  “The Hotel Eugen, but I’ve been there.”

  Thüring found the number and had the hotel on the line before Helen finished her sentence.

  “Guten Tag, “ he said into the telephone. “Mein Name ist Martin Evans. Haben Sie eine Nachricht fü mich?” He poised his pencil, ready to write.

  Helen was astonished at his audacity. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

  “Yes, yes, good. Thank you. Yes. No. I’ll call back next week. Thank you. Good-bye.” Thüring was scribbling furiously.

  “Well,” he said, hanging up and rubbing his hands. “It seems that you have left a number of messages!”

  “Yes, I suppose I have.”

  “It also seems that the concierge at the Hotel Gellért in Budapest would like him to call. There is no message, just a telephone number. I’ve never stayed there, have you? Perhaps that is where he went to next? The message dates from several months ago. In addition, there are messages from a Jimmy Singleton of America—all marked urgent; one from the office of Peter Ganz. Is he from here? I don’t know him, not at the Gs yet, of course.” Thüring did not wait for Helen’s answers. “The Hotel Eugen took it upon themselves to chastise me for allowing the messages to accumulate. They assured me that they were not my personal secretary. You must undertake to check messages more frequently, if I may give you some advice. You would not need to resort to disguise or deviousness—a wife has the right to demand a husband’s telephonic correspondence, no? Now for Herr Ganz.” He started flipping the pages in the direction of the Gs.

  “You might find his name, Herr Thüring, but you won’t find him. He was murdered.”

  Thüring glanced at Helen then continued his hunt for Ganz’s name. Finding a Peter Ganz, he dialed the number and spoke to the person who had answered. “Wrong number,” he said. He dialed another number. This time he spoke at length, heavy with condolence and sympathy. For five minutes his pencil scratched and waltzed across the page. Finally, he hung up and crossed the name off of the list.

  “I always appreciate hearing news of deaths. It is extremely important for me, for you see, in order to support myself I write Nachrufe, you know, the necrologue?”

  “Obituaries?” suggested Helen.

  “Yes, obituaries. It is very good luck that we had the occasion to meet; now I will be able to supply a—an obituary—for Herr Ganz. I work for a magazine,” he added. “Time isn’t really of the essence. Now, it has been my pleasure to meet you. I will put your name in my acknowledgments. Please write it down here at the top of the page for me. And your address, too, so I can send you a copy of the book when it is finally published.” Helen did so, grinning to herself at the idea that this man would ever finish such an undertaking.

  She stopped on her way out to pay for her coffee and the two pastries, but Herr Thüring had already taken care of the bill. She took a last look at him—he had moved to the side of the table where she had been sitting—and waved. But he didn’t notice; he was on the phone to the next person on the list.

  Helen asked Anselm if he had ever heard of Herr Thüring.

  “Of course I have. Everyone in Vienna has heard of him. You met him? Even I haven’t met him. Personally, I mean; of course, my name starting with A, I spoke to him many years ago when we still had a telephone. There are two types of people in Vienna: those who have spoken to Herr Thüring and those who are waiting to speak to him. He told you, I hope, about his project?”

  “I helped him with it. I interviewed one Evelyn Dilsman for him. He’s going to put me in his acknowledgments,” she said with mock pride. “How will he ever finish? He’s only on the Ds and less than halfway through them, and he must be in his sixties.”

  “I don’t know,” replied Anselm. “It seems, as well, that he feels compelled to go back through new annuals to check on new arrivals, make amendments for births and deaths. Getting to the Ds alone has been an accomplishment. In addition to that, he phones stores, coffee houses, and companies to make sure that there aren’t any names there that he has missed due to employees not having a telephone at home. Just going back and double checking takes him half of the year once the new directory is issued. How did you meet him?”

  “At the Sauer Coffee House. I inadvertently sat at his table.”

  Anselm nodded but said nothing.

  “He helped me make some inquiries about Martin,” she said. “And I told him about Peter Ganz’s death. He’s going to write Ganz’s obituary for some magazine.”

  “His obituary? It’s a great honor to have an obituary by Thüring. To have your death reported only by an impersonal announcement? Why that would be like being buried in an unmarked grave.”

  CHAPTER 10

  THE SECRETARY

  The secretary was not answering his phone. What was his name? Helen wracked her brains. Had she ever known? Were the papers still fluttering away on the floor? Were the chairs and tables still overturned? Was the poor man as she left him that night, head resting despondently in hands, bereft of will, heartbroken beyond repair? It had been nearly a week, time enough to decently show up and ask once more about her Vesalius.

  The doors to the Josephinum again welcomed the public. The fallen figure had been removed, the remaining ones rearranged to obliterate the absence of their missing partner. Helen skirted the display— “out for repair” read the tag. The foyer was empty; there was no one to stop her from going up to the offices, so with a quick double check, she climbed the stairs.

  The secretary’s office was deserted, the door to Ganz’s closed; there were no signs of the shambles that had reigned the day after the murder. He must have made a superb effort to pull himself together, thought Helen. Either that or someone else had taken control. Not knowing what to do next, she sat down to wait. It was 11:30. At 11:40 a stout woman carrying several bu
ndles of envelopes walked through the door and over to the desk, ignoring Helen or simply not seeing her. She dropped one of the packages onto the blotter and turned around. Startled, she shrieked and let the others fall to the floor. Helen, apologizing and trying to explain, helped the woman pick the envelopes up. Both were speaking rapidly at the same time, not pausing to hear what the other was saying.

  Eventually Helen stopped talking and started listening. The secretary had been given a leave of absence. He had completely fallen apart. There was no expected date back. Perhaps later in the year; his case was serious. How did Helen get into the office? Who was she? What did she want? She must leave immediately.

  Helen was moved to do something she had never done before in her life. She put her hand on the woman’s arm to help her to calm down. It worked; the woman took a deep breath, stopped talking, and looked at Helen expectantly. No wonder people do this, she marveled.

  She explained about the woodcut, despairing that no one there would be authorized to give it back to her even if they had found it. When she mentioned her name the woman tapped her forehead with the flat of her hand in sudden recognition and, taking Helen by the hand, led her out of the office to another smaller one, two doors down. There she rummaged through a heap of papers and files on her desk from which she extracted a business card.

  “This is for you,” she announced as she handed the card over. “It’s the police.” Die Polizei. In her throat the words sounded both succulent and threatening. “The officer.” Der Hauptmann.

  Helen took the card and turned it over a couple of times. “What am I supposed to do?” she asked. “Am I supposed to call them?” And what kind of rank was a Hauptmann?

  “Yes, call them,” encouraged the woman. “Go there.” In other words, scat, vamoose, get lost. Swell. Die Polizei.

  “We have been trying to reach you, Frau Marin.”

  “Martin.”

 

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