But I’d already learned one thing from the money machine: Vienna was evidently a place where one thing quickly turned into something quite different. As we rode the airport bus down the autobahn toward the centre, a great black cloud from the not-so-distant Alps suddenly swept across the clear blue skies ahead of us, and deposited over the city of dreams and deceptions a light crystalline surface of glittering snow. To one side of the road, four seedy gasometers had been transformed, by some gesture of architectural magic, into four great monuments of art nouveau. As we moved along the city boulevards, fresh flights of architectural theatre stood everywhere. Grim Gothic sat side by side with sprightly Jugendstil, white and gold baroque looked benignly across the street at pink postmodernism. Gaiety confronted virtue. Over the apartment blocks, if you looked in one direction, you could see the red Ferris wheel of the Prater, suspended still for the winter’s duration; if you looked in another you could see the spires and jagged zigzag roof of the great Stephansdom. It was towards the Stephansdom we headed when the airport bus deposited us somewhere just short of the Ringstrasse, the wide boulevard that marks the edges of the central city; we crossed it with our luggage and headed towards comforts and warmth.
It was strange how the city of waltzes and Sachertorte had a look oddly like Chicago in the 1920s; almost everyone you passed on the street was carrying a violin case. Musicians toiled everywhere. Hurdy-gurdy men with monkeys stood in doorways; down pedestrianized sidestreets entire string quartets stood busking in evening dress, gaily playing the works of Ludwig and Franz and Johann Sebastian and Gustav, not to mention, of course, Wolfgang Amadeus. Jangling horsedrawn landaus passed us by; each one contained very round Japanese faces hidden by very rectangular Japanese cameras. Behind them in the street they deposited a rich smell of equine dung that added yet another scented chord to the aromatic feast that was winter Vienna. From the tempting windows of the coffee houses and delicatessens came the bitter odour of coffee, the sweet smell of baking torte. Inside, earing cakes made of cream, drinking coffee with cream, were the crème de la crème of the Viennese bourgeoisie.
‘Ah, Demel’s,’ said Lavinia, stopping outside one fine-looking cakeshop, ‘This is where you really see the crème de la crème of the crème de la crème. Let’s go in.’ ‘Why not, Lavinia,’ I said. ‘Brilliant,’ she said a few moments later, mouth full of cake, waving her fat hand at the human display, ‘I always loved Vienna. Thank God for bloody old Bazlo.’ I stared at her wiping the crumbs from her mouth, and tried her with a question that had been troubling my mind from the moment I had seen her walking towards me down the plane. ‘Tell me, Lavinia,’ I asked nonchalantly, ‘Where are you actually staying?’ ‘Scuse me,’ said Lavinia, wiping her mouth, ‘Staying? Oh, I’m at the Hotel de France on the Schottenring. It’s very famous, actually.’ I felt in my pocket, and inconspicuously checked the contents of the travel wallet she had handed me at Ros’s small house the night before. ‘Ah, I see I’m somewhere else. The Hotel Von Trapp.’ ‘Yes, I think that’s somewhere way out in the suburbs, out past the Belevedere Palace,’ said Lavinia, ‘Vienna’s bloody full at the moment. It’s the music season, you see.’ ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, deeply relieved.
‘It’s cheaper too,’ said Lavinia, ‘But since I’m the producer I thought it was important I should be somewhere close to the main action.’ ‘What main action?’ I asked. ‘I need to be near the banks and the ministries. And the coffee houses and the opera,’ said Lavinia, ‘But you’ll just be researching. You do understand?’ ‘Oh, of course, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘Don’t worry.’ ‘You were hoping we’d be in the same hotel,’ said Lavinia, beaming chubbily at me, ‘You wanted the room next door, didn’t you, Francis?’ ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘It’s just this bloody tight budget, you see, I have to keep an eye on,’ said Lavinia, patting my hand, ‘But I thought I’d get us tickets for the opera tomorrow night. And then you could come back and have a late-night champagne with me. Because we are here to enjoy ourselves too, aren’t we, Francis?’ ‘Well, yes, I suppose so,’ I said, ‘Remember, I haven’t done this before.’ Til teach you everything I know,’ said Lavinia, giggling, ‘Now what I really need is some more Schlag. Isn’t that what it’s called, darling?’ ‘What what’s called, Lavinia?’ I asked. ‘Cream, this lovely thick cream,’ said Lavinia, waving over a black-dressed, white-pinafored waitress, ‘More Torte mit Schlag.’ ‘Schlag, meine Dame, bitte?’ asked the waitress. ‘Cream,’ said Lavinia, ‘Thick thick cream.’ ‘Ah, mit Sahne,’ said the waitress, departing. ‘I thought you spoke German,’ said Lavinia, looking at me accusingly. ‘No, I don’t actually speak it,’ I said, ‘I just find I can understand some of it when they speak it to me.’ ‘My God,’ said Lavinia, ‘What happens if old man Codicil doesn’t speak any English?’ ‘I expect we’ll get along,’ I said, ‘Between the two of us.’ ’I’m not going to see him,’ said Lavinia, ‘You do the research and I’ll recce the locations.’ ‘What locations?’ I asked, ‘We don’t have any locations.’ ‘Local colour, I think I’ll start with Schonbrunn and the Kunsthistorisches Museum,’ said Lavinia, ‘And then one of us is going to have to go and fight for tickets for the opera. But I suppose that’s what we poor producers get our salaries for. Now remember, you’re an investigative journalist. You’re looking for a really big story, love and lusts and everything. Get old Codicil to pour his heart out. Ah, lovely, Torte mit Schlag. Oh, Fraulein, can I have more chocolate on the top?’ ‘Chocolate, meine Dame?’ asked the waitress. ‘The brown stuff, darling,’ said Lavinia, ‘Oh God, this is what I love about Vienna. It’s just so bloody cultured.’
Lavinia was still spooning in the delights of Viennese culture when, a little later, I took a cream-coloured Mercedes taxi and set off for the Hotel Von Trapp. It proved to be a good way out past the Belvedere Palace, well into the suburbs and not all that far from the railway marshalling yards. It was, nonetheless, grand in its own way. Henry James – I suddenly recalled from my random literary education – had once described England as having rather too much of the superfluous and not enough of the necessary. The Old Master had clearly never seen the Hotel Von Trapp. In its vast and imperial lobby, where Japanese tourists were chittering and chattering like Papageno and Papagena over the endless line of suitcases that were pouring off their coach, it took four serious black-jacketed desk clerks to check me in, as they passed ledgers and paperwork, passports and keys back and forth amongst themselves, much as their ancestors must have done in the red-taped heyday of the Habsburg Empire. Then it took me several minutes to walk across the lobby toward the Secession ironwork elevator, and even longer to ascend upward, ever upward, to my room.
The room, I discovered, somehow lay beyond the scope of imperial elegance, and had doubtless been intended for someone’s hapless maidservant in grander times. High in the mansard roof, it was tiny, and so was the bed in the corner. Behind the rough plasterboard door was a notice that said: ‘In the happening of fire, ask for helps the fireman at the window. Do not evacuate in the lift.’ I sat on the bed (there was no chair) and unpacked the modest airport luggage, the knickers from Knickerbox, shirts from Shirt Factory, that I hoped would last me for the next couple of days. I took a quick shower (the ceiling of the shower box was so low you had to crouch in it) and then returned, re-robed, and set to work to look for the telephone directory. I found it at last, confusingly cased in an embroidered cloth cover with a portrait-of-Ludwig van Beethoven, not famous, especially given his deafness, for his association with the telephone, on the front of it. I scuffed through the pages, hunting for the number of Professor Doktor Otto Codicil.
I found nothing, and then realized that the professor was probably far too important to be listed. So I tried the number of directory enquiries, and had somewhat better fortune. Apparently, like most of the good professors of Vienna, his telephone was indeed ex-directory, but if I cared to say who I was and what I wanted, the switchboard would contact him and, if he was willing to talk to me, he would ring me bac
k. I sat in the room for some time; the telephone failed to ring. Then it came to me that of course in the middle of the afternoon the good professor wouldn’t be at home anyway; he would be in the university about his academic business, giving lectures, examining students, marking essays, reading his learned journals, doing the things that good professors professorially do. He would not be at home until the evening, so I might as well go for a walk. I went downstairs and out into suburban Vienna, duly finding my way to the cemetery of Saint Marx – where I discovered that there was a tomb to, naturally, Mozart, though, confusingly, he was not actually buried in it. As evening came, I returned to the Hotel Von Trapp, made my way to the enormous dining-room (‘Der Feinschmecker’), took an early dinner (‘Tafelspitz an Vhichy-Karotten und Petersilienkartoffeln’) in a spacious ambience where the waiters outnumbered the eaters by about three to one, then returned to my rooftop eyrie to await a call from Professor Doktor Otto Codicil.
Nothing came. I waited for an hour or so, then called directory enquiries again and persuaded the girl there to try the { number once more, in case my message had gone astray. Less I than five minutes later, the telephone by my bedside suddenly ; rang. The person on the other end was clearly not Codicil; it could well have been a maid, or just possibly a very subservient wife, but it was plainly his emissary. In German she enquired what I wanted; in slow English I explained I needed to speak to the professor on an urgent intellectual matter. There was a moment of silence, then the sound of footsteps skittering nervously away across parquet. After a few seconds, new, much heavier footsteps returned, then a very deep voice came on the telephone and said ‘Professor Doktor Otto Codicil, ja, bitte?’ I briefly introduced myself and made a small, considered speech explaining that I represented a leading British television company that wished to make a serious programme devoted to the life, the thought, the times, the influence, and indeed the general philosophical importance of that great man of distinction, Doctor Bazlo Criminale. There was another very long silence at the other end, and I began to think that Professor Doktor Otto Codicil did not speak any English at all.
I could not, I found a second later, have been more wrong. ‘My dear good sir, you really plan to make such a programme for the television?’ asked Codicil, ‘No, I really think you do not.’ ‘But we do,’ I said. ‘Then may I say to you in all total candour that for the very life of me I do not see the need for such a thing,’ said Codicil. ‘I’m sure you know British television is very good at this kind of show,’ I said, ‘We always like to keep our audiences abreast of the latest directions of contemporary European thought.’ ‘I can assure you, my dear sir, that all that can be said of or about our good Doktor Criminale is what that selfsame Doktor Criminale has already said of or about himself.’ ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, ‘But what we want to do is introduce him and his work to a more general audience.’ ‘There is no general audience that could possibly understand Criminale,’ said Codicil definitively, ‘To those who are blind, all things are obscure. So it is, and so it should remain. You know it is not so polite to try to telephone me like this. Out of the blues and with no letter or introduction. Please now may we terminate this call, which I am paying for, by the way?’
‘Just one more moment,’ I said quickly, ‘We were counting on your help.’ ‘My help, why my help?’ he asked. ‘Because you’re the great authority on Criminale’s work,’ I said. ‘No,’ he said, ‘The great authority on Criminale’s work – it is obvious, of course, but I see I must inform you – is Criminale himself. You have talked to him?’ ‘Not yet,’ I said, ‘I came to you because you wrote the important book on him.’ There was another lengthy pause, and then Codicil said, ‘My dear fellow, I know very well if my book is important or not. Of course it is important, I would not have written it otherwise. Just one moment, please.’ Codicil then shouted several imperative things in German down a very long corridor, and there was more skittering on the parquet. Then he returned to the telephone. ‘Ja, bitte?’ he asked. ‘Professor Codicil,’ I said, ‘This is going to be a very important programme. We were hoping that you would consent to contribute to it.’ ‘I, contribute, how?’ asked Codicil. ‘We thought you might speak on the programme about Criminale,’ I said. ‘You wish to employ my own presence in this programme?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘You’d be a very valued contributor.’ Codicil was silent again. Then he said, ‘No, really, that will not be possible. I hope you do not think I am some flighty little starling who likes nothing better than to preen on the television.’
‘Of course not, Professor Codicil,’ I said, ‘But can we possibly talk about it?’ ‘To my own estimation, that is exactly what we are doing at this moment,’ said Codicil. ‘I mean, can we meet somewhere and discuss this properly,’ I said. ‘My good fellow,’ said Codicil, ‘It may have escaped your notices that I am quite an important man. I lead an exceedingly busy public life and I have many affairs. Also in Austria we do not have the habit of inviting the utter passing stranger into the pristine quiet of our homes. I know you come from an informal country, but here, even in these difficult days, we like to preserve a certain formality, with proper introductions and so on.’ ‘I understand that,’ I said, ‘But I’m not asking to come to your home.’ ‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Codicil, ‘Naturally you would not be welcome.’ ‘But can’t we meet in your office, perhaps?’ ‘I see that like so many people in the newspapers you have really no idea of the harsh and unremitting demands of modern academic life,’ said Codicil, ‘May I suggest to you that you simply forget about your programme, and allow me to take my dinner.’ ‘I can’t forget all about it,’ I said, ‘The project’s already started. It will be on television next autumn. I hoped you’d want to make sure that everything the programme said was completely fair and accurate.’
At the other end, Codicil had gone quiet again, though I could hear him breathing heavily. Then he coughed suddenly and said, ‘Oh, listen to these importunate blandishments of the media. Very well, since despite all my best advisings you insist to proceed further, I will offer you a very brief appointment. Let us meet at the Café Karl Kraus. That is near to the Votivkirche and the Universität. If, that is, you think you can stir your stumps enough to attend there tomorrow morning at eleven of the clock?’ ‘I think I can stir my stumps for that,’ I said, ‘How will I know you?’ ‘You will have no difficulty,’ he said, ‘Just ask for me there, I am not unknown to them, in fact they know me very well. By the way, remember, it will be my treat.’ ‘And mine too,’ I said warmly, ‘I’m looking forward to meeting you.’ ‘No, you misunderstand my evidently ineluctable English,’ said Codicil, ‘I am explaining that I am happy to slap up the tab.’ ‘Ah, thank you,’ I said. ‘It is my pleasure,’ said Codicil, ‘Is that enough? Then Wiedersehen, mein Herr.’
After I had replaced the phone, I sat on the bed for a moment. This was not the kind of conversation I had expected to get into, when Lavinia told me I was going off into life to be a television researcher. It seemed that Viennese professors had a somewhat different attitude to the media from many of their British counterparts, and I already felt sure I would not get much out of Codicil. And with no Codicil, there would probably be no way to reach Criminale, maybe no programme at all. I thought I had better consult the Delphic oracle, so I picked up the telephone and rang Lavinia, over there in her grand-luxe comfort at the Hotel de France. ‘I’m sitting in the bath eating Rumtorte,’ said Lavinia when I reached her at last, ‘Is your hotel full of Japanese?’ ‘Hundreds,’ I said. ‘Do yours ride up and down in the elevators all the time and giggle?’ asked Lavinia, ‘Mine do.’ ‘Listen, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘I’ve just been talking to Codicil.’ ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Apparently in Vienna all professors have ex-directory numbers,’ I said, ‘Luckily they use the telephone company as an answering service.’ ‘Does he speak English?’ asked Lavinia. ‘Yes, you could say he speaks English,’ I said, ‘In fact he speaks it far more fluently and fancily than I do.’ ‘Brilliant,’ said Lavinia. ‘I’
m not sure it is brilliant,’ I said, ‘He’s obviously made his mind up to be very difficult. Or more likely he just is very difficult by nature and he didn’t have to make up his mind to it at all.’
Well, you know what to do, Francis,’ said Lavinia, ‘Get your foot in the door. That’s what we’re paying you all this money for. Just be persuasive and charming.’ ‘I was,’ I said. Then why is he being difficult?’ asked Lavinia. ‘He says he has more important things to do and he’s not interested in the blandishments of the media,’ I said. They all say that,’ said Lavinia, ‘I expect he’s one of those old-fashioned profs who pretend to despise television and say they never watch it. You just have to say you’ll put them on it and they’re licking at your legs straight away.’ ‘Maybe in Britain,’ I said, ‘I don’t think they’re like that in Austria. Viennese professors have a big sense of their own importance.’ ‘It’s just a question of finding the right approach,’ said Lavinia, ‘Get him to meet you.’ ‘I have,’ I said, ‘I’m having coffee with him tomorrow morning. I thought it might be a good idea if you came along.’
‘Sorry, Francis, terribly busy day, full diary already,’ said Lavinia, ‘You know what to do. Just nestle in his bosom like a viper.’ ‘I have a strange feeling Codicil’s bosom isn’t the kind of bosom anyone ever manages to nestle in,’ I said. ‘Well, you know you can always come and nestle in mine,’ said Lavinia, ‘Any time. Oh, and about that, I had this terrible problem getting tickets for the opera. The Japanese had all got there first and bought out the place.’ ‘What a pity, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘So we have to cancel the champagne?’ ‘No, I got a box for the following night,’ said Lavinia, ‘I daren’t tell you what it cost, but it’s damn near half the recce budget. Then you can come back after and see my absolutely glorious room. Do you have an absolutely glorious room?’ ‘Not exactly, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘I’m up in the loft with the pigeons.’ ‘Good,’ said Lavinia, ‘Because we couldn’t have afforded it, not with these opera tickets. Still, I know you’ll love mine.’ ‘Oh, good,’ I said, ‘Thanks so much for your help, Lavinia.’ ‘Remember,’ said Lavinia, ‘In his bosom like a viper. Night, darling.’
Doctor Criminale Page 6