The Crooked Maid

by Dan Vyleta

  Without introduction, she started talking about the trial.

  “Father says that if the man is convicted, they will hang him. They pull out the floor from under you and then you die.”

  The boy understood her at once. The thought was not new to him. “It’s because of what I said,” he whispered. Then added, “Do you think he’s a bad man?”

  Trudi mulled it over. “I thought he looked nice,” she said at last. She might have said “handsome,” but felt it was too old for her; their neighbour had said it when she’d seen his picture in the paper: “That poor, handsome lad.”

  “Then they’ll hang a nice man,” the boy said glumly, and cursed himself for having spoken the truth.

  2.

  On the fourth day of the trial of Wolfgang Seidel, suspected parricide, the court was as crowded as ever. If anything, more people were jostling for space in the corridors outside the great hall, trying to push their way in and arguing with the ushers. The ushers had their hands full, for there were some in the crowd who seemed hell-bent on pressing their point. At long last they closed the doors and took position just inside the courtroom, from where they followed the trial with the same rapt attention as the audience. There was a rumour, fanned by a report in the papers, that the defendant had recanted his earlier refusal to testify and would be called up that very day. The jurors too seemed to have heard of it; one could discern a new level of interest amongst their ranks.

  First, though, the chief prosecutor, Dr. Fejn, was to continue with his interrogation of those witnesses who could testify to Wolfgang’s propensity to violence. Just as Fejn was about to start, however, the presiding judge, Bratschul, interrupted him, leaned forward, and in a somewhat malicious phrase requested that he “spare” the court all witnesses other than those “who have been thrown out of windows, or nearly so.” This phrase, unusually bellicose for this otherwise rather mild-mannered man, people at once ascribed to a “hemorrhoidal attack,” whose effects, it was said, could also be traced in his complexion, which, truth be told, was a little sallow that day.

  Not wishing to make an enemy of Bratschul, Fejn bowed to his pressure, hemorrhoidally induced or otherwise, and immediately produced a fat little seamstress who had been threatened in a manner very similar to the previous night’s witness, Klein. She too had been asked to walk to the window to look into the yard beneath, then been “thrown onto the windowsill” and “dangled by the neck.” But where Klein had moved the court with his cracked tortoiseshell glasses and quiet certainty, the seamstress lacked charisma, and her statement, while corroborating the defendant’s modus operandi, failed to draw much of a reaction from either jury or audience. Seeing this, Dr. Fejn dismissed her at once and quietly declared that “he did not wish to belabour a point already made abundantly clear, or repeat facts already present in the minds of our most perceptive jury” (here he gave a little bow). The little speech was greeted by generous applause on the side of the audience. There could be little doubt that Fejn had carried his point. After the briefest of adjournments the defence was given the floor.

  3.

  Dr. Ratenkolb went to work very methodically. The first witness he interviewed was a self-satisfied doctor by the name of Schiefental. Schiefental was a familiar face. On the first day of the trial he had testified regarding the wounds found on Herr Seidel’s body and had drawn a careful distinction between lesions and breaks he had acquired during a fight that preceded his fall, and those caused by the impact with the ground itself. The former included a bruise at the back of his head caused by a blow from the victim’s office telephone (the object in question, one corner soiled by a smear of dried blood, had been passed around amongst the jury). In a memorable moment, designed to drive home the sheer brutality of the attack, Schiefental had himself swung the telephone with all his might, explaining that a right-handed man of such-and-such a height had struck the blow from such-and such an angle, all the while looking at the defendant in blunt accusation. At the time Ratenkolb, aware of the effect made by these words, had asked no questions but had reserved the right to do so “at a later point.” This “later point” had now arrived.

  No sooner had the doctor taken his seat and made the customary promise to tell the truth (there was no formal oath) than Ratenkolb begged him to clarify if the wounds inflicted by the fight, including that infamous “collision” with the telephone, had been life-threatening. Schiefental answered in the negative.

  “The blow did not fracture the skull.”

  “And was there anything about the wounds caused by the fall,” Ratenkolb went on to ask, “that suggests that the man had been thrown rather than fallen?”

  “Not with any certainty.”

  “In other words, no.”

  “Correct.”

  “Which is to say that the deceased may not have been pushed at all. He could have had a fight and then, say, leapt from the window of his own volition.” (A murmur went through the court at this suggestion, half of anger, half of curiosity.)

  “It’s possible, I suppose.”

  “How much time might have passed between the wounds suffered during his fight and the wounds suffered from the fall?”

  “Impossible to say. Not much, at any rate.”

  “No more than a day?”

  “No more than a few hours. The swelling—”

  But Ratenkolb interrupted him. “Note,” he said dryly to the jury, looking over at them and speaking in particular to an elderly schoolteacher who sat in the first row, “that the deceased might have been alive for several hours after he was involved in a fight with an unknown assailant.”

  He dismissed Schiefental with a wave of his hand.

  The next person called was a Professor Dr. Ferdinand Bündl, a bent, elderly psychiatrist who operated a well-regarded private practice in the first district. His arrival was not unexpected. Many of the real and self-proclaimed experts who followed the trial had long expected that Ratenkolb’s defence would arrive at a point where Wolfgang’s criminal responsibility was put into question, and at least one paper had openly speculated about the “psychiatric defence,” using the thoroughly antiquated term “temporary insanity” to sketch what it had in mind. But when the judge had concluded his initial examination of Professor Bündl, which included the question of whether the defendant was to be considered sane (“Quite,” the old man answered curtly), the defence lawyer displayed not the slightest interest in the topic. He focused instead on the defendant’s father. What he wanted to know was whether Herr Seidel, “that is to say the deceased,” had ever come to consult Bündl in a professional capacity. The answer was a quiet, musical “In-deed.”

  “He came to you,” Ratenkolb said into the sudden quiet of the courtroom, “not because he wanted to speak about his son, or his wife, but because of himself.”

  “Ye-hes.”

  “Why did he come? I beg you to remember that your patient’s death absolves you from your oath of confidentiality. What was his condition?”

  The old man cleared his throat then opened his arms in an expressive gesture until his palms were stretched out on either side of him. “It was far from clear. He did not have any obvious symptoms. He was anxious and asked whether I could help him.”

  “Anxious?”

  “In-deed.”

  “What about?”

  “He would not say. It was all rather vague.”

  “What did you advise him to do?”

  “He came twice, each time looking at me with a certain—um—expectation. An expectation, yes. As though he were waiting for me to say some magic word. I was a little put out. The second time, I said, ‘Perhaps you should talk to a priest.’ He gave me a queer little smile and said, ‘I have. But nothing would come out there either. Funny, eh?’”

  “What was his general frame of mind?”

  “He was thoughtful.”

  “Melancholy.”

  “Per-haps. It is not a clinical term.”

  Ratenkolb nodded, lowered hi
s voice, his brow furrowed like that of a man who, despite his inclinations, forced himself to consider all the possibilities. “Do you think it possible,” he asked, “that Herr Seidel committed suicide?”

  The old man took his time considering his answer. When it came, there was a touch of flippancy to it. “Possible?” he said. “Why not? A great many people do.”

  Fejn questioned him after that, but was unable to dispel the feeling that the defence was gaining ground.

  4.

  Throughout the day Ratenkolb pursued a patient, two-pronged attack on the presumption of his client’s guilt. The first and primary part of his strategy was to lend an air of plausibility to the theory that Seidel had taken his own life. He did so by interviewing a string of witnesses—from Seidel’s factory manager to a triumvirate of business magnates with whom the deceased had been in the habit of consuming a carafe of wine on Wednesday evenings—and eliciting their impressions regarding Seidel’s mental state in the weeks leading up to his death. While none of these witnesses could be tempted by the word “suicide,” which Ratenkolb would, as it were, dangle before their noses like some forbidden fruit, they all agreed that Seidel had been “preoccupied” and “nervous.” More than one hinted at domestic unhappiness precipitated not by Wolfgang (of whose presence in Vienna not one of the witnesses had been aware) but by “the widow Seidel.” Ratenkolb seized upon this opening at once. The deceased would not be the first man, he insinuated to the jury, to grow despondent over sharing his life with a loveless wife.

  The second prong of the defence lawyer’s strategy was quite different in nature. It aimed at dispersing the bad impression made by the witnesses who had testified to Wolfgang’s brutality and sought to establish the defendant as a man both chastened and reformed. This attempt centred on a single witness, a coarse young woman wearing traditional peasant costume, as though she were going to a country church on Sunday. The prosecutor, Fejn, watched her take the witness seat with suspicion and surprise: she had been on the prosecution’s witness list until the judge had ordered Fejn to cut short his interrogation. Ratenkolb pounced on her at once.

  “Do you know this man, Fräulein Hofer?” he asked, pointing to the defendant.

  Her answer had the nature of a sneer. “Sure do.”

  “Can you describe the circumstances under which you met the accused?”

  “He beat me.”

  “Where?”

  “At the cop shop, that’s where.”

  Ratenkolb directed her to be more specific. In a short few minutes they established the reason and time frame for her incarceration by the Gestapo. She had cut up a neighbour’s SA uniform with a pair of scissors. As it turned out, the action had had personal rather than political motives. After some further questions Ratenkolb returned to the subject of her beating.

  “Did the accused threaten to throw you out of any windows, Fräulein Hofer?”

  “Windows? No. He slapped me. And pinched my ear. And my, you know …” (She pointed vaguely at her rump, rising slightly from her chair as she did so.) “A real pig, he was.”

  Ratenkolb nodded and turned briefly to the jury, as though to say, “Look, I have no desire to hide anything. My client acted like a cad; alas, it cannot be helped.” Then he fastened his eyes back on his witness.

  “Did you ever meet him again? After your interrogation, I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you please describe the circumstances of this other meeting? When and where did it take place?”

  She shrugged. “It was some time ago. I think it was June. Summer in any case. I was on the Number Five tram, late in the evening. The next stop, at the train station, he comes on with a woman. I look at him and think to myself, ‘I’ll be damned if it isn’t that nasty young copper, well, he don’t look so high and mighty now.’ Dirty, he was, carrying a ragged little suitcase. And his woman! You wouldn’t believe it. Almost in rags. I swear there wasn’t a button left on her blouse. She was, you know: gapin’. The girl sitting next to her even stood up. I think she was afraid of catching lice.”

  “And what happened then, Fräulein Hofer?”

  “So, here we are, me sitting on one side, and them on the other. He looks at me somehow strange, like he recognizes me but also doesn’t. I just sit there glaring, thinking how he pinched me, the pig. We go a few stops, and then he suddenly gets up to leave, tugging his woman along.”

  “Was he in a haste?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why?”

  “I was making him, you know. Uncomfortable.”

  “And then?”

  “He bumps me with his suitcase. On the way out. The tram sort of shakes, crossing rails, I guess, and he almost shoves his suitcase on my lap. He catches himself, looks me in the face, not like you normally look at someone, but somehow different, like he’s concentrating real hard. I sit there thinking, here we go again, he’s going to slap me. But he doesn’t slap me. ‘I apologize,’ he says, real quiet, right in my ear.”

  “Was he referring to the suitcase, Fräulein Hofer?”

  She shrugged. “Nah.”

  “To what, then?”

  Another shrug, then a funny little snort. “You know. All that.”

  “You mean the interrogation. The slaps and the pinching.”

  She nodded.

  “You think he was sincere?”

  She hesitated, but only for a second. “Sure, why not.”

  “And? Did you forgive him?”

  It took her three breaths. “I guess there’re worse,” she said at last.

  For a moment there belonged to this coarse young woman in her country dress an air of dignity that quite electrified the courtroom. Wolfgang looked up to stare at her, and something like a sigh ran through the rows of the jury.

  With the judge’s permission Ratenkolb dismissed her at once. Before he had a chance to call the next witness, Bratschul interrupted proceedings and ordered an hour-long recess.

  5.

  Ratenkolb accompanied Wolfgang to his cell. As soon as the guard had removed Wolfgang’s handcuffs and locked them in, the lawyer produced his cigarette case and offered it to his client, all the while searching Wolfgang’s face with an expression halfway between amusement and anger.

  “You shouldn’t have looked up,” he said. “You were doing just fine, sitting there with that hangdog air. Your chin was nearly on your chest. And then you looked up, just as she was saying you’d apologized to her. For ‘all that.’ What a naked look you gave her! It was all right there: that you did not recognize her at all and had no memory of the incident whatsoever. You simply bumped her with your suitcase; drunk, I should think, coming back to Vienna with a hole in your pocket and a useless wife. ‘Sorry,’ that’s what you said to her, only on my suggestion she changed it to ‘I apologize.’ It’s just as well she didn’t see your face: she might have retracted it. Neither did the jury—one of the old men nearly wept. It’s the public in the first two rows you’ve robbed of their illusions, those who were looking, anyway. Your brother, for one, I could see him grow all pale. Christ, my friend, you are on trial for murder. The least you can do is look contrite.”

  Wolfgang listened to all this calmly, picking two cigarettes from the case, waiting for Ratenkolb to offer him a light. He did at last, and the young man inhaled a lungful of smoke.

  “What does it matter,” he decided, smoke in his mouth, “if the jury didn’t see?”

  Ratenkolb flashed a sour smile. “Never let your lawyer know you’re a rotter. It weighs us down.”

  “It’s all rubbish anyway. So I apologized, or I didn’t. But the trial, it’s about father, isn’t it? No apology’s going to change that.”

  “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. The trial is about whether or not you are a swine. If you are a swine, then you killed your father and to hell with you. But if you are a good lad, really, deep down that is, well then, let’s forget and forgive. Who’s to say you shouldn’t get off?”

  Wolfgang seem
ed to consider this, smoked the cigarette in deep, efficient drags, lit the second off its end. “What’s next, then? Are you going to call in my schoolteachers? They will tell the jury that they never quite figured it out: was I lazy or just plain stupid? Then there is a little widow where I used to go, a seamstress, who specialized in schoolboys. A lovely lady, actually. She can testify that I was a most punctual boy. Never missed an appointment, and didn’t overstay my welcome. I was generous, too: I stole money from my father’s pocket and didn’t like to skimp. Not sure it would do me much good though, as character references go.”

  “I have something else in mind. When Fejn dug up all those jailbirds, I asked the judge for permission to call some of your former colleagues. Rossländer, Bienenkopf, Schramm. And half a dozen others. I’ve put together quite a list.”

  Wolfgang spat smoke. “You’re calling the Gestapo crowd? It’ll bury me! The jury already thinks I’m a brute. No point reminding them.”

  “On the contrary. It will show them what well-brought-up young men served in this most necessary branch of the state machinery. They’ve all come fresh from the barber. I called them all personally yesterday to remind them to polish their shoes. And they will all say the same thing: that you were responsible, diligent, calm. And that you loved your father.”

  “You paid them off?”

  Ratenkolb frowned. “No, of course not. It’s how they remember you.”

  “Shite.” Wolfgang shook his head in genuine wonder, started pacing the cell. Of the many emotions that marked his countenance, impatience ran topmost. “So when am I coming on?”

  “Not until the end, if I can help it. We want to take our time with this part of the proceedings; put some distance between the prosecution’s case and the jury.” Ratenkolb smiled that humourless smile of his, his eyes on his client’s movements. “That’s assuming, of course, you put on a good performance. We haven’t rehearsed it. What exactly will you say?”