Vienna

by William S. Kirby

  People with real power will find out!

  Her mouth suddenly dry. “It’s … nothing.”

  He gave her a questioning look before stepping away.

  Justine leaned to Vienna. “The rain is coming again. It’s time to go.”

  Back in the Savoy, Justine called the River Café. “We never pay any attention to the press,” she was told. She reserved a table for three at seven. Two hours until the limo picked them up.

  “Vienna, off to the shower. We have to get ready.”

  “For dinner?”

  “Yes. Casual, but formally so, if you know what I mean.”

  “No.”

  Justine caught the tone of her voice. “You were hurt by what I said to Davy.”

  “You had no right to say such horrible things. And thank you for saying them in public. I hate it when you’re smarmy.”

  Justine stepped to her. “I know sometimes we don’t connect. And I know some of it is because of the way you are, and the way I am as well.”

  “I don’t understand, except you’re saying I’m not right in the head and trying to be nice about it and failing.”

  Justine shook her head. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

  “What?”

  “Lord Davy is a man of considerable popularity. My guess is our exchange will garner some society press. I want you to hold off judgment until you see what they say.”

  “But you can’t stand them.”

  “Do it for me anyway, okay?”

  She sighed. “My period is coming.”

  “Has this been happening since we met?”

  “Justine!”

  “Shh. A bad joke. It’s okay. You’ll likely miss it, so be ready.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “I’m psychic.”

  Vienna blinked twice in quick succession, but plowed ahead. “I want to stay home.”

  “You saw yesterday’s pictures of the manikin. Was she the same today?”

  “She was smaller, just like the others. I don’t think it was a good job. It really didn’t feel like wood, though the colors were good and the wig was the same.”

  “I agree. Had the Holts been open to the idea of a copy, they surely would have spotted it. At least we know why the quality dropped.”

  “We do?”

  “Julian Dardonelle’s body in that river near Antwerp. They had to get someone new to craft this replica. Someone not as skilled.” Justine’s hand passed over the lizard on her hip. “I want you to come with me. We might learn something.”

  “Why is it I always do what you say?”

  “Because I’m a spoiled pain in the ass.”

  “That must be it.”

  “You need to get in the shower.”

  Vienna kicked at the carpet and turned away.

  “Wait a second, hun. Whose idea was it that you go out on the night we met?”

  “Cecile’s—a friend at work.”

  “Who happened to know Grant.”

  Vienna said nothing.

  “Grant gets one of your friends to meet you at Holler. He knew it was my favorite club in Brussels. He knew I would stop there.”

  “Except Cecile hurt her ankle.”

  “Maybe.”

  “She was using crutches.”

  “Which proves she knew where to get some. Either way, Grant paid your friends to dare me to sleep with you. They said exactly the right things to goad me into going along with it. They were perfectly coached. I should have realized that the second they started.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. I almost see it, like reflections in a mirror. Shift your position a single step, and you see something new. Grant was after something related to the manikins. He wanted to meet you.”

  “He couldn’t have known I would walk outside with you that morning in Brussels.”

  “But he was there just in case. If that failed, he could have stopped by your gelato shop with me in tow. We would have exchanged greetings and he would have had a proper introduction. After we spent the night together, he had several options for meeting you through me.” So why hadn’t he just seduced Vienna? There had to be more to it. “But things went wrong. He expected a one night stand, and instead he got you, all red in tooth and claw.”

  “Lord Alfred Tennyson,” Vienna said. “‘In Memoriam of A.H.H.’” Vienna’s eyes scanned over words. “Arthur Henry Hallam,” she continued. “He died in Vienna.” Her face took on a soft blush of delight at the connection to her name. But she quickly grew stormy. “Why did you say that? That I was red in tooth and claw?”

  “You set Grant up and ran him over with dead elm trees. I saw the devil in your eyes. I know when a member of my sex has her fangs out, Vienna.”

  “I didn’t like him, and I was right not to.”

  “You were, but you didn’t like him the second you saw him. Why not?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Justine smiled. “Fair enough.”

  “You aren’t mad?”

  “We both know the answer.” She stepped to Vienna and brushed her fingers through her hair. “For all his planning, my dear boyfriend never would have counted on anything happening between us.” Or on having his handsome, scheming face blasted off.

  “If he’d lived, you would be with him, and I would still be in Brussels.”

  Justine remembered her dissatisfaction on that last day. “I don’t think so.”

  “That’s a nice thing to say, but it’s wrong to lie.” Vienna turned again to the bathroom.

  “Vienna?”

  “Yes?”

  “Last night was perfect. I wanted you to know.”

  Vienna considered this for several seconds. “Does it bother you that my breasts are so small?”

  “They’re perfect, too.”

  Vienna’s hands went to her chest, covering herself. After a minute, she ventured an uncertain smile. “The average bra size in Great Britain in the 1940s was 30B. So I would have been closer to normal.”

  Vienna’s deepest prayer lay bare. Closer to normal. But the window closed even as the words were spoken.

  “Three hundred and sixty poppy seeds,” Vienna whispered. “Between the crosses, row on row.”

  Justine had no idea what it meant.

  16

  Vienna had what she always wanted only now she didn’t want it so much anymore. She was always making mistakes or getting lost in Justine’s words. Worse, there was the endless geometry of so many new places. Shapes twisting inside the compulsive topology of her mind. She imagined the chain anchoring her to safe places fast playing out against the onslaught of Hurricane Justine.

  There was no reason to put herself through this except that she couldn’t help herself. But then, maybe that was what Justine told Lord Davy. That she couldn’t help herself either. Vienna wanted to believe it, but she couldn’t fool herself that much. Beautiful people didn’t work that way.

  Dinner was in a restaurant on the Thames, further east than the neighborhoods Vienna knew. White chairs and blue carpet. It was absent of the clutter of most public places. Vienna glanced at Justine. For me, or coincidence?

  But nothing hid the people pointing in their direction. Laughter over imagined bedroom scenes. Vienna knew she had been right about staying at the hotel.

  Emily appeared in a dark green sweater against the chill that played through the rain. Her hair was still in a tail, which didn’t seem right given how well-dressed other diners were. Emily didn’t care. No one else did either. Just like no one cared that Emily’s eyes were that blue color because of a genetic defect. No one made fun of her. “You appear to be the subject of many a dinner conversation,” Emily said as she sat.

  “Our fifteen minutes is about up,” Justine said.

  “An overly modest or overly naive assessment,” Emily answered.

  Justine ordered four courses of fish and soup, without a strand of spaghetti in sight. So it wasn’t even real Italian food, des
pite what the menu said. Vienna wanted to eat in silence, but Justine would probably die if she stopped talking. Conversation centered around trivial aspects of fashion until Emily spoke.

  “I spent the afternoon trying to connect the death of a paparazzi stooge to pictures of a Christian Bell manikin.” She sipped her wine. “And let’s not forget my knowledge of German.”

  “I need paper and a pen for the German part,” Vienna said.

  Justine supplied both from her black handbag.

  “There are lots of words,” Vienna said, “but most are small. I think they are like ‘the’ yeah?” She printed out “Mit ihrer Spannweite von 76 cm ist sie die größe. gemmoglyptische Schale der Welt” and handed the paper to Emily.

  The woman frowned. “It’s about a special bowl, the largest one in the world. Not certain what kind. I’ve never seen the word ‘gemmoglyptische’ before. I could Google it if you want.”

  Vienna sighed. “I don’t know it either.”

  “I didn’t realize you spoke German.”

  “I don’t.”

  Emily and Justine smiled, and once again Vienna had made a fool of herself.

  “We can check later. Is there more?” Justine asked.

  “I want to go home.”

  “I know you do, Vienna. Is there more German?”

  Vienna grabbed the paper, slapping the table loud enough for more people to stare at them. In block letters: “Wegen dieser Bedeutung, der einzigartigen Größe des Steines und seiner meisterhaften Formgebung wurde die Achatschale (zusammen mit dem ‘Ainkhürn,’ dem Stoßzahn eines Narwales, welchen Kaiser Ferdinand I. von König Sigismund II. von Polen als Geschenk erhalten hatte) im Erbvertrag der Söhne Kaiser Ferdinands I. 1564 als unveräußerliches Erbstück des Hauses Habsburg bezeichnet.”

  “Ainkhürn is a unicorn horn, just like einhorn,” Vienna said. “And I don’t know how I know that, so I must have heard it somewhere.” She was speaking too loudly, but she didn’t care because it would embarrass Justine.

  Emily spoke in her normal voice. “You did this from memory in a language you don’t speak?”

  Vienna felt heat in her face. There was no reason to be mean to Emily. “It might be wrong.”

  “The spelling and grammar are flawless.” Emily shook her head. “Most of the tabloid biographies have you leaving Austria while still a child. How young were you?”

  “Six.”

  Emily was silent for a few seconds, distracted by some thought process Vienna couldn’t follow. A slight narrowing of the eyes that doubtless conveyed paragraphs to Justine.

  I hate this.

  Emily turned her attention back to the writing. “It’s about the bowl. I’m certain ‘achat’”—she pointed to the word—“is agate. So we have an agate bowl. A masterpiece and, as we already know, the largest one in the world. It says this bowl, along with the tusk of a narwhal—once thought to be the horn of a unicorn—are in possession of the Habsburgs. The horn was a gift of King Sigismund II of Poland. The bowl and the horn are considered inalienable heirlooms of the family and as such can never be sold. They’re on display in a museum in Vienna.”

  Vienna began to speak, but paused when she felt Justine’s hand on her leg. Uncertain, she went on. “Those are the same words that—” Justine’s hand closed tighter around her leg. “Ouch!”

  Emily laughed. “Not exactly subtle.”

  Justine sighed. “What do you know about narwhals?”

  That hadn’t been what Vienna was going to say. Why did Justine change the topic? She felt Justine’s fingers move across her leg. Two distinct motions. A “T” shape. Was it some form of shorthand?

  Emily shrugged. “Not much. A whale or dolphin with a horn.”

  “What about you, Vienna? Did you have time to read anything about narwhals before mastering World War Two?”

  Vienna printed the word.

  “‘H’ after the ‘W,’” Justine corrected.

  It was different enough to follow. “There is an entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, 1911, Cambridge, England…” She stopped and put her head on the table; cradled in the crook of her right arm. “Bog off.” Her voice was muffled in her ears.

  “Does the encyclopedia have anything of interest?” Justine asked, as if nothing were wrong.

  Vienna looked it over in the darkness of her arm-tent, resisting the habitual urge to read aloud. She tried parsing the entry into partial sentences, adding only a few words. “The scientific name is Monodon monoceros.… They have a single horn, which is actually the left incisor.… They are arctic whales.… In medieval times, when the horns washed to shore after a narwhal died, they were thought to be the horns of unicorns.” She paused. Another squeeze on her leg. “And you can stop pinching my leg. I don’t like it.” She went ahead with the article. “These often found their way into ‘cabinets of curiosities,’ which were collections of artifacts outside contemporary scientific expertise.” Vienna read on, her lips moving silently, rejecting most of what was there. “The word ‘nar’ comes from Old Norse, meaning corpse. It might refer to the creature’s pallid skin, or to the fact that narwhals often swim upside down. That’s all I know and I don’t care what you think.”

  “That’s more than I knew,” Emily said.

  Corpse. Vienna sat up.

  It wasn’t a “T.” It was a boneyard cross. Sinoro had been killed—maybe because he knew something he shouldn’t. If they told Emily, maybe she would know something she shouldn’t. That was Justine’s signal to change the subject. She had been trying to help. And I acted like a spoiled baby.

  Vienna didn’t like that because it was true. I’m tired of myself. She didn’t like that for the same reason. “Are you going to leave me again?” Because she was sure she would if their places were reversed, though maybe she shouldn’t have asked while Emily was listening.

  Justine leaned toward her and whispered in her ear. “In a few days, when you feel better, I’m going to shove you into bed and bang you till you can’t see straight.”

  Vienna felt the color drain from her face. They were in a public place! And she was going to have her period. “… according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean…” And only creepy people spoke in that vulgar way to begin with.

  Justine leaned back. Her out-loud voice hadn’t changed. “So, we have a narwhal horn and an agate bowl. Does it mean anything to either of you?”

  “No,” Emily answered.

  She turned to Vienna. “Do you have anything more?”

  Vienna tried to mimic Justine’s calm. “It would be in German, and I wouldn’t know what it meant.” And shoving someone into bed had to be rude, even for an American.

  “Where does all this come from?” Emily asked.

  “Something my ex-boyfriend said before he was killed.” Vienna wondered at how Justine managed to say something that sounded meaningful, yet contained no information at all. How many times has she done that to me? Vienna decided worrying about that was like worrying that the world was round.

  Soup was delivered, and Vienna made a game of eating all of one kind of vegetable from the broth. Celery, then beans, then carrots … For once Justine let her be. Conversation drifted to other topics as a new set of plates appeared. The food was delicious, served without the layers of sauce and cream that Vienna assumed expensive cuisine had to have.

  So maybe this was how it was supposed to be. She was in a beautiful place with beautiful people. But it still wasn’t right. There had to be transformation; that was the most important part. She imagined herself conducting conversation, witty and bright. Crescendos of laughter at exactly the right moments.

  Painful to see the truth. That it wasn’t her. That it never would be. I left no room in my dreams for myself.

  But maybe it didn’t matter anymore. She looked at Justine. Even now, when they couldn’t be together, she had whispered a possible future. Pushing Vienna into bed. Clothes piled on the floor. That was real. It could hap
pen without Vienna morphing into implausible perfection. I could move with her again. Tangled in the sheets. I could be laughing.

  And even that wasn’t the important part, because Justine had said that other people in Holler would have made love to Vienna, too. Something more. She was going home and she came back for me.

  “Why didn’t you go back to the United States?”

  “The weather in Georgia is terrible this time of year.”

  The air in Vienna’s lungs turned to lead.

  Justine’s voice went soft. “Vienna, you’re in London, not Georgia. I wanted to be with you.” Justine smiled. “Peach sorbet for dessert?” she asked. As if nothing had changed. As if the future was right there, tangled sheets and walking side-by-side on the Thames even if people were watching. Cool air and the lights so bright off the river.

  “I would like that,” Vienna answered. I would like that.

  After the order was placed, Justine started talking about the statues again. “What do you know of Franklin Court?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “The owner of the London manikin. From what James told me, Court is into Yoruba religion—precursor to voodoo.”

  “That’s more than I know. We never met.”

  “How did you pick up the manikin?”

  “Czasky’s people handled it.”

  “Is that usually the way things are done?”

  “Depends.” For the first time, Vienna saw Emily hesitate. “The thing is, Justine, you and I live on the same planet but different worlds.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Damage to the manikin could reach seventy or eighty thousand dollars for a total loss. It wouldn’t come close to breaking us, but it would affect future business. We aren’t living on an elite model’s income. We’re happy to let Czasky take liability for as long as he’s willing.”

  “Makes sense.” Justine paused while the waiter served dessert. He winked at Vienna when only she could see. Why did he do that? Justine thanked him and turned to Emily. “I suppose all photographers handle it the same way?”

  “I would assume so.” She leaned back in her chair. “You going to tell me what this is all about?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. So I started looking into it myself.” Emily pointed at Justine with her dessert spoon. “In merry ol’ England, if you go to the police, they assume you’re trying to help. I suggested that I knew Sinoro and asked if there was any way I might be of assistance.”