The Great Game

by Michael Kurland

  Paul spent most days dressed in the casual garb of a bohemian artist, sitting in one or another of the various cafes and beer halls that were sprinkled about the city, surrounded by the notebooks in which he wrote his essays and his music. Each cafe, each beer hall, catered to a different clientele, and the circles intersected only slightly. Paul's acquaintances of one café did not associate with his friends from another. The Socialists, who squabbled daily at the Café Mozart on Opernstrasse, seldom even passed by the Café Figaro on Neustiftgasse, which the anarchists occupied like an invading army. The Kaiserreich Bierstube on Idarstrasse, where imperial civil servants stared dolefully into a mug or two before heading home, might have been in another world from the Baron Münchhausen Bierhalle around the corner on Prinz Rupert Platz, where the young officers attached to the Imperial General Staff strutted and preened.

  On the nights when he did not stay home working, Paul dressed like a gentleman and escorted Giselle to the opera or the theater, or on occasion went alone to one of the clubs of questionable legality and dubious morality at which Austrian gentlemen, accompanied by women who were assuredly not their wives, went in for the more earthly pleasures.

  This afternoon Paul was just completing a leisurely lunch at a table by the window in the Café Figaro when a short, hunchbacked man with a large nose, an oversized slouch hat, a dark brown raincoat of the overly-protective sort worn by carriage drivers, and a furtive air came in out of the chill drizzle that had settled over Vienna on Sunday and showed no signs of departing. The man shook himself off, unbuttoned his raincoat, and sidled over to Paul's table. "Good afternoon, Herr Donzhof," he murmured, sliding into the chair across from him.

  Paul studied the apparition carefully for a minute. "Feodor— Herr Hessenkopf—is that you?"

  "Please!" The man dropped his voice until he could barely be heard at all. "No names! And keep your voice down. They are always listening!"

  "You used my name," Paul said mildly. "Why are you got up like Quasimodo? Are you trying for a part in the opera?"

  "Opera?" Hessenkopf blinked. "Is there an opera of 'Notre Dame'?"

  "Certainly," Paul said. "Why not?"

  Hessenkopf thought it over for a moment and then shook his head. "I think you are joking," he said. "I am not for the opera. I am in disguise."

  "A hump?"

  "Why not a hump? It is one of the first principles of disguise: a disfigurement or abnormality will cause people to look away from you. Number One explained that to us, if you will remember."

  "I think he meant an artfully created scar across the face, or something of that sort," Paul suggested.

  "I do not know how to create such a scar," Quasimodo said.

  "Ah!" Paul said. "That explains it."

  "You should not talk. The way you dress—that brown wool pullover, which once surely belonged to a much larger man; that aged and now shapeless army greatcoat; that too-wide brown cap with its too-narrow bill—you can be identified from across the street." Hessenkopf signaled the waiter to bring him a cup of coffee. Paul also made a similar gesture in the waiter's direction.

  "Yes," Paul said. "And so?"

  Hessenkopf shrugged, afraid he had offended his acquaintance, the source of several unpaid loans. "Nothing—nothing."

  "You confuse disguising your person, which you have not done very well, despite the hump, with disguising your intent," Paul told him. "When I sit here in my brown sweater and cap, with my greatcoat—which you neglected to mention is in a particularly notable shade of green—tossed negligently onto the empty chair beside me, people look and think, 'Oh, that's just Herr Donzhof, he's always here drinking coffee and writing in those notebooks of his.' I could be disposing of stolen gems, dealing in counterfeit ten-kronen notes, or plotting to assassinate some royal personage—"

  "Hush!" Hessenkopf hissed, looking nervously about.

  Paul laughed. "But when they see you, they say to themselves, 'Here's Herr Hessenkopf made up to go into the park and frighten little children. Perhaps we should follow him about and see what he's up to.' "

  Hessenkopf leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his chin inches above the sugar bowl. "You are not so wise or so humorous as you believe," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Have you not heard the news?"

  "You see? This is just what I was talking about," Paul told him. "Sit up and speak in a normal voice, you'll attract less attention. What news?"

  Hessenkopf sat up, but he was not happy. He glanced nervously around the room, and seemed unable to speak. In a few seconds he had slid so far down in his chair that his head was barely above the table.

  Paul sighed and shook his head. "Never mind," he said. "What news?"

  "We almost succeeded—" Hessenkopf stopped in midsentence and took two deep breaths. "A great tragedy has been narrowly averted," he began again. He nodded, pleased with himself at this new construction. He actually sat up slightly in his chair. "A great tragedy has been narrowly averted," he repeated. "Shortly before noon, it was. Archduke Franz Willem and Count Tisza had just left the Parliament together in a carriage with six—I think it was six— outriders from the Household Cavalry, when—somebody—threw a bomb at the carriage right there across from the Reichsrat. The bomb blew the right rear wheel off of the carriage, and the horses bolted. The postilion was thrown; I think he was killed. It took the coachman three blocks to stop the carriage, and I don't know how he managed it at all; the horses were truly and thoroughly startled and were leaving the area at a full gallop. As it turned out, neither the archduke nor the count were injured. The fool was too far away when he threw the bomb to place it properly."

  "And what happened to the bomb-throwing fool?"

  "The luck of the inept. Several of the cavalry guard galloped toward him, and the idiot was too frozen with fear to move. But someone standing next to him—some complete innocent—panicked and ran. So naturally the guard chased the other man down and took him away."

  "You were there, I take it?"

  "I was a distant but well-placed observer." Hessenkopf dropped his voice. "We may have missed our target, but the bomb will serve as yet another warning to the oppressors—and perhaps a wake-up to the oppressed."

  "Yes," Paul said. "But we keep waking them up and waking them up, and still they are asleep. Perhaps the throwing of bombs and the shooting of guns is no more effective than the chirping of a cuckoo clock. Perhaps instead of endangering ourselves and murdering hapless postilions we should purchase cuckoo clocks and distribute them among the working classes. With little homilies tied to their little wooden beaks. 'Arise ye prisoners of class exploitation! Coo-coo! Coo-coo!' "

  Hessenkopf stared at Paul. "Sometimes I wonder about you, Herr Donzhof," he said. "You are so always humorous. You take things so always lightly. Why, if the unconcern you manifest is your true state of feeling, are you indeed one of us?"

  Paul slapped his thigh. "You've caught me!" he exclaimed. "I confess. I am actually Agent G of the Kundschafts Stelle. We secret police can always be spotted by our tendency to break out into raucous laughter at inappropriate moments."

  "No, not that. You are not a police agent. But something ..."

  "Just what do you think I am, other than myself?" Paul inquired.

  "I do not like to seem to accuse you of anything, Herr Donzhof," Quasimodo said, but there was something about the way he said it that suggested that he would have liked to have done just that. "It is probably nothing more than my imagination, seeing secret policemen and agents provocateur behind every door. Suspecting everybody. It is my nature."

  The conversation paused while the waiter brought the coffees to the table. "Good afternoon, Herr Hessenkopf," the waiter said blandly, putting the cups and coffee presses down.

  Paul broke out laughing as the waiter left. "You see," he said. "So much for the Quasimodo look."

  "The waiter is my cousin," Hessenkopf said. "What I came over to tell you— there is to be a meeting tomorrow night."

  "
Ah!" Paul said. "Where?"

  "The Werfel place."

  "Ah! The temple of chocolate. The smell alone makes it worthwhile to attend."

  "Ten o'clock. Sharp!"

  "I shall be there."

  Hessenkopf nodded and rose, taking his coffee and his hump off to a different table to share the joy of his existence with another soul.

  After a time Paul got up, stuffed his notebooks into a well-worn leather briefcase, slid into his green greatcoat, tugged his cap firmly over his eyes, and left the Café Figaro. Moving at an unhurried pace, he headed off down the street.

  A few moments later two men, one tall and lean with a thin, hawklike nose and the other solid, almost portly, with something of the bulldog about his appearance, rose from a back table and also left the cafe. When they reached the street the tall one murmured in English, "Wait in that shop doorway, Watson; see if you can follow our humpbacked friend when he leaves. I'll go after this one."

  "As you say, Holmes," his companion replied. "Button your top buttons, please, and wrap that scarf securely about your neck. No point in getting a chill from this damn drizzle."

  Holmes clapped his friend on the back. "Good old Watson," he said, tossing the knitted wool scarf around his neck. And with that he strode off in the direction that Paul had headed when he left.

  -

  As Paul moved away from the Café Figaro he began to walk faster. Shortly he was moving through the streets with the long stride of someone accustomed to walking great distances for pleasure. His path took him along Halzstrasse, and then through a series of narrow streets leading progressively deeper into the ancient Petruskirche District, a part of Vienna that the ordinary tourist never gets to see. He turned onto Sieglindstrasse, now well into an area where decent, law-abiding citizens would prefer not to meet anyone they knew.

  There were women in various stages of dishabille sitting in many of the ground floor and first floor windows along the street, showing various parts of their bodies to interested passers-by. Many of them appeared to be girls in their teens. Men in black knit sweaters and black caps lounged in the doorways, eager to dash out into the rain and discuss the charms and prices of the merchandise or to offer other commodities to any potential customer. There was a time when the filles de joie whistled to attract their clientele, and the ponces accosted pedestrians to encourage them, but the police frowned on whistling and actively discouraged accosting, so the game went on in silence these days. The area was not particularly dangerous—at least not during daylight—the police were too efficient for that. But it was unsavory, and questions might be asked as to what commodity or service you were attempting to purchase in an area where women were only the most visible of the illicit attractions.

  Paul turned onto Badengasse, a narrow cobblestone street, innocent of sidewalks, that had an almost timeless quality of decay and neglect. The two-story buildings with narrow storefronts that lined the street had looked ancient and decrepit when Vienna was first besieged by the Turks in 1529; they looked the same as Paul walked down the street now, and so they would look a century hence. The street ended at a fenced-off cement works where craftsmen mass-produced angels, nymphs, woodland creatures, and busts of famous men for the gardens of the bourgeoisie.

  Paul paused at the door of a shop three houses from the street's end and looked around. If he noticed the tall man who had paused to tie his shoe at the entrance to the street, he gave no sign. The small, barred window to the right of the shop door displayed a teapot that might have been silver, a sackbut that was assuredly brass, and a violin case that might or might not contain a violin. Three brass balls no larger than olives set into the masonry above the window served as a device for the shop. A small sign tacked to the side of the door read: LEVI DAVOUD--MONEY LOANED ON OBJECTS OF WORTH.

  Paul opened the shop door. The interior was lit by one oil lamp which swung from the ceiling. A counter with a barred window separated the clients of the establishment from the proprietor—or, in this case the proprietor's assistant: a small, swarthy lad with alert eyes who wore a dark brown caftan and looked as though he was attempting to grow a beard.

  "Good afternoon, Joseph," Paul said cheerily, stamping his feet on the outer sill to dislodge the mud caked to his shoes before entering the shop and closing the door behind him. "Is the old man in?"

  "It's hard to say, Herr Donzhof," the lad replied. "Sometimes he is, and sometimes he isn't. I'll go see."

  Joseph retreated into the back of the shop leaving Paul to ponder over the array of items on the shelves behind the counter. Many were wrapped in brown paper and tied with string; anonymous bundles lying dormant, awaiting the return of their owners to redeem them and bring them back to life. But some were not wrapped, or were identifiable by their shape through the wrapping. Paul made out a set of carpenter's tools in a wooden box, a dressmaker's dummy, an artificial leg, a pair of lady's shoes with silver buckles, several table lamps, a brace of walking sticks, and an assortment of hats and caps. There were also, in the corner, a harp and a tuba.

  "Ah, Herr Donzhof," the proprietor said, appearing in the back doorway and advancing toward the counter. Levi Davoud was a short, pear-shaped, elderly man with eyes deeply set in his round, wrinkled face, and a bulbous nose that seemed to ride on top of his carefully-trimmed white beard. Paul was accustomed to seeing the elderly moneylender in the shapeless gray housecoat he usually wore around the shop, but today he was dressed for the street, and a much finer street than the one outside his door. A gray silk four-in-hand scarf was tied precisely around his white wing collar and tucked neatly into a black Chesterfield overcoat, and he was carrying a pair of black kid gloves, an ebony cane, and a black silk top hat.

  "Good afternoon, Herr Davoud," Paul said. "I commend you on a degree of elegance that I imagine is seldom seen within the sound of the Petruskirche bells. I assume that Petruskirche has bells, although come to think of it, I don't remember ever hearing them. Are you coming or going?"

  "Oh, returning, I assure you, returning. I have just been about the tiresome business of having yet another young rapscallion twig of the nobility explain to me why he was willing to allow me to loan him a considerable sum of money." Davoud set the gloves, cane, and hat down and took his coat off; carefully fitting it onto a hanger, pulling out its shoulders and smoothing down the velvet collar before hanging it out of sight behind the back doorway. "Come," he said, opening the door in the counter, "come in the back and have with me a cup of black tea."

  "Just the thing, Herr Davoud," Paul said, and followed the shopkeeper into a small room in the back. The lighting in this room came from an inverted V-shaped skylight with twelve panes of glass and a web of iron bars beneath to make sure nothing but the light came through.

  "They were stolen," Davoud commented, settling into one of a pair of overstuffed armchairs. "Take off your coat and hat and hang them over there. Joseph, my boy, put the kettle on."

  Paul did as he had been bidden and dropped into the other chair. "What was stolen?"

  "The church bells. Sometime in the sixteenth century, I believe, they were stolen. It is my opinion that the church itself stole them, as the authorities were planning to take them and melt them down for cannon. The authorities at that moment had a great need for cannon. The Turkish army, I believe, was at the gates and behaving in an unfriendly manner."

  "Ah!" Paul said.

  The two sat in comfortable silence while Davoud busied himself filling and lighting a long, curved clay pipe. With a gesture he offered Paul some tobacco from an ornately carved wooden box, and Paul took a well-chewed brown pipe from his jacket pocket and filled it with the strong latakia mixture. "Thank you," he said. "Cigarettes for action, but a pipe for reflection."

  "That's what I say myself," the old man replied.

  "I know." Paul smiled. "I was quoting you."

  "Ah!" The two men were puffing away contentedly when, a couple of minutes later, Joseph wheeled a tea tray to the space between the two chairs and
filled two cups from a silver urn.

  Davoud took the clay pipe from his mouth and put it aside. "I saw a woman—a lady, actually—smoking a cigarette earlier today," he said, taking his cup in both hands and breathing in the aroma of the fresh-brewed tea. Paul looked at him inquiringly.

  He nodded. "It was at the Hotel Metropol, where I went to meet the young nobleman who wished to permit me to advance him five thousand kronen. She sat in the lobby. A dainty young thing with her hair up in a bun—so—and a trim black lace bonnet with a satin ribbon and a black velvet half-cape over a hunter-green gown. Elegant, she was. And while I waited for the youth to appear, she lit one of those long Balkan cigarettes and puffed away at it."