‘What! Have you any idea how cold it is out here after dark?’ she demands, her eyes lifting to regard him with renewed indignation. ‘Anyway, why should I do such a thing? You know the rules on mixing of the sexes. In fact, you should not even be talking to me like you are, not for so long a time as this. That is Frau Weiss over there watching us, my mentor. She is terribly strict.’
Yes, he remembers now - the woman from his first days here, the same formidable German lady who was present when he and his companions were obliged to go through the chanting ordeal and who subsequently took their colleague Marie away for her induction. He remembers her palest of blue eyes above all else. ‘Poppy, what I have to tell you - it really is jolly important,’ he continues undaunted. ‘I shan’t ask you again, or press you in any way. I will simply be here, and I will have something to share with you that will verify my integrity in this matter. Let’s say at seven this evening, dressed warmly, and I will wait for you. I only hope you will come.’
She looks into his eyes, wondering with some consternation over what she must say. To hear this person, someone she has not even been introduced to by the Society, speaking to her with such confidence and authority - it is all too preposterous. It would be even more preposterous to be seduced by it. And yet as she rises briskly from the table, without answer, and as she hurries away and returns inside to her special private chambers at the rear of the castle - a large empty space, once a theatre but now reserved exclusively for the training of senior neophytes - and as she changes to her loose meditation robes and takes up the drudgery and tedium of her daily disciplines once again, she suspects already that she will comply with his request. No one has talked to her like that for quite some time - a conversation so free of all the tiresome intensity of everyone else here, and with instead all those half-forgotten, hesitant delights and spoken melodies of flirtation that remind her so much of the outside world and of home - so that even after a moment away from this amusing and distinguished stranger, she feels a part of her has in some illogical way remained in his presence, as if he has captured her soul in one of his silly eggcups and taken it away with him. And she longs more than ever to return and connect that part of herself to him again.
Chapter 32
In the biting teeth of a cold easterly wind, Deborah Peters, drawing the lapels of her long black coat across her chin, emerges from the old tenement building where she has spent the night: a hostel in some dismal Viennese street, smelling of disinfectant and urine and in which the pleasure of sleep had been grasped only fitfully amid the ranting, raving and fighting of the other guests among themselves, male and female alike. She is familiar with this vast, cosmopolitan city, but of late has been forced to spend her time in parts of it that are distinctly unfamiliar - parts thronged with refugees, immigrants and the homeless, and which she had hitherto not even suspected as existing. At least it is a good distance from Bern, from the scene of the shot fired at the unfortunate Mr Small, and which she has convinced herself must surely have proved fatal to her tormentor. She must at all costs avoid arrest, not out of any selfish drive for self-preservation but because any day now she expects she might stumble upon a clue, something to lead her forwards in her search for Poppy. This is all that matters.
Of course, living rough in a state of poverty and desperation is not exactly the ideal way towards achieving such a goal. She realises this. Her appearance, having deteriorated in recent days, is an obstacle, too. Her extravagant black hat with its scrap of lace veil clinging beneath the brim, her once elegant but already scuffed and broken shoes combined with all those assorted items of jet and diamond jewellery, it is all such a puzzlement, this juxtaposition of rags and riches, and renders her a figure of suspicion or even one of hilarity much of the time among those she meets. For a man to be perceived as a vagrant was bad enough, but for a woman in mourning it must be especially shocking to the typical straight-laced members of Viennese society. Though naturally this self-imposed neglect is, in part, to maintain her disguise and avoid detection. This is what she tells herself - a necessary precaution until her quest to be reunited with her lost child is fulfilled.
On a personal level, the feelings she experiences as an outcast are different to what she had expected. Utterly different. The constant state of hunger is not easy to deal with, because it inhibits concentration. And one has to endure all the indignities of living at pavement level for hours at a time, living in the shelter of doorways or upon park benches - while everyone else is on their feet, busy, brandishing their umbrellas or canes as they rush by to work, or else trawling the shops for gifts and trinkets - everyone so sure of themselves in their clean, tidy state of conformity, their bellies full of wholesome food, their loins fired with direction and purpose.
But worse even than this is thirst. No one could ever have prepared her for the experience of being profoundly thirsty; to have a filthy, parched mouth and yet with no means of obtaining a simple glass of water, the blissful caress upon one’s lips and throat of cool clean water. How could they? And so, at times like this when her purse is empty and every street fountain in the city is frozen, she is forced to beg, to knock on doors or to venture into cafés or shops to simply ask the staff for water - though almost always they shut the door in her face, or show her out in fear or embarrassment. No one understands. They all assume there is some kind of joker in their midst - else someone intent on theft or burglary or, much worse, for the terrible, unforgivable self-indulgence of being mad.
Finding herself today in the city centre, she takes herself into the warmth and silent interior of a bookshop and goes to the section on ‘the occult.’ There are a good number of books on the shelves she recognises; these mostly in translation, but a reassuring sight nonetheless - commentaries on various strands of Eastern mysticism, too, on Buddhism, the Tao, the Bhagavad Gita. Well and good. But what she needs, and what she has really come here for is something more basic - her expert eye recognising within seconds the precise item she requires upon a nearby shelf, just as a female assistant, a tall woman her face clouded with concern, approaches from one side.
‘Can I help you?’ the woman asks nervously.
‘I require a deck of cards - Tarot cards - if possible the Swiss design. That has always been my preference,’ Deborah declares with an attempt at self-importance, as if the whole world should acknowledge her expertise on the subject. ‘Yes - look, you do have them,’ she confirms, reaching up for the familiar boxed set of cards, an effort that brings forth a burst of phlegmy coughing - for she has caught a chill here in Vienna and this she cannot seem to shake off.
More than a little hesitantly, the assistant leaves her to it, wandering away - only to keep returning, watching Deborah with ever-growing suspicion as this most singular and eccentric of customers takes a seat in a corner on the lower rungs of a step ladder and begins shuffling and laying out some of the cards there and then, using her lap with a folded newspaper as a surface; and almost straight away taking notes, writing with a thick black pencil on the back of an envelope.
‘Madam, this is not a library. The items here are to be purchased and taken away,’ the woman returning to her, whispers as kindly as she can manage. ‘What are you doing, anyway?’
‘I’m consulting the cards. These really are the best, based on the most ancient of symbolism. The major arcane of the pack is all I require, all that’s really needed to establish what is taking place in the affairs of a certain person I am interested in - as long as I bear that person in mind as I work, that is - as long as I am not distracted or interrupted.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the sales assistant replies icily. ‘Perhaps, then, you would care to purchase the cards and do your work at home?’
Deborah looks up and shakes her head, as if she has not heard. ‘Home?’ she echoes with confusion. ‘But I don’t have ...’
But then it all becomes too much. She finds herself sobbing, and this is sufficient to herald the arrival of what in all likelihood is the shop
manager, a male with a distinct look of authority at any rate in his suit and white starched collar, and with a face so well scrubbed and clean he is almost shiny.
‘You can’t do that in here!’ he barks, reddening at the gills.
‘I told her the same,’ the female assistant states, emboldened by the male presence at her side to be less lenient than before.
‘Go away, both of you!’ Deborah commands loudly, leaping to her feet and, taken unawares by her own outburst, with all the cards scattering as she does so.
‘Fetch a police officer,’ the manager orders over his shoulder to someone at the back of the shop, losing patience entirely as he ushers his colleague to safety with an outstretched arm.
Deborah, meanwhile, and right under the manager’s nose, gathers up the cards, along with a fair amount of dust and fluff off the floorboards, and with a look of utter defiance in his direction, stuffs them into her coat pocket.
‘If you would allow us to escort you from the shop, madam, we will not make a fuss,’ the man murmurs, beckoning over another male employer who has appeared on the scene: an older gentleman who would not be all that muscular, Deborah reflects - so she takes them on, the two of them. The result is a lengthy scuffle. There are some muffled screams from the female assistant, gasps of outrage from some of the other customers, and a good deal of unwholesome language from Deborah herself as she throws a heavy slap into the managers face, resistant to the last - until they, one on each side, take a hold of her arms and eject her from the shop, depositing her with a firm and unforgiving shove, outside on the pavements - no match, after all, for the two determined men.
‘Stupid, old tart!’ the manager shouts at her, using the language of the gutter now his victim has been duly re-established there. ‘I can confirm that a policeman has been sent for, so I suggest you make yourself scarce,’ he adds, dabbing at his face with a handkerchief - one eye of which looks to be bruised and is already turning dark. And with a final dismissive toss of the chin he has turned away and marched back inside.
Though walking at first slowly, unsteadily from the shop, it is not long before she finds herself hurrying - faster and faster - for did the wretched man not mention a policeman had been sent for? If so, it is the worst that could befall her - she the guilty one, the murderess. She feels her own weather-beaten face becoming streaked with tears; daylight tears - tears exposed to all the ridicule of the city streets and nothing that could be hidden or smothered in a soft pillow or comforting shoulder. ‘Yes, the police - the police are coming. Old woman, they had called her - old tart. Was it really so very bad, her appearance? ‘Hide, Deborah, hide your face!’
Then she realises she is muttering to herself. And although people sometimes stare when she does this, usually they just go about their business and ignore her with all the disdain of those who have seen a good amount of such behaviour one way or another, and never have any truck with lunatics or tramps on the streets. This is one of the more affluent parts of the city, moreover, a place where she herself once shopped and attended concerts and opera with her fine friends, long ago in happier days. How had it come to pass, she asks herself - to have slipped so far down the ladder of respectability and in so short a time? Could it really be possible?
Only one person, she recalls, Herman, had helped her back onto that ladder for one brief period, just the other day it was; one fleeting hour or two of pretence before the final slide - when even he had left and gone away, or so it seems to her in her befuddled state, forgetting for a moment that it was she who had been the one to run off. Her mind is playing tricks on her, she suspects, deceiving her - a notion that often takes her unawares - the two strands of thought going in different directions, rational and irrational all at once. In a physical sense, she has already hit rock bottom, and perhaps it is only inevitable her mind must follow - until now, this afternoon in the thickening snowfall as she continues her wandering between the shelter of one doorway to another, one arcade or public building to another, life becomes once again really only a matter of survival, of trying to beg steal or borrow enough to stay alive, nothing else - to stay alive so she might find Poppy. She coughs again at the effort of walking so far. How annoying. Her chest feels weak, her forehead and throat burning. She needs a doctor, needs rest, needs a glass of water - ah yes, cool, clean water. The greatest happiness.
Opposite, amid all the towering buildings with their scrolls and carved cornices, their tall, gaily lit windows and elegant marble-flanked doorways, there is a conditorie, a smart one, with shelves full of gorgeous cakes and pastries, and with lots of opulent winter-clad customers inside - she can see them behind the windows - sporting furs and lavishly crafted headgear or else with their coats and scarves placed lovingly on coat stands nearby, watched over by solicitous staff devoted to their every need. Seeing them thus, it doesn’t take her long to arrive at a decision - for had she not once frequented such places herself? And so with all the boldness and indifference born of familiarity, she opens the glass door and blithely shuffles her way inside.
Instantly, all the customers stare up in curiosity, before averting their eyes, shrinking from her, pretending not to have noticed. And, almost as quickly, a waitress is upon her.
‘Excuse me, have you made a mistake?’ she asks, her voice an agitated whisper. ‘This is probably not the kind of establishment you would feel comfortable in, madam.’
‘I need a drink,’ Deborah rasps loudly and realises even as she says it how this would be misconstrued. It wasn’t alcohol, she wanted. That was not what she meant at all: just water. Yet somehow she feels powerless to put the young lady right. The energy simply isn’t there any more.
‘Please leave,’ the young woman implores her, albeit with a touch of genuine sympathy. ‘Please. Otherwise I will have to ...’
But then Deborah’s attention is distracted and her eyes are drawn to a table nearby in the widow recess - because look who is sitting there with her back to her! Yes, she is certain it is her: one of her old clients. Yes, it is her: it’s Sylvia! - the grand old lady of high society with all her pearls and monstrous blond wig, sat there alone, surveying the snowfall and the busy streets outside, her neck and back a little too stiff and too upright to render at all viable the pretence of being unaware of the maniac in her midst who was once her friend.
‘Oh, hello dar-l-l-l-ling,’ Deborah drawls in mock imitation of the other woman’s Italianate voice, or her recollection of it at any rate - as, leaning on the back of an adjacent chair, she brings her haggard face down almost to tabletop height to stare upwards.
Sylvia’s eyes meet hers only with caution and reluctance, her features indignant and yet frightened all at the same time. Surely she could no longer pretend not to have recognised her?
‘No don’t get up, dar-l-l-l-ling,’ Deborah urges her, trying to shake off the many solicitous hands and clasps of restraint already entangled around her arms and shoulders as the staff of the café converge upon her, preventing her all the while from taking a seat next to her friend, as she would have wished.
For a moment she breaks free and again meets Sylvia’s anxious eyes.
‘Look Sylvia - outside!’ she demands and points to the window and the busy street. ‘All those people out there - do you see them? So civilised. Yes, but without their bellies filled three times a day, a thousand animals who would tear at your throat for a crust.’
Possibly there is some flicker of recognition then. But whatever vestige of native intelligence remains in Sylvia’s consciousness, so governed by its own self-importance and so weakened by the daily fight against advancing age, it is not sufficient to reach any firm or definite conclusion. It is all so amusing, Deborah decides, so she bursts out laughing. She cannot help herself. She laughs and laughs - until just seconds later she finds herself outside again, seated on the steps of a frozen fountain, yet still laughing. She laughs until she cries - because it wasn’t even Sylvia - no, not her after all! Deborah, glancing over her shoulder can
see that now - just some other old girl with a blond wig that looks like her sat there in the window seat, and all the people attending to her tearful countenance.
‘Yes,’ Deborah thinks, ‘this mind of mine is definitely not behaving as it should.’ Most confusing.
Yet even now, she will not despair - no, never! Because the crumpled old envelope with its notes from the bookshop scrawled upon its surface is still in her possession. And this she takes once more in her hands just to confirm her findings, even fishing out one or two of the cards from her pocket as, one by one, she raises them and places them to her lips - the gaudy, brightly coloured one called The Empress. The one called The Chariot. The Wheel of Fortune, too - yes, the wheel of fortune turning, she is almost certain she can see it going round as she glances at it once again. And the glorious Star, her favourite card - rising once more with all its benevolence and protection, even amid The Lightning-Struck Tower, that one inauspicious obstacle to her joy. But it can be overcome.
And even as the snow falls upon the old envelope and makes the writing run, the truth is there for all to see, impossible to erase: that this is the day, at last, when Poppy’s destiny rises from obscurity.
‘Have courage, Poppy, wherever you are - you who are everything I shall never be. Soon you will be released from your dark prison. This I know,’ she declares aloud, her voice almost exultant.
But nobody is listening.
Chapter 33
With scarcely any luggage save for a military-style foraging bag about his shoulder, Herman, in the company of a fellow passenger in the cab out from the station at Castle Douglas, is carried steadily, mile by mile along the narrow roads of the Scottish Lowlands closer and closer to his destination. With secrecy essential, he does his best to avoid the formalities of conversation. The beguiling rhythm of the horse’s march; the fir trees laden with icy droplets, their shadows long and unfathomable as the darkness falls, plus the recollection of his meetings with Poppy just a few short days ago, are all so much more intriguing and demanding of attention than any of the bland snippets of chit-chat emanating from his companion, a gentleman lawyer returning to his home from Dumfries, and whose comments mercifully become less and less frequent with the passing of time as Herman, deep in the tangle of his own private meditations, fails to respond to any great extent to his eloquence.
THE HOURS BEFORE: A Story of Mystery and Suspense from the Belle Époque Page 32