The Fig Eater

by Jody Sheilds

  They discovered an enemy in the Naturhistorisches Museum. Snow. Once the fig tree is laid under earth and snow, hidden away from their eyes, the murderer is safe.

  “Maybe the fig tree is firewood by now.” Wally wants reassurance.

  “Why would the murderer go to the trouble of cutting down the tree? For all he knows, there’s no reason to even be concerned about it. He believes the figs he gave Dora are safe inside her body. Already buried underground. We have a few weeks to find the fig tree.”

  “That’s what we hope.”

  Erszébet shrugs. “Don’t complain. We have nothing else to follow. No evidence. You see, we must be more cunning than the murderer. More cunning than my husband.”

  Wally waits.

  “There’s a way to predict when it will snow,” Erszébet says suddenly.

  “How?”

  “There are signs to read. I can kill a goose and examine its breast meat while it is fresh. If the flesh is light colored, snow will soon fall. If it is dark, there will be a period of rain.”

  They have a space of time, although the weather has already grown chilly and twilight comes earlier every day. Erszébet has told her that by mid-November it will be so dark the lamps on the streets will be lit by midafternoon.

  A week later, Pietznigg sends Erszébet an official description of the Ficus carica, copied by hand in an elaborate script.

  Col di Signora Nigra. Medium-sized fig, 6 by 4 centimeters. Shape ovate pyriform, obtuse at apex: neck very narrow and long, curved and swollen toward the stalk end. Rib markings are distinct on the body and on the neck and stalk. Color, dark violet chocolate with a slight greenish flush in the shade, the swollen part of the neck close to the stalk being bluish-green. Apex dark violet brown, with here and there a flush of bright bluish green. Bloom thick, bluish white. Pulp very dark bloodred, of exquisite flavor and sweetness: meat greenish yellow.

  Erszébet continues her research on Ficus carica, the edible fig. She decides the myths involving women are especially significant.

  The fig was worshiped in early Rome. During Bacchanalian orgies, men carried statues of Priapus carved from fig wood. Women wore figs around their necks as symbols of fertility.

  Judas hung himself on a fig tree. For that reason, St. Jerome claimed the fig was cursed, haunted by spirits, “obscene monsters,” he called them.

  Every morning Wally looks anxiously out of her window, Has it snowed? She presses her hand against the glass, checking the temperature outside.

  Little winter light, and even less air, comes through the tall French doors in her room. Her first winter in Vienna, she was amused by the insulation installed in the windows. To keep out drafts, a flat cushion — like a thin mattress — was fitted into the bottom half of the windows between the double panes of glass.

  Wally still isn’t accustomed to the light in the city, although both London and Vienna are located near the reflective presence of water. Thick fogs are also part of Vienna’s landscape, isolating streets and buildings as ably as a flood.

  On certain streets, her eye always picks out the houses painted yellow, which indicates the building once belonged to someone in the imperial household. The rest of Vienna’s stonework, its statues, walls, and cobblestones, is a blur of grayness. She refuses to become familiar with the city, keeping a distance. This is her only acknowledgment of her homesickness.

  Underneath Vienna, there is another kind of light. She’s seen it, following a guide’s faint torch into the Michaelerkirche crypt, where hundreds of corpses are visible in half-open coffins or stacked on top of each other, their shriveled flesh and fine clothing cold and intact for hundreds of years. Here, even the shadows have a different quality.

  She found the darkness in the crypt seemed to have no depth, moving like a wash of ink over the nerveless hands, the limp neck ruffs, the innermost folds of the corpses’ clothing, a steady black tide pushed back only by the weak light of their candles and torches.

  After the guide’s tour had ended and she stood in the nave of the Michaelerkirche, she discovered her gloves were stiff, completely covered with wax where her candle had melted.

  As she listens to Wally’s story, Erszébet realizes she’s placed the memory of Dora’s corpse and the young laundress together in a deep intimacy, a dark well that beckons and may engulf her.

  After a moment, she asks Wally if the children she takes care of are afraid of the dark.

  “Yes. I leave the door open when little Hans is in bed, so there’s light in his room from the hallway. He cries whenever someone walks past, because their shadows fall on his bed. He used to be afraid of horses.”

  Erszébet remembers when she was very young and saw a photograph for the first time. The shadow of the man who took the picture was in the foreground. The image frightened her. It was like her book about Peter Schlemihl, the boy who sold his shadow to the devil for gold. She was fascinated by the book, reading it over and over. One engraving showed Peter Schlemihl looking the other way as the spiky black figure of the devil delicately peeled his shadow off the ground with pointed fingertips. Even after the shadow was taken from the boy, it still kept his shape.

  Erszébet believes the evidence of the crime is Dora’s shadow. If she peers into its blackness, she will be able to decipher the original shape that cast it.

  Wally sent a sympathy note to Dora’s mother. As Wally had hoped, she wrote back, inviting her to Jause at five o’clock.

  Now Dora’s mother ushers Wally into the drawing room, where a samovar, small sandwiches, and torten are arranged on a table draped with an intricate Turkish weaving. She motions to the sofa. Wally refuses her first and second invitations before she finally sits on the edge of a stiff cushion. Seating a guest is a ritual, and she has lived here long enough to understand its peculiar etiquette. She smiles sympathetically at her hostess.

  Grief and sleeplessness have laid a dry hand on the older woman’s face, hollowing her cheeks, clenching her eyes in wrinkles. She wears black, and her old-fashioned crepe dress absorbs the light. She is eager to talk and asks Wally how she knew Dora.

  “We met at a lecture,” Wally lies. “We were reading the same books.”

  “Dora always wanted to go to the Mädchenlyzeum. She loved to read, although her father didn’t like her to attend lectures.”

  “Yes, she told me.”

  “He argued with her. She’d leave the house anyway. Now I think he was right to insist she stay home.”

  “You didn’t know what would happen.”

  Dora’s mother begins to ramble. “If I’d known she was going out that night, I would have stopped her. Last week, I woke up because I thought the front door opened and Dora had come back. I got out of bed and stood in the hall, but the door was closed. It was a dream.”

  Wally clatters her fork against her plate, sets her brittle cup down with a sharp click to bring back Dora’s mother, who stares straight ahead, oblivious to everything in the room. Wally waits a moment before she speaks, making her voice light.

  “Who would Dora have been meeting that night? Another friend? Maybe someone I know?”

  Wally fights her impulse to stroke the woman’s hand, to comfort her. Dora’s mother turns slowly away from her grief to focus on Wally. Like an eye at a keyhole, peering into some immense space.

  “She must have met a friend. I know my daughter.”

  “Who? Do you know who it was? Did anyone tell you they saw her that night?”

  The woman doesn’t answer. Her eyes trace the geometrically patterned cloth on the table, as if trying to decipher some message in its bright angles.

  “No.”

  “Did Dora keep a journal?”

  She whispers. “I can’t bear to look through her papers. I’ve locked her room.”

  They sit in silence. Frustrated, Wally doesn’t know what to ask her next. Nothing the woman has said is useful. She can’t tell what’s wrong. Their conversation seems to be ajar.

  Dora’s mother cove
rs her face with her hands, then pulls her fingers down her cheeks. Her eyes look wildly around the room.

  “Gypsies. My husband thinks Gypsies took her. They have charms. They can creep in while you sleep, and you never hear them. They can walk right by your bed. But you’re English, you don’t know.”

  “I believe in such things.”

  “How old did you say you are?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “You speak well for a foreigner. Did Dora ever say anything about her family, about me?”

  “She said you were a comfort to her.”

  Her face sags with relief and sorrow. Wally wishes she had turned her eyes away. They stare at each other. Then she crushes Wally in an embrace, and they’re both sobbing.

  Later, they walk to the door, their arms around each other. Their tears have made them more tender with each other. Wally is surprised that she welcomed the woman’s soothing words, even her display of emotion. But she also wants to pull away, as if the connection of their hands will betray her.

  “You’ll come back and visit? I want to give you something of Dora’s.”

  Wally nods, afraid she’ll start crying again if she speaks.

  After Wally slips out the door she walks for a distance, her knees and feet moving automatically, her vision thickened by tears. She remembers a story the church guide told her. Empress Maria Theresa ordered her daughter Josepha to the Kapuzinerkirche, to pray in the crypt where her relatives who died of smallpox were entombed. Josepha refused. They argued. The empress insisted. Josepha obeyed her mother, and while praying she was infected with smallpox. She died quickly, shortly before she was to have married.

  On a street corner near the Judengasse, the Inspector stops at the sight of an extraordinary figure, a woman sponge seller. The thick sponges are threaded on strings wound around her body, so she’s completely covered with the weightless, shaggy brown shapes, like an ancient statue pulled from water, overgrown with sealife. She moves with slow and halting steps, as if obeying a different pull of gravity. As she turns to talk to a customer, the wind picks up the second woman’s thin silk skirt and smoothes it over the rough sponges. He wonders if he should take this strange vision as a sign. He knows his wife would.

  As soon as he arrives at the police station on the Schottenring, the Inspector sends a letter to Herr Zellenka requesting an appointment. The messenger has orders to wait for an immediate reply.

  When the boy returns to the station, he describes Herr Zellenka’s reaction to the letter. He heard Zellenka raise his voice in the next room. He was angry. No, he couldn’t make out his words or see his face. Then the secretary came back and said the Inspector could call on Herr Zellenka in his office this afternoon.

  It is now three o’clock, and Herr Zellenka welcomes the Inspector, apparently untroubled by his visit. They perform the ritual of shaking hands and he solemnly takes the Inspector’s hat and walking stick.

  In his office, they light cigars and he graciously indicates the Inspector should sit in front of his desk, looking into the window. This must be deliberate, for the Inspector has to squint to make out his host’s face against the light. The standup collar of Zellenka’s white shirt is a sharp white triangle in the dim room, underneath a jacket he recognizes as the exacting handiwork of Knize, the finest tailor in Vienna. Zellenka is a successful commercial agent and frequently travels out of town on business. He has a handsome man’s confidence.

  “What can I do for you, Inspector?”

  “I’m exploring the facts about Dora’s death,” the outrage, as he occasionally calls it in polite society. He notes Zellenka’s meticulousness, his polished fingernails. A small pair of scissors for clipping cigars, a gold pen, and a letter opener are set precisely parallel to each other on his desk.

  “I’m certain you can understand this is difficult for me. I don’t believe I’ve ever had occasion to speak to a policeman before.” His broad, imperturbable face is creased with a temporary wrinkle of worry.

  The Inspector checks his impatience. To let Zellenka know he’s ignoring his comment, he searches busily through two pockets before taking out his notebook. He has the impression the man is well rehearsed and feigns an emotionalism he doesn’t possess. He puts this thought aside to analyze later.

  He asks him to describe his relationship with Dora and her family.

  “First let me say what a terrible tragedy this is. I’m very affected by it. I’ve been close to Dora and her family for over six years. Our families always vacation together.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Every year, our families visit a resort in Merano. My wife and our children, Dora, her brother, Otto, and their parents. Of course we stay at the Bristol. Have you been there?”

  The Inspector makes an entry in his notebook: Herr K. boastful. Confident chatter.

  “Never. Both families stay at the Bristol?”

  “Yes. Dora and my wife were inseparable. They shared a room.”

  Asked to describe Dora, he shakes his head. “She was a lovely girl, although very headstrong. She had modern ideas, which made things difficult for her at home. She and her mother constantly disagreed. She wasn’t fair to Dora, but she’s just a backward woman from Königinhof. Dora’s health was fragile, and the constant bickering didn’t help.”

  “What did Dora suffer from?”

  “Migraines. Women’s ills. I don’t know, a nervous cough. Inspector, I’m no expert on young women. Ask her mother.”

  “And her father, what was their relationship like?”

  “Ah, now you’ve touched on something.” He rocks back in his chair, obviously relishing what he’s about to say. “I’m telling you this in confidence, you understand. Her mother was jealous of the girl’s relationship with her father. She could do no wrong in his eyes. He always took her side against the mother, and believe me, I would have done the same.”

  He leans over his desk, propelling his watch chain to swing from his jacket pocket, heavy, dull gold. The Inspector understands he wants him to pay close attention to his next words. In the same way, a pretty woman driving a fiaker will sometimes tie a bunch of violets to her whip with ribbon, just for show.

  “Dora and her father were unusually close. In fact, she and my wife took turns caring for him when he was ill. Dora once told my wife that sometimes her father walked into her bedroom while she was undressing.”

  The Inspector senses the man is holding his breath. He angles his face toward his notebook, dodging Zellenka’s eager eyes, which crowd him, watching for his reaction. His acceptance. He looks up and smiles, his expression guileless, flat as a piece of paper.

  “Perhaps Dora’s father opened the wrong door by mistake?”

  Zellenka makes his mouth into a bitter line. “Doubtful. He’s a very deliberate man.”

  “He also claims you know something of interest about the crime.”

  He shakes his head. “Because of my peculiar relationship with Philipp, I hope you won’t take his statements too seriously. He’s told you about our understanding?”

  “Yes. I’d like to hear your version.”

  “When a man has friends he has no secrets, isn’t that true, Inspector?” He grants him a joyless smile. “Since you already know our intimate little secret, I don’t want to waste your time or mine. But I’d like you to confirm no one else will be questioned about this private matter.”

  “It’s impossible for me to make such a promise. As unpleasant as it might be, it’s in your best interest to tell me your side of the story.”

  Zellenka restraightens the scissors and the letter opener. He doesn’t look up. “Philipp has been having an affair with my wife for several years. You’ll be surprised, but I have no animosity. He is — or was — my dearest friend. He was stricken with tuberculosis, and she brought him back to health. He believes she saved his life. So do I. He’s alive, but my wife’s affection was the price.”

  “He said your friendship had suffered.”


  “I’m surprised he would say such a thing. I have no ill will toward him. None. It is all very tidy. Everyone knows the circumstances — except for his wife. You must think this is an extraordinary arrangement for two men to make. My motto is Biegen, nicht brechen.” Bend, but do not break. Although he smiles broadly, his charming show is hardly spontaneous.

  The Inspector has never heard a more casual acceptance of adultery. Before he can stop himself, his face becomes a mask, rejecting the other man’s assumption of a shared sensibility. He struggles to keep his mind blank, trying not to get caught on Zellenka’s words. As if he were being swept downstream and must resist the urge to grab at a branch. He permits himself no safety. He scrawls a few lines in his notebook to calm himself before continuing.

  “Was your wife jealous of Dora’s relationship with her father?”

  “Hardly. She made certain Dora was on her side. She won the girl over. In fact, I suspect Dora had a schoolgirl crush on her. No, my wife is only jealous of Philipp’s wife, pathetic as she is.”

  Zellenka is preoccupied, focused on some impression from the past.

  The Inspector quickly speaks, hoping to catch him off guard. “Why did you quarrel with Dora?”

  The man’s slow reaction signals his discomfort.

  “Quarrel? Ah, I see her father must have misinterpreted something. We didn’t quarrel. I’ll tell you the truth about her. Dora was subject to nervous attacks. She’d take offense and cry at nothing. If someone angered her, she wouldn’t speak to them for days. Did her father tell you she’d lose her voice? She’d actually become dumb.”

  The Inspector continues writing without looking down at the book in his hand. “So there was no specific disagreement. You say the girl was nervous. Just for my records, sir, can you tell me your whereabouts the evening of Dora’s murder?”

  His face registers no trace of uneasiness. “Certainly. I spent the evening with Fräulein Rosza, Dora’s former promeneuse.”