The Little Book: A Novel

by Edwards, Selden

  “That is very impressive,” Wheeler said. “You entertained the great entertainer.”

  “Hardly that,” she said. “And I have played cello with Clara back home on a number of occasions, so we know each other, but I have yet to see her in Vienna. I have been thinking I must contact her.”

  They fell silent for a moment, watching the hotel pass, and Wheeler smiled at the thought of paying an informal social call on Mark Twain.

  They crossed the canal and came to the entrance of the famous park.

  The Prater, one of the spectacles of Vienna, was the spacious 4,300-acre public park to the east of the old city, adjoining the Leopoldstadt. Once the private hunting estate for the imperial family, during the time of Mozart, the Emperor Joseph II donated it to the public trust. Its numerous outdoor and indoor restaurants, cafés, and gathering places were the scenes of celebrations and merriment during the full calendar year.

  They had lunch at one of the many cafés and then went to the Giant Wheel. “This is quite the new thing to do,” Wheeler said. “We must go up.”

  “Or see it at least,” she said. “It was built after an American design, you know. An English engineering firm, but after the design of the original Ferris wheel, made for the Chicago World’s Fair five years ago. It’s quite a feat.”

  “You seem to know a good deal about it,” Wheeler said.

  “I wanted to study engineering in college. But the ladies back home in Boston wouldn’t have approved. That, and a small problem,” she said, trying to look up at the imposing structure.

  “And what would that be?”

  “Fear of heights,” she said timidly. “It’s hard to be an engineer with that hindrance, so I studied literature and music.”

  They stood in line for a time, and he bought tickets. She was looking up now at the top of the two-hundred-foot circular structure. “I suppose it is safe.”

  “Well, Miss James,” he said, ushering her toward the wheel’s small stairway. “You have come to Vienna to be venturesome.”

  She looked up again, then stopped frozen as they stepped toward the open door of the cabin. “Perhaps not this venturesome,” she said meekly. “It gives me a peculiar feeling in my stomach.”

  “It should,” Wheeler teased. “If woman was intended to fly, God would have given her wings.”

  “You are teasing,” she said and laid her hand ever so gently on his arm, for support. “You are far more worldly than I.” Wheeler looked at her face and could see that she had turned quite ashen. “I think I might faint,” she said in little more than a whisper.

  “It is completely safe,” he said in the most reassuring tone he could muster, but he stood still and did not move forward until she was ready. “Midwestern American engineering. Thousands of trips up and down without a mishap.”

  “I think it is not for all people.”

  “We don’t have to, you know.” He took a beginning step away from the carriage door and felt a sudden pull from her hand.

  “No,” she said abruptly. “I want to do it. I want you to take me.” It came out like a command.

  Wheeler moved them both toward the open door. “All right, then. Just don’t look up.”

  “No,” she said emphatically again. “I do not want to be controlled by my own silly fear. I shall look up, and you will guide me.”

  “Very well,” Wheeler said, and she matched his step forward. The only residue of her terror was the hand on his arm that had changed from the most delicate grip to a viselike one.

  “I do not wish to be fearful. It is a silly consequence of my upbringing.”

  “Then take small steps,” Wheeler said with a patient voice. “Take small steps.” As they entered the carriage, Wheeler thought of the scene in the 1949 movie The Third Man when Joseph Cotten meets Orson Welles in this very wheel, a movie Miss James might see near the end of her life. As the Giant Wheel set into motion, there was an almost minuscule lurching. “What was that?” she said, jerking his arm.

  “We just started up. It is very normal. I will let you know if anything untoward happens.”

  After one half revolution, the cabin came to rest near the top of the wheel, rocking slightly. “What is it doing?” she said, her eyes wide with something very close to terror. Her hand had not relinquished its command of his arm.

  “They are letting people on at the bottom side of the wheel,” he said, now patting the clutching hand. “It is still within the normal range.”

  The cabin rocked gently and all of imperial Vienna lay out before them. “Is it meant to be this way then?”

  “It is meant to be this way.” For a moment, he felt the soft warmth of her covering hand. She had calmed a bit.

  “My heart has stopped racing.”

  “Don’t forget to breathe,” he said calmly. “And don’t forget to look.” From the top of the Giant Wheel one could get a beautiful view of the old city just to the south. They were standing back from the window. As Wheeler leaned forward, he could feel her stiffen, then she looked up at him and smiled almost pathetically.

  “One should not be afraid to approach the window, should one?”

  “One should not,” Wheeler said. “Remember, small steps forward.” And together as in the first tentative step of a dance, they moved forward, until their faces were nearly pressed to the glass.

  “You are very courageous,” Wheeler said.

  “You have initiated me well.” Her grip on his arm loosened.

  “Nothing to fear,” she said, obviously trying to be convincing. “This is nothing I have ever done before, but there is nothing to fear.”

  “It would be a shame to allow such fears to interfere with the splendor of this view.” Wheeler gestured with his hand out toward the vista before them. The day was remarkably crisp and clear.

  “One can see all the way to the Alps,” she said, her left hand now relaxed on his arm, and from it Wheeler could feel her warmth and an incredible softness. It saturated his arm and gave a warm tingling at the base of his neck.

  For a moment, he was overcome by the sudden memory of the descriptions of this very scene that came from the Haze’s beloved Little Book. “City of music,” he said in a reverential whisper, as if to invoke the spirit of his great mentor.

  She looked up at him, struck immediately by his tone. “That’s it, isn’t it?” she said softly. “City of music,” she said, matching his reverence. Then she paused and looked back at the vista. “You have such a power with summary, Mr. Truman. I must admit that I find it totally enchanting.”

  “Most of the words you like I’ve borrowed.”

  “Well, borrowed or not, they are enchanting nonetheless.”

  The carriage lurch again was minuscule, and they began their downward movement. “What was that?” she said suddenly, her grip tightening on his arm.

  “Normal range,” Wheeler said. “We’re descending.” He looked over at her, taking a hard look at her beautiful profile as she gazed out at nothing in particular through the large thick glass of the cabin. He was suddenly feeling guilty about having come this far and the thrill it brought.

  “There is something I wish to tell you,” she said slowly, the words seeming to give Wheeler time. She paused, bolstering again, but her warm hand stayed unmoved and steady on his arm. “I have a second identity,” she said, and Wheeler had an almost uncontrollable urge to tell her to stop, but she went on. “It is a secret and a deceit that might shock you.” Wheeler held his breath, but said nothing. “I am here in Vienna on an assignment to write about music for a famous American newspaper.”

  “Please tell me about it,” Wheeler said, and out poured the story of how a pseudonym was created in a college parlor and became a successful and controversial music critic for The New York Times.

  “His modern ideas raised quite a stir,” she concluded.

  Wheeler showed the trace of a smile, but he did not move. He closed his eyes for a moment and then looked over at her beautiful, elegant profile an
d noticed how this new wrinkle in her circumstance enhanced his feeling of affection for this independent young woman. “So you have gained some notoriety and are here to write, under an assumed name?” he said.

  “Yes. I have already mailed two reviews and I am working on the third. But I have”—her free hand swept out over the broad vista out the carriage window—“distractions.”

  “These articles you have written in a man’s voice are well known?” he asked.

  “I fear they are,” she said, and Wheeler shook his head and remained silent for a moment, the news carrying with it a surprising and unexplainable weight.

  “Are you shocked that a young lady would represent herself as a man?” she said.

  “No,” Wheeler said quickly, grasping for equilibrium. “I am impressed. ”

  “You aren’t shocked that a proper young lady would do such a thing?”

  “No,” Wheeler repeated. “Not in the least. I am just concerned all of a sudden that I might be getting in the way of such a noble enterprise. A distraction.”

  Relieved, she said, “Oh my, no. You are serving as my muse, if a man can serve in such a role.” And she laid her hand on his arm now in a way that brought to Wheeler a warm smile.

  “If a woman can write as a man, I’m sure a man can serve as a muse. It seems only fair.”

  She turned and her eyes said how much she did not want him to take offense. “You are not shocked then?” she said.

  “Not in the least,” he said, working to make it come out lightly. “And besides, I have a great fondness for pen names.” He could see the enormous relief in her eyes as the cabin began moving again, toward earth, and her hand stayed, giving its warmth to his arm.

  “You don’t think it too progressive?”

  His smile broadened. “I do not,” he said. “In fact, I think it quite remarkable and impressive. Courageous even.”

  “Oh,” she said with a great release of tension. “I am so glad.” She paused. “Now I need the courage to get it done. I fear I have run out of my small supply.”

  Wheeler stopped and took a deep breath, trying his best to hide his concern for Dilly’s admonition. She seemed to sense nothing.

  “I thank you,” she said as they exited the cabin of the Giant Wheel, her hand now back to resting delicately on his arm, “for guiding me past my fear of heights.”

  “You are one who tries to do things all at once, I suspect,” Wheeler said, smiling.

  “You are very observant,” she said. “That is my great flaw. I am too impulsive. I want things all at once. I need to remember—” She paused and thought for a moment, then returned Wheeler’s smile. “You have taught me to take small steps.”

  “It is my greatest accomplishment since arriving in Vienna, I think. A great pleasure.”

  “Will you still walk with me mornings by the canal then?” she said.

  He stared into her beautiful smiling face and noticed once again the slight blush. “Starting tomorrow,” Wheeler said, quickly realizing that he was in too deep.

  29

  The Enormous Weight of History

  At first, just as she had not told her new friend Mr. Truman about her male pseudonym, she had also not elaborated on her embarrassing meeting with Gustav Mahler. She felt that the information was private and perhaps pretentious, scandalous even. She had been thrilled to meet Herr Mahler, and regretted deeply the negative light her humiliating frailty cast on the incident, how it turned out to be an embarrassment far too complicated to explain to anyone. But now on her morning walk beside the Danube Canal with this strange man from San Francisco, now that the part about her New York Times notoriety was out of the bag, she began to feel that she might reveal the whole bundle.

  She had looked forward to the next time she would be with him more than she admitted to herself, a fact she was forced to confront when, up and dressed, she noticed in herself a distinct apprehension that perhaps he might not appear, that he had been leading her on for some reason and had no intention of meeting her for the morning walk. Why had this feeling developed as quickly as it had? He seemed so deeply sensitive, so aware of what she felt. He said that he had had a love of his life many years before and that he had loved her very much, maybe he had even been married, but she had died. Perhaps that was the reason.

  She felt such a surge of relief when he called for her at the pension that it took a good deal of time before she realized he was slightly reserved this morning. As they walked and she told him more and more about herself and about the Mahler incident, she began to attribute his subtle distance to the fact that, as an older man and not one of her circle of friends, he felt with her something of an outsider, and that perhaps he found her immature and silly. One of her tasks for the morning was to convey to him how very much she preferred his company to any of the young Viennese she had come to know, and how she found him unusually kind. Of course, what one was going to say before the event is markedly different from what comes out of one’s mouth in the immediacy of the situation. “Mr. Truman, ” she began as they walked along the canal. She had placed her hand on his arm, as she had done in the cabin of the Giant Wheel, when she had found in him such warm reassurance. “For the remainder of your stay in Vienna, I would enjoy spending the majority of my time—” She paused. It was not exactly as she had planned to say it, but it was close enough. She pressed on. “I would enjoy spending time in your company.”

  She had not realized until that moment how vulnerable she had made herself, how for the second time in Vienna she was about to appear terribly foolish in front of an older man. She watched in something akin to horror as he hung his head and looked down at his feet. She could tell from the way he held himself that he was preparing to deliver in the most tactful and considerate manner possible—in the name of pity and sensitivity to her innocence—what would be the most stinging rebuke of her young life.

  Wheeler had spent the evening mulling over his conversation with Dilly about minimal contact and the dilemma it brought with it. Dilly’s reproaches about interfering with Frank Burden’s time in Vienna in even the slightest way sat heavily on him. His candid conversations with Sigmund Freud were already a violation, and now to begin a liaison of the heart? He would simply have to go out of his way to avoid this young Emily James from Amherst, Massachusetts. It did not matter that he found her independent spirit irresistible and compelling and that he felt a warm glow from her cheery company, an antidote to the loneliness of being in a strange land. He would simply have to avoid her, and the way to do that in the most effective manner was to walk with her along the canal the next morning, be cordial but distant, and then simply not arrange any more meetings with her, making the necessary excuses so as to cause her the least discomfort. He needed to establish clearly that he was an older man with older tastes in both art and company. Without hurting her feelings— he did not wish to interfere even the slightest with her emotions—he would gently arrange not to see her again.

  He called for her at the pension. Fraulein Tatlock was exceedingly friendly and offered him a seat in the front room as she went to the stairs and called for Miss James. She entered the room with a burst of good cheer, as if she might have thought he was not going to show up.

  Outside it was a glorious morning, clear and with a fresh chill in the air. She placed her hand gently on his arm as she had done on the Giant Wheel the day before, an act he interpreted then and now as one of polite but innocuous convention. They walked along Karntner-Strasse, past St. Stephen’s Cathedral, to the canal. He had been powerfully impressed the day before with the story of her publication of music articles in The New York Times, under the pseudonym of a man. Now, with a remarkable calmness she told him of her meeting with Gustav Mahler, the director of the Vienna Opera, and of her embarrassment of fainting.

  As he was taking his last walk with her, just as they passed the cathedral, where Rotenturm-Strasse began, the enormity landed on him suddenly. What if they walked headlong into Dilly or Sigmun
d Freud, or, for that matter, Frank Burden?

  “I so much prefer seeing Vienna,” she broke into his thought, “through new eyes such as yours than through the jaded vision of the young Viennese. ”

  When they reached the canal, she had begun telling him how much she enjoyed this time in Europe by herself and how greatly she appreciated the kind, inattentive sponsorship of Fraulein Tatlock. “I will not stay in Vienna forever,” she said with purpose, “and I will certainly return to a conventional life back home eventually. But for the time being—” She looked out beyond the canal to the Praterstrasse and the Danube beyond, and sighed with conviction. “—I am enjoying myself greatly.”

  She stopped and took a deep breath, as if to cinch up her courage. And, at the very moment that Wheeler was thinking how lovely she looked with the rosy glow of a morning walk on her cheeks and her eyes so clear and full of life and future, she spoke her mind.

  Wheeler could not remember ever seeing another human so completely devoid of guile saying something to him so completely captivating and appealing. He looked away for a long moment, recapturing the steely resolve of the previous evening, knowing full well what he was obligated, by fateful circumstance and Dilly’s admonition, to do. Wheeler himself took a deep breath and began. “Miss James, I think that is the nicest offer anyone has ever made to me. However, I must tell you—” He stopped, feeling the enormous weight of history on his head, catching for a briefest instant the look of apprehension on her face. Oh, to hell with it!

  “I too would enjoy—” he began again. “I would enjoy very much spending the majority of my time with you.”

  30

  The Illusion of Flight

  In 1897, during Wheeler Burden’s time there, Vienna sat at the center of the vast and richly diverse Hapsburg empire that had once controlled half of Europe and now included a collection of important satellite cities, Prague, Cracow, Sarajevo, and Budapest among them. Twenty years later, by the end of World War I, the empire would be dissolved, the ruling family exiled, and the great imperial city reduced to a small insignificant position governing little more than itself. During the time of Wheeler’s visit, Vienna was a city in turmoil, although few people living within the confined perspective of the time—listening to operetta music, eating Sacher torte mitt schlagg, waltzing till exhaustion—wanted to notice it or admit it. The pro-Germans wanted alliance with Germany; the Slavs and Hungarians wanted independence, their own separate states and their own language; the working classes wanted better public services and housing; the artists wanted freedom from the old order; the sons in general wanted out from under the oppressive thumbs of their fathers. Just below the surface of the gaiety of the city there was such a powerful turmoil, in fact, that to an astute and pessimistic critic of the Café Central crowd or a historian with the benefit of hindsight who searched for the kernel by peeling away the layers nearly a century later, the whole culture appeared a whirling mass, headed for apocalypse. And if there was any one unifying and precipitating event that symbolized and perhaps played a major role in causing the unraveling, it was the tragedy at Mayerling nine years before.