The Spider of Sarajevo

by Robert Wilton

  She had the uncomfortable sense that she was speaking on behalf of the British Empire. ‘That I have the honour to be here, sir, is the best demonstration of that aspiration to peace, which I’m sure we all share.’

  ‘Well’ – his eyes screwed up, and opened again – ‘we might debate that last bit; but that was prettily said.’ He surveyed the table, like a conductor picking up his baton. ‘Well, dear Baroness, dear young lady, Doctor, Eckhardt, my dear’ – a bow to each, the last to his wife at the other end – ‘I bid you welcome.’ And they started on the soup.

  Hathaway had come downstairs as they were about to go into dinner, and the introductions had been brief. Niemann had presented the Baroness von Suttner as ‘a fellow novelist, and an enthusiast for peace’, and something had died in the baroness’s face, sad and fleshy and powdered – as if one of these occupations was an unseemly secret, or as if the experience of finding seventy years of life so briefly summarized had caused a sudden and complete acknowledgement of failure. Sitting to Niemann’s right and opposite Hathaway, she stared down now, a crown of high-piled hair slipping forwards and threatening to overbalance her into the soup.

  ‘I am curious, Fräulein.’ She turned away gratefully from the two models of age. To her left was the doctor – Müller – a sanatorium had been mentioned. ‘You do not seem either a relative or an acolyte of our host. Has his notoriety won him a place in the Baedeker guide for Germany? One of the country’s… what shall we say?’

  ‘Monuments?’

  A laugh boomed in his chest, and was swallowed. ‘Treasures, surely.’

  ‘Cultural artefacts.’

  ‘Very good. On the list of any intelligent English tourist.’

  Niemann’s voice came high above their conversation, and they all turned obediently. ‘The young lady has come here, of course, to hear my views on European culture.’ The baroness stared across the table at her, appalled. ‘In truth, the culture that I represent, it is not some narrow artistic conception. It is the spirit of Germany herself. And this spirit has too long been imprisoned by domestic mediocrity and timidity, and by foreign arrogance and aggression.’ He stared at Hathaway as if she were a dreadnought. ‘But these foreign spirits – I know the young lady has her Shakespeare, and the French have their, their… – these are archaic, dead spirits, whose time has passed. I create – as Wagner creates – as the emanation of a completely realized national spirit, strong and just, entitled to be free of the chains imposed by the old corrupted empires, and to surpass them.’

  Silence. Flora Hathaway said quietly, ‘Wagner demanded the subjection of the spirit to some superior myth. More recent composers – Debu— Herr Strauss, for example – give a voice to the individual spirit.’

  Dr Müller said, ‘You think the twentieth century will be the age of the individual spirit?’ And then a door opened and a maid hurried in with a rush of air and pork cutlets.

  Niemann switched to English and offered a faltering toast to ‘the liberation of the spirit’, and they laughed politely and began to eat, and Frau Niemann said, ‘Of course, French culture is so beautiful. Really, such civilization. We went to Paris once, and – I’m sure the baroness will agree – you’ve never seen such wonders!’

  ‘You’ll pardon an indelicacy at your table, dear lady,’ Müller said in a heavy whisper, ‘but I saw Fuller dance Salomé in Paris in 1900, and that is the wonder that has stayed with me.’

  Frau Niemann giggled. ‘The doctor was a great sportsman. He compe—’

  Eckhardt, a young man with everything about him precise – face, tailoring, enunciation – was on a different track: ‘Paris has the grandeur of her long history, and it is fading. Germany’s economy is now stronger, and Berlin will—’

  ‘Paris has suffered revolutions and bombardments in our lifetime.’ It was the baroness, voice low but strong, and it came like the last tolling of a bell. ‘That is why she fades.’

  ‘France has a choice’ – Niemann chirruping while the baroness still reverberated – ‘if she will abandon her pathetic dependence on the empire that has done most to cripple her – I mean of course the British, who destroyed France one century ago in their ambition for world economic supremacy – if she will turn to Germany, she may yet have protection and peace. The world thrilled to hear the emperor’s words of support for the unfortunate Boers, knowing that justice had a new champion. The great European war will—’

  ‘To speak it,’ the baroness said stolidly, ‘is to will it.’

  ‘The war will establish a proper preponderance of power in Europe. The new – the naturally strong – with airships now, and electric guns. A new harmony will grow out of the primitive age.’

  Eckhardt said quickly to Hathaway, ‘You English must worry that the tide of your greatness is ebbing.’

  ‘What worries me, Herr Eckhardt, is that you assume because I am English that I must be taken as a representative of the English and placed in the conversation accordingly, like a… like a flag on a map. Treating this Continent like a child’s building blocks betrays the crude mentality of the child.’ Opposite her, the baroness was nodding ponderously. ‘When we look for someone against whom to compare our progress; when we seek someone to justify our bravado; when we seek someone to blame for our problems: we will know them too easily by those flags.’

  Dr Müller’s knife rattled heavily on his plate, and it emphasized the silence around her. ‘When you visit our town today,’ he said, ‘do you do so as a… an unattached person, independent of country? If you had the chance to do some great good for England – what shall we say? To learn some great secret, or to win some great economic advantage – should you not do it?’

  He was turning to look at her, head on one side, the nose starting to corkscrew into her, and she flinched at this precise identification of her vulnerability, as if his finger had touched her naked thigh.

  ‘There are things that make me proud to be English.’ I had not expected myself to answer that way. And for a moment she glimpsed her parents, and the old man. ‘But because of the value of those things themselves, not because they are English. If I were to do something worthy for England, it would be because I considered it worthy, not because it was for England.’

  Müller was pressing on: ‘And if I should find some deed you considered worthy, that was for Germany?’

  ‘Was this not the very theme of my book?’ Niemann. ‘The Englishwoman who sacrificed country for love of the better man!’

  Müller again: ‘There, Fräulein Hathaway: love – would you consider that justification enough to do something for Germany?’

  And immediately two sour emotions were colliding in her. A sick doubt about whether she would have sacrificed herself for Ralph. A distinct memory of Niemann’s ridiculous book. ‘If I should criticize such a woman’ – she heard her voice sharp – ‘it would not be for loving too much, but for being too little a woman.’

  Niemann: ‘It is the role of the German male to embody Germany, to fight as Germany, and to conquer. It is the role of German woman to sustain him.’

  Hathaway felt her anger hot in her chest. If I were an Englishman at this table, we would not be discussing love. And she looked coldly at the faces – their pretensions, their stupidities, their games, their prejudices – at a place where it was important to polish wood until it shone, to cover it with lace, to present war as a logical outcome of musical theory.

  You will find that I can be more than you can imagine.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir.’ The old man looked up, neutral. ‘But you asked particularly for any reports in response to flags on the J list.’

  The single sheet into his hand. Always so flimsy; like kitchen paper that had wrapped something greasy. ‘But this has yesterday’s date.’

  Mild, but the eyes were up and cold.

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m afraid we didn’t expect – It’s from the police, sir. The Metropolitan. We’d assumed only foreign—’

  ‘The police?’ The voice h
ad drifted away, leaves swirling in the park; the eyes were in the paper. The secretary slipped out.

  MP 8/G/X/122

  Metropolitan Police

  Foreign Liaison Section

  To: General (Mr Hill-Padget)

  To: Museums & Antiquities (Dr Brodie)

  Following persons identified by Rome, present and of potential interest, during the trial of Peruggia (Florence) – day 3, 15th May 1914.

  Ackermann, H.

  Boulay, P.

  Du Bois, P.

  Duval, D.

  Fossi, F. (see Naples)

  Grant, Hon. L.

  Halle, I.

  Meuzot, B.

  Moriset, Miss T.

  Nijinsky, Y.

  Perez, V. (known as Peresa/ and as de Paresa/ and as Valfierno/ and as di Bollino), travelling as Valfierno

  Ter Borch, Mrs Sophia (see also Mackensen)

  Ackermann and Nijinsky in company. Ter Borch seen with Boulay and, briefly, Grant and several others. Perez spoke to Ackermann, Duval, Ter Borch. Moriset accompanied by 1 unknown male.

  End

  [SS G/1/893/10 AND SS L/7/8/G/X/122]

  Three names had been underlined, emphatic but askew. For a moment the old man saw the effort, the clerk’s doggedness through the hours and acres of paper.

  Ter Borch’s presence was surely coincidental and, more importantly, irrelevant in the current case. The name had been put on the J list in reference to a different affair.

  But Valfierno?

  A cypher. A front for other names and other activities. Once or twice an agent for the Spider, surely.

  Had the Spider been involved in this coup of the Leonardo? Some game of politics between France and Italy? Or just money? Surely it was too melodramatic.

  And Duval, speaking to Perez-Valfierno. What had Duval been doing there?

  Duval’s destination was Rome; Florence was supposed to be a stop-off, an obvious attraction for a student of architecture.

  He saw the face, saw him standing outside an Italian courthouse, saw an intrigued smile. Saw him inside, looking around the courtroom, uneasy, watchful.

  A vague instinct to be where there had been transgression – healthy enough in his new role. An interest in art, of course; and the theft of the Leonardo was the grandest art story going.

  The old eyes stared into the page, seeing Duval’s eyes looking across the courtroom.

  Unconsciously, a faint nod. Above all, Duval had wanted to see the figure in the dock. The insignificant man who had carried out the crime of the age; the man who had captured beauty herself.

  And it had brought him face to face with one of the Spider’s minions. Valfierno would suck up new acquaintances like a sponge. Duval was probably similar; the eye for the chance. And the meeting had only been registered by chance; some plodding co-operation of police bureaux, the original report already dropping down a pile in Scotland Yard.

  The old man gripped the two parts of the telephone. ‘Colonel Mayhew, please.’ Sitting upright; never could relax with the thing. ‘Yes, now. To be located at once.’

  After dinner, Niemann’s was a house of shadows and echoes, the strange shapes of plants reaching out of the darkness, everywhere a hollowness resonating from panelling and tiles.

  Hathaway murmured, ‘Frau Niemann started to say that you competed in something.’

  Müller grunted. ‘The enthusiasms of a younger man. I participated for Germany in the games of 1900, in the Exposition Universelle. That! Such a circus of… of competitive harmony. Our host would have been quite an exhibit himself. I rode, and shot. I did not win.’ She sensed him shifting in the gloom. ‘The important thing is… de s’être bien battu?’

  ‘Or to have seen a beautiful woman dance, and been so alive that you remember it fourteen years later?’

  He chuckled.

  Hathaway found the baroness in the conservatory, staring out into the darkness of the garden. At first she thought her asleep, so still and slumped was the body. Then a hand flickered on the arm of the wicker chair, and the baroness blinked.

  ‘Baroness? Do I disturb you?’ The eyes came slowly round, and then the head half turned to follow. A heavy head, on a heavy body corseted tight. ‘I hoped to learn more about your work. Such a great—’

  ‘I have little enough time left, girl. If you wish to simper inconsequentially, go and find a husband who needs your services.’

  Reflexes: of grief, of loyalty, of defiance. Then she realized that they were habitual, not deep-felt. She felt her intellect released.

  ‘Why are you here, Baroness?’

  ‘I do homage at the shrine of mediocrity and vindictiveness, because they are powerful.’ The eyes scrutinized Hathaway harder. ‘You know that only half of the Austrian Empire is Catholic? That less than one-quarter speaks German? But now we are the junior partner – the… the inbred younger brother – of an upstart Germany. I have spent the fifty years of my adult life as a world citizen, in debate with the world about what might unite us. And at the end, fate has declared that Niemann alone is my ally. Perhaps I must find a reason to like him. Why are you here?’

  Hathaway pulled her chair closer and turned it so that she was beside the baroness, facing the same way. ‘Fate has declared that he is my enemy. Perhaps I will learn why I am supposed to hate him.’

  She didn’t look round. ‘That’s wit, my dear. We must strive for a little more, I think. Intelligence is an opportunity, not an achievement. Like a weapon.’ Waffe: she spat it softly. ‘Your exchange was most amusing with Müller; beware that one, by the way. I suspect the world has little to fear from fools like Niemann. But there is no power on earth as terrible as a reasonable German.’

  The substantial bust swelled up, and the baroness breathed out slowly. ‘Most of all, I am here because I will not let them think that I fear them.’ An owl called out of the night, and they both glanced up. ‘There is an instinct that war is for the brave, and therefore that peace is for cowards. When the street is full of your friends going to the war, where is courage? Is it out there with the songs and flowers, or is it standing at the window, returning the scornful glances of those who thought they knew you? Will it then be heroism to march, or not to march?’

  She glared at the night. ‘Their war will come. Europe has lost the habit of talking. There will be war because they cannot imagine how to do anything else. Always easier to make war than to make peace. To find a pretext; to find a hatred… so easy. And in war, everyone is right.’

  Out of the solemnity her whole face wrinkled up, seeming to catch a stench. ‘If they followed a Siegfried, one could… but this schoolboy fantasist!’ Sombre again: ‘Perhaps this is Niemann’s triumph: no one has written romances in celebration of peace.’

  ‘We have books in English that are just as belligerent; just as ridiculous. Your cause is—’

  ‘The Swedish even gave me a prize for it. Each day I may say: today there is peace; and today, and today. But tomorrow there will be war.’ She turned to Hathaway, and stayed looking at her. ‘All that there is, is to be.’

  The conservatory, the conversation, felt stifled; the over-decorated comforts of Niemann’s world. ‘Baroness, your cause – you are right.’

  But the baroness had turned away into the darkness.

  ‘What use will it be… to have been right?’

  Duval had spent a blissful day in Florence. The trial in the morning: irresistible. Little Peruggia so insignificant to look at, but the sangfroid to do what he had done, and then the stamina to live two years with a priceless painting under his bed; and his interruptions – hysterical, patriotic, angry, weeping – every one of them played to the gallery. Duval didn’t speak a word of Italian but he’d got enough of the gossip to know the speculations of international conspiracy, of shadowy rings of master criminals. They needed to believe such things, because they couldn’t believe that the little Italian handyman had transfixed the world on his own.

  Duval had watched Vincenzo Peruggia for a
morning, watched his eyes as they scrutinized their audience and made their calculations, and Duval believed it.

  He’d wandered the streets for the afternoon; and he spent two hours sketching in the Santo Spirito, losing himself in its lines and spaces.

  Florence was glutted with its own beauties; bored of them. The magnificent palazzi spoke of money as much as art. It was the city of the Albizzi and the Medici more than of Michelangelo. Perhaps you had to be an artist, or just an outsider, to see the details of beauty, the hidden unnecessary joy in an embellishment that would always be in shadow, the mastery of architectural perspective that played with the minds of those who thought they were in control.

  Twice he’d caught himself studying a gallery chamber and making amateur calculations about a robbery. Not his game; never would be. But it took a rare combination of skill, didn’t it? Cheek as well as cunning.

  And the Italian women, so elegant and so alive. Even the average ones dressed smartly. And every eye a game. He’d sat on a café terrace for two hours this evening, sipping at white wine and merely watching in the warmth, senses somehow sharper. The percussion of metal furniture and cutlery and plates and glasses. The elaborate melody of voices. The smell of flowers and drains. Flowing through the square, humanity at ease with itself. In Paris they were smart, sophisticated, yet it was brittle. And London… But here everyone, not just the lovers but the shopkeepers going home and the gang of boys on a spree and even the derelict selling matches – a derelict who’d found an old blue suit and slicked his hair down and would mutter snatches of music when he got a sale – they all belonged, they all seemed to contribute fitly to one complete place. Not a word with anyone, but such an embrace of people.

  Then back to his hotel, the river whispering its goodnight behind him. The desk clerk was pompous and genuinely stupid, which combination always offered possibilities. Duval made up a query about the Uffizi as an excuse to slip him a tip, and tap-tapped up the marble stairs, feeling very much in the swim.

  He was into his room briskly and almost missed the paper at his feet.