The Spider of Sarajevo

by Robert Wilton

  ‘We don’t feel like enemies, Gerta.’

  ‘I know. Would you…’ She was stretching for a box of pins on the bed; and there was a rip and a curse.

  A fussy exchange, before Hathaway was on her knees with needle and thread working at the tear. ‘I thought I was going to be Rotkäppchen; turns out I’m Aschenputtel’s king.’

  ‘Flora, I’m so ashamed. If I had a maid, you wouldn’t have to—’

  ‘If I had a maid, I wouldn’t know how to.’

  ‘I was worried you’d be disappointed if you found out.’ Gentle laughter from Hathaway. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say it, except you seem so sensible. We’ve really no – Daddy has sold most of my mother’s pictures, and it’s so expensive for Rudi in the army. Really, we’re like vagrants who’ve broken into a palace when the owners are away.’

  ‘Sit still, will you?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s different in the castles in England.’

  ‘Dear Gerta, I’ve never been in a castle in England, except when I paid sixpence for a tour. My father is a doctor and his whole house would fit into your hall. There. It’s clumsy, but I’ve turned it in so it won’t show.’

  Gerta glanced at the repair, and placed a kiss on Hathaway’s forehead. ‘I thought all English girls rode around in carriages and went to balls. You’re such a rich country, and so aristocratic.’

  ‘Where do you read such stuff?’ She sat back on the bed.

  ‘It’s – it’s what we know about England.’ She turned away to the mirror. ‘It’s why you’re such a… such a superior country.’ She giggled, self-scorn. ‘When we got your uncle’s letter, I assumed he was a rich lord who didn’t know that Daddy was poor, and that you moved around Europe from palace to palace and had never even seen a public library.’

  ‘I’m here because the true civilization – of the intellect, of humanity – crosses borders more easily than it crosses social barriers.’

  Gerta spun round on the stool. ‘Oh!’ A little excitement. ‘Are you a radical, Flora?’

  ‘I – I don’t think so.’

  ‘You mustn’t say anything too revolutionary at dinner. All these bankers are always terribly worried about social unrest. Daddy is really the most – well, almost liberal of men, more than any of them. But he’s quite old-fashioned about dinner conversation.’

  ‘Will you at least let me put time-bombs under their carriages?’

  ‘I – I don’t know…’

  ‘I’m sorry. English humour.’

  ‘Oh.’ A shy conspiratorial smile, and Gerta von Waldeck returned to her crown of hair.

  ‘What else vexes the worthy Nicolai, Hildebrandt? How else may we be of service?’

  ‘You are in most obliging mood, Herr Krug.’

  Deliberately, with focus, Krug lit a cigarette and waited for it to glow to his satisfaction. ‘This is the age of mass, Count Paul. Of machinery. Of millions. In every sphere of human endeavour, even one as subtle as my own, it is essential to be at one with the age. I recognize that the approach that served me twenty years ago, and ten years ago, may become as obsolete as the fashions and technologies of those years.’

  ‘And Nicolai’s structures – his resources, his networks in Britain – you think that joining them will serve this purpose.’

  A smile through the smoke. ‘Joining? Adopting them, Hildebrandt.’

  Hildebrandt watched the face as it paled and clarified through the drifting smoke.

  Krug enjoyed it. ‘The age of mass does not mean the defeat of the individual; it means the triumph of the individual who can control the mass.’ Another puff of smoke. ‘A time when we find out which German counts have the brains, eh?’

  Hildebrandt ignored it; lit a cigarette. Eventually he said, ‘Nicolai has been set a… a problem of intelligence.’ Krug stifled a smile theatrically. ‘German Intelligence have an agent…’ – hesitation; Krug looking away – ‘in the Russian Embassy in London.’

  ‘Oh, my compliments!’ It sounded genuine. ‘That is smart work indeed. Surely not – if I guess rightly, I considered the fellow, but there seemed little chance…’

  ‘A matter of German ancestry, I think.’

  ‘Ah, truly German blood is thicker than anything.’

  ‘The agent reports preliminary naval conversations between Britain and Russia.’

  Krug nodded. ‘It was inevitable, I suppose; truly the British are rattled if they are moving so fast.’

  ‘The Russians are keener than the British. In Berlin, the Admiralty and the Stadtschloss are worried, and at the same wondering what to do with this information.’

  ‘They should not worry too much. The Russians are as mischievous to Britain in Persia as they are conciliatory in Europe; neither trusts the other. And as to using the information… Such a fascinating snippet deserves a wider public airing, I think.’

  ‘Risk exposing a spy over information that by definition Moscow and London know?’

  ‘Half of Britain’s politicians will be alarmed by this development, and this will cause their government to hesitate; that’s good. The Russians will think the British irresponsible or double-dealing; that’s good. The German public will be angered; and that’s very good. As to your spy, I can contrive adequate cover. Perhaps this information could appear to leak from Paris to one of your newspapers. Would that satisfy, would you say?’

  Continental deceptions as if he were trading potatoes. Hildebrandt smiled, nodded: ‘More than adequately, I would say.’

  ‘Good. Bon voyage, my friend. And good hunting.’

  Dinner with Freiherr von Waldeck in his castle was surprisingly similar to going to supper with the Pattisons at the Rectory. Despite efforts at sense, Hathaway had not avoided an expectation of a picture-book banquet, a pig on a spit and flagons and women with pointed hats. The setting was mediaeval enough, and one could have ridden into battle wielding the cutlery, but electric lighting supplemented the candles and the three-course meal would have been no more than normal on the table of any solicitor or businessman – or doctor – in Britain. The men had dressed with the professional’s concern for acquired propriety, the women with money and caution.

  Something else common to the equivalent table in Britain: it was a gathering of men, with their wives. The conversation was between the men, careful talk of the situation in Berlin, of prices, of what one had read in the newspaper, of what another had heard from a neighbour’s gamekeeper. The wives listened, or were occasionally given the chance to offer a descant to the conversation drawn from domestic or cultural spheres. In the archaic setting, Hathaway had a momentary picture of the men as knights, solid and cumbersome and supported by their squires.

  Löwenthal turned out to be a retired lawyer, who was briefly persuaded to talk about his real passion, which was ornithology, and otherwise chattered to von Waldeck about books; the other men joined in that conversation intelligently and respectfully. And Von Waldeck, for all his pose of romanticism, was shrewd enough about their commerce. Discussion of banking. A current concern about pressure on the Mark’s relationship to the gold standard as a result of developments in the United States. Someone had seen a pamphlet from the Social Democratic Party identifying the three ills of the age as imperialism, militarism and capitalism, and felt that these were only negative labels for the necessary expansion of economic productivity, which was hard enough in these times; general agreement. Hathaway had shifted in her seat, and started to wonder what she thought of this, when she’d caught a look of such alarm from Gerta that she’d stayed silent.

  Hathaway had been briefly explained when they were gathering for dinner, and attracted little attention. At one point Bierhoff, the banker, observed that she was presumably travelling because of the persistent strength of sterling, which turned out to be the comedic high-point of the evening. The man next to her – of her own generation, with a fine profile and rather alarming teeth – had the courtesy to flirt with her, over-attentive with the condiments and asking politely about her hom
e, but they both felt it wrong to ignore the main conversation.

  Otherwise she felt like an observer, watching mannequins through a window.

  At the end of the meal, Gerta – who made a poised and stately hostess – invited the ladies to withdraw, a practice Hathaway had loathed on the few occasions she’d been at dinners smart enough for it to happen. A glance over her shoulder as she went showed the men silent and waiting for the last dress to glide away, and she wondered whether with the ladies’ departure conversation would suddenly veer into the most boisterous lewdness or ossify completely.

  The sitting room into which she followed the other women was the one over-furnished room in the building. With creaks and sighs the frothy dresses settled into sofas, and Hathaway had the impression of a troupe of dancers returning to the dressing room.

  ‘That was most pleasant, dear Gerta.’

  ‘I do hope so, Frau Kuhn. We do try to make the best of the place when we have special guests.’

  ‘How is Helga, Sonja?’

  ‘Much rested, my dear. Thank you for asking. Just two weeks – it’s not cheap, you know – but the peace helps as much as the air.’

  ‘You’ll pardon me, dear, but I thought Kuhn is looking rather tired. A very difficult time, I’m sure.’

  ‘My dear, he’s working all the hours. I had to fight to get him away even for these four days.’

  ‘Otto was saying the markets are flat.’

  ‘I don’t know how these things relate, quite, but in the overseas department Hans is frantic.’

  A glance at Hathaway, representative of all overseas problems. ‘The newspapers are so alarming.’

  ‘Some nights it’s nine or ten. Then so early in the morning. All these foreign currencies he’s in charge of, and now he’s ordered to convert them to gold. Such a strain. It’s not healthy.’

  ‘Lena, dearest, how is young Stegemann?’

  ‘Thank you, Frau Kuhn. He’s well. Away with his regiment, of course, but he’s very good at writing to me.’ Frau Stegemann was the only other young woman in the room, a plain and constantly worried face on an athletic body.

  ‘He didn’t think of going into his father’s bank?’

  ‘No, Frau Edler. No, he thought it his duty to—’

  ‘The army is invincible, we understand. We need the respectable young men to apply their brains to their real interest: maintaining financial stability and thus keeping order in the country.’

  Hathaway found herself scrutinized as if she were an immediate threat to financial and political order, and started to ask about the destabilizing effects of capitalism, but Gerta hastily invited Frau Stegemann to play some Schubert.

  When Gerta closed the door behind the last of the guests and turned to scold and then broke into laughter, Hathaway joined in – and then went upstairs to write a letter.

  The Sub-Committee of the Committee for Imperial Defence:

  ‘What news from Paris? Your delivery.’

  ‘Still closed in. Three days now. Weather, mechanical trouble, then weather again.’

  ‘War Office getting very fidgety, old chap.’

  ‘My compliments to them, but they’re not half as fidgety as poor Hamel. Stuck out in Paris, sitting on the goods, gendarmes and German spies breathing down his neck. The German Embassy have got the Frogs in a rare fluster. Extra guards at the aerodrome; checks on entry and departure. Thirty seconds of clear sky and he’ll be up like a firework and on his way home.’

  ‘That’s all very well, but it only underlines the need to find a solution quickly. I don’t need to remind—’

  ‘No, you really don’t. Not unless you want… That’s my man out there, and a good one. Hamel’ll pull it off. Always has.’

  ‘We should start thinking about alternative transport.’

  ‘We’ve finished thinking about alternative transport. You know damn well you can’t put this thing in your coat or take it to the post office.’

  ‘There are still options by road and sea.’

  ‘With guards on the gate and the Hun no doubt watching every harbour?’

  ‘Nonetheless. I’ll make some enquiries. Ports and so forth.’

  ‘You’ll pardon me, gentlemen.’ A grey voice, from beyond the edge of the conversation: the old man. ‘A word of interference from an old warhorse.’ Tight-lipped reassurances. ‘I presume we don’t want to rattle the cage too much. If Hamel and his shipment are still intact, then it looks like our opponents don’t suspect – not enough to act, anyway. In which case, we don’t want to draw attention to him, do we?’

  For their next lunch, it was Cade’s turn to host Riza again. The opening glass of sherry had become routine.

  The newspapers had reported rumours about the signing of the Protocol of Corfu; Riza was interested in Cade’s interpretation. Cade had heard of a new edict issued by the Grand Vizier specifying which ethnic groups in the empire were permitted to trade, and wondered what was behind it.

  By the time they were finishing their lamb, Riza was winding himself up at the latest affront to his dignity and independence committed by German advisers in the ministry.

  Cade’s heart began to pound; it wasn’t the richness of the food.

  Now, surely.

  ‘… a humble man, Mr Cade, but I think I may fairly say that I know something of the basic precepts of financial…’

  Make the pitch.

  ‘… not as if Germany was without economic challenges or social divisions…’

  ‘What eats at me, Mr Riza’ – it came out a little loud, and he moderated it – ‘and please forgive me butting in, but it does as I say eat at me, is the destructiveness of it all.’ Riza wanted to agree, but waited. ‘I mean to say: as a friend I naturally sympathize with you over these rudenesses, but to me as a businessman – and I suspect to you as a professional official – the worst is the impact on good and prudent administration.’

  ‘Quite right, Mr Cade.’

  ‘I like to think I know you a little, Mr Riza, and I think you’re probably the sort of fellow who’s experienced enough and sturdy enough to put up with these personal irritations, but that it’s the damage to principle and to good practice from these come-and-go, fly-by-night fellows that’s what really niggles you.’

  ‘That’s absolutely— Ah… “niggles”?’

  ‘Bothers you. Angers you. Gets on your what-not.’

  ‘Thank you. Mr Cade, you are absolutely right.’ He waved a last piece of meat on his fork, then laid it down. ‘In fifteen years in the imperial administration I have, I am sad to say it, got used to superiors who are ignorant, incompetent, or inconsiderate, or all three. Stupidity, alas, does not recognize national borders.’

  ‘Quite right. You should see the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, especially after lunch.’

  ‘One sighs, one does what one can to avoid disaster, and then one goes home; a glass of wine, a conversation with my son, a book of verses… the irritations are past.’

  ‘Hear, hear.’ Don’t rush him, Jimmy.

  ‘But when the interests of the Sultan, and of the people – basic principles of good administration – are set aside…’

  ‘You mustn’t feel you have to tell me details, but is it… is it really as destructive as that?’

  The fork had come up, and now went down again with a rattle. ‘It is, Mr Cade. It is thought that the empire has always been ruled by whim, by the caprices of the Sultan; but this has always been balanced by the prudence and the long-term perspective of the administrators. This was true in the time of Suleiman the Magnificent, and it has remained true. These great buildings you see around the city, their impetus was the inspiration of one man, but they each represented decades of proper financial management. A foreigner – a stranger to our systems, to our habits, a stranger with no concern for the financial stability of the empire – he knows none of this. You cannot simply rule that we will purchase new rifles for every soldier in our army without the most desperate effects on the finances.’
/>
  ‘That sort of thing should be part of a strategy. Matter of years.’

  ‘Quite so. But these decisions are being driven through with one stroke of a pen. A calculation in a foreign capital, to their own ends, and years of prudence go out of the window.’

  Cade shook his head.

  ‘I fear for where it will leave us, Mr Cade.’

  ‘Is there no way to – to moderate these irrational urges? Counter-balance them a little?’

  ‘I do not see it.’

  ‘I mean to say, if every time one of these daft ideas came up, there was an alternative voice. Voice of sense. Longer-term thinking.’

  ‘Such voices are rare, it seems.’

  ‘These other powers – the French, the British – you’d think they’d be doing it. They don’t want the Germans running unchecked. And you know that they want to preserve the empire.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘They should be the ones – just sometimes, you know, when there’s something particularly destructive? – the ones putting a word in with the Sultan and the Grand Vizier. Bit of common sense. Proper planning.’

  ‘It is a pleasant idea, but it seems unlikely.’

  Heart pounding.

  ‘Mr Riza, I’ve learned to trust your judgement. You’re realistic. You’re restrained. When you say something’s so, it is so. I’d like to think you could trust me equally.’

  Riza was frowning; nodding slowly.

  ‘If you felt you wanted – just sometimes, when you judged it necessary – if you felt you wanted to share some of these details with me, I could then drop a hint or two – nothing specific, just the shape of things – into the right ear. The embassy, perhaps.’

  Riza’s eyes were wide. Cautiously, the tip of his tongue made one circuit of his lips. He dabbed his mouth with the napkin.

  ‘Enable just a bit of sensible balance to be offered. A bit of prudence against these excesses. Give you a chance to do your job properly.’

  Riza just gazing at him, and surely every waiter in the room was standing watching, and the silence stretching out for years.