But Laf perked up a bit when I informed him our first stop was really Vienna—where he himself was scheduled to return from San Francisco Monday night—and that I’d come see him there in the event we’d left anything still unsaid. Before I left the dining room, though, I took Laf aside.
“Laf,” I said, “I know how you feel about Bambi’s brother. But since he and I will be together in Vienna on business, I’m asking you to make an exception in this one case, and invite us both to your house. Is there anything else about our family situation that you believe I need to know right now?”
“Gavroche,” said Laf with a sigh, “you have the eyes of your mother Jersey, those ice blue eyes she has always been so proud of. But yours are more like Pandora’s—wild leopard eyes—because yours are made of the pure green ice. I don’t blame Wolfgang: I don’t really know how any man could resist eyes like these. I surely could not. But, Gavroche, you must be certain that you will resist the men—until you learn exactly in what kind of situation you are involved.”
That was all Laf would tell me, but I knew he was being straight with me. He was worried about me, not about some feud with Bambi’s family or with ours.
I kissed Laf, hugged Bambi, handed over Jason to Olivier, and shook hands with the silent Volga Dragonoff who never smiled. As we headed back the hundred fifty miles to my basement apartment along the Snake River, I wondered what in hell I really was getting myself into. And I wondered how on earth I could contact Sam before I left and let him know.
Wolfgang gave me an earful on the way home about our impending trip. At the last moment he’d arranged this brief layover in Vienna for us en route to Russia, and for a reason—but not the one he had given to the Pod.
Though the IAEA was based in Vienna, Wolfgang’s office was in Krems, a medieval town just up the Danube at the beginning of the Wachau, the most famous wine-growing valley in all of Austria. Wolfgang had told the Pod we’d need to check in there and go over a lot of paperwork, involving IAEA philosophy as well as our specific mission in the USSR, before he could take me into Russia. And it seems the Pod bought this scenario.
I hadn’t remembered Krems earlier, but once Wolfgang mentioned the Wachau, I recalled it from my childhood. Just beyond it was another part of the Danube Valley, the Nibelungengau, where the early, magical inhabitants of Austria once lived. It was part of the setting of Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungenlied, the cycle of four operas of which my grandmother Pandora’s recordings were today world renowned. I also remembered that in the Wachau, Jersey and I had once climbed the steep trail leading up through the woods overlooking the blue-grey Danube to the ruins of Dürnstein—the castle where Richard the Lionhearted had been captured while returning home from the Crusades, and where he was held prisoner for ransom for thirteen months.
But Wolfgang’s private reason for going to Krems was centered around another spot in the Wachau: the famous monastery of Melk. Once the castle-fortress of the House of Babenberg, the Habsburgs’ predecessors, and today a Benedictine abbey, Melk possessed a library of nearly one hundred thousand volumes, many of them very ancient. According to Wolfgang, whose story jibed with Laf’s in the hot pool, it was at Melk that Adolf Hitler first did his own research into the secret history of the runes, like those in Aunt Zoe’s manuscript. Apparently it was Zoe who’d asked him to bring me to Melk for our own research.
We got back about five, and Wolfgang dropped me at my cellar door. We agreed to meet at the airport at nine-thirty to catch the ten A.M. connecting flight to Salt Lake. That left this evening to get ready for the trip. I tried to concentrate on what I needed to take for a two-week trek, most of it in the Soviet Union where I’d never visited at this time of year. But I kept feeling I was forgetting something. The travel leaflet Wolfgang gave me recommended bringing bottled water and plenty of toilet paper, so I packed those first. And though I didn’t know much about Leningrad in early spring, I did recall that Vienna in April was no Paris—it was bitterly cold, requiring “thermal chic.”
All the while, I was trying to collect my thoughts and to figure out what I could do about contacting Sam. It occurred to me that Sam might actually dial into my computer before tomorrow morning, to test out our new technique up front. I could pick up any such message on my way to the airport, and even if I had no time just then, at least I’d know where to fax back a message when I got to Salt Lake, or from Kennedy when we got to New York. It would be a good idea anyway, I realized, not to just dash off with no farewells, but to check in at work for any last-minute instructions from my boss, Pastor Dart.
I’d set my packed duffels beside the front door and was about to turn in when I heard Olivier upstairs. He was banging around with the skis, so I went up in my robe and fur-lined moccasins to see if I could help.
“You probably haven’t had anything to eat since brunch” was Olivier’s first comment. Which was perfectly true—I’d forgotten. “I was going to make smoked trout mousse on dilled rye bread for dinner, for the little argonaut and me, to commiserate over your departure tomorrow. I guess it will be just the two of us, dining as bachelors after that—but would you care to join us in a bite right now?”
“I’d love to,” I told him. Though I was dead on my feet, I suddenly realized I might have no time for breakfast tomorrow, and there’d likely be no food but peanuts on my flights till well past noon. “Shall I whip us up a hot toddy to wash it down?” I suggested. I wanted to apologize to Olivier for how our weekend had turned out, though I soon learned it wasn’t necessary.
“Bien sûr,” Olivier said with a grin, tossing the skis on the cold-room rack and hanging the poles up by their loops. “You’ve been forgiven some of my anger, my darling one, now that you’ve introduced me to the beautiful, bountiful Bambita,” he went on. “I think I’m in love—and she isn’t even close to being the cowgirl that I’ve always imagined I pined for in my heart.”
“But she and my uncle Lafcadio do seem to be an item,” I pointed out. “And they live in Vienna, pretty far from here.”
“That’s okay,” said Olivier. “Your uncle’s skiing days are over, even if his fiddling ones are not. I’m willing to follow this woman down the slopes like a slave forever, just to watch the way her wedeln swings—you know? And now that you’re so chummy with her brother, she might come here again to visit us one day soon.”
I went downstairs to heat some burgundy and soak a few Glühwein bags from my perpetual cache, to make my short-cut version of hot spiced wine. But as I was watching it heat up, something popped into my head that I’d nearly forgotten.
I crossed the vast, cold living room to the wall of books and flipped through the heavy volume H of my frayed Encyclopedia Britannica until I found the entry I sought. I was surprised to learn that, indeed, there had been a real person named Kaspar Hauser. His story was more than strange:
HAUSER, KASPAR
A youth whose life was remarkable due to the circumstances surrounding it, of apparently inexplicable mystery. He appeared, dressed in peasant garb, in the streets of Nürnberg on May 26, 1828, with a helpless and bewildered air.…
Two letters were found on his person: one from a poor labourer, stating that the boy had been given into his custody in October of 1812, that according to agreement he had instructed him in reading, writing, and the Christian religion, but that up to the time fixed for relinquishing his custody he had kept him in close confinement [and another letter] from his mother stating that he was born on April 30, 1812, that his name was Kaspar, and that his father, formerly a cavalry officer of the 6th regiment at Nürnberg, was dead.
[The youth] showed a repugnance to all nourishment except bread and water, was seemingly ignorant of all outward objects, and wrote his name as Kaspar Hauser.
The article went on to explain that Kaspar Hauser had attracted attention from the international scientific community when it was learned he’d been raised in a cage, and that neither his family nor the laborer who raised him could be found. At
the time, there was apparently a huge flurry of scientific interest throughout Germany in things like “nature children” raised by wild beasts, as well as “somnambulism, animal magnetism, and similar theories of the occult and strange.” Hauser was put up at the home of a local schoolmaster there in Nürnberg, but:
On the 17th of October 1829 he was found to have received a wound in the forehead which, according to his own statement, had been inflicted on him by a man with a blackened face.
The British scientist Lord Stanhope came to see the boy and, taking an interest, had him removed to the home of a high magistrate at Ansbach where he could be studied more closely. His case was almost forgotten by the public when, on December 14, 1833, Kaspar Hauser was accosted by a stranger who wounded him deeply in his left breast. Three or four days later he died.
It seemed many books had been written about Kaspar Hauser in the ensuing hundred and fifty years, with wild surmises ranging from his having been assassinated by Lord Stanhope himself all the way to the belief that Kaspar Hauser was a legitimate heir to the throne of Germany, whose kidnapping at infancy led to upheavals in the political order. The encyclopedia hinted the entire story was “humbug,” dismissing its historical facts as “in any case in complete confusion.”
But I was confused about why Wolfgang K. Hauser—who was from Nürnberg like his namesake—would give the misleading impression that his middle name was related to the biblical Magi, with no mention of an historical figure sufficiently well known to deserve a full-page entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica. As for further connection with a boy who’d been raised like an animal—didn’t the name Wolfgang translate as “one who runs with the wolves”?
I glanced across the room and spotted Jason there, sniffing my bags beside the door. He could tell from two packed bags that I was going away longer than just a weekend trip—so I was afraid he might flagrantly piss on them, as he’d done in the past when he guessed he would not be coming along.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I said. Scooping him up, I grabbed the bubbling Glühwein from the stove and trotted back upstairs to Olivier’s warm kitchen. “Olivier, you’d better keep an eye on my roommate here when I’m gone,” I told him. “I think he’s nursing a grudge about my leaving, and you know what that means.”
“He can stay up here in my place,” Olivier said, slathering a toast point with mousse and feeding it to Jason. “It will save on the heating bill downstairs. And what about your mail?” he added. “Will you have time to go stop it tomorrow yourself? Or would you prefer that I—what’s the matter?”
Bloody damned hell! I knew I had forgotten something! I opened my mouth for the proffered mousse point and chewed it so I couldn’t speak. I poured the steaming wine into mugs for us and swallowed a stiff slug of it as my brain did loop-the-loops trying to figure out this disaster fast.
“It’s okay,” I finally told Olivier. “I suddenly thought of something I forgot to pack, that’s all. But I’ll have time tomorrow to handle all that, and to stop my mail, and to run by the office, too.”
Thank the merciful heavens it was actually true—the post office opened at nine o’clock, and I didn’t have to be at the airport to board my flight until nine-thirty. But it might have been otherwise, in which case I would have been in deep and serious trouble, with another two weeks of mail piling up while I was cavorting around in Soviet Russia. What in God’s name had I been thinking?
When we finished eating and I went back downstairs, I cursed myself colorfully for having had the presence of mind to pack an alarm clock and pajamas—while again nearly forgetting the one thing that might have gotten Sam and me both killed. What good was it to possess a photographic memory for trivia, I thought, when all the important stuff ended up getting squeezed out of your brain?
I went to the office at eight-thirty the next morning, bags and passport stashed in the back of the car. This time I parked at the far side of the building and went through the mantraps for site employees. I didn’t plan to get stuck outside again, with my warm coat inside, when I was about to take off for Soviet Russia. But when I got through the first set of doors and placed my badge on the monitor, there was no click to indicate that the security guard at the entrance across the building had opened my next set of doors. I was freezing. I swiveled to look up at the seeing-eye camera and yelled: “Is anybody there?” The damned guards were supposed to be on duty around the clock.
I heard a scratchy sound, then Bella’s voice coming through the intercom. “I can’t see you well enough to ID you against your badge,” she informed me in that snotty official tone. “You have to turn to the camera: you know the rules.”
“For Christ’s sake, Bella, you know who I am,” I said. “It’s freezing out here!”
“Turn your face the proper way and keep your badge flat on the monitor so I can complete my identification—or you’re not getting in,” her voice insisted.
Damned bitch. I contorted myself to “assume the pose.” Bella was undoubtedly one of those who’d learned that I’d been off skiing at Jackson Hole with Wolfgang Hauser last week, and was getting even by delaying me here. She sure took her time to complete the identification of somebody she saw every single day. When I heard the door click at last, I yanked it open. But as I went through, I smiled back at the camera and flipped my middle finger right into the camera’s eye. I heard Bella gasp; she was babbling hysterically behind me until the glass doors shut out her voice.
There was little she could do, as I knew. Premises security officers couldn’t leave a post until their shift ended. If she was on duty now, she’d be stuck at her post until ten A.M., when I’d already be in the air.
I went to my office and checked the mail messages. As I had hoped, there was one from Sam—“Great Bear Enterprises”—followed by a phone number with an Idaho area code, probably somewhere between Sun Valley and the reservation at Lapwai. I committed it to memory, deleted it from the computer, and was about to go visit the Pod to say goodbye when he popped his head in with a puzzled expression.
“Behn, I’ve just received a call from security asking me to send you to the director’s office at once,” he told me. “I’m surprised to see you here at all. Aren’t you supposed to be leaving with Wolf Hauser on the ten o’clock flight? But the director says there’s an infraction of some sort. Maybe you can tell me what this is all about?”
“I … yes, I’m on my way to the airport,” I said with a sinking feeling. “I just dropped in to say goodbye to you.”
Goddamned Bella—was she writing me up? I knew what a security infraction meant at a nuclear site. It could take hours just to go through the initial review. A security officer’s word was law. If her accusation stuck, I might be suspended from my job. What in God’s name was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I have let it go, just walked through the mantraps and forgotten her? Why did I have to flip her the goddamned bird?
Now the Pod was escorting me to the office of the director of security and I was wondering how on earth, even if I got out of this in time to catch my plane, I would ever get to the post office first to stop my mail. I wondered if you could get an IQ transplant or some kind of hormone supplement that would reduce female aggression. I wondered if I could fall on the floor and pretend I was having a fit.
Peterson Flange, the security director, was sitting behind his desk when we came in. Since I’d never seen Peterson Flange when he wasn’t sitting behind his desk, I’d often wondered if he had any legs.
“Officer Behn,” said the security director, scowling at me, “an extremely serious charge of security infraction has been brought against you this morning.”
The Pod looked at me with raised brows, clearly wondering just how I had incurred a serious infraction when I’d only been on the premises a few moments. I was wondering the same thing myself: I’d definitely flunked another intelligence test. “Behn is scheduled to leave this morning on a critical project,” he informed Flange, checking his watch. “Her plane leaves in less th
an an hour. I hope this isn’t as serious as you suggest.”
“The security officer who reported the infraction is being relieved right now at her post, and will join us shortly,” Flange said.
Just then Bella came storming in. “You flipped me off!” she screamed, waving one long mauve lacquered fingernail in my face the moment she saw me.
“I did exactly what you’re doing right now,” I pointed out. “Only I might have used a different finger.”
“What is this woman taking about?” the Pod asked, indicating Bella. He had that dangerous don’t-mess-with-me edge to his voice as he glared at the security director.
But I knew I was in trouble. Though the Pod was head of the whole nuclear site, security personnel reported directly to the FBI’s National Security wing. Peterson Flange could override the Pod and stop me cold if he decided to make it an issue, and that would incense the Pod with me too, since he’d have to lecture me and fill out reports and a lot of other nonsense. I really had to think fast.
“Officer Behn,” said Peterson Flange, “our security officer here has charged you with making an obscene and threatening gesture to her through the security camera in the mantraps, when she, in her line of duty, was only trying to ID you against your badge.”
“I have it on film,” Bella sneered at me, “so don’t bother to deny it.”
Her attitude really pissed me off. I turned to Peterson Flange and asked pleasantly, “What exactly did your security officer think that, by my gesture, I was threatening to do to her?”
He stared at me in astonishment, jumping to his feet. So he did have legs, after all. “Security is the most serious business of this site, Officer Behn!” he stormed. “It’s hardly a subject for levity!”
I was trying to recall exactly what levity was, whether it was something heavy or something light, when the Pod interrupted our interesting chat. “What is it you did to her, Behn?” he asked me directly.
The Magic Circle Page 28