The Salzburg Connection (8 page)

“Where did he buy it?” Not in Salzburg, certainly. Word would have drifted around. And there had been no talk of Bryant dabbling in underwater pictures, either.

“I think in Zürich.”

He’s a close-mouthed bastard, thought Johann. He stifled some stronger language, thinking of what he was going to say to Felix, and came back to the table to get another handkerchief. He blew his nose again, and that seemed to clear his brain for a moment. “Anna! He can’t have found the chest! Don’t you see? He never would be having breakfast at the inn with anything as valuable as that chest lying in his car. Now would he?”

She was silent. I won’t have to tell Johann any lies after all, she was thinking, and relief spread over her face. “No,” she said, at last.

Johann’s resentment faded. She’s as glad as I am, he thought, that Dick failed. Felix was right: some things were better left to rot. “Just as well he didn’t find anything. He’d be in danger, and so would you. It isn’t only the Nazis we have to worry about. Did you know that a couple of Russian tourists in Bad Aussee were politely escorted to the frontier? They weren’t what their passports said they were. And then there was that Frenchman pretending to be an Italian schoolteacher on vacation. He was wandering around Lake Toplitz trying to find out whether we had salvaged more documents there. He left along with the Russians.”

“Have we salvaged
all
those documents? Dick thought not.”

“And what gave him that idea?”

She half-dried her hands and went over to a drawer in the little writing desk where Dick had filed that newspaper clipping of last week. Someday, she thought, we’ll have a real kitchen and a real living room, both separate, both neat. “Here,” she
said, giving it to Johann as she returned to the sink. She glanced at the clock. “Oh, dear! I ought to have done the shopping first. The soup should be on by now.”

Johann watched her with amusement; you could depend on Anna to plan things the wrong way round. And yet, in the darkroom, her work was excellent. Even Dick, who fussed and fumed about texture and light and shade and flawless prints, admitted she was good. Now she had decided to let the dishes drip and fetch her coat and shopping basket from the crowded closet near the door. By the time she was ready to go, he had read the clipping. It was datelined Vienna, and only a few days old.

Since the first diving operations in Lake Toplitz during the summer of 1959, when various chests that had been sunk there by the Nazis in 1945 were recovered, there has been considerable speculation in informed circles concerning the contents of these discoveries. It was officially announced, at the time, that among the items recovered from the lake was a cache of counterfeit English five-pound bank notes amounting to more than 25,000,000 Austrian schillings in value, as well as plans for U-boat rockets. (The details were given in the August 11th publication of the German magazine “Der Stern” of 1959.) But until today silence has been officially maintained about subsequent discoveries, leading certain interested people to believe that documents might still be hidden in Lake Toplitz. Such ill-founded beliefs can now be laid to rest. According to a reliable source, the documents have been identified as German records and receipts of the period 1936–39, including a list of Balkan agents working for the German Reich at that
time. A government spokesman stated today that all diving operations ceased some years ago when it was officially decided that our Styrian lakes had given up the last of their secrets. Such operations were highly expensive to maintain and, without further results, a waste of time and money.

“What got into Dick? It’s obvious we did fish up the documents, too.” And they were scarcely worth the trouble, thought Johann. Now that hoard of counterfeit bank notes and the submarine rockets had been something; but a list of Balkan agents, who probably never survived the war anyway... He laughed.

“Is it?”

“Of course it’s obvious! It says here—”

“It doesn’t say anything of the kind. ‘A reliable source,’ it says, and that’s all. What reliable source?”

“But the government spokesman—”

“Is stating the truth, and just read again what he says. It simply means we stopped diving.”

“But it says here—” Johann insisted.

“It doesn’t.” Anna was impatient. “It is simply trying to give that impression. It’s trying to convince people like your Russian tourists and Frenchmen that they are wasting their time. Which means there must be
some
interest starting up in the lakes again, enough to worry our government and make them want to discourage prowlers. It’s—it’s hidden diplomacy. That’s what Dick says.”

“That’s what Dick says,” he mimicked, and then laughed.

“Yes,” she said, blue eyes large with indignation.

“But he doesn’t think they are going to be discouraged?”

“Some of them won’t be. They know that the Nazis sunk
several chests, and these held more important things than the names of Balkan agents.”

“So that’s what triggered him off!” Johann lit a cigarette and poured the last of the coffee. “He’s a crazy idiot,” he added, shaking his head.

“Yes,” she flashed back at him, “only a crazy idiot would have given shelter to a fifteen-year-old refugee with a three-months-old baby in her arms.” The door closed behind her, leaving him staring at nothing.

The coffee was cold, but he drank it. The cigarette tasted like floor sweepings. It was the first time Anna, in all these years, had even mentioned Vienna to him. Dick had kept his silence, too, except for one brief explanation of why he had brought her to Salzburg. “I took her away from everything that reminded her of what Vienna had suffered.” And it was Dick who had arranged for the adoption of the child. That was part of the therapy. “It was Anna’s only chance. And mine. Rape distorts a girl’s mind, leaves revulsion and fear in place of trust. For months, even when she would share my room willingly, she wouldn’t leave, wouldn’t go out into the street unless I was with her—she wasn’t afraid of me somehow, only afraid of being abandoned again—she would flinch if I ever touched her hair, tremble against her own will when I put a hand on her cheek.” So, thought Johann bitterly, it was a stranger who found my sister wandering in the ruined streets—the family friends she had hoped to find either dead or scattered, new addresses unknown. I wasn’t any help to her then, when she needed most help. I wasn’t even there.

But what good would a sixteen-year-old kid have been anyway? He hadn’t described himself as that, of course, back
in those days. He was a veteran, a courier for the underground that the Americans and British had formed in the mountains both south and north of the Italian border; he was a man, a grown man by his reckoning, a very big man indeed. Hadn’t he, a city boy born and bred, made his way to the mountains when he was only fourteen? The Germans weren’t going to make a stiff-backed Nazi out of him as they had done with Josef, his older brother—killed in Poland, which was one way of settling Josef’s savage political arguments with their father. (Come to think of it, it was his father who had turned Josef into a Nazi before the Germans even arrived.) And his father wasn’t going to convert him into being a fellow Communist—Marxist was his way of describing himself; Father had always liked the intellectual touch—and sharing the martyrdom of a Nazi concentration camp. Yet the old man was tough. He had survived.

Yes, he had survived to come home after that great night of liberation and find what his comrades had done to his wife and daughter. He solved that problem even more quickly than he used to solve all the problems of the world: he hanged himself from an exposed and blackened beam in the ruins of his house. As for Mother...

Johann drew a deep long breath. Yes, that was all his mother had needed to push her out of this world. She retreated; first mentally, then physically. The day after she died, Anna made her way out of the Russian zone. A fifteen-year-old girl with a three-months-old baby in her hands. On foot. With only the clothes they wore. He had tried to imagine that journey, and couldn’t. Wouldn’t. That was more honest. The past was past... He was thinking too much about it, today. Perhaps because
Anna had been thinking about it. Had she sat all through last night remembering?

He rose abruptly, went through to the shop. Here everything was neat and businesslike. He admired the display of cameras, the expensive gadgets that tourists like to drape around their necks, and the photographs on the wall that were Dick’s real interest. Mountains, glaciers, forests and meadowlands, lakes (yes, Finstersee was there among them) and alpine villages with their half-timbered houses, wooden walls rising from white plaster, balconies set into alcoves under deep eaves. There was a picture of Unterwald, too, with the Gasthof Waldesruh standing peacefully against its background of trees. Suddenly, Johann frowned. He hesitated. Then, obeying his instinct, he moved quickly to the telephone. He hoped Felix Zauner wouldn’t still be reading a newspaper over his cup of mid-morning coffee at Tomaselli’s. But Felix was in his office above the Getreidegasse.

“And where are you sneezing from?” Felix wanted to know.

“I’m in Salzburg, staying with Anna and Dick. Look, Felix—what do you know about the Grells, August and Anton Grell? They keep the inn at Unterwald.”

“Pleasant enough. Efficient. The old boy is pretty conservative, though. I couldn’t interest him at all in turning his place into a real ski lodge. I have an idea for a ski lift up from the valley, but so far he says it would only ruin Unterwald.” Felix laughed. “It’s the first time I’ve ever heard a little more prosperity spread among the villages being called their ruin.”

Johann wiped his nose, repressed another sneeze. The shop was cold.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know,” Johann said slowly. He hadn’t any real reason, only a small worry that had started out as a simple question. He frowned again at the picture of the Gasthof Waldesruh. “It’s just that Dick went up to Finstersee early this morning—”

“Oh?” Felix’s quiet voice was now serious.

“And he telephoned Anna from the inn. He was having breakfast there.”

“Why not?”

“The inn is closed at the moment. At least, it looked very closed when I was up visiting Unterwald two weeks ago.”

“I didn’t think you noticed anything when you were with Trudi.” Felix might be making a mild joke about Johann’s girl-in-every-village, but his next words went right to the heart of Johann’s question. “So they invited him in for a hot cup of coffee. Why does that puzzle you?”

“He doesn’t know them except by sight. They aren’t friends of his. I was wondering if they were—well, perhaps a little curious about his photographing the lake.” Now that he had said it, it sounded damned silly.

“I’m a little curious about everything,” Felix said with a laugh, “including that cup of coffee. It’s more than I was offered when I visited Unterwald. When do you expect Dick home?”

“He’s on his way now.” Johann turned his head quickly as the shop door opened, but it was Anna coming back with her shopping basket piled high. “He will be here around one o’clock. Anna is just about to start making liver dumplings for the soup.” She laughed as she passed him, hurrying towards the kitchen, already slipping one arm out of her coat.

“I’ll bring my camera around after lunch and hear what
Dick advises. It’s letting in too much light. I may have to get a new one. See you all then. My love to Anna. And I think you should stay in bed.”

Johann went back to the kitchen and warmed his hands at the stove. “That was Felix.”

“What did he want?” Anna asked absent-mindedly.

“He needs a new camera.”

“Well that’s nice for us.” In the summer months the shop did a brisk business, for everyone who visited this part of Austria came to Salzburg and everyone visiting Salzburg liked to wander through the narrow streets of this old part of the town. That was one of the reasons Dick had chosen to live here rather than on the outskirts, which would have been cheaper as well as given them a garden and a view of the mountains. If Dick’s book did well, if it led to other books of the same kind, perhaps they could afford both a shop on the central Neugasse and a house on a distant hill. Something like Johann’s, only nearer to Salzburg. “What’s wrong, Johann?” He was too quiet.

“I had better shave.” He left without looking at her. He was beginning to regret his call to Zauner. Perhaps he had been too quick. Felix might well be more curious about Dick Bryant than about the Grells. And yet, he thought, there really is no harm that can come to Dick. Not now. If Dick had actually found anything in Finstersee, had refused to hand it over to the proper authorities, there could have been big trouble. Thank God I won’t have to feel guilty for that, thought Johann. Being neutral could be a very unpleasant business.

It was half-past one, and for the last ten minutes Anna had been trying not to look at the clock. Johann was moving around the kitchen in one of his restless attacks. Another day of living in this enclosed space, he thought, and I’d start pushing the walls out. How could people live in towns or cities? The more he remembered his own place, not much bigger than this but standing free and alone on the hill road outside of Bad Aussee, the greater became his impulse to gather his few things together, find his jeep in its usual parking place, take the highway home.

The shop door opened.

It could be Dick, although he usually came in the back way; it was nearer the square where he left his car, for in this part of the Old Town no automobiles were allowed. Anna was on her feet and running towards the shop before Johann could even turn around. He followed quickly.

It was a stranger who had entered the shop, a man with
intelligent brown eyes, dark hair, pleasantly rugged features, and a brisk but polite manner. He was fairly young—about thirty-five or less, Johann decided—and fairly tall, but not quite Johann’s six feet. He was in good condition, Johann noted too, someone who wasn’t spreading into his thirties. He was an optimist about weather; he wore no coat, no hat, just a tweed jacket and dark-grey flannels. He carried a neat camera bag strapped over one shoulder and two yellow boxes of film were in one hand. That explained his visit.