The Vienna Melody (46 page)

Hermann said, “Tell us about your prison camp in Russia.”

Martha Monica chimed in, “Yes, please do, Hans. It's frightfully interesting!”

Franz ate with an effort. His paralysed mouth made chewing and swallowing infinitely difficult. But he chewed and swallowed. It seemed that he did not care to associate himself with the wishes of Hermann and Martha Monica. Henrietta's hands still trembled.

“It was ghastly,” Hans said. Then he was silent.

“Is that all?” Hermann asked. “I should have thought you would like it. I mean—be interested by it. The political point of view and so on?”

Hans looked at him, at his jauntily upturned moustache, his face lacking in all expression.

“Ghastly,” he repeated. Before his eyes rose the image of the pigsty in which he and fifty-six others had lived like animals for years on end.

“You poor thing,” Martha Monica said, leaning closer to him with her perfume. To him it smelled like the manure in the pigsty and the delousing chemicals.

“And have you any idea why they wouldn't set you free for so long? There must have been a strong reason for it. Was it your conduct? Or your—opinions, maybe?”

“I don't know.”

“There's someone on the telephone for you, Fraülein,” announced Simmerl.

The girl blushed and said shyly: “It's probably Liesl.” She ran into the hall and was overheard to say, “Shortly … Yes … No … I don't think so … Rather the Kruger Cinema.”

Hans jumped up.

“I thought you were not going to the theater tonight,” Henriette said.

But he said, “Good night,” and left.
I must watch myself
, he thought as he walked downstairs.
I can't go on like this either
.

He went up Annagasse. In front of the “Roman Emperor” an assignation rendezvous, there were prostitutes promenading up and down. Across the way, in the church of St. Anna, the organ was pealing. Beside the church the Max and Moritz cabaret, where they played farces, showed a sign “House full.” Next beyond that an unending stream of jazz poured from the Kaiser Bar. Near the Kruger Cinema, around the corner, people were standing in line for tickets, and three steps farther on they were doing the same in front of the Frischler Bakery, waiting for leftover stale bread.

The famous “Fenstergucker” coffee house, in Kärntner­strasse, was turned into a bank. The quotations for foreign exchange read: 1 dollar–90,000 Crowns; 1 Pound Sterling–450,000 Crowns.

On the show window of the Old Bond Street dress shop there was a printed notice posted: “We exchange dresses for food.” A woman said to Hans, “Junger Herr! I'll go with you for a million!” In the Koeberl and Pientok delicatessen store the prices were written in chalk on a blackboard: “Eggs–five thousand crowns apiece. Condensed milk–fifteen thousand crowns a tin. Corned beef–twenty thousand crowns a tin.” As Hans was going by a hand erased the price of eggs on the board, changing the five to six thousand.

Where am I?
thought this man who had come home.
We used to walk along this same Kärntnerstrasse and think we were a cultured nation. When was that?
He realized that a very long space of time had sufficed to bring them back to the point from which they had started. The cave-dwellers had engaged in barter. The Viennese were now bartering, and even advertising the fact. Had anyone said even a ghastly short time ago that eggs would cost one crown, instead of four hellers, he would have been put in an insane asylum. Now they were writing prices in the thousands and revising them upward with every hour that passed. What has happened to the human brain? thought Hans. How can it grow accustomed to the unimaginable? How can it be that people walk apathetically past these placards and signs instead of crying, “Madness!” until the whole world hears it?

He was in such a degree of excitement that he wanted to cry “Madness!” in the middle of Kärntnerstrasse; it took all his strength to control himself. With both fists pressed against his mouth he stood there as though transfixed; he had no idea for how long. When he dropped his hands his palms had traces of blood on them.

Selma saw him standing at the stage door and for a brief instant was filled with the ardent hope that he had changed his mind and come to see her act. But he had come only to fetch her.

“Was it bad at home?” she asked.

He shook his head.

Two famous associates of Selma's walked out of the stage door. She wanted to introduce him, but he refused.

Even the young people who stood around and asked for autographs made him bitter. “Have they no other worries?” he asked. She had to restrain him from saying as much to one young man who asked her for her signature.

“These are our most devoted supporters! We cannot afford to offend them,” she said.

“We? Who are we?” he asked.

“We actors.”

“I see. I thought you meant you and I. Or we Austrians. My mistake.”

It was hard for her to repress the answer hovering on her lips. She was still trembling from the excitement of acting. She had been so convinced, after he called to her from the window, that he would come to see her play. She had acted just far him. She would never be so good again. The farewell scene in the third act had come off well for the first time. How she would have liked to discuss it with him! And also the part which had been promised her half an hour ago—St. Joan! She had longed passionately to play this part for which her famous associates had been angling. And she was to be the one to play it! But this did not interest him.

They walked along in silence for a while.

“Don't you want to ride?” she asked.

He wanted to walk. He had been walking for two hours, but the house for him was terrifying. And even the streets which led to it. “Shall we sit down for a bit in the Volksgarten?” he suggested. “Or are you very hungry?”

She was very hungry, but she sat down with him on a bench near the Grillparzer Memorial. “Tell me, what happened at home?” she asked. “You find that they talk a language you no longer understand, don't you?” She took his feverish hand with its wounds from, his finger-nails.

He tried to explain.

“Yes,” she said. “But can you reproach people with wanting to live on as usual? Because if they still cling to that they have to make the most neckbreaking efforts.”

“Human beings are not clowns,” he said.

“Yes, they are,” she argued. “When you actually realize how things are you either commit suicide or you deceive yourself. We deceive ourselves. That's Austrian.”

“That's just what it isn't,” he contradicted. “It would be Austrian if it had a trace of humanity. Or decency. Or modesty. Or human dignity—or whatever you wish to call it. But not that crass, intolerable, grasping egotism!”

“I'm not sure,” she said, “but what you overestimate the Austrians.” She was not one to say, “Do you really love me so little that our first day should be like this? Have I overestimated you?”

They walked home by way of the Heldenplatz and Ringstrasse, where there was less evidence of hectic night life. There was no light in the staircase of Number 10; it was past ten o'clock.

“Home,” she said. “You are home…”

 

When this first day turned completely into night he entreated her, “Help me. I need you so.”

She kissed him.

“Do you really love me, Selma?”

“I'll have to chastise you by going to get all those calendars!” He restrained her. “If you love me then I'll know where I belong,” he said softly. “You see, I'm not sure any more.”

It sounded so sad that she had to make an effort to keep from crying. “What have they done to you!” she said, deeply affected, and stroked his hair.

“To us all,” he answered. “Do you love me?”

“I love you.”

For a long time he was silent. “Could you make friends with my mother?” he asked finally. “I'm afraid you underestimate her. Not even you will be a better mother. Why don't you say anything?”

No reply.

“What's the matter, Selma?”

“I shall not be a mother,” she said. All day long she had dreaded this.

“What did you say?”

She hesitated over every word. “This is no time. This is no time to bring children into the world. This world isn't right for it. You say so yourself.”

He was sitting up now. “You don't want a child from me,” he said.

“Do you know how children can be brought up now? I don't. What they are to be brought up for? I don't know. I know only this. They should be spared. Children who haven't enough to eat. Children for whom you can't provide enough childhood.”

It was very silent in the room. Now and then strains of jazz from the Kaiser Bar were to be heard.

“It's an excuse,” he said. “You don't want to have any children. Look at your cousin Peter's children,” she said. “Little Kurt died at three months. Joachim seems very sickly. I've never seen Adelheid and Otto Adolf laugh.”

“You mean it would be an obstacle to you in your profession,” Hans said with utmost slowness.

She had expected that too. She lacked courage to admit it. She was not cowardly enough to deny it. “Hans,” she begged, “you must have patience with me too.”

He remembered what his mother had said to him, “You will discover it.”
I have discovered it
, he thought.
And with what terrifying speed!

Life at Gaetano's side was bliss. Martha Monica had never doubted that life was wonderful, but that it could be so entrancing, pure heaven on earth, from the time she woke up until she went to bed again, was something that filled her with a constantly wondering delight and tender gratitude. He had remained here for her sake. She took his word for it, her Gaetano, whom she no longer called Conte, but by his Christian name, which sounded like music. And he not only discussed the most weighty matters with her; he also actually showed her the most important documents, the most incredible State secrets, so great was his trust in his Monica. He had shown her, for example, a letter from someone he called the greatest living man; it began with “
Carissimo Amico
,” and was signed “Benito.” In it were expressed not only the highest appreciation of the person thus addressed but also tenderest love and admiration for Austria.

Gaetano was an angel! He found nothing too good for her. And how touchingly he protected her good name! In his apartment in Fasangasse, in the vicinity of the Palais Modena, which housed the Italian military mission after the Armistice and now the Legation, he had furnished three rooms for her, completely separated from his own and with a private entrance. No one could criticize it in the least. And the way he had arranged it for her! With its view out over the Botanical Garden, it was a model of luxury and comfort. She did not live there, so long as she was not married, of course, but she often spent some time and occasionally stayed overnight. But it was too bad that Papa had such completely unfounded objections to it, and, strangely enough, Hans had too. Mother, on the other hand, was understanding. As for Hermann, whom Martha Monica had rather underestimated, he turned out to be much nicer than she had thought at first. He came, and went to her apartment, for Gaetano liked him particularly and considered him positively brilliant. In his presence he had said expressly that he would marry Martha Monica the very instant the Italian Government had acted on his application to remain in Vienna. Should he be transferred elsewhere, they would also get married, but in the city of his new assignment, as was the custom in diplomatic life.

Why wouldn't Papa and Hans understand so simple a matter? Everything had changed; even the time when a young girl was not allowed to go out in the streets alone had passed. You no longer wore ankle-length skirts but extremely short ones; you went skiing; you cut your hair like a boy, and if you went swimming you thought nothing of showing yourself as God made you. Martha Monica made excuses for poor sick Papa, who could not keep up with things, as she always excused everything and could never be angry with anyone. But she could not grasp why it was that her favorite brother Hans deserted her. He had always been the most progressive of them all. Except perhaps Fritz, who also was no great admirer of Gaetano; but a bit of jealousy might account for that.

Martha Monica sat beaming in the diplomatic box in Parliament, with Gaetano on one side of her and the Spanish
chargé d'affaires
on the other. This was her first great social triumph. For despite his angelic qualities Gaetano had until now never taken her to any official occasions. Today, however, he had done it without being asked; indeed, he had insisted on it, and there never could be an occasion which would command more eyes and ears.

On the speaker's tribunal stood the Catholic Prelate Seipel, who had followed the Social Democrat Renner, as head of the Government, and who had just returned from a journey abroad. It was said that the question of whether Austria could continue to exist depended on the result of this journey.

“Before I undertook this journey,” said the priest with the lean face, sharply protuberant nose, straight upper lip, and thin-lipped mouth which opened so slightly as he spoke dispassionately, with icy calm, monotonous intonation, and in the inflection of the country folk, “Austria was condemned to downfall. Conditions here beggared description, and still beggar description. An undeserved defeat turned our poor land into a mortally stricken cripple, incapable of righting itself again, without support and yet deprived by unscrupulous parasites of every last shred of power and dignity.”

“
Benissimo
,” Gaetano approved softly.

“Members of the Parliament,” continued the speaker, who bore the nickname of Gray Eminence, to have to ask for alms is a task to bow one's pride. I took that task on myself when I journeyed to our neighbors, to Berlin, Prague, and Verona, to convince them that Austria must have credits. It is a source of satisfaction to me to be in a position to report to the House that my arguments met with success. I have returned with credits amounting to five hundred millions of gold crowns.”