The Vienna Melody (60 page)

“I recall a book by a Viennese,” Fritz said. “His name was Ferdinand Kürnberger, and the title of the book was
Weary of America.
Perhaps you will write the counterpart?”

“I know the book,” Hans told him. “It makes the error all Austrians make. They apply the Austrian standard of measurement on the world.”

“And what do you intend to do?” Fritz asked, struggling in the storm to open the door to his cabin.

“To apply the standard of the world to Austria. It would be an undertaking.”

The door withstood his efforts. “I am afraid I have overestimated you,” Fritz declared when he finally opened it. “What they said about you at Number 10 is right. You are an idealist.”

 

As always on Tuesdays when Peter, now Chief of Division, invited the inhabitants of Number 10 and his friends to hear chamber music, there was a lavish buffet supper. He himself played the viola; Annemarie, his wife, the violin; Fritz was at the piano, and Mr. Foedermaycr performed on the cello. Fritz, who was charged with planning the programs and conducting rehearsals, found that, according to his scorn for every form of amateurishness, the whole business was a “gross impropriety.” The former Annemarie von Stumm, especially, had to swallow many biting remarks about people who “can't tell the difference between a musical key and a door key” and who derive from barbaric lands where Prussian military barks are held to be music. But since Peter was a lover of chamber music and fiddled quite acceptably, and Mr. Foedermayer, chief clerk of the C. Alt piano firm, was almost a virtuoso on the cello, the critical cousin put up with the family foible. His own second symphony had been conducted with extraordinary success by Furtwaengler, for the Philharmonic's last concert; and even Julius Korngold, the all-powerful music critic, had given the stamp of his approval in the
Neue Freie Presse
with his words “a new Austrian composer of the first rank.”

Hans noticed that his mother had not made her appearance, so he inquired of his sister about her. Martha Monica, who had taken advantage of his absence in America to lose her heart to another angel, found her mother's delay quite natural; Mother always took so much time to make herself beautiful. As for Martha Monica's new flame, he had gazed at her rapturously all during the music and now was at the buffet recovering from the strenuousness of the last sonata. He was the young Baron Waldstetten, aide-de-camp to the Vice-Chancellor Prince Starhemberg, a little younger than Martha Monica but just as much in love. The green uniform he wore was that of the Heimwehr. “You know how vain Mother is!” was the reason given by his sister to Hans.

To look at her was still a pure pleasure. With her joyousness, infecting even the most impervious, she formed a focal point in the gathering, which irked her hostess. After all, one did not take so much trouble, first with rehearsals, then with playing, and afterwards with all the supper, to see that girl from the fourth floor come down and carry off the honors. Yet one could not hold it against her, she was so enchanting. Rushing over to Annemarie and putting her arm round her, she now said, “You played simply brilliantly. I enjoyed it so much!”

“Simply or brilliantly? Make up your mind,” Fritz demanded severely.

Although in Martha Monica's domain there was no room for cares, Hans was concerned over his mother's continued absence and went up to the fourth floor to find out about her. Madam was still at home, Hanni informed him, and Dr. Einried too.

“Who?” asked Hans, who heard only the title of “Dr.” and thought it was a physician.

Whereupon Henriette called from the living room, “Let the young master come in, Hanni!”

At the Maria Theresa desk Hans found an unknown gentleman. His mother, all dressed in her evening clothes, was seated in an armchair beside him.

“You know each other,” she said.

In the gray-haired gentleman with a pince-nez Hans recognized his former schoolmate, Eugenie's son.

“Very pleased to renew the acquaintance,” said Dr. Einried, embarrassed. “I hear you have been in America? Was it interesting over there?”

“Yes. How are—your parents?”

“Papa has been dead some time. Mother is celebrating her seventieth birthday next Monday. Won't you come and see us? Mother is sure to be very pleased.”

“I'd be glad to, if I may,” said Hans, embarrassed. Then, glancing at the papers spread out over the desk, “Forgive me for interrupting, if I've disturbed you. I only wanted to know what was keeping you so long, Mother.”

“You see!” exclaimed Henriette. “Didn't I tell you what kind of a son he is? He even came back from America!” Then, looking at this son with tenderness, “It is probably a good idea that you came up. I'm making my will and in any case wanted to ask you several things. Did you not know that Dr. Einried is my lawyer?”

“No,” Hans said.

Now it was her turn to be embarrassed. “As it happens, I made a will while you were away. Our old Dr. Schultz drew it up. But dear old Schultz received, in the course of his life, too many directions from your late father and your late uncle. In dealing with him I felt like a ward. That's not right if one is to make one's will—isn't that so, Doctor?” she inquired with all the charm she still possessed.

“Not necessarily,” replied the man, who as a schoolboy had been first in crystallography, and coughed slightly behind his raised hand. He too felt ill at ease since Hans appeared.

“Consequently I've emancipated myself and turned to Dr. Einried,” Henriette explained. “To him Number 10 is, thank God, an unknown quantity. Besides, I did think that you wouldn't be coming back.”

“How so?” Hans asked, with increased bewilderment.

“Well, you're here now,” Henriette answered, nodding to him, “and that's the main thing. Now listen. The only point still to be discussed is this house. As you know, I'm residuary legatee under your father's will, and he had a one-third interest in the house. A second third was Otto Eberhard's property, inherited by Elsa after his death. The third is the joint property of your Aunts Drauffer and Paskiewicz. When I am no longer here the house will have not four owners, as previously, but six. I think that is correct, isn't it, Doctor? Property problems are Chinese puzzles to me!”

“That was the position also when Fraulein Sophie Alt and Frau Betty Alt, formerly Kubelka, were still alive,” said Dr. Einried, immediately establishing a fact. He was ever a prime scholar.

Downstairs at Cousin Peter's someone must have sat down at the piano; you could hear the playing and, following it, the sound of singing:

 

Way out in Schönbrunner Park,

Way out in Schönbrunner Park,

Sits an ancient man full of woe.

Dear old, good old, ancient man,

Do not let your heart ache so.

Dear old, good old, ancient man In Schönbrunn …

 

“Quite right,” confirmed Henriette. “And that's exactly how it would be again. One third would go to my three children; the second will remain the property of the old ladies, and the third would be Elsa's and go, after her death, to Peter. Is that correct?”

“Quite so, Frau Alt.”

“Mother, I think you're bothering your head quite unnecessarily,” Hans said. “They're waiting downstairs for you before serving the punch; you have such a lovely dress on and are still delaying. I can't understand, Einried, how you can back Mother up in these dismal interests!”

The former bright boy coughed slightly. If rich people wanted to indulge their vagaries he was not one to forgo drawing his own advantage from it.

“But they're not dismal,” Henriette explained gaily. “Don't bother Dr. Einried. The poor man is so busy that I can see him only after office hours, and besides, he is charming enough to come to see an old lady who is terrified of any kind of office and look after her foibles. Young men who will come to see old ladies are scarce!”

“Thank goodness you're so well that such conferences are not necessary,” asserted Hans, to whom, as a matter of fact, the successor to the old family physician had recently painted a far less rosy picture.

“You don't understand me. It's just because I feel so well that I've decided to rid myself of all cares,” said his mother, fingering her pearls, which were not so
 
beautiful as
 
Martha Monica's. “Since you nave come back I feel as though I were on a holiday. To tell the truth, Dr. Einried, we have not had many holidays in this house—holidays from care, I mean.”

“I understand,” agreed the lawyer, obviously wishing to bring the over-long conversation to an end.

This did not affect Henriette. “I feel like the pensioned officials who move to Graz to enjoy their retirement there,” she went on. “I'm not moving to Graz, because I should find it too tame, but I've firmly decided to move away from all cares. I want to grow to a ripe old age. Older than, or at least as old as, Aunt Sophie—who, incidentally, at eighty still looked passably attractive. In this house, Dr. Einried, people grow to be as old as Methuselah. I've never been insured for anything, although my late husband was always urging me to take out some life insurance. But I always hated to pay monthly instalments. Now I should like to be insured, as it were, against care, without premiums. When this will is out of the way, and Hans and Mono are with me, I shall not have a care left in the world. I shall live the life of a lotus-eater!” She hummed a line from the song they were singing downstairs. “I think I shall allow myself a glass of champagne every day. Not punch. Besides, it's good for the heart.”

Did Mother mean what she was saying? Hans could not tell why it all sounded so forced to him.

She seemed to mean it, and insisted on his hearing Paragraph 3 of her will and expressing his views about it.

Dr. Einried read, “Paragraph 3. ‘My third interest in the house at 10 Seilerstätte I bequeath in equal shares to my children Hans, Franziska Baier, and Martha Monica. It is my wish that after my death my children dispose of their shares by sale to the other owners of the house and take up their residence elsewhere. For it cannot have been the intention of the builder of the house to stand in the way of the well-being of his descendants. And I trust I shall be forgiven if I venture the remark that I do not consider the house of 10 Seilerstätte as conducive to well-being.'”

This made Hans think of a postscript in a letter he received while in his prison camp and what at that time had seemed revolutionary to him.

“What do you say to it?” Henriette asked. When the opposition she feared was not forthcoming, she beamed. “This is how I look at it. Franziska lives in Salzburg anyway and, thank goodness, is contented to be there. Mono will marry. And perhaps you will too?” Seeing the shadow that fell on his face, she hastened to add, “I mean, it would not be, a source of unhappiness to you to be rid of your share.”

“On condition that the other co-owners are unanimously in favor of it. According to the will of your respected spouse, you, Frau Alt, may dispose of your interest only within the limits prescribed by the testament of the founder, Christopher Alt. And that testament made certain explicit stipulations,” said the lawyer firmly.

Hans was surprised that his mother should think this was something new, since he himself had been aware of it since childhood.

“Old Christopher's will is crazy, and it cannot be valid forever! Time has broken many another will!” Henriette exclaimed.

That was exactly what Selma had written to him in his prison camp.

“Quite right,” the lawyer agreed. “Except that you are thinking of it in terms of laws affecting public bodies or constitutional changes brought about by circumstances. On the other hand, in civil law—and this is exclusively a matter of civil law—we are for better or for worse obliged to abide by the civil code, which has not been changed by the revolution, I am tempted to add, thank God!”

Henriette had grown nervous. In her eyes all lawyers were manipulators of law, and this one should prove no exception. That is why she had had him come!

“We shall find a solution. A thousand thanks in any case for the time you have spent on me outside your office hours.” With that she concluded the interview in the grand manner she had had a taste of in her youth.

The lawyer kissed his client's hand, the two former schoolmates shook hands, and they all left the fourth floor together.

Henriette let the outsider go first and then followed slowly with her son. The utterly unexpected remark of the prime scholar had ruined her whole plan. For she had not taken such a firm stand behind the bulwark of her will for the purpose of having the children leave the house after her death, but because she herself wished to leave it at last. Not another night in this haunted house! But she could not possibly tell Hans what had been happening here since the night he went away.

She had lain awake on that night as on many others. And between the two windows the dead woman had stood. She wore a doublet of silver mail, whose sheen glinted through the dark. Henriette was so frightened that she was incapable of any movement.

She tried to say to herself, I am dreaming, she is not standing there. But there she stood looking at her with wide-open eyes. Henriette had waited in an agony of suspense. She had heard the clock on her bureau strike the quarter-hour twice. For that length of time, at least, the dead woman had stood there and looked at her with anguish. Twice Henriette attempted to speak to her, but her throat produced no sound. When she finally succeeded in drawing herself up, the dead woman had vanished.

The apparition had come again three times. Clad in silver mail, she had stood between the windows. The night before was the last time.

It was impossible for Henriette to tell Hans that his murdered wife found no peace in her grave. She knew, of course, that his thoughts were still not freed from her. He would have believed her, and it would have robbed him of his reason. Rudolf too had firmly believed in the White Lady, who appeared to the Empress in the castle whenever she wanted to warn her about anything. What warning was Selma trying to convey to her? Henriette slept even less than she did before the apparition came. She was afraid of falling asleep ever since. Away from this house!