Читать книгу Vienna - Nick S. Thomas - Страница 9

Mickey leaned on the rail of the narrow balcony five floors above the street, and felt his mood brightening with the day. The pain at the back of his head was still there, but it was good to be off the train at last, and so far from all the ordinary things. Perhaps unplanned holidays were a good idea after all. In the room behind him the little sounds of unpacking suddenly stopped.

“Mickey? Mickey, honey? Do you think I’m going to need this?”

Without turning he said;

“No, I’d leave it at home if I were you.”

“Funny. Funny guy.”

“That’s me.”

It was the best kind of spring day now, clear blue sky and lots of it, with no tower blocks to get in the way. Indeed Vienna seemed to be a bit on the small side, in every dimension, for a capital city. Then again, the scale of the streets was deceptive, row upon row of big square buildings with roofs a size too small, giants’ cottages artfully converted to five or six floors for human use. The buildings were not the same height, but they were all of a piece, standing shoulder to shoulder with no gaps to be filled by the nasty little shops and foul alleys of central London. Yet there was nothing austere about this smartness. Most of the blocks sported some hint of baroque around the windows or the guttering, some little touch of wedding cake to brighten the façade. There was also, in the view from Mickey’s balcony, a fair sprinkling of Austrian flags, red, white, red, gathered, three at a time, in white mountings on the walls to advertise particular historical interest.

It was a jolly-looking place, dated but full of life, like an old lady who had kept her health and wits and sense of humour, and was generally described as ‘wonderful’. Mickey’s smile sagged a little then, as he thought of his mother, and then instantly, again, of London.

He turned at the sound of the doors to the balcony on his left being opened, and smiled hello at his father.

“All right in there, Mickey?”

“Yes, fine. I’ve left the unpacking to the little woman.”

“Very wise.”

Mickey smiled again and looked away. It was a joke he could have shared with any man.

“Lovely view,” he said.

“It’s just the city, you know. A view of the streets. Still, yes, it is rather fine in its way, I suppose.”

“Can you tell me about any of it?”

“Gosh no. Have a look at your guide book. I’d probably get it all wrong, what I think I can remember. That’s St. Stephens over there, of course. That big spire. The official centre of town.”

“What period?”

“Oh, all sorts. Quite a lot of the fabric must be new.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. Last time I was here it had a bloody great hole in its roof.” He looked away from the cathedral, and slowly across the close network of the streets. “Yes, quite a lot of this must be reconstruction after the war. They’ve done a good job, I must say. Not like Coventry, eh? Or London for that matter. A spot of common sense, you see. No stupid, knee-jerk rejection of the past and all its works. And they lost the bloody war. I don’t know.”

“It looks like it did before the war, then?”

“Well. . . Yes and no. It’s the same city, put it that way.”

A telephone rang through the sound of distant traffic on the breeze, and the old man turned without a word, and went inside.

“Hallo? Ja. . . Yes, speaking.”

Mickey felt the edge rub off the holiday mood. They had been there half an hour, and already someone was ringing his father, apparently in English. Business as usual.

He turned back into the room and found that Elspeth had deserted him for some reason. Clearly she would be back very soon, or she would have told him, so he was left with an indeterminate number of minutes to waste. He cast an eye over the helpful advice for visitors in seven languages, then opened the wardrobe. This was good for a laugh. His wife had turned him into an American, hanging up his clothes in the wrong combinations, tweed jacket with blue chinos, golfing jacket with cavalry twills. It wasn’t worth making a fuss about. He decided to have a bath, and reorganise the clothes as he dressed. He was just pulling on the chinos when she returned, and as soon he saw her he knew she’d found something exciting, extraordinary, something that had just absolutely made her day and brought her back to him hot and out of breath, full of energy and words.

“You should have taken the lift,” he said.

“Sure I did. I’m sorry I was so long, I just went out to get some cold cream—can you believe it? I forgot to pack cold cream—and it took just forever to find somewhere, and then the help didn’t speak English, and I had to wait—but then, on the way back here, I saw something—”

Mickey raised a hand.

“Don’t tell me. You found an old building.”

“Hey, don‘t make fun of me! This is really exciting.”

“OK, OK. Excite me.”

“Well there was this poster, OK? And it’s for this exhibit that’s on until May 1st, all about the civil war that happened here, when your father had to leave, back in 1934! I asked someone, to make sure I had it right. It’s the fiftieth anniversary, you know? Mickey we have to see that show. It’s really important.”

“Yes, fine, fine. Where is it?”

“It’s not in the centre of town. I copied down the address, I figured we could take a cab, maybe this afternoon?”

“This afternoon? For heavens’ sake, Pet, aren’t you tired? I just want to have some lunch and lie down on a bed that doesn’t move.”

“Hey, I didn’t come here to sleep. You know, we only have a week, and there’s a lot to see.”

With a groan, Mickey flopped back on the bed, and bathed his eyes in the emptiness of the ceiling.

“All right. See how I feel after lunch. Maybe a bucket of very cold gin and tonic would help.”

“Aspirin would be better. I’m sure your mother has some.”

“Undoubtedly, if she didn’t pop them all on the train. OK. Let’s look in on the old folks.”

When Mickey knocked on the door of his parents’ room a moment later, there was no answer. He waited, and was about to knock again, when his father opened the door just enough to let himself out, and then quietly locked it behind him.

“Your mother’s asleep. Probably better to let her rest while we have some lunch. What do you think?”

The question was rhetorical, although Mickey had no objection to raise. He would have been quite happy to let his mother sleep for the week.

He decided to adopt the gin option to relieve his headache, and secured a large one before he sat down again. The hotel restaurant seemed disappointingly familiar in its decor and menu; the Austrian influence could have been the work of any enterprising London manager pursuing a novel theme. That wasn’t all. He noticed, not for the first time, that he had automatically taken the right-hand seat of a pair, Elspeth the one on his left. Every meal was like getting married all over again, especially these occasional meals with only his father facing them, smiling, expectant and benignly in command, and so much more like an elderly vicar than the soldier he was supposed to be.

“I see they have Chablis. Elspeth I know you’re not very keen on wine. Mickey, will you have some, if I order it?”

“l will.”

Dimly he remembered learning that marriage was a sacrament. It was not only the Last Supper, then, that could be commemorated in food and drink, though this was probably some sort of heresy. Certainly his father would know.

“Do you two have anything planned for this afternoon?”

“Well. . .”

“Your mother mentioned something about having a general conference over the maps and guide books.”

“Actually, Elspeth’s found an exhibition she wants to see. It might be a good idea to get it out of the way today, with so much else to do.”

Elspeth turned to him, and beamed.

“Oh, you feeling better?”

“Quite restored, thank you.”

“Oh that’s great. Herbert it would be really good if you could come too. It’s the fiftieth anniversary of the time when you were here.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I mean. . .”

“Oh, the uprising? I’m sorry, I see what you mean now. Really? Well that would be interesting, certainly. It’s on for a while, is it?”

She nodded, with her mouth full of bread.

“Until May 1st.”

“Ha! Of course, it would be. Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m really up to it today. I must try and get there, though, before we leave. Ah. Have we decided?”

Mickey looked up at the waiter, and flinched. The man’s expression of supercilious contempt was probably misleading, but it was enough to cow an enfeebled tourist.

“Dad I’ll have whatever you’re having. I can’t make up my mind.”

“I only really want an omelette.”

“Fine.”

“Very well. . . Elspeth?”

“Do you have Wiener Schnitzel?”

Mickey closed his eyes, but strangely the waiter didn’t whistle up the entire hotel staff to jeer and take photographs, but merely thanked them and went away. Elspeth said;

“Can you tell us some more about it? I mean I know that was when your uncle died. . .”

“Oh yes, but that was nothing to do with it, really. I don’t know, Elspeth, the exhibition will tell you more than I could, I’m sure. Funnily enough, you see, although I was there. . . here, I didn’t have a clue what was going on. It seemed like the end of the world, that’s all I know.”

“Sure, but just, like, in general terms. . .”

“Oh. . . well there was the Left, and the Right, and a lot of paramilitary groups, some of them armed to the teeth. Austria was a real mess in all sorts of ways after the first war. When I was here the government was more or less a dictatorship, and it was having to lean pretty heavily on an outfit called the Heimwehr. Home Army. Austrian Nationalist. They really wore the trousers in the country, although Vienna was pretty solidly socialist. This was four years before the Nazis took over, remember. They wanted to keep Austria independent of Germany, and they hated the Italians like sin because of the pasting they took in the war . . . some of them wanted the Emperor back. Quite hopeless, of course.” He paused to smile his thanks at the waiter pouring the bottle of Chablis, then stared at his glass in silence. Eventually Mickey said;

“So what happened?”

“Well. . . the socialist lot, the Schutzbund, were getting to be too much of a nuisance, and there was some sort of raid in Linz, when they had all their guns taken away. There was a lot of commotion here, as well, demonstrations, people leaving parcel bombs. Anyway, they organised a general strike here, and the government decided to clobber them once and for all. There was some street fighting, artillery fire, bit of house-to-house. It was a foregone conclusion, I’m afraid. A few people were shot, a lot more were jugged, and it was all over. After that it was the Nazis who caused all the trouble. But I was out of it by then.”

He started to work on the omelette that had just arrived, then looked up, towards Elspeth, unmistakeably on the point of asking her about her Wiener Schnitzel to change the subject. Quickly Mickey said;

“But Dad, where were you when this was going on?”

“Me? Uh, I was . . . I was here and there, you know. Not now, please, there’s a good chap. How’s your lunch, Elspeth?”

Mickey sat back with a jolt, shocked dumb. His father had always had a way of making good stories uninteresting, but it wasn’t like him to clam up altogether. This was a puzzle. Mickey looked past his wife, out of the wide window at her side, to the grey roofs and the traffic, and the soft outline of distant trees beyond. The same city . . . Could a man who had talked freely of the butchery of war really be silenced by something that had happened in this gentle, tiny place? There would have to be more to it than that.

“Dad? What was that phone call about this morning?”

“Oh. That was the lawyer bloke, Gruber. Apparently we are to have a distinguished guest tomorrow morning. Bit of extra colour for you, Elspeth.”

“Oh really? You mean someone else is going to be there, when they open up your uncle’s stuff?”

“That’s right. Some chap who’s fairly high up in the government service, something to do with the U.N., asked if he could come along.”

“That’s a bit thick, isn’t it?” said Mickey.

“Do you think so? Maybe. Actually Gruber was very apologetic. It seems he was talking to this bloke at a party about a week ago, and mentioned that our thing was coming up—quite an event, apparently—and the bloke asked if he could sit in on it. He’s pretty senior, and Gruber felt he couldn’t just tell him to get lost. I don’t mind. It’s quite flattering, really. You don’t mind, do you Mickey? I should have asked you, really, since you’re the only other surviving relative. Not that we’re relatives at all, except by marriage, still . . . Poor old Wolf. Do you mind?”

“Oh no, I suppose not. I don’t really feel it’s much to do with me.”

“Nonsense. It’s as much your business as mine, in a way. I don’t suppose Wolf counted on there being any legatee to receive the stuff. After all, in those days the prospects for a young man reaching my age didn’t look too bright, what with all the modern military hardware. Things haven’t changed much, have they? I told Gruber to expect us about eleven-thirty. No point in getting up at the crack.”

Mickey nodded absently, thinking hard. He had been looking forward to the revelations of his great uncle’s estate no more than to the rest of the trip, but now he was suddenly curious. He was almost excited.

As he waited for his wife to dress herself for the afternoon, he brooded about the hidden history of Vienna. There was something here, something that had been here, that made the place far more important to his father than he had been letting on. Now they were here together, and it seemed impossible that Mickey could go home again without finding that something, and knowing what it meant. Maybe he was making too much of it, maybe not. In any event, he realised that he had, as it were, closed the file on the riddle of his father’s character long since, and that it had now been reopened. The riddle might actually be solved, through the catalyst of some dusty package giving up its secrets in a lawyer’s office. The notion was irresistible.

“Hey, you OK? I’m ready to go now.”

“Yes, Pet, I’m ready.”

“So what’s eating you?”

“Oh. . . Dad. He wouldn’t talk about what happened to him here. I thought I’d heard everything, at one time or another, but not this. And he wouldn’t talk about it. It’s not like him at all. He’ll always talk about things. He doesn’t make much of them, it’s true, but you get the facts. I’ve never seen him do that.”

“He’s just tired, honey. He’ll tell us later. Tomorrow maybe.”

“Maybe. Maybe tomorrow will tell. Come on. Let’s find a cab.”