Death And The Maiden

36

Rheinhardt looked up at the shabby apartment block and wondered whether it was derelict. No gaslights flickered in the windows and two weary caryatids, streaked with bird droppings, grimaced beneath the weight of heavy capitals. There was no concierge and the foyer stank of sewage. Rheinhardt picked his way across broken tiles and ascended the staircase. He could not imagine Ida Rosenkrantz in this place. He could not imagine her lifting the hem of her expensive dress and stepping over old newspapers and smashed glass.

Perhaps Herr Schneider was mistaken?

The phrase was forming under his breath just as he arrived at Orsola Salak’s door. It stood wide open. Rheinhardt rapped the woodwork and an unnaturally deep female voice croaked, ‘Who is it?’

‘My name is Rheinhardt. I am a detective inspector.’

‘Police?’

‘Yes. May I come in?’

‘Do as you please.’

Her German was heavily accented.

‘Your door is open.’

‘I know.’

‘Shall I close it?’

‘Open — closed. It makes no difference.’

Rheinhardt wiped his feet on a floor mat and stepped into a gloomy hallway. Through another open door he saw a woman, seated next to a small table. The late-evening light was failing and all he could make out was this hunched figure.

‘Orsola Salak?’

‘Come in, Inspector.’

She was very old, in her eighties perhaps. Her hair was a grizzled mass of wisps, filaments and braids of varying sizes. Embedded in this unkempt tangle were filthy ribbons and broken fetishes. Rheinhardt saw discoloured copper rings, a miniature horseshoe, and a dried-up palm frond folded to make a cross. The general effect reminded him of a magpie’s nest. Salak didn’t look like the psychics and mind-readers who sat in booths on the Prater. Their posturing and theatricality was reassuringly absurd. Orsola Salak was something quite different, something more grave and disturbing — a reversion to an ancestral primitive type. Rheinhardt became aware of an eerie grinding sound emanating from her person. He noticed her clawlike right hand, the spidery action of her fingers, kneading whatever it was that she held.

‘It isn’t safe, leaving your door open like that.’

She produced a dry cackle. ‘I am protected.’

‘I didn’t see anyone.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t.’

She raised her head and the appearance of her eyes made Rheinhardt draw breath. The pupils were an opaque, malignant white: milky discs, rimmed with the remains of what had once been dark brown irises. Her skin was like parchment. When she smiled, deep seams opened up, segmenting her face and giving it the deranged appearance of a wooden puppet.

‘What’s the matter? Never seen a blind woman before?’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …’

‘Come in, sit.’

She reached across the table and shook an empty chair.

Rheinhardt glanced around the room.

Faded wallpaper, dusty curtains, a rug that covered only a small area of the floor. Beside the old woman was a battered ebony chest with a tarnished silver hasp. On top of it was a pile of charms made from hair and beads. They were like small effigies. Memories stirred. Rheinhardt recalled seeing an identical totem among Fraulein Rosenkrantz’s jewellery and cosmetics.

He sat down. ‘Thank you.’

‘I’d offer you something to drink, Inspector, but I have only some herbal remedies.’ Orsola Salek kicked the chest which produced a muffled clink. ‘You wouldn’t like them.’

‘Perhaps not.’

The grinding continued.

‘You’re not here for your fortune, are you?’

‘No.’

‘A professional visit, eh?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

Orsola Salak thrust her head forward and her calcified eyes caught the light.

‘You want to talk to me about Ida?’

Rheinhardt was surprised, and replied, somewhat redundantly, ‘Yes, Ida Rosenkrantz.’

The old woman nodded to herself. ‘I heard about what happened.’

‘She used to consult you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did she come often?’

‘Very often.’

‘Then you must know a lot about her.’

‘I do.’

Rheinhardt placed two kronen on the table. The old woman had no trouble locating the inducement. She snatched up the coins and secreted them in the voluminous folds of white lace that hung from her body. She then began a gravelly monologue.

Once again, the picture of Rosenkrantz that emerged was of an insecure, hysterical women, inclined to form relationships with unsuitable partners. Salak was unable to identify any of Rosenkrantz’s paramours by name. In the time-honoured tradition of fortune-tellers, she was evasive and spoke only in general terms. At one point she implied that it was she who had been responsible for Rosenkrantz’s success, that by wise counsel or the exercise of her divinatory gift she had engineered Rosenkrantz’s celebrity. Rheinhardt ignored the insinuation and asked Salak more questions about Rosenkrantz’s private life. The old woman’s tendency to digress was testing, and throughout the interview her motile fingers sustained a grinding accompaniment. There was something about this persistent, chalk-on-blackboard scraping that put Rheinhardt’s nerves on edge.

‘You know she fell pregnant?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who was the father?’

‘A powerful man.’

‘How do you know he was powerful?’

‘He didn’t want the child. He persuaded her to get rid of it.’

‘What happened?’

‘She went to see an angel maker.’

‘Do you know which one? Do you know who? Please. This is important. If you know, you must say. If you are protecting someone, then have no fear. I am not interested in making an arrest. I am only interested in piecing together Fraulein Rosenkrantz’s history.’

The ensuing hiatus was filled by noises which carried from the nearby train station: the screech of metal, a whistle, and the accelerating rumble of a steam engine leaving for Prague. Eventually, Orsola Salak spoke. ‘Do you give me your word?’

‘I do.’

‘Do you swear by all that is most precious to you?’

Rheinhardt thought of his family, his wife Else, his beloved daughters, and felt a frisson of discomfort.

‘I swear by all that is most precious to me.’

Salak accepted the oath with a grunt and continued, ‘She was in a terrible state. I told her to see someone, a Jewess. Her name is Judit: Judit Gardosh. She lives near St Leopold’s.’

The old woman gave Rheinhardt an address and he wrote it down in his notebook.

‘How is it that you are acquainted?’

‘Judit comes to see me occasionally, for a reading. She’s from the old country. Would you like a reading, inspector?’

‘I think not.’

‘It’s no trouble — and you have been generous.’

The old woman raised her arm and shook her fist like a gambler dicing. Rheinhardt recoiled with disgust as five or six small bones scattered across the tabletop. They looked remarkably like the phalanges of a human hand; however, they were very small, and Rheinhardt had the sickening thought that they might have once belonged to an infant.

‘Where did you get those?’

‘They were my grandmother’s. She taught me how to read them. She had the gift, and so did her grandmother.’

Salak’s hands played over the bones, her fingers trembling above the arrangement. Rheinhardt felt peculiarly vulnerable. The sun had set and the room was now filled with shadows. His eyes were playing tricks on him. In certain places the darkness seemed peculiarly unstable.

‘Three women,’ said the old woman, her words expectorated rather than spoken. ‘They bring you such happiness. Ah, you are a lucky man to have three women in your life.’

‘What about them?’

‘Who are you? That is the question: the policeman or the man with three women in his life.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What are you? A policeman? Or a father and husband? The time is approaching, very soon, when you must ask yourself such questions. Be true. Otherwise …’

‘Otherwise what?’

Orsola Salak scooped the bones back into her hand and the grinding started up again.

‘Be true,’ she repeated.

The temperature in the room had dropped and Rheinhardt’s rapid breathing was leaving a faint trace of vapour in the air. The shadows, particularly those gathered in the corners of the room, seemed even more restless. Rheinhardt shook his head to free himself of the illusion — but the impression of movement persisted.

‘I must go,’ he said firmly.

‘Yes, I think you should now.’

Rheinhardt placed another krone on the table and marched towards the door with undignified haste.