Making History

AMERICAN HISTORY

The Gettysburg Address

‘So, tell me, Mike. What do you know about Brunau?’

The voice was warm, interested and impressed, as if the speaker were asking me to do a trick to impress a friend.

I wondered what had happened to Steve. The speed and assurance of the two men — they had given their names as Hubbard and Brown — had left no time for questions or complaints. Would we follow them to their car please? It was right outside. There were some questions that I could help them with. It would be so useful. No need to bring anything and of course no need to worry.

I had been placed between Hubbard and Brown in the back seat of the first of two long, black sedans parked outside the doorway of Henry Hall and it was only as we moved off that it had occurred to me that Steve was nowhere to be seen. I shifted round to give myself a view through the rear-window to see if he was in the second car, but Brown, like an Edwardian schoolmaster, twisted my head gently but firmly back round to face the front.

We had travelled no more than twenty minutes before we turned off the road and into the driveway of a large house. As we got out of the car I could make out the clapboard of the gables, clinker-built like the background of that painting, American Cothic. The air was soft and fragrant with the smell of pine trees.

Inside, I was led through to a dining room and shown a seat in the middle of a large, shining maplewood table. Hubbard sat opposite me and Brown stood at one end, fiddling with a coffee-pot whose lid appeared to be stuck.

‘Consarned thing,’ he said, exasperatedly thumping the side of the lid with the side of his fist.

‘Charles Winninger!’ I exclaimed excitedly, then instantly wished that I had held my tongue.

Hubbard leaned forward with interest. ‘Excuse me?’

‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘I was just thinking aloud.’

‘No, no. Please…” Hubbard spread his hands invitingly.

‘I was just thinking of Destry Rides Again. Charles Winninger plays a character called Wash Dimsdale and he’s always saying “consarned” this and “consarned” that. I never heard anyone else use the word before. That’s all.’

Hubbard looked up at Brown, who shrugged and shook his head.

‘It’s a movie,’ I explained. ‘At least it was once. But you’ve probably never heard of it.’

I saw that Hubbard had written down in a notebook the words ‘Destry’ and ‘Wininger’ followed by two large question-marks. I suppressed a desire to correct the spelling and stared down at the table which glowed as if new. There was a quality to it however, which suggested to me that it was not new, just very, very underused.

‘But you didn’t answer my original question, did you Mike? Brunau. Tell me what you know about Brunau.’

‘What makes you think I know anything at all about it?’

‘You don’t?’

‘Never heard of the place,’ I said.

‘Well now, that’s a start, Mikey. You know it’s a place. You know it isn’t a person or a shade of pink. That’s a good start.’

Pants! Fell into that one, didn’t I?

‘I suppose I must have heard of it somewhere. In a geography lesson at school maybe…’ I tried, fumblingly, to correct the sentence into something more American. ‘I mean, I guess I heard it in geography class, you know? In school some time. I guess so, anyways.’ I winced inwardly at that last word. Overdoing it a tad.

Hubbard didn’t seem to notice anything wrong, just continued with his gentle probing. ‘That right? So you remember where it is, this Brunau?’

‘Germany?’

‘Good. You’re doing good, Mike.’

‘Hey! You want your coffee black or with cream?’

‘Cream please,’ I said, looking up from the table for the first time. Brown had unstuck the lid of the coffeepot somehow and was now delicately pouring thick black coffee into tiny little cups.

There was an awkward pause as the social embarrassment of the handing round of sugar and teaspoons was completed.

‘Where’s Steve?’ I asked, looking around the room. ‘Is he here?’

‘He’s around,’ said Hubbard, taking an exploratory sip of coffee.

‘Can I see him?’

‘Great coffee, Don.’

Brown nodded contentedly, as if he was used to receiving compliments on the quality of his brew.

‘I’d rather not talk any more until I’ve seen him. Found out what this is all about.’

‘This is about you, me and Mr Brown here having a little pow-wow, Mike. That’s all. Nothing to worry about. You were telling us that you thought maybe Brunau was in Germany?’

‘Well it sounds like a German name, doesn’t it?’

‘Let’s try you on the name Hitler, shall we? That mean anything to you? Hitler?’

Maybe my pupils dilated, maybe they shrank. Maybe I caught my breath a fraction. Maybe my colour changed. I know that I tried to sound casual and I know that the attempt failed.

‘Hitler?’ I said, swallowing. ‘Where’s that?’

Hubbard looked up again at Brown who nodded and took a small chromium box from his breast pocket. Placing the box carefully on the table between me and Hubbard, Brown returned to his standing position at the end of the table, placing his hands behind his back like an acolyte who has just performed a ceremonial ritual of great importance.

I stared at the box as if expecting it to speak. Which was smart of me as a matter of fact, because, after Hubbard had pressed a switch on its side, that was exactly what it did do.

There was background noise, the rustling of cellophane, the clink of glasses, the splutter of a match, the distant rush of traffic and other extraneous alfresco sounds, but essentially the box spoke. This is what it said, in two voices. Mine and Steve’s.

ME: You’ll think I’m mad, I know. But I’m supremely happy at the moment.

STEVE: Yeah? How come?

ME: You wouldn’t understand if I told you.

STEVE: Try me.

ME: I’m happy because when I asked you earlier, you told me that you’d never heard of Adolf Hitler.

STEVE: That made you happy?

ME: You can have no idea what that means. You’ve never heard the names Hitler or Schickelgruber or Polzl. You’ve never heard of Brunau, you’ve never…

STEVE: Brunau?

ME: Brunau-am-Inn, Upper Austria. It’s not even a name to you and that makes me the happiest man alive.

STEVE: Well that’s Jake for you.

ME: You’ve never heard of Auschwitz or Dachau. You’ve never heard of the Nazi Party. You’ve never heard of…

Hubbard flicked the switch once more.

‘So now we’re getting somewhere. Brunau is not in Germany, it’s in a region of Germany. It’s in Austria, Upper Austria even. That kinda narrows it down a little, don’t you think?’

‘If you knew all the time that I knew where Brunau was,’ I said, ‘why did you string me along?’

‘Well now, I guess I could put that question another way, Mikey. If you knew where Brunau was all the time, why did you string us along?’

‘Then that’s stalemate, isn’t it?’ I said.

Hubbard looked into my eyes. I looked back into his and in the restful chocolate brown of them I tried to see what motive and what intent might be lying there.

‘And Hitler,’ he said. ‘You know that Hitler isn’t a place. You know that it’s a man’s name. “Adolf Hitler”, you said. Who might Adolf Hitler be?’

I shook my head.

‘And how about Auschwitz? What’s that? A place, a person, a brand of beer?’.

I shrugged. ‘You tell me.’

The look of sadness in Hubbard’s eyes intensified.

‘That’s not a good answer, Mikey,’ he said. ‘That’s a terrible answer. We want you to help us. We want you to tell us what you know. That’s what this is about. It’s not about you trying to be smart.’

‘And what we want to know,’ Brown’s harsher voice added from the end of the table, ‘is just who in tarnation you really are.’

My heart had started to hammer heavily in my chest. ‘But you know who I am. I’m Michael Young. You know that.’

‘Do we know that, Mikey?’ Hubbard’s voice was speculative, like that of an academic reflecting on the meaning of meaning. ‘Do we really? We know that you look like Michael Young, but we know that you sure as shooting don’t sound like him. We know that you sure as shooting don’t behave like him. So can we know, you know? Really know)’

‘Why don’t you take my fingerprints? That should satisfy you.’

‘We did that already,’ said Hubbard.

‘And?’

‘You must know the answer to that,’ Hubbard said gently, ‘or you wouldn’t have raised the issue in the first place, now would you?’

‘So, what then? You think I’ve had a skin graft? You think I’m some sort of clone? What?’

Hubbard gave no answer, but opened a small notebook and went carefully through the pages.

‘How d’you make out with Professor Taylor?’ he asked.

‘Make out with him? I don’t know what you mean. Like you, he asked me a lot of questions. He told me not to worry. He told me I should have some tests.’

‘Why do you think Professor Taylor is over here?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘An Englishman in America, that’s a strange thing. What do you figure he’s doing here?’

I thought about this for a while.

‘He’s a defector?’ I suggested. ‘A European dissident, something like that?’

‘A defector.’ Hubbard tried the word out. ‘And how about you? You a European defector too?’

‘I’m not European.’

‘You talk like a European, Mikey. Your parents are European.’

I lowered my head in exasperation. ‘What are you suggesting? That I’m a spy?’

‘You tell us.’

I looked at them both in astonishment. ‘Are you serious? I mean, what kind of spy would go to all the trouble of disguising himself perfectly as an all-American student, right down to the fingerprints and then go around the place talking loudly in an English accent?’

‘Maybe the kind of spy who doesn’t know he’s a spy,’ said Brown.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ said Hubbard, frowning slightly at Brown.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘If you’ve spoken to Steve and you’ve spoken to Professor Taylor and to Doctor Ballinger and to anyone else, you’ll know that I banged my head on a wall last night and that I haven’t been the same since. That’s all there is to it. Bit of memory loss, speech gone funny. It’s weird but that’s all it is. Weird.’

‘Then how come, Mikey,’ said Hubbard. ‘How come these names Hitler and Auschwitz and Polzl and Brunau-am-Inn?’

‘I must have heard them somewhere. In my subconscious. And for some reason the bang on the head brought them to the surface of my mind. I mean, what’s so bloody important about them? They don’t mean anything do they? They aren’t of any significance. No one else seems to have heard of them.’

‘That’s right, Mikey. Outside of this room, I shouldn’t think there’s more than twelve people in the whole United States of America who ever heard those names in all their lives. I had never heard them myself until you mentioned them to Steve in the courtyard of that cosy little bar off Witherspoon Street this afternoon. But you know, when we played the recording back to some friends of ours in Washington they damn near pooped their pants. Can you believe that? Damn near pooped their hundred-dollar pants.’

‘But why?’ I ran my fingers through my hair in bewilderment. ‘I don’t understand why the names should mean anything at all.’

Hubbard pricked his ears up at the sound of a car in the driveway. ‘Excuse me, Mike. I’ll be right back,’ he said, rising. He left the room with a nod to Brown, closing the door behind him, and a few moments later I heard the front door open and the low murmur of voices in the hallway.

Alone with Brown, who seemed disinclined to talk, I tried to work out what was going on.

Professor Taylor. It must have something to do with him. If Europe and the United States were in a state of Cold War as from everything I had learned that night they appeared to be, then Taylor might well be some kind of pro-American dissident. A sort of Solzhenitsyn or Gordievsky equivalent who had at some time managed to defect to the United States. Maybe from time to time he fed tid-bits to the CIA or whichever organisation it was that Hubbard and Brown worked for. Maybe Taylor had heard about this strange undergraduate student who had suddenly started talking like an Englishman and maybe he felt suspicious enough, after interviewing him personally, to recommend to his masters in Washington that this Michael Young be monitored and followed up.

Yet how was it possible that they should be interested in the name Hitler? I placed my hands on my head and pushed downwards as if to force my brain to work. It made no sense at all.

‘Headache?’ said Brown sympathetically.

‘Sort of,’ I said looking up. ‘The kind that comes with complete confusion.’

‘All you gotta do is say everything you know. Leave it to us to be confused…heck, that’s our job.’

‘That’s funny,’ I said, surprised by the friendliness in his voice. ‘I had sort of formed the opinion that you were Mr Nasty.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You know, the old interviewing technique. Nice Cop, Nasty Cop. I got it into my head that you were the nasty one.’

Brown smiled bashfully. ‘Well heck-amighty, son,’ he said in his cartoon Western accent, ‘I kinda hoped we were both nice.’

The door to the dining room opened and Hubbard appeared. ‘Some people to see you,’ he said, stepping back from the doorway.

A middle-aged woman stood there for a moment, blinking in the light and then rushed forward, arms outstretched.

‘Mikey! Oh Mikey, darling!’

I stared open-mouthed. ‘Mother?’

She ran towards me, bracelets clacking. ‘Honey, we’ve been worried sick ever since we heard. Why didn’t you call?’

My arms full of her, her soft powdered cheeks against mine, I let her complete the long embrace. Her hair was dyed a bright gold, and the scent of her was alien in its richness and deep fruited perfume, but it was my mother all right. No question about that. I looked up over her shoulder and saw a man limp slowly into the room.

‘Christ,’ I whispered. ‘Father, is that you?’ The last time I had seen my father I had been ten years old. He had not been bald or frail or stooping. He had been strong and upright and handsome and everything a dead father remains for all time in the memory of a child.

He looked at me briefly. ‘Hello, son,’ he said, and then turned to Hubbard with a nod.

‘You’re sure, sir?’ said Hubbard. ‘Absolutely sure?’

‘You think I don’t know my own boy?’

‘Of course it’s Mike,’ said my mother, stroking my hair. ‘What happened, honey? They said you were in an accident. Why didn’t you call?’

Their accents sounded to me wholly American. I didn’t want to speak and frighten them with my own British voice. I searched for words that would sound neutral in accent. Words without too many r’s or a’s in them.

‘My head,’ I said, in a low whisper. ‘Bump.’

‘Oh my poor baby! Did you see a doctor?’ I nodded bravely.

‘Mr Hubbard,’ my father was saying. ‘Maybe you would now be kind enough to explain to me why you thought this might not be my son and why we were conveyed in the middle of the night, by government car, to a house like this, a house which has all the appearance to me of a…”

‘Why don’t we all sit down around the table and discuss this?’ said Hubbard, and I thought I detected a hint of deference in his voice.

My mother was gazing tenderly into my eyes and still stroking my head, perhaps feeling for the bump.

‘Hi, Mom,’ I said, in the best American I could manage. Mom seemed more likely than Mother, Mum or Mummy. She smiled and shushed, leading me to the table like an ancient invalid.

Brown meanwhile had returned from the adjoining kitchen with a larger coffee-pot and a big round plate of biscuits.

My father was wearing a severe frown and looked about him with mistrust. ‘I assume, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘that there are listening devices planted in this room? I may well be retired from the services now, but you will know from my record that I have connections in Washington. In your department in Washington, Mr Hubbard. I am happy to place on your covert tape my extreme displeasure at the outrageous way you are treating me and my family. What you think my son could have to offer you is a matter entirely beyond my comprehension.’

‘We would like to come to that, Colonel Young,’ said Hubbard, licking his lips nervously.

Colonel Young…I looked at my father again. I thought I had discerned a suggestion of Brutishness in his voice, but no more than that hint of English that lingered till the end in the voices of Cary Grant and Ray Milland, the sort of fruity drawl that also existed in the tones of grand, natural born New Englanders. He looked ill and old and I didn’t think I would have known him from the photographs I had grown up with in my mother’s house in Hampshire or from the eight millimetre footage that she ran at Christmasses or when she felt low and unloved.

‘First off,’ Hubbard continued. ‘I would like to ask you, sir, and you, ma’am, if the words “Brunau” or “Polzl” or “Hitler” or “Auschwitz” have any meaning for you?’

My father cocked an eye briefly at the ceiling. ‘None whatever,’ he said with decision. ‘Mary?’

My mother shook her head apologetically.

Hubbard tried again. ‘I would like you to think very hard, Colonel. When you were still in England, perhaps? Maybe you heard the names there? Or saw them written down? This is how they are spelled.’

He opened his notebook and passed it over to my father who looked at the words carefully.

‘The ending “au” is common enough in Southern German and Austrian place names,’ he said, with a thoughtful, Holmesian dip of the head, ‘Thalgau, Thurgau, Passau and so on. I am not familiar with Brunau, however. Hitler means absolutely nothing. Nor does “Polzl” I fear. “Auschwitz” could be north-eastern German, Polish even. Mary?’ He pushed the notebook past me and towards my mother. I noticed that my father had pronounced the German words flawlessly.

My mother stared at the words as if willing them to mean something for my sake. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I never saw these words before in my life.’

Hubbard took back the notebook and sighed.

‘You are aware, no doubt,’ said my father, ‘that when I sought asylum here in 1958 I was thoroughly investigated. My debriefing took more than a year and a half. Since that time my work for the American government has earned me the highest commendations. I hope you are not now questioning my loyalty?’

‘No, sir,’ said Hubbard, a pleading note in his voice. ‘Not at all. I assure you, not at all. Please believe that.’

‘Well then, perhaps you would now be finally kind enough to tell me what this all about?’

‘Mikey,’ said Hubbard. ‘Feel like doing me a favour?’

‘What sort of favour?’

‘A very simple one. How about you recite to me the Gettysburg Address?’

I swallowed. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Are you mad?’ my father spluttered.

‘The Gettysburg Address, Mikey,’ said Hubbard, ignoring him. ‘How does it go?’

‘Er…’ I racked my brains for a way out. The Gettysburg Address? Something about ‘Four score and ten’ came into my mind, and I knew it contained that famous spiel about ‘government of the people, for the people and by the people,’ but that was all I did know. How the various parts connected up was a mystery to me. I had a dread feeling that the Gettysburg Address was one of those things that every American was supposed to know. Like the words of the Star-Spangled Banner and the meaning of ‘grade point average’.

‘Go on, honey,’ my mother said, encouragingly, ‘like you used to. Michael has a lovely voice,’ she added to the room.

‘My memory is not so good…’ I said, huskily. ‘You know, since…’

‘That’s okay, Mike,’ said Hubbard. ‘Matter of fact, you can read it if you like. It’s up there on the wall behind me. See?’

Sure enough, above his head, framed in pale wood, was a long passage of text, mounted on deckled cardboard the opening word ‘FOURSCORE’ in fancy block capitals. I knew that Hubbard was not interested in whether or not I had remembered the speech, but what my accent would sound like when I read it and what effect that would have on my parents.

To hell with it, I thought, and began to read. I declaimed without pretence, without any effort at American vowels or cadences. Even to my own ears, after a day of hearing nothing but American voices all around me, I sounded more like Hugh Grant than anything human, but what the hell…

‘Fourscore and seven years ago,’ I read, ‘our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add— ’

‘Fine,’ said Hubbard, ‘that’ll do fine, Mike. Thank you.’

He turned to look at my mother, who was goggling at me as at a ghost. ‘Mike…darling!’ she said, a hand to her mouth. ‘Read it properly! Like you used to. On Fourth of July parades. Do it properly, honey.’

‘I’m sorry, mother,’ I said. ‘That’s how I sound. This is my voice. This is me.’

My father was staring at me too. ‘Michael,’ he said, ‘if this is your idea of a joke, then let me tell you…’

‘No joke, sir,’ I said. ‘It’s no joke.’

Hubbard, more relaxed now, switched on the recording box, and once more the conversation between me and Steve at the Alchemist and Barrister was broadcast to the room.

My father frowned as the machine played. My mother shot anxious, uncomprehending glances between us.

‘Hitler, Polzl, Brunau…’ Hubbard switched off the recorder and repeated the words slowly. ‘You’ve told us, Colonel and Mrs Young, that these names mean nothing to you. Judging by the conversation we have just heard they mean a lot to your son, wouldn’t you say?’

My father pointed at the recorder. ‘Whose was the other voice we heard?’

‘That was the voice of an undergraduate named Steven Burns, a junior year history of science major. We have nothing against him other than that he is a suspected homosexual.’

‘A homosexual!’ My mother’s eyes rounded in horror. ‘Is this what this is all about, because let me assure you, Mr Hubert— ’

‘That’s Hubbard, ma’am.’

‘Whatever your name is, let me assure you that my son is no homosexual! Absolutely not.’

‘Of course not, Mrs Young. Believe me that is not what we wished to imply. It was what your son said that interests us. Hitler, Polzl, Brunau…’

‘You keep mentioning these names,’ snapped my father. ‘What’s so darned important about them? Isn’t it clear that my son is sick? He needs medical attention, not this…this inquisition, this childish cloak-and-dagger nonsense.’

‘You are still quite sure that he is your son?’

‘Of course we’re sure! How many times do I have to tell you?’

‘In spite of his accent?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve told you. I would know Michael if he shaved his head, grew a beard and spoke in nothing but Swahili.’

Hubbard put up his hands. ‘Well now, you see, that’s what makes this whole affair so curious.’

‘Affair? Affair? What is this, the Lisbon Incident? A boy bangs his head, loses his memory and speaks in a strange accent. This is a matter for medical science not paranoid midnight interrogations. Now,’ my father started to rise, ‘if there is nothing further, we would like to take Michael home.’

Brown, who had been pacing up and down behind Hubbard, leaned forward and whispered in his ear. Hubbard listened, whispered back a quick question and then nodded his head. Something in their body language made me aware, with some surprise, that it was Brown who was the senior of the two.

‘Colonel Young, sir,’ said Hubbard. ‘I’m afraid that isn’t going to be possible just yet. I need you to sit down to listen to me.’

‘I believe I have listened quite enough…’

It won’t take long sir. Perhaps Mrs Young wouldn’t mind waiting in the next room for a short while?’

‘I am staying right here!’ said my mother, pink with indignation.

‘What I am about to reveal is classified, ma’am. I’m afraid I cannot allow you to stay.’

‘Well, what about Mike?’

‘We have reason to believe that your son is already in possession of this information. That is the reason we are gathered here this evening.’

‘This morning, you mean!’ said my mother tartly, rising with reluctance and moving towards the door. She cast a look back over her shoulder. My father nodded to her in reassurance and she left the room with a sniff. As the door closed behind her I heard a female voice gently asking her if she was hungry.

‘I do apologise for that, Colonel Young, sir. When you have heard what we are going to say I believe you will understand the need for this caution.’

‘Yes, yes,’ my father nodded.

‘Although you have retired from your previous position, sir, you are aware of what I mean when I say “grade one security?” The phrase is familiar to you?’

‘Son,’ said my father, pushing out his chest and tapping it a half a dozen times, ‘I’ve got secrets locked up inside here that would make the guts fly out of your throat.’

‘I’m quite sure that’s true, sir,’ Hubbard turned to me, a far-away look in his eyes, as if repeating a mantra learned at school. ‘And you, Michael. You understand that whatever I tell you here must never be repeated outside this room?’

I nodded, nervously wiping my hands on the cotton of my chino shorts.

‘You are prepared to take an oath to that effect?’

‘Certainly,’ I said.

Hubbard reached an arm down to the floor, like a man in a restaurant who has dropped a napkin, and came up with a small black bible. He passed it over to me tenderly.

I looked across at my father, wanting someone with whom I could share the comic absurdity of this, but he was looking profoundly serious.

‘Take the book in your right hand, please, Michael.’

I did so. The cover, black bobbled leather, was stamped in gold with the Seal of the President of the United States. I lifted the cover half an inch and saw with surprise that this wasn’t a bible at all.

‘Repeat after me. I Michael Young; ’

‘I Michael Young; ’

‘Do solemnly swear; ’

‘Do solemnly swear;

‘On the Constitution of the United States of America;

‘On the Constitution of the United States of America; ’

‘That I will hold fast within;’

‘That I will hold fast within;’

‘All information tendered to me; ’

‘All information tendered to me;’

‘Pertaining to the security of my country;’

‘Pertaining to the security of my country; ’

‘Nor ever reveal by word, deed or any means whatsoever; ’

‘Nor ever reveal by word, deed or any means whatsoever; ’

‘That which is divulged to me; ’

‘That which is divulged to me; ’

‘By officers of the United States Government;’

‘By officers of the United States Government;’

‘So help me God.’

‘So help me God.’

‘Fine,’ said Hubbard, taking back the book. ‘You understand the oath you have taken here?’

‘I think so.’

‘If ever we have cause to believe that you have repeated to anyone outside this room what you are about to hear, you may be charged with a felony. The name of that felony is treason and the maximum penalty for treason is death.’

‘That’s pretty clear then,’ I said.

‘Alrighty then.’ Hubbard looked across at Brown. ‘Don, maybe you’d like to take it from here?’

Brown, still standing, nodded his head and started to pour out coffee, perching a biscuit on each saucer as he did so, one of those big chocolate chip cookies, the kind freckled, crew-cut American kids have with their glasses of milk in fifties movies.

‘The story I have to tell you,’ he said, passing cups down to us, ‘begins a long, long time ago in the small town of Brunau-am-Inn, Austria in the year 1889. Brunau is a dull, provincial little town today, and it was a dull provincial little town then. Nothing ever happened there. Life just went on, birth, marriages, death, birth, marriages, death. The local round of the market, the inn, the church and of course, gossip.’