The One from the Other

TWENTY-NINE

I got to Liechtensteinstrasse, in the heart of the Ninth District, as the light began to fade, which is always the best time of day in Vienna. The bomb damage, which isn’t much when compared with Munich, and nothing at all compared with Berlin, stops being noticeable and it becomes easy to imagine the city as the grand imperial capital it used to be. The sky had turned a purple shade of gray and it had finally stopped snowing, although this did nothing to deter the enthusiasm of those people buying ski boots in Moritz, which was next door to the apartment building where Vera Messmann lived.

I went into the building and started up the steps, which would have been easy enough if I hadn’t been recovering from pneumonia and hadn’t had such an excellent lunch. Her apartment was on the top floor and, several times, I had to stop and catch my breath, or at least watch it billow out of my mouth in the plummeting temperatures. The metal handrail was sticky with cold. By the time I reached the top, it had started to snow again and the flakes were hitting the stairwell window like soft icy bullets from the rifle of some heavenly sniper. I leaned against the wall and waited for my breathing to slow down enough to allow me the power of speech. Then I knocked on Fräulein Messman’s door.

“My name’s Gunther, Bernie Gunther,” I said, removing my hat politely and presenting her with one of my Munich business cards. “It’s all right, I’m not selling anything.”

“That’s good,” she said. “Because I’m not buying anything.”

“Are you Vera Messmann?”

She flicked her eyes on my card and then at me. “That all depends,” she said.

“On what, for instance?”

“On whether you think I did it, or not.”

“Did what?” I didn’t mind her playing with me. It’s one of the perks of the job when an attractive brunette teases you.

“Oh, you know. Murdered Roger Ackroyd.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Agatha Christie,” she said.

“Never heard of her, either.”

“Don’t you read books, Herr—” She read the card again, teasing me some more. “Gunther.”

“Never,” I said. “It’s terribly bad for business to sound like I know more than my clients tell me. Mostly they want someone who is not a cop to behave like a cop. They don’t want someone who can quote Schiller.”

“Well, at least you’ve heard of him,” she said.

“Schiller? Sure. He’s the guy who said that truth lives on in the midst of deception. We keep that quotation over the office door. He’s the patron saint of detectives everywhere.”

“You’d better come in, Herr Gunther,” she said, standing aside. “After all, he that is overcautious will accomplish little. That’s Schiller, too, in case you didn’t know. As well as private detectives, he’s also the patron saint of single women.”

“You learn something new every day,” I said. I went into the apartment, enjoying her perfume as I moved past her body.

“No, not every day,” she said, closing the door behind me. “Not even every week. Not in Vienna. Not lately, anyway.”

“Maybe you should buy a newspaper,” I said.

“I got out of the habit,” she said. “During the war.”

I took another look at her. I liked the glasses. They made her look as if she had probably read all the books on the shelves that lined the entrance to her apartment. If there’s one thing I like, it’s a woman who starts off looking plain but gets better-looking the more you look at her. Vera Messmann was that kind of woman. After a while I formed the impression that she was a rather beautiful woman. A beautiful woman who happened to wear glasses. Not that she herself was in much doubt about any of that. There was a quiet confidence about the way she carried herself and the way she spoke. If there had been a beauty pageant for lady librarians, Vera Messmann would have won it hands down. She wouldn’t even have had to take off her glasses and unpin her brown hair.

We remained, a little awkwardly, in the entrance hall. I had yet to make her day, although from what she was saying, my just being there represented a welcome novelty.

“Since I haven’t murdered anyone,” she said, “or committed adultery—not since last summer, anyway—I’m intrigued as to what a private detective could want with me.”

“I don’t do many murders,” I said. “Not since I stopped being a bull. Mostly I get asked to look for missing persons.”

“Then you should have plenty of work to keep you busy.”

“It comes as rather a pleasant change to be the bearer of good news,” I said. “My client, who wants to remain anonymous, wishes you to have some money. You don’t have to do anything for it. Nothing at all except turn up at Spaengler’s Bank tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock and sign a receipt for cash. And that’s pretty much all that I’m allowed to tell you except the amount. It’s twenty-five thousand schillings.”

“Twenty-five thousand schillings?” She took off her glasses, which let me see how right I had been. She was a peach. “Are you sure there’s not been some kind of mistake?”

“Not if you’re Vera Messmann,” I said. “You’ll need some form of identity to prove who you are at the bank of course. Bankers are rather less trusting than detectives.” I smiled. “Especially banks like Spaengler’s. It’s in Dorotheengasse. In the International Zone.”

“Look, Herr Gunther, if this is a joke,” she said, “it’s not a very funny one. Twenty-five thousand to someone like me. To anyone. That’s serious money.”

“I can leave now, if you’d prefer,” I said. “You won’t ever see me again.” I shrugged. “Listen, I can understand you being nervous about me coming here like this. Maybe I’d be nervous if I were you. So perhaps I should go, anyway. But just promise me you’ll come to the bank at three. After all, what have you got to lose? Nothing.”

I turned and reached for the door handle.

“No, please don’t leave yet.” She turned on her heel and walked into the living room. “Take off your hat and coat and come on through.”

I did what I was told. I like doing what I’m told when there’s a half-decent woman involved. There was a baby grand with the lid up and a piece by Schubert on the music stand. In front of the French window was a pair of silver gilt dolphin side chairs with blue tufted upholstery. Against one of the walls was a gilt-trimmed floral-design settee with roll arms. There were a couple of blackamoor pedestals that didn’t seem to feel the cold, and a big carved cabinet with cupid heads on the door. There were plenty of old pictures and an expensive-looking Murano wall mirror that showed me up looking about as out of place as a wild boar in a toy shop. There was a French marble clock with a bronze fop reading a book. I guessed it wasn’t a book by Agatha Christie. It was the kind of room where books were discussed more often than football, and women sat with their knees together and listened to plangent zither music on the radio. It told me that Vera Messmann didn’t need the money as much as she needed the glasses. She put them on again and faced a neat little drinks table underneath the mirror.

“Drink?” she said. “I have schnapps, cognac, and whiskey.”

“Schnapps,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Please smoke if you want. I don’t smoke myself but I enjoy the smell of it.” She handed me my drink and steered us to the blue chairs.

I sat down, took out my pipe, looked at it for a moment, and then slipped it back into my pocket. I was Bernie Gunther now, not Eric Gruen, and Bernie Gunther smoked cigarettes. I found some Reemtsmas and began a roll-up with the pipe tobacco.

“I love to watch a man make one of those,” she said, leaning forward on her chair.

“If my fingers weren’t so cold,” I said, “I might make a better job of it.”

“You’re doing fine,” she said. “I might have a puff of that when you’re finished.” I finished with the makings, lit the cigarette, puffed it, and then handed it to her. She smoked it with genuine pleasure, as if it had been the choicest delicacy. Then she handed it back again. Without so much as a cough.

“Of course, I know who it is,” she said. “My anonymous benefactor. It’s Eric, isn’t it?” She shook her head. “It’s all right. You don’t have to say anything. But I know. It so happened that I did see a newspaper, a few days ago. There was something in it about his mother’s death. You don’t have to be Hercule Poirot to work out that particular chain of causation. He’s got his hands on her money and now he wants to make amends. Always supposing that such a thing is possible after the dreadful thing he did. I’m not at all surprised that he sent you instead of coming here in person. I expect he doesn’t dare show his face for fear of, whatever it is that someone like him is in fear of.” She shrugged and sipped some of her drink. “Just for the record? When he ran out on me, in 1928, I was just eighteen years old. He wasn’t much older, I suppose. I gave birth to a daughter. Magda.”

“Yes, I was going to ask about your daughter,” I said. “I’m to give her the same sum as I’ve given you.”

“Well, you can’t,” she said. “Magda is dead. She was killed during an air raid, in 1944. A bomb hit her school.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Vera Messmann kicked off her shoes and folded her stockinged feet underneath her nicely curved behind. “For what it’s worth, I don’t hold any of that against him. Compared with what happened during the war, it’s not much of a crime, is it? To leave a girl with a bump in her road?”

“No, I suppose not,” I said.

“But I’m glad he sent you,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to see him again. Especially now Madga’s dead. That would be too unpleasant. Also, I should be much more reluctant to take his money if it was him in person. But twenty-five thousand schillings . . . I can’t say that wouldn’t come in handy. Despite what you see here, I’ve not got much saved. All of this furniture is quite valuable, but it was my mother’s, and this apartment is all that I’ve got to remind me of her. This apartment was hers. She had excellent taste.”

“Yes,” I said, glancing around, politely. “She did indeed.”

“There’s no point in selling any of it, though,” she said. “Not right now. There’s no money for this kind of stuff. Not even the Amis want it. Not yet. I’m waiting for the market to come back. But now”—she toasted me, silently—“now, maybe, I won’t have to wait for the market at all.” She drank some more. “And all I have to do is turn up at this bank and sign a receipt?”

“That’s all. You won’t even have to mention his name.”

“That’s a relief,” she said.

“Just walk in the door and I’ll be waiting for you. We’ll go to a private room and I’ll hand you the cash. Or a banker’s draft, as you prefer. Simple as that.”

“It would be nice to think so,” she said. “But nothing involving money is ever simple.”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” I said. “That’s my advice.”

“It’s bad advice, Herr Gunther,” she said. “Think about it. All those veterinary bills if the nag is no good. And let’s not forget what happened to those poor dumb Trojans. Maybe if they had listened to Cassandra instead of Sinon they might have done just that. If they’d looked the Greek gift horse in the mouth they would have seen Odysseus and all his Greek friends huddled inside.” She smiled. “Benefits of a classical education.”

“You have a point,” I said. “But it’s difficult to see how you could do it in this particular case.”

“That’s because you’re just a cop who’s not a cop,” she said. “Oh, I don’t mean to be rude, but maybe if you had a little more imagination you could think of a way for me to get a closer look at the pony you walked in here.”

She removed the roll-up from my fingers and took another short puff on it before extinguishing it in an ashtray. Then she snatched off her glasses and leaned toward me until her mouth was just an inch or two away from mine.

“Open wide,” she said, and opening her lips and teeth, she pressed her luscious mouth against mine.

We were there for quite a while. When she pulled herself back, there was honey in her eyes.

“So what did you discover?” I asked. “Any sign of a Greek hero?”

“I haven’t finished looking,” she said. “Yet.” And standing up she took me by the hand and tugged me up onto my feet.

“Where are we going now?” I asked.

“Helen is taking you into her palace boudoir,” she said.

“Are you sure about this?” I stayed put for a moment, curling my toes to get a better grip on the carpet. “Maybe it’s my turn to play Cassandra. Maybe if I had a little more imagination I might think I was just handsome enough to rate this kind of hospitality. But we both know I’m not. Maybe we should delay this until after you’ve had your twenty-five thousand.”

“I appreciate what you said,” she said, still holding my hand. “But I’m not exactly in the first flush of youth myself, Herr Gunther. Let me tell you about myself. I’m a corset maker. A good one. I own a shop on Wasagasse. All of my clients are women, it goes without saying. Most of the men I once knew are dead, or maimed. You’re the first able-bodied, reasonable-looking man I’ve spoken to in six months. The last man I exchanged more than two dozen words with was my dentist, and I’m long overdue for a checkup. He’s sixty-seven and has a clubfoot, which is probably the only reason he’s still alive. I’m thirty-nine years old in two weeks, and I’m already taking evening classes in spinsterhood. I even have a cat. He’s out of course. Having a better life than I have. Today is early closing at the shop. But most evenings I come home, cook a meal, read a detective story, have a bath, read some more, and then go to bed, alone. Once a week I go to Maria am Gestade, and every so often I seek absolution for what I jokingly refer to as my sins. You get the picture?” She smiled, a little bitterly it seemed to me. “Your business card says you’re from Munich, which implies that when your business is concluded in Vienna, you’ll be going back there. That gives us maybe three or four days at most. What I said about Schiller? And not being overcautious. I was perfectly serious.”

“You’re right about my going back to Munich,” I told her. “I think you’d probably make quite a good private detective.”

“I’m afraid I don’t think you’d make much of a corset maker.”

“You’d be surprised what I know about women’s corsets,” I said.

“Oh, I do hope so,” she said. “Either way I intend to find out. Do I make myself clear?”

“Very.” I kissed her again. “Are you wearing a corset?”

“Not for much longer,” she said, and looked at her watch. “In about five minutes, you’re going to take it off. You know how to take a woman’s corset off, don’t you? You just pull all the little hooks out of all the little eyelets until your mouth goes dry and you start to hear me breathing. You could try and tear it off, of course. But my corsets are well-made. They don’t tear off that easily.”

I followed her into her bedroom. “That classical education of yours,” I said.

“What about it?”

“What happened to Cassandra, anyway?”

“The Greeks dragged her out of the Temple of Athena and raped her,” she said, kicking the door shut behind her. “Me, I’m perfectly willing.”

“Perfectly willing sounds perfectly good to me,” I said.

She stepped out of her dress and I stood back to get a better look at her. Call it professional courtesy, if you like. She had a fine, well-proportioned figure. I felt like Kepler admiring his Golden Section. Except I knew I was going to have more fun than he ever did. He’d probably never looked at a woman wearing a well-tailored corset. If he had, then I might have been a better mathematician when I was at school.