Vienna Secrets

30

PROFESSOR PRIEL TROTTED DOWN the stairs of the university and paused on the pavement to extricate his watch from his vest pocket. He noted the time, and set off in a southerly direction. If he hurried, he would be able to deliver the envelope that he carried in his pocket to Frau Meyer and be back in good time to give his afternoon tutorial. The envelope contained a donation from the Rothenstein Education Fellowship, and its purpose was to provide Frau Meyer with sufficient funds to equip her new school on Alois Gasse with some basic classroom furniture. The donation would probably be reported in the newspapers, and once again the public would be informed of Rothenstein’s outstanding generosity. Priel, of course, would not be mentioned. He never was.

Another man might have felt envious or resentful, but Priel was remarkably sanguine concerning his situation. Indeed, he rather liked being an eminence grise: advising, making suggestions, his judgment trusted. He associated himself with the Talmudic legend of the lamed vavniks, the righteous men. Living in the world there are, at any given time, thirty-six righteous men whose good deeds stop the world from ending. They accomplish their work in secret and are never rewarded. When one dies, another is born. And so it goes on, from generation to generation, thirty-six anonymous Jews standing unthanked between civilization and ruin.

Priel thought about Frau Meyer. A widow, dedicated to improving the lot of the latest wave of immigrant children who had arrived in Leopoldstadt. He would give her the envelope, and she would smile, clasp his hand, and express profound gratitude. And he would then reply, as he always did, It isn’t me whom you should be thanking.

Rothenstein was always too busy hobnobbing with royalty to decide who should-or shouldn’t-be the recipient of his largesse. And Rothenstein’s wife, Priel’s sister, was completely self-obsessed. The fate of the poor meant nothing to her as compared with the unmitigated disaster of wearing the wrong kind of dress at a palace function. Priel’s two nieces and his nephew were equally indifferent. Brittle, shallow, and spoiled, their German was embarrassingly inflected to sound like the imperial dialect known as Schonbrunnerdeutsch. Over the years Priel had been given more and more responsibility for the distribution of Rothenstein’s bounty. Occasionally, when Priel presented Rothenstein with documents to sign, the great banker would ask a few bland questions. But if Priel attempted to give him a proper answer, Rothenstein would soon look bored and end the conversation by saying, “I’m sure everything is in order. I have every confidence in you, Josef.” Like the rest of his family, Rothenstein enjoyed the gala balls and the public recognition much more than the process of determining which causes were the most deserving.

Priel passed the town hall and glanced up at its Gothic facade: the huge central tower, the elevated loggia with its curved balconies and delicate tracery.

Thirty-six righteous men…

They wouldn’t be found in there. Of that he was quite certain.

Priel accelerated his sprightly step. He was looking forward to seeing Frau Meyer again. She was an intelligent woman who appreciated philosophy and good music. The last time they’d met she had asked him what he thought of Nietzsche’s The Case of Wagner. The discussion that followed had been most stimulating. Moreover, she had kept her figure.

Having warned his students and the Kusevitsky brothers that great thinkers should be wary of the snare of marriage, he reprimanded himself.

Hypocrite!

He might not be a righteous man, exactly, but he was nevertheless a man of honor. He had an example to set. And as much as he would enjoy the company of Frau Meyer at the opera, it was probably better that he continued to go alone. He would give her the envelope, have a cup of tea, and leave.