I returned everything else to the glove box, closed it, and then glanced over my shoulder at the backseat. There were copies of the Paris edition of the
Herald
and the
Süddeutsche Zeitung,
and a rolled-up umbrella. Nothing else. It wasn’t much, but I knew a little more about Jacobs than before. I knew he was serious about guns. I knew where he was likely to hawk the family heirlooms. And I knew he was interested in Joey the Crip. Maybe that kraut Goethe, too, on a good day. Sometimes knowing only a little is a preface to knowing a lot.
I got out of the car, shut the door quietly, and, keeping the River Loisach on my right, walked northeast, in the direction of Sonnenbichl, taking a shortcut through the grounds of what had once been the hospital and was now being turned into an R&R center for American servicemen.
I started to think about returning to Munich to pick up the threads of my business. I decided that, in the absence of any new clients, I might see if I could find any trace of the last one. Perhaps I would go back to the Holy Ghost Church and hope that she turned up there. Or speak to poor Felix Klingerhoefer at American Overseas Airlines. Perhaps he could remember something about Britta Warzok other than that she had come from Vienna.
The walk back to Mönch took longer than I had bargained for. I had forgotten that a lot of the walk, most of it in fact, was uphill, and even without a knapsack on my back I was something less than the happy wanderer by the time I crept into the house, crawled onto my bed, unlaced my shoes, and closed my eyes. It was several minutes before Engelbertina realized I had returned and came to find me. Her face told me immediately that something was wrong.
“Eric had a telegram,” she explained. “From Vienna. His mother is dead. He’s rather upset about it.”
“Really? I thought they hated each other.”
“They did,” she said. “I think that’s part of the problem. He realizes he won’t ever be able to make it up with her now. Not ever.” She showed me the telegram.
“I don’t think I should be reading his telegram,” I said, reading his telegram all the same. “Where is he now?”
“In his room. He said he just wanted to be left alone.”
“I can understand that,” I said. “Your mother dies, it’s not like losing a cat. Not unless you’re a cat.”
Engelbertina smiled sadly and took my hand. “Do you have a mother?”
“Naturally I used to have one,” I said. “A father, too, if memory serves. Only somewhere along the way I seem to have lost them both. Careless of me.”
“Me, too,” she said. “That’s something else we have in common, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said, without much enthusiasm. As far as I was concerned, there was only one thing we seemed to have in common, and that was what went on in her bedroom, or mine. I looked at Gruen’s telegram again. “This suggests that he has come into a considerable fortune,” I said.
“Yes, but only if he goes to Vienna to see the lawyers in person and claims it,” she said. “And somehow I can’t see that happening. Not in his present condition. Can you?”
“Just how sick is he anyway?” I asked her.
“If it was just the use of his legs he had lost, he wouldn’t be so bad,” she said. “But he lost his spleen as well.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said. “Is that serious?”
“Losing your spleen increases your risk of infection,” she said. “The spleen is a kind of blood filter and reserve supply. That’s why he runs out of energy so easily.” She shook her head. “I really don’t think he could make it to Vienna. Even in Heinrich’s car. Vienna’s almost three hundred miles away, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s a long time since I was in Vienna. What’s more, when you do get there it seems even farther away than you had bargained for. If you know what I mean. There’s something about the Viennese I don’t like. They turn out a very Austrian sort of German.”
“You mean like Hitler?”
“No, Hitler was a very German sort of Austrian. There’s a difference.” I thought for a moment. “How much money is involved, do you think? With Eric’s family, I mean.”
“I’m not exactly sure,” she said. “But the Gruen family owned one of the largest sugar factories in Central Europe.” She shrugged. “So it could be quite a lot. Everyone has a sweet tooth, don’t they?”
“They do in Austria,” I said. “But that’s as sweet as they ever get.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she said. “I’m Austrian.”
“And I bet that makes you really proud,” I said. “When the Nazis annexed Austria, in 1938, I was living in Berlin. I remember Austrian Jews coming to live in Berlin because they thought Berliners would be more tolerant than the Viennese.”
“And were they?”
“For a while. The Nazis never really liked Berlin, you know. It took them a long time to bring the city to heel. A long time and a lot of blood. Berlin was just the showcase for what happened. But the real heart of Nazism was Munich. Still is, I shouldn’t wonder.” I lit a cigarette. “You know, I envy you, Engelbertina. At least you have a choice between calling yourself an Austrian and calling yourself a Jew. I’m a German and there’s nothing I can do about that. Right now it feels like the mark of Cain.”
Engelbertina squeezed the hand she was still holding. “Cain had a brother,” she said. “And in a way, so do you, Bernie. Or at least someone who looks a lot like your brother. Maybe you can help him. That’s your job, isn’t it? Helping people?”
“You make it sound like a very noble calling,” I said. “Parsifal and the Holy Grail and five hours of Wagner. That’s not me at all, Engelbertina. I’m more your beer mug kind of knight with three minutes of Gerhard Winkler and his Regent Classic Orchestra.”
“Then make it something noble,” she said. “Do something better. Something selfless and unmercenary. I’m sure you can think of a noble thing you could do. For Eric, perhaps.”
“I don’t know. Where’s the profit in doing something selfless and unmercenary?”
“Oh, I can tell you,” she said. “If you’ve got the time and patience to listen. And the willingness to make a change in your life.”
I knew she was talking about religion. It wasn’t one of my favorite topics of conversation, especially with her. “No, but maybe there is something I could do,” I said, quickly changing the subject. “Something sort of noble. At least, it’s as noble an idea as I’m capable of thinking up without a couple of drinks inside me.”
“Then let’s hear it,” she said. “I’m in the mood to be impressed by you.”
“My dear girl, you are always in the mood to be impressed by me,” I said. “Which I am unable to account for. You look at me and you seem to think I can do no wrong. I can and I do.” I paused for a moment and then added: “Tell me, do you really think I look a lot like Eric?”
She nodded. “You know you do, Bernie.”
“And there was just his mother, right?”
“Yes. Just his mother.”
“And she didn’t know he was in a wheelchair?”
“She knew he’d been badly injured,” she said. “But that’s all. Nothing more specific.”
“Then answer me this,” I said. “Do you think I could pass for him? In Vienna. With his family lawyers.”
She looked me square in the face and thought about that for a moment and then started to nod. “That’s a great idea,” she said. “As far as I know, he hasn’t been back to Vienna in twenty years. People can change a lot in twenty years.”
“Especially the last twenty years,” I said, wiggling my fingers. “I used to be the church organist. Where’s his passport?”
“It’s a brilliant idea,” she said enthusiastically.
“It’s not very noble,” I said.
“But it’s practical. And maybe in this particular situation, practical is better than noble. I’d never have thought of something like that.”
Engelbertina stood up and opened a bureau from which she removed a manila envelope. She handed me the envelope.
I opened it and took out a passport. I checked the date and the photograph. The passport was still valid. I studied the photograph critically. Then I handed it to her. She looked at the picture and then ran her fingers through my hair as if checking out the amount of gray there and wondering if perhaps it was too much. “Of course, we’d have to change your hairstyle,” she said. “You’re older than Eric. The funny thing is, though, you don’t look much older. But, yes, you could pass for him.” She bounced a little on the edge of my bed. “Why don’t we ask him what he thinks?”
“No,” I said. “Let’s wait awhile. Let’s wait until this evening. Right now he’s probably too upset to think clearly about anything very much.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
“It’s a crazy idea,” said Eric Gruen, when I had finished describing my suggestion to him. “The craziest idea I ever heard of.”
“Why?” I asked. “You say you’ve never met the family lawyer. He doesn’t know you’re in a wheelchair. I show him your passport, and he sees an older, thicker version of the person in the photograph. I sign the papers. You get your estate. What could be simpler? Just as long as there’s no one who really remembers you.”
“My mother was a very difficult woman,” said Gruen. “With very few friends. It wasn’t just me with whom she had a problem. Even my father couldn’t stand her. She didn’t even go to his funeral. No, there’s just the lawyer. But look here, they know I’m a doctor. Suppose they ask you a medical question?”
“I’m collecting an inheritance,” I said. “Not applying for a job at a hospital.”
“True.” Gruen inspected the contents of his pipe. “All the same, there’s something about it that I don’t like. It feels dishonest.”
Engelbertina adjusted the rug over his legs. “Bernie’s right, Eric. What could be simpler?”
Gruen looked up at Henkell and handed him his passport. Henkell had yet to offer an opinion on my scheme. “What do you think, Heinrich?”
Henkell studied the photograph for a long moment. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that Bernie could easily pass for an older version of you, Eric,” he said. “And there’s no doubt that the money would be useful for our research. Major Jacobs is being difficult about buying that electron microscope we asked him for. He says we’ll have to wait until the spring of next year, when his department will get some new budgets.”
“I’d forgotten that,” said Gruen. “You’re right. The money would be very useful, wouldn’t it? My mother’s money could easily underwrite our work.” He laughed bitterly. “My God, she’d hate that.”
“I have spent quite a bit of my own money, Eric,” Henkell said. “Not that I mind a bit. You know that. I’ll do whatever it takes to isolate this vaccine. But Jacobs is becoming a nuisance. If we had access to some new funds, we could afford to get rid of him and the Amis. It would make this an exclusively German scientific effort. Just like it was before.”
“If Bernie did go in my place it really would solve a lot of problems, wouldn’t it?” he said. “I’m really not up to going myself. You were right about that.”
“The question is,” said Henkell, “whether you’re up to doing this yourself, Bernie. You’re only just back to full health. And you say you find yourself tiring very easily.”
“I’m all right,” I said, dusting off his concern. “I’ll be fine.”
In many ways staying at Henkell’s house had suited me very well. I was putting on some weight. Even my chess game had improved thanks to Gruen’s helpful hints. On the face of it, I couldn’t have been more comfortable if I had been a bug in the mane of the Emperor Caligula’s favorite horse. But I was keen to go to Vienna. One reason was that I had gone over the blank sheets of paper I had taken from Major Jacob’s pad and found the outline of an address in Vienna. Horlgasse, 42. Apartment 3. Ninth District. Curiously, this was the same address I had been given for Britta Warzok. But another reason was Engelbertina.
“Then I agree,” said Gruen, puffing some life back into his pipe. “I agree, but I have one or two conditions. And these cannot be set aside. The first condition, Bernie, is that you should be paid. My family is rich and I will be forever in your debt, so it ought to be a decent amount. I think twenty thousand Austrian schillings would be a suitable sum for performing such a valuable service.”
I started to protest that it was too much, but Gruen shook his head. “I won’t hear any objections. If you won’t agree to my fee, then I won’t agree to your going.”
I shrugged. “If you insist,” I said.
“And not just your fee but all your expenses,” he added. “You ought to stay in the kind of hotel I’d stay in myself, now that I’m rich.”
I nodded, hardly inclined to argue with such largesse.
“My third condition is more delicate,” he said. “I think you probably remember me telling you that I left a girl in trouble, in Vienna. It’s a bit late, I know, but I should like to make amends. Her child. My child, must be twenty-one years old by now. I’d like to give them both some money. Only I’d rather they didn’t know it was from me. So I’d like you to go and see them as if you were a private detective retained by a client who prefers to remain anonymous. Something like that, anyway. I’m sure you know the form, Bernie.”
“Suppose they’re dead,” I said.
“If they’re dead, they’re dead. I have an address. You could check it out for me.”
“I’ll get Jacobs to help with the relevant papers,” Henkell said. “You’ll need an Allied Forces Permit to pass through the British, French, and American zones. And a Gray Pass to go through the Russian zone of occupation. How will you get there?”
“I prefer to go by train,” I said. “I’ll attract less attention that way.”
“There’s a travel agency I use at the main station in Munich,” said Henkell. “I’ll get them to buy you a ticket. When will you go?”
“How soon can Jacobs get those travel documents?”
“Not long, I should think,” said Henkell. “He’s pretty well connected.”
“So I gathered.”
“Twenty-four hours?” said Henkell.
“Then I’ll go the day after tomorrow.”
“But in whose name should I book it?” asked Henkell. “Yours or Eric’s? We have to think this through carefully. Suppose you were searched and they found you had another passport. They’d assume one was false and that you were an illegal refugee from the Russian Zone. You’d be handed over to them and tossed into a labor camp.” He frowned. “It’s quite a risk, Bernie. Are you really sure you want to do this?”