A German Requiem

'Yes.'

'What shall I tell her?'

'You have information that she's a whore,' I explained, 'so you're reluctant to let her go. But you let me talk you into it.'

'Well, that seems to be in order, Herr Gunther,' Rustaveli said, reverting to German again. 'My apologies for having detained you. Now you may leave.'

He handed back my identity card, and I stood up and made for the door.

'But what about me?' Lotte moaned.

Rustaveli shook his head. 'I'm afraid you must stay, FrSulein. The vice squad doctor will be here shortly. He will question you regarding your work at the Oriental.'

'But I'm a croupier,' she wailed, 'not a chocolady.'

'That is not our information.'

'What information?'

'Your name has been mentioned by several other girls.'

'What other girls?'

'Prostitutes, FrSulein. Possibly you may have to submit yourself for a medical examination.'

'A medical? What for?'

'For venereal disease, of course.'

'Venereal disease ?'

'Captain Rustaveli,' I said above Lotte's rising cry of outrage, 'I can vouch for this woman. I wouldn't say I knew her very well, but I've known her long enough to be able to state, quite categorically, that she is not a prostitute.'

'Well ' he cavilled.

'I ask you: does she look like a prostitute?'

'Frankly, I've yet to meet an Austrian girl who isn't selling it.' He closed his eyes for a second, and then shook his head. 'I can't go against the protocol.

These are serious charges. Many Russian soldiers have been infected.'

'As I recall, the Oriental where FrSulein Hartmann was arrested is off limits to the Red Army. I was under the impression that your men tended to go to the Moulin Rouge in Walfischgasse.'

Rustaveli pursed his lips and shrugged. 'That is true. But nevertheless '

'Perhaps if I were to meet you again, Captain, we might discuss the possibility of me compensating the Red Army for any embarrassment regarding a breach of the protocol. In the meantime, would you be able to accept my personal surety for the FrSulein's good character?'

Rustaveli scratched his stubble thoughtfully. 'Very well,' he said, 'your personal surety. But remember, I have your addresses. You can always be re-arrested.' He turned to Lotte Hartmann and told her that she was also free to leave.

'Thank God,' she breathed, and sprang to her feet.

Rustaveli nodded at the kapral standing guard on the other side of the grimy glass door, and then ordered him to escort us out of the building. Then the captain clicked his heels and apologised for 'the mistake', as much for the benefit of his kapral as for any effect it might have had on Lotte Hartmann.

She and I followed the kapral back down the big staircase, our steps echoing up to the ornate cornice-work on the high ceiling, and through the arched glass doors into the street where he leaned over the pavement and spat copiously into the gutter.

'A mistake, eh?' He uttered a bitter laugh. 'Mark my words, I'll be the one that gets the blame for it.'

'I hope not,' I said, but the man just shrugged, adjusted his lambskin hat and trudged wearily back into his headquarters.

'I suppose I ought to thank you,' Lotte said, tying up the collar of her jacket.

'Forget it,' I said, and started walking towards the Ring. She hesitated for a moment and then tripped after me.

'Wait a minute,' she said.

I stopped and faced her again. Frontally her face was even more attractive than its profile, as the length of her nose seemed less noticeable. And she was not cold at all. Belinsky had been wrong about that, mistaking cynicism for general indifference. Indeed, I thought she seemed more apt to entice men, although an evening of watching her in the Casino had established that she was probably one of those unsatisfactory women who dangle intimacy, only to withdraw it at a later stage.

'Yes? What is it?'

'Look, you've already been very kind,' she said, 'but would you mind walking me home? It is very late for a decent girl to be on the streets, and I doubt if I'll be able to find a taxi at this time of night.'

I shrugged and looked at my watch. 'Where do you live?'

'It's not very far. The 3rd Bezirk, in the British sector.'

'All right.' I sighed with a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm. 'Lead the way.'

We walked eastwards, along streets that were as quiet as a house of Franciscan tertiaries.

'You haven't explained why you helped me,' she said, breaking the silence after a while.

'I wonder if that's what Andromeda said when Perseus had saved her from the sea-monster.'

'You seem a little less obviously heroic, Herr Gunther.'

'Don't be fooled by my manners,' I told her. 'I've got a whole chestful of medals down at my local pawnshop.'

'So you're not the sentimental type either.'

'No, I like sentiment. It looks fine on needlework and Christmas cards. Only it doesn't make much of an engraving on the Ivans. Or perhaps you weren't looking.'

'Oh, I was looking all right. It was very impressive the way you handled him. I never knew the Ivans could be greased like that.'

'You just have to know the right spot on the axle. That kapral would probably have been too scared to take some drop, and a major too proud. Not to mention the fact that I'd met our Captain Rustaveli before, when he was plain Lieutenant Rustaveli and both he and his girlfriend had a dose of drip. I got them some good penicillin, for which he was very grateful.'

'You don't look like any swing Heini.'

'I don't look like a swing, I don't look like a hero. What are you, the head of casting at Warner Brothers?'

'I only wish I were,' she murmured. And then: 'Anyway, you started it. You said to that Ivan that I didn't look like a chocolady. Coming from you I'd say it almost sounded like a compliment.'

'Like I said, I've seen you at the Oriental, selling nothing worse than bad luck. Incidentally, I hope you're a good card-player, because I'm supposed to go back and give him something for your liberty. Assuming you actually want to stay out of the cement.'

'How much will that be?'

'A couple of hundred dollars ought to do it.'

'A couple of hundred?' Her words echoed around Schwarzenbergplatz as we came past a great fountain, and crossed onto Rennweg. 'Where am I going to get that kind of mouse?'

'Same place you got the suntan and nice jacket, I imagine. Failing that you could ask him to the club and deal him a few aces off the bottom of the deck.'

'I could if I were that good. But I'm not.'

'That's too bad.'

She was quiet for a moment as she gave the matter some thought. 'Maybe you could persuade him to take less. After all, you seem to speak pretty good Russkie.'

'Maybe,' I allowed.

'I don't suppose it would do much good to go to court and protect my innocence, would it?'

'With the Ivans?' I laughed harshly. 'You might just as well appeal to the goddess Kali.'

'No, I didn't think so.'

We came up a side street or two and stopped outside an apartment building that was close by a small park.

'Would you like to come in for a drink?' She fumbled in her handbag for her key.

'I know I could use one.'

'I could suck one out of the rug,' I said, and followed her through the door, upstairs and into a cosy, solidly furnished apartment.

There was no ignoring the fact that Lotte Hartmann was attractive. Some women, you look at them and calculate what modest length of time you would be willing to settle for. Generally, the better-looking the girl the less time with which you tell yourself you would be satisfied. After all, a really attractive woman might have to accommodate a lot of similar wishes. Lotte was the kind of girl with whom you could have been persuaded to settle for five steamy, unfettered minutes. Just five minutes for her to let you and your imagination do what you wanted. Not too much to ask, you would have thought. The way things happened, though, it looked like she might actually have granted me rather longer than that. Perhaps even the full hour. But I was dog-tired, and perhaps I drank a little too much of her excellent whisky to pay much attention to the way she bit her bottom-lip and stared at me through those black-widow eyelashes. I was probably supposed to lie quietly on her bed with my muzzle resting on her impressively convex lap and let her fold my big, floppy ears, only I ended up falling asleep on the sofa.