Sophie didn’t protest. She took my hand, thanked me, and watched as we walked out. Traffic on Gumpendorferstrasse was brisk. We had to stand in front of the café a while before there was a chance to go. I wished we could run across, run to their apartment, run to Jesse, get all the information in two seconds—everything fast forward. Whether it was going to be good or bad, this was one of those times when I wanted the speed of life to double so that I could know much sooner what was next. Zip fast boom – here we are; now you know what’s what.
“He’s been talking about birds since he came back.”
“Excuse me?” A long champagne-yellow Mercedes shushed by, wearing a German license plate. I was in Europe. God, I was in Europe again for the last time in my life. Last times. Days full of last times.
“Jesse’s been talking about birds, but I don’t understand what he’s getting at.”
I looked at Caitlin, but before either of us had a chance to say more there was a break in the traffic, and we scurried across the street. Once there, we walked quickly back toward Laimgrubengasse.
“What about the birds?”
“He has this book with him constantly that he brought back. He keeps reading passages from it to me.”
“Are birds his hobby?”
“Not at all. That’s what’s strange. I’ve never known him to be the least bit interested in them.”
“What else has he been talking about?”
“This is it—turn right here. About Venice; about how expensive it’s become and how grouchy the people are.”
“How long was he there? Why did he even go?”
“He got in touch with the place in Sardinia to ask for Ian McGann’s address in London. He called and called, but there was no answer. So he went up there to look for him. It wasn’t easy, because the people in the travel agency where he worked weren’t helpful. But he did get hold of McGann’s brother and learned that Ian was in Venice with Miep; they’d been there since they left Sardinia. He flew directly there from London, which, if you knew my husband, is so utterly unlike him it’s astonishing. He doesn’t just jump on planes and jet off to Italy or England or anywhere. It’s not in his nature.”
“Why is McGann in Venice?”
“He wanted to spend time there with Miep before he died.”
We arrived at their building. Caitlin started to open the door.
“What’s McGann’s condition?”
She stopped turning the key and looked at me, poised to say something, but she stopped. “Jesse should tell you. I don’t want to get anything wrong.”
The door was one of those enormous wooden things you often see in Europe that date back to a time when the purpose of a door was not only to close off the outside world, but also to keep out the demons and hounds of hell. Caitlin needed both hands to struggle it open.
A lovely thing appeared—a shady silent courtyard with a marble water fountain in the center and well-kept flower beds. The centerpiece of the fountain was a child angel looking up to heaven with an impish smile on its face. Although we were in a hurry, I had to stop to have a look. The figure was startling in its mix of the sacred and the naughty, with even a bit of the sexy thrown in. A devout, naughty, erotic angel.
“Isn’t she a joy? It’s one of the reasons we took the apartment. We get to look at her every day. The first time we came here, both of us stopped as you did and just gaped at her. Now look up for the full effect. See how the walls of the building are brown and narrow? It’s as if the angel’s sitting out there in the middle of the Hof taking a sunbath and smiling like that because she’s able to get a little light on her face.”
“You think it’s a girl?”
Caitlin smiled, then checked to see if I was kidding. “You don’t? That’s funny, because both of us immediately assumed it was a girl.”
“I don’t agree. I’d have to study it a while. But no, I wouldn’t jump right in and say that.”
“Oh, look, there’s Jesse! Do you see? He’s waving.” She pointed up in a vague direction, but I saw only windows, most of them sealed to the eye by the afternoon’s white sunlight. “Come on.”
Walking around the fountain, I watched the smiling angel as long as I could, and then we entered a cool dark entrance-way with, far at the end, a winding staircase and a massive wooden banister. When we’d walked to it, I looked around worriedly for an elevator. There was none.
“Where’s the elevator?”
Caitlin shook her head.
“How many flights up?”
“Three.”
I took a deep breath and created a smile for her. “Let’s go.”
The steps were deeply worn stone and very wide. I watched Caitlin’s feet climb and tried to match her pace because, living here, she obviously was an expert on climbing stairs. When going up Mount Everest, aren’t you supposed to do what the sherpas do? Nevertheless, I was quickly winded and had to stop twice to catch my breath on the way up, while she danced her way farther and farther ahead. “Didn’t I read somewhere that for every stair you climb, you live three seconds longer?”
“Something like that. If it doesn’t kill you first.” She smiled happily over her shoulder and kept on climbing.
The door to the apartment was high and wide and made of some impressive wood. Old wood doors and stone steps. How many people had lived in this place, come to answer this doorbell when it rang? Lived on the stone and behind the wood, planning and plotting, hopeful or weeping over things no one on earth would remember today?
Caitlin rang the bell. Short seconds later Jesse opened the door as if he had been waiting right on the other side.
“I’ll go back down to Sophie now, honey.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek and turned. When she got to the top of the stairs, she looked back once over her shoulder and smiled, shrugged, and walked quickly down.
He was wearing gray: pullover, trousers, socks. No shoes. He saw me looking at his feet and grinned. “Hello, Wyatt. I changed, but didn’t get around to my feet yet. Come in.”
Their apartment began with a long gloomy hall that led into an equally dark living room crammed, to my great surprise, with gigantic pieces of furniture. Hanging on every wall were corny oil paintings that hurt your eyes just to look: mountain scenes or portraits of fat men with thick beards and an air of dumb self-satisfaction. I knew Jesse Chapman was square, but this square?
He saw me checking out the room. “Wonderful pictures, aren’t they? They’re not ours, thank God. We discovered a strange Viennese rule when we moved to this town. If you rent a place that’s ‘furnished,’ that means whatever furnishings are there stay – forever – whether you like them or not. We hate this trash. It looks as if someone a hundred and fifty years old lives here. But when we asked the landlord if we could move it out and bring our own things in, he was really, seriously offended. So it’s your home and you certainly pay enough for it, but at the same time it’s not.”
“Like living out your life in someone else’s skin.”
“Right.”
“Well, what’s up, Jesse? Sounds as if you’ve been having an adventure.”
“That’s a good word for it. Have a seat on Frau Spusta’s couch.” He pointed me to a plump zeppelin of a thing, where we sat on either end and faced each other.
“What do you know about birds, Wyatt?”
“Some of them sound nice and others taste good.”
“That’s true. But listen to this.” Reaching to the coffee table in front of the couch, he picked up a small blue book filled with white paper markers sticking out the top. He counted a few and then opened the book to one. “Have you ever heard of the ortolan? It’s called Emberiza hortulana.”