The news that Herr Egger had a Nasty Little Habit reached us in a roundabout way via a girl called Lily who works in the post office and is currently enjoying his favours. Or rather she is receiving them; she doesn’t seem to be enjoying them very much. Unfortunately while she told Nini that the Habit existed, she did not tell her what it was, and this I must admit I found unfair.
Frau Egger, when she came, wanted me to make her a military cloak. I did not at this point groan aloud because dressmakers who groan when they feel like it do not stay long in business, but my spirits sank. No week passes but some Hausfrau who has attended a passing out parade or a bandmasters’ rally arrives, convinced that a sweeping arc of cloth with epaulettes will turn her into a figure of glamour and romance. No use explaining that hussars do not have bosoms, that the rakish swirl of their cloaks depends on a virtual absence of behinds…?
‘Perhaps a modified version,’ I suggested to Frau Egger, but I did not expect to get my way too easily. With her long, pale face and tombstone teeth, the Minister’s wife uncannily resembled those breeding ewes which get stuck in ditches, resisting with mindless obstinacy all efforts to set them free.
I went through to the workroom to fetch some loden cloth and give the bad news to the girls. When I returned Frau Egger was laying a set of buttons down on my desk: brass buttons, big ones, with a curious design — an owl, its head transfixed by a lance and a motto consisting of a single word: Aggredi. I have reason to know something about Austrian military uniforms, but these I had never seen.
‘I found them in a box in the attic,’ said Frau Egger. ‘They’re not my husband’s — he’s never been in the army though he behaves as if… ’ She broke off shaking her head. But I thought they’d look ever so nice on the cloak. Realistic.’
‘Frau Egger, these are genuine army buttons. To clean them you need a button stick and brass polish and a special brush. Even an experienced batman can take an hour to polish buttons.’
But they’re so pretty, aren’t they? I looked up Aggredi in the Latin dictionary. It means “Charge!” Like in “Charge!” or “Attack!” or “Advance!” ‘
About this something would have to be done. I have my reputation to think of, and cannot have my clients wandering down the Kärtnerstrasse with pierced birds on the bosom, and labelled ‘Charge!’
I began to sketch a design for a cloak that Frau Egger would regard as military, but would in fact be nothing of the sort. She nodded and at first seemed pleased, but soon she grew restless. Her eyes roamed to the door of the workroom, she kneaded her gloves, picked up an ashtray. And when Nini came with samples of braid to show her, she stared at her fiercely.
‘Is that the girl who throws bombs?’ she said when Nini had gone again.
I raised my eyebrows, a thing I’m rather good at.
‘I mean, is she the Anarchist? The one who wants to murder us all in our beds? Because I wonder if I could have a word with her in private? I think she knows a girl who’s a friend of my husband’s.’ Here the poor woman flushed crimson. ‘A girl he’s taken an interest in. Lily, she’s called.’
My heart sank. Wronged wives can never quite believe that one is powerless to help them. ‘If you’d just have a word with her, Frau Susanna,’ they say. ‘If you’d just tell her what it’s doing to me and the children.’ There is no one to whom a woman in that state will not turn to: a window cleaner, a dustman… anyone connected with the hussy who ruined their lives. I understood now why Frau Egger, whose clothes showed all the signs of home dressmaking at its most dire, had come to me.
‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid that’s impossible; Nini is just going out on an errand. Now about the collar… I would suggest a contrasting fabric in a darker tone. How about velveteen — or would you like to use fur?’
‘Why did she look at me like that?’ said Nini later, putting away the unfortunate buttons.
I told her.
‘Poor soul. But honestly I don’t think she’s got too much to worry about. Lily really doesn’t like him very much — it’s not just the Nasty Little Habit — it’s that he’s so horribly mean.’
They let the little Count of Monte Cristo out most evenings now. He always walks slowly down the steps while Rip looks on, and goes to stand by the fountain. He still has no toys and he still doesn’t play with the water or go anywhere else.
I try not to get involved. I don’t really understand what is happening in those bare rooms across the square and I’m afraid of becoming indignant at what is being done to him; the endless hours of practising, the unhealthy, imprisoned life. But I’m not musical enough to understand if it’s justified. Perhaps this pathetic shrimp is touched by greatness, but it’s hard to believe.
All the same, some evenings I can’t bear the sight of the lonely black speck by the fountain and I go across and have a few words with him.
His name is Sigismund and I smiled when I heard that, for they were the mightiest kings of all the kings of Poland, the Sigismunds, ruling over the country when her borders stretched from the Black Sea to the Baltic. The sad man with the side whiskers is his uncle, and they walked almost all the way from Galicia with enough money for the hire of a piano and six months in Vienna for the child.
‘And after six months they go,’ said the detestable concierge. ‘Though mind you, they’re not Jews like I thought. There’s a crucifix in his room and the boy’s got one round his neck. Not that Poles are much better.’
I’d noticed that too: the wooden cross hanging on a frayed piece of string between the lapels of his grubby shirt.
His mother is dead, but I didn’t need the concierge to tell me that.
‘There’s someone in the shop asking to see you personally. A corporal. A man of the people,’ said Nini approvingly. ‘He smells of onions and he won’t see anyone but you. Shall I ask him to go away? He can’t possibly be going to buy a dress.’
I couldn’t speak for a moment. I’d been right then. It was Hatschek. He was back in Vienna.
Nini was looking at me with her head on one side. She was saying something. Asking me if I was all right. ‘I’ll tell him to go. It’s just that he’s been here before, I think. His face seemed familiar.’
‘No, don’t tell him to go. Send him up here.’ And as she continued to look at me curiously, I said curtly: ‘You heard me. Send him up.’
But I didn’t want him to come too quickly. I wanted to spin it out, the moment till I saw Hatschek with his broad, stupid face, his dogged blue eyes, his cauliflower ears. I wanted a respite before I smelled the onion, felt the rough red hands. And I rose quickly and went to the mirror to make sure that my curls fell as I wanted over my forehead, that the bow which fastened the neck of my blouse was perfectly tied, for how I look to this illiterate Bohemian peasant matters more than I can say.
‘Frau Susanna!’ He had entered, clicked his clumsy boots together, tried to salute — but this I do not permit, and moving forwards I took his hands in mine.
‘Hatschek!’ Not kissing Hatschek on both cheeks is always difficult but I managed it. ‘I thought I saw you on the Kärnter Ring last week, but when I crossed the street you’d gone. Was it you?’
‘Aye. We’ve been in town these ten days past,’ he said in his thick Bohemian accent. ‘But we weren’t alone. Only this morning we were alone again.’
As he spoke I feasted my eyes on him. For Hatschek, you see, is Mercury, the Winged One, the Messenger of the Gods. If they wanted to fetch me up to Paradise it would be no good sending the Archangel Gabriel. Nothing in white with wings, nothing gold-limned in sandals would interest me. It would have to be Hatschek or nothing, for he alone has the key to the only heaven I care about.