Meanwhile I’m not the only person with problems. Gretl’s fiance, who is now in charge of his own fire engine, has given her an ultimatum: marriage within six months or the engagement is off. Gustav Schumacher has jammed the master switch in the saw shed and fused the electricity supply to two apartment houses and a laundry, and Leah Cohen’s husband has bought the tickets for the Holy Land.
‘Promise you won’t dress Miriam when I’ve gone, promise me,’ she begged. ‘That’s the only thing I can’t stand, the idea of Miriam swanning about in your lovely clothes.’
Edith Sultzer has just telephoned to say she wants to see me.
She arrived with her briefcase so full that the lock did not shut and she had to hold it under her arm.
‘Goodness, Edith, what have you got in there?’
The Bluestocking threw me an agitated glance. ‘Could I come through into the workshop?’
‘Of course.’
The cutting-out table was clear. Edith asked for some newspaper which Nini brought. Then she opened the case. Plaited into four strands, fastened by twine, the lengths of white-blonde hair tumbled out in incredible profusion. ‘Good God — what is it?’
‘It’s Magdalena’s hair. I told you it belonged to The Christ. She’s cut it right off and she wants to sell it. She said one could get a better price if one sold it privately. Only I don’t at all know where to go.’
I ran my fingers along the marvellous silky stuff, feeling quite shaken at this heroic butchery.
‘You’ve found her then? But where? Where is she?’
‘She’s in the Convent of the Sacred Heart. She’s going to be a nun. That’s why she wants me to sell her hair; to get money for the order.’
‘I see. And the man I saw her with?’
‘He’s a Jesuit priest — Father Benedictus. He was her confessor when she was being confirmed. She went to ask him if she could be released from her engagement — she went several times, but he wouldn’t let her. He said to be offered a pure marriage and a chance to help the church financially was a fine opportunity. They’re very practical, these Jesuits. But of course when Herr Huber broke his side of the bargain, Magdalena felt free… and she ran away and took refuge with the nuns.’
‘How did you find her, Edith? Did she send you a message?’
Edith shook her head. ‘I packed some toilet things and went round to all the convents saying I’d brought some things for her and would they give them to her. In the first three they said she wasn’t there, but in the fourth they just took them and asked if I’d like to see her. She’s only a postulant still, she’s not walled up.’
‘You seem to have been very resourceful.’
Edith shook her head. ‘I just remembered what she said when she was little. Again and again she said it. “I’m going to be a nun because I love Jesus more than anyone else in the world.” I think he was so real to her she couldn’t bear anyone else even to touch her. She wanted to make the sacrifice for her family, but she just couldn’t.’
Then she asked if I would come with her to the convent. ‘She looks so different — it isn’t just the hair, it’s everything. You know how dreamy she was; not quite in the world. Well that’s all changed. And if you saw her, Frau Susanna, you could help me to tell Herr Huber.’
‘He doesn’t know yet?’
Edith shook her head. ‘I told her family, but they just weep and wail though Herr Huber gave them quite a big sum of money even after she ran away. You’re so good at making people feel better, and I don’t know how to say things… only in essays, not to real people.’ She gave a little sniff. ‘I’m going to miss Magdalena. We were both misfits — she was too beautiful and I was too ugly.’
So I went with her to the Convent of the Sacred Heart. There was no difficulty about seeing Magdalena. The woman who admitted us was Sister Bonaventura who had made the silken rose on the rich cream dress I wore to the Bristol, and we are friends.
The convent adjoins a group of almshouses with a small hospital, and the nuns are responsible for this.
It was there that we found Magdalena. She wore an apron and a cap over her shorn hair, and was swabbing down, methodically and carefully, the stomach of an ancient lady who lay on an iron bed. Nothing could have been further than the image I had had of Magdalena rapt in prayer and communicating with her saints. Rather she looked — as she dried the old lady and rolled her over like a strudel — like a satisfied housewife attending to her daily tasks. And it occurred to me that Magdalena’s love affair had ended rather better than Alice’s or Nini’s — or mine: in a busy and contented marriage.
We exchanged a few words, but Magdalena had started on a second patient, cutting the toenails on a pair of gnarled and yellow feet, and we soon took our leave.
There seemed to be no point in delaying over breaking the news to Herr Huber. On the way to his shop in the Graben, we called for Alice. She was packing for her journey to Switzerland but she agreed to come with us. The butcher has a special fondness for her and I felt we needed help.
We found Herr Huber supervising a display of knackwurst, and the way he looked when we told him that Magdalena was safe — the relief, the tenderness on his face, the sudden hope we had at once to extinguish — is best forgotten.
‘She was on her knees as when I first saw her?’ he asked eagerly. ‘She was in prayer?’
‘No. She was swabbing down an old lady’s stomach,’ I said firmly.
‘And she has cut her hair,’ said Edith. ‘She has given it to The Christ.’
‘Like Cosima Wagner,’ put in Alice.
Herr Huber’s bewildered round eyes went from one to the other of us. ‘Did Frau Wagner give her hair to The Christ?’
‘No. To Wagner. She cut it off and put it in his grave. He was The Christ to her. Well, God… ’
But poor Herr Huber was quite unable to deal with a shorn Magdalena swabbing the abdomens of ancient ladies. We carried him off to lunch at the Landtmann, but he was a broken man, able to swallow only a couple of schnitzels and a slab of oblaten torte.
‘I’m giving up my room at the Astoria,’ he told us. ‘And I’m putting a manager into the shop here. There’s nothing in Vienna for me now.’ He brightened for a moment. ‘Fortunately I’ve had a good offer for the villa. A very good offer.’
I didn’t ask if the bald Saint Proscutea was included in the fittings.
‘You’ll be living in the old house by the river, then?’ said Edith, and Herr Huber nodded.
I suggested that Magdalena’s trousseau should be sent to her convent for the nuns to sell, and he agreed to that.
‘Of course I shall be coming to say goodbye. You have been such good friends to me.’ He dabbed his eyes. ‘And everyone is welcome in Linz. My sisters would be so happy.’
‘How soon are you leaving?’ asked Edith.
‘In about three weeks. Earlier perhaps.’
Edith put down her knife and fork. ‘Really?’ she said. `So soon?’
I have told myself that I have lost Gernot and I have believed it. Yet deep down there has been a glimmer of hope. After all it is not sense to think that one broken assignation — even such an important one — could have such consequences. My fears could have been due to the time of year, the shortening of the days, the cold which so easily extinguishes hope.
But now I know that it is true. I have to live without him. I know because of Hatschek.
This is what happened.
The Baroness Lefevre, the one who got tired of sitting on ortolans, lives in a grace and favour apartment in the Hofburg. She’s had influenza and I said I would call and fit her for her skating costume.
I was walking through the gate from the Michaeler Platz into the first of the palace courtyards when I saw Hatschek coming out of a door on the far side.