These connections were by no means limited to Sturmbannführer Malik. I had run into my old schoolmate Oskar Koloman again, and this time he looked prim and tidy, in a splendid black uniform, with the insignia of an even higher rank than that of Sturmbannführer. “Heil, Arnulf,” he greeted me. “How is it you’re in civilian clothes? Don’t you want to join us?”
“I am Rumanian, you know.”
“That means nothing. You were born an Austrian. Sooner or later, all German-speaking people will come home to the Reich. I can easily arrange for you to change your nationality.”
“I’ll think it over,” I said. “Thank you anyhow.”
“You were a fairly good skater, and not bad at horseback riding, as I recall. We need sporting types, you know. We have some excellent horses at the Mounted SS. Come and ride them, if you want. What are you doing otherwise?”
“Well, I’m trying to get on with architecture. But it bores me stiff.”
“You see! Studying bored me, too. That’s why I amused myself blowing up a telephone booth. It cost me three years, all right, but look what I’ve become now. Not bad, hey? You can have the same if you want. But tell me”—he looked at me mistrustfully—“don’t you have contact with Jews? I remember that dark girl you were with when we met again for the first time.”
“Oh, she’s a Turk,” I said, and laughed.
“A Turk. I understand.” He laughed, too. “However, a Jewess is no Jew, and a Turkish girl even less. I do understand, you old swine. Now, don’t be a fool, and come riding one of these days?”
I did. They had excellent horses. I rode one that had belonged to the Rothschilds, and was very good indeed. The cavalrymen were fantastic yokels. They clicked their heels and threw up their arms and shouted “Heil Hitler!” every time they saw me. Sometimes I had the impression they did not take it seriously themselves, because they tried so hard to do it seriously. On the whole, they seemed quite harmless, happy with their uniforms and their obsolete importance. Oskar, in order to avoid silly questions about my riding there without being a member of the SS (also, perhaps, in order to give himself an air of clandestine importance), had told them that I was a Rumanian engaged in some special intelligence work, and I did nothing to destroy this legend, so I was treated as if I were the bearer of top secrets that would soon enable Adolf Hitler to unite the Carpathians with the Styrian Alps. I knew I could certainly count on Oskar, because, in a drunken moment, he had confessed to me that his group of Austrian Nazis had been deceived by the men of the Reich. He and his friends had not at all wanted Anschluss but a separate Nazi Austria under their own leader, Dr. Rintelen. The next day, he came to me and implored me never to mention what he had told me. I grasped his arm and said, “Well, Oskar, after all, we have always been friends. Let’s not fuss about how reliable we are,” whereupon he grasped my arm and said, “Arnulf, I always knew you were a fine fellow, though you sometimes”—and here he laughed heartily—“have a trifle too much to do with the Turks. However, I would very much like to meet that Turkish girl of yours. She has something that appeals to my particular taste. If you don’t mind.”
Of course, Minka knew about all this, and laughed when I told her that she had only to smile at Oskar and he’d immediately make her an honorary Aryan. “Aryans,” she said. “I can’t stand the sight of them any longer. The sooner I get my affidavit the better. I want to get out of here. It breaks my heart, but I simply have to.” She was waiting for her affidavit for England, as most of our friends were. It was not easy to get an affidavit. The English would take only people who wanted to be employed as servants, so very soon some clever man opened a butlers’ school on the Praterstrasse, where Jewish bankers and intellectuals were taught how to wait on the British. I once went there with Minka, and we laughed our heads off. Old stockbrokers were waddling around with aprons about their hips, balancing trays and opening bottles of champagne. My talent for imitating Jews made me invent a sketch in which a Scottish laird, reading in the newspapers about the sad destiny of the Viennese Jews, decides to dismiss all his wonderful Highland servants and replace them with Dr. Pisko-Bettelheim, Jacques Pallinker, Yehudo Nagoschiner, and such. Minka’s house had become a sort of center for the few Jews left in Vienna and some Aryans unfaithful to their new flag, like myself. My sketch was a great success.
During that summer and autumn of 1938, most of the Jews I knew went away. Some of them were arrested and locked up for a while, and came home with some rather gruesome stories about what was going on in the prisons of the Rossauerlände. Some disappeared, and we did not know whether they had been put in jail or had just fled at the last moment. All this was pretty awful, I had to admit. But one knew, after all, how people were — some being horrid, others really very nice — and those who got arrested were not always entirely innocent. A Jewish lawyer, telling about his cruel treatment at the hands of the SS, said proudly, “But I was not arrested for just being a Jew. I am a criminal.” However, I was becoming bored with the Nazi attitude of promise, hope, and expectation, as nothing really happened, and the whole thing was nothing but a great mess with some sordid highlights. Vienna had become a dreary place. Even Oskar complained; he didn’t enjoy the Heurigen anymore, God knows why. Then he said, “Do you remember our school library? Well, there was a book called The City Without Jews. Actually, I never read it. Have you? Anyway, I sometimes have the feeling that Vienna is just that. There’s nobody left to hate.”
There was a young boy of great musical talent around Minka in those days — not Herbert von Karajan but a little Jew by the name of Walter, whom I had come to like very much. He was intelligent, and funny, and extremely well read. Minka protected him, as, in happier times, she had protected me, and he showed me a touching affection and confidence that I could not resist. Since he had relatives in America, he got an affidavit rather quickly, and we decided to give him a farewell party. We chose an out-of-the-way place — a small winegrower’s cottage behind the Kobenzl — with the poetic name, in the Viennese dialect, of Häusl am Roan (Cottage at the Edge of the Vineyard). We were a party of sixteen, and there were some pretty girls. Someone still had a car, and it took two trips to get us all out there, and we were gay as in the old days. Walter played the nice old Viennese Heurigenlieder on the piano. I performed the butler Yehudo Nagoschiner, serving the wine and the fried chicken. Below us, beyond the hills that smelled of mown hay, lay the sparkling lights of Vienna. Suddenly this idyllic happiness was interrupted by a voice that roared, “I’ve finally caught you in the very act, you scoundrel!” I felt the marrow of my bones freeze. In the door stood Oskar, with a group of sturdy men in civilian clothes behind him. My poor Jewish friends stood or sat motionless as he came toward me, followed by his silent men. Then he threw his arms up and said, “But don’t let me interrupt your good time. I’m a schoolmate of Arnulf’s, and I wanted to show a few friends from the Reich what a true Viennese Heurigen looks like.”