Werthen rose from his desk, approaching the boy with outstretched hand. The child flinched for a moment at the sight of the hand, then understood, putting his own frail hand out to shake with Werthen.
‘Pleased to meet you, Heidrich.’
His face brightened at this.
‘My friends call me Heidl,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Werthen said. ‘And I understand Fraulein Metzinger has dubbed you Huck.’
A smile formed on the boy’s face now. It was as if he were purring at such attention. Werthen began to see how Fraulein Metzinger could become attached to the young fellow.
Then the boy as quickly changed his expression, unsure if he were being teased.
‘I delivered those things,’ he said to Fraulein Metzinger in a thick Viennese street accent.
‘Wonderful,’ she replied. Then to Werthen, ‘I thought I might use Huck for our personal delivery service. If that is all right with you, Advokat. We always have documents to be hand-delivered to other firms or clients.’
Werthen paused, feeling his eyebrows rise in spite of himself.
‘Not to worry,’ Fraulein Metzinger said. ‘I have a new suit of clothes in the works at Loden Plankl. Huck here will cut quite the figure.’ She so obviously wanted to pat the boy’s cheek, but restrained herself.
Werthen finally managed to pull himself out of his officious mood.
‘I think that is a fine idea, Fraulein Metzinger.’ He thrust his hand out to Heidrich Beer once again. ‘Welcome to the firm, Huck.’
‘I am proud of you, Karl,’ Berthe said to him as they sat down for lunch.
‘Why do I have the feeling that Fraulein Metzinger spoke to you about this before she did me?’ Werthen asked.
‘Because you are a fine judge of character as well as the possessor of an acutely analytical mind. Oh no, darling Frieda. Not on your nice new pinafore.’
The baby looked quite content at having spread cream all over her top. Though she was in Berthe’s arms, Frieda still managed to make a swipe at anything in sight.
‘And you will try to help her with this adoption?’
Werthen put his cup down on the Biedermeier dining table. ‘You’re sure it’s wise? I hate to act the sagacious paterfamilias, but what really does she know of the boy?’
‘She has a good heart.’ Berthe was partly distracted by trying to wipe the cream from Frieda’s front.
‘She does, to be sure. It is Heidrich Beer I was wondering about.’
‘Fraulein Metzinger is of age. She is not some febrile young mimosa who has led a sheltered life. You yourself said what a fine legal mind she has.’
‘Yes, a legal mind.’ Werthen said it as almost a sigh.
Berthe ignored this. ‘She clearly finds the boy special and wants to make a difference in his life. Is that so wrong? Unconventional, perhaps, but wrong?’
‘Not at all,’ Werthen said, reaching out now to hold Frieda. He loved the feel of her snug little body in the crook of his arm; did not even mind the occasional bit of spit upon his jacket or waistcoat. ‘It is an exemplary thing to do, in fact. It is good she has brought him into the firm, so to speak.’
‘So that you can vet him more easily.’
‘Yes. I am not ashamed to say so. I admit, at first meeting he seems a nice enough fellow. A bath and a suit of new clothes will do him a world of good.’
‘And how is he to keep that suit of new clothes tidy living in the sewers while you go about investigating his bona fides?’ Freed of her daughter for the time, Berthe tucked into Frau Blatschky’s Beuschel, cutting herself a healthy portion of the bread dumpling in ragout with strips of calf’s lung.
‘I believe Fraulein Metzinger has seen to that,’ Werthen said. ‘Really, the young woman should go into politics; she can charm anyone. She spoke with Frau Ignatz of all people, and secured accommodations for Huck under the eaves at Habsburgergasse. He will be rooming with the Portier’s brother Oskar, in point of fact.’
Berthe almost choked on a bite of dumpling. She coughed, her eyes filled with water, and then she managed to say, ‘How in the world did she ever achieve that?’
Werthen merely raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
‘It buys us time, however,’ he said. ‘There is no need to rush into things now, as it would seem the boy is safe enough as is.’
They were silent for a moment, and then Berthe sighed. ‘That seems an easily resolved crisis compared to ours.’
‘They aren’t still talking about the baptism?’ Werthen said.
She nodded. ‘And Father wrote today that he has decided to remain in Linz until we make some decision about the naming ceremony.’
‘Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.’
‘That about sums it up,’ she said.
Werthen had a guilty conscience. The young chap Praetor was a pompous ass, but Werthen could not stop feeling shame at having coerced him with the threat of exposing his homosexuality. The deed hung like a metaphorical albatross around his neck.
All that afternoon at the office it stood in the way of his concentrating on Herr Eckhof’s newest will.
He worked late at the office and walked home in the gathering darkness, up the gentle slope of Josefstadterstrasse leading from the Ring out of the Inner City. Werthen suddenly decided he would do something about the heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He would pay one more visit to Praetor. And he would do it this very evening before returning home for dinner.
Werthen turned left off the Josefstadterstrasse at Piaristengasse and followed that street to the corner of Zeltgasse. The little lane extended for only one city block. The house door at Zeltgasse 8 was already closed for the evening, unlike at his last visit to Praetor when he had been able to simply walk up the stairs to the man’s flat. Werthen looked up at the windows of the apartments, seeing the lights on in Praetor’s flat on the third floor. A shadow passed in front of the curtained window. So the young journalist was at home. Sometimes a Portier would close the house door early in hopes of earning tips from those caught outside.
Surprisingly, the building, though old, actually had one of the new house intercoms for visitors to ring the tenants when the house door was locked. But Werthen did not want to take chances on Praetor simply hanging up on him. Just then, a young couple stopped at the door to Praetor’s building, the man ringing an apartment and getting an immediate answer. The house door clicked open. On impulse, Werthen decided to follow them in. The couple looked surprised as he did so, but he tried to reassure them.
‘Sorry. I’m newly moved in. I left my change purse in the apartment and cannot very well bother the Portier without tip in hand.’
The woman smiled at this, but her husband, a thin and wary man, simply stared at Werthen as he headed to the stairs and they made their way to a street-level apartment.
Reaching the third-floor landing, Werthen knocked lightly on Praetor’s door, trying to gather his thoughts, wondering just how he would approach the young man. There was no answer and he knocked again, a bit louder. Another half-minute passed and this time he used the zinc twist knob of the manual doorbell. Still no response.
He put his ear to the door and thought he heard movement from within.
‘Herr Praetor,’ he said to the blankness of the door, feeling rather silly as he did so. ‘It is I. Advokat Werthen. I have come to apologize. Please let me in.’