"Doctor Criminale" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradbury Malcolm)

3  Vienna smelled of roasting coffee and new gingerbread . . .

From the very moment we landed (three hours late, of course) on that sharp cold noontide in Novem­ber, Vienna seemed to smell of hot roasting coffee and crisp new gingerbread — the haunting flavours of childhood and Christmas, which by now was not so very far away. Vienna’s airport is modern and international, spacious and pleasant, and yet the moment you walk into it from the bus that brings you in from the plane a strangely Austrian sense of tradition, the scent of a certain long-lived, leather-jacketed kind of history, immediately seems to prevail. Despite what is sometimes said, no one should really accuse the Austrians of neglecting their great men, especially the ones who are firmly and safely dead. And certainly no one can complain that they were ignoring the one they had carted out of the city, coated in lime, and buried deep in an unmarked pauper’s grave just one year short of two centuries earlier.

The fact was that we had arrived in Vienna on the very brink of one of those great end-of-century anniversaries that Austria and indeed the world as a whole had no intention of overlooking. The sign, the symbol, the signifier of little Wolfgang Amadeus was everywhere. His natty little portrait, perky and periwigged, hung all over Immigration. The fine bright notes of ‘La ci darem la mano’ soared out of the loud­speakers as, carrying off our carry-on luggage, Lavinia and I marched side by side through the corridors of expensive shops toward the central concourse. Here you could find a Mozart delicatessen where you could buy sticky Mozartkugeln (‘the sweet heritage of Amadeus’), rich Mozarttorte, Queen of the Night olive oil, Mozart mayonnaise. You could stock up on Seraglio perfume at the nearby boutique; there was a chocolate bust of the man melting beside the Don Giovanni cocktail bar. Even though there were still a couple of months to go to the full celebrations, it was already quite safe to say that, when 1991 dawned on us, in Vienna the Mozart bicentennial would not pass entirely unnoticed.

Nor could you accuse the Viennese of neglecting the many, many tourists who, despite the uneasy mood of the times, the ‘ fear of terrorism, the growing threat of war in the Gulf and disorder in the Soviet Union, still poured in massive numbers to the city of Amadeus, and Johann, and Ludwig, and Franz. Downstairs in the baggage claim, where a jumbo-load of Japanese tourists were noisily hunting for the cases that, in a properly organized world, should have come with them on their flight from Tokyo, Lavinia and I discovered the perfect economic Euro-toy: a fine electronic machine with flashing buttons that, at a press, gladly turned any form of currency into any other, in a hi-tech, silicon-chip version of the good old game of rates of exchange. ‘Look, Lavinia, a money machine,’ I said, stopping. ‘Not for you, darling, now come away,’ said Lavinia. ‘All you have to do is empty all the notes out of your wallet and put them in here,’ I said, ‘Then it turns them all into something else. Pounds to schillings, dollars to zlotys, Japanese yen to Slakan vloskan.’

I’d already got my own wallet out when Lavinia took me by the hand, to the strains of ‘La ci darem la mano’, and took me outside into the chilly Viennese air. ‘All right, Francis,’ she said, ‘Let’s get this straight. This show is on a very tight budget. I’m in charge. Money’s not a game. Or if it is, I’m the one who’s playing it. Stay away from banks, leave money machines alone, \ forget about rates of exchange. That’s for the big people, I’ll see to all that. Just stick to simple art and ideas, that’s what you’re here for. Every time you want anything, ask me first. Keep all your receipts, write down your expenditure in a little book. Now where’s the bus?’ ‘With two of us it’s probably just as cheap to take a taxi,’ I said. ‘No, Francis, this is your first lesson in television economics,’ said Lavinia, ‘If I was alone I’d go in a taxi. With you I go on the bus.’

But I’d already learned one thing from the money machine: Vienna was evidently a place where one thing quickly turned into something quite different. As we rode the airport bus down the autobahn toward the centre, a great black cloud from the not-so-distant Alps suddenly swept across the clear blue skies ahead of us, and deposited over the city of dreams and deceptions a light crystalline surface of glittering snow. To one side of the road, four seedy gasometers had been transformed, by some gesture of architectural magic, into four great monuments of art nouveau. As we moved along the city boulevards, fresh flights of architectural theatre stood every­where. Grim Gothic sat side by side with sprightly Jugendstil, white and gold baroque looked benignly across the street at pink postmodernism. Gaiety confronted virtue. Over the apartment blocks, if you looked in one direction, you could see the red Ferris wheel of the Prater, suspended still for the winter’s duration; if you looked in another you could see the spires and jagged zigzag roof of the great Stephansdom. It was towards the Stephansdom we headed when the airport bus deposited us somewhere just short of the Ringstrasse, the wide boulevard that marks the edges of the central city; we crossed it with our luggage and headed towards comforts and warmth.

It was strange how the city of waltzes and Sachertorte had a look oddly like Chicago in the 1920s; almost everyone you passed on the street was carrying a violin case. Musicians toiled everywhere. Hurdy-gurdy men with monkeys stood in doorways; down pedestrianized sidestreets entire string quartets stood busking in evening dress, gaily playing the works of Ludwig and Franz and Johann Sebastian and Gustav, not to mention, of course, Wolfgang Amadeus. Jangling horsedrawn landaus passed us by; each one contained very round Japanese faces hidden by very rectangular Japanese cameras. Behind them in the street they deposited a rich smell of equine dung that added yet another scented chord to the aromatic feast that was winter Vienna. From the tempting windows of the coffee houses and delicatessens came the bitter odour of coffee, the sweet smell of baking torte. Inside, earing cakes made of cream, drinking coffee with cream, were the crème de la crème of the Viennese bourgeoisie.

‘Ah, Demel’s,’ said Lavinia, stopping outside one fine-looking cakeshop, ‘This is where you really see the crème de la crème of the crème de la crème. Let’s go in.’ ‘Why not, Lavinia,’ I said. ‘Brilliant,’ she said a few moments later, mouth full of cake, waving her fat hand at the human display, ‘I always loved Vienna. Thank God for bloody old Bazlo.’ I stared at her wiping the crumbs from her mouth, and tried her with a question that had been troubling my mind from the moment I had seen her walking towards me down the plane. ‘Tell me, Lavinia,’ I asked nonchalantly, ‘Where are you actually staying?’ ‘Scuse me,’ said Lavinia, wiping her mouth, ‘Staying? Oh, I’m at the Hotel de France on the Schottenring. It’s very famous, actually.’ I felt in my pocket, and inconspicuously checked the contents of the travel wallet she had handed me at Ros’s small house the night before. ‘Ah, I see I’m somewhere else. The Hotel Von Trapp.’ ‘Yes, I think that’s somewhere way out in the suburbs, out past the Belevedere Palace,’ said Lavinia, ‘Vienna’s bloody full at the moment. It’s the music season, you see.’ ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, deeply relieved.

‘It’s cheaper too,’ said Lavinia, ‘But since I’m the producer I thought it was important I should be somewhere close to the main action.’ ‘What main action?’ I asked. ‘I need to be near the banks and the ministries. And the coffee houses and the opera,’ said Lavinia, ‘But you’ll just be researching. You do understand?’ ‘Oh, of course, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘Don’t worry.’ ‘You were hoping we’d be in the same hotel,’ said Lavinia, beaming chubbily at me, ‘You wanted the room next door, didn’t you, Francis?’ ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘It’s just this bloody tight budget, you see, I have to keep an eye on,’ said Lavinia, patting my hand, ‘But I thought I’d get us tickets for the opera tomorrow night. And then you could come back and have a late-night champagne with me. Because we are here to enjoy ourselves too, aren’t we, Francis?’ ‘Well, yes, I suppose so,’ I said, ‘Remember, I haven’t done this before.’ Til teach you everything I know,’ said Lavinia, giggling, ‘Now what I really need is some more Schlag. Isn’t that what it’s called, darling?’ ‘What what’s called, Lavinia?’ I asked. ‘Cream, this lovely thick cream,’ said Lavinia, waving over a black-dressed, white-pinafored waitress, ‘More Torte mit Schlag.’ ‘Schlag, meine Dame, bitte?’ asked the waitress. ‘Cream,’ said Lavinia, ‘Thick thick cream.’ ‘Ah, mit Sahne,’ said the waitress, departing. ‘I thought you spoke German,’ said Lavinia, looking at me accusingly. ‘No, I don’t actually speak it,’ I said, ‘I just find I can understand some of it when they speak it to me.’ ‘My God,’ said Lavinia, ‘What happens if old man Codicil doesn’t speak any English?’ ‘I expect we’ll get along,’ I said, ‘Between the two of us.’ ’I’m not going to see him,’ said Lavinia, ‘You do the research and I’ll recce the locations.’ ‘What locations?’ I asked, ‘We don’t have any locations.’ ‘Local colour, I think I’ll start with Schonbrunn and the Kunsthistorisches Museum,’ said Lavinia, ‘And then one of us is going to have to go and fight for tickets for the opera. But I suppose that’s what we poor producers get our salaries for. Now remember, you’re an investigative journalist. You’re looking for a really big story, love and lusts and everything. Get old Codicil to pour his heart out. Ah, lovely, Torte mit Schlag. Oh, Fraulein, can I have more chocolate on the top?’ ‘Chocolate, meine Dame?’ asked the waitress. ‘The brown stuff, darling,’ said Lavinia, ‘Oh God, this is what I love about Vienna. It’s just so bloody cultured.’

Lavinia was still spooning in the delights of Viennese culture when, a little later, I took a cream-coloured Mercedes taxi and set off for the Hotel Von Trapp. It proved to be a good way out past the Belvedere Palace, well into the suburbs and not all that far from the railway marshalling yards. It was, nonetheless, grand in its own way. Henry James — I suddenly recalled from my random literary education — had once described England as having rather too much of the superfluous and not enough of the necessary. The Old Master had clearly never seen the Hotel Von Trapp. In its vast and imperial lobby, where Japanese tourists were chittering and chattering like Papageno and Papagena over the endless line of suitcases that were pouring off their coach, it took four serious black-jacketed desk clerks to check me in, as they passed ledgers and paperwork, passports and keys back and forth amongst themselves, much as their ancestors must have done in the red-taped heyday of the Habsburg Empire. Then it took me several minutes to walk across the lobby toward the Secession ironwork elevator, and even longer to ascend upward, ever upward, to my room.

The room, I discovered, somehow lay beyond the scope of imperial elegance, and had doubtless been intended for someone’s hapless maidservant in grander times. High in the mansard roof, it was tiny, and so was the bed in the corner. Behind the rough plasterboard door was a notice that said: ‘In the happening of fire, ask for helps the fireman at the window. Do not evacuate in the lift.’ I sat on the bed (there was no chair) and unpacked the modest airport luggage, the knickers from Knickerbox, shirts from Shirt Factory, that I hoped would last me for the next couple of days. I took a quick shower (the ceiling of the shower box was so low you had to crouch in it) and then returned, re-robed, and set to work to look for the telephone directory. I found it at last, confusingly cased in an embroidered cloth cover with a portrait-of-Ludwig van Beethoven, not famous, especially given his deafness, for his association with the telephone, on the front of it. I scuffed through the pages, hunting for the number of Professor Doktor Otto Codicil.

I found nothing, and then realized that the professor was probably far too important to be listed. So I tried the number of directory enquiries, and had somewhat better fortune. Appar­ently, like most of the good professors of Vienna, his telephone was indeed ex-directory, but if I cared to say who I was and what I wanted, the switchboard would contact him and, if he was willing to talk to me, he would ring me back. I sat in the room for some time; the telephone failed to ring. Then it came to me that of course in the middle of the afternoon the good professor wouldn’t be at home anyway; he would be in the university about his academic business, giving lectures, examining students, marking essays, reading his learned jour­nals, doing the things that good professors professorially do. He would not be at home until the evening, so I might as well go for a walk. I went downstairs and out into suburban Vienna, duly finding my way to the cemetery of Saint Marx — where I discovered that there was a tomb to, naturally, Mozart, though, confusingly, he was not actually buried in it. As evening came, I returned to the Hotel Von Trapp, made my way to the enor­mous dining-room (‘Der Feinschmecker’), took an early dinner (‘Tafelspitz an Vhichy-Karotten und Petersilienkartoffeln’) in a spacious ambience where the waiters outnumbered the eaters by about three to one, then returned to my rooftop eyrie to await a call from Professor Doktor Otto Codicil.

Nothing came. I waited for an hour or so, then called directory enquiries again and persuaded the girl there to try the { number once more, in case my message had gone astray. Less I than five minutes later, the telephone by my bedside suddenly ; rang. The person on the other end was clearly not Codicil; it could well have been a maid, or just possibly a very subservient wife, but it was plainly his emissary. In German she enquired what I wanted; in slow English I explained I needed to speak to the professor on an urgent intellectual matter. There was a moment of silence, then the sound of footsteps skittering nervously away across parquet. After a few seconds, new, much heavier footsteps returned, then a very deep voice came on the telephone and said ‘Professor Doktor Otto Codicil, ja, bitte?’ I briefly introduced myself and made a small, considered speech explaining that I represented a leading British television company that wished to make a serious programme devoted to the life, the thought, the times, the influence, and indeed the general philosophical importance of that great man of distinction, Doctor Bazlo Criminale. There was another very long silence at the other end, and I began to think that Professor Doktor Otto Codicil did not speak any English at all.

I could not, I found a second later, have been more wrong. ‘My dear good sir, you really plan to make such a programme for the television?’ asked Codicil, ‘No, I really think you do not.’ ‘But we do,’ I said. ‘Then may I say to you in all total candour that for the very life of me I do not see the need for such a thing,’ said Codicil. ‘I’m sure you know British television is very good at this kind of show,’ I said, ‘We always like to keep our audiences abreast of the latest directions of contemporary European thought.’ ‘I can assure you, my dear sir, that all that can be said of or about our good Doktor Criminale is what that selfsame Doktor Criminale has already said of or about himself.’ ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, ‘But what we want to do is introduce him and his work to a more general audience.’ ‘There is no general audience that could possibly understand Criminale,’ said Codicil definitively, ‘To those who are blind, all things are obscure. So it is, and so it should remain. You know it is not so polite to try to telephone me like this. Out of the blues and with no letter or introduction. Please now may we terminate this call, which I am paying for, by the way?’

‘Just one more moment,’ I said quickly, ‘We were counting on your help.’ ‘My help, why my help?’ he asked. ‘Because you’re the great authority on Criminale’s work,’ I said. ‘No,’ he said, ‘The great authority on Criminale’s work — it is obvious, of course, but I see I must inform you — is Criminale himself. You have talked to him?’ ‘Not yet,’ I said, ‘I came to you because you wrote the important book on him.’ There was another lengthy pause, and then Codicil said, ‘My dear fellow, I know very well if my book is important or not. Of course it is important, I would not have written it otherwise. Just one moment, please.’ Codicil then shouted several imperative things in German down a very long corridor, and there was more skittering on the parquet. Then he returned to the telephone. ‘Ja, bitte?’ he asked. ‘Professor Codicil,’ I said, ‘This is going to be a very important programme. We were hoping that you would consent to contribute to it.’ ‘I, contribute, how?’ asked Codicil. ‘We thought you might speak on the programme about Criminale,’ I said. ‘You wish to employ my own presence in this programme?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘You’d be a very valued contributor.’ Codicil was silent again. Then he said, ‘No, really, that will not be possible. I hope you do not think I am some flighty little starling who likes nothing better than to preen on the television.’

‘Of course not, Professor Codicil,’ I said, ‘But can we possibly talk about it?’ ‘To my own estimation, that is exactly what we are doing at this moment,’ said Codicil. ‘I mean, can we meet somewhere and discuss this properly,’ I said. ‘My good fellow,’ said Codicil, ‘It may have escaped your notices that I am quite an important man. I lead an exceedingly busy public life and I have many affairs. Also in Austria we do not have the habit of inviting the utter passing stranger into the pristine quiet of our homes. I know you come from an informal country, but here, even in these difficult days, we like to preserve a certain formality, with proper introductions and so on.’ ‘I understand that,’ I said, ‘But I’m not asking to come to your home.’ ‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Codicil, ‘Naturally you would not be welcome.’ ‘But can’t we meet in your office, perhaps?’ ‘I see that like so many people in the newspapers you have really no idea of the harsh and unremitting demands of modern academic life,’ said Codicil, ‘May I suggest to you that you simply forget about your programme, and allow me to take my dinner.’ ‘I can’t forget all about it,’ I said, ‘The project’s already started. It will be on television next autumn. I hoped you’d want to make sure that everything the programme said was completely fair and accurate.’

At the other end, Codicil had gone quiet again, though I could hear him breathing heavily. Then he coughed suddenly and said, ‘Oh, listen to these importunate blandishments of the media. Very well, since despite all my best advisings you insist to proceed further, I will offer you a very brief appointment. Let us meet at the Café Karl Kraus. That is near to the Votivkirche and the Universität. If, that is, you think you can stir your stumps enough to attend there tomorrow morning at eleven of the clock?’ ‘I think I can stir my stumps for that,’ I said, ‘How will I know you?’ ‘You will have no difficulty,’ he said, ‘Just ask for me there, I am not unknown to them, in fact they know me very well. By the way, remember, it will be my treat.’ ‘And mine too,’ I said warmly, ‘I’m looking forward to meeting you.’ ‘No, you misunderstand my evidently ineluctable English,’ said Codicil, ‘I am explaining that I am happy to slap up the tab.’ ‘Ah, thank you,’ I said. ‘It is my pleasure,’ said Codicil, ‘Is that enough? Then Wiedersehen, mein Herr.’

After I had replaced the phone, I sat on the bed for a moment. This was not the kind of conversation I had expected to get into, when Lavinia told me I was going off into life to be a television researcher. It seemed that Viennese professors had a somewhat different attitude to the media from many of their British counterparts, and I already felt sure I would not get much out of Codicil. And with no Codicil, there would probably be no way to reach Criminale, maybe no programme at all. I thought I had better consult the Delphic oracle, so I picked up the telephone and rang Lavinia, over there in her grand-luxe comfort at the Hotel de France. ‘I’m sitting in the bath eating Rumtorte,’ said Lavinia when I reached her at last, ‘Is your hotel full of Japanese?’ ‘Hundreds,’ I said. ‘Do yours ride up and down in the elevators all the time and giggle?’ asked Lavinia, ‘Mine do.’ ‘Listen, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘I’ve just been talking to Codicil.’ ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Apparently in Vienna all professors have ex-directory numbers,’ I said, ‘Luckily they use the telephone company as an answering service.’ ‘Does he speak English?’ asked Lavinia. ‘Yes, you could say he speaks English,’ I said, ‘In fact he speaks it far more fluently and fancily than I do.’ ‘Brilliant,’ said Lavinia. ‘I’m not sure it is brilliant,’ I said, ‘He’s obviously made his mind up to be very difficult. Or more likely he just is very difficult by nature and he didn’t have to make up his mind to it at all.’

Well, you know what to do, Francis,’ said Lavinia, ‘Get your foot in the door. That’s what we’re paying you all this money for. Just be persuasive and charming.’ ‘I was,’ I said. Then why is he being difficult?’ asked Lavinia. ‘He says he has more important things to do and he’s not interested in the blandishments of the media,’ I said. They all say that,’ said Lavinia, ‘I expect he’s one of those old-fashioned profs who pretend to despise television and say they never watch it. You just have to say you’ll put them on it and they’re licking at your legs straight away.’ ‘Maybe in Britain,’ I said, ‘I don’t think they’re like that in Austria. Viennese professors have a big sense of their own importance.’ ‘It’s just a question of finding the right approach,’ said Lavinia, ‘Get him to meet you.’ ‘I have,’ I said, ‘I’m having coffee with him tomorrow morning. I thought it might be a good idea if you came along.’

‘Sorry, Francis, terribly busy day, full diary already,’ said Lavinia, ‘You know what to do. Just nestle in his bosom like a viper.’ ‘I have a strange feeling Codicil’s bosom isn’t the kind of bosom anyone ever manages to nestle in,’ I said. ‘Well, you know you can always come and nestle in mine,’ said Lavinia, ‘Any time. Oh, and about that, I had this terrible problem getting tickets for the opera. The Japanese had all got there first and bought out the place.’ ‘What a pity, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘So we have to cancel the champagne?’ ‘No, I got a box for the following night,’ said Lavinia, ‘I daren’t tell you what it cost, but it’s damn near half the recce budget. Then you can come back after and see my absolutely glorious room. Do you have an absolutely glorious room?’ ‘Not exactly, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘I’m up in the loft with the pigeons.’ ‘Good,’ said Lavinia, ‘Because we couldn’t have afforded it, not with these opera tickets. Still, I know you’ll love mine.’ ‘Oh, good,’ I said, ‘Thanks so much for your help, Lavinia.’ ‘Remember,’ said Lavinia, ‘In his bosom like a viper. Night, darling.’

The next morning, I took a hearty European feast in the downstairs breakfast room (ham, cheese, salami, strawberries, melon, yoghurt, bran and buttermilk, if I remember rightly), and then set out, with plenty of time to spare, for my meeting with Professor Doktor Otto Codicil. By ten thirty I was already in the square outside fragile and mournful Votivkirche. As I’ve said already, Vienna does not in the end neglect its great men, and not even the one who explored the deeper dreams of the city of dreams, the stranger desires of the city of desire, who was then expelled by the Nazis, and who ended his days sadly in Hampstead, dying just one year more than fifty years before. The square outside the church, I gathered from my various maps and guides, had passed through several names and several histories — Dollfuss-Platz, maybe Hitler-Platz, certainly Roosevelt-Platz. Today it was Sigmund Freud-Park; in fact a statue of the old couch-artist stood there, pigeons roosting on its head, a plaint about human reason on its base. Freud hadn’t liked Vienna; Vienna felt much the same way about Freud. Now, though, he seemed to be enjoying almost a Mozartian revival. The newest operatic work to open in the city was, according to all the posters, Freudiana, and offered ‘the findings of Sigmund Freud, fantastic dreams’ — I bet — ‘and celestial-sounding music — the ingredients of Vienna’s latest musical.’ Soon, I realized, we’d all be out buying Freudkugeln (‘the sweet heritage of Sigmund’) and chocolate Wolfmen. So goes the world.

I stood outside the Votivkirche, and looked around. To one side stood the fine late-nineteenth-century buildings of the University of Vienna, decked out, like all university buildings, with its fair share of graffiti, the quick, modern way to publish. To the other were various notable buildings, and one of them, I suddenly realized, was the Hotel de France. And there, coming out of the beflagged entrance, ushered by a doorman, I was sure I saw Lavinia. The doorman helped her into a horse-drawn landau, and she jangled off, doubtless on another demanding day of producer’s duties. Stopping the passersby who were emerging from the metro at the Schottenpassage, I found one who spoke English, and was able to direct me to the Café Karl Kraus. This lay just round the corner in a sidestreet, one of those grandly elegant Secession cafés of which Vienna is still full. Looking through the window, I saw many tables, each of them overhung with fine brass lily-shaped lamps. At them, I saw, as I lifted the heavy door curtain and went inside, sat portly middle-aged people, people of substance; the men were mostly in loden coats, the women in embroidered blouses and porkpie hats with birdfeathers stuck in them. All had big winter boots on, and all of them were drinking coffee and reading newspapers stuck on very long wooden sticks.

An elderly and dignified head waiter approached me; ‘Grüss Gott, mein Herr,’ he said, looking me up and down. ‘Good morning,’ I said, ‘I’m looking for the professor.’ He looked at me strangely; I saw that many of the customers had set down their cakes and were raising their heads from their newspapers to inspect me. ‘You want the professor?’ he asked. ‘Yes, please, the professor,’ I said. ‘But, mein Herr,’ he said, ‘all the people here are professors. Over there, Herr Profes­sor Doktor Stubl, the clinician, over there Herr Professor Magister Klimt, economistic. Over there is Herr Professor Hofrat Koegl, and over there Professor Doktor Ziegler, the famous Kritiker. Bitte, mein Herr, which professor?’ The professors were now all looking at me interrogatively, as if I had just arrived, late, for a viva on an examination in which I had not done at all well. ‘Professor Doktor Otto Codicil,’ I said. ‘Of course, the professor!’ said the maître d’, ‘He is at his usual table. Please to follow me.’ So I fol­lowed him right through the midst of the prodigious academic gathering to an alcove at the further end of the café, where behind curtains two men sat in conversation over coffee and cakes.

One was in his fairly late middle years, grey-haired, very large, formidably burly, and wearing an embroidered loden jacket that, for all its spacious fitting, somehow nowhere near contained his bulk. His companion was a good deal younger, little more than a youth. The maître d’ detained me with his arm for a moment, and went and whispered in the ear of the larger, older man. He put down his fork, turned, and stared at me analytically for some seconds. Then he rose enormously to his feet, came towards me, and held out an enormous hand. ‘My dear sir,’ he said, ‘Must I take it you are last night’s blandisher from the world of the ephemera?’ ‘I’m the man from British television,’ I said. ‘Exactly so,’ he said, ‘Professor Doktor Otto Codicil.’ ‘I’m Francis Jay,’ I said. ‘Then please be so kind as to join me at my table,’ he said, ‘But first before you sit down please meet my assistant, Herr Gerstenbacker. Our excellent young Gerstenbacker writes with me his habilitation and officially assists me in a variety of smallish ways.’

By now Gerstenbacker, too, had risen to meet me, his small face beaming beside and beneath Codicil’s great one. In appear­ance he seemed no more than eighteen, but he clearly made it his business to appear much older. He wore perfectly round spectacles, a small moustache, a black jacket, and a high-winged collar with a black bow tie. He bowed at me politely, remained standing to push my chair into position under me, and then said, ‘Welcome. Please, have a cake.’ ‘Gerstenbacker keeps an eye, or perhaps I had better say an ear, on my English,’ said Codicil, chuckling. ‘It is not necessary,’ said Gerstenbacker hastily, ‘Professor Codicil has a perfect English. He has once been the President of the Anglo-Austrian Friendship Society.’ ‘For my sins,’ said Codicil, ‘You must address it sometime. I will merely drop a word to my friend your British Ambassador.’ ‘I’m afraid there wouldn’t be time for that,’ I said, ‘I’m only here in Vienna for a couple of days.’ ‘Is that really?’ said Codicil, looking pleased, ‘So this is quite a fleeting sort of a visit, as they say. A here today and gone tomorrow affair.’ ‘Almost,’ I said. ‘Then maybe you will not mind if I am frank at once,’ said Codicil, looking me over again, ‘To me you are not at all what I expected.’ ‘No?’ I said, ‘What had you expected?’

Codicil leaned forward. ‘I had imagined,’ he said, ‘that someone seriously devoted to the difficult study of Criminale would be, and let me say I mean now no offence, of much older years and much greater stature. As I say, this means no offence. But you are a young man, no older than Gerstenbacker, a neophyte at the mysteries. Now please, do you prefer this cake, or that one? Or have both, or something else altogether? No need to hold your horses. Remember, this tab is entirely on me.’ ‘I’d just like coffee, if you don’t mind,’ I said, resisting this atmosphere of a school treat. ‘I think you like very much our coffee,’ said Gerstenbacker, as Codicil leaned back in his chair and waved his arm imperiously at the waiter, ‘I know the British admire it very much. I have been there, to your country.’

‘Yes, our young friend Gerstenbacker writes his thesis for me on a very interesting topic, Empirical Philosophy and the English Country House,’ said Codicil, ‘You are familiar with the British tradition of linguistic empiricism, important, of course, though in no sense as important as that of Ger­man idealism.’ ‘But quite important, don’t you think?’ asked Gerstenbacker anxiously. ‘Absolutely.’ I said. Gerstenbacker beamed. ‘Gerstenbacker’s proposal is that this tradition ignores the major continental heritage because your philosophers were all aristocrats or persons of Bloomsbury, for whom thinking was part-time,’ said Codicil. ‘The Country House is the home of the amateur spirit,’ said Gerstenbacker, ‘That is why I concentrate there. Also these are very nice places to visit.’ ‘Of course I have told Gerstenbacker he too is a mere neophyte at the mysteries,’ said Codicil, ‘Really he must study for ten more years at least before he begins to understand anything. His real life of the mind has yet to begin. Isn’t it so, Gerstenbacker?’ ‘Exactly so, Herr Professor,’ said Gerstenbacker humbly.

Codicil suddenly turned to me. ‘And so, you think you have read my book?’ he asked. ‘As well as I could,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid my German is nowhere near as good as your English.’ Codicil beamed, then thought visibly, then frowned. ‘Then you have not read my book,’ he said, ‘To know a book you must know the soul, the heart and above all the tongue of the writer.’ ‘That’s why I wanted to meet you,’ I said. ‘To gather up my soul, my heart, and my tongue?’ cried Codicil, ‘Believe me, these treasures are not for sale. They can only be won by a lifetime of effort. And you also say you have read Criminale?’ ‘Quite a bit,’ I said. ‘The matter with Martin Heidegger?’ he asked. ‘The quarrel over irony?’ I countered. ‘Tell me,’ said Codicil, ‘do you accept that Criminale grasps both horns of the Heideggerian dilemma?’ ‘Well, perhaps one horn rather better than the other,’ I said. Codicil looked at me, considered, then clapped me heartily on the back. ‘I agree with you!’ he said, chuckling, ‘Heidegger was too clever an old fox to be defeated so easily. I knew him well, you see.’ ‘Of course the Professor has known everybody,’ said Gerstenbacker.

‘Including Doctor Criminale,’ I said. Codicil looked coolly at me for a moment. ‘Only so-so,’ he said, ‘We were never what is called intimate.’ ‘I suppose he was a student of yours?’ I asked. ‘Of mine, no, never, not at all,’ said Codicil, emphatically, ‘I think in your ignorance you mistake our two ages. I am hardly older than he is. Further when he was here in Vienna after the war he studied only Pädagogie, never Philosophie. I know him only as one scholar knows another. We have had many congresses to­gether, and so on.’ ‘But he’s in Vienna quite often?’ I asked. ‘Vienna is but one of his many home from homes, you know. Or shall I say homes from home?’ ‘Homes from homes?’ suggested Gerstenbacker. ‘And it was on visits like that he gave you the biographical material for the book?’ I asked. ‘A book, well, bet­ter call it a small hommage,’ said Codicil, ‘A hat one doffs to an academic confrere. It is hardly the most notable of my works.’ ‘But it’s the key work on him, and it’s full of good personal in­formation,’ I said, ‘In fact he seems to have told you everything.’

Codicil stared at me, then laughed. ‘Everything, and what is everything?’ he asked, ‘Who has ever known everything, except Our Good Lord above. There is no everything. Do we begin to know everything about ourselves? Remember Wittgenstein, now you are in Vienna. What did he say? “How could I expect you to understand me, when I barely understand myself!” Or as Criminale himself put it better: “Where is the man who can even begin to name himself?”’ He smiled blandly at me. I knew very well that the role of elusive thinker and questioner had an undying charm for his whole profession, but I felt that he was using the art to divert me, so I ploughed on. ‘But Criminale did give you many of the biographical facts of your study?’ I asked. ‘A fact, explain me, what is a fact?’ asked Codicil, starting the fancy philosophical footwork all over again. ‘By a fact I just mean the plain simple details,’ I said, ‘Like where he actually was born, who his parents were, where he studied, who he married, who taught him, who influenced him.’ ‘But any ordinary scholar could find all this,’ said Codicil. ‘Not really,’ I said, ‘There seems to be an awful lot of misinformation around about Criminale.’

‘So, about what?’ asked Codicil. ‘About how he left Bulgaria after the war, how he got here to Vienna,’ I said, ‘About how he got on with the Marxist authorities, about his political attitudes. Half the stories contradict one another.’ Codicil pulled a face. ‘These things are not all facts,’ he said, ‘They are interpretations. If you like to be a dry-as-dust sort of person, you may well believe in facts. But surely you do not come to the home of linguistic philosophy and the Vienna Circle to waste your time only on some little facts.’ ‘I believe you’re described as a historian as well as a philosopher,’ I said. ‘So?’ asked Codicil. ‘So how would you judge Criminale’s role in recent political history?’ ‘In intellectual history, please,’ said Codicil, ‘Here he is of utmost importance. The great thinker of our time.’ ‘But don’t you find some of his thought ambiguous and contradictory?’ I asked. ‘What thought is not?’ said Codicil, shifting heavily on his bentwood chair.

I tried again. ‘I’m talking about his dealings with the Com­munist Party and so on,’ I said. ‘My dear sir, allow me to say this to you,’ said Codicil at last, ‘To understand thought, you must first understand thinking, and where it occurs. In the mind and in history. To understand history, you must first have experienced it. I will confess to you I think you understand neither one of these things. There is a saying: to think greatly, you must also err greatly. I do not say Criminale erred. But we are talking of a great mind, the Nietzsche of our long, dark, dying century. We cannot presume even to begin to advise such a man, a man bigger than men, how to understand history, or interpret it correctly. We may merely observe how he has chosen to understand it. Do you follow me?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And you agree?’ ‘Well, no, not quite,’ I said, ‘I think everyone can be held responsible for their thinking.’

‘So I see,’ said Codicil, ‘What is the time, Gerstenbacker?’ Gerstenbacker looked at him blankly for a moment, and then said, ‘Oh dear, your lecture, Herr Professor. I think your students are already waiting you.’ ‘Quite, now that really is what our very young friend would call a fact. Please excuse me, sir, I have duties to perform.’ Codicil stood up, vast, and waved at the waiter. He had evidently had enough, if not too much, of me; I saw I was about to lose him. ‘One more question,’ I said, ‘Would you be willing to appear in our programme, just saying this?’ ‘Ever the sweet sweet blandishments of the media,’ said Codicil, opening his wallet wide to pay the waiter, ‘No, I am not. I am a busy man. I am a friend of ministers. I am extremely sorry, but I really have no time for your little ephemera.’ ‘Then may we stay in touch?’ I asked quickly, ‘Can we come to you for advice?’

‘If you have questions, pass them through Gerstenbacker,’ said Codicil, pulling on his topcoat, ‘I am giving you Gersten­backer.’ ‘I beg your pardon?’ I asked, not understanding. ‘My young assistant has offered to show you Vienna, since I think you do not know it very well,’ said Codicil, ‘He will give you his best assistance in any researches you like to make. However I fear you will quickly find that not everyone in this city likes questions. Also I think you will discover there is almost nothing to learn of Criminale in Vienna. His main life was always elsewhere, in other cities. But Gerstenbacker is helpful and a very good fellow. And as he told you he was in Britain once, so he knows your ways. Wiedersehen, young man.’ And Codicil patted my shoulder, shook my hand very firmly, and, the great professor, walked out through the other great professors, nodding gravely here and there. Through the window I could see him turn in the street, and stride off, briskly, largely, and I thought angrily, in the direction of the university buildings. I had not, alas, much advanced my quest for Bazlo Criminale.