Little Apple E-Book

Leo Perutz

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Vertigo
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 325

Beschreibung

A stylish thriller set during the Russian revolution that Ian Fleming called "a work of genius" 'Now that he had sampled all the terrors of the age, life meant nothing to him any more. If Selyukov came now, he was ready for him' Officer Georg Vittorin is consumed by murderous thoughts. Returning home to Vienna in 1918 after three years in a Russian Prisoner of War camp, all he can do is daydream of taking revenge on Captain Selyukov, the loathsome officer who offended his honour. But as Vittorin plans his retribution, fate will have its own agenda, leading him on a wild and wintry goose chase across revolutionary Russia and halfway around Europe, via Constantinople's underworld, a Bolshevik prison, and death's door. Little Apple is a wryly told adventure story of one man's obsession, and the wicked tricks our minds can play. Men will die in Vittorin's hands - but not as he intended... Leo Perutzis the author of eleven novels that attracted the admiration of such writers as Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, Italo Calvino, and Jorge Luis Borges. He was born in Prague in 1882 and lived in Vienna until the NaziAnschluss, when he fled to Palestine. He returned to Austria in the fifties and died in 1957. Perutz'sMaster of the Day of Judgment, andSt Peter's Snoware also available from Pushkin Vertigo.

Leseprobe

Whose dark or troubled mind will you step into next? Detective or assassin, victim or accomplice? Can you tell reality from delusion, truth from deception, when you’re spinning in the whirl of a thriller or trapped in the grip of an unsolvable mystery? You can’t trust your senses and you can’t trust anyone: you’re in the hands of the undisputed masters of crime fiction.

Writers of some of the greatest thrillers and mysteries on earth, who inspired those who followed. Writers whose talents range far and wide—a mathematics genius, a cultural icon, a master of enigma, a legendary dream team. Their books are found on shelves in houses throughout their home countries—from Asia to Europe, and everywhere in between. Timeless books that have been devoured, adored and handed down through the decades. Iconic books that have inspired films, and demand to be read and read again.

So step inside a dizzying world of criminal masterminds with Pushkin Vertigo. The only trouble you might have is leaving them behind.

CONTENTS

Title PageEpigraphThe PledgeLimboThe SummonsNo-man’s-landLa FuriosaCharge!Where the Apple RolledSelyukovAlso Available from Pushkin VertigoCopyright

Where are you rolling, little apple...

RUSSIAN MARCHING SONG

THE PLEDGE

There had been an unforeseen roll-call in the railway station’s big medical centre, but that was the last piece of excitement. From Moscow onwards the journey proceeded without incident. When Kohout produced the dog-eared pack of cards from his pocket and suggested a game of pontoon, insisting that they owed him a chance to get even, they all joined in, including Feuerstein, who had fainted on the platform while their names were being called.

Emperger, who was in charge of the communal purse, got out at Tula and bought some bread, eggs, and hot water for tea. He even rustled up two bars of chocolate. His return was accompanied by the announcement that he had bidden Russia a final farewell and shaken its dust off his feet for ever more. He was now on neutral soil, he said, because he couldn’t regard the hospital train as Russian territory.

Vittorin’s face darkened. Was Emperger implying that he wouldn’t return to Russia under any circumstances? What if the choice fell on him? Was there some ulterior motive behind his remark? Was he hedging his bets after all – was he subtly and unobtrusively hinting that he didn’t feel bound by their agreement?

He looked up from his cards but could detect nothing in Emperger’s face, with its prominent, utterly expressionless eyes, that might have confirmed his suspicions.

It was impossible! They had all made a solemn pledge. “I swear, as an officer and a man of honour…” – that was the form of words they’d used. There could be no going back, not now. Perhaps Emperger had been unaware of the implication of his remark – perhaps he’d simply spoken without thinking. If so, it would be quite in order to deliver a friendly rebuke.

Vittorin laid aside his cards and buttoned his tunic, but he was still debating what to say when Lieutenant Kohout forestalled him.

“Sounds to me like you’re trying to duck out,” he said. “One of us will have to go back, you know that. What’s to say it won’t be you?”

“You misunderstood me, Kohout,” Emperger told him. “Of course one of us will go back, but this is the last time Mother Russia will see me as a prisoner of war. If I do return, I’ll be a free man. There’s a difference, you have to admit.”

“I’ve made a mental note of the name Selyukov,” said Feuerstein. “I’ll never forget it as long as I live. You can count on me.”

“The whole thing’s settled,” Professor Junker protested from his window seat. “Why rake it up again? Here we are, enjoying a nice trip in a nice, clean, almost European-standard railway carriage. Why spoil it by reminding us of that man?”

Vittorin shut his eyes. There’s no question of entrusting Emperger with a mission of such importance, he told himself. Emperger’s a mummy’s boy: soft, spoilt, and thoroughly unreliable. A good comrade, though, and a nice enough fellow in other respects. Plucky too, perhaps – after all, he did win the Silver Medal Second Class – but what a womanizer! The man thinks of nothing but his amours. Lisa, Magda, Frieda from the skating club – I’ve had to listen to his amatory reminiscences a hundred times. Night after night, when we’d finished our game of chess, off he would go: “Ah, those were the days!” That was his invariable prelude. Then it was Eva or the civil servant’s luscious wife or Lilli from the Kaiser Bar, who always nibbled his lips. He thinks he’s irresistible. Anyway, he isn’t all that plucky in spite of his Second-Class Silver. He wasn’t keen to come with us at first. “You’ll see,” he kept telling us, day and night, “we’ll never get beyond Omsk – we’ll get stuck there.” Now that we’re actually on board the hospital train, he’s putting on airs and playing the train commandant. No, I’ll make sure Emperger doesn’t win the vote. The Professor is equally out of the question – he wasn’t an officer. “Indispensable to the world of scholarship” – that’s what I’ll say if someone suggests him. Kohout? With his stiff arm? That only leaves Feuerstein. I’ll have him to reckon with, admittedly. He’s a cunning devil – a born survivor. Whatever he wants, he gets. That fainting fit at the station was an act, you bet. He doesn’t have any papers – not even a medical certificate. I doubt if he’ll stand aside for me without an argument. He’s got money, too – in fact he’s supposed to be really well-off, an industrialist or something. Still, that could count against him, his money and his occupation. I’ll point out that anyone who takes on a job like this should have no ties. Feuerstein would spend the whole time thinking of his factory and the business he might be missing. No, I’d better not say that or he may… After all, he’s supposed to be putting up the money. We need Feuerstein, so I mustn’t offend him. Kohout is bound to vote for me. I can depend on Kohout…

“What the devil’s the matter with this train? Are we going to be stuck here for ever?” Kohout exclaimed. “Hey, where’s Emperger? Can’t you shut the window, Professor? There’s a howling draught.”

The Professor was whiling away the time by calling out “Do svidanya” – “Au revoir” – to the peasant women lining the platform. Emperger returned with news.

“A minor mechanical fault, that’s all – nothing serious. They should have it repaired in half an hour. Do you know who the old gentleman in the next compartment is? A Tsarist court official – a grand duke’s son-in-law who escaped from St Petersburg by the skin of his teeth. He possesses nothing but the clothes he stands up in – the Bolsheviks robbed him of everything else, or so I was told by the lieutenant attached to the Danish Red Cross. Anyone care for a beer or some cigarettes? Another hour and we’ll be in Ukrainian territory. We’re all entitled to five weeks’ leave, the lieutenant says. We have to put in a request at the depot.”

“Of course we’ll get some leave,” Kohout growled. “We don’t need your lieutenant to tell us that. Let’s get on with the game. Who’s bank?”

“Yes,” Emperger pursued, “but first we have to spend three weeks in quarantine at some rotten little hole in Podolia. It’s no mere formality – can’t be avoided. How about that for a nice surprise, Professor?”

Professor Junker shrugged. Kohout shuffled the pack, waited for someone to cut, and dealt.

“Your girl-friends will simply have to do without you for another three weeks,” he said. “Meantime, you may as well sit down.”

“When did you say we cross the border?” asked Vittorin.

“An hour from now at most.”

“Kohout, time to sort out our things.”

Kohout rose, reached for the luggage rack, and got down the wooden army suitcase containing his and Vittorin’s belongings.

“All right, split ’em up,” he said, shifting from foot to foot and wringing his hands in his characteristic way. “Straight down the middle, no more sharing.”

Vittorin opened the suitcase and deposited his things on the seat: toilet articles and underclothes, a Russian smock, a fur coat with an astrakhan collar, and a pair of calf-length felt boots – unwearable at home, but a pleasant memento of his time in Siberia. Then came a skilfully woven horsehair necklace strung with four Chinese silver coins. Next, letters from his father and sisters. Vally was an infrequent correspondent, but Lola, the elder, had written punctually on the first and fifteenth of every month. Franzi Kroneis’s letters were bundled together and tied up with string. “My Dear Boy…” They all began like that – he had no need to look at them. The ill-written letter on the top was from his brother Oskar. He unfolded this missive and proceeded to reread it.

Dear Brother, it’s ages since I wrote to you, my dear Brother, but please don’t be angry with me for being so inconsiderate. Now for some news of my doings. For some time now I’ve been taking lessons in German, shorthand, correspondence and French from a teacher at the business school. That’s four lessons a week at two kronen the lesson. I also have homework to do and practise the piano in my spare time, not that I get much. Let’s hope this everlasting war ends soon, and that you, dear Brother, will be able to come home. We received your dear letter dated January 16th, and were very concerned to hear of the poor conditions you’re living in. Another thing: I go to the theatre and even attended some of my fellow students’ parties during Carnival. Now that this letter has brought you so much news and set your mind at rest, my dear Brother, I shall close with affectionate regards. Your loving brother Oskar.

Vittorin smiled. His little brother, who had still been playing cowboys and Indians when the war broke out, would soon be a grown man himself.

Next, the red exercise book containing his Russian vocabulary lists. Several issues of the mimeographed camp newspaper. A pad of colourful Chinese writing paper. A leather waistcoat, an English grammar, a Tungus cap. A wooden ashtray carved by a fellow prisoner in the dragoons. A packet of cigarettes, and, carefully stowed away at the very bottom, the two faience vases with bird’s-head handles, the white dragon on a blue ground, and the glazed green china bowl. He had acquired these pieces for next to nothing, but Emperger, who knew about such things, said they probably dated from the Ming period and were all extremely valuable. The china bowl alone was worth at least fifteen hundred roubles.

Vittorin bundled everything up in his fur coat and secured this makeshift bedding-roll with a strap. Then he lit a cigarette.

The train got under way again. Professor Junker waved his handkerchief and called “Dosvidanya!” Feuerstein confessed that he hadn’t really believed in the mechanical fault. He’d been convinced that a telegram had arrived from Moscow, and that he would be plucked off the train at the last moment. The past half-hour had given him a nasty turn. Had anyone noticed?

“I did,” Kohout told him. “You were as white as a sheet.”

Emperger proceeded to do his accounts. No more joint expenditure being foreseen, he was delighted to announce that, thanks to his careful husbanding of the communal exchequer, he was in a position to reimburse each contributor to the extent of seventeen-and-a-half roubles. No receipt would be required.

Now, however, the solemn moment had come. Vittorin produced a notebook and requested the travelling companions who had for two years been his room-mates at Chernavyensk Camp to give him their addresses.

Emperger, as he already knew, lived in Prinz-Eugen-Strasse – naturally, since it was Vienna’s most elegant quarter. He was also in the telephone directory. Kohout, wringing his hands, declared that he had no fixed abode at the present time, but that a letter addressed to the Café Splendide in Praterstrasse would always reach him. That was his regular Viennese haunt, and he looked in there once or twice a day.

Vittorin inscribed the four names in his notebook, and beside them their owners’ military rank, civilian occupation, street and house number. Beneath them, in big, bold capitals, he wrote: “Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov, Staff Captain, Semyonov Regiment.”

That completed the first step: everything was down in black and white. Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov had now to contend with a close-knit organization, a league of five men who had defined their objective and were prepared to make any sacrifice in order to attain it. The matter would have to take its course.

The train pulled into Ryekhovo, its final destination. Two Bolshevik officers, their peaked caps adorned with the Soviet star, were pacing up and down between tall stacks of timber. Standing beside the water tower on the other side of the station was an Austrian sentry with rifle at the slope and bayonet fixed. A big brown dog was roaming among the freight cars and two peasants were hauling a hen-house ladder across the tracks. The door of the station commandant’s office was open. A Honved major with pepper-and-salt side whiskers emerged, and the lieutenant from the hospital train stepped forward to present his report.

While waiting for the Vienna express in the station buffet at Cracow, Vittorin caught sight of a lieutenant at the counter wearing the aiguillette and black velvet revers of a dragoon regiment. The lieutenant gave him a friendly, familiar wave. By the time Vittorin responded, which he did in a rather stiff and hesitant fashion, the dragoon officer had come over to his table.

“Well?” he demanded, and Vittorin saw that it was Emperger. “Surely you don’t expect me to introduce myself? Fancy staring at me like that! Couldn’t place me, eh? Seems you only know me when I’m trudging around in a rubashka and felt boots; when I look like a human being, you don’t. Ah no, my dear fellow, my eskimo period is over and done with, thank God. And you, what are you up to? How are you? Back from the depot already?”

Instead of waiting for Vittorin to reply, he promptly launched into an account of his own doings.

“In my case everything went off in double-quick time – I saw to that. Five days under observation at Brest-Litovsk, a new set of kit, and off to Vienna. Now I’m on my way to the reserve battalion – in other words, on leave. Vienna’s quite a sight – you’ll get a shock when you see the place, it’s awful. Influenza raging, pitch-black streets at night, nothing to eat in the restaurants, not even the better ones, people queueing up for a morsel of beef… Yes, my friend, it’s a far cry from the old days, when I used to dine on stuffed grouse and wild duck braised in red wine at the Weide in Hietzing. It doesn’t bear thinking of. The opera – that’s the only thing left. Care for a decent cigarette? Cercle du Bosphore, first-class brand – I bought them off a carpet dealer who got back from Constantinople last week. The word in Vienna is, the whole of the Bulgarian army has gone over to the Entente. Some allies, eh? How true it is, I don’t know.”

A Red Cross nurse nodded to Emperger as she left the station buffet on the arm of a hussar captain. He clicked his heels and bowed.

“That’s Vicky Fröhlich,” he whispered to Vittorin. “You know, the coal magnate’s niece – she’s nursing at Neusandec. I wonder how Captain Nadherny managed to latch on to her. Do you know the man? He’s got a glass eye – spends every morning in the Café Fenstergucker.”

The stationmaster appeared in the doorway and announced the arrival of the train for Neusandec, Gorlice and Sanok.

“Seen any of our friends yet?” Vittorin asked.

Emperger was still staring after the Red Cross nurse.

“Should I put a bit of a spoke in Nadherny’s wheel, I wonder?” he mused. “That girl’s far too good for him. I’d stand a fair chance with her.”

“The others,” Vittorin insisted, “—have you heard anything from them?”

“The Professor’s back in Vienna already,” Emperger replied. “It was in all the papers: ‘Professor Junker returns from a Russian POW camp.’ He’s lucky, of course, to have been a civilian internee – no reporting to any regimental depot for him. Kohout I bumped into at the quartermaster’s stores in Brest-Litovsk. Impossible fellow, Kohout – downright suspicious, the way he fraternizes with the rank and file. He’ll come to a bad end, you mark my words.”

“What about Feuerstein?”

“Feuerstein’s brother was waiting for him at Kiev with some discharge papers in his pocket. My own affairs are shaping nicely too. As soon as the war’s over I’m joining the Credit Bank as a legal adviser. They’re keeping the job open for me.”

Vittorin listened with only half an ear. He had been waiting on tenterhooks for Emperger to broach the subject that preoccupied him so unceasingly, day and night, but the man confined himself to matters of supreme unimportance. Was it a deliberate ploy, an attempt to trivialize the Chernavyensk agreement? Vittorin decided to clarify the situation once and for all.

“Is there any news of a certain subject?” he asked point-blank. “Did you discuss it with Kohout?”

“Discuss what?”

“Discuss what?” Vittorin repeated angrily. “Why, Selyukov, of course.”

“Selyukov? What news would there be? There’s nothing to be done for the moment. I haven’t given a thought to Selyukov, quite frankly, nor to Chernavyensk. It’s as if I’d never been there. You’ll feel just the same once you’re back in Vienna. The first day, when I woke up in my own bed at home, I looked at the time: five forty-five! God Almighty, I thought, five forty-five, I’d better get up quickly, reveille will be sounding any minute! And then of course, as you can imagine, I lay back and wallowed in an indescribable sense of bliss, and as I lay there I recalled Camp Regulations, Paragraph 2: ‘When reveille sounds, all prisoners of war will get up, make their beds, wash, and clean their huts. Tea may be drunk until 0800.’ Well, I told myself, all bad things come to an end. Now I can drink tea any time I feel like it.”

Vittorin glanced at the clock, summoned the waiter, and paid. The Vienna express was due in five minutes’ time. Emperger insisted on accompanying his friend and former room-mate out on to the platform. Here he hurriedly imparted a few more useful tips on life in Vienna.

“You can go around in civvies if you like – nobody cares. If you want to buy something to eat, try the North-West Station. You can get everything there: meat, butter, eggs, flour – you know, from the men on leave from Galicia. They make you pay through the nose, of course, but still. Coffee-houses? Don’t touch the stuff they call mocca. If you fancy a real mocca, go to the Café Pucher and mention my name to the waiter. They still serve genuine Turkish coffee there, but only to special customers.”

“I think we’ll hold our first meeting around Christmas,” Vittorin said. “We’ll have to fit it in with our leave, so we’re all in Vienna at the same time.”

“We’ll all be on leave soon, if you ask me,” said Emperger. “There are rumours to that effect. So long, Vittorin. Take care of yourself.”

The train was crowded. Vittorin sat huddled beside his bedding-roll in the dimly-lit corridor and tried to sleep, but a hateful voice kept jolting him awake.

“Sdravstvuyte – welcome,” it said in melodious tones, and Vittorin sat up with a start, transfixed by a fleeting vision of the strangely chiselled profile, the domed, rather bulbous forehead, the slightly parted lips with their hint of arrogance, the cigarette between the slender, tanned fingers. Had he ever seen Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov without a cigarette? Yes, once, when that drunken Cossack struck the Austrian captain from Przemysl with his nagaika and Selyukov came to the prisoners’ hut to apologize in person, his full-dress uniform adorned with the Order of Vladimir and the Cross of St George. “The fellow will be dealt with most severely. You know what penalty Russian military law prescribes for a Cossack, a peasant. Believe me, Captain, I couldn’t be more sorry.” And then, with an inclination of the head, he had shaken hands with his prisoner and brother officer. Oh yes, Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov knew his manners. He was no peasant, no Cossack – he could be charming when he chose, and all the worse for that.

The train stopped. Vittorin went to the window and peered out. He had once spent a holiday near here, twelve – no, fourteen years ago. His uncle had still owned the mill in those days. Now he toured the villages selling threshing machines.

Fourteen years. How quickly time went by, yet tonight seemed endless, absolutely endless. Only a quarter to one. Tomorrow he would be in Vienna. Had they received his telegram? Who would be at the station? His father, his sisters – Franzi too, perhaps. If only he could sleep…

He closed his eyes, but sleep was ousted by a vision from the past, a memory that haunted him relentlessly. He was back in Chernavyensk, standing outside the camp commandant’s office. He had a request to make. Selyukov could be gracious as well as sadistic. “Submit your request, Lieutenant,” he would say, “I’m listening. Whatever I can do for my prisoners of war” he would continue in French, “I do…”

Vittorin’s fingers were numb with cold. The starshi, the Russian NCO who was escorting him, brushed the snow off his greatcoat, stamped his feet, adjusted his cap, and knocked.

Staff Captain Selyukov was seated at his desk. He didn’t look up; he continued to leaf through a book, smoking and making notes as he did so. He had an elegant, nonchalant way of holding his cigarette left-handed while writing: he compressed it between the tip of his little finger and his ring finger. The desk was littered with military manuals, miscellaneous printed matter, French novels.

Grisha, Selyukov’s orderly, put his head round the door, saw that his master was busy, and withdrew. The room was filled with a faint, subtle aroma of Chinese tobacco. There was something else in the air as well: a whiff of some exotic scent. Of course, Selyukov occasionally received women visitors. If she was in the room, the woman whose name no one in the camp knew – if she was there, the thin-faced young woman with the apprehensive, darting eyes, she could only be concealed behind the screen. Vittorin strained his ears for the sound of her breathing.

Five minutes went by, and still Selyukov didn’t look up. Every now and then, as he wrote, his tongue would emerge from between his teeth, caress his upper lip, and disappear again. Vittorin watched this silent proceeding with a peculiar relish for which he could find no explanation. Eight minutes. The white enamel cross on the yellow ribbon was the Cross of St George. Selyukov also had the Order of Vladimir and St George’s Sabre, but those he wore on special occasions only.

He completed his work at last. The NCO, standing at attention with his hands on his trouser seams, said a few words in Russian.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov propped his head on his hand and stared straight through Vittorin with half-closed eyes.

“You must submit your request to the non-commissioned officer of the day,” he drawled, as though addressing the coat hanging on the wall behind Vittorin. “It’s not my job to listen to complaints from prisoners of war. You know the rules here. You’re breaking camp regulations. This is the third time you’ve pestered me with requests and complaints.”

Vittorin flushed scarlet and stared at the screen.

“Your conduct is unbecoming to an officer,” Selyukov went on. “In France they call it bochisme. To teach you respect for Russian military law, you’re confined to quarters for ten days. You may go.”

Vittorin, eager to justify himself, stood his ground and put what he had to say into French. Selyukov must be made to see that he was dealing with an educated, cultivated person who was fluent in the language of diplomacy. “It’s cruel, sir,” he said in that language. “It’s quite inhuman to stop our letters for three weeks, just because two lights were still on at eleven. My comrades…”

Vittorin couldn’t get another word out – he was unequal to the situation. Selyukov tapped the ash off his cigarette. Then he nodded to the NCO.

“Pashol.”

He said it very quietly – so quietly that it sounded as if it meant “One moment” or “Wait a minute”, not plain “Out!” Pashol! The NCO turned about, grabbed Vittorin by the shoulder, and hustled him out of the office.

The Tyrolean lance-corporal in the other ranks’ camp across the way caught hold of the Russian medical officer who had slapped his face and strangled him with his bare hands – yes, and was executed by firing squad the next day without turning a hair. And I? What of me?

Very well, Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov, so you chose to treat me à la canaille. Pashol! Very well. The French call it bochisme, do they? As you wish, but every dog has his day. We’ll discuss it in due course, Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov. You think I’ll forget? You’re mistaken, Captain. There are some things one never forgets. Conduct unbecoming to an officer, did you say? The French call it bochisme? Just you wait, Captain. The day of reckoning will come. I won’t forget.

Pashol… Had she heard that, the woman behind the screen? A Frenchwoman, so it was said in camp – a landowner’s child bride who travelled four hours by sleigh each time she came to see Selyukov. Pashol… Had she understood? Oh yes, of course she had. Perhaps it had amused her – perhaps she’d laughed, perhaps she’d chuckled to herself, silently and inaudibly, in her hiding place behind the screen.

Vittorin bit his lip. Shame and anger brought the blood to his cheeks, and he clamped his forehead against the cold windowpane. He hadn’t said a word to his comrades about what had happened in Selyukov’s office, but the memory of that ignominious encounter ate its way into his distraught soul like some corrosive poison.

He wasn’t alone. His friends, too, had a score to settle with Selyukov. They were bound by a pledge, an oath solemnly sworn over the open grave of one of their comrades.

Vittorin straightened up. Determination flooded through him.

We’ll get down to business as soon as the war’s over and we’re all back in Vienna again. The Professor, being the eldest, can preside over our deliberations. Feuerstein will put up the money and I’ll be given the job of returning to Russia. It’s mine by right, and I won’t let anyone dispute it.

Here I am, Captain, don’t you remember me? Lieutenant Vittorin of Hut 4, Chernavyensk Camp. That’s right, the French call it bochisme. Why so pale, Your Excellency? You weren’t expecting me? You thought I’d forget? Oh no, I haven’t forgotten. What did you say? Pashol? No, Captain, I’m staying – I want a word with you. Remember the air force lieutenant you deprived of officer status because his papers weren’t in order? Think for a moment, take your time. When he refused to work in the other ranks’ kitchen you locked him up in a cellar. He was sick – recurrent fever, chronic malaria – but you left him lying on a plank bed in that filthy cellar until… You claimed he was malingering. ‘The camp medical office has got better things to do than cope with prisoners’ vagaries,’ you said. ‘He’s putting it on, pretending he’s ill. There’s nothing wrong with him at all.’ The day he was buried we swore an oath, the five of us, and now, as you see, the day of reckoning has come. You don’t remember? But you do remember me, don’t you? Conduct unbecoming to an officer, the French call it… There, take that! That’s for bochisme, and that’s for impounding our mail, and that – stop, what are you looking for? Your revolver? That’ll do you no good, Captain. Ah, here’s Grisha. Sdravstvuy, Grisha. Tell your orderly, Captain, that I’ll shoot him if he so much as lifts a finger. Yes indeed, I’ve come prepared. You challenge me to a duel? Very well, that sounds reasonable. The choice of weapons is yours. My seconds will…

The conductor, coming down the train with a lantern in his hand, was suddenly confronted by an infantry lieutenant standing in the middle of the corridor, pale as death, with one clenched fist extended. He walked on, shaking his head, turned to look back when he reached the communicating door, shrugged, and disappeared into the next carriage. Vittorin retired to his corner feeling faintly annoyed and sheepish.

One-thirty… I really must try to get some sleep. What on earth can that fool of a conductor have thought? I’m dog-tired. Why did he stare at me like that? Damned impertinence! Grisha – that was the name of Selyukov’s orderly: Grigory Osipovich Kedrin or Kadrin from Staromyena in the Government of Kharkov – he dictated his letters to the Professor often enough. I’ll write it down just in case…

He pulled out his notebook and wrote the following under Selyukov’s name:

“Grisha, Selyukov’s orderly. Grigory Osipovich Kedrin (Kadrin?) from the village of Staromyena, Glavyask Railway Station, Government of Kharkov.”

LIMBO

From the carriage window he caught sight of his sisters, Lola and Vally, in the waiting throng. So they had both come. Vally had developed into a pretty girl. A child no longer, she was a slender nineteen-year-old with lustrous eyes and airy, graceful movements. Three years was a long time. And there was his father, too, still erect and every inch the retired army officer, but a little older-looking for all that.

Vittorin stepped down on to the platform. He was relieved of his bedding-roll by a young man with angular, unfamiliar features, a minuscule moustache and brown kid gloves: his brother Oskar. Three years ago Oskar had still been wearing blue sailor suits. The friendly but formal way in which he shook his elder brother’s hand conveyed an emphatic and unmistakable request to be treated like a fully-fledged adult.

Innumerable questions: how had he stood up to the journey, was Moscow cold at this time of year, had he seen anything of the Revolution, was he glad to be back in Vienna again? “Let’s take a look at you, Georg. Hm, not bad, a bit thin in the face, though.” – “Franzi Kroneis has been dropping in every day to ask for news, and yesterday she’d only just left when your telegram arrived.” – “What are we standing here for? Avanti, avanti! Let’s go.” Was he hungry, was he tired, did he still feel his leg wound sometimes? “That man Lenin must be a fantastic person,” said Oskar, offering his brother a home-rolled cigarette. “I find him tremendously impressive.”

They slowly neared the barrier, and there stood Franzi Kroneis, beaming, excited, and flushed after her brisk walk to the station.

“You haven’t changed a scrap,” she said. “Not a scrap.”

Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she took his arm. Quite a change from the old days. Three years ago they had kept their understanding a secret from everyone else.

Georg Vittorin had often pictured the moment of arrival, which had once seemed so unattainably remote, during his endless peregrinations through Siberia and Transbaikalia. It was associated with a vision of himself nonchalantly lolling back in an open cab as he rode home through bustling streets on a fine, warm day in late summer. This mental picture had been particularly vivid at the station in Manchuria, when they were trudging along the shell-torn platform and over the makeshift wooden bridge. Now that the coveted moment had come at last, they took a tram.

Franzi said au revoir at the tram stop. She had taken half an hour off from the office to welcome him at the station, but now she had to get back. She drew him aside. Would he care to collect her from the office that evening? 17 Seilerstrasse. “That’s right, the same old place. No, I don’t suppose you’ll be going out again today – you must be tired. Till tomorrow, then. You can always phone me. Sleep well, and don’t dream too much about – what are the girls in Russia called? Sonya? Natasha? Marfa?”

“Anyuta, Sofya, Yelena,” said Vittorin.

“You knew as many as that? All right, see you at seven tomorrow. Did you think of me a little sometimes?”

Nobody spoke much in the tram. Lola, hoping to please her brother, remarked that Franzi was a charming girl – so affectionate, too. Oskar insisted on buying his own ticket. Herr Vittorin produced a stubby meerschaum pipe from his pocket. The war would soon be over, he said – it couldn’t last much longer. The decisive battle would probably take place in the West, in Champagne. Morale there was as high as it was elsewhere. A lieutenant just back from the Piave front had told him that morale was good there too. He filled his pipe with tobacco to which he had added woodruff and marinated pumpkin leaves to make it go further.

“It’s not a bad smoke,” he said. “According to a newspaper article by some medical expert – I’ve forgotten his name – this mixture has a very stimulating effect on the lungs. Mind you, the chief accountant in our office still smokes his Trabuco. Where does he get the money? Hm, ’nough said!”

Vittorin’s father suggested a game of chess after supper, but his sisters jibbed. No chess tonight, they said – they could play another time. Georg must tell them about himself.

“All right,” said Lola, “begin at the beginning, the day they took you prisoner on the Dunajec. That much I do know, because you wrote us about it, but not the details. How did you feel when the Cossacks dumped you in that cart? When did they first dress your wound? Ella’s brother was wounded too, in the lung, but he’s still in the hospital. Which reminds me: I saw the chief clerk from your office a couple of weeks ago, quite by chance, in the street – you know, the one with freckles. He was arm in arm with a very tall red-head – not his wife. He’d have asked after you if he’d been on his own, I’m sure.”

“You must go and look him up,” said Herr Vittorin. “It’s only proper – he may be offended if you don’t put in an appearance. He’s bound to hear you’re back in Vienna. Word soon gets around.”

“If you feel like going to the theatre next week,” said Oskar, “I can get you some complimentary tickets. I mix with a lot of theatrical types these days.”

Georg Vittorin experienced a kind of malaise, almost as if he were sickening for some fell disease. His secret preyed on his mind. It was clear from every word his father and his sisters uttered how glad they were that he would soon be readapting himself to his old, uneventful, well-ordered way of life. Should he shatter their illusions on his very first day home? Who could he confide in? His father? Yes, perhaps. Father had been an army officer in his youth, a lieutenant in the regulars. His sword and the faded group photograph that showed him surrounded by his brother officers still hung on the wall below Mother’s portrait. Should he get up and take him aside? “May I have a word, Father? I’ve something to tell you.” No. For the past seventeen years Father had been a civil servant in the audit office of the Finance Ministry. Off to work at nine every morning, lunch at three-thirty sharp, then the newspaper, then the daily constitutional, the “big one” out to Dornbach on Sundays, the “little one” through town on weekdays, and finally, when evening came, a hand of cards or a glass of beer across the street – such had been Father’s world and way of life for seventeen long years. No, he couldn’t tell Father.

The doorbell rang. Lola looked up from her embroidery and listened intently. Vally hurried out, came back, stuck her head round the door and pulled a face.

“Lucky old Lola!” she whispered. “Ugh, it’s Herr Ebenseder.”

“Ah, Herr Ebenseder!” exclaimed Vittorin’s father. “So he’s honouring us with his presence again, is he? Come in, come in, Herr Ebenseder!”

Oskar rose, buttoning his jacket, and turned to Georg. He was awfully sorry – he would so much have liked to stay awhile, but unfortunately he had to rush – he’d arranged to meet some friends.

“A colleague from the office,” Herr Vittorin explained. “The only one who’s really on my side. The others are an ambitious, scheming bunch. Ebenseder’s a most intelligent fellow – you’ll like him. He’s a keen collector, incidentally – buys anything connected with the theatre. He can afford it, too – he owns four houses. Ebenseder collects actors’ portraits, play scripts, set designs, old playbills, views of the Ring Theatre and the Karntnertor Theatre, even cloakroom tickets… Ah, good evening, Herr Ebenseder! Permit me to introduce my long-lost son Georg, just back from Siberia. Georg, meet Herr Ebenseder.”

“Delighted to make the acquaintance of another member of this esteemed family. I’ve heard a lot about you. So you only got back today, eh? Delighted, truly delighted.”

Herr Ebenseder, a short, stout gentleman with a goatee beard, a big bald patch and pudgy fingers, went over to Lola and ceremoniously, reverently, kissed her hand.

“My respects, Fräulein Lola. Your humble servant. Diligent as ever, I see. What nimble little fingers you have! Never idle for a moment, eh? It’s a pleasure to watch you.”

Herr Vittorin fetched a bottle of wine and poured his guest a glass of Gumpoldskirchner. Herr Ebenseder, as etiquette prescribed, staged a show of reluctance.