J. Jones: The Silence

‘I expect you will want to see his rooms.’

‘If I may.’

‘It’s back up the stairs again, then. We are a family that believes in exercise.’

She moved off briskly and Werthen trailed behind as she led him on another route, avoiding the main staircase and instead taking a narrow circular flight of stairs to the second floor. He saw the door to Herr Wittgenstein’s study, but they turned the opposite direction, into a maze of hallways that totally disoriented Werthen. Fraulein Hermine finally opened the door to a corner room that was expansive and bright. A grand piano, yet another Bosendorf, sat in one corner. The room was simply appointed with oak furniture, but the walls were almost totally covered with framed posters announcing musical performances.

She waited as Werthen went through the drawers of a writing desk, looking for loose papers, a journal, any clue as to where Hans might have gone. He inspected the books in a glass-fronted bookcase: Schopenhauer, Marx, even the disturbing German Nietzsche was there. Also bound volumes of the plays of Arthur Schnitzler, and surprisingly, several of the red-covered volumes of Karl Kraus’s review of popular culture, Die Fackel. Surprising, because Kraus had pilloried Karl Wittgenstein as a grubbing capitalist on more than one occasion in his review. Or perhaps it was not so unexpected if Hans and his father had little love for one another.

Werthen thought momentarily of his own brother Max, six years Werthen’s junior. He was sensitive, unstable, and despairing of the fact that his parents demanded that he study law at the university rather than attend the Academy of Fine Arts, his fondest wish. Max had written to Werthen, then just beginning his criminal law practice in Graz and less than sympathetic with his younger brother’s dreams of becoming a painter. After all, he himself had entertained dreams of becoming a writer, but ultimately found time for scribbling before and after his day of legal work. Surely Max could balance his dreams with practicality, too.

Early one autumn morning in 1888, while in Vienna with his parents for the university inscription, Max made off from their hotel near the Habsburg summer palace of Schonbrunn, climbed the slope of Maxingstrasse past the home of the Waltz King, Johann Strauss, and soon reached the Hietzing Cemetery. Before leaving Hohelande, the family estate in Upper Austria, Max had taken a revolver out of the gun cabinet. Now, in Vienna, he found the grave of the Austrian playwright Franz Grillparzer. Lying on the damp marble slab, he inserted the cold metal of the gun barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Had Hans sought the same way out? Werthen would need to check with the city morgue for recent corpses. Not something, however, that he would discuss with the family just yet.

After a full half-hour, he was satisfied that there was nothing in the room to provide him with a clue as to the whereabouts of its occupant.

‘You really did not answer my earlier question, Fraulein Wittgenstein.’

‘No? What was that?’

‘About your own theory. A vacation. But any idea where? I assume your family has more than one abode?’

‘Yes. We have a villa on the Neuwaldeggergasse here in Vienna and a summer home at Hochreit, in Bohemia. We of course have inquired at both. The caretakers assure us that Hans has been at neither residence in months.’

‘Very good. And the siblings, are they at home now?’

‘Kurt is surely at the office. I can give you his address and telephone number. But I believe Rudi has come down with a slight grippe. You can find him in his room. Lenka and Gretl are at dance class this morning.’

‘And the second group?’

‘Oh, I hardly see how they can help.’

‘Perhaps you will let me decide that.’

This comment set a muscle twitching spasmodically in her left jaw. Underneath her studied air of calm noblesse oblige , Hermine Wittgenstein seemed to be made of the same hard stuff as her father.

‘Shall we begin with Rudi, then?’ she offered.

The brother’s room was removed by one hallway. She tapped at the door, but did not bother waiting for a response before she opened it to reveal a young man in a black and red silk Chinese robe lounging on a day bed, reading what looked to be the script of a play. The youth peered over the edges of the script and frowned to see his sister and a visitor. The expression made the wispy moustache he sported wrinkle like a troublesome caterpillar.

‘A fellow does like a bit of privacy,’ he said in a rather high voice.

As they drew nearer, Werthen could see a title on the script: Reigen.

He had heard about this privately printed play by Schnitzler. Supposed to be extremely racy, all about the sexual goings on of ten different characters, five men and five women. The pairings go round and round from one character to another like a circle dance. His wife Berthe had been trying to find a pirated copy of the play, but with no luck. Hermine Wittgenstein was clearly oblivious of such things, and Rudi, for his part, seemed to count on this ignorance, for he did not bother to hide the script or its title.

‘You had better not let Father catch you reading such things,’ she said, as if she had read Werthen’s mind and wished to prove him wrong. ‘This gentleman is here to inquire after Hans.’

She made introductions, and Rudi rose from his couch long enough to shake hands limply, exchange names, and then resume his sickbed.

‘Must forgive me, Advokat. It’s bronchitis.’ He coughed theatrically.

‘I thought you told Meier it was grippe,’ Hermine said in a brittle voice.

He waved a delicate hand at the objection. ‘An illness of some sort. You may not want to get too close.’ Then to Werthen, ‘How do you propose to track your man, counselor?’

‘I was hoping you could be of assistance in that.’

‘Me?’ Rudi took great delight in this, cackling until an actual coughing fit overcame him. His sister went to his side, pounding him on the back with enough force to make the young man wince.

‘Jesus, Mining. Never go into nursing. I am not a lump of dough to be pummeled.’

‘Do you have any information that might help Advokat Werthen?’ She said this with not the slightest trace of humor or goodwill.

‘I am afraid I am not my brother’s keeper, Herr Werthen,’ he said, his voice trailing away in a languishing tone.

Thereafter Werthen quickly ascertained that there was little information to be gotten from Rudi. He was much too immersed in his own human drama to notice what was happening with his older brother.

‘I told you so,’ Fraulein Wittgenstein said as she closed the door behind them. ‘Hans kept to himself.’ A beat. ‘Keeps to himself,’ she corrected.

Of the younger brothers, Werthen was only able to speak with Ludwig, for Paul was at a piano lesson with the well-known blind composer and pianist, Joseph Labor. Ludwig, or Luki, was in his room on the same floor — all the children had their own rooms, spacious enough for sleeping and work space. The somewhat chubby youngster was dressed in a navy suit and short pants and was busy at a woodworking table when Werthen and Hermine entered.

‘About finished?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes,’ the ten-year-old bubbled. ‘And it is going to work, you’ll see.’

‘I am sure it will.’ His older sister beamed at him. Then to Werthen, ‘He’s making an exact copy of a Singer sewing machine. In wood.’

‘A working copy,’ the boy emphasized.

There was a tapping at the door. Meier was standing outside the room when Hermine opened the door.

‘There you are, Fraulein,’ the servant said, sounding relieved. ‘It’s your mother. She’s been asking for you. I think she needs more drops.’