J. Jones - The Third Place

Her thoughts were interrupted as the double doors to the sitting room of their Josefstadterstrasse flat were thrown open and her daughter Frieda – dressed in a fur hat, long woolen coat and fur hand muff – came bursting in, her cheeks red and glowing with the cold from outside.

‘ Mutti , Mutti ,’ the excited toddler screamed as she raced to the leather couch where Berthe was ensconced with papers and pencil as she took notes. ‘The snow was so white!’ She jumped onto the couch, sending papers flying.

‘Sorry,’ came a voice from the doorway. ‘She got away from us.’

It was her father, Herr Meisner, accompanied by his new friend, Frau Juliani, a small, energetic and outspoken woman for whom Berthe was developing a real liking.

Berthe held her daughter to her tightly, paying no attention to the disarray of papers. There would be too few opportunities for hugging in the near future, she feared. Children grow up so rapidly; she would take any opportunity for a nice, long hug. She felt even closer to her child – if that were possible – because of the events of last autumn, when they had almost lost her to scarlet fever.

‘Snow generally is white,’ she whispered in Frieda’s ear.

The child drew back from her, shaking her head and looking quite serious. ‘No. Not on the street. People step on it. Black like my bobo.’ She lifted her coat and pointed to her stockinged shin. Underneath the layers of clothes was a black-and-blue bruise where she’d bumped her shin playing.

This made Berthe laugh with joy. ‘A poet in the making. The bruised snow. Perhaps your daddy will use it in one of his stories.’ And she hugged Frieda again.

Finally she looked over her daughter’s shoulders. She had completely forgotten her father and Frau Juliani, who were still standing in the doorway like guilty children.

‘I am sorry,’ Berthe said. ‘But you don’t have to wait to be asked to come in, do you?’

Her father, who had his home in Linz, had lately taken a small apartment in Vienna to be near his friend. He was spending more time in Vienna now than in Linz, and they enjoyed spending time with Frieda, taking her on outings like the one this morning.

Her father shrugged, and she sensed there was something wrong. The two of them took off their heavy coats as Berthe helped Frieda out of hers. A bit of snow fell out of the fur muff and Frieda quickly gathered it up only to have it melt in her little hands.

Herr Meisner and Frau Juliani came into the room, sitting in the leather armchairs across from Berthe. Again, she felt the strain. A widower for many years, Herr Meisner was not a cloying, overly protective father. He had wide interests. In addition to his successful Linz shoe factory and to his reputation as one of the most noted Talmudic scholars in Austria, he was also an amateur musician of no little talent and a historian of prodigious knowledge. But suddenly something seemed not right with him.

‘Sweetie,’ she said to Frieda. ‘Why don’t you go find Baba? She’s in the kitchen.’

Frieda’s eyes grew wide with anticipation. ‘Baba! Yes.’

She was off Berthe’s lap and out of the room with no further adieu, in search of her beloved Baba – their cook, Frau Blatschky, with whom Frieda had developed a very special relationship.

Alone now, Berthe eyed her father. ‘Is everything all right? You both look as though you’ve just broken a cookie jar.’

This made them smile, but did not ease the tension.

‘Well,’ Herr Meisner finally said, ‘it’s just that we have something to tell you.’

By the look on his face, she expected the worst.

‘What is it?’ she said with real concern. ‘Are you ill? We’ll see the best specialists.’

Herr Meisner waved his hands in front of him. ‘No, nothing like that.’ He looked sideways at Frau Juliani. She reddened as he said, ‘In fact, I’ve never felt better physically in my life.’

Frau Juliani looked down at her cupped hands in her lap.

‘Well, what is it, then?’ Berthe said. ‘Out with it.’

‘We would like to get married,’ Frau Juliani said, as it was obvious Herr Meisner was for once tongue-tied. ‘And we would like your blessing.’

Berthe could not help herself; she began laughing, partly out of relief and partly at the absurdity of the situation of her father feeling he had to ask her permission to marry.

Seeing their shocked reaction, she put her hand to her mouth to still her laughter. Berthe jumped to her feet and went to them, kneeling in front of where they sat and attempting clumsily to embrace them both. They finally leaned in so that she could grab the outer shoulder of each.

‘It’s wonderful news,’ she said. ‘I am laughing only because I thought there was something wrong, not something right.’

Frau Juliani was the first to draw back, punching Herr Meisner’s arm playfully. ‘See, I told you that you’d raised a sensible daughter.’

‘I just thought …’ he began.

‘You’ve been alone for almost two decades, Papa. You deserve some happiness.’ And then to Frau Juliani: ‘So long as I don’t have to call you “Mama,”’ Berthe said.

‘Fredrika will suffice,’ Frau Juliani said. ‘Yes, I know, quite a mouthful. Close friends call me Freddi – I hope you do so, too.’

Klavan walked along the street feeling invulnerable.

At any instant he could turn the sidewalk full of noontime strollers into an abattoir. All it would take would be a little squeeze on the hollow India rubber ball he carried in his left trouser pocket. He had taken this trick from the British anarchists who vowed never to be taken alive by the police. The little ball was attached to a thin, surgical rubber hose that led up the inside of his vest and fed into a vial in the inside pocket of his suit coat. Squeezing the ball would create a puff of air, activating a shutter-like contraption which in turn would immediately spark the explosive material he carried in the coat pocket. Enough concentrated explosive material to flatten everything in a ten-yard radius.

It had been intended as his assassin’s weapon for the unfortunate Dimitrov, though he did wonder if that man could have gone through with the deed when it had come down to it.

Now it served as his insurance that he would not live out his days in a moldy prison cell or dangle at the end of a rope.

He had a new idea now, for he could hardly expect old Hermann Postling to blow himself to kingdom come on his, Klavan’s, say-so; neither could he see any way to deceive the old man into carrying and setting off such a bomb. So, Plan B.

He’d made his way by foot today from Lisette’s spacious Ringstrasse apartment past the Hofburg, Parliament and Rathaus to the intersection with Wahringerstrasse. This he followed north past the Votiv Kirche and he was now approaching his destination, the Military Academy for Medicine and Surgery, otherwise known as the Josefinium.

Klavan knew its history; knew that this was named after Emperor Joseph II, the reforming kaiser, built in 1785. For the last several decades it had served as medical library and museum of human anatomy. But Klavan had no interest in history other than in the secrets it might reveal for his personal use. That is why the Josefinium interested him in one major respect. During his last fateful mission in Vienna, Klavan had gathered a wayward bit of information from one informant. It seemed one section of the old academy was still being used for medical research, but of a type that needed to be kept secret from the Viennese. Office 3G it was innocently called, but within its small confines there was the potential to destroy Vienna.

Klavan had no real desire to destroy this city, though he did find it an intriguing possibility. To rid the earth of so many humdrum lives would be no crime.