John Wray - The Lost Time Accidents

The Toula-Silbermanns watched the victory procession from the mezzanine balcony of their apartment — close enough, as Kaspar’s father-in-law put it, “to trim your whiskers on the bayonets.” The phalanxes of uniformed torsos, extending up the Ringstrasse as far as the eye could see, were impressive enough; but the fervor of the crowd was grander still. Teenagers flung confetti; couples kissed in the street; men sang ardently along with songs they didn’t know the words to yet; and everywhere that stiff-armed, armpit-exposing, supremely unsavory salute. In terms of pure spectacle, that tremendous parade was unsurpassed in the city’s three-thousand-year history: a whirling laterna magica of jet black and scarlet, submission and patriotism, sweating men and fawning women, eros and repression, brotherly feeling and hate. And at the navel of it all, at its heroic center, Waldemar von Toula — all two hundred kilos’ worth — sat artfully arranged in the back of a Daimler convertible.

He was mountainous now, more massive even than Reichsmarschall Goering, and his spectacles had been replaced by a cobalt-tinted monocle on a length of silver cord. He was squinting blandly out into the crowd, searching for familiar faces, but his gaze never rose to the level of his brother’s balcony. The family looked on in silence as the Daimler rolled past; even the twins seemed momentarily abashed. Sonja stood at the railing, ashen-faced and white-knuckled; Kaspar huddled behind her, staring out through his fingers, contending with actuality at last. But it was one Felix Ungarsky — Trotskyist agitator, occasional pimp and current tenant of the yellow divan — who put the collective feeling into words.

“I couldn’t possibly eat as much dinner,” Ungarsky growled into his beard, “as I’d like to be able to puke.”

* * *

On the nineteenth of March — an unseasonably balmy Saturday — the same Daimler convertible eased to a stop in front of 37 Ringstrasse, its brakes chuffing softly, and a monocled man in a cherry-red suit stepped out into the piping noonday sun. As chance or fate or Providence would have it, it was Felix Ungarsky who answered the door, and none too cordially either: he’d done almost nothing but sleep since the transfer of government, and the doorbell had roused him from a wonderfully Wermacht-free dream. Blinking out at the caller through nearsighted eyes, his face piggish with sleep, Ungarsky did his best to get his jumbled thoughts in order. The man regarded him warmly, in no apparent hurry, beaming like Saint Nicholas himself. In his fuddled condition, Ungarsky failed to recognize the caller; he decided — not altogether wrongly — that he was a peddler of religious literature.

“You’ve chosen the wrong house, I’m afraid. Our souls are brimming with fulfillment as it is. We’re part of the German Reich now, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I did hear something to that effect,” the man replied.

“There you have it, then. This family has no time for you today.”

“No time for me?” the caller answered brightly, stepping past him. “Run upstairs and announce me, there’s a good fellow. I rather think you’ll find that I’m expected.”

This was by no means the first time Ungarsky had been mistaken for the butler, but in his grogginess he made a rash decision: he decided, just this once, to let it get under his skin.

“One moment now, Father Christmas,” he said, catching hold of the visitor’s sleeve. “My name is Felix Ungarsky, and I happen to reside in these apartments. You seem to be under the mistaken impression—”

“You’re neglecting your other caller, Felix.”

The hallway seemed to darken, and Ungarsky, gripped by a sudden premonition, let the man’s sleeve go and turned to look behind him. A second man stood backlit in the doorway. He wore a gray loden cape over a jet-black uniform with gleaming silver buttons, and he smiled at Ungarsky as if he knew him well.

“Felix Ungarsky — Hauptsturmführer Kalk,” said the man in the suit, halfway up the stairs already. “The two of you have an interest in common.”

“An interest in common?” Ungarsky echoed. He was clearheaded now, as sober and awake as he had ever been, and he’d recognized the caller at last.

“Exactly so,” said the man in black, pulling the door of the house shut behind him. “Can you guess what it is?”

“I don’t—” Ungarsky stammered. “That’s to say, I couldn’t—”

“It’s you, Felix Ungarsky! You yourself.”

* * *

Sonja had just come out of the kitchen to see who’d rung the bell — and to ask whoever it was to keep quiet, so as not to rouse her father from his nap — when she saw Waldemar at the head of the stairs, draping his suit jacket over the banister. Her first impulse was to raise a finger to her lips; her next was to slip into her father’s room and hide under the bed. Waldemar crossed the landing almost soundlessly, moving with surprising grace for so immense a man. His monocle — ridiculous! who wore a monocle any longer? — caught the lamplight as he came forward, giving him an oddly startled look. He smelled strongly of almonds — or was it marzipan? — and Macassar oil and smoke.

“Fräulein Silbermann!” he intoned, as if introducing her to some unseen associate. Sonja thought to correct his mistake — to remind him that two decades had passed since she’d gone by that name — but she had better sense than poor Ungarsky.

“I’m afraid my husband’s not at home, Herr Toula. He’s at the university.”

“The university ?” said Waldemar, raising his eyebrows. “Has he still not finished his degree?” He let out a harsh, clownish laugh, a sound he’d never made as a young man. She resisted the urge to ask him where Ungarsky had gone.

“You’ve changed, fräulein,” he said after a pause. “You’ve come into your prime. And so have I.”

“It’s been more than twenty years, Herr Toula.”

“Yes, fräulein. So it would seem.”

She couldn’t think how to answer, so she led him into the parlor, to the yellow divan, and waited on him there as best she could. Ungarsky’s wingtips still stood propped against the baseboard, and the cushions retained the imprint of his shoulders, which sickened her with anxiety; but her guest had eyes only for her. He took her hand in both of his, as if to warm it, and chatted with her about commonplace things — about the twins and the apartment and the price of a bottle of pilsner — until she felt the chill departing from her body. Kaspar would be home soon; she’d excuse herself then, say she had to see about the children. Children are useful for such things, she reminded herself, taking a cunning sort of pleasure in the thought.

“Kaspar is usually home by this hour,” she found herself saying. “I can’t think what’s keeping him.”

“Important work, no doubt!” said Waldemar. “It would be lovely to visit with Kaspar after so many years, of course, but our family reunion can wait. It’s you I came to see.”

The words hung between them like granules of dust, revolving in the air for her to ponder. All at once they seemed to catch the light, to hold still under her gaze, to surrender their meaning. He had returned from his exile to kill her.

“What was it, brother-in-law, that you wished to discuss?”

“So this is the notorious yellow divan!” He snatched up a cushion — lemon silk with lilac lozenges — and brought it to his cheek. “Quite a well-used piece of furniture, I gather. News of it has even reached Berlin.”

She waited for him to go on, but he kept silent.

“Tell me what you want from me,” she said.

Waldemar set the cushion down and closed his eyes. “You mistake the purpose of my visit, fräulein. I wanted nothing more from you than this.”