Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

‘Please tell Herr Councillor that I’m here.’

The young man twisted his head to look at her, visibly indignant at her presumption. ‘Herr Bugmann is busy right now,’ he said in a nasal voice and hunched once more over his open ledger.

The old Chanele would have patiently explained to the upstart that his boss was expecting her or, if she had been kept waiting for too long, she would have shouted at him, as she sometimes had to do with her employees. The new Madame Meijer simply opened the little door in the barrier and walked towards the door with the metal sign saying ‘bureau’.

In his excitement the gawky youth almost fell from his stool. He was one of those people who like to exert authority but don’t know how to defend it when it’s called into question. ‘You can’t do that,’ he said, sounding just like Herr Ziltener. He walked over to Chanele with a strangely elegant gait, and blocked her path with spread, waving arms. ‘Herr Bugmann said quite emphatically…’

‘What did I say?’ The councillor had heard the commotion in his antechamber, and was now standing in the doorway.

‘Your young man was about to announce my presence. And by the way, a very committed employee you have there.’

Bugmann looked back and forth between the two of them and then tapped his clerk sharply on the head. The youth, probably used to such treatment, took the punishment with a kind of bow and slouched back to his stool.

‘The nephew of a fellow party member,’ the councillor said apologetically as he took off Chanele’s coat. ‘I was urgently requested… You may know how that is. Sometimes you have no option.’

Bugmann’s office, with its big bow window looking out on the Weite Gasse, was furnished like a living-room, with heavy doors and landscape paintings on the walls. Of course there was also a desk, but the place of honour, where the light was best, was occupied by two chairs and a three-seat sofa, all upholstered in red velvet, with white crocheted antimacassars, a fashion that had spread from England. On small tables, of which there were at least half a dozen, photographs were crammed together, jostling with other souvenirs and knick-knacks. A massive bookshelf took up almost one whole wall. The leather backs behind the glass doors emphasised the twofold character of the room: apart from collections of legal writings and the thick volumes of a dictionary there were also the collected works of Goethe, Schiller, Hebbel and Pestalozzi.

Bugmann offered Chanele a seat on the sofa — ‘There you won’t be dazzled by the sun!’ — propped another cushion behind her back and displayed the over-eager bustling activity often used to cover over awkward situations. He fetched a tray of bottles and glasses from the credenza, and tried to offer her a little glass of advocaat. Chanele declined politely, whereupon he apologised at length for having nothing else to offer her, after all, he couldn’t really expect a lady to drink cognac or even a proper schnapps. ‘Of course I would have made tea if I’d known you… I had been expecting your husband. He isn’t ill or anything, is he?’

‘Don’t worry, he’s fine. I’m sure he would pass on his kindest regards if he knew I was here.’

The councillor tried not to show his surprise, which only made it all the more apparent.

‘My husband has asked me to sort out a delicate problem for him, and would prefer not to be personally involved in the details. Perhaps you know how that is. Sometimes you have no option.’

She hadn’t planned to use Bugmann’s own phrase; the words had simply been hanging in the air. But he nodded as if she had said something extremely significant, sat down in an armchair opposite her, propped his chin in his hand and drew one eyelid slightly down with his index finger.

‘I’m listening.’

‘You are, amongst your many obligations, also an official guardian, is that not so, Herr Councillor?’

‘I am guardian to an orphan. That is correct.’

‘And you told us, when you recently did us the honour of being our guest, that you must sometimes reveal a certain severity in this capacity, which actually contradicts your well-known philanthropic character.’

Bugmann did not dismiss the clumsy flattery, and proudly inflated his red cheeks. ‘Like a fish that has just swallowed a lure,’ thought Chanele.

‘I think I remember,’ she went on. ‘You also spoke in this connection of a young man whose desire to marry you could not grant consent to because he didn’t have the necessary means to establish his own household.’

‘There are many such cases,’ said Bugmann and made a solemn face, as if he were about to deliver a public address. ‘Sad for those involved, of course, but I must bear in mind my responsibility.’

‘That cannot always be easy.’ Chanele had almost laughed out loud, it was all going so easily. ‘I have now found myself thinking that it could not be wrong — not least in the interest of a certain popularity, upon which one depends, after all, as a politician — if you would nonetheless make a marriage possible in one or other of these cases.’

Bugmann tried to appear quite nonchalant, but his torso leaned far forward in curiosity. Salomon had taught his foster daughter to read such signs.

‘It would certainly create a very positive impression in public,’ Chanele said, delivering her prepared speech. ‘The guardian to an orphan paying his charges the dowry they need out of his own pocket…’

‘His own…?’ There was something breathless about Bugmann’s voice.

‘So, my husband and I place great value on discretion when it comes to good works. One does not wish to boast. So we would insist that the foundation set up by us should remain anonymous or, even better, that it should not be mentioned in this connection at all.’

‘Foundation?’ Councillor Bugmann’s face had turned even redder than it already was naturally.

‘We thought a sum of three thousand francs. To begin with. And you alone, of course, would decide the amount to be paid in the individual case.’

‘And to whom,’ Bugmann said quickly.

‘And to whom, of course. With a man such as yourself no checks would be necessary.’

Bugmann breathed out slowly. It was a sigh of relief.

‘Although if I might be permitted,’ Chanele said, ‘to say a small word on the selection of the recipients. It concerns a salesgirl in the Modern Emporium. A very respectable girl, fundamentally, who has unfortunately — how can I put this — strayed once from the path of virtue. With certain… certain consequences, if you understand my meaning.’

‘Of course,’ Bugmann said, and thought he understood much more than Chanele had said.

‘She is one of my best workers, and a man who asked for her hand would certainly not regret the proposal. Above all if she had an appropriate dowry.’

‘Which you would not wish to put personally at her disposal.’ One could not say that Bugmann grinned, but his facial expression could certainly have been called complacent. ‘You would prefer a neutral foundation…’

‘As I said: we place great value on discretion. We would be only too happy if you yourself would appear in public as the noble donor.’

Councillor Bugmann poured himself a big glass of cognac and drank it down in one gulp. Then he stood up, walked to his desk and opened his ink bottle.

‘The name of the young lady?’

‘Marie-Theres Furrer.’

Bugmann wrote and waved the paper in the air to dry the ink.

‘So the whole thing will go through as quickly as possible?’

‘As quickly as possible.’

‘And the money…?’

‘I have brought it.’

Bugmann carefully folded up the sheet of paper, halved and quartered it and then put it in the bottom of a briefcase. Chanele opened her handbag and took out the sealed envelope that Herr Ziltener had brought her.