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“Did you know Max Niemann also?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“And Elissa von Leibnitz?”
“Naturally.” Was that a shadow in his voice or not? The priest was too used to hiding his feelings, keeping the perfect mask o
ver his response to all manner of human passions and failings.
“And Hanna Jakob?” Monk persisted.
At last there was a change in Geissner’s eyes, in his mouth. It was slight, but an unmistakable sadness that also held regret, even guilt. Was it because she was dead, or more than that?
“How did she die?” Monk asked, expecting Geissner to tell him it could not have any connection with Elissa’s murder. But there was the slightest tightening in the muscles of his neck, a hesitation.
“It was during the uprising,” he answered. “But I imagine you know that already. Both she and Elissa were remarkably brave. I suppose Elissa was the more obvious heroine. She was the one who risked her life over and over again, first exhorting people to have the courage to fight for what they believed in, then going to the authorities quite openly, pleading for reform, for any yielding of the restrictions. Finally, when real violence erupted, she stood at the barricades like any of the men. In fact, she was frequently at the front, as if she felt no fear. She was far from being a stupid woman; she must have been aware of the dangers as well as anyone.”
He smiled, and there was a terrible sadness in him. When he spoke his voice was rough-edged, as if the pain still tore at him. “I remember once when a young man fell before the rifle fire, far out in front of the piled-up wagons, chairs and boxes that had been set across the street. It was Elissa who called out for them to climb to the top and hold the soldiers at bay while she ran out to try to save him, pull him back to where they could treat his wounds. The army were advancing towards them, about twenty hussars with rifles at the ready, even though they were reluctant to slaughter their own people.” He shrugged very slightly. “Of course, the army lived in barracks, and didn’t even know their neighbors. But it is still different from attacking foreigners who speak another language and are soldiers like yourself.”
Monk wondered for an instant, a flash there and then gone again, how many times Geissner had heard the confessions of soldiers, perhaps trying to justify to themselves the unarmed civilians they had shot, trying to live with the nightmares, make sense of duty and guilt. But he had no time to spare for that now. He needed to understand Kristian, and to know if he could have killed Elissa-or if Max Niemann could have. “Yes?” he said sharply.
Geissner smiled. “Kristian went to the top of the barricade and fired at the advancing soldiers,” he answered.
Monk was surprised, and perhaps saddened. “He didn’t try to stop Elissa from going?”
Geissner was watching him closely. “You don’t understand, Mr. Monk. It was a great cause. Austria labored under a highly repressive regime. For thirteen years before we had been effectively ruled by the aging Prince Metternich. He was conservative, reactionary, and used the vast civil service to stifle all reform. Intellectual life was suffocated by the secret police and their informers. Censorship stifled art and ideas. There was much to fight for.”
He sighed. “But as you know, the uprising was crushed, and most of our burden was left still upon us. But then we had hope. Kristian was the leader of his group. Personal feelings of love or tenderness had no place. Where is an army’s discipline if each man will make special allowances for a friend or a lover? It is dishonorable, but above all it is ineffective. How could anyone trust you, or believe that you, too, set the cause above life or safety? Kristian did as he should have done. So far as I know, he never failed to, even afterwards.” There was a catch in his voice, and again the moment of darkness in his eyes.
“Afterwards?” Monk said quickly, trying to retrieve and catch the nuance of something more.
Geissner took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “After Hanna’s death,” he said softly.
“Why do you say that? Did something change?” Monk’s voice fell into a charged silence.
“Yes.” Geissner did not look at him. “Something changed, one way or another, but. . but I can tell you little of it. They all made their confessions, as good Catholics, but some troubles were spoken of, others lay deeper than words, I think deeper than their own understanding. Knowledge of such things sometimes comes slowly, if at all.”
Monk strained to keep his manner calm and the first leap of real hope from betraying him, and perhaps breaking the priest’s train of recollection. “What things?” he said gently.
“Regret for what was not done, for perceptions too late,” Geissner replied. “For seeing something ugly in others, and realizing that perhaps it was in yourself also.”
Monk felt warning like a prickling on the skin. He must speak slowly, indirectly. This man held confidences dearer than life. Even to ask that he break one would be an insult which would slash the understanding between them as with a sword.
“How did she die?” Monk asked instead.
Geissner looked up at him. “As well as fighting on the barricades, she was the one who took messages to other groups in different parts of the city. It was difficult, and became more and more dangerous. I don’t know if she was afraid. Naturally, I didn’t know her as I did the others. They were all Catholic, and she was Jewish.”
“Are there many Jews in Vienna?”
“Oh, yes. We have had Jews here for about a thousand years, but we have tolerated them only when it suited us. Twice we have driven them all out and confiscated their goods and property, of course, and burned at the stake those who remained. Although that is several hundred years ago now. We let them back in again when we needed their financial skills. Many of them have changed their names to make them sound more Christian, and hidden their faith. Some have even become Catholic, in self-defense.”
Monk searched Geissner’s face but could see nothing in it to betray his feelings, either about someone who denied his faith and converted to that of his persecutors, leaving his roots and his heritage behind, or about the society which drove him to do it in order to survive. Did Father Geissner feel any guilt in that? Or was his own faith such that it held every means acceptable to bring more people to what was for him the truth? Monk found the thought repellent. But then he was not Catholic, at least not as far as he knew. In fact, he was not anything at all. But was there any truth he felt so passionately-a truth of mind, an honor, courage, pity or any other virtue-that he strove to share it with others, to preserve and pass it on at any cost to himself? Shouldn’t there be? If he had any beliefs at all, were they not to be shared, strengthened, widened with all men?
Why was this occurring to him only now? He should surely have been conscious of the gap in his life, in his thought, where some kind of faith should have been.
He forced his mind from himself back to the present, and the need for justice. “How did Hanna Jakob die?” he said again.
If Geissner sensed the anger or the urgency in him there was nothing in his face to show it. “She was carrying a message of warning,” he replied. “She was captured by the army and tortured to tell them where part of Kristian’s group was and what they were planning. She would not reveal it, and she was killed.”
