AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Mr. Monk?” Ferdi prompted, putting down his coffee and staring across the table.
He needed Ferdi’s help. “He didn’t exactly tell me,” Monk answered slowly. “He knew many things about the time, the people, but some of them were told to him under the seal of the confessional.”
“So you learned nothing?” Ferdi said, his young face filling with disappointment. “I. . I was sure you had discovered something te
rrible. You seem. . different, as if all kinds of things had changed. . feelings. .” He stopped, confused and a little embarrassed that he had intruded on inner pain without thinking.
Monk smiled very slightly and stared at the cream slowly melting into his coffee. “You can guess this much from my face, and my manner?”
Ferdi hesitated. “Well. . I thought I could.”
“You can,” Monk agreed. “And if I did not deny it, and you asked me questions, made good guesses as to what it was I know, would you say that I had told you anything?” He looked up and met Ferdi’s eyes.
“Oh!” Ferdi’s face filled with understanding. “You mean the Father couldn’t tell you, but you know from his manner, his feelings, that you were right. I see.” His eyes clouded. “And what was it? It was hard, wasn’t it? Something terrible about your friend, Dr. Beck?”
“No, only slightly shabby, and he knew it and was ashamed. What was tragic and destructive”-he could not find a word powerful enough for the darkness he felt-“was about Elissa von Leibnitz. We didn’t live here in those days, we haven’t stood in her place, so we shouldn’t judge easily, and God knows, I have done many things of which I am ashamed. .”
“What?” Ferdi sounded almost frightened. “What did she do?”
Monk looked at him very steadily. “She was in love with Dr. Beck, and she knew that the Jewish girl Hanna Jakob was in love with him also, and she too was brave and generous. . and perhaps she was funny or kind. . I don’t know. Elissa betrayed her to the authorities, who tortured her to death.” He saw the color drain from Ferdi’s skin, leaving his face ashen and his eyes hollow. “She expected Hanna to break, to tell them where the others were, and she saw to it that they escaped long before they could have been caught,” he went on. “She believed Hanna would crack, and only be hurt, not killed. I don’t think she wanted anyone killed. . just broken. . shamed.”
Ferdi stared at him, tears suddenly brimming and sliding down his cheeks. He stumbled for words, and lost them.
“We all do bad things,” Monk said slowly, pushing his fingers through his hair. “She may have repented of it, or found it impossible to live except with terrible pain. It seems that after that no risk was too great for her, no mission too dangerous. We can’t say whether it was glory or redemption she was looking for. . or simply a way out.”
“What are you going to do?” Ferdi asked, his voice a whisper.
“Finish my coffee,” Monk replied. “Then I’m going to look for Hanna Jakob’s family. Father Geissner said they live somewhere in Leopoldstadt-he thinks, on Heinestrasse.”
Ferdi straightened himself up. “It shouldn’t be too difficult. At least we know where to start.”
Monk had already considered whether to send a letter introducing himself once they found the address, but he had already been in Vienna for several days, and he had no idea what had been happening in London. He could not afford the delay. Also, it would give Herr Jakob the opportunity to refuse to see him, and he could not afford that, either. He drank the last of his coffee and stood up. Ferdi left his and stood up also, facing the door and the wind outside.
It took them a surprisingly long time to trace the Jakob family. They had moved, and it was afternoon, the lamplighters out in the streets, the lights flickering on like a ribbon of jewels in the windy darkness, when they finally arrived at the right house on the Malzgasse.
The house itself was inconspicuous in an area of very similar several-story dwellings. A smartly uniformed maid answered the door, and Monk gave her the speech already prepared in his mind. Through Ferdi he told her that he was a friend of someone who had fought with their daughter Hanna in the uprising thirteen years ago and whose admiration for her had altered his life. Since Monk was in Vienna he wished to call and carry greetings, and if possible take news of them back to London. Not speaking German, he had brought a young friend to interpret for him. He hoped it did not sound as stiff as he felt.
The maid looked a trifle startled, as if he had come at an inappropriate time, but she did not rebuff him. He had thought that half past four on a weekday afternoon was quite suitable for visiting. Certainly it would have been in London. It was an hour when women would be receiving, and he thought Hanna’s mother might be the one to have observed more of Kristian, and certainly more of the relationships between people. She might well invite him to stay until Herr Jakob returned. It was far too early to disturb anyone at their evening meal.
He looked around the room where they had been asked to wait. It was warm and comfortable, decorated in excellent taste, a little old-fashioned, but the furniture was of fine quality, and his policeman’s eye estimated the value of the miniatures on the walls to be higher than one would find in most private houses, even of the well-to-do. The larger pictures over the fireplace he thought to be very pleasant but of less worth, either artistically or intrinsically.
The maid returned and said that Mr. and Mrs. Jakob would see them both, if they would follow her.
Going into the parlor, Monk had a sudden and sharp awareness of being in a different culture. This was not Austria as he had seen it; it was something intimate and far older. He glanced at Ferdi and saw the same look in his face, surprise and slight discomfort. It was a timeless room for family, not strangers. There were two beautiful, tall candles burning. Herr Jakob was a slender man with dark, shining eyes, a black cap on the crown of his head.
With a jolt of embarrassment, scraps of memory came back to Monk, and he realized why his visit had occasioned such surprise. This was Friday evening, near sundown, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. He could hardly have chosen a worse time to interrupt a family meal-and a religious celebration. It was an act of the greatest courtesy that they had received him at all.
“I’m sorry. .” he said awkwardly. “I have been traveling and I forgot what day it is. I am sorry, Frau Jakob. This is an intrusion. I can return tomorrow. . or. . or is that even worse?” How could he explain to them his urgency without prejudicing anything they might tell him?
Herr Jakob looked at him very directly, his eyes unflinching, but his deep emotion was impossible to miss. “You said that you are here on behalf of a friend of my daughter, Hanna. If that is true, Herr Monk, then you are welcome at any time, even on Shabbat.” He had replied in English, heavily accented but easily understandable. Monk need not have brought Ferdi after all.
Monk framed his answer carefully. “It is true, sir.” Only afterwards did he even realize he had deferred to this man by using the word sir. It had come naturally. “I am a friend of Kristian Beck, who is at present in serious difficulty, and I am in Vienna to see if I can be of some help to him. It is urgent, or I would more willingly delay disturbing you.”
“I am sorry to hear he is in difficulties,” Herr Jakob replied. “He is a brave man who was willing to risk all for his beliefs, which is the most any of us can do.”
“But his beliefs were different from yours?” Monk said quickly, then wondered why he had.
“No,” Herr Jakob replied with a faint smile. “Politically at least, they were the same.”
