Little Apple (7 page)

He put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her to him. She didn't resist, and for a while they sat snuggled up together.

"Of course I'll come," he whispered, "-that's definite. You've no idea how much I'll look forward to it."

"Ssh, Georg, the waiter's looking. So it's settled, then. You'll keep the day free?"

"It's a date. By the way, Franzi, have you heard from your Baron again?"

Franzi brushed the Baron aside with a dismissive gesture; she didn't need him any more.

"Oh, him," she said. "Yes, he wrote to me, but I sent his letter back — unopened, of course. I know perfectly well what he's after. Goodness, I must get a move on, the boss will be grumbling already. What about you, though? You haven't told me a thing. Are you going back to your old job?"

Impatiently, Vit¬torin stubbed out the remains of his cigarette in the ashtray.

"Back to the old routine?" he said. "No fear! You don't think I want to sit behind a typewriter from morning to night for a hundred and eighty kronen a month, do you? That's all over — I'm worth more than that. I'm not going back at all. They can think what they like, they've seen the last of me."

Franzi shook her head.

"Surely you won't just fail to turn up, Georg? That would be crazy of you. You'll get three months' salary if you give them proper notice — it's standard practice in all big firms these days. Three months, let's see . . . You'd be making them a present of over five hundred kronen. Very generous of you, I must say!"

He stared at her, nonplussed. That way of acquiring the money he needed had never occurred to him.

"You're absolutely right, of course," he said. "Five hundred and forty kronen aren't to be sneezed at. Yes, you're right, I won't pass up the money - I'll go and see them today."

Some rapid mental arithmetic told him that half the sum in question would get him to the Russian border. Vienna-Radkersburg-Belgrade-Bucharest-Galatz, and from Galatz across the frontier to Tiraspol. It made sense.

He rose.

"You're absolutely right," he repeated. "I'd better call them right away and ask if the managing director's still there. Where's the phone?"

"Over in the billiard room, third door on the right," Franzi told him. "Hold on, I'll come with you - I can just spare another two or three minutes."

Once inside the phone booth she let him kiss her and kissed him back while billiard balls clicked and dominoes clattered and waiters bustled from table to table with midday editions still inky from the press. Then she stood there for a moment, smiling happily as if her kiss had permanently vanquished the dark, alien, mysterious force that aspired to deprive her of her beloved.

"Mundus Incorporated, International Forwarding and Warehousing Agents for Danubian and Overseas Freight" was housed in an unlovely building with dismal little windows and mortar and plaster flaking off its dirty grey walls. It had always looked that way, the management never having set any store by outward appearances. Although nothing had changed, Vit¬torin felt like a stranger as he entered the premises from which he had last emerged at the outbreak of war, a youthful figure attired in the uniform of an officer cadet.

A strange porter sleepily reached for his cap. Coke was being loaded in the yard. On the stairs and in the gas-lit corridors Vit¬torin passed young men with unfamiliar faces. One of them stopped him and politely inquired which department he wanted - Reception was on the second floor. He mumbled an inaudible reply and walked on.

At last he saw a face he knew: that of the managing director's old clerk, who might have been mistaken for a retired judge when playing billiards after office hours in the little coffeehouse across the street. He greeted Vit¬torin like a friend from happier times.

"Why, if it isn't Herr Vit¬torin! What a nice surprise! So you're back already. How long has it been? Let me see, you joined up in 'fifteen - no, 'fourteen, just after the ultimatum. Who would have thought it would end this way? Tragic, really tragic. All those youngsters gone, and for what, I ask you? Still, it's a real pleasure to see you again, Herr Vit¬torin. If you'd come next week you wouldn't have found me here. I'm retiring - yes indeed, retiring after forty years with the firm."

"I expect you're quite glad to be retiring after forty years," said Vit¬torin. "Will you be staying in Vienna?"

"Glad?" the old man replied, continuing to sort and tidy the files on his little desk. "Yes and no. The place just isn't what it was. Nothing but new people and new faces — doctors of law wherever you look, and I can't get all their names into my head. As for staying in Vienna, not me-not with this inflation. I've got no children, so there's nothing to keep me here. I'm going to my wife's relatives in Vorarlberg. You get more for your money in the country. I've got a bit put by — enough for a cottage and maybe a patch of garden as well. Another week, and then it's goodbye to Vienna."

Vit¬torin inquired if the managing director was free. The old clerk shook both his hands again with a touch of emotion before padding off silently into the inner sanctum to announce him.

The managing director gave Vit¬torin a kindly, cordial reception. He congratulated him on his safe return
"post tot discrimina rerum",
as he eruditely phrased it, and expressed satisfaction that the firm should have regained the services of such a valued employee. Vit¬torin was given no time to reply. They must bestir themselves, said the managing director. Diligence was the order of the day. There was plenty of work to be done now that international trade links had been restored, albeit not in full measure. Austria's economic war wounds must be healed. The new era had brought new problems in its wake; that was why everyone, irrespective of status, must pull his weight. Vit¬torin would be temporarily assigned to the accounts department, his erstwhile post as assistant French-language correspondence clerk having unavoidably and understandably been filled by someone else.

The managing director spoke in a quiet, courteous tone, accompanying his remarks with economical but expressive gestures. Vit¬torin, standing stiffly at attention, stared through him and heard nothing. A peculiar thing had happened to him. He had flirted with an idea: he had tried to imagine -just for a moment, purely to pass the time - that he was standing in another office far away, and that the shadow on the wall was Selyukov's. The notion became too strong to suppress - he couldn't shake it off. Snow was drifting down outside, Grisha polishing the samovar behind the door, the stove flickering fitfully. Books littered the desk, uppermost among them a French novel whose frontispiece depicted a naked woman playing with a tiger cub. Over in Hut 4, his comrades would be waiting for news. Selyukov looked up with his tongue caressing his upper lip and the lamplight falling on his slender, tanned hand. And then:

"Conduct unbecoming to an officer - the French call it
boch-isme.
You may go.
Pashol."

The bastard, humiliating me like that! Why did I stand for it? I should have slapped him in the face and braved a firing squad. If only I'd slapped him in the face! Too late - it's too late now . . .

"You seem unpleasantly surprised," said the managing director. "Don't misunderstand me: it's only a temporary arrangement. You mustn't think ..."

Vit¬torin came to. The past was releasing its hold on him. No, he told himself, it isn't too late. It's simply a question of money, of a few hundred kronen. One I get them - once I manage to raise them - we'll speak again, Mikhail Mikhailov-ich Selyukov.

"You mustn't think," the managing director went on, "that the firm intends to dispense permanently with your knowledge of foreign languages and your practical experience in the correspondence department. That isn't so, I can assure you. We shall bear you very much in mind. Meantime, report to your new head of department, Herr Schodl, tomorrow or the day after, and leave the rest to me."

Vit¬torin stared at the green silk shade of the managing director's desk lamp with a sheepish, helpless smile on his face. The interview had taken a course bewilderingly at odds with his preconceived plan. He had felt certain that he would meet with a cool, casual, businesslike reception. He would then have found it easy to decline the managing director's offer of a steady job and demand his terminal grant - the money he needed - as of right. The fact that the managing director had spoken to him in such a benevolent, even friendly manner, and had commended his knowledge of foreign languages, was an unforeseen hurdle. Could he summarily give notice under such circumstances? Yes, he had to have that money. The managing director was looking impatient and drumming on the leather blotter with his pencil.

"Please excuse me," Vit¬torin said with sudden decision. "I apologize for taking up a little more of your valuable time, but I've no choice. This isn't easy for me, you understand ..."

He faltered. It wasn't so simple to find the right words. He tried again.

"I'm in an embarrassing position. I don't know how you'll take this, sir, but circumstances compel me to . . ."

The managing director sat back and looked at him over the top of his glasses.

"Yes, well, I think I've a rough idea of what's troubling you," he said. "It's odd, but all you gentlemen back from the war suffer from the same problem. None of you seems to have managed to accumulate any assets while on active service. Never mind. Pursuant to a directive issued on August 17th of the current year, the management is empowered to grant all ex-servicemen employees with families to support a one-time ex gratia payment equivalent to three months' salary. Are you married?"

"No - that's to say, I intend -"

The managing director brushed this aside.

"No hurry," he said, "there's plenty of time. You aren't a breadwinner, so I can only authorize a quarter's advance on salary to be repaid in monthly instalments from January ist onwards. Go and see Herr Weber on the second floor."

The telephone rang. He picked up the receiver.

"Yes, speaking . . . Good afternoon, Herr Nussbaum . . . Yes indeed, I have the file in front of me . . . No, I'm afraid I don't share your point of view, we've met you more than half-way . . . What? Out of the question. We like to be accommodating, but . . . It's a matter of . . . Kindly allow me to speak . . . Exactly, it's a matter of. . . Please think it over. I'll give you until tomorrow to reconsider my proposal ... I should regret that too . . . What did you say? Do so by all means, Herr Nussbaum. I shall await the outcome of the hearing with an easy mind. And the same to you, sir. Goodbye."

Vit¬torin seized the opportunity to demonstrate his professional enthusiasm and knowledge of the firm's clientele.

"Adolf Nussbaum & Co., No. 15 Praterstrasse," he said. "Soaps and fats. Telegraphic address: Fettbaum, Vienna. That was the boss himself, if I'm not much mistaken."

"Quite right, Herr Nussbaum in person. Have you had dealings with the firm?"

"Of course, they're one of our oldest customers. They export mainly to the Balkan States and the Levant. Herr Adolf Nussbaum is a very quick-tempered gentleman. He threatens to sue at the drop of a hat."

"Good," said the managing director. "I can see you won't take long to get back into the swing. About that advance: apply to Herr Weber in Personnel, as I said - tell him to submit the cash voucher for my signature. Oh yes, and while you're here, take this folder and drop it in at the forwarding department on your way out."

Kohout had volunteered to obtain the passport and visas required for the journey. He felt quite competent to undertake this far from easy task because he had seen and learnt a great deal during his two weeks in Dr Sigismund Eichkatz's law office, where he had been engaged as a kind of confidential clerk.

Dr Eichkatz owed his brisk flow of business to a capacity for observing and, at the same time, circumventing the laws and ordinances that hampered his clients' entrepreneurial activ-ites. He respected those laws because, having been devised by the human brain, they betrayed their provenance all too clearly in their flaws and imperfections, and he despised them because they clothed themselves in an aura of infallibility. He never permitted himself to infringe them because he knew that their rigid immutability was no match for a nimble mind. They crushed the fools who broke them and gave free rein to the sagacious souls who paid them the respect they demanded.

Dr Eichkatz was an expert in the outflanking manoeuvres peculiar to guerrilla warfare. His name was uttered with reverence in certain quarters of Vienna, and his address circulated in the coffee-houses where dealers traded in jute, cattle, barley, or artificial silk. In October 1918, when it became clear that his office staff, which comprised a typist and a receptionist, was no longer equal to the demands of his expanding practice, Dr Eichkatz augmented it by one. Kohout, with whom he had become acquainted in the billiard room of the Café Élite, was employed to keep the filing system up to date and rake in outstanding fees from tardy payers.

Vit¬torin, having telephoned his friend to expect him, was greeted with the long-suffering air of a man whose shoulders bore the full brunt of a responsible job.

"You'll have to wait awhile," Kohout told him. "I've got to deal with the people in the waiting-room first. Sit down and listen for a bit — it's quite entertaining sometimes. I'll be through in half an hour, then we can discuss things in peace. The boss won't disturb us if I tell him I've got a visitor." He broke off. "Fräulein Gusti, that's the Doctor's bell. He wants you!"

The typist scurried into the inner office, only to reappear a moment later.

"Herr Kohout, quick, the Spannagel file!"

Dr Eichkatz's irritable voice, resonant as a pipe-organ, came drifting through the open door.

"You expect too much of me, Herr Spannagel. I'm a lawyer, not a prophet. I've no idea how your case will turn out. If I were a clairvoyant I wouldn't practise law, I'd go on the stage with you, Herr Spannagel."

"For heaven's sake shut the door, Herr Kohout," Fräulein Gusti called from her typewriter. "He's playing the fool again today."