Nothing So Strange (16 page)

Then came a memorable afternoon when I walked in the Prater, watching
children play their games as if nothing were amiss in the world—as
perhaps, for children who can romp, nothing is. The first hint of spring
warmed the air and touched the trees; workmen were taking down barricades
from the sideshows in the amusement park, and there was something both
comforting and sad in all this—comfort in the thought that fun would
still be bought and sold, whatever happened, sadness when one reckoned how
many of the quiet unpurchasable pleasures of life were at stake.

I came out of the park to the Lasalle Strasse about four o’clock and
waited for a tram to take me to the center of the city. The usual knot of
newsboys stood at the corner, selling their rival editions. They did not look
particularly excited, nor did those who bought from them. Then suddenly
another boy jumped off a passing truck with a sheaf of papers under his arm
and began shouting something I could not catch above the traffic noise; but
its effect was to magnetize a crowd, so that the next minute nothing happened
but people edging out of it, taking a few slow paces while they read, then
scampering across streets or onto passing trams. By the time I reached the
corner all the papers had been sold, but a passer-by told me what had
happened: Schuschnigg had surrendered to Hitler at Berchtesgaden. It was the
first step to
Anschluss
.

In the Opern-Ring when I got there by tram special editions of all the
papers were out; I then learned the details. Seyss-Inquart was to have a post
in the Austrian government, all Austrian Nazis under arrest were to be
amnestied. I read and reread the meager reports of what had happened at
Berchtesgaden; it was several minutes before I caught sight of another news
item on an inside page. This reported that Professor Hugo Framm had been
attacked and wounded by a woman not yet identified.

Of course I thought immediately of Pauli and then forced myself into
statistical argument; surely there could be
other
women who hated
Framm … yet when, shortly afterwards, I read her name in print in a later
edition the absence of further shock proved how one’s mind jumps all hurdles
at such a time; the real surprise would have come if it had not been
Pauli.

The details were that she had telephoned for an interview with Framm that
afternoon, had been told he was busy and could not see her, but had later
seized a chance to force her way into his private office adjoining the
laboratories. These were still closed to students, so that no one had seen
her enter. Sometime later a janitor, passing along the corridor, heard angry
voices, and as one of them was a woman’s, he thought it more tactful not to
intervene. A few minutes after that came shouts and screams. The janitor then
rushed to the scene; the woman was held and the Professor taken to the
hospital with a stab wound in the chest. The woman, it was said, “made a
statement.”

I went to Brad’s apartment, hoping he already had the news. It does not
always help to have a friend break things gently; sometimes it is easier to
take the first shock alone, without an audience and without that compulsion
to act before one that afflicts all of us at such times, especially those who
reckon to be best controlled. But I was too early; Brad was working and had
heard nothing; aware of political excitement mounting both in the press and
on the radio, he had deliberately avoided contact with them all day. So I
told him what had happened, not only in Austria’s life but in his own; I
showed him the paper. Then I left him for a moment while I went in the
kitchen and pretended to tidy a few things.

He took it quietly, as I had expected he would; after the first moment of
incredulity a slow stricken glare in his eyes became the only outward sign.
Of course his first thought was that he must see her.

“I’ll go with you, Brad. Where do you suppose they took her?”

“There’s a police station almost across the street from the
laboratory.”

We drove there in a cab. On the way I asked what had happened during the
day.

“Nothing out of the ordinary. I was working at home. We had a meal
together about noon, then she went out. She didn’t say where she was going or
when she’d be back, but that’s not unusual either. I was working pretty hard,
I didn’t notice the time passing.”

“Had she talked of going to see Framm?”

“Never a hint. She hated him.”

“I wouldn’t tell them that at the police station.”

“No, of course not. What
would
you tell them?”

“As little as possible…. But you might as well be frank with me. Did you
have a quarrel with her before she went out?”

“No. Just the regular argument about the lawsuit, she was still urging me
to start one; but it’s hardly an argument any more, it’s a sort of wall
between us and we push our heads against it now and again just to see if it’s
still there…. But for her to do a thing like this…. I can’t
imagine
it. She’s not the type.”

“The crime isn’t a typed one either.”

He rocked his head in his hands. “I still can’t imagine it. She was so
quiet, so … so discreet. Never lost her temper. Of course she liked to get
her own way—who doesn’t? But violence … it’s
unthinkable
….”

“But it’s happened,” I said, “and you must pull yourself together.”

“I’ve got to help her,” he kept saying.

At the police station they wouldn’t even let him see her, but they took
particulars about both of us and forbade us to leave the city. The police
attitude seemed confused as well as worried—as if they expected blame
to attach to them for what had happened and must therefore make haste to
blame others equally guiltless. I think most of their hostile manner was due
to that; it showed itself in a trifling fuss because we had broken the rule
that whenever an alien visits a police station for any purpose whatsoever he
must bring along a passport for identification. Behind this nonsense one
could sense the political winds rising; everyone seemed preoccupied with more
than the thing itself.

After the police let us go I intended to take Brad to see Bauer (which I
already felt I should have done first of all), but he said immediately: “Now
let’s go to the hospital.”

I suppose I must have been concentrating on one thing all the time,
because I answered blankly: “Hospital?
What
hospital?”

“The Margareten—that’s where the papers say they took him.”

Then I realized what he was talking about. Beyond any surprise I felt, I
had the fear that we should miss Bauer at his office if we didn’t get there
soon.

“They probably won’t let you see him,” I said.

“But I’d like to find out how he is.”

“They may not know yet. Perhaps he’s unconscious.”

“Then I could leave a message—”

“A
message
?”

He said irritably: “Dammit, what else can I do? Your wife flies into a
temper and stabs a man you’ve been working with for over a year—surely
you ought to say
something
… or don’t you think so?”

I hadn’t thought out the problem at all till he mentioned it, which
establishes, perhaps, a gulf between his mind and mine. But I could see the
minutes slipping by; if Bauer left his office we might not be able to see him
till the morning, and the loss of a day might be important. “Let’s go to the
lawyer first,” I said. “We can call at the hospital later. There’ll be all
evening for it.”

He then consented, we took a cab across the city, and were lucky to catch
Bauer just in time. He had seen the newspapers and looked very grave. He
asked immediately if Brad wanted Pauli’s case to be handled by him, and when
Brad eagerly agreed, he replied: “All right—but it’s only fair to tell
you that my known views might not help her at the trial. What’s happened now
is vastly different from the civil action I wanted you to bring. I’ll be glad
to do everything I can provided you realize that with events hastening the
way they are I might not be your best choice. On the other hand, I can’t
recommend anyone else. A lawyer of opposite political opinions probably
wouldn’t handle the case at all. Or if he did, he might handle it
badly—
deliberately
badly. It’s just a question of which risk
you’d rather take.”

Brad said he would engage Bauer whatever the risk, and I think there was
already an awareness between them of some kind of basic division of humanity
in which they would generally find themselves on the same side. Bauer then
said he would try to get an immediate interview with Pauli; he did not know
whether he could at such an hour, but he arranged to meet us again at eleven
o’clock at the Erzherzog Karl Hotel, where I was staying. Brad turned to me
and said this would give us plenty of time to call at the hospital during the
interval. But then Bauer questioned him, and when Brad disclosed his
intention to send Framm a message Bauer said: “I can see you’re the kind of
client a lawyer has to watch. Take my advice and don’t go near the
hospital….”

“But surely … after all….”

“Very well—write what you want and let me read it when I get back.
Then we’ll have the argument if it’s necessary….”

I took Brad to my hotel for dinner, but we neither ate nor talked much. He
came up to my room afterwards and I mixed him a stiff whisky. He said he had
never tasted whisky before and couldn’t think why anyone should drink it for
pleasure. We made a joke of that. I said I would write to my father in Paris
and see if he could pull any strings through the Embassy. The Austrians, of
course, would not concede that Pauli had become even halfway an American
citizen, but it was possible, nevertheless, that some degree of influence
might be exerted.

Brad then wrote his note to Framm and asked my opinion of it. As it simply
and briefly expressed regrets and good wishes for a quick recovery, I said I
thought it couldn’t be improved on.

Before the arranged time Bauer rejoined us, helped himself to a drink, and
read the note which was still lying open on the writing desk. Without
commenting on it then he gave us the news. He had managed to see Pauli,
though not alone. He thought she was a little out of her mind; she kept
denouncing her victim and defending her action. And she had evidently told
the whole story about Brad and Framm and the electromagnetism issue; the
papers had got hold of it; there would be headlines in the morning. “Oddly
enough,” Bauer said, “she’s so emphatic and unrepentant that the thing almost
carries a bit of conviction. Of course it’s her only possible defense.”

I looked at Brad, who said after a pause: “You mean I’ll have to back her
up in all that?”

“If you didn’t, you’d be signing her death warrant,” Bauer answered.

“
Death
warrant?”

“Yes … because Framm’s not expected to live. She punctured one of his
lungs.”

“Good God,” Brad muttered.

“In a struggle,” I intervened. “Didn’t it say there was screaming and
shouting? How do we know what really happened? Framm’s a big powerful man….
Suppose she picked up whatever it was on the spur of the moment….”

“Unfortunately she didn’t. She stabbed him with a kitchen knife she took
with her when she left home. It was premeditated. She admits that, anyhow….
So all she can rest a defense on is the reality of her grievance. That won’t
be a strong defense, but if her husband confirms it….”

I looked at Brad again and for a fraction of a moment I was unsure of him.
Then when he spoke I knew it was my fault, not his. He said quietly: “I’ll do
that. Tell her she can count on me.”

Bauer put his hand on Brad’s arm. “Good…. Then in that case, if you
don’t mind….” He went over to the writing desk and crumpled the letter.
“Not that there’s anything bad in it, but you can’t quite tell how it might
be interpreted by the other side…. Now tell me more about this mathematical
stuff. Where’s all your material about it?”

“At my apartment.”

“We’d better get it now before the police make a search. Might occur to
them to do that, once they gather their wits.”

“All right.”

We got to the apartment about midnight and in an hour or so had everything
sorted and packed into a suitcase. Then I said good-night to Brad and
promised to see him again in the morning. Bauer took the suitcase and we
returned to my hotel. “Dr. Bradley had better come here tomorrow and start
work,” he said. “I can’t do it for him, and neither can you, I imagine…. In
a way, though, all this has made things easier to prove. People will say
there must be
something
in it if a woman would try to kill for it….
Proof by murder—rather appropriate to our day and age…. By the way,
you call him Brad- -do you think he would mind if I did?… I like him very
much….”

The next few days passed with something of the unarguable
quality of a
dream; one did strange things for strange reasons, as if events had twisted
motive and behavior alike. Brad set himself to the task of building up a case
against Framm—the very last thing he had ever wanted to do; but now,
because Framm’s life was in danger and Pauli was in jail, it was what he had
to do. Even the pages of algebra seemed to take on meaning under this added
stress of circumstance, and as I watched him riffling through his notes I had
a curious impression of existence on different levels—the personal
melodrama of danger and rescue, the larger battleground of nationalism and
conquest, and above them both, dim save to a few, the icy eternal truths
expressible only in symbols such as the square root of minus one.

The authorities still would not allow Brad to see his wife, and Bauer
could give us little news except that Pauli’s truculent attitude remained
unaltered. Meanwhile the affair grew larger in the newspapers as its
political angles were further explored; it was now revealed that Framm had
been high in the confidence of the Berlin government, and the rumor even
spread that the crime was entirely political and that Pauli had improvised
her story to conceal it. Brad then wanted to announce publicly that he was
prepared to testify to its entire truth, but Bauer advised against this,
thinking it better tactics to spring the thing as a surprise when the actual
trial came on. By this time we had got hold of a Berlin scientific journal
that contained a presumably verbatim report of the lecture, so there was a
good deal to work on, though most of it was meaningless to Bauer and me.
Nevertheless, after Bauer had given it a careful reading he commented: “You
know, Brad, there’s one thing strikes me—assuming that Framm did use
your stuff, he wasn’t too smart. All he had to do was to mention your name
just once—to say at the end of the lecture—‘I want to express
thanks to my assistant, Dr. Mark Bradley, for helping me in this work….’
Supposing he’d said something like that, he could still have kept 99 per cent
of the credit, and you wouldn’t have had even a talking point against him….
I wonder why he didn’t say it. Sheer hoggishness, I suppose….”