The Adventures of Hiram Holliday (24 page)

Hiram steered the car throug
h the slanting, cobbled streets
of Grinzing, on the outskirts of Vienn
a, where were the famous
wine restaurants that in the la
te summer and fall placed green
boughs before their doors to announce the
heuriger,
or new
wine. The plight of Vienna an
d the Austrians, under the Nazi
terror had eaten deep into his soul and gave him constant hurt.
He had never known the old gay
Vienna, but in his stay in the
great, grey city, he had learned
to feel it pulsing beneath his
feet. It was his first experience
living in a conquered country,
and he was witness to the age-old European custom
of the
victor guzzling the spoils, an
d the daily contact with it was
harrowing, the persecutions, t
he disappearances, the constant
spying
.

After he had been there two months he had been offered a change. It had come in the shape of a curt cable from Beauheld, his managing editor in New York: 'You are doing your job. I like a good soldier. Do you want to try something else ?'

Hiram had been sorely tempted to snatch at the relief from the heavy, depressing atmosphere of the tortured city where he had been further oppressed by a sense of personal failure. He had not managed to see the imprisoned Chancellor Schuschnigg, for which his paper readily forgave him since Beauheld was too intelligent to demand miracles. But he had also failed in the three months to find the slightest trace of, or clue to, the whereabouts of
the kidnapped Duke Peter von Fü
rstenhof - and for this he could not forgive himself. His own words spoken that night in gloom-ridden Prague to Princess Heidi were an obligation upon him, words said at the time in the full meaning of Domnei, the ancient chivalry, but which now, as he thought upon them, had the ring of vainglory.

H
e had cabled Beauheld: "Thanks, I’ll
stick,' because the obligation was still unfulfilled. And the task was no nearer completion now that he had his definite orders to quit Vienna and report to Rome for duty. Well, Hiram had told fiimself, romanticism was one thing, but one learned things from bitter lessons. One of them was not to be a fool. Life was run on a basis of getting on with one's work.

Baron Willi said:
'Rechts hier’
To the right. We go to Franzl's. If Mitzi does not take that ugly look from your face then you have been in Vienna four months for nothing.'

Hiram relaxed into a grin, slowed the car, and swung it to the right up a narrow cobbled street with tiny old one- and two-storey houses with arched doorways and peaked roofs on either side. He would be sorry to leave the Baron. The friendship had in many ways lightened the task of his stay in Vienna. Hiram was by nature a warm hero-worshipper, and his heroes were the stalwart adventurers of the world, the men who could ride and shoot and fly and fight, men who by their courage and physical equipment could live in any age, take care of themselves, and win.

Wilhelm, Franz, Baron von Salvator was such a man, a former Austrian Army officer, wealthy, an aristocrat, member of the famed Spanish Riding School. He had already at the age of thirty-two, seven years younger than Hiram, fought four duels, three with swords, one with pistols. He was brilliantly handsome, tall, black-haired, blue-eyed with crisp military moustache, accomplished, light-hearted, fearless. It was hard to know what had drawn him to Hiram unless it was Hiram's frank admiration for him in which he liked to bask, or perhaps it was because he felt or guessed a kinship with the plain, quiet American of the steel-rimmed spectacles, tousled sandy hair and roundish face, who in no manner whatsoever was the figure of either hero or adventurer. They had met when it developed that they lived in the same building in the Strohgasse, where Hiram had taken two furnished rooms on the top floor. Chance acquaintance had grown into a genuine friendship.

Franzl's was one of the largest and most famous of the Grinzing restaurants with an arched courtyard into which Hiram drove his car and parked it next to a large black limousine, in which a chauffeur was waiting.

^{
I
was here two weeks ago,' said the Baron, as they climbed out of the car. He screwed his monocle into his left eye, said:
'Die Mitzi! Herrlich
'
He blew a kiss into the grey afternoon sky.

' Thanks for nothing,' said Hiram.' You kept her for yourself for two weeks. Now that I'm going, I can
look....'

The entrance from the courtyard led via a passage to the tiny foyer off the street. Laughter, noise, music, clatter burst upon them, and the smell of wine and beer and cigar smoke. The large room was jammed with people sitting at the rough-hewn tables, as were the two wings that led off from it, one on the right, the other on the left. In the centre in front of the two kitchen doors was a small, square raised platform on which sat the
Schrammel Orchester,
a red-faced band of musicians, in peasant costume, consisting of trumpet, violin, accordion and zither. They were playing a lusty waltz and it seemed to Hiram as though everyone in the room, seated, was swaying slightly to the rhythm. There was no place vacant, but when the proprietor saw Salvator he squeezed a tiny table in close to the door and provided two chairs. The Baron ordered a Gumpolds-kirchner '32 and asked about Mitzi. The waiter said:
'Ja,ja, ja. kommt scho
?’
'
The low-beamed room was rocking with gaiety, and Hiram found himself unconsciously thumping the beat of the peasant waltz with the bottom of his heavy wineglass. The waitresses were solid, red-faced, healthily sweating, wearing peasant dresses, with straw-coloured hair coiled in thick knots. Here and there at the tables there was a Brownshirt, or a German Army officer in the grey-blue uniform, and a black-shirted, black-uniformed S.S. man or two. The hot, steamy gaiety of the place was infectious, and Hiram grinned cheerfully at a pretty girl three tables away who had slyly lifted her glass to him.

'Aha,' said Salvator, 'that is better. But is she
smiling at
you or at me ?' They were talking in German.

And suddenly for no apparent cause the band stopped playing and a dead silence smothered every sound in the room. No one moved. Not a glass or a dish rattled. All eyes were turned towards the door. There were two men in plain clothes standing framed in it. Policeman was written all over them. They began to move slowly into the room, threading their way through the closely-packed tables, their eyes shifting rapidly. Suddenly a little man at one side of the restaurant gave a half-strangled cry, rose and tried to run towards the kitchen.

'Halt!' the two men called harshly. The fugitive's flight led him past a table where a sour-faced, bullet-headed Brownshirt sat. The Brownshirt stuck out his hand and seized the fleeing man's coat-tails, saying:
'Na na
,
Bursche,
not so fast. A couple of people want to see you here.'

The two plain-clothes men fastened upon their victim. Each took an arm. They led him towards the door. The little man's face was grey, and although his mouth was saying something, no sounds came forth. Hiram felt sick to his stomach, and his clenched fists were white at the knuckles. 'My God,' he muttered to Salvator, in English, 'why can't they leave these people alone ? All they want is to laugh a little and drink a little.

When the three were abreast of their table, the Baron cleared his throat and spat. It struck full on the lapel of the plainclothes man nearest them. The whole crowded room seemed to take part in a long, indrawn gasp. The policeman's face turned a dirty red. He glared at Salvator and his free hand went to his pocket. The Baron sat calmly gazing up at him, his monocle screwed into his eye with a look of absolute cold insolence upon his face.

'My respects,' he said raspingly, 'and apologies for my poor aim.' For a moment the policeman stood glaring, uncertain whether insult had been directed at him or the victim. There was nothing in the chilling stare of the Baron to enlighten him.

Then the three passed out through the door. The band burst into a
La
ndler,
dishes rattled, voices picked up, the room was again a-crash with noise. 'By God,' said Hiram, banging the table with his
fist,'
that took courage.'

'Nonsense,' said Salvator, lighting a flat, gold-tipped Regie, 'it took - spit.
Na, na ! Wo ist die Mitzi ?'

But the lift that Hiram had felt upon coming in to the
Lokal
had vanished. Somehow, the incident, a common enough one to him during his stay there, seemed to crystallize all of those months. Failure
...
failure. This was a country of failure. Gay, light-hearted weaklings. Their new masters, the men of evil, struck. They flinched under the lash, and then ordered a
Frischen Schoppen Wein,
like the Baron, who after his incredibly gallant and insolent gesture which might have cost him his freedom, not to mention his head, merely said: 'Where is Mitzi?'

Hiram was working his fist into his fingers, for now he felt he wanted to go and kill the Brownshirt who had held back the poor frightened little man, when he felt Salvator's hand on his arm. The Austrian spoke to him in English as though he had read his thoughts.

'Come, come,
Hiram....
Do not be too hard on us. Remember the thing that is called Time. You think you are seeing something that is new and terrible in this Nazism? We are lost ? We give in ? No, no, my friend. It is not new. It is not Nazism. It is Germany. We have belonged to Germany once before. And before that, Germany has belonged to us, a State of the Hapsburg Empire. Then we were strong. Now the German State is strong and we are weak, so we bow before it
und machen Witze ü
ber den Hitler,
make jokes. The Austrian can always make jokes. And the rest Time does. There is nothing new in Central Europe, nothing that has not happened before....'

Hiram was looking at Salvator curiously. He had never known this side of his friend. The Baron expanded and continued: 'Those pigs
?'
With his head he indicated the Brown-shirts.
...
'They are always. But when the Monarchy returns to Austria they go back to their stys where they belong. You think because we have had Socialism here, or a republic, that it is over with kings ? My friend, it is never over with kings. You cannot wipe out the habits of two thousand years in twenty. The French killed a king, proclaimed a republic and acquired an emperor. It will be so again. We Austrians are monarchists by habit. Monarchy is not dead with us because of events. Power changes,- but not human nature. The seat of power in Central Europe, the barrier against the East, and the tides of the yellow races, is not Germany, but Austria. History has proven that. It will be so again...

'You mean Otto, or one of his brothers
..
.'suggested Hiram.

'Ach!’
said Salvator, and dismissed Otto and his clan with a flip of his cigarette. 'Time, Hiram, Time. History strides not in days or months, but in quarter- or half-centuries. The Ottos will be gone when the wheel turns again.' He dropped his voice suddenly and shifted closer. 'There is in Austria now, today, a boy - you are leaving tomorrow. I can tell you this. He is of the Hapsburg blood, but the clean and good strain. He is in the hands of the Nazis. When the Nazis took Austria, his aunt, the Princess Furstenhof of Styria, escaped with him and the Furstenhof fortune. The Germans stole him from her and brought him back and are holding him for the return of the money. When the money is paid they will probably kill him. But before that can happen, he will be rescued. There is already an organization here in Austria. Perhaps I, Willi Salvator, will be the one who will find him and bring him to safety. And thirty years from now, maybe forty, that boy will sit upon the throne of a Middle-European Empire. Think in large terms, my friend.' He paused, gave his moustache a twist, and waited to see the effect upon his friend. It was disappointing.

'Hmmmmmm,' said Hiram, and lit an American cigarette with a hand whose steadiness surprised even him. Here it was again, and he had to face it. Holliday, the great adventurer! Sardonically he bowed to the Fate that had dealt him this last slap in the face before his depa
rture. It was the Salvators who
were gaited for such play, not the Hollidays. He drew what comfort he could from the knowledge that his friend would go on where he had failed, and probably succeed.

A sudden loud burst of hand-clapping brought him back, and a yell from the Baron who had raised his glass and was toasting:
'Mitzi
...
Mitzi.
...
Die Schoene, Mitzi... ‘

And Hiram turned to look at the girl who had stepped up on to the stage and was preparing to sing. She had glossy, chestnut-coloured hair parted in the centre and worn in two braids, the braids coiled into little buns, one around each ear. She was dressed in a Dirndl costume, with a neat embroidered apron over a red dress. She was standing with her hands beneath the apron, swaying a little to the rhythm of the vamp the orchestra was playing. Her face was red and shining, and there was a dimple in her cheek. Even from the distance at which they, sat Hiram could see that her eyes were blue and dancing. She was smiling softly and gazing all around the room, taking in every table. When she suddenly looked him straight in the face Hiram's heart crashed against his ribs again and again until her glance passed on and she began to sing in the quaint Viennese dialect: