November Man Page 5

  Altmann drank only white wine. He ordered Montrachet at the table, nervous at the lateness of the lawyer. Careful, he warned himself, sipping the wine; it was dangerous to lose control so easily. That had always been the trouble. The half-bottle was almost empty when Maître Willy Ornisher flustered into his chair. Altmann drained the bottle into his glass and nodded for another. Alcohol might steady him, he thought, seeking straws.

  Ornisher wiped his sweat-beaded forehead with a silk handkerchief, a jewelled ring like a beacon on his pudgy right hand, and smiled his apologies. He was bloated with indulgence, his suit tight and gaping, like a snake’s skin about to burst. The world works hard and Swiss lawyers get fat on their efforts, thought Altmann, assuring the other man his lateness was no inconvenience.

  How wonderful it must be to live like Willy Ornisher, he reflected. Very rich. And very secure. Not once in his life had he felt secure, realized Altmann. There was no reason why he should have done in Ravensbrück, of course. There he’d awoken every day expecting to lose his privileges and die.

  But never since, either. Even before the attack outside Demels he had flinched always at the sound of a car backfiring, and startled away if someone brushed against him in a crowd. Certainly the files gave him some protection, as castle walls twenty feet thick had protected medieval kings. But ways had been found to breach castle walls: was the barrier he had created impregnable? Please God, let it be, he thought.

  ‘Your continued good health, Hugo,’ said the lawyer automatically, lifting his glass.

  ‘Yes,’ Altmann agreed, frowning at the irony of the toast as the second bottle arrived. ‘To my health.’

  How, he wondered, would the Americans react to the request? It would mean travelling to Washington, he supposed. They might even put him through one of those debriefing sessions, to drain him of everything he knew. It would be a small price to pay for survival, he thought. The Americans would instantly agree to moving Hannah to the United States, he convinced himself.

  Ornisher started talking, and Altmann turned to the man attentively. The two men had met when Altmann had first determined the method of staying alive.

  At first their relationship had been strictly that of business, but the monthly meetings upon which Altmann insisted had progressed from a cluttered office to a regular corner-table at Krönenhalle, on the corner of Bellevueplatz and Rämistrasse, and so to as close a degree of intimacy as Altmann could ever allow.

  Altmann, a normally fastidious eater, was uninterested in the food, but Ornisher worried over the menu while the slightly built man sipped his wine.

  ‘There’s been an addition,’ announced the Austrian, when the waiter had left. Ornisher nodded, extracting from inside his jacket a small pocket-book, with a gold pen affixed to the spine. It was indexed not by name but numbers, so that it would have been quite meaningless had it been mislaid and found by someone who did not have the key.

  ‘That makes …’, began the lawyer.

  ‘… Forty-two,’ finished Altmann. ‘If there is ever an occasion for you to open the deposit box, you will find the disposal instructions of each clearly given.’

  Ornisher made the entry, then looked back at his client. Increasingly the lawyer worried if it would be possible to do completely undetected what Altmann paid him five hundred pounds a month retainer to perform. And without being told, he knew it would have to be done in such a way that he remained personally safe from any investigation.

  He had never asked Altmann the contents of the files, seeking a certain safety in ignorance, but now Ornisher regretted his association with the inconspicuous little man with the smoker’s cough who was staring unblinkingly at him from across the table.

  It was too late now to retreat, he thought sadly.

  And it had been a remarkably easy way to earn five hundred pounds a month for over twenty years. The figure reflected the importance of the documents, Ornisher realized, feeding his unease. He would drive across the border into France if ever he had to distribute them, he had determined. Posted anonymously from Paris, they would be difficult to trace back to him.

  ‘The same instructions?’ he asked professionally, still keeping the notebook in his hand.

  Altmann nodded. ‘If there’s no contact, either personally like today or by letter, on the first of every month, then, by using the letter of authorization you hold from me, they are to be withdrawn from the Bank Corporation and dispatched to Reuters and Agence France Presse news agencies, the New York Times and C.B.S. television networks and the London Times and B.B.C.’

  The lifeline sounded so tenuous, reflected Altmann. But no one else in any espionage service in the world had the knowledge he possessed; certainly not carefully recorded and lodged in a bank-vault. It was fortunate that East and West were so mutually terrified about their distrust of each other becoming public.

  The sole arrived and both men began to eat, Ornisher with relish, Altmann mechanically.

  ‘Had a letter from the clinic during the month,’ reported Ornisher, his lips flecked with fish. ‘The fees are increasing.’

  ‘They always are,’ said Altmann.

  ‘They mentioned the use of new drugs. Very expensive …’

  ‘You didn’t …’ began Altmann, knife and fork suspended before him.

  ‘… Of course I didn’t wait,’ cut off the lawyer. ‘We’ve had this discussion too many times. I gave immediate approval.’

  Altmann nodded. They probably wouldn’t do any good, he thought. It was too late to help Hannah. But then …

  ‘She’s a very sick woman,’ said Altmann, softly, talking almost to himself.

  ‘I know,’ said Ornisher. What would the nondescript man do when his wife died, wondered die lawyer. Would there still be the monthly luncheons? Probably not, he decided immediately. Altmann’s whole existence was centred around that permanently sick woman in the mountain-side sanatorium; when she died, with her would go the reason for the other man’s visits. The vital, regular contact would probably be monthly cables or telephone-calls, he guessed. The end of the luncheons would be sad. He liked the Krönenhalle. Pity it didn’t have the view of the lake, like the Baur au Lac. He sighed philosophically. Everything had to end.

  Apart from the initial discussion, neither man had a great deal to say to the other. Ornisher talked in desultory fashion of world affairs, surprising Altmann with his naivety, and Altmann responded with brief nods and grunts, his mind refusing to move away from the Köhlmarkt attack.

  Both men were glad when the meal was over. They parted on Rämistrasse, each assuring the other of their anticipation of the meal in a month’s time.

  It was two-forty-five when Altmann’s carefully selected taxi went through the gates of the clinic high in the hills outside the city. Far below, the lake was dented under the heat of the sun, rippling reflections into the surrounding mountains bruised purple by the heather on the lower slopes.

  He had made the customary telephone-call and the Director was waiting for him in his office, which always reminded Altmann of a Swedish style living room rather than a place in which a man worked.

  Professor Döhner shook his hand warmly, head to one side, the sympathetic smile ready to slip into place from the corner of his mouth. There were only two sorts of people who could look like that, thought Altmann: undertakers or doctors who ran clinics for the very rich.

  ‘Good to see you, Herr Altmann,’ said Döhner. He spoke German.

  ‘You too, professor,’ replied Altmann, moving easily into the same language.

  Döhner gestured him towards the couch that bisected the office, then sat in the facing chair. He was a white-haired, elegant man who Altmann suspected practised his gestures and facial expressions before a mirror to assess their impact.

  ‘No improvement, I’m afraid, Herr Altmann.’

  ‘I don’t think either of us expects one, do you?’

  Döhner clipped the sympathetic smile into place. Like a bow-tie, thought Altmann.

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nbsp; ‘There’s always hope …’ he said, spreading his arms and letting the cliché trail away.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Altmann, abruptly. He felt uncomfortable and hot again, as he had in the bank. It wasn’t just the apprehension, he decided. He wasn’t well. He needed a rest.

  ‘There are new drugs …’, the doctor started to enlarge.

  ‘… I heard from Herr Ornisher.’

  ‘Expensive, I’m afraid. But having had your wife here as a patient for so long, I knew there would be no question of cost.’

  ‘None,’ agreed Altmann. His voice stiffened. ‘There is no danger from these new drugs? They’ve been fully tested?’

  ‘Of course,’ assured Döhner hurriedly, knowing the background to the urgent question. ‘Everything has been exhaustively researched.’

  ‘I’d like to see my wife,’ he said, rising to end the discussion.

  ‘Of course, but …’, halted Döhner, looking at his watch in one of his rehearsed gestures. ‘I’m not sure whether the nurses will have prepared her.’

  ‘I’m sure they will,’ insisted Altmann. They’d known for a week he was coming, and Döhner ran the clinic with the precision of an army unit.

  ‘Of course,’ concurred Döhner. The paying customer was always right, reflected Altmann; just like rapping on the bar in a Finnish hotel.

  Hannah had one of the best rooms in the clinic. It was a suite almost, an enormous room half-partitioned between a bedroom and another area furnished like a lounge, where she could sit when she was feeling well enough to leave her bed. The sitting area always had the over-tidy appearance of a place used very infrequently, he thought sadly. A veranda ran the entire length of the room, and the windows extended from ceiling to floor and slid back, so that on really warm days the room could be completely open to the view. Altmann saw the lake had deepened to the colour of dirty copper as the sun moved down between the mountains.

  Hannah was alert for his entry. She would have been waiting since early that morning, he knew. She smiled and he stopped just inside the door, as he knew she liked him to.

  ‘I remember everything about the visits,’ she had once told him. ‘And when you’re not here, I run them through in my mind like a film, enjoying them all over again. I even remember the words you speak.’

  She looked very ill, he thought She was lifted into a sitting position by a bed-rest, but lay back against it as if, even supported, the effort was too much for her. Her hair had been carefully prepared, but it was impossible to disguise the fact that it was thinning; the pinkness of her scalp showed through, an obscene contrast to the waxy greyness of her face. The skin around her eyes was reddened by fatigue and pain, and her eyes were bloodshot.

  In an attempt to improve her appearance the nurses had applied lipstick, and Altmann frowned, angrily. What the hell did they think they were doing, making mockery of her? She looked stupidly painted and doll-like. She winced under his attention and he smiled quickly, annoyed at himself that she had become worried at the closeness of his scrutiny.

  The woman raised her hands towards her hair, worrying it into disarray and exposing more scalp.

  ‘I’m a mess,’ she apologized, her voice shrill and bird-like. ‘You shouldn’t have come.’

  He moved into the room, walking slowly so that there would be no jump in her mental kaleidoscope, shaking his head in rejection.

  ‘Hannah, don’t be silly.’ He snatched for a lie. ‘I stared at you because you looked so much better than a month ago. You’re … you’re quite radiant. Professor Döhner told me about this new treatment. You look wonderful.’

  She smiled gratefully, like a cripple expressing gratitude at the sound of a coin clattering into the tin cup. Even ill as she was, Hannah still knew his lies, he realized. He took the hand she had put to her hair, then leaned forward to kiss her. There was the faintest smell of antiseptic mingled with surgical spirit. They were obviously attempting to prevent bed-sores developing, he decided. He sat down on the edge of the chair, his arms resting against the mattress, her fingers still between his.

  Her skin felt old and thin, like paper in an antique book that had not been properly cared for, and the veins were corded blackly down her arms and into her hands, making them hard and ridged. The bones were sharp beneath the skin. They would be brittle, he knew. Probably better that she spent so much time in bed, because if she fell the limbs would break.

  The shell of Hannah Redditcher, he thought bitterly. Lovely, beautiful Hannah, the aloof, conceited daughter of the disdainful lawyer to whom he had been articled, the girl around whom the social life of Vienna had seemed to revolve in laughter and wastefulness in that year of 1933. There had been no clue then to the strong, courageous woman she was to become, cradling his head in the camp, trying to stifle his fears with promises that one day there would be a happy, safe life for them.

  ‘I’m feeling better,’ she said, almost proudly. Her fingers jerked to caress his, and he answered the pressure very lightly. She felt so trail he was afraid of hurting her.

  ‘Good,’ he said, forcing the enthusiasm into his voice, knowing she would be alert for the encouragement.

  ‘A lot of the drugs are pills now …’ She paused, to emphasize the point. ‘There are not so many injections …’

  Another pause. ‘I’m glad of that,’ she finished.

  He caught the feeling in her voice.

  ‘Yes,’ he accepted. ‘That’s good.’

  Sad, abused Hannah. Her mind was scarred far more than her body, he thought.

  ‘Professor Döhner says that if the progress continues, I could get up in a week’s time.’

  Doubt tinged her words, but again Altmann pushed excitement into his reaction, eagerly seizing her exaggeration.

  ‘I know,’ he responded, extending it. ‘He told me. He’s very hopeful. Won’t it be wonderful to get back to Vienna again?’

  Her eyes filmed with emotion, but she nodded, wanting to act out the charade they always played during the visits.

  ‘We could see the Lipizzaners,’ she took up, eagerly. ‘The horses were always so lovely. And go to the opera again. And perhaps see the fair in Prater Park.’

  ‘Everything has been restored,’ he reported. ‘Nearly everything in the city is as you knew it.’

  ‘It would be exciting.’ she agreed wistfully.

  ‘Will be,’ he insisted.

  ‘Will be,’ she corrected. Poor Hugo, she thought, so uncertain of her love and stretched by guilt. For whose benefit did they act out their play, she wondered. The performance over, they became silent, content in each other’s presence, needing no conversation. She stirred, her body stiffening in its set position.

  ‘What is it? Do you need something?’

  ‘No,’ she said, smiling. He’d make a fussy nurse, she thought, never letting the doctor rest.

  ‘How’s the business?’ she asked.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘New clients every day.’

  Hannah believed he still practised as a lawyer.

  ‘It must be,’ she said, looking around the room. ‘I feel … I feel so guilty sometimes, costing you so much …’

  He bent his head, kissing her hand.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he dismissed quickly. ‘So very little. The money is a silly thing to worry about.’

  For what was he paying, he wondered. Was it to obtain the best private medical treatment? Or was it a ransom to a conscience unable to forget her bravery against his cowardice thirty years before?

  He reached into his pocket, taking out photographs.

  ‘New pictures,’ he said, ‘of the apartment.’

  They were coloured, taken by himself with a Polaroid camera. Slowly, he took her on a guided tour of where he lived, in one of the high-ceilinged, pre-war apartments in the old part of Vienna, where it was possible to live with large antiques and in rooms hung with chandeliers. The bedroom was dominated by a canopied four-poster, ruffled with feminine frills which matched those of the dressing table.
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  ‘Our bedroom,’ he identified. ‘All ready for you, when you’re better.’

  He put the prints into a plastic envelope and laid them carefully on the bedside table.

  ‘Are you very busy?’ she asked unexpectedly.

  He looked up, concentrating upon her pinched face.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s just that … oh, nothing. It’s selfish.’

  ‘Why?’ he persisted.

  She took a long time to answer. Then she said hesitantly, ‘You’re my only life. Even though we’re not together, my only life. I mark a calendar, between your visits. Every time I cross off a day, I tell myself I’m gradually pulling in a rope, bringing you towards me …’

  ‘I …’, tried Altmann, but his wife shook her head, positively, not wanting to be interrupted.

  ‘I hide myself away in between,’ she continued. ‘I speak when I’m spoken to, eat when I’m told to, take pills when they’re given to me. But I’m locked away inside myself.’

  He knew she was exhausting herself and wanted her to stop.

  ‘What, Hannah? What do you want?’

  ‘I know my being here is expensive … terribly expensive,’ she said, still avoiding the point. ‘And I know you have to work hard to make it possible …’

  He smiled, anticipating the request.

  ‘Of course,’ he promised. ‘Of course I’ll come more often.’

  This was the first time she had even obliquely asked him to increase the visits. He gazed at. the worn-out woman lying before him. She had so much courage, even now, he thought, trying to warn him in such a way that he wouldn’t be frightened of something they both knew would happen soon.

  ‘I’ll come every week,’ he undertook.

  ‘Only if you can manage it. I won’t be a nuisance.’

  He bent over her hand again, so she would not be able to see his face.

  ‘I love you, Hannah.’ he said, his voice unclear. ‘I love you so much.’

  He felt her other hand lightly against his hair.

  ‘I love you, too, darling,’ she said, hoping he would believe her. ‘I wonder why God chose to make it so difficult for us. It could have been so good.’