The crowd that had gathered around the amazing horseless carriage – a Benz Viktoria – now studied the chauffeur who, having inspected its engine, stood up and wiped his hands. ‘It’s the fuel,’ said the chauffeur, ‘dirt in the pipe.’
‘I’ll walk to the club,’ said the man. ‘Stay here with the car. I’ll send someone to help you.’ Without waiting for a reply, the man pushed his way past a couple of onlookers who were in his way and marched off along the boulevard, jabbing at the pavement with his cane and scowling with anger.
Vienna was cold on that final evening of the 1800s; the temperature sank steadily through the day, until by evening it went below freezing point. Harald Winter felt cold but he also felt a fool. He was mortified when one of his automobiles broke down. He enjoyed being the centre of attention when he was being driven past his friends and enemies in their carriages, or simply being pointed out as the owner of one of the first of the new, expensive mechanical vehicles. But when the thing gave trouble like this, he felt humiliated.
In Berlin it was different. In Berlin they knew about these things. In Berlin there was always someone available to attend to its fits and starts, its farts and coughs, its wheezes and relapses. He should never have brought the machine to Vienna. The Austrians knew nothing about such modern machinery. The only horseless carriage he’d seen here was electric-powered – and he hated electric vehicles. He should never have let his wife persuade him to come here for Christmas: he hated Vienna’s rainy winters, hated the political strife that so often ended in riots, hated the food, and hated these lazy, good-for-nothing Viennese with their shrill accent, to say nothing of the wretched, ragged foreigners who were everywhere jabbering away in their incomprehensible languages. None of them could be bothered to learn a word of proper German.
He was chilled by the time he turned through big gates and into an entranceway. Like so many of the buildings in this preposterous town, the club looked like a palace, a heavy Baroque building writhing with nymphs and naiads, its portals supported by a quartet of herculean pillars. The doorman signalled to the door porters so that he was admitted immediately to the brightly lit lobby. It was normally crowded at this time of evening, but tonight it was strangely quiet.
‘Good evening, Herr Baron.’
Winter grunted. That was another thing he hated about Vienna: everyone had to have a title, and if, like Winter, a man had no title, the servants would invent one for him. While one servant took his cane and his silk hat, another slipped his overcoat from his shoulders.
Without hat and overcoat, it was revealed that Harald Winter had not yet changed for dinner. He wore a dark frock coat with light-grey trousers, a high stiff collar and a slim bow-tie. His pale face was wide with a pointed chin, so that he looked rather satanic, an effect emphasized by his shiny black hair and centre parting.
‘Winter! What a coincidence! I’m just off to see your wife now.’ The speaker was Professor Doktor Franz Schneider, fifty years old, the best, or at least the richest and most successful, gynaecologist in Vienna. He was a small, white-faced man, plump in the way that babies are plump, his skin flawless and his eyes bright blue. Nervously he touched his white goatee beard before straightening his pince-nez. ‘You heard, of course…. Your wife: the first signs started an hour ago. I’m going to the hospital now. You’ll come with me? My carriage is here, waiting.’ He spoke hurriedly, his voice pitched higher than normal. He was always a little nervous with Harald Winter; there was no sign now of the much-feared professor who met his students’ questions with dry and savage wit.
Winter’s eyes went briefly to the door from which Professor Schneider had come. The bar. Professor Schneider flushed. Damn this arrogant swine Winter, he thought. He could make a man feel guilty without even saying a word. What business of Winter’s was it that he’d had a mere half-bottle of champagne with his cold pheasant supper? It was Winter’s wife whose pangs of labour had come on New Year’s Eve, and so spoiled his chance of getting to the ball at anything like a decent time.
‘I have a meeting,’ said Winter.
‘A meeting?’ said Professor Schneider. Was it some sort of joke? On New Year’s Eve, what man would be attending a meeting in a club emptied of almost everyone but servants? And how could a man concentrate his mind on business when his wife was about to give birth? He met Winter’s eyes: there was no warmth there, no curiosity, no passion. Winter was said to be one of the shrewdest businessmen in Germany, but what use were his wealth and reputation when his soul was dead? ‘Then I shall go along. I will send a message. Will you be here?’
Winter nodded almost imperceptibly. Only when Professor Schneider had departed did Winter go up the wide staircase to the mezzanine floor. Another member was there. Winter brightened. At last, a face he knew and liked.
‘Foxy! I heard you were in this dreadful town.’
Erwin Fischer’s red hair had long since gone grey – a great helmet of burnished steel – but his nickname remained. He was a short, slight, jovial man with dark eyes and sanguine complexion. His great-grandparents had been Jews from the Baltic city of Riga. His grandfather had changed the family name, and his father had converted to Roman Catholicism long before Erwin was born. Fischer was heir to a steel fortune, but at seventy-five his father was fit and well and – now forty-eight years old – Fuchs Fischer had expectations that remained no more than expectations. Erwin was a widower. He wasn’t kept short of money, but he was easily bored, and money did not always assuage his boredom. His life had lately become a long, tedious round of social duties, big parties, and introductions to ‘suitable marriage partners’ who never proved quite suitable enough.
‘You give Bubi Schneider a bad time, Harald. Is it wise? He has a lot of friends in this town.’
‘He’s a snivelling little parasite. I can’t think why my wife consulted such a man.’
‘He delivers the children of the most powerful men in the city. The wives confide in him, the children are taught to think of him as one of the family. Such a man wields influence.’
Winter smiled. ‘Am I to beware of him?’ he said icily.
‘No, of course not. But he could cause you inconvenience. Is it worth it, when a smile and a handshake are all he really wants from you?’
‘The wretch insisted that Veronica could not travel back to Berlin. My son will be born here. I don’t want an Austrian son. You are a German, Foxy; you understand.’
‘So it’s to be a son. You’ve already decided that, have you?’
Winter smiled. ‘Shall we crack a bottle of Burgundy?’
‘You used to like Vienna, Harald. When you first bought the house here you were telling us all how much better it was than Berlin.’
‘That was a long time ago. I was a different man then.’
‘You’d discovered your wonderful wife in Berlin and Veronica here in Vienna. That’s what you mean, isn’t it.’
‘Don’t go too far, Foxy.’
The older man ignored the caution. He was close enough to Winter to risk such comments, and go even further. ‘Surely you’ve taken into account the possibility that it was Veronica’s idea to have the baby here.’
‘Veronica?’
‘Consider the facts, Harald. Veronica met you here when she was a student at the university. This is where she first learned about love and life and all the things she’d dreamed