Doctor Criminale

‘So I see,’ said Codicil, ‘What is the time, Gerstenbacker?’ Gerstenbacker looked at him blankly for a moment, and then said, ‘Oh dear, your lecture, Herr Professor. I think your students are already waiting you.’ ‘Quite, now that really is what our very young friend would call a fact. Please excuse me, sir, I have duties to perform.’ Codicil stood up, vast, and waved at the waiter. He had evidently had enough, if not too much, of me; I saw I was about to lose him. ‘One more question,’ I said, ‘Would you be willing to appear in our programme, just saying this?’ ‘Ever the sweet sweet blandishments of the media,’ said Codicil, opening his wallet wide to pay the waiter, ‘No, I am not. I am a busy man. I am a friend of ministers. I am extremely sorry, but I really have no time for your little ephemera.’ ‘Then may we stay in touch?’ I asked quickly, ‘Can we come to you for advice?’

‘If you have questions, pass them through Gerstenbacker,’ said Codicil, pulling on his topcoat, ‘I am giving you Gersten­backer.’ ‘I beg your pardon?’ I asked, not understanding. ‘My young assistant has offered to show you Vie

4

In his wing collar, Gerstenbacker sat there . . .

So my man had gone. All I had left was young Gerstenbacker, sitting there opposite me in his natty wing collar, looking at me eagerly. Evidently he was waiting for me to say something; I did. ‘Professor Codicil certainly speaks very good English,’ I remarked to him. ‘Of course, they say he speaks the best English in the world,’ said Gerstenbacker, with the simple admiration of the perfect Germanic research assistant, ‘Now what do you like to do with yourself? I think you do not know Vie

Seeing gay Vie

As he walked on, Gerstenbacker began a kind of continuous commentary: ‘Here once were the city walls where we defended Europe against the Turk. Then our Habsburg monarchs, who ruled so much of the world, decided to make an imperial city. First do you see the university. One day you must go inside and see the hall where are displayed all our great professors.’ ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘There the Burgtheater, there the Parliament building, here the Rathaus,’ said Gerstenbacker, ‘This is Vie

Now certain memories began coming back to me. Helden-platz, the great square outside the Hofburg; wasn’t this where Adolf Hitler had addressed a cheering Austrian crowd when he dropped his troops, dressed as nuns, into the country in 1938? Well, now it was where all the tourists, mostly Japanese and American, gathered. Their great modern tour buses, equipped with central heating, toilets, kitchens, television sets, a home on wheels, stood lined up in rows. Landau drivers sat waving their whips over their horses and calling for customers. Great tour groups eddied here and there, herded by umbrella-waving female Austrian guides, evidently a formidable breed in their dirndls. ‘Hello, hello, my name is Angelika, do you like it?’ said one in English, steering a party of tired elderly Americans. (A round of applause.) ‘Yes, I think you do. Notice please my pretty dirndl, very typical, do you like it too?’ (More applause from party.) ‘Yes, you do.’

I stopped to listen. ‘Well, we make very nice tour today, the Hofburg, Schonbru

There was a sharp tug at my sleeve. It was Gerstenbacker, and he did not look so modern and so gay. ‘Oh yes, 1889, when we learned to be so modern and so gay!’ he said, walking me off to the entrance to the Hofburg, ‘But I hope a little bit more critical and analytical than this. To be modern is not always so amusing, I think.’ He took me inside, and we went round the great complex of state rooms, the imperial fixtures, the regalia and the treasure chests. ‘The Emperor Franz Josef, he was not so modern,’ said Gerstenbacker, ‘Here in the Hofburg he refused most things: the telephone, the toilet, the electricity light. Until he died and his age too, this place was lit only by torches. I will show you the Capuchin crypt where the Habsburgs were buried. Of course first they took out their hearts and put them in another place.’