An Interpreter in Vienna | Chapter 16

Part III: Acrophobia

An Interpreter in Vienna is a response to Graham Greene's The Third Man and a psychological thriller serialized on The Matterhorn each Saturday. This prose is a continuation of a letter written by Marie to her (official) employers in anticipation of Josef’s arrival at her door.

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Chapter 16

After I got back to Vienna, I decided to visit Frau Grüber again. I wanted to somehow tactfully ask her about the painting. I mean, her flat — the one I was in — had a connection to the cabaret. I deduced that it was something worth crossing off the list. There was also her lover. The son of the conductor. Had he also been a spy? 

I didn’t feel so afraid anymore. Six months in Vienna had chilled my insides. Somehow, I felt less human perhaps, more a machine of the system that must either do good or evil; otherwise, be made into a pawn. I could only trust myself completely, so this was one way to seek the truth.

Photo by arbi daci on Unsplash

I was still finding new places as I walked through the city. I had visited several of the city’s markets, but never the famous Naschmarkt, so I went through the third district and then down the center of stalls and little restaurants toward my destination in the first. Murmurs in German broke into sharp, declarative questions in English directed my way. I had made the mistake of coming when it was relatively empty, unable to blend in. 

‘Would you like to try an olive?’

‘What, you don’t like olives?’

‘Have some falafel then…’

‘Hummus?’

‘Candies…these are excellent…’

‘Surely you need a gift for someone!’

Only the glass cases holding their wares protected me from their arms that reached over at me like many giant octopuses in a row. Ahead, I could see several who had stepped out from behind this wall of separation. I kept my head down and my shoulders hunched. They were closing in on me as if I had tunnel vision.

‘Hey, I have a question for you!’

‘What’s wrong with her? Come back!’

Pushing my shoulders up to my ears, I was able to hide my face behind my scarf. These people need to leave me alone! My heart went cold. All I craved was empty streets and peace. 

At that point, I realized I was becoming a part of it. Like the effect of an invisible Medusa spread through the cracks of the city, we were all slowly turning to stone.

I made it safely to the other end close to Karlsplatz and looked up at the beautiful art nouveau designs of the Secession building. I didn’t know what it was, so in an attempt to break free from my recent trauma (which feels kind of stupid to write down, because I do realize they were simply trying to sell me some olives, but the feeling was real), anyway, I looked up the building online and found out that Otto Wagner had designed the building and that a bunch of progressive artists, including Klimt, who wanted to bring their new ideas to the public.

I turned to look back at the surrounding buildings, with several designed by Wagner. The facade of his apartment building was surreal. It didn’t strike me as Viennese. Gold, pink, and bright green designs adorned it with joy and with care. 

Was it possible for the city to return to this optimistic state? I felt it was a sign. Maybe the signs were all around — the preservation of sites like this, the gay street lights, the floral steps in Museum Quarter. These were places of hope and kindness. Could a discovery of the painting Fred and Roger had told me about add to this progression of the city? I had thought that something huge would be needed to change an aura such as this one when in fact it would be millions of tiny acts to change a place. 

Although my soul was no longer defeated, I felt that I had to double down even harder on my mission and leave any feelings of joy for later. I had to devote myself to this work and carefully take away any emotion to see it all quite clearly.

With this in mind, I continued on my walk over Karlsplatz and through the porticos of the opera building to the center where Frau Grüber lived. I transformed myself into a hawk of complexity, seeking meaning in trivial things. Constantly alert, I began to willingly poison myself with adrenaline that became a perpetual drip, at once keeping me very, very alive and also moving me toward the stony existence that was coming.

I soon made it to the now familiar entryway on Essigaße, directly in the center but on a narrow side street few tourists made it down.

Frau Grüber was, of course, very happy to receive a visitor. I called her to let her know I would be in the area, and could I come by just to say hello. 

At first, we exchanged pleasantries and I told her about my ski trip. She mentioned her lover Wolfgang’s passion for downhill skiing; at one point as a child, he had dreamed of being an Olympian. Franz Klammer was his best friend’s much younger sibling who became the Austrian legend. I saw this as my opening: ’Can you tell me more about Wolfgang?’

She paused a few moments then spoke with poise. ‘Well, they say it was a heart attack. He was eighty-nine so nobody will look into it. But it doesn’t make sense…’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean about how he died…the nice things?’

‘Oh yes, I know. But it’s important. I want to talk about it. I mean, his hands weren’t clean. Maybe he was a spy? I don’t know, but all I know is he was always on the good side of things.’

‘You think he was killed?’

‘I don’t trust people here. It could have been the government or his inheritance-crazed son. My Wolfgang is dead. I guess that’s what matters. He was old, but I miss him so much. I know he had another mission he was working on as well. He wouldn’t tell me because he never wanted me to be in danger.’ She started sobbing a little, so I tried to move things back to positive memories.

‘Did he spend time in your apartment? The one I’m staying in?’ 

‘Oh yes! When I first moved back to Vienna and met him, I was living there. It was only temporary. You see my parents had just died and left me that flat as well as a lot of money. I stayed there until I could rent it out and buy this flat in the first. Wolfgang loved your flat! He was always talking about the keller, how it had ghosts. I imagined maybe somebody died there or they were buried in the walls. You know, we are known for our kellers here in Austria…ha ha.’

‘What do you mean?

‘Haven’t you read about people keeping children in the basement? Well, it’s only in the rural areas. We Viennese are much more civilized. Bernhard writes about it — here, borrow this book.’

She handed me a well-used copy of Verstörung, which I had read in English translation as Gargoyles.

‘I jest. I’m Austrian so I can say this. You would find people in the country more open and friendly if you knew them. But there have been a few cases, maybe it has to do with our history, all that strangeness after the war¹. I’m happy I avoided most of that.’

She looked at the dark wall for several seconds in silence, then remembered I was there and turned with a new sparkle in her eye to look at me with what felt like faith.

‘Wolfgang also knew there was some mystery to that flat. I only hope he didn’t say something to his selfish son!’

‘A mystery?’

‘You see when that young man visited, he told me there was also a painting, a Klimt. It had belonged to the great uncle. Klimt paintings were a mark of success back then. Perhaps you have heard of this about the Jewish community back then? The Nazis seized many of these paintings, like the true story in that film - Woman in Gold. Anyway, this was something different but similar. He had reinvented the performances of the cabaret and brought in many clients as well as raising the level of the Viennese Cabaret to high art. So, the owner, who was quite a wealthy Jewish woman, gave him a Klimt. He knew the man wanted to travel, so he chose one that was particularly influenced by Japonisme.’

I couldn’t believe it. It was too easy to solve this mystery. I had the feeling I had been placed in the middle of it as in a game, like those murder mystery dinner parties. The interpreter of cultural crime.

‘What does it look like?’ I wanted to grab as many clues as I could while I had the chance. Frau Grüber was quite old and sometimes in the hospital. One never knew when her secrets would die with her.

‘Well, it uses this Japonisme method as I mentioned, a lot like some of the Monets. These sort of outlined floral patterns. Monet used it on fabric, like the famous red kimono. You can see it slightly in his landscapes as well, but Klimt used it more clearly in landscape as well as fabric.’

‘You mean like the gold in The Kiss?’

‘Yes, that’s right. But then, when you went to The Belvedere do you remember the room next door as well?’

‘Of course, that was my favorite. It had that style you are talking about in the design of the flowers and trees, even somehow of the country homes.’

‘Oh, I knew you could see these things deeply, Marie! This painting is in that style. It’s not only the print-like elements. It’s also the strong diagonals that give the work a complexity and a kind of flattened perspective as if creating new shapes. 

‘Anyway, they told me that they wondered if I had come across it after inheriting the apartment, that maybe it was in the keller or even the walls. I asked why it would be in this apartment if the Maurer family had owned it? And they told me there was somebody who had kept the riches of a few families all together,’ she was looking off into the distance out of the window with a sadness in her eyes, ‘I wanted to help them. I felt this deep in my soul. Anyway, I told them if I ever found it that, of course, I would send it all. But they were more concerned with the painting itself than the money. They kept saying that of course we all know how cruel the Nazis were to Jewish people, and others as well, and hell probably even each other, but more than simply money and power, they wanted to destroy culture. Yes, they did this by killing a huge group of people of one culture as well as other subcultures, but they also did it with art — paintings and music, books, controlling the way we feel.’

‘Was Klimt Jewish?’ 

‘No, he was an atheist. But I guess the fact that his work was honored by the Jewish community (who were sometimes his subjects) made the Nazis really hate him. I mean he was already dead, but they hated the idea of him or wanted to have him for themselves.’

‘I guess they did a lot of stupid things.’

‘Yes, precisely,’ Frau Grüber went on as if in a trance: ‘They hid it. They didn’t even want the money; they just wanted it to survive. They didn’t want history to be erased. And now this family who knows about it - only by word of mouth from their grandparents who lived here - they, too, just had hope the painting had survived. It might be worth millions, but I had a feeling they wouldn’t sell it or would maybe give it to a museum.’

As I listened to her, I wondered if one day all the art in the world would simply be destroyed in the name of progress or under an asteroid. Why do we bother to preserve and protect it? To pay millions for it? But I knew the answer. Our human spirit, that thing that makes us something more than just beings that survive, is embodied in that art. 

Somehow I thought that if I became involved in these undercover escapades between countries and languages, I could save or expose or curate this artistry. I knew I was never born to create myself. I responded to the in-between; I did the work invisibly, hoping my name would one day be attached to a gigantic discovery. And now I feel I was just a tool, with little to offer society, because I even failed at saving this piece of art for you to put in the right hands. 

I have failed over and over again. I thought, as an interpreter, I could do something important politically, make discoveries and sway opinion…carefully navigate the world’s infringements on humanity. But no, I was merely redundant; most people who used my services did not even need them; they were a formality to hide behind. As if I were the red cape to entice a bull or a feminine scarf to let flow in the wind or wrap tightly around one’s neck.

In seeking more than that, I failed as well. And so, I failed in the meantime as a daughter. As well as a friend. The most frustrating part of it was that I had nobody to even tell this to. 

I had been lost in thought, looking out the window at the rooftops, when Frau Grüber cut back into my thoughts.

‘You know, there’s something else. I’m an old woman, and I don’t want these things to die with me. Let me write this down; you never know who is listening.’ She motioned around the room. Everyone was paranoid, maybe for good reason. 

She picked up a golden pen and tiny pad of paper, perhaps for writing grocery lists, and wrote in a strangely affected cursive that I could just barely make out:

One day Wolfgang cleaned out the keller and found something. He took a trip to Salzburg and stayed at a tiny inn called the Goldener Strauss. It was owned by the brother of the skier - Klammer. Christophe. I’m sure he took something there. Maybe the painting, maybe gold…maybe just a birthday present! But it’s worth a try.

‘Thank you, Frau Grüber.’ I knew not to say anything. 

To my amazement, the wrinkled old lady winked at me: ‘Do the right thing, Marie. I am too old to be of much good.’

‘Nonsense. Thank you for the wonderful coffee. I will see you soon.’

Of course, I wouldn’t see her soon, because soon the virus would come to us and we would all be kept in our little crypts. Most of the rich would vide the center for their country homes and Frau Grüber would be left with nobody to hear her if she were to scream. Or if they did, they wouldn’t come for her. One could pretend not to know where the echoes of sounds in the apartment mazes came from.

I took a tram home because it was starting to snow and slush was gathering on the streets. 

Looking out the window, I reflected on the information I had been given. Perhaps Wolfgang was good but had been afraid that the painting would be moved to New York and away from its heritage. Or maybe he and his friend were attempting to unearth the gold for the families to whom it belonged. Maybe he was evil and was trying to sell it on the black market himself. 

Or perhaps it was all nonsense and Wolfgang had found nothing at all. I figured, however, that I had nothing to lose. My life had no particular destination, so I might as well take a tangent to its course. 

I booked a train for Salzburg the next day.

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To be continued…

Find all the published chapters in the Table of Contents.

1. See, for example, this article about a villa that performed experiments on children. Specifically in regards to keeping children in basements, there are also the cases of Josef Fritzl and Tom Landon. Natascha Kampusch, who survived eight years’ imprisonment in a basement, has become an author who writes about her experience. Bernhard writes about these secrets of the countryside, but I think he is trying to uncover the way shame affect and guilt affect a nation. I don’t know through research if there are more cases like this in Austria than elsewhere; it’s unclear. However, the way this author includes it in art about his own people seems to question those who have been forgotten (both victim and perpetrator) by society in an attempt to sweep evil under the rug. Another author who explores the horrific experience is Emma Donoghue in Room (2010), although the novel has nothing to do with Austria and the author is Irish-Canadian.