Conspirators by Michael André Bernstein

Author:Michael André Bernstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2011-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

“It is truly strange what even the brightest people seem unable to learn if they have not been brought up to do so.” Count Wiladowski leaned back in the immense leather chair that dominated the center of his private library and permitted Aloïs to pour him a homemade pear brandy from near the Attersee, where his family kept a small country house to which he occasionally vowed—in vain, as it turned out—to return for a visit one of these summers. Aloïs’s people came from there, at least that is what the Count-Governor remembered his saying once, but if so, the fellow had been in his service for so many years now that he too would probably have only the vaguest recollection of the place. Over the years this had become Wiladowski’s favorite hour: The last bells for the evening mass had finished ringing, the watchlights had been lit everywhere, and in their half shadow, a lilac grayish twilight enfolded the Castle gardens and nearby bridge. As he looked outward across the river, even the dreary town took on a silvery sheen that was deceptively inviting. Within the Castle there were no more official meetings to attend, and the Count-Governor finally had some time to himself before having to dress and join Marie-Luise for dinner. Tausk, in whose company he frequently enjoyed musing at the end of the day, was nowhere to be found, but in a way it was just as pleasant to have no one present except for Aloïs, who could be counted on not to interrupt his master’s reflections with any words of his own or repeat elsewhere anything he overheard here. Wiladowski supposed the man must have a last name, but fortunately, no one, least of all Aloïs, expected him to remember it. Even Marie-Luise approved of his taciturn loyalty, and if two decades as his personal servant had not cemented the man’s total fidelity to the Count-Governor, she would no doubt have wanted to “borrow” him for her own staff. “Take Tausk, for example,” the Count-Governor went on, lighting a Montecristo. “I know most of you don’t care for him, but he has qualities that are extraordinarily useful to a man like me in these times. There are only two brilliant police minds in the whole Empire: Rudi von Kirchmayr in Vienna and my own Jakob Tausk. I am sure the Emperor has no idea how lucky he is to have someone as gifted as von Kirchmayr so close at hand. But if it is true, as everyone keeps whispering, that von Kirchmayr’s desire to join his mistress in Italy is beginning to overcome his sense of duty, who knows how long the Emperor will be able to persuade him to continue? Tausk is the only person I am certain could replace him and do as good a job, but it is out of the question to propose him as a candidate. Not because he is a Jew—a few drops of holy water would cure that disability quickly enough—but because baptized or not, he will always be socially impossible.

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