Second Violin Read Free

. .’
    ‘. . . Will let you in.’
    ‘The English have closed their gates on Europe.’
    ‘No we haven’t. It’s not at all like that.’
    ‘What are you saying, Lockett? That the indifference of the English is an aberration, a temporary aberration?’
    ‘Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.’
    ‘Fine. Get me out. Get us all out.’
    A dismissive wave of a hand in the air.
    Now Lockett had cause to hesitate. It was not simply that the old man’s assertion was unconvincing – he was far from impressed yet – there were the flaws in his own insistence
too.
    ‘It’s not entirely straightforward. It’s possible. It’s most certainly possible. I’d even say it was likely. It’s really a matter of who you know.’
    ‘Was it not ever thus? When was it not thus?’
    ‘I mean – who you know in England. Who you know who might be . . . well, who . . . who . . . who might be in Who’s Who ?’
    ‘My dear Lockett, you sound like an owl.’
    ‘A few names I could approach on your behalf, perhaps?’
    ‘Do you know Alexei Troy?’
    ‘You mean Sir Alex Troy – the newspaper chap?’
    ‘The same.’
    ‘Where on earth did you –’
    ‘A patient. You will understand, Lockett, that this is strictly between ourselves. You have read my ‘The Case of the Immaculate Thief’?’
    ‘Naturally.’
    ‘That was Alex Troy.’
    Lockett was silent – all he could think was ‘Good Bloody Grief!’
    ‘The Alex Troy of 1907–8. He had not been long in Vienna. He had landed up here after his flight from Russia. Or, to be exact, from the 1907 Anarchist Conference in The Hague. He
turned up on my doorstep the day after it finished. I treated him all that winter. Indeed, he lay on this very couch. Shortly afterwards he moved to Paris, and I believe from Paris to London,
where, as they say at the end of tuppenny novellettes, he prospered.’
    Prospered, Lockett thought, was hardly precise. Troy was, and there was no other phrase for it, filthy rich. But then he had begun as a thief, as Freud would have it, an immaculate and far from
filthy thief. One to whom not a speck of dirt could stick, either to the clothing or the conscience, it would seem.
    ‘We did not keep in touch. Merely the odd letter from time to time – more often than not when an English translation of something or other of mine came out. His German was never
good, after all. But I think I can safely say he is unlikely to have forgotten me.’
    ‘Quite,’ said Lockett.
    ‘Will he do?’
    ‘Well, he knows everyone. That’s undeniable. I doubt there’s a politician in England that would not take a telephone call from Alex Troy.’

 
§ 6
    19 March
Leopoldstadt, Vienna
    Krugstrasse was a street of tailors. Beckermann’s shop stood next to Bemmelmann’s, Bemmelmann’s stood next to Hirschel’s, Hirschel’s next to
Hummel’s. The shop beyond Hummel’s had stood empty for nearly a year now. Ever since old Schuster had packed his bag and caught a train to Paris. He’d tried to sell the shop, but
the offers were derisory. From Paris he wrote to Hummel: ‘Take the stock, Joe, take all you want. Take the shop, it’s yours. I’d rather see it burn than sell it to some Jew-hating
usurer for a pittance.’
    Not that he knew it but Schuster would almost have his way. It would be Hummel who watched the shop burn.
    The following week Schuster wrote, ‘Forget the shop, Joe. Leave Leopoldstadt. Leave Vienna. Leave Austria. How long can it be safe for any Jew?’
    The day before the German annexation the local Austrian SA had rampaged carelessly down the street of tailors, smashed Hirschel’s windows and beaten up Beckermann’s grandson, who was
unfortunate enough or stupid enough to be out in the street at the time. Most people had more sense. Had the SA been less than careless they could have taken out every window in the street and
looted what they wished. No one would have stopped them, but the rampage had its own momentum and, once it