The Post Office Girl Read Free

right. As long as I’m over here I really ought to meet my sister’s child, we’re hardly family anymore. Do you have any objections to my inviting her?”
    The newspaper rustled a little. A smoke ring rose over the top edge of the paper, round, a pretty blue; then, in a ponderous and indifferent tone: “Not at all. Why should I?”
    With this laconic decision the conversation ended and a fate began to take shape. After an interval of decades a family tie was being renewed, for, despite the almost aristocratic-sounding name with its impressive but actually quite ordinary Dutch “van,” and even though the couple’s conversation was in English, this Claire van Boolen was none other than the sister of Marie Hoflehner and hence incontestably the aunt of the Klein-Reifling postal official. Her departure from Austria more than a quarter of a century earlier had come in the train of a somewhat shady business which she recalled only vaguely (memory is always happy to oblige) and of which her sister too had never given her daughters a clear account. At the time, however, the affair had caused quite a sensation and would have had still greater consequences had not prudent and clever men soon deprived public curiosity of the spark that would have inflamed it. At that time Mrs. Claire van Boolen had been plain Fräulein Klara, a simple dress model in an exclusive boutique on the Kohlmarkt. But, flashing-eyed and graceful as she was then, she’d had a devastating effect on an elderly lumber baron who had gone along with his wife to a fitting. Full of last-ditch impetuosity, the rich and still fairly well-preserved businessman fell for the lively, shapely blond within a matter of days and began courting her with a generosity that was rare even in his circles. Before long the nineteen-year-old model, much to the indignation of her respectable family, was riding in a hackney coach wearing the finest clothes and furs, items which until then she’d only modeled in front of mirrors for finicky and usually hard-to-please customers, but which were now her very own. The more elegant she became, the more she pleased her elderly benefactor, and the more she pleased the old businessman, who’d been thrown into a complete tizzy by his unexpectedsuccess in love, the more lavishly he decked her out. After a few weeks she’d softened him up so thoroughly that divorce papers were already being secretly drafted and she was well on her way to becoming one of the wealthiest women in Vienna—but then the wife, alerted by an anonymous letter, intervened aggressively and foolishly. Understandably infuriated at being abruptly put out to pasture like a hobbled horse after thirty tranquil years of marriage, she bought a revolver and set upon the mismatched couple in their love nest, a recently established cheap hotel. She fired two shots at the home wrecker on the spot. One went wide; the other hit Klara in the upper arm. The wound would prove trivial, but everything else was awkward indeed: neighbors scurrying past, loud cries for help through smashed windows, doors flying open, swoons and scenes, doctors, police , investigations, and, looming at the end of it all, apparently unavoidable, the court hearing, feared by all parties because of the scandal. Fortunately, there are clever lawyers—not just in Vienna but everywhere—who are practiced in hushing up such troubling episodes for the well-to-do. Counselor Karplus, the proven master of them all, immediately dispelled the imminent dangers of the affair. He respectfully summoned Klara to his office. Looking extremely elegant, with a fetching bandage, she read with curiosity through the contract, which stipulated that she depart for America immediately, before anyone could serve her with a summons; once there she would receive a one-time payment for damages and a certain sum of money on the first of every month for five years, provided she kept her mouth shut. Klara, who in any case had little wish