The Quality of Mercy Read Free

that. She could do very little to ameliorate the situation in which so many Jews now found themselves but what little she could do she would. Georg Dreiser was still in his twenties. He had done well at the Piaristen-Gymnasium and was now studying law at the University of Vienna and at the Konsularakademie, a diplomatic college with an international reputation.
    Verity gathered that he had a foot in both political camps. He was a member of a Jewish student fraternity, politically active for the Zionist cause. He told her that he had found he had a talent for public speaking and soon had a reputation as something of a rabble-rouser. Each member of the fraternity took a so-called ‘drinking name’. Georg’s was D’Abere, a French version of the Hebrew word for ‘talker’. On the other hand, he had many friends among the Catholic nationalists. He would walk in the Vienna Woods with a group of non-Jewish friends and discuss Wagner, Karl Kraus and Nietzsche. He was highly intelligent and spoke English, French and some Italian in addition to his native Yiddish and German.
    He was not conventionally good-looking. His limbs seemed all over the place and, though he was tall, he was not strong. His face was as soft and puffy as one of the Viennese cream pastries he loved so much. His nose was squashed, like a boxer’s, and his eyes set too close together but they were very bright and somehow knowing. He had what Verity could only describe as ‘grown-up eyes’. He had seen much unpleasantness in his short life and understood that there was worse to come. He was quick to tell her about himself and his family. His father was a director of an insurance company and it was a paradox that, as anti-Semitism became more pronounced, he was protected by colleagues who were supporters of Hitler and Anschluss. However, the previous year his father’s luck had run out and he was now in prison waiting to be tried on trumped-up fraud charges.
    ‘It has some advantages,’ Georg said drily as they attempted an Argentinian tango. ‘As a prisoner of the civil court, he is protected from being sent to a concentration camp.’
    ‘And you?’ Verity had inquired. ‘Are you safe?’
    ‘Only until Hitler walks into Austria, which could be any day now.’
    ‘But why didn’t you leave before?’
    ‘Why should I? I am an Austrian. Who has the right to tell me to give up my home, my family, my education and go into exile?’ he demanded. ‘Would you leave England if someone suddenly decides they do not like the look of your face?’
    ‘No, of course not, but . . .’
    ‘But now, yes, I must leave, but to leave I need a visa. I wondered . . . is there anyone you know in England who could write and say there is work and a little money to support me for the first few months? We are not allowed to take money out of the country and the British Embassy requires that refugees prove they will not be a burden on the state.’
    It made Verity boil with anger as she imagined some starched-shirt bureaucrat deciding on a whim whether or not to allow Georg to avoid death in a concentration camp.
    ‘Of course!’ she said abruptly. ‘I’ll do what I can. Meet me this time next week and I will try and have something for you.’
    ‘You are most kind,’ Georg said, bowing over her hand. ‘You may say I shall not come quite empty-handed.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I can’t say any more. I am being watched but I have information which might be useful to your government.’
    Verity looked at him with disbelief. ‘Why should they watch you? Because you are a Jew?’
    ‘I told you, I have a somewhat – wie sagt man ? – unsavoury reputation as a political activist and I have friends who interest the authorities . . .’
    Verity hesitated. She wondered if Georg was a fantasist. What could this young man know which would make him dangerous to the Nazis? He saw her look and changed the subject. ‘Miss Browne, let me show you Vienna as it used to be,’