was reading. I took it as a positive development-call and response, sign and countersign, as if we were already in secret communication.
In those days I was often awkward around girls, and I’d already guessed she was slightly older than I. Yet, for some reason-her welcoming smile? the lingering high from the toke I’d just shared with my friend Brenner in the Stadtpark? — she seemed within reach of my romantic capabilities. This rare burst of confidence made all the difference in my eventual approach. For once I was not like the fumbling Richard Folly or the morose George Smiley. I was instead, however briefly, more like one of those dashing fellows who were forever cuckolding my heroes.
She took a seat along the same wall, at the second table down, a mere six feet to my left. The electric effect of her presence seemed to make the wool stand up on my sweater. The waiter took her order, then she opened her paper with another glance my way. Sensing that the opening might be my last, I spoke up with uncharacteristic nerve.
“Meeting someone?”
“No. You?”
I improvised. “Harry Lime.”
“From that silly movie, you mean?”
“ Silly? The Third Man is only one of the greatest films ever made. Written by an even greater novelist.”
“Graham Greene’s too Catholic for me. The book’s not even a proper novel, you know. He wrote it originally as a screenplay. Did you know that?”
Of course I did, thanks to my father, who had nonetheless indulged me with a paperback of the book Greene eventually published. It wasn’t really an espionage tale, but it was rife with spylike duplicity, and prescient in its late-forties depiction of Cold War tensions. So yes, I certainly did know it. But mostly I was thrilled that she knew. It wasn’t the sort of arcana girls usually came up with. She was preaching to the converted, and we both knew it. In my excitement I blurted a non sequitur.
“He lived around the corner, you know.”
“Graham Greene?”
“Harry Lime, the Orson Welles character. In the movie they say his address is Stiftgasse 15, but they shot all his apartment scenes at Josefstadt 5. It’s the building with those Venus sculptures out front. Or whatever they are.”
“Maybe you can show me, after I’ve finished my coffee.”
“I’d be glad to.”
“As long as no one from my school sees me first.”
“Same here.” We laughed, the kinship of fugitives.
As we went out the door a few minutes later she actually took my arm, a gesture that felt exciting and old- fashioned at the same time, and at that moment I knew I was on to something more profound and special than any previous flirtation. We were together until the day I moved to Berlin, roughly a year later. The relationship changed us both, mostly for the better.
All this reminiscing broke my concentration, and when I checked my watch it was only a few minutes before 10:30. Wondering if my contact had also arrived early, I scanned the room for likely suspects.
To my left, in the corner booth up front, were a middle-aged man and woman, both wearing scarves. A small “Reserviert” placard indicated they were regulars, entitled to a Stammtisch, or customary table. They were discussing the German satirist Kurt Tucholsky. To their right sat a quiet elderly woman wearing a double strand of pearls. Along the opposite wall, facing me from across the room, was a young couple too absorbed in each other to notice anyone but themselves. Out in the middle was a table of three women, late forties, very proper in manner. To my right, a young male professional type in suit and tie who had come in on crutches.
Figuring I had better clear the decks by settling the bill, I nodded to the waiter, who arrived promptly and stated the total. He uttered a polite “Danke” as I named an amount that would allow for a hefty tip. While he was making change, the door opened, and I couldn’t see around him until the new arrival had passed and was on the way to the back. I was mildly surprised to see it was a woman, but she disappeared down the corridor toward the rest rooms before I could see her face. It had to be my contact. It was time to enter the phone booth.
I did as the script demanded, turning my back to the window as I deposited coins and punched in a number. I mumbled a few words of nonsense into the mouthpiece, and when I’d judged that a minute had passed, I turned to see if my contact was waiting, so that the exchange could take place.
The newly arrived woman stood just outside the door, staring back at me through the glass. We both gasped. Even after more than thirty years, I recognized Litzi Strauss right away, and she clearly recognized me as well. We stood motionless with our mouths open for a few seconds, then I opened the door. Next I was supposed to take whatever she handed me and keep on walking.
No way.
Instead, I fell back on a much older script, one that I had rehearsed only once.
“Meeting someone?”
“No. You?”
“Harry Lime.”
She laughed and fell into my arms. Then, remembering what had reunited us, we disengaged somewhat awkwardly, and she withdrew a sealed manila envelope from beneath her coat.
“I believe I’m supposed to give this to you.”
“It’s called a brush pass.”
She rolled her eyes, just as she had years ago when I mentioned The Third Man.
“I think now I’m supposed to be on my way, never to see you again.”
“Terrible idea. Let’s go for a walk.”
She smiled and nodded, and as we reached the door she put her arm through mine. I actually blushed. Not in embarrassment, but in a flood of memory. It was so powerful that I had to take a deep breath once we were out in the sunlight.
“Did you know it would be me?” she asked. She was flushed, too.
“No. How ’bout you?”
“Are you kidding?”
We were speaking German, right back to our old ways.
“Then whoever is pulling the strings knows me even better than I thought.”
“You’re not the one who arranged this?” There was a note of concern in her voice.
“No. So you don’t know who’s behind this, either?”
“I thought I did. An old friend from university asked me for a favor. I was supposed to be passing material to a corporate headhunter for a friend in Salzburg, things he was too nervous to send by email. What about you?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. “Got time to hear it?”
She smiled.
“Of course. But aren’t you going to open that?” She nodded at the envelope.
“And ruin our reunion? It can wait. How many years has it been?”
“Do we really want to count?”
“Where to, then? Harry Lime’s?”
“Certainly, but I’m afraid you won’t like it very much.” There was a gleam of mischief in her eyes as she towed me toward Josefstadt with her hand warm on my arm. What a strange sensation it was, to leap so suddenly across a chasm of decades only to alight on the same sidewalk you’d left from.
As we rounded the corner I saw what she meant. The marble facade of Harry’s grand old building was now covered by scaffolding and a huge sheet of plastic, with a full-color ad for a Burger King Whopper. Marty Ealing would have loved it.
“The death of art,” I said.
“Seeing as how there are ten museums within a block of here, I doubt one hamburger will topple the empire. But it is annoying to see it every time I look out my office window.”
“Where do you work?”
She pointed back across the square, toward the grandiose expanse of the Austrian National Library.
“You’re a librarian?”
“An archivist. Old letters and manuscripts, mostly.”
