the Russian sector, which effectively puts them beyond the reach of the law. They took one woman out of her own house rolled up in a carpet, just like Cleopatra.'
'Well, I'll be careful not to fall asleep on the floor,' I said. 'Now, how do I get to the Central Cemetery?'
'It's in the British sector. You need to take a 71 from Schwarzenbergplatz, only your map calls it Stalinplatz. You can't miss it: there's an enormous statue to the Soviet soldier as liberator that we Viennese call the Unknown Plunderer.'
I smiled. 'Like I always say, Herr Doktor, we can survive defeat, but heaven help us from another liberation.'
Chapter 13
'The city of the other Viennese' was how Traudl Braunsteiner had described it.
This was no exaggeration. The Central Cemetery was bigger than several towns of my acquaintance and quite a bit more affluent too. There was no more chance of the average Austrian doing without a headstone than there was of him staying out of his favourite coffee house. It seemed there was nobody who was too poor for a decent piece of marble, and for the first time I began to appreciate the attractions of the undertaking business. A piano keyboard, an inspired muse, the introductory bars of a famous waltz there was nothing too ornate for Vienna's craftsmen, no flatulent fable or overstated allegory that was beyond the dead hand of their art. The huge necropolis even mirrored the religious and political divisions of its living counterpart, with its Jewish, Protestant and Catholic sections, not to mention those of the Four Powers.
There was quite a turnover of services at the first-wonder-of-the-world-sized chapel where Linden's obsequies were heard, and I found that I had missed the captain's mourners there by only a few minutes.
The little cortege wasn't difficult to spot as it drove slowly across the snowbound park to the French sector where Linden, a Catholic, was to be buried.
But for one on foot, as I was, it was rather more difficult to catch up; by the time I did the expensive casket was already being lowered slowly into the dark-brown trench like a dinghy let down into a dirty harbour. The Linden family, arms interlinked in the manner of a squad of riot-police, faced its grief as indomitably as if there had been medals to be won.
The colour party raised their rifles and took aim at the floating snow. It gave me an uncomfortable feeling as they fired, and for just a moment I was back in Minsk when, on a walk to staff headquarters, I had been summoned by the sound of gunshots: climbing up an embankment I had seen six men and women kneeling at the edge of a mass grave already filled with innumerable bodies, some of whom were still alive, and behind them an SS firing squad commanded by a young police officer. His name was Emil Becker.
'Are you a friend of his?' said a man, an American, appearing behind me.
'No,' I said. 'I came over because you don't expect to hear gunfire in a place like this.' I couldn't tell if the American had been at the funeral already or if he had followed me from the chapel. He didn't look like the man who had been standing outside Liebl's office. I pointed at the grave. 'Tell me, who's the-'
'A fellow called Linden.'
It is difficult for someone who does not speak German as a first language, so I might have been mistaken, but there seemed to be no trace of emotion in the American's voice.
When I had seen enough, and having ascertained that there was nobody even vaguely resembling K/nig among the mourners not that I really expected to see him there I walked quietly away. To my surprise I found the American walking alongside me.
'Cremation is so much kinder to the thoughts of the living,' he said. 'It consumes all sorts of hideous imaginings. For me the putrefaction of a loved one is quite unthinkable. It remains in the thoughts with the persistence of a tapeworm. Death is quite bad enough without letting the maggots make a meal of it. I should know. I've buried both parents and a sister. But these people are Catholics. They don't want anything to jeopardize their chances of bodily resurrection. As if God is going to bother with ' he waved his arm at the whole cemetery '- all this. Are you a Catholic, Herr ?'
'Sometimes,' I said. 'When I'm hurrying to catch a train, or trying to sober up.'
'Linden used to pray to St Anthony,' said the American. 'I believe he's the patron saint of lost things.'
Was he trying to be cryptic, I wondered. 'Never use him myself,' I said.
He followed me on to the road that led back to the chapel. It was a long avenue of severely pruned trees on which the gobbets of snow sitting on the sconce-like ends of the branches resembled the stumps of melted candles from some outsized requiem.
Pointing at one of the parked cars, a Mercedes, he said: 'Like a lift to town?
I've got a car here.'
It was true that I wasn't much of a Catholic. Killing men, even Russians, wasn't the kind of sin that was easy to explain to one's maker. All the same I didn't have to consult St Michael, the patron saint of policemen, to smell an MP.
'You can drop me at the main gate, if you like,' I heard myself reply.
'Sure, hop in.'
He paid the funeral and the mourners no more attention. After all he had me, a new face, to interest him now. Perhaps I was someone who might shed some light on a dark corner of the whole affair. I wondered what he would have said if he could have known that my intentions were the same as his own; and that it was in the vague hope of just such an encounter that I had allowed myself to be persuaded to come to Linden's funeral in the first place.
The American drove slowly, as if he were part of the cortFge, no doubt hoping to spin out his chance to discover who I was and why I was there.
'My name is Shields,' he volunteered. 'Roy Shields.'
'Bernhard Gunther,' I answered, seeing no reason to tease him with it.
'Are you from Vienna?'
'Not originally.'
'Where, originally?'
'Germany.'
'No, I didn't think you were Austrian.'
'Your friend Herr Linden,' I said, changing the subject. 'Did you know him well?'
The American laughed and found some cigarettes in the top pocket of his sports jacket. 'Linden? I didn't know him at all.' He pulled one clear with his lips and then handed me the packet.
'He got himself murdered a few weeks back, and my chief thought it would be a good idea if I were to represent our department at the funeral.'
'And what department is that?' I asked, although I was almost certain I already knew the answer.
'The International Patrol.' Lighting his cigarette he mimicked the style of the American radio broadcasters. 'For your protection, call A29500.' Then he handed me a book of matches from somewhere called the Zebra Club. 'Waste of valuable time if you ask me, coming all the way down here like this.'
'It's not that far,' I told him; and then: 'Perhaps your chief was hoping that the murderer would put in an appearance.'
'Hell, I should hope not,' he laughed. 'We've got that guy in gaol. No, the chief, Captain Clark, is the kind of fellow who likes to observe the proper protocols.' Shields turned the car south towards the chapel. 'Christ,' he muttered, 'this place is like a goddamned gridiron.'
'You know, Gunther, that road we just turned off is almost a kilometre, as straight as an arrow. I caught sight of you when you were still a couple of hundred metres short of Linden's funeral, and it looked to me like you were in a hurry to join us.' He grinned, to himself it seemed. 'Am I right?'
'My father is buried only a short way from Linden's grave. When I got there and saw the colour party I decided to come back a little later, when it's quieter.'
'You walked all that way and you didn't bring a wreath?'
'Did you bring one?'
'Sure did. Cost me fifty schillings.'
'Cost you, or cost your department?'
'I guess we did pass a hat round at that.'
