I Was Jack Mortimer E-Book

Alexander Lernet-Holenia

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Vertigo
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 241

Beschreibung

A taxi-driver in 1930s Vienna impersonates a murder victim, and is dropped into a dangerous spiral __________ 'The cast of this brilliant thriller ... are pure Raymond Chandler ... but the Viennese setting gives it an extra, stylish twist. It's excellently written and fearsomely gripping' Kate Saunders, The Times 'Very few novels published in recent years match its daunting panache... The fast-moving, cleverly convoluted plot is brilliantly served by the sustained irony of Ignat Avsey's witty translation... a terrific book, one to read and then urge everyone else to follow suit... a truly clever, rather wonderful book that both plays with and defies genre' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times 'A fascinating snapshot of Vienna between the wars, pacey and entertaining' Guardian __________ A man climbs into Ferdinand Sponer's cab, gives the name of a hotel, and before he reaches it has been murdered: shot through the throat. And though Sponer has so far committed no crime, he is drawn into the late Jack Mortimer's life, and might not be able to escape its tangles and intrigues before it is too late... Twice filmed, I Was Jack Mortimer is a tale of misappropriated identity as darkly captivating and twisting as the books of Patricia Highsmith. .

Leseprobe

12

‘Very few novels published in recent years match its daunting panache… A truly clever, rather wonderful book that both plays with and defies genre’

IRISH TIMES

‘The cast of this brilliant thriller… are pure Raymond Chandler… but the Viennese setting gives it an extra, stylish twist. It’s excellently written and fearsomely gripping’

THE TIMES

‘A fascinating snapshot of Vienna between the wars, pacey and entertaining’

GUARDIAN

3

I WAS JACK MORTIMER

ALEXANDER LERNET-HOLENIA

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY IGNAT AVSEY

PUSHKIN PRESS CLASSICS

Contents

Title Page12345678910Translator’s Dedication Translator’s Acknowledgements Copyright

5

I WAS JACK MORTIMER6

7

1

Up on the hilltop market, (behind a row of cabs parked nose to tail, stood a small group of drivers, chatting and smoking cigarettes.

Flocks of pink-footed, iridescent grey-and-white pigeons pecked at the rubbish between the stalls of the steeply cobbled square, or from time to time took of and glided high above before settling on the house gables, in particular on a pink-washed palace, where most of them nested.

The sky was overcast. The rows of windows shone like burnished silver. The air was heavy with the smell of vegetables, flowers and fruit.

It was a mild November day.

Two cabs with passengers pulled out in close succession from the left of the rank and out of the square, and someone was already calling out the name of the next driver, who, with his coat undone and his elbows resting on the balustrade of the nearby memorial, was chatting to his mates.

He was a young man of about thirty with dark-blue eyes beneath brown eyebrows.

Hearing his name, he took a quick drag at his cigarette, 8chucked it away and, buttoning up his coat at the same time, hurried to his cab.

A woman in a dark, bold-striped suit, a fox fur slung over her shoulder, was just about to get in. She had already delicately poised one foot on the running board; she held an open handbag in her gloved left hand, and was looking at herself in the mirror as she adjusted her hair under her hat with her other, ungloved hand.

She couldn’t have been more than twenty, smartly dressed, even if with that slight nonchalance which is so irresistible in young women.

With her little finger she now wiped a spot of excess lipstick from her lips, and was examining her mouth carefully as the driver approached her. He caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror as he stood behind her. A pair of large grey eyes gazed at him from under a short veil as she tilted the mirror to see who was there.

The driver bowed, stepped back and opened the door.

“Sixty-two Prinz-Eugen-Strasse,” she said without turning, and, snapping her handbag shut, stuck it under her arm and got into the cab.

He closed the door. Two of the other drivers made a sign to him as he was settling behind the wheel. He looked at them quizzically and turned on the ignition.

“Not bad, eh?” they indicated.

“What?” he queried, as though he hadn’t understood.

The two pointed inside the car.

9He mumbled something and waited till the road was clear. He had hardly pulled out when he felt himself blushing. The two drivers, who’d noticed his embarrassment, grinned.

He changed up and drew his hand across his forehead.

He was now in the thick of the traffic.

Nevertheless, he suddenly threw his head back, but couldn’t see the girl in the rear because of the glare from the glass partition.

After a few moments he reached for the rear-view mirror and adjusted it slowly till he saw her.

She was sitting, legs crossed, holding her handbag and looking out of the window.

He had to stop at the next junction. He sat and stared into the mirror while the car was stationary. And even when the traffic was moving again, he continued looking into the rear through the mirror.

As a result he almost collided in Kärntner Strasse with a car that had turned out of a side street. He managed to brake with a violent jolt at the last moment, and the offended driver, shaking his head, swung out in front of him. He followed him closely till the car pulled up just before the Opera, to which he again failed to react, and before it had come to a halt he hit it, inching it forward with his bumper.

The driver turned round, swearing loudly as he got out, and ran to the back to see what the damage was, while the policeman who was standing at the junction also approached when he saw what had happened.

10“The fellow’s clueless,” the man yelled, grasping the petrol tank of his car. “He nearly ran into me a moment ago!”

“What’s your name?” the policeman asked.

“Ferdinand Sponer,” the young man answered apologetically. However, since no damage had been done, the policeman waved them on. “Be more careful in future,” he said, and walked back to his post, while the other driver, swearing profusely, got back in his car. Sponer, however, turned round to his glamorous passenger, “I’m awfully sorry!”

“Why,” she said from the back of the car, “didn’t you take Seilerstätte if you don’t know how to drive?”

Seilerstätte is a quiet street, parallel to Kärntner Strasse, with little traffic.

“Oh, but I do,” he mumbled, and smiled sheepishly.

“Move on!” the policeman shouted. The car in front had in the meantime driven off. Other cars were piling up behind Sponer. He hastily pulled out and joined the traffic. He turned left at the Opera into Mahlerstrasse, behind the Grand Hotel, then right, crossed the ring road, and, accelerating, cut across the Schwartzenbergplatz and sped up Prinz-Eugen-Strasse. At number sixty-two he did a U-turn, pointing towards the centre again, and stopped in front of the house.

“My apologies once again,” he said as his attractive fare alighted. She paid, glanced at him and shook her head. He tried to smile once more. She turned away and walked towards the main entrance. With a wonderfully graceful 11movement she swung open a small side gate mounted in the main entrance and stepped inside.

He followed her with his eyes until the gate fell shut behind her. Then he stared at the entrance.

A few minutes later he noticed he was still holding the money she had given him.

He started the car but drove on just a few yards, stopped again and got out. After standing hesitantly by the car a few seconds, he walked up to the main entrance and went in.

In the high, timber-panelled entrance hall, at the far end of which, through a French window, he glimpsed an overgrown garden, he noticed the porter’s lodge on the right and the open door to the stairwell on the left.

A huge, gilt chandelier hung from the decorated ceiling, and short flights of steps led off from the right and left of the entrance hall.

He stepped into the stairwell and glanced up at the high, wide lift shaft with the staircase snaking around it. He couldn’t hear any footsteps on the stairs or the landings.

On the wall hung a black, polished, framed board with white, numbered bell-buttons. Under each was a card bearing the name of the respective occupant.

He struck a match in order to read the names, as it had already turned dark. The residents included army officers, civil servants, aristocrats, as well as an industrialist.

He tried to picture which of them could have a daughter like the beautiful young girl he’d driven here; or on which of 12them a girl, just like the one in a dark-green suit with a fox slung over her shoulders, might have dropped in; or which of them a young woman, smartly dressed, even if with a slight, though irresistible, touch of nonchalance, might be paying a visit.

However, the names revealed nothing.

They didn’t reveal which apartment she’d entered, or what she was doing there, whether she was sitting with her parents, or with friends, having tea, or with her lover, whom even now she was embracing and kissing.

The match went out and burnt his finger. He let go of it, crushed it with his foot, and found himself in semi-darkness.

Finally he left the stairwell, stood hesitatingly for a moment in front of the porter’s lodge, and entered. He opened the glass door, stepped into the lobby, and knocked at the door to the porter’s flat. A couple of steps led down into a sort of combined kitchen and living room.

A child was playing in the middle of the floor; next to the door, at a table covered with a blue-patterned oilcloth, sat a woman of about forty-five with the light on, doing what such people always do in their flats—sitting with the light on, of course, drinking coffee, reading the paper, and thinking about family matters.

She glanced up as Sponer entered.

“Did a young woman come in about five minutes ago?” he asked. And, when she continued looking at him, he added, “In a green suit with a fox fur.”

13“Why?” the woman asked, dunked a piece of roll in her coffee and continued reading the paper.

“I’ve a letter for her.”

The woman put out her hand.

“To be delivered personally,” he said.

“Second floor, on the right, Countess Dünewald,” and she stuck the piece of roll in her mouth and turned over the page.

Well, well, he thought, a Countess! Probably the daughter. And, as he glanced from the porter’s wife to the newspaper with artist’s sketches illustrating some crime reports, he said: “No, not the…”

“Not the what?” the woman asked.

“Not the Countess.” He rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a letter. He pretended he was looking at the address.

“Her niece?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” he said, and then almost without thinking, “the Duchess.”

“She’s no duchess.”

“Isn’t she? Ah,” he went on, “you’re right, it doesn’t say that here either. But, anyway, it’s her niece.”

“Let me see,” she said, and held out her hand once again for the letter.

“No, I just wanted to check that the names tallied.”

“Raschitz?”

“That’s the one,” he said, as if simply confirming the fact. “And the first name?”

14She again wanted to see the letter.

He stuck it back in his pocket. “No, that’s all right,” he said. He didn’t find out the first name. “Second floor, on the right, then?” he said. “Thanks.” And he adjusted his cap and left. He noticed she was staring at him as he closed the door. She had become curious and went to the door of the flat. He therefore pretended he was going to deliver the letter. He walked to the stairwell, mounted a couple of steps and stopped. It occurred to him that he really could walk up. He ascended a few more steps. On the second floor, on the right-hand door he saw a brass plate with the name “Dünewald”.

He waited two or three minutes and then walked down the stairs again. When he came to the entrance hall he saw that the woman was still standing at the door, staring. He got into his car and waited.

Every now and again trams passed up and down Prinz-Eugen-Strasse, and a couple of cars raced past.

Dry leaves from the Schwarzenberg Park fluttered in the wind.

He told a couple of people who wanted to get in that he’d been hired already.

He waited till about half past seven.

It had gone dark long ago; a strong wind had got up, and the street lamps flickered and swayed.

The porter’s wife came out of the house once, but he turned his face away and she didn’t recognize him.

At about half past seven the girl appeared, accompanied 15by two handsome older men, dressed in the manner of ex-cavalry officers. The three took no notice of the cab. They walked past, chatting about bridge.

They walked down the street. Sponer drove slowly behind them. After a while they turned left into a side street, then right into Alleegasse. They stopped in front of number sixteen. The two gentlemen said goodbye. The girl went into the house, and the men walked off in the direction of the centre of the town.

During that evening and the next morning, Sponer found out from the doormen in Alleegasse and from the head waiter of the nearby Café Attaché, but in particular from a commissionaire who used to sit either on the street corner or in a bar opposite, under a sign with two white horses, that the girl was called Marisabelle von Raschitz, that she was the daughter of a major, and was indeed the niece of Countess Dünewald, the widow of Count Dünewald, the erstwhile household steward of Archduchess Maria Isabella, after whom the young lady, whom the commissionaire had known since childhood, had been duly christened.

“They say,” he added, “that Major von Raschitz is still a wealthy man. Marisabelle also has a brother.” The commissionaire knew him, too, from childhood. He said that he’d often chatted to the two lovely young children when they were taken for walks. In Vienna, children, even from the 16upper classes would, in former times, happily talk to servant girls on street corners or to elderly invalids in the Belvedere Gardens. These invalids had either lost an arm or had a peg leg, they wore uniforms of days gone by, looked after the park amenities and used to talk to the children and their nannies; the commissionaire also reminisced about former times, about the Archduchess, her household, and the splendid carriages with their gilt wheels. Sponer listened to him for a while, nodded absentmindedly, and got back in his car.

In the next side street there was a taxi rank. He parked his cab there, got out and walked to the corner, from where he could observe the house. However, when the cabs that were parked in front had picked up fares and it was his turn, he explained, after driving a few yards, that there was something wrong with his car, and he let the others take his place. Some of the drivers offered to help. Sponer declined. He started tinkering with the engine himself.

At about eleven he saw Marisabelle leave the house. She wore a brown skirt and a short fur jacket. Her long gloves were still under her arm, but she started to put them on as she headed towards the centre.

Immediately afterwards, the house gates opened and a Cadillac drove out. Two men were sitting in the back. The Cadillac turned into the side street in which Sponer was tinkering with his engine.

He stopped, walked up to the commissionaire, and asked him whose car it was.

17“It belongs to an industrialist,” the commissionaire replied. A certain Herr So-and-so, who also lived in the same building. Sponer didn’t register the name. But he asked if the Raschitzes, too, owned a car. The commissionaire replied in the affirmative.

Sponer now picked up a fare, then a second one at the Church of the Nine Choirs of Angels, who had to make several business calls at various government offices and departments, and for whom Sponer had to wait at each stop. When, however, at about one o’clock in Schwarzspanierstrasse there still appeared to be no end to these calls, Sponer asked his fare to leave, since he had come to the end of his shift. He drove back at breakneck speed to Alleegasse, and parked to await Marisabelle’s return.

She didn’t return, however, and at about two he reluctantly concluded that he had probably missed her. In the café Zu den Zwei Schimmeln he had a bite to eat with the commissionaire, who also had a few beers and regaled him and the other clients with tales of the former imperial court. In Vienna there were still quite a few of these old commissionaires, minor officials, former servants and the like, who sported side whiskers and waxed nostalgically about the Court, the Arcièren Life Guards, the huge tips dispensed by the foreign potentates, the Emperor’s house guests, and much more besides. Sponer, who was twenty-nine and knew hardly anything about such things, listened without paying much attention, constantly glancing over the street to the windows with the curtains.

18I shall, he thought, park in front of the house so that when she comes out in the afternoon I can ask if she wants a cab.

He paid, left, and drove to Alleegasse. He stopped in front of the main entrance, pointing towards the city centre. After a short while a policeman asked him what he was doing there parked for so long. “I’m picking up a fare,” Sponer replied. “He hasn’t come down yet, he’s still in the house.”

The commissionaire, who by now was becoming suspicious of Sponer’s behaviour, also came over and asked him a question, which, however, Sponer completely ignored. For at this very moment Marisabelle emerged from the house. She was wearing a dark coat and a two-tone hat.

Sponer sprang from his seat and approached her.

“A cab?” he asked.

She shook her head and was about to continue on her way, when she recognized him.

“Ah!” she said, and since he was standing so close to her, “It’s you, is it?” But she didn’t stop and kept walking.

“Yes, it’s me,” he said, and, searching for words, tried to stand in her way. “Would… would you like me to give you a lift? I was so upset yesterday about that little incident. My driving’s really quite good…”

She looked at him. A shadow of a smile flitted across her mouth. A row of dazzlingly white teeth flashed for a brief second.

“I’m glad!” she said. “How long have you been a driver then?”

19“Four years. Do you drive yourself?”

“Me?” she asked in surprise.

“Yes.”

“A little,” she said.

“I had an idea you would have a car. Of course,” he added immediately, “I learnt to drive somewhere else… with my relatives, you understand.” And he paused for a split second. She looked at him as though she couldn’t quite fathom why he had said “you understand”. And it must have crossed her mind: “What relatives? What on earth have they got to do with it?”

“When I first started,” he continued immediately, “I’d far rather have done something else than be a driver…”

“Really?” she said, and made as if to walk on again.

“Yes,” he said hastily, “I even spent a whole year in… a cadet school… Actually, my father was…”

It seemed she couldn’t care less that he had been a cadet. “Yes,” she said, “nowadays all sorts become drivers. That’s the way it is… one just has to…”

He tried to smile. She looked away, but then turned towards him again. He was above average height, well built, only his hands were rough. As she looked at his face, she noticed he had beautiful eyes.

She blushed slightly, nodded curtly, and turned away.

“So, no car?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” she said quickly, and walked on.

He stared after her.

20

2

He finished his shift at six. He didn’t take the car home, however, but gave it, together with the day’s takings, to the other driver, Georg Haintl, in Margaretenstrasse. Then he caught a tram to Fünfhaus, one of the outer suburbs, where he rented a room from Herr Oxenbauer, a railwayman, near the garage where he kept his cab.

Without taking off his coat, he sat down on his bed and leant against the shabby old wall-hanging depicting a lurcher giving chase to a hare.

The smell of petrol wafted from the adjacent room; the door to it, blocked by a washstand, was shut.

He got up and flung the window open.

On the far side of a backyard, which was bordered only by a low wall, rows of street lights flickered around the perimeter of a large undeveloped plot of land. In the darkness of an adjoining garden, shrubbery rustled in the wind. He pulled off his coat, threw himself on the bed and lit a cigarette.

Shortly afterwards, the railwayman’s teenage daughter brought him his supper on a black tray with a faded golden 21pattern. She was about to put it on his bedside table, but he motioned with his head to the other table.

“Why does it smell of petrol?”

“I can’t smell anything,” she said.

“I should have known!” he turned on her. “Every time there’s a smell, I’m told there’s no smell at all, every time the soup’s off, I’m told it’s not off at all, and so on!”

She went out, slamming the door. He followed her with his eyes from under closely knit brows.

She didn’t like him because she couldn’t stand Marie Fiala.

Marie Fiala was his girlfriend.

She arrived about ten minutes later. When she entered, he was still lying on his bed and hadn’t eaten anything.

She kissed him and asked why he hadn’t touched his food. Wasn’t he hungry? They’d be late for the film. Unless, of course, he didn’t want to go. In which case there was no need to go out at all. She didn’t really mind. And she sat down in her coat, next to him.

“I don’t really feel like going anywhere,” he said.

She nodded, got up and took her coat off. In the meantime he went over to the table and ate a few mouthfuls. She joined him at the table. She wasn’t pretty, but had a good figure and marvellous blonde hair, which now shimmered in the light of the lamp.

“Would you like me to sort out some of your things?” she asked.

“That’d be nice,” he mumbled, picking up the tray with 22the uneaten food and putting it outside the door. “Have you eaten already?” he asked, when he was back in the room.

“Yes,” she said. She had opened the wardrobe, taken out a few of his underclothes, and was holding them up to the light.

“We can always go to the cinema later,” he said.

“I’m easy either way,” she replied.

She took her handbag and rummaged in it for a needle and thread. He offered her a cigarette, which she stuck between her lips before getting down to work.

He shut the window, sat down on the bed, leant on his elbows and looked at her. The light played on her hair.

They were planning to get married, but kept putting it off for various reasons: if the truth be known, only because they’d already known each other for too long. In the meantime she’d lost her job as a shop assistant, had then been unemployed for months at a stretch, and was now helping out here and there at a friend’s, taking in washing and doing mending and stitching jobs.

She still hoped, of course, that he’d marry her, only she never mentioned it.

He watched her all the while she was working, and sometimes made a comment or two. She asked him where he’d been all day, and he in turn asked her what she’d been doing.

Every now and then, she returned the inspected items to the wardrobe and brought new ones to the table.

Finally she put her needle away. He kissed her hands, drew 23her to him and kissed her on the lips. Then they stroked each other’s cheeks.

They remained like that for some time and listened to the wind blowing round the house. And they thought how long they had already known each another. Or rather, they didn’t think, they simply felt how unhappy they were.

At about nine they went to the cinema after all.

Then he took her home.

He didn’t have to go to work till midday the next day.

At about nine he took the tram to the centre.

In Alleegasse he didn’t see the commissionaire, who was probably on an errand. He was therefore able to walk up and down in front of Marisabelle’s house without having to engage in tedious conversation.

It was a sunny autumn day. At the top of the street, where it climbed slightly, the wind blew dead foliage from the Theresianum Gardens. The tall windows of the palace reflected the sky above.

Sponer stopped at a Packard that was parked in front of one of the houses.

The chauffeur started talking to him, but almost immediately the owner of the car appeared, and they drove off.

At about eleven Marisabelle came out of the entrance. She was again wearing the same grey suit and a fox over her shoulders.

24Sponer went up to her straight away, before she had even closed the gate, and his heart began to pound.

“Excuse me,” he said, “for troubling you yesterday, I only wanted… I’m…”

She looked at him while the gate swung shut.

“I don’t have my car today,” he continued quickly. “I only wanted to apologize.”

She didn’t reply immediately. “What for?” she asked, finally.

“About yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t want you to think that I was trying to force you into anything.”

“Really,” she said, and it seemed as though she wanted to say something else.

“But I’d have had no other opportunity of speaking to you…”

“You wanted to speak to me?”

“Yes,” he said, and looked down.

She leant against the gate and smiled, although he didn’t notice it. But when he looked up again, she merely said, “What about?”

“I just wanted,” he said after a pause, “to… just to see you…”

She took her handbag, which was under her left arm, transferred it to the other arm, fiddled for a moment with the fingers of her glove, and then looked up at Sponer again.

“But,” he said, “you walked away so quickly… I quite understand you were annoyed that I spoke to you yesterday, 25I do apologize, but otherwise I wouldn’t have had any opportunity to…”

She watched him while he spoke, and also, after he broke off, she kept looking into his face; finally, she lowered her eyes. “Look here,” she said, pulling her gloves on, “you really shouldn’t be talking to me like this here.”

“Would you,” he said, “at least allow me to…”

She remained silent.

“…accompany you for a short distance?”

“No,” she said. She stood there for a moment, drew the fox round her shoulders, and strode off.

He took two or three steps after her, stopped and glanced around. No one appeared to have noticed them. He took another couple of steps, hesitated, and then followed Marisabelle at a distance of about thirty yards.

She walked in the direction of the centre, without turning round once. At the next side street she stopped for a moment and then crossed the street. She reached up to her shoulder once and adjusted her fur. She acknowledged the greetings of a man whom she passed near Karlskirche. Her gait was carefree and relaxed, as if unconcerned whether anyone was following her or not.

Sponer caught up with her at Karlsplatz Gardens.

She neither appeared surprised, nor gave any indication that she suspected he had been following her. But she stopped at the edge of the gardens, where the leaves were falling. A couple of large crows pecked about on the grass. She placed 26one foot on the base of a low trellis that bordered the grass, opened her handbag, looked in the mirror and pulled her short veil farther down. Then she let her handbag slide down, and looked at him.

His eyebrows were drawn tight. “You know,” he said, “what I’m going to say to you, don’t you?”

She lifted the mirror once more and looked at her mouth. “And what do you expect me to answer?” she asked.

He remained silent.

She wiped some powder from her cheek. Then she snapped her handbag shut. “Well?” she said.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“You’re a strange person,” she said.

“Why?” he asked in astonishment.

She looked at him. She nearly said, “Because you’ve such beautiful eyes,” but instead she only said, “Because to start with, you accost me, and then you just stand there and expect me to carry on talking. Is that what you always do?”

He blushed. “No,” he said.

Every woman wants to have an affair with a man who finds her attractive.

“You wouldn’t even have spoken to me otherwise.”

He hesitated for a second. “I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said.

She looked at the lawn, where the leaves were falling. “You just can’t say a thing like that,” she said. “All right, you can 27