Nothing So Strange by James Hilton
“I got the name as Larousse—Madame Larousse. French, from her accent. I never heard of her before.”
“Do you think your father’s living with her?”
I was startled by his asking the question rather than by the question
itself; after a second or so I answered: “I shouldn’t wonder. She looked nice.”
I noticed that a tram passed by which he could easily have caught.
He said: “Not, of course, that it’s any of my business.”
“It isn’t really, is it? Or mine either…. To tell you the truth, I know very little of his private affairs. He and my mother haven’t seemed to be getting along lately….”
“They haven’t?”
“Oh well, how do I know? Perhaps they have, when they’ve been together. But they’ve been so often separated.”
“They didn’t have to be. She used to go with him everywhere.”
“She got tired of gadding about, I suppose. Or else she likes a different kind of gadding about … maybe that’s it…. I’ve often thought they weren’t very well suited.”
“I used to think that too, in London.”
We waited for the next tram in silence, but I could see that his mood was changed, and it struck me as odd that such a matter should be capable of lifting him out of dejection into something like a controlled excitement. The tram came up and I said “There you are—run for it!”—because I didn’t want him to continue the conversation.
* * * * *
Towards the end of March Bauer had news that the date of the trial was postponed and that in the meantime Pauli had been removed to a prison outside Vienna. He had no idea where, and could not find out; nor did he think they would allow him to visit her again. Brad was still unable to obtain permission to visit her at all. The new regime was getting into its stride and Bauer was utterly downcast; he no longer hoped for a fair trial, or that he would be given a free hand as counsel for the defense—many of the normal rights of lawyers in dealing with clients had already been suspended. He wasn’t even certain he might not be arrested himself.
Then one morning the telephone rang and I heard my father’s voice. He was at the Bristol, he said, and could Brad and I see him as soon as convenient?
We were in his sitting room within an hour. The baroque furnishings, so typical of the age in which these luxury hotels were built, seemed strangely inappropriate to the heaviness in our minds; and I never see a Buhl writing desk now without remembering one on which, at the end of the interview, Brad wrote his signature.
He and my father shook hands as we entered, then my father glanced along the corridor before closing and bolting the door. “The chambermaid comes in at such odd moments,” he said, playing down his precautions. “She’s quite dumb, but it would be a nuisance.”
He settled himself in an easy chair. “Tell me, Brad,” he began abruptly, “what’s the real thing you’re after?”
I suppose the question seemed so general that Brad hesitated—perhaps he even wondered if it had anything at all to do with what was uppermost in his mind.
My father went on: “What I mean is, does your wife come first in all this?”
“Of course!” The reply was decisive enough now.
“All right. So you have one aim only—to get her out of trouble and resume your life with her?”
“Absolutely.”
“And you’d do anything possible for such a thing to happen?”
“Look here, Mr. Waring, you don’t have to waste time asking me questions like that….”
“Please … let me deal with this my own way. I want to be quite sure that in bringing these accusations against Framm you’re actuated solely by a desire to come to your wife’s defense.”
“That’s right.”
“You’re sure you’ve no personal interest in substantiating them? You’re not thinking of your professional standing—anything of that sort?”
“Not a bit.”
“As a matter of fact, you never had, prior to the … er … the attempt on Framm’s life … any idea of bringing a civil suit against him?”
“Never.”
I intervened. “Pauli urged him to, but he refused. It wasn’t the kind of thing he could be bothered with. That’s not to say that Framm wasn’t guilty. There’s plenty of evidence—”
“Please, Jane…. This is between Brad and me. I just want to be certain of his position.”
“He’s told you. He wants to save Pauli, that’s the only thing that matters now.”
Brad nodded emphatically.
“All right. Then I can put forward a proposition … and one which, if he accepts it, will enable Pauli to join him in some other country within a few months.”
As the full meaning of this came to him, Brad’s face was illumined. He made as if to get up and seize my father’s hand but I tugged at his sleeve.
“I’ll do anything” he muttered. He had no voice for more.
“First of all, this is what will happen if you agree to the proposition. Your wife will be brought to trial and found guilty, but there’ll be medical evidence that she’s insane. She’ll then be sent to some place of detention for a time. However, after a reasonable interval she’ll be allowed to leave, provided she doesn’t stay in Austria…. You understand?”
Brad still could not reply. I had never seen him so moved.
I said: “He understands. Now what is it he has to do?”
“I’m coming to that. It’s quite simple and if he feels as he says, he can have no possible objection. What the … er … the authorities will require is a statement from him … as a matter of fact, I have it here with me now—all he has to do is to sign it … a simple statement to the effect that there’s no truth whatever in his wife’s accusations against Framm. That’s all.”
Brad looked up, but I could not read what was in his mind.
I said bitterly: “I see. They want to whitewash Framm’s reputation.”
“Put it that way if you like. The main thing is that they’re prepared to pay for it by giving Brad what he says he most wants.”
“So he has to go into court and swear his wife’s a liar?”
“I doubt if there’ll be any need for that. She may not even have to testify. I expect Brad will just read his statement and that will be all that’s necessary.”
“Let me see it. You said you have it here.”
“Certainly.” My father went to his briefcase, took out a large Manila envelope and passed it over. I read for a moment, then exclaimed: “Why, this is the biggest swindle I ever heard of! Brad has to give his whole case away and gets nothing in exchange! There’s not a mention of any promise to release Pauli.”
“There couldn’t be. That sort of thing never gets into a document…. However, I understand on quite high authority that what I have said will be done.”
“What high authority?”
“I don’t see that it matters, but one source is Professor Framm himself.”
“I thought he was dying.”
“They say now he has a slight chance of recovery.”
“But what guarantee has Brad?”
“None at all. He just has to take somebody’s word.”
“For what it’s worth.”
“Yes.”
“And how much is that?”
“You can judge as well as I can.”
“Did you see Framm?”
“I saw his representative.”
“But supposing they break their word? Brad’s got no redress. He’s giving away everything … everything that could possibly help her at the trial!”
My father said grimly: “What you must remember is that nothing can help her at the trial—except this signed paper. If he doesn’t sign, she’ll be found guilty after a short hearing and the sentence will be carried out. Assuming that Framm doesn’t die, the penalty for attempted murder is, I believe, from ten to fifteen years.”
“You think they’d do that?”
“I can
All this time Brad had said nothing. He had listened in a half-bewildered way, sometimes nodding or shaking his head. Now, however, he reached over and snatched the paper from me. He went over to the Buhl desk and I followed him, grabbing the paper back. “Don’t do anything yet, Brad—we’ve got to think this out—we need at least a day to decide in—we’ll take this with us and come back tomorrow—”
My father snapped: “That won’t do. You have to decide now. I promised an answer this morning.”
“Then let me call Bauer. He’s the lawyer. Brad oughtn’t to sign anything without consulting him first.”
“He can’t do that either. If anyone else moves in you might as well tear it up right away, signed or unsigned. This isn’t a matter for lawyers…. It’s what you might call … well … well….” There was a saving irony in his voice as he added: “A gentlemen’s agreement?”
“With the only gentleman in the case offering everything in exchange for nothing.”
“I don’t think we can gain much by going over the whole ground again. For one thing, there isn’t time.”
“Why is there such a hurry?”
“People who can conquer a country in two days get the habit of being in a hurry.”
There was silence after that, during which my father fidgeted impatiently. If it were true that he was being pressed for an answer, I could well understand his mood, for it was the kind of situation he would find humiliating as well as irksome.
At length Brad muttered almost inaudibly: “How long was it you said … till they release her?… A few months?”
My father nodded.
“She’s going to have a baby in September.”
I turned to Brad, wanting to say something quick and warm, but the words would not come at such a moment; I could only smile at him in case he looked my way.
My father said quickly: “I think you can count on it she’ll be with you before then.”
“Then I’ll sign.”
So he did so, at the Buhl desk, with the scratchy hotel pen. My father verified and witnessed the signature, then put the document back in his briefcase and grabbed his hat and coat. We all went out together. As we stepped from the elevator on the ground floor he said: “Good-by, Jane … Brad…. I think we probably go in different directions….”
We let him walk ahead through the lobby on his own, while we pretended to study the list of entertainments on the hotel notice board. The Great Ziegfeld, Romeo and Juliet, and Scarface were among the movie attractions. The Magic Flute was at the Opera House. But the little cinema round the corner where I had seen some of the best French and pre-Hitler German films was now, it appeared, closed until further notice.
I was due to leave the next morning for Rome, where I had people to interview for a magazine. As I should be away about a week Brad took me to an appropriate farewell dinner at a small Italian restaurant near the Stephans- Dom; we drank a bottle of Chianti and he grew cheerful towards the end of the evening, as one who has taken the only possible course and might as well hope for the best from it. I agreed with him it had been the only possible course. After the strain of recent weeks, it was perhaps natural to react excessively, though even while he was doing so the more sober part of himself made the necessary corrective. “I’d better not let myself go,” he said, midway through the second bottle. “It would be too bad if I caught myself feeling grateful to these sons of bitches….”
It was near midnight when we separated outside my hotel. “Anyhow,” he said, having talked all round the compass and back again, “I’m glad Framm’s got an outside chance. Not that he deserves it, but he’d be a loss to science….”
Those were practically the last words Brad spoke to me for years, though I was far from guessing it then. He was a little drunk and would have kissed me good night, perhaps, but for knowing he was a little drunk.
From my room a few minutes later I telephoned the Bristol, thinking that my father deserved at least the few words of thanks I had till then had no time to convey. But a voice told me in unctuous German that he had left a few hours before by the Orient Express for Paris. I waited a few more minutes, then telephoned again and asked for Madame Larousse. The same voice told me she had left a few hours before by the Orient Express for Paris.
I remembered also for years those parting words of my father’s: “Good-by, Jane…. I think we probably go in different directions….”
I think we always have.
* * * * *
High authority, as he had tactfully called it, kept its word at the trial, which came up a few weeks afterwards. Pauli did not testify, and Brad gave his stipulated evidence—legally irrelevant, the judge observed, but desirable in order to refute certain mischievous rumors that had been widely circulated by enemies of the Gross-Deutschland. Pauli was then declared guilty but insane, and the whole thing was over within a matter of hours. The newspapers gave great prominence to the high character of Professor Framm, so strikingly vindicated by his American colleague and assistant, and the total impression was that the two of them had been bosom friends, that the young man had unfortunately married a homicidal lunatic, and that thanks to the large- hearted wisdom of the new regime such a distressing matter was being wound up both equitably and expeditiously—in contrast, doubtless, to what would have happened earlier or elsewhere. I think also that anyone unacquainted with the inside story (which meant nearly everyone) could easily have concluded that this young American was a warm sympathizer with the Gross-Deutschland, its policies, personalities, and plans for the future. The court proceedings were stage-managed with extreme skill, and Brad’s statement, read by him in English, sounded much more emphatic in the German translation that immediately followed.
I heard all this from Bauer, because when I tried to return to Vienna from Rome, the German consulate refused to renew my visa. Certain articles of mine in the American press had, it appeared, made me persona non grata with the Nazis. So I went to Switzerland and there waited for Brad, if he should care to join me for a time; but he wrote that he would rather save his money for a long holiday with Pauli as soon as she was released. That made me insist on lending him a thousand dollars, which he returned, and when I sent it again even more insistently he returned it with a note in which he laid bare the entire state of his finances. He had about five hundred and thirty dollars, he said, which he reckoned ample for all expenses until he found another job; and for any emergency he owned twenty shares of A.T. and T. Common which his uncle in North Dakota (the amateur geologist) had willed him before he died. I thought it was a good stage in our relationship, if not a romantic one, that he should give me details of this sort.
I did not hear from him again, and several of my letters were returned as undeliverable. I wrote to Bauer for news, but also without answer.
Then one evening at a London cocktail party I met a half-tipsy Englishman lately in Austria who said he had a vague idea he had heard somewhere that Pauli was dead. I didn’t tell him that my interest in her was in any way personal. It was a noisy party and I had to yell the next question in his ear. “And her husband? Did you hear anything about him?”
He yelled back: “Well, he practically ditched her, didn’t he, at the trial?… American chap…. Don’t know what’s happened to him since.” He flicked an olive stone into an ashtray and ventured: “Maybe he went back to America….”
* * *
PART THREE
I woke to see the hostess nudging me. “Sorry to trouble you, but we’re coming down at Palmdale. There’ll be a bus to take you into Burbank…. It’s on account of fog.”
She moved to the passenger in front and delivered the same message. The plane was already noticeably descending and instruction to fasten seat belts came on while I was blinking myself awake. I felt a little irritated at the thought of a long bus journey and wondered whether the studio would have sent a car to meet me at Bu
My trip to California was mainly because I had recently published a book called Great Circle, in which I gave an account of my world wanderings to date. It had sold quite well, and a Hollywood studio bought the movie rights. Presently someone discovered, as should have been apparent from the outset, that there was no “story” in it, but so far from discouraging them, this merely whetted their desire for the authoress herself to construct one. I told them I had no talent for that sort of thing, but I suppose such frankness convinced them far more than if I had jumped at the idea; anyhow, in the end we compromised on my spending a few weeks in Hollywood for “consultation.” Everything about the arrangement sounded reasonable except the fee, which was absurd.
I had been to California before, several times, and had liked it fairly well, and the fact that my father was now living there would give me a chance to pay him the visit which I felt was due, after a somewhat longer interval than usual.
There was a full moon and a clear sky at Palmdale, but no sign of a bus. The disembarked passengers converged towards a make-shift army hut in that peculiar mood of strandedness inflicted nowadays only on those who travel the modern way. The bus, we were told, was “coming”—had been delayed by a flat tire. I was just about to doze off again in a chair when a loudspeaker yelled my name and the information that a car was waiting for me outside. Everybody stared, waiting for a person called Waring to move, and something of my chronic phobia surged up and almost made me decide to remain anonymous, but I knew I should be found out after succeeding yells; so I pushed rather ill- humoredly through the small crowd and was doubtless the object of comment and envy.