Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [47]
“It seems you’re devoting a lot of effort,” said Younger to Colette after translating these comments, “to someone who doesn’t much deserve it.”
Colette frowned and shook her head, but didn’t answer.
Younger explained their errand to the charwoman and asked if any of the Grubers still lived nearby.
“So he’s dead,” replied the woman. “Well, that’s another one. No, the family I never knew. He came from one of those river towns in the west, near Bavaria. I don’t know where. Ask at the Three Hussars near St. Stephen’s. That’s where he ate all his dinners. Maybe someone there will know.”
The sun had set when they arrived back in central Vienna. In the taxi, Younger asked the driver if he knew a restaurant called the Three Hussars. The driver said the restaurant was closed, but would be open again Thursday.
“It’s just as well,” said Colette to Younger. “I don’t want you to come with me. I’ve taken up too much of your time already.”
There’s a game your brother plays, Fräulein,” Freud said to Colette that evening, “with a fishing reel and string. He makes sounds when he plays. A sort of ohh and ahh. Do you know what he’s saying?”
“Just nonsense,” answered Colette. “Does the game mean something?”
“It means, for one thing, that there’s nothing wrong with his vocal cords,” said Freud.
“To play the same game over and over,” asked Colette, “is it very bad?”
“It’s interesting,” said Freud.
Treating his dog to its walk the next morning, as the early sunshine shimmered off damp cobblestones, Sigmund Freud held the hand of a little French boy. Their conversation was distinctly one-sided. Freud chatted amiably, in French, recounting to Luc tales from Greek and Egyptian mythology. The boy was absorbed, but did not respond.
In a small triangular park, they came on a crowd encircling a man convulsing on the grass. His workingman’s clothes were clean, if patched and fraying. His cap, evidently thrown to the ground when the fit began, lay next to his writhing body.
“If you were out with my wife and her sister,” Freud said quietly to the boy, “they would undoubtedly cover your eyes at this point. Shall I cover your eyes?”
Luc shook his head. He exhibited none of the horror that children typically display in the presence of illness. Some in the crowd, taking pity on an epileptic, dropped coins into the man’s cap. Eventually Freud led the boy away.
Luc wore a thoughtful expression. Then he tugged at Freud’s hand and looked up at him, a question having formed in his eyes.
“What is it?” asked Freud.
The boy tugged again.
“That won’t do, little fellow,” said Freud. “I can’t explain anything if I don’t know what’s troubling you.”
Luc stared, looked away, stared up at Freud again. Then he began pulling his pockets inside out.
Freud watched him, petting his dog’s ears. At last he understood: “You want to know why I didn’t give the man any money?”
Luc nodded.
“Because he didn’t do it well enough,” answered Freud.
Younger, alone in Vienna’s old quarter, happened the next day on an open-air market, large and well stocked. It was clear that Freud wouldn’t take money for treating Luc, so Younger decided to have a delivery made to number 19 Berggasse: fresh fruits and flowers; milk, eggs, chickens, ropes of sausage; wine, chocolates, and a few boxes of tinned goods as well.
But he stayed away from the Freuds’ the entire day. There were several old, obscure churches he wanted to see. And there was the fact that Colette was hiding something from him.
By any chance, Miss Rousseau,” asked Freud that night, “was German spoken in your family?”
Freud had seen his patients that day, finished his correspondence, added notes to the drafts of two different papers he was working on, and apparently found time in addition to interact with Luc. He