After I had replaced the phone, I sat on the bed for a moment. This was not the kind of conversation I had expected to get into, when Lavinia told me I was going off into life to be a television researcher. It seemed that Viennese professors had a somewhat different attitude to the media from many of their British counterparts, and I already felt sure I would not get much out of Codicil. And with no Codicil, there would probably be no way to reach Criminale, maybe no programme at all. I thought I had better consult the Delphic oracle, so I picked up the telephone and rang Lavinia, over there in her grand-luxe comfort at the Hotel de France. ‘I’m sitting in the bath eating Rumtorte,’ said Lavinia when I reached her at last, ‘Is your hotel full of Japanese?’ ‘Hundreds,’ I said. ‘Do yours ride up and down in the elevators all the time and giggle?’ asked Lavinia, ‘Mine do.’ ‘Listen, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘I’ve just been talking to Codicil.’ ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Apparently in Vienna all professors have ex-directory numbers,’ I said, ‘Luckily they use the telephone company as an answering service.’ ‘Does he speak English?’ asked Lavinia. ‘Yes, you could say he speaks English,’ I said, ‘In fact he speaks it far more fluently and fancily than I do.’ ‘Brilliant,’ said Lavinia. ‘I’m not sure it is brilliant,’ I said, ‘He’s obviously made his mind up to be very difficult. Or more likely he just is very difficult by nature and he didn’t have to make up his mind to it at all.’
Well, you know what to do, Francis,’ said Lavinia, ‘Get your foot in the door. That’s what we’re paying you all this money for. Just be persuasive and charming.’ ‘I was,’ I said. Then why is he being difficult?’ asked Lavinia. ‘He says he has more important things to do and he’s not interested in the blandishments of the media,’ I said. They all say that,’ said Lavinia, ‘I expect he’s one of those old-fashioned profs who pretend to despise television and say they never watch it. You just have to say you’ll put them on it and they’re licking at your legs straight away.’ ‘Maybe in Britain,’ I said, ‘I don’t think they’re like that in Austria. Viennese professors have a big sense of their own importance.’ ‘It’s just a question of finding the right approach,’ said Lavinia, ‘Get him to meet you.’ ‘I have,’ I said, ‘I’m having coffee with him tomorrow morning. I thought it might be a good idea if you came along.’
‘Sorry, Francis, terribly busy day, full diary already,’ said Lavinia, ‘You know what to do. Just nestle in his bosom like a viper.’ ‘I have a strange feeling Codicil’s bosom isn’t the kind of bosom anyone ever manages to nestle in,’ I said. ‘Well, you know you can always come and nestle in mine,’ said Lavinia, ‘Any time. Oh, and about that, I had this terrible problem getting tickets for the opera. The Japanese had all got there first and bought out the place.’ ‘What a pity, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘So we have to cancel the champagne?’ ‘No, I got a box for the following night,’ said Lavinia, ‘I daren’t tell you what it cost, but it’s damn near half the recce budget. Then you can come back after and see my absolutely glorious room. Do you have an absolutely glorious room?’ ‘Not exactly, Lavinia,’ I said, ‘I’m up in the loft with the pigeons.’ ‘Good,’ said Lavinia, ‘Because we couldn’t have afforded it, not with these opera tickets. Still, I know you’ll love mine.’ ‘Oh, good,’ I said, ‘Thanks so much for your help, Lavinia.’ ‘Remember,’ said Lavinia, ‘In his bosom like a viper. Night, darling.’
The next morning, I took a hearty European feast in the downstairs breakfast room (ham, cheese, salami, strawberries, melon, yoghurt, bran and buttermilk, if I remember rightly), and then set out, with plenty of time to spare, for my meeting with Professor Doktor Otto Codicil. By ten thirty I was already in the square outside fragile and mournful Votivkirche. As I’ve said already, Vienna does not in the end neglect its great men, and not even the one who explored the deeper dreams of the city of dreams, the stranger desires of the city of desire, who was then expelled by the Nazis, and who ended his days sadly in Hampstead, dying just one year more than fifty years before. The square outside the church, I gathered from my various maps and guides, had passed through several names and several histories – Dollfuss-Platz, maybe Hitler-Platz, certainly Roosevelt-Platz. Today it was Sigmund Freud-Park; in fact a statue of the old couch-artist stood there, pigeons roosting on its head, a plaint about human reason on its base. Freud hadn’t liked Vienna; Vienna felt much the same way about Freud. Now, though, he seemed to be enjoying almost a Mozartian revival. The newest operatic work to open in the city was, according to all the posters, Freudiana, and offered ‘the findings of Sigmund Freud, fantastic dreams’ – I bet – ‘and celestial-sounding music – the ingredients of Vienna’s latest musical.’ Soon, I realized, we’d all be out buying Freudkugeln (‘the sweet heritage of Sigmund’) and chocolate Wolfmen. So goes the world.
I stood outside the Votivkirche, and looked around. To one side stood the fine late-nineteenth-century buildings of the University of Vienna, decked out, like all university buildings, with its fair share of graffiti, the quick, modern way to publish. To the other were various notable buildings, and one of them, I suddenly realized, was the Hotel de France. And there, coming out of the beflagged entrance, ushered by a doorman, I was sure I saw Lavinia. The doorman helped her into a horse-drawn landau, and she jangled off, doubtless on another demanding day of producer’s duties. Stopping the passersby who were emerging from the metro at the Schottenpassage, I found one who spoke English, and was able to direct me to the Café Karl Kraus. This lay just round the corner in a sidestreet, one of those grandly elegant Secession cafés of which Vienna is still full. Looking through the window, I saw many tables, each of them overhung with fine brass lily-shaped lamps. At them, I saw, as I lifted the heavy door curtain and went inside, sat portly middle-aged people, people of substance; the men were mostly in loden coats, the women in embroidered blouses and porkpie hats with birdfeathers stuck in them. All had big winter boots on, and all of them were drinking coffee and reading newspapers stuck on very long wooden sticks.
An elderly and dignified head waiter approached me; ‘Grüss Gott, mein Herr,’ he said, looking me up and down. ‘Good morning,’ I said, ‘I’m looking for the professor.’ He looked at me strangely; I saw that many of the customers had set down their cakes and were raising their heads from their newspapers to inspect me. ‘You want the professor?’ he asked. ‘Yes, please, the professor,’ I said. ‘But, mein Herr,’ he said, ‘all the people here are professors. Over there, Herr Professor Doktor Stubl, the clinician, over there Herr Professor Magister Klimt, economistic. Over there is Herr Professor Hofrat Koegl, and over there Professor Doktor Ziegler, the famous Kritiker. Bitte, mein Herr, which professor?’ The professors were now all looking at me interrogatively, as if I had just arrived, late, for a viva on an examination in which I had not done at all well. ‘Professor Doktor Otto Codicil,’ I said. ‘Of course, the professor!’ said the maître d’, ‘He is at his usual table. Please to follow me.’ So I followed him right through the midst of the prodigious academic gathering to an alcove at the further end of the café, where behind curtains two men sat in conversation over coffee and cakes.
One was in his fairly late middle years, grey-haired, very large, formidably burly, and wearing an embroidered loden jacket that, for all its spacious fitting, somehow nowhere near contained his bulk. His companion was a good deal younger, little more than a youth. The maître d’ detained me with his arm for a moment, and went and whispered in the ear of the larger, older man. He put down his fork, turned, and stared at me analytically for some seconds. Then he rose enormously to his feet, came towards me, and held out an enormous hand. ‘My dear sir,’ he said, ‘Must I take it you are last night’s blandisher from the world of the ephemera?’ ‘I’m the man from British television,’ I said. ‘Exactly so,’ he said, ‘Professor Doktor Otto Codicil.’ ‘I’m Francis Jay,’ I said. ‘Then please be so kind as to join me at my table,’ he said, ‘But first before you sit down please meet my assistant, Herr Gerstenbacker. Our excellent young Gerstenbacker writes with me his habilitation and officially assists me in a variety of smallish ways.’