The Silence Read Online Free Page B

Quinze chair Wittgenstein waved him toward. The industrialist sat in a matching chair, facing him, and crossed his legs by placing his right ankle over his left knee, American style.
    ‘I suppose he’s filled you in on the commission?’
    ‘He mentioned a missing son.’
    ‘ Mein Gott. Hardly missing in the strictest sense. But he hasn’t shown up for work in a week. He’s the manager of mining interests at my Vienna offices on Kolowatring. Lord knows what the boy’s thinking of. Always did have his head in the clouds. Wanted to be a musician of all things.’
    Werthen registered this, but was not yet ready to follow the path of inquiry that comment might lead to.
    Instead, he said, ‘Perhaps we could review the facts. When was it first noticed that your son was missing?’
    ‘Well,’ the big man re-crossed his legs, ‘Poldi, my wife, remarked last Tuesday, I believe it was, that Hans had not taken his dinner with us as is our custom. He is single, you see, and has a suite of rooms here. Then I found out from Prohaska, the second in command at the mining division, that Hans was not there on the Monday, either. No message. Nothing.’ Wittgenstein shook his head. ‘No sense of responsibility.’
    The age-old complaint, Werthen thought: The younger generation is going to the dogs. Parents had been complaining of it since ancient Greece.
    ‘Perhaps I might speak with your wife after we are finished here?’
    Wittgenstein shook his head so violently that jowls, until now undetectable, shook.
    ‘Afraid she is indisposed. Worry over her son has brought on migraine.’
    Which, Werthen now understood, explains the straw in the street outside.
    ‘I must be blunt, Advokat Werthen. It is because of Poldi that I have summoned you. She needs the reassurance.’
    ‘And you, sir?’
    ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? The boy’s taken himself off for a fling. I did the same thing myself when my father insisted I go into his property management. Ran off to New York and played guitar in a saloon for a year before I came back home, tail partly between my legs. I hardly credit Hans with the temerity to run off to the New World, though. He’s probably holed up with some sweet young thing in the Inner City. Just trying to show his independence. But he’ll be back. In the end, he’s a Wittgenstein. We know our duty.’
    Werthen marveled at the man’s self-assurance. He could only imagine his own emotions were a child of his to go missing for a week.
    ‘Has your son been missing before?’
    ‘Skipped the odd lesson, I should say. My children are educated at home. The best instructors. Hans would hide out from Latin lessons to play his piano. Poldi, you see. She is a great one for the music. All the children play instruments. Other than that, no . . .’
    The statement had the tone of uncertainty.
    ‘Nothing?’ Werthen pursued.
    ‘The blasted Theresianum. I blame that school.’
    The Theresianum was the most prestigious Gymnasium or preparatory school in Vienna. It was called the ‘knights’ academy,’ for Empress Maria Theresa had established it in the eighteenth century to educate the young aristocrats of the realm to become administrators and political leaders. The nobles were still the only ones admitted as boarding students; the bourgeoisie had been permitted admittance as day students for the last half-century. Jews, assimilated or not, rarely gained entrance. Werthen knew this only too well; he himself had been denied admission. In any case it had not been his wish to attend the snobbish Theresianum, but rather his parents’. He had felt great relief being forced to attend the more liberal and secularized Akademische Gymnasium leading up to his entrance to the University of Vienna.
    Werthen figured that Wittgenstein must have paid very dearly indeed to get his child into the exclusive school. He most likely pulled in debts of all sorts from influential colleagues and far-flung relations to win that coup.
    ‘You