A Death in Vienna by Daniel Silva Read Free Book Online

been talking to himself in the lobby when Gabriel arrived.
    “I heard you speaking Hebrew to that man from the embassy.” His Viennese German was frantically paced, his eyes wide and damp. “You’re Israeli, yes? A friend of Eli Lavon’s?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “My name is Max Klein, and this is all my fault. Please, you must believe me. This is all my fault.”

5
VIENNA
    M AX K LEIN LIVED a streetcar ride away, in a graceful old district just beyond the Ring strasse. His was a fine old Biedermeier apartment building with a passageway leading to a big interior courtyard. The courtyard was dark, lit only by the soft glow of lights burning in the apartments overhead. A second passageway gave onto a small, neat foyer. Gabriel glanced at the tenant list. Halfway down he saw the words: M. K LEIN —3B . There was no elevator. Klein clung to the wood banister as he climbed stubbornly upward, his feet heavy on the well-trodden runner. On the third-floor landing were two wooden doors with peepholes. Gravitating toward the one on the right, Klein removed a set of keys from his coat pocket. His hand shook so badly the keys jingled like a percussion instrument.
    He opened the door and went inside. Gabriel hesitated just beyond the threshold. It had occurred to him, sitting next to Klein on the streetcar, that he had no business meeting with anyone under circumstances such as these. Experience and hard lessons had taught him that even an obviously Jewish octogenarian had to be regarded as a potential threat. Any anxiety Gabriel was feeling quickly evaporated, however, as he watched Klein turn on practically every light in the apartment. It was not the action of a man laying a trap, he thought. Max Klein was frightened.
    Gabriel followed him into the apartment and closed the door. In the bright light, he finally got a good look at him. Klein’s red, rheumy eyes were magnified by a pair of thick black spectacles. His beard, wispy and white, no longer concealed the dark liver spots on his cheeks. Gabriel knew, even before Klein told him, that he was a survivor. Starvation, like bullets and fire, leaves scars. Gabriel had seen different versions of the face in his farming town in the Jezreel Valley. He had seen it on his parents.
    “I’ll make tea,” Klein announced before disappearing through a pair of double doors into the kitchen.
    Tea at midnight, thought Gabriel. It was going to be a long night. He went to the window and parted the blinds. The snow had stopped for now, and the street was empty. He sat down. The room reminded him of Eli’s office: the high Biedermeier ceiling, the haphazard way in which the books lay on the shelves. Elegant, intellectual clutter.
    Klein returned and placed a silver tea service on a low table. He sat down opposite Gabriel and regarded him silently for a moment. “You speak German very well,” he said finally. “In fact, you speak it like a Berliner.”
    “My mother was from Berlin,” Gabriel said truthfully, “but I was born in Israel.”
    Klein studied him carefully, as if he too were looking for the scars of survival. Then he lifted his palms quizzically, an invitation to fill in the blanks. Where was she? How did she survive? Was she in a camp or did she get out before the madness?
    “They stayed in Berlin and were eventually deported to the camps,” Gabriel said. “My grandfather was a rather well-known painter. He never believed that the Germans, a people he believed were among the most civilized on earth, would go as far as they did.”
    “What was your grandfather’s name?”
    “Frankel,” Gabriel said, again veering toward the truth. “Viktor Frankel.”
    Klein nodded slowly in recognition of the name. “I’ve seen his work. He was a disciple of Max Beckmann, was he not? Extremely talented.”
    “Yes, that’s right. His work was declared degenerate by the Nazis early on and much of it was destroyed. He also lost his job at the art institute where he was