The warm sun was making an optimist of him. He filled his lungs with morning air, and walked back to the house to prepare breakfast. He was becoming a dab hand in the kitchen with these weekends spent away from the ministrations of Frau Blatschky. A five-minute egg was his specialty; and coffee that was surprisingly drinkable.
Fresh Semmeln were waiting, nestled in a gingham napkin in a basket on the doorstep as he came back to the house. He put his hand to the crusts: they were still warm. The local gasthaus at the crossroads delivered the breakfast rolls each morning they were in occupancy.
Life was good, he thought, as he picked up the basket and went inside.
For the next ten minutes he occupied himself so thoroughly with breakfast preparations that he was quite unaware of the arrival of visitors, until an insistent knocking at the kitchen door brought him out of his reverie. He wiped his hands on the apron he loved to wear, a gift from Berthe purchased from the kitchen of the Hotel Imperial.
He opened the door and there stood Gross, cheeks flushed red and bowler in hand. His balding pate glistened in the morning sun.
Gross’s discerning eyes went from the lederhosen to the apron, and a wry smile appeared.
‘Sorry to interrupt this lovely domestic scene.’
‘Good morning to you, too, Gross. What brings you to the countryside? I thought you were allergic to fresh air.’
‘Invite me in, Werthen,’ he replied. ‘I need a cup of coffee.’
Over Gross’s shoulder Werthen could see a pferdelose Kutsche, horseless carriage, chuffing exhaust in the early morning air.
‘Nor did I think you were a fan of modern transport.’
‘Coffee, Werthen, please. I will explain.’
They sat at the pine table, both sipping at the coffee. Gross, learning that Werthen had brewed it, eyed it with suspicion, but was soon won over.
‘I have a feeling you are going to ruin my weekend,’ Werthen finally said.
‘It was not my intention. Events, however, outpace us.’
‘I thought I heard voices.’
Werthen and Gross turned to see Berthe standing in the doorway between the sitting room and kitchen, wearing a fashionable Japanese kimono as a bathrobe.
‘Frau Meisner.’ Gross stood and nodded his head at her.
‘Please sit, Gross. You haven’t come to ruin our weekend, have you?’
Accused twice of the same crime, Gross was human enough to hang his head guiltily.
‘I assure you-’
‘It’s alright, Gross,’ Werthen said. Then to Berthe, ‘Coffee?’
‘Mmm.’
He took this as assent, and filled a cup for her. A sleep wrinkle scarred her left cheek. She yawned as she sat to join them.
‘Frieda could sleep through a hurricane,’ she said, taking the cup happily. ‘Whatever are you doing riding in one of those machines, Gross? The stink woke me up.’
Gross sighed. ‘I am simply the messenger, good folk. Please do not kill me.’
‘The messenger of what?’ Werthen said. ‘And how are we outpaced by events, as you say?’
‘All will be explained,’ Gross said. ‘But meanwhile we have been summoned.’
‘The weekend, Gross. I will have a weekend with my family.’
‘Archdukes do not respect weekends.’
‘No.’ Berthe said it as if it were an expletive.
‘Franz Ferdinand?’ Werthen said in wonder.
‘The very same.’ Gross once again eyed the apron and lederhosen. ‘You might want to change for the occasion.’
Their driver turned out to be the loquacious type, which was fine by Werthen, for even though he and Gross sat on the back bench of the open carriage, anything they said could be overheard. Instead, they listened to Private Ferdinand Porsche as he extolled the virtues of the machine carrying them at a brisk pace along the dirt roads of the Vienna Woods towards Vienna.
‘She’s a beauty of a vehicle, and that’s for sure,’ the young man enthused. ‘What we call a hybrid. Runs on both gas and electricity.’
‘Ingenious,’ Gross said through tight lips as he held on to the side rail of the bench with a fearful grip.
‘The very word, sir,’ Porsche said, glancing back at them from time to time, his youthful face made to look older by a wide hussar’s moustache. ‘She’ll do upward of sixty kilometers an hour if I let her loose.’
Which statement made Gross audibly gulp.
‘Perhaps we can save the high speeds for the race track,’ Werthen advised. ‘This is a comfortable pace.’
Werthen soon understood why Gross’s cheeks were red when he arrived this morning. Sitting high above the road as they were, the wind played at their faces as they sped along the lanes. A pair of goggles would not go amiss, he thought. They both soon took their hats off, to stop them blowing away.
‘I was none too pleased when I got my call-up notice,’ Porsche said. ‘That’s not to say I am not a loyal Austrian, born in Bohemia. “Ferdinand,” I said to myself when I saw the notice, “Ferdinand, you’re off to the Balkans to some lonely outpost for two years.” Instead, I became the chauffeur to the Archduke himself. Quite an honor.’
‘It is indeed,’ Werthen said, enjoying the young man’s enthusiasm. ‘Had you much experience with such vehicles?’
This brought a honking laugh from the private. ‘Sorry, sir. Not to be rude, but yes, I have a fair amount of experience. I designed this little buggy myself.’
‘You did?’ Gross spluttered.
‘The Lohner-Porsche system, it’s called. Porsche. That would be yours truly.’
Werthen had, of course, heard of Jacob Lohner, who produced carriages for Franz Joseph as well as various other European royals. Lohner had also begun production of an electric horseless carriage in his Floridsdorf factory. Lohner was naturally the name one remembered. Just as with Martini amp; Rossi’s vermouth. Who ever remembered the Rossi part? Poor Porsche, Werthen thought. Destined to obscurity because his name came second.
‘Bravo for you,’ Werthen said with gusto, as if to make up for the man’s eventual anonymity.
‘It’s the future, I always say. We are riding into the future.’
Gross, Werthen noticed, closed his eyes briefly at this comment, as if he desired a time machine traveling in the opposite direction.
Before they realized it, they had reached macadamized roads leading to Vienna’s fourth district and the Belvedere, where Franz Ferdinand made his office. They had made the Archduke’s acquaintance once before, in 1898, when investigating a case that took them to the very doors of the Hofburg, the Habsburg seat of power.
Werthen wondered what the Archduke could have in mind for them this time.
Soon their vehicle pulled into the long circular drive of the Lower Belvedere. Franz Ferdinand, as heir apparent to the Austrian throne, was eager to assume some leadership position and impatient with his uncle, Franz Josef, who seemed to be living for ever; the old man had already been ruling for over half a century. The Archduke had therefore installed at this former palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy what was often referred to as ‘the Clandestine Cabinet’ — a sort of shadow General Staff, formally known as the Military Chancellery, ready to assume power when his uncle stepped down or died. Thus, he kept his hand in both military and diplomatic matters, often at odds with his uncle and with the General Staff, and always an enemy of the Court Chamberlain, Prince Montenuovo, who protected court etiquette and greatly disapproved of Franz Ferdinand’s morganatic marriage to a ‘commoner’. The Archduke’s wife, Sophie von Chotek, was a mere countess with just sixteen quarterings of major nobility in her blood line, far too few to make an adequate Habsburg match, according to the Court Chamberlain, who himself was the product of a less than appropriate marriage between the Habsburg Archduchess Marie Louise and an officer of her guard. All of Vienna followed this enmity with the eager expectancy of an audience at a Lehar operetta. What new indignity would the Court Chamberlain submit the Archduke and his wife to next? Would Franz Ferdinand ever get his own back on Montenuovo? Thus far, the Archduke had sought revenge simply by spending as much time away from Vienna as he could, ensconced in his Bohemian castle of Konopiste.