After
a two-day ride via Bulgaria and Yugoslavia to the Austrian
border at Maribor I jumped from the bus before the official
customs inspection and made my way alone into Austrian territory
before hopping back on the bus further down the road. Once
in Vienna, I went to Robert's place, he'd said that he would
be in the city in a week and that I could stay there free.
On arriving, first
I went to Moglender gasse 4/1 in the seventeenth, but since
a long time it was not more there. I found after the owner
of the building (at Schuechat) throwing all his belongings
out into the corridor. It had been a long time he'd seen my
friend and wanted to free the room for another renter. My
passage was the most fortuitous imaginable. He was about to
put everything in the incinerator! I
saved my paintings from cremation by a margin of just a few
heurs..
Robert's place now out of the question,
I picked up all my paintings and headed for an old acquaintance's
house. I won't call him "friend". When I arrived,
and although he had often been the beneficiary of my generosity
in better days, he treated me like a stranger and I found
that he'd rifled the baggage that I'd left with him for valuables
and had sold anything that he could get a few shillings for.
Fortunately, he'd overlooked what remained of my wife's jewelry.
I'd hid these modest yet charming pieces very carefully in
the bottom seam of the suitcase. I sold them a few hours later
and had 10,000 shillings to hide in the special compartment
I'd carved in the heel of my shoe.
A
few days later, while walking down the Mariahilfer Strasse,
I saw a little figure limping along the sidewalk that
reminded me of someone I knew. It was a little black
man with Robert's bobbing
swagger and, although he seemed much the worse for wear,
filthy hair, humid, dirty clothing, ripped collar, it
most certainly was my careless little friend back home
in Vienna. Identification became more positive and the
extremity of his plight became clearer the closer I
got. He could barely stand up and went forward as if
pushing himself off a wall at each step. I hailed him
and when he turned, I had the fright of my life. He
had been terribly disfigured, the left side of his face
was a running scab, his lips had been exploded by punches,
his left eye was swollen shut, the right was filled
with blood. I could see that the drug traffic didn't
tolerate his easy-going ideas concerning fidelity and
keeping promises.
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