Chasing the King of Hearts (Peirene's Turning Point Series) by Hanna Krall

refuse Halina’s schoolfriend Janka Tempelhof. And she especially can’t turn down the waiter. He tells her that the Count came to Poland to acquire new papers but now he has to go back. He’s worth taking along. And what’s more, Marynia, the waiter adds, lowering his voice, the man pulls a lot of weight there in Vienna.
    She ought to know what Roman means by ‘new papers’. The old ones clearly fell into the wrong hands.
    She doesn’t hear what’s clear, but she definitely understands ‘he pulls a lot of weight there in Vienna’. That’s what she’s been waiting for! The engineer from Todt issues her a permit – for three people – and she fills the black suitcase with twenty kilos of tobacco.
    A few days later the Count has some news. He’s been assured (and the source is by all means reliable) that her husband is alive.
    A week later he says: I’ll try to get him out…
    She meets the Count in Café Prückel, not far from the Todt office.
    She admires his immaculate manners.
    She listens to his assurances that her husband is alive.
    Wonderful news.

The Scale
    Inside Café Prückel she waits for the engineer’s Viennese colleague and her next travel permit. Opposite the entrance is a potted ficus and next to that is a mirror. Izolda sits facing the door and watches the street. If she hadn’t been facing the door she would have spotted them in the mirror – two men coming into the café, searching for someone… They would have seen her back, would have had to walk around the table, look her in the face… She still wouldn’t have escaped, only gained a minute or two… (And what would those minutes have gained her?)
    The men step up to her table.
    The shorter man asks: Are you waiting for our colleague from Todt?
    She nods.
    He’s waiting for you somewhere else…
    The men loom over her. The taller one signals for the waiter, she pays and they leave the café.
    They walk past the plane trees and maples of the Ringstrasse, towards the Danube Canal. As soon as they reach the bridge the men grab her by the arms – both at once, without a word, from each side. As if they were afraid she’d jump into the water. She has no intention of jumping. They turn on to Franz-Josefs-Kai and head towards the building she’s heard much about. The building that once was the elegant Hotel Metropol and now houses the Viennese Gestapo.
    On the second floor, in room 121, they take her handbag and write down her name. That’s all for today. A fat, pinkish officer wearing short Tyrolean trousers and aleather jacket walks her to the prison. Around the corner there is an old man with a weighing machine that he’s set up on the pavement along with a little ceramic coin bank. She goes to the old man, removes her shoes and stands on the scales. For a moment the Gestapo officer loses sight of her. Hey, where are you? he shouts, and sticks his right hand inside his jacket pocket. Don’t worry, it’s nothing, she assures him, I’m just weighing myself – and slides the balance closer to the middle. Seventy kilograms exactly. Without shoes. She steps off the scales, slips on her shoes and carefully moves the weight to zero. She remembers that she doesn’t have her handbag. She turns to the Gestapo man: Would you mind? He reaches into his left pocket and drops a coin in the bank. It’s on the house, he says, and snorts with laughter. Then he turns serious. Why are you doing that? he asks. She shrugs her shoulders, because she really can’t say.
    In the prison they take away her medallion and hand her a copy of the
Völkischer Beobachter
. As a political prisoner, they explain, she’s entitled to a daily newspaper.
Curls
    The cell has two bunks, two chairs and a toilet bowl, all fastened to the wall and the floor. The window is barred and boarded from the outside. Light seeps in through the crack between the plywood and the window frame. The bed folds up like a bunk in a sleeping compartment, except it has a lock – and the