Doctor Criminale by Malcolm Bradbury

length of time, probably also had its downside. He must have had more than his share of delays, crowds, congestions, strip-searches, luggage losses, misdirections; he too must have his
portion of Terminal Depression.
    They called the Austrian Airlines flight to Vienna three hours late. I dragged my way down the long Heathrow passages, through the green-seated lounge, down the grim boarding tunnel, in through
the plane door – and found myself suddenly in the world of
Gemütlichkeit.
‘Grüss Gott, mein Herr,’ said a dirndled stewardess in red and white, as Papageno and
Papagena chittered and chattered happily on the plane Tannoy. Passengers in great green loden coats stuffed green Harrods bags into the overhead lockers, or sat staring stolidly into the stern
financial pages of the Austrian newspapers that were on offer at the plane door. Then we took off, and the trolleys came along. There was cream with the coffee, cream with everything. There was
even cream on the face of the fat girl dressed like a sofa who came smiling down the aisle as we passed at high altitude over the white-capped, roadless Alps.
    ‘What are you doing here, Lavinia?’ I asked. ‘Hello, darling, I just came back to see if you were all right,’ said Lavinia, ‘I’m in the club, if you see what
I mean.’ ‘You’re sitting in club class, are you, Lavinia?’ I asked, ‘Why?’ ‘Well, I am the executive producer,’ said Lavinia, ‘But I could only
afford it for one, this show is on a very tight budget. Would you like me to get them to send you back a bottle of champagne?’ ‘No, Lavinia, I meant, where are you going?’ I
asked, as if I didn’t know. ‘Vienna, darling,’ said Lavinia, ‘Home of the waltz and the Sachertorte, those wonderful creamy cakes, have you ever tried them? I just
couldn’t resist. Well, I’d better get back up front for the liqueurs.’ ‘So I’ll see you in Vienna?’ I asked. ‘Yes, you will, darling,’ said Lavinia,
‘We’ll have an absolutely brilliant time there, hunting for that old bugger Criminale.’

3
Vienna smelled of roasting coffee and new gingerbread . . .
    From the very moment we landed (three hours late, of course) on that sharp cold noontide in November, Vienna seemed to smell of hot roasting coffee and crisp new gingerbread
– the haunting flavours of childhood and Christmas, which by now was not so very far away. Vienna’s airport is modern and international, spacious and pleasant, and yet the moment you
walk into it from the bus that brings you in from the plane a strangely Austrian sense of tradition, the scent of a certain long-lived, leather-jacketed kind of history, immediately seems to
prevail. Despite what is sometimes said, no one should really accuse the Austrians of neglecting their great men, especially the ones who are firmly and safely dead. And certainly no one can
complain that they were ignoring the one they had carted out of the city, coated in lime, and buried deep in an unmarked pauper’s grave just one year short of two centuries earlier.
    The fact was that we had arrived in Vienna on the very brink of one of those great end-of-century anniversaries that Austria and indeed the world as a whole had no intention of over-looking. The
sign, the symbol, the signifier of little Wolfgang Amadeus was everywhere. His natty little portrait, perky and periwigged, hung all over Immigration. The fine bright notes of ‘La ci darem la
mano’ soared out of the loudspeakers as, carrying off our carry-on luggage, Lavinia and I marched side by side through the corridors of expensive shops towards the central concourse. Here you
could find a Mozart delicatessen where you could buy sticky Mozartkugeln (‘the sweet heritage of Amadeus’), rich Mozarttorte, Queen of the Night olive oil, Mozart mayonnaise. You could
stock up on Seraglio perfume at the nearby boutique; there was a chocolate bust of the man melting beside the Don Giovanni cocktail bar. Even though