The Exiles Return by Elisabeth de Waal Page B

safety above all. Safe as houses might have been his motto. Such an inappropriate comparison, as we have learned in our day, isn’t that so, Herr Doktor? Every time I see a heap of rubble and a few broken walls, the tag springs to mind.
    ‘But to return to my pavilion d’amour. I feel sure that something like it still exists, and I want you to find it for me. However little there may be left of it, if it is recognisable and can be reconstructed, that is what I want. You can also find me an architect who is able to do the thing in style, and with the requisite good taste. You will send me the description, you will send me the plans, and when the time comes I’ll come over again and have a look. I don’t expect you to find it today or tomorrow. But, please, don’t take too long about it: I don’t want a retreat for my old age, I want it in my prime, which is now. And your time and trouble will not go unrewarded. I know I’m asking for something rather out of the ordinary. But you think it over, Herr Doktor, and come and see me in a couple of days at my hotel so we can discuss the necessary financial arrangements. I shall be here till the end of next week and shall look forward to hearing from you. And, by the way, you might give me the address of that antique dealer you mentioned. I, too, might be able to take advantage of the reversals of fortune that have overtaken some people due to recent historical events.’
    Kanakis got up from his chair to take his leave, and it was not until a few seconds later that Traumüller followed suit; as if, stunned by what he had just heard, he had needed Kanakis to move in order to come to his senses.
    ‘But what, in heaven’s name, are you going to do with this pavilion, or whatever you call it – if it exists and if I am able to find it?’
    ‘Why, live in it, Herr Doktor, and enjoy myself. That’s what I intend to do – enjoy myself – as one can only enjoy oneself in Vienna!’

 
    Seven
    It looked an insignificant little shop in one of the tiny narrow streets in the Inner City, a street very close to the offices of Dr Traumüller. It was on Kanakis’s second visit to Vienna that Traumüller had sent him there; the owner was, he said, the most knowledgeable and experienced antique dealer in town and, what was even more remarkable, a scrupulously honest one. ‘A Jew, Herr von Kanakis, an elderly Jewish gentleman who has returned from exile and, under our restitution laws, has recovered the premises he occupied before he left. His valuable stock had, alas, been dispersed. He was only able to trace a few pieces and those were of course restored to him, but it was not very much. However, Herr Castello has had the courage to return and to start afresh. A very learned and admirable man! As you might expect, his prices are high, but he only deals in top quality, and you may be sure that anything you buy from him has been acquired legitimately – not looted, you know. I have never heard that he has sold a fake.’ Dr Traumüller seemed immensely proud of the fact that Herr Castello had decided to come back and that his return had been welcomed. He perhaps over-stressed his high opinion of him because he was a Jew. He seemed to want to impress upon Kanakis that he himself and people like him were not and never had been anti-Semitic, that the horrors of the past few years were buried and forgotten on both sides: that Austrians on the whole had had nothing to do with them.
    Kanakis smiled at so much disingenuousness. The issue did not touch him personally and in fact he was more interested in Castello’s artistic integrity than in his commercial practices. After all, you could only build up a profitable business if you bought, as cheaply as you could, what people desired to sell, and what other people, with newly-acquired wealth, would want to buy. Kanakis could see nothing reprehensible in that.
    For a little while he stood looking into the shop’s one window. Through the soft