Theodore F Walker was back in Vienna. Passers-by would have seen a slim man in his early fifties strolling in the early spring evening, apparently with no fixed objective. In that they would have been mistaken. Theo was early for his appointment by design: it gave him time to make a small detour. At the narrow entrance to Auergasse he paused briefly. The door to Number Seventeen was hidden from view beyond a shallow bend. Ten years ago, when his tour of duty ended, it had been painted dark blue. Later he would discover if anything had changed. But not yet.
First he had an appointment at a konditorei a few hundred yards from the Stefanskirche. He observed with approval that the roof tiles of the Cathedral, weathering with the years, had lost some of their garishness, the gold better for mellowing. The Konditorei St Stefan, on the other hand, was exactly as he remembered it. The Frau Doktor was in her familiar place.
In her own right Ursula Steinmann held no doctorate, medical or academic but, by Austrian custom, took her husband's title. The whereabouts of the good Doktor himself were unknown; deceased, divorced, disappeared - one didn't enquire. Theo approached her table, set slightly apart at the rear of the café from where she could survey the scene but converse without being overheard. She looked up and smiled. "Theodore," she said, offering a powdered cheek.
When he was seated facing her she remarked favourably on the greying at his temples. "You were always ganz korrekt, but in those days you appeared too young. Now you have the look that suits you: natural dignity."
He accepted the compliment with a nod. They made small talk, Ursula prompting. Was all well with Elizabeth, the new young wife (lingering just long enough on the adjective to indicate interest in a woman little more than half his age)? How was he finding life back in Washington? Where else had he been on this nostalgia tour? Did the State Department grant everyone a sabbatical? Or was it some kindof honeymoon?
In an appropriate pause, he enquired whether she could accept another slice of Sachertorte. She refused, as he knew she would. It had always been part of their ritual, signalling the end of the pleasantries before business. Tonight promised very pleasant business indeed. The details had all been agreed in a series of calls to her cell phone; the Frau Doktor had no known land line number. The meeting was to verify his presence in the city and to make payment. She had offered to waive the fee, as in the past, but Theo had insisted. He was no longer in post at the Embassy, with the opportunity to steer clients her way. The envelope was passed across the table and transferred unobtrusively to her handbag. Except that her fees were now in Euros rather than Schillings, it was understood that nothing had changed. The same applied to the quality of the service provided.
Ursula Steinmann was widely believed - in circles that had access to such information - to be the most influential madam west of the Danube. If stories of franchises opening in Budapest and Warsaw were true, her network was now in the process of spreading east. And was likely to prosper. Because her operation was unique. No rival could compete with the unique service she provided: none of her women worked in the recognised sex industry. There was no coercion. They were all volunteers. Her recruitment was always by word of mouth. Contacts were established at cocktail parties, dinner parties and other social gatherings all over the city. No approach was ever made at a first meeting. The women had to come to regard Ursula Steinmann as a personal friend before the first hint was dropped. Where there was a boring, unimaginative husband - not difficult to find -there was a potential addition to the roster. In time and with care.
It was admittedly painstaking and time-consuming but the results were spectacular. The wife of a senior banker, a soprano with a budding reputation at the State Opera, a high-powered PR woman, several air stewardesses, a tour guide, an interpreter at the Foreign Ministry, two or three lawyers and numerous suburban housewives were among those on call. Very few needed the financial rewards, which in any case were limited by a strict policy of no more than four engagements in a year. By that means the Frau Doktor was able to supply highly sexed women for whom the predominant attraction was an occasional escape from routine. The unpredictability of each summons added to the illicit thrill.
Theo himself had delicious recollections of a female assistant curator who worked on Schoenbrunn Palace's porcelain collection. While her husband believed she was attending a conference in Dresden, she and Theo spent a week-end at a chalet no more than fifty kilometres from Vienna. Her name may or may not have been Trudi, nor was she necessarily thirty-three years of age; Ursula Steinmann always gave plausible details of such things but discretion was her priority.
On the drive to their hideaway, Trudi had made polite conversation that barely disguised her nervousness with an American she had just met for the first time. Yet no sooner had they closed the chalet door than she dropped to her knees, unfastened his zip and took out his penis. With a quiet murmur of anticipation, she guided it into her mouth. When his orgasm approached, she did nothing to prevent it. It was the prelude to forty-eight hours of sex, punctuated only by the need to pause from time to time to recuperate. And that was when Trudi showed a gift for lascivious invention that had miraculous benefits for Theo's erection and his ability to sustain it. No word was spoken of Trudi's husband but it was not difficult to surmise that his shortcomings contributed to the enthusiasm with which she took advantage of a call from the Frau Doktor.
That and other liaisons had occurred during Theo's years as head of the commercial section at the Embassy in Vienna. None was ever paid for; the Frau Doktor returned favors for favors. Theo rationalised that it was a reward that had been earned over the years.
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Theodore F Walker had seemingly been predestined to serve his country in some form. The F was for Franklin. His parents had been staunch admirers of the Roosevelts. The fact that one President had been a Republican, the other a Democrat was immaterial. Baby Theodore Franklin was named to honor them both.
Fortunately, his career path fulfilled his parents' implied ambition. After majoring in modern languages at UCLA, he survived a series of exacting interviews in Washington. The outcome was State Department finance for a year of business studies in Geneva. Five years behind a desk back home prepared him for his first overseas posting and his first disappointment. Central America's prize berth was Mexico City. Theo found himself in Tegucicalpa, Honduras.
Other let-downs followed. Scandinavia could have offered Copenhagen or Stockholm. Theo was given Reykjavik, though it was there he acquired a wife, a slim blonde named Astrid. Together, they moved east but not to Tokyo or Hong Kong but to Kuala Lumpur. At least Malaysia was warmer than Iceland, and this time Theo was promised a return to Europe and a more exciting appointment. This proved not to be the hoped-for Paris or Rome but Brussels. Career-wise there was much to be said for experience at the heart of the European Union, and for several years Theo immersed himself with such diligence that his State Department stock rose sharply.
Astrid almost ruined it. Life on the diplomatic round had grown boring. She dutifully played hostess to visiting business delegations, attended the parties and receptions, but they had become a chore. Nevertheless, it was with complete astonishment that the rumour mill began to circulate stories of her liaison with the wife of the Italian ambassador. Titillation turned to scandal when allegations surfaced of the existence of photographs of the two women in bed together, one of them wearing a strap-on prosthesis. Theo was summoned by the Head of Personnel and baldly informed that only his recent work record could save him - and that on condition that Astrid was removed - swiftly, expensively if necessary. But removed.
