Free Gossip from the Forest by Thomas Keneally Page A

the wife of some general; that’s all Erzberger ever knew.
    Erzberger: They killed her?
    Maiberling: She had the influenza.
    Erzberger: Oh yes. So many …
    Maiberling: She got better. Very thin. End of September her housekeeper found her. Sitting up in her bath, all her clothes on! Head blown off. And so bloody clever of them: pistol in her lap.
    He beat at the door and dribbled down the woodwork.
    Erzberger: People get so depressed after influenza. I remember Paula …
    Maiberling: For Christ’s sake don’t be a simpleton.
    Erzberger: I’m sorry.
    Maiberling: Do you know women never blow their heads off? Ask any coroner. They prize their heads. They prize their eyes, their lips.
    Erzberger: I’m sorry, Alfred.
    Maiberling: Very few, anyhow. Very few shoot themselves in the head. Not … certainly not … Inga’s type.
    The plumbing sighed resonantly. Perhaps the ghosts were there of invalids who had died for lack of Spa water in the last four summers.
    Erzberger: What happened then, Alfred? Go on. What happened?
    Maiberling: This. This happened. Her husband runs an army corps in Latvia. A hypnotic bastard—not with women, with boys, with breathless damn subalterns. And Inga and I were not always … not always secretive. So the valiant corps commander’s honor was in question!
    Erzberger: Try to be quiet, Alfred.
    For the count was not chewing the partitions any more but yelling across the tiled spaces.
    Maiberling: She was shot by his boys, his subalterns on leave.
    Erzberger: Can you be sure, Alfred?
    The count waved a fist at him.
    Maiberling: I verified it. Do you think I wouldn’t verify it? For Inga?
    Erzberger: But were they seen? The housekeeper … did she see them?
    Maiberling: What do you think? Their training! Of course she didn’t see them.
    Oh Christ, he’ll shoot some staff officer. For his dead love’s sake.
    Erzberger: Maybe you should try to understand … the depression women suffer … they more than us.…
    Maiberling: Damn you, Matthias. How dare you humor me …
    Erzberger: You ought to wash the muck from your face.
    Maiberling: … how dare you treat me as a case!
    Erzberger lost his temper and spread his thick legs.
    Erzberger: All right. What are you going to do then? Run wild upstairs? That’s what worries me. You behave like a case.
    The count, upright, snatched his overcoat from its hook behind the lavatory door. Sewn into its bulk, the weapon. He’ll threaten me, thought Erzberger, he’s quite mad. But the count walked past him, laid the overcoat on a chair by the wall and poured water for washing. He spoke in a near whisper, a mere dry flutter at the back of the throat.
    Maiberling: I know about women. I spit on all your chat about depression.
    Matthias could feel the cold under his armpits; evaporating fright.
    Erzberger: Alfred, we’re not private men now. We’re on essential business.
    Maiberling: Are we? Four municipal cretins could manage it.
    He began drinking handfuls of the water he was meant to wash his face in.
    Erzberger: Is that your attitude?
    Maiberling: If you like.
    All the way upstairs Erzberger debated with himself. Will I exchange him? And, in this military ashram, for whom?

ERZBERGER FALLS UNDER SIEGE
    In the lobby he saw Vanselow, still waiting where he had been left.
    Erzberger: You must forgive me.
    Vanselow: Not at all. You’re an important man.
    A herd of gold-buttoned staff officers moved across the lobby toward them. Soon they were encircled. An intelligence officer, about forty years old, made them a valedictory speech and offered any of his colleagues Erzberger might care for as aides.
    The solemnity of the event, fat Erzberger and deep-blue Vanselow in the middle, was debased by a loud young man—a transport officer, it seemed—who argued by the elevator door with General von Winterfeldt.
    Transport Officer: Four, yes, sir. But what you ask would