Chapter IV: V ienna, 1915

Chapter IV: Vienna, 1915

By the next year, Maria had shown the paper to several prominent men in Vienna and learnt many interesting things. The first lesson had been: if you say too much, nobody will believe you. She no longer told these learned gentlemen the story of the séance; she simply sought their opinions, and when asked where the writing originated from merely said that she had copied it from an unknown source. This made things much easier and didn’t corrupt the results.

From a Viennese Museum of Ethnology, she learnt that the writing was a form of early Sumerian cuneiform script; from there she was directed to the Vienna University, where a secretary accepted the copy with little fuss, promising to contact her once the text had been studied. There was much more trouble with the drawing — she went to the Natural History Museum and was stupid enough to refer to the drawing as ‘a treasure map’. She was immediately dismissed with a snub comment that the drawing probably wasn’t a sea map but some kind of geological survey, and sent to the Technisches Museum, where she was careful to avoid giving any interpretations about what kind of information the paper might contain. A rather nice elderly gentleman spent about ten minutes trying to decipher the drawing and then said apologetically:

“As a sea or land map it doesn’t make much sense but I imagine it could be interpreted as some kind of a sky chart. Why don’t you try to talk to someone at the Urania; I’m sure it’s an interesting piece of puzzle for an astronomer.”

At the Urania she found no-one of any use — she was informed that it was an educational facility with a public observatory which could offer no research services.

She then tried the Vienna Observatory in Währing and was offered no other help than the suggestion to contact someone at the Kuffner Observatory in Ottakring. She did, and finally this hit the

Mart Sander mark. After meeting the gentleman to whom she was recommended, she was sure that the man must have a reputation as a mad professor, the one who takes on hopeless cases nobody else ventures to touch.

“This is very interesting, indeed,” the scientist said immediately. “What do you make of it, Herr Kollege?” he turned to an even older gentleman who passed them on the stairs. “Isn’t this in your area of expertise?”

“Indeed,” the other man said after a moment of contemplation. “It’s a portion of the northern hemisphere’s winter sky. There, Taurus is featured prominently.”

“And this spot here?” Maria asked, pointing at the accented dot in the middle of the map.

“Definitely Aldebaran,” the man replied. “Even though the drawing is a bit off balance. These here shouldn’t be here, but rather…”

He made some gestures with his fingers that reflected the movements in his mind, as he rearranged the constellations and stars. Then he seemed to arrive at a startling thought.

“Who drew this map?” he asked the first gentleman.

“The young lady brought it along, Herr de Ball.”

“Well?” The man addressed as de Ball turned to Maria. “Was it drawn by someone at the University?”

“Oh no,” Maria replied. “I copied it from an old map I found.”

“And how accurately did you copy it?”

“Very carefully, through some carbon paper.”

“And just how old do you presume this original map was? Where was it published?” he insisted.

“I just found it among some old papers and it fired my interest,” Maria said.

“So you’re sure it’s not drawn by some specialist during the last six months or so?”

“By a specialist — definitely not.”

He frowned at her, then smiled and offered his hand.

“I am the director of this establishment, my name is Leo de Ball,” he said. “Would you oblige me by stepping into my office for a while?”

Maria followed him. Once inside the building, they entered a large room filled with countless papers, maps and technical equipment. Director de Ball held up the paper and compared it to several other documents on his desk.

“This is very strange,” he said. “If you insist this map is not a current work of a modern astronomer, the original must be somewhat older than you have given me to understand.”

“How old?” Maria asked.

“Well… how about a couple of hundred thousand years?”

Seeing Maria’s bewilderment, Herr de Ball explained:

“This is something I have been working on for the last couple of years. Calculating, how our night sky looked thousands, even millions of years ago. What you have here is a drawing of the sky as it appeared sometime between two and five hundred thousand years ago. Taurus is here — Orion — Auriga. This is definitely Aldebaran, sixty-eight light years away. Today it’s located in the line of sight between our Earth and the Hyades. But here — you can see the slight shift in proportions.”

Maria only saw some dots and lines connecting them.

“I would definitely wish to know more about the origins of this map,” de Ball said. He was no longer fretful or irascible, but merely excited. Even though the thought made Maria laugh inwardly, the old man resembled Sigrun in her excitement over the ‘treasure map’.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t really like to know — or you would hate both me and yourself for knowing,” Maria said.

Yet she told the whole story.

The old man didn’t laugh or even smile; in fact he sat perfectly motionless as if immersed in his own thoughts. When Maria had finished her story, he said:

“Most fascinating.”

He then lifted the paper again, leaving Maria waiting for a more clarifying comment.

“Have you managed to have the writing deciphered yet?” he asked.

“No, but I’ve left it at the University with a professor of ancient languages.”

Mart Sander

“Have you heard of Nicola Tesla?” de Ball asked. This was the first time Maria had heard the name mentioned and she shook her head.

“Tesla is a scientist involved in very radical and unconventional disciplines. Some years ago, he believed he received signals from the stars. These didn’t come to him in a trance or telepathically, even though it is rumoured that he experiences visitations from otherworldly beings. He actually picked up radio signals in his laboratory. He was convinced that these were cosmic greetings from one planet to another.”

“What did these signals say?” Maria whispered.

“The message, of course, was a very simple one — just a basic mathematical sequence, but enough to prove that it came from an intelligent mind. The scientific world ridiculed him instantly and he will probably always be known as the man who talks to the Martians. But there was more to that. I believe he was on to something.”

“Am I on to something?”

De Ball was reluctant to avert his eyes from the drawing, which seemed to fascinate him enormously.

“You may be,” he said after a pause. “Am I allowed to keep it?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Thank you. I would very much like to be more precise about the era when this was the visible pattern in the sky. But I can tell you without any doubt that this was long before any man who could think walked this earth. If this message was sent to you from space, it is most probably pinpointing the location from where it was sent. Thus, what I would say, is — whatever the text turns out to be, it originates from an intelligent mind in the Aldebaran system.”

His expression suddenly grew grim.

“The only thing is that this intelligence might have ceased to exist half a million years ago. Perhaps this message was transmitted by nothing more than a lifeless beacon that still emits a distress call which no-one has ever answered.”

This was about the time when Maria met Lothar. It happened quite unexpectedly and later, when a friendship developed between them, they liked to think that the stars had dictated their meeting.

One day there was a knock on Maria’s door. She had by then moved from her mother’s apartment to a small flat in a fashionable neighbourhood. As she opened the door, she saw a young man in a flier’s uniform. The word ‘dashing’ came to her mind, even though she was hardly the type to be ‘dashed’ easily. The man was everything a future hero should be: tall and handsome, with probably not too much intelligence but with double the usual bravery to compensate for his lack of skills to solve problems with words rather than fists. Knowing all that in an instant, it was somewhat endearing to see him at loss when it came to an interaction with a young woman. Maria, by then twenty, had already met many men in uniform and knew that once they were facing a woman alone, the panache and flashiness they were demonstrating as a group faded away hopelessly. The man introduced himself as Lothar Waisz of the Imperial and Royal Aviation Troops, but more importantly the son of Professor Waisz of the Vienna University department of ancient languages. Maria asked the officer in. It wasn’t the habit of her landlady to let young men without a previous engagement to enter Maria’s room, but obviously she was a patriotic woman and the thought of entertaining an officer wasn’t a thing that she could imagine would damage the reputation of a young lady.

“Such a nice apartment,” officer Waisz said.

“No, it’s not. It’s just a place to stay,” Maria replied. “I can hardly think of it as home.”

“Where is home?”

“In Favoriten, where my mother lives.”

“So why did you leave her?”

“It is time to start out on my own, and since I’ve managed to start earning my own money…”

“You’re a medium, aren’t you?” The eyes of the officer were measuring her with cautious approval. The man was, after all, not a typical military upstart.

“Look, Officer Waisz…” Maria started.

Mart Sander

“Please — Lothar,” the man interrupted. It was unexpected but then they were both roughly the same age and it was rather fashionable and daring to be on a first name basis with strangers.

“Very well… Lothar,” Maria said and this felt peculiar. There were only a couple of men she had ever spoken to in such a familiar fashion. There were only a couple of men she had ever been in the same room with in private who weren’t relatives, or youngsters, or someone totally unimportant to her.

“And you are Maria,” Lothar did the necessary introduction himself. “I know it, because your name is on the envelope I’m here to deliver. From my father.”

Maria sat and invited Lothar to take a seat opposite her.

“I’ve been waiting with anticipation. Did Professor Waisz — your father — manage to decipher the writing?”

“Not entirely,” the man said, unlocking a small briefcase and taking out an envelope, which he placed on the table in front of Maria. “But not for lack of knowledge — rather for the lack of fantasy.”

“What could fantasy have to do with it?” Maria asked.

“My father can read the languages of the ancient ones as easily as you or I would read the Wiener Tageblatt. But he is restricted by what he knows he should read. The ancient texts are quite limited in their emotional depth. So, when he comes across a text such as this,” — he glided his fingers over the envelope — “he fails to see it other than in the context of what he knows and dismisses it as a hoax, albeit a very well-crafted hoax. In fact, he commanded me to find out who put you up to it.”

“Up to what?”

“Who of his colleagues has composed the letter and handed it over to you with instructions to show it to him — either to test him or to make a fool out of him.”

“I assure you, Officer Waisz…” Maria protested.

“Lothar, please. And you don’t have to reassure me of anything. Because, unlike my father, I am blessed with fantasy — at least to some degree. Father was studying the text for several weeks; meanwhile I found out about you.”

“So what did you find out?” Maria asked, and knew it sounded as if she was flirting with the man.

“That you are rapidly becoming in great demand as a medium in Vienna. Seeing you, I can understand why the clients flock to your door.”

Yes, the young man was flirting, too.

“You can hardly call it flocking,” Maria interrupted a situation that was becoming awkward, even though not in an unpleasant way. “I receive perhaps two or three clients a week; it’s barely enough to pay for this room.”

“But aren’t there hundreds of fortune tellers and spiritualists in Vienna, even in this very neighbourhood, who are vainly waiting for someone to knock at their doors?” Lothar made his point. “And I know what your forte is.”

“What?”

“Your simplicity. You don’t rely on effects, fake apparitions or ectoplasms, on assistants to create a special atmosphere or produce mood music. From what I hear, you only need a sheet of paper and a pen. There is no rolling of eyes, mysterious screams, contortions. In a word — in a city that’s flooded with fake psychics, telepathists, seers and clairvoyants, you seem to be the real thing.”

“People come to me for answers and I give them what I am able to,” Maria responded modestly. She was fascinated that the man didn’t mention her looks, as she was afraid he would.

“Not to mention your beauty,” Lothar said.

Maria smiled. Suddenly it wasn’t at all an unpleasant thing to hear, when coming from an agreeable man.

“But you still haven’t told me what your father — or your fantasy — claim to have deciphered?” she asked.

With a slight gesture, Lothar asked for permission and opened the envelope addressed to Maria.

“My father was irritated, because he knew this writing to be a very early form of Sumerian, which is the oldest written — and probably even spoken — language in the world. For him there were two options: either one of his colleagues has discovered an even earlier stage of the cuneiform or another of them has modified the existing

Mart Sander knowledge simply to test him. The first option was dismissed in an instant, so what remained was the second one. And yet, I believe there also is a third one: the right one.”

“Which is?” Maria asked almost inaudibly.

“That this text was dictated to you and you wrote it down without even realizing you had done so,” Lothar said. “That it wasn’t dictated by a living person, but by a very ancient spirit, who walked the earth thousands of years ago.”

“I am as puzzled as you,” Maria replied, astonished at the fact that the rather straightforward-looking officer really had such an open mind. “You could interrogate me or you could interrogate the pencil that wrote these markings — we are both but instruments, controlled by someone else.”

“Yes. By a very wise ancient spirit — or spirits, as it speaks of itself in the plural,” Lothar said. “May I read you the best possible translation of what my father believes to be a rather tasteless joke?”

“I am still waiting,” Maria said.

“It’s not very literary,” Lothar said, as he opened the envelope, taking from it Maria’s original letter to Professor Waisz as well as another sheet with some modern writing. “Father dismissed some of the markings as deliberately faked to look ‘too early’, as he put it, so he never really bothered to connect the dots.”

He began reading:

“Reaching out — great distance between us — divided by time and space — we offer but we want something in exchange — you wait and we shall be united.”

He looked up at Maria expectantly.

“Was that all?” Maria asked with both excitement that the writing had made sense after all and disappointment that it gave no great revelation.

“That’s all,” Lothar said. “This text is written down two and a half times, as if you were listening to a gramophone record over and over again.”

“Or,” Maria said, “as if a beacon was sending out its predetermined signal, over and over and over again, until it reaches someone.”

“When they say ‘great distance’,” Lothar was apparently very careful to find the right choice of words, “would you have any idea just how great a distance we’re talking about?”

“I don’t think I can tell you that,” Maria apologized. “You would think me mad. Clinically so.”

“I’ve gone beyond my doubts. I’ve taken the trouble of asking for a second opinion,” Lothar said.

“Is there a place you can get one?” Maria enquired.

“Not about the writing, but about the message itself,” Lothar explained. “It may seem strange to you, but I’ve always had a military calling. When I was ten and my mother passed away, I was sent to my grandfather in Bavaria. There I attended the War Academy. A couple of years ago I became a pilot. I probably would’ve stayed there, but as our Imperial and Royal motherland doesn’t really have an efficient air force, I was chosen to instruct the local fliers in the Hansa Brandenburg D-I. It’s a single-seat, single-engine biplane fighter, built especially for our air force.”

“I see,” Maria said a little doubtfully.

“I’m sorry to bother you with all that,” Lothar apologized. “I was talking about the Academy. You wouldn’t believe it, but there are many men with interests that reach far beyond the mundane. I was blessed to meet General Haushofer, who has done a great deal of travelling in the East. There he met the eminent esoteric teacher Gurdjieff and became his spiritual disciple. Have you heard about Gurdjieff ?”

Maria hadn’t, other than to have seen the name mentioned in some pre-war magazines of the occult, before the Russians had become the enemy.

“He taught the possibilities of transcending to a higher state of awareness and achieving full human potential, of which we are currently utilizing no more than a sleepwalker,” Lothar explained. “And that once you’ve awakened your consciousness, you’ll realize your place in the Universe and the Universe will recognize you.”

He leaned towards Maria as if wishing to grab her hands, but didn’t touch her.

Mart Sander

“I wrote to General Haushofer the minute father had finished his translation. I’m sorry — that was the cause of the delay. I waited two weeks until I received a reply from the General.”

“And what was his opinion?” Maria asked.

“First of all, he had a question. He asked whether there were any portions, such as drawings, on the message. To be more precise — whether this message came with coordinates.”

“Did he mean…”

“A map. A celestial map.”

Maria was astonished. Instead of mocking her, the young man had actually anticipated the otherworldly origins of the message. She told Lothar about her meeting with Director de Ball; the young man listened attentively without interruption.

“But you said ‘first of all’,” Maria asked.

“I did. Because the general wrote back to me that if his presumptions about the star map are true, he would definitely like to meet you. He belongs to a powerful new society, the Thule. But he thinks that to balance the male force, there should be some women. He believes that women are by nature much more receptive than men, and he is inclined to believe that you are one who can be in touch with other worlds.”

Maria had the uplifting feeling that she was no longer merely a hired hand whose sole purpose in life was either to amuse or to console. Perhaps there was a special reason for all this?

It was growing dark; the sounds of the day that oozed into the quiet room from the window were replaced by those of a Vienna evening. There was music as a hurdy-gurdy man passed; there was laughter and love translated into sound. Maria made some tea and offered some biscuits. She had a half pitcher of wine, so they emptied it. Unlike Maria, Lothar was obviously no stranger to liquor, so the little there was shouldn’t have affected him. But after a couple of goblets Maria noticed that the man displayed some changes — he became more handsome, his smile more attractive, his eyes more alluring. The room was filled with the bittersweet scent of his aftershave and his uniform. When he spoke, his low voice resonated through the table top. Maria lowered her cheek onto the table to feel

the vibrations more closely and Lothar lowered his face next to hers, making the table purr like a kitten. Then she probably fell asleep for a while, but was soon awakened by a sensation that Lothar was taking care of her, and that he always would. His after-shave was touching her lips. It became more intense, as the smell of his rough uniform receded and uncovered a myriad of smells Maria had been utterly unfamiliar with until that night. Some of them reminded Maria of her father, prompting a sensation of security, whereas others triggered weird new perceptions. Together with the smell of her pillow the darkness formed a perfectly sheltering shield.

When this was finally shattered by the rays of the sun, Maria was alone. Next to her, she found a book, translated from English: Vril, the Power of the Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. On the frontispiece there was a small ink stamp: ‘Karl Haushofer’.