Waiting for Sunrise (15 page)

21. A Small Villa in the Classical Style

The temporary consulate building was in fact a small villa in the classical style, somewhat dilapidated, some three streets away from the embassy itself in Metternichgasse, opposite the botanical gardens. Lysander’s ‘prison’ was a two-storey, octagonal stone summerhouse at the end of a high-walled parterre that ran from the rear terrace of the villa. He had an octagonal bedroom on the top floor and an octagonal sitting room on the ground floor with a small fireplace. No lavatory and no bathroom but it was comfortable enough, he had to admit. He could walk the gravelled, weedy pathways of the neglected parterre whenever he felt like fresh air or needed exercise. Food was brought to him on a tray from a nearby restaurant three times a day, his fire was lit, a jug of hot water provided every morning for his ablutions, his laundry was collected and returned (he had sent for his clothes and belongings from the Pension Kriwanek) and his chamber pot was discreetly emptied and replaced by a variety of embassy servants who seemed to change almost daily. He rarely saw the same face more than twice. He had been told that he would be charged for food and laundry services. All costs accrued would be added to the 10,000 crowns already owed to His Majesty’s Government – not to mention his steadily accumulating legal fees.

Lysander had several meetings with his lawyer, a Herr Feuerstein, a serious young man, about Lysander’s age, who wore a pince-nez and a neat beard, and who tutted and frowned darkly and muttered to himself as he went over the facts of Lysander’s case as if determined not to provide his client with a scintilla of hope or optimism. He did agree, however, that the best defence was the revelation of the affair. And so he took down everything, in his tiny copperplate hand, that Lysander could remember of his dozens of encounters with Hettie. He volunteered to visit the hotels they had frequented in Vienna, Linz and Salzburg to make copies of the register and perhaps even take clandestine photographs of Hettie’s barn/studio. He asked Lysander to draw him a detailed plan of the barn and provide the best inventory he could of its contents. He may be a pessimist, Lysander thought, but at least he’s a thorough pessimist.

Lysander also had daily visits from Alwyn Munro and the other attaché – the naval attaché – a man called Jack Fyfe-Miller. Fyfe-Miller was a blond, burly young man in his early thirties, with a full, fair beard – ideally seafaring for a naval attaché, Lysander thought – who had won a rugby blue at Cambridge. After their first few encounters Lysander decided to label him ‘stupid’. Fyfe-Miller had seen him on stage in London (in
The Taming of
the Shrew
) and seemed only curious about theatre-life and actresses in particular. He kept asking; do you know Ellen Terry? Have you ever met Dolly Baird? What’s Mrs Mabel Troubridge really like? But from time to time he would make a remark that showed deeper intellectual reserves and Lysander began to think that the bluffness and the heartiness was something of an act.

After a week in the summerhouse at the end of the parterre he felt thoroughly settled in, routines were established and he was living an approximation of a normal life. He decided to ask Munro if there was any way a meeting with Hettie could be arranged.

‘Not sure that’s a good idea,’ Munro said.

‘If I could speak to her – even for a few minutes – I’m sure we could sort out everything.’

They were walking the tufted, mossy pathways of the parterre around the small cement basin of the dry fountain at its centre. On a pile of tumbled, parched boulders a lichened stone cherub held a gaping fish aloft as if it were gasping for air rather than providing the conduit for the fountain’s water that would never spout and flow again.

‘Look,’ Lysander said, pointing to a small paint-blistered door in the garden’s back wall. ‘Smuggle her in through there and no one will be the wiser. Just give me a moment alone with her – she’ll drop the case.’

Munro thought, smoothing his neat moustache with a forefinger.

‘Let me see what I can do.’

22. Autobiographical Investigations

Hettie. This utter madness – how could you have done this to me? Stop. No. First the facts, the dialogue. She came, last night, just before eleven o’clock. Jack Fyfe-Miller brought her in through the door in the back wall and waited outside in the cab as we talked. She stayed for twenty minutes.

We kissed, like old and practised lovers, with real passion, as if none of this craziness had happened. She clung to me, telling me how much she was missing me and asked me how I was. I felt the grotesque absurdity of the situation – as if I’d had a bout of flu and she hadn’t seen me while I convalesced. For a few seconds the mad raging anger took me over and I had to step away and turn my back on her.

HETTIE: Is everything all right? Are you well?

ME: How am I ? How am I? I’m terrible. I’m miserable. I’m abject. How do you think I am?

HETTIE: Seems a nice little house you have here. It’s sweet. Is this your garden?

ME: Hettie, I’m a prisoner on bail. I’m going to be tried for assault. For ‘sexually assaulting’ you.

HETTIE. I know. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t think what to say when Udo found out. So I just blurted out anything that came to mind. Anything to make him stop shouting at me.

In the fraught emotion of the reunion I forgot that she was pregnant – carrying our child. I put my hand on her belly – it seemed very flat.

ME: You don’t feel pregnant.

HETTIE: I hadn’t a clue I was. You know I thought I was infertile. I was convinced I was – truly. I didn’t feel sick or anything. Didn’t put on weight, nothing, not the slightest indication. But then my nipples began to go darker and Udo saw and took me to the doctor who examined me and said I was four months pregnant.

ME: I never noticed your nipples.

HETTIE: Because you saw them all the time. You hadn’t noticed the gradual change. I hadn’t either, to be honest. Udo hadn’t seen my breasts for weeks. He was shocked – took me straight to the doctor. When Udo heard I was pregnant he got in this towering rage so I said it was you.

ME: But I didn’t rape you, or assault you, if I recall. If I recall you undressed
me
– effectively.

HETTIE: Because I knew you liked that sort of thing.

ME: What’re you talking about?

HETTIE: I read your file – when I was at Dr Bensimon’s. He had to leave the room when I was there for a consultation and he left your file on his desk. He was gone for about ten minutes and I got bored, saw your file. I was curious –

ME: That’s completely outrageous!

HETTIE: I don’t recall you complaining. Just because I knew about your dreams, your fantasies . . .

ME: No, no. All part of the therapy. No extra charge –

HETTIE: Don’t be cynical. But it was Udo who said you must have attacked me and I sort of said, well, yes, I suppose so, yes, he must have. I don’t know why. He was in such a fury. I said you’d overpowered me and before I knew it I was agreeing with him. Anything to stop him shouting. I’m really sorry, my darling. You have to forgive me – I was in such a panic.

I felt an immense lassitude pour through me, a kind of terminal fatigue.

ME: Why didn’t Udo think it was his child?

HETTIE: Because – well – we don’t have normal sexual relations any more. Not for over a year now. He knew at once he wasn’t his.

ME: What do you mean, ‘he’?

HETTIE: He’s a boy – the baby – I know.

ME: But you realize that when I go on trial I’m going to tell the truth – about you and me and our affair.

HETTIE: No! No, you can’t do that. Udo will kill me – and the child.

ME: Nonsense. He can’t do that. He’s not a monster.

HETTIE: You don’t know what he’s capable of. He’ll throw me out, destroy me somehow. He’ll find a way of punishing me and the baby – our baby.

ME: Then leave him. Walk away. Come to London and live with me. What do you owe him? Nothing –

HETTIE: Everything. When I met him in Paris I was . . . I was in serious trouble. Udo saved me. Brought me to Vienna. Without him I’d be dead – or worse. I implore you, Lysander, I beseech you – don’t let him know about us.

ME: You’re not going to have an abortion.

HETTIE: Never. He’s ours. Yours and mine, my darling.

Just at that moment Fyfe-Miller appeared and rapped on the French window. Hettie kissed me goodbye and her last whispered words were, ‘I beg you, Lysander. Say nothing. Don’t destroy me.’

This morning I had a meeting with Herr Feuerstein. I asked him, assuming I was found guilty, what sentence I could expect. ‘Eight to ten years, if you’re lucky,’ he said. Then added: ‘But you’re not going to be found guilty, Herr Rief. The case will fall apart the minute you give your evidence.’ He flourished his dossier. ‘I’ve got everything. The hotels in Vienna, in Linz, in Salzburg. Testimonials from the staff. How do you say it in English? A “cakewalk”.’ He allowed himself a rare smile. I thought – if Feuerstein is that confident then it’s all over for Hettie. ‘I’m really looking forward to it,’ Feuerstein added. ‘May 17th can’t come quickly enough.’

Now I’m waiting for Munro and Fyfe-Miller to come for a meeting, here in the summerhouse. I’m going to tell them there’s only one thing I can do. This case must never come to trial.

23. A New Brass Key

Lysander sat in his octagonal sitting room facing Alwyn Munro and Jack Fyfe-Miller. Snow flurries swooped softly against the French windows and the fire in the grate struggled against the cold of the day. For some reason Fyfe-Miller was in his naval uniform – a row of medal ribbons on his chest – that had the effect of making him more serious and noteworthy, a serving officer of the line. Munro was in a three-piece, heavy tweed suit as if he were off for a shooting weekend in Perthshire.

‘I’ve been thinking, over these last few days,’ Lysander said carefully. ‘And one thing has become absolutely clear to me. I can’t risk going to trial.’

‘Feuerstein tells me your defence is impregnable,’ Munro said.

‘We all know how easy it is for things to go wrong.’

‘So you want to run for it,’ Fyfe-Miller said, lighting a cigarette. Once again Lysander saw how the bland exterior concealed a quick mind.

‘Yes. In a word.’

The two looked at each other. Munro smiled.

‘We had a private bet about how long it would take you to arrive at this conclusion.’

‘It’s the only way, as far as I’m concerned.’

‘There are real problems,’ Munro said, and proceeded to outline them. The British Embassy, like every embassy in Vienna, was riddled with informers. One in three of the Austrian staff, he reckoned, was in the pay of the Interior Ministry. He added that this was completely normal and only to be expected – the same conditions applied in London.