William Boyd - Waiting for Sunrise

“Why keep me there?”

“They obviously think you’ll make a run for it rather than stand trial. And as we’ve put up the bail they’re making us responsible for seeing that you don’t escape.”

Lysander’s elation began to drain away.

“So I’m swapping an Austrian cell for a British one.”

“I think you’ll be much more comfortable.” Munro shrugged. “Best we could do. They’re very serious here about crimes like rape, sex-murders, assaults and so on.”

“I haven’t raped or assaulted anyone.”

“Of course. I’m just explaining why they’ve demanded these conditions. We’ve got a little place for you out at the back. Small garden. You won’t be locked up but you can’t leave the premises.” Munro stood. “Shall we go?”

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.”

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…