by William Boyd
‘Mr Rief?’
Lysander jumped unconsciously. A tall man, lean hard face, neat dark moustache.
‘Didn’t mean to surprise you. How d’you do? Alwyn Munro.’
‘Sorry – dreaming.’ They shook hands. ‘Of course. We met at Dr Bensimon’s. Coincidence,’ Lysander said.
‘If you come to the Café Central you’ll meet everyone in Vienna, eventually,’ Munro said. ‘How are you enjoying your stay?’
Lysander didn’t want to make small talk.
‘Are you a patient of Dr Bensimon?’ he asked.
‘John? No. He’s a friend. We were at varsity together. I pick his brains sometimes. Very clever man.’ He seemed to sense Lysander’s reluctance to continue the acquaintance. ‘You’re in a rush, I can see. I’ll let you get on.’ He fished in his pocket for a card. Handed it over. ‘I’m at the Embassy here, if you ever need anything. Good to see you.’
He touched the brim of his bowler with a forefinger and stepped into the café.
Lysander strolled back to Mariahilfer Strasse, enjoying the sun. He took his jacket off and slung it over his shoulder. The Tyrol, he thought, yes – real mountains. Then, as he was about to cross the Opernring he saw another of the defaced, ripped posters. This time the head of the monster was left – some kind of dragon-crocodile amalgam – and the composer’s full name: Gottlieb Toller. He thought he might ask Herr Barth if he knew anything about him. He heard the sound of a band playing a militarized version of a Strauss waltz and he adjusted his pace to keep in step with the thump of the bass drum. He thought of Blanche’s beautiful long face, her thin, bony wrists rattling with bangles, her tall slim frame. He did love her and he wanted to marry her, he told himself – it wasn’t pretence or social convention. He owed it to her to try and become well again, to be a normal man happily married to a wonderful woman. He had to see this through.
He crossed the Ring with due caution and as he did so the band altered its tune to a quickstep or a polka. He felt his spirits lift with the rhythm as he ambled up Mariahilfer Strasse, the music fading slowly behind him, merging with the traffic noise, as the band marched off to its barracks, civic duty done, the good people of Vienna entertained for an hour or so. Lysander felt the sun warm his shoulders and a curious congregation of emotions assail him – pride in what he had done for himself, seeking his cure on his own terms, pleasure in strolling the now familiar streets of this foreign city and, as a muted undertone, a thin enjoyable melancholy at being so far from Blanche and her all-knowing, understanding eyes.
7. The Primal Addiction
‘What about masturbation?’ bensimon asked.
‘Well, it usually works. Nine times out of ten, let’s say. No real problems there.’
‘Ah. The primal addiction.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Dr Freud’s expression . . .’ Bensimon held his pen poised. ‘What’s your stimulus?’
‘It varies.’ Lysander cleared his throat. ‘I, ah, tend to think of people – women – that I’ve been attracted to in the past and then imagine a –’ he paused. Now he understood why it was useful not to be facing one’s interlocutor. ‘I imagine a situation in which everything goes well.’
‘Of course, that’s a hypothesis. The hypothesized perfect world. Reality’s far more complicated.’
‘Yes, I do know it’s a fantasy,’ he said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. Sometimes Bensimon was so literal-minded.
‘But that’s useful, that’s useful,’ Bensimon said. ‘Have you heard of “Parallelism”?’
‘No. Should I?’
‘No, not at all. It’s a theory I’ve developed myself as a kind of adjunct to the main line of Dr Freud’s psychoanalysis. Maybe we’ll come back to it later.’
Silence. He could hear Dr Bensimon making little popping noises with his lips. Pop-pop-pop. Annoying.
‘Is your mother alive?’
‘Very much so.’
‘Tell me about her. What age is she?’
‘She’s forty-nine.’
‘Describe her.’
‘She’s Austrian. Speaks fluent English with hardly any accent. She’s very elegant. Very fashionably smart.’
‘Beautiful?’
‘I suppose so. She was a very beautiful young woman. I’ve seen photographs.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Anneliese. Most people call her Anna.’
‘Mrs Anneliese Rief.’
‘No. Lady Faulkner. After my father died she married again to a Lord Faulkner.’
‘How do you get along with your stepfather?’
‘Very well. Crickmay Faulkner’s older than my mother – considerably older. He’s in his seventies.’
‘Ah.’ Lysander could hear the pen scratching.
‘Do you ever think about your mother in a sexual way?’
Lysander managed to suppress his weary sigh. He had expected better from Bensimon, really.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not at all. Never. Ever. No.’
8. A Dashing Cavalry Officer
Lysander looked at Wolfram in astonishment. He was standing in the hallway in full military uniform, his sabre dragging on the floor, shako under his arm, spurred black boots with knee guards. He looked huge and magnificent.
‘My god,’ Lysander said, admiringly. ‘Are you going on parade?’
‘No,’ Wolfram said, a little gloomily. ‘My tribunal is today.’
Lysander walked round him. The uniform was black with heavy gold frogging, like writhing snakes, on the plastron front. A furred dolman jacket hung from one shoulder. His shako had a red plume matching the red facings on the jacket collar and the stripes down the side of his trousers.
‘Dragoons?’ Lysander guessed.
‘Hussar. Have you got anything to drink, Lysander? Something strong? I must confess to having some nervousness.’
‘I’ve got some Scotch whisky, if you like.’
‘Perfekt.’
Wolfram came into his room and sat down, his sabre clinking. Lysander poured him some whisky into a tooth glass that he knocked back with one gulp and held out at once for a refill.
‘Very good whisky – I think.’
‘You don’t want to have whisky on your breath at the tribunal.’
‘I’ll smoke a cigar before I go in.’
Lysander sat down, looking at this Ruritanian ideal of a dashing cavalry officer. When he puts his shako on, Lysander reckoned, he’ll be seven feet tall.
‘What’s the tribunal about?’ he asked. He felt he could reasonably try to ascertain what was the cause of Wolfram’s limbo in Pension Kriwanek, now judgement day had arrived.
‘A question of missing funds in the officers’ mess,’ Wolfram said, equably. He explained: the Colonel of the regiment was retiring and officers had contributed to a fund to buy him a splendid present. Donations were made anonymously, money being slipped into the slot of a locked cashbox set on a dresser in the mess dining room. When the box was finally opened they found only enough money to buy the colonel ‘a medium-sized box of Trabuco cigars, or a couple of bottles of Hungarian champagne,’ Wolfram said. ‘Clearly we either gave very little money to our beloved Colonel or someone had been pilfering.’
‘Who had the key to the box?’
‘Whoever was on the rota to be supervisory officer of the mess each week. The box was there for three months. Three months equals twelve weeks, which equals twelve suspects. Any one of whom had plenty of time to make a copy of the key and take the money. I was one of those twelve supervisory officers.’
‘But why do they suspect you?’ Lysander felt a stir of outrage on Wolfram’s behalf.
‘Because I’m a Slovene in a German regiment. German-speaking Austrians, I mean. There’s a couple of Czechs but the German officers will always suspect the Slovene – so I spent six months here while they decided what to do with me.’
‘But that’s ridiculous. Just because you’re a Slovene?’
Wolfram smile
d at him, tiredly.
‘How many countries are there in our great empire?’
‘Austria, Hungary and . . .’ Lysander thought. ‘And Croatia –’
‘You haven’t even started. Carnolia, Moravia, Galicia, Bosnia, Dalmatia – it’s a vegetable soup, a great big stinking salad. Not to mention the Italians or the Ukrainians. I’ll take one more whisky.’
Lysander poured it for him.
‘You have Austria.’ Wolfram moved the bottle and put down the glass beside it. ‘You have Hungary. The rest of us are like the harem for these two powerful Sultans. They take us when they want, violate us when they feel the need. So – who stole the Colonel’s money? Ah, must be the wily Slovene.’
There was a knock on the door and Traudl looked in, blushing.
‘Lieutenant Rozman, sir, your Fiaker is here.’
Wolfram stood, did up the buttons on his collar, pulled on his gloves, grabbed his sabre.
‘Good luck,’ Lysander said and they shook hands. ‘You’re an innocent man, you’ve nothing to fear.’
Wolfram smiled, shrugged. ‘No human being is entirely innocent . . .’
‘True, I suppose. But you know what I mean.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Wolfram said. ‘The wily Slovene has a few surprises up his sleeve.’ He gave a little bow, clicked his heels – his spurs rattled, dryly – and he left.
Lysander returned to his desk and opened Autobiographical Investigations, feeling a certain mild despondency. Win or lose, Wolfram’s stay at the pension must be nearly over – he would either be returning to barracks, vindicated, or, disgraced, be cast adrift on to the sea of civilian life. Back to Slovenia, probably . . . He would miss him. He began to jot down some of the facts in the case of Lt. Wolfram Rozman. ‘No human being is entirely innocent,’ he wrote, and the thought came to him that, if one were planning to steal something, it would indeed be a clever ploy to make sure that there were a dozen other potential suspects. A cluster of suspects obscuring the guilty one. He underlined the sentence: ‘No human being is entirely innocent.’ Perhaps it was time to tell Bensimon his darkest, most shameful secret . . .
There was another knock on his door. He looked at his wristwatch – Herr Barth wasn’t due for an hour. He said, ‘Come in,’ and Traudl appeared again and shut the door behind her.
‘Hello, Traudl. What can I do for you?’
‘Frau Kriwanek is visiting her sister and Herr Barth is sleeping in his room.’
‘Well, thank you for the information.’
‘As he was leaving Lieutenant Rozman gave me twenty crowns and told me to come and see you.’
‘What for?’
‘To give you some pleasure.’
At this she stooped and lifted her thick skirt and apron to her waist and in the penumbra they cast Lysander saw the pale columns of her thighs and the dark triangle of her pubic hair.
‘It won’t be necessary, Traudl.’
‘What about the twenty crowns?’
‘You keep them. I’ll tell Lieutenant Rozman we had a very nice time.’
‘You’re a kind, good man, Herr Rief.’ Traudl curtsied.
No human being is entirely innocent, Lysander thought, going to the door and opening it for her. He searched his trouser pockets for change, thinking to tip her, but all he found was a visiting card. She didn’t need tipping anyway – she’d just earned twenty crowns.
‘I can come another time,’ Traudl said.
‘No, no. All’s well.’
He shut the door behind her. River of sex, indeed. He glanced at the card in his hand – whose was this?
‘Captain Alwyn Munro DSO,’ he read. ‘Military Attaché, British Embassy, Metternichgasse 6, Vienna III.’
Another bloody soldier. He put it on his desk.
9. Autobiographical Investigations
It is the summer of 1900. I am fourteen years old and am living at Claverleigh Hall in East Sussex, the country seat of my stepfather, Lord Faulkner. My father has been dead for a year. My mother married Lord Faulkner nine months after my father’s funeral. She’s his second wife, the new Lady Faulkner. Everybody in the neighbourhood is pleased for old Lord Crickmay, a bluff, kindly man in his late fifties, a widower with one grown-up son.
I still don’t really know what I feel about this new arrangement, this new family, this new home. Claverleigh and its estate remain largely terra incognita to me. Beyond the two walled gardens there are woods and fields, copses and meadows, paddocks and two farms spread out across the downs of East Sussex. It’s a large well-run estate and I feel a permanent alien in it even though the servants in the house, the footmen, the housemaids, the coachmen and the gardeners, are all very friendly. They smile when they see me and call me ‘Master Lysander’.
I have been removed from my school in London – ‘Mrs Chalmers’ Demonstration School for Boys’ – and am being tutored by the local curate, the Reverend Farmiloe, an old and learned bachelor. My mother tells me that, most likely, I shall be sent to a boarding school in the autumn.
It is a Saturday so I have no lessons but the Reverend Farmiloe has asked me to read a poem by Alexander Pope called ‘The Rape of the Lock’. I am finding it very hard-going. After lunch I take my book and wander out into the big walled garden, looking for a secluded bench where I can continue my laborious reading. I like poetry, I learn it easily by heart, but I find Alexander Pope almost incomprehensible – not like Keats or my favourite, Tennyson. The gardeners and the boys are out in the long herbaceous borders weeding and greet me as I pass: ‘Good day, Master Lysander.’ I say hello – I know most of them by now. Old Digby the head gardener, Davy Bledlow and his son Tommy. Tommy is a couple of years older than me and has asked if I would like to go out hunting rabbits with him one day. He has a prize ferret called Ruby. I said, no thank you. I don’t want to hunt and kill rabbits – I think it’s cruel. Tommy Bledlow is a big lad with a broken nose flattened on his face that makes him look strange – a threatening clown. I leave the walled garden and cross the fence into Claverleigh Wood by the stile.
The sun shines down through the fresh green leaves of the ancient oaks and beeches. I find a mossy angle between two gnarled buttressing roots of a big oak. I am lying in a patch of sunshine and enjoying the warmth on my body. There’s a faint breeze. In the distance I can hear the sound of a train chuffing along the Lewes to Pevensey line. Birds are singing – a thrush, I think, a blackbird. It’s ideally peaceful. A warm summer’s day at the beginning of the new century in the south of England.
I open my book and begin to read, trying to concentrate. I stop and remove my boot and socks. Flexing my toes, I read on.
‘Sol through white curtains shot a tim’rous ray
And op’d those eyes that must eclipse the day.’
In eighteenth-century London, a beautiful young woman is lying in bed, about to wake up, dress herself and start her social life – that much was fairly clear. I ease back so my head is in shadow and my body in sunlight.
‘Belinda still her downy pillow breast,’
Not ‘breast’, I see, but ‘prest’. Why did I read breast? The association of downy pillow, a girl in her night clothes, disarrayed and open enough perhaps to reveal – I turned the page.
‘. . .Shock, who thought she slept too long
Leapt up, and wak’d his mistress with his tongue.’
Who’s this ‘Shock’? But I am thinking of the downstairs maid – isn’t she called Belinda? – I think so, the tall one with the cheeky face. She has ‘downy pillows’, all right. That time I saw her kneeling, relaying a fire, with her sleeves rolled up and her buttons undone. I know what a ‘mistress’ is – but how did he wake her with his tongue? . . .
I feel my penis stirring agreeably under my trousers. The sun is warm in my lap. I glance around – I’m quite alone. I undo my belt and fly buttons and pull my trousers and my drawers down to my knees. The sun is warm. I touch myself.
I think of Belinda the downstairs maid. Think of brea
sts, soft like pillows, of a tongue waking a mistress. I grip myself. Slowly I begin to move my fist up and down . . .
The next thing I remember is my mother calling my name.
‘Lysander? Lysander, darling . . .’
I’m dreaming. And then I realize I’m not. I’m waking slowly, as if I’ve been drugged. I open my eyes, blink, and see my mother standing there silhouetted by the sun-dazzle. My mother standing there looking down at me. Very upset.
‘Lysander, darling, what’s happened?’
‘What?’ I’m still half asleep. I look down, following her gaze, my trousers and my drawers are still bunched around my knees, I see my flaccid penis and the small dark tuft of hair above it.
I drag up my trousers, curl up in a ball and begin to cry uncontrollably.
‘What happened, darling?’
‘Tommy Bledlow,’ I sob, god knows why, ‘Tommy Bledlow did this to me.’
10. A Peculiar Sense of Exclusiveness
Lysander stopped reading. He felt the retrospective shame blaze through him, like the driest tinder burning, writhing, crackling hot. His mouth was parched. Come on, grow up, he said to himself, you’re twenty-seven years old – this is ancient history.
Lysander sat quiet for a moment. Bensimon had to speak first.
‘Right,’ Bensimon said. ‘Yes. So. This happened when you were fourteen.’
‘I think I’d been asleep for about two hours. I was missed at teatime. My mother was worried and came out looking for me. The gardeners said I’d gone into the wood.’
‘And you had begun to masturbate –’
‘And had fallen asleep. A dead sleep. The sun, the warmth. A good lunch . . . And then my mother found me apparently unconscious with my trousers pulled down, half-naked, exposed. No wonder she panicked.’