Sex, Lies And Edelweiss

by J. L. Merrow

  "You wanted to see me?" Matt asked, chin out.

  "Yes." Herr Meissner's jaw tightened. "I have received a report that you have been abusing your position. I think I made it quite clear when you came to work here that any illegal activities would not be tolerated. Have you anything to say?"

  Matt's stomach plummeted like a stone dropped in the lake from the top of the Schafsberg. "For fuck's sake, it was only a bottle of wine!"

  "Stealing as well? I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in you, Matt. I gave you my trust, and you have thrown it back at me." His tone was cool and measured, but Matt felt a bit sick at the look in his eyes. "I cannot let you continue to risk the reputation of the hotel--to risk my own position here as well. You may collect your things and leave straight away. You have until the end of the week to vacate the staff hostel."

  "Why?" Matt bluffed desperately. "Who's been saying things about me? Aren't you even going to give me a chance to defend myself?"

  "Do you deny you have been spending your free time with Mr. Lavoisier?"

  "There's not a bloody law against it!"

  "And do you deny that a large sum of money has changed hands?"

  Shit. "Who told you that?" It couldn't have been Simon. Please, God, it couldn't be Simon.

  "Mrs. Lavoisier."

  Something inside Matt shriveled up and died. "Right. Fine. Yeah, he gave me the money. Didn't think he'd go running off to tell the missus, but what the bloody fuck do I know? She after it back or something? I haven't got it. Spent it," he lied, his voice rising. "Spent every fucking cent he gave me, 'cause that's what I do, innit? I let blokes fuck me and I spend their fucking money because that's the kind of fucking whore I am." He stopped, breathing hard.

  Herr Meissner stood up. Matt stood his ground, fists clenched. Let the bastard hit him or haul him off to the bloody cops; he didn't care. But the words, when they came, were gentle.

  "Matt, you are being too loud. I think you should leave now."

  "Fine! You can take your sodding job and your sodding hotel and shove them up your--" Matt choked and, hating the whole bloody lot of them, but most of all himself, ran out of the office.

  * * * *

  Matt didn't seem to be around this morning. Simon waited for ten minutes or so, tapping his fingers on the breakfast table, then spotted the blonde waitress Matt was friendly with. He leapt up and accosted her by the scrambled eggs. "Excuse me," he said in his best German. "Is Matt working this morning?"

  Her pretty face fell. "I'm sorry. He came in this morning, but then Herr Meissner wanted to see him and he hasn't come back since."

  "Herr Meissner?"

  "The restaurant manager. He has an office upstairs, behind reception."

  Simon pushed back his glasses. "Is Matt in trouble?"

  She bit her lip and nodded, before scurrying off.

  The office wasn't hard to find. Simon knocked on the door and walked straight in without waiting for the manager's curt "Herein." Meissner was alone, sitting behind the desk, a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. "Mr. Lavoisier?" he asked, his voice betraying no surprise.

  "Herr Meissner, I wanted to ask you about one of your employees--Matt." It occurred to Simon somewhat irrelevantly that he'd disregarded Mim's advice to always get the young man's surname.

  "I regret to inform you that Matt is no longer an employee of the Königshof Hotel." The manager's voice was hard and cold.

  "What? Why?" Simon felt a chill run through his insides. "It's because of me, isn't it? That's ridiculous! You can't run your employees' lives like that."

  Herr Meissner's lips tightened. "It is my duty to avoid the hotel getting a bad reputation. Particularly when the employee concerned was given a job on my recommendation." He looked out the window for a moment. "I suppose Matt did not tell you where I met him?"

  Simon waved a hand with impatience. "In Berlin, he said. I don't see what this has to do with anything."

  Herr Meissner nodded. "Yes, we met in Berlin. On the streets of Berlin, to be more accurate. When the season here is over, I am involved in an organization that helps unfortunate young people find more respectable employment." He sighed. "I am disappointed to find Matt has fallen back into old ways. I had much greater hopes for him."

  Simon's head was spinning. "Old ways...what do you mean?"

  Those dark brown eyes narrowed to slits. "He asked you for money, didn't he?"

  It was like a blow to the heart. Simon had to swallow before he could answer. "But...that was a loan. To tide him over until he gets paid--"

  Herr Meissner's face seemed to soften. "And you are sure he would have paid you back?"

  "Well, no, I didn't really think--but God, it wasn't like I was paying him to sleep with me!"

  "I think, Mr. Lavoisier, that whether or not you were aware of it, it was exactly like that." His voice was no longer so cold, but then it didn't have to be, did it? The words themselves said it all.

  Simon felt sick. After everything that had happened last night...everything he'd said... His head slumped into his hands. God, he'd been such an idiot. To think he'd thought Matt cared about him--Matt must have been laughing himself silly over Simon.

  When he looked up again, Simon's vision was blurred, but he thought he could make out a hint of compassion on Herr Meissner's face. If anything, it made him feel even worse.

  "I am sorry to have brought you bad news. I had assumed you would have taken a purely pragmatic view of the arrangement." His expression hardened. "After all, your wife--"

  "What wife?" Simon asked tiredly.

  Herr Meissner stared at Simon over the top of his glasses. "Mrs. Lavoisier is not your wife?"

  It was Simon's turn to stare. "She's my adoptive mother. I took her name when I was ten, and she was on her first husband. She's always liked the name, so we didn't change it after the divorce."

  "Your...mother? But she is too young. Even for adoption." Herr Meissner took off his glasses and folded them neatly.

  "Yes, well, the wonders of modern cosmetic science," Simon said, wishing for the first time in his life that Mim hadn't brought him up to be polite or he could have walked out now as he so desperately wanted to. "She's actually fifty. The same as my real mother would have been."

  "Your real mother?"

  "Seraphina Levene. She stayed here when she was eighteen. She died when I was ten." Simon pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I think...I think I need a cup of coffee, now. It was...good of you to tell me about Matt." Blindly, Simon fumbled for the door handle and fled the office.

  He hadn't gone ten paces before he quite literally bumped into Mim.

  "Darling," she exclaimed. "Oh, no, darling, you've heard, haven't you? Come with me." She led him to the dining room, but instead of their usual table, headed for one mostly concealed behind a large potted plant. "Sit down, darling, and I'll get you some coffee. I'm so sorry. I didn't want you to find out this way.

  "Of all the mornings for me to oversleep! I was talking to Herr Meissner last night, while you were out--I wanted to ask him about staff records--and I'm afraid it just slipped out that you and Matt were...well, involved. He asked me if any money had changed hands, and, of course, I had to say yes. I wanted to talk to you last night, but you were so dreadfully late back. I had to go to bed in the end."

  Simon shrugged helplessly. "It's all right. You were right all along about it ending in tears." Taking off his glasses, he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I was an idiot not to listen to you. Matt never cared about me."

  "Simon, you can't blame yourself for being deceived. I saw the way he looked at you," Mim said. "Anyone would have thought he was genuinely fond of you."

  Simon couldn't look at her. "He asked me for some money, and I gave him three hundred euros. How could I have been so stupid? It didn't even occur to me at the time that he--" He choked, and couldn't finish.

  Mim's lips thinned. Her gaze, however, was directed behind Simon's left shoulder. Reluctantly, he t
urned to look.

  The restaurant manager stood there.

  "What--" Simon began to ask, but Meissner held up his hand.

  "I would ask you, first, to look at these." He laid a couple of old letters and--of all things--his passport on the table in front of Simon.

  Confused, Simon started to read the first. The ink was faded and the paper worn at the creases, but the handwriting was round and even, making it easy to read.

  Dear Gerhardt

  I'm not sure how to tell you this, but you're going to be a father. Oh, I seem to have managed it rather easily, haven't I? I hope you're not too shocked. I was at first, but now I think it'll be lovely to have a baby that's yours and mine. Mummy and Daddy are going to be absolutely furious, but I'm sure they'll get over it.

  Please write and let me know you got this all right.

  I miss you terribly

  All my love for ever and ever

  Serry

  It was finished with little hearts and kisses. Simon looked up, his mouth dry. "How did you..."

  "Now this one," Herr Meissner insisted, pushing the second letter in front of him.

  It was a lot shorter, written in a sharp, spiky hand.

  Mr. Meissner:

  I regret to inform you our daughter is dead. Do not attempt to contact us again.

  S. Levene

  "I don't understand," Simon whispered. "It's dated ten years before Mummy died." Desperately searching for something that could make sense of all this, he reached for the passport.

  "To confirm my name," Gerhardt Meissner said. He sounded more than a little hoarse. "I have checked your date of birth in the hotel records. I think that you must be my son."

  "Damn Solomon Levene to hell," Mim said explosively, making Simon drop the passport. "That man can thank his lucky stars he's no longer in the land of the living, or he'd be wishing he were dead just as soon as I could get a flight back to England!"

  Simon stood slowly and stared at his father, confused thoughts running through his head. Do I call him Daddy? And, What on earth did Mummy see in him? What he actually said was, "Does it bother you I'm gay?"

  Apparently the answer was no, as he was abruptly enfolded in a bony hug.

  When, after a few bewildered moments, Simon gently pushed away from the older man, he was astonished to see tears running down those gaunt cheeks. "Mein Sohn," Meissner--Gerhardt--Daddy? whispered brokenly.

  Simon patted him awkwardly on the back, still trying to make sense of it all. "How...when...what happened?"

  "Your mother's letter--it did not reach me for many months. The season was over, and I had returned home to Berlin. Because there was no surname, and I had left no forwarding address, it was not sent on to me. I received it only when I came back for the ski season." He seemed to be struggling to speak. "When I finally was able to write to your mother, this was the reply I received."

  "That...bastard!" If it hadn't been for his grandfather's narrow-mindedness, Simon realized, he'd have had a father all his life. "I can't believe he lied to you like that. He'd already thrown her out, for God's sake--hadn't he, Mim? What the hell was it to do with him any more?"

  "I'm afraid Solomon Levene formed his opinion about the German nation in 1945 and didn't trouble himself to change it ever again," Mim said tartly.

  There was a silence as all of them digested what that meant.

  * * * *

  Halfway through shoving his stuff in his rucksack, Matt suddenly couldn't bring himself to carry on. Dropping the shirt he was carrying on the floor, he slumped on the bed, rubbing his eyes. Stupid, stupid fucker, he told himself. He'd messed everything up.

  The worst of it was--well, the worst of it was Simon didn't give a shit about him, but he'd known that anyway. The other worst of it was that he'd let Herr Meissner down. I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in you, Matt. I gave you my trust, and you have thrown it back at me. God, he deserved everything he got.

  Angrily, he forced himself up and finished his packing. Sod staying to the end of the week. He wasn't going to hang around here with everyone knowing he'd been sacked. By the end of the day, they'd probably all know why, too--sometimes Matt thought half the staff here had bugger all else to do but gossip.

  Throwing a last glance around at the room to make sure he hadn't left anything, Matt jammed his feet into his trainers and pulled on his rucksack. Time to go and see just how good a friend Rudi really was. And if Rudi wouldn't give Matt floor space for a few nights until he found a job--well, he had money, didn't he? Matt's vision started to blur and he scrubbed at his eyes furiously with his fists. It was time to get out of here.

  Time to get as far away as possible from Simon bloody Lavoisier.

  * * * *

  Simon's mind was whirling and he couldn't, for the life of him, work out if he was happy or sad. In the space of ten minutes, he had found his father--and lost Matt. Although it turned out he'd never really had Matt, had he? Been had by him, certainly. In more ways than one. Simon sighed.

  Gerhardt--Simon didn't think he'd ever be able to call the man Daddy, and wasn't sure it would be welcome in any case--placed a hand on his arm. "You are perhaps disappointed to find that I am your father? A man who works in a restaurant?"

  "No! God, no," Simon assured him sincerely. It was a little bizarre, in truth, to think of the man coming back to work at the same hotel every year for over thirty years. Still, it rather explained where Simon got his lack of ambition from. "Of course not." He gave a hollow laugh. "I rather thought you might be disappointed in me. What with...Matt."

  "It is Matt who has disappointed me, not you," Gerhardt said with as much warmth as Simon had ever seen him display. "How could I not wish for you as a son?" He sighed. "You are a good man, and always it is the good men who are taken in."

  Simon developed a sudden fascination with the weave of the tablecloth and adjusted his glasses in order to see it more clearly. He was fervently glad Mim had left them alone, "For a little father-son bonding."

  "Simon..." Gerhardt hesitated. "I do not know if this will make you feel better--and it does not excuse his actions--but I think Matt also believed you to be a married man."

  His chest tight, Simon looked up. "So he..."

  "He thought, perhaps, that the affair was of little importance to you also," Gerhardt finished.

  "So he never meant to hurt me." Simon wasn't sure if that made it better or worse. God, the things he'd said last night--well, hinted at. Had Matt thought he'd been lying all along? Simon stood up, almost knocking over his chair. "I need to talk to him--Matt. W-where can I find him?"

  Gerhardt looked at Simon intently for a moment, his face giving nothing away. "You are sure of this?"

  Simon nodded, his breath caught.

  "He has a room in the staff hostel, along the path to the village--you know it?"

  "Yes. You think he'll still be there?"

  "I told him he could stay until the end of the week. His room is number seven."

  "Do you mind if I... I just need to talk to him." Simon had never realized just how painful hope could be, but it was better than the sick emptiness of despair.

  Gerhardt stood, rather more carefully than Simon had. "Then you should talk to him." He put a hand on Simon's shoulder. "But be careful. He looks like an angel, no? I worry that we have both been too willing to believe well of him."

  Not trusting himself to speak, Simon nodded. They shook hands in an oddly formal fashion, then Simon made straight for the path leading to the hostel. He managed to keep his pace to a brisk walk until he'd crossed the terrace, then, throwing dignity to the winds, he hurtled down the path.

  Reaching the hostel, Simon hammered on the door until it was opened by a sleepy-looking young man in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, whom Simon vaguely recognized as one of the kitchen staff. He looked at Simon blankly.

  "I need-- Excuse me." Explaining it all would take far too long. And be way too embarrassing. With a flush of guilt, Simon pushed past the young man an
d into the hostel. He barely heard as the man muttered something that was, no doubt, extremely uncomplimentary and then slammed back into one of the ground floor rooms. Simon hurtled up the stairs and started checking room numbers.

  Five, six...seven.

  Simon came to an abrupt halt. The door was ajar. He knocked gently and waited.

  There was no answer. Simon raised his hand to knock again, then, thinking better of it, pushed open the door. He looked into a small, somewhat shabby room with a drab, hardwearing carpet and curtains that didn't match the color scheme. There was a bed, a dresser and a washbasin in the corner with a mottled, cracked mirror above it for shaving.

  There was no sign Matt had ever even been here.

  Hope withering inside him, Simon slumped against the doorframe. He was too late. He dragged suddenly heavy limbs across the room to the narrow bed and sat. There was a single golden hair on the pillow, curled in on itself as if asleep. Simon picked it up carefully, then lay down still holding it, his head in its place. The bed was cold, but it still smelled warm, like Matt.

  A lump rose in Simon's throat, and he sat up hastily to take a couple of bracing deep breaths. This was a setback, certainly, but was it really the end? "Think," he muttered. "Where would Matt go?"

  He tried to ignore the insidious voice inside him that kept whispering Matt and his worryingly fast Honda might be halfway across Europe by now.

  * * * *

  Rudi wasn't working when Matt parked his bike and trudged into the boat hire place. Matt knew his address, but decided it'd be a bad idea to piss the bloke off by waking him up on his day off. Especially to ask for a favor.

  Rudi's workmate, Fix, wasn't particularly a friend of Matt's, but let him sling his rucksack in the back of the boathouse anyway. Matt just hoped it'd still be there later. He couldn't seem to work up the energy to go anywhere else, so he sat down on the low wall that bordered the lake and tried to think what the hell he was going to do now.

  * * * *