He calmed himself, yet he grew increasingly worried as the night wore on and as he went over the different narratives and options again and again. It became clear to him that his only defence was to expose the affair – to let the world (and Hoff) know the precise details of the liaison. And what could Hoff say in the face of that evidence? Nothing. The case would be thrown out, surely?
He lay in the dark and periodically paced around his small cell. He finished his pack of cigarettes, waiting for sunrise, unable to sleep or rest, his mind frenetically, pulsatingly active. There was only this one course of action – to destroy Hettie’s preposterous story and expose her as a liar. He thought of her gift of the Andromeda libretto and its cryptic message on the title page. It was her pre-emptive confession to him, he now saw, and he wondered also if she had meant it to serve as a warning.
The van took him and two other shabby villains to a magistrate’s court early in the morning. At 8.10 a.m. Lysander found himself facing a sleepy presiding judge who had a fragment of egg-white lodged in the bristles of his wide tobacco-stained moustache. Lysander was formally charged with rape, bail was denied – bail was not permitted in cases of rape, he was told by the judge – and the date for his trial was established as May 17 1914. He had no lawyer, and so was taken back to the central police station and re-deposited in his small cell. At ten o’clock he was given a bowl of carrot soup and a hunk of black bread. He asked if he could speak to Inspector Strolz but was told that Inspector Strolz had left on a fortnight’s leave.
Lysander began to experience a form of creeping terror at his impotence that he recognized as the beginnings of despair. How could he possibly find a lawyer? He supposed the court would appoint one for his trial in May. The trial was over three months away. Was he going to be kept in this cell until then or transferred to a prison? He began to curse Hettie for this hideous, ridiculous lie. Why not tell Hoff the simple truth? What did she think would be achieved by this god-awful nightmare of a mess that she had landed him in?
He banged on the door until someone came and he asked for paper and pencil and was refused.
He urinated in his chamber pot.
He washed his hands and face in the sink and dried them on the lining of his greatcoat.
He lay down and managed to doze for an hour.
He took off his coat and tie and did some basic gymnastic exercises – press-ups, star-jumps, running on the spot until he was breathless.
He urinated in his chamber pot.
He sat on his bed and forced his brain into activity, trying to recall the sequence and detail of the affair. Dates, times, places. He remembered the names of all the hotels they had stayed in – every fact that made the affair concrete and irrefutable. Then he found his thoughts straying to Hettie herself and the unignorable new fact that she was carrying his child. He almost wept. He sniffed, coughed, inhaled and willed himself to anger, stirred by the thought that the foetus would almost certainly be aborted, another ghastly consequence of this hideous predicament she had created. Hoff would see to that, oh yes. Boy or girl, he found himself wondering? Little boy or little girl? . . .
He was given a thick slice of cold fatty sausage, a chunk of cheese with black bread and a lukewarm mug of coffee.
He looked at his wristwatch. It was 2.30 in the afternoon.
The day seemed to take a week of subjective time to crawl to its conclusion. He watched the small rectangle of sky that was visible through his cell window darken as the sun began to set. A little vermilion touched the cloud base. The aural sub-current of the cell wing continued without change as the hours maundered by. Clangs, shouts, footsteps, the rumble of trolley wheels, the occasional laugh, the rasping of a stiff-bristled brush sweeping the corridor outside again and again.
When it was quite dark the electric light was switched on. He did some more press-ups, wondering where this fitness urge had sprung from. With the edge of a button he scored a dash in the plaster of the cell wall. Day one. He managed an ironic smile at this melodramatic gesture. Why had he smoked all his cigarettes last night?
The door was unlocked and a policeman looked in.
‘Follow me,’ he said.
Lysander duly followed him up the stairs and into another corridor, where he was shown into a windowless room with a table and two chairs. He sat down, keeping his mind empty. Could this be Hettie, decided to rescue him? Two minutes later Alwyn Munro entered the room.
Lysander felt like embracing him. Herr Barth had done what he had promised – wonderful, salt-of-the-earth, true friend Herr Barth. How he loved that man! He shook Munro’s hand warmly.
‘Bit of a pickle, eh?’ Munro said, jocularly, sitting down and offering him a cigarette.
‘It’s not true. All lies. I’ve been having an affair with her for months.’ Lysander drew on his cigarette so avidly his head reeled.
Munro slid a business card across the table.
‘This is your lawyer. A very good man. He couldn’t make them set bail, I’m afraid. That’s the problem with rape cases. Luckily for you it seems Miss Bull has suddenly altered the charge to “assault”. The bail for assault is very high – ten thousand crowns.’
‘But that’s absurd!’ Lysander complained. ‘Assault? I’m meant to have “assaulted” Miss Bull? I’m not a criminal. How is one meant to lay one’s hands on that kind of money? Why’s it been set so high?’
‘It seems Hoff’s father was a very respected District Commissioner. Friends in high places. Ministers, senior civil servants, judges . . . Does seem a bit punitive.’
‘I can’t raise that amount – who do they think I am?’
‘Don’t worry – we’ve paid it.’ Munro smiled. ‘Consider it a loan – but not interest-free, alas.’
Lysander experienced a jolt of elation. He swallowed. His hands were shaking.
‘My god . . . I’m incredibly grateful. Does this mean I can go?’
‘Not exactly. There are special conditions.’ Munro leaned back in his chair as if to gain a more objective view. ‘You’re to be confined to the grounds of the British Embassy until your trial. Actually, it’s not the embassy but the temporary consulate where we attachés work.’ He smiled. ‘A little bit of Grossbritannien in Vienna, all the same.’
‘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?’
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.