He was at Mariahilfer Strasse in fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes was the start that Munro and Fyfe-Miller said he should allow himself. He could be sitting in the Südbahnhof now with a ticket to Trieste in his hand. Was he making a mistake? Use your ingenuity, Munro had said. It wasn’t so much advice as a warning, he thought.
Lysander rang the bell at the landing door of the Pension Kriwanek, saying a small prayer. Let Frau K be out (she was usually out after lunch, shopping or visiting) and let Herr Barth be in.
The door opened and Traudl stood there – her face rapidly pantomiming surprise and shock. Her blush rose to her hairline.
‘Oh my god!’ she said. ‘Herr Rief! No!’
‘Hello, Traudl. Yes, it’s me. Is Frau Kriwanek in?’
‘No. Please, what are you doing here, sir?’
‘Is Herr Barth in?’
‘No, he’s not in, either.’
Good and damn, Lysander said to himself and gently pushed his way past Traudl into the hall. There were the two bergères and the stuffed owl under its glass dome, relics of his former happy life, Lysander thought, feeling a spasm of anger that he’d been forced to relinquish it.
‘Would you open Herr Barth’s room, please, Traudl?’
‘I don’t have a key, sir.’
‘Of course you have a key.’
Meekly, she turned and headed down the corridor to Herr Barth’s room, removing the bunch of house keys from her apron pocket, and unlocked the door.
‘Don’t tell anyone I was here, Traudl. Understand? I’ll explain everything to Herr Barth later – but you mustn’t say a word to anyone else.’
‘Frau Kriwanek will know, Herr Rief. She knows everything.’
‘She doesn’t know everything. She doesn’t know about you and Lieutenant Rozman . . .’
Traudl hung her head.
‘I would hate to have to tell Frau Kriwanek what you and the lieutenant got up to.’
‘Thank you, Herr Rief. I would be most grateful for your silence on this matter.’
‘And remember you owe me twenty crowns, Traudl.’
‘I’ll tell no one. Not a soul. I swear.’
Lysander gestured for Traudl to enter Herr Barth’s little room. ‘After you,’ he said, and followed her in.
25. Trieste
Lysander sat looking out of the window of the Graz express, watching the early morning sunlight glance and shimmer off the Golfo di Trieste as he caught glimpses of the sea in between the numerous tunnels the train barrelled through on its descent to the coast and the city. These vistas of the Adriatic and its rocky coastline were symbolic of his salvation, he told himself; he should store them away in his memory-archive. Here he was, arriving at the very edge of Austria-Hungary and he would be leaving it for ever in a matter of hours. He was hungry – he hadn’t eaten since his abandoned lunch the day before and he promised himself a decent breakfast at the station restaurant as soon as they arrived. He had just over 100 crowns left, more than enough to book passage on a steamer to Ancona – no need to go as far south as Bari. Once in Ancona he would go to Florence and have money wired to him there, then he would make his way home through France. Now he was almost in Trieste all these plans seemed entirely feasible and logical.
With complaining groans of braking metal the Graz express slowed to a halt at Trieste’s Stazione Meridionale and Lysander stepped out on to the platform. Seeing signs in Italian was already enough for him. He had made it, he was free –
‘Rief?’
He turned very slowly to see Jack Fyfe-Miller stepping down from the first-class carriage with a small leather grip in his hand.
Lysander felt his bowels ease with this small deliverance.
‘Bravo,’ Fyfe-Miller said, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘Bet you’re hungry. Let me buy you breakfast.’
They went to the Café Orientale in the Lloyds building on the Piazza Grande where Lysander ordered and ate a six-egg omelette with a ham steak and consumed many small sweet bread rolls. Fyfe-Miller drank a spritzer and smoked a cigarette.
‘We were very impressed,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Munro and I were there at the Südbahnhof looking out for you. We thought you were never coming, I must say – thought you’d left it too late. They had the police there very quickly. We were beginning to get worried – then along you came, swearing in Italian, carrying a double bass.’
‘I was using my ingenuity, as instructed.’
Lysander had stuffed a pillow from Herr Barth’s bed under his shirt and buttoned his overcoat around this new pot-belly. He had taken Herr Barth’s ancient hard-felt top hat and punched a dent in it. The big double bass in its leather container was surprisingly light, though bulky. He had locked Traudl in Herr Barth’s room and had hailed a cab on Mariahilfer Strasse for the station. Once there, he bought his ticket for Trieste (third class) and with many a ‘Mi scusi’, ‘Attenzione’ and ‘Lasciami passare’ had made his way noisily to the platform. People looked round, he saw children smiling and pointing, policemen glanced at him. A station porter helped him heave the double bass on board. No one was looking for a plump Italian double-bass player in a greasy topper. He found a seat by the window and waited, as calmly as he could, for the whistle-blast announcing their departure.
‘Sometimes being ostentatious is the best disguise,’ Lysander said.
‘So we saw . . . What happened to the double bass?’
‘I left it on the train when we changed at Gratz. Feel a bit guilty about that.’
‘We were very impressed, Munro and I. We had a good laugh before I jumped on the train after you.’
‘Did you report me missing?’
‘Of course. After an hour – but they already knew. The informers in the embassy were miles ahead of us. However, we were suitably outraged and very apologetic. Very shamefaced.’
After breakfast Fyfe-Miller bought him his ticket to Ancona and they walked along to the new port to find the mole where the mail-steamer was berthed.
Fyfe-Miller shook his hand at the foot of the gangway.
‘Goodbye, Rief. And damned well done. I’m sure you’ve made the right decision.’
‘I’m sorry to leave,’ Lysander said. ‘There’s a lot of unfinished business in Vienna.’
‘Well, you won’t be able to go back, that’s for sure,’ Fyfe-Miller said with his usual bluntness. ‘Now you’re a fugitive from Austro-Hungarian justice.’
The thought depressed him. There was a toot from the steam whistle on the smoke-stack.
‘Thanks for all your help – you and Munro,’ Lysander said. ‘I won’t forget.’
‘Neither will we,’ Fyfe-Miller said, with a broad smile. ‘You owe His Majesty’s Government a considerable sum of money.’
They shook hands, Fyfe-Miller wished him bon voyage and Lysander boarded the scruffy coastal cargo vessel. Steam was got up and the mooring ropes were cast off, thrown on board and the little ship left the busy harbour of Trieste. Lysander stood on the rear deck, leaning on the balustrade, watching the city recede, with its castle on its modest hill, admiring the splendour of the rocky Dalmatian coastline. All very beautiful in the winter sunshine, he acknowledged, feeling a melancholy peace overwhelm him and wondering if he would ever see this country again, thinking ruefully that his business with it – Hettie and their child – had every chance of remaining unfinished for ever.
PART TWO
LONDON, 1914
1. Measure for Measure