Waiting for Sunrise Read Online Free PDF Page A

suited him.
    The pension was in fact a large apartment on the third floor of a newish block on the south side of a courtyard off Mariahilfer Strasse about half a mile from the Ring. It had hot-water heating and electric light; the large bathroom the lodgers shared was modern (flushing toilet) and clean. When Lysander had consulted the travel agency about his trip he had stipulated that the list of boarding houses he was given had to be able to provide a comfortable bedroom with a capacious wardrobe, offer professional standard laundry services (he had very precise demands about the use of starch) and be near a tramway halt. The first address he had visited was the Pension Kriwanek, where he saw that his room was comprised of a sitting room, a curtained alcove with a double bed and a small boxy annexe that served as a dressing room with plenty of shelves and cupboard space for his clothes. He hadn’t bothered to look any further – and this was probably the fact that inspired his postprandial thoughts of leaving – should he have seen what else Vienna had to offer? Still, he had a tutor in residence, also, and that wasn’t to be overlooked.
    When you entered the apartment through double doors off the third-floor landing you were confronted by a wide hall – wide enough for two cane-backed bergères and a round table with a glass-domed stuffed owl as a centrepiece. From this hall a long corridor led away to the dining room and the three lodgers’ rooms – Lysander’s, Wolfram’s and Herr Barth’s – and the bathroom they shared. At the end of this passage there was a door marked ‘ Privat ’ that must give on to the kitchen area, he assumed, as well as Frau K’s rooms. He had never been through it, never dared. Traudl also lived in so she would have had a corner somewhere that was hers, as well. There seemed to be a narrow parallel service-corridor from the kitchen to the dining room – the dining room had two exits – but beyond that his sense of the pension’s geography was vague – who knew what lay behind Privat ? The place was comfortable, you could keep yourself to yourself. Breakfast was served in your room, dinner was a paid-for supplement, a packed lunch could be provided at a day’s notice. He felt strangely at home, he had to admit.
    Traudl came in and began to clear away the dessert dishes.
    ‘How’re you, Traudl?’ Lysander asked. She was a solid, strapping girl and clumsy with it.
    On cue she let a dessert spoon drop to the carpet.
    ‘Not very happy, sir,’ she said, picking it up and rubbing away the custard stain with a napkin.
    ‘Why’s that?’
    ‘I’ve so many fines to pay Frau Kriwanek that I won’t earn anything this month.’
    ‘That’s a shame. You have to be more careful.’
    ‘Traudl? Careful? Totally impossible!’ came a man’s voice.
    ‘Good evening, Lieutenant, sir,’ Traudl said, blushing.
    Wolfram Rozman hauled out a chair and sat down heavily.
    ‘Traudl, my little fluffy chicken, bring me some bread and cheese.’
    ‘At once, sir.’
    Wolfram leaned across the table and clapped Lysander on the shoulder. He was wearing a pale-blue suit and a lilac bow tie. He was a very tall man, inches taller than Lysander, with the gangly, limber laziness of movement that very tall men display. He sprawled in his seat, one arm flung over the back of the adjacent chair, and thrust his legs under the table. Lysander saw his pale-blue trousers and spats emerge on his side. He had hooded, sleepy eyes and a dense blond moustache with its tips waxed upward over loose, full lips.
    Lysander offered him a cigarette that he accepted and – after fruitless rooting in his pockets for a box of matches – lit with Lysander’s lighter.
    ‘I suppose I’m in her blackest books,’ Wolfram said, blowing excellent smoke-rings. ‘As black as night.’
    ‘You’re just not very “pleasant” – let’s put it that way.’
    ‘I was running back, trying not to be late and I thought –