Out of Such Darkness Read Free

well-being if I go from this year, 1985, the full distance to 1932 in one step. So my story starts on 26 April 1950 and I hope it won’t confuse you too much if we go backwards from there.
    In the early afternoon, as was my custom, I set my rocking chair in front of the window and read by the light of the sun. I had a little over an hour before it travelled too far west and the angle into the window was too acute. I had viewed the house on a summer’s afternoon and hadn’t realised that it was only the absence of buildings in Jay Park that afforded the sun a glimpse of what was to be my living-room. For the rest of the day my narrow brownstone lived in the shade of the taller buildings on the south side of East 77th Street.
    I was forty-five years old and already feeling the twinges of the arthritis that would cripple my knees in later years. A signed and dedicated first edition of collected poems by W H Auden lay open on my lap. It was all I needed to spend my time in contemplative reminiscence. I recalled a fleeting liaison with dear Wystan when we worked together on a play that was never taken up.
    He declared at the time that the work and the sex would have been more satisfying had I been Christopher Isherwood. We both recognised this as the catty prelude to schism and I forgave him. We kissed and vowed to stay platonic friends.
    We didn’t, of course. We both still lived in Manhattan but Wystan’s circle rotated at a higher altitude than mine. In any event I would shortly move out of the city to a northern suburb and saw no reason for petty jealousy. Not to be vulgar, but my Dexter Parnes VC mysteries were far more remunerative than Wystan’s poems would ever be.
    The rat-tat-tat on the front door came as I was succumbing cat-like to the warmth and I jerked straight, causing my chair to rock ferociously. I put out a hand to the sill and this gave me a pretext to lean forward and look down to the street. The man who had knocked on the door had evidently stepped back and was standing alongside a woman. She was hatless and not somebody I knew. The man looked mysterious with his face obscured by his hat which was set at a just-so angle – a jauntiness I recognised. The woman was carrying a baby. They presented a shabby group and I could sense desperation in their demeanour. Despite the attraction of the man, I wondered if they were beggars and resolved not to go down.
    The man stepped out of view again and I leaned forward to regain sight of him. The rat-tat-tat sounded through the house. There was something in the way he moved. It confirmed in my mind that he was one of our tribe, but, this being the case, what was he doing in the company of a woman and a baby? Intrigued, I hoisted myself out of the chair and made my way down-stairs to the vestibule.
    A mirror set into the hallstand gave me the opportunity to check my appearance. I smoothed down the front of my white shirt and re-tucked it into my ‘slouching’ brown cords. A gold chain peeked out at my open collar. That, and my white-gold pinkie ring, were the only signs of ostentation I allowed myself. I unbolted the door at top and bottom and opened it on the chain.
    The man stepped into view and took off his hat. “Cameron?” he said.
    “Wolf?” I closed the door, slid back the chain and swung the door wide. “Wolf!” Tears filled my eyes, obscuring the face that had changed so much but at the same time held the essence of the boy I had loved unreservedly in Berlin. “Wolf! I never thought I’d see you again!”
    To mitigate the crassness of this remark I can only say that it is at times of highest emotion we resort to the commonest cliché.
     
    Now we’ll go back to the morning of 2nd July 1934 when I was also awoken by banging on my door.
    “Herr Mortimer! Herr Mortimer!” It was Frau Guttchen’s voice, shrill and urgent.
    I scrabbled around on the bedside table for my watch. The luminous hands told me it was not yet six o’clock. I groaned.