Waiting for Sunrise Read Free Page A

could hear no sound of the city streets beyond – no clatter of electric trams, no carriages or wagons clopping by, no automobiles – it was ideally calm.
    Lysander looked at the silver bas-relief. Fantastic African figures, half-man, half-animal, with extravagant headdresses, pricked out with traceries of small holes punched through the soft metal. It was strange and very beautiful – and doubtless freighted with all manner of pertinent symbolism, Lysander thought.
    ‘Mr L.U. Rief,’ Bensimon said. In the quiet room Lysander could hear the scratch of his fountain pen. His voice was lightly accented, somewhere from the north of England, Lysander guessed, Yorkshire or Lancashire, but honed down so that placing the location was impossible. He was good at accents, Lysander flattered himself – he’d unlock it in a minute or so.
    ‘What do the initials stand for?’
    ‘Lysander Ulrich Rief.’
    ‘Marvellous name.’
    Manchester, Lysander thought – that flat ‘A’.
    ‘Rief – is that Scottish?’
    ‘Old English. It means “thorough”, some say. And I’ve also been told it’s Anglo-Saxon dialect for ‘wolf’. All very confusing.’
    ‘A thorough wolf. Wolfishly thorough. What about the “Ulrich”? Are you part German?’
    ‘My mother is Austrian.’
    ‘From Vienna?’
    ‘Linz, actually. Originally.’
    ‘Date of birth?’
    ‘Mine?’
    ‘Your mother’s age is hardly relevant, I would venture.’
    ‘Sorry. Seventh of March 1886.’
    Lysander turned again in the chair. Bensimon was leaning back in his seat, at ease, smiling, fingers laced behind his shining pate.
    ‘Best not to bother turning round all the time. Just think of me as a disembodied voice.’
     
     
    4. Wiener Kunstmaterialien
     
    Lysander walked downstairs from Bensimon’s apartment, slowly, his mind full of thoughts, some pleasurable, some dissatisfying, some troubling. The meeting had been brief, lasting only some fifteen minutes. Bensimon had written down his personal details, had discussed payment methods (bi-monthly invoicing and cash settlement) and then finally had asked him if he would like to discuss the nature of his ‘problem’.
    Lysander paused in the street outside and lit a cigarette, wondering if this process he had embarked on would really help or if he would have been better going to Lourdes, say? Or to have taken up some quack’s remedy? Or become a vegetarian and wear Jaeger underwear like George Bernard Shaw? He frowned, uncertain suddenly – not a good mood to be in, not encouraging. It was his closest friend Greville Varley who had suggested psychoanalysis to him – Greville being the only other person aware of his problem (and only vaguely so, at that) – and Lysander had followed up the idea like a zealot, he now realized, cancelling all his future plans, withdrawing his savings, moving to Vienna, seeking out the right doctor. Had he been foolishly impetuous or was it merely a sign of his desperation? . . .
    Turn left at Berggasse, Bensimon had said, then walk all the way down to the little square, to the junction of all the roads at the bottom. The shop is right in front of you – WKM – can’t miss it. Lysander set off, his mind still full of the crucial moment.
     
BENSIMON: So, what seems to be the nature of the problem?
 
LYSANDER: It’s . . . It’s a sexual problem.
 
BENSIMON: Yes. It usually is. At root.
 
LYSANDER: When I engage in lustful activity . . . That’s to say, during amatory congress –
 
BENSIMON: Please don’t search for euphemisms, Mr Rief. Plain speaking – it’s the only way. Be as blunt and as coarse as you like. Use the language of the street – nothing can offend me.
 
LYSANDER: Right. When I’m fucking, I can’t do it.
 
BENSIMON: You can’t get an erection?
 
LYSANDER: I have no problem with an erection. On the contrary – all very satisfactory there. My problem is to do with . . . with emission.
 
BENSIMON: Ah. Incredibly common. You ejaculate too soon.