Free Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd

a Kabarett called “Hell” – die Hölle . It was the only place that would put it on. Then it was banned by the authorities.’
    ‘Banned? Why?’
    ‘Gross indecency. Mind you, I would have banned it for the music. Intolerable screeching atonality. Richard Strauss gone insane.’ He smiled. ‘I’m very old-fashioned in only one thing – music. I like a good melody.’
    ‘What was indecent about it?’
    ‘Miss Bull.’
    ‘She sang?’
    ‘No, no. She was Andromeda, sort of. Can’t you see the likeness in the portrait? You know the myth: Andromeda is chained to some rocks by the seashore as a placatory offering to a sea-monster, Cetus. Perseus comes along, kills Cetus, rescues her, they get married, etcetera, etcetera. Well, the soprano playing Andromeda – forget her name – could have passed easily for a heavyweight boxer. So Toller came up with the idea of a stand-in Andromeda for the monster-attack – our Miss Bull. There was an actually very impressive shadow-play – an Oriental puppet-effect for the monster projected somehow on the back wall – huge. Perseus was stage-front singing some interminable tenor aria – twenty minutes it seemed like – while Andromeda was being menaced. The soprano was off stage wailing and screaming. Cacophony, is the only word.’
    Lysander was curious. ‘What was so indecent about Miss Bull’s Andromeda?’
    ‘She was entirely naked.’
    ‘Oh. I see. Right, yes . . .’
    ‘Well, she had a few yards of some semi-transparent gauze around her. Left nothing to the imagination, let’s say.’
    ‘Very brave of her.’
    ‘Not short on audacity, our Miss Bull. Anyway, you can imagine the outrage. The brouhaha. They closed the theatre, ripped down every poster they could find. Poor Toller was charged with everything – immorality, indecency, pornography. Threw the book at him.’ Bensimon shrugged. ‘So he killed himself.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Yes. Hanged himself in the actual theatre – in “Hell”. Very dramatic statement. And sad, of course.’
    They stood there for a few seconds looking at the poster in silence. There was a distinct resemblance to Hettie Bull, Lysander saw, now he looked at Andromeda’s face and not her naked body.
    ‘I’d better be going,’ Bensimon said. ‘I’ve an official dinner, hence the get-up. Dozens of doctors, for my sins. Have you seen Miss Bull yet?’
    ‘No,’ Lysander said. They looked around the crowded room. Lysander suddenly saw her – her small figure. He pointed. ‘There she is.’
    ‘We should say hello,’ Bensimon said, and they made their way across the room towards her.
    Hettie Bull was standing with three men. As he and Bensimon crossed the room through the crowd towards her, Lysander noticed that she was wearing billowing cerise harem-style pantaloons, a short black satin jacket with diamanté buttons and a collar and tie. Her mass of hair was loosely piled up on her head and secured with many tortoiseshell combs. A small appliquéd bag hung from her shoulder on a braided cord reaching almost to her knees. When she turned to greet them Lysander heard a soft tinkling from ground level and looked down to see small silver bells sewn to the front of her shoes. Bensimon made his farewells and left. Hettie Bull turned to Lysander. Her big hazel eyes.
    ‘What do you think of Udo’s paintings?’ she asked.
    ‘I like them. Very much. No, I do.’
    She was staring at him intently but her mood seemed calm and assured. Perhaps she’d taken some more of Dr Bensimon’s medicine. She looked vaguely androgynous in her little jacket with its collar and tie.
    ‘Then you must tell him yourself,’ she said and moved off on chiming feet to tap the elbow of a man standing a few yards away, engaged in a conversation with two women wearing wide floppy hats. Hettie brought him over.
    ‘Udo Hoff – Mr Lysander Rief.’
    Lysander shook hands. Hoff was a very thick-set, burly man in his thirties, shorter than Lysander, with an