Sophie and the Sibyl by Patricia Duncker Page B

concerned Sophie von Hahn already counted as his wife, and never mind the fact that he hadn’t actually asked her. But she had vanished into air, as decisively as the fairies, dissolving at daybreak. He rang the bell of Frau Heide’s Very Superior Pension, but the sleepy maid informed him that they didn’t have rich people like the Count von Hahn staying there, and why didn’t he try the Grand Continental Hotel? Out of breath and temper, edgy and flustered, Max stormed the reception desk, only to be informed that the Graf von Hahn and his daughter had indeed arrived the day before, had left several messages for him, including a pressing invitation to dine with them on the previous evening, but had not yet emerged from their suite to greet the day. You little minx, Max fretted and bristled. Not dressed yet? Not gone out? He was quite prepared to hunt her down himself and give her a wigging. Had she got herself into debt? Surely the Count gave her a generous allowance? Was she supporting some indigent relative? The indigent and the undeserving remained indistinguishable in Max’s imagination. Or maybe she had become too deeply involved in good works of a religious nature?
    Standing there, undecided, in the great foyer of the Continental, beside the palms in giant Oriental vats, Max poured out his apologies to the Count von Hahn on the back of his visiting card, which he left with the porter to be sent up with their breakfast. Then he marched out into the gardens to read his letters just arrived from Berlin: one from Wolfgang and the other from Professor Marek, inviting him to attend a series of lectures in preparation for the Anatolian expedition in the spring. Wolfgang outlined a counter-proposal for Max to negotiate with Lewes, which gave their house both Continental reprint rights and the translation copyright on the Sibyl’s next masterpiece, whenever she might choose to create said work, certain to be even more excellent and extraordinary than the present magnificent and amazing magnum opus. Max abandoned his brother’s hyperbole. Yet more negotiations with the inflexible hairy husband! Max almost mowed down an elderly English lady, her companion and their little dog, parading round the fountain. His self-satisfied mood of sexual accomplishment dissipated before a row of irritating obstacles.
    And so it was that Max, disgruntled and anxious, presented himself at Obere Promenade 14, equipped for battle with the publisher’s counter-proposals. But the scene which greeted him in the comfortable first-floor apartments suggested a peculiar and alarming scientific experiment. Lewes, he assumed that it was Lewes, sat at the table, still wearing his robe de chambre , an ample towel draped over his head, so that his voice, hoarse and stifled, emerged faintly through the folds. A sinister balsamic mixture filled the room with odours of menthol and verbena. A brown bottle containing the tincture stood beside the jug of boiling water, which the Sibyl poured carefully into the basin before her husband, causing the vapours to surge upwards, like mist evaporating from the valley bottoms. She nodded earnestly at Max.
    ‘Pull the towel right over the basin, dearest, and breathe deeply, so that you get the full benefit.’
    Lewes bent forwards, as if intending to be sick.
    ‘I am sorry, my dear fellow,’ groaned the voice, hoarse and indistinct. He echoed like a reluctant spirit guide, discovered beneath linen drapes at the climax of a seance. ‘You have caught me at a low ebb.’
    Max attempted to excuse himself and backed towards the door, but both the Sibyl and the muffled Lewes insisted that he should settle and be seated.
    ‘It’s only a chesty sore throat,’ gasped the voice, ‘and Polly’s wonderful inhalation may put a stop to it. I don’t want her to succumb to this as well.’
    The closed rooms, stuffy and airless, with the fire banked up and blazing, produced a dreadful claustrophobic fug, smelling equally of