The Emperor Waltz (79 page)

Authors: Philip Hensher

BOOK: The Emperor Waltz

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‘I see,’ Celia said. She looked a little tearful. ‘Look – it’s been wonderful to see you. You were so much a part of – oh, I don’t know. I had such a happy childhood. I just thought. Well, you’ve been really a help, I know. And now I’d better go. Do you think I can get a taxi on the street here?’

‘The U-Bahn’s just around the corner,’ Arthur said. ‘It’s very safe. Are you sure you won’t have another cup of tea? They aren’t expecting me back at café just yet, I don’t suppose.’

‘No, I must go,’ Celia said. ‘You’ve been wonderful. I’ll tell Mummy I’ve seen you – you’ll send her your love, will you?’

‘I will,’ Arthur said.

It seemed as if the beautiful woman in the fur-collared coat was going to be Yusuf’s only customer of the afternoon. The idea of an elegant Turkish tearoom was just not catching on. He went to the plate-glass front window and gazed out. The snow was thinning a little, and as he watched, the door of the apartment block opposite opened, and the woman stepped out. She turned about, to left and right, and, as if at a command, a yellow-brown taxi drew to a halt, and she stepped in. Yusuf reflected that she must have left her package of books with that nice English Philip opposite. Or perhaps, rather, with that nice English Arthur. It was interesting that he had, it seemed, changed his name at some point. Yusuf looked forward to Florian coming back, in order to tell him the interesting news. Florian always liked gossip, if there was any hint of the disgraceful about it. There was a veiled radiance in the air behind the snow, as if the sun were trying to break through before the snow had quite finished. Yusuf stepped out into the street to enjoy the quiet of snow falling under the bright-lit clouds. Somewhere, not so far away, someone was playing a CD with a window open, despite the snow. It was a familiar piece of music, the old-fashioned sound an orchestra might make for rich ladies and gentlemen to dance to, in the old-fashioned times. Yusuf knew it from somewhere: he could not name it, however. He stood in the falling snow, and it fell onto his upheld face through the shine of light in the air. He was not quite sure where the music was coming from, from what bright direction.

Battersea-Charmilles-Murray Hill

August 2013

Final Note

There is, indeed, a London bookshop devoted to gay literature, which has been in existence for thirty-five years. I have been a customer of Gay’s the Word in Marchmont Street all my adult life. Happily, unlike Duncan’s shop, it is still going strong, and no one in this book bears any resemblance to anyone who works or who has worked in the real shop. I did not investigate its history, and this imaginary story only coincides with reality in the broadest outlines. The same is true of the Bauhaus sequence, where I have changed the order of events and happily combined real historical figures with imaginary ones. Where real people play a part in this novel, from St Perpetua to my friend Paul Bailey, they are always referred to by their real names.

Diesseitig bin ich gar

nicht fassbar

denn ich wohne grad

so gut bei den Toten

wie bei

den Ungeborenen

etwas naher

dem Herzen der Schöpfung

als üblich

und noch lange

nicht nähe genug.

Also by Philip Hensher

F
ICTION

Other Lulus

Kitchen Venom

Pleasured

The Bedroom of the Mister’s Wife

The Mulberry Empire

The Fit

The Northern Clemency

King of the Badgers

Scenes from Early Life

N
ON
-F
ICTION

The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting

About the Author

Philip Hensher has written nine novels, including
The Mulberry Empire
, the Booker-shortlisted
The Northern Clemency
,
King of the Badgers
and
Scenes from Early Life
, which won the Ondaatje Prize in 2012. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Bath Spa and lives in South London and Geneva.

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers Ltd

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

London W6 8JB

www.4thestate.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2014

Philip Hensher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Cover drawing by Norman Arlott

Source ISBN: 9780007459575

Ebook Edition © July 2014 ISBN: 9780007459582

Version: 2014-05-22

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