In Another Country, and Besides

by Maxwell Jacobs

  CHAPTER XXXI

  THE BEGINNING WAS FRIGHTENING and overwhelming. Is there anything more painful, I asked myself? Do I even have the energy to get through something like this? I was unsure of who I was now. I felt confused. Feeling disoriented is natural, I thought. I know it’s important to mourn and I know there is a need to mourn. Mourning is an open expression of your thoughts and feelings. It’s an essential part of healing. Then there’s grief. Grief is different, I thought. Grief is unique because no one had the same relationship as I had with Maria. Grieve in your own way, I thought, and don’t try to compare it with others’.

  Perhaps I should consider the one-day-at-a-time approach. It’s all starting to affect my head. Maybe it’s too hard work, grief. It’s called work for a reason. Am I losing my mind? I hope I don’t lose my mind. I need my mind. I should really get out of bed. It’s been two days now. I pulled myself out of bed and sat on the edge. I turned to look at Liv. She was still sleeping. She had been having nightmares the last nights and would let out screams that would startle me awake. She would then wake up but not be really awake. She would become lost. “Poor snowflake,” I said out loud. What time is it? It was still dark. I went to the bathroom and I could hear Valentia crying and see the light on in her room. I got back into bed and pulled Liv close.

  The days that followed felt like I was on autopilot because trying to absorb such an enormous shock was not an option. Nothing seemed real. Of course, I knew the truth deep down, but I now had a daughter to care for. I started to play the “what if” game. But once you let it in, it just consumes you. I was not so much exhausted with the process of grief, but now it was more about how busy my mind had become with everything but grief. I would lie awake at night going over and over how, why, or what if. I became obsessed, convinced that if I worked out how, I could change that day or blame someone else. I could somehow bring her back. I would withdraw from talking about Maria’s death. I wanted to talk about her every day. On the fourth day, I searched for the notebook, but it was gone. Maria had put it somewhere and I couldn’t find it.

  At nights I could still feel her hand inside mine. Hers was so small and beautiful that it disappeared into mine every time I took hold of it. I loved her hands. They were soft and delicate, and they were also a place where compassion could be felt. A touch from Maria could soothe me in a way few other things could. Her eyes were where love could be seen and would always be a place to shelter me. I wondered if I gave her the same looks and the same comfort. I suspected I did, but I couldn’t know for sure. Loving her was as natural as breathing for me.

  “God, I miss her,” I said under the blanket, and began to sob. Was there a path to forgiveness for me? I guessed whatever happened from here on out would not change my love for her.

  CHAPTER XXXII

  VALENTINA ARRANGED THE CREMATION in Paris for Maria and our baby girl and then the funeral, which was to be held back in Bologna the following week.

  On that morning over that breakfast, Valentina changed her tone and talked to me in an almost businesslike manner.

  “Harry, we need to talk about Liv,” she said.

  “Please not now, Valentina,” I said with a plea in my voice.

  “Harry, we have to talk,” she said firmly. “Please don’t make this harder than it has to be. We are all hurting.”

  “What’s the point?” I asked, shaking my head. “The conversation will end by you telling me that you’re taking Liv away. I already know how this ends.”

  I stood up and put the dishes in the sink.

  “Well, I’m sorry to say it, but you didn’t get married,” she said. “And you don’t have legal custody over Liv.”

  “Valentina, you can’t take Liv away from me,” I protested, staring into the sink. “She’s all I have now. I’ve been like a father to her. Go ask her who she wants to live with! It should be her choice.”

  “Harry, she’s six years old!” Valentina cried. “She can’t make these types of decisions.”

  “Yes, she can.”

  “No, she can’t,” she sighed. “I know you love her and I know you would do anything for her. But you have to understand, as the divorce papers were never signed, Roberto has full legal right over Liv. And he wants Liv back.”

  “She can’t go back to Roberto!” I cried. “He doesn’t care about her. He’s just doing this to spite me.”

  “Harry, I know this and I know she would rather be with you,” she said. “But it’s out of our hands. I would much prefer you to raise her, but Roberto is her biological father and technically still married to our Maria. We have to take her back. I’m sorry, Harry.”

  “You lay this on me now,” I seethed. “Five days after Maria died! I can’t take this. Is this because of what Maria said to you?”

  “About what?” she asked.

  “About what,” I laughed, shaking my head. “About the notebook she found?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Harry.” She frowned up at me. “And please don’t shout.”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” I spat out. “And I’ll tell you this: that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

  I stormed off and went into the bedroom, slammed the door, and sank down on the bed. I just can’t let them take Liv. We need a plan and we need to leave, just the two of us. I had enough money to start a new life together. We didn’t need much.

  I jumped up off the bed and took out a bag, starting to pack only what I could carry. Things I couldn’t take we would buy later. We just needed to be together. But where to go? I searched for a map in my box of books, found one, and spread it across the bed.

  We could go to one of the Greek islands, or the ones just off the coast of Sicily—Lapari for example. They would never think I was dumb enough to take her back to Italy. It would be the last place they would look.

  A knock at the door came and the handle turned, but the door was locked.

  “Just a minute,” I shouted and threw the map under the bed covers.

  “Harry, we are going out for a walk to clear our heads,” Valentina shouted from behind the door. I went over and opened it. She stood there looking at me, sympathy etched across her face.

  “Do you feel like joining us?” she asked gently.

  “No. I just want to spend some time with Liv.”

  “Oh, we just dressed her and planned to take her with us.”

  “I’d rather she stayed and we play together,” I said, though I could already see in Valentina’s eyes that she did not trust me anymore. Her look was different now.

  “Well, we can stay then,” she said.

  “No, I’d really prefer to have some alone time with her if you don’t mind,” I said, trying to sound persuasive not insistent. “And I’m sorry for what I said earlier, Valentina. I’m just upset and emotional.”

  I gave her a reassuring smile.

  “Okay. Well, we won’t be too long.”

  I gave a false smile and closed the door.

  I heard them talking loudly in Italian in the hallway and then saying goodbye to Liv before the door closed. I walked into Liv’s room.

  “Hey, snowflake.” She was playing on the floor.

  “Hi, Harry Bear,” she said, smiling back, looking up from her drawing.

  “Listen, we are going to play a game,” I said. “If you only had one bag, let’s say this one, and you were going away on a long holiday, what would you put in it? You can choose anything.”

  “Are we going on holiday?” she asked me.

  “Yes, we are,” I said. “So I need you to focus and only take the things you really love and care about. Like that picture of Mummy. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Start now and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  I went over to her wardrobe and grabbed a handful of clothes, some shoes and a jacket, and stuffed them into my bag and went back to the bedroom and finished my packing.

  She came in some minutes later, pulling her s
mall red suitcase that we had bought her for Christmas.

  “So are you ready?” I asked.

  “Si,” she nodded.

  “Well, then let’s go!” I said brightly.

  “What about Grandma and Papa?” she asked. “Are they coming too?”

  “Yes, they will meet us there,” I said, putting on her jacket. I zipped it to the top and took one last look around the apartment before we left.

  We walked down the stairs and onto the street and then made the short walk to the garage. I’d figured flying would be useless. They would almost certainly stop us before we got on the plane. I gave us at least three hours before Valentina notified the police and another hour before it got to the right people. It would be at least six hours before the French border patrol was alerted. I believed that gave us enough time to get out of the country.

  We drove to the Gare du Lyon and left the car in the parking station and booked us onto the first direct train to Marseille, which left in forty-five minutes. This gave me enough time to call a few ferry-liners to get some information. There was one ferry leaving at nine o’clock tonight direct to Palermo. From there we could make our way to Lipari. It was a twelve-hour trip, but they had private cabins with beds. I didn’t reserve the tickets, as I didn’t want to give our names, but I was assured that there was plenty space left to buy tickets at the port of Marseille.

  We stood waiting alone under the fouled glass dome, relic of the seventies, era of the Crystal Palace; my hands, a vague gray color that only twenty-four hours can produce, were placed in my coat pockets to conceal the trembling fingers. I put on my hat. I was scarcely recognizable.

  The well-to-do Parisians poured through the station onto the platforms with frank new faces, intelligent, considerate, thoughtless, and the occasional English or American face among them seemed sharp and emergent. Suddenly I was involved in a human contact and I felt scared. Only after a hundred years did the train finally arrive and we boarded and settled in.

  Unlike English trains that were absorbed with scornful people, this train was part of the country through which it passed. Its breath stirred peacefully and quietly from the dust of the station, out toward our future, and the cinders mingled with the lushness of the land. Liv was sure she could lean from the window and pull the flowers with her hand.

  By the time we got off the train and boarded the ferry, we were both exhausted. I was living on espressos and my twitching nerves. Liv was fast asleep now as I carried her to the cabin. There was only one bed, so I opened the tight sheets and took off her jacket. Her hands were freezing. I wrapped her up and she stayed asleep.

  I sat down next to her on the edge of the bed and sobbed. My hands were shaking and my body was tense. Had I done the right thing? Had I even thought this through? I hadn’t thought, I just acted. I really didn’t know anymore. All I knew was that I had lost Maria and I’d be damned if I was going to lose Liv as well. I then collapsed in a heap on the floor next to our luggage and fell fast asleep.

  I awoke to the sound of the engines starting up and the movement of the ferry. I slowly raised myself up and felt better. It was nine-thirty and it looked like we were on our way. I figured we had been lucky enough to get out of the country as fast as we did. I’m sure they had alerted the police by now. I was sad for Maria’s parents and what I was putting them through.

  As we set off, there was a feeling of uneasiness that I couldn’t shake; something about Italy gnawed at me. Perhaps it was a bad idea to stay in Europe. I had a strange feeling that something was going to happen, and it gave me a sudden chill. Murder and now kidnapping: what was next? The scandal of it all was almost too much to comprehend. Famous author kidnaps six-year-old girl of dead mother. I could see it now in the morning papers. I guessed we could travel to South America after Sicily. We could ferry down to North Africa, train it to Johannesburg, and then jump on a boat to Rio. I could probably get work writing for a small-town newspaper. We would figure it out. What’s important is that we are together.

  My mind went off in such directions for the next hour, and then I decided to go out for a smoke. I locked the cabin door and walked down the corridor. As the ship moved from side to side I had to hold my arms up and steady myself on the walls. Outside it was utterly dark and the stars were out. It was bitterly cold. I walked around sizing up everyone I came across. I smoked one more before I went back and set the alarm and fell fast to sleep. She woke five times during the night screaming with nightmares. Every time I would go over and sing to her and then crawl back down to the floor.

  I awakened to the sound of Liv talking in her bed. I raised myself off the floor and felt shaky and lightheaded and looked at the clock. We had thirty minutes until we reached the port of Palermo. I opened the curtains and the glare of the sun hurt my eyes. Liv jumped up on the bed and looked out the small cabin window.

  We got washed from the basin and dressed and closed the cabin door, and I carried our luggage out on to the deck and Liv walked alongside. The ferry was approaching the port now. I picked her up and held onto the white rusted railings, and she gave me a warm and slightly moist kiss on the cheek and I felt good again. The town was getting closer and the surrounding land looked dry and primitive and the air was warm and there was no wind, and I opened my bag and took out my blue baseball cap. The port and city rose up above us and felt like a mirage ahead. Solid ground that we could walk on, and where our future was to begin.

  As we came slowly to dock, I could see a police car and then in front of it a dark-haired man in a long black trench coat. He looked out of place in the crowd of cars and people. Next to him stood a younger policeman in full Italian uniform, his arms folded across his chest. I could see the dark-haired man was holding binoculars and looking straight at us. I rubbed my eyes to try and focus, but I couldn’t catch his face. We were still too far away. I took my glasses out and placed them carefully on my face and looked again. Then, with a jolt of panic, I realized it was the inspector. I put Liv down and unzipped my bag and took out my knife and placed it into my jacket pocket, and they stared back at us and I felt the adrenaline rush hit me like a punch to the gut and could see in the distance a newsstand and the headline:

  BRITISH SERIAL KILLER HARRY HOFFMAN AT LARGE IN ITALY. MANHUNT INITIATED.

  In that moment I knew what I had to do. I would not let them take Liv. They would have to kill me first.

  “Are you okay, Harry Bear?” Liv looked up at me, and I looked down at her sweet innocent face.

  “Everything is just fine, snowflake. Everything is just fine.”

  — THE END —

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Maxwell P. Jacobs was born in the north of England in 1981. Raised by his postwar grandparents, Jacobs spent his early years in much poverty. At sixteen, after dropping out of school, he began an apprenticeship with a local newspaper, trying to realize his ambition as a journalist. At twenty, this dream took him to New York where he found work at a well-known publishing house. Two years later he moved to Paris and fell between the expatriate artists and writers of the time and quickly found love with a local girl, and not long after married. During these early Paris years, Jacobs took on a variety of jobs to pay the rent. Unsure of his true calling he continued to write in his spare time. His marriage soon failed, and he left Paris and secluded himself to a small fishing village close to Marseille. This period was highly creative for Jacobs and he began to write down his experiences and completed his first manuscript. This small volume included three vignettes and sixteen short stories and with a hope of getting published, he went back to Paris. Unable to find a publisher, Jacobs self-published the book but it did not sell well and never got the attention it deserved.

  Looking for a change, and with very little money, Jacobs decided to move to Mexico because the exchange rate made it an inexpensive place to live. He arrived in Monterrey early spring with a plan of starting his first novel. Not knowing anyone and unable to speak the language, he slipped into isolation. He re
nted a small house and converted the second floor into a writing studio. After only eleven months, and a failed attempt at a novel, Jacobs ended up fleeing the country after a tip off that he was targeted for a kidnapping operation with the local cartel. He quickly fled to Mexico City before returning to Paris. There he renewed his earlier friendships with the young writers and artists and their encouragement and criticism began to play a valuable part in the formation of his fiction and established his name more widely. The following year, he began writing a collection of sketches and stories based on his grandparent’s wartime activity. This publication, “Of Time & War” attracted a great deal of attention and began a fine future for him as a creative fiction writer.

  A few years later, Jacobs left Paris to spend the winter in Switzerland and to begin work on his next collection of short stories. There he met a Swiss girl with whom he became infatuated with and they started off a thrilling romance. This set off a creative surge and a hunger for expression and he began writing a sprawling semi autobiographical novel called Confessions of an Expat and later changed to the title In Another Country, and Besides. This story, set in post war Europe, is a pilgrimage of youth and especially of an English expatriate. It begins in Venice, where our protagonist meets Cleo, who offers him a chance to start over. It takes them through a variety of profoundly moving experiences—To Zurich, and the Swiss Alps, thence to the Cote d’Azur and finally to Paris, irresistibly drawn back to the great, sprawling city he had once fled in bitterness and disgust. This story is a moving tragedy. From its violence, ignorance and cruelty, joy and mystery, it shows vividly Jacobs own expatriate experiences and by doing so, has created a confessional story with the mass and movement of an epic novel.