‘I see.’
‘All her life she never wore stockings. Her skirts came down to her shoes.’
He began to rise, his drink untouched.
‘Drink your grappa, Tom. I’ve poured it for you.’
He sipped a little. I told him that that was how it was done: you turned Miss Alzapiedi into elegant Lady Daysmith. I told him how Miss Alzapiedi had come to my assistance when I mixed up God with Joseph. I didn’t claim that making her Lady Daysmith was a reward. It was just something that had occurred.
‘But it’s nice, Tom. And it’s nice that an old man who’s had the stuffing knocked out of him can still find his last reserves in order to create an English garden in the heat of Umbria.’
‘Yes, indeed.’
Illusion came into it, of course it did. Illusion and mystery and pretence: dismiss that trinity of wonders and what’s left, after all? A stick of an old creature in misery as he walks up and down a hospital corridor with a holy statue in it. The suffering in the heart of a Sunday-school teacher who wears her dresses long. Dismiss it and you’re face to face with a violent salesman of sanitary-ware, free-wheeling about with young girls on expenses. Dismiss the conventions of my house in Umbria and Quinty, for one, would be back where he started.
‘If I gave Quinty his marching orders, Tom, he’d take his gypsy with him and they’d end up on a wasteland. They’d make a shack out of flattened oil-drums. They’d thieve from people on the streets.’
‘Mrs Delahunty –’
‘I’ve seen the tourists here looking askance at Quinty, and who on earth can blame them? You must have thought you’d come to a madhouse when he began his talk about holy women. Yet eccentric conversation’s better than being a near criminal. Or so I’d have thought.’
Politely he said he found Quinty not uninteresting on the subject of hagiology. I smiled at him: once again he was doing his best. I remembered him walking beside Rosa Crevelli after we’d had lunch, making an effort to converse with her. He’d had a glass or two of wine, and I wondered if he’d thought to himself that she had an easy look to her. No reason why a reticent man shouldn’t have a fancy, shouldn’t go for that sallow skin and gypsy eyes, a different ball-game from Francine. But this wasn’t the time to wonder for long about any of that.
Perhaps in the morning, I suggested, we might look for a bark-ant together so that he could show me his side of things, since I’d been going on so about my own. For a start, I’d no idea if a bark-ant looked different from the kind of ant that lives beneath a stone. I asked him about that, pouring just a thimbleful more grappa into my glass. I said it was fascinating what he’d said about bark-ants behaving like human beings. I asked him how they came by their name. He didn’t answer, and when I looked up I discovered he was no longer in the room.
11
The old man showed me what he intended, passing on to me the gist of the deliberations that had taken place the evening before, how the Italian had pointed out that in order to create the different levels a mechanical digger rather than a ploughing machine was necessary. This, too, he could supply and operate himself. The General showed me where the terracing and the flights of steps would be. Part of the garden would be walled: the Italian had machinery for demolishing the half-ruined stables and moving the stone to where it could be attractively put to use.
The General repeated that the garden was a gift. But he did not feel he could make such drastic alterations without my agreement. He showed me where a fountain would be, and where the shade trees would be planted.
‘It’ll be beautiful, General.’
‘A garden should have little gardens tucked away inside it. It should have alcoves and secret places, and paths that make you want to take them even though they don’t lead anywhere. What grows well, you cherish. What doesn’t, you throw out.’
The digger would bite into the slope beside the sunflower field. As well as terraces, there would be sunken areas. The Italian who’d come was a man of imagination; he’d entered into the spirit of the challenge. A separate well for the garden might be necessary, rather than the pipeline he’d first suggested. The old cypress tree beside the stables would remain.
‘This’ll be costly, General. Are you sure –’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
Then, for the last time in my presence, the old man mentioned his daughter. We stood among the rank growth of that wasted area, to which the dilapidated old buildings and rusty wheels and axles lent a dismal air. The General stared down at the ground of which he expected so much. In his daughter’s lifetime he had resented the fact that what wealth he left behind would be shared with her husband. ‘I would happily give all the days remaining to me if it might be now,’ he murmured, and said no more.
So it was left. I had accepted gifts from men before, but never one like this, and never without strings that tied some grisly package. I was moved afresh by what was happening, by faith being kept in so many directions at once, by frailty turned into strength. The timbers of these useless buildings and the discoloured iron that had sunk into the ground would be scooped away, the fallen walls given an unexpected lease of life; an old man’s dream would spread on the hill beside the sunflower slope. He knew, as I did, that he would not live to see his garden’s heyday. But he knew it didn’t matter.
That day was hotter, even, than the days that had preceded it. At half-past ten Aimée and her uncle went for a walk, advised to do so before the day became oppressive. There is a selection of straw hats in the outer hall, kept for the tourists, since people who come here always want to walk about the hillsides no matter what the temperature. I insisted that Aimée should wear one, and her uncle also; I warned them to keep to the roads and tracks for fear of snakes. For a few moments I watched their slow progress through the clumps of broom and laburnum, Aimée in a light-blue dress, her wide-brimmed panama too big for her, he in shirtsleeves and fawn cotton trousers, and a hat with a brown band. When they passed from sight I hurried into the house and made my way to his bedroom.
I’d hoped to find a photograph of Francine that would confirm the picture I had formed, but there wasn’t one. His clothes hung neatly in the simple wardrobe, a tie was draped over the back of a chair. A sponge-bag contained an electric razor, toothbrush and toothpaste, aspirin and deodorant. Airline tickets and cufflinks were on the dressing-table; soiled laundry had been folded and placed at the bottom of one of the black Mandarina Duck bags. On the bedside table there was a grey-jacketed volume entitled The Case for Differentia. I opened it, but could not understand a word. Convoluted sentences trailed sluggishly down the page. Words were brandished threateningly, and repeated for good measure: empirical, behavioural, delimit, cognitive, validation, determinism, re-endorsement. Can this be designated an urban environment? a question posed, followed by the statement that a quarter of the ‘given population’ are first-generation immigrants. From what I could gather these were ants, not human beings. I closed the volume hastily.
Beneath it there was a blue notebook full of jottings in what I took to be the handwriting of Mr Riversmith. The script was more than a little difficult to read, pinched and without any attempt at an attractive effect. ?Is evidence, co-operation economic activities, exchange goods, service. ?Trade, familial lines. Pilsfer’s recreation theory shaky. Recurrent exchange gifts cannot be taken recreational. ?Sanctions on miscreant. No evidence Pilsfer’s sleep motive. Seasonal migration dubious. No evidence P’s hospital theory. This surely invalid.
I turned the pages. There were diagrams that looked like family trees without names, but with all the lines joined together, suggesting an electrical circuit of unusual elaboration and complexity. There were further references to recreation and to Pilsfer, who didn’t at all appear to know what he was up to. A particular observation caught my eye, since it was heavily underscored. Maeslink’s theory exploded, premises no validity now: 3 April ’87. Impossible extrapolate. By its nature, sensation indefinable. The last entry, marked Italy July ’87,
was: Sleeping-bag theory ignores monoist structure. In what I’d read the word theory occurred four times.
All this was what occupied him. All this was what fuelled his ambition. All this was what made him reticent. I knew a man once who was scarcely able to address a word to anyone, but that reserve was as brittle as the ice it seemed like, and when it cracked there was a flow I couldn’t stop: there was little evidence to suggest that Mr Riversmith was like that, even if he was more voluble when upset. He was eminent and distinguished and looked up to. There were people who would listen, intrigued, when he explained the world in terms of ants who bred in bark: you could tell all that by his manner. He was not aware of ordinary matters, as the Italian who was bulldozing out my garden was; in fact, he had so far displayed no signs of awareness whatsoever. His cleverness was there as a substitute and it could hardly be worthless. That’s what I thought as I left his room that morning, 24 July 1987, a date I have never forgotten.
I have not forgotten it because what happened on the afternoon of that day was that I received one of the most unpleasant shocks of my life. Mr Riversmith asked permission to make yet another telephone call to Pennsylvania; I said of course, and went to my room. He was remarking, when I lifted the receiver, that he had never before encountered a romantic novelist. Then, distressing me considerably, he referred to as ‘trash’ what last night he had called most interesting. He referred to the grappa we’d enjoyed together as an unpleasant drink. The word ‘grotesque’ was used in a sentence I couldn’t catch. The brief, and private, revelations I had made – in particular the death of Mrs Chubbs – were described as ‘a drunken fantasy’. He said I’d gone to Idaho thinking I’d find the Wild West there, which had he listened he would have realized wasn’t so. ‘Some honey!’ the hoarse voice at the other end more than once interrupted.
I couldn’t understand it. In good faith I’d shown him my titles. I’d gone to a great deal of trouble to arrange an outing to Siena. I’d given him drink after drink and had not even considered entering them in Quinty’s book. ‘Her imagination has consumed her,’ he said. From his tone, he could have been referring to an ant.
I replaced the receiver and simply sat there, feeling weak, as though I had been bludgeoned. He hadn’t even become familiar with the books’ contents: all he had done was to read a few lines because I asked him to, and to glance at the illustrations on the jackets. I smoked, and drank a little, hardly anything really. Quinty knocked on my door and said there was tea downstairs; I thanked him but did not go down. He knocked again at dinner-time, but again I chose to remain on my own. I watched the dusk gathering and welcomed it, and welcomed darkness even more. When I slept I dreamed a terrible dream:
It was Otmar who brought the thing on to the train. Long before they’d met in the supermarket he and his friends had picked the girl out. They knew all about her. She was suitable for their purpose.
In my dream I saw Otmar as. a child, in the dining-room with his mother and father, Schweinsbrust on the table. There is a sudden crash, the battering down of the outside door; then four men enter the dining-room and greet the diners softly. The tears of Otmar’s mother drop on to the meat and potatoes and little stewed tomatoes. His father stands up; he knows his time has come. For a moment the only sound is the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece, between the two bronze horsemen. Otmar’s mother does not cry out; she does not attempt to fling herself between the men and their prisoner. A long time ago she endeavoured to accept her husband’s fate in anticipation; she, too, knew the men would one day come.
For crimes committed in Hitler’s war he is the four men’s prey, and the clock still ticks when they have taken him away. It ticks even though there will be no trial; the execution will be discreet. It ticks as sportingly as ever, while the tears of Otmar’s mother fall on to the little stewed tomatoes, while she decides she does not wish to live herself. It ticks when she stands up and goes away, and when Otmar finds her, tied up to a light fixture in another room.
‘Otmar it is,’ an unhurried voice states, the children of the fathers locked in another turn of the wheel, a fresh fraternity of vengeance. Broken matchsticks are cast as lots. ‘Otmar is the chosen one.’
In Carrozza 219 he strokes her arm. She’ll carry the vengeance through Linata Airport, on to the plane that’s bound for Tel Aviv. The victim, as Otmar’s father was, is occupied now with other matters; the past is past. In the fields the sunflowers are brilliant against the pale sky. Is it Madeleine’s hand that is like an ornament in the air, the same hand that dislodged the stack of mustard jars?
When I pushed the shutters back from my window the next morning the first person I saw was Mr Riversmith. He was bending over a tiny apricot shoot I knew well, no more than five inches of growth, which Signora Bardini had marked with a bamboo cane. Signora Bardini suspected it had sprouted from a stone of the fruit, either thrown down or possibly dropped by a large bird. Clover rather than grass thrived in this area at the side of my house. Two circular beds had been dug by Signora Bardini, but nothing grew in them. Only the day before the General had noticed these beds and said he intended to plant roses in them.
Although it was early I poured myself a little something on my way through the salotto. I sat down for a moment, bracing myself. The memory of the telephone conversation was sharper than ever in my consciousness. I wanted to dull it just a little before I spoke, again, to Mr Riversmith. I poured myself a second glass, mostly tonic really, and felt much better when I’d drunk it. I lit a cigarette and put on my sunglasses.
Mr Riversmith had moved from the apricot shoot when I reached him, and was shading his eyes with a hand in order to admire the view of the hills. Naturally I wanted to say I’d been hurt by what had been said. I wanted to refer to it in order to clear the air immediately. I felt that, somehow, there might have been an explanation. But I knew it was far better to wait.
‘What a lovely morning, Mr Riversmith!’
‘Yes, indeed, it is.’
‘I love this time of day.’
He nodded so pleasantly in agreement that I wondered if I could possibly have misheard a thing or two on the telephone. It sometimes isn’t easy when you can’t see a person’s face. But his face was there now, and it seemed more disarming than I remembered it, certainly more relaxed than it had been in my private room. Perhaps he had indeed been suffering from jet-lag and was now recovered. I said what I had planned to say.
‘I’m afraid I was a nuisance to you when we talked on the terrace two evenings ago, Mr Riversmith.’
‘No, not at all.’
‘When I’m nervous I have a way of going round in circles. I’m sorry, it must have been disagreeable for you.’
He shook his head. I didn’t speak at once in case he wished to comment. When he didn’t I said:
‘Jet-lag can be horrid.’
‘Jet-lag?’
We had moved a little further away from the apricot shoot by now.
‘They keep searching for a pill to take, but I believe they haven’t had much success.’
He indicated his understanding by slightly inclining his head. He did not speak, and I permitted the silence to lengthen before I did so again myself.
‘You were tired and I delayed you. I offended you by presuming to address you by your Christian name. I’m truly sorry.’
‘It’s perfectly all right.’
‘You were not offended?’
‘No.’
‘It’s friendlier to call you Tom.’
‘By all means do so.’
‘Professor makes you sound ancient.’
It had occurred to me that in spite of his protests to the contrary on his first evening in my house, he might have been offended that this title was never used. I said the apricot plant had grown from a stone, dropped possibly by a bird, and again wanted to mention the telephone conversation. I wanted to get it out of the way, to be told I had misheard and then to leave the subject, not ever to think about it again. But I knew
it was not yet the moment. I knew there would be embarrassment and awkwardness.
‘Let me show you where the garden’ll be,’ I said instead, and led him to the back of the house. In Italy you long for lawns, I said; in Africa too. I described all that the General and Otmar and their friend the Italian intended. I pointed to where the herb beds would be. The azaleas would be dotted everywhere, in their massive urns.
‘Should be impressive,’ he said. Would later he say to Francine that it was all an illusion? Would he say it was trash and only wishful thinking that an old Englishman intended to make a gift of a garden? Was he wondering now if the experience on the train had taken a greater toll of me than had been at first apparent? He looked away, and I thought it might be in case his expression revealed what he was thinking.
‘Let’s walk a little way, shall we?’
I led him along the dusty road I was so familiar with, by slopes of olive trees and vines. Endeavouring to keep the conversation ordinary, I was about to apologize for Quinty’s conversation in the car on the way back from Siena, but then I remembered I had already made an effort to do so.
‘I hope you find it peaceful here,’ I said.
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘There’s an Italian expression, professor – far niente. D’you know it?’
‘I don’t speak Italian, Mrs Delahunty.’
‘No more do I. Far niente means doing nothing. Dolce far niente. It’s nice to do nothing.’
‘Far niente,’ he repeated.
‘You’d say it about sitting in a café. As we did in Siena. Or doing as we’re doing now, ambling aimlessly. Enjoying the peace.’
‘I see.’
That brought another subject to an end. Nothing was said for a while: then remembering that my companion had revealed he’d been married twice, I asked something about that, whether he considered that divorce was like death in a marriage.
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