by Francis King
‘‘My dear, I’m the host.… Oh, I’ve cared for all that. I told them that we’re going to the concert afterwards.’’
‘‘Oh, the concert.’’
He beamed in anticipation of the pleasure he would give her, as, scratching with his forefinger at the single tuft of hair that divided the front of his massive head, he announced: ‘‘For once we shall sit in style. I bought two poltrone.’’
‘‘I’m afraid I can’t manage it.’’
‘‘Can’t?’’ Once again the mouth hung open long after the word was said. ‘‘But you said—Lena, you promised——’’
‘‘I know I did. I’m sorry. It just can’t be helped. I have to go and work at nine this evening. Emergency,’’ she added.
‘‘But surely it’s not necessary—dammit, you can wait until——’’ He choked and grimaced as if he had swallowed something unpleasant. ‘‘Claudio Arrau,’’ he said at last. ‘‘Claudio Arrau.’’
‘‘Yes, I know, don’t rub it in.’’
‘‘Me rub it in! Me!’’ He pointed to himself. ‘‘Oh, Lena! Really, Lena!’’
‘‘There’s Mother calling. Come up and see her.’’
‘‘But, Lena——’’
Lena had left the room; and dragging one foot after the other, like a reluctant child, Mino began to follow her.
‘‘Good afternoon, Signora.’’ He went across to the bed where Signora Bacchi lay, and prepared to kiss her hand. But ignoring him, she burst out:
‘‘And what am I going to do all evening, Lena? Oh, really, it is too bad. I ask a little thing of you—a thing that would take you no more than five or ten minutes—and you just forget to do it.’’
‘‘The library,’’ Lena began.
‘‘Yes, the library,’’ Signora Bacchi cut in. ‘‘And it closes at six. I know it’s troublesome to go out of your way, but Anna says you were out for over two hours, and surely surely … Oh, I mustn’t get angry like this. I’m sorry, please forgive me.’’ All at once her voice, previously so strident, sank to a whisper as if it were muffled by the pillow into which she had pressed her head. A look of patient, even benignant, martyrdom came on her face. ‘‘Poor girlie—I do make life a misery for you. I know you have so much to think about. Of course it doesn’t matter. It’s lovely just sitting here and doing nothing—watching the sunlight and the people in the street and—and those beautiful flowers you brought me, Mino.’’ She gave him a gentle smile. ‘‘They are beautiful, aren’t they?’’
‘‘Oh, I feel a beast,’’ Lena said, when she and Mino had at last left the sick room.
‘‘Which was what your mother intended,’’ he said in a soft voice.
As they looked at each other they both appeared to experience equal surprise at this last comment.
‘‘Just pasta for me,’’ Mousey, the American girl, said, pronouncing the first a short. ‘‘ I can’t take anything else, really I can’t. I guess it’s all that oil. I just throw up.’’
‘‘You should have seen her yesterday,’’ Bill, her husband, said gloomily. He was tall, with a drooping head whose hair was sheared close, a putty-coloured complexion, and a charmingly embarrassed smile. ‘‘Boy, was she sick!’’
‘‘I just threw up for two hours solid,’’ Mousey said.
‘‘It was terrible,’’ the English boy put in. He looked at the menu greedily, and then asked his friends: ‘‘What’s my budget this evening?’’
‘‘Go ahead, go ahead, Tony,’’ Bill said magnanimously. ‘‘Eat all you want.’’
‘‘But please,’’ Mino put in. ‘‘I am the host. Please.’’
‘‘That’s jolly decent of you. But really—I feel bad about——’’
‘‘Please,’’ Mino said.
The young man scanned the menu with an even more avid interest, fingering, at the same time, at a red silk bow-tie which the Americans had just bought for him at Ugolini.
‘‘Maybe, Signor—Signor——’’ Mousey began.
‘‘Commino.’’
‘‘Commino! I guess I just will never remember that name. Well, I guess our kind friend here has told you all about our problem.’’
‘‘A little,’’ Lena said.
‘‘It’s terrible,’’ Mousey sighed. She had been ill, and having lost herself in the streets of Florence that same evening, had had no time to make herself up. The result was that with her bluish complexion, her little nose and the downward curves of her mouth, she had the appearance of a sick pigeon propped up on its back. ‘‘We just can’t figure it out. You see, we’ve got a hundred and forty dollars between us—between the three of us, that is, because of course Tony, being a Britisher, can’t take his money out. Not that he’s got it,’’ she laughed.
‘‘That makes me sound like a real cadger,’’ the boy said, looking up from the menu and giving a disarming smile. He had fluffily soft blond hair, a complexion so smooth that it appeared that he never needed to shave, and fragile, slightly girlish features. He was only nineteen. ‘‘But I’m going to pay it back.’’
‘‘Well, of course the kid’s going to pay it all back,’’ Bill said, clapping a hand on Tony’s shoulder. ‘‘We know that That’s nothing to do with it.’’
‘‘We have to budget pretty close,’’ Mousey said. ‘‘A hundred and eighty dollars a month—that’s only about a hundred and twenty thousand lire.’’
‘‘How much?’’ Bill demanded.
‘‘I said a hundred and twenty thousand lire.’’
‘‘You’re crazy!’’ he exclaimed.
‘‘I beg your pardon, Bill McKittrick.’’
‘‘Here, look here——’’ He snatched the menu from their English friend and began to scribble on the back; their calculations continued until the first course was over, with a great deal of heated argument, loud laughter and complaint from Mousey that Bill was getting her all balled up.
‘‘Well,’’ Mousey said at the end, ‘‘I guess that’s how we stand.’’ She turned to Lena. ‘‘Now what would you suggest?’’
‘‘Yeah, what would you suggest?’’ Bill seconded.
‘‘Friends—I have a plan,’’ Mino suddenly announced, withdrawing the toothpick on which he had been ruminating. ‘‘My mother and I live in a small—come si dice?—appartamento, Lena?’’
‘‘Apartment.’’
‘‘Yes, apartment. Apartment.’’ He savoured the word as if he suspected it were not really correct. ‘‘We have three rooms, kitchen, bath, lavatory. One room for me, one for my mother, and one as a salotto.’’
‘‘A what did you say?’’ Mousey asked.
‘‘A lounge,’’ Tony replied in his clipped, falsetto voice, his fork raised to his mouth.
‘‘Oh, a lounge,’’ Mousey said.
‘‘Now you could have that lounge, you and your husband. We could place two beds in; it is a large, large room. We could place in two chairs, a table, a——’’
‘‘Yeah, yeah,’’ Bill cut him short. ‘‘But how much? Quanta costa?’’ He rubbed two fingers together to make sure that Mino realized they were talking about money.
‘‘We pay a rent of thirty-five thousand lire—for one month. We halve the thirty-five thousand. Fifteen thousand lire. You use the kitchen, bath, lavatory——’’
‘‘But look, my friend.’’ Bill leant forward, an elbow on the cloth, fingers outstretched. ‘‘You have two rooms—due camere—your madre and yourself. We have one, uno.’’ He spoke in a loud, slow voice as if to an idiot. ‘‘That’s not fair, now is it? Halves is not fair.’’
Mino looked startled. ‘‘ It is our flat,’’ he said simply. ‘‘We are two, you are two. But if you like’’—he gave a winning smile, though his eyes retained their hurt expression—‘‘you will pay ten thousand lire. I do not wish to cheat you.’’
‘‘Now you’re talking,’’ Bill said.
‘‘But what about me?’’ Tony asked petulantly. ‘‘Now you’re both fixed up, I suppose I can jolly well do
as I please?’’
‘‘Tony, Tony,’’ Mousey reprimanded. ‘‘Don’t be such a silly boy. You know we wouldn’t desert you.’’
‘‘It looks as if that’s what you have in mind.’’
‘‘I have a friend,’’ Mino said and added to Lena, who was staring at the door of the restaurant, wholly uninterested in the conversation: ‘‘Giuseppe.’’
‘‘Giuseppe?’’ Lena said. ‘‘What about Giuseppe?’’
‘‘He would take Tony,’’ he said. ‘‘He is a painter,’’ he exclaimed. ‘‘He makes very little moneys, he is also perhaps a bit—a bit——’’ He shrugged his shoulders until Lena rescued him:
‘‘Eccentric.’’
‘‘Sì, eccentric. He is a little eccentric. But kind, very kind. You could live with him for two or three thousand a week.’’
‘‘What sort of room?’’ Tony asked morosely.
‘‘A little room. But clean, very clean. Isn’t it, Lena? Very clean indeed, very nice, cosy.’’
‘‘What sort of heating?’’ Tony pursued.
Mino shrugged his shoulders. ‘‘A stove,’’ he said. ‘‘ That is always best. Electric is very, very dear.’’
‘‘Oh, a stove.’’ Tony pulled a face.
‘‘And in your place?’’ Bill asked. ‘‘ Stoves too? Stoves anche?’’
‘‘Sì, sì,’’ Mino agreed eagerly.
‘‘Oh, that’s too bad,’’ Bill said. ‘‘Isn’t that, Mousey? It’s just too bad.’’
‘‘Yes, that’s just too bad. We take cold so easily,’’ she said. ‘‘We must have electric fires, or central heating, maybe. Besides, I don’t think I’d like to share a kitchen as I guess I would have to at your place. I’m funny like that. It was sweet of you to offer, though,’’ she added, looking more than ever like a moribund bird.
‘‘Besides, this painter,’’ Tony said. ‘‘I’m a painter, too, and two of a kind seldom agree. And I’d like to stay with Bill and Mousey.’’
‘‘Well, of course!’’ Bill said.
‘‘We feel kind of responsible for him,’’ Mousey explained confidentially to Lena. ‘‘We met him at school in London, and we really persuaded him to come along. We’ve got to look on him as a kind of kid-brother. Haven’t we, Bill?’’
‘‘That’s right. He’s one of the family. A sort of kid-brother.’’
Tony smiled gratefully at them, blinking his long-lashed eyes, and then turned to Mino: ‘‘ What’s that cake on the counter over there?’’
‘‘Fedora.’’
‘‘I think I’d like to sample some of that. It looks jolly good.’’
Lena glanced at her watch and, though it was only half-past eight, got to her feet. She said good-bye to each of the guests in turn, and then, followed by Mino who was baffled by her early departure, she made for the door.
‘‘They’re insufferable,’’ she said.
‘‘But they’re nice people, Lena.’’
‘‘No, they’re not. They’ll never be happy here. The sooner they’re back in wherever-it-is the better it’ll be.’’
‘‘Why do you say such hard things?’’ Mino asked in distress. ‘‘It’s so unlike you, Lena.’’ ‘‘Because I get tired of seeing you make a fool of yourself. That’s
the reason why. Oh, you’re good, you’re kind, and you’re worth
ten times what those three are worth. But you’re an awful, awful
fool.’’
Having said this, she strode off to see Max.
But when she reached the Palazzo d’Oro, she was handed a note:
DEAR LENA,
I hope you will understand, but my wife insists that I take her out dancing. However, I’ve left some rough drafts on the table upstairs and perhaps you’d get on with those. So sorry to have caused all this trouble.…
Chapter Twenty-Seven
THAT day Enzo’s brother Giorgio had bicycled out into the country with a gun and had come back, a bunch of sparrow-like, brown birds swinging from his handle-bars. He was too lazy often to make such expeditions, but when he did, he felt so acute a sense of physical well-being that he would resolve—of course fruitlessly—to return the next day.
He now lay on the bed, still wearing the canvas gaiters, corduroy jacket and heavy army boots in which he had come home, and puffed at the stub of a cigar while he talked to Enzo. His long nails, which he usually kept so beautifully manicured, were soiled with earth and dry blood, and the two, compounded, had stained the leather of his boots and his worn breeches. A fragment of a dead leaf was lodged in his thick, blond hair.
‘‘Yes, it was wonderful,’’ he said. ‘‘Absolutely wonderful.’’
In the town he did not hanker for the country; but strangely, once he was in the country, he could not believe how he had ever existed in the cramped, sunless Borgo. Alone with his gun, he would experience a sudden flood of generosity and benevolence; much that he had done would, all at once, seem mean and he would make new resolves for the future. Such resolves he never kept. For he was weak and could not for long resist the exploitation of his undoubted, if facile, personal charm. But he had been happy on that day, as he was seldom happy when playing billiards or cards with his friends, going to the cinema or the ‘‘casino”, eating, teasing his mother, bullying his brothers and sisters, or seducing some local girl. He had devoured a hunk of unsalted bread and sour, vomit-tasting cheese in a tavern on the hillside, gulping it down with some dark, chalky wine whose astringency made his mouth dry. He had joked with the peasants, but had felt no desire to linger with them, for once being content with his own company. All the time, as he brought down one ofter another of the crumpled bundles of feathers, he had whistled to himself. Nor had he once coughed:
Now, as he lay on the crumpled bed, his shirt unbuttoned to his waist with the self-exhibition which was so essential a part of his character, his eyes had a dreamy, half-bemused look, like that of someone who has woken from a narcotic. Usually so fidgety, he was utterly relaxed; and this relaxation substituted for his charm something more rare and monumental—a kind of grave beauty such as is rarely found except in wild animals at rest. Momentarily he seemed all the things he was not; noble, strong, exceptional.
‘‘Any luck?’’ he asked Enzo. The phrase always meant the same thing: had Enzo found a job?
Enzo shook his head.
‘‘Anyway you’ll have a square meal this evening.’’ At this moment Signora Rocchigiani was frying the sparrow-like birds. ‘‘You were a fool to get chucked out of that place, though.’’
Ever since Enzo had left Lady Newton’s his family had been telling him what a fool he had been. As if he didn’t know; as if he hadn’t learned that lesson, bitterly, through hunger! ‘‘Yes, I was a fool,’’ he said.
‘‘Can’t your American pals do anything for you?’’ Giorgio asked, inserting a hand into his open shirt and scratching luxuriously.
‘‘They got me the job.’’
The Rocchigianis always spoke of the American family with a mingling of envy, admiration and contempt. ‘‘Well, let them get you another,’’ Giorgio said.
‘‘They can’t.’’
‘‘Of course they can! Have you asked them?’’ Enzo did not answer. ‘‘Well, have you?’’
Oh, leave it! It doesn’t help to talk about it.’’
‘‘As you like.’’
Giorgio shrugged his shoulders and continued to scratch, his eyes fixed, with that same dreamy, half-bemused expression, on the cracks on the ceiling.
The meal was good, and to Enzo, who had not eaten since breakfast, it seemed a real banquet. But his father, who tore at the birds with his fingers and crunched their bones between his teeth, spattering the cloth, the stained handkerchief he had pushed into the collar of his shirt, and his unshaven chin, never ceased to grumble: ‘‘ You should have rolled them in bread-crumbs. And a sprig of salsafi. There’s no flavour otherwise. The little bastards might be fried mice for all the taste they have. Salsafi,
bread-crumbs. You knew that, didn’t you? You’ve always done it before. Good God, it’s not as if it were the first time …’’
Through this growl, punctuated by hiccoughs, the crackle of bones, and prolonged sounds of suction, Signora Rocchigiani said nothing but ‘‘I’m sorry.… I’m sorry.…’’ Some indeterminate complaint, for which she would not see the doctor, was turning her sallow skin even more yellow and making her eyes protrude so far that it seemed as if she were in a state of perpetual astonishment.
Fräulein Kohler and her ‘‘niece’’ had been invited to join the party, and the German woman had dressed herself for the occasion in a black silk frock, so unfashionably short that it showed both her podgy knees, a white lace fichu, and a pair of black shoes with diamanté buckles on them. The extra chair which had been brought into the kitchen for her was so low that, although she was a large woman, she looked somewhat deformed as she stooped greedily over her food, her chin, with its wisps of reddish hair, only a few inches from the table. She had contrived to get the largest of the helpings, and was now racing for another; until she looked up to notice that her ‘‘niece’s’’ plate remained untouched. Bella sat, the smooth hands whose fragility contrasted so pitifully with her ‘‘aunt’s’’ resting in her lap; she was staring down at them.
‘‘What’s the matter, Bella?’’ Fräulein Kohler asked, picking a bone from between her teeth. ‘‘ Eat up, there’s a good girl.’’
Bella said nothing.
‘‘Bella!’’ Fräulein Kohler said loudly. ‘‘Eat up your food. It’s good.’’
Bella sat immobile, her head still lowered.
‘‘Bella!’’
There was a splintering of bones in Signor Rocchigiani’s mouth and the sound of his rejecting fragments back on to his plate as his wife said: ‘‘I should leave her, if she doesn’t want to eat.’’
‘‘But I can’t think what’s come over the child.’’
Giorgio nudged Enzo and winked; but the younger boy had reached a state where he could not even bear to look at the epileptic, much less to laugh at her. When he was in a room with her he always now experienced the same mingling of pity and an inexplicable kind of dread.