The Museum of Things Left Behind

by Seni Glaister

  ‘On arrival, most certainly.’

  ‘Of course.’ Lizzie dismissed Mosconi’s concerns with a wave of her hand. ‘Either way, it would be fine. So, if an average Ryanair flight brings something like a hundred and twenty people, you’d get a hundred and twenty thousand lire per planeload. And on top of that you’d charge the airline itself a fortune, just for the pleasure of landing here.’

  ‘All that for each plane …’ Mosconi was no mathematician, but already the sums sounded beyond his wildest dreams. For the third time that day, he had tears in his eyes. He looked up at the flags flying proudly above Parliament Hall and counted his blessings. This woman, this stranger who had arrived out of the night, was like a goddess, some sort of miracle worker who had arrived to brighten his life. She radiated goodness and now she had saved his job too.

  ‘You are a wonderful woman. I cannot begin to thank you. You have saved my life,’ he proclaimed, sliding his hand across the table, hoping she might grasp it once more.

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly!’ she replied. ‘But, goodness, we’ve got a huge amount of work to do. I need to enlist the help of your students and get access to the internet. I’m sure I’ll find plenty of help at the university, won’t I? I mean … you do have access to the internet, don’t you?’ Suddenly her plans looked like they might disappear in a puff of smoke.

  Mosconi stiffened, his feathers ruffled. ‘I don’t know what you think this country is. Of course we have access to the internet. We are not an outpost here. We are teetering very close to the cutting edge of modern society.’

  Lizzie grinned. ‘Absolutely you are. Now, let’s have a beer to celebrate.’ She barely had to raise her glass to attract the attention of the hovering patron. Dario whisked towards her to take the order and quickly returned with two ice-cold glasses and a small spinning cake stand, featuring an eclectic assortment of pretzels, crisps, nuts and beautifully prepared raw vegetables. There were little pots to dip into as well.

  ‘Mmm, lovely,’ murmured Lizzie, as she poked a carrot into a peppery sauce, barely acknowledging the fanfare with which it had arrived. Dario stood to attention nearby, listening closely to the comments and fiddling with his tea-towel until he was quite sure his guest was pleased with the service. The way she lunged at the crudités suggested she was very content indeed. Nevertheless, he couldn’t avoid an occasional surreptitious glance at Il Toro Rosso, where Piper wasn’t even trying to hide the incredulity in his open-mouthed stare.

  The young man shook his head with a wry smile. Tablecloths were one thing, but beer in iced glasses and chopped vegetables? Dario might be prepared to raise the stakes but Piper saw this not as a threat but a challenge. A challenge he would relish. He conveyed all of this with a sneer towards Dario, wiped his hands on his apron decisively and headed inside to prepare his campaign.

  As Lizzie stood up to pay and leave, she wove her way to Piper’s bar, smiling broadly at the glowering barman, who was now leaning against the doorframe. Lizzie spotted Pavel sitting there and greeted him warmly, pulling up a chair to join him.

  Flustered at her unexpected defection, Piper rushed into the gloom of his bar and busied himself there. She had left Dario – not only had she left him, he had watched her go! Gleefully he prepared a laden tray, whistling quietly under his breath as he worked.

  Lizzie was making friends fast. She’d been introduced to a charming young student called Woolf, who felt sure he could help her with her research and website. They tossed ideas back and forth, talking them through and making plans for a session at the university the next day. A couple of other students came over to them and soon they were busy talking through the proposition. When Lizzie mentioned they’d be paid for their time, the men raised a cheer and immediately committed their future earnings to another round of drinks, assuring Piper with shouts across the room that he would almost certainly be paid in the very near future.

  With impeccable timing, Piper appeared beside the table, understanding now just how crucial it was to make a really good impression. Cold glasses, beer, wedges of lime to squeeze into it. Bowls of delicious pickles, usually reserved for the grandest of festivities, were laid out alongside a vast bowl of hand-cut crisps.

  The men ate hungrily and Lizzie joined in enthusiastically. Beer glasses were clinked in celebration and orders called for more of this and more of that. Sensing an occasion, passers-by stopped to watch the festivities and were soon called upon to grab a chair and join them. Piper ran backwards and forwards from the bar, fetching beer and spooning out bowl after bowl of delicacies. As if by osmosis, more revellers leaked from the shadows of the piazza, and when the tables and chairs were all fully occupied they stood in clusters on the fringe of the activity that emanated from Lizzie but somehow embraced by it, too. Rushed off his feet, Piper barely had time to glance across at Dario, whose bar suddenly looked quiet in comparison. True, his rival might have cornered the military but it was he, Piper, who had the youth market, and anyone would tell you that where the youth came, growth followed. Excitement and energy pulsed from the bar. If it carries on like this, I’m going to need staff, thought Piper, already imagining the pride in sticking a ‘Help Wanted’ notice to his window.

  The bar filled, students and artisans appearing from the alleys in droves to join the late-evening surge. They queued two or three deep at the bar, laughing and shouting.

  At each laugh and exclamation, Dario, at Il Gallo Giallo, flinched. He’d laid his cards out. He’d gone upmarket with tablecloths and the fanciest dips but what was she doing now? She was revelling! Her behaviour was nothing more than that of a rowdy commoner. How on earth was he to cater to that market? Where were all the people coming from? He had never seen his rival’s bar so busy. With each new arrival, his heart seemed to shrivel. True, he had plenty of custom, too, but what good was that if the main attraction was over there, squeezing fresh lime juice into her beer? Fine! If it was lime juice she wanted, lime juice she would get. Now was the time to enlist help. It might pain him to do so, but he would speak to his wife. He wiped his hands on his apron and headed upstairs.

  CHAPTER 34

  In Which Laughter Spells Trouble

  From his position on the balcony, Sergio strained his ears. Shouts had alerted him and his heart had begun to race. But now, as he stood still and listened, he realized it was laughter he could hear. At the far side of the piazza he could see the crowded bars, both as busy as he could remember. People were standing to either side, holding beers. This was not a sight he had ever witnessed before and he wondered where the danger lurked in this new, unforeseen phenomenon. Would it present itself as a manifestation of the students, their requests educated and eloquent? Or would the farmers lead the revolution with their implements of the land raised in anger? Placards or pitchforks, either spelled doom for the president and he knew not which to fear most.

  The instinct of a leader prepared him for the worst. He knew what to look for. An underground movement of students was probably the most likely source of a revolution, and wasn’t a bar the most likely place for the revolutionaries to gather? It all made perfect sense to him now. And it wasn’t just the students, was it? Dario’s bar, Il Gallo Giallo, was crowded, too, and he couldn’t discern a line where one crowd started and the next finished. Were they merging? This was perhaps the most dangerous signal he had received so far. His military men were being influenced by students and alcohol – what heady cocktail would be stirred by this combination? How many leaders had sat and witnessed a revolt begin before their very eyes? Had his people so little respect that they hadn’t even the decency to hide away in some seedy, smoke-filled room to discuss his downfall? No: their confidence was such that they would flaunt it in front of him, in the very shadow of the building that they were, no doubt, planning to lay siege to at any moment. He trembled inside. But the biggest insult of all was the laughter. They drank, they plotted, they cheered their approaching victory and, most of all, they laughed in his face.

  Se
rgio sank to his knees and gave in to some unfathomable feeling. A deep, deep fear shrouded by resignation. He put his face into his hands and wept.

  CHAPTER 35

  In Which Lizzie Supposes

  The minister for education was busy when Lizzie arrived for her appointment. She glanced at her watch from time to time and tapped her foot impatiently but soon found herself listening to one side of a conversation escaping through the gaps around his office door. Giuseppe Scota appeared to be engaged in a genuine debate, with a bona-fide political conundrum at its heart.

  ‘Yes, my friend. I understand entirely. But they’re either on my books or they’re on yours …

  ‘Yes, yes, indeed. But while I understand your dilemma, the timing is bad. Nevertheless, I’m tempted to do something to break the deadlock.’

  There was a long pause, in which Lizzie imagined the professor holding the telephone away from his ear.

  ‘Or at your peril, Vlad. I’ve been carrying this for a while, and time is running out. Not for me or for my department but for these individuals. I think they deserve more, don’t you?’

  Another lengthy silence, and Lizzie watched the second hand on the old municipal clock click forward. How was it that institutional seconds were so much bigger and surer of themselves than seconds at home? she wondered.

  ‘Well, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt until after the election, but beyond that, I cannot promise anything. I must be going soon. I have an appointment with You Know Who.’ At this thought, or at the response from the other end of the telephone, Scota roared with laughter, for far longer than Lizzie felt appropriate. A couple of times she stood, thinking he had finished his conversation, but each time he bellowed another round of laughter. Finally she heard the heavy receiver click back into place and, though he continued to chuckle to himself, she ventured to rap on his door.

  ‘Good. A little late, but come in, my dear.’

  ‘I was here on time, but you were talking. I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  ‘Anyway, you’re here now. How may I assist?’

  ‘Well, I’m on a fact-finding mission so I’m here to enquire about various aspects of your department. My understanding is that I have full clearance from the president.’

  ‘And in your fact-finding mission, you’re after what exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know. Answers.’

  ‘Answers to what questions?’

  ‘None specifically. I just thought we might be able to chat and I’d get to the bottom of the things that continue to mystify me.’

  The professor scraped his chair back, swung his feet onto the desk, crossed one over the other at the ankle, then folded his arms languidly behind his head. ‘You’re an educated woman, Miss Holmesworth.’

  This was a statement so Lizzie remained impassive.

  ‘As such, you must have been taught the basic principles of enquiry. But let me remind you. An unspecific line of questioning is reserved for small children and the uneducated. “Mama, why is the sky blue?”, “Papa, why does the river never change direction?”, “Teacher, may I be excused for the toilet?”

  ‘Those are questions asked with a right answer, a wrong answer or a judgement to be given. That is a reasonable exchange that enriches the questioner’s knowledge, either educationally or morally.’

  Scota seemed in no hurry with his preamble. If anything, he looked as if he might be settling down for a comfortable afternoon.

  ‘A little later in life, the line of questioning must change. But to enrich knowledge, the student is no longer equipped to ask questions because the student does not know the framework. It is outside his knowledge base and, as such, he is unable to make further enquiry. At this point in a young person’s development, the teacher must pre-empt and answer the questions that the student does not know to ask. “This is how you solve a simultaneous equation”, “These are the fundamental differences in the philosophies taught by Aristotle and Socrates”, “This is the thinking behind quantum physics.”’

  Lizzie nodded, hoping she wasn’t to be tested in any of these areas.

  ‘And then you begin to reach maturity – the stage that you yourself have reached, Miss Holmesworth.’ He swung his legs down, opened the bottom drawer of his desk and removed a pipe. Standing at the window, he noisily tapped it, blew into it, filled it, tapped it again and lit it, sucking heavily until the smoke billowed around him. He opened the window a few inches, then returned to his former position, feet on his desk.

  ‘You have reached that stage I assume, Miss Holmesworth?’

  Lizzie tried to nod with as little commitment as possible, in case her acquiescence should betray a lie later, under cross-examination.

  ‘The final stage of education is to work on the basis of a thesis. Now it is time to hypothesize, to postulate, to surmise and suppose. You set out with a statement of fact that you wish to prove, then ask the right questions of the right people in order to do so. What I am trying to understand from you now is, what is your contention? Once I understand this, I might be able to help you ask the right questions.’

  ‘You’re saying that I must come up with the answer and then you’ll provide the question?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. That is exactly the right way for you to pursue your enquiries at this stage in your career.’

  As Lizzie pondered, he took the opportunity to swing his feet to the floor once more, to open the second to bottom drawer, to remove a small flask and two glasses and to pour them each a measure of honey-coloured liquid.

  ‘I don’t think I should,’ Lizzie said, a little anxiety revealing itself in the pitch of her voice, which was higher than she had intended.

  ‘You don’t know that you shouldn’t,’ he said, an eyebrow raised in challenge as he held a glass out to her.

  Lizzie shrugged and they clinked glasses. She sipped the strong liquor, recalling the cough mixture her mother had administered, which had had the soothing effect of removing the tickle in her throat and putting her to sleep. This liquid, however, appeared permanently to remove any future tickle in her throat while also hinting that clarity and enlightenment might soon be within her reach.

  Lizzie sipped twice more, then drained the small glass, returning it to the desk with a satisfying thud. ‘Who taught Sergio at school?’

  ‘That, my dear, is an elementary question rather than a disquisition. As a matter of discipline, I must insist that you begin with your assumption if you wish me to help you with your enquiries.’

  ‘My assumption is that Sergio struggles a bit with written English. Perhaps all writing. My assumption is that he might even be dyslexic.’

  The word hovered heavily in the air, and for a few painful moments, Lizzie seriously regretted her boldness. Scota’s eyes had narrowed but he wasn’t staring at her in an accusatory way: rather, he was looking right through her, into the past.

  ‘That, young lady, is a very interesting proposition. But now I must understand something further from you. When a serious student makes a controversial hypothesis, it helps her credibility if the motive is understood. For if she is to have access to the sort of information that will support the premise, those who help her must be very sure there is no malice aforethought that might have unpremeditated ramifications.’

  ‘You mean that helping me might get you into trouble?’

  ‘No, not at all. That is a simple moral dilemma for the educator. I mean that the ethical standpoint behind the assumption must be understood in order to protect the questioner from making a complete ass of herself.’

  Lizzie smiled the smile with the deliquescent properties that had long before melted the heart of the professor. ‘I mean your president absolutely no harm. But certain things have troubled me since my arrival. If I can understand these problems, then perhaps I can help in a number of ways. Or it might be that highlighting this as a potential problem will be enough.’ Lizzie looked him in the eye and waited.

  When he spoke, it was with a softer, kinder inflecti
on. ‘Sergio was not educated in any of our formal institutions. It is not entirely surprising. He was the only son of the president and as such it was entirely natural that he would be protected from mainstream schooling. There is absolutely no doubt that our president is a very clever man – I myself have conversed with him in a number of languages. He grasps most of what various specialists tell him, although that in itself is often a case of the blind leading the blind.

  ‘But as to whether he has any such disorder? I really don’t know. I think much of his education was probably at the hands of his father, though no doubt there were plenty of governors and governesses around to help in the detail. Angelo would be able to shed further light, I expect, but tread carefully. Sometimes when a student comes to me with a hypothesis I will advise him to choose another. Not because it can’t be proven, but because it needn’t be proven.’

  ‘I understand it is a very sensitive issue, but it would clarify a few things. The finer details of my visit, for instance. There was a little confusion about my arrival …’

  ‘Well, Miss Holmesworth, I would beseech you to continue your research without solipsism as your beacon for discovery. I submit that it would clarify some issues of a very much greater significance than the basis of your visit. It might well explain our esteemed leader’s obsession with formal education, for a start. And that is interesting.’

  Scota thought a little more as he sucked on his pipe.

  ‘Miss Holmesworth. Our president has had a double dose of misfortune in his life. Often in parenting there is darkness and light, and these opposing forces are quite compatible providing they are treated as two different approaches to the same goal – the steering of a child through the labyrinthine choices that lead, when the correct path is chosen at each opportunity, to it emerging as an adult with integrity and a lack of blame for or anger with his own shortcomings. Those are the qualities that are needed to make you or me a useful member of society but they are even more essential in a position of leadership. Our president’s mother had the softness and natural goodness that would steer Sergio into using his instinct in making the right decisions. She set his moral compass early, but she died before Sergio had taken full control of his own destiny, his own choices.