The Marshal at the Villa Torrini

by Magdalen Nabb

  'Like a spoilt child, by the sound of it.'

  'That's what he is. And when she wasn't writing the articles for him, he'd be round at my office or at Mary's to try and get one of us to provide.'

  'And did you?'

  'More or less. Difficult to get out of it. Among journalists— real journalists—it's done. We give each other a hand since we're always pushed for time. But it's reciprocal. Not like with Forbes.'

  The Marshal frowned and accepted a second coffee. The bar was filling up with people taking their morning break.

  'You're not in competition, then?'

  'Certainly not with jerks like Forbes! No. I know what you mean, but there's no competition to get the story out before the other papers, not when it's been on the TV news the night before.'

  'I suppose not. Still . . . he struck me as an intelligent man, even so—not that I'm a judge.'

  'Oh, he's intelligent enough, but he'll never make a journalist or a writer of any sort. Doesn't communicate. He's only interested in himself, you must have noticed that— Will you excuse me a minute?'

  The young journalist who had been in court had come into the bar and was signalling for a word with Galli. They stood together near the door, talking rapidly under their breath, while the Marshal stayed near the counter, gazing tranquilly through its glass at the heaps of cream cakes and plates of fresh sandwiches. The thought of a real lunch awaiting him at the end of the morning left him feeling calm.

  'Sorry.' Galli returned with an unlit cigarette dangling. 'Mario's the one who's following the Forbes case, by the way.' The young journalist was still in the bar but didn't approach them. 'Wrote the story about Julian being found blind drunk in the bedroom. Is that true?'

  'Yes, it's true.'

  'He wanted to talk to you, but I put him off.' Galli removed his cigarette, looked at it speculatively, and put it back in his mouth.

  'I'm afraid I don't have a light . . . ' the Marshal said.

  'No, I don't want a light. I'm trying to give up so I don't light them for a bit. What were we saying?'

  'About Forbes only being interested in himself. But by his own account he was interested in women. This Mary, for instance, among others.'

  'What? Forbes? Who told you that?' Galli unstuck the cigarette from his lip and held it between forefinger arid thumb as he stared at the Marshal in amazement.

  'He did,' the Marshal said. 'He was talking about a number of women though he only gave me the one name. After all, if he and his wife weren't—''

  'God, what a bastard. It's not true, any of it. He's off his head! Mary barely tolerates him and that only because she's—was—a close friend of Celia's. And if he really was having it off with anybody else, you can bet your life we'd all know about it. You can't keep a secret like that in a town this size—Oh, I've seen him trying, many a time, but I've never seen him succeed. What a filthy trick to say a thing like that about Mary, and to you.'

  'Perhaps not only to me. He claims he told his wife.'

  Galli was as appalled as the Marshal had been.

  'In that case maybe she'd at last decided to leave him and there's your motive.'

  'Very nice. Except that he told me about it. You've seen him trying to pick up women, you said. Where would that be?'

  'At Il Caffé. Two or three nights a week. We all go there.'

  'What café?'

  'Il Caffé. You must know it, it's right across from your station in Piazza Pitti.'

  'Oh, that place. It stays open too late.'

  'It stays open until a decent hour for people like us who sometimes work till eleven or even midnight. And if you want to know something else he's been going there this week, after Celia's death. And she's not even in her grave yet.'

  The Marshal, who had always seen Galli as cynical in the extreme, looked at him in surprise. He was upset.

  'You really cared for her?'

  'Yes, I did.' He put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it quickly. 'She must have told somebody. If she was going to leave him she'd have told somebody. Talk to Mary. She's the most likely one—and ask her about Christmas. Whatever he did, or told her he'd done, it must have been at Christmas.'

  'Why do you say that?'

  'Because nobody saw them. They didn't turn up to any parties when they'd said they would. We all knew something was up.'

  The Marshal sighed. 'Well, I'll ask. I hope she can tell me something because I got nothing out of him. Except, when I think about it, that he bought her some furniture.'

  'He bought?'

  'Well, yes, after what you've said I suppose it must have been with her money, but it's not much help all the same, is it?'

  He looked out through the doorway at the steps to the Tribunal across the square. 'I'm grateful to you for what you've told me, but I still wish . . . I arrested those three the day after it happened. I've known Chiara Giorgetti since she was a teenager, and I know her mother.'

  Galli followed his glance. After a moment's silence he said, 'You've done it before—if that's what you mean, if you're bothered by their being foreigners. There was that Dutch business—'

  'No, no . . . it's not just that. The Dutchman, he was an artisan, not a writer, not an intellectual, and besides, I never spoke to any of those people. You may not think much of Julian Forbes, but he's cleverer than I am and I know nothing about him. I don't understand him and I never will. Still, it's not your problem. I don't know why I'm saying these things to you.'

  'Because I cared about her, that's why, isn't it?'

  'It might be, I suppose.'

  'Well, whatever the reason, it's not true, what you're saying. Julian Forbes is a coward, morally and physically. You probably scare the living daylights out of him. And, whatever you may imagine about intellectuals, forget it. What's the difference? Sex, drink, jealousy, panic and cowardice. All the world's a village; it'll take you a bit longer to get Forbes but there's no rush, is there? As long as you get him before he damages anybody else the way he damaged Celia. She deserved better, and now it's too late.'

  'Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, Oh Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.'

  The Marshal had placed himself right at the back of the little church so as to leave a number of pews between himself and Celia Carter's family and friends. The mass had already begun when he slipped in. The priest, who was Irish, had said the mass in Latin, since there were people from various countries present, but the prayers he was saying now, as he blessed the coffin, were in English. It was all so unexpected, but then everything that he had learned since yesterday evening when Father Jameson had got in touch with him had been unexpected. The first surprise had been that she was a Catholic.

  He'd assumed that, being English, she would belong to the English church. He'd thought to find himself at a Protestant service in Via Maggio, instead of which he was in the little church belonging to the hospital of San Giovanni di Dio, almost next door to carabinieri headquarters in Borgo Ognissanti. Father Jameson had explained that he said mass there in English once a week. Not that Celia Carter had ever attended. He had met her just the once, he said, but when Mary Price Mancini, her close friend and a practising Catholic, had come to organize the funeral, he had decided to speak to someone. He had visited headquarters in search of whoever was in charge, and had eventually been taken to the office of Captain Maestrangelo, who had listened to him and then telephoned the Marshal.

  'A Jesuit, Irish, though he's been here most of his life. I think you should hear what he has to say.'

  'She was a Catholic? I never thought . . .'

  'No, I was surprised myself. In any case she didn't go to church, so . . . You couldn't come over here to the church? They're bringing the body in this evening and he wants to be there.'

  'Of course.' And he had gone. The coffin already lay then, as it lay now, in the aisle before the altar. The priest had been kneeling beside it at the end of the pew on the left, praying as he was prayi
ng now. The prayer had been in Latin then and the Marshal had understood it. In English he could only pick out the odd word, but he had served at enough requiem masses as a child to know that it was the same.

  'If Thou, Oh Lord, shalt observe iniquities, Lord, who shall endure it?'

  Hat in hand, he had made his genuflection, waited a moment, then touched the priest on the shoulder.

  'Ah . . . Is it you? It's so dark in here and my eyes aren't what they were.'

  There were just the two candles lit at the head and foot of the coffin. The Marshal had barely been able to distinguish the altar where a bunch of wax white lilies perfumed the chilly air. Their scent was covered now by that of the incense as Father Jameson circled the coffin. He moved slowly with an almost imperceptible limp.

  'For with Thee there is merciful forgiveness and by reason of Thy law I have waited for Thee, O Lord.'

  There were a great many candles lit this morning, so that the altar at least was illuminated. The small door into the sacristy, though, was still hidden in gloom.

  Father Jameson, last night, had gone through first, the Marshal following.

  'You must mind the step. I hope you won't feel too cold with just the one bar. I try not to use too much electricity here, my parishioners not being rich. You do understand . . . At one time I said the English mass and heard confessions in the cathedral, but this is very good. We're quiet here and we have our Sunday mass now. Sit down, Marshal— forgive me, I don't remember your name though you told me.'

  'Guarnaccia.'

  'Guarnaccia. Yes, yes. Marshal Guarnaccia—not a Florentine name?'

  'No, I'm from Sicily.'

  'Ah. I was never there but I think it must be very beautiful, especially the sea. The "wine-dark sea"—I'm thinking not of Homer but of the story by Sciascia, your fellow Sicilian, a fine writer. Warm your hands a little, they're blue with cold.'

  The Marshal did so gratefully. They were frozen despite his heavy leather gloves.

  'Thank you. It's a fierce wind.'

  'It is indeed and it chills the bones and my bones are old and a bit rheumatic. I think the good Lord will forgive us if we drink a drop of Marsala, do you think so?'

  He took the bottle and two small glasses from a tall, antique cupboard. The Marshal's chair was also antique, as big as a throne and elaborately carved. But the other chair was a kitchen chair, made of Formica or something similar, and the table, though shrouded in worn tapestry, undoubtedly went with it, judging from the just visible straight metal legs. The one bar electric fire looked old and cheap, and the priest's black trousers shone with age. Yet there was something about Father Jameson that made all this irrelevant. The Marshal liked him. He felt comfortable with him, and even before the priest had told him what he had to tell him, he felt for the first time that here was somebody who would take away some of the burden of this business.

  'My soul hath relied on his word: my soul hath hoped in the Lord.'

  Apart from anything else, he had been of practical help, telephoning to Mary Mancini himself to arrange for her to meet the Marshal this morning after the funeral. The Marshal was pretty sure that he could guess which one she was even from behind. She would be the one standing next to the thin fair girl who must be Celia Carter's daughter. With what he knew now, he would certainly have to talk to the girl at length, but he would be happier doing that after a word with Mary, who might, he hoped, know what it all meant.

  The church was so cold there must be no heating on at all. If those lilies had been carved in ice they wouldn't have melted. The Marshal's ears and nose were frozen.

  'From the morning watch even until night let Israel hope in the Lord.

  'Because with the Lord there is mercy . . . '

  In general, he was inclined to agree with Signora Torrini about priests. But then, his experience had been mostly of the country village priests down home, the sort who warned you that your soul would turn black and suppurate if you didn't take Holy Communion . . . Why had she brought that up, anyway? He ought to remember to ask her. In any case there was something about Father Jameson that had made him feel better last night, made him sit peacefully sipping his tiny glass of Marsala, in no hurry to come to the argument in question, despite the chill that the one bar fire did so little to dispel. They had talked for a while of their respective homes and it was the Marshal who first mentioned the subject of exile.

  'Well now, Marshal, no priest from anywhere in the world would consider himself in exile in Italy, the home and heart of the Church. And there's some truth in that perhaps as regards any Catholic'

  'You mean someone like Celia Carter? But I understood she wasn't a practising Catholic'

  'No. But perhaps that's not quite what I meant. I'm thinking more of questions of culture, of education. The good Mary Mancini, now, she's comfortable here, married to an Italian, more so than she might be married to an Englishman of the Protestant faith. Of course, since Vatican II there have been great changes and mixed marriages are not frowned upon so much as they were. Nevertheless, they create problems and, in my experience, they've never been problems that were, so to speak, clearly denned religious ones. They're subtle and persistent problems of very different sensibilities which, even in these days of Ecumenicism, show no signs of resolving themselves.'

  'And Celia Carter suffered, you think, from problems like that?'

  'I'm certain of it.'

  'Is that why she came to see you?'

  'Oh, she didn't come to see me, Marshal, no.'

  'I understood from Captain Maestrangelo . . .'

  'That I'd talked to her. Yes, indeed I did. But she didn't come looking for me, though she was certainly looking for help. I didn't go into detail with your Captain. No doubt he's a busy man and besides, he felt you were the person who should be told. No, she didn't come here at all. You might say I found her or that she found me. I don't know. It was in the cathedral after Saturday mass at which I'd served, as I sometimes do during busy festive periods.'

  'Was this around Christmas time?'

  'You already know something about it, then?'

  'Not really. Only that something went very wrong and that it happened around Christmas.'

  'I see. Yes. You're right. It was Christmas Eve. I served at the normal Saturday mass so that those who usually did so could rest before serving at midnight mass. I was going home. It would be about six o'clock, I would think, and there were few lights on in the cathedral and very few people remaining. Just a small group lighting candles at the crib and another with guide books looking at the fresco of John Hawkwood.

  'I didn't notice her at once, and when I did it was only as a dark shape out of the corner of my eye, and I imagined she was one of those elderly women who often kneel alone in empty churches to pray. Then, for some reason, I looked at her more carefully. There was something wrong, something about the figure that was too rigid. I had almost passed by her but I stopped. She wasn't praying, not then. She was kneeling, but she looked more as though she'd collapsed. Her arms were hanging limply by her sides and some shopping, Christmas shopping, had tumbled to the floor. Her eyes were closed, she was breathing very slowly and deeply. I touched her shoulder, afraid she was ill.

  ' "Are you all right? Do you need help?"

  'She turned her face towards me and I realized that the deep distressed breathing was in fact a form of weeping. Her cheeks were wet with tears and her eyes were very swollen. She spoke to me in Italian.

  ' "I can't go home . . . "

  '"Indeed you can't, in such a state. Sit down now, a moment."

  'I had to help her and, to be honest, despite her evident grief, I was worried that her health was compromised, that she might suffer a serious physical collapse.

  '"Do you feel faint?"

  'She shook her head. "I can't go home." She made an effort at collecting her Christmas parcels but her fumbling only caused them to tumble about more and the very sight of them seemed to distress her. She pushed them away from herself an
d began sobbing. We all, even as small children, cry in a different way when somebody can hear us, did you ever notice that, Marshal? I collected the parcels together and took her arm.

  ' "Come with me now a moment and sit quietly until you're feeling better. It's so cold in this great place."

  'She came with me quite docilely, and yet I felt she had little enough strength to walk and I had to support her. I could feel the physical weight of her grief. I sat her down in one of the sacristan's rooms and switched on the light.

  '"Is there anything I can offer you?"

  'She shook her head. I was still worried that she might collapse. It was clearly a great effort for her to breathe.

  ' "Do you want to tell me about it? Is it something you want to confess?"

  'She looked at me blankly. "Confess?"

  '"You are a Catholic?"

  ' "I suppose so, yes. But I don't go to church . . . "

  '"You came today. Were you at Holy Mass?"

  '"No . . . "

  'I sat down before her. She looked as though she might fall forward. She was still crying, but the tears rolled steadily down her cheeks in silence now, and she seemed unaware of them.

  '"Try to breathe more deeply. That's it. You're very distressed. Look at me, child. I'm a priest and I'm also a very old man. Whatever it is I've probably heard it before, and it might give you some relief to tell someone, a stranger especially, if you prefer to think of me so, rather than as a priest."

  '"Yes."

  ' "Have you told no one at all what's troubling you?"

  'She shook her head. "I'm ashamed, I can't . . . "

  ' "But there's nothing you want to confess?"

  'She shook her head. "I don't know what I've done . . . But there must be something I did or should have done. I feel responsible but there's nothing to confess."

  '"What made you come into the cathedral, do you know?"

  '"Oh yes. I was frightened."

  '"You need help."

  ' "I was frightened. I was trying so hard and I thought . . . I was managing, shopping. I bought things. I bought— then I just collapsed inside. I can't cope, I can't! And I don't want to die, Father, you must believe that,-but perhaps that's how it happens, against your will!"