‘And?’
She raises a hand slowly to her mouth and presses the fingers to her lips; she closes her eyes, then drops the hand to murmur: ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘So something happened at the weekend,’ he says. ‘Are you going to tell me?’
After a plaintive glance, she answers: ‘Nothing happened.’
‘Really?’
‘It might have happened, but it didn’t,’ she says, glaring at the screen to steady herself, but a tear nonetheless escapes.
He reaches across her for the remote, and turns the TV off.
She leans forward, putting her face into her hands, leaving only her mouth uncovered. Quietly she begins: ‘It is so difficult for Renata. And with Renata. It’s difficult for both of us. For all three.’
‘Four.’
‘Four,’ she concedes. ‘I don’t know what I think,’ she goes on, whispering at the floor. ‘I don’t know what I feel.’
‘I think you do.’
‘No, I don’t,’ she says, putting out a hand for him to take.
An hour later she is saying: ‘We’ll speak tomorrow.’
He goes back to his apartment, but from Piazza del Mercato he can see the light in his bedroom. He walks through the town, from gate to gate, and still the light is on. Four times he walks the length of Corso Garibaldi and Corso Diaz, then at last the light is out, and he can go up.
9
9.1
HE KNOCKS ON THE DOOR of the bedroom. The shriek of the hairdryer stops, the door opens an inch or two and Claire’s face appears in the gap. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Hello. I didn’t hear you arrive.’
‘Just need to get a clean shirt and a couple of things,’ he says.
She steps back to let him in. She’s wearing white cotton trousers and a huge red T-shirt. On the back of the chair hangs an overwashed black bra; her book is caught up in the swirl of the bed sheets. ‘Sleep well?’ he asks.
‘Eight-hour blackout, thank you. Ready for action.’
He gathers the clothes he needs, and she restarts the hairdryer. ‘I’ll look for a flight,’ he says.
‘I’ll be there in five,’ she tells him.
Within a couple of minutes he has found a flight for Monday afternoon, from Pisa. Claire leans over his shoulder to look at the screen. He moves aside, to let her type the credit card details; waiting for the website to process the payment, she looks up at the wall opposite, where, between posters for exhibitions at Palazzo Grassi, a frame contains a drawing of his mother and one of his father. ‘Those aren’t by Gideon, are they?’ she asks, almost sure that they are not.
‘No,’ he answers.
The transaction is finished; he opens his email to find the e-ticket and print it out, and while he’s doing this she goes over to the drawings. ‘Who are they?’ she asks.
‘My parents,’ he tells her.
She moves closer, to concentrate on his mother. ‘You did these?’
‘I did.’
‘When?’
‘Ten years ago. Eleven.’
Now she’s peering at the portrait of his father, scanning it inch by inch. ‘You still draw?’ she asks.
‘Occasionally. Less than when I was at art college.’
‘Less than before you started working for Gideon?’
‘You mean: has he crushed the creativity out of me?’
‘Not quite how I’d put it.’
‘I’d eased off a long time before I came here,’ he tells her.
‘Because?’
‘Lack of time. Lack of motivation.’
‘But you’d wanted to be an artist?’
‘Same as every art student. But I was never going to be an artist. Same as ninety-nine per cent of them.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Don’t have what it takes.’
She seems to feel no inclination to take issue with him. ‘And what does it take?’ she asks.
‘Drive, for one thing.’
‘And self-belief.’
‘That helps.’
‘Not Gideon’s problem,’ she remarks, stepping back to regard the two portraits together. ‘So when did you give up?’
‘I wound down pretty quickly after college.’
‘Ever wish you hadn’t?’ she asks, turning.
‘No,’ he says, which is more or less the truth.
She nods, seeming to accept him at his word. ‘And what does Gideon think?’
‘Of what? My giving up?’
‘Of your drawings. He must have an opinion. He has an opinion on everything else.’
‘He knows I can muster a likeness. There’s nothing to be said.’
And she says nothing more on the subject. He suggests that they go to the Caffè del Corso for breakfast, a proposal that is immediately approved.
The morning is very warm. Walking beside him, Claire fans herself with a hand, wafting the scent over his face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘but I have to ask, what is that? The perfume.’
‘Après l’Ondée,’ she answers.
‘Say again?’
She repeats the name. ‘It’s supposed to make you feel that you’re in the countryside and the sun is shining after rain,’ she explains. ‘Wet grass, damp flowers, walking barefoot in the dew, yabba yabba yabba.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever come across it.’
‘Well, it’s not the sort of thing you’re going to find at the local chemist’s. This is one for the connoisseur,’ she says, with mock self-satisfaction.
‘So where did you find it?’
‘My husband found it, in Paris,’ she replies. ‘My ex-husband.’
‘I was wondering.’
‘You were wondering what? Where he is?’
‘Where. Who.’
‘His name is Joe and as far as I’m aware he’s still in London, with Philippa, who would now be twenty-seven years of age. Perhaps not quite as pretty as she was, though I should imagine the bosom continues to impress.’ She cups her hands inwards, with her arms at half-stretch. ‘They had a spiritual bond,’ she tells him. ‘Really. They bonded at a very deep level,’ she insists, assuming a face of smiling piousness. ‘And I don’t wear the perfume for old times’ sake, if that’s what you’re thinking. It doesn’t have associations. Not any more. I just love the smell. You like it?’ she asks, offering a wrist.
‘I do.’
‘I’m glad we agree,’ she says, as if a point on an agenda could now be ticked off, then she puts out a hand to hold him back. They are within sight of the Caffè del Corso and Maurizio Ianni can be seen inside, gazing out at his dominion. ‘Is there an alternative?’ asks Claire. ‘I’m not in the mood for the charm of Maurizio.’
Instead, they go to the pasticceria on Piazza San Lorenzo, where they sit outside, facing the abandoned church. A middle-aged man with spiky reddish hair and mustard-coloured trousers goes up to the façade, to take a picture of the single red flower and the graffiti around it – Forza Juve; Giovanni Ti Amo; Ilaria Sempre; Juve Merda; Antonella Sempre. That done, he strides to the middle of the piazza and aims upward, at the mulberry that’s sprouted from the ruined roof. He seems to take about twenty shots, performing a jig as he angles the camera this way and that.
‘That bloke was here three years ago,’ Robert remarks.
‘He’s staying in the hotel,’ says Claire. ‘German, I think.’
‘He was here for the festival. Made a real nuisance of himself.’
‘You recognise him?’
‘The same guy.’
‘Definitely?’
‘Definitely,’ he says.
She looks askance at him; it’s as if he had just demonstrated a diverting but futile talent, like being able to lick his own nose. ‘Not sure what to do today,’ she says. ‘A swim appeals, but I can’t risk the bees.’
Robert suggests a few places around Castelluccio that are worth a look; she can borrow his car for the day. They head back to the apartment, and at the moment that Piazza del Mercato comes
into view she again tugs him by the elbow. ‘Look,’ she says, laughing, and there, on the far side of the piazza, is Gideon with a bedraggled and dripping Trim; at the moment they see him he stops abruptly, as if something has just struck him on the head; he rubs his brow, then walks on.
9.2
On the afternoon of May 6th, 1943, in Tunis, Lauro Pacetti was stabbed in the hand, chest, face and leg by an Indian soldier, and left for dead. He survived, but with the loss of two fingers of the right hand and damage to the muscles of his right leg. Discharged from the army, he returned to Castelluccio in July. The following week, Mussolini was arrested and replaced by Badoglio.
Lauro Pacetti had joined the army with enthusiasm: echoing the opinions of his guardian, Uncle Lino, he believed Mussolini to be the man under whose command the country would turn itself into a modern and self-sufficient nation, enriched through the efforts of men such as the industrious and canny Lino. The project of Grande Italia excited Uncle Lino; with pride he dispatched his nephew to fight for the Fourth Shore, to liberate the Italian people of Tunisia. But the war in Africa had wrought changes in Lauro’s mind as well as on his body. In the bar at Sant’Agostino he announced that he was disgusted by some of the things he had seen his supposed comrades do. Again and again he would extol the virtues of the German fighting man: the Germans were better troops than the Italian rabble, incomparably better, because they had discipline and they had ideals that mattered more to them than any individual’s survival. After the armistice he became a little more discreet, but from time to time he would assert to his fellow drinkers that a German was a better fighter not only than an Italian but than an American and an Englishman too. He declared himself ashamed of what was happening to his country. His friends – the few that remained – excused him: Lauro was often under the influence of drink, and the injuries he had suffered had made him bitter. Things were said to be bad between himself and his wife as well; the face of once-handsome Lauro was now disfigured by a violet sink-hole of a scar.
In November 1943 a South African POW – very undernourished, with lacerated feet and a fractured forearm – was found unconscious in a field on the south side of Castelluccio. The man who farmed the field revived him and hid him in a chicken coop; he dressed his feet and fed him for a week, collecting scraps from neighbours, before escorting him out of the valley. Lino Pacetti, suspected of being an informant for the militia, was not told about the POW but he found out from a careless remark; he did not offer food, though it was known that Lino Pacetti had buried plenty of hams and oil and cheese on his land, to make them safe from the refugees that were passing through the valley. The following week, a rumour reached Castelluccio that the South African had been arrested in an olive grove near Pomerance. Two days later, in the Caffè del Corso, a man whose sister lived in Pomerance reported that the POW had been shot as he ran from a militia patrol. Lauro and Lino Pacetti were both present, and neither of them, it was said, expressed any sympathy for this young soldier, who had died alone, thousands of miles from his home. And when, around the same time, a customer in the Sant’Agostino bar praised, with an eloquence that touched most of those who heard him, the Christian decency of the Italian peasantry, Lauro was heard to scoff.
One afternoon in the last week of May, 1944, Maria Pacetti, while foraging in woodland on the path to Mensano, observed five men moving up the slope ahead of her; each had a gun on his back, and one of them was walking with difficulty, supported by the men beside him. When Maria went home, she told her neighbour what she had seen. The very same day, by the Porta di San Zeno, Lauro Pacetti was seen talking to the driver of a truck; the driver was identified, positively, as Alfonso Borsari, a militia man from Radicóndoli. The next morning, outside Mensano, an engineer at work on a broken telephone wire was approached by a man who, after some tentative conversation, identified himself as an Austrian deserter. His name was Martin, he said, and he was from Graz; he’d joined a group of Sardinian partisans, but they’d botched an ambush and become separated; acting on tip-offs, he’d been following them for two days, and he’d been told by a man in Castelluccio yesterday that his unit might have been seen in this area. There were five of them, said Martin, and one of them was wounded. The engineer, who knew that the five had passed through Mensano a few hours before, and also knew an imposter when he saw one, regretted that he could not tell him anything. But the Sardinians were killed, near Monteguidi, less than twenty-four hours later.
On Thursday nights, after little Carlo had fallen asleep, and after eating with Maria, Lauro Pacetti would leave the small apartment that he and his wife rented from a friend of his uncle and stroll to the bar at Sant’Agostino. On Thursday June 8th, 1944, Lauro was in good spirits. When someone said that the alliance with the Germans had been a catastrophe, he did not demur. He joined in expressions of hope that the war would end quickly. No disparaging remarks about the partisans were made, whereas on other evenings he had dismissed some of them as bandits whose patriotism had changed its hue as soon as it had become clear who was going to win. On June 8th he had nothing to say about the partisans, not even when the deaths at Monteguidi became the topic. ‘It is a tragedy,’ said one of the drinkers, and Lauro Pacetti bowed his head solemnly and nodded. He did, however, warn that there would be trouble if the Americans arrived before the British; there were black soldiers in the American regiments, and they had been raping girls wherever they went, he’d been told. ‘To the British,’ he declared, raising a glass. By most accounts, that was the last thing he said before bidding them all good night.
At 10pm or thereabouts he left for home. Shortly before midnight, a woman opened her front door on Piazza San Lorenzo and saw, on the far side of the square, by the church door, what she at first took to be a sack full of rubbish. It was Lauro Pacetti. Around his left arm he had a swastika armband – a genuine one, taken from a German – and in his right hand he held a piece of paper on which was written ‘Justice will be served’. There was a bullet hole in his brow.
The story immediately went around that Lauro Pacetti had betrayed the whereabouts of the Sardinians to an SS officer who had been pretending to be an Austrian deserter. Nobody could possibly have been deceived by the SS man: several people in the valley had been accosted by him, and nobody had believed his story for a moment. Maria and Lino Pacetti protested that Lauro had never spoken to any German calling himself Martin; she was not even sure if she’d said anything to her husband about the men she had seen in the woods. And if Lauro had spoken to Alfonso Borsari – and she was not sure that he had, because one of the men who said he saw them talking was simply jealous, as everyone knew, because she’d married Lauro instead of him, and the other man was a spiteful idiot who’d just repeated what the other one said, and couldn’t see properly anyway – the conversation, if it had happened at all, would have taken place before she’d seen the men in the woods. And what if he had talked to Alfonso Borsari? They knew each other. Lauro was no friend of the militias but he had been a friend of Alfonso Borsari, and he was not a man to turn his back on someone who had been a friend. Other men changed their friends if the wind changed direction, but not Lauro. He was a loyal man, a loyal Italian, and he had betrayed no one. He would never have assisted in the murder of a single fellow Italian, let alone five. Lauro was not a collaborator: he was a man of honour, unlike the men who had slaughtered him.
On June 10th a German motorcyclist was shot by a sniper on the Volterra road, just three hundred metres from the walls of Castelluccio. Reprisals were expected, but on June 11th the Americans arrived. Maria Pacetti was not among the crowd that cheered them along the Corso; she and her son had already left.
9.3
Gideon has visited Elisabetta: she is well, she says, ‘ma un poco stanca’ – a little tired, each day a little more tired. He is chastened by the equanimity with which she is facing the end, an equanimity that is sustained by a delusion, but that has a great nobility nonetheless. He is preparing himself for her death.
/> Trim has crossed the stream; the water barely covers a paw. A sweet aroma of mud mingles with the perfume of desiccated grass. Gideon’s gaze travels along the mild undulations of the skyline and descends to the buildings of Castelluccio; the town occupies its niche in the valley as correctly as a village in a painting by Fra’ Angelico. It is a humanised terrain, durable and subtle; the air is soft; the land is full of light; but today what he sees cannot inspire him. It cannot even confer repose. He is thinking of Elisabetta and also, though it does him no credit, of himself – or rather, of the judgement that will follow his own demise, the judgement not of himself, but of his work.
He has become dissatisfied; he is repeating himself. He has not lost belief: each picture is a reiteration of what is true; a reading of the scripture of the visible world. He is devoted to the truth of the visible, but of late he has become subject, intermittently, to a desire to create something new, to bring about an image through something other than force of observation and the rigour of organisation. He has imagined, but cannot yet see, a conclusive picture, a painting of which he could say: ‘This is the one by which I should be judged. It omits nothing.’ He has had intimations of a moment of revelation: nothing as clear as a glimpse of the form that this work may take, but a sense of movement in the depths, as some animals are able to detect, before an earthquake, tremors too slight for humans to sense. Perhaps – the notion has often entered his thoughts – Ilaria would have brought it about? She had often made him uneasy; she may, in time, have maddened him a little, and a little more madness may have sufficed. In his mind now is the image of Ilaria, a promise of fruitful disorder.
Trim has disappeared into the stand of oaks. Gideon crosses the stream on the exposed stones of its bed; he enters the little wood, and there is the dog, running through a declivity of loosened soil, muzzle to the ground. In the base of the bowl is a thick paste of mud, now stamped with Trim’s paw prints; a pungency has come into the air – an ammoniacal reek. Gideon hauls the reek into his nostrils in a powerful draught, as if it might shock him back into rationality; again and again he breathes it in, but by the fifth or sixth dose the smell is disgusting. Then Trim, legs slathered in slime, brings more of it with him. ‘Sit,’ Gideon orders, whereupon Trim springs forward and deposits two smears on Gideon’s thigh. The stink is worse than the worst train-station toilet in Italy. They return to the town, where Ennio Pacetti, upon request, directs a hose at the dog. Trim dances away, still with a dozen berries of mud dangling from his belly fur.
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