Poplars lined the Via Magdalena. Whiz-chop of little squirtdarting cars. Gas stink. Bicycles. Upcraned necks.
“We must get the correct intersection,” said Katherine. “I’m told it’s hard to find.”
He glanced at her neck, saw little powdered creases infolding above the dress collar. So neat. So prim. They opened like mouths when she leaned forward to peer.
Paper-bag anger popped in his chest.
“Here!” he barked. “We get off here!”
The taxi jerked to a stop at the curb.
“But …” said Katherine, her dove face blank while the eyes measured his mood.
“You said it was in the Torrenta Alley just off the Via! We can walk from here.”
Weak laughter in her pale, powdered throat. “Of course. You still know the city from when you were here before.”
He was impatiently polite with the driver, positive of the overcharge, letting the bastard know his game was so damned transparent. The money isn’t important, you little bastard. I make more in a day than you make in a year! It’s the principle of the thing. To hell with your … No, Signore! No, Signore! To hell with it!
And the minute the taxi had pulled away in its cloud of oil stink, he felt remorse overtake him. The man probably has a big family to support. Needs every cent he can get. For all I know, he could be married to Dora. I’ll wait until I see him again outside the hotel, send him a tip. Charles tried to imagine Dora living with the taxi driver and failed. No. She was the kind who’d catch on to a petty official, a clerk in some ministry. Once her beauty started to go.
Katherine spoke from the walk behind him: “Are we going?”
“Uh … yes.”
Now the Torrenta Alley. There had been a whorehouse at the end of it, and his men had gotten into a fight there. But now the neighborhood was changed. Little outpulled drawer balconies on new buildings. The hotel clerk had said the rough districts moved farther out.
Out of the Via’s sunlight into a dark, broom-swept, twisting, narrow grotto effect: cool after the glare on the avenue. Charles had an abrupt jolt-bounce thought of all the people who’d witnessed these yellow-ochre bricks. Ancient. A lesson in history. It was as though a heavy cape had been pulled away, flickering, and he saw down the years: Centurion, Barbarian, Christian knight, Blackshirt, the Second Hun, and the Citizen Army—the brawling Citizen Army—and himself coming to get Sergeant Brady’s platoon away from the MPs.
But it was not the same now. Too clean. And the smells were different. Drier.
“This must be it,” said Katherine. “Number eight.”
Thin, in-shadow doorway. He allowed himself to be guided by her movements through into a green-washed gloom. A deep-sea stillness, scent of camphor. His eyes adjusted to the dim light. A room of controlled patience: crowded with dutiful furniture that waited on fat legs, on slim legs. Only to obey. The placidity of the place filled him with a latent rage.
“It’s beautiful,” said Katherine. “Simply beautiful. All these lovely antiques.”
Provoked, he said, “All this damned dust stinking crap full of worm holes!”
A little silence. Again she watched him: the undove eyes in the dove face. “Suppose I just buy one piece,” she said.
“Suppose you just look and don’t buy anything.”
“Darling, could I come back this afternoon, or tomorrow? I mean, while you go take your pictures of the Forum or whatever?”
“Let you come here alone? I’d as soon let you loose in an arena full of hungry lions!”
“Darling!” she hissed. “They probably speak English here!”
“Good.”
This silence was longer.
She sighed, said, “I wish you could understand the simple pleasure I get out of …”
“Simple!” He thumped onto the word with both feet.
In the back of the shop, green curtains parted with a sound of scratching vellum. The shopkeeper glided out of the gloom—a pale, wizened man with conundrum lines between his eyes, a dry sprinkling of somberness over small features. But the eyes clashed with the rest of him—as though they were the man’s only weapons, and he had learned out of necessity to slash and parry with them.
“May I be of assistance?” he asked, and his English hopped along on a tired accent. A pill-sounding voice. Bitter medicine.
Katherine put on her public poise. “I’m interested in something for our upstairs sitting room, something to suit a Renaissance décor.”
“I’m warning you,” said Charles. “We’re not plundering the Continent this time.” And there was the sourness of pen scratching in his tone.
“My husband likes his little joke,” she said, one gloved hand outstretched like a particular exclamation point.
“You are my guests,” said the shopkeeper. Hopping of dry accent. An eye-concealing nod.
And Charles thought, Thus spoke Caesar to his victims! “The dollar,” he said. “The world’s most welcome guest.”
She pencil-lined her mouth, no sweetness. “Darling! Must you?”
Must I what? Be a bore? Such a bore? Boor, perhaps? Why’d I let her talk me into this? I’ve never been so bored in my whole life. Or maybe I’m just bored!
He startled her by chuckling.
“I fail to see the humor,” she said.
Kinder, he thought. I must try to be kinder.
“It’s all right, dear,” he said. “Private joke. For noncoms and privates only.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do your duty, dear. Do your duty. That’s all we did when we came through here from Lacata, from Sicily.”
“But you were an officer … a major.”
“Yes, dear.”
“Oh, the war!” She dismissed it, all squeezed up in three words like an accordion.
The shopkeeper concealed his embarrassment (or amusement?) in a dry-lidding of his weapon eyes, half turning away. One purple-veined hand stroked the dark blue velvet of a chair back.
White spots accented Katherine’s cheeks. “Well?” she said.
“Well what?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
He shrugged. It’s the indifferences that drive her mad. Never give her a clue what to expect.
“I’ve made my point then?” she asked.
“Let’s say you’ve established a beachhead.” And he could all but hear the stick mixed words of her mind: “Still in the war. Won’t he ever leave his toy guns?” That’s what you’re thinking. Ah, my dear, I know you too well. I know you so much better than I knew Dora. God! I must try to be kinder!
Nectarine in her voice: “Darling, you know that I …”
“Oh, for Christsakes!” His breakfast eggs began to taste sour in the back of his throat. Why does merely the sound of her voice make me flare?
She was not deceived. Victory was in sight but not won. Not yet. Readily watchful dove. “This is special, darling. This is the place where Lorna got …”
The darting of his mouth lines told her her mistake.
“So that’s it! This wasn’t a simple little foreign expedition this morning. Just to browse! This is something you and Lorna cooked up!”
“Perhaps we’d better come back after lunch,” she said. “Let’s go to that place the man from Pasadena recommended. We could have lobsters, a salad, perhaps some melon.”
This is what happened Friday in the dress shop, he thought. She pressed me too hard. She always presses too hard. Except in bed. Too softly hard. Catch her using a bed for a trampoline!
“Are those your final terms?” he asked. Why can’t I keep the coldness out of my voice?
“I’m only thinking of you,” she said. Her hungry gaze went to the shopkeeper’s hand on the blue velvet chair.
“Huh!” His mouth tucked in with little tic-seals.
“Such a beautiful chair,” she murmured. “That one. It’d look so nice with our other pieces.” A sigh, lifting, collapsing.
I must force my careful a
ttention upon being kinder.
“One piece,” he said. “You can get one piece. No more.”
Again she was not deceived. The victory was gratuitous, and not, therefore, a victory. “Now you’re being your old, sweet self,” she said. And again she watched him, speculating.
“My pleasure,” he said.
She turned toward the shopkeeper, encountered bright eyes, benign mocking.
A deep breath against the armored foundation garment. She resumed a semblance of her poise. “I am interested in early Florentine also. Our upstairs sitting room must have … something.”
“I congratulate you, madam.” The hopping accent. (Selling a sofa to Caesar’s wife. Dead Caesar’s wife.) “The Florentine is our best. We have recently acquired some particularly fine pieces.”
One old Roman hand lifted in invitation to precede him.
She’ll pay ten prices for something made last month in an antique-faking factory for tourists!
“Oh, that’s pretty!”
She’s found something else already! I thought he was going to hook her with that blue velvet monstrosity. This is probably more expensive. No dickering now, dear! Pay the first price! Christ! I cannot listen! He tried blanking his mind to their murmurous voices, but still the words poured through to feed his rage. He turned. “I’ll call a cab.”
“I’ll have my boy call your cab, sir,” said the shopkeeper. He excused himself from Katherine, moved away: grey-green color wash fading through vellum scratching curtains.
Katherine looked at her husband. Behind the dove mask, the undove moved impatiently.
He nodded a prepared nod, smiled. He knew she would recognize the smile. It said: “I forgive you for all your mistakes, my dear. Even when you’re impossible, I forgive.” A stubborn smile, and he knew that its image was burned upon her memory out of a thousand such incidents. Dora never saw my forgiving smile, he thought. I wasn’t kind to Dora.
“We can go to the Forum right after lunch,” said Katherine.
“Since when have you wanted to go to the Forum?” he asked.
She took the words without rising to them as she always had. Suddenly, emotion was running white hot in the air between them. Her eyes caught his attention, compelled him. In the gloom, Charles abruptly saw two faces: two frozen shades, four polar eyes: the image of Dora overprinted on the reality of Katherine—the shock of bitter wax flowing out of sweet honey. A twin reality with new meanings.
I paid Dora with coffee, chocolate, and cigarettes. Katherine takes it out in … what? Antiques? There’s no real difference between them. The world’s full of Dora Pucettis. It’s full of Katherines. It’s full of …
“This is what I’m getting,” said Katherine. “Do you like it?”
She put a gloved hand on a pedestal-footed octagonal table upthrusting in the careful clutter. A figure dimly golden painted on it. Wings? He stepped closer. Horrible saccharine pseudo-Romance: a Roman eagle snared in laurel intertwined by a misty ring of doves.
“Isn’t it lovely?” she asked.
The shopkeeper swished back through the curtains. “Your taxi comes, sir.” He saw the intense downpouring attention. A shutter-blink velvet smile jumped across the old face. “You like it, sir? The design is by Giordano. Very old. It is symbolic of Caesar’s standard.” Dry chuckle rendering sere lips. “The Roman peace.”
Caesar’s standard come to this! The last of all the Romans! Hysteria climbed his mind. Katherine’s hand fluttered against his arm. The deadly, subtle shirring of feathers. And he heard her voice as from a great distance: “You’re very sweet, Charles. So kind to buy me this. Charles? Charles! Why are you laughing, Charles?”
Eagle doves, doves eagle, eagle doves doves eagle eagle doves … All the eyes staring at him. Slowly, the drunken, reeling overflow of images receded. He quieted, looked up at Katherine, encountered sudden mockery in her gaze. She smiled for the first time this day, and her voice dropped all of its pressing sympathy; it came to him with the soft pounding of a muffled drum.
“This piece makes me very happy, Charles. You see, I wanted something that would remind me of Rome … too.”
Wilfred
If you’d ever heard Louis Donet sing, you never would’ve tied him up with Wilfred Long. But that’s where you’d have been wrong. They were the same person—in the flesh, that is. Where his character was concerned, though, he was like a chameleon—as if changing his part to fit different backgrounds.
I first met the man when he still was Wilfred Long. He was fresh from the Continent and the Academie des Arts Princips. There was a thin coat of Parisian mannerisms over his British veneer, and beneath it all was the hard shell of ego sealed from the world. He wore that Continental air of a man who has just heard a long, dull story.
The Brunswick Recording Company brought Wilfred to New York in the middle twenties because of a reference from Sir Hugh Blakely-Smythe of the Philharmonic Society to Hal Radcliffe, our managing director.
In the course of time, I received the usual list of “facts” with which to prepare the public for our new find. I leafed through the list and realized I’d need an artificial glow to be able to give even a faint glimmer to Wilfred.
I picked up the phone and called Hal. “Look,” I said, “this Wilfred Long, the name, it’s …”
“I know,” he said, “but it has to stand. Do what you can.”
I heard the receiver click, cradled my own, and slammed out of the office. Right then I needed something that could be had only at Vincentes, the best speak in town. “A chicken ranch,” I told myself. “I work in a chicken ranch where all the roosters cackle and want to take credit for the eggs.”
George Bates was sitting in my favorite booth, and I slid in opposite him. George directed the recording orchestra that played for most of our contract vocalists. He was a native of Cincinnati, a little guy—I’d say about five feet six and kind of stout. A piano player by profession, he had the shortest fingers of any pianist I’d ever seen. He was always getting mad at me, the way I’d ask him to play something like Chopin’s Raindrop Nocturne where his fingers would get a workout. George had the coldest temper of any man I’ve ever known. His controlled ferocity could make you shiver even if you weren’t the object.
He looked up at me as I sat down. “Hullo, Felix,” he said. “I gave ’em a breather. We’re makin’ My Old Kentucky Home with Jules Preston, an’ they just tossed out the sixth one.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“The usual stuff,” he grunted. “We get wax in the cutting channel, distortions, squeaks, noises, everything. Why don’t they invent something so we don’t have to go to all this trouble?”
He frowned and gulped his drink. The waiter came up with my regular double scotch.
“Finish that,” George said, “an’ come up an’ give us some luck.”
I downed the drink, and when the shivers had stopped, nodded. “Okay, George. But you better cross your fingers for me, too. I gotta make a singer by the name of Wilfred look like copy. I won’t be able to show my face in a newsroom for a year.”
“Wilfred,” he repeated unbelievingly. “Let’s have another.”
We got back to the studio about a half hour later, and I took a seat high up in the back while George collected the orchestra. They’d just repainted the studio, and the smell of turpentine mixed with the odor of the floor compound the sweepers used was doing things to my stomach. I wished I was anything right then but a publicity agent for a platter palace. I looked around me. What a racket!
Preston, the vocalist, was slouched in one of the front seats with his hat over his eyes. George went over and poked him in the ribs. “Okay, Press. Let’s try it again.”
The singer tipped back his hat, stood up, and walked over to the big square horn that led into the cutting room. We didn’t have any of these fancy electrical pickups in those days. The vocalist had to stand in front of the horn with the orchestra members crowded as close as they could get behind
him. They always had to shout at the damn horn and then hope like hell they were on the wax. It was a common thing to make the same disc over six or seven times before it got the okay. On an average of once a week, some yokel would come bouncing in right in the middle of the one cutting that everyone knew was going to be perfect. The door couldn’t be locked because of some damn fire rule, so they’d set up a red light and a sign.
That’s how we met Wilfred. He barged in just as they were finishing the seventh try on Foster’s classic. A trolley was passing by on the avenue, and its clanging seemed to fill the room.
George hushed the orchestra with a resigned air and slowly turned on the intruder. We all waited expectantly for the slightly unkempt stranger to wilt under George’s famed vitriolic tongue. Wilfred was taller than George by a good three inches, and he had bushy hair, which made him seem even taller; there was a supercilious set to his red features. Continental look, I believe you’d call it. We’d seen bigger ones routed by our bantam champ, though, and didn’t doubt the outcome of this one.
“You saw the red light and thought you’d come to the right place, eh, junior?” George asked in a deceptively soft tone. He strode up to Wilfred, pointing his baton as if he wanted to skewer the man. “Well!” he shouted. “This is a recording studio, and we don’t like bastards like you wandering in here and flirting with our girls! Get the hell out!” He gestured with his baton. “And next time, don’t believe everything the taxi driver tells you!”
We guffawed until the room seemed to expand. George was in rare form.
Wilfred cleared his throat, looked George up and down with an infuriatingly aloof glance, and stepped past him. The baton was knocked aside. “Droll fellow,” he said, “but that sort of humor always fails to amuse me.”
He walked over to the horn, a big affair about eight feet across. “So this is a recording studio,” he murmured. Swiveling, he fixed Preston with his eyes. Even from the back of the room, I could see the almost hypnotic gleam.
Preston stopped laughing and stood there with a silly grin on his face.
“You’re the vocalist,” Wilfred said in an accusing tone. Before Preston could recover, Wilfred continued, “Well, I’m Wilfred Long. You’re to show me how this thing is done so I can make a few records tomorrow.”
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