Rose in Darkness

by Christianna Brand

  ‘Of course I won’t, darling,’ said Nan wretchedly, for to whom must she now be a traitor—to Etho who had entrusted Sari to her care, or to Sari who was putting her faith in her?

  ‘So, all right. There’s a caff of sorts, you’ll be ever so comfy. But you must do the church, top on the list of horror-tourism. Put up a candle for me.’ She got out and walked off to the door, the glowing golden hair, the brilliant colours of the reconstructed kaftan over the bright pink pants, swinging the inevitable huge painted canvas bag; looked back and called, ‘And one for my Pore Horse. A special candle for my Pore Horse, love, you won’t forget?’

  Dear Sari—sweet Sari—maddening and yet so much loving, so compassionate Sari, with her outgoing heart! To whom must one be a traitor?—to those who loved and were anxious over her, or to Sari herself, perhaps at her own expense. Life with Bertrand had prepared Nan very little for such eventualities.

  The frescoes were after all only rather amateurish and dull and the cemetery offered no more than a modicum of absurdity so touched with pathos as to be not really all that amusing. But as she wandered about the special part set aside, it seemed, for the ‘early die-ers’, there was a creaking of the gate of rusty scrolled iron-work and she saw that she was no longer alone. A woman had come into the graveyard and stood in the gateway looking about her as though she were a stranger there.

  Very beautiful. In her early forties, perhaps: slender as a willow, dressed in a perfection of countrified wear reminiscent of Marie Antoinette playing milkmaids at the Trianon. She too seemed more interested in the side of the churchyard reserved for children, bending down to look close at the pitiful photographs, walking the length of the wall with its indentations of small niches for the pictures, the little flower vases, too many now empty for years. She came close at last to Nan and said, her English fluent if not perfect, but with a delicious French accent: ‘Madame—excuse me. Do you understand how is this wall?’

  ‘I think they build them to take the coffins, don’t they? Like—well, like pushing them head first into drawers or something. And then they’re sealed off and the ledges are left for flowers and things.’ Poor little coffined bodies, stacked in their orderly rows, beside one another, above, below. The woman said pityingly: ‘It is sad to see so many little ones?’

  ‘Well, with this great hospital here ...And I think they take a lot of children, crippled...’ Pretty loopy, most of them, Sari had said, in that off-hand way of hers that must never deceive one into supposing that she spoke without feeling. ‘So I daresay they do get a lot of deaths. But I don’t really know much about it, I’m just waiting for a friend.’

  ‘I also. Will your friend be a long time?’ The sun beat down on the little grey enclosed place with its clutter of great beaded wreaths which the Eight would have found so hilarious but to Nan seemed only depressing, too many of them long neglected since those who had with such munificence placed them there had ceased to remember and care. She said: ‘I have to wait till five. But it’s dreadfully hot. I believe there’s a cafe somewhere...’

  ‘Will you accept to have a cup of coffee with me? It must be better than wandering here?’

  But the cafe was closed: in the afternoon sun the village was taking its siesta, not a soul in sight. Across the square from the hired car stood a glistening black limousine, whose chauffeur and another man leapt out as, with her companion, Nan approached, but were motioned back again. ‘We could wait in my car but it will be—etouffant—I don’t remember how you say in English that there is no air? You think we might ask in the convent—?’

  ‘Oh—well—I don’t think I’d better,’ said Nan, a trifle alarmed. ‘My friend—well—she’s here on private business...’

  ‘Private business?—in a convent?’ said the woman, with a little moue, half protesting, amused. ‘I think a convent doesn’t hold so many guilty secrets?’

  ‘A hospital may,’ said Nan; but everything she uttered began to sound equivocal and she wondered uneasily how much Sari would care for this acquaintance suddenly blown up with a stranger—and a stranger so curiously unlikely, now one came to think of it, to be encountered at this particular spot: and yet not easily to be shaken off. She suggested, ‘There’s a little sort of garden over there, with a bench, rather nice and shady’—and nice and private too, she did not add—‘where we could sit under the trees.’ And as they sat down, afraid of being led into further possible misunderstandings, she apologised: ‘I’m so hot and weary; I think I’ll let myself have a little doze.’

  ‘But assuredly, Madam. Do not let me incommode you.’ But it was not to be as easy as that. ‘If your friend should come out—will she not wonder where you are waiting? We can’t be seen here, from the front door. She will be perhaps anxious and if she has been to the hospital for—because of illness—?’

  ‘No, no, she’s just—well, just visiting, I think,’ said Nan, vaguely. But she wouldn’t let herself actually sleep, she said, just doze but keep her eyes on the time.

  ‘I will awake you if I hear the big door open. What does she look like, that I may recognise her?’

  ‘Well, she’s—I’m so sorry,’ said Nan, letting her head fall forward, ‘I really can’t keep my eyes open...’ Perfectly innocent questions; and yet... With Sari so paranoid about everything... ‘Do excuse me! I’ll just doze off...’

  It was terribly uncomfortable but at least silence reigned. It was broken by a small gasp from the woman at her side. Nan’s eyes flew open. ‘Oh, my God!’ she said.

  Far down the long white side wall of the building, a door had opened and Sari came down the few steps to the gravelled path. There was a nun with her, and a priest. And—a child.

  They stood for a little while, talking. Between the two darkly-covered heads, the black biretta and the heavy veil, the bright hair shone, burnished in the afternoon sun; flanked by the two dark habits, the flamingo pink pants, the floppety tunic flamed brilliant as tropical flowers. One hand held tight to the hand of the little boy: for the child was a cripple.

  A cripple and more than that. If the small pale face bore signs of physical suffering, it bore no other sign. The great dark eyes stared only vacantly up at the brightness above him. The little hand clung only from the need of physical support.

  One small hand clinging. Under the other arm, he clutched tightly the bright blue wiggy-pig.

  Sari glanced down at her wrist-watch, was suddenly in a hurry to make her farewells. The regulation convent kisses, cheek banged against cheekbone on either side; a tiny reverential bob sketched to the priest who, however, took her by the shoulders, passed a hand as though lovingly across the glowing crop of soft hair, made with his thumb on her forehead the sign of the cross. She knelt down by the child and put her arms around him. Unsteadied, the little boy tottered and crumpled, and burst into resentful tears, hitting out at the bright visitor with vicious small fists. She endured it, turning to the nun for assistance, handing the child over to her care; and came away at last, walking with bent head slowly along the path to where it emerged into the gravelled drive before the big front door.

  And looked up and saw Nan and Nan’s companion, went absolutely ashen white and began to run.

  They came to the car. Nan scrambled in after her. Sari swung the steering-wheel, tyres skidded and scraped, for a moment the world was filled with a nightmare of a thousand tiny sounds as dry gravel hit the bodywork of the car and fell away; and they were on to the cobbles of the village and belting through its narrow streets and out again into the countryside. Nan clung to the nearest handle as they jerked and bucketed their way along. She saw Sari glance into the driving mirror, turn round to look back through the rear window. The car slowed down to a more reasonable pace. She implored: ‘Sari, what’s the matter? What’s this all about?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ said Sari, her eyes on the road. ‘I’m always upset when I go there.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with that woman? I wasn’t talking to her, I didn’t tell her any
thing.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Sari. ‘It’s quite all right.’

  ‘I just met her accidentally. She was in the cemetery too.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Sari, ever staring straight ahead. ‘The cemetery.’ She quoted: ‘The grave’s a fine and private place...’

  ‘What ever do you mean, Sari?’

  ‘Never mind. Just making jokes to myself, while I still can.’

  ‘My dear, I hope you don’t think—’

  ‘Nan, for God’s sake!’ said Sari. ‘Just leave me alone. I’ve got a headache like all hell. Simply don’t talk to me.’

  Silence, then. Back in the hotel, silently to their rooms presumably to meet later for the evening meal.

  But when Nan emerged, bathed and changed, praying only to know how now to conduct herself—Sari’s room was empty, Sari had gone.

  The Sardines, in their scanty English, yielded reluctant information. The Signora had come down almost immediately and hurried out of the hotel; yes, she had carried her bag, the large canvas bag, the Signora always carried such a bag and never any other luggage. Soon after, she had come back and this time a man had been with her, who held her by the arm and, so holding her, brought her to the desk, demanded her bill and continued to hold her while she handed over the money, looking about him meanwhile, somewhat—furtively; and then gone out with her again. No, she had said nothing, not spoken at all. As to whether she had looked pale, ill, whether or not she had seemed to go willingly with the man, they shrugged oily shoulders. The hotel had been paid, suggested the shrug, and, unregretted, another guest had departed from their inhospitable doors. That was all they cared about.

  Nan flew to the telephone but evidently Etho was not at home; nor was there any reply from Rufie. She dared not leave the hotel in case Sari returned or even rang up. The Sardines were so uncooperative, no help there. She sat scared and bewildered in the lobby, not knowing what to do. The police? But a pretty young woman had simply left the hotel and gone off with a man, and wherever she turned she was hamstrung by her lack of Italian and inability to recount anything but the broad facts. And she felt herself hedged in with small, frightening mysteries. What had so much terrified Sari up at the hospital? True, she, Nan had seen much that she had not been intended to see: she recalled Sari’s insistence that their rendezvous should be at the front door—and that she herself had come out through a side door, out of sight of the main entrance. And there had been the strange woman; a strange woman, indeed, to have been encountered in that place—with her cobweb of delicate, innocent-sounding questioning. She recalled now that the woman had spoken to her directly in English; had not paused to assume that she might be of any other nationality. A Follower?—entering the walled cemetery, knowing that Nan was there, forcing a conversation with her not very necessary question about the wall. But then—this elegant Frenchwoman, one of Sari’s ‘Followers’? And Sari had said nothing of their destination until they were in the hall, summoning the hire car—how could anyone have know of it? Spies?—were there spies right here in the lobby of the Sardines’ hotel in the heart of Rome? She looked uneasily over her shoulder... Of course Sari was obsessed with this idea of being followed, her friends laughed the whole thing off, she was always trying to make herself interesting... Or they used to laugh it off; but now Vi Feather was dead.

  Vi Feather was dead. Was dead, was murdered. And no one laughed so light-heartedly any more when Sari described how a car had followed her through the night of storm; and laughed not at all when Sari said that Vi Feather had been murdered in mistake for herself.

  If the Frenchwoman had indeed been spying upon Sari, trying to learn the secrets of the convent hospital? ‘Swear you won’t tell anyone,’ Sari had said to Nan. ‘Whatever you may think.’ Sari had not wanted to take Nan there; unable to refuse without seeming to make the visit of too much importance, had been edgy and irritable. ‘God knows I didn’t ask you to come!’ she had burst out, and had made Nan swear to tell nothing, to say nothing, whatever she thought or guessed, to say nothing to anyone. Had offered a few vague, placatory confidences. She had failed to complete her work on the film, not because she would not but because she could not. She had been ‘ill’; the nuns had been terribly good to her, she had been ill—and it had been Aldo’s fault but ‘the moment real trouble arose’ he had simply walked out on her... ‘I see,’ Nan had said; and suggested, all easy tolerance, ‘So you come back for check-ups?’ She remembered the small, quizzical glance with which Sari had answered. ‘Well, yes, for check-ups. You could say that.’ And the penny dropped at last. Yes, on the ludicrous excuse about Luigi and the hair-do, Sari came back regularly to Rome for check-ups; but it was she who did the checking up.

  A small boy—to whom, with elaborate lies and excuses, Sari had brought the cherished blue pottery pig—a boy crippled and mentally defective. Child of Prince Aldo of San Juan el Priata; and his legal heir.

  She sat absolutely stunned; and her first thought was—Who else knows? Did her friends know?—did the Eight know? But they didn’t, Nan felt sure of it. ‘Not a word of this to anyone, Nan, you swear? Even Etho doesn’t know.’ So who did know?

  Had Vi Feather known? She had been a dresser in the studio, she had worked closely with Sari; had Vi known? But Vi’s mouth had been closed for ever. What Vi had known she could never now tell; and who else knew?

  Well, now she knew. Nan knew.

  She crept to the telephone again and this time Etho was there. But what to say? How much to tell? Were spies all around her in that suddenly lonely place? ‘Etho—Sari’s gone, she’s disappeared. You haven’t heard—?’

  ‘Disappeared?’ said Etho. ‘Oh, my God!’ He said almost angrily, ‘I did beg you to look after her.’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t attach her with a ball and chain,’ said Nan, driven by jittering nerves to irritability. ‘She went off with some man—’

  ‘Went off with a man?’

  ‘Well, in fact some man went off with her.’

  He seemed to cool down into his own old casual way. ‘Oh, well, men are always going off with Sari.’

  ‘This isn’t... You always make light of everything.’

  ‘Yes, well... It’s all another nonsense, ducky, I expect, like your Juanese chums in Trastevere last night.’

  ‘It’s not nonsense.’ said Nan, almost weeping. ‘It’s not nonsense.’ She took a resolution. ‘Anyway, Etho, I’m coming home. I can’t do any good out here, I don’t know who to turn to, I can’t speak the language and what’s more it’s all too dangerous—there’s a lot more to it than you think, Etho, you all turn it into silliness and laughing, but it isn’t really funny and I’m frightened, and first thing tomorrow, Sari or no Sari, I’m getting the first flight out and coming home.’ She slammed down the receiver and when almost immediately the ‘phone rang back, refused to answer it. They’re all very sweet and charming and funny, she thought, but after all, what are they to me?—why should I risk my life for them, why should I end up in the back of some car like poor wretched Vi Feather? And she thought with a small blaze of resentment that, for the few brief months she had known them, she was now and would be perhaps for the rest of her life, a frightened woman; scared to go to bed, scared to close her eyes and sleep—I shall have to sit up all tonight and creep out in the morning and get out of this horrible country as soon as I can... And she found only little room in her terrified heart to pray that Sari would come back safe at last: that all would yet be well with her. What are they all to me?

  But she did not come back; and next morning, sick with dread, Nan found herself a taxi—not the first that offered nor the second, but one chosen at random in another street—she began, as she humped her heavy suitcase, to recognise something of the strain under which Sari must have lived all these years—and got to the airport safely and aboard a plane. She would wash her hands for ever—please God!—of the Eight Best Friends. And if the air hostess comes round offering barley sugar for the takeoff, she thought, I shall b
e sick. Flying off from the most wonderful city in the world, without having glimpsed even one of its most beautiful sights—because, forsooth, dear Sari must, as Etho himself had said, ‘be different’—must reject, thought Nan, whipping herself up to an easy resentment, all that was ordinarily acceptable, all that was rational, made sense; must live in a state of inconsequential nonsense regardless of the feelings and wishes of her companions; dye her hair orange and affect not to know that she was stared at, array herself in bright patterned tops and painted pants, tie golden scarves over her head with pencilled partings, ruining an expensive thing for a single occasion... It’s all stupid and deliberate and entirely self-conscious, thought Nan, savagely obliterating memories of innocence and gaiety that Sari had carried with her always outrageous or not; they were all just silly, affected bores; and buns and shoppings and slippery elm and the lot, her own old friends, and Bertrand’s, were best in the end...

  And yet again... Trips to the picture galleries with other mildly ‘cultured’ widows, little dinners with older married couples who had scraped the bottom of the barrel for ‘a man to make up a four’, afternoons of bridge, solitary evenings of television looking at the ‘better’ programmes so as to have ‘a talking point’ at the careful foursome dinners—nowadays, none of it seemed what Rufie would have called the most rivvy of pastimes. Ap-solutely not. I dare say, she thought to herself, crushing down rueful longings, I shall go beresk with boredom. But in the end, they’d been right, Mavis and Lillian and all of them. It was all too frightening, too bewildering; she would harden her mind against the magic circle and know them no more.