The Excelsior is in the Piazzale Duca d’Aosta, facing the Stazione Centrale, that exuberant monument to Fascist ideals that looks more like a colossal war memorial than a railway station. A porter took my two suitcases and I climbed the steps and entered the marble-pillared entrance hall of the hotel. At the reception desk the clerk said, “Your name, please, signore?”
“Farrell,” I answered. “I have accommodation booked.”
“Si si, signore. Will you sign please. Numero cento venti” He called a page. “Accompagnate il signore al cento venti”
The room was small, but comfortable. It looked out across the Piazzale to the railway station. I had a bath and changed and then went down to the lounge to wait for Reece. I ordered tea and sent a page for my mail. There wasn’t much; a letter from my mother, a bill for a suit I’d bought before leaving England and the usual packet from my firm. The last included a letter from the managing director. We expect big things of you in Italy…. When you have been in Milan a week send me a report on the advisability of establishing a permanent agency…. You have my permission to take a holiday there as and when you please and trust you will be able to combine business with pleasure by making social contact with potential customers for our machine tools. It was signed Harry Evans. I folded the letter and put it away in my brief-case. Then I sat back, thinking of the possibilities of a holiday in Italy, and as I did so my eyes strayed over the room and riveted themselves on the far corner.
Seated alone at a small table by the window was Alice Reece. The sight of her hit me like a blow below the belt. As though drawn by my gaze, she turned her head and saw me. Her eyes brightened momentarily as they met mine across that dimly-lit lounge. Then they seemed to go cold and dead, the way her brother’s had done, and she turned away her head.
I think if I’d hesitated I’d have fled to my room. But I was gripped by some strange urge to justify myself. I got to my feet and walked across the room towards her table. She saw me coming. The green of her eyes was caught in the sunlight from the window. She looked into my face and then her gaze fell to my leg. I saw her frown and she turned away towards the window again. I was at her table now, standing over her, seeing the sunlight colouring the soft gold of her hair and the way her hands were clenched on her bag.
“Do you mind if I sit down for a minute?” I asked, and my voice was trembling.
She didn’t stop me, but as I pulled out the chair opposite her, she said, “It’s no good, Dick.” She had spoken in a tone of pity.
I sat down. Her face was in profile now and I saw she was older, more mature. There were lines in her forehead and at the corners of her mouth that hadn’t been there before. “Eight years is a long time,” I said.
She nodded, but said nothing.
Now that I was here, sitting opposite her, I didn’t know what to say. No words could bridge the gulf between us. I knew that. And yet there were things I wanted to say, things that couldn’t have been written. “I hope you’re well,” I said inanely.
“Yes,” she answered quietly.
“And happy?”
She didn’t answer and I thought she hadn’t heard. But then she said, “You had all there was of happiness in me, Dick.” She turned and looked at me suddenly. “I didn’t know about the leg. When did that happen?”
I told her.
She looked away again, out of the window. “Alec never told me about that. It would have made it easier—to understand.”
“Perhaps he didn’t want to make it easier for you to understand.”
“Perhaps.”
An awkward silence fell between us. It grew so that I felt at any moment our nerves would snap and we’d cry or laugh out loud or something equally stupid.
“What are you doing in Milan?” I asked.
“A holiday,” she replied. “And you?”
“Business,” I answered.
Silence again. I think both of us knew that small talk was no good between us. “Will you be here long?” I asked. “I mean—couldn’t we meet some—”
She stopped me with an angry movement of her hand. “Don’t make it more difficult, Dick,” she said and I noticed a trembling in her voice.
Her words took us over the edge of small talk, back into the past that we’d shared; a holiday in Wales, the Braemar Games where we’d first met, her fair hair blown by the wind on a yacht on the Broads. I could see her slim body cutting the water as she dived, see her face laughing up at me as we lay under the shade of an old oak in the woods above Solva. Memories flooded through me bringing with them the bitter thought of what might have been between us—a home, children, life. Then her hands were on the table, moving blindly among the tea things, and I knew she had not married.
“Can’t we go back—” I began. But the look in her eyes stopped me. She hadn’t married, but there was no going back. The eyes that met mine were full of sadness. “Please go now, Dick,” she said. “Alec will be back soon and—”
But suddenly I didn’t care about Alec. “I’ll wait,” I said. “I’ve a message for him—from Maxwell in Czechoslovakia.”
Her eyes tensed and I knew then that she had some idea what her brother was doing. “Are you in this, too?” she asked. “I thought—” Her voice stopped there.
“I got drawn into this by chance,” I said quickly.
Her eyes were searching my face now as though she expected to see some change there. Suddenly she said, “Tell me about your leg. Was it very bad? Did you have a good surgeon?”
I laughed. Then I told her what had happened. I kept nothing back. I wallowed in self-destruction, explaining how it felt to have the bone sawn through without any anaesthetic, knowing that it would happen again and again. I saw that I was hurting her. But she didn’t stop me and I went on. “You see, I don’t remember anything. All I know is I went under again, screaming and half delirious and when I came round I was told there would be no more operations, that they had got all—”
I stopped suddenly for I was conscious of a figure standing over us. I looked up. It was Alec Reece. I saw the muscles in his throat tighten and the blood come up into his face as anger gripped him. “I told you once, Farrell, that I’d break your neck if you ever tried to speak to my sister again.” I had risen to my feet. “I suppose you thought I was safely out at the airfield.” His inference was obvious and I felt my anger rising to match his.
“Sit down, both of you.” Alice’s voice was calm. I saw her hand catch her brother by the arm. “Dick has a message for you from Max.”
There was a baffled look in his eyes as he said, “Where did you see Maxwell?”
“In Pilsen yesterday,” I said. I turned to Alice. “Excuse us a minute.” He followed me over to the window. “Has Tuček arrived?” I asked.
He stared at me. “What about Tuček?” he asked. He didn’t trust me. I could see that.
“Jan Tuček was arrested on Thursday,” I told him. “Maxwell got him away to Bory airfield that night. Tuček and a senior Czech air force officer flew out in an Anson trainer. They should have arrived at Milan early yesterday morning.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” he said.
“I’m not interested whether you believe me or not,” I exclaimed angrily. “Maxwell asked me to see you when I got to Milan and tell you to notify him whether or not they’d arrived. He’s afraid they may have crashed since they were told to contact you immediately on arrival and he’s not heard from you.”
He fired a lot of questions at me then. At length he said, “Why the devil didn’t you give me that message at the airfield?”
“Your own attitude made it impossible,” I answered.
“What were you doing in Pilsen?”
I told him.
“Have you any proof that you represent this machine tool company?”
He was still suspicious.
“Yes,” I said. “But you’ll bloody well have to take my word for it.”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll start checking u
p. But I warn you, if I find you’re playing some game of your own—” He turned on his heel, and then stopped. “And keep clear of Alice whilst you’re here.” He went back to his sister then. He bent over her for a moment, talking to her, then with a quick glance at me, he hurried out of the lounge.
I went over to the table. Again I was conscious of her gaze on my leg. She began to put the tea things together as though she were going to carry them out herself. As she didn’t speak I said, “How long will you be in Milan?”
“Not long,” she said. “I am going to Rapallo and then to stay with some friends of Alec’s at Cannes.”
“I hope you have a nice time,” I murmured.
“The sun will be nice, and I think we shall enjoy ourselves.” Her voice was barely audible. Then she suddenly said: “Please go now, Dick.”
I nodded. “Yes. I’ll go now. Good-bye then.”
“Good-bye.”
She didn’t look up. I went back to my table and collected my things. As I passed her on the way out she didn’t look at me. She was staring out of the window. I hesitated in the doorway. But she made no sign and I went up to my room.
They were gone next morning. I don’t know what hotel they went to. All I know is that I didn’t see them at breakfast and when I inquired at the reception desk I was told they had left.
It was useless trying to do any business that day. It was Sunday. So I went for a walk. Spring had come to Milan. The sun shone out of a cloudless sky and the wide tram-lined streets blazed with warmth. There were tables out on the pavements and some cafés even had their awnings down. I walked up the Via Vittor Pisani and into the Giardini Pubblici. I was thinking of nothing but the fact that the girls were in summer frocks and that the olive-skinned, laughing crowds looked gay and happy. The mystery of Tuček’s disappearance and my encounter with the Czech security police seemed very far away, part of another world. In the gardens the trees were showing young green. Everything was bursting with life. I sat down on one of the seats and let the warmth of the sun seap through me. It was wonderful just to sit there and relax. To-morrow there would be work to do. But to-day, all I had to do was sit in the sunshine.
I always remember that hour I spent sitting in the Giardini Pubblici. It stands out in my mind like an oasis in a desert. It was my one breathing space—a moment that seems almost beautiful because it had no part in what had gone before or what came after. I remember there was a little girl and a big yellow rubber ball. She followed it relentlessly, teeth flashing, black hair gleaming and her dark eyes bubbling with laughter. And her mother sat suckling a baby discreetly under a shawl and telling me how she hoped to go to Genoa for a holiday this year. And all the time Milan streamed by, their gay clothes and constant, liquid chatter seeming so lighthearted after the sombre atmosphere of Czechoslovakia. It was like listening to Rossini after a course of Wagner.
Feeling warm and happy I went out into the Viale Vittorio Veneto and sat for a while at one of the café tables drinking cognac. I sat there till twelve-thirty, reviving my Italian by listening to scraps of the conversation that flowed around me. Then I went back to the hotel. As I crossed the entrance hall towards the lift the clerk at the reception desk called me over, “Signor Farrell.”
“Yes?” I said.
“I have a message for you.” He pulled a slip of paper out of the pigeonhole marked F. “Signor Sismondi telephone half an hour ago to say will you ring him please.” He handed me the slip of paper on which was scribbled a telephone number and the name Sismondi.
“Who is he—do you know?” I asked.
“Signor Sismondi? I think perhaps it is Signor Riccardo Sismondi. He have a big fabbrica out on the Via Padova, signore.”
“What’s the name of his company?” I asked.
“I do not know if it is the same man, signore. But the one I speak of is direttore of the Ferrometali di Milano.”
I went up to my room and got my notebook with the list of Italian firms with which B. & H. Evans had done business before the war. Among them I found the Ferrometalli di Milano. I picked up the telephone and asked for Sismondi’s number. A woman’s voice answered. “Casa Sismondi. Chi Parla?”
“This is Mr. Farrell,” I answered. “Can I speak to Signor Sismondi?”
“Un momento.” Very faintly I heard the woman’s voice call “Riccardo.” Then a man’s voice came on the wire, rather harsh and grating. “Signor Farrell? Bene. You know who I am per’aps?”
“Ferrometalli di Milano?” I asked.
“Sì, sì, signore, I do business with your company before the war. I hear you arrive in Milano yesterday—from Pilsen?”
“That’s correct,” I murmured.
“Do you see Signor Tuček of the Tučkovy ocelárny while you are in Pilsen?”
It was the suddenness of the question that rattled me. I hadn’t expected it. I naturally thought he’d rung me on business. Instead he was asking me about Tuček. The happy, laughing Milan I’d walked through that morning faded in my mind. I felt as though a long arm had been stretched out across the borders of Czechoslovakia, to fetch me back into the clutches of the Czech security police.
“Ullo, ‘ullo, signore. Are you there plees?” The voice sounded impatient—harsher and more grating.
“Yes?” I said.
“I ask you do you see Signor Tuček when you are in Pilsen?”
“Yes.”
“You are a friend of his per’aps—from the war?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why?”
“And he know you are coming to Milano?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then per’aps all is not lost.”
“Look,” I said. “Do you mind telling me what this is all about?”
“Very well. I tell you. I am a business friend of Signor Tuček. Things are very bad for him in Czechoslovakia. He intend to leave the country and we are going into business together with a new factory ‘ere in Milano. I am expecting him ‘ere for three days now. But he do not arrive. I am very worried, Signor Farrell.”
“What’s this got to do with me?” I asked him.
“I tell you. We are to start a new business together. He is bringing with him specifications of some new types of machines we are to produce. On Friday I receive a letter from him to say that he will not bring them himself. It is too dangerous. He give them to an Englishman who fly to Milano the next day. I have checked with the airport, Signor Farrell. You are the only Englishman who arrives from Czechoslovakia since I receive his letter.”
“And you think I’ve a package for you from Tuček?” I asked.
“No, no. I think per’aps you have a package as you say to deliver to Tuček here. But Tuček is not ‘ere. He do not arrive. It is terrible. I do not know what is happened. But business is business, Signor Farrell, and I have special workers ready waiting to begin the building of the tools to make these new machines. If I could plees have the specifications—”
“But I haven’t got any package for you,” I told him.
“No?” The voice had risen a shade. It was hard and metallic. “But Signor Farrell, in his letter he say—”
“I don’t care what he said to you in his letter,” I interrupted him. “I can only repeat, I have not got a package for you. I saw him once in Pilsen, that’s all. It was in his office and an official interpreter was with us all the time.”
He started to say something and then his voice vanished suddenly as though he had cupped his hand over the mouth-piece of the telephone. There was a pause and then he said, “Are you sure you only see him once, signore?”
“Quite certain,” I answered.
“He does not come to see you at your hotel?”
Was it my imagination or was there a sudden emphasis on his words? “No,” I answered.
“But he tell me—”
“Once and for all,” I said angrily, “will you please understand that I have no package either for you or Tuček.”
There was another pause and I thought perhap
s he’d rung off. I was sweating and I wiped my face with my handkerchief. “Per’aps, Signor Farrell, we do not understand each other, no?” The voice was softer, almost silky. “You see, if I have the specifications and can proceed with the organisation of the new factory, then I need several of the sort of machine tools fabricated by your company. Per’aps I require them in a hurry and pay a bonus to you for arranging the quick delivery, eh? Now you have another look through your baggage, signore. It is possible you cannot remember what is in it until I remind you, eh?”
It was a straight bribe and I wanted to tell him what I thought of him. But after all he was a potential customer, so all I said was, “I’m sorry, Mr. Sismondi. I just haven’t got what you want. I will call on you later at your office if I may and talk about equipment for the Ferrometalli di Milano.”
“But, Signor Farrell—”
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I cannot help you. Goodbye.” And I put the receiver back on its rest.
For a while I stood there, staring out of the window at the colossal bulk of the Stazione Centrale. The grey stone stood out almost white against the dark under-belly of the cumulus that was piling up across the sky. Sismondi knew that Tuček had visited me at the Hotel Continental. That was the thing that stood in the forefront of my mind. I told myself I was imagining it. Sismondi couldn’t possibly know. But the thought stayed there and I felt as though the fingers of that imaginary arm stretched out across the Czech frontier were closing round me. The sunshine streaming in through the open window faded. The Piazzale Duca d’Aosta looked suddenly grey and deserted. I shivered and closed the window.
I started towards the door and then stopped. Suppose Tuček had put a package amongst my things that night. I hadn’t searched through my suitcases. It could have lain there without my noticing it. My hands were trembling as I got out my keys and unlocked the two cases. But though I searched even the pockets of my suits and felt the linings there was nothing there. I searched the clothes I was wearing and my overcoat and went through the papers in my briefcase. I found nothing and with a feeling of relief went down to the bar.
The Angry Mountain Page 5