The airport bus took us into Naples through narrow, squalid, tram-lined streets where the houses opened straight on to the road and bare-footed children played half-naked in the gaping doorways. Naples hadn’t changed much—the same poverty and dirt. The white-painted hearses of the children would still be winding up the Via di Capodimonte to the cemetery and for all I knew the homeless would still be dying of malnutrition in the quarry vaults under the Via Roma. We came in by way of the Piazza Garibaldi and the Corso Umberto and as the bus ground its way through the chattering, laughing crowds time seemed suddenly to have stood still and I was back in 1944, a flight-lieutenant with nineteen German planes and more than sixty bomber sorties to my credit and nothing worse than a bullet scar across my ribs. That was before Maxwell had got me posted to Foggia, before I’d started those damned flights up to the north, dropping officers and supplies to the partigiani in the Etruscan hills.
At the air booking office I said good-bye to Hacket. He had been kind and helpful, but I wanted to be on my own. To be honest, I found him a tiring companion. “Where are you staying?” he asked me as we stood on the hot pavement.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll find some little hotel along the waterfront, I expect.”
“Well, you’ll find me at the Hotel Grand. Any time you feel like a drink, just give me a call.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Perhaps you’ll come and have dinner with me sometime.” A taxi drew up and I got in with my suitcase. “And thank you again for being so kind to me last night.” Then I ordered the driver to go to the Porto Santa Lucia. “I’ll telephone you,” I said as the taxi drove off. I looked back and he waved his grey homburg to me, his rimless glasses catching the sunlight so that he looked like an owl surprised by the noontide glare. He looked very American, standing there in the sun with his sleek grey suit and the camera slung across his shoulders as though it belonged there permanently, like a piece of equipment issued to him before he left the States.
The taxi crossed the Piazza del Plebescito, past the Palazzo Reale where the big Naafi Club had been during the war, and slid down to the waterfront. The sea was flat like a mirror, a misty blue burnished by the sun. The sails of yachts gleamed like gliding pyramids of white, and humped against the skyline was the dim outline of Capri, half lost in the haze. I stopped at the little port of Santa Lucia that nestles against the dark, rocky mass of the Castello dell’Ovo. Sitting there in the warmth of the sun, watching a fishing boat preparing to sail, with the sweep of Naples Bay spread before me and Vesuvius standing in the background like a huge, battered pyramid, Milan faded away, a nightmare only vaguely remembered. I felt relaxed and at peace with the world, like a ghost that has come back and found his youth again—sight, sound, smell, it was the same Naples, a wonderful heady concoction of riches and squallor, sun and dust and ragged, thieving urchins. Probably they still sold their sisters in the Galleria Umberto and stole from every unguarded vehicle that ran down the Via Roma. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care about the mixture of wealth and poverty and the thousands who died every day of starvation and horrible, incurable diseases and filled the hearses that the gaunt horses dragged up to Capodimonte. It was all romance to me and I just sat there, drinking it in and letting the lotus of Naples take hold of me.
I hadn’t booked accommodation. But I knew it would be all right. I just felt that nothing could go wrong now.
For that day, at any rate, I was right. There was a bright, newly-painted hotel that looked out across the port of Santa Lucia and when I ordered the taxi to drop me there they welcomed me as though they had been expecting me. They gave me a room on the second floor looking out over the Bay. There was a little balcony and I sat there in the sun and went to sleep with the blue of the Mediterranean glittering below me.
Later I got a taxi and went to a little restaurant I’d known out beyond Posillipo. The night was warm and there was a moon. I had frutti di mare and spaghetti, and Lachrima Christi, eating at a table in the open with the inevitable Italian fiddler playing O Sole Mio and Sorrento. The stillness and beauty of the night brought a sense of loneliness. And then I remembered that Zina Valle was arriving in Naples the next day and something primitive stirred in my blood. At least I ought to thank her for changing over those drinks. She’d probably saved my life. It was an excuse to call on her at any rate.
That night, when I got back to the hotel, I asked for the telephone directory. Valle, Cssa. Villa Carlotta. She was there all right and I made a note of her telephone number.
I woke next morning to sunshine and a lovely warm, scented air coming in through the open balcony windows. Sitting up in bed I looked out on to the blue of Naples Bay with the fishing boats and the yachts putting out from Porto Sanazarro Barbaia. I had breakfast on the balcony in my dressing-gown and then sat with a cigarette and a long cognac and seltz, dreaming of what I would do with myself all day in that golden, sunlit world. It seemed so wonderful that I couldn’t believe that the spell could ever be broken. I would go out to the restaurant for lunch and then I’d lie in the sun on the rocks by the water’s edge. And later I would telephone the Villa Carlotta.
I reached the restaurant just after twelve and as I was paying off my taxi a big cream-coloured Fiat swung into the parking place. There was nobody in it but the chauffeur. He got out, tossed his cap into the back and unbuttoned the jacket of his olive-green uniform. He wore nothing under the jacket. He undid the belt of his trousers and slipped them off, revealing a pair of maroon bathing trunks. I stood there, staring in fascination at this transformation from chauffeur to bather. He must have been conscious of this, for when he’d tossed jacket and trousers into the car he turned and scowled at me. He was a well-built, broad-shouldered youth of about twenty with a strong face and a mass of long, black hair which he had a habit of tossing back from his wide forehead. His eyes looked very black under the scowl. And then the scowl was replaced by a wide, urchin grin.
I knew him at once then. Instead of the chauffeur I saw a ragged little urchin with a broad grin and a white American sailor’s hat. He’d been in this car park to greet us every time we’d come out here in that spring of 1944. “I know you,” I said in English.
He came towards me. “Me watchee,” he said, grinning all over his face.
That had been his business slogan. He would jump on the running board or run beside the trucks shouting, “Me watchee. Me watchee.” I had never heard him say anything else in English. He and his gang had kept the parking place clear of thieves and as long as you paid for your protection you could leave anything in the truck and know it would be safe. When I had come back to the restaurant in 1945 there had been the same cry of “Me watchee” but the boy who ran beside the truck had been smaller. It had been his younger brother. Roberto, the original “Me Watchee,” had made enough to buy a boat and we had found him jostling the fishermen at the foot of the steps.
“What happened to the boat?” I asked him in Italian.
He shrugged his shoulders. “The American and English soldiers go, signore. There is no trade, so I sell and buy a truck. Then that fall to pieces and I become a chauffeur.”
“Come and have a drink,” I suggested.
“Grazie, signore. Grazie.”
We went down to the restaurant and I had a bottle of vino brought out to a table on the balcony. The reflection of the sun on the sea was blinding. We talked of fishing and the tourist trade. Then we got on to politics and I asked him about the Communists. The corners of his lips dragged down. “Only the Church saves Napoli from the Communists, signore,” he said. “But the Church cannot fight arms.”
“How do you mean?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I know nothing. It is all talk. But the arms come in and disappear to the south. They say there is a Communist army in Calabria.”
“There’s always an army in Calabria,” I said. When I’d left Naples there had been rumours of a brigand force of 20,000 fully armed with field pieces, even tanks.
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sp; He nodded. “That is so, signore. But it is different now. It is all organised. I have heard the Conte Valle speak of it with Comandante dell’Armate del Sud. He is in the Governo and he say arms are arriving all the time and everything go underground.”
“Did you say the Conte Valle?” I asked.
“Sì, sì, signore. Il conte is in the Ministero della Guerra.”
His mention of the Conte Valle took me by surprise. Somehow I’d got the impression she was a widow. “Is that the husband of the Contessa Zina Valle?” I asked him.
His eyes narrowed. “You know the Contessa, signore?”
“I met her in Milano,” I said. “Conte Valle is her husband?”
“Sì, signore.” He was frowning and his brown fingers had tightened round his tumbler. “Where do you meet the Contessa?” he asked.
“At the house of a business man named Sismondi,” I answered.
The scowl was still on his face. “Was any one else there with her?” His voice sounded thick and angry. It seemed strange for a chauffeur to show such interest in a member of the aristocracy and I said so. He gave me a quick shrug and then grinned. “It is all very simple, signore. I am chauffeur to the Contessa. I like to swim. When the Contessa is away I can come out here and enjoy the sea. But I am always afraid she will come back too soon and be angry because I am not there at the Villa Carlotta. She is very bad when she is angry. She telephone that she arrive this afternoon. Did she tell you anything about her plans?”
“She was staying the night in Florence.” I answered his question almost automatically. I was thinking what a strange coincidence it was that I should meet her chauffeur like this and find I knew him from the war days. It was almost as though I had conjured him here. He had finished his wine and was getting to his feet. “Scusi, signore. Now I must have my swim.”
I nodded. “Will you give the Contessa a message? My name is Farrell. Tell her I propose to call on her at the Villa Carlotta this evening at six-thirty and that I would like her to have dinner with me.”
Again I was conscious of that slight narrowing of the eyes and the beginnings of a scowl. “I will tell her, signore,” he said. “Molte grade.” He gave me a little bow which seemed strange, dressed as he was in nothing but his bathing trunks. “A rivederla, signore.”
“A rivederci.” I watched him as he disappeared down the steps. I felt as though somewhere a string had been pulled, tightening my contact with Zina Valle. A moment later I saw his brown body cleave the brazen surface of the water below me with hardly a splash. He swam with strong, powerful strokes straight out to sea. The soles of his two feet beat the surface like a propeller. I got up quickly and went into the restaurant.
That evening, just after six-thirty, a taxi deposited me at the entrance of the Villa Carlotta. It was a big, white house approached from the Via Posillipo by a long curving drive overhung with the trailing fronds of palm trees. Through a little group of firs I caught a glimpse of the frowning rock arches of the Palazzo Don Anna, golden brown against the blue backcloth of the sea. A manservant showed me into a room on the first floor. My only impression of it is one of soft, powder blue with glass doors open to a balcony that had for background the picture postcard blue of Naples Bay with Vesuvius in one corner and Capri, looking remote and mysterious, in the other. Zina Valle came in from the balcony. “It is very kind of you to visit me so soon,” she said in that soft, husky voice. She was dressed in a black evening gown. Her bare shoulders were covered by a white ermine wrap, which hung loose so that I could see that the top of the gown barely covered her breasts. A shiver ran down my spine as I took her hand and kissed it.
A servant brought in drinks and she handed me one. “Is it business or pleasure that bring you to Napoli?” she asked, raising her glass to her lips.
“A holiday,” I replied.
“So you take my advice, eh?”
“How do you mean?”
“That day I come to see you at the Excelsior—I advise you to take a holiday. Remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” I answered. She’d said something else, too. “You told me Milan was bad for me. Why?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “In Milano it is business, always business,” she answered evasively. “You work too hard.”
But I knew she hadn’t meant it like that. Milan is not good for you. She had meant it as a warning. “You were right, you know.”
Her brows lifted. “How so?”
“That night at the Albergo Nazionale when you took my glass—you didn’t drink it, did you?”
She shook her head.
“Why?”
She shrugged her shoulders again. “I think perhaps the flowers want a drink, too.”
“It was drugged, wasn’t it?”
“Drugged?” She laughed. “Now you are being melodramatic. And they say the English—”
“I’m not being melodramatic,” I cut in. “About three-thirty in the morning someone came to my room. If I’d had that drink—I don’t think I should be standing here now. You saved my life.”
“Oh, come now, you are being ridiculous. It was all a joke.” She lowered her eyes. “I will be honest. I thought you very attractive. I wanted to make you think me mysterious. That is all.”
“Someone tried to murder me.” My voice sounded obstinate.
“Why should any one wish to do that?” She turned and put her glass down on the tray. “I think I was right when I say you must have a holiday. Either you pull my leg, or if you really think such nonsense, then the fact that you have been overworking has made you imagine things.” She pulled the wrap closer round her shoulders. “Come now. You invited me to dinner. But please, no more silly jokes about people trying to murder you.”
We went out to the car and then drove to a restaurant high up on the Vomero where we had dinner looking through tall glass windows out across the Bay. I don’t remember what we talked about. I only know that I didn’t refer again to what had happened in Milan and soon I had forgotten all about it in the pleasure of her company. The moonlight and the warmth seemed to fill all the dark corners of my mind, so that Milan and Pilsen were forgotten and I was free of the past, alone with her on a cloud where yesterday and to-morrow were nothing and only to-day mattered. We danced a little, talked a lot, and in a moment, it seemed, the evening was over. “I must go now,” she said. “At midnight my husband will telephone me from Rome.”
That mention of her husband broke the spell. “He always telephones me at midnight.” She smiled as she said this as though it was amusing that her husband didn’t trust her. I helped her on with her wrap and then she said, “Will you have them call Roberto please.”
When Roberto had driven us up to the Vomero his face had been wooden and impassive. But now, as he held the door open for us to get in, it was dark and alive with something that made him look more of the peasant and less of the grown-up urchin I had known. His eyes didn’t once glance at me and as he closed the door I saw he was watching Zina.
The car moved off and she slipped her hand under my arm. “It has been a lovely evening,” she murmured. Her eyes were deep like velvet, her lips slightly parted. Her skin looked very white against the black of her dress. I wanted to touch it, feel her lips against mine. And then something made me look up and I saw Roberto’s eyes watching us through the driving mirror. I stiffened and she said something violent in Italian. Then she removed her hand from my arm.
As I was getting out at my hotel, she said, “Would you like to have a bath with me to-morrow? “She was smiling as though she had purposely phrased it to sound naughty. When I hesitated, at a loss quite what to reply, she added, “I always go to the baths at the Isola d’Ischia when I come back. It is very good for the skin after the chemical atmosphere of Milan. If you would like to come I shall be leaving in the launch at eleven. We could have lunch there.” She smiled. “You do not have to have the bath, you know.”
“It’s very kind of you,” I said awkwardly. “I’d love to.”
Roberto was watching me from the driving seat. “Good night,” I said.
Next day was as warm and blue as the previous one. I breakfasted on the balcony, dressed leisurely and then drove out to the Villa Carlotta. Zina was waiting for me in the garden. She wore white slacks, white sandals and a white silk shirt. The white emphasised the warm olive tan of her skin and the raven-gleam of her hair. A blue wave of wisteria cascaded over the summer-house in which she was sitting. She took me down a rock path, heavy with blossom, to a wooden jetty where Roberto waited for us with a smart little motor launch, white-painted with chromium fittings sparkling against the glossy brown of the teak hull.
“Buon giorno, Roberto.” It was said softly, silkily and like that it seemed to have significance. Roberto looked at her as though he hated her. Then he turned quickly and started the engine.
Lounging on the cushions as the powerful engine thrust us out into the glare of the Bay I felt lazy and content as though I were a child again and had never known what it was like to be scared. The sound of the water creaming back from the bows and the touch of Zina’s hand on mine merged to form something beautiful that I wanted to grasp and keep. It was the lull before the storm and if I’d had my wits about me I’d have known it, for it was all there could I but have seen it—in the baffled hatred of Roberto’s glance, in the puff of vapour at the top of Vesuvius and in what happened at Casamicciola.
The sea was smooth as glass and as we roared westward at nearly twenty knots a liner was steaming into the Bay between Capri and the Sorrento peninsula, looking very big by comparison with the yachts whose white sails scudded round it. We passed Procida with its castle prison and the crater harbour of Porto d’Ischia. At Casamicciola, where we landed, the villas and hotels shone in the sunlight and the air was laden with the scent of blossom.
Zina took me to a small hotel where she was apparently known. We had a drink whilst our baths were prepared and I asked her what they were like. She shrugged her shoulders. “They are natural hot springs. They say that they are radioactive. I do not know anything about that. All I know is that you feel good afterwards.” She glanced down at my leg. “Is that made of metal?” she asked.
The Angry Mountain Page 11