by Allan Massie
“Hasn’t she?”
“No. Not like that. Barbara’s on a different plane.”
Perhaps she was; but it was one where Franz aspired to join her. She dazzled him, as she dazzled so many, but it was not, I think, the glamour which attracted him. It was her complete certainty, her self-surrender to a cause which, however mad it seemed to me, presented itself to Franz as a justification, an escape from the torment of the responsibilities he had accepted. I say “self-surrender” even though I also saw her behaviour as evidence of the most monstrous egoism. Contrary to what many think, the two coexist happily. Franz longed to lose himself in her magnetic field, and hoped thereby to find himself.
Becky was different. There was nothing glorious in what she demanded of him. That made it all the harder. Her demands had really by this time come to appear to him acts of selfishness. She was impatient when he denounced the rottenness of society and all social arrangements; she would have liked him to be more efficient at finding a taxi when she wanted one.
So for the next months there was friction. It never became more than that. Each shrank from open argument which might turn bitter. Aware of what she wanted, he allowed himself to be persuaded to drop the proposed action against the warders (I am almost sure it was the prison staff, not the police, who were responsible for his condition). Then he resented the silent pressure she had exerted; and resented his resentment. Her misery in these months hurt him; but it was also a bore. When he came home to find her sitting in the kitchen with an open wine bottle on the table, and Jessica blank-faced before the television screen, he felt her apathy as a reproach. She had committed herself to him, at first absolutely, and her unhappiness was proof of his own incapacity. There is nothing more bitter to taste than an unhappy marriage founded in love.
Curiously he didn’t blame me. Indeed, quite the opposite. He hoped to revive the ménage-à-trois, for that had allowed him the freedom to escape into the anonymity of political action. But I was myself helpless to help. Becky had for the time being gone beyond me. She was concentrated again on Franz, and she could do nothing to please him.
THREE
Franz had avoided deportation, but the idea of moving to Italy stayed with him. He was restless, depressed also by Becky’s unhappiness and perhaps disillusioned by public events: the solidity of English public life weighed upon him. There was not, after all, going to be a revolution. Then Barbara went to the United States. Her principles did not prevent her from accepting the lead part in a big Hollywood movie. Though he said nothing against her, he was like a ship which had lost its anchor. Suddenly the comrades appeared to him as a bunch of misfits. This was a rather obvious fact which her glamour had concealed.
So they left for Rome. It was not clear what they would do there. It wasn’t necessary that it should be. Change was what they needed. They were like Victorians sent abroad for the sake of their lungs.
Nell opposed their move, or at least tried to persuade them to leave Jessica with her. She didn’t trust Becky then; she thought she was in no condition to bring up a daughter. On the contrary, I said; without Jessica things would be very much worse.
As for myself, I was in favour of the move. My affair with Becky was unsatisfactory. I found it diminishing. I spent too much time with her, and left in low spirits. Perhaps – we agreed – it was London that was at fault. This may have been true of her. She had developed a hatred of the 73 bus route, and of the pub below their flat where young men in advertising or sales congregated. She would stand looking out over the soot-speckled green watching the rain form puddles on the tennis court, and Irishmen from lodging houses settle on benches with pint bottles of Guinness and copies of the Donegal Herald or Limerick Gazette.
They found an apartment in the old Ghetto, in the Via Portico d’Ottavia. Immediately Becky’s spirits soared. The rhythm of Roman life suited her.
“Why the Ghetto?” I asked, suspicious.
“Because it’s beautiful.”
“And not in any way connected with Kestner, and Franz’s guilt?”
“Of course not. That’s all in the past.”
I didn’t see them for eighteen months. We exchanged letters, few of which have survived my various moves.
Here is one:
Dear Gareth,
Tame opening I know, but you know how I hate to commit myself, and anyhow you have a new girl, you say.
Let me tell you what I did yesterday. It’s been like most of the days, because there is really nothing unusual to write about.
That’s good, don’t you think?
I got up early, seven o’clock, which is a good change from London days, you’ll agree. It’s all right, I suppose, for some people to laze in bed, but I’m coming to know myself and I believe it contributes to depression and low spirits in my case.
I went down to the little bar below us for a cappuccino and then bought some peaches, one for Jessica’s breakfast, because she’s got a thing about peaches just now. So we had breakfast on our little terrace which gets the early morning sun. It’s at the back of the building and is really not much more than a balcony. Swifts zoom over us. They nest in the Teatro Marcello at the end of the street.
Then Jessica drew while I worked on a short story. She really draws very interestingly, I think there may be a genuine talent there. The short story will surprise you, but I must do something besides being a mother and I don’t think I can stand movies again. Maybe pretending to be other people contributed to my breakdown, and it was a breakdown, I see that now. I write very slowly; it’s awkward.
Then we went shopping. That’s to say, to the market. I hate shopping but I love the market. It’s in Campo de’ Fiori, very animated. There’s a statue of Giordano Bruno there which is where he was burned apparently. Isn’t he something to do with those people you used to be interested in?
I met an English boy we’ve got to know there. He’s called Antony. Like almost everybody he taught English here, but unlike almost everybody, he stayed. He’s been in Rome seven years, and never wants to leave. I’m beginning to feel that way myself, but then Jessica’s schooling may be a difficulty, though there are English schools, but v expensive, they say. Antony’s a journalist now, and a Communist. You hardly ever meet anyone who isn’t. He has a Calabrian girlfriend who is v suspicious of me, and glowers whenever we meet. She looks like a young Anna Magnani.
Anyway, she wasn’t there today and so Antony gave me lunch. (Well, actually, I paid, but he suggested it.) We ate spaghetti al pescatore and drank wine from Marino in the Castelli which is OK. The waiters all adored Jessica. They took her through to the kitchen and then she wandered round the restaurant with a squid in each hand. It’s her blonde curls.
We sat outside the restaurant long after they closed and nobody minded. Antony can be very funny. Do you know, I’d forgotten how to laugh. Then he strolled back home with us, and I put Jessica to bed and slept for a little myself. Antony and Franz were drinking beer when I woke up.
Jessica comes to restaurants in the evenings too, and if she wants to fall asleep falls asleep. Nobody minds. We crossed the bridge to Trastevere and met some other friends and all had dinner together. So I was a little drunk when we got home, but, like you say, wopsy drunk, not sad drunk.
Do you know what I’m learning?
I’m learning to be happy.
I’d forgotten how.
Lots of love, B.
And here’s another:
Darling Gareth,
Sorry about your girl, but she sounded a bitch.
Nell arrived safely yesterday and said you were well rid of her.
She’s in good form. She’s already told me: my hair needs washing, my clothes are a disgrace, I look like a slut, my kitchen is insanitary, and Jessica has developed a terrible accent. Pretty good, eh?
We had a lovely surprise last week. Our friend Luke Abramowitz arrived here, out of the blue or at least a Boeing. He’s been in New York. His wife Rachel left him, which is sad or not sad
depending on opinion. She couldn’t stand Israel. She always wanted to be an all-American girl. Now she’s living with another one, or at least a Canadian, a journalist we met covering the trial, called Minty Hubchik. Rachel wrote me a crazy letter saying men were out and only a woman could make a woman happy. I think Minty wanted to make me happy back in Jerusalem. No thanks.
You would like Luke. He has twice the vitality of anyone I know, except you. He has only 50 per cent more than you. He gave me his new novel, it’s marvellous. It makes me despair of my own piddling attempt to write. He was fine with Jessica. He hates not having children of his own. Apparently you are also practically a traitor to Israel if you don’t breed a new generation of Israelis.
“You’ll get married again,” I said.
“Well, what about it, Becky?” he said. “You know that’s why I’ve come to Rome.”
Franz was with us at the time and he smiled in that way he has as if he’s excusing an error of taste. But you know, Luke meant it. And I was tempted. God, I was tempted. It wouldn’t be fair to Luke to land him with a neurotic like me, but maybe it’s my only hope of not being a neurotic. Only, I couldn’t live in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, where every corner has a memory of misery. So I said, “You give up Israel, I’ll give up Franz.”
And he laughed and squeezed my hand as if it was a joke, and in his gesture and the warmth of his grip acknowledging that it was no joke at all, that he knew I was deadly serious, but asking him to do something which was beyond him.
“No,” I said, “I can’t ask you to do that. Love and marriage aren’t that important compared to what you mean to Israel, or Israel to you.”
“You sound like your father,” he said.
“Oh yes, indeed, he came to think that way, didn’t he.”
It was all light-hearted and flirtatious, we hopped about like canaries in a cage, and Franz sat there pretending to smile.
“Besides,” Luke said, “you’d be tired of me in a week, missing Franz. After all, you’re bound together, don’t think I don’t know that.”
Franz took the empty wine-flask and went down to the shop to get it refilled. I think he left us alone at this moment, precisely, on purpose, which was kind of him. Or was it?
The truth is: Franz and I are nearly finished. That’s sad, isn’t it? When we used to mean so much to each other. He was everything to me once. I remember – I’ve never told anyone this – that time we were kidnapped in Argentina, & Gaby – you know who I mean – was terrified of being raped, & my fear was that if we were Franz would think I was someway contaminated, & wd have nothing more to do with me. He’s so sensitive, I kept thinking. Well, that at least was true. Of course Gaby thought that way too, about her fiancé Luis, but that was different, that was crazy Argentinian macho sense of honour. Franz was different.
And then later I was afraid on account of his father & what he meant to Franz: “That’s Jewish flesh you’re touching…”
I was terrified that wd come between us.
And now we don’t make love any more, & I pretend to be asleep, the Jewish flesh still, & listen to him & I don’t know whether it’s Barbara (whom I can’t stand) or boys he’s imagining. Charlie Bastini is always dropping in to the apartment again.
Of course the real reason we’ve gone off each other is that we make each other unhappy in ways that we can’t control because we don’t begin to understand the causes. If there are causes. Do you think there are reasons for the way we behave, any of us, to each other? I don’t think there are, now.
I know what you’re thinking: Becky’s plastered again. But look at my handwriting, Gareth darling, it’s straight and regular & sober. Becky’s drinking, but she’s not drunk.
I came so close to saying all this to Luke. I really adore him, always have. But it’s like with you. You love me, I know that, Luke loves me, but you cd neither of you live with me. I’d drive you crazy. I don’t drive Franz crazy, I just drive him back into himself & away from me.
Besides, he’s involved in what he calls politics again. Revolutionary nonsense. God, I hate Barbara. Though it’s not her fault. Not really.
Kisses,
Becky.
I bought a novel by Luke Abramowitz at Heathrow. It was a short book, only a hundred and fifty pages of big print with wide margins, and I read it on the Rome plane. It was the story of a married man in love with a girl he couldn’t have. She was a friend of his daughter’s, and she wasn’t much like Becky. Actually the daughter resembled Becky more, and there were moments when you wondered if the narrator wasn’t using his daughter’s friend as a substitute for the incestuous love he felt for this daughter. I liked the way it was written, the descriptions of the weather, and the manner in which emotions were presented and neither analysed nor accounted for. Things happened this way, and then that, the way they do in life. I could see why Becky was in love with Luke. There was a good physical feel to the way he wrote. It was like Hemingway without the bullshit and the self-pity. He had imitated Hemingway’s habit of having the narrator address the girl he fancied, in his thoughts at least, as “daughter”, and in the context of this story, that was even more unsettling than when Hemingway does it. I liked the way he combined a sense of moral unease with a firm and decent morality.
When I finished the book, I looked out of the plane window and saw the Mediterranean. That looked OK too. I had never been in Italy before.
Franz collected me at the airport. He was thinner than ever, and wore jeans that made him thinner still, and open-toed sandals and a blue cotton shirt. There was a sore at the corner of his mouth.
“This isn’t the real Rome,” he said, twice, as we rode in from the airport, “you have to wait till we get inside the Aurelian Wall.”
But it looked fine to me. I liked the pine trees and cypresses and the dust and the colour of stone and sky.
“Can we stop for a beer?” I said.
The melancholy that was the foundation of his charm had deepened, paradoxically reducing the charm. A balance had been destroyed. He had been a boy who wore an air of perplexity – expensive, soft as a cashmere cardigan – as if he could not account for the fact that life was not quite as it had been sold to him; now he resented the certainty which had drowned that perplexity. He had the petulance of a man who has been cheated, and can’t accept it. Italy was a spoiled Eden, stinking of corruption.
“But it always has been,” I said. “Throughout history.”
He brushed my suggestion aside. His hand trembled as he lifted his glass of beer. I couldn’t take my eyes, or keep them long, from the sore that disfigured his mouth.
“I’m not going to sleep with you. You needn’t think I’m going to sleep with you,” Becky said.
“No,” I said.
Franz had already told me she had a lover. He had been in the middle of explaining how worried he was; how she was drinking too much – “Half an hour after Jessica’s in bed, and she’s making no sense. I’m not sure how much longer I can stand it.” And then he had said, “David encourages her. He drinks like a fish and she wants to keep up.”
“Who’s David?” though I guessed half the answer.
“You’ll meet him. He’s always around now. David Williams. His father was Llewellyn Williams, the actor.”
“Ah yes,” I said, “what they used to like to call a hellraiser.”
There was a story of how, playing Hamlet, he had fallen into Ophelia’s grave before Laertes and the rest arrived, and been too drunk to clamber out. That had happened on Broadway. Some of his television interviews were even more famously disastrous; there was one with Muggeridge, I think, but I don’t recall the details.
“I’m not in love with Dai,” Becky said. “I suppose Franz has told you we’re having an affair. Well, he’s fun and I’ve been starved of fun. Jessica adores him.”
He sat there, smoking and drinking and sweating and laughing. “Us Welsh buggers,” he said.
“Ah, but I’m North Wales,” I said, “and I’ve
never lived there.”
“Me neither. Not since I was a kid. Wet, windy, wicked, and sodden with beer, my dad used to say. All the same, the place had a hold on him. It was always Welsh approval he wanted. Cardiff Arms Park, the Western Daily News, Gwennie Roberts next door, and weak Welsh bitter. He used to argue that Shakespeare was Welsh, though he bloody got out, he would say.”
Franz slid from the apartment.
“Politics,” Becky said, and passed me the flask of white wine. “It’s called a fiasco, isn’t that a lovely word for a wine bottle?” she said, and ran her hand through David’s curls.
“My dad was once asked on the telly what he thought of Welsh Nationalism. He replied in three words. Two of them were Welsh Nationalism.”
“And bugger revolutionary politics too,” Becky said. She stroked his cheek which was round and freckled and flushed.
“No,” Becky said, “I’m not in love with him, and if I’m having an affair, it’s one that is not going to hurt me. I’m never going to be in love with anyone again, I’ve decided. Dai’s fun. He’s got vitality. So I drink him up.”
It was the next day, or the day after, and we were having a picnic on the Palatine. We had bought food in a rosticceria – stuffed tomatoes and salami, olives, bread, cheese; cherries from a fruit shop and a bottle of wine, and aranciata for Jessica. It was hot and quiet, the dead hour of the day when the tourist buses were still. We lay against a crumbling wall, and Jessica made daisy chains.
“I like it when he talks about Wales,” Becky said. “Don’t you ever wish you lived on that farm of yours?”
After a little, Jessica crawled into the shade and fell asleep. We poured more wine and didn’t speak. The hum of traffic was distant from us, there among the ilexes and roses.
“I’d rather stay here,” I said.