Ask No Question

by MARY HOCKING

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t know Amalfi?’

  ‘No.’ Alperin’s voice was high-pitched.

  ‘Then you must go there! It’s obvious that you’re in love with Italy; I’ve noticed the way you want to see everything. I’m the same myself. The war did it for me, of course. Right from Salerno . . .’

  ‘I was at Salerno,’ Alperin’s companion said.

  ‘Terrible weather, wasn’t it?’ Mitchell answered blandly. ‘Not the right month.’

  Alperin’s companion smiled, a smile that flashed like a knife and was gone.

  ‘I’ve been back every year since,’ Mitchell went on. ‘Never missed a year.’

  Alperin said, ‘Really!’ He sounded winded.

  ‘Speak Italian like a native.’

  Alperin’s companion looked away across the lake. He had black, sad eyes that were full of the kind of wisdom learnt in the dark streets of big cities. His brown face was smooth and unlined but it had never been young. His hair was black and naturally oily and it stretched across his skull like the sleekest of caps, no single strand ruffled by the faint breeze that played over the surface of the water. While Mitchell talked, he stared into the mist, the velvet eyes unexpectant, as though it would not have troubled him greatly if the journey had taken them all into eternity. Presently, however, the boat drew near to an island and he interrupted Mitchell to ask:

  ‘Isola Bella?’

  ‘No. Isola Pescatore.’ Mitchell turned back to the tormented Alperin. ‘It’s Isola Bella you must see. Wonderful people, the Italians! In England we should say it was spoilt if one restaurant opened up; but here they turn it into a floating Petticoat Lane. Not an inch of land wasted . . . except for the grounds of the château.’ He tapped Alperin’s shoulder to emphasize the advice he was about to give. ‘If you want to buy something in the market, never buy at the price they first name; they don’t expect it and . . .’

  Alperin said breathlessly, ‘I don’t want to buy anything.’

  ‘You’ll have to buy something—that’s what it’s there for. There isn’t a bench you can sit on without it costing you something.’

  The other man said, ‘Your friend does not appear to share your enthusiasm for Italy.’

  Mitchell glanced at Burke, who was leaning over the side of the boat brooding in a rather Byronic fashion on the far shore.

  ‘Too humid for him. He likes the mountain air. We’re going to Montreux later. At least he’ll have a view of a few snow-capped peaks there.’

  ‘I’m going to Montreux,’ Alperin admitted reluctantly.

  ‘Really? It’s not what it was. All the big hotels take in tours now—the place is full of people grumbling because they can’t get a nice piece of haddock.’

  As the boat left Isola Pescatore Burke got up and came across to them. He scarcely bothered to acknowledge Alperin and he did not look at his companion.

  ‘I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip,’ he said sourly to Mitchell. ‘How many films have you wasted?’

  ‘They’re not wasted, boy!’

  Burke stared morosely around him. ‘In this mist? Just like a bloody Turner, isn’t it? You wouldn’t be surprised to see the ‘Fighting Temérairé’ bearing down on you any minute.’

  ‘You’ll see plenty here.’ Mitchell nodded his head towards Isola Bella, the blue canopied stalls already visible between the trees along the front. Alperin screwed up his eyes anxiously and his companion said:

  ‘You might prefer a visit to the château.’

  ‘It’s about the only place where you won’t be trampled to death,’ Burke agreed.

  When they landed they set off for the château, Alperin and his companion with Burke stepping out purposefully between them. Mitchell, who genuinely enjoyed the market, spent a couple of hours wandering from stall to stall. He bought several scarves and a cheap leather wallet and then found a café where he could have a drink at a reasonable price. The café was by the lake; all the cafés overlooked the lake because the island was long and narrow, like a small, overcrowded raft, and apart from a few crumbling alleys it had no hinterland. Mitchell sipped his Campari and listened idly to the conversation of two of the stewardesses from one of the bigger boats. The younger of the two was quite attractive, but her dark face was thin and there was, he decided, more than a hint of the shrew about the mouth. He found himself thinking of Miriam Kratz, who had no hint of the shrew about her mouth. He frowned and picked up his glass, the Campari seemed particularly bitter. All in all, it had been a strange day. He thought he had long ago learnt to take things as they came, but Karel Huber’s appearance had surprised him. Alperin must have gone further than they had realized; but it was not this that surprised him, it was the fact that Huber should have been used as the contact. Even to the Communists, Huber, the ex-Nazi, represented the trash of the trade. Perhaps Burke had been right: the kind of life he enjoyed was indeed drained to the dregs. He found the waitress, paid and made his way down to the quayside. It was early evening now and colour was deepening as shadows encroached.

  He studied the timetable and found that the boat was due in ten minutes; it was the last boat back to the Swiss part of the lake. A few exhausted tourists were already hanging about the landing stage watching the fishing boats, but Alperin and his companions were not among them. Mitchell lit a cigarette and watched a fairhaired German boy balancing precariously on the edge of the landing stage egged on by companions at a safer distance. An Englishwoman grumbled, ‘That child will fall in.’ What if he did? Mitchell thought; he could almost certainly swim, and it would be a tremendous adventure that would imprint the holiday on his mind for all time. A boy needed such moments. He walked to the edge himself; in the distance he could just make out the boat coming from the direction of Stresa. There were more tourists around now. The Englishwoman marshalled her brood and stood them in line by the landing stage. The other tourists, mostly German and Italian, stood back, preferring the last-minute onslaught to the tedium of the queue. The boat came alongside, nosing against the supports with a contemptuous disregard for the finer points of navigation. Mitchell, who always enjoyed this performance, wondered how often the Italians had to effect repairs to their landing stages. The gangway was trundled forward and attached with a few nonchalant twists of an inadequate rope. A few undaunted passengers disembarked. By the time that the English family was disputing the passage with the Germans, Alperin and his dark companion had come into sight, hurrying from the direction of the market. Alperin looked hot and uncomfortable, his fair skin burnt painfully by the sun; beside him, Huber was cool as a lizard. There was no sign of Burke; no doubt he had found it advisable to part company with them, sustained cordiality was not his line. Nevertheless, he was cutting it fine. Mitchell looked back towards the market, feeling annoyed with Burke who was given to theatrical effects. When he turned round, Alperin was already on board. Mitchell called to him:

  ‘Have you seen my friend?’

  Alperin shook his head and shrank back into the crowd. Mitchell was alone on the quayside now. The man at the gangway shouted, ‘You come?’ Mitchell shook his head and the gangway clattered down. The engine started and the boat began to move, only glancing against one of the supports this time. Mitchell watched the dark gap between the boat and the quayside widen; he could see Alperin, now on the top deck, standing against the rail with Huber beside him. No doubt Huber was congratulating himself on an easy victory. As Mitchell turned and walked slowly back to the market he realized that this was the most unprofessional thing he had ever done. He turned in the direction of the château. The path between the stalls was in shadow, the stall keepers were sitting down, resting now that the main body of tourists had gone. For them it was a moment of peace: for Mitchell it was the beginning of uneasiness. There had been one or two inconsistencies in his behaviour lately that he had put down to the fact that he needed a holiday; but there had been nothing as bad as that moment on the quayside when he had suddenly felt that he wanted to turn hi
s back on the whole ridiculous charade. This was going to take a lot of explaining, he thought wearily. And what the devil had happened to Burke? He disliked this place too much to elect to stay on it of his own free will.

  When he came to the château Mitchell saw that the door was closed. There was a notice that said that the château was open from eleven in the morning until seven in the evening. Mitchell looked at his watch. Five past seven. With any luck someone would still be around. He pounded on the door which was eventually opened by an old man who pointed peevishly at the notice. Mitchell said in Italian:

  ‘My friend is in here.’

  The old man shook his head and pushed the door; Mitchell put one foot across the threshold.

  ‘He came in here a couple of hours ago and he hasn’t come out.’

  ‘There is no one in here now.’

  ‘I shall come back with the police.’

  The old man looked at him as if he had said a dirty word; he hesitated and while he hesitated Mitchell pushed his way into the dark hall. He was quite sure that Burke was here. If you are going to put someone out of the way for a couple of hours, you don’t do it in a crowded market when you have a convenient château in which to manoeuvre.

  ‘More than my job’s worth to leave anyone in here at night,’ the old man said belligerently.

  ‘In which case you had better hurry up and find my friend.’ This seemed to convince the old man and he set off, muttering under his breath, in the direction of the main stairs. They went from room to room and down winding corridors with occasional glimpses through slim windows of the lake, burning crimson and orange as the smoking sun dipped towards it. It was dark in the château; the old man put on a few lights but the corridors were long and the lamps few. It was not a hopeful place and Mitchell was reminded that all adventures must come to an end. They had been searching for twenty minutes when Mitchell heard a thumping from behind a door off one of the main corridors.

  ‘That’s the private part of the house,’ the old man said angrily.

  As though to emphasize the fact, a bolt had been shot outside the door. Mitchell drew back the bolt and opened the door, revealing Burke sitting on the lavatory seat, his foot drumming incessantly against the wooden skirting. It was a relief to find one was playing in farce, after all.

  ‘This is reserved for the family ghost,’ Mitchell told him. ‘What the hell are you doing in it?’

  ‘That bloody salami!’

  They tipped the old man and went out. As they went down the long flight of stone steps leading to the terrace, Mitchell glanced out of the corner of his eye at Burke. Burke was walking very stiffly and his face was set, but as Mitchell looked at him little cracks at the corners of his mouth began to undermine the masklike composure. They reached the balustrade overlooking the lake and Burke leant against it laughing convulsively.

  ‘Locked in the lavatory by Karel Huber! That would really convince Eliot that I’m finished, wouldn’t it?’

  They both laughed, laughter so violent and uncontrolled that one or two old people sitting on the stone benches on the terrace looked at them with furtive disapproval, wondering if they were drunk. After a while, still laughing, they walked down to the quayside to study the timetable. There would be a boat to Stresa in a quarter of an hour. Mitchell looked at his watch.

  ‘If we catch a bus from Stresa without too long a wait, we’ll be at Tamaro a good half hour before the boat comes in. In the meantime, let’s have a drink.’

  They made for the nearest café in a mood of extreme good fellowship. When their drinks were before them, and they were sitting looking at the shadowed water, Burke said:

  ‘Do you realize that at this moment Alperin is probably selling his soul to the devil?’

  Mitchell raised his glass, ‘To hell with Alperin!’

  They drank to this. Burke reflected for a while and then said:

  ‘You know, I’m rather sorry for Alperin.’

  Mitchell looked at him in surprise. ‘Sorry for him! Why? He’s a shoddy little creature.’

  Burke did not argue and they relaxed into a companionable silence.

  Alperin looked at the dim grey line of the shore, the details of village, house and church, of wood, road and ravine, no longer distinguishable. He looked at it anxiously, his sandy eyebrows drawn together and his eyes screwed up like those of a sentinel who has been on duty for too many weary hours and no longer sees very clearly. Beside him, his companion had fallen asleep. Great turrets of cloud were building up to the west and the water was grey, flecked with tiny silver-tipped waves. There were few people on the top deck. It was the one time during the whole day when they could have talked undisturbed; but Alperin’s dark companion slept and Alperin had no desire to wake him. When he met this man on Isola Madre and their conversation led smoothly from the subject of botanical specimens to more general scientific issues, Alperin’s heart had pounded as he realized that this man’s contacts included many eminent scientists in Eastern Europe. He had had one golden moment when he experienced the joy of fulfilment. Words would have spoilt everything; indeed they seemed superfluous since the man was himself a part of the moment and must surely understand. It was the way that Alperin had always wanted it to happen, a sudden transformation without the necessity for words which were treacherous tools, imprecise, two-edged, inadequate for delicate work. So he had not spoken then, but had enjoyed his golden moment. It had been a brief ecstasy. Exhilaration had dwindled rapidly thanks to the intervention of the garrulous Mitchell and his even more loathsome companion who had made uncouth comments as they were conducted round the château until he finally disappeared, presumably too bored to complete the tour. That was over now. But it had been very exhausting, so Alperin watched the shore in silence and did not wake his companion.

  All his life, it seemed, there had been a distant shore, and always enchantment had faded when he drew near. It was the Kafka experience in reverse: the more one penetrated, the more the veils were stripped aside and the less mysterious and more bleakly comprehensible the world became. Sometimes he feared it would all end in one brightly lit stone courtyard, without shadow or conflict of colour, and he would know that he had reached the empty heart of the universe. But hope is essential to survival and on the whole Alperin wanted to survive. So he still longed for the distant shore. He had longed for it ever since he could remember, although his conception of what it represented had changed as the nature of his disappointments changed. As a child, ignored by parents exhaustively concerned with their own failures, he had longed to escape to boarding school; at boarding school where he was good at the wrong things, he longed to go to university where his intellect would be appreciated; at university, where his lack of audacity was condemned and his sharp, accurate mind was not appreciated, he longed for the maturer judgments of adult society. By the time he had been rejected by adult society, he had exhausted the possibilities of his own world. He had been born in the wrong age, of course; but that was something which could not be remedied. But there was another world, a new Jerusalem waiting for those whose faith was strong. It was a fine, invigorating thought and already it had carried him a long way; but, just occasionally, there came a terrible moment when he felt very near that brightly lit courtyard and he asked himself: suppose this last enchantment were to fail? This was wrong, of course; the climber must not ask himself what will happen if the rope breaks, nor must the sojourner in the desert think about the time when the water supply has gone.

  Weakness . . . weakness . . . Alperin buttoned his linen jacket and spread a plastic raincoat across his thin knees; the mist was beginning to penetrate. Beside him, his companion slept on. There was time, Alperin thought, there was time . . . After all, this trip to Maggiore had been intended as a holiday, a necessary pause between two worlds.

  Chapter Eight

  The threatened storm blew over and it was a calm, warm night when the bus from Stresa reached Tamaro. The bus stop was in the higher part of the town—Tamaro Sup
ra, as it was called. This part was old and did not attract many tourists except at night when they came up to see ‘how the people lived.’ On this particular night the narrow main street was crowded with tourists staring in dingy shop windows and exclaiming ecstatically as they gazed down dark, rank-smelling alleys. The ‘people’ sat in doorways and watched these antics with tolerant good humour. Burke, not so tolerant, fumed:

  ‘What bloody fools they are! They come to Ireland and hang around perfectly respectable cottages, waiting to photograph the family living with the pigs.’

  Mitchell did not answer. There was a girl in front, strolling hand in hand with a long, thin man with long, thin hair. The girl wore very brief shorts, her hips were slim and her legs were flawless. Mitchell watched her legs while Burke transferred his wrath to the bus service.

  ‘The boat got in over an hour ago. And yet they have the effrontery to advertise a round trip—go by boat, come back by bus! What they don’t tell you is that you have a two hour wait for the bus.’

  ‘I didn’t think time mattered to the Irish,’ Mitchell murmured. He wondered whether the girl’s shape was as pleasing from the front as it was from behind. On the whole, he tended to keep away from the young whom he always equated with innocence despite many proofs to the contrary. Nevertheless, he was pleased when the girl stopped to look in a shop window, revealing for his inspection a narrow waist and small, high breasts. She turned her head slightly so that he had a glimpse of a gay, provocative face that was not so young as the body had suggested. Mitchell, his interest quickened, wondered how he could get rid of Burke. The other man’s despatch could, he felt sure, safely be left to the woman.

  ‘There’s no frantic hurry,’ he said to Burke who showed a tendency to walk at a reasonable pace. ‘It’s been a long, hard day and . . .’

  ‘You’re tired and you want to go to bed.’ Burke was mocking but not ill-humoured.

  The woman and her companion had stopped outside a pension where there was a courtyard with tables amid some rather unkempt shrubbery. The courtyard was lit by a few dim lamps round the walls; it did not look very clean and there was a smell of bad drains. Nevertheless, the woman urged her companion towards a table. Burke said maliciously: