Septimania

by Jonathan Levi

  “You have known, Malory,” Mrs. Emery said, “I hope you have known for a long time that you had a grandmother who loved you very much, but loved her daughter more.”

  Knowledge, Malory thought—tricky business, that.

  “It was out of respect for my poor, dead Sara that I never approached you directly when I saw you in St. George’s, or the many times I traveled into town on visiting days at school and ordinary times, and watched and felt the loneliness I had brought upon you and your mother. I expect it was your own love and loyalty to your mother that kept you away from me, stronger than any loneliness imaginable.”

  Malory said nothing, holding onto a gothic refusal to degenerate into a Dickensian Pip. But he remembered that final summer in the South of France.

  “Whose garden is this, Mother?”

  “What do you mean, Hercule?

  “Does it belong to Charlemagne?”

  “Not everything belongs to Charlemagne,” she smiled. “Not much, in fact. Any more.”

  “Then who?”

  “It’s yours, Hercule. The garden, the house.”

  “It isn’t yours?”

  “Some things,” she said, “are just for boys.”

  “But this garden is just for me?”

  “If you like.”

  “Do we like it here?”

  “You like the organ in the cathedral, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And the old lady next door? Do you like her?”

  “In the big house? I thought this was her garden, her cottage.”

  “No, Hercule, it’s yours. The old lady and I are just looking after it for you. Until you are bigger.”

  “And the medallion of King David in the cathedral? The one that you say looks like me. Is that mine?”

  “One day, perhaps. Who knows?”

  “The boys in the market make fun of my name. They say there is a giant Hercule who’s asleep beneath the hills.”

  “How do you know what they’re saying if they speak another language?”

  “Is it true, Mother? About the giant?”

  “If I told you, would you believe me?”

  “They say he stood in the ocean and pushed Europe away from Africa. Then he got sleepy and lay down.”

  “Not surprising after such hard labor.”

  “They say he rose up, the giant, and chased away all the Saracens.”

  “The Saracens! Did he?”

  “Is he my father? The giant Hercule?”

  “I thought you wanted to go to the cathedral, to play the organ.”

  “It’s out of tune, mother.”

  “Oh, Hercule. You and your ears!”

  “But it is. The whole world. England, France, Europe, Africa. Out of tune.”

  His mother paused. She tried to smile.

  “Then you must tune it, Hercule,” she whispered, “the way the giant Hercule tried to adjust the Strait of Gibraltar.”

  Malory said nothing to Mrs. Emery, sitting in the second pew of St. George’s Church, Whistler Abbey. He shifted the Kit Bag on his shoulder, the canvas of the strap brushing a light B-flat against the corduroy of his jacket. There was nothing to be said, zero. But not an uncomfortable zero. It was a zero stuffed full of history—addings and subtractings, the products of time and experience and the gain that fills the vacuum of loss.

  “I’ve brought you a gift, Hercule,” Mrs. Emery said.

  “Ah.”

  “No,” Mrs. Emery smiled. “Not the usual shilling. A book.” She handed him a parcel covered in brown paper and string. “An old book. It’s been in the family, which, after all, is your family, at least—” She smiled again at her own inability to disguise her wistful distaste. “At least your mother’s side of the family.”

  “Thank you,” Malory said, ever polite, finding a convenient slot for the parcel in the depths of the Kit Bag. “But why?” he asked. “Why today?” He didn’t know why he said it. But in a day of mysteries, it was the question of Pips and fair-haired girls and grandmothers.

  “To celebrate your discovery, of course.” Mrs. Emery stood and handed him a coin, her fingers as cool as the paving stones. “Now run across the road and get yourself a cup of tea.”

  IT WAS GETTING ON TOWARDS THREE O’CLOCK. BENEATH THE FIRST BUDS of the apple trees, a dozen green-striped lawn chairs were scattered as bait for the hardened tourist who might bicycle or motor or even punt the three miles from the urban towers of Cambridge in hope of the first bucolic pleasures of spring. But Malory needed to warm his brain. He opened the garden door of the Orchard and chose a small table inside near the fire. The single customer, a tall, red-bearded man, was chatting at the till in what Malory guessed was some sort of American accent. He nodded at Malory, but Malory turned to the fire, pretending not to see—not keen to give offense, but not prepared for a third new encounter.

  “For you.” The Brazilian wife of the proprietor—Malory had let her twins crawl on the pedals on the organ during several of his tunings—set a cup of tea and a plate of scones in front of him.

  “Thank you,” Malory said, “but I only have a shilling.”

  “A gift,” the Brazilian said.

  “But—”

  “Not from me,” she added, and turned back to the till. But the red-bearded American was gone. The Brazilian matron, too, moved away from Malory to clear the remains of what looked like an extensive three-bottle celebratory luncheon.

  The parcel, the tea, Malory thought. And above all Louiza. Three gifts in one strange day. One was in his Kit Bag, one was quickly disappearing down his gullet, and one may have vanished forever.

  He chewed, he swallowed.

  Antonella, he thought. Antonella would know. Antonella would be at the Maths Faculty at the Sidgwick Site. Antonella would do anything for Malory, even search in the records and find clues to lead him to Louiza. Although Malory preferred cycling along the footpath by the river, March was a month of mud, and he was in a hurry. Though Antonella seemed to live at the office, Malory knew that even lonely Italian girls had their limits and he had better hurry.

  The favor was not an issue. Antonella was clearly disposed—had been disposed for the better part of the three years she had worked as departmental secretary—to do more than just about anything for Malory. While Malory was only vaguely aware of his power over Antonella, he did know that in the Kingdom of Mathematicians, he as a Historian of Science, with his Beatle hair and bell-bottomed trousers, bestrode the River Cam with the charisma and stature of a Colossus. He couldn’t fail to notice her at the occasions where he was called upon to speak about Newton—at an introductory lecture for promising students or a social for curious old-age pensioners. Antonella was all copper curls and Botticelli bosom packed into a bit of Laura Ashley smocking—impossible to ignore, particularly at the departmental teas when Antonella with her biscuit tin was at her most solicitous. It was Rix, the Head Porter at Trinity—and therefore privy to the dozens of invitations to teas and coffees and esoteric mathematical functions that Antonella delivered by hand—who had first noticed Antonella’s interest.

  “Mr. Malory,” he said one severely rainy afternoon, “you’ll forgive my saying so, but there is a new film by Bertolucci at the Arts Cinema. He’s Italian,” Rix added when Malory stared up at him blankly from the crumbling foam of the Senior Common Room sofa. “As such, it might interest a certain young Italian lady.”

  “Ah,” Malory said, comprehension swimming to the surface of his embarrassment. “Antonella, you mean?”

  “I believe that is the young lady’s name, yes,” Rix answered. “Although I have difficulty with Italian names.”

  Malory’s embarrassment disappointed Rix, disappointed Antonella, and failed Bertolucci entirely. Nevertheless, he was sufficiently sussed to know that if Antonella was still at her desk at 4 p.m. of a March evening, he could ask her to search for Louiza in the files of the Maths Department, and she would give him another cup of tea—undoubtedly with two biscuits. But whe
n Malory locked his bicycle and unclipped his trouser cuffs by the red-brick and glass optimism of the Sidgwick Site and ran two flights up the concrete and veneer stairwell to the Maths Faculty, he found Antonella weeping in the corona of a battered black-and-white television set.

  “Oh, Malory!” She jumped up and ran to him, shaking in spasms that Malory quickly realized meant he might get neither his answers nor his tea as quickly as he had hoped.

  “Antonella!” Malory said, trying to pat helpfulness into her expansive shoulders. “What happened?”

  “Guarda!” she sobbed and pointed at the TV. The large-lipped, puppy-faced Anna Ford, whom Malory had always wanted to invite to High Table at Trinity if only to listen to her voice, was just turning to the camera.

  “Good evening,” she said. Antonella pulled Malory down onto the edge of her desk, dislodging a stapler and a stack of pencils. “Former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro has been kidnapped in Rome.”

  “Capisci?” Antonella turned her eyes, freshly teary to Malory. But Malory didn’t capisce a bit. He couldn’t even understand how he had ever been attracted to the newsreader, no matter how doe-eyed or thick-lipped. He had been pierced by Louiza’s i = u and that was it.

  “Mr. Moro’s escort of five police bodyguards were killed,” Anna Ford continued, “when he was snatched at gunpoint from a car near a cafe in the morning rush hour.”

  “What is this all about?” Malory asked.

  “This morning,” Antonella sobbed anew. “Aldo Moro—he is like your John F. Kennedy.”

  Not my John F. Kennedy, Malory wanted to say but let her continue.

  “They took him. Kidnapped.”

  “They?” Malory asked.

  “I do not know,” Antonella said. “Terrorists, Brigate Rosse, Red Brigade. Or maybe not. Maybe just politicians, maybe even the Americans.”

  “Americans?” Malory asked. The only American he could picture at the moment, besides John F. Kennedy, was the red-bearded giant at the till of the Orchard.

  “There is a war, Malory,” Antonella said. “In my Rome, a war.” She took his left hand in both of hers.

  “Ah,” Malory said, with as much sincerity as he could muster. Her eyes really were very pretty, magnified by the lens of tears. And he would have liked to make her feel better, independent of his own need to scan the departmental records. But the best he could say was, “Sorry, I’ve never been to Rome.”

  “But I am the one who is sorry!” Antonella jiggled off the edge of the desk and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “You came to see your Antonella, and she is crying.”

  Malory reached into what he hoped was the cleaner of the pockets of his corduroy jacket and handed her a handkerchief.

  “Antonella,” he said. “I know this is a bad moment. But there is a bit of information. It really would be most helpful.”

  “Ma guarda, tesoro,” Antonella said and ran to the bookshelf next to the television. “I am forgetting my Malory.” She flipped on the electric teakettle and reached up to the cupboard for mug, sugar bowl, and biscuit tin in such a way that Malory momentarily forgot what he was so delicately preparing to ask.

  “I’m not bothering you?”

  “Figurati!” Antonella said, swishing the hot water around the bottom of the teapot in a way that suggested an infinity of other activities. “The old men are all meeting an American. They think he is about to win the Fields Medal and are giving him some sherry. I was about to go home when I thought just a peek at the news, and I saw …” And she shook against Malory as the tea steeped.

  “Antonella.” They were now seated comfortably, knee to knee, or rather knees interlocked like the inlay on a backgammon board, Malory biting into a semi-molten chocolate digestive biscuit. “I am looking for—” He began again. “I need to get in touch with one of the faculty’s PhD candidates. Just passed the viva today.”

  “Today?” Antonella said. “What is his name?”

  “Her,” Malory said. “Her name, actually. She’s a woman. A girl, really. Very young.”

  “Oh, Malory!” Antonella laughed and offered the biscuit tin again. “Scherzi! You are playing games with your Antonella.”

  “Games?” Malory stopped, biscuit halfway to mouth. “Why games?”

  “Because Antonella is the only girl, the only female in the Department of Mathematics. You know that!”

  “Yes,” Malory said. “Of course. But Louiza distinctly told me she passed her viva today. For her PhD.”

  “Louiza?” Antonella put the biscuit tin behind her, on top of the TV, more in curiosity than in jealousy. “So, you are on the first-name basis with this PhD Louiza?”

  “Only first name,” Malory said. “I was hoping you might supply me with a surname, if not an address.”

  “Poor Malory,” Antonella said. “But I tell you, there is no Louiza with viva today or yesterday or tomorrow, with or without surnames.”

  “No Louizas?”

  “No girls. No women. Only Antonella.”

  “Ah,” Malory said. “Perhaps,” he pondered, “it wasn’t the Maths Department. Perhaps I need to ask—”

  “Perhaps Antonella could find out for you? Perhaps Antonella could help you?”

  “Would you?” Malory didn’t realize he was holding Antonella’s hands until she squeezed them with a digestive warmth.

  “For Malory?” Antonella said. And if Anna Ford hadn’t interrupted with a fresh bulletin on Aldo Moro, Malory would have been constrained to kiss a second woman in the same day.

  “Thank you!” Malory slung his Kit Bag across his shoulder as Antonella drew a full, Roman lip between her teeth at the photo of Aldo Moro on the television. A nice-looking man, Malory thought, as he pressed open the door to the stairwell.

  In response, a vibration stopped Malory at the top of the landing, a buzz that came from inside his Kit Bag. The Pip, in its 35-millimeter canister, was announcing something far more than was dreamt in Anna Ford’s philosophy.

  1/3

  OUIZA, DARLING …”

  The words came from her father’s mouth. But they were so unexpected, and half of Louiza was still up in the organ loft of St. George’s Church, that it took two repetitions to make her see that indeed her father had spoken.

  “Louiza, darling,” her father repeated, “there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  Louiza blinked again and noticed that there was a fourth person at the table in the Orchard and that she had completely missed her own celebratory lunch.

  “Where were you, darling?” Her mother. The Shetland cardigan, soft gray. “I checked the loo. We were so worried.”

  It was a man, the fourth at the table, a large man. A large man in a double-breasted suit with a thick head of red hair slicked back full of bear grease or motor oil or who knew what men put in their hair.

  “Hello, Louiza.” Deep, the voice. American. Big teeth, especially the left one in the front. And radiating positivity. Supremely positive, with a red beard.

  “Darling—” Her father again. “Mr. MacPhearson is an American—what would you call your profession?”

  “Congratulations on your degree,” Mr. MacPhearson said. He looked at Louiza so positively that she had to turn away.

  “Oh,” she said, which passed for modesty. She wondered what Malory was doing back in the church.

  “I understand that you’re at loose ends,” MacPhearson added.

  Loose ends? Louiza wondered what that meant, loose ends. She touched her hair. Her elastic band must have disappeared somewhere between the Orchard and the organ loft.

  “Mr. MacPhearson has an interesting offer, darling,” her father smiled. He too was positive, had turned positive for the first time Louiza could remember, but in a way that only pushed her anxiety higher. “He’s from America.”

  “You were gone over an hour,” her mother said.

  “America.” Louiza didn’t want to acknowledge the red-bearded addition to the table, but wanted even less to tell her mother ab
out her walk past the loo of the Orchard and across the road to St. George’s church and her climb up to the loft and the strange little man who equaled the deepest algebra of her identity.

  MacPhearson and her father took her single “America” as encouragement and launched into a lengthy explanation. MacPhearson had tried to attract her attention at the Maths Faculty following the viva. But failing that—Louiza’s father in particular had been intent on reaching their car before time expired—he had followed the family out to the Orchard and waited at a discreet distance until they had finished their celebratory lunch.

  MacPhearson’s explanation of why he had followed her out to the Orchard, what company he worked for, and how he wanted to hire her on “very generous terms” in the words of her father, filtered only vaguely into Louiza’s consciousness. What was vastly clearer—to her at least—was that MacPhearson had waited until she had left the table, perhaps until she had disappeared safely into the shadows of St. George’s Church, to approach the table and flatter Louiza’s parents with his offer.

  She caught certain words—complex, negative, equation—that made her suspect that MacPhearson, far from being a mathematician, was merely an agent for someone or something else that wanted Louiza. But she also caught other phrases that made her think that perhaps mathematicians were only agents for the MacPhearsons of the world. She had told Malory that the applications of i = u were many and potentially dangerous. Lucrative, too.

  “Mother,” she said. Perhaps it was in the middle of the explanation, but it didn’t really matter. “Do you want me to do this?”

  “Darling,” her mother said.

  And since Louiza would do anything for the mother who had introduced her to i, Louiza soon found herself living in a thatched cottage by the river, perhaps only a mile or so from the Orchard itself along the towpath towards Cambridge. Her mother had wanted to outfit her room—there were two others in the house, and Louiza had a small bedroom in the back of the second floor. But the “secrecy” phrase in MacPhearson’s explanation and the papers they all signed at the Orchard and the cash advance MacPhearson placed in care of Louiza’s father, meant that Louiza would be saying goodbye to her parents at the door of MacPhearson’s Morris Minor and would not be permitted to communicate with them, or anyone outside the company, whatever it was, for the first twelve months of her employ.