Death of a Dutchman

by Magdalen Nabb

  'In other words, a suicide,' said the Substitute Prosecutor, after listening with unconcealed impatience to the young doctor's solemn and meticulous preliminary report, 'albeit a messy one. Changed his mind half way, d'you think?'

  'It's possible. But there are one or two things . . .'

  'Well, the autopsy should clear them up.' He turned back to the officer: 'Who is he? Do we know?'

  'A Dutchman—or rather, Italo-Dutch. He was born here in Florence of a Dutch father and an Italian mother, both deceased, but there is a surviving stepmother, present whereabouts unknown but thought likely to be in England, according to the next-door neighbour here who knew her well. He has a wife and a mother-in-law in Amsterdam. We're going through his papers now for the address.'

  'Hm. Good.'

  The young officer glanced gratefully at the Marshal who remained silent and impassive in the doorway, his eyes occasionally scanning the room.

  The Substitute Prosecutor was anxious to leave, but the Examining Magistrate still hadn't turned up. Waiting, he said:

  'A Dutchman. There won't be any diplomatic repercussion? He wasn't. .. ?'

  'No,' the officer said, 'I don't think so. He was a jeweller and goldsmith, quite well-to-do, nothing more.'

  'Good. Well, let his wife know as soon as possible. Best do it through the Dutch Consulate, Via Cavour . . .'

  It was a struggle to get the metal coffin down the staircase, and all four Brothers were perspiring under their black hoods by the time they reached street level. The crowd stood back and watched it loaded into the Misericordia van, and the Marshal, who had followed it down, heard them murmuring:

  'Poor old creature . . .'

  'She was over ninety, of course - . .'

  'Even so, they say it was suicide ... or worse, and the place is full of police . . .'

  The shops around the piazza were rolling up their metal shutters, the noisy signal that they were about to open for the evening. But the heat, at five o'clock, was just as intense as ever, and the suffocating blast that had hit the Marshal as he came out of the dark doorway dismayed him. He had never got used to the humid heat of Florence, so unlike the dry, burning days down south, even though he had been there six years, not counting his days in the non-commissioned officers' school.

  The heat never seemed to come from the sun but to rise in oppressive waves from the heated stones of the buildings, imprisoning the city in a hot cloud that got progressively sweatier and more exhaust-laden as the day went on. The feeling of asphyxiation was so intense that the Marshal often felt the urge to open a window in order to breathe, and then he would remember that he was outside.

  On the opposite side of the piazza stood the cool-looking bar, large and tiled, that sold drinks and homemade ice-cream, but when the Marshal reached it he saw that the cash desk was thronged with half-dressed young tourists queuing for receipts before choosing their ice-cream. The only alternative to queuing would be to sit at one of the white tables under the trees and be waited on, but,he couldn't see himself doing that. It would cost double, anyway.

  He made his way out of the piazza and eventually found a bar with no queue, a small, dark place with a pinball machine in the back and hundreds of assorted, dusty bottles on the shelves. The proprietor, whose grey hair was cut en brosse, wore a faded maroon jacket and a bow tie, as if he had once worked in a big restaurant.

  'A coffee and a glass of water.' He took a couple of brioches from the clear plastic box on the bar.

  'Hot,' remarked the barman, by way of conversation. 'We should be at the seaside, not working. But I don't go anymore, what with the crowds and the expense. It said on the news last night that, apart from your pensione or whatever, you need between eighty and a hundred thousand lire a day at the seaside.'

  'I can believe it.'

  'Five thousand a day just to go on the beach, deck-chair and umbrella and whatnot, ice-cream for the kids twice what it cost last year—mine are grown up, thank God, and they take their kids camping.'

  'Good idea,' said the Marshal, munching.

  'That's what I say. Even so, things are not what they were.'

  'They're not. How much do I owe you?'

  'One thousand exactly—there are some charging twice that price across the river but it's madness, that's what I say. Where's it all going to end if we're all greedy ..."

  The Station was very quiet when he got back to Pitti. The downstairs office was empty, and the only sounds were the whining of the fan and a spasmodic tapping noise, interspersed with long, thoughtful pauses. There was no need to ask who it was.

  'Aoh! Ciccio!'

  The Marshal was smiling, as everyone did, just at the thought of the roly-poly fair-haired boy. He soon appeared, lolloping slowly down the stairs, his shirt collar open and his tie askew.

  'You're all alone?'

  'Yes, sir. Lorenzini and di Nuccio went out in the van to collect the post.'

  'Any calls?'

  'No, sir.'

  It was always the same; if there was a desirable errand to do such as collecting the post which came up by courier from General Command in Rome, or even going round to the mensa to collect the lunches, Gino would let the other two go. But when it came to going for bread or water to the grocer down in the piazza there would be the usual argument about whose turn it was, followed by Gino's saying cheerfully, 'I'll go.'

  The Marshal looked at his watch.

  'Have they been gone long?'

  'Not very long.' Gino blushed, knowing as well as the Marshal knew that they would find five minutes for a quick coffee and a chat with old friends and acquaintances.

  'And what about you going for the post now and then? Don't you like to have a chat to the other lads occasionally, eh?'

  'I've got my brother, Marshal.' Gino smiled, pink with pleasure.

  It was true that they never lost an opportunity to be together. Sometimes they went to the cinema, sometimes they just walked round town. Sergio, the elder brother, had been admitted to the non-commissioned officers' school. Gino, as a consequence, worshipped him more than ever, if that were possible. But nothing the Marshal could say would persuade him to apply for admission to the school himself.

  'My brother has all the brains,' he would say. 'He's always been brighter than me.'

  'But you've got to think of the future. It's no joke having to retire at an age when you've still got young children to bring up.'

  'But nobody would marry me, Marshal. Sergio's always been the good-looking one of the family.' And he would blush more furiously than ever.

  The Marshal brooded over all his lads, but he had a real soft spot for Gino who reminded him rather of himself at the same age. He too had been a peasant's son, overweight and awkward. But not, he reflected now, quite so naif; it took a northern country bumpkin for that. Gino had never seen a foreigner before he joined up. Well, he was still very young, there was plenty of time for him to change his mind.

  'I'm going to have a rest for half an hour.' He patted the boy on the shoulder and opened the door that led to his quarters. 'No doubt the others will be back by then. I'll have to go out again afterwards and finish my hotel round . . .'

  In the cool, dark living-room where the shutters had been closed all day, the Marshal took off his jacket and shirt, sat down in his armchair, and heaved his feet on to a stool. He had thought he wanted to sleep but he found himself wakeful. It was only peace he needed, to let certain images roll through his mind. Some of them returned repeatedly: the humped figure behind the door, a nervous, black-hooded boy carefully rolling back a grey silk sock, lumps of vomit swirling round in the water under a running tap . . . and that tiny noise that had sent him running to the bedroom. Had the man been conscious? Had that tiny noise cost him enormous effort? Other images appeared, too: of the man blundering around the flat . . . 'Crashing about as if he were in a temper.' More like a wounded animal. . . And he had cut his hands, somehow, and then tried to bind them up clumsily with a towel. Suicide . . . why shou
ld the Substitute Prosecutor think that? Surely it was obvious . . . But perhaps he didn't know yet about the woman. Had he told the officer in charge about Signora Giusti's having heard a woman? If he hadn't . . . what a terrible mistake . . . how could he have forgotten a thing so important. . . the woman . . . He could see her malicious little eyes, her tight lips, that smirk of selfish satisfaction as the priest raised his hand to give absolution . . . Yet surely, she hadn't been there then? The Dutchman had said it wasn't her . . .

  The Marshal realized, seconds before it happened, that he was falling asleep after all.

  Di Nuccio's voice woke him with the suddenness of a gunshot, although he had only spoken quietly out in the office. The Marshal's mouth was dry and his head throbbing. There was a heavy pain in his arms and across his chest caused, he realized as he got slowly to his feet, by having slept with his fists clenched. It was like waking from a nightmare, though he had no recollection of having had one. He took some deep breaths and staggered to the bathroom to splash cold water on himself and to try and unjumble the thoughts that were knotted in his head. Ridiculous to get into such a state over nothing. Of course he had informed the officer about Signora Giusti's woman—and what a grim picture he had conjured up of her in his half-sleep! The thought of the tight-lipped face he had invented made him shudder as he put on a clean shirt. He went through to the kitchen and heated up the remains of his breakfast coffee in the hope of waking himself up properly and clearing his brain. He drank off the two inches of thick, scalding coffee in one mouthful and got into his jacket; he still had work to do. But the headache and the nightmare heaviness in his chest stayed with him throughout an evening of plodding from hotel to pensione through the still sweltering, ice-cream-splattered streets, of going up in lifts lined with red carpet or disfigured by graffiti, and going down staircases smelling of new paint or stale cooking, of reaching for the blue register in reception halls where the scraping of cutlery in half-glimpsed dining-rooms reminded him how late it was and how little he had eaten all day.

  'The trouble is,' said the Marshal, addressing his absent wife, as he often did, 'I don't like the way that man died. I don't like it at all . . . Right, that's ready for the salt.'

  The last remark referred to a large pan of water which had begun to boil furiously. He spooned the salt in and watched it froth up and dissolve, then slid a thick fistful of spaghetti out of their cellophane wrapping and spun them with surprising delicacy through the bubbling water. Of the two meals in his culinary repertoire he had chosen spaghetti al pomodoro rather than bread and cheese, partly because he was very hungry and partly because it was more cheering and so worth the extra heat that the boiling pan would cause. The night was just as still and suffocatingly hot as the day, and there was no point in opening windows to let in warm air and mosquitoes.

  The Marshal, having got back late from his rounds, was pottering round the little kitchen, wearing his vest and a worn old pair of khaki trousers. He took from the cupboard a new jar of the tomato and herb preserve which his wife made every summer, packing the jars in a cardboard box for him to bring up to Florence on the train. It was the last jar; in August he would be going home for the holidays.

  On top of the cupboard the television was switched on, but with the sound barely audible. The Marshal got more comfort and company out of the noise from upstairs where the lads were playing cards, to judge from their disjointed murmurings and occasional arguments, to the accompaniment of Gino's radio. The radio was a present from his brother and his most prized possession, though he always let the others choose the programmes.

  'God, this heat!'

  That was Lorenzini opening the window above the Marshal's kitchen and then shutting it again in despair.

  The Marshal showered cheese on to his mountain of tomato-topped spaghetti, poured himself a small tumbler of wine and sat down at the kitchen table, gazing absently at the television. As he plunged his fork through the powdery cheese and glistening red sauce, the noise from upstairs suddenly increased. Di Nuccio's voice began to rise and fall in an anguished, almost tearful diatribe, interrupted by the cynical staccato of Lorenzini giving him a lecture in Florentine good sense. As Di Nuccio became more tearful, Lorenzini got more exasperated. Without distinguishing more than the odd word of their conversation, the Marshal knew that this signalled the end of Di Nuccio's latest love-affair, the eighth, or was it the ninth, of the last two years. The Marshal had seen them together in the piazza a week ago and had been even more horror-stricken than usual by this girl, a skinny, unappetizing creature in skin-tight black trousers, a baggy, shocking-pink T-shirt with glittery designs all over the front, and a thickly painted face half buried in a mass of frizzy, bleached hair. Watching them from across the street, the Marshal's big eyes had almost popped out of his head with disapproval but Di Nuccio hadn't even noticed him, bending over the girl as he was, and talking nineteen to the dozen. The pattern of these love-affairs always followed the same strict timetable: a month of preliminaries, during which Di Nuccio went about like a love-sick cat, talking about nothing else and boring everybody to tears, then a relatively calm couple of months during which the girl was putty in his hands, then the Obstacle. The Obstacle varied from some mythical rival to the disapproval of La Mamma. Once the Obstacle was named, the affair would break up and Di Nuccio would maintain a morose silence for about a week.

  Lorenzini, who had just applied for permission to marry the girl he had been courting since he left school, exhausted himself trying to talk sense to Di Nuccio. Di Nuccio privately told the Marshal that Lorenzini was a heartless northerner who understood nothing. The Marshal privately explained to young Gino that Lorenzini was a romantic who indeed understood nothing, and that, sooner or later, when Di Nuccio had had enough adventures to satisfy his vanity, he would find a girlfriend who just happened to have a café or a bit of land in the family and Love Would Find A Way. Gino contented himself with being a good listener.

  A film was starting on the television and the Marshal reached over to turn up the volume, but before he could do so the telephone rang. Going through to the bedroom where he took his calls at night when the office was shut, he thought at once of the Dutchman, realizing that this thought had been with him all along, as if he'd been expecting a call.

  But it was his wife:

  'I want the Marshall' she shouted, never convinced that the telephone could bridge a thousand miles without some effort on her part.

  'Teresa? It's me. What is it? What's wrong?'

  She never phoned him except in an emergency. Normally, he phoned her on Thursday, his day off. This was Monday.

  'Salvatore! Is it you? There's nothing wrong. Just something I have to ask you—Thursday would be too late.'

  'Where are you? At the post office?'

  'At Don Torquato's house—and he refuses to let me pay so I'll have to be quick. It's about Mamma.'

  'She's not worse?'

  'No different. You know the doctor said there'd be no change until . . .'

  'Don't shout!'

  'Can you hear me? Salva!'

  'Yes. I said don't — '

  'Well, listen: there's been a change in the arrangements about the summer and it looks as if Nunziata can't take her holidays in August after all . . .'

  Nunziata, the Marshal's sister, lived with them and worked part-time in a plastics factory.

  'But surely, if they promised . . .'

  'They did promise! But full-time workers have priority, and it seems somebody else has changed and wants those two weeks— you know what that's going to mean for us . . .'

  That they would get no time together with the children, no days at the beach. Without Nunziata they couldn't leave the old lady who could neither move nor speak.

  'We'll manage,' he murmured, 'somehow . . .'

  'Wait a minute! Can you hear me? I spoke to the district nurse and she says—can you hear me?'

  'Yes, yes ... I can . . .'

  'And she says there's a po
ssibility of getting Mamma into hospital provided we—'

  'No!'

  'Yes! She said if I can let her know right away—'

  'No! I said no! We can't just shunt her about like a bundle of old rags.'

  'Like a what?'

  'Never mind. We'll manage. We'll get someone to sit with her. It's only for half the day.'

  'In August?'

  'We'll find somebody . . . we'll pay . . .'

  'On your salary? I don't see what you've got against her going into hospital where she'll be properly looked after without paying anything . . .'

  'Don't you realize? Haven't you thought that it may be the last time I see her?'

  There was a moment's silence.

  He could hear the pips counting away expensive seconds. At last she said, forgetting to shout:

  'I was thinking of the children. You know how they look forward to the bit of time we get. I didn't mean . . .'

  He had made her feel ashamed. Day after day she had to look after a very sick old lady, his mother not hers, and he had made her feel ashamed of seeming to want a few days off. If only she wouldn't ask him to decide just now. How could he explain about Signora Giusti with the seconds ticking away and the priest maybe listening? It was ridiculous, anyway . . .

  'Let me think about it . . . I'll tell you on Thursday.'

  'But there are so few places, if we don't . . .'

  'Please. Just till Thursday.'

  'All right. Salva? I didn't mean . . . Well, you're right; poor soul, it may well be her last summer. We can't deprive her of it even if she's not aware. The doctor said probably within the year, and then ..."

  'And then the three of you move up here.'

  "There'll still be Nunziata . . .'

  'We agreed. It'll work out—but we can't talk about it now. Don Torquato . . .'

  'Oh Lord! Oh! Excuse me, Father ... oh dear . . . I'm going! Good night! Salva, can you hear me? I'm going! Good night!'

  'Good night ..."

  The line went dead.