North from Rome (6 page)

“We were all
so
upset. One was afraid to look in the newspapers in case one knew the names. And of course, Bertrand”—and now the bright amber eyes were turned on the Englishman—“the Communists tried to make a festival of denunciation out of the whole sordid business. They began holding meetings, wrote editorials, organised parades. You know how they behave! And then—but don’t you remember?”

Whitelaw said, “I was away lecturing at the time.” He and Pirotta exchanged one look. To Lammiter, it seemed as if everyone had forgotten about him, as if there were a secret battle in progress. And then, suddenly, he began to feel that the princess was staging all this scene with a purpose. For his benefit? The little glance she flashed him now seemed to draw him into the centre of it all.

“Then you missed
so
much fun,” she told Whitelaw. “For some really clever journalist discovered that there were Communists, too, who were mixed up with all the scandal. So, of course, a great silence descended. But everyone knows that there are still some hidden drug rings. And with Communists running them, I hear.”

“Oh, really!” Whitelaw exclaimed. He tried to hide his growing amusement. He smiled at the two other men. “Come, come—one
doesn’t believe everything one hears. Especially in Rome.” He turned to Lammiter. “The Romans are so nimble-witted that they supply the most delicious gossip to suit any situation.”

Pirotta laughed. “If we didn’t have the situations, we’d invent them.”

“Besides,” Whitelaw said consolingly, “you can’t be afraid of your Communists in Italy. Now really, Principessa! They’re such delightful people.”

The princess said, disarmingly sweet, “I did
not
mean our
nice
Communists, who want to
help
the workers. I meant the real Communists—who
shoot
the workers. As in Poznan last month.”

There was a little silence.

Eleanor ended it. “I just can’t forget that photograph. You know—the one with the girl walking in front holding a flag all covered with blood. And the students and workers behind her.” Her grey eyes widened, her lips trembled, her face flushed. She looked very beautiful, very touching, as Joan of Arc. Pirotta took her hand gently. Lammiter was glad to see that that comforted her.

“I think you must write my next article,” Whitelaw suggested with a gentle smile for the princess.

“Would it be printed?”

“Why shouldn’t it?”

“But would your newspaper trust me as much as it
trusts
you, Bertrand?” Again there was that little flicker of the amber eyes towards Lammiter as she lingered on the word “trust”. Then she waved her soft white hands, the pink quartz and blue sapphires glancing with the sunlight on her long thin fingers. “Now, we’ve all worked up a pretty appetite for luncheon.” She began drawing on her silver-grey gloves. “And we have quite forgotten poor Rosana. Tell me, Luigi, did you ever hear the truth about Mario Di Feo? Did he
take
drugs? Or did he
sell
them?” There was again a brief silence. “Poor Rosana—she came home from America and found her brother a suicide, and nothing ever explained.”

“How awful!” Eleanor said, all sympathy. “What is she like?”

“Young. Younger than you are, I’d imagine. And very beautiful.”

“Oh!” Eleanor retreated.

“Wouldn’t you say so, Mr. Lammiter?”

Bill Lammiter nodded. Eleanor was, strangely enough, watching him.

“No comment? Or did you find my story too moving? How splendid! Then I’ll ask you to dinner tomorrow night along with Rosana. You and I shall cheer her up. Luigi, you must come, too, and bring your Eleanor. And you, Bertrand? We shall be six. How nice. I hate large parties.”

“I’m sorry,” Lambert said, “but I’m leaving Rome tonight. So you see—”

“No, I don’t,” the princess said fretfully. “You can’t leave Rome right now.” She took a deep breath. “I want you to come to dinner tomorrow.”

“I’m afraid I’ll be in New York by tomorrow night.”

“Really, Bill?” Eleanor asked. “Why, I thought you were going to spend the summer here, writing.” She looked upset, as if she blamed herself for this change.

“I don’t seem to get much work done in Rome.”

“Does one
want
to work in Rome?” Whitelaw asked, with
his amused smile.

“New York,” the princess said, “will be as hot as Rome. Perhaps hotter. You won’t work there, either. What are you writing? Another play? I know just the place for you in the Umbrian hills. I’ll lend you a house. You may stay as long as you like.”

Lammiter might have disliked trying to write in hotel rooms, but he distrusted borrowed houses even more. And then, just as he was about to refuse firmly, the look of disquiet that momentarily glanced over Pirotta’s face made him hesitate. He looked vague, polite, uncertain.

Eleanor tried to help him. “Must you really go back to New York so soon, Bill?”

He made the mistake of not having a good excuse ready. The moment to make it came, and was gone.

“Then why don’t you stay? You haven’t seen a hundredth part of Italy. And there’s so much to see, so much material for you to use in your next play. Don’t you agree, Luigi?”

Pirotta made a polite murmur, quite unguessable but apparently friendly.

The princess suddenly tried a frontal attack. “Mr. Lammiter, what is making you
run
away?”

“Run?” Lammiter hoped he looked both startled and stupid. Then he laughed, looking at the others for support. “I guess I just got set on the idea of leaving, that’s all. I only decided on it last night.” He was speaking slowly in a forthright manner, trying to give the appearance of someone who was completely simple-minded. It was the kind of character they would all readily accept, because they believed in it. Except Eleanor: she had once or twice looked at him in surprise when he had sat
silent and let the conversational ball slip past him; and now, when he was at last talking, she watched him with a small frown as he kept strictly to basic English. “I was standing on my balcony, having my last cigarette. I kind of like looking over that old wall. Makes a fellow think. Gives him a new viewpoint about a lot of things. I wasn’t feeling too good, kind of down about everything. The weather, I guess; and not being able to get any work done, and all. Then this idea hit me. Just like that.” He laughed again. He was holding the Englishman enthralled, at least. Whitelaw no doubt prided himself on imitations. “And then, a funny thing happened. Last night, or rather early this morning—you won’t believe it, but it happened, all right—” He dropped his voice, and he noticed that Pirotta’s interest in him had died away entirely. Pirotta would have been interested in him only if he hadn’t mentioned the strange happening of last night. “I was standing—”

“I hate standing,” the princess said, rising, “and there’s my car. Mr. Lammiter, your arm, please.” She put out a hand and let it rest on his forearm. They started walking towards the well-polished Lancia which had cruised slowly up the hill and was now stopping near the kerb in front of them. He suddenly realised how slight and frail her bones were.

Very quietly she said, “I hope you understand what I was trying to tell you, Mr. Lammiter.”

He nodded, non-committally. He had reached the phase of trusting nobody. Only one thing had been decided about an hour ago. He was staying in Rome.

She went on, “As least I gave you a good excuse to change your mind about leaving. But you don’t have to come to see me. I’m much too old. If only I had not been so tactful with Mussolini, I might have died while I was still attractive.” She sighed. He looked at her in utter amazement, and now he wasn’t acting any more. “It was thirty years ago, of course. I had gone to ask Mussolini a favour—my son and all his family had been arrested, ridiculous nonsense! Mussolini was standing behind the enormous desk in that gigantic room of his. He came round to where I was standing. He caught me and threw me down on the carpet. I slapped his face with the back of my hand—rings are so useful at times—and said ‘Get up, you peasant!’ And so he rolled off me, and I got up and smoothed my dress and walked out.”

Lammiter burst into laughter. “You got away with that?” He helped her into the car, the anxious chauffeur watching each movement most critically, the two young men ballet-stepping around.

“But I had called him a
peasant.
That was what he liked to call himself. It won votes. Now, if I had called him what I
really
felt he was—a pig in the gutter—I shouldn’t be here today.” She sighed, settled herself on the car’s white leather seat, and gave him her hand in goodbye. “So I lived on. I don’t really know who had the last word, though, the pig or I.”

He closed the car’s polished blue door carefully. Very small, quietly conspicuous was its minuscule coat of arms. He watched the car ease its way carefully into the busy traffic, before he turned back to the café. He was still smiling. Perhaps now he’d enjoy that drink he’d promised himself half an hour ago. But the little group at the table was not yet dispersed.

“My aunt amuses you?” Pirotta asked.

“She tells a good story.” He began to laugh again. “I was hearing about her meeting with Mussolini.”

Pirotta groaned humorously. “You really thought it was funny?”

“Don’t you?”

“The first time, perhaps.” He made a comical face, and yet lost none of his dignity.

Eleanor looked at them both with relief. This was the way she liked life: no jealousy, no dislikes, no animosities. “You
are
going to stay here and enjoy Italy, aren’t you, Bill?” Perhaps she wanted to rid herself of all feeling that she had ruined his visit here.

“If one is offered a house,” Whitelaw said, “one generally accepts.” He was amused, interested, but not unkind. “You made quite a hit with the old girl, didn’t you?”

“But surely,” Lammiter said, “the princess didn’t mean it.”

They all stared at him.

“Now,” he said, “don’t tell me anyone can believe a word she said.”

Pirotta’s handsome eyes smiled suddenly with relief. “I’m afraid not,” he said with regret.

“No dinner party tomorrow night?” Eleanor asked, in a strange tight little voice, the kind she used when she didn’t quite believe what was said.

“If we went,” Pirotta answered gently, “we might find that my aunt had forgotten to tell her housekeeper that she had suddenly invented a dinner party, here, at Doney’s. She is getting old. Goodbye, Lammiter.”

They didn’t shake hands.

“Goodbye,” Lammiter said, equally crisp.

Whitelaw’s goodbye was regretful. Perhaps now that Lammiter seemed about to leave Rome, luncheon would be rather a waste of time and energy. “I hadn’t noticed how late it
was,” he said, consulting his watch, “and I have an engagement this afternoon. It might be wiser to postpone our luncheon? One hates to rush coffee. Some other day?” He turned aside, then halted to exchange a few last words with Pirotta.

Eleanor took the opportunity to say, “I’ll feel awful if you take the first plane home! Truly, Bill, I don’t want to spoil everything.” She looked at him pleadingly. “I wish you would stop thinking the worst of me. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.” Perhaps she had seen Garbo in that recent revival of
Camille
, for now she was neither standing at the head of a marble staircase nor marching on the barricade of machine guns, but she was making the great renunciation.

“I know,” he said, “it hurt you more than it hurt me.” But he ought to have denied himself the pleasure of sarcasm.

She looked sharply at him, and her voice altered. “So it was all a little act.”

“Eleanor!” he said reproachfully. He wondered if Pirotta’s quick ears had been listening.

“I wondered—I never saw you so silent and wide-eyed.”

“But I was so impressed. A princess, and a count! My, my, my...”

“Bill Lammiter! And I almost believed you had changed.”

“Just the same old Bill,” he said reassuringly. “I’m stuck with me. You know something?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to know it.”

“Then we’ll make it a real goodbye.” He put out his hand. Quietly, he said, “I hope you’ll be very happy.”

She looked at him uncertainly, and then—as Pirotta came over to take her by the arm—she decided to accept that at its full value. “Thank you,” she said, bowing a little.

“Madame la Comtesse receiving the good wishes of the local peasantry,” Lammiter said with a little grin.

“Oh, Bill!” She was angry.

And suddenly, unexpectedly, he was sorry. But she was already leaving with her noble count. She was talking with vivacity and charm to emphasise how much Lammiter had lost. Oh, stop that! he told himself: it doesn’t even make you feel any better.

At least, he thought wearily as he sat down for a delightfully solitary drink, she will not see me again, she won’t invite me to her parties and try to find another girl for me and tell me how intelligent we are to remain such good friends. I’ll be spared all that, thank God.

And then a most depressing thought struck him, suddenly, vehemently. At this moment, Eleanor might be angry with him, but she still liked him. She was still fond of him. But what would she feel when he discovered more about Pirotta? Hate, possibly. She’s going to hate you, he told himself morosely. By God, and how! No one liked the man who unveiled illusion. It would be easier if he cabled her father, got him to come over and save his darling daughter (and himself) from scandal. But that was too easy: ditching responsibility, escaping hate, was too easy a way out. Besides, the girl Rosana could be lying. Pirotta could be an honest son of a bitch after all. I’ll have to find that out for myself, he thought. I’ll have to stay in Rome, and find out the truth; and, if it’s ugly, then calculate how it affects Eleanor, and then— And then?

His depression grew. He put the question away from him. He hoped he would never have to answer it.

Lammiter had another glass of beer, to let Eleanor and Pirotta put several blocks between them and Doney’s. He resisted all temptation to pull out Rosana’s crumpled wad of paper which had been burning a hole in his pocket for almost an hour: for now he was in a mood to listen to the need for caution. At last, and leisurely, he left the emptying tables and set off for a small restaurant he liked near the Via Ludovisi. To reach it, he crossed the Via Vittorio Veneto, its traffic now noticeably sparse, and he stopped at the, paper stall at the corner of the two streets and bought himself
Time
and
Oggi.
So armed for a lonely meal, he walked on under the shady trees. And he wondered about several people.