North From Rome Page 5

  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.

  6

  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.

  He wondered about the princess, who must have postponed her escape to the hills this summer, for the weather was now hot and sticky and promised worse. Why? She hadn’t run out of houses, obviously. The old Roman families (who never called themselves Italians) didn’t usually spend the tourist months in the city. Nor did they make a habit of frequenting restaurants or cafés very much, and then usually in the late afternoon, when they’d quiz the foreigners’ parade and store up some witticisms for dinner.

  “Mr. Lammiter, to what do you attribute your percipient knowledge of the Roman way of life?”

  “Talk with the waiters, son. Nice long conversations with waiters and barmen, the trusted friends of the lonely traveller.”

  “Waiters, Mr. Lammiter?”

  “Sure. They are just waiting to tell you. Start them talking, son, and you can’t stop ’em... They’ll give you more to brood over than a carload of guidebooks. They’re all strangers here, too. Did you know that people in the Abruzzi believe in werewolves? Let me tell you about the old waiter from the Abruzzi who once slept beside a werewolf.”

  Werewolf... And I never did puzzle that story out, he thought. The man had believed what he had seen with his own eyes. In the waiters’ dormitory, the young boy who had just come from the Abruzzi used to start up with a howl when the summer moon was full, while the other waiters buried their heads in the sheets to smother their breathing, and he would leap from his bed and out through the door, to return with the dawn, calm, quiet, unseeing, unhearing, already half-asleep on his feet. “A werewolf,” the older waiter had repeated. “Such things happen in my country.” It’s possible, Lammiter reflected, that the boy was simply so homesick for the mountains and forests of the Abruzzi that he’d lie awake on a hot summer night crying to himself. Italians were a regional people, their loyalty to the childhood places deep and passionate. And then there would come a moment when the memories became unbearable, the strangled sob broke loose into a howl of despair, and he’d rush from the room where the older men (their memories now blurred by city life) were lying awake, listening to him, watching.

  Now, what made me start thinking about werewolves? Surely not the princess. Nor Bertrand Whitelaw, even if he was a tortured man. What troubled him, anyway? He had the best of all his possible worlds: he was published regularly; he had acclaim—and money, too, that nice expendable stuff; he enjoyed all the prestige of a free-born Englishman and suffered none of the tribulations of the British climate. Presumably he was one of those types who didn’t need a wife, for he kept himself free from all female entanglements. So what had he to worry about? And then, Lammiter wondered, was Whitelaw’s meeting with Pirotta this morning something that had happened quite naturally: Pirotta had been here to keep an eye on Rosana as he waited for Eleanor, and Whitelaw had come strolling along and joined him? Or had it been contrived? If so, who had contrived it? Not Pirotta, Lammiter decided: Pirotta had many things on his mind, but a quiet talk with the Englishman hadn’t been one of them. In fact, Pirotta had evaded any chance of a tete-a-tete with considerable skill. Pirotta, Lammiter thought now, was the kind of man who usually got what he wanted.

  Then who, if he were innocent of all Rosana’s innuendoes, why had
he sat at that table with Lammiter? The American imagined himself in Pirotta’s place: a difficult moment with the princess heaving her variety of monkey wrench into the works. But I, Lammiter thought now, I’d have risen, taken Eleanor’s arm, made a firm excuse (and no one was going to refuse any lovers’ excuses) and left everyone to gossip to their tongues’ content. Instead, Pirotta had sat on, had listened and watched. He had been extremely polite. Almost friendly. Disarming, was the better word. Why?

  Lammiter’s lips tightened and he quickened his pace. He knew one thing. He would like to spend half an hour with Bunny Camden. Bunny, now one of the naval attachés at the Embassy—liaison work with visiting NATO specialists, Bunny had explained vaguely when they had met, by accident, outside the Embassy gates three days ago—had the kind of mind that had been trained to add up the facts and subtract the fiction from a puzzling situation. And Bunny Camden was a friend, a word that Lammiter didn’t bestow lightly. Even if they only met at the oddest intervals and in the strangest ways—and that, to Lammiter, was part of the amusing aspect of their friendship which kept it alive through all the gaps between their meetings—Camden was someone dependable.

  He remembered Bunny’s face when they had met outside the Embassy. His own had been just as delightful and amazed— for the last time he had seen Bunny had been in Korea, six years ago. Bunny was one of those Intelligence officers who had decided to stay in the service (in Bunny’s case, it was the Marine Corps), and now—a little to his surprise and not altogether to his fancy—he had been promoted to a quasi-diplomatic but completely straightforward job in the Mediterranean area. “Strictly legitimate, now,” Bunny had said, talking hard to cover Lammiter’s embarrassment at the meeting, for once the delight and amazement were over, Lammiter was too conscious of the fact that he had been caught hovering around the Embassy gates, hoping to intercept Eleanor on her way out to lunch. Not that either Bunny or the friend with him

  (quite definitely a friend, a classics professor called Ferris from Pennsylvania, who was working at the American Academy in Rome for the summer) could have had any idea why they had found Lammiter waiting at the entrance to the Embassy’s driveway; but those who loitered were always sensitive about being discovered. Especially when the discoverer was someone like Bunny Camden. “Hi, there!” he had said, catching Lammiter by the arm. “And dammit if it isn’t. Thought I knew that old bullet head and standout ears. What are you plotting now? If it’s arsenic poisoning we’ve already had it.” And so Bunny could introduce and squash the current sensation about the Ambassadress and her bedroom ceiling, before he branched on to NATO, a prospective trip to Naples, and then suggested a party when he returned. “We must all get together,” he said, including Professor Ferris in his smile, and Lammiter had agreed. Then they parted, and Lammiter hadn’t thought much about Bunny Camden’s old job or qualifications until Rosana had questioned him this morning. Now that he thought about it, Bunny Camden was just the type that Rosana needed.