We arrived to find a solid block of students waiting to pass in. Paolo, with a determined face, pushed and squeezed his way among them, Caterina and I hanging on behind. They were a good-natured crowd, laughing and chattering, pushing us in turn, and I wondered why the ugly mood of earlier on had changed, until I remembered that here there were no opponents—the students in this milling crowd were all C and E.
A great shout went up as the doors were opened, and Paolo, tightening his grip upon my arm, dragged little Caterina and me bodily through the entrance. “First come, first served,” called some fellow at the door. “Those who are in first seize a seat and cling to it.”
The auditorium was already filling rapidly, the crashing of seats as the flaps went down ricocheting to the roof, but this was drowned in turn by a group of students on the stage. Equipped with guitars, drums, and every conceivable form of rattle, they were singing the hit songs of the day, to tremendous applause from the surprised and delighted audience.
“What’s on?” Paolo inquired of a student who was jiving in the aisle beside us. “Isn’t anyone going to speak?”
“Don’t ask me,” replied the youth, shaking happily. “We’re invited, that’s all I know.”
“Who cares? Let’s make the most of it,” laughed Caterina, and, taking up her stance in front of me, tapped and twisted with unexpected grace.
I should be thirty-two next birthday and I felt my age. As a student in Turin I had samba’d to perfection, but that was over eleven years ago. A courier gets no practice in the finer arts. I swayed to and fro, not to lose face before the present company, but I knew the figure that I cut was tame. The uproar was tremendous. Nobody seemed to care. I thought, with amusement, that Carla Raspa would have enjoyed it too, for all her scorn of the C and E students, but I could see no one in the auditorium who could even remotely come from the staff. All were students, all were impossibly young.
“Look,” said Paolo suddenly, “that’s surely Donati himself? There, taking over the drums.”
I had my back to the stage, in an endeavor to follow the whirling of his sister, but at Paolo’s exclamation I turned. It was as he said. Aldo, apparently unnoticed, had come onto the stage and taken the place of the student at the drums, and was now executing a fine performance on his own. The guitarists and the rattlers turned towards him, the singing and shouting grew louder still, the sound was deafening, and the audience, realizing his identity with delighted clapping, pressed nearer to the stage. Nothing could have been more in contrast to the entry at the ducal palace which I had witnessed on Saturday. Tonight no flares, no silence, no bodyguard, no element of mystery. Aldo, with a total disregard for status, had chosen to identify himself with the student throng. The gesture and timing were superb. I wondered when and how he had planned it.
“You know,” said Caterina, “we’ve all misjudged him. I thought he was high and mighty like the rest of the professors. But look at him, just look! He might be one of us.”
“I knew he wasn’t really old,” objected Paolo. “After all, he’s barely forty yet. It’s just that we’ve never had any contact with him, he doesn’t belong to our crowd.”
“He belongs now,” said Caterina. “I don’t care what anyone says.”
The tempo increased. The whole audience swayed and shook to the throbbing of the guitars and the beating of the drums. Then suddenly, when exhaustion pitch was reached, came the final flourish. The sound went dead. Aldo came to the front of the stage and a student, one of the guitarists, pushed forward a chair from nowhere.
“Come on, all of you,” said Aldo. “I’m through. Let’s talk.”
He collapsed into the chair, wiping his forehead. There was a burst of laughter and sympathy from the audience. He smiled and lifted his head, then beckoned those who were standing, or sitting in the front rows, to come nearer and gather round him. I noticed that the auditorium lights had dimmed, and an unseen light to the side of the stage threw his face and the group nearest to him into relief. Aldo had no microphone. He spoke clearly and distinctly, but in no sense did he declaim. It was as though he was chatting casually to the students closest to him.
“We ought to do that more often,” he said, still mopping his forehead. “The trouble is that I don’t get time. It’s all right for you, you can work off steam any evening you care to, or at weekends—I’m not referring to last night, I’ll discuss that later—but for an ulcer-ridden person like myself, spending half his days arguing with professors twenty years his senior, who steadfastly refuse to make one move that would bring Ruffano and the university up to date, it’s just not on. Somebody has to wage war in this dust-ridden academy, and I’ll continue to do so until I’m sacked.”
A gulf of laughter greeted this remark, at which he stared about him, supposedly astonished.
“No, no, I’m serious,” he said. “If they could get rid of me they would. Just as they would get rid of you, the whole fifteen hundred of you, if that’s what you muster—I haven’t the figures before me, but it’s near enough. Why do they want to get rid of you? Because they’re frightened. The old are always frightened of the young, but you represent a threat to their whole way of life. Any one of you who passes out of this university with a degree in Commerce and Economics is a potential millionaire, and, more than that, he will have a chance of helping to run the economy not only of this country but of Europe, possibly the world. You are the masters, my young friends, and everyone knows it. That’s why you’re hated. Hatred is bred of fear, and your contemporaries who haven’t your brains and your technical knowledge and your enthusiasm for life as it will and must be lived tomorrow are frightened of you. Frightened blue! No schoolteacher, no grubby lawyer, no chicken-livered so-called poet or painter—and that’s what the students of the other faculties are trying to become—will stand a chance beside you. The future’s yours, and don’t let any half-baked set of decaying professors and their pathetic dwindling band of followers stand in your way. Ruffano is for the living. Not the dead.”
Tumultuous applause followed the gesture of contempt with which he dismissed all, apparently, but his present audience. He waited for it to cease, then leaned forward in his chair.
“I’ve no business to talk to you like this. As Director of the city Arts Council I don’t mix myself up with university politics. My job is to look after the possessions in the ducal palace, which belong to all of you, and not a minority, as some people choose to think. The reason I’ve got you here is because a clique—I’m naming no names—wants to destroy you. They want to make your Faculty, and all you stand for, so stink in the nostrils of the authorities that you will be chucked out, you, the Head of your Department, Professor Elia, the whole bag of tricks. Then, so they think, patrician rule will be resumed, and Ruffano fall asleep once more. The budding schoolteachers, lawyers, poets, will have it their own way.”
I flicked my eyes to Paolo on my right. He was watching Aldo attentively, his chin on his clenched fist. Caterina, on my left, was equally impressed. The mass of students with their upturned faces listened to him with as much intensity as the small elite in the ducal palace had done two nights before. But to a very different speech.
“Last night’s break-in, and the outrage that followed,” said Aldo softly, “if it was an outrage and not merely a trumped-up story, was a deliberate attempt to discredit you. This is the sort of game unscrupulous guerrillas play in wartime. Commit an atrocity on your own people, and blame it on the enemy. Fine. Even admirable. It starts the bullets flying. Now, the university of Ruffano isn’t geared to war at the present time, but, as you know, I run something called the Festival, which—if we like to make it so—can be used as your opportunity to take your revenge and show the enemy that you’re as powerful and determined as they are. The display this year will be the insurrection of the lively up-and-coming young citizens of Ruffano against the decadent Duke Claudio and his band of sycophants five hundred years go. The merchants and the working people of the city outnumbe
red the courtiers by thousands, but the Duke had the law behind him, and the weapons. He destroyed by night, stealing into the streets in disguise and maltreating harmless individuals, just as—so they tell me—a certain nameless clique sometimes does today.”
Caterina, gripping my hand, whispered under her breath, “The secret society!”
“Now,” said Aldo, standing up, “I want you, the lifeblood of the university, to play the citizens of Ruffano in the coming Festival. You won’t need elaborate rehearsals, but I warn you it may be dangerous. The lads playing the courtiers will be armed—it’s got to be authentic. I want you to get out into the streets with sticks and stones and any homemade weapon you can find. There’ll be fighting in the streets and fighting up the hill and fighting in the ducal palace. Anyone who’s scared can stay at home, and I for one won’t blame him. But whoever is itching for a chance to get his own back upon the high and mighty, the snobbish inner circle who think they run the university and all Ruffano too—here’s your chance. Come up and volunteer. I’ll guarantee your victory.”
He beckoned, laughing, and someone behind him on the stage started beating a tattoo upon the drum. The combination of this sound and the cheers from the audience and the crashing of seats as the students scrambled forward towards the stage where Aldo, still laughing, waited for them rang in my ears like the discords of hell.
I left Caterina and Paolo cheering and shouting among the others, and turned through the pushing crowd to the nearest exit. I was the only one among the packed and cheering students to attempt to leave. The guard at the door—I thought I recognized one of the scrutineers who had examined the passes on the Saturday evening at the ducal palace—put out a hand to stop me, but I managed to slip by. I walked up the street to the piazza della Vita, which by now was practically deserted save for the few city folk who promenaded still, and so back to my room.
It was no use doing anything tonight. The session in the theater might continue until midnight, for all I knew, or even later. There might be more pop music, more dancing, more talking, intermingled with another performance upon the drums. Aldo would gather in his volunteers. Tomorrow I would go to his house and get at the truth. My brother had not changed in two-and-twenty years. His technique was the same now as then. The only difference was that, where he had once played upon the imagination of a sibling and devoted ally, he was now playing upon the raw and feverish emotions of fifteen hundred students. To train actors for a Festival did not necessitate whipping them into rival factions with all the risk of precipitating a real catastrophe. Or did it? Was it Aldo’s intention to launch his opposing teams into conflagration so that the air should finally be cleansed? This had been the theory of warlords of the past. It had not worked. Spilled blood, like compost, fertilizes the soil, brewing further strife. I wished Signora Butali had not gone to Rome. I could have talked to her. I could have warned her about Aldo and his multitudinous schemes, his magnetic power over the unsuspecting, the vulnerable, the young. She might have reasoned with him, or laughed him out of it.
When the students returned to the pensione, shortly after midnight, I turned out my light. I heard the light step of Caterina climb the stairs, and she opened my door, calling softly. I did not reply. After a moment she went away. I was in no mood to listen to the converted, or give an explanation of my own behavior.
The next morning, purposely, I waited until I had heard the whole batch leave the house before I descended to the dining room. Signora Silvani was sitting at the table reading the newspaper.
“Here you are,” she said. “I wondered if you had gone out early, but the children thought not. Here’s your coffee. Were you as much impressed by the Director of the Arts Council as they were?”
“He has a way with him,” I said. “He’s very persuasive.”
“So I believe,” she answered. “He’s certainly persuaded our lot, and I imagine most of the others. They’re all to become citizens of Ruffano for the Festival.” She pushed the paper towards me as I drank my coffee. “Here’s the local paper,” she said. “There’s a small piece about the break-in at the women’s hostel, but they say nothing was taken, and it was a simple student rag. Signorina Rizzio has an attack of asthma—nothing to do with the break-in—and has gone away for a fortnight for some mountain air.”
I buttered my roll in silence and read the passage. Carla Raspa had been right. Poor Signorina Rizzio was unable to face her mocking world. True or untrue, to carry the stigma of an old maid deflowered brought the finger of scorn.
“Ruffano is in the headlines,” went on Signora Silvani. “See at the top there, about the woman murdered in Rome? She came from Ruffano all the time, and the body’s to be brought back for burial. They’ve caught the lad that did it. One of the underworld.”
My eyes ran swiftly to the large type at the top.
“Last night the Rome police arrested Giovanni Stampi, a day laborer, at present without employment, who has already served nine months for theft. He admitted stealing a note for ten thousand lire from the dead woman, but denies the murder.”
I finished my coffee and pushed the newspaper aside. “He says he’s innocent.”
“Wouldn’t you?” retaliated Signora Silvani.
I left the house and walked to work up the via Rossini. It was a week ago today that I had driven into Rome with my coach-party and that night had seen the woman, now proved to be Marta, sleeping in the doorway of the church. Only a week. A moment’s impulse on my part had brought about her murder, my own flight home, and the encounter with my living brother. Chance or predestination? The scientists could not tell us. Nor could the psychologists, or the priests. But for that stroll into the street I should now be on the homeward route from Naples to Genoa, the shepherd of my flock. As it was, I had probably lost my courier’s status forever, exchanging it for what? A temporary job as an assistant librarian which I could not, dared not quit because of Aldo. He, returned from the dead, was my reason for living. We, my mother and I, had deserted him once, contributing, doubtless, to his present ambivalent mood. Never again. Whatever my brother chose to do, I must stand by him. Poor Marta’s murder was no longer my concern, with the murderer caught; Aldo was my problem.
As yesterday, I found my fellow assistants in the library buzzing with rumor. The secretary, Signorina Catti, was busy denying the story spread by Toni that the unfortunate Signorina Rizzio had, after an X-ray at the local hospital, left Ruffano for an operation elsewhere.
“The story is malicious and entirely unfounded,” she declared. “Signorina Rizzio was suffering from a bad cold anyway, and is asthmatic. She has gone with friends to Cortina.”
Giuseppe Fossi dismissed the tale as students’ gossip. “In any case,” he said, “the whole unfortunate event will die a natural death, thanks to Professor Donati, who has brought about a reconciliation between Professor Rizzio and Professor Elia. He is giving a big dinner tonight at the Hotel Panorama for both of them. My wife and I have been invited, and all the professors. It will be an important affair, as you may imagine. Now, shall we all stop this nonsense and get to work?”
As I plodded away under his direction I felt easier in mind. A reconciliation between the Heads of the opposing Departments could do nothing but good. If this was Aldo’s move, then I had misjudged him. Perhaps his address to the C and E students at the theater had only been what it seemed to be on the surface—a wily bid for Festival volunteers and nothing more. Sensitive and intuitive to his every word and gesture I certainly was, but ignorant as to his achievements for the Festival up to date. Both Signora Silvani and Carla Raspa had been enthusiastic about the realism of previous occasions. The Butalis had taken part in last year’s production, along with Professor Rizzio. Would this year’s display be so very different after all?”
I went back to the pensione for lunch, and was at once set upon by my companions of last night.
“Deserter… coward… traitor!” shouted Gino and his friends, until Signor Silvani, holding up
his hand for silence, protested that he and his wife would put the whole lot out of the house.
“Shout yourselves hoarse at the Festival if you like,” he said, “but not under my roof. Here I am master. Sit down and take no notice of them,” he added for my benefit, and to his wife, “Serve Signor Fabbio first.”
“If you want the truth,” I said, addressing the table at large, “I came back early last night because I had a stomachache.” This was received with groans of disbelief. “Nor can I do the twist,” I said, “or possibly it was that trying to do so made me ill.”
“Forgiven,” called Caterina, “and shut up, everybody. After all, we forget he isn’t a student. Why should he commit himself?”
“Because who isn’t for us is against us,” put in Gerardo.
“No,” said Paolo, “that doesn’t go for strangers. And Armino is a stranger to Ruffano.”
He turned to me, his young face serious. “We won’t let them bully you,” he said, “but, all the same, you do see what a fine thing Professor Donati is doing by including every one of us in the Festival?”
“He wants performers,” I answered, “that’s all there is to it.”
“No,” said Paolo, “that isn’t all. He wants to show in public that he’s on our side. It amounts to a vote of confidence in every C and E student in the university, and from a disinterested observer like the Director of the Arts Council of Ruffano that puts us on top.”
The Flight of the Falcon Page 18
