Now he sees the stain of Svat’s crushed brain on these stones. He bends and kisses the stain. Then, shaking with inner grief, he spits on death.
He does not realize that footsteps have returned to the portico. The American lady is back, and beside her is another woman, an official of the embassy. They have stopped in passing and are staring down at him with disgust.
“Why did you spit on the floor?” asks Mrs. Conway, somewhat irritated.
“A spot”, Josip murmurs. “I am cleaning it.”
“Oh, I see. Well, that’s very diligent of you. But we don’t need to spit on the embassy floor, do we? There must be plenty of cleaning fluid in the janitor’s closet.”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Conway. I will find it.”
And off they go, clicking-clicking, leaving him alone, quaking with anger and sinking in dismay over his unruly heart.
Sunday. After early Mass and a bite to eat, he strolls from his room in the Ludovici district to the Palatino and enters the Colosseum. It is staggering in proportion to the little amphitheater of Solin, where he once played soccer with hungry urchins, so long ago. Are they still alive, those boys, grown into men as old as he is? Are they somewhere in Croatia or have they fled to freer lands?
He spends the rest of the day wandering about the ruin, touching the surfaces of stone blocks, mortar, and brick. He climbs from floor to floor and descends to the pit, hiding in alcoves so that he can pray undisturbed by the stream of tourists. Again and again, he stares transfixed at the oval arena: here and at the Circus Maximus countless people shed their blood as entertainment for the Roman people. He leans his head against a wall and is jolted when he hears a roar of blood lust erupt from the spectators. He hears the howling of wild beasts and, above all, the screams of children as they suffer unspeakable torture.
Night shift. He is in the basement with the foreman, sweeping and picking up paper litter. It’s not the secret kind, just a lot of newspapers and magazines from all over the world.
“I do not understand these people”, mumbles the foreman. “Half of my family now lives in America, but still I do not understand these people.”
“Is that why you do not live there?”
“No, it’s because I have a good job here. Besides, my wife will not let me go.”
“She sounds like a good wife.”
“She is, but still . . . I would like to see Coney Island. And Disneyland.”
Josip shakes his head. “I do not know what those are.”
“Play places for people who do not eat cats.” Josip laughs.
The foreman sighs and mumbles, “No, no, no, never will I understand these people.”
The telephone rings, the one that connects to the service phones on the upper floors. The foreman answers it and barks, Si, si, si!
“It’s the cook”, he groans, hanging up. “She’s in a panic. They’ve run out of ice, poor souls!”
“Who?”
“Upstairs. They’ve got a big party on, and they need more ice. There’s five ambassadors, and a troop of lackeys plus all their women, and you can be sure they will not be happy if there is no ice for the whiskey. But the iceman he went home, and the cake people refuse to go upstairs because their aprons are a mess, and the guards won’t come down to get it. So, that leaves you and me to do the running.”
“I’m a mess, too”, says Josip, looking down at his sweaty T-shirt, soot-stained slacks, and cracked running shoes.
“Yes, but you are a good-looking mess. I am a slob, and please don’t deny it”, he says, slapping his empirical belly. “So, who does this leave?”
“Neither of us.”
“No, it leaves only you!”
“No! I would be a dog with fleas running through their party.”
“Don’t be silly. You just go up in the elevator with a big bucket of ice, tiptoe into the room, and hand it to the wine waiter at his table. Then, quick as a flea on a dog’s hind end, out you come, run along the hall, and hustle down the service staircase. Easy, no?”
“All right, I’ll go. Say a prayer that no one sees me.”
“Don’t worry, don’t worry. But go up by the gold elevator because they need the ice right now.”
In the kitchen, the cook puts a big bucket of ice-cubes into his arms and thanks him profusely, promising him some cake and gelato when he comes back.
The elevator guard lets him into the cage, presses a button, and hops out before the bronze gates close. Up in the elevator Josip goes. On the fourth floor, it stops and lets him out. A maid far away at the end of the hallway waves to him frantically and points to the open double-door where she is standing. Josip hastens along the carpeted hall, bobs his head at the maid, and ducks into the room. Nearly a hundred people in evening dress are gathered there, a splendid roar of conversation, with the aromas of caviar and wine, cigar and perfume swirling all about. How can they hear each other? Josip puts the bucket down on the wine table, gets a nod and a grazie from the waiter, wheels, and beats a hasty retreat. The maid thanks him and goes back into the room. Done! Next, the gelato!
He is puttering along the hall, looking for the servants’ staircase, when he hears a voice calling behind him:
“Joe—see—eep!”
Oh, no! He turns around, and sure enough, here comes Mrs. Conway, glittering and emanating her nimbus of gold light.
“Joe—see—eep, wait, wait, wait, don’t run ah-way-ay!” she sings as if talking to a toddler or a poodle. “I have something wonderful to tell-tell-tell you.”
Her gait is unsteady. She is weaving a little and dragging her heels, smiling in the way that sets him on guard. He would run if she did not have news for him. Instead he comes to attention respectfully, clasps his hands across his abdomen, and awaits her arrival.
“Yes, Mrs. Conway?”
“Oh, shweetie, how nishe to sheee you”, she coos, trailing a gossamer gold scarf that loops around her neck and drags along the floor behind her. A wine glass is in her hand, and she is tipping it this way and that, unmindful of the drops sprinkling the pale carpet.
“Ooh, don’t be so stand-offish, Joe-sheep. You know I won’t hurt you.” She pushes herself too close. “Are you jush a lil’ bit scared of ol’ Cass?”
“Mrs. Conway, I must go to my work below.”
“Not show fasht, dear man, not show fasht. I wanna give you a progresh report. But first you gotta gimme a little kiss.”
She drapes one length of the scarf about his neck and coils it around him. He takes a step back and tries to extricate himself.
“Please, you will respect your dignity”, he murmurs, nervously trying to untangle the thing.
“Dignity schmignity! Again with the shmignity!”
“And mine”, he adds.
“And your what? Oh, hell, Joe, you and me are grown-ups. I’m doin’ a lot for you, and you can shpare me a kish!”
His eyes become slits, and his mouth tightens, every muscle of his body tenses for flight, but he knows that if he insults this woman she could punish him badly—in fact destroy him. He controls himself and says in English.
“You say, Madame, that news you have of my situation?”
“Did I shay that? No I don’ think I shayed that.”
“Then—?”
She throws the scarf around his neck again and pulls him in—rather she reels herself toward him and wraps her arms around his chest. He is so taken by surprise that he is paralyzed.
“Never in my life, Joe-sheep, never in my entire life have I met a man as magnificent as you!”
Stunned, he merely gapes, and it takes a second or two before he can resume peeling her arms from his chest and then from his waist.
“You’re a god,” she exhales with ardor, “you’re Triton comin’ up out o’ the sea, an’ I’m gonna be your sea wife!”
He yells a wordless rejection in her face—a brutal sound—containing all his loathing for those who destroyed his wife and child. Though this woman had no part in it, their deaths a
re meaningless to her, and she wants only what she wants, regardless of whom she tries to take it from. She did not stop to wonder if he has a true wife waiting for him, their marriage bed unshakable beyond the boundaries of death.
“Foolish woman!” he roars, pushing her away. With a look of contempt, he stomps toward the staircase.
“What the hell!” barks a man’s voice. “What’s goin’ on here, Cass?”
“Oh, Brad, Oh, Brad, thank God you’re here!” she wails. “That man insulted me!” she shrieks. “He assaulted me!”
Josip hears this just as he reaches the staircase door. Before he can push it open, a hand grabs the collar of his T-shirt and yanks him back into the hall. He is slammed up against the wall, and in his face is a man hurling malice through his eyes, blinking rapidly, his teeth clenched. His tuxedo is askew, and his right arm pulls back to swing the fist toward Josip’s face. He ducks, the fist hits the wall. The man’s arm crumples, his face contorting in agony, and he shouts, “Guard, guard!”
Josip pulls the gold scarf from his neck and drops it onto the floor, pushes open the door to the staircase, and goes down. He does not run. In fact he feels no fear, only disgust. Step by step.
No one follows, no whistles blow, no crowd of guards swoops in with truncheons flailing.
He arrives in the kitchen, declines the cook’s offer of gelato, then descends still farther into the basement level, and goes in search of the foreman. He finds the man sitting beside the furnace, reading a magazine.
“So,” he says looking up, “mission accomplished?”
“I delivered the ice”, says Josip buttoning his shirt as he heads toward the door.
“Where are you going? You have another two hours before shift’s over.”
“I resign today. This moment. Now. I am going.”
“What? Are you crazy? What happened up there?”
“They will tell you. They will tell you a lie. I am finished with these people. I do not understand them. Even if I did understand them, I would not wish to see them anymore.”
“Someone hurt your feelings?”
“Someone is going to call the police. Then I will die. You know my address. That is where I will wait. They can arrest me there.”
“You’re going to die? Did you spill the ice bucket down someone’s dress?”
“I will die. You have been good to me, so I tell you the truth before God that I have done nothing wrong. These people are selfish, and I do not wish to work for them anymore.”
He shakes the foreman’s hand and leaves, forcing himself to walk without haste along Via Veneto.
He unlocks the door to his little room and enters, switches on the top light, closes the door, then sits down. He senses that each of these acts are final ones. He will miss them. The room is more pleasant than it was when he first moved in. There is now a small bedside lamp with dried flowers sealed on its parchment shade and a shelf of books containing his dictionaries, a Bible, and missals in Italian and Latin. A striped Ethiopian rug lies on the green linoleum. At this moment, he desires what is impossible. He longs for a photograph of Ariadne. In the torturous minutes while he waits for the police to come, he would, if he could, simply sit here on the cot and look into her eyes.
He lies down and closes his eyes, gazes into her eyes as he remembers them, and hears her words as he remembers them. Then, before he knows it, he is asleep. And then it is morning.
He jumps up when a knuckle raps once on the door. Well, here they are! He opens the door to find only the foreman standing there, cap in hand.
“May I come in, Giuseppe?”
“Come in.”
“I see you have not died.”
“No, I haven’t. Why didn’t the police come?”
The foreman shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“Did they search for me?”
“Yes. But only a guard and an angry man with his hand wrapped in a towel. You must have fought him hard.”
“We fought, but it was the wall that hit his hand.”
“They should arrest the wall.”
“Why did you come here?”
“To bring you your wages. Not for the whole week, as you see, because you resigned and brought it upon yourself. What a hothead you are!”
“Did they tell you a lie about me?”
“They told me nothing about you.”
“Really?”
“Really. Look, Giuseppe, I think you should come back to work.”
“No. I’m finished. I’m leaving this country.”
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where shall I tell the police to find you?”
“I—well—I just don’t know for certain.”
“Send me a postcard, and I can let them know.”
“I will.”
The foreman chuckles, and then slaps his belly. “Time for a cicchetto di vino, eh?”
“All right, but I have none in the house.”
“I carry my own supply wherever I go. Any glasses here or do you drink only from the spigot?”
“I have a glass. We’ll have to share it.”
“Even better.”
So, the foreman, great-hearted fellow that he is, tries to throw wine onto the hothead’s fire and with a single glass succeeds to some extent. Into himself he tosses glass after glass. But in the end, after they have talked for a few hours, nothing has changed. Josip says again that he is leaving the city—this city, which killed people for entertainment. He is leaving tomorrow or maybe the day after, if the police still have not come for him. It doesn’t matter.
“Oh, don’t say that”, chides the foreman. “Come on, relax. No one’s going to make hell of your life.”
Josip fixes him with a doubtful look and says nothing. He shakes his head. He is leaving, he doesn’t know where he will go. He will walk. Just walk.
Because the foreman is becoming too tipsy, Josip walks the man back to his own apartment building and delivers him to his wife, a long-suffering woman, who gives her husband a minimal swat and scold and puts him to bed. She thanks Josip for bringing him home. After that he walks to St. Peter’s, where a priest hears his confession in the basilica. Then he attends Mass at a side altar. After receiving Communion, he feels some inner peace. Maybe he will be sent back to Yugoslavia, maybe not. Maybe he will die, maybe not. He is a little frightened now, but in a strange way not very frightened. He has no real options, and thus he must hope in God’s help.
Well, he tells himself as he steps over Fra Anto’s body, I still have my dignity.
Back at his lodgings, he learns from the landlady that the police still have not come. He lies down, prays a Rosary, and slides into sleep. In the morning, he gets up before dawn and walks to Trastevere for the early Mass at the tomb of Santa Cecilia. It is there that his peace is fully restored. Here, too, a light is given. After Communion, he remembers the counsel that the old Franciscan friar gave him—counsel that is no more than what the Gospels ask of all men. He now realizes that he has forgotten about this. Since he came to live in Rome, nothing harmful has happened. In fact, it seems that only good has come to him, save for the incident at the embassy two nights ago.
He is leaving this city. Soon. Maybe today. But it now seems that a reminder has been put before his eyes. The woman, no doubt, will be seeking vengeance. Her screams to her husband in the hallway certainly indicated a willingness to tell lies and to destroy his reputation. This is harm, plain and simple. She has ended his employment, and she may well be an instrument in ending his life. So, how can he repay this woman’s evil with good? He will pray for her and think about other possibilities.
Throughout that day Josip walks the streets of the city, gazes into countless windows and enters many shops. In the late afternoon he leaves one, carrying a package in his hands. From there he plods to the American embassy and speaks to the guard at the gate. He asks for Mr. or Mrs. Conway. They don’t work here, replies the guard. Mr. Conway has an office o
n the other side of town, and as for where they live, he couldn’t say. Apparently, Josip has not yet been exiled from the embassy compound, and he is able to pass through the gates and go to the foreman’s office. When Josip raps at his door, the foreman breaks into a grin and lumbers to his feet.
“Giuseppe, a surprise! You did not die!”
“I did not die. Can you tell me where I can find Mrs. Conway? Do you know where they live?”
“You’re not going to kill her, are you?”
“No, I’m not going to kill her. There’s something I must say to her.”
“Well, you’re out of luck because she’s in the hospital. They took her to Gemelli because she swallowed too many pills a couple of nights ago. They say she was having trouble sleeping and took the pills on top of wine. Not a good idea, that. Anyway, she’s pulling through, they say. But I wouldn’t advise a visit.”
He arrives in a wing of Gemelli Hospital after a certain amount of surreptitious behavior. It is still visiting hours, so there is not much of a problem finding her room. It’s a private one, filled with flowers. No visitors are present. She is alone, sleeping. The hospital bed is raised at an angle. She is breathing lightly, in a blue nightgown, and covered to her waist by a sheet. Her face is haggard, without makeup. Her arms are resting on top of the sheet, and an intravenous needle is taped to one of her wrists. Fluid drips into it from a bottle.
Josip sits on a chair near the foot of the bed. He clears his throat.
“Is that you, Brad?” she murmurs without opening her eyes. “Mrs. Conway?” he says.
Island of The World Page 51
