by Morris West
‘Not yet.’
‘Are you sure of him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bring him in then. We’ll soon know what he’s made of – and whether he has anything to teach us.’
Anna came over to them at that moment, smiling but resolute.
‘Come on, you two. No lobbying before lunch! Rejoin the human race! The family want to talk to you, John! And you, Uncle, should rescue Rodo! I think he’s taken enough.’
She linked arms with them and forced them to walk with her down the steps and into the terraced garden, where the servants were dispensing lemonade to the children, and champagne to their elders.
When Spada approached, the women converged on him like peasants round a pedlar in a country square. They wanted news, notice, concern from this Spada who had prospered so hugely. They wanted patronage for their young ones, an assurance of care in the bad times which, they all believed, were just around the corner. Aunt Lisa, seventy-eight years old, seamed and wrinkled like a winter apple, summed it up for him in her harsh Roman accent.
‘… They have lists now, of candidates for kidnapping. They have boys on street corners waiting to put a bullet into a man as he walks to buy a newspaper . . . Whether they are of the right or the left, what does it matter? The end is the same. Mistrust, disorder, failure of confidence. We are back to the days of the bandits and the condottieri! . . . I know; your Uncle Andrea knows. We’ve lived through two wars and all the time of the Fascisti . . . All the signs are there again. We are nearly at breaking point…’
Spada put his arm round her thin shoulder and tried to calm her.
‘Come now, Aunt Lisa! It’s not half as bad as that.’
‘Easy for you to say! You don’t live here.’
‘No; but I have big business here. I know how the system works. The extremists make big noises; the government falls; a new one moves in; but there’s still wine and bread on the table. It’s a kind of magic, a conjuring trick.’
‘But the audience is tired of political tricks. They’re walking out. They’re looking for another kind of theatre. They want a play with a hero – and they want to walk through safe streets afterwards . . .’ She looked around at the group. ‘This is the new generation. Ask them what they think!’
Spada smiled and shook his head.
‘Not before lunch! Not on my birthday! . . . Tell me, what do you think of our Rodo?’
The younger women giggled and exchanged glances. Aunt Lisa gave a high, whinnying laugh.
‘For a foreigner, not bad! But you won’t tame him too easily.’
‘I don’t want to tame him. I want a man in my household.’
‘Then let’s hope he breeds well – and your Teresa is interested in having a family.’
‘Why shouldn’t she be?’
‘Well! These modern women with their careers and their liberated ideas . . .!’
‘Teresa’s a very good physician.’
‘She’s married now. She has a husband to care for. He won’t want to come home to a tired wife who smells of ether and iodine! I’ve told her that.’
‘I’m sure she’ll manage very well, Aunt Lisa.’
‘She’ll need to; your Anna didn’t have an easy time with you.’
‘Do you hear her complain?’
‘No; but you’re a Spada – and they last better than most men!’
‘You have a dirty mind, Aunt Lisa!’
‘That helps too, my boy.’ She pushed him away gently. ‘The other guests are arriving. Go join your Uncle Andrea !’
Luncheon was served on the sunlit terrace, where Uncle Andrea, the social strategist, had disposed his guests, six to a table, so that the conversation might flow more freely and intimately, and the outsiders be spared the boredom of family gossip. Spada found himself placed with Hugo Von Kalbach, Luigi Castagna, Aunt Lisa and two of the more intelligent junior wives, to whom Uncle Andrea had given the grudging accolade: ‘They’re not the prettiest of the bunch; but at least they don’t chatter and they can read words of three syllables.’
Von Kalbach was the most impressive figure in the group, a stooping giant with a mane of white hair and a smile, limpid and innocent as a child’s. His Italian was stilted; but he was an eager listener, alert to every detail of the talk. Castagna, the PCI man, was a horse of another colour, lean, dark and saturnine, with a cool wit and the uncluttered logic of a man who had all his premises clear, and knew all the rules in the book. Before they had even finished the pasta, Aunt Lisa began testing his defences:
‘A Florentine, eh?’
‘On my mother’s side. My father came from Arezzo.’
‘And what did your father do?’
‘He was a stone-mason, signora. He specialised in grave-stones.’
‘And you?’
‘I graduated, signora – from epitaphs to political pamphlets.’
‘You may find the epitaphs last longer.’
Castagna laughed a big, happy laugh, surprising from so terse a man. Spada chuckled and patted the old woman’s hand.
‘I’m sure yours won’t be written for a long time yet, Aunt Lisa. Now behave yourself! Come the revolution, you’ll need all the friends you can get.’
‘I am interested.’ Von Kalbach tried hard to be humorous in his careful, correct Italian. ‘We are very mixed company – a big American capitalist, a Communist deputy, a Bishop from the Vatican, a banker, a maker of automobiles, a liberal editor, a bankrupt philosopher . . . All invited by a Christian Democrat who lives like a prince!’
‘Andrea has a taste for comedy,’ said Aunt Lisa brusquely.
‘And a talent for reasonable compromise,’ said Castagna evenly. ‘We need that in these times.’
‘I agree.’ Von Kalbach was suddenly eloquent and animated. ‘It is the absolutists who threaten us now – the terrorist who seeks to reverse history with a bomb blast, the tyrant who wants to perpetuate the present in which he flourishes!’
‘Is that not too neat a distinction?’ Castagna’s tone was deceptively mild. ‘Does it not ignore the organisations which sponsor the terror and those which foster the tyranny to their own profit?’
‘Like your own party, for instance?’ Aunt Lisa was not easily silenced.
Castagna’s answer was polite but pointed.
‘Or perhaps the Spada companies which helped to put Pinochet in power in Chile and are supporters of similar régimes elsewhere.’
All eyes were on Spada as he sat silent, digesting the accusation, knowing that he too was under test. Castagna was too bright a man to be trapped into a quarrel by a shrewd old beldam. He, himself, ought to be bright enough to avoid the same snare. He reflected a moment longer and then said, calmly enough:
‘Isn’t that, in itself, an absolutist judgment? In business, you live with what is; you try to adapt to what happens. It’s like the old caravan masters. They had to make treaties with the tribes on the route, and pay the king’s tribute at the city gates; otherwise trade came to a standstill.’
‘Sometimes too, they paid the plotters to make a new king – or joined the king’s men to fight the tribes.’
‘But can we, who were not there, make true judgments on them?’
‘A nice point, my friend.’ Castagna smiled and made a gesture of deprecation. ‘I apologise for my bad manners. Perhaps later we can talk about the present.’
‘With pleasure.’ Spada turned to Von Kalbach. ‘Uncle Andrea tells me you’ve written a new work on the phenomena of violence.’
‘It is almost finished.’ The old scholar was curiously subdued. ‘I am not sure that I know how to finish it – or indeed whether I shall have time to do so.’
‘Why not, Professor?’ The question came from one of the girls.
‘Well . . .’ Von Kalbach paused, trying to construct the answer in Italian. ‘We are all familiar with the phenomena, the things that happen: assassination, hijacking, bombing, the violence practised by police, by security men, by professional torturers . . . I
t is our response which is in question. How far can we go? What morality applies?’
‘And what is your answer, Professor?’ asked John Spada.
‘I have none.’ The old man’s tone was sombre. ‘Whichever way I turn I am in dilemma. I can choose, as a Christian, a passive resistance. Am I entitled to stand by while another is brutalised? I have written, not an answer, but a riddle: “If I act, I become one of them. If I act not, I become their slave.” ‘
‘I think you must act,’ said Aunt Lisa stoutly. ‘It’s your right and duty as a man!’
‘Is it, dear lady?’ Von Kalbach turned to face her. ‘Then perhaps I should tell you that in my own country I am on the death list of a Baader-Meinhof commando because it is claimed I am a tool of the reactionaries. In Russia, a distinguished colleague has been confined to a mental home, reduced by drugs to a vegetal condition, because he protested the invasion of human rights in his own country. Very soon we may both be dead. What will you do about that, signora? Or you, Mr Spada? Or you, young ladies, what will you teach your children to do?’
‘The ladies will do nothing,’ said Castagna calmly. ‘Because they are individuals, impotent against the organisations . . . Spada will do nothing that may damage his goodwill or his profits.’
‘And you, Castagna?’
‘I’m lucky.’ There was more than a hint of self-mockery in the reply. ‘I seek a party directive and do as I’m told. It’s as comforting as having a father confessor.’
‘I’d like to believe you,’ Spada grinned. ‘I think you itch like the rest of us and scratch as hard . . . You should get Aunt Lisa to tell you the story of her unknown soldier.’
‘Please?’ Castagna looked puzzled.
Aunt Lisa whinnied again. Spada explained.
‘During the German retreat, there was an SS detachment quartered in the villa here. One of them was a drunken brute who constantly terrorised the women of the household. One night he went absent and was never seen again . . . There used to be an old well at the bottom of the far vineyard. It’s bricked over now. He’s still at the bottom of it.’
‘It was very deep,’ said Aunt Lisa. ‘And the spring had dried up; so we weren’t depriving ourselves of water.’
‘And it was you, signora, who killed him?’
‘That’s the legend,’ said Aunt Lisa placidly. ‘I never found it necessary either to confirm or deny it.’
‘So you see.’ John Spada added the final footnote. ‘It’s very hard to judge in advance how people will act, or afterwards how right or wrong they were. Let’s change the subject, shall we? . . .’
When the meal was over, Uncle Andrea led his privileged guests into the library. A manservant offered coffee and liqueurs, then withdrew. Uncle Andrea made a brief informal announcement.
‘For three of you, this is a first visit to my house. As I told you privately before luncheon, you are to be invited to share in a work which has been going on for some time. You have given me your assurance, as gentlemen, that whether you decide to join or not, you will keep secret what passes here today. Is that our understanding?’
There was a murmur of assent from Vallenilla, Castagna and Von Kalbach. Uncle Andrea nodded to John Spada, who – fished in his pocket, brought out a black note-book, found the page he wanted, then addressed himself to the small assembly.
‘Some of you know that the business I own today started in this room, with a gathering very like this one. Then, as now, Uncle Andrea was host, Carlo Magnoli was here, and Freddie Fonseca. Bishop Frantisek was not here . . . He was still a curate in Philadelphia. Me? I was a kid from New York, with a head full of ideas and five hundred dollars in the bank . . . Well, Uncle Andrea and his friends had faith in me and they helped me to build what we have today . . . They did more. They left me free at the end of it . . . For that, I shall be grateful until the day I die . . .’
He broke off and with an old-fashioned gesture took his uncle’s hand and pressed it to his lips. Uncle Andrea said gently:
‘Tell them the rest of it’
‘As the enterprise got bigger, I found myself trapped in a prison I had built for myself. Success makes walls around a man. He gets so used to reading balance sheets and business reports, he cannot see the man who has no shoes, the mother who has no milk for a child. But there is always an automatic absolution for his sins. Without his capital the factory would not be built and there would be no work for the labour force. Because the factory is there, or the mine or the oilfield, there is a town, a school, a hospital which otherwise would never have been built . . . Because he is a realist, he can keep the politicians half-way honest and get the bankers to gamble on new ventures. So, it’s not all black and white like a propaganda poster . . . Though sometimes, as in Chile or Korea or Iran or Brazil, companies like mine are whores who sleep in the tyrant’s bed, and bask under the protection of his police . . Again, it’s easy to condemn the whore. It’s not so easy to trace what turns an honest woman into a harlot . . . or what may happen if she decides to repent and be virtuous . . . There are many besides her bedfellow who profit from what she does . . .’ He laughed and flung out his arms in a gesture of defeat. ‘You see! Even here I talk like counsel for the defence! What I am trying to say is that you cannot dismantle a vast enterprise to solve your own bad conscience! The best you can do is use the power it gives you to build what Uncle Andrea once called “bridges of benevolence”, not merely between the rich and the needy, but between those who, without a mediator, might remain enemies, between friends who could not talk to each other because of protocol, between men of good will divided by frontiers or ideologies . . . This group is one such bridge. There are other groups round the world, in Iran, in Korea and many other places. All are secret, all identified by a common symbol . . . There are two men in this room who do not know the symbol because they have not yet been fully initiated. Before I go further, I have to ask them, do they want to know more, or do they wish to withdraw without commitment?’
There was a long moment of silence, then Rodolfo Vallenilla asked a cold question.
‘I am married to your daughter; yet you drop me, without warning, into this group. Why?’
‘Because I do not control it. The members must approve everything that is proposed.’
‘Do they fund the groups?’
‘Only in part. Other members contribute according to their means. The funds are under joint local control in each area.’
‘Which is exercised how?’
‘By majority vote.’
‘Each group is, therefore, autonomous?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is each member autonomous? Bishop Frantisek, for instance . . . Does he speak for himself or for the Vatican?’
‘For myself only,’ said Frantisek flatly. ‘I commit myself to act according to my own conscience.’
‘But if the vote goes against your conscience?’
‘I abstain from action. I may withdraw altogether from the group. So far, I have not felt obliged to do either.’
Luigi Castagna interposed himself into the dialogue.
‘I am here because I am attracted by the notion that bridges of benevolence can be built. I should feel happier if I knew something of what has been done already.’
This time it was Uncle Andrea who answered.
‘Last week, in Chile, four senior members of the Allende party were released from prison and allowed to leave the country. It was also confirmed that there was a drastic curtailment of the powers of DINA, the security service . . . My nephew and certain of his colleagues were responsible for that.’
‘How?’
‘By refusing to back any further bank loans to Chile, until it was done. It took hard bargaining among the diplomats in Washington and the bankers in New York but, in the end, they got the support they needed.’
‘Yesterday,’ said Carlo Magnoli, ‘the leader of the Christian Protest Movement in South Korea arrived in Tokyo. Our group in Seoul got him out of the country one jump a
head of President Park’s secret police.’
‘Three months ago,’ Fonseca, the banker, added his own postscript, ‘a well-known South African editor was placed under house arrest. One of our groups smuggled him out of the country and got him into England.’
‘You might call us body-snatchers.’ Spada grinned at his son-in-law. ‘Or you might, if you have a taste for history, think of us as ransomers, like the Donkey men of the Middle Ages who dedicated their lives to the release of captives from the Moors.’
‘I’d be interested to know,’ said Castagna quietly, ‘who gave you the mandate for this work?’
‘I assumed it,’ said Spada flatly. ‘I didn’t need a mandate to dig copper out of the ground, or start a programme of drug research. Why should I need one to save a life or give a man back his liberty?’
‘How do you do such things?’ asked Vallenilla again.
‘We use whatever means are at hand:diplomatic negotiation, commercial bargaining, bribery, blackmail, sometimes . . .’
‘Sometimes what?’
‘Let’s say,’ said John Spada amiably, ‘in this kind of exercise, one needs to be very flexible. Does the project interest you, Rodo?’
‘It might.’ Vallenilla was cautious and reserved. ‘However, I’d like to know more For instance, do you function in the Argentine or Brazil?’
‘We do.’
‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘That’s a compliment to our discretion. However, we need more members. Good ones are hard to find; which is why you’ve been invited to this meeting.’
‘How do you choose the people you decide to help?’
‘Their cases are recommended to us.’ It was Uncle Andrea who answered. ‘Professor Von Kalbach, for example, has asked us to consider the case of his colleague, Lermontov, who is confined in a psychiatric institute outside Moscow. We’re working on that now. Castagna wants us to intervene in the affair of a student who is in police custody in Milan, falsely accused of a bombing six months ago.’
Vallenilla was silent. Spada prompted him quietly.
‘It’s the mandate that bothers you, isn’t it?’
