Doctor Criminale

by Malcolm Bradbury

  ‘You saw it!’ cried Ildiko. ‘It’s probably all quite innocent,’ I said, ‘Just a little nude photography session.’ ‘And he needs to be naked too?’ asked Ildiko, ‘You are the one who is innocent. Those two are making an affair.’ ‘We don’t know that, do we?’ I said. ‘What do you need to understand something?’ asked Ildiko, ‘Why do you think he talked about the Nobel Prize that way the other night? Bazlo has fallen head over feet in love with Blasted Belli!’ ‘It hardly seems likely,’ I said. ‘Affairs are not likely,’ said Ildiko, ‘How about you and me? He is very attractive man and he cannot keep his hands off women. That is how he left Gertla and ended up with Sepulchra. Remember, he is Hungarian.’ ‘But why Miss Belli?’ I asked. ‘Why Miss Belli?’ cried Ildiko scornfully, ‘Are you so blind you don’t look at her? She is the most attractive girl here. And she is sorry for him, because he is stuck with La Stupenda. She told us this in the car.’

  ‘But he seems so attached to Sepulchra,’ I said, ‘And you told me he worshipped the ground she trod on.’ ‘You saw her, yes, fat as a horse now,’ said Ildiko, ‘And she is stupid, I’m sorry. Criminale depends on her, but not for everything. Don’t you see how he looks at other women?’ ‘Why doesn’t she keep an eye on him?’ I asked. ‘How do you keep an eye on one like that?’ Ildiko asked me angrily, ‘If he can disappear in the middle of a crowd, get lost in a little village a whole day, of course he can get away from Sepulchra, any time he likes it. She is too fat to follow. Anyway he keeps her all day in the study filing away his notes. And if you were famous and could have any woman, would you pick Sepulchra? No. Take me back, I have had enough.’ I looked at her. She was raging with anger; I was not sure why. I began to row back. ‘Not here, I don’t like such deep water,’ said Ildiko. ‘You don’t want them to see us, do you?’ I asked, ‘We have to stay out from the shore.’ ‘All right then, drown me, drown me, I don’t mind,’ said Ildiko.

  I wasn’t sure quite what had happened; what I did know was that something had changed in my quest for Bazlo Criminale. Lavinia, at least, would be pleased; he was not such a bourgeois philosopher after all. That night, as Ildiko sat at dinner in the Lippo Lippi room, I looked over at the great philosopher. No one could have been more dignified. He sat in centre place on the top table, hairy body cased in the finest clothes. Mrs Valeria Magno sat on one side, splendid in some Californian creation that wonderfully displayed her eternal tan. Sepulchra sat on the other, her vast evening wig stuck a little erratically on her head. Mrs Magno talked to him with great animation; Sepulchra behaved in her familiar, fussy way, occasionally tapping his arm and pointing to unfinished morsels left on his plate. Miss Belli was nowhere in sight, and nor was the equally splendid Miss Uccello; both were no doubt about their administrative and secretarial duties. It seemed hard even to recall, to take seriously, the naked, stocky goatlike figure I had seen that afternoon on the chilly beach.

  I made the mistake of saying as much to Ildiko, as I undressed that night in our great suite in the Boathouse. She lay in the bed already, looking pleasing in some flimsy shirt. ‘I’m sure it was just a photography session,’ I said. ‘No, those two are having a nice little affair,’ said Ildiko, again sparky with anger. ‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘Of course,’ said Ildiko, ‘Don’t you see, I know him very well?’ And now I suddenly began to understand her rage. ‘How well?’ I asked. ‘Very well,’ said Ildiko, ‘I hope you don’t think you are the only person who has been in my life?’ ‘You had an affair with him, you were his mistress?’ I asked. ‘Why not, do I ask you about the lovers you have had?’ asked Ildiko, ‘We only met five day ago. I had a lot of life before that.’ ‘When was this?’ I asked. ‘When, it doesn’t matter when,’ said Ildiko. ‘Is that why you wanted to come here, so you could see him again?’ I asked. Ildiko turned over. ‘I am with you, yes, isn’t that enough?’ she said, ‘Now please, stay away from me, over there. I like to go to sleep, it has not been for me a nice day.’

  And, her back turned firmly to me, Ildiko dived down into sleep. I did not; listening to the water slapping on the side of the Boathouse, seeing the moon shine in through the curtained window, I felt angry and jealous, as Ildiko obviously did too. But I had to admit that she was quite correct; I had no right to make claims over her past life, any more than she had to make claims on mine. But as my anger calmed, my sense of bewilderment grew. The situation struck me as strange, somehow, and I began asking myself those teasing questions that can always guarantee a sleepless night. Had Ildiko lured me into bringing her here from Budapest just so that she could meet Criminale again? But then why had she spent her time at Barolo largely avoiding him? And why would she have quite ‘willingly shared a room, and then begun an affair, with me, if that was why she’d come?

  And if Ildiko’s behaviour now seemed stranger and more devious than I’d thought (remember, I liked Ildiko very much), then Criminale’s seemed even more devious and strange. If these two were old lovers, then why had he shown absolutely no sign of recognizing her? By now I had come to know him well enough to accept that he lived in such a state of philosophical abstraction, dwelt so high in the stratosphere of his own mind, that he could perfectly well come face to face with an old mistress and fail to know just who she was. But suppose it was an agreed deceit – they had both decided to keep the relationship out of sight, perhaps because Sepulchra too was at Barolo. That didn’t fit either, though; Criminale clearly had no difficulty in avoiding the embrace of Sepulchra, as the events of the afternoon had shown. So why, if he and Ildiko had somehow agreed to meet, had he turned his attentions to Miss Belli? I was admittedly parti pris in the matter, but to me Ildiko’s Hungarian complications seemed far more interesting than Belli’s Italian flair. But love and sex operate by inexplicable laws, and are notoriously hard to decode; perhaps the affair had long been over, and it was jealousy itself that had brought Ildiko here. But amid all these confusions, two things seemed clear. One was that Criminale’s lovelife was far more interesting than I had so far supposed; how Lavinia would cheer, even if it dismayed me. And the other was that, if Ildiko had been Criminale’s mistress and was now mine, I was strangely linked to him through the peculiar rules of sexual intimacy in ways I had not even begun to suppose.

  I got to sleep very late; I woke quite early. The weather had changed: a hard chilly wind and squalls of rain blew across the rough ruffled surface of the lake outside. I now had many questions for Ildiko, but when I tried to wake her she was herself still in a state of squally anger, and refused to come to breakfast. Finally I took an umbrella (a Burberry, of course, for everything at Barolo was the best) from the hall and walked alone up to the villa. Criminale was there at breakfast, as usual, but he seemed lacklustre, and we heard nothing of Lukacs or Hungarian philosophy that particular morning. Sepulchra, unusually, put in no appearance at all. Cosima Bruckner, in her black trousers, stared grimly at me across the table.

  With the shift in the weather, the entire mood of the congress seemed to have changed. Ildiko did not appear for the morning session. When Monza appeared, he seemed preoccupied. Open­ing, of course, with his usual announcaments, he told us that the wind and rain had already discouraged many from taking the conference trip, the boat ride across to the Villa Bellavecchia for the concert that night. Would those who still intended to go, he announced, please go and sign a list during coffee, so that the chef could prepare an earlier dinner and his assistants arrange for a boat of a size that would accommodate the smaller party. He then, unusually, disappeared during the papers that followed an admirable statement by Martin Amis on ‘From Holocaust to Millennium’, which provoked an equally fine response from Susan Sontag. Meanwhile my own mind was drifting off, as it often does, towards another topic, sex: specifically, to the com­plex sex-life of Bazlo Criminale. I felt at last I had a clue to him, one I wanted to pursue. When the coffee break came, I made my way to the secretariat. Miss Belli was not there; Miss Uccello was. I asked for the list for the Bellavecchia boat trip, and scanne
d my way down it to see what names had been listed.

  I found what I wanted. Bazlo Criminale had signed it, with the simple word ‘Criminale’. Sepulchra was not listed. Just below Criminale’s name was Miss Belli’s. I added my own name to the list, followed by Ildiko’s, and handed it back with a warm smile to Miss Uccello. ‘What a blasted day,’ I said. Then, cutting the second session of the morning, I made my way back through the now wind-blown grounds to the Old Boathouse. I wanted to find Ildiko and tell her what I had done. And I wanted to ask her some more questions. But when I went into our suite, the only sign I could see of her was a note. It had been tucked into the frame of the mirror: ‘Have took boat, gone for shoppings,’ it said, ‘Thank you for dollar.’ I checked the jacket I had left hanging in the wardrobe. Something was missing from the inner pocket: my wallet. I wondered whether I would see it, her, her, 1 it, again.

  *

  When the music party gathered that night down at the Barolo pier, Ildiko had not returned. The group for Bellavecchia was strangely reduced; perhaps thirty of us stood ready to go on board. No doubt the early meal had deterred some, but the freshening wind and the gusting rain explained what had deterred others. The night weather was tossing the lake into spume-topped waves; the waiting speedboat was rocking very unsteadily beside the pier. I looked around for Bazlo Criminale. And there he was, wearing a smart, neat, admiral-style topcoat, and the blue yachting-cap that had topped off his spectacular nudity the day before. He looked so impressive that it was quite appropriate he should step on board first. He sat down ahead of us all, a bulky mass in one of the double seats at the front of the boat. For a moment, I thought of sitting down beside him, and telling him everything, admitting to the programme we wanted to make. There are times when silence can go on too long.

  But then Miss Belli, clad in some splendid red designer sou’wester, and carrying a small suitcase, jumped aboard. She walked through the crowd, found Criminale, flashed her black eyes at him, and took the seat at his side. ‘Blasted rough, eh?’ she said, as I sat down a few rows behind, so that I could see them both. I looked over the side. The black water tossed fitfully, and dark clouds raced across the moonlit mountains at the top end of the lake. Then someone came and sat down, very firmly, on the seat beside me. ‘And now I think we talk properly at last,’ said my new companion. I turned, and saw it was Miss Cosima Bruckner, wearing black eye makeup, dark anorak, and those tight black leather trousers that are associated with high fashion in her German homeland and with street violence and sadism almost everywhere else. ‘Why not?’ I asked, ‘How are you enjoying the congress?’

  ‘I do not mean making some small-talk,’ she said. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘I mean, I like very much to know what you are doing here,’ said Cosima Bruckner. ‘Thinking, like everyone else,’ I said. ‘This is not a philosophical question,’ said Bruckner, looking round, ‘You have told me you work for a paper which I find does not anymore exist.’ ‘It went bankrupt a couple of weeks ago,’ I said. ‘Then how can you write for it?’ asked Bruckner, ‘You said you were here under cover. What is your real name?’ ‘Francis Jay,’ I said. ‘But that is the name you are using,’ she said. ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Very well, who sent you here, who are your paymasters?’ ‘I’m just a freelance journalist writing an article,’ I said. ‘I do not believe you,’ said Cosima, bending her head very close to mine, ‘Mr Jay, or whoever you are, do you realize that if I went to Monza with what I know, he would at once ejaculate you?’

  The boat had cast off now, and was moving away from the pier into the lake water; immediately the spray began to fly. ‘And what do you know?’ I asked. ‘I know you are here at Barolo with a Hungarian agent,’ murmured Cosima Bruckner. ‘Ildiko?’ I asked, ‘She’s not an agent, she’s a publishers’ editor.’ ‘Why is she here?’ asked Bruckner. ‘She likes shops,’ I said. ‘Do not think I am foolish,’ said Bruckner, ‘She works for a state publishing house that has often been used as a spy channel between East and West. We know about this traffic.’ ‘Really? How?’ I asked. ‘Mr Jay, I have checked you both out with Brussels,’ said Bruckner, ‘Not only with Interpol, but other pan-European organizations of a far more clandestine kind.’ Now we had left the lee of the Isola Barolo, the boat was rocking badly. Nervous screams came from the other passengers; most of them left their seats on deck and retreated into the cabin. ‘I think we should both go under cover,’ I said to Bruckner, starting to get up.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Jay, or whoever you are,’ said Bruckner, seizing my arm in a very tight grip, ‘You do not appear to see the seriousness of your situation. This is an intergovernmental congress with key world figures. Some leading ministers who are seriously threatened in their own countries. Representatives of nations who live their lives under eternal risk. At places like this, terrorists strike.’ ‘Surely you don’t think I’m a terrorist,’ I said. ‘I do not know who you are,’ said Cosima Bruckner, ‘But at least you are a most serious leak of security. Your position is not good. I like very much to know what your mission is here.’ ‘Very well,’ I said, ‘As I said, I’m a journalist, but I’m working for TV on a programme on Bazlo Criminale.’ Cosima Bruckner turned and stared at me intently. ‘You are following Criminale?’ she asked, ‘Can you show me something that proves this is who you are?’ I felt in my pocket for my paper. ‘I could have done,’ I said, ‘Except Ildiko Hazy has gone off shopping with my wallet.’ ‘A very likely story,’ she said. I began to sense something highly operatic about Cosima Bruckner.

  Happily we had come under the lee of the further shore by now, and were soon docking at a wooden pier. It attached to the grounds of another lakeside villa, though this one came from a very different world of taste from the Villa Barolo. The Villa Bellavecchia was in the neo-classical style, and the floodlit gardens through which our party now unsteadily passed were filled with Roman statuary, of a sumptuous kind I had never before seen. As you came from the lake, it was the buttocks that assaulted you first: buttocks on an archetypal scale, buttocks whose memory could cheer you in some distant place where misfortune had fallen or the weather was grim. They belonged to Mars and Venus; Mars’s were the larger by a cubic foot or two, but Venus’s the plumper and more comely. When you passed and looked back, you found similar grand ambitions had gone into the frontal aspect: the largest of figleaves did little to restrain Mars’s sturdy and outgoing nature, nor conceal the vast pelvic fecundity of the goddess of love.

  But looking back was a mistake. There again was Cosima Bruckner, in her leather trousers, loitering amid the statues right behind me. I sensed her following me still as we entered the villa and found ourselves in a vast salle de réception, filled with more vast statues in Carrera marble. Among them stood a smaller and more human figure; Professor Monza had once again been spirited on ahead of us. ‘Attenzione, bitte!’ he cried, clapping his hands, ‘Pleasa be seateda! The weather gets worsa, and this means the concerta will be shorta!’ In the room gilded chairs with ducal crests had been gracefully arranged in a half-circle around a small raised podium, as at the aristocratic soirees of an age I thought was gone. A few other guests were there; men in excellent grey suits, women with chignons wearing backless and in some cases sideless dresses. But the group from Barolo was evidently the main party, and, thanks to our loss of numbers, we conspicuously failed to make the room seem full.

  I watched out for Doctor Criminale, and there he was, taking his seat by Monza right in the middle of the front row. Miss Belli then approached, smiled, said something, and took the seat next to him. They leaned toward each other, possibly sharing a programme or some other small intimacy. I took a seat towards the back, in a position from which I could observe them; this was a relationship I wanted to understand better. Then someone took the seat next to mine; I turned and saw that it was, once again, Cosima Bruckner. ‘I think, Mr Jay, it is time to be quite frank with you,’ she whispered, leaning close to me, ‘Please understand I too am not what I seem.’ ‘Really?’ I asked, ‘So
what are you then?’ ‘The face that you see is only my cover,’ said Bruckner, glancing round. ‘You’re not from the European Community?’ I asked. ‘Let us say not from the beef section as I have been maintaining,’ said Bruckner, ‘Ssshhh.’

  She pointed to the podium, onto which was filing a small chamber orchestra. Its members, all in white shirts and bow ties, were youthful but stylish, the young men with long hair, the girls with short. After a brief moment, a similarly youthful conductor, in long black tails and wearing long flowing locks, entered, took centre stage, bowed to our warm applause. The orchestra tuned up. ‘A fine acoustic!’ Criminale could be heard saying. Then the conductor stepped forward. ‘Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, Le Quattro Stagione,’ he said, The Four Seasons.’ Here was another composer who had, I seemed to remem­ber, died in poverty in Vienna, and then revived to bring us neo-classical joy. The orchestra, a good one, now set about Vivaldi’s meteorological work with gusto; I leaned back to listen and enjoy.

  It was in the middle of Spring that Cosima Bruckner resumed her whispering in my ear. ‘Do you realize that here we are within ten kilometres of the Swiss border?’ she asked. I shook my head. ‘And you know Switzerland is the world’s financial paradise?’ I nodded. ‘Also it is not a member of the European Community.’ I smiled sympathetically. ‘That means this border is alive with fraudulent traffic and financial irregularities of every kind.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘You know that ten per cent of the European Community budget disappears in fraudulent trans­actions?’ I raised my eyebrows even higher. ‘Much of it goes out of Italy and through these passes.’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘So perhaps now you understand why I am at Barolo,’ said Cosima Bruckner, sitting back as the movement came to its end.