I gazed through the window at fields over which I should have marched in triumph beside Roland Swann, Bill Shenton, and the others. I had had my consolations.
At the railway station in Rome there was little sign of military occupation. Like the Italians before them, the Germans had declared it an “open city,” meaning there would be no resistance to our advance. This made General Clark’s dash for glory seem all the more peculiar, I thought, as I persuaded a civilian taxi to take me to the address I had been given in Via Zafferano, near the Tiber.
It was a large apartment building that had been temporarily requisitioned. I went to the first floor, as instructed, and was shown by an Italian clerk to a waiting room. Nobody came. Occasional footsteps echoed in the large rooms of the piano nobile, then the noise vanished and an air of torpor settled on the building. Eventually an English Red Cross nurse took me into a makeshift surgery, where an RAMC doctor examined the bullet wound in my shoulder. Although there was a restriction in movement, it was all properly healed and the scar was neat enough. He seemed happy.
He took me from his surgery over the landing to some double doors, knocked, and led me in. There were four officers behind a table, two RAMC, one infantry, and one intelligence. The large room was empty apart from the table and chairs, which were set in front of a huge marble fireplace. It felt like a tribunal of some kind.
The chairman coughed and smiled. “Do sit down, Major Hendricks. My name is Price. Just need to ask you a couple of questions, then we’ll set you loose on the enemy again. At a previous board in Naples, I see there was some question of concussion. Was that ever followed up?”
“Yes, I returned for a second assessment and we did some tests.”
“Tests?”
“Yes. Memory tests. Visual tests.”
“And you passed all those?”
“So far as I know. But they suggested I put in for some leave that was owed me just to be on the safe side. To give it a bit longer.”
“I see. And you’ve had no headaches, dizzy spells, anything like that?”
I thought of my life with Luisa and her Red Cross colleagues. “None at all,” I said.
“Very well,” said Major Price. “I have Dr. Wilcox’s report here from your examination just now, so unless any of my colleagues…” He looked to either side, where the others shook their heads. “I shall make a recommendation to your commanding officer today. Thank you very much for coming. You should call in again tomorrow to see if we’ve received instructions from your CO. The officers’ club is ten minutes’ walk in the Campo dei Fiori if you have nowhere else to stay. That’s all.”
I decided to go and look at the Forum. I had never been to Rome before, but it had been the backdrop of my childhood. Because of the time we spent on them, Augustus Caesar and Quintus Fabius Maximus had been more real to me in my English town than anyone from our own history. Now I found myself among the ruins of the temples and the marketplace and felt that exquisite pressure of a different reality. I heard Cicero on those broken steps denouncing the Catiline conspiracy. I watched chained Nubian slaves, their black skin shining, as they waited to be sold. Under the cypress trees and in the smaller pathways there were wine sellers, pimps, and tailors.
Anyone could have a temple; it needed only self-assertion, Rome’s gift to the world. You could be a god, a myth, a hero, or a man: if you could compel the labor to build it, the temple was yours. The famous line from Virgil tolled in my head: Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt. We had all submitted our efforts at translation in the fifth form, though Mr. Liddell considered none worthy of the laurels. Mine had been: “There are tears in all things and thoughts of our passing forever touch the soul.”
I stayed in the officers’ club, as suggested. The atmosphere of the city could hardly have been more different from that of Naples. The Vatican had made it clear that it disliked seeing soldiers on the street, and the Allied garrison had duly left, leaving a handful of buildings occupied by our functionaries. I spent the morning looking for Caravaggios that I could describe to Luisa, but they seemed little valued by the churches where they hung. One had no lighting, one required a coin to switch on a single electric bulb; The Conversion of St. Paul in Santa Maria del Popolo was so dark that it appeared at first to depict no groveling Saul, only a horse’s backside.
When I went back to the Via Zafferano in the afternoon, Price showed me a cable from Richard Varian in Florence, asking me to report for duty as soon as possible. I hadn’t foreseen such urgency. I didn’t know whether to return to the Gulf of Naples to collect my kit and say my goodbyes or to discover first what my future was to be.
I went out onto the streets of Rome in a state of shock. In some self-deluding way, I had convinced myself that my part in the war was over, that Luisa and I could somehow carry on living in a universe that owed nothing to the bizarre reality inhabited by others. I went to a telephone box in the hope of asking her advice, but trunk calls were hard to make, I had no coins, and my Italian wasn’t good enough to persuade the operator of my emergency. I doubted whether the line worked anyway.
Then I strode over the cobbles in an attempt to clear my mind, but the movement only seemed to disorientate me. I sat down by the fountain in the small square shadowed by the Pantheon.
The thought of losing Luisa, or even being separated from her, was making it hard for me to think clearly. I could go back and persuade her to run away with me, but that would mean desertion. And if I were caught I’d be joining Warren in some dismal prison with the guards spitting in my food. Then someone more suitable would woo Luisa, whisk her off to Lake Como, and install her in a waterfront palace where I would never see her again.
The inscription on the pediment of the Pantheon put me to shame. “M Agrippa … fecit.” Marcus Agrippa made it. He didn’t put it out to tender or consult. He made it.
It was better to go and see what Varian proposed, even though I was pretty sure what it would be: a footslog into the mountains to dislodge the enemy from the high ground of the Gothic Line that ran from Pisa on one coast to Rimini on the other. But it would be better to hear it from a man I trusted.
With a slow tread I made my way to the railway station. I found Richard Varian late that evening in a villa north of Florence, a pleasant building, if a bit run-down, with cracked plasterwork and chickens pecking in the gardens. He was preoccupied with maps and plans but seemed pleased to see me.
“I’ve got a proposal for you, Robert,” he said, after pouring me the usual drink. “As you’ve doubtless worked out for yourself, we’ll be going up into the hills. An interesting new challenge. After desert warfare, beachheads, and trenches, our masters would like to see how we manage in the mountains.”
“They like to keep us on our toes,” I said.
“It’s a tribute to the division that they trust us to carry on and finish the job. I’d half expected we’d be pulled out of Italy after Anzio. Anyway. Now that you’re quite fit, I’d like you to take a job on Brigade staff. It’s just come up. I was asked to recommend someone, and I think it would suit you.”
“What does it involve?”
“Transport, mostly. Supply lines. Do you know anything about mules?”
“Mules?”
“It’s pretty rugged up there. We won’t get anything on wheels up to the front. Don’t laugh, Robert.”
“I’m sorry. It may be relief; I thought I’d be taking over B Company.”
“No, I’m leaving Dinger Bell in charge there.”
“Will I rejoin the battalion eventually?”
“Of course you will. It’s going to be a long winter, and my guess is you’ll be back with us in the spring.”
“When does it start?”
“Report back here on Monday, and we’ll get you on your way.”
* * *
IT WAS WEDNESDAY. I spent another night in Rome on my way back. When I let myself into my lodgings the next evening, there was a letter from Donald Sidwell.
&nbs
p; Dear Robert,
I’m sorry I missed you on your flying visit. We were out on maneuvers, though of course I can’t tell you where … A small bird tells me you’re likely to be joining us again soon, though only briefly.
Being in X has been a good interlude for most of us, a breather after that godforsaken marsh. As I was walking down a street the other day, I heard music through the door of a church. I went in and sat down. It was Monteverdi, a madrigal. The one that goes “Others sing of love when two souls are joined in a single thought, but I sing of war, furious and fierce,” or words to that effect. Extremely eerie. As the voices floated up into the carved ceiling you felt nothing had changed since 1620.
In my last weekend before a return to good old foot soldiering, I had a ride in a Bugatti Type 50 on Saturday. It’s a wonderful car, though I wasn’t allowed to drive it because my host, a local bigwig, was too nervous to let anyone else take the wheel.
Brian and John have also returned, so three of the Five Just Men are back in place. Wasn’t the Edgar Wallace book actually The Four JM?
I’m sorry I didn’t see you again after I came back from Bari. You seemed always to be out of town or at least impossible to detach from la bella signorina. I do hope you know what you are doing, old chap.
As for me, I said my farewells to the formidable Miss Greenslade. She allowed me to kiss her on the lips! I said I would write to her, and I probably will. I admired the way she brought her Episcopalian standards to a Catholic anarchy. I would have liked to take her pants down, though. She could have boasted to all the ladies at the country club in Connecticut that she had been loved by a Monorchid Major.
Yours,
Donald
I felt disorientated after my traveling and went to bed early, where I had a strange dream about Lily Greenslade. In the morning I caught a bus into town and started walking towards the Red Cross offices. I had decided to ask Luisa to come up to Florence with me. I had no idea what my billeting arrangements would be, but I imagined that between us we could afford a room in the city to which I could return as often as possible. Like most frontline infantry I had only a vague idea of what a staff officer did, but I imagined there might be more to it than smoking cigars at a safe distance—that it might entail visits to the front.
I went up the horseshoe staircase and into the main office. The clacking of typewriters and the rustle of carbons seemed busier than ever. Young women strode about self-importantly while post boys came in with letters and telegrams from the field. Luisa was not at her usual desk in the window, so after a few words with her colleagues I made my way to Lily’s office at the far end of the room and knocked at the door.
She smiled up over the telephone receiver and waved me in. I waited for her to finish her conversation.
“Hello, Robert,” she said. “We’re busy today. Were you looking for Luisa?”
“You know me so well, Lily.”
“She’s not in this morning. She had some family business to attend to.”
“Did she leave a message?”
“No.”
This struck me as odd. Lily looked embarrassed.
“Is she at her lodgings?” I said.
“No. I think she had to go into Naples.”
“I see.”
“Look, Robert, things are a bit frantic as you can see. But if you’re free at say … one thirty, we could go and find some lunch.”
“I’ll see you then.”
Lily picked up the telephone, and I made my way out onto the street. There was not much to do in town, so I went back to my lodgings and read. My room was at the back of a house in a quiet side street, not far from the sea. I was reading The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni for the sake of my Italian.
From my window on the top floor I could see the bay where the fishermen were mending the nets after their nighttime excursion. I began to hum the melody of “Santa Lucia,” which I remembered from when Donald had sung it. The tune was easy to pick up, but I couldn’t remember all the words; so I took random sentences from The Betrothed and sang them instead. I think I was trying to distract myself.
At noon I went downstairs to the parlor. My landlady had frequently told me I could help myself to anything I wanted. Neither she nor her husband drank alcohol and I had long had my eye on a three-quarters-full bottle of Strega on the sideboard. I filled a small wineglass and drained it.
Then I set off to walk slowly to the Red Cross building. Now I was humming “My name is Lucia, but people call me Mimi,” as Luisa did. Lily Greenslade was standing outside when I arrived. She took me by the arm, which surprised me.
“Let’s go down to the port,” she said.
She somehow procured pizza from a house I had previously thought unoccupied and handed me a slice. We were sitting on the same low wall where I had first kissed Luisa.
“Tell me about your new posting,” said Lily.
“I can’t. For one, I don’t know, and two, I’m not allowed to. Something about transport.”
“Did you see anything of Rome while you were there?”
“A little. I went to the Forum and I looked out for paintings by Caravaggio so I could tell Luisa about them.”
Lily gazed out to sea. “I remember staying in Rome with some friends of Edgar and Mae Carnforth. They had an apartment near the Villa Borghese. It was so beautiful back then.”
“Were there many Americans there?”
“Oh, yes.” She smiled. “The best Americans always head for Europe. We’re a good export. We don’t understand why you British don’t travel in Europe more.”
“We used to like going to Germany.”
“That was never so popular with us. Not part of our grand tour. Now I wonder if Americans will ever go there.”
“Only as an army of occupation, I suppose.”
“Yes.” Lily sighed and looked over her shoulder.
“Do you know when Luisa will be back?” I said.
Lily turned to me, with concern scored into her well-bred face. “How are you, Robert? Tell me truly. Are you recovered from your wound and everything?”
“Yes. I’m fine. Fully recovered.”
This was true, though I was also feeling that I might faint.
“No more headaches?”
“None. I’m fine. Tell me.”
She breathed in deeply. “Luisa has had to go back to Genoa.”
“To Genoa? Why?”
Lily looked down at the cobbles of the port. “To look after her husband. He was wounded fighting for the partisans.”
“Her…”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Robert. I’m so sorry. I’ve struggled with this for a long time.”
“You mean her brother? She had two brothers fighting for the partisans.”
“No. She has one brother. And one…” Her voice trailed away, and she began to cry.
I looked out at the Tyrrhenian Sea, big, impassive, green black.
NINE
It took some time to pick up the threads of my medical training after the war, and I was already more than thirty years old when I finally took up the place that had been offered to me at the London teaching hospital. After my time as a houseman, I applied to the School of Neurology, only to be told that they had no vacancies. The professor, however, took pity on an old soldier and said he thought I would make a decent psychiatrist; he would put in a word with his colleagues. I suspected it was a discipline whose low success rate made it short of applicants, but I was living in sordid lodgings in Shoreditch, had no money, and was grateful for the least encouragement.
So I tumbled into my life’s work by accident. There was further studying in London before I was dispatched to Bristol for the final stage of my training. Bristol was a city I immediately liked, though I think it was more appreciated by people who passed through it than by Bristolians who lived in the estates of Southmead or Knowle. I had a room in Redland, near the university, on the top floor of a terrace house; there were four other lodgers and a sweet-tempered landlady c
alled Mrs. Devaney who allowed me to come and go at any time and left cheese sandwiches or a pork pie under a napkin on the table in my room. On Fridays she left a bottle of stout as well.
The hospital to which I took the bus each morning was a three-hundred-bed clinic in the western suburbs, which went by the name of Silverglades. It had once been a private sanatorium but had been taken over by the new National Health Service as an overflow from Glenside, the Victorian city asylum. There were a couple of wards that housed chronic cases who would never leave, but there were also smaller, two-storey buildings that took a wide variety of cases, including day patients who looked in twice a week to chat.
It was small enough for the staff from different parts of the hospital to meet and discuss their work. Most of the junior doctors were able to move regularly from one ward to another, so that despair, the besetting sin of the profession, had no chance to take root. As a student I was allowed to sit in on consultations, which might range from a heartbroken girl who needed help to find some self-belief to an old man convinced that his thoughts were controlled by an electric current in Clifton Suspension Bridge. It was, you could say, interesting work, and it turned out to be an ideal place to learn.
I was allowed to take some cases in psychotherapy, singly and in groups. My supervisor, a genial man called Mark Burgess who’d also served in North Africa, was happy to let me find my feet. “Listen to them, Robert,” he said. “Don’t tell them. Just listen and suggest other questions they might ask themselves. They do the work. You just help them find their way.” Sometimes I suspected him of advocating this technique merely to reassure himself I was doing no harm, so that he could safely leave at lunchtime to play golf. In any event, it was good advice; the approach seemed to work, and I was rewarded by witnessing several patients improve to the point that they no longer came to consult me. A young man called Stephen, who had suffered from recurring panic attacks, told me his mind was like a frozen river when spring finally arrives and slabs of ice that have been locked solid begin to melt. His face shone as he told me this; he was certain that there was no stopping the thaw.
Where My Heart Used to Beat Page 18
