A Dead Man In Trieste

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Whatever your person in the Piazza delli Cappucine saw,’ said Machnich, ‘he did not see me. There is nothing to link me with any of this.’

  ‘We shall see what the Herzegovinians say. Because, you see, we shall now have an opportunity of questioning them. Since Mr Kornbluth was able to find out where they were hiding and has arrested them,’

  Machnich let out a long breath.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ he said.

  ‘Because I hoped that you would save us a lot of time by telling me that you recognized it to be true.’

  Machnich laughed.

  ‘Do you think I would do that?’

  ‘Well, yes, I think you might.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you, you are wrong.’

  ‘I think you might,’ said Seymour, ‘once you recognize that you have been used.’

  ‘Used?’ said Machnich.

  ‘Used by the Bosnians. The Serbs here have been used by the Bosnians. And the intention was that Serbs everywhere should pay the penalty.’

  ‘What is this?’ said Machnich.

  ‘You knew what Rakic intended to do. He intended to plant a bomb which would kill the Governor. But do you know why he wanted to do that?’

  ‘To strike a blow at the Austrians. To hit back at them for their annexation of Bosnia.’

  ‘Oh, yes, but it went further than that. Much further. You see, as Mr Schneider once explained to me, one thing is bound to another. One country is bound to another. Russia, for example, is bound by treaty to Serbia. So if Austria attacked Serbia for some reason, it would be obliged to intervene. Rakic, who was, of course, Bosnian, meant to supply that reason. He intended to kill the Governor and then see that Serbia was blamed for it. Why else, do you think, he associated himself so much with you?’

  ‘Could this be?’ said Machnich.

  ‘He meant to slip out and leave you to take the blame. You, the Serbs.’

  ‘Bosnians!’ said Machnich, angrily. ‘What can you expect from a people like that but treachery?’

  ‘Why I am telling you this,’ said Seymour, as Schneider and Kornbluth came into the room, ‘is so that you can have a chance of putting things right. Rakic, fortunately, did not succeed. But the story will come out and it will anger the Austrians. You can see that the right story is told and that the right people are blamed. Not the Serbians.’

  Machnich was silent for quite a long time. Then he said:

  ‘I can do better than that. Because the story is not over. Rakic failed, but he is going to try again. The Governor will be at the Politeama tonight. With those crazy Futurists. In fact,’ he looked at this watch, ‘in just about twenty minutes’ time.’

  Huge, stridently coloured banners were draped all over the front of the Politeama. The Future is Here! they cried. This Evening! Balloons with bright faces painted on them hung over the doors. A gigantic papier-mâché mask had been hoisted into a central position among them. From its mouth dribbled a string of sausages. Was it Seymour’s imagination, or just his weakness of aesthetic sense, or did the mask faintly resemble the face that hung everywhere in Trieste, the Emperor’s face beneath the familiar peaked military cap?

  And at the doors, and everywhere round the Politeama, were policemen. They checked everyone who went in, opening all handbags and parcels, plunging their hands deep into the voluminous pockets of the cloaked worthies and the surprised, and resentful, Citizens of the Future.

  ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘It’s my penis, isn’t it?’

  ‘Then why has it come off?’

  The policeman’s hand emerged from the pocket holding a banana.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s for the performance. Hey, give it back!’

  The policeman, slightly bemused, surrendered it.

  ‘Thank you, officer. Would you like a bite?’

  A cry went up.

  ‘Hey, they’re confiscating penises now!’

  Marinetti came rushing out of the doors.

  ‘You’re ruining everything! Everything!’ he cried to Kornbluth in anguish.

  ‘I’ve told you - ’ began Kornbluth.

  But Marinetti had already dashed back into the hall. A moment later he re-emerged with a large, hastily painted notice which he propped up against the doors. It said:

  They are Trying to Arrest the Future!

  Please Give them every Co-operation. Let them search your pockets.

  The Citizens of the Future responded enthusiastically, pulling out their pockets for the benefit of the policemen. Some of them took down their trousers.

  ‘Just bloody get on in there!’ said Kornbluth, harassed.

  Inside the hall huge backcloths on the walls showed aeroplanes diving, cities exploding, museums and galleries collapsing, fractured Venus de Milos tumbling out of them in dozens, racing-cars hurtling off the walls, fireworks opening into golden raindrops which became shell bursts tinged with red, and military caps rising disembodied into the air as if suddenly levitated by an explosion, one of the caps instantly recognizable as that of the Emperor of the thousands of portraits, with a seagull poised ominously above it, about to jettison a load of white excrement, some of which had, indeed, already fallen.

  Down one of the aisles strutted a large ginger cat. It was six feet high and had its arm around a nude girl. The nude girl was Maddalena.

  Or nearly nude. She had put on a cat mask which covered her face; black, to go with the bow-tie she had donned. That was the only thing she had donned; apart, Seymour suddenly saw, from a tail.

  ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Well,’ said Seymour, ‘not overdressed!’

  ‘How do I look?’ said the ginger cat anxiously, in a voice that Seymour recognized. ‘It’s very hot in here,’ James complained.

  ‘Have you seen Rakic?’ asked Seymour.

  ‘He was standing here a moment ago,’ said Maddalena.

  Seymour scanned the audience and couldn’t see him.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  He looked around again. Over by the door Kornbluth was doing the same thing.

  ‘Why?’ asked Maddalena.

  ‘It’s important, We’ve got to find him.’

  Marinetti came running down the aisle.

  ‘Perfect!’ he said. ‘Take it up there.’ He pointed towards the stage.

  ‘I can’t see in this!’ complained James.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ said Maddalena.

  They stooped and picked up a long cardboard box. It was black. It took Seymour a moment to realize that it was a replica coffin.

  The two cats, the ginger one and the black one, set off up the aisle towards the stage. There was a little ripple of applause.

  It was hard for them to find a space on the stage because most of it was already occupied by the two giraffes, dancers dressed in spangles and little else, a small group of bearded, slightly apprehensive poets, and, at the back, a row of even more apprehensive, mostly uniformed worthies.

  There was a stir at the door. The police around it parted and in came a small group of clearly still more exalted worthies, led by a grand couple, he in gorgeous, be-medalled uniform, she in a beautiful, near-ballroom dress.

  ‘I thought they’d been told not to come!’

  They insisted!’ whispered Kornbluth.

  The couple mounted the steps to the stage and took their place in the centre of the worthies.

  ‘He was here!’ Seymour whispered. ‘Maddalena saw him.’

  ‘Jesus!’ said Kornbluth and started going up and down the aisles scanning the rows.

  With a discordant fanfare of trumpets the Evening’s entertainment began. A tall yellow banana marched to the front of the stage and bowed to the audience. It split apart and Marinetti emerged, to applause, dressed as a ringmaster.

  He cracked his whip and the dancers at once began cartwheeling and somersaulting. The poets all started to declaim their poems, simultaneously and increasingly l
oudly. Live fish were thrown slithering on to the stage. The dancers began to hurl them into the audience. The row of worthies, as goggle-eyed as the fishes, watched it all, stunned.

  The two cats had put down their box.

  Marinetti cracked his whip. He waited and then cracked it again impatiently. Maddalena gave the ginger cat a push and it started running round the stage in a circle. The dancers, still somersaulting, fell in behind it, and the giraffes behind them. Dwarfs, elves and gnomes emerged from the wings chased by an angry old troll, and joined the circling.

  Kornbluth came back up the aisle.

  ‘I can’t see him,’ he said, vexed. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘It was Maddalena,’ said Seymour. ‘She seemed pretty sure.’

  ‘He would have been searched,’ said Kornbluth. ‘Everyone was searched.’

  ‘Where the hell is he?’ said Seymour.

  ‘Perhaps he’s left,’ suggested Kornbluth.

  And then, suddenly, Seymour knew where he was.

  ‘The Canal Grande! Send some men. He’s catching a boat.’

  Kornbluth, blessedly, didn’t stop to question but spun on his heel.

  Marinetti cracked his whip again and everything speeded up. The fanfares now were incessant. Crackers began to explode, the poets shouted louder and louder, the dancers leaped and jumped, chased now by the troll, who had transferred his attentions from the elves. He hurled himself on one of the dancers and began to surge with her in an ecstatic embrace. The music and the noise rose to a crescendo.

  James, short-sighted, anyway, but also handicapped by the costume, blundered into the black box, tripped and nearly fell over. Maddalena caught him and pushed him back into the dance. She moved the coffin out of the way with her foot.

  And then Seymour started running. Up the aisle and then up the steps on to the stage, pushing aside people, policemen and participants. He caught hold of the black box and began to tear at it with his bare hands, forcing the cardboard apart, so that he could reach down for what was inside.

  He took it out and jumped down from the edge of the stage. He began to run up the aisle, pushing everyone aside.

  ‘Signor, Signor -

  The police at the door half turned to stop him but he forced his way through them and out into the piazza outside.

  It was dark but there were dozens of lamps hanging from the trees and from the front of the Politeama and by their light he could see people standing everywhere. The piazza was crowded. He looked around frantically.

  And then there, at the end of the piazza, he saw that there were no people, just stalls dismantled from the market that normally occupied that end of the piazza every morning, and in a corner something hanging, perhaps a sheet left out to dry.

  He threw the thing as far as he could, towards that end of the piazza, hoping that it would fall on the other side of the stalls and that they would deaden the force of the explosion.

  And the next moment there was a light brighter than that of all the lamps hanging from the trees and from the Politeama and he found himself lying on the ground and only then was aware of the crack that had hurt his ears and of the acrid smell drifting across the piazza towards him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kornbluth took Seymour for a farewell drink in the little cafe on the Canal Grande. Schneider was not invited.

  Relations between Kornbluth and Schneider had, however, improved.

  ‘He thinks the sun shines out of my backside,’ confided Kornbluth, ‘since I managed to get both the Herzegovinians and Rakic,’

  Kornbluth had got to the Canal Grande just in time. The boat, with Rakic in it, had already pushed out from the quay. Kornbluth, with surprising speed for so bulky a man (‘But, then, I was always the fastest boy in the village, especially when the farmer was after me’), dashed along the quay, commandeered a boat which was itself on the point of departure, leaped aboard and directed it out into the canal where it blocked off the escaping boat until his men could get there.

  The valiant lamparetti, displaying a zest for combat and a disregard for their uniforms hitherto unsuspected in them, hurled themselves into the water and into the fray and succeeded, by sheer weight of numbers, in seizing the vessel.

  Rakic, chagrined but defiant, was not the man to deny his role in the affair, especially since he suspected that others were trying to belittle it. He attributed his failure solely to the weakness and treachery of Machnich.

  ‘Never trust a Serb!’ he said gloomily.

  ‘Never trust a Bosnian!’ retorted Machnich indignantly, when this was relayed to him; and both spilled all.

  ‘Never trust a Serb or a Bosnian!’ said the Italians, when they heard about the affair. ‘Or a Herzegovinian for that matter.’

  The artists were, on the whole, delighted by the outcome of the Futurist Evening, although they were judging its success purely in aesthetic terms. ‘A landmark in Western art!’ said Marinetti, very satisfied with the Evening and especially with himself.

  James remained somewhat confused about the whole business, thinking to the last that Seymour’s eruption on to the stage was merely part of the planned proceedings, and taking the explosion outside as one of Marinetti’s accompanying fireworks.

  Seymour, before leaving for London, had written to Auntie Vi asking if he might keep one of the pictures on Lomax’s wall as a memento of the experience. Many years later he was astonished to find that the value of the painting was greater than the whole of his lifetime earnings as a policeman, even with the value of his house thrown in, but, then, Seymour had never really understood about art.

  Maddalena had a number of sketches by the Futurists in her possession and the sale of these, later on, financed her further studies.

  Seymour, dithering to the end about Maddalena, received some fatherly advice from Kornbluth.

  ‘It’s not that I’m not broad-minded,’ he said, ‘but it’s not the sort of thing you ought to allow. Suppose I let my Hilde cavort around like that. How would it look?’

  Not bad, Seymour forbore from saying.

  ‘You’ve got to think of these things when it comes to a wife. Kinder, Küche, Kirche, remember. Children, kitchen, church. Now you can go easy on the church bit. Religion’s all very well but some women go crazy about it. Children are important, they keep a woman out of mischief. But, in the end, the kitchen is the thing. What’s she like at cooking?’

  Seymour did not know. He thought it was probably not something at which Maddalena excelled. However, he did not attach to it quite the importance that Kornbluth did. There were other qualities in Maddalena that attracted him.

  But, then, how would his family take it? His mother? He chided himself. He was a grown man and what did it matter how his mother took it? Or the whole of the East End, for that matter?

  He remained divided to the last and compromised by inviting Maddalena to come over to London and see the libraries.

  He had some really tricky business to settle, though, before he left.

  ‘I don’t see how I can,’ said Schneider. ‘He has committed a crime, a very serious crime, and must face the consequences.’

  ‘But he did refuse to help the Herzegovinians escape: and the information he provided was of very great value in leading to their and Rakic’s detection!’

  ‘We could exercise some degree of leniency, I suppose,’ said Schneider.

  Unfortunately, that did not extend to Koskash’s immediate release and he had to stay in prison for some months yet. However, there was no longer any risk of him being physically ill-treated and, accepting that he had not behaved correctly, he was content with the outcome. Especially as his wife remained free.

  Seymour’s real battle over him came when he got back to London.

  ‘Loyalty to one’s staff is all very well,’ said the older man doubtfully, ‘but - ’

  ‘Not even his staff, strictly speaking,’ the younger man pointed out.

  ‘Well, then - ’

  ‘However,’ said th
e younger man, ‘the man seems to have felt a considerable degree of loyalty to the Consulate, or so Mr Seymour says.’

  ‘Yes, but he Breached Trust.’

  ‘How far was that his fault, and how far - ‘

  ‘He was certainly not properly supervised,’ said the older man, sniffily.

  ‘Exactly! Working for a man like Lomax. I think Mr Seymour may be right, you know.’

  ‘You mean - not dismiss him?’ said the older man incredulously.

  ‘Oh, yes. Dismiss him. The Austrians will expect no less.’

  ‘Rightly!’

  ‘But, then, when enough water has flowed under the bridge . . .’

  ‘Reappoint him?’

  ‘Well, he did manage the Consulate in Lomax’s absence.’

  And so, after a time, Koskash was able to return to the Consulate.

  ‘I think Mr Seymour has done rather well,’ said the younger man, ‘all things considering.’

  The older man sniffed.

  ‘Quite well, yes. For a policeman.’

  Seymour returned from the Balkans thinking rather more than he had done about international politics. But not enough. Three and a half years later war broke out, and it had its origin in a similar Balkan event. He wondered then if, supposing he had been able to see into the future, there was anything he could have done which might, somehow, have averted it, if he could have said, loudly enough: look, this is the kind of thing that could happen, the sort of thing, in a powder keg like the Balkans, that might trigger it off. Lomax was the one who had known it, feared that it might be coming. He had, in his way, tried to stop what might have turned into it. And Seymour had tried, too. They had, in fact, in their different ways, both succeeded. They had put out a spark. But it had only been in a particular case and for a time. They could do nothing about the general conflagration. That had to be left to the diplomats and the governments, and they failed. The Balkans remained a powder keg waiting for a spark.