by John Harris
Then her manner changed to brisk, uninvolved efficiency as she showed him the things they had brought up from the bottom of the lake. They were lying on the tarpaulin, watched all the time by one of Sister Ursula’s children, who sat on a box like a sentinel.
‘All in the last few days,’ she said, willing enough to talk but wary in case one of their frequent quarrels broke out. ‘We’ll have to get pressure hoses on it as soon as we can. We might uncover more.’ She moved the small encrusted objects on the tarpaulin with enthusiastic jerks of her hand.
‘These are our special discoveries,’ she said. ‘Giovanni takes care of these. He’s twice as quick as the others, and he knows all about them.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘He’s far too intelligent to end up as a labourer on the railway, which is where Sister Ursula says he will end up unless something’s done for him.’ She pointed to a small funnel-necked vase, and spoke to the boy. ‘What’s this, Giovanni?’ she asked.
He grinned and it was the first time Henry had seen anything more on his face than his normal sad smile. ‘It’s a tear phial, Signorina,’ he said quickly. ‘Privileged mourners wept into them at burials and left them on the graves so that the dead would know how much they were missed.’
Maggie laughed. ‘Well done, Giovanni. You ought to be doing my job.’
He grinned at her. ‘I’ve been listening, Signorina.’
She smiled at him, then bent and turned over a heavy bronze bowl, half cleaned already of the encrusting growth on it, and indicated the marks along the side. It meant nothing to Henry, but she seemed to think it was valuable.
‘Priceless,’ she said warmly. ‘This has been the greatest thing that has happened to archaeology for years. We hope to find bracelets, coins and ornaments, and even, perhaps, fragments of armour.’ She pointed to a large narrow-necked vessel. ‘For oil,’ she said. ‘They probably carried them aboard for cooking – or even for anointing. It’s heavy. We turn them upside-down and fill them from the compressed-air cylinder, then they float to the surface on their own. It’s just one of the tricks.’
She picked up what looked like a small stone cross lying on a box near where Giovanni was sitting. The boy’s eyes followed her as she spoke.
‘An altar cross,’ she said. ‘We think it’s pure gold. When we’ve cleaned it, it will be beyond price. Isn’t that so, Giovanni?’
‘Si, Signorina. Beyond price.’
She put the cross down carefully and smiled at him.
‘Giovanni never takes his eyes off them,’ she said. ‘He thinks the Montanari might try to steal something and use it for political purposes. As a symbol, I suppose. Like the Scottish Nationalists taking the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey. There’s already been a threat to move the great cross from the church.’
Henry smiled. ‘They’d need a platoon of strong men and a pantechnicon,’ he said.
‘The threat’s been made, all the same. Professor Dei Monti received a note.’
‘I expect the newspapers did, too.’
She seemed to resent the cynicism in his words and she was cool towards him again.
‘Professor Dei Monti takes it seriously,’ she said. ‘We’ve had someone on guard in the church and at the Customs House every night ever since. He says if there’s the slightest danger he’ll take all this’ – she gestured round her at the tarpaulin – ‘to Rome.’
Henry pulled a wry face. ‘A pity he had to say so,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’ll only make it worse by threatening to take it all away and they might just do something stupid to stop him.’
The rain they’d been expecting all day came that evening. There was a brief susurration in the trees as the wind started, then a sudden flash of lightning picked out the white buildings in the growing darkness and silhouetted the mountains. A shutter slammed and the leaves of the palms round the hotel started rattling. The lights on the opposite shore of the lake were blotted out abruptly and the ripples became manes that broke into white-capped wavelets as the wind got up. The dust started to whirl and there was a sudden roar as the air rushed through the leaves of the warped horse-chestnuts. Young Dittli, who’d been arguing fiercely in undertones at the bar with Stettner – as though he were defending himself against an attack, it seemed to Henry – ran outside to bring in the umbrellas from the garden as the gilt wrought-iron sign started to whip back and forth on the wall. Then the lightning began to move along the valley and more dried leaves whirled along the road, followed by little wind-devils of dust. The grey clouds reached down out of the pale evening sky in long fingers towards the mountains, then the dust-devils flew up suddenly in a blinding storm, the air turned liquid, and the rain began to come in great drops as big as half-crowns that fell with a flat splash on the road, bursting like small bombs into shrapnel fragments of water. With it came the hail, as big as peas, bouncing two or three feet high and rattling on the glass above the veranda, falling with a special violence so that the earth seemed to quiver like a drumskin.
The Stettnerhof was full of people when the storm came and no one seemed to want to move away, and singing started in the bar for the first time since the explosion. No one had wanted to sing since then and everyone had sat around in quiet groups – even the archaeologists, who were normally a noisy lot – but now they were all in the bar, and young Dittli, a little pale and subdued, was struggling to keep them all supplied with drinks.
Stettner was sitting at a table with Maggie, drinking beer but not laughing like the others. Once or twice cheerful shouts were flung across at Henry – things like ‘Up the Saboteurs!’ and ‘The dam’s gone!’ – then the accordionist got going, a little drunk as usual, and the singing started. Stettner, who was wearing knee breeches and the black flowered waistcoat of the locality, did a Tyrolean dance with another man, with a lot of knee-slapping and shouting, but though everybody cheered, his expression didn’t soften. Not long afterwards they pushed the tables back and Henry plucked up courage to ask Maggie Daniells to dance.
She danced well, but she seemed to have it in her mind that he might be trying to influence her towards his views on the dam in some way. They talked about Lazzaro’s barge, but neither of them with much enthusiasm, then Stettner tapped his shoulder and excused him. His face was hard and unfriendly.
‘Why don’t you go home, Englishman?’ he whispered as Henry turned away. His eyes were burning with enmity and his heavy features were masked with arrogance and a stiff expression of contempt.
As he returned to his table, Henry saw he was holding Maggie very close, whispering into her ear, but she was frowning and shaking her head, her face troubled.
Then the accordionist vanished to the bar and someone started the juke-box going. A plummy voice began to wail ‘How can Ah Fergit?’ in English and behind it there was a chorus of what sounded like a lot of mad ferrets yelping, ‘Fergit, fergit, fergit’, and Henry saw that Maggie had escaped from Stettner and was dancing with Frank Maggs.
There was a lot of noise and smoke and, in spite of the rain, it was very warm. Maggie seemed to be very busy and in the end Henry decided to go to bed. As he crossed the hall he met Caporelli at the foot of the stairs. He looked tired, as though he’d been driving all day, but he seemed excited and triumphant.
‘What weather!’ he said, shaking the water off his coat. ‘It was like driving through a lake. But it was worth it. It was well worth it.’
‘Worth it? Why?’
Caporelli’s eyes flickered sideways and his. whole manner shrieked out loud of some guilty secret. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said.
‘Got what?’
Caporelli paused as young Dittli came past with a tray of drinks.
‘In here,’ he said, indicating his office.
He shut the door carefully behind them and spoke softly. ‘I’ve been to Florence,’ he said. ‘I saw my cousin. It wasn’t difficult to adjust the books. It’s in the boot of the car.’
‘What is, for God’s s
ake?’ Henry said, though he knew all the time what Caporelli was getting at.
‘Plastic, Aynree. Pentolite.’
Henry turned at once and headed for the door, but Caporelli stepped in front of him and put his back against it.
‘Look, Ettore,’ Henry said patiently. ‘I’m having nothing to do with it!’
‘But it’s there. In the boot of the car! In the garage. Also locked. It’s perfectly safe. It’s in the centre of a crate of tinned fruit. I left it there till tomorrow when I can unload it and get it into the safe.’
‘Look,’ Henry said, lowering his voice to match Caporelli’s. ‘What the hell are you going to do with it?’
‘You know what I am going to do. There’s no danger. I’ve done it before – during the war. It means a lot of climbing, of course, to get up to the stopper wall, but that’s nothing. You can do the lifting. I will give the orders.’
He gave Henry a flashing smile, but it only had the effect of unnerving him further. ‘You must be mad,’ he said. ‘The mountains are full of police. I saw two only today. It’s only three days since they blew the railway track. If they find you with that damned stuff they’ll shoot you. They’d never believe you.’
The rain rattled against the window and they heard the bang of thunder. Caporelli gestured fiercely, his smiles gone.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I told you there would be storms. Well, here they are. Right on schedule. With the exception of last week we’ve had this all spring and what we’ve had of summer. The mountains have been absorbing moisture all the time. The snow has all melted from the tops. It’s rained constantly and it’s getting worse. The feeders will be like millraces tonight. Have you seen the stream through the town? I have. I stopped to look. It’s like a torrent. It’s washed away some of the bank further down and they tell me the footbridge’s gone at Madonna del Piano.’
‘That’s your affair,’ Henry insisted furiously. ‘Not mine. I don’t live in Cadivescovo.’
Caporelli looked at him quietly, willing him to listen. ‘Perhaps you should,’ he said. ‘Then you would know about the Brenner railroad, and the alpine mountain clubs and the Volksbund that fostered German feeling for a century. You would know how Trentino was an Austrian wedge thrust into your homeland and you would have watched German language and education and trade increase and watch them raise a statue to Von der Vogelweide because you had one of Dante. You would have seen Lake Garda become Gardasee and Lake Colleno become Collenosee. You would know all these things.’
His manner stopped Henry’s anger for a moment, then he brushed it aside again. ‘It’s not my affair,’ he said. ‘God knows, I’ve heard enough of both sides now to know what it’s all about – first you, then Stettner, then you again, then Dittli. I saw him up the mountain today. There’s something between him and Stettner.’
‘Boy-friends, perhaps.’ Caporelli grinned. ‘Dittli is a little odd, I suppose. A feminella perhaps.’
‘Come off it, Ettore,’ Henry said angrily. ‘You know it’s not that.’
‘No.’ Caporelli’s grin vanished. ‘I joke, of course. But why should there be something between them, except their interest in the Volkspartei?’
‘I saw young Dittli with Wasescha and I nearly got myself brained by a rock that Alois kicked down.’
Caporelli grinned again. ‘He has no love for you, my friend. He’s noticed how the Signorina Daniells looks at you.’
‘Looks at me? How does she look at me?’
Caporelli kissed his fingertips.
‘I’ve never seen her,’ Henry said.
‘This is because you are blinded with anger that we are not allowed to empty your dam over her discoveries.’
‘I don’t give a damn about her discoveries,’ Henry snapped. ‘I’ve told you. It’s no business of mine. And neither is this. I’ve got a desk full of work waiting at home for me. You must sort it out yourself.’
‘You are backing out, Aynree?’
‘I’ve never been in. I’m not responsible for the dam. Only for giving my opinion, that’s all. And I’ve done that.’
‘It’s up to you to see that your opinion’s implemented by action. There’s no other way. You saw for yourself. We can do it two nights from now, I’ll need tomorrow to collect the rest of the equipment.’
With his Italian love of the dramatic, Caporelli was looking like a criminal again, his eyes moving sideways all the time so that Henry felt that everyone who crossed the hall could read his thoughts through the glass partition. Dittli passed again with a tray of empty glasses and Henry wished to God Caporelli would shut up. But he continued to press him, his back against the door, gesturing with his hands.
‘No,’ Henry said furiously. ‘I said no and I mean no.’
‘But, Aynree, we are ready.’
‘No. I’m leaving, after all. And don’t tell me this time that the police are going to stop me, because they’re not. Not even if I have to hire a car to take me to Trepizano.’
Henry could see Caporelli watching him with sad eyes as he left the office, and he went up to his room feeling as if he’d got a ton weight on his shoulders.
His mind was far too full of things to sleep and, long after he’d turned the light out, he switched it on again and tried to read, propped up in bed below the thoughtful brown-wood Christ on the Crucifix above his head.
The singing downstairs had stopped at last and the hotel seemed to be silent. Then he heard Maggie Daniells enter the room next door and start moving about and he guessed that everybody was just coming to bed. He heard drawers being opened and shut and wondered if she’d had enough of Stettner at last and was thinking of leaving, too.
It was disturbing listening to her, because she interested him more than he liked to admit to himself and, just then, if he could have trusted her to keep it to herself, he’d have been glad to unload what was on his mind. She wasn’t worldly wise and sometimes he had a feeling that her sense of purpose was all a pose, but she was intelligent and warm-hearted and somehow he felt she’d have understood.
He picked up the book he’d been reading and was just drowsing over it when he sat up abruptly, thinking he’d heard someone cry out. He felt cold in the damp air of the storm and got down under the sheets, imagining he’d been dreaming, but then he heard the cry again.
‘Go away, you fool!’
It was quite plain this time, in Maggie Daniells’ voice from the room next door, tense and sharp.
He heard the low rumble of a man’s voice and then the girl’s voice once more. ‘Go away. Please go away.’
Henry sat up on one elbow, then there was a thud and a short low scream, and he found himself out of bed and reaching for his dressing gown.
As he tied the cord, he stopped dead again. What the devil was it to do with him? he thought. The girl could have whom she liked in her room. It was her affair.
There was another thud and another short scream that was broken off abruptly, as though a hand had been placed over her mouth, and, interested or not, Henry found himself in the corridor and jerking at the handle of her door.
There was an immediate dead silence beyond, then he heard Maggie’s voice. ‘Come in. Please come in.’
‘Open the damn’ door, then.’
There was a muttering from the other side, then the key clicked in the lock and the door opened, and Henry found himself facing a smiling Stettner. He looked a little flushed and bright-eyed, as though he’d been drinking, and he stared arrogantly at Henry, the gold on his teeth gleaming in the light from the corridor.
All the old well-worn phrases ran through Henry’s head – ‘What are you doing in this lady’s room?’ – but they sounded like something out of a bad film, and in the end he did nothing but stand there, feeling foolish, as though he’d broken into something that didn’t concern him. Then he saw Maggie behind Stettner and he felt almost as though he ought to throw back his head and say, ‘Unhand her, villain!’ It was a classic situation and Henry had a feeling he ough
t to play it the classic way. There was even thunder and rain lashing at the windows outside.
For a long time there was silence in the room, then Henry glanced at Maggie again and saw her eyes were big and frightened.
‘Please don’t go,’ she said quickly, and he looked at Stettner, unable for the life of him to think of anything to say that didn’t sound melodramatic.
‘No, don’t go.’ Stettner grinned with another flash of gold teeth. ‘I’m going. Favours which were welcome before seem to have turned sour all of a sudden.’
‘You’d better shove off.’ Henry found his voice at last.
‘What would you do if I didn’t, little Englishman?’
Henry measured himself against Stettner. He was bigger than Henry was, stronger and undoubtedly fitter, but if it came to a passage of arms he saw he couldn’t back out and ever look Maggie in the face again.
Before he could reply, Stettner raised his hand. Henry thought he was going to hit him and ducked instinctively, but he merely dropped the hand on Henry’s shoulder, and Henry straightened his head, flushing and feeling foolish.
‘She’s yours, my friend,’ Stettner said gaily. ‘There are others far more willing, and far more exciting. I’ve been wasting my time.’
His fingers tightened on Henry’s shoulder, strong and hard, and Henry knew he’d done it just to show how powerful he was. Then he was gone, striding down the corridor towards the stairs.
Henry stared after him for a second, then he became aware for the first time of the draught round his legs. The double windows were open and the rain was spotting the floor.
‘Is that the way he came?’ he asked.
Maggie nodded.
‘He likes drama,’ Henry commented. ‘Or is it romance?’
As they moved to close the windows, Stettner was just crossing the courtyard through the rain. The lightning flashed and they saw his huddled figure disappearing into the shadows. Henry turned and saw that Maggie had put on a dressing gown of yellow nylon that suited her dark hair and showed slightly less of the disturbing brown skin beneath.
