A House in Naples

by Peter Rabe

  “And now number four,” said Charley and then he waited a minute because his head was going like mad. There was a head inside a head and they went in opposite directions.

  “You don’t look healthy,” said the drunk. “Maybe you think I stink or something.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe you’re laughing up your sleeve and calling me a liar, you sonofabitch.”

  Charley hardly caught the tone of his voice so he just said, “Yeah,” and held his head.

  When the drunk was all over him with vicious kicks and nails clawing it would have been easy to make him stop. But the drunk might pass out. He might go cold and never answer number four. Charley pushed him off like he was saving the guy. Then the drunk stopped. He was panting in the middle of the room, wanting to fight — better yet, wanting to do some big damage.

  “What did you call me, buddy?”

  “I called you a liar.”

  “You? Calling me?”

  “That’s right,” said Charley and he tried to think hard how to get to the point. “Because you can’t prove a thing,” he said finally. “All night you’re gassing at me, about Egypt and Amir, about landing here without passport, about being Italian and U.S.A. all at the same time — “

  Charley waited. One thing about drunks, they always haul out the billfold and prove everything with papers. They haul out a library card to prove they can read. They haul out a baby picture to show they can make babies. And when really pressed they come up with their Mason’s card where it says Smith or something to prove they are Smith or something.

  “Okay,” said Delmont, and he felt he had landed a sucker.

  He got the suitcase and opened it. He looked at Charley over his shoulder. “Stand back, buddy. You’re peeping.”

  When he turned back to the suitcase and pulled out underwear, someone in the next room gave a low laugh.

  “What you say, tourist?” And the drunk spun around.

  But Charley just stood there looking blank. His hands had started to tremble but he kept his face blank. And then the laugh again, from the next room.

  “Out of my way!” the drunk said, and charged to the door. Charley saw how he threw it open and heard the crack when he tore into the next room. Then Charley didn’t listen any more. He turned to the suitcase.

  First there was more underwear. There was a revolver in one of the socks and there was an unfinished letter.

  And an Italian passport.

  It was dog-eared and ancient. It had expired in 1938 and the picture in it was Delmont all right, looking meaner because there was muscle in his face and looking flashy as a matinee idol, with mustache, hair on the head, and a flower in the pinstriped suit. Delmont had changed from bastard to bum.

  There was a sheet folded along old and worn creases and it said: Monarchy of Italy … hereby grants … to Richard Delmont, Citizenship of the Sovereign State of Italy. And some other details.

  There was an old ration card, dated 1914.

  There was a driver’s license.

  A war registration, showing Delmont unfit.

  Then the scream.

  It brought Charley back, and all the noise from next door made awesome sense. “I got my buddy next door!” Delmont was screaming, “and once I call the cops we give testimony! I bet when your wife hears….”

  Charley moved fast. The drunk would scream enough to stir up the whole house, and the larger the audience the sooner the carabinièri.

  The girl was on the bed holding a sheet in front of her and the man stood there naked and didn’t care how it looked. He took a short step toward Delmont and talked low. Just the voice alone should have scared Delmont.

  “The carabinièri!“ yelled the drunk. “You aren’t married, you raping bastard, and the kid’s no more than twelve if she’s a day!”

  Before Charley was halfway into the room Delmont reached for the sheet and tore it away from the girl.

  There wasn’t a chance to get a good look at her. The man jumped at Delmont like a snake striking prey. Let the bastard get killed, Charley thought. He was out in the corridor again when he froze. Maybe it was the gasp from the girl, or the wet sound out of Delmont’s throat, but he turned and saw the man pull the knife out, and the drunk sank to the floor seeping blood.

  He had to know. Charley came back and knelt next to Delmont, shaking him to find if he were still alive. The man had his pants on, and he slapped the girl’s face to make her move. He got her up, threw a coat over her shoulders, and pushed her toward the door. He stopped with his shirt half on, grabbed the girl’s arm with one hand and with the other one pointed the knife toward Charley. He held it steady.

  “It was you,” said the man.. “Look at him, Rosa.” He shook the girl. “It was this one!”

  “It was this one,” she said, and the man tossed the knife across the drunk’s belly. It landed right next to his hand but he couldn’t use it. The drunk was dead.

  Chapter 7

  To Charley it couldn’t have been more complete, the way it had solved itself and he had won. When he stuffed the papers into his pocket, Charley Delmont — for one moment at least — felt free. But then his head started again with a slow throb, and the ache in his side wanted to double him over. It wasn’t the worst, though. The worst came when he left the drunk’s room and passed the door where the body was.

  He and the drunk had been sitting downstairs, and Charley had bought a bottle of cognac at the bar, and then he and the drunk had gone up to the room.

  After they found the body they would find the man and his girl — and then they would find Charley. “It was you!” the man would say, and the girl, “It was this one!”

  There was no other way.

  He went into the room, closed the drying knife, put it into his pocket. When he turned the body there was very little blood because the knife had been thin. He carried the drunk from this room to the next, closed the door, and opened the window He threw out the body. When it hit, Charley was ready, holding his breath and his hands on the window frame like clamps. But there was hardly a sound, just a soft thud. He kept waiting for more.

  He closed the window and went to the bed. He put everything back into the suitcase except the gun, and then closed the suitcase. He put the gun in his pocket and went downstairs. It should have felt easy the way it worked. Nobody saw him going downstairs, the back door was dark, and so was the yard. Charley picked up the body, heaved it over the fence next to the warehouse, and climbed over himself. He left the body where it was, walked down the alley, and a few streets later he found his Bugatti.

  He backed into the alley and curled the body inside the big trunk. First he drove west, toward the coast where the tide might take the thing out; but when the buildings thinned and he hit the stretch of road that took him out to the open, he stopped. He stopped, turned around, and went the other way. He didn’t much think about it, but it was safer where the dark houses crowded in, where nobody would think of taking a Sunday walk, where the slow Tiber wormed her way under the old bridges and the smell in the air was bad. That’s where the dead drunk belonged; that’s where Charley Delmont would feel better about it.

  But he made a mistake and hit the Via Veneto, where the sidewalk cafés and the big hotels made a ballroom light all along the street. He got caught in the late evening traffic and for a few blocks he had to crawl down the boulevard with every expensive car in Europe jamming him in. Charley Delmont didn’t look out of place. He looked tanned, as if he had nothing to do but lie in the sun all day, and his Bugatti was a low, big-wheeled racer. Charley Delmont looked as if he belonged.

  He had to stop at a crossing to let the party-goers get by They wore evening clothes, the men in white jackets and the women in bare, glittering things, and laughing. They patted the long hood of his car and told him how nice it looked. He tried to smile back at them but it didn’t work. He felt sick in the head with an off-center spinning that seemed to twist his face to one side. Then he let the car crawl again. He
thought he would feel better once the dark streets started again, but it got worse. The slow creeping got worse all the time, wouldn’t get better till he got rid of the dead load in the trunk. He could hear it every so often, when the ruts got bad.

  He had swung off the Via Veneto, heading back to the Tiber and across a bridge into Trastevere. The section was dark with small, winding streets, with old houses along the river and broken banks. When the ruts got worse the thump in the trunk sounded like ridofit, ridofit, ridofit. It got worse going downhill, worse going uphill, until Charley kept gunning the motor to make a new sound.

  Think of it in a different way; think of the black history along the river, the intrigue, the loves and the fortunes that changed hands every time a dead man fell into the river. Where did the Sforzas throw their enemies off the bridges, or the Borgias throw their friends off the bridges? When they were around there was great gusto to the whole thing and they didn’t care who heard the splash. Or Nero, the daddy of them all — he did it alive. Real strong stuff, with gusto.

  When he stopped the car it was nothing like that at all. Nobody was watching, nobody was letting out a cheer because now he’d be rid of it, and the black air was dead with the stillness in it. Charley opened the trunk. He knew the body was in there. He couldn’t see it but there it was, reeking of whisky as if the drunk were still breathing. Charley held on to the lid a minute to make things steady. There wasn’t a sound, but inside his head it spun around with a whir like ridofit, ridofit.

  He carried the dead drunk maybe two blocks, where the canal was on one side of the street and blind-looking houses along the other. Then the bridge. A fine old bridge with the silhouette of a giant tiara.

  Charley climbed down to the water, under the arch. It was dank, like a high-roofed cave, down there, as if there ought to be a cold wind coming through. There wasn’t. It was warm and moist and no wind. Where the leg of the bridge went down into the water it was bound to be deep. There was no current and once the dead drunk came up again it wouldn’t matter any more.

  Charley let him down near the water, put stones in his pockets. Maybe some iron would help. He didn’t have to stay down there long, but a piece of iron would help. The tow chain from the car. A two-block walk. He couldn’t do it, not if he had to come back. The railing along the canal, up by the street where the old railing had fallen over. Charley went up the bank again and worked one of the posts off the crossbars. A nice, heavy post with a cast flower on top. A lily, maybe. He shoved it under the body’s belt, buttoned the shirt and jacket around it so the thing was along the chest, just like a lily.

  Get rid of it.

  There wasn’t even a splash, just bubble sounds. He dropped the knife after it and when the bubble sounds stopped, Charley was rid of it.

  He came out from under the arch reaching for air, and when he had taken a breath he leaned against the leg of the bridge and exhaled. It came out as a moan but he didn’t care. He was rid of it. He took another deep breath, head back, so that’s when he saw her.

  She was leaning over the side of the bridge, just a shape, and the way her hair hung down around her face it made the head look very large.

  To Charley she looked like a monster.

  Chapter 8

  She didn’t move, and he couldn’t until he saw her lean out further and raise an arm.

  “Hello! You!”

  He didn’t catch the question in her voice, only the fact that it was human. Then he acted by instinct, yanked out the gun, and aimed up.

  “You down there — ” he heard again but not the rest. As he turned the pain in his side boiled over, twisted the girl on the bridge out of focus. For a moment he felt as if he had to throw up and he became so weak he could barely balance himself. He gasped, rested, holding on to the bank.

  When his strength came back it came slowly, with the first rush gone out of it. It came from the brain so that he knew what he had to do — only he didn’t do it. He tried, he broke out in a sweat. He tried but the gun wouldn’t come up. If he could stop everything now — but if he stopped now it would mean he had to run forever.

  The rage crawled through him like a flush, slow and hot, and he started up the embankment. He turned to the bridge with the gun in his hand, probing it ahead of him.

  She stood motionless in the half-light and again the hair around her head made it look like before, very large. As long as she didn’t move it was like a spell on him, and he started to kill her every step of the way. He didn’t rush her, he stalked. Every step of the way — until she moved.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  His strength, which was nothing but hate, struck a wall.

  “If you are sick — ” she started, and he felt how his lips tasted like paper and a muscle jerked in his back. There was a painful rust in his joints. He stopped. He leaned against the stone railing and waited. Perhaps she would run. If she would only run. If only something would happen, something fast and sudden.

  “Rest a moment,” she said. “Then I’ll help you across the bridge — ” and she came toward him with the half-light making it all very slow and soft — “across the bridge,” she said. “I live very close.”

  He could see her face now and he saw that only her hair was big. Her face was small, but for the moment he couldn’t tell if it was small like a child’s or small because she was delicate. An attractive face. The thought woke him and he shook his head. Now if she were a monster — What next, her beautiful breasts, her beautiful belly, her crazy beautiful legs. Next perhaps? How many lire? Crazy out of his head.

  “Take my arm,” she said. “You don’t look too well. We go across — ”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute.”

  Crazy beautiful legs, he thought. How did he know? He couldn’t tell how she looked. She was dressed dark, a knit jacket; only her face showed in the dark.

  “Wait a minute,” he said again because he had to hear the sound of his voice once more to slow down his head. It helped. It helped him remember she had leaned over the bridge because she had heard something, she had stood there when he thought he had been alone. Only one thing to do — only one thing —

  “Later,” she said. “You can rest better later. The night air here isn’t — ”

  Later was good. Not as good, but meanwhile stick close, don’t let her get away. Hold on. Charley Delmont holding on so he wouldn’t have to run.

  “I’ll hold on,” he said and took her arm. His fingers went around her arm with a slow pressure, not getting too hard, just holding there.

  They walked.

  Now that he had decided, it wasn’t so difficult any more. First, stick close. Then, her place.

  “Do you live with your parents?”

  “No. I have a room.”

  Get her out of Rome some way, get her to talk. What did you see, what was I doing, what do you want — If she didn’t answer it right, that was that. If she wouldn’t answer at all — worse.

  “My arm,” she said. “You are — ”

  He relaxed a little.

  She took him through the house that faced the street and across the court, then into the narrow building in back. It smelled old inside. Down the hall she opened a door. They went through the door and he leaned against it while she lit a lamp.

  “Sit on the bed,” she said.

  “I’m all right.”

  When the light was on she saw him clearly for the first time. She had thought he looked softer, but now his cheekbones looked sharp, his eyes looked at her without blinking, and the smile on his mouth wasn’t right. But he still leaned, like in pain. When he kept looking at her she suddenly felt uneasy.

  “You got aspirin?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer but started to look in a drawer. The bureau was old and it was hard to open the drawer because of the bed. There was just the bureau, the bed, and a chair. She knew there were no aspirin, but she looked for a while longer before she turned. She didn’t like to feel frightened.

 
; “I don’t have aspirin,” she said. “I can ask upstairs.”

  He didn’t move from the door. “Don’t go. Just let me stand a minute.”

  She watched him. “Are you ill?”

  Better say yes. “It comes and goes,” he said.

  “Perhaps you need a doctor. I can run to the Via Alessandria and bring him.”

  Still wanted to get away. He didn’t look sick enough. The weakness from before was going away — he tried to forget it — and maybe he wouldn’t wait any longer. But not yet, not here. It was still too soon after the bridge — He took a breath and made it sound painful.

  “I got aspirin, in the car. Walk me to the other side of the bridge, to my car.”

  She didn’t hesitate, because that was how she had started, trying to help him, and they walked back across the bridge, to the alley where he had parked the car. She stood by while he leaned over the door and went through the glove compartment. But of course there was nothing. Then he climbed behind the wheel. It made him wince, which was good, because she ran up and said, “Are you all right? Where is your aspirin?”

  He rested behind the wheel to make sure she’d feel safe.

  “No aspirin. Look — ” He waited a moment. “Look, I gotta buy some,” and didn’t have to say any more.

  “I will go with you, but I do not drive. You must drive carefully and I help you watch.”

  Then she climbed into the seat next to him and Charley started the car. They didn’t look at each other. She watched the road and sometimes she looked at the car, the chrome fittings and the leather.

  “Are you an American?”

  “My name’s Charley.”

  “I am Martha.”

  He hadn’t paid much attention before, but now he noticed her more. He noticed her voice, which sounded warm even though she talked fast. He wondered about her again, about what she had seen at the bridge, why she came along

  “What were you doing under the bridge?” she asked. “Had you fallen?”

  “I fell. I got weak and rolled down.”

  “But the guard rail — ”