A House in Naples

by Peter Rabe

  “Tweed is casual,” he said. “They are on vacation, which means be casual.”

  They never talked about anything more weighty. At first Charley had tried bringing up the bridge again, but it got harder each time and more removed. The longer he was with Martha the less could he think of the dark woman he had seen on the bridge. He didn’t forget it altogether, but made it a small doubt, somewhere in the back of his head. After a while it was hardly a doubt any more, just something he might remember, because it had happened. And not as if it had happened with Martha.

  On the last day she wouldn’t go back to the beach after they’d eaten.

  “Let’s stay here and talk,” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “Or let’s go to the dock and watch the ships.”

  “We can — ”

  “Or let’s go home,” she said. “I want to.”

  They went home and opened the jalousie in front of the balcony, but by now the sun had moved so their side of the house was in shadow. She was glad there was no sun and for a while they sat by the open balcony door and talked about nothing.

  “I itch,” she said. She rubbed her back against the chair and ran her fingers through her hair.

  “The salt,” said Charley. He took her bare arm, held it to his mouth. “It’s salt,” he said again. “Did you ever taste warm salt?”

  She laughed about it and rubbed her arm.

  “You made it itch even more,” she said.

  “I have that effect,” he said, and watched her get up. She took towel and bathrobe and went down the corridor to where the ornate bathroom was. When she came back her clothes were over her arm and she was wearing the bathrobe. He didn’t know why she had taken the towel along because she was still wet.

  “I changed my mind,” she said. “I’ll dry here, in the air from the balcony.”

  She sat naked on the blue and brown carpet and shook her hair, making a spray. She pressed the wet hair flat against her head so that it looked polished. Her black eyes showed very large in the small face now. Then she stretched and Charley saw her moist body the way he had never seen it before — that naked, and that much his.

  “Ask me how many lire,” she said.

  “How many lire?”

  “You will have to ask the owner,” she said.

  “He’s keeping it.” Then he got up because he wanted her. They went to the bed, where her wet hair made a large soaked spot on the pillow and the sheet under her back got moist and warm. And then they were together with a first-time violence and they stayed together because it would have been sinful to be apart.

  Chapter 14

  They left for Naples in the early morning because they wanted to drive along the bay before the sun was all the way up. The morning air was uncommonly clear, making Vesuvius look very close. As the sun came higher the wisp of smoke over the volcano’s crater turned from grey to pink, and then white. They drove slowly because Naples wasn’t far and it was very early. The sun was just over the mountains when Charley coasted along the Naples quay. They stopped at Zi’ Teresa, which is the waterfront restaurant nobody wants to miss when in Naples, but at this hour it was almost empty. The round tables were moist from the morning air and where the sun warmed the table tops the marble was steaming. A waiter took their order as if he weren’t sure they had really come.

  “Are we the first?” said Martha.

  “No. Some officers from the Borgia have been here. They sail in a few minutes.”

  “Those tourist ships. They don’t horse around with their time tables,” said Charley.

  “They have to finish off Capri, Ischia, and Sorrento today. What is your order?”

  Martha had the normal thing which was coffee with hot milk and pane con burro, and jam. Charley took a chance with the waiter’s temper and asked for an American breakfast. The waiter looked pained but wrote down orange juice, scrambled eggs, toast and coffee without milk. It turned out all right except he brought an orange flavored soft drink instead of the juice. Martha drank it.

  “This is what you eat every morning, in America?”

  “Mostly.”

  “I will make you that kind of breakfast.”

  “You cook?”

  “Very well, if it is not too complicated.”

  “It isn’t. Even the coffee is less complicated than yours.”

  “Which coffee?”

  “They only make one kind in America.”

  She couldn’t believe it, but then she thought that would make cooking for him very simple.

  “It is. You use cans.”

  While he finished breakfast he sent her inside where the restaurant had a magazine stand. He told her what to get and when she came back with two American women’s magazines he read the ads to her.

  “Soup? Here, in a can. Smoky flavor already added. Fruit, fish, peas, milk,” and he showed her. “All in cans. You can also buy it fresh, but then you never know how it will taste.”

  They went through the magazines for a while and then left.

  • • •

  At the end of the stairs Martha turned left and Charley went right, to Joe’s house. Before Charley got there Martha was back.

  “I need some money, Charley. There is no food in the house.”

  “Just buy for yourself,” he said. “I may have to leave for a day or so.”

  “I will make you lunch today,” she said and took the money.

  Joe was at the table. He had a glass of milk in one hand and a pencil in the other. A ledger was open in front of him.

  The thin girl had a towel and was drying the dishes. Fanny was making beds.

  “A fair morning to you,” said Charley.

  Joe looked up and said, “Hi.”

  “I see only Fanny and no-Fanny. You slowing down?”

  Joe gave a sidelong look and turned back to the ledger.

  “I don’t know about me slowing down, but you better. You’re spending too much dough and we’re not selling so hot.”

  “What about the cognac?”

  “Slow. The way the French are exporting and selling cheap, we don’t have much edge left.”

  “And the stuff from Germany, that’s moving, isn’t it?”

  “Like backwards. Who wears cloth like that in this climate?”

  “Inland they do. Change the setup and push more of it inland.”

  Joe sat back and started tapping the pencil.

  “Look, don’t tell me my operations when you’re not doing any operating yourself, Chuck. Except maybe — ”

  “Joey,” he interrupted. “I don’t take your crap, Joey.”

  Joe shrugged but it didn’t go away. The tension — a sly, quiet kind — had been there from the start, and neither Charley’s light jokes nor Joe’s indifferent face ever got rid of it. Charley sat down at the table but they didn’t look at each other.

  “You find Bantam?” said Charley.

  “I found Bantam two days ago, when you — ”

  “Shut your lousy mouth, Joe. Just answer me what I ask.”

  The silence got worse.

  “So where is he?”

  “Genoa. You go to the San Giorgio, right by the railroad station, and ask for Signor Faldotte. If you’re going to see Bantam it’s through that Faldotte guy.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all I could get.”

  “How about Bantam’s place? You find out — ”

  “Through Faldotte. Bantam moves a lot, but right now he’s in Genoa. And I don’t know for how long,” he added.

  They stared at each other for a moment but neither of them held it. As if they were hoping it would pass or as if they weren’t ready to make it worse.

  “I’ll be gone two days,” said Charley.

  “Go ahead. Just don’t come back without a deal. Nothing’s been moving much — ”

  “I’m leaving Martha.”

  “Go ahead. I got my own.”

  “I’m leaving Martha because I don’t mix women
with business and I don’t want you — ”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know”

  “Just don’t forget.”

  Joe looked annoyed. It made him squint his eyes and rub one hand on the table.

  “So lay off already.” Then he got mean. “And maybe give her a speech. She didn’t look like no virgin to me, coming in here.”

  “Just don’t forget,” said Charley. He got up and put his hands in his pockets. “And so you have no doubts, Joe, I trust her. If you make a grab for her, Joe, I trust her to kill you,” and he walked out.

  He went down the steps to the street and walked to the osteria. He sent a man to get the Bugatti ready for the trip, then went to the basement room to get money out of the safe. There wasn’t much, as Joe had said, but Charley wasn’t too worried. He figured the Bantam contact could be worth a lot and no reason it shouldn’t work. Then he went back to the house.

  Martha was wearing the loose kind of thing she seemed to favor except that it was not dark, the way he had met her, but white linen and a blue and yellow print. She was in the big room, the kitchen, and both the hearth and the hot plate were going.

  “I made you lunch,” she said.

  There was lukewarm coffee left in a cup and he drank that.

  “Looks fancy,” he said but he wasn’t looking. He could have eaten on the road. He would have liked spending the time before leaving some other way. He’d had an idea she’d sit on the veranda while he clipped the Judas tree for a better view. She would sit there and tell him where to clip.

  “Don’t drink that coffee,” she said. “It will spoil your appetite.”

  “It won’t,” he said. “If anything could this coffee might do it, but it won’t. What kind of coffee is it?”

  “That’s how we made it at home.”

  “Terrible.”

  She laughed. “I know It is terrible.” She put plates on the table. “But you will like the food.”

  “Home cooking?” he asked.

  But she misunderstood the word because there is no real word for it in Italian. She said, “No, we never cooked this at home.”

  “Something exotic, then,” he said, because when she dished out the food he couldn’t tell what it was.

  “It will be familiar to you. My surprise,” she said, and they sat down and ate.

  He was surprised, but he didn’t recognize it. He thought he recognized something — tomato soup, maybe, sugar, fish, milk. A thick cream sauce kept everything secret. And then he bit on a nut.

  “Nuts, for chrissakes,” he said.

  “Do you like it?”

  “For chrissakes — ”

  “Is it familiar?”

  She looked expectant. Charley put down his fork. “Look, Martha. What is it?”

  “I thought you would know!”

  He sighed, looked patient.

  “Honey, if it’s baby food, I’m glad I’m no baby. If it’s food, tell me what kind.”

  She looked disappointed, because she had been sure he would recognize it.

  “You don’t like it,” she said. “I made you an American dish, Charley.”

  “A what?”

  “From the magazine, Charley. The recipe is from one of the magazines for American women.”

  “Oh, no!” he said.

  “There is tuna fish, walnuts, peas, soft bread — ”

  “Oh, no!” he said.

  She showed him the recipe, a full-page spread with a color montage showing the housewife who looked all apron and pretty dress straight from the store window and half a dozen cans with arrows pointing into a pyrex pot so the reader wouldn’t miss what it was all about.

  “She is cooking it,” said Martha.

  “I know. But you don’t see her eating it.”

  “It is no good?”

  “Christ, Martha. Be honest — ”

  She laughed, throwing her head back. Then she picked up the plates and took them away. Charley got out the long bread, some sausage, and Martha cut up a head of lettuce. Then they had salad and the other stuff. When they were through he told her he was leaving for two days and she should fix up the house if she wanted, any way she wanted. Then he gave her some money.

  “How many lire?” she asked.

  “Ask the owner,” he said. “The place is yours.”

  Driving along the Via Carilina, the inland highway leading north, he kept thinking about Martha in the house, how she looked on the couch under the overgrown window, and how she waved at him because he had told her to stay there and sleep.

  Chapter 15

  Charley snaked his way across the big foyer of the San Giorgio and stopped near the desk. Then he tried for the desk clerk. Italians don’t often make a queue so it took some doing to get to him. It took fifteen minutes.

  “Signor Faldotte, please.”

  “Room Two Hundred.”

  The man who opened the door was round and friendly. He waved Charley into the room as if he had been waiting a long time and offered a glass of Vermouth.

  “It always sounds more festive over a glass of wine,” he said. “My name is Faldotte.”

  He was polite and did not ask Charley a thing.

  “Be seated, signore. It will taste more festive,” said Faldotte.

  Charley sat down and held the glass.

  “It smells festive,” he said. Then he got up and bowed. “I am Charles Richard Delmont, or Delmonte, as you might prefer.” Then they both sat down and smiled.

  “Signor Faldotte, I am not allowed to drink, as our friend Signor Bantam will testify, so without offense allow me to simply hold this glass and enjoy it as your token of welcome and as a reminder of my more carefree past.”

  They talked a while longer like that and then Charley got tired of it.

  “I am told you can help me find Signor Bantam.”

  Faldotte was tired of it too. He said, “Who told you?”

  “Nobody told me. I know. I’ve known Bantam for over ten years.”

  “Then why come to me?”

  “I’ve been abroad.”

  They smiled at each other.

  “You are a friend?”

  “Tell him Delmont. Delmont the drunk.”

  Faldotte smiled as if embarrassed and said, “Really, signore — “

  “Just tell him.”

  Faldotte went to the phone and called. Then he turned back to Charley.

  “He does not know you.”

  “Tell him the whorehouse in Milano. The drunken countryman, right after Bantam came to this country.”

  Faldotte talked to the phone, turned back.

  “He remembers you but he sees no reason to meet you.”

  “Tell him I’m sober and it’s blackmail. I’m here for blackmail.”

  It worked. The phone conversation was very short after that, and after Faldotte had hung up the receiver the door to the next room opened and Bantam came in. He had been next door all the time.

  “You Delmont?” Bantam spoke English.

  “The same.”

  Bantam came across the room with quick steps because he was short. His face was sour and he wore a tight collar.

  “What’s this crap?” He stood in front of Charley, a straight stance, because he was all pleated.

  “Crap. That’s all. Just wanted to get you out.” Charley smiled.

  Bantam and Faldotte looked at each other but neither of them knew what would come next. Bantam nodded and Faldotte left the room. Charley could hear him lean against the door outside.

  Bantam had a pruny face and he kept sniffing his nose. He sat down, with precision, because he was all pleated.

  “What is this?” he said.

  “Do you remember me?”

  “I remember Delmont. Who are you?”

  “Delmont,” and Charley tossed him a registration card. He also showed him his driver’s license. Bantam gave them back and went to the door. He had a low conversation with Faldotte outside, then he came back.

  “The reason I’m here —
” said Charley but Bantam waved him off.

  “Sit still and wait.” Bantam stood by the window and looked out.

  Charley waited. After a while he got up and walked across the room. “When you’re through watching the pigeons give me a call. I’m in the same hotel.” He went to the door.

  “Just sit still,” said Bantam.

  When Charley looked back at him Bantam was still at the window but he had turned. The black hole of his gun was looking at Charley’s stomach.

  “You want me to sit?” said Charley.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll sit,” and he did.

  • • •

  It took thirty minutes, and then the phone rang. Bantam waited a minute till Faldotte came in, gave him his gun, and went into the other room to pick up the extension. Charley waited another five minutes and then Bantam came back. He sat down like before.

  “When’d you get here, Delmont?”

  “Today.”

  “I don’t mean that.”

  “Oh,” said Charley. “Maybe a week and a half ago. Amir brought me.”

  Bantam sat still and sniffed.

  “That’s what Amir says,” and he looked at the phone.

  So far, fine. Charley kept smiling and waited.

  “Amir says you were nothing but trouble.”

  Charley shrugged.

  “And how come you’re sober?”

  “I been sober for years, Bantam. You just haven’t noticed.”

  “Amir says — ”

  “Screw Amir.”

  Bantam sniffed and wanted to say something but Charley cut him off.

  “Something else Amir doesn’t know. I’ve been in and out of Cairo for the past five years, all the time he thought I was rolling in some gutter or maybe selling his dirty junk.”

  “He says you didn’t sell so good.”

  “His percentage wasn’t worth it, unless you took your payment in trade. And I’m no hophead. I’m not even a lush any more.”

  “Amir says — ”

  “I told you what you can do with Amir.”

  “So why’d you stick around?”

  “You stick around Amir and you learn things, friend. That’s why I’m here.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You will. Once you get off your horse and listen.”

  Bantam thought there was no harm in listening. Delmont was a rat, he remembered, just a small-time chiseler made harmless by the bottle. He hadn’t thought of Delmont since the last time he’d seen him, the time Delmont was trying to sell him some whore. He had even forgotten what Delmont looked like — just that he was harmless and a big-talking drunk. Only Delmont wasn’t talking big any more, and he didn’t look like a lush. A man changes once he’s off the bottle. Bantam took a glass of Vermouth. He drank it and said, “Ah.” Then he said, “Want some, Delmont?”