But Francesca was having a mild attack of after-thought. “I really ought to go back tonight.” There was a Committee meeting tomorrow morning, for one thing. But there wasn’t too much self-persuasion in her voice.
Paula, sighing, said, “It’s funny, isn’t it, how a woman can’t enjoy an evening alone—unless she stays inside her hotel and then finds a good book for bed.”
“Which only proves you’re virtuous, darling.”
“Aren’t most of us? And it isn’t virtue so much either as— just hating to be annoyed, or to be judged for something you aren’t. Now, if Andy were alone in Bern, he’d drop into a bar for a cocktail, then have a decent little dinner anywhere, but anywhere, he liked. Then he’d take in a theatre, or a movie, or go for a walk through the streets. And then he’d end with a nightcap at a place like the Café Henzi. But could I do that by myself?”
“Not for very long.”
“I couldn’t stay myself for very long, either. I couldn’t be natural.”
“Not honestly natural,” Francesca said. “I hate innocence when it starts pretending it doesn’t know. Either it becomes aggressive. Or artful. Which is the worse?”
“The question that’s occupying my stomach at the moment is—where shall we find that decent little dinner Andy would go out and have?”
Francesca glanced down at her clothes.
Paula said, “If I looked as well in a blouse and skirt as you do, I’d wear it dining at the Ritz. Look, why don’t I call your aunt while you think of food? You know, if inspiration fails you, I shouldn’t mind going back to the Café Henzi again. I liked it.”
“Did you?” There was a half-smile round Francesca’s lips.
“I’d like to hear that singing.”
“That happens much later in the evening.”
“Then what about going on there, after dinner?”
“What about that telephone call?” Francesca closed her eyes, thinking how delightful it was to allow yourself to be completely lackadaisical. And if Aunt Louisa raised any objections to this overnight stay in town, then Paula would be able to deal more firmly with them. It was strange: there was Aunt Louisa, Swiss born and bred, still living in her grandfather’s house where she and Francesca’s mother had grown up together, a placid calm woman in a placid quiet village, and she did nothing but worry secretly. And there, on the other hand, had been Francesca’s father, an Italian, a professor of music, living in a voluble excitable little Italian town—and had he ever worried at all? Perhaps emotion, when it is tightly disciplined, turns into worry. Perhaps her father, with his laughter and passion and arguments and music, perhaps he had had no emotion left over to be turned into any of the negative fears. And perhaps, she thought (as her Swiss mother might have thought), perhaps it might have been better for us all if he had known worry, been less confident about people, been more wary of treachery. And that was another strange thing: after an injury had been done to him, the Italian would remember it. He rarely foresaw it, but he would remember it. While Aunt Louisa would foresee every possible danger, probably avoid most of them, and blame herself if there was one she had underestimated.
That was the way it had been. Her father betrayed by a Fascist into German hands. Her brother betrayed by a Communist, murdered, his war record covered with lies and calumny to win a propaganda victory. And her mother dead with the pain of it, blaming herself for not having foreseen the treachery.
And I’m left alone, Francesca thought. And for what? I can’t even warn people: they won’t listen. I am only heard by the ones who are already convinced. What good is that?
She swung her body off the bed. She was tense and cold again. “Well?” she asked Paula, who had just turned away from the phone. “Was Aunt Louisa worried in case I caught pneumonia?”
Paula said, smiling, “She did say you were to go to bed early tonight, with a good hot drink.”
Francesca searched for her shoes.
“She really is very kind,” Paula said, half-worried as she watched Francesca’s drawn face. “She’s asked Andy and me out to Falken for the week-end. I do hope Andy will be free.”
“I hope so.” Francesca was combing her hair, her long fair silken hair. Then swiftly she twisted it into a loose knot, low on the back of her neck, and pinned it quickly, skilfully, into exact place.
“She said that Gregor came to see you this afternoon.”
“Gregor?”
“That was the name, I think. Sounds Russian.”
“He is.” Francesca studied her pale cheeks in the looking-glass. “You wouldn’t think I lived in one of the healthiest villages in Switzerland, would you? Remember that old castle just over a mile away from Falken? They’ve discovered water there with lime and sulphur and horrible tastes, so it’s now called Schlossfalken-Bad, and people go there to take the cure. Perhaps I ought to walk in that direction more regularly.” She tried to smile.
But Paula was not side-tracked. “What kind of life do you have in Falken, anyway?”
“Oh—fresh air and mountains.”
“What about friends?”
“Difficult. Swiss air seems to bring out my Italian blood. Everyone is kind, but they think I’m a little bit of a freak. I read books, I like music, I enjoy arguing about politics. Man’s work, darling.”
“But there must be women your age.”
“Plenty. They’re round and pretty and red-cheeked, and they’re all married with at least three children.”
“Why don’t you get married?”
Francesca smiled.
“Who’s this Gregor?”
“A friend. A very good friend,” Francesca said gently. Then she looked quickly up at Paula. “And that’s all. We’re both too crazy to be able to live together peacefully. But Gregor is my friend.”
Paula looked worriedly at Francesca. “Well, if there is no one in the village who interests you, aren’t there ever any visitors to Falken?”
Francesca said, “Oh, they come. And they go.” She half-paused. “There’s one who has just bought a house. An American. He says he means to stay.”
“Do you like him?”
Francesca’s cheeks coloured for a moment. “I don’t like or dislike him,” she said too quickly. “But he is different… He’s so anxious to make friends, to be happy, and yet—he can’t somehow. He’s incredibly shy, perhaps unsure of himself.” And that’s something I do understand, she thought sadly.
“But he keeps looking at you?” Paula asked, with a smile.
Francesca glanced at her. “Really—” she began coldly.
“Very flattering,” Paula conceded. “But if he starts making you feel sorry for him, then that’s a type I’d discourage most heartily. Pale knights lonely loitering are much more devastating than any belle dame sans merci. See, I do remember some of the poetry that was pumped into us at school.” And Francesca had begun to smile, too. “But I’m sorry, if I spoiled Gregor’s evening. Perhaps he wanted to give you a party.”
“Probably he just called to discuss some things before the Committee meeting tomorrow. Gregor loves discussions.”
“Gregor’s on the Committee?” Paula couldn’t hide her surprise.
“He began it, actually. But then, he knew what it was like to be a prisoner. He’s thirty-four, and he has spent nine of those years in concentration camps. Russian and German. He was a music student, before that.”
“How does he live now?” asked the practical Paula.
“Gregor would say he existed by cutting down trees, and lived by composing music. But mostly he thinks about the Committee. It’s his hope and joy.”
“Haven’t you given it a name, yet?”
“Oh, we’ve had such arguments about that! We usually end by simply calling it the Falken Committee. After all, it is composed of people who live in Falken, or who have houses there. One is a doctor at Schlossfalken-Bad, for instance; a nice elderly Frenchman. Then there’s a retired Englishman who has lived in Falken for thirty years. And we’ve a
lawyer from Bern—and so on.”
“You don’t keep it secret?” It almost scares me, Paula thought, the calm way she takes all this.
“Secret enough. We had to let the government know what we planned—we didn’t want them to come asking, ‘Now what kind of a conspiracy is going on here?’ But we do work discreetly. The people we help remain anonymous even to Falken—and that’s easy enough to arrange. Why, Switzerland always did have so many committees and clubs and associations and sanatoriums and children’s homes and lunatic asylums and metaphysical societies, that one more group of people getting together to try to help others—well—” Francesca shrugged her shoulders. “What about dinner? The Café du Théâtre is good. Then we can go on to the Kursaal, up on the Schänzli. There’s music there, if you want that.”
“You ought to give the Committee a name, though,” Paula said, trying to think of one. Committees always had names.
“Gregor wants it to be called ‘The Committee for Freedom of Choice’. He says that’s the basic freedom, and he ought to know. But then our retired Englishman wants us called ‘The Iron-smelters’ or ‘The Curtain-Raisers’. That shocks Gregor.”
“It startles me, too. But tell him Englishmen always make a joke about anything over which they’re deadly serious.”
“None of us think we are playing a game,” Francesca said slowly.
Paula looked at her. I ought not to have suggested revisiting the Café Henzi, she realised. That was silly; cheap. Peter Andrássy may be one of the great composers in this world, but I was foolish in wanting to see him again. More than foolish in being excited about the small part I had in getting him a job in America. What is danger to the Committee is only excitement to me.
She was very silent, for Paula, all through an excellent dinner.
* * *
But later that evening when the Kursaal’s concert was over and dancing was about to begin, it was Francesca who said, “Well, if you still want to go to the Café Henzi, why don’t we go now?”
“Wouldn’t you object?” Paula was startled. “I mean—oh, you know!”
Francesca smiled at Paula’s new caution. “Thursday is his half-day. He will be out in Falken, playing chess and talking music with Gregor. He always does that.”
“He won’t be at the Henzi, then?” Paula was half-disappointed in spite of her resolutions.
“No. Do you still want to go?” Francesca’s amusement grew.
“Of course,” said Paula swiftly. “You see, I’ve been thinking about the houses for rent which we saw today. And I’ve begun to wonder if Andy wouldn’t prefer something more in town, and the older the town the better. You know how men always rush for the Ile Saint-Louis in Paris? So I’d like to see the old town—”
“The Lower Town?”
“—the Lower Town, by night.”
“Now, we aren’t house-hunting at this hour!”
“No, no no. I just like getting the feel of a place, that’s all.” Paula glanced at a table nearby, and then casually across the room at its curve of giant windows, at its sedate groups of families out together for an evening’s relaxation, at the clusters of couples who were engrossed in each other. “There’s a man over there,” she said with amusement, “who’s much too interested. He pretends he’s only studying this huge room, but you know how it is—the more he avoids being found watching us, the more he actually gives himself away. Is he a friend of yours?”
Francesca let her eyes wander slowly round the tables. “That creature in the silver-grey suit?” she asked.
“No,” Paula said. “That’s only a landmark.”
“He certainly is.”
“Beyond him to the left. I mean to the right. Your right, his left. It’s always so mixing.”
“I see,” Francesca said slowly, and looked at the man, and then quickly at another table where three girls expanded in pink blushes, pure Renoir colour, under the proud eyes of their parents. “No, he is no friend of mine.” She looked back at the man. He was hunched, now, as if he were trying to contract into nothingness. Thin face, weak chin, nondescript clothes. He wasn’t even the kind of man who would seem likely to be interested in anything except his own dull life. “You’re joking, Paula,” she said.
“Oh, he’s just some little clerk putting in a lonely evening,” Paula said. “But why come here if he enjoys himself so little? Perhaps he’s going straight back to his attic room to start chapter three of his autobiographical novel—How I Suffer Among the Bourgeoisie. You’ll be the heroine with the sensitive face who is being led astray by Swiss comfort and American materialism. Now, wouldn’t he be delighted if that dark-haired gigolo in the fancy suit came over here to join us? It would fit all theories perfectly.”
“I’m afraid the pearl-grey suit is too interested in his brandy and cigar,” Francesca said, “and thank heaven for that.”
“He’s leaving, trailing clouds of richness,” Paula reported.
“Some men would do better to stay poor,” Francesca said. “Money only exaggerates their vulgarities.”
Paula laughed. But her eyes were thoughtful as she noticed that the thin-faced man paid no attention at all to the departure of the pearl-grey suit, so that when he had been looking in this direction he must indeed have been watching Francesca and herself. Paula didn’t need to glance over her shoulder to see what table lay behind theirs: there was none—Francesca and she had chosen a corner.
Francesca said, “Shall we leave, too? Then let’s do it quickly.” Paula looked at her grave face and nodded. Within three minutes they were standing at street level far below the high terraces of the Kursaal, deposited there by an outsize elevator which had descended through the solid rock of the Schänzli. Their luck continued. Even as Paula looked with dismay through the drizzling darkness at the long, lonely expanse of bridge back into town, a solitary taxi passed them, hesitated, halted. “Quick, quick!” said Francesca, and ran for it. But once they were over the Kornhaus Bridge, it was Francesca who suggested they might drive slowly around the Lower Town following the loop of the River Aare which semi-circled this tongue of land with its eighteenth-century houses and twisting streets. “To let you see how it looks on a rainy night,” Francesca said. “Houses are like husbands: you should see them at their worst before you decide which to choose.”
The rain was easing, but the weather had kept many people indoors. Most of the restaurants were closing, the streets were bleak, the fountains lonely, chattering shadows robbed of colour and design by the blackness around them. It might have been three o’clock in the morning instead of eleven at night. It could have been almost a medieval city, except that the gutters held only rain, the streets were not buried in mud and garbage, the lights were steady and methodically spaced, the smells were unnoticeable, the few pedestrians did not need a torchbearer or an armed retainer to get them safely home.
“The twentieth century adds a little something, after all,” Paula said as she got out of the taxi. “The Middle Ages were probably only romantic when seen from this distance. Yet I used to think I’d have been happier in another era.”
“You couldn’t take penicillin with you,” Francesca reminded her.
“I’d just have to cover the pock-marks on my face with black patches. If I lived through the plague.”
But Francesca had stopped listening. She glanced along the arcade, and then back over her shoulder at the quiet Henziplatz.
“It’s peaceful enough,” Paula said reassuringly, and they crossed the bright threshold of the Café Henzi.
Madame at the cash desk gave them a cheerful greeting. There were a few tables left downstairs, but tonight the Convention of Econophilosophists had taken all upstairs for its annual social dinner.
“Of what?” Paula asked, as Francesca led her past a telephone booth into the downstairs room, wood-panelled, dimly lighted. It was fairly crowded, gently noisy, with groups of men talking over smoke-circled tables, some women sprinkled here and there among them, students argui
ng, one or two solitary guests enjoying a glass of wine within the friendliness of the room.
“I told you we had our share of conventions and committees,” Francesca said, with a smile. “Is this all right?” She had chosen a quiet corner. “We can hear the singing when it begins, just as well down here. More comfortably, perhaps.” In spite of her light voice, she had glanced quickly round the room. Seemingly she felt reassured, for she sighed now and relaxed. Paula was suddenly aware that the tension which had followed them down from the high terraces of the Kursaal was over.
“Perhaps we ought to have gone straight back to the hotel,” she said. The enjoyment of the evening was diluted somehow. She was vaguely disturbed, worried. To her, the dim lights, swinging from the cart wheels which hung from the ceiling, made everyone seem a Pirandello character. But Francesca was more at ease, as if she welcomed the shaded anonymity of the room. And then Paula wondered if the long roundabout drive through the Lower Town hadn’t been partly inspired by the chinless little man’s interest in them at the Kursaal. “Anyway, he didn’t follow us,” she said, dropping her voice, keeping her eyes on the doorway. I’m going to watch that entrance as long as we sit here, she promised herself. I wish I had never joked about him, never drawn Francesca’s attention to him. He was just a harmless little man, lonely and bored, with a wandering eye.
Francesca ordered the wine, something called Fendant de Sion, and Paula began talking about Paris where Andy and she had spent part of the winter. But Francesca’s listening was broken by her own thoughts. It was only to be expected, she told herself, that someone had started being interested in the Falken Committee. It was amazingly good luck that they had been left so long in peace. Or was it possible that they had been watched for some time, and that only this week the watchers had grown careless? Last Tuesday, when she had visited Bern, there had been that woman with the braids heavy over her ears making her round face rounder, the woman with the thick heavy body and the thin legs. And now, tonight at the Kursaal, there had been that haggard-faced man with the shifting eyes. And yet how did the fat woman or the thin man know she was in Bern, know where to look for her? Who had told them where to look for her? Who had told them where to find her— or to let themselves be noticed once they had found her?
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