Evening of the Good Samaritan

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  “If we are truly liberals,” Jonathan said, “that should not happen.”

  “Be honest, old friend. Doesn’t it happen to you? Could you read such a story, and in the context of its time not say that it should not have been written?”

  “It happened in the context of its time,” Jonathan said. “Forgive me, Marcello, but you have spoken with such hatred, I should like to hear her version of the story. I doubt that I ever shall. I am not attracted to such society any more than it is attracted to me. I can only say there are Jews who did not die in Buchenwald or Auschwitz and who do not live as does the Baroness. You and I have no premium on conscience. I will not judge.”

  Ruggeo mocked him: “The true liberal. He will not judge. Not even the war criminals. Not even Hitler.”

  “He is judged,” Jonathan said quietly. “I’m not sure he didn’t judge himself.”

  “Rubbish!” Ruggeo cried. “Godalmighty rubbish!” In one long tilt of his head he emptied the glass of gin and bitters. He gave a sweep of his arm, a gesture that encompassed the titled and the elite of the evening. “Why don’t you join them? They say the same thing. Hitler made a mistake. He went a little too far. A few less Jews and a few more Communists, and such a party as this might have been given in his honor.” Ruggeo thrust his empty glass into the hand of the attendant to be refilled. His voice purred at Jonathan with sarcasm. “But you can say this for him: he died like a gentleman, took his own life. Not like our ragamuffin screaming for the rabble’s mercy at the end. I’ve heard it, Jonathan! Their only regret in having supported Mussolini was not that he became a tyrant, but that he proved a coward.” He took the refilled glass from the server’s hand.

  Jonathan did not protest. He had not said anything quite like that, but Ruggeo was gathering an audience. Aware of it himself he addressed only Jonathan and more quietly. “Tell me the truth, my friend: what part of my story offended you the most—the lechery or the lynching?”

  “The lynching,” Jonathan said without hesitation.

  Ruggeo laughed. And having started, he did not seem to be able to stop laughing, not loudly, but gasping out the repetitious sounds. Suddenly he stopped. “And so with me! A revolutionary!” his voice was thick with self-derision. “Christ! Christ, liberate us from the inhibitions of your Christianity!”

  Jonathan sipped his own drink, and taking Ruggeo’s arm persuaded him away from the buffet. “We are in danger of distracting attention from the main event,” he said. “Introduce me to your friends.”

  Sylvia, just before dinner was announced, did a dangerous thing: she slipped into the dining hall and made an alteration in the seating arrangement. She had with scrupulous care decided on tables of twelve, distributing important personages at each of them, thereby avoiding in an order of precedence she had no hope of understanding. The change she made brought the Baroness Schwarzbach to her own table. She did it, not because of the attention paid the Baroness on arrival, but because of the attitude of the grand dames when they had involved her in a moment of intimacy. She was by no means certain her solicitude wasn’t that of a lamb shielding a tigress. But in the end, Sylvia could only be Sylvia obliging her strong if not very feminine sense of fair play. She left Gemini where she had placed him in the first place, near her husband.

  The Baroness at table had great charm. She spoke three languages fluently, Italian, French and English, finding the particular nuance she wished in one language for her conversation in the other. She deferred often to the other women at the table, rarely to the men, ingratiating herself the more with both for it. In a less articulate person, her curiosity, her moments of almost naive wonder at incidents, opinions ventured, would have seemed coy, Sylvia thought. But in her they seemed genuine, and afterwards she would exclaim: “Ah-ha, ah-ha!” as though having arrived at belated understanding. And two or three times during the evening she explained to Sylvia, “I have been removed from so much that has happened.”

  Sylvia wished to God she knew more about her and wondered if Maria had deliberately failed her in this particular biography. She was not a girl for gossip, Maria, especially about her own people to an American.

  Out of her experience Sylvia could not have asked more of the way dinner went. The wines drew nods of satisfaction: Soave Bertani with the fish, Haut Brion with the fowl, the Pommery champagne with dessert. Only once during dinner did she catch the eye of Jonathan. He seemed earnestly occupied with the wife of a British admiral whom she had seated between him and his friend, Ruggeo. When it was time to leave the tables, a group of musicians began to play in the grand salon.

  The Baroness spoke briefly to her hostess: “You have arranged marvelously. I should not have thought it could be done.”

  Sylvia felt herself, of all silly things, to be blushing. “Thank you very much,” she murmured.

  The Baroness added: “It might have been presumptuous of me to say so. I am glad that it was not.”

  “I’m not so sure of myself,” Sylvia said.

  The Baroness looked up at her, and for the first time Sylvia realized she was very nearly an old woman. “If I ask you to have luncheon with me, will you do it?”

  “I should be honored,” Sylvia said.

  Alberto Gemini intercepted them. The Baroness said: “In America, I understand, you are not acquainted with each other, Madame Winthrop?”

  Gemini said: “I’ve just found out you’re a Fields, Mrs. Winthrop. I knew your mother. A fine lady—and no flies on her either.” His small blue eyes blinked at the Baroness. “Like you, Johanna. To the point.”

  “Alberto, I do not like to be compared with anybody’s mother, even the delightful Madame Winthrop’s.”

  Sylvia laughed. Gemini said: “Touché,” in an unmistakable American accent. Sylvia was remembering his history: A Brooklyn boy, the son of an Italian silversmith, he had laid the foundation of his fortune during World War I.

  Before leaving them to join the men for cigars and brandy, Gemini said: “I’m going to have to leave soon. If I don’t see you, Johanna, I’ll be in touch with you. I’ll see what can be done.”

  “You are most kind,” the Baroness said, and gave him both her hands. Her smile up into his face embarrassed Sylvia. Surely he must see the falseness of its mock adulation. And of course he did! and was as pleased with it as with the real thing. He was a man who would relish saying to himself and even more to others: she hates my guts, but …

  With stolid awkwardness he lifted the Baroness’ hand to his lips. He took leave of Sylvia with better grace, a hand shake much more his style. He had no humor in his eyes, she thought, and from the back, his red neck bulging above the stiff white collar, he looked more Prussian than either American or Italian. He made his way through people with the aplomb of a bulldozer. He had only one thing to recommend him: money.

  In his wake, the Baroness’ eyes clouded over with a cold cynicism that she immediately batted out of them, turning to her hostess. Nonetheless, Sylvia felt herself an innocent abroad.

  Withrop’s feeling toward Gemini had progressed through the evening from resentment to a hostility it was difficult for him to conceal. He had added the banker’s name to Sylvia’s guest list tardily, learning after the other invitations were out that he would be in Italy. But from the moment of his entrance, Gemini acted as though the occasion had been planned in his honor. For that matter, every Italian present whose business was business acted as if he assumed it also. Winthrop had not supposed these people were interested in UNRRA, but neither did he choose to have his house used for the convening of an international banking cabal, and that was what he saw happening before his eyes. He could not prevent it, but determined not to join it, he sought out Jonathan Hogan.

  Gemini was at the moment the center of a group of attentive gentlemen, giving a fluid account of his view on the prospects of Italy’s financial recovery. Count Fabroni acted as translator, for Gemini spoke a very plain English. Gemini had spent two weeks touring Italy and had come by facts and figures
, the accuracy of which no one would question, such was his command of them. Having responsibility to no government, and obviously contemptuous of the peace negotiations, the preparations for which were now going on, he was outspoken and ruthless. Various of his points brought color to the faces of his listeners. Not a man took issue with him.

  “I can tell you what will come out of the peace conference,” the banker answered the weakest of protests. “In twenty years Germany will be the most prosperous country in Europe. They won’t resist occupation like your left-wing coalitions. They’ll make the most of it: American money and German know-how. Mark my words, gentlemen, there will be more foreign investment in Germany by the end of next year than there was before the war.”

  To Jonathan, Winthrop said: “I got something I didn’t bargain for, inviting him.”

  Jonathan was watching, listening, a tight smile on his lips. Ruggeo, next to him, was rocking back and forth on his heels, his bright eyes boring straight ahead. He had the look of a man about to explode. Winthrop’s annoyance with the banker was suddenly mingled with alarm. He had just seen Ruggeo’s face. He said: “Hogan, if I get their attention, will you say a few words about the prime ministers’ conference and get this fellow offstage?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “I’m not at liberty to do it. And if I were, it would be bad form—for you. I’m a mere adviser, not even a negotiator.” He indicated the group. “I’m not in their league, Colonel.”

  “I’ll put my cards on the table,” Gemini was saying. “I’ve got a press conference in Rome tomorrow, and I’ll tell you what I’m going to say …”

  “An outspoken chap, isn’t he?” Ruggeo said, his eyes snapping.

  Even Gemini was momentarily distracted for Ruggeo had spoken loudly. He looked around with the others for the speaker. But seeing who it was, they shook their heads and urged the banker to go on.

  Winthrop moved toward the cabal. “May I intrude for a moment, gentlemen? The ladies are waiting to dance.”

  “I thought I was among friends,” Gemini said.

  “You are.” Winthrop smiled at him.

  Others of the group were quick to reassure him.

  Gemini made a slow exploration of their faces. Like a gangster in a movie, Jonathan thought. Gemini said: “As I was saying …” He made an of off-hand gesture of dismissal toward Winthrop. “This won’t take long, Colonel …”

  “There’s a representative of the London Record in the room, sir,” Winthrop said.

  “Good. He’ll have a scoop.”

  Winthrop was caught. To intrude further was to alienate the very people he had gathered for the purpose of ingratiating. He withdrew as gracefully as he could.

  Jonathan offered him a cigaret. He accepted it although he rarely smoked. Jonathan said: “Hang your clothes on the hickory limb, but don’t go near the water. Remember the old song?”

  He was in no mood to be reprimanded, whatever the source. “Shall we go into the grand ball room?”

  “Wait,” Ruggeo said, as Jonathan started to move off. “I want to hear this.”

  Having been invited to do so, the London correspondent took a notebook and pencil from his pocket.

  Gemini was well aware that he was giving a statement:

  “I’ll go as far as to say that as long as the partisans are in control of the factories, there won’t be any loans—not from the men I represent. Get rid of the Parri government, put a sound man in office, somebody strong enough to pull the country together, and then we can talk business.”

  “There you have it,” Jonathan said quietly. “There you have it.” He could feel defeat like a stone between his shoulders.

  “Are you coming?” Winthrop said.

  Ruggeo was standing, his fists clenched. “The son of a bitch,” he said. “The filthy, arrogant Fascist son of a bitch.”

  “That’s enough,” Winthrop said.

  “Far, far more than enough,” Ruggeo said. His whole body was quivering with rage, and with the terror of the future he had mortgaged to an empty victory.

  Jonathan put out his cigaret. “Goodnight, Alex. Tell Sylvia I shall call her,” and taking Ruggeo by the arm, he persuaded him from the room.

  Within the month, the Parri government had fallen. De Gasperi, the Social Democrat became premier. On the same day Marcello Ruggeo’s article—that written on the morning he had received his invitation to the Winthrop party—was published. “The resistance is dead. Write the word into history …” It was his last political writing. The following summer his wife and children joined him in Switzerland. By then he had almost finished a novel commenced before the war.

  Jonathan, returning to England from his brief, unhappy holiday in Italy, was soon faced with a decision in his own life. He had gained recognition during his wartime service as something of an expert on Italian affairs, and he was asked to stay on in his advisory post by the State Department preparatory to the drafting of the peace treaty.

  But the cause he had championed in Italy was lost. And in truth, a government such as De Gasperi’s was likely to do better at the peace conference than, say, Parri’s. It was stronger, having the might of the Right. The coming struggle for world influence between the United States and the Soviet Union was plainly evident. Italy could be expected in time to become part of an alliance with Britain, France, and the United States if America did not revert to isolationism. The Soviet Union’s inflexibility on Italian reparations showed plainly that she considered Italy outside her sphere of domination.

  Jonathan’s frank evaluation of his own position was that his usefulness to his government was at an end. Henceforth, a good statistician could do the job better. The exigencies of balancing power would dictate this, like all other peaces: men of good will would write its rationalization.

  That nothing changed, he would not say. He believed with William James in that one per cent of change which made the difference called progress. All the same, his mind went constantly back to the days following World War I, to Woodrow Wilson’s heartbreak, to the Palmer raids and the bonus marchers. Loyalists and conformists: he was not their kind of patriot. Yet at this point in his life, Jonathan wished himself removed from where his conscience would compel his tongue. His message had been tried and found wanting: just possibly it also belonged on the ninety-nine per cent side of history’s ledger. In a very few years he would be an old man; some would say he already was. He wanted to shoot with the quill for a change and not with his tongue, to write and to study. A post at London University, where from time to time in the past he had happily taught and studied, had been somewhat casually proposed to him during his recent sojourn in England. He resigned his government job and went after it. Securing it, he went home to permanently sever his association with Midwestern and to spend Christmas with his family.

  Meanwhile, Sylvia went to luncheon with the Baroness.

  8

  THE BARONESS CALLED FOR Sylvia in her chauffeured car. She wore black and a simple make-up Sylvia found far more becoming than her gaudy evening splendor. “I have arranged our luncheon at a country inn. You will not mind to drive a few kilometers?”

  Sylvia said that she would like it. The day was clear and sharp, and as often happened on late autumn days, Sylvia was homesick. She longed for the browns and the acrid smell of smoke so reminiscent of Lakewood at that time of year. Lake Michigan was not to be compared with the Mediterranean, nor the prairies of home with the Campagna, but she knew where her own choice lay.

  “I shall be going home soon,” Sylvia said as the car climbed above the city. The Bay stretched far and gloriously blue beneath them.

  “And you are anxious?”

  Sylvia nodded.

  “Home,” the Baroness said. She repressed a sigh. “I shall be going somewhere myself soon. But where I do not know. I must wait. Always the refugee must wait.”

  Sylvia smiled. The Baroness did not in any way conform to her notion of a refugee. Fleetingly she thought of the story Jonathan had tol
d her in their one afternoon together before his return to London. She could not credence the story. She had probed Maria for it without success and without herself repeating it. She did not think the gossip of Neapolitan society concerned it. Gossip and horror she did not suppose could be reconciled in any society. What she had elicited from Maria was a tale of the Baroness’ lovers. She had never been known in the old days to appear without one, even while married to the Baron, a man long since dead. And during the war years? Sylvia had prompted. Maria had shrugged. “During the war years she did not appear at all.” Sylvia had remarked then: “My God! Alberto Gemini?” Maria had burst out laughing. “No, no, no. That was why, you see, they did not hesitate to accept her at your party. The matter of a lover is—very delicate on such occasions.” Whatever could be said of Gemini the word delicate in no way became him.

  “Perhaps I shall come to America,” the Baroness said. “I have not been there in a long time.”

  “But you have friends,” Sylvia said.

  The Baroness looked at her sharply as though in search of a hidden meaning. She sat back, satisfied that there was none. “Friends. Home. Americans are very sentimental.”

  Sylvia was annoyed. These people were always making generalizations about Americans. And to Americans: that was what irked her, as though they were children to be told all about themselves. She pointed to the ruins of a stone wall near which a washing of shirts and undergarments were hung on a line. Before them at the side of the road a boy was tending two goats. “There are people living in the shelter of the wall,” she said.

  “So there are,” the Baroness said. “It is better perhaps than in the caves. For many years people in this region have lived in caves. It is a very poor country—for most people. If I were Italian, I should be ashamed.”

  As they passed the goatherd who stared at them impassively, Sylvia lifted her hand and waved. The boy scrambled for a stone and threw it after the car. The Baroness, catching sight of his motion, turned to observe its fulfillment. “That I have not seen before.” She sighed and settled back. “Tell me about your children. You call it a rehabilitation house? What will happen to them when you go home?”