by Morris West
‘And do you think you can break the pattern and reset it?’
‘I know I must try.’
‘I wish you luck!’
Rienzi smiled and shook his head. ‘Peter, my friend, don’t play the cynic with me. I know what you are and how you feel. This is a marriage – not a very satisfactory one, but it’s a contract binding until death and I must make it work as best I can. In the beginning I made a bad mistake. I had too much love, too little wisdom. Now I am wiser and there is, I think, still enough love. You must not despise me because I try to do a good thing. You must not despise Valeria because she has never been taught what is good.’
The dignity of the man, the pathos of his situation, shamed Landon more than he cared to admit, but there was still a warning to be given: ‘It takes two to keep a contract, Carlo. You may do all that you hope, and more – and you can still fail with Valeria. You should at least be prepared.’
He shrugged and said with a kind of sad self-contempt: ‘What have I to lose, Peter?’
‘Hope.’
For a long moment Rienzi stared at him, then nodded a bleak assent. ‘This is the last terror, Peter. You must not ask me to face it yet. Start your breakfast and let’s see what the press has to say about our client.’
The affair at San Stefano had made headlines in every morning paper. Their accounts were lurid, full of gory rhetoric and sadistic detail. The photographs ran the gamut of vulgarity, from a grisly shot of the dead man lying in state in the parlour to a close-up of Anna Albertini being bundled into a police car with her skirt rucked up to her thigh. But, out of the welter of ill-chosen words, the lines of the story emerged clearly enough.
The dead man was Gianbattista Belloni, formerly a peasant farmer, then a Partisan leader and later Mayor of San Stefano and a landowner of ample means. After the war he had been decorated with a gold medal and a citation from the President for distinguished military service. He was married, with two grown sons. His wife’s name was Maria. All local testimony confirmed him as a man of good character, generous habits and modest eminence. His murder had raised the village to passionate resentment.
Anna Albertini – named variously in the press as ‘the young assassin’, ‘the beautiful but ensanguined murderer’, ‘the killer of Satanic charm’ – was born Anna Moschetti, daughter of a conscripted soldier killed in the Libyan campaign and a mother executed by the Partisans for collaboration with the Germans. She was twenty-four years of age and had lived away from San Stefano for sixteen years. At twenty she had married a young Florentine named Luigi Albertini who worked as night-watchman in a textile factory.
On the day of the murder, she had made breakfast for her husband, then, when he was asleep, had taken his gun and left the house. She had caught an early train which arrived in Siena just before midday. She had hailed a taxi at the station and driven to San Stefano to murder Belloni. The motive for her crime was manifest: vendetta – reprisal for her mother’s death on the man who had presided at the drumhead court.
The newspapers made much of this motive. Most of them discussed it with singular sobriety and one leading journal spread itself in an editorial condemning in the strongest terms ‘any revival of this ancient and malevolent practice’ and demanding ‘the utmost vigilance on the part of the police and the judiciary lest any false benignity should seem to justify the barbarity of the blood-feud which has disfigured so many pages of our history’.
Which, it seemed to Landon, was fair enough. The lex talionis marked rock-bottom in human relations. It was a bloody, mutinous, wasteful cult which had no counterpart even in the jungle. Wherever it was practised, communities lived in daily terror, one step from breakdown and chaos. In this affair he had to admit that his sympathies were all on the side of the angels. And no matter how Carlo Rienzi framed his plea, the angels would give him a rough passage through the court.
In the last journal of all he came on a startling photograph of Anna Albertini: a two-column plate, marred somewhat by hasty etching, but still a portrait of tragic beauty and terrible innocence. There was no malice in the softly curving lips, no hate in the eyes, but almost a touch of wonder at some magnificence invisible to others. If the old moralists spoke truth when they said that the eyes were windows of the soul, then Anna Albertini’s soul was a mirror of primitive purity. Carlo Rienzi leaned across the table and tapped the photograph with a coffee spoon.
‘That’s exactly how she looks, Peter, and you have to tell me what goes on behind that face.’
‘I’ll need time,’ said Landon, in dry, professional fashion, ‘time and a certain freedom in consultation. That part’s up to you.’
‘I’ll have to consult with Galuzzi. He’s the consultant to the Department of Justice on Mental Health. If he agrees, we won’t have too much trouble with the prison authorities. It may take a little time to arrange a meeting with him, but I’ll do it as soon as I can. I’ve arranged a lodging for you in Siena. I’ll get in touch with you there.’
‘It’s an awkward situation for everybody,’ said Landon with sour discomfort. ‘It’s best I leave the villa.’
‘You told me you wanted to talk with Ascolini before you did any work with me.’
‘I’ll dispense myself from the courtesy. I don’t think it matters now.’
‘Good,’ said Carlo briskly. ‘Let’s get your bags and hit the road.’
The drive into Siena was a short and barren one for both. Carlo was preoccupied and Landon was moody and exacerbated. The splendid countryside slipped by unnoticed and Rienzi soon gave over his half-hearted attempts at diversion. When they arrived, he installed Landon in an astonishing pensione with the arms of the Salimbeni over the portal, immense rooms with coffered ceilings and a thirteenth-century fountain playing in the courtyard. As a final gesture he announced that the rent was paid for a week. When Landon blushed at so much generosity, Rienzi laughed. ‘Call it a bribe, Peter. I need you here. You’ve seen the worst of us. Now I’d like to show you the better side. Today you need time to yourself and so do I. I’ll pick you up here at nine-thirty tomorrow morning. Stay out of mischief!’
Landon had no heart for mischief just then, but he was glad when Rienzi was gone. He needed time and privacy to shake off the depression which had been laid upon him. The day was still young and he decided to wander round the city. Its lovers had named it long ago ‘The Home of Souls’. He hoped it might do something for his own, which presently was in a very sorry state.
In fact, it did nothing at all but make him feel more miserable. There is a disease which afflicts many travellers, an endemic malaise whose symptoms are an acute melancholy, a sense of oppression by what is old and distaste for what is new. The faces one sees take on a sinister character, like the cartoons of da Vinci. The gaudy cavalcade of history becomes a procession of spavined caricatures shambling forward to the tolling of the miserere bell. One is conscious of solitude and strangeness. The effort of communication in an alien tongue becomes an intolerable burden. The food presents itself as a garbled mess. One longs for the thinnest wine of one’s own country.
There is no remedy for the disease. One tolerates it like a recurrent bout of malaria, and then it goes away, with no perceptible harm to mind or body. The best treatment is to ignore it and keep moving; to go through the motions of interest and activity. A pretty girl is a great help. A half-bottle of brandy is an unreliable substitute.
But Landon had drunk too much brandy the night before and was too jaded to go looking for the fillies in a new town! So, after two hours of footloose wandering, he settled for an indifferent lunch, a siesta and a phone call to Ninette Lachaise. Her reaction was immediate and warm. She would be delighted to see him. They should meet for dinner at the Sordello, a cavernous, lively resort near the Campo, frequented by artists and students from the faculties of the University.
When they met she greeted him affectionately. When they made their entrance into the smoky cellars heads were turned and there was a whistling chorus of a
pproval which made Landon feel a foot taller and singularly grateful to Ninette Lachaise.
For the practised traveller or the practising bachelor there was no time for long overtures in friendship. One either achieved a quick rapport or abandoned the effort. One became jealous of time because so much was dispersed on the mechanics of getting from one place to another. Even a railway ticket was a warrant for the minor death of parting. When one boarded an aircraft one was launched into a suspension which was a troubling image of eternity. So one resented those who demanded proof of identity, elaborate tokens of aptitude for their company. One was impatient of women who doled out their smiles and made a grand opera out of an invitation to dinner. And one sometimes despised oneself for so much need of company on the pilgrim road.
When Landon explained it to Ninette Lachaise she accepted it as a compliment and gave him her own good-humoured version of the theme. ‘It’s the penalty of freedom, Peter, the tax we pay for being bachelors or artists. When the strolling players come to town, husbands keep a close eye on their wives. When the pedlars come with their trays of novelties, honest merchants tighten their purse-strings and keep their daughters at home. You are still Scaramouche, chéri; I am still Pierrette, light in love and ready to seduce their sons to the altar. It is only when we are old and famous that they want to have us to dinner.’
‘And yet they need us, Ninette. It’s only people like you and I who can show them how to hold up the world by the heels and spit in its eye.’
She laughed happily and bit into an olive. ‘Of course they need us, Peter, but not quite as we want to be needed. The walls are bare without a picture or two. It’s as fashionable to have an analyst today as it used to be to have a personal confessor. For the rest –’ her fine hands embraced the chattering concourse in the cellar – ‘they would rather we stayed in Bohemia and came out only at carnival time. I’m sure we’re happier here, anyway.’
‘What happens when we get old?’
She shrugged and pouted like a true Parisienne. ‘If we are old and foolish we hit the pavement and the bottle. If we are old and wise we still come back sometimes, ancient masters to receive the homage of youth…like that one, for instance.’
She pointed across the room to a shadowy corner where a white-haired man sat with half a dozen students who listened to him with rapt attention. On the hat-stand beside the table were hung three or four of those curious medieval caps whose colour denoted the Faculty of Law. At the same moment the old man turned his head and Landon saw with a shock of surprise that it was Doctor Ascolini. He was too far away, too absorbed in his seance, to notice Landon, but Landon felt a faint flush of embarrassment mount to his cheeks. Ninette quizzed him, smiling: ‘You haven’t told me what happened this morning, Peter. Do you want to talk about it?’
He did. He talked through the soup and the pasta. He talked through one bottle of wine and ordered another, while Ascolini sat, eloquent and honoured, among his student entourage, while Ninette probed with an occasional question towards the core of the provincial drama. When he had finished, she laid one slim hand over his and asked gently: ‘Do you want to know what I think, Peter?’
‘I do.’
‘Then I think Valeria is more than half in love with you. Carlo leans on you too much for his own good, and Ascolini respects you more than you know.’ Before he had time to challenge her, she went on: ‘I think, too, that you are more deeply touched by all this than you admit. You like to play the misanthrope, but the mask slips off because it doesn’t fit you very well. Underneath, you are a soft man, too easily hurt by malice and mistrust. You judge these people too curtly. You make all your pictures black and white, with no room for half-tones.’
‘You mean Ascolini?’
‘All of them, but Ascolini first, if you want.’
A burst of laughter went up from the old man’s table and Landon saw him tapping the shoulder of the youth who had caused it. He saw him signal the waiter for another bottle of wine and then bend attentively to the question of another student. Ninette Lachaise asked another question: ‘How do you read that, Peter? What brings him here?’
‘You said it yourself. The old master receives the homage of youth!’
‘Is that all, chéri? No kindness? No fear? No loneliness?’
Landon surrendered ruefully. ‘All right, Ninette. You win. So the devil has a gentle heart – but not for his own.’
‘Has he shown you his heart, Peter? Or have you read it only through someone else’s eyes?’
The reproof was so gentle that he had perforce to accept it. He grinned at her and said: ‘You’re the artist. Your eyes are sharper than mine. Maybe you should read him for me.’
‘I know him, Peter,’ she said calmly. ‘I have known him for a long time. He buys my pictures and he comes often to look at what I’m doing, to drink coffee and talk.’
For no good reason, Landon felt a pang of jealousy that this malign old mountebank should enjoy the privacy of Ninette’s house. But Siena was a small town and he had fewer rights in the girl than Ascolini. He shrugged and said: ‘I know he has a lot of charm.’
Ninette Lachaise refilled his glass and handed it to him with a laugh. ‘Drink your wine, chéri. It is you who will be seeing me home, not the venerable doctor. But seriously, there is a tragedy in his life. He has a daughter who disappoints him and a son-in-law who resents him.’
Now it was Landon’s turn to laugh. ‘Valeria disappoints him? What’s he got to grumble about? He made her in his own image.’
‘Self-portraits are not always the best art, Peter.’ Her lovely hands reached out and turned his face towards her. Her eyes challenged him, half in jest, half in earnest. ‘We all love ourselves, Peter, but we are not always happy with what we see in the mirror. Are you?’
He capitulated as gracefully as he could. He took her hands and kissed them, and said lightly: ‘You win, Ninette. You’re a better advocate than Ascolini. I’ll reserve judgment.’
‘Would you do me a favour?’
‘Name it.’
‘Let me ask Ascolini to our table for a drink.’
To refuse would have been a grossness. Besides, he wanted to see more of this woman and a few minutes of embarrassment were a modest price for the privilege. She gave him a swift, grateful smile and walked across the room to another chorus of whistles and applause. Ascolini greeted her with lavish courtesy and, after a few moments of talk, walked back with her to Landon’s table. He held out his hand and said, with the old wilful irony: ‘You’re keeping better company, my friend. I’m glad to see it.’
‘We have much in common,’ said Ninette Lachaise.
‘You’re a fortunate fellow, Landon. If I were twenty years younger, I should take her away from you.’ He sighed theatrically and settled into his chair. ‘Ah youth! Youth! A fugal time! We prize it only when we have lost it. Every one of these boys wants to be as wise as I am. How can I tell them that all I want is to be as lusty as they?’
Landon poured wine for him and drank the toast he made to Ninette. They talked desultorily for a few moments and then abruptly Ascolini said: ‘I seldom make apologies, Landon, but I owe you this one. I’m sorry for what happened in my house.’
‘It’s forgotten. I’d like you to forget it, too.’
Ascolini frowned and shook his white mane. ‘You must not promise too much, my friend, even in courtesy. It is not possible to forget, only to forgive-and that is difficult enough, God knows.’ As curtly as he had raised the subject, he dropped it and turned to another. ‘You’ve been with Carlo today, Landon?’
‘I have.’
‘You’re embroiled in the affair then?’
‘Hardly embroiled.’ Landon’s tone was testy. ‘I’ve offered Carlo my professional advice on the side of the defence.’
‘Carlo is fortunate in his friends,’ said Ascolini drily.
‘More fortunate than in his family, perhaps!’
Before the old man had time to answer, Ninette Lachaise
moved into the argument. ‘You are both my friends. I will not have you quarrel in my company. You, Peter, have too quick a tongue. And you, dottore’ – she laid a restraining hand on his sleeve – ‘why do you make yourself a monster with horns and tail and fire coming out of your ears? You have the same loyalties as Peter, though you will not admit them.’
For Landon it was a reminder to better manners from someone whose respect he wanted. He tried awkwardly to repair the breach. ‘Please, Doctor! I’m a stranger caught up in a family affair against his will. I’m irritable and confused. Carlo gave me his confidence in the first instance, so, naturally, I’m prejudiced in his favour. But really none of it is my concern. Only a fool wants to arbitrate a domestic dispute.’
The old man surveyed him with a bright, ironic eye. ‘Unfortunately, Landon, it is not arbitration we need, but forgiveness of our sins and a grace of amendment. I am too old and too proud to ask for it, Carlo is too young to admit the need. And Valeria …’ He broke off to sip his wine and consider how he should express the thought. ‘I have opened the world to her – and robbed her of the innocence to understand it. You’re the wise woman, Ninette; how do you prescribe for a sickness like ours?’
‘You may not buy any more pictures if I tell you.’
‘On the contrary, I may surprise you and buy them all.’
‘Then, dottore mio, here is my prescription. Unless you want to end by killing each other, someone has to say the first gentle word. And you are the one who has the least time left.’
