Daughter of Silence

by Morris West

  For a long moment Ascolini was silent. The fire went out of his eyes, his pink cheeks sagged, and Landon understood for the first time how old he was. Finally, he stood up, took the girl’s hand and pressed it to his lips. ‘Goodnight, child. Sleep in peace.’ To Landon he said formally: ‘If you will lunch with me at Luca’s tomorrow I should like to talk with you.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘One o’clock, then. Enjoy yourselves with my blessing.’

  They watched him across the room, picking his old man’s way between the crowded tables, until the students stood to welcome him back like sons careful of an honoured parent.

  Landon felt Ninette’s eyes on him, but he had nothing to say and he sat staring down at the checked tablecloth, abashed and faintly ashamed. Finally, she said, with a touch of tenderness: ‘There are other places, other people, Peter. Let’s go and find them.’

  There were no whistles as they walked out. Even the Sordello had its private chivalries, but Landon could not say whether it was the aegis of Ascolini that protected them or whether even then he had the look of a man fallen in love – a noble occasion in Tuscany, only a trifle less solemn than a funeral or the coronation of a Pope.

  It was three in the morning when he walked Ninette home from the last place and the last people. In the shadow of her doorway, they kissed and clung together, drowsy and passionate, until she pushed him away and whispered: ‘Don’t rush me, Peter. Promise me you won’t rush me. We’re not children and we know where this road goes.’

  ‘I want it to go a long way.’

  ‘I, too. But I need time to think.’

  ‘May I come tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow – any day!’

  ‘You may get sick of me and turn me out.’

  ‘And then I’ll curse myself and call you back. Now go home, chéri, please!’

  The old city lay magical under a summer moon, her columns silver, her towers serene, her fountains full of faint stars. Her bells were silent, but her squares were murmurous with ancient friendly ghosts. One of them asked him a question which he thought to have heard before: ‘What happens, my friend, when the world blows up in your face?’

  In a third-floor room near the Porta Tufi, Valeria Rienzi lay awake and watched the moon-shadows lengthen over the roof-tops. Beside her in the tumbled bed, Basilio Lazzaro slept and snored, his heavy, handsome face slack with satisfaction. Even in repose, there was a gross, animal vitality about him: in the broad barrel-chest, tufted with swart hairs, in the flat belly and the thick, muscly shoulders. He was like a stud beast, bred for coupling, proud of his potency, graceless but dominant in the act of union.

  Yet even while she despised him she could not regret him. His violence bruised her, his egotism angered her, yet he never failed to bring her to a kind of fulfilment. He did not ask her to be other than she was, an attractive woman, apt for mating, happy to play lovers’ games and not ask too many questions about love. There was a panic urgency in his wooing that brought her swiftly to excitement. He was content with submission but delighted with co-operation.

  He did not demand, like Carlo, that she play the seducer or, like her father, that she should re-live an episode in prurient fiction. He was simple as the animal he resembled; and his simplicity was a guarantee of her freedom. She could go or stay. If she stayed, there was a price. If she went, there were twenty other women to be called with a snap of his stubby fingers. He treated her like a whore and made her feel like one, but at least she was not involved beyond the night’s contract.

  He was purge for her confusions, a partner and a symbol of her rebellion. Yet he would never be permanent or sufficient to her. Which brought her by a round turn face to face with the answered question: what else was left when the opera was over?

  Her father had one answer: convenient marriage and a clutch of children with whom she could decline gracefully into the middle years. But his answer was coloured by an old man’s demand for possession and continuity. When the children came, he would bind them to him with affection and hold them over her like a reproach.

  Carlo? His answer was different again. Marriage was a contract, love a mutual bargain. He held up his love like a posy of flowers and demanded to be kissed for the offering. If he brought off a victory in this case or another he would become more arrogant, but no less demanding to lay it at her feet as the price of love. In a sense his exaction was more brutal than Lazzaro’s, who gave and took and went away. Carlo loved himself in her, as a child loves itself in a mother, and, self-centred as a child, demanded a gratuitous gift of affection.

  He was full of uncertainty, but he could not tolerate uncertainty in her. He had submitted, in his own fashion, to Ascolini’s tyranny, but he refused to understand how much more subject she herself had become. He demanded allegiance to his own rebellion, but could never understand that hers must be made elsewhere and in subtler fashion. He, too, wanted children – but as a proof and not as a fruit of loving.

  But these were not the only answers, and she knew it. She was wilful and demanded to be tamed, passionate and in need of satisfaction. There were fears buried deep inside her that she wanted shared, by someone cool and wise but unpaternal. There were shames to be talked out and memories to be accepted without reproach; so that when the time came to give, she could give gratefully and freely – whether as wife or mistress made no matter.

  As the moon waned and the pale shadows climbed from floor to ceiling, she thought of Peter Landon and the brief, passionate interlude with him in the garden. Given time and the occasion, she could draw him to her again, unless – and the thought gave her a sharp pang of jealousy-unless Ninette Lachaise were to take him first.

  Peter Landon was not the only subject of contention between herself and this interloper from over the border. She had watched for a long time the growth of Ascolini’s affection for her, sensed his unspoken regrets that his daughter could not match the footloose bohemian, painting in her garret. Even Lazzaro talked of her with a kind of regret. And tonight, with a perverse enjoyment, she had made him talk again.

  She had flattered him and tickled his sensuality, until in the end he had revealed with a base man’s vanity the intimate details of his affair with Ninette Lachaise. It was a shameful victory at best, but a wise Valeria might well turn it into a nobler one. Love was a war in which the spoils were to the subtle and the knowing – and a man once kissed was already half disarmed.

  Spilt milk could not be poured back into the pitcher, lost innocence could never be restored. But Landon was no innocent either and perhaps…perhaps…The cold grey of the false dawn was creeping into the eastern sky as she dressed hurriedly and crept down the stairs to where her car was parked in the alley. Basilio Lazzaro would wake and find her gone – and would smile with relief at having found a woman who knew the rules of the game.

  Punctually at nine-thirty the next morning, Carlo Rienzi arrived at the pensione to read Landon the report of the first day’s activity. The opening summary of it was unpromising. Anna Albertini had been charged with premeditated murder and lodged in the women’s house of correction at San Gimignano. Carlo had interviewed her and found her quite uncooperative. The thing was done. She was content. She did not want to talk about it any more. Her husband was to be produced as a witness for the prosecution and no one in San Stefano was prepared to open his mouth except in support of police evidence. Fra Bonifacio’s expectations had exceeded his purse and Rienzi would have to pay his colleagues’ expenses from his own pocket.

  There was one entry on the credit side. Professor Galuzzi would be happy to welcome his distinguished colleague from London and to open informal discussions on the psychiatric aspects of the case. Carlo and Landon were bidden to coffee with him at his rooms in the University.

  Landon warmed to him from the first moment of meeting. He was a lean, tall fellow in his late forties with grey hair, a grey goatee, gold pince-nez and a faintly pedantic address. But the pince-nez concealed a shrewd, twinkl
ing eye, and the pedantry masked a quick wit and a ready sympathy. Landon had the feeling that he might be a formidable and expert fellow in court. His private summation was brisk but genial: ‘A formula exists under which Mr Landon might be called in an Italian court as an expert witness for the defence. For my part – and please don’t mistake my intentions – I would advise against it. Local sympathies, even among the judiciary, might run against a foreign expert. On the other hand, I should be happy to have my distinguished colleague work with me as a clinical observer on the case.’ He bent sedulously over his coffee. ‘Of course if my distinguished colleague chose to advise defence privately, that would be his own affair.’

  ‘You go further than I had hoped, Professor,’ said Rienzi cautiously.

  ‘But you don’t understand why?’ Galuzzi surveyed him with a bright, birdlike eye. ‘Is that it? I think perhaps Mr Landon will understand me better than you do. We are both medical men. Our prime concern is to care for the health of the human mind and, when we meet with the law, to mitigate the consequences of any mental infirmity that may exist. Don’t misunderstand me!’ He held up a warning hand. ‘When I am called to the witness stand, I must answer fully and truthfully any questions which are asked on the subject of my clinical knowledge. I’m not a judge. I cannot determine what use the court may make of my testimony. If you felt it necessary to call other experts to challenge my diagnosis, they would of course be given full facilities to examine the accused.’

  ‘It’s a fair offer, Carlo,’ said Landon warmly. ‘I’m flattered by it. I think you should be grateful. Tell me, Professor, have you seen Anna Albertini yet?’

  ‘Not yet. I make my first visit to her this afternoon. For that I should like to be alone. Afterwards it will be easier to introduce you as a visiting observer. However, I do have one item of interest. As you know, every new prisoner is submitted to a medical examination by the prison doctor. The purpose of the examination is to detect the presence of communicable disease which may infect other inmates. Anna Albertini has been given a clean bill of health. It is also noted in the record that she is virgo intacta.’

  Rienzi gaped at him. ‘But she’s been married four years.’

  ‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ Galuzzi’s goatee bobbed up and down as he laughed. ‘Something for you, also, to sleep on, Mr Landon! And there is another thing. No sign of depression or mania. No violence, no hysteria. My colleague at the prison describes the accused as calm, good-humoured and apparently content. But we shall see….’ He hesitated a moment and then asked: ‘Would you do me a favour, Mr Landon?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Your work is not unknown here, and you speak excellent Italian. I should like to improve our acquaintance – and perhaps, if it is not too much of an imposition, have you lecture to some of my senior students.’

  ‘I’d be delighted. You can contact me at any time at the Pensione della Fontana.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch with you.’ He scribbled the address on a desk pad, then stood up. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have a lecture in five minutes.’

  As they made their tortuous way back to the centre of the city, Carlo was voluble in his satisfaction with the meeting, but Landon added a rider or two of caution. ‘Don’t lean too much on this kind of thing, Carlo. I like Galuzzi. He’s a pleasant fellow, freer than most with the courtesy of the trade. But the courtesy doesn’t cost him anything – and in the witness box he’ll stand up like a rock, because his professional reputation is at stake.’

  ‘I keep forgetting,’ said Rienzi wryly, ‘that you must have been through this kind of thing many times. Tell me one thing: is it likely that your diagnosis of a case would vary much from Galuzzi’s?’

  ‘I doubt it. There might be some divergence of opinion on a complex disorder. There might be a greater divergence on the question of treatment. But it seems to me you’re begging the question. You’re assuming that all abnormal conduct is a symptom of mental illness. There are some extreme practitioners who hold that view. I don’t. I’m sure Galuzzi doesn’t, either. If your client is insane, we’ll both agree on the point – and your case will be over in twenty minutes. If she’s not, then you’re back to mitigatory circumstances.’

  ‘That’s what I’m working on now. But so far I’ve met only closed doors.’

  ‘There’s one that might open.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Anna Albertini’s husband.’

  ‘He’s refused to talk to anyone but the police, and he’s already gone back to Florence.’

  ‘Take a drive up there and ask him why his wife’s still virgin after four years of marriage.’

  ‘My God!’ said Rienzi softly. ‘My God, it might just work!’

  ‘It’s always a reasonable bet. Challenge a man in his virility and he’s only too ready to talk. Whether he gives you the truth is, of course, another matter.’

  ‘If we knew what inhibited the marriage we would have some leading questions to ask Anna herself. And from there …’

  ‘From there,’ said Landon with a grin, ‘you cook your own dinner, Carlo. I can help you stir the soup, but in the end you’re the fellow who has to eat it. And talking of eating, Ascolini’s asked me to lunch with him today. I met him last night with Ninette Lachaise.’

  ‘The old, old charm!’ said Rienzi resentfully. ‘Honey for the flies. If you were a Woman, he’d have you in bed before sunset. Don’t sell me out, Peter!’

  He said it with a smile, but Landon was instantly and bitterly angry. ‘To hell with you, Carlo! If that’s the way you read a simple politeness, to hell with you!’

  Ignoring Rienzi’s protest, he turned and hurried away, plunging into a tangle of alleys, stumbling over refuse and runnels of filthy water until he emerged, breathless and furious, into the blinding sunlight of the Campo. When he looked at his watch it was only midday, so he turned into a bar, drank two brandies and smoked half-a-dozen tasteless cigarettes until it was time for lunch with Alberto Ascolini.

  He found the old man in the favoured corner of Luca’s, enthroned in a red-plush chair at the feet of a Renaissance nude. A brace of waiters hovered at his elbow, attentive and obsequious, while Ascolini sipped yellow vermouth and made notes in a pocket-book covered with purple morocco. Landon could not repress a smile at the care with which he stage-managed every occasion. Peasant he might be, but he had the knack of imposing distinction even on the baroque splendour of Luca’s, which is part restaurant, part club and part monument to the vanished pomps of the nineteenth century.

  He greeted Landon absently, had an aperitif in his hand in ninety seconds, and then asked him bluntly: ‘Have you been reading the papers, Landon?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘What do you make of the affair?’

  ‘Barring insanity, I can’t imagine a simpler case for the prosecution.’

  ‘And the defence?’

  ‘Has a hopeless task. I’ve said as much to Carlo.’

  ‘Does he agree?’

  ‘Not altogether.’

  ‘He must have other information, then.’

  ‘It would seem so.’

  He let it rest there and smiled – a canny old swordsman disengaging after the first perfunctory passes. ‘Let’s call a truce, Landon. I have, believe me, no wish to embarrass you. And I would like you to trust me a little. It may be hard for you to understand, but I do have a very real interest in Carlo’s welfare.’

  Landon digested that for a moment and then said, carefully: ‘It might help us both if you would explain that interest.’

  Ascolini leaned back in his chair, spreading his soft hands and joining them, fingertip to fingertip, in an episcopal gesture. His eyes filmed over like those of a dozing bird and his voice took on a dusty, didactic quality.

  ‘As one of your English writers has said, Landon, youth is wasted on the young. When one is old, one resents the waste. One also has the means to indulge the resentment, as I have done in Carlo’s case. This is the
problem of age, my friend – and you will face it sooner than you imagine: the catalogue of available pleasures contracts so that one clings even to one’s baseness for want of more robust diversion. I am not proud of this. Neither can I say that I am sorry for it. I explain it to you as an experience. I am a jealous man, my friend: jealous of what I have, jealous of what I have lost, jealous of the extravagance with which the young indulge their conscience or their illusions. Take Carlo, for instance. In his marriage he plays the patient gentleman. That is a folly with all women – most foolish with a woman like Valeria. With me he plays the respectful pupil, the dutiful son-in-law. He refuses to see that I am an old hard-head, who needs his nose rubbed in the dust. The old bulls, Landon! They stand, diminished but defiant, waiting for the one last fight which will ennoble them even while it destroys them and despising the uncertain youngsters who refuse the combat. Does this make any sense to you? You of all people should understand.’

  ‘I do understand,’ Landon told him quietly. ‘I’m grateful that you’ve explained it. But there’s something you should understand, too. Carlo has begun his fight. What he has done so far is his challenge to you. You must not despise him because he fights in another fashion than yours.’

  ‘Despise him?’ The old man was suddenly vehement. ‘For the first time I begin to respect him!’

  ‘Then why humiliate him as you did when he offered you a gift and his thanks?’

  Ascolini gave him a wintry smile and shook his head. ‘You too are still young, my dear Landon. When the old bulls fight they use all the dirty tricks.’ He shrugged off the argument as if he had no further interest in it. ‘Now let me order you dinner and a wine to put blood in your veins. You’ll need it with a woman like Ninette Lachaise.’

  The waiters came scurrying at his signal and they were served like princes of a nobler age. As they ate, the old man talked, quietly and persuasively, of his peasant boyhood in the Val d’Orcia, of his education at the hands of the parish priest, his student days at the University of Siena, his struggle to find a foot-hold in Rome, his first successes, his eclipse under the Fascist regime, his rise to new eminence after the war.