North From Rome

by Helen Macinnes

  “Tell me now,” he said, catching her arm.

  “Here, standing in the hall?”

  “What happened next? You were bored...” Suddenly he saw the whole picture developing in front of him. “Don’t tell me you started playing around with that Minox of yours.”

  She looked a little startled. “How did you guess?”

  “You always did play around with it.”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling now, perhaps remembering how they had first met in New York, two strangers alone in the Romanesque garden of the Cloisters, two amateurs trying for a good camera angle, a significant view of the George Washington Bridge soaring high over the Hudson. “And you weren’t always sure whether I was lighting a cigarette or taking a picture of you.”

  Yes, he thought a little bitterly, I almost imagined you must have liked the look of me. “So you took some pictures on the terrace of the house at Tivoli.”

  “Not exactly like that. I wanted to see the view from the edge of the terrace. Luigi and his friends were busy talking. So I rose and went over to the balustrade. The light was still good enough—with luck I could get some pictures. I took out the Minox. And I wandered a bit—you know how it is—the view is always better on the other side of the garden.”

  “No one paid any attention?”

  “I suppose they didn’t think I’d wander far. But I explored round some shrubbery and saw a man sitting there, all by himself. He was reading. He made a very nice composition with the Greek temple on the hill across the gorge behind him.”

  “So you photographed a man sitting in the garden? He didn’t notice?”

  “He looked up, of course. But you know how quick a Minox is. I’d already taken two photographs.” She paused. “You know, he was furious. He rose and took a few steps towards me, saying, ‘And what are you doing here, may I ask?’ And I just was speechless.”

  “Did he see the camera?”

  “I don’t think so. My hands had dropped to my sides. And before I could explain or anything, he turned on his heel and walked away.”

  “So you went back to the terrace?”

  She nodded. “Luigi was coming to meet me, and the others were standing at the balustrade. They must have heard the sound of the man’s voice. Luigi saw the Minox in my hand. ‘For God’s sake,’ he said. ‘Hide that damned thing!’ So I slipped it into the pocket of my skirt.”

  “The others heard?”

  “Impossible. He spoke under his breath. It was the first time I’d ever heard him use strong language, though.”

  “I shall try to reform,” Lammiter said gravely. “Well, that was quite a party you had.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t all! The Frenchman wanted to know who had been talking to me. And I said, ‘A very rude Englishman. He didn’t even give me time to explain.’ Because that really annoyed me, Bill. I hadn’t been slipping through shrubbery to spy on him.”

  “He was English?” Lammiter asked quickly.

  “I know a genuine broad A when I hear it. Besides, he looked English—he had that kind of thin drawn face and very neatly brushed hair—”

  “What colour?”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Greyish.”

  “Tall?”

  “Definitely. And thin. Almost concave.” She looked at the sudden thoughtful Lammiter. “I am not making this up. It’s true.”

  “I believe you. Tell me, did he appear at dinner?”

  “No. Seemingly the villa and garden had been divided into two houses. They told me he was an eccentric who rented the other one.”

  “And no more was said about him than that?”

  “I tried to make conversation about eccentrics, but it was switched away on to Korea, of all things. And Luigi was no help at all. In fact, he excused himself for a moment, just before the dessert arrived; and he stayed away for half an hour at least.”

  Visiting the English eccentric? Lammiter wondered. “He was probably as bored as you were,” he said.

  “He came back looking worried, not bored. We left then. Very quickly. And that’s when our trouble really started. Apparently I had behaved badly.” She tried to smile. “That made me as mad as he was. And right in the middle of our quarrel, when he was absolutely white-lipped—I had never seen him like that—he snapped out, ‘He is right! You’re totally irresponsible, hopelessly immature.’”

  Lammiter, who had been both amused and puzzled, stared at her. “He? Which he?”

  “That’s what I asked.”

  “What was the answer?”

  “No answer. Luigi switched right over to my walk in the garden. Why had I explored so far, what was I doing, anyway?”

  “You told him what actually had happened?”

  “Why not?”

  “That silenced him, I bet.”

  “As a matter of fact, he burst into a stream of Italian. Words that I don’t even know. He only stopped when he was out of breath.”

  “So you said you were sorry, you must have been mistaken, let’s forget everything.”

  “Anything for peace,” she agreed.

  “My, my—you did have a first-rate quarrel, didn’t you? But at least you managed to keep hold of your photographs.” He smiled.

  “The trouble with you, Bill, is that you are not only understanding, but, that you understand me too well.” Then she smiled, too. “I wasn’t too honest about them. I—I was so mad when he demanded the camera, I clenched my fist around it, and—well, I said I had taken the film out of it.”

  “Then he asked you for the film.”

  “No. He grabbed my purse. There were two rolls of film there. He took them both.”

  “Quite the commissar, isn’t he?”

  She looked at him searchingly. “Yes,” she said slowly.

  “And yesterday he had the films developed and found—?”

  She bent her head. Her voice was stifled. “People at Ostia. People at Doney’s. People.”

  “He came back for the Tivoli film?”

  “Last night. But it was being developed and printed.”

  “Did you tell him where the film was being printed?”

  “Why should I? What right had he to behave like that?”

  “Jumping Christopher!” he said. “You must have been really angry.”

  “I was. That was our worst and final quarrel. Bill—what made Luigi behave like that?”

  He looked at her, wondering how much she had begun to guess about Luigi Pirotta and his friends. A future commissar didn’t have freedom of choice in a wife. He had two categories that were safe: he could choose a woman who was as deeply involved as he was or he could choose a placid mooing creature who turned tail to the wind like all the other cows in the field. But never could he choose anyone who asked questions and expected truthful answers. Worse still was the woman who— if she didn’t get the answers—searched for them by herself. If Luigi Pirotta hadn’t known all the rules of the game he was playing, he knew them now. That was the trouble about power politics: you never knew all the rules of the game until you were too far involved to be able to draw back.

  “Because,” she was saying slowly, “something did make him react that way. He—he panicked.” She said the word with distaste. “Most of his anger was really fear. But why?”

  Lammiter said savagely, “The man’s in love with you, that’s why. He’s afraid for you. Is that the answer you wanted?”

  “Oh, Bill!—” She made a peculiarly pathetic picture, warding off this last lunge of bitterness, the frown of worry still on her brow, the dried tear-stains still smearing her cheeks.

  “Men are brutes,” he told her cheerfully, trying to laugh away his own fears. “Perhaps you’d better feed this one. How about that omelette?”

  “I never know what you’ll say next,” she said, completely baffled. But she turned towards the kitchen.

  “May I use your telephone?”

  She looked, back at him, surprised again. “Of course.”

  “And do you mind if I look
at the photographs?”

  For a moment, as she hesitated, his excitement turned to worry. Suddenly, angry with everything, she said, “You can burn them if you want to!” And then she was in the kitchen, banging out her sudden temper with pans and mixing bowls, more like a volcano in brief eruption than a ministering angel.

  12

  Quickly, Lammiter examined the numerous prints before he went to the telephone. On Eleanor’s orders they had been enlarged almost to a two-inch square from their usual postage-stamp size and the roll of film had been cut into individual sections. Only about two-thirds of the film had been printed, indicating that the rest hadn’t been worth spending the extra money on. But two-thirds wasn’t a bad average for Eleanor’s technique; and they were good prints, very good prints indeed. The girl could take pictures. Better than I can, he admitted to himself.

  He riffled through the prints nervously. There were many studies of people. What if the Tivoli pictures hadn’t come out? After all, it had been late in the day, and the light would be difficult. Then, in two photographs with darkish corners— either under-exposed or taken by failing light—he saw a white circular temple on a rugged hill, and, in the foreground, a man. In one picture the man was reading, his head, bent. In the other, he had looked up, but not yet turned to face the photographer. His profile was sharp and clear. It could very well be a side view of the man in Brewster’s photograph, the ex-Englishman called Evans. Brewster would know, most definitely.

  Lammiter laid the photograph on a table under a lamp. Then quickly scanning the negatives against the light, he matched one with the print. He wrapped the negative and the print together in his handkerchief; the others he slipped back into the envelope. The angry clatter from the kitchen had been replaced by a pleasant smell of sizzling butter.

  Brewster’s humour would have appreciated the scene, Lammiter thought as he waited by the telephone. Then he wondered, why do I keep thinking of Brewster? The man has invaded me. Do I believe him? Few people would, and I’m as wary as any New Englander... Yet why else should he be standing here, in Eleanor’s apartment, waiting once more for a professor of Latin to answer his call? As for his own immediate life—it had vanished into thin air: the plane reservation to New York (damn, he’d have to call the airport and cancel) might have been waiting for him in outer space; his raincoat might have been left in a hotel on Mars; and he had, even stopped worrying about his typewriter and camera. The real world had become a shadow play of half-remembered dreams; and Brewster’s nightmare world had become reality. Even Professor Ferris, now speaking, was—quite unwittingly—part of this new strange fantasy.

  Ferris had a pleasant voice on the telephone. His Italian was beautiful, sonorous, spoken with care but overwhelming accuracy. You could easily tell he was a foreigner: he had learned the language abroad, away from the incredible variety of regional pronunciations and inflections. And, inexplicably, Lammiter was reminded for a brief moment of Salvatore’s voice. Then he pushed that idea aside, and answered Ferris. “I bet,” he said admiringly, “the cab drivers ask you to recite Dante. Have you ever discovered why they are such special connoisseurs of the first lines of the Divine Comedy? Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita. Is that what makes them drive in the very middle of the road?”

  “Oh, it’s you!” Ferris said, in English. He sounded too annoyed to join in any fooling. “Where the hell have you been wandering?”

  “Not too far. Sorry, though. Did I keep you from going out to dinner or something?”

  Ferris softened a little. At least, he laughed. “Don’t give that a thought. It’s only half-past nine.”

  Lammiter glanced at his watch in surprise. Nine-fifteen. When a man called that half-past nine, he was really annoyed. “I am sorry.”

  “We’ve been waiting here—” Ferris began, his anger now dissipated a little by excitement.

  Alert, Lammiter said, “We? Is our mutual friend around?”

  “Yes. He’s returned. Thank God. Now I can pass you over to him, and go back to a normal existence.”

  “He’s there—with you?”

  “Very much so. He’s eaten all the nuts, finished the olives, and told us his stories twice over.” Bunny Camden’s voice cut in. “And how is my elusive friend? Carl thinks you’re in need of some dinner yourself.”

  “I’m as sober as a Presbyterian elder. I’m just suffering from a touch of euphoria.” Lammiter glanced down, approvingly, at the envelope of photographs in his hand. “I must see you.”

  “Where are you visible?”

  “At Miss Halley’s apartment.”

  There was a brief silence. Then Camden said, “Aren’t you complicating your life unnecessarily?”

  “Not unnecessarily, I hope. Where do I see you? I’ve an appointment later this evening. At eleven.”

  Behind him he heard the sound of wheels. Eleanor was pushing a trolley, arranged with food, down the hall towards the living-room.

  “Remember where we bumped into each other a few days ago?” Bunny was saying.

  “Yes.”

  “Walk past there. Around—let’s see—around ten. And keep on walking. I’ll catch up with you.”

  “My feet are in good condition.”

  “That’s fine. But don’t trip over that euphoria.”

  They parted, as usual, with a grin on their faces. I ought to see more of Bunny Camden, Lammiter thought: he’s good for my morale. But life had a peculiar way of dealing out agreeably mad companions only in little snatches. It was much more generous with the bores.

  “All ready!” Eleanor’s voice called from the living-room. She sounded quite normally cheerful again. The room looked more cheerful, too, with all its warmly shaded lights switched on. She had cleared a round table and set out the supper, and she was studying the bottle of Valpolicella. “You’d better deal with this.” She handed over a corkscrew. “Good news?” she asked, noticing the expression on his face.

  “I think so. When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “You know—I shouldn’t be surprised if I joined you.” She looked a little embarrassed, as if she were nervous about that idea. “I’ll try to get a seat—damn, I’ve got some more phoning to do—the airport.”

  “Let’s eat the eggs first. I’m afraid I scrambled them.”

  “That’s the way you felt, I guess.” He laid the photographs near her. She paid no attention to them.

  “I imagined the eggs an English eccentric,” she admitted.

  “They taste better than he does, I’m sure.” He put down his fork abruptly.

  “What’s wrong? Aren’t the eggs—”

  “They’re fine,” he told her. “But I just remembered a joke I could have made on the telephone. Dammit—why must I always be witty five minutes too late?”

  “Is that why you write plays?”

  “You sound as if you—” he looked at her quickly “—as if you didn’t like playwriting as a profession.”

  “What was the joke?” she asked, dodging a straight answer.

  “Oh, well, I was talking to a hungry man with a beautiful wife.”

  “How do you know she’s beautiful?”

  He thought of this afternoon. “By the way she inspires him.”

  “Oh—he’s a sensitive type?”

  “Knowledgeable,” he conceded. “And I ought to have quoted Max Jacob’s advice to a starving lover looking at his mistress’s bare shoulder. That would have silenced even a professor.”

  “Now,” she said, “I’ll just let you soar. I don’t even pretend to be able to hang on to the tail end of the kite.”

  “Jacob was a surrealist poet—kind of 1920 vintage—before we were born, anyway.”

  “Just a dear old dotard,” she agreed. “But what did he say?”

  “Oh—” he tried to get out of this now “—wit never seems so funny when you serve it up cold.”

  “He was starving. He was looking at his mistress’s shoulder.”

 
“And what did he say?”

  “Une escalope de vous, ma divine.”

  She looked at him blankly.

  “I will not explain,” he warned her.

  “You don’t have to. I know my French.” She shook her head. “The truth is, it isn’t funny.”

  “Ellie—it is! It’s the funniest poem—”

  “If you are a man, perhaps. But it makes all women’s shoulders feel nervous. Are all men cannibals at heart?”

  He grinned. “How often has a man told a girl he could eat her up? Or called her honey, cookie, sugar, peach? Or even— no, I never did like tomato.”

  She had truly the most delightful of smiles. “Look—” she said in sudden surprise, “I’m all cheered up! I almost laughed.”

  “I’m glad I’m good for something.”

  She removed the empty plates, offered him cheese, helped herself to a peach. “Two hours ago,” she admitted, “I wouldn’t have dared to laugh because I’d have ended in hysterics. Two hours ago, I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t even pack. I’d pick a dress up and then drop it, and lift a pair of shoes and then I’d find myself at the dressing-table, looking for lipsticks and Band-Aids. I was sort of disjointed, mentally. But now I’m beginning to think, not very well, just a little... Bill, won’t you explain what all the trouble is about? There is something very far wrong, isn’t there?”