by John Berger
From the museum garden, on the day he first met Nuša, G. walked slowly towards the Exchange in the Piazza della Borsa. At a corner he stopped to see whether he was being followed. With the streets so empty it must be hard, he thought, to trail somebody and remain unnoticed. He passed the end of the street in which an Austrian banker called Wolfgang von Hartmann lived with his Hungarian wife. Von Hartmann was one of the men with whom he was discussing the fruit-canning project. He retraced his steps and walked down the street, past the house. Behind its windows and its heavy swathes of brocaded curtains, the objects were in place, already lining the route of his arrival of which the exact day and hour had yet to be arranged. To picture Marika, the wife of von Hartmann, he had only to recall her extraordinary mouth and nose.
In a café just off the Piazza Ponterosso, two men were impatiently awaiting G.
He always makes us wait, grumbled Raffaele, the younger of the two men.
Let us watch him when he comes in, said the other, a man in his late fifties who was known as Dr Donato.
When he entered the café the two men were hidden behind the half-closed door of the back room.
He has come! Dr Donato whispered.
We should ask him straight away to explain himself, said Raffaele.
You are too impatient, my ardent young friend, said Dr Donato. The door had a glass window and the elder man was holding up a corner of the curtain so that he could peer through. I have often had occasion to notice in my work, he continued, how much you can learn about a man if you watch him closely without his realizing it. There is a moral language of gestures. The informer sips his coffee in a different way from other people, a distinctly different way. This is not superstition, there are good reasons for it. For example, the idea may cross his mind that his coffee is poisoned, because his mind is accustomed to intrigue. The idea then becomes evident in the way he picks up the cup.
Her nose broke with all conventions. It was so asymmetrical and irregular that it seemed to be almost shapeless. If a cast had been made of it and it had been removed from the context of her face, it would have looked like a delicate piece of a root. Its protuberances and dents, although very slight in themselves, were like the irregularities one finds on those parts of a plant which grow downwards into the earth towards water, rather than upwards towards light. The whole centre of her face suggested a reversed orientation. The outer edges of her lips were already part of the inside of her mouth. Her nostrils were already her throat. When she was seated, she was already running.
Look! He has chosen a table by the window. Now he is trying to peer down the street. He is moving the curtain aside. But he pretends it is because of the sunlight in his eyes. He is sly. There is no doubt about it, he is as sly as a fox biding his time. Look! He is beckoning to the waitress. A little furtive movement of the head—and she goes because she is inquisitive and can’t resist secrets. You—take you—you would never call a waitress with a gesture like that. Dr Donato let the curtain fall and placed his hand on the younger man’s arm. Everything you do, he explained, has a certain grandeur and confidence. And why, we may ask. Because you want everything to be seen.
Raffaele looked suspiciously at his companion with the thin face and white pointed beard.
Because you have nothing to hide, Dr Donato reassured him.
Dr Donato was by profession a lawyer. His intelligence was evident in his eyes and in his voice which was a little high in tone but very distinct. He took great pleasure in all explanations. He prided himself on being an atheist and a republican. What satisfied him more than anything else was to be able to explain the passion of others. Excess fascinated him because to explain it, in either positive or negative terms, was to demonstrate the full reach of Reason. He had been a member of the Secret Committee of the Italian Irredentist Party in Trieste for twenty years. Many credited him with the famous plot of the tricolour in the Piazza Grande.
On 20 September 1903, exactly as the clock in the Piazza Grande struck noon, a large Italian tricolour unfurled itself and flew from the mast on the tower of the city hall. Police ran into the building and up the stairs to take it down. The door to the tower was locked and barred. Italians ran into the square from all sides to gaze up at the flag against the blue sky. Many thought: when the city is at last Italian, a flag will fly like that every day. 20 September had been chosen because it was the anniversary of the day Rome was declared the capital of Italy. The flag was visible even to ships at anchor in the bay.
When asked about his contribution to this affair, Dr Donato would shrug his thin shoulders and say, as if speaking in a code and wanting to emphasize the fact: We Italians are the most musical race in Europe, and our second most outstanding gift is our ingenuity.
Once more Dr Donato lifted up the corner of the curtain. He has seen something, he said.
What has he seen?
Somebody.
Can you see them? asked Raffaele.
No, but something has reassured him. He looks pleased. Who it was or exactly what sign passed between the two of them, we cannot yet know for we are not yet certain of his motivations. Is he really as interested as he pretends in canning fruit? Who exactly is he? When we have established that—
Raffaele interrupted the older man without trying to disguise the impatience he could no longer contain. Let us confront him with the facts, he said. He led the way across the café floor to the table by the window. A big man, Raffaele had the air of having been anointed since infancy with praises and love. (A semblance which may well signify the opposite.) As he walked across the café, he attracted considerable attention. The clientèle was entirely Italian and Raffaele was well known for the patriotic fervour of his articles in Il Piccolo and the way he cunningly evaded the Austrian censorship. He walked across the café as if he were leading, not one thin man with a white beard, but a whole company of his compatriots.
When all three men were seated, their heads close together over the centre of the table, Raffaele asked G. whether he had brought any news from Rome. He spoke quietly, so as not to be overheard, but his jaw was thrust forward and he was scowling.
No, I did not go there.
And the present for Mother?
It should have arrived by now.
You entrusted it to somebody else!
Yes.
To whom?
In an exaggeratedly conspiratorial whisper G. said: If you are working for Mother, the fewer names you know the better. That should be one of the first rules of a clandestine party.
Two weeks ago you told us you were going! shouted Raffaele, pushing his chair back and making people at the nearby tables look up.
I changed my mind.
Men who change their minds are traitors!
When Raffaele was moved he had to make a noise. The first thing he was willing to abandon was secrecy. He considered numbers more important. His own duty, as he saw it, was to rally thousands of Triestine Italians to the cause by setting them an example. The example of a man who would not be intimidated.
Wait until you hear from Mother, replied G., again whispering, then you’ll know whether she received our present safely.
You are a traitor and a coward! And either way you are bloodless. At this hour when the whole future of our family is in the balance, you have nothing better to do than dither here discussing how to put fruit into tins—Raffaele lowered his voice at this point in order to underline the fact that he, unlike G., was prepared to use words that indeed required whispering—WITH THE ENEMY! Or do you talk about something else with them? Our Mother, for example!
Dr Donato intervened. Caro—he addressed Raffaele—do not let us start accusing each other. He is with us, not against us; he has already helped us on several occasions. He planned to make a journey and he found he was unable to do so and he sent a cousin—shall we say a cousin?—instead. Do not let us jump to conclusions, for my own part I am persuaded—he turned towards G. placing his hands palms down on the table—I am persuaded th
at we can and must count upon you. Like us you are a dreamer and like us you wish to make the dream reality. The only question, which will eventually answer itself, is whether or not we share the same dream. His voice trailed away and he made his breath whistle softly between his teeth as if he were pretending to fall asleep. Behind his pince-nez his eyelids almost covered his eyes.
You are wrong, said G., I am not a dreamer.
All men dream.
Some less than others.
The dream of our country made great and powerful again is a dream shared by forty millions, said Raffaele. He held a single finger up in the air. This was an Irredentist gesture signifying a United Italy.
G. silently addressed Dr Donato: Twelve young women sitting on the floor at your feet, benefiting from your stories after Trieste has become Italian, you select one and when you take hold of her breasts she cries out lovingly: Papa! Papa! That is your dream.
Have you any daughters, Dr Donato?
Unfortunately not, why do you ask?
A confusion about names, that is all.
Raffaele gripped the table with his hands. It was time, he believed, for plain speaking; Donato should warn G. that if they found any further reason for suspecting him, his life would be in danger. Raffaele distrusted subtlety because he associated it with the intrigues and subterfuges which had bedevilled Italian political life for half a century. Intrigue for him meant the corridor and the lobby; and to these he opposed the battlefield and an overseas empire where Italy would rediscover herself and again impress Roman virtue upon the world. He advocated a return to the austere patriotic purity of a Garibaldi. He saw Donato as a latter-day, obsolete and over-crafty Cavour. He respected his astuteness but he believed that this time, unlike the first, Cavour’s influence should be second to the General’s. Once, in the Ginnastica Triestina, he had taken a sword down from the wall and cut the air with it round the older man’s head and shoulders. Donato also liked to imagine that he had a lot in common with Cavour. And so, as the sword whirred through the air, he calmed himself by recalling how patient Cavour had sometimes to be in face of Garibaldi’s childishness.
I want to warn you, said Raffaele, that we are not satisfied with your explanations. You undertook to go to Mother and you failed to do so. What kept you here?
An affair of the heart.
Why did you not inform us?
You know the lady in question, said G.
Raffaele leant back in his chair to suggest the wealth of the possibilities he was considering. May I ask who? He made the question sound as casual as a glove held in the hand.
You may ask them all! said G., laughing.
Raffaele resented the fact that Dr Donato also laughed.
Would you consider helping us in another way? asked Dr Donato. As an Italian from Italy, come here for important commercial negotiations, you are probably in a position to approach certain influential Austrians. Among them there may be one or two who enjoy the confidence of the Governor or the Bishop. Last week a young man—whose Christian name is Marco—was arrested whilst trying to cross the frontier. Would you be prepared to try to use whatever influence you have to persuade your Austrian acquaintances that this young man should be treated as leniently as possible? Best of all we would like to obtain his release.
At a time like this? When the two nations are almost at war?
Wait, wait. The case is an exceptional one. The young man in question is seriously ill with TB; his father, who lives in Venice, is dying; he is exempt on medical grounds from military service; he has no political record, none whatsoever. He tried to cross the frontier to visit his father on his deathbed and he was arrested.
It sounds unlikely.
That is why his case is exceptional. I have all the evidence here—the lawyer discreetly shook his black dispatch case. A campaign for clemency on humanitarian grounds is quite realistic. Polite society everywhere and especially polite Austrian society likes nothing better than a temporary good cause. Women are particularly attracted. A little campaign can be mounted, nothing public of course, a purely social campaign which means dropping the right words into the right ear at the right moment at the dinner table.
I don’t believe in the credentials you brought us, interrupted Raffaele, and it must be clear to you that at a time like this we cannot afford to make mistakes. Either you prove to us that you are trustworthy, and do so quickly, or—slowly he drove one fist into the palm of his other hand. We have our eyes, he added.
Can you find a better cause? asked Dr Donato as though Raffaele had not spoken. You have a young man suffering from TB, accused justly in a legal sense, but too harshly in a wider sentimental sense, of having tried, out of filial piety, to visit his father on his deathbed. It is enough to bring tears to the eyes of a police inspector. And what is more, the idea of a pardon might well please His Highness the Governor. His Highness, at a time like this, would probably welcome the chance to make a theatrical but insignificant concession to Italian sentiment. Several other men were arrested the same night. Some of them were going to Mother. The courts can make an example of them. But clemency in Marco’s case would be an intelligent tactic from the Austrian point of view.
Tactic! said Raffaele.
Why are you so anxious to save him? asked G.
Donato put his hands to his chest in the gesture which announces: And now I shall bare my soul to you, and said: I am a lawyer. I do all I can for my clients. You, you are not obliged to do anything.
But if Marco did receive a light sentence or was pardoned, we would be exceedingly grateful. That is all. I will give you the little dossier I have prepared on this case.
The three men left the café together. Dr Donato took G.’s arm. Our friend Raffaele, he said, drank too much Tokai last night. You can count on me. I shall be extremely grateful if you can help me in the Marco affair. He lowered his voice. You may deny it, but you are a dreamer too.
At the first corner they separated.
Why did you laugh at his jokes? demanded Raffaele. And why did you confide in him about Marco?
Caro, you should have more confidence in me than that. He has no idea who Marco is. True, it is unlikely he can do anything for Marco, but we must try everything. If he is working for the Austrians and they do not know who Marco is, which is quite possible, they may release Marco so that our friend from Livorno can offer us a little present which, they calculate, will increase our confidence in him and hence his usefulness to them. We were not born yesterday, were we? If he obtains Marco’s release I will take it as tantamount to proof that he is working for them. So we shall have achieved two things: Marco’s release, which is more urgent than anything else, and a clear warning about our friend from Livorno. If, on the other hand, the Austrians know who Marco is—and in that case there is no hope for Marco—then the fact that he tries to arrange for Marco’s release will convince the Austrians that he is really working for us, and if they suspect that, I don’t think we shall see him many more times in Trieste. There is a chance, a small chance, that he is going to render us, without realizing it, a last service. What can we lose? He put a hand up to his eyes to shade them from the sun.
G. lay on his bed. Across the windows hung white lace curtains. The leaves of the plants embroidered on the curtains were slightly whiter and less transparent than their background. Through the curtains the house on the other side of the street was visible, its curved classical orders and its stucco thrown into relief by the bright evening sunlight. The stone was the sepia colour of cigar boxes. A woman who had apparently just washed her hair and wrapped a blue towel round her head like a turban appeared in a window of the house opposite wearing a loosely-tied teagown. She Watched the people in the street below; it was the hour of the caminada, when young men from families who consider themselves respectable walk in groups along a route laid down by tradition, to follow and watch the groups of strolling girls from similar families.
At the end of the street a wide canal led into the se
a by the main quayside where the liners used to anchor near the Piazza Grande. Before the war scarcely a day passed without a ship, at least as large as the City Hall, closing the fourth side of the square. The canal was a venture which had never been completed. Its entrance was wide and handsome. But two hundred metres from the quayside it stopped. It began as a canal and ended as a dock. The woman who had washed her hair yawned for a full half-minute. She was probably the wife, G. thought, of one of the shopkeepers below. She was quite unaware of being observed. To her, his room behind its lace curtains looked as dark as night. She made as though to go back to her room, hesitated, leant once more on the windowsill and yawned again. A ship blew its hooter, a sound like a seal’s bark indefinitely prolonged. The embroidered leaves on the lace curtains were acanthus leaves.
According to gossip, Marika, Wolfgang von Hartmann’s wife, had had not long ago an Italian lover who was forced to leave the city. He was a musical conductor and he provoked a public scandal by arranging a concert at which the first syllable of the title of each work, as printed in the programme, spelt out an anti-Austrian slogan. Most of the audience were Italians and they soon spotted the message, gave the conductor an ovation, and at the end started shouting VERDI! VERDI! which meant, in the Irredentist code, Vittorio Emmanuele Re d’Italia. As a result, the conductor lost his post at the Conservatoire and left the city.
Lying on his bed, G. smiled as he foresaw himself pleading the case of Marco to von Hartmann in the presence of his wife.
