Two Lives Part 21

'Buongiorno, signora!' I called back. Once I made a terrible mistake in Sunday school when giving an answer to a question, saying that Joseph was G.o.d. Someone began to t.i.tter and I could feel myself going red with embarra.s.sment, but Miss Alzapiedi said no, that was an error anyone could make. Miss Alzapiedi's long chest was as flat as a table-top. Summer or winter, she never wore stockings, her white, bony ankles exposed to all weathers. It seemed a natural confusion to say that Joseph was G.o.d, Joseph being Jesus's father and G.o.d being the Father also. 'Of course.' Miss Alzapiedi nodded, and the t.i.ttering ceased.

I dare say remembering Sunday school was much the same as the General having tea in Mrs Patch's cottage and Otmar recalling the comfort of his parents' house. It was a way of coming to terms, of finding something to cling to in the muddle; I dare say it's natural that people would. In all my time at Miss Alzapiedi's Sunday school there was only that one uneasy moment, before Miss Alzapiedi stepped in with kindness. Otmar similarly recalled being reprimanded because he'd overturned a tin of paint when the decorators came to paint the staircase wall and the hall, and again when he stole a pear from the sideboard dish. There was a moment of embarra.s.sment in the dormitory the old man had spoken of, with its rows of blue-blanketed beds and little boys in pyjamas. But these instances, dreadful at the time, were pleasant memories now.

'And they spread out palms before the donkey's feet,' Miss Alzapiedi said, and while she spoke you could easily see the figure of Jesus in his robes, with his long hair and his beard. The donkey was a sacred animal. 'You have only to note the cross on every donkey's back,' Miss Alzapiedi said. 'All your lives please note the black cross on that holy creature.'

The General had led his men to the battle-fronts of the world but always he'd returned to the girl he'd proposed to on a sunlit lawn, whose tears of joy had stained the leather of his uniform. He had not looked at other women. Amid the banter and camaraderie of the barracks his desires had never wandered, not even once, not even in the heat of the desert with the promise of desert women only a day or two away. His happy marriage was written in the geography of the old man's face, a simple statement: that for nearly a lifetime two people had been as one.

'Isn't that much better?' Otmar's mother said the first time he wore spectacles, when a world of blurred objects and drifting colours acquired precision. In the oculist's room he couldn't read the letters on the charts. The oculist had spectacles, too, and little red marks on the fat of his face, the left-hand side, close to the nose. When Otmar asked his mother if he'd always have to wear the spectacles now she nodded, and the oculist nodded also. When the oculist smiled his white teeth glistened. The mother's coat was made of fur.

It was Mary who began the business about donkeys, riding on one all the way to the stable of the inn. Joseph walked beside her, guiding the donkey's head, thinking about carpentry matters. Mary understood the conversation of angels. Joseph sawed wood and planed it smooth. He made doors and boxes and undertook repairs. To this day I can see Joseph's sandals and Jesus's bare feet, and the women was.h.i.+ng them. To this day I can see Jesus on the holy donkey in the picture above my bed.

'Fragments make up a life, my dear,' Lady Daysmith says in Precious September Precious September. For the General, bodies lie where they have fallen on the sand, sunburnt flesh stiffening, soldiers from Rochester and Somerset. For the General, there are those gentle Cotswold bells, the organ booming, evening hymns. There is the beauty of virginity specially kept, to be given on a wedding night; and drinks beneath that tree the child fell out of. 'Darling,' the well-loved wife returns his love. 'Darling, you are so sweet to me.'

For me, there is the stolid dog, the dampness of the beach, the seagulls coming nearer. There are the searchlights of Twentieth-Century Fox, the soft roar of the lion, Western Electric Sound. In a room a man removes an artificial leg and pauses to ma.s.sage the stump. Across a street a neon sign flashes red, then green, all through a half-forgotten night. First thing of all, there's a broken floor-tile, brownish, smooth.

Why is there fear left over in Otmar's eyes, behind the spectacles? Does some greater ordeal continue, some private awfulness? In the supermarket the girl's hand reaches again into the shelves. The adoration in the car park and the cafe is an ecstasy in its first bright moment. Liebe! Liebe! Liebe! Liebe! Eyes close, fingers touch. But something is missing in all this; there is some mystery. Eyes close, fingers touch. But something is missing in all this; there is some mystery.

Years after her time as a Sunday-school teacher Miss Alzapiedi becomes Lady Daysmith shortened to a reasonable height, supplied with hair that isn't a nuisance, given a bosom. Lady Daysmith is old of course, Miss Alzapiedi was scarcely twenty in the Sunday school. But a plain girl can grow old gracefully, why ever not? 'The peepshow of memory is what I mean by fragments': I hadn't been in my house more than a month before I caused the woman who had been the Sunday-school girl to utter so.

In the soft warmth of that early morning I paused on the track that led to the heights behind my house. I looked back at the house itself, in that moment acutely aware of how the malignancy of the act had reached out into us, draining so much from the old man, rooting itself in Otmar, leaving sickness with the child. Then I pushed all that away from me and tried once more, though without success, to find a beginning for Ceaseless Tears Ceaseless Tears. I strolled on a little way before finally turning back.

'I have always wanted a garden here,' I remarked to Otmar on the terrace less than an hour later. We smoked together. I asked him if there'd been a garden at his parents' house and he said yes, a small back garden, shady in summertime, a place to take a book to. You could tell from the way he spoke that his mother and father were no longer alive. I don't know why I wondered if this fact was somehow related to the fear that haunted him. I did so none the less.

'Where is this?' the child asked, suddenly, a week after my first walk on the white roads. She had been engrossed in one of her pictures, stretched out on the floor. The blinds were drawn a little down for coolness, but there was light enough in the salotto salotto.

'Where is this?' Aimee asked again.

The General was sitting with his newspaper, near the windows. Otmar had just entered the room. Neither of them spoke. Eventually I said: 'You are in my house, Aimee. I am Mrs Delahunty.'

She did not directly reply, but said that her mother was cross because there'd been a quarrel in the yard. Girls couldn't be robbers, her brother Richard insisted, because he wanted to be the robber himself. As if speaking to herself, the child explained that she was to be the old woman who hadn't the strength to get up from her sun chair when the robber walked in and asked where the safe was. But she was always the old woman; all you did was lie there. She continued to draw the foreleg of a dog that did not seem to be alive. She shaded its hollow stomach. She and her brother had tried to guess, on the train-station platform, what two Italians were saying to one another. The woman of the pair was angry. The man had forgotten to lock the windows of their house, Aimee guessed.

'I should think that was so,' I said.

'That woman was mad at him.'

It was difficult to know if she spoke in response to what I'd said or not. A frown gathered on her freckled forehead. Her flaxen hair, so like her mother's, trailed smoothly down her back. Her eyes, lit for the while she spoke, went dead again.

'Your uncle's coming, Aimee. Mr Riversmith.'

But she was colouring now, lightly pa.s.sing the crayons over the misshapen limbs and bodies. The tip of her tongue protruded slightly, in concentration.

'Mr Riversmith,' I said again.

Still there was no response. Otmar left the room, and I guessed he had gone to ask Quinty to summon Dr Innocenti.

'Your uncle,' the General said.

Aimee spoke again, about another game she and her brother had played, and then, with the same abruptness, she ceased. She said nothing more, but those few moments of communication had more than a slight effect on both the General and Otmar, and in a sense on me. This spark had kindled something in us; the brief transformation fluttered life into a hope that had not been there before. At last there was something good, happening in the present. At last we could reach out from our preoccupation with ourselves alone.

The General smiled at Aimee, while she sat there on the floor, lost to us again. Aimee was a lovely name, I said, not knowing what else to say. 'Thank G.o.d for this,' the General murmured, to me directly.

'Yes, thank G.o.d.'

Otmar returned to the room and sat with us in silence, and in time we heard Dr Innocenti's car approaching. We didn't break the silence, but listened to the hum of the engine as it came closer, until eventually the tyres scrunched on the gravel outside.

'Coraggio!' Dr Innocenti said, speaking softly from the doorway, not coming quite into the room. 'Va meglio, vero.'

Later he predicted that Aimee would make progress now, but warned us that on the way to recovery there might be disturbances. It was as well to expect this since often the return to reality could be alarming for a child: you had only to consider what this reality was, he pointed out. His hope was that Aimee would not be too badly affected. He charged us with vigilance.

The days and weeks that followed were happy. Diffidently, I put it to Dr Innocenti that the child was the surviving fledgling in a rifled nest, her bright face the exorcist of our pain. The beauty that was promised her, and already gathering in those features, was surely to be set against the torn limbs in Carrozza 219, against the blood still dripping from the broken gla.s.s, the severed hand like an ornament in the air? Her chatter challenged the old man's guilt and was listened to, as wisdom might be, by Otmar. 'Si. Si,' Dr Innocenti several times repeated, hearing me out and appearing to be moved.

Local people, learning that some victims of the outrage were in my house, sent gifts flowers and wine, fruit, panet-tone. panet-tone. The The carabinieri carabinieri came less often now, once in a while to ensure that Aimee was still being looked after, then not at all, instead making their inquiries of Dr Innocenti. Once I walked into the kitchen to find Signora Bardini weeping, and thought at first she suffered some distress, but when she lifted her head I saw that her streaming eyes gleamed with joy. Naturally no such display of emotion could be expected of Quinty, though Rosa Crevelli was affected, of that I'm certain. 'Aimee! Aimee!' she called about the house. came less often now, once in a while to ensure that Aimee was still being looked after, then not at all, instead making their inquiries of Dr Innocenti. Once I walked into the kitchen to find Signora Bardini weeping, and thought at first she suffered some distress, but when she lifted her head I saw that her streaming eyes gleamed with joy. Naturally no such display of emotion could be expected of Quinty, though Rosa Crevelli was affected, of that I'm certain. 'Aimee! Aimee!' she called about the house.

Perhaps for the General Aimee became a daughter with whom he might begin again. Perhaps for Otmar she was the girl who had died on the train. I do not know; I am not qualified to say; I never asked them. But for my own part I can claim without reservation that I became as devoted to the child during that time as any mother could be. It was enough to see her sprawled on the floor with her crayons, or making a little edifice out of stones near where the car was kept, or drinking Signora Bardini's iced tea. Aimee shuffled in and out of a darkness, remaining with us for longer periods as these weeks went by. Sometimes she would sit close to me on the terrace, and in the cool of the evening I would stroke her fine, beautiful hair.

5.

The telephone in my house rings quietly, but never goes unheard because there is a receiver in the hall and in the kitchen, as well as in my writing-room. It was I myself, in my private room, who answered it when eventually Aimee's uncle rang.

'Mrs Delahunty?'

'Yes.'

'Mrs Delahunty, this is Thomas Riversmith.'

'How d'you do, Mr Riversmith.'

'May I inquire how Aimee is?' He sounded as if grit had got into his vocal cords a tight, unfriendly voice, unusual in an American.

'Aimee is beginning to return to us.'

'She speaks now every day?'

'Since the afternoon she spoke she has continued.'

'I've talked with your doctor many times.' There was a pause and then, with undisguised difficulty: 'I want to say, Mrs Delahunty, that I appreciate what you have done for my niece.'

'I have not done much.'

'May I ask you to tell me what the child says when she speaks to you?'

'In the first place she asked where she was. Several times she has mentioned her brother by name. And has spoken of being scolded by her mother.'

'Scolded?'

'As any child might be.'

'I see.'

'If Aimee wakes in the night, if there is a nightmare, anything like that, a cry of distress would be heard at once. Otmar sleeps with his door open. In the daytime there is always someone near at hand.'

At first there was no response. Then: 'Who is it that sleeps with a door open?'

'Otmar. A German victim of the outrage. Also in my house is an English general, similarly a victim.'

'I see.'

'It's strange for all of us.'

That observation was ignored. There was another pause, so long I thought we'd been cut off. But in time the gritty voice went on: 'The doctor seems anxious that the child should make more progress before I come to take her home.'

'Aimee is welcome to remain as long as is necessary.'

'I'm sorry. I did not catch that.'

I repeated what I'd said. Then formally, the tone still not giving an inch, socially or otherwise: 'Our authorities here have informed yours that I will naturally pay all that is owing. Not only the hospital fees, but also what is owing to yourself.'

This sounded like a speech, as though many people were being addressed. I did not explain that that was Quinty's department. I did not say anything at all. A woman's voice murmured in the background, and Mr Riversmith having first questioned some remark made asked if I, myself, was quite recovered from the ordeal. The background prompt was repeated; the man obediently commiserated. It had been a dreadful shock for him, he confessed. He'd read about these things, but had never believed that he himself could be brought so close to one. You could hear the effort in every word he spoke, as if he resented having to share a sentiment, as if anything as personal as a telephone conversation even between strangers was anathema to him.

'That is true, Mr Riversmith.'

The solemnity and the seriousness made me jittery. He was a man without a word of small talk. I knew he hadn't smiled during all this conversation. I could tell that smiling didn't interest him. Again I reflected that he wasn't at all like an American.

'If I may, I'll call again, Mrs Delahunty. And perhaps we might arrange a date that's convenient to both of us.'

He left a number in case of any emergency, not asking if I had a pencil handy. He had no children of his own: Dr Innocenti hadn't told me that, but I guessed it easily.

'Goodbye, Mr Riversmith.'

I imagined him replacing the receiver in its cradle and turning to the woman who had shadowed the encounter for him. In the lives of such men there is always such a woman, covering their small inadequacies.

'Not an easy person,' I remarked later to the General and Otmar which I considered was a fair observation to make. I repeated as much of the conversation as I could recall, and described Thomas Riversmith's brusqueness. Neither of them said much by way of response, but I sensed immediately their concern that a man whom it was clearly hard to take to should be charged with the care of a tragically orphaned child. Already all three of us knew that that felt wrong.

The General walked with the a.s.sistance of a cane and always would now. But he walked more easily than he had at first. My neck and my left cheek had healed, and what they'd said was right: make-up effortlessly obscured the tiny fissures. By now Otmar could light his own cigarettes, gripping the matchbox between his knees. He had difficulty with meat, and one of us always cut it up for him. He'd have to learn to type again, but cleverly he managed to play patience. 'Solo?' Aimee would say when a game had been resolved, and after they'd played a few hands she would arrange the draughts on the draughts-board. There was another game, some German game I didn't understand, with torn-up pieces of paper.

The old man told her stories, not about his schooldays but concerning the adventures he'd had as a soldier. They sat together in the inner hall, he in a ladder-backed chair, she on one of my peac.o.c.k-embroidered stools. He murmured through the quiet of an afternoon while the household rested, a faint scent of floor polish on the air. They chose the inner hall because it's always cool.

As for me, on all those days I stared at the only words I had typed on my green paper since the outrage. I counted them thirty-six, thirty-eight with the t.i.tle. Everything that should have followed I was deprived of, and I knew by now that this was the loss I must put beside the greater loss of a girlfriend, and of a daughter, and of a father, a mother and a brother.

The private room set aside for my writing is a brown-shadowed cubicle with heavy curtains that keep both heat and light out, the ornate ivy of its wallpaper simulating a further coolness. Besides the gla.s.s-faced cabinet that contains my t.i.tles, there is my desk, surfaced in green leather, and a matching chair. Here I sat during those days of June, the cover lifted from my black Olympia, my typing paper mostly blank. I could not glimpse my heroine's face, nor even find her name. Esmeralda? Deborah? I could not find the barest hint of a relations.h.i.+p or the suggestion, however foggy, of a story. There was still only the swish of a white dress, a single moment before that flimsy ghost was gone again.

'Apparently, a scholarly gentleman, this Mr Riversmith,' Quinty remarked one evening after dinner, interrupting my weary efforts by placing a gla.s.s of gin and tonic on the desk beside me. 'I don't think I ever met a professor before.'

I hadn't either. I sipped the drink, hoping he'd go away. But Quinty never does what you want him to do.

'The doctor tells me Mr Riversmith's never so much as laid an eye on young Aimee. Did he say the same to you? A rift between the late sister and himself?'

I shook my head. Briskly, I thanked him for bringing me the drink. I hadn't asked him to. One of Quinty's many a.s.sumptions is that in such matters he invariably knows best.

'What I'm thinking is, how will the wife welcome a kid she's never so much as laid an eye on either?'

Again I indicated that I did not know. It naturally would not be easy for Mrs Riversmith, I suggested. I didn't imagine she was expecting it to be.

'Interesting type of gentleman,' Quinty remarked. 'Interesting to meet a guy like that.'

He stood there, still tiresome, fiddling with objects on my desk. They'd never find the culprits now, he said; you could forget all that. As soon as Riversmith came for the child the old man and the German would go. That stood to reason; they couldn't stay for ever; the whole thing would be over then. 'You'll pay the German's bill, eh?'

'I said I would.'

He laughed the way he does. 'You'll get your reward in heaven,' he repeated for the umpteenth time in our relations.h.i.+p. A kind of catch-phrase this is with him: he doesn't believe it. What he knows though it's never spoken between us is that the house will be his and Rosa Crevelli's when I die. My own reward has nothing to do with anything.

'Roast in h.e.l.l, the rest of us,' he said before he went away.

Mr Riversmith telephoned again; we had a similar conversation. I reported on his niece's continuing progress, what she had done that day, what she had said. When there was nothing left to say the conversation ended. There was a pause, a cough, the woman's voice in the background, a dismissive word of farewell.

A few days later he telephoned a third time. He'd had further conversations with Dr Innocenti, he said; he suggested a date a week hence for his arrival in my house. There was the usual p.r.i.c.kly atmosphere, the same empty pause before he brought himself to say goodbye. I poured myself a drink and walked out to the terrace with it. The awkward conversation echoed; I watched the fireflies twinkling in the gloom. How indeed would that woman react to the advent of a child who was totally strange to her? What was the woman like? With someone less cold, the subject of what it was going to be like for both of them might even have been brought up on the telephone. Thomas Riversmith sounded a lot older than his sister. Capricorn, I'd guessed after our first conversation. You often get an uptight Capricorn.

On the terrace I lit a cigarette. Then, quite without warning, monstrously shattering the peaceful evening, the screaming of the child began, the most awful sound I've ever heard.

6.

Dr Innocenti came at once. He was calm, and calmly soothed our anxiety. He placed Aimee under temporary sedation, warning us that its effects would not last long. He maintained from the first that there was no need to take her into hospital again, that nothing would be gained. His strength and his tranquillity allowed me to accompany him to the bedside; afterwards he sat with me in the salotto, sipping a gla.s.s of mineral water. He wished to be within earshot when Aimee emerged from her sleep, since each time she did so she would find herself deeper in what seemed like a nightmare.

'You comprehend, signora? Reversal of waking from bad dreams. For this child such dreams begin then.'

Together we returned to the bedside when the screaming started again, but Dr Innocenti did not administer the drug immediately. Aimee sobbed when the screams had exhausted her, and while she threw her head about on the pillow a dreadful s.h.i.+vering seeming to wrench her small body asunder. I begged him to put a stop to it.

'We understand, Aimee,' he murmured instead, in unhurried tones. 'Here are your friends.'

The child ignored the sympathy. Her eyes stared wide, like those of a creature demented. More sedation was given at last.

'She will sleep till morning now,' the doctor promised, 'and then be drowsy for a little time. I will be here before another crisis.'

From the hall he telephoned Thomas Riversmith to inform him of the development. 'May I urge you to delay your journey, signore?' I heard him say. 'Three weeks maybe? Four? Not easy now to calculate.'