9

My walk took me past our old home and nearly to the top of the via dei Sogni, before it curved to the right into the via dell’8 Settembre above the university. Number 2 was a tall, narrow house standing on its own, looking down towards the church of San Donato and the long via delle Mura that encircled the city. In former days this had been our doctor’s house, good Dr. Mauri, who came and visited me whenever I coughed and wheezed—I was said to suffer from a weak chest—and I remember that he never used a stethoscope for the purpose of listening to my breathing but always laid his ear flat against my naked chest, gripping my small shoulders as he did so, a sudden proximity which I found distasteful. He was middle-aged even then, and must now be dead, or long past practicing his medicine.

I came close to the house and saw the nameplate—Donati—on the right-hand door beneath the double entrance. This double entrance gave access both to the via dei Sogni and, through a half-passage, to the grassy slope beyond and the stone steps descending to the church of San Donato. To the left was the porter’s domain, used in the old days by Dr. Mauri’s cook.

I stared at the nameplate. We had had a similar plate at Number 8. It had been Marta’s pride to keep it polished, and it could, with a little imagination, be the same. There was a bell beside it. I put my finger on the button and pressed. I could hear the summons within. No one answered. Aldo must live alone, or, if not alone, whoever lived with him was now in the Room of the Cherubs at the ducal palace in his company.

I rang once again to make sure, but there was nothing. I turned and looked opposite at the porter’s door. I hesitated a moment, and then rang that instead. After a moment the door opened, and a man asked my business. The bushy eyebrows, the hair en brosse, though grizzled, were familiar. Then I remembered. He had been a comrade-in-arms of my brother’s, one of the ground crew at the aircraft base. He had attached himself to Aldo, and once my brother had brought him home on leave. Save for turning gray, he had not changed. I had. Nobody, looking upon a man of thirty-two, would remember the boy of ten.

“Professor Donati,” he told me, “is not at home. You will find him at the ducal palace.”

“I know that,” I answered. “I’ve already seen him there, but not in private. My business is personal.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I cannot tell you when the professor will be back. He hasn’t ordered dinner. If you care to leave your name you could always telephone him for an appointment.”

“The name is Fabbio,” I said, “but he would not know it.” I was not sure whether I cursed the anonymity of my stepfather’s heritage or blessed it.

“Signor Fabbio,” answered the man. “I will remember. If I do not see Professor Donati tonight I will tell him in the morning.”

“Thank you,” I said, “thank you. Good night.”

“Good night, signore.”

He closed the door. I stood by the double entrance looking onto the via dei Sogni. I had remembered his name. Jacopo. He had been ill at ease when my brother brought him home on leave, believing himself out of place. Marta had seized the situation at a glance and taken him into the kitchen with herself and Maria Gighi.

I wondered whether it would be any use going back to the ducal palace and looking for my brother there. No sooner thought than instantly dismissed. He would be attended by his bodyguard, perhaps by the whole crowd of adulating students.

I was about to step out of the porched entrance when I heard footsteps approaching. I looked and saw that it was a woman, and the woman Carla Raspa. I withdrew through the double entrance and stood behind the open doorway on the eastern side. She could not see me, but I could see her. When she came to Aldo’s door she did as I had done and rang the bell. She waited a moment, glancing over her shoulder at Jacopo’s entrance, but made no attempt to ring his bell. Then she felt in her bag, and bringing out an envelope pushed it through the letter box to the floor within. I could sense the disappointment in her drooping shoulders. She went out once more into the via dei Sogni and I heard the patter of her high heels die away. Getting rid of me had been an excuse. No bowl of soup and bed for Carla Raspa. She must have had this in mind as soon as we left the ducal palace. Now, frustrated, she would find the soup more welcome, but she would have to drink it alone.

I waited until I judged her well ahead and out of sight and then I, in turn, returned to the via San Michele. This time I penetrated to the Silvani sanctum and explained to the signora that I had not eaten. Anything would do. Switching off the television she got up, protesting hospitality, and pushed me into the dining room, her husband following to keep me company. I told them I had been to the ducal palace by invitation. They seemed impressed.

“Are you going to take part in the Festival?” inquired the signora.

“No,” I answered, “no, I think not.”

“You should do so,” she insisted. “It’s a great thing for Ruffano, this Festival. People come for miles to see it. Last year many had to be turned away. We were lucky. My husband managed to get seats in the piazza Maggiore and we watched the procession of the Papal Guard. It was so realistic that I said afterwards we might have been living in those times. When the Rector blessed me, in his guise as Pope Clement, I felt I had been blessed by the Holy Father himself.”

She bustled around, helping me to food and drink.

“Yes,” agreed her husband, “it was magnificent. They say this year it will be even better, despite the Rector’s illness. Professor Donati is a great artist. Some feel he has missed his vocation. He ought to be a film director, instead of giving up his time to the Arts Council here. After all, Ruffano is only a small city.”

I ate, more from emptiness than hunger. Excitement and emotion were still at fever-point.

“What sort of a fellow is he, this Professor Donati?” I asked.

The signora smiled and rolled her eyes. “You saw him tonight, didn’t you?” she said. “Well, you can judge for yourself what a woman thinks of him. If I were half my age, I wouldn’t let him alone.”

Her husband laughed. “It’s his dark eyes,” he said. “He has a way with him, not only with the women, but with the municipality too. Whatever he asks for, he gets. Seriously, though, he and the Rector between them have done great things for Ruffano. Of course, he’s a native. His father, Signor Donati, was Superintendent at the palace for many years, so he knew what was wanted. Do you know that he came back here, after the liberation, to find that his father had died in a prison camp, and his mother had run off with a German general, taking the younger brother with her—his whole family, you may say wiped out? It takes guts to accept that. He stayed. Gave himself to Ruffano, has never looked elsewhere. Now, you can’t help admiring the man for that.”

Signora Silvani pushed fruit upon me. I shook my head.

“No more,” I said. “Coffee only.” I took one of the signore’s cigarettes. “Then he never married?”

“No. You know what it is,” said the signora. “When a young man comes home in a state of shock—he was a pilot, and he was shot down and joined the Resistance—and hopes to rejoin his family, it doesn’t make him love the opposite sex better to learn that his mother has decamped with a German. My opinion is that it sickened him with women for good.”

“Ah, no,” said her husband, “he’s recovered. After all, he was only a boy at the time. Professor Donati must be forty now. Give him time. He’ll find himself a wife when he’s ready for marriage.”

I drank my coffee and stood up.

“You look tired,” said Signora Silvani with sympathy. “They are working you too hard at the library. Never mind, it’s Sunday tomorrow. You can stay in bed all day if you feel like it.”

I thanked them and went upstairs. I flung my things off, my head still bursting, and lay down on the bed. But not to sleep. Only to see Aldo’s face in the flickering firelight of the Room of the Cherubs, that pale, unforgettable face, and to hear again the loved, the feared, the well-remembered voice.

After tossing for two hours I got out of bed, opened the window and stood there, smoking a cigarette. The last loiterer had gone home, and all was still. I looked up the street and saw that the shutters on the first floor of Number 5 were open, as mine were. A woman was leaning out, also wakeful, also smoking a cigarette. If I could not sleep, neither could Carla Raspa. We were wakeful for the same cause.

The church bells roused me next morning from the fitful sleep into which I had eventually fallen. First at seven, then at eight. The Duomo, San Cipriano, then the others. Not the chimes for the hours, but the summons to Mass. I lay in bed and thought how we used to go, the four of us, my father, my mother, Aldo and myself, to High Mass in San Cipriano. Those were the early days before the war. We would set forth, dressed for Sundays, Aldo resplendent in his uniform of the Fascist Youth organization. The girls had an eye for him even then. We would walk down the hill to San Cipriano, and my martyrdom near the altarpiece of Lazarus would begin.

I got up and threw wide the shutters I had closed last night. It was raining. Rivulets of water ran in the gutters. A few people hurried by bent under umbrellas. Down the street the shutters on the first floor of Number 5 were tightly closed. I had not been to Mass since my schooldays in Turin. At least, not by intention. Sometimes I would escort a flock of tourists bent on sightseeing, and, pausing near the high altar in whichever church we were visiting, be obliged to stand and stare. Now I would go of my own volition.

I was half-dressed when a knock on the door announced Signora Silvani’s arrival with rolls and coffee. “Don’t move,” she said. “Look at the weather. There’s nothing to get up for.”

I had said the same thing to myself over the years when chance brought me a free Sunday, wet or fine. Nothing to get up for in Turin or in Genoa. Now the world had changed.

“I’m going to Mass in San Cipriano,” I said.

She nearly dropped the tray. Then she put it carefully on the bed. “Amazing,” she said. “I thought nobody went to Mass anymore, except old people and the very young. I’m glad to hear it. Do you always go?”

“No,” I said, “but this is a special occasion.”

“It’s Lent,” she said. “I suppose all of us should go in Lent.”

“My Lent is over,” I said. “I’m going to celebrate the Resurrection.”

“You’d do better to stay in bed and wait for Easter,” she told me.

I drank the coffee and finished dressing. My head no longer reeled. Even my hands were still. The rain did not matter, poor Marta’s death did not matter despite the manner of it. Later in the day I would see Aldo. For the first time in my life I held the cards; I was prepared for it and he was not.

I went out of the house into the rain, the collar of my light overcoat that had to do duty for a raincoat turned high up to my ears. The shutters were still closed at Number 5. Crossing the piazza were a few stragglers, bent on the same mission as myself. Others stood huddled under the colonnades waiting for the bus that brought the Sunday papers, or waiting for another bus to take them out of Ruffano. A few young people, braving the weather, were setting forth on vespas.

“It won’t last,” somebody shouted above the roar of his machine. “They say the sun is shining on the coast.”

The summons from San Cipriano rang forth. Not so deep as the Duomo, but for me more solemn, more compelling, with a sudden urgency before the hour struck as though to hurry laggards to their knees.

Once inside, moved by the familiar somber smell, I was struck by the paucity of people. In childhood days we had arrived early because my father wished to take his accustomed place. The church had been full, with the people standing in the side aisles. Not so today. The numbers were halved. Mostly family parties, women and young children. I went and stood near the side-chapel, feeling that I was fulfilling some agelong rite. The gates of the chapel were open, but no light above the altarpiece shone upon the face of Lazarus. The picture was veiled by the dimness. So were the other pictures in the church, and the statues, and the crucifixes. Then I remembered that it must be Passion Sunday.

I heard the sung Mass through, letting the thin voices of the boy choristers seep through me without pain. My mind was empty. Or perhaps I dreamed. A middle-aged priest I did not recognize gave a twenty-minute sermon warning us of perils past, of perils still to come, that the Lord, the Christ, still suffered for our sins. A child close to me yawned, his small face white with fatigue, and a woman who might have been my mother nudged him to attention. Later, the few communicants shuffled to the rails. They were mostly women. One woman, well-dressed, her head covered with a black lace veil, had knelt throughout the Mass. She did not go to the rails. Her head was bowed in her hands. When it was all over, when the priests and the choristers had gone, the people dispersing with their faces solemn still yet somehow eased, their duty done, she rose to her feet and turned, and I saw that it was Signora Butali. I walked ahead, and waited for her outside the church. The boy on the vespa had been right. The rain had stopped. The sun that had been shining on the coast had broken through to Ruffano.

“Signora?” I said.

She looked at me with the blank eyes of someone far away brought back unwillingly to a less pleasant world. “Yes?” she answered.

I saw that I meant nothing. I had left no trace. “Armino Fabbio,” I said. “I called at your house yesterday with some books.”

Recognition dawned. I could read the thought passing through her mind. Ah, yes, the assistant librarian.

“Excuse me, of course,” she said. “Forgive me. Good morning, Signor Fabbio.”

“You were in front of me at Mass,” I said. “At least, I thought it was you. I was not sure.”

She walked down the steps at my side. She looked up at the sky and saw that the umbrella she carried was not necessary.

“I like to go to San Cipriano,” she said. “It has more atmosphere than the Duomo. Is it going to be fine?”

Absently, she looked about her, and I felt a momentary hurt that she should feel so little interest in the man who stood by her side. A beautiful woman is usually aware of admiration, whatever the source. Effort is made. There is implicit understanding that homage is being paid. Signora Butali seemed unaware of these things.

“You have a car?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “They’re working on it at the garage over the weekend. I had trouble with it coming back from Rome.”

“Would you object, then, if I walked with you up the hill? That is, if you are going home?”

“Not at all. Please do.”

We crossed the piazza della Vita and began walking up the via Rossini as far as the prefettura, when she turned left and took the steps leading up to the via dei Sogni. Here we paused for breath, and for the first time she looked at me and smiled.

“The Ruffano hills,” she said. “It takes time to get accustomed to them. Especially if, like me, you are a Florentine.”

It made all the difference when she smiled. The mouth that seemed taut, disapproving, the mouth of the gentlewoman in the portrait my father loved, relaxed to femininity. There was even humor behind the eyes.

“Are you homesick?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” she replied, “but what’s the use? I knew what I was in for when I came here. My husband warned me.”

She turned abruptly, and we set ourselves to climb the steps.

“It’s not an easy life then, signora,” I said, “to be wife of the Rector of a university?”

“Far from easy,” she answered. “There are so many jealousies, factions, to which I have to shut my eyes. I am less patient than my husband. He has given his life, literally, to his work here. If it were not so he would not be in hospital now.”

She bowed and wished good morning to a couple descending the steps, and from the gracious inclination of her head, without a smile, I understood why Carla Raspa had spoken in feminine spite. Signora Butali, consciously or not, exuded breeding. I wondered what effect she had upon the professors’ wives.

“Last night,” I said, “I was lucky enough to get a pass to the ducal palace for a session given by the Director of the Arts Council.”

“Indeed?” she replied in sudden animation. “Do tell me about it. Did it impress you?”

“It impressed me very much,” I answered, aware that she had turned now to look at me. “Not only the setting, lit with flares and torches for the occasion, but the dueling display that followed, and above all Professor Donati’s address to the students.”

A spot of color had come into her cheeks, due, I felt, not so much to her exertion in climbing the steps as to the turn in the conversation.

“I must go to one of the sessions,” she said, “I really must. Something always seems to prevent me.”

“Last year,” I said, “they were telling me you performed at the Festival. Are you going to do the same this year?”

“No, impossible,” she answered, “with my husband in hospital in Rome. In any event, I doubt if there would be a part for me.”

“You know the subject?”

“Poor Duke Claudio, isn’t it? I’m afraid I’m a little vague. I just know there was an insurrection, and he was murdered.”

We had reached the via dei Sogni, and in the distance I could see the garden wall. Imperceptibly I slackened my steps.

“Professor Donati seems to be a very remarkable man,” I said. “They told me at the pensione where I am lodging that he is himself a Ruffanese.”

“Very much so,” she said. “His father was Superintendent at the ducal palace, and in fact he was born and spent all his boyhood at the house we live in now. It’s one of his ambitions to have it back from us. That is not very likely, unless my husband’s health forces us to retire. Professor Donati loves every room in the house, as you can imagine. I gather he was immensely proud of his father, and his father of him. The family history is quite a tragedy.”

“Yes,” I said, “yes, so I heard.”

“He used to speak about it,” she said, “but not any longer. I hope he’s beginning to forget. After all, twenty years is a long time.”

“What became of his mother?” I asked.

“He never discovered. She disappeared with the German forces which occupied Ruffano in ’44, and since there was fighting in the north shortly afterwards it is almost certain that she must have been killed in the bombing, she and the little brother.”

“There was a brother?”

“Yes, a small boy of ten or eleven. They were very devoted. I sometimes think that it is because of him that Professor Donati gives so much thought to the students.”

We had reached the garden wall. I glanced furtively at my watch. It was about twenty-five minutes after eleven.

“Thank you, signora,” I said, “it was very good of you to let me walk home with you.”

“No,” she said, “it is for me to thank you.” She paused, with her hand on the garden door. “Would you like to meet Professor Donati personally?” she said. “If so, I should be delighted to introduce you.”

Panic seized me. “Thank you, signora,” I said, “but I wouldn’t in any way wish…”

The smile returned. “No trouble.” She cut me short. “It’s a custom of the Rector’s to ask a few of his colleagues to the house on Sunday mornings, and in his absence I do the same. Two or three people may call this morning, and Professor Donati is sure to be one of them.”

I had not planned it thus. I had planned to go alone to his house in the via dei Sogni. Signora Butali took my panic for embarrassment, an assistant librarian at the palace library feeling himself out of place.

“Don’t be shy,” she said, smiling. “It will be something to tell the other assistants about tomorrow!”

I followed her into the garden and to the house door, still thinking of an excuse to get away.

“Anna will be busy preparing lunch,” she said. “You can help me set out the glasses.”

She opened the door. We entered the hall, and passed through to the dining room on the left. It was no longer a dining room. It was lined with books from floor to ceiling, and there was a large desk near the window.

“This is my husband’s library,” she said. “When he is at home he likes to entertain here, and when we are many we fling open the double doors to the small dining room beyond.”

The small dining room beyond had been my playroom. She opened the double doors and I saw, astonished, how the table was set there in the center, stiff and formal, laid for one. I thought of the mess I had left the room in, with my fleet of small cars scattered over the floor and two tins, upturned, for the garage.

“The vermouth is on the sideboard,” said Signora Butali, “and the Campari. The glasses are on the trolley. Wheel the trolley into the library, will you?”

She had arranged things to her satisfaction and put out the cigarettes when the bell rang.

“Probably the Rizzios,” she said. “I’m glad to have you here, she’s so very formal. Professor Rizzio is Head of the Department of Education, and his sister is in charge of the hostel where the women students live.”

She looked suddenly vulnerable, and younger than her age. Perhaps when her husband was at home he shouldered the burden of social responsibility.

I slipped into my courier guise and waited by the trolley, ready to pour vermouth at her command. She went to the door to greet the callers, and I heard the murmur of the usual compliments. Then she ushered her guests into the room. They were middle-aged, gray-haired and angular. He had the worn and harassed appearance of one perpetually up to the eyes in work, with intrays piled upon a desk that never cleared. I could picture him baying ineffectual commands to streams of tired subordinates. His sister had more authority, holding herself like a matron of old Rome. I pitied the luckless students who lived under her rule. I was introduced as Signor Fabbio, temporary assistant at the library. The signorina bowed, turning immediately to her hostess to inquire after the Rector.

Professor Rizzio peered at me with a puzzled air. “Forgive me,” he asked, “but I don’t recollect your name. How long have you been working at the library?”

“Since Friday,” I told him. “I was engaged by Signor Fossi.”

“Then your appointment went through him?” he said.

“Yes, professor,” I answered. “I applied to Signor Fossi and he spoke to the Registrar.”

“Really!” he commented. “I am surprised he did not consult me.”

“I imagine he did not want to burden you with such a small matter,” I murmured.

“Any appointment, however small, is of interest to the Deputy Rector,” he said. “Where are you from?”

“I have been working in Genoa, professor,” I replied, “but my home is in Turin. I graduated at the university there. I hold a degree in modern languages.”

“That, at least, is fortunate,” he said. “It is more than the other temporary assistants possess.”

I asked him what he would have to drink, and he said a small glass of vermouth. I poured it for him and he moved away. His sister said she would take nothing, but when Signora Butali protested Signorina Rizzio was pleased to accept a glass of mineral water.

“So you are working at the library?” she said, dwarfing me with her presence.

Tall women bring out the worst in me, as they do, in most men of less than average height. “I pass the time there, signorina,” I said. “I am taking a vacation, and the job happens to suit me.”

“You are fortunate,” she replied, staring. “Many students in their third or fourth year would be glad to avail themselves of such an opportunity.”

“Possibly, signorina,” I said in smoothly courteous tones, “but I am not a student. I am a courier who speaks several languages, and I am accustomed to conducting parties of international repute through the more important cities of our country—Florence, Rome, Naples…”

Dislike of my impertinence formed upon her features. She sipped at the mineral water, and her throat quivered as the liquid passed. Another ring at the front door spared her from further distress. My hostess, ears only for the bell, turned towards me, a telltale spot of color in her cheeks.

“Answer it for me, will you?” she said. “It’s probably Professor Donati.”

She continued her rapid conversation with Professor Rizzio, her unwonted animation covering inward stress. A courier seldom drinks. He dares not. Now, however, I quickly swallowed a glass of vermouth under the disapproving eyes of Signorina Rizzio and, excusing myself, made for the front door. Aldo had opened it already, being, no doubt, persona grata in the house, and was frowning at the sight of Professor Rizzio’s raincoat thrown down upon a chair. Then his eyes fell upon me. Without recognition. Without even a flicker of interest.

“Signora Butali is expecting you,” I stammered.

“So I believe,” he said. “Who are you?”

“My name is Fabbio,” I said. “I had the honor of meeting you last night at the ducal palace. I was with Signorina Raspa.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “yes, I remember. I hope you enjoyed yourself.”

He did not remember. It mattered not at all what I thought of the evening. He moved forward into the dining room, or rather the library, and at once the room became alive. Signora Butali called “Hullo,” and he retorted with “Good morning,” the morning a little emphasized. He bent over her hand and kissed it, then turned immediately to Signorina Rizzio. Signora Butali, without asking him what he wanted, filled a glass half-full of Campari and gave it to him.

“Thank you,” he said, taking it from her, not looking at her.

The front-door bell rang once more, and questioning my hostess with a glance I went to open it. These menial duties kept me occupied, and served to steady the threatening tremor of my hands. Signor Fossi stood before me on the doorstep, accompanied by a lady. He looked taken aback at the sight of me, and immediately presented the lady as his wife. Somehow I had not thought of him as married.

“Signor Fabbio is helping us temporarily in the library,” he explained to her, and, on my asking how he did, told me quickly that he had quite recovered.

I took up my stance once more behind the trolley, and poured them drinks. The conversation turned to health, our hostess touching upon her distress at the reason for Signor Fossi’s absence from the library the day before.

“Luckily,” she said, “Signor Fabbio was able to oblige me with the books I asked for.”

The librarian, anxious to turn discussion away from his own past indisposition, did not dwell upon the loan of books, but immediately inquired after the Rector. Talk about Professor Butali became general, everyone hoping that he would be able to leave hospital in time for the Festival.

Behind me I could hear Signorina Rizzio complaining to Aldo about the rowdy behavior of the C and E students, who had taken to circling the city in the evenings on their vespas.

“They even have the insolence to roar their machines beneath the women students’ hostel,” she said, “as late sometimes as ten o’clock at night. I have asked my brother to speak to Professor Elia, and he assures me he has done so, but the Professor takes no action. If it continues I shall bring the matter up before the university Council.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Aldo, “your young women encourage the vespa enthusiasts from their windows?”

“I assure you they do not,” retorted Signorina Rizzio. “My young women, as you call them, are either engaged in reading up their notes for the next lecture or they are safely tucked up in bed with the shutters closed.”

I poured myself out another glass of vermouth. Then, looking up, I perceived Aldo’s eye upon me, puzzled. I moved away from the trolley and stood by the window, staring down into the garden. The voices hummed. The bell rang. Somebody else went to answer it. This time I did not bother to come forward to be introduced, and I think my hostess had forgotten me.

Presently, while I was still staring into the garden. I felt a hand on my shoulder. “You’re an odd fellow,” said Aldo. “I keep asking myself what you are doing here. Have I seen you before somewhere?”

“It’s possible,” I said, “that if I disguised myself in a winding-sheet and hid in the linen closet upstairs you might recognize me. My name is Lazarus.”

I turned and looked at him. His smile vanished. His features dissolved. I was aware of nothing but two enormous eyes blazing from a pale face. It was my supreme moment. For the one and only time in his life the disciple had shocked his master.

“Beo…” he said. “Oh, my God… Beo.”

He did not move. The grip on my shoulder tightened. It seemed to me that his eyes engulfed his whole person. Then, with a terrible effort, he controlled himself. His hand fell away.

“Make some excuse and go,” he said. “Wait for me outside. I’ll follow you. There’s a car there, an Alfa-Romeo; get into it.”

Like a sleepwalker I crossed the room and, murmuring an apology to my hostess, thanked her for her kindness and said good-bye. I bowed to the rest of the company who might have noticed me. I left the house, and passed through the garden to the street outside. There were three cars parked by the garden wall. I got into the Alfa-Romeo as he had bidden me. I sat there, smoking a cigarette, and later watched the Rizzios depart, then the Fossis, and others that I had not met. Aldo came last. He got into the car without saying a word and slammed the door. We drove away. Not to his own house, but downhill and so out of the city by the Porta Malebranche. Still he said nothing, and it was not until Ruffano lay behind us, and he had driven the car into the hills, that he pulled up suddenly, switched off the engine, and turned and looked at me.