Evening of the Good Samaritan (43 page)

Withrop’s feeling toward Gemini had progressed through the evening from resentment to a hostility it was difficult for him to conceal. He had added the banker’s name to Sylvia’s guest list tardily, learning after the other invitations were out that he would be in Italy. But from the moment of his entrance, Gemini acted as though the occasion had been planned in his honor. For that matter, every Italian present whose business was business acted as if he assumed it also. Winthrop had not supposed these people were interested in
UNRRA
, but neither did he choose to have his house used for the convening of an international banking cabal, and that was what he saw happening before his eyes. He could not prevent it, but determined not to join it, he sought out Jonathan Hogan.

Gemini was at the moment the center of a group of attentive gentlemen, giving a fluid account of his view on the prospects of Italy’s financial recovery. Count Fabroni acted as translator, for Gemini spoke a very plain English. Gemini had spent two weeks touring Italy and had come by facts and figures, the accuracy of which no one would question, such was his command of them. Having responsibility to no government, and obviously contemptuous of the peace negotiations, the preparations for which were now going on, he was outspoken and ruthless. Various of his points brought color to the faces of his listeners. Not a man took issue with him.

“I can tell you what will come out of the peace conference,” the banker answered the weakest of protests. “In twenty years Germany will be the most prosperous country in Europe. They won’t resist occupation like your left-wing coalitions. They’ll make the most of it: American money and German know-how. Mark my words, gentlemen, there will be more foreign investment in Germany by the end of next year than there was before the war.”

To Jonathan, Winthrop said: “I got something I didn’t bargain for, inviting him.”

Jonathan was watching, listening, a tight smile on his lips. Ruggeo, next to him, was rocking back and forth on his heels, his bright eyes boring straight ahead. He had the look of a man about to explode. Winthrop’s annoyance with the banker was suddenly mingled with alarm. He had just seen Ruggeo’s face. He said: “Hogan, if I get their attention, will you say a few words about the prime ministers’ conference and get this fellow offstage?”

Jonathan shook his head. “I’m not at liberty to do it. And if I were, it would be bad form—for you. I’m a mere adviser, not even a negotiator.” He indicated the group. “I’m not in their league, Colonel.”

“I’ll put my cards on the table,” Gemini was saying. “I’ve got a press conference in Rome tomorrow, and I’ll tell you what I’m going to say …”

“An outspoken chap, isn’t he?” Ruggeo said, his eyes snapping.

Even Gemini was momentarily distracted for Ruggeo had spoken loudly. He looked around with the others for the speaker. But seeing who it was, they shook their heads and urged the banker to go on.

Winthrop moved toward the cabal. “May I intrude for a moment, gentlemen? The ladies are waiting to dance.”

“I thought I was among friends,” Gemini said.

“You are.” Winthrop smiled at him.

Others of the group were quick to reassure him.

Gemini made a slow exploration of their faces. Like a gangster in a movie, Jonathan thought. Gemini said: “As I was saying …” He made an of off-hand gesture of dismissal toward Winthrop. “This won’t take long, Colonel …”

“There’s a representative of the
London Record
in the room, sir,” Winthrop said.

“Good. He’ll have a scoop.”

Winthrop was caught. To intrude further was to alienate the very people he had gathered for the purpose of ingratiating. He withdrew as gracefully as he could.

Jonathan offered him a cigaret. He accepted it although he rarely smoked. Jonathan said: “Hang your clothes on the hickory limb, but don’t go near the water. Remember the old song?”

He was in no mood to be reprimanded, whatever the source. “Shall we go into the grand ball room?”

“Wait,” Ruggeo said, as Jonathan started to move off. “I want to hear this.”

Having been invited to do so, the London correspondent took a notebook and pencil from his pocket.

Gemini was well aware that he was giving a statement:

“I’ll go as far as to say that as long as the partisans are in control of the factories, there won’t be any loans—not from the men I represent. Get rid of the Parri government, put a sound man in office, somebody strong enough to pull the country together, and then we can talk business.”

“There you have it,” Jonathan said quietly. “There you have it.” He could feel defeat like a stone between his shoulders.

“Are you coming?” Winthrop said.

Ruggeo was standing, his fists clenched. “The son of a bitch,” he said. “The filthy, arrogant Fascist son of a bitch.”

“That’s enough,” Winthrop said.

“Far, far more than enough,” Ruggeo said. His whole body was quivering with rage, and with the terror of the future he had mortgaged to an empty victory.

Jonathan put out his cigaret. “Goodnight, Alex. Tell Sylvia I shall call her,” and taking Ruggeo by the arm, he persuaded him from the room.

Within the month, the Parri government had fallen. De Gasperi, the Social Democrat became premier. On the same day Marcello Ruggeo’s article—that written on the morning he had received his invitation to the Winthrop party—was published. “The resistance is dead. Write the word into history …” It was his last political writing. The following summer his wife and children joined him in Switzerland. By then he had almost finished a novel commenced before the war.

Jonathan, returning to England from his brief, unhappy holiday in Italy, was soon faced with a decision in his own life. He had gained recognition during his wartime service as something of an expert on Italian affairs, and he was asked to stay on in his advisory post by the State Department preparatory to the drafting of the peace treaty.

But the cause he had championed in Italy was lost. And in truth, a government such as De Gasperi’s was likely to do better at the peace conference than, say, Parri’s. It was stronger, having the might of the Right. The coming struggle for world influence between the United States and the Soviet Union was plainly evident. Italy could be expected in time to become part of an alliance with Britain, France, and the United States if America did not revert to isolationism. The Soviet Union’s inflexibility on Italian reparations showed plainly that she considered Italy outside her sphere of domination.

Jonathan’s frank evaluation of his own position was that his usefulness to his government was at an end. Henceforth, a good statistician could do the job better. The exigencies of balancing power would dictate this, like all other peaces: men of good will would write its rationalization.

That nothing changed, he would not say. He believed with William James in that one per cent of change which made the difference called progress. All the same, his mind went constantly back to the days following World War I, to Woodrow Wilson’s heartbreak, to the Palmer raids and the bonus marchers. Loyalists and conformists: he was not their kind of patriot. Yet at this point in his life, Jonathan wished himself removed from where his conscience would compel his tongue. His message had been tried and found wanting: just possibly it also belonged on the ninety-nine per cent side of history’s ledger. In a very few years he would be an old man; some would say he already was. He wanted to shoot with the quill for a change and not with his tongue, to write and to study. A post at London University, where from time to time in the past he had happily taught and studied, had been somewhat casually proposed to him during his recent sojourn in England. He resigned his government job and went after it. Securing it, he went home to permanently sever his association with Midwestern and to spend Christmas with his family.

Meanwhile, Sylvia went to luncheon with the Baroness.

T
HE BARONESS CALLED FOR
Sylvia in her chauffeured car. She wore black and a simple make-up Sylvia found far more becoming than her gaudy evening splendor. “I have arranged our luncheon at a country inn. You will not mind to drive a few kilometers?”

Sylvia said that she would like it. The day was clear and sharp, and as often happened on late autumn days, Sylvia was homesick. She longed for the browns and the acrid smell of smoke so reminiscent of Lakewood at that time of year. Lake Michigan was not to be compared with the Mediterranean, nor the prairies of home with the Campagna, but she knew where her own choice lay.

“I shall be going home soon,” Sylvia said as the car climbed above the city. The Bay stretched far and gloriously blue beneath them.

“And you are anxious?”

Sylvia nodded.

“Home,” the Baroness said. She repressed a sigh. “I shall be going somewhere myself soon. But where I do not know. I must wait. Always the refugee must wait.”

Sylvia smiled. The Baroness did not in any way conform to her notion of a refugee. Fleetingly she thought of the story Jonathan had told her in their one afternoon together before his return to London. She could not credence the story. She had probed Maria for it without success and without herself repeating it. She did not think the gossip of Neapolitan society concerned it. Gossip and horror she did not suppose could be reconciled in any society. What she had elicited from Maria was a tale of the Baroness’ lovers. She had never been known in the old days to appear without one, even while married to the Baron, a man long since dead. And during the war years? Sylvia had prompted. Maria had shrugged. “During the war years she did not appear at all.” Sylvia had remarked then: “My God! Alberto Gemini?” Maria had burst out laughing. “No, no, no. That was why, you see, they did not hesitate to accept her at your party. The matter of a lover is—very delicate on such occasions.” Whatever could be said of Gemini the word delicate in no way became him.

“Perhaps I shall come to America,” the Baroness said. “I have not been there in a long time.”

“But you have friends,” Sylvia said.

The Baroness looked at her sharply as though in search of a hidden meaning. She sat back, satisfied that there was none. “Friends. Home. Americans are very sentimental.”

Sylvia was annoyed. These people were always making generalizations about Americans. And to Americans: that was what irked her, as though they were children to be told all about themselves. She pointed to the ruins of a stone wall near which a washing of shirts and undergarments were hung on a line. Before them at the side of the road a boy was tending two goats. “There are people living in the shelter of the wall,” she said.

“So there are,” the Baroness said. “It is better perhaps than in the caves. For many years people in this region have lived in caves. It is a very poor country—for most people. If I were Italian, I should be ashamed.”

As they passed the goatherd who stared at them impassively, Sylvia lifted her hand and waved. The boy scrambled for a stone and threw it after the car. The Baroness, catching sight of his motion, turned to observe its fulfillment. “That I have not seen before.” She sighed and settled back. “Tell me about your children. You call it a rehabilitation house? What will happen to them when you go home?”

“I have arranged to take two of them with me,” Sylvia said. “For medical care in America. Others will come later, a few at a time. For artificial limbs, surgery, and a period of recuperation. I’m planning to build a hospital at home for that purpose.”

The Baroness nodded. “You have no children of your own?”

“No. I married late.”

Again the Baroness inclined her head slowly. The line showed from the corner of her mouth clear to beneath her chin and in a taut pattern seemed to proceed from there to just below the ear. Her face had been lifted, Sylvia realized.

“And of course,” the Baroness said, “in America you have superior doctors.”

There was something in the way she said it: at that instant Sylvia made the association of the woman at her side with Nathan Reiss. She knew then where she had heard the name: the doctor’s European patroness. The two women looked at each other. The Baroness puckered her lips in a smile that was at once mocking and wistful. “Do you know a child by the name of Martha Fitzgerald?”

“Martha Hogan now,” Sylvia said. “She is a very dear friend.”

“The world is no larger than the head of a pin,” the Baroness said. “I thought and thought about the name Winthrop, and at first I wondered if you were her mother. But you have no children.”

Sylvia, for the life of her, could not say anything.

The Baroness went on: “I was thinking of her a few moments ago when you said you were going home. It was from my home in Paris she went like a young doe when the cablegram came from her fiancé that he wished immediately to marry her. I cannot forget the moment, her face, like God’s own child. It was a privileged moment. From nothing in my own experience could I have conjured such a moment. Do you understand me, my dear?”

Sylvia nodded. She was ridiculously close to tears.

The Baroness stretched her gloved hand to Sylvia’s and patted it gently, reassuringly. She looked out the car window for a time. “Look, we are coming to a village. There is a lovely bell in the monastery. We shall pass it on the other side. When I was here—it is a long time ago—I used to come here with someone. We would bring our luncheon. There is a ledge on a cliff where we would sit and look out over the tops of the vineyards and the orchards to the sea. And sometimes we would hide in a little cave if anyone was passing too close to us, and we would tell the time only by the chiming of the monastery bell…”

Was she speaking of Nathan Reiss, Sylvia wondered. Instinct told her that she was. With the next words she was sure of it.

“He was a racing genius.” She shook her head. “I spoiled him.”

Sylvia met her eyes.

The Baroness asked: “He is in your city, Dr. Nathan Reiss?”

“Yes.”

“He would not have told of me, I suppose. But Martha I should have expected to ask about me.”

“He has spoken very highly of you—it was only the name I did not know.” Sylvia chose her words with care. “He told what he thought had happened to you. He didn’t tell it to me, but I do know that he was deeply chagrined at not having been able to help you.”