Notorious (21 page)

‘You sound angry.’

‘It is something I have begun to think about.’ He draws a deep breath. ‘You make me think of it more.’ He puts the book back and stares at the top shelf. ‘I have another book you might like, a journal by a French explorer.’

He stretches up; his sleeve shifts and I see the beginnings of a tattoo. But this is nothing like the pain etched into Devlin’s body. These blocks of black look smoother, with odd white lines running through them.

‘Is that a stencil?’ I say.

Slowly, he rolls back the sleeve. The inner arm, I think, always the easiest place to etch your pain. Like the stomach, the chest, over the heart: all those accessible places in that early time when you don’t want to be caught. When you are hesitating about moving to more secretive areas: the inner thighs, between the toes, behind the eyeballs.

Just below his elbow is a black and white image of – at first I’m not sure what I am looking at. The world tilts for a moment. It is a face but not a tattoo. It is – I bend closer to make sure – a photograph on the smooth skin of his inner arm. I see an image of dark hair, a carefree expression. I even know when it was taken. At a picnic, years ago. I flinch in the moment when I think it is me.

‘Anna,’ I say.

‘My daughter might be dead,’ he says, ‘but I’ve got her under my skin.’

There is a gleam of water through his light eyelashes.

‘Can I touch her?’ I ask. He nods. Faint blue-black smears my fingertip.

‘The skin doesn’t hold the image for long,’ says Pietr steadily, ‘unless you overload it with fixer. Then the area burns and flakes.’

‘Easier than a tattoo.’

He says, ‘Avedon did it. And the Paris artists in the last century, using plates from the old Brownie box cameras to develop directly onto the skin. You have to get the amount of emulsion and developer just right. You place the plate over the skin area for about three times the usual exposure time and coat it quickly with fixer. That seems to set the image for a few days. The developer works best on areas of the body that contain more water near the surface.’

‘So women would be good carriers,’ I say. ‘We retain more water.’

‘Women are always better carriers for memories,’ says Pietr.

‘When my brother found out about women retaining more water, if we ever fought he teased me that I needed to be drained.’

‘How often did he tell you that?’

‘Once that I can remember.’
Everyone is so sad now
. ‘Maybe twice.’

Anna stares up at me, unblinking, tearless.

I say, ‘You should patent the process. Sell it to people who don’t want to carry photographs of their loved ones and can’t stand tattoo needles. Soldiers going to war, office workers having secret affairs.’

‘Explorers could print their maps directly on their body. They wouldn’t ever worry about being lost.’

‘As long as they didn’t get sunburnt,’ I say.

We have dinner in the narrow room opposite the living room. Spotlights along the roof illuminate the sheets of mist floating through the dark air outside and turn the raindrops into fireflies.

‘It is the best floor show a man ever had,’ says Pietr, lighting the candles flanking the orchids on the dining table. He turns off the ceiling lights, leaving one tall lamp in the corner which throws haloes over the courtyard and guardhouses, over the dark tongue of road snaking down the hill to the ruined temple. Dusk like dark blue water soaks up the coarse sheets of cloud and mist and rain and sky. I imagine the slow descent down the slope, the wet branches slapping against the black ground, the masks of clay under the beating palms of earth.

The vase on the table in the corner is filled with the same purple-black roses as in the lobby.

‘Emperor’s roses,’ says Pietr. ‘They grow wild around Koloshnovar. The soil is rich enough so the cold doesn’t kill them. Rich from the blood of dead Polish cavalry, so the locals say. We try to grow them here but they attract frost and die.’

I bend to sniff the flower. There is no perfume. I say, testing him, ‘I didn’t think you still owned Koloshnovar. I thought it was abandoned.’

‘The house is empty but we lease out the land,’ says Pietr. ‘It’s like Santa Margherita. Too many memories. We can’t sell it.’

Devlin comes up behind me. ‘What did you talk about while I kicked my heels in here?’

The words hang in the air like snowflakes. ‘Nothing,’ I say, moving along the window. In our reflection, his dark shape looms over me. Even in the glass, I see the shadows under his eyes, in his cheeks. Over by the drinks table, Pietr turns to watch us.

‘You’re lying,’ Devlin says, stalking my reflection. He grabs my elbow.

‘Darling, I didn’t know you cared.’ I bat my eyelashes.

He stares at me as though he hated me. ‘Tell me,’ he says and his words form their usual clouds. But now I see ice glittering in the air, some aura hardening. I shove him, so he steps back.

‘We’re on the same side, Devlin.’

‘Are we?’

‘I told him exactly what you told me to say.’

He catches his breath, opens his mouth. But as usual he doesn’t have the words.

In the reflection, Pietr stands, a tall glass in his hand. He says, ‘Mr Devlin, I know you’ll have one.’

‘My mother has been delayed,’ says Pietr as we sit. ‘She sends her regrets.’

The tablecloth is heavy white linen: damask, with an embossed design half hidden by the plates and silverware and the white orchids floating in the glass bowls, their red stamens spider-like in the clear water.

‘I’m surprised you get mobile coverage here,’ says Devlin, raising his glass of red wine.

‘It’s erratic like everything else in Sicily,’ says Pietr. ‘We don’t have land lines in bad weather. We have the old smugglers’ way. Lit lanterns on the hill-top of the Roman ruins at Santa Margherita, which is the village opposite – ’

‘I know where it is,’ says Devlin, drinking.

Pietr says to me, ‘If you climb to the remains of the battlements – the place where they used to pour boiling oil on their enemies – you see clear across to Castelmontrano. I can stand on the walkway and use Morse code if I need to reach my mother.’

‘So your mother lives in Santa Margherita?’ I say, frowning at Devlin who is reaching for the bottle.

‘The village is deserted,’ says Pietr as a girl in a black skirt brings in the soup. ‘But my mother’s family lived there. So she likes to visit.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes,’ says Pietr, picking up his spoon. ‘Start, please. It’s a local specialty. After importing three star Michelins from Paris I finally realised the best cooks were the grandmothers in Trepani.’ He sips a mouthful. ‘Which is where you stay, I believe, Mr Devlin? Most travellers prefer somewhere bigger, like Palermo.’

‘He’s in Trepani to keep an eye on me,’ I say. Devlin presses his lips together.

Pietr delicately touches the side of his bowl with his spoon. ‘You’ll find the locals hard to talk to unless you’ve got contacts.’

Devlin takes a large mouthful of wine. ‘There’s always Mr Lincoln on the greenbacks.’

‘Possibly,’ says Pietr.

‘Or we can make a few calls to certain Yank federal prisons,’ says Devlin, flicking his finger at the delicate stem of his glass. ‘Didn’t that work after World War II?’

‘The Americans brought Lucky Luciano out of prison,’ Pietr says to me, ‘to help them get up the east coast of Sicily faster, to fight the Fascists on the mainland. Yes, I agree, Mr Devlin. The locals were happy to help strangers then.’

‘Only after they’d already helped the Nazis go through three years earlier,’ says Devlin. ‘Nothing like a deutschmark or greenback to make quick mates in convenient places.’ He finishes his wine.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ says Pietr.

‘And I’m sure you’ll be the first to know,’ says Devlin.

By the second course, Devlin is drunk enough to start asking about Anna. He had picked his way through the stuffed mushrooms and now, after pushing the seafood gnocchi around his plate for several minutes, he takes another deep mouthful of wine and says to Pietr, ‘About your daughter Anna – ’

‘I’m flying on a jet plane,’ I say loudly. I am still thinking that Devlin is merely tactless. I don’t comprehend how thoroughly he has thrown himself into treacherous waters. ‘Anna used to like any song about travelling: hello, goodbye – miss you, kiss you.’

The glass is half falling from Devlin’s slack fingers. ‘She lived here?’ he says to Pietr.

Pietr shakes his head. ‘Her mother and I married very young. It was arranged; that was still done in Europe in the 1970s. Even now – strategic alliances, for the good of the family.’ His mouth twists. ‘Later, the marriage failed. Anna’s mother went to Australia, with my blessing. We remained friends; I visited as often as I could. That was how I met your father,’ he tells me.

‘Anna was fun at school,’ I say. ‘Always breathlessly waiting for the next party. She liked to make her own clothes. A happy child.’ The words are cold ice in my mouth.

‘You both were,’ says Pietr.

‘Were we?’ I say. ‘I can’t remember.’

Some memory turns over in the dark water behind his light blue eyes. ‘You look so alike,’ he says. ‘You could have changed places.’

‘Maybe if I had,’ I say, ‘Anna would be alive now.’

The wind is rising. Ivy has been allowed to grow up against the windows on this side of the house and when the light flickers, the bony branches look like clawing skeleton hands.

The third course has been brought in. Devlin is still not eating. He mutters under his breath and holds his glass up. The red liquid sloshes back and forth in miniature waves.

‘The last time I saw my father,’ I say to Pietr, ‘he had the look of someone who can’t believe where he is.’

‘How much did he tell you?’ Pietr asks.

Devlin stops tilting his glass.

‘Fragments,’ I say. ‘Things which made no sense.’

‘You would have to know the – how do you say? – the big picture,’ says Pietr.

‘I think Mr Devlin knows. But he won’t tell me.’ I lay down my fork. I open my eyes wide. ‘No matter how much I try to persuade him.’

Devlin’s hand tightens around the stem. ‘You give me too much credit.’

‘Oh, we all know your function, Mr Devlin,’ says Pietr. ‘But this is Sicily. The wolf revolving on the rope has two faces. There is no reason why we can’t all get what we want.’ He puts his hand over mine. ‘What I want is for my – friend to get what she wants,’ he says. ‘You were good to Anna,’ he says to me. ‘Everyone else failed her. There was no other woman to help her.’

‘Your mother?’ I say.

He slowly spears a small piece of veal, presses it against the china until it flattens. ‘Once my mother adopts a position she doesn’t alter,’ says Pietr. ‘She murders her memories.’

Murder. I wonder whether the word is deliberate.

‘I want to find my brother,’ I say. ‘I hoped he would contact me after my father died. I always assumed he would come out of hiding then.’ I look at Devlin. ‘That’s all I want.’

‘To find him?’ says Pietr. ‘Or find out what happened to him?’

The ground is black water beneath me. ‘Either.’

‘Mr Devlin promised to help you?’

‘Yes.’

Devlin’s eyes are unreadable in the low light.

Pietr picks up his glass. ‘Then, whoever supplies that answer will be – most fortunate.’

‘And you think you’re the guy?’ says Devlin.

Pietr raises his glass. ‘To the victor go the spoils.’

The girl brings in dessert, a chocolate and cream confection with wafers. ‘I can never imagine you with my father,’ I say to Pietr. ‘You, the cultured European.’

‘Your father appreciated culture.’

‘Did he? I wonder.’

Devlin pulls out a wafer and begins snapping it into little pieces, dropping them on the tablecloth.

‘The papers were full of the trial,’ I say.

Pietr says, ‘You get used to it.’

‘The notoriety?’

‘Yes.’

We look at each other.

There is the sound of glass against metal. Devlin has knocked over his wine. He puts his hand in the spreading pool of red, levers himself up.

‘You won’t make Trepani tonight,’ says Pietr.

We look through the window. Mist drifts past in distinct sheets.

‘It’s clearing,’ says Devlin.

At the door, he says to me, fast, ‘You talked about something.’

I say, ‘If I tell you again that it’s nothing, you won’t believe me will you?’

‘No.’

‘We swapped good times,’ I say. ‘You know, when I was eighteen and super-wild and he was thirty-five and we did drugs and orgies together.’

Devlin is still.

‘Joke, Devlin,’ I say. ‘I rarely met him. He was mostly in Europe.’

I put my hand against the light spilling onto the front terrace.

‘We talked about Anna,’ I say. ‘He showed me the house.’ My hand makes strange shadows on the passing sheets of mist. ‘He read to me in French. Are you satisfied?’

He says, ‘That’s worse.’

SATURDAY

M
y bedroom is on the first floor, tucked behind the silver lattice. It is above the living room, looking away from the coast and facing the plain and Santa Margherita. This room has a low ceiling and white concrete walls with recesses for lighting and bookshelves; a warm wooden floor with a few scattered rugs – Moroccan, probably, from the weave – and a small wrought-iron balcony which steps up to join the rear walkway.

The bedroom sits under a small section of the same black tiles which matches the roof of the glass tower rearing over me. Pietr’s mother’s room is next to mine and then the spare room he had offered Devlin. Under the eaves are two video cameras enclosed in metal hoods. I see more cameras on the curve of the silver shell and fixed to the walkway railing.

I step onto the balcony. Rain falls in light strands on my face as I look down to the plain.

The peak the house is built on falls steeply for about a hundred feet with only tough scrubby bushes clinging in pockets to the stony hillside. Some of the land has the sullen, unforgiving baldness of forcible clearing. There is a gravel path, its steps made by holding the earth back with the split trunks of pines. Glass lamps sit on stocky black metal poles at regular intervals down the path.