The Bay of Foxes (18 page)

During the first interval, his father asked him how he was enjoying the opera. “Isn’t it fantastic? Have you ever heard anything so beautiful?” he said, and Dawit was obliged to shake his head and say he had never heard anything like it. Then he asked if he might have something to drink. His father bought him an exorbitantly expensive glass of champagne, his first, which he gulped down thirstily, the bubbles going up his nose. He remembers now, when the opera was finally over and they had walked outside, his father lingering in the street as though reluctant to leave, looking back at the ornate opera house lit up, with the blue of the night sky behind it. He put his arm around Dawit’s shoulders and asked, “Will you remember this evening, Dawit?” He could only nod politely, looking down at the ground, embarrassed by this public embrace, hoping to forget the entire excruciating experience as soon as possible. His father had looked at him tenderly, standing there beside him in the street, the opera house behind them, as he said—Dawit can hear his voice
now—“I know I’ll remember being here with you to the end of my days.”

Then Dawit writes out another check to help the famine-stricken people in his country, hoping it will reach them. As he drives back to the villa he wonders how long he will be able to take M.’s place and use her money as he thinks fit.

W
HEN
M.’
S EDITOR,
G
USTAVE, CALLS ONE AFTERNOON IN LATE
September, he startles Dawit, who is sitting at M.’s desk in her room looking over the bay. He has his feet up on the desk in her crocodile shoes and is contemplating the view, pencil in hand. Gustave tells him he’s at the airport in Olbia. Is someone coming to pick him up? “She hasn’t forgotten me, has she?” he asks. Dawit suddenly remembers that M. had spoken of this yearly visit to the island in late September. He has, indeed, completely forgotten about it.

He thinks fast how to handle this, but all he can come up with is, “No, no, of course not, she would never forget you.”

“She’s not ill, is she?” the editor asks.

“Oh, no, not ill!” Images of her face, her white hair, her white robe filling with air before sinking down through the water, come to Dawit vividly.

“Will you come and pick me up, then, or am I going to have to get a taxi?” Gustave says, beginning to sound annoyed.

“Of course, I’ll be right there. I’m so sorry. A slight mix-up. Have some lunch,” Dawit says, stumbling over his words. He is trembling, afraid his voice will betray his panic. What is he going to do? A mistake like this can be disastrous, he
knows. How could he have been so absentminded? Why had he not called to put off the visit?

“Has she finished her book? Do you know?” Gustave asks.

“Oh, yes, it’s finished,” he can truthfully say with some assurance. “It’s waiting for you to read,” he says, staring at the manuscript, which is in a neat pile stacked up before him, typed up on M.’s old Olivetti. “Look, I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll find you in the restaurant?” Dawit says, attempting to sound businesslike, cheerful.

“You’ll find me in the bar!” Gustave says. Dawit hopes the man is drunk by the time he arrives. From the look of him, the broken veins in his cheeks, he is probably a heavy drinker.

Thank God the house is tidy, Dawit thinks, looking around M.’s bedroom, as he picks up the telephone to call the couple in Abbiadori. He has kept it orderly, the bed neatly made, the clothes put away. Breathlessly, he tells them to come as soon as possible to get the guest room ready: “
Il signore Francese, un signore molto importante
,” he says and tells them to pick some flowers for the room, to get something special for dinner that night, a seafood platter, lobster if they can find it.

Then he races out of the house, goes up the hill, and gets into the Jaguar. He drives into Olbia as fast as he can, screeching along the winding road that hugs the coast, trying to make a plan. He sees the sea glittering on one side, distracting him with thoughts of M., and on the other, the shrub-covered hills. His mind is a jumble. He is shaking so much when he steps out of the car he can hardly walk into the airport. Why has he forgotten this visit? What is the matter with him? Has he lost his mind? His agitation increases with every
step he takes, afraid he has lost the ability to think clearly, to protect himself. He has quickly fallen into a false sense of security, wandering around the empty rooms of the villa, sitting writing at her desk, talking to no one, pouring himself a first drink at seven, as M. had done. He has drunk too much of her vodka. Now he can hardly find his way through the airport. He is almost at the bar when he realizes that he is still wearing M.’s rings and quickly slips them into his pocket. A foolish mistake like that could cost him everything. He looks down at the black crocodile shoes and thinks he should have changed them.

Gustave has obviously been drinking while he waits and looks red-eyed, sitting slumped over at the bar, his tie loose, his blue linen suit crumpled. He looks up and smiles when he spots Dawit. After slapping Dawit on the back and telling him he’s glad to see him, he follows him through the airport to the car and then falls asleep almost immediately, head back, mouth open, snoring. As Dawit takes the sharp curves along the winding road that follows the coastline, he glances at the heavy Frenchman, helpless in his deep sleep, his plump hands open at his sides. He recalls Gustave’s proposal to use Dawit as a gift, a brown diamond, for his wife’s birthday, as if he were a commodity, a stone, or rather a penis to be bought and sold. He thinks of the arrogance of these French intellectuals, their endless and pointless discussions of theoretical matters, their inaction. He sees himself tightening the loose tie on the thick throat and almost goes off the road on a steep curve. He must remain calm, make a sensible plan.

By the time they arrive at the villa, Dawit has thought of something. He carries Gustave’s brown leather bag, which is
ominously heavy, to the guest room. The couple have prepared it in haste, but the two single beds with their cream counterpanes are made up neatly. Everything is clean and orderly. A bunch of pink hibiscus in a round blue-and-white vase stands on the bedside table between the beds and beside the telephone.

“Well, this all looks very nice,” Gustave says, apparently somewhat mollified, surveying the comfortable room with its two pretty blue headboards painted with sea scenes by an artist from the island. He opens the linen curtain and looks out on the garden behind the house, with its olive trees and blue plumbago tumbling down the terraces. His room does not look over the bay as Dawit’s does, but it is cool and attractive and has its own yellow-and-white-tiled bathroom. Dawit tells him to make himself at home, to settle in. He will bring him M.’s manuscript to read.

“Good idea,” the editor says without much enthusiasm, lifting his suitcase and putting it on one of the beds, beginning to unpack.

Dawit says he has to pick up something at the shops for dinner. He’ll be back soon. Will Gustave please answer the telephone if it rings? M. has said she will call this afternoon to see if he has arrived. Then he gives Gustave the manuscript of her novel, putting it on top of the dresser, and leaves him unpacking in the room.

He drives to the hotel at the bottom of the hill, goes to the phone booth, and telephones the villa. He waits, his mouth dry, his hands damp and shaking, for Gustave to pick up, which he eventually does.

“Gustave, darling, did you get there safely? So sorry to
miss you. I’m afraid I’ve been held up,” he says in M.’s hoarse, quavering voice.

“Where on earth are you?” Gustave asks. “What has happened?”

“Oh, God, I can’t go into it on the telephone. I’m in Switzerland. A problem in the house here. I’m going to try and get back as soon as possible. Make yourself at home. Help yourself to anything you want. Get Dawit to open the champagne. Have him chauffeur you. I’m sure he has already given you my manuscript.”

“I’m reading it now,” he says. “I look forward to seeing you, darling, and talking about it. Come soon,” and Dawit hangs up the telephone, though he would like to hear what the editor has to say about the book, his book, he thinks.

H
E DRIVES UP THE STEEP HILL TO THE VILLA STILL SHAKING
. The night in M.’s room comes to him vividly. The moment that he cannot fathom is how he was able to take the rings from the bowl and slip them so easily onto his fingers. Everything followed from that. He recalls his mad scheme to drug her to death with her own medicine, using the vodka and sleeping pills. He hears again the glass shattering on the floor and sees her thin white arms thrashing about wildly, feels her kick out at him.

How is he going to care for this unwanted guest for several days, with these images coming to his mind? What will he tell him? He fears saying something that will give himself away. He determines to bring out the champagne immediately, to get Gustave drinking again. Perhaps he himself needs a drink, too.

But Gustave has other things in mind. He is waiting for him on the terrace. He has changed into his navy blue swimming trunks, which look new and shiny. His considerable stomach bulges under a light blue T-shirt. He tells Dawit he wants to get some exercise before dinner. The sea looks wonderful, that clear blue water. He drank too much in the bar.

“This is such a gorgeous place, isn’t it?” he says to Dawit,
making a gesture toward the bay, where the sun is already low in the sky. Dawit just nods his head, speechless. Gustave says, “I can’t think why M. would have left here just now. She usually loves September here, always says it’s the best month, when the water is still warm but the crowds have left. Sometimes she even stays through October.” He looks at Dawit as though he expects a response, but Dawit can only shrug his shoulders and sigh. “Could we take the boat out to the islands?” Gustave asks. He adds, “What’s that island M. likes so much?”

“Mortorio?” Dawit says without thinking.

“That’s it. Let’s go there before it gets too dark and have a swim.”

Dawit cannot think of anything to say. He considers pleading illness—indeed, he feels ill but realizes it would be unwise. Better to keep the man busy, even if he seems to have had the most diabolical idea. How can Dawit take him back to the place where he left M.?

He is obliged to drive the man down to the harbor and to walk along the quay as he did with M. in his arms in the dawn light. He has not been back here since her death, has carefully avoided the place, the boat. He is not even sure there are not traces of his blood on the boat’s engine. The sun is beginning to set as it was rising that day, as he helps the portly editor into the boat. He unties the docking lines, unable to say a word, sunk into a reverie. Fortunately, Gustave, who is obviously not a boatman, seems to concentrate on the ride. Dawit sits in the stern of the boat, behind the editor, who sits in the middle, his back to Dawit, his plump hands spread out on each side of him to steady himself. He turns to smile at
Dawit benevolently, decked out in his expensive striped bathing trunks, a thick Hermès towel around his red neck. Dawit starts up the engine without difficulty and looks across the water, the late afternoon sun a glare in his eyes, but what he keeps seeing is M.’s face in the sea, the floating white hair and the white nightdress that bubbled up as she sank down. He looks at the oars lying in the bottom of the boat and glances at Gustave’s back, the roll of flesh protruding from his shirt as he hangs over the side of the boat, trailing plump fingers in the clear water.

“Such clear water,” he repeats, as if to remind Dawit of his predicament, turning back to smile contentedly at Dawit, making him draw in a sharp breath, imagining the body coming loose from its heavy chains and floating up to the surface or even, having drifted into shallow water, becoming visible at the bottom of the clear sea.

The editor, to make matters worse, quizzes Dawit as he attempts to concentrate on the steering of the boat. He asks him about M.’s departure. When did she leave? he wants to know. Dawit stares across the water and tells him he had driven her into Olbia to catch her plane for Geneva a few weeks ago. He keeps things as vague as possible. “I left her in the evening at the airport,” he feels he can safely say. “She had been in Sassari to do a reading and came back early,” he says, telling as much truth as possible. Besides, the editor may have heard about the visit to Sassari, for all he knows.