The Bay of Foxes (23 page)

“I think you might have reason to be worried,” the older policeman says, giving Dawit a curious glance as he goes out the door.

D
AWIT IS ABOUT TO TELEPHONE
G
USTAVE WHEN THE PHONE
rings. He picks it up immediately, hoping it might be Enrico, but it is a journalist who wants an interview. He declines. Almost immediately the phone rings again. And again he snatches it up with hope. This time it is a woman who wants to invite him to dinner at her villa, the Contessa Bellini. Does everyone in Rome know where he is staying? How have they tracked him down?

She says she is an old friend of M.’s and has heard he is staying in Rome. She would be overjoyed if she could entice him to come. She is giving a big party—all of Roman society will be there, and they would be so grateful if he could come.

“You are—am I right? An Ethiopian
prince
?” she gushes.

“Not quite. My father’s title was
ras
, which is really more equivalent to a duke, I think you might say.” He laughs modestly. He thinks of his sophisticated father, part of the old aristocracy, not generally favored by the Emperor, who, like Napoleon, preferred to create his own coterie of nobles whom he believed would be more loyal to him. Still, his father had managed to keep his position at court due to his fierce loyalty, his wit, and his intelligence. What would he have had to say about his son now?

He is about to decline this invitation, which fills him with horror, when he realizes that if all of Roman society is coming, Enrico might very well be invited, too. He decides, despite his reluctance to face a crowd of curious strangers, to accept. Perhaps, too, it might be wise to mingle in society as much as possible.

The contessa gushes with joy at the thought of meeting him. She cannot wait to hear what he has to say about M. They are all
dying
with curiosity. Again, Dawit thinks how little anyone really seems to care that M. has vanished. All they want is gossip. He dares to ask how she tracked
him
down.

“Ah, we Romans have our sources of information,” she says, laughing, and promises to send a car to pick him up and bring him to her villa on the outskirts of Rome. “You’ll see, it is a wonderful old
cinquecento
house,” she says.

He has only just put down the telephone when Gustave calls. Dawit tells him the police have paid him a visit. “How did it go?” Gustave asks.

“I don’t know,” Dawit can truthfully say.

Gustave returns to the topic of the book, which he is rushing out, as all of this publicity will be excellent for the sales. “You’ll have to come back to Paris in November when the book appears. I want you to do some publicity for us,” Gustave says.

“Me, publicity?” Dawit says, bewildered.

“You’ll be perfect, I know. People will flock to see you, believe me.” He adds, “I’ll find you a place to stay, and we’ll pay your expenses, so don’t worry about any of that.”

Dawit tells him about his invitation to the Roman party.
He laughs at the irony of it all and says, “I seem to be in great demand.”

“Good, good. Don’t hug the walls. Go out, talk about M., the new book,” Gustave says and tells him to enjoy himself, too. No doubt all the hostesses in Rome will be after him. “Watch out! The women will eat you alive,” Gustave says and chuckles. Dawit wonders what Gustave knows or suspects about his sex life.

Whatever that is, Gustave does indeed turn out to be correct. Dawit is in great demand, invited everywhere, photographed in the elegant clothes M. had pressed on him, standing smiling broadly on the arms of various society hostesses. His photo is, as he had feared, all over the tabloids, but not with the caption he had feared. How he would have loved all this attention only a few months ago, yet now, with his secret fear of disclosure, it fills him with terror. Journalists hound him, delighted with his story, his photogenic face, his slim form, his elegance, his excellent Italian. They call him the Prince from Abyssinia, the new Rasselas, who speaks perfect French, English, and Italian. When he tries to correct the error with his title, they simply say, “
Non fa niente, principe
.” They go on calling him “prince,” which makes a better story. The Italians seem to have a loose concept of titles. People are whatever they want them to be. Everyone is
dottore
or something of that kind.

Everywhere he goes, Dawit looks only for Enrico in the crowd, but there is no sign of him. Perhaps he has left town. He never calls Dawit or leaves a message on the answering machine, and Dawit does not dare to call him. He hunts for him in the streets, thinking again and again that he has caught
a glimpse of him disappearing down the street. He presumes the family lives somewhere nearby. He searches for the name in the telephone book but doesn’t find it. He attends party after party, hoping to find him there. He is increasingly mobbed by Roman society. Everyone wants to know him, to say they have met him, to shake his hand. They want to know about M. What does he think? Where might she be? Might she have taken her life, or is she just hiding out somewhere like Salinger? Or might she actually have been murdered? Their eyes brighten with the thrill of the thought.

He is obliged to stand in crowded, ancient rooms, glass in hand, and talk about M. Everyone wants to know about her life, her habits, what his relationship was with her. Obviously they assume he was her lover. Forced to talk about her, he makes up a story as he goes along. He sings her praises, says he considers her a great writer, as indeed he once did. He says he is certain that her new book will stun them all. It is the best thing she has ever done, he maintains, echoing Gustave’s words. He is sure she is somewhere, perhaps even back in Africa where she grew up, enjoying the landscape she loved. He is certain she must be amused by all the interest in her disappearance, her new book. Indeed, he does feel she is close to him, watching him, not so amused.

While he talks he thinks of her lying in the Bay of Foxes, something no living soul knows and probably will never know. He has two lives: one surrounded by an increasingly large and enthusiastic public and filled with falsehood, and another life running like an underground stream in secret. Everything that he really cares about—M.’s death, Enrico, his friends in Paris, his dead parents—all this he never speaks of,
keeps hidden from others. He is cloaked in lies and begins to see others in the same light, thinking that they, too, must hide what is real.

He stands among the elegant people in the great, high-ceilinged halls of the Roman villas, looking out French windows at the cypress trees in the gardens, the moonlit stone paths. He thinks of his home and longs for his family. He feels more alone than he has ever done in his life.

As the autumn days go by, he is convinced that Enrico must indeed have confirmed his alibi, as the police have left him alone. This act of generosity saddens him further. He has underestimated his friend, who has stood by him gallantly. Why had he not gone to him immediately when M. had thrown him out? Would Enrico have been able to help him to find work, papers, enough money to support himself?

His allowance continues to be transferred to his account, and as he pays no rent and is invited for most of his meals, he has no financial worries. Even his tourist visa is easily extended with the help of his new and influential acquaintances. He lingers on, still hoping Enrico will come to him.

He continues to rise early and run barefoot in the streets of Rome. He runs around the Circus Maximus. Then he takes up his pen, the one M. had given him, and writes the story of his own life: about his childhood, Solo, the escapades in the hills around Harar. He writes about the Emperor, the revolution, his days in prison. He awaits a word from Enrico but it does not come.

I
N
N
OVEMBER, THE POLICE TELEPHONE TO TELL HIM HE IS FREE
to leave when he wishes. They have not turned up any trace of M. As so often happens with missing persons, there are no clues to her whereabouts, the inspector tells him. Dawit says nothing, thinking of the body lying silently in the depths of the sea. The Bay of Foxes has kept his secrets for him. He is free to go on with his life, to leave Rome, Italy, behind.

He phones Gustave, who is delighted with the good news and promises to send a ticket. “You might as well stay in M.’s apartment on the Rue Guynemer,” he says. He tells him the apartment is empty, that it will take years before anyone can lay a claim to it. Dawit hesitates, thinking of those empty rooms he knows so well.

“Do you have the keys?” Gustave asks.

“I do, but….” Dawit says. He is reluctant to walk back into his past but does not know how to say this to him. Finally, he says nothing. Instead he tells him he has written his story. His book is finished.

“Wonderful news! Bring it with you. I can’t wait to read it,” Gustave says.

Dawit wonders what the editor will think when he does. “I’ll be there in a few days and I’ll bring you the book,” he says.

On the day he leaves Rome, he packs his bag, tidies the flat, leaving things exactly as he had found them. He sits at the small fold-down desk against the wall, trying to compose a note for Enrico. “I owe you my life, which no longer has any meaning without you,” he finally writes. He puts the note in a closed envelope and props it up on the counter by the telephone. He hopes Enrico will find it and read it, and perhaps one day respond. He takes a last look out the window at the Spanish Steps, then closes it, wipes off the counter in the kitchen, and leaves, putting the key under the mat as Enrico had asked him to do.

Gustave has sent him a business-class ticket on Air France and told him to take a taxi and charge it to the publishing house. Dawit looks out the window of the car at the streets of Rome that Enrico had promised to show him. They had never walked together to visit his favorite places, the parks and monuments, the Forum. Dawit feels grateful for the welcome the Italians gave him, grateful for the beauty and abundance of this country, and grateful to the couple in Sardinia, who must have spoken well of him to the police. He senses he will never return, that he is definitively saying good-bye to Enrico and to M.

When he arrives in Paris, it is after nine o’clock at night. The lights that flash by him outside the taxi window sadden him, but he reminds himself he will be able to call Asfa now, and that he will have a place to offer him where he might be able to stay with his family, at least for a while.

When he arrives at the elegant sandstone building in the Latin Quarter, he presses the brass bell as he did the first time.
As poor and hungry as he was that day, his heart was lighter and more hopeful than it feels now, for all his elegant clothes.

He knocks on the concierge’s glass door, though he has the key. Maria greets him effusively, in her narrow loge, the smells of stew cooking in the air. She tells him she’s so glad he has come back. “What news from madame?” she asks. He shakes his head and says he has none. “You must see my baby,” she says in response and goes into her bedroom, brings out a bundle of white blankets, where a small dark face peeks out at him. “A boy,” she says proudly. The child, wrapped up tightly in a thick blanket, is, to his surprise, dark-skinned, the hair a dark fuzz on the top of his head. “His father came from Africa,” Maria explains, smiling at Dawit and putting the baby in his arms. He kisses the baby on both his plump cheeks. “He is beautiful, beautiful!” Dawit tells Maria, though the baby is quite plain as far as he can see. “Where is his father?” he asks with the child in his arms. She shakes her head, shrugs, and says sadly she doesn’t know. Dawit sighs and holds the warm little body against his own. How well nature does its work, he thinks, feeling the child’s warmth. It takes only a moment to fall in love with a baby, he thinks as he gives him back to Maria and takes out his wallet and pulls out all the money he has in it to give to her. She protests, “
Non, non, monsieur!
” He tells her to buy something nice for the baby. She says, “I’m so glad you are back. Will you stay with us for a while, monsieur?”

“Perhaps not very long, I’m afraid, and you must call me Dawit,” he says.