The Italian Romance (31 page)

He hooks her head to his chin and kisses that smooth, lovely forehead. Willing to learn, I'll give him that.

Lilian opened the French doors on to the balcony. She sat down on the double bed, and the mattress sank under her. The springs squeaked when she moved; they had long ago worn out their adequacy. She stared out at the iron lace-work of the balustrade which was carefully, lovingly covered in white paint. It held a pattern – her eyes began in one spot, spiralled, Catherine-wheeled, traced – but she could not quite make it out. And then the welcome breeze blew in. The light cotton curtains filled with air, lifted, settled again.

She had taken off her cream blouse and unzipped the grey gabardine skirt. She wore her petticoat. The channel between her breasts was silky damp, and under her arm the soft hairs were wet. Even the back of her hair, above her neck, was sodden. It was drier at home, less water in the air.

The baby whimpered. She raised her plump arm, the dimpled elbow, and opened her hand wide. The tiny fingers splayed, perfectly still. Then, the storm over, her hand swanned down, the mouth fell open. Lilian watched her; she fiddled absently with the lace of her petticoat hem. Francesca sank into undisturbed sleep.

The city lights brightened the street outside. She liked that.
It sweetened the electricity in the air. Her blood tingled. She listened to footsteps ringing on the footpath, to the sound of car engines, coming closer, going away.

Earlier she'd rung Antonio's camp, asked the guard on duty to pass the message. She'd stood in the dark hallway, waiting; the light bulb, dangling from its chord, didn't work. He'd rung ten minutes later; she'd stood in the dark hallway, waiting. He was a drowned man saved. She could hear it in his voice. She leaned her head against the wall as he spoke into her ear. ‘Are you all right?' he'd said. ‘Yes,' she'd answered. ‘Now.'

As soon as she'd put down the public telephone, the manageress came looking for her. There was a call in the office.

She followed her to the reception desk. The phone was lying on its side, waiting. She turned away for privacy and the telephone wire curled about her. ‘No, I'm fine,' she kept saying. The manageress sat on her hard-backed chair, reading a magazine. ‘Don't worry, Mum. I'll write as soon as I possibly can, I promise.'

She'd been upset by that call. She'd replaced the telephone and, without meeting her eye, said to the woman that she'd just go into the kitchen for her baby's bottle.

The woman said, ‘Want any help?' but she didn't close over the page of her magazine.

She shook her head and said, ‘No, thanks.' The woman watched her for a few moments as she walked away.

She heard Francesca crying as she climbed the stairs and she began to run. Her high heels clattered against the thin runner. The infant's face turned to her mother as Lilian stumbled across the room and the tears which had widened her eyes into reflections of the electric light bulb slowly brimmed over in two hot streams. Lilian picked her up and held her tightly against her breast. ‘I'm here, I'm here,' she said. And later she'd put the sleeping child down, cool in her white cotton singlet and nappy, between the two pillows.

She didn't know what time it was when the knock came at the
door. Her watch was in her handbag, where she'd thrown it in case she forgot about it in the morning, left behind her on the bedside table, or worse, in the bathroom down the hall.

She presumed it was the manageress. She shrugged her blouse on, clasped it closed with her hand and then opened the door just a little.

‘Bernie,' she said.

His arm leaned against the wall. ‘Let me in,' he said.

She stood back. She was afraid. She had never been afraid of Bernie before.

He seemed bigger. His shirt was glued to his back, wringing wet. His jacket was bunched in his hand. He threw it on the floor. His car keys spilled from a pocket, rang on the bare boards.

She turned to him, rested back against the door as she closed it.

‘What the hell does this mean?' he said. His eyes were red. He searched in his back pocket, pulled out her note. ‘You're sorry? You're sorry?'

She covered her eyes with her hands.

‘Look at me, Lilian, for God's sake. You just can't get up and leave. Take the baby. Lilian, look at me!'

She walked to the bed, too close to him. She sat down. She could smell the sweat off him. And something else. Hops, the sour, sickly stench of it. ‘Have you been drinking?' she said.

‘Oh, for God's sake, Lilian. That's right. Turn it on me.' He walked away, over to the open doorway.

She watched his back, his shoulders. They heaved with the effort of his breathing. He said, ‘There's a brewery near here. That's what you can smell ... I came home, I found your note, I went to your parents' house and I drove up here. I haven't had time for a glass of water.'

‘Sorry,' she whispered. She put her hand on Francesca's forehead, smoothed the damp hair back.

‘I haven't been myself,' he said.

She looked up at him. He had raised his hand to the doorframe, leaned into it. He spoke to the night outside.

‘No, Bernie, it's not you.'

‘Let me talk,' he said. ‘I haven't been myself. I know that. I don't know how to ... say things. It was hard, Lil. I saw a bloke get his head sliced off, right in front of me. He was a mate ... We'd got cut off from the rest. You don't know where you are in the jungle. They could have been a hundred yards away, you wouldn't see them. I said to him, I'm just going behind those bushes there to ... you know, relieve myself. Maybe I wandered thirty, forty feet. I came back in five minutes, less. There were about half a dozen of them. He was kneeling on the ground. I ducked down. I had my rifle. I had one of them lined up. I was concentrating on this character, trying not to make a noise, disturb the leaves ... whoosh. That was it. Like the wind. The officer, he'd just sliced his sword through the air, took his head off.'

Lilian's head fell back against the wall.

‘I didn't even shoot. Don't know if it was cowardice, or shock, or what it was. They took off, snatched his rifle. I sat where I was. Don't know how long.'

‘You got me through it,' he said. ‘The thought of you at home. I never really felt anything before. Do you know what I mean?'

She nodded, though he wasn't looking at her. She knew very well.

‘Up there, and out in the desert, you began to feel things. For your mates. A man would break down right in front of you, and cry. You know,' he said, ‘and you'd help him. We helped each other. That's how we got through it. The only time I was on my own was that time. Took me a few days to find anyone. I stumbled on some Yanks in the end. Kept seeing it over and over in my head. Didn't want to sleep in case I'd see it. Whoosh. One minute there he was; I think he knew I was watching. He didn't say a word. Then the next. Like it was nothing, a young hen. Pick her up, lay her across the block. His body fell over so slowly.' She saw him
shaking his head, slowly. ‘You don't know what people can do, Lil. What do they call that, man's inhumanity to man?'

She heard his breath. For a moment there was no other sound, not even from the street. He said, ‘So, if I've been ... awkward with you ... I just got this idea into my head that you didn't want me.' He tried to laugh. ‘It made me act strange.'

She drew her feet up on to the bed, hugged her knees. She was dizzy. She rested her forehead down.

‘You don't know what you and the baby mean to me.' His voice was relentless. ‘I know you've been sick. Mum explained it to me. It's not your fault, Lil ... I took Francesca out on my horse one day. Mum nearly killed me when we rode back in. She was all right, though. I wanted to show her the country. Took her down to the river. You gave me back my life when you gave me Francesca, Lil.'

He turned. He looked down at her. Her hair covered her knees, her shoulders.

He walked to the chair, picked up her discarded skirt, draped it across the back. He sat, forearms resting on his thighs, hands clasped. He was so tired he couldn't keep his head up.

They stayed like that for a long time.

It was Lilian who said, ‘Lie down, Bernie. You're almost asleep there.'

He raised his head – his eyes were bleary – and he nodded. She stood up, took his elbow and he walked to the bed. He bent to take off his shoes. ‘I'll do it,' she said. She knelt in front of him. Her blouse fell open. He put the backs of his fingers, gently, on the damp slope of her breast. She closed her eyes. She plucked at the lace on one shoe, then the other, and eased his feet free. ‘Lie down,' she said. His head dropped to the mattress. His arm collapsed onto the pillow beside his daughter, who was so deeply asleep that her chest barely moved. Her little hand lay open, the incision of clear lines already written there, on the other side of the pillow. Lilian leaned over and kissed his forehead.

He was aware of her as she, now, sat on the chair. She knew he watched her through almost closed lids.

And then he began to snore. She listened to him for half an hour.

The day began. She heard the milkman's horse, the clink of bottles. And the tolling of a bell.

She took everything with her to the bathroom. Her two suitcases. Her handbag. She lined them up at the foot of the bath. She ran only three inches of water, was washed almost before she turned off the taps. Dressed. Settled her handbag on her arm. The strap dropped to her wrist as she picked up the suitcases.

She didn't have to walk past the door of the room. She went down the steps.

There was a man behind the counter. A boy, scrubbed, neatly shorn head. ‘What room, Miss?' he said.

‘Fourteen,' she said. ‘I paid last night. My husband and daughter will be leaving shortly.'

‘Aw, right,' he said. ‘Bit cooler this mornin'.'

‘That's good,' she said.

‘Miss,' he said as she turned away. ‘Aren't you going to have breakfast? Margaret Mary gets in early.'

‘No,' she said. She remembered to say, ‘Thank you.'

‘It's good. Smell it? Bacon and eggs.'

‘Thank you. Just I'm not very hungry.'

‘Aw. Righto.'

Her neck was stiff. She half-looked at him as she said, ‘My baby's bottles are in your fridge. Will you tell my husband?'

‘Yeah, righto,' he said.

She tried to nod to the boy in some kind of acknowledgment. She said, ‘Bye.'

‘Yeah, bye.'

The front hallway was in shade. It smelled of stale tobacco and of the hops rotting in the brewery somewhere up the street. Outside, the light fell into her eyes like an unexpected splash of
water. It glinted on the leaves in the park across the road. She put the bags down on the footpath, and waited till an empty taxicab cruised by. She put out her hand.

The driver leaned across to the passenger window. ‘Where to, love?' He had blue Irish eyes, and greying black hair. A good-looking man. There was nothing about him at all to suggest the weight of things he could not say, dreams he tried not to dream. She surprised herself by wondering where he had been for those five or six years. There seemed to be no hard edges, the glinting light, the hops' stench, the man's eyes and she, no edges between them. She said, ‘Down to the wharf.'

‘Righto.' He got out, slammed the door and languidly opened up the boot. ‘Not a bad day,' he said as he took her cases. He lifted them in, one at a time.

‘No,' she said. ‘Not bad.'

She climbed into the back seat and he closed her door. She lay her head back on the leather.

He started up the engine, put his head out the window, waved at a bus driver who signalled him to pull out. ‘Not goin' overseas, are you, love?' he said.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Overseas.'

‘Wouldn't catch me over there for quids. Had enough of it. Still, my son says he intends to go when he's big enough. Funny old world, isn't it?' he said. He pointed the car down George Street. A breeze blew in through the open windows.

The stench from the freight car was on their hands, their clothes. Most people were quiet, now. The lucky ones could sit with their backs against a wooden wall. One man did physical exercises, standing in the middle of the carriage, his feet as far apart as space would allow. He had to narrow the movements of his shoulders and arms so he didn't hit anyone on the head, as he had learned from experience. He touched his fingers to the toes of his right foot, bolted up straight, eyes ahead, and twisted down to the left foot, breathing out through a fish mouth. He was generally ignored. The fifty of so passengers had, after nerve-grating irritation, persuaded themselves that he was a buzzing fly who refused to find the open window, and they had just better get used to him. They groaned when he started, at nine o'clock each morning for the past couple of mornings, with a repeat performance at six, ‘before dinner' as he explained to his deaf neighbours, though there was no dinner, or lunch either.

Sonia didn't see him at all. She lay in a corner, her fingers
touching the meeting-point of two walls of the car. It became important to her, that dust-caked angle. She had lost her spot after one break in the train's slow crawl to the East. The doors had miraculously slid open, the light making their eyes blind. Everyone had jumped out or sat down on the edge and slid off, or had to be helped down. Someone had taken her arm and pulled at it. She didn't know how she got out of the filthy carriage, and on to the green earth. The Germans had stood in a line, submachine guns slung from leather straps over their shoulders. She didn't know what to do out there, in the air, in the light. And then someone had turned her around, pushing against the blades high in her back, and she crawled back up onto the floor of the train. Her spot in the corner was gone. A young couple sat there, his arm around her, her forehead tucked against his cheek. Sonia stared at them. The young husband was disconcerted by her. He looked down at his wife's hair, stroked it. Sonia stood until the doors were closed over, the light gone, the wheels moving. And she almost fell. A woman, older than her, took her hand and pulled her down.

But the next time she was ready. She watched the guards. When they began to move, each face averted to the officer who gave the signal, she rolled herself back on, found her corner, put her face quietly into it.

The rhythm of the turn of the wheels, the slice of them on the iron rails, and the shudder of their wooden box became familiars.

When her eyes began to close, she blinked them open. It was worse to sleep, because as she woke, the dreadful dawning fact punched into her. She heard the staccato shots of submachine guns; they tore into the peace of the treetops, the silent, damp paths. So she kept her eyes open. She saw instead Jack's arm slung around Gianni's shoulder, heard the crack of a branch as it fell, the snap of a twig under her foot. She saw them disappearing into the ocean of light that spilled across the path as they made the bend. And then she'd say, ‘Jack, look what I've found, a beautiful stone. See the fern leaf etched into it. Gianni, this has been here for
hundreds of thousands of years. Imagine that!' And Gianni smiles, his eyes alight. ‘And it will be here for thousands and thousands of years more.' And Jack says, ‘We will all be together for the rest of our lives. I promise you. I promise you.' And she put one arm around Jack's waist, and the other around Gianni's and they strolled through the wood, happy just to be so close, until they reached the sea. A boat was waiting for them. It rocked when she clambered in and Jack held out his hand, looked into her eyes. She laughed. ‘Sit down,' he'd say. And he rowed them, his arms circling, push, push, and he'd lean forward, stretch back. The water fell from the oars, full of light.

Her head slammed into the wooden wall. Others began to stand up, to murmur to each other. After a few minutes, the door was slid back.

It was a shock to them. They had pulled into a railway station.

The man from the university said, ‘We're in Austria.' They clustered around the opening; the station was full of people, people going about their business. The Italians stared out at them.

A guard jerked his gun at them. ‘Raus,' he said. The first of them jumped, turned and put their hands up to help others. An elderly woman's dress was stained with her foul-smelling faeces. Two men, on the ground, reached up and took her by the elbows, lifted her into the air. The university man released her and said, ‘Now, Signora, stretch your legs.'

He helped Sonia, too. She had come without luggage, they had all noticed that. And her face was gashed open. She disturbed them. She seemed to be in another world and they'd stopped trying to invade it.

Sonia walked beside the track. On the platforms, men and women watched them. She looked up. A twenty-year-old girl who sat on her suitcase, beautiful, eyes almond-pointed and dark under the net of her hat, looked back before busying herself with her paperback book.

The guards didn't stop her. She walked along the length of the
train to the last carriage. The Italians were moving this way, that, up, down, as if they didn't know what it was they should do. At the back of the train, a middle-aged man was squatting between the iron tracks. His trousers were down around his hairy ankles, the white cambric inner pockets spilling out over his brown belt. He glanced at her, and glued his mouth to his knee. He shut his eyes tight.

Suddenly, Sonia's guts wrenched in her. She had not relieved herself in three days. Those who did had shamed themselves. Husbands stood in front of wives, wives held their skirts out for their husband's privacy. But the smell, the humiliation of the bowel noises, stayed with some of them, the sensitive ones. They could not speak to their neighbours, meet their eyes.

She felt that her bowels were opening. She looked round. The guards were stony-faced. Untidy links of train carriages nosed into the roofed depot. The station seemed so full of ordinary life that she felt herself invisible. She lifted her skirt, and as she squatted, pulled down her wet underpants. Her guts exploded warm and full. It brought sense to her.

She raised her head. On the platform's edge, two women, jackets well cut to the thighs, and a man, a husband of one, she supposed, were watching her. One of the women ducked her head into the man's chest and covered her face with her hand. He was laughing. The other woman held her nose, her hand high, fingers arched.

Sonia stood quietly, dropped her skirt. She pulled at the elastic waistband of her pants. Beneath her, the brown, stinking pile was testament to her.

‘Help me,' she mouthed. ‘Help me.' She wanted to curl up now, shielded away from the people, the noise. She walked to the far side of the train, stepped over the iron track. A barrel of a rifle jabbed at her stomach. She stumbled back, passed the man who still tried, against all his resistance, to ease himself.

The Austrian girl, the book open in both hands, was not
reading the words. Her eyes followed Sonia. When Sonia glanced at her, the girl stood up, walked around the suitcase and sat with her back to the Jews' train.