The Malaspiga Exit (6 page)

‘Eighty-two years old,' he said. ‘Only her body betrays her. She is still beautiful. I remember seeing her as a little boy, dressed to go to a reception. It was before the war, and she was wearing the Malaspiga diamonds. She was so lovely it was like a vision. Then the war came, the diamonds were sold, and we lost nearly everything. My father had collaborated with the Fascists, you see, and we were outcasts for a time. And becoming poor. Not even marrying Francesca helped, because she didn't have enough money to restore what had been lost.' He lit one of the monogrammed cigarettes. Sunshine beat down upon the green hills, silvering the roofs of Florence. The windows of the restaurant were shaded by vines coming into leaf, and from the position high up, a cool breeze countered the heat below them.

‘Is that why you married her—for her money?' Katharine asked the question, made bold by his frankness. He glanced at her for a moment before he answered.

Suddenly he smiled. ‘You certainly are forthright,' he said. ‘I like it. Yes, of course money was a consideration. She was very suitable as a wife. Except for one very important detail, which unfortunately we didn't know about at the time. She can't have children. So for that alone the marriage has been a disaster. It's not her fault, of course, and she broods over it. I've told her not to feel guilty. It's an act of God.'

‘It must be terrible for her. Knowing how much you want them. I'm sorry.'

‘You have a kind heart,' he said. ‘I think you really are sorry for someone you have only met once. I don't think she spoke a word to you beyond hello, did she? She's a very quiet woman. In old age she is the type who will turn to religion to compensate for her disappointments. At the moment she is too bitter even to go to Mass. I insist that she does so when we're at the Castle. It's expected.'

‘If you're so poor,' Katharine said, ‘I don't understand how you can keep the villa and a castle—maybe I'm being forthright again, but your life style looks like money to me.'

‘I didn't say I was poor now,' he replied. ‘I said we were becoming so after the war. Fortunately, with my wife's money I began a business. I've made a great success of it.'

‘What sort of business?'

‘Antiques. Furniture, china, sculpture, objects of art. I have a thriving export business and a number of shops in the capital cities. Paris, New York, West Berlin, Stockholm. That's the most recent: we opened there a year ago. It isn't easy to get the Swedes to appreciate the art of the South. They incline to the sombre. Their furniture is rather like their women. Beautiful lines but strictly functional. But now I'm going to take you home and leave you with your family papers. I have an appointment at three.'

She saw no one when they arrived at the villa. The same servant opened the door; he looked sleepy. There was a silence which made the closing of the front door sound like a gun-shot.

‘Siesta,' Alessandro said. ‘They're all sleeping. I think it's a stupid habit; I haven't time to waste. There is the library, everything has been left out for you on the table. I should be back by five. Mother has asked you to take tea with her again. Enjoy yourself.'

The library was cool; the shutters had been half-drawn to keep out the sun. She stood looking round for a moment and then went to the centre table. A small heap of letters tied with brown ribbon, an album of photographs, a large envelope with a broken seal on the back of it, full of documents. She pulled a chair to the table and sat down, unfastening the letters first. Her watch showed ten minutes to three. She wondered where the servant had gone; probably to his room to sleep. She pretended to read the letters, listening for any sounds of activity outside. She heard nothing. She went to the window and looked out. The library was at the back of the villa and it faced the elaborate gardens, so large and formal they would have done credit to a country mansion. Italian gardens had a style of their own; water was a prominent feature in all of them. Fountains, pools, rock gardens with a waterfall, and always the beautiful marble statuary, gleaming in dark green corners, clothed in ivy, or displayed in the centre of a brilliant flower bed or a sweep of lawn. She pulled the shutter half-closed. The gardens were deserted too. She made a careful examination of the room. The central point was the fireplace, where the most comfortable chairs were arranged. There was a fine marble table on an elaborately carved ebony base, supporting a huge, ugly baroque clock. She took the tiny bug out of her bag. It was fitted with a magnetic surface. The recording device which taped what the bug picked up was the size of a cigarette packet. To be effective, the bug should be at a minimum of five feet from the ground, otherwise the voice levels didn't carry clearly, without a complicated electrical system which had to be incorporated in the structure.

Frank Carpenter had given her a simple portable device, suitable for limited use in a room. It was actuated only by the human voice. In this way a single tape could record conversations without wastage on the running time. She ran her fingers under the marble table; they were black with dust. Nobody at the villa cleaned underneath the furniture. She fitted the little recording machine under the table-top, hidden at the back. Two suction pads held it in place. The bug was more difficult to conceal. She looked upward; a splendid landscape painting hung on one wall, but there was always the danger of the frame being dusted and the little bug dislodged. The wall on the other side of the fireplace was a bookcase, covered by the delicate gilded grill. She inspected the tenth row of books, standing on her toes. They were a complete set of ornithological works, and when she touched them with a finger, they were as dusty as the table base. Nobody was likely to move them or clean them at that height. She slipped the bug inside the grill and clamped it to the wall. Anyone talking in the library, provided that there was no excessive background noise, would be clearly recorded on the tiny machine hidden under the table. When she had finished, she lit a cigarette; it tasted stale and she threw it away. Smoking in Italy wasn't the pleasure it had been at home. Perhaps it was the change of atmosphere. The first step had been taken; she was surprised at how easy it had been. But then her cousin trusted her. He had left her alone in his house with freedom to go where she liked, to look at anything, however private. There was a desk near the fireplace and a telephone. She went to the desk and was surprised again when the flap opened. None of the drawers was locked. There was no reason for her to hesitate, or for the feeling of uneasiness that overcame her as she began to search the desk. This was what she had come to do; it was illogical to feel guilty about reading private papers, opening other people's drawers.

Inside, everything was fanatically neat; papers, clips, ink, an assortment of pens from ball-point to gold-nibbed Parkers; a leather address book. She hurried through that, looking for something without knowing what. It read like the Almanach de Gotha. Princes, counts, dukes, English aristocracy, half a dozen Blue Book American names which she recognized, and then, in a separate section, a list of addresses which she guessed must refer to his business. Paris, Rome, London, which he hadn't mentioned, Stockholm, Brussels, Beirut, and New York. 1143 Park Avenue, New York. E. Taylor, and the Manhattan telephone number. She stared at it, memorizing.

Never write anything down in case you leave anything behind, or your room is searched. Commit everything to memory. E. Taylor, 1143 Park Avenue. Plaza 998 2790. She knew it off by heart after only a minute spent looking at it. She turned back to the list of businesses. Beirut. She ought to memorize that. S. Massadi, Florence Antiques, St. George's Avenue, Beirut.

He could have been making as much money as he said out of exporting antiques all over the world. He could be the high-powered businessman who had rescued his family and rebuilt their fortune. Or he could be growing rich on a different kind of trade from bronzes and Renaissance art. She closed the desk; there was nothing in the drawers but more photograph albums, boxes of embossed writing paper, a carton of the Duke's special cigarettes, and an empty velvet box which had once contained Perugina chocolates and was now full of broken-glass pieces, drops and loops from a chandelier. She went back to the table and picked up the letters. It was now four o'clock. She would be asked about the letters, the family documents. She began to read through them, skipping large sections, memorizing small items. The admonishments of her great-grandmother to the lovesick Maria Gemma, refusing to receive her lover and threatening to disown and disinherit her. They were an unlovable family, consumed by pride, impatient of feeling. Merciless, even to their own children, unless their will was obeyed. The implacable mother was only an echo of the furious father, affronted at his daughter's temerity in loving a man inferior in social caste. It made Katharine wince for her grandmother when she read them. She at least had truly loved; it wasn't an emotion common to the Malaspigas. ‘The marriage has been a disaster.' So coolly and without sentiment he had dismissed the ruin of a human life, the cruelty of her barren state. Poor Francesca di Malaspiga. She must have been in love with him, dazzled by the marriage. Now, in his casual description, she was a silent woman, embittered against God. Katharine thought suddenly that there could only be one thing worse than hating her cousin, and that was to love him.

By five o'clock she had read hurriedly through everything, and was looking through the photograph album when the servant knocked on the door and announced that the old Duchess was expecting her in the saloon.

Both women, the old and the young, were waiting for her. The Duchess gave her a slight smile, and relinquished the seat next to her mother-in-law. ‘Please sit here, next to Mama.'

‘How pretty you look today,' the old lady said. She wore a hat of apple straw, and the ubiquitous pink rose, fastened with a diamond pin. She trailed a brown chiffon scarf in one hand. Her daughter-in-law looked stark and austere in black, relieved by hugh matched pearls round her neck and in her ears.

‘Sandro isn't here,' the Duchess said. ‘He left a message saying he wouldn't be home till this evening. He asked us to take care of you. He works so hard, poor Sandro. He's done so much for us all. Bernardo, pass the signorina some tea! And my John isn't here either—he always looks after me when Sandro isn't here.'

‘Where has he gone?' Katharine didn't want to know, but a silence was developing. The Duchess was drinking her tea; her daughter-in-law said nothing.

‘I don't know,' the old lady said. ‘He just goes off, and never tells me anything. Where has he gone?' She turned suddenly to Francesca di Malaspiga.

‘He's gone to the Belvedere, to see the exhibition. He told you this morning.' She stirred her tea, without looking at her mother-in-law.

‘He's so foolish, wasting his time on that modern rubbish,' the Duchess complained. She appeared mollified by the information. ‘There's been no great art since the Renaissance; he knows that. You must see some of his work.'

‘Alessandro said he was talented,' Katharine said. ‘But he didn't say how. Is he a painter?'

It was Francesca who answered. ‘He's a sculptor,' she said. ‘Sandro discovered him. I think he will be the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo.'

‘Oh come.' The old Duchess gave a little laugh. ‘You do exaggerate. He's good, but to compare him with …'

‘Excuse me.' Francesca di Malaspiga got up. She came over to Katharine. ‘I have something to do for my husband; I quite forgot. I hope you will come again.' She held out her hand and for a moment took Katharine's in a limp clasp. The black eyes were empty, cold as pit water. She went out of the room.

The old Duchess di Malaspiga sighed. ‘Oh dear,' she said gently. ‘I upset her by suggesting John wasn't as good as Michelangelo. Now she will be angry for the whole evening. There will be an atmosphere.' Katharine didn't know what to say. The exchange seemed so unreal and exaggerated that she stayed silent. She felt the old woman's great dark eyes watching her.

‘I'm very fond of John,' the Duchess said. ‘He's kind and he amuses me: he doesn't make me feel a nuisance and that's important when one is old. But I cannot pretend to admire him as much as my son and Francesca do. I can understand her in a way; she is extreme in her attitudes. Personally I find that people who overemphasize everything are bores. But she can't help it. He is pleasant to her and therefore she has to equate him with one of the greatest artists who ever lived. But I find Sandro's belief in him more difficult. He really thinks he will produce great work. Perhaps he's right.' She sighed again. ‘I shouldn't have contradicted her,' she said. ‘I should have been patient.'

‘It won't matter,' Katharine said. ‘She'll have forgotten it. I shouldn't worry about it.' Again there was silence.

‘I've had a fascinating time,' she said, ‘reading my great-grandmother's letters. It's been so kind of Alessandro to make everything available to me.'

‘I know it's given him pleasure,' the Duchess said. ‘His family means so much to him. All the Malaspigas are very proud. Being forced to leave the Castle helped to kill his father. It was very difficult for us after the war.'

Katharine looked down at her clasped hands. They were gripped very tight. ‘It's amazing how he's restored everything,' she said slowly. ‘He was telling me about it at lunch. And it's all been done so quickly.'

‘He's an extraordinary man,' the Duchess said. ‘Nothing deters him. He promised his father he would make up for all that we had lost. A number of my friends were ruined after the war.' She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Politics are always dangerous, but men love to play at them. I've never understood what fascinates them. Our friends supported the Fascists, just as my husband did. But most of them have remained ruined. We owe everything to my son.' She smiled at Katharine. ‘I hope I haven't bored you talking about family matters. It must seem very strange, coming from the United States.'