“Not this year,” he said. “There aren’t enough of them.”
She took a final sip of her liqueur, nectar to the queen before the flight, and sat down on the piano stool. “What shall I play for you?” she asked. The question was for me, the smile for me. The intonation in the voice, the whole poise of her person, hands ready above the keys, were for my brother.
“The ‘Arabesque,’ ” I said. “It’s sexless.”
It had been the day before, with me, a stranger, an alien in my own home, ghosts around me. Then the rise and fall, the ripple of descent, had spelled nostalgia, the shrugging reminder of the fleeting moment. Now it was night, and Aldo was in the house. The pianist, who yesterday had played from courtesy, now sought to woo my brother in the way instinctive to her. The “Arabesque,” played throughout the country by a thousand pupils, became a dance of love, suggestive, shameless. I wondered that she should give herself away in this fashion, and sitting upright in my chair stared at the ceiling. From where she sat behind the raised lid of the piano she could not see the man she hoped to charm. I could. He had found a pencil and was adding to my translated notes, oblivious of the music. Debussy, Ravel, Chopin failed to rouse him. Music had never been one of Aldo’s obsessions. If his hostess played, to him it was background sound, hardly more personal than traffic.
I could hardly bear it that her efforts should be so wasted, and lighting a cigarette began to weave a fantasy that I was in his shoes, and when the playing ceased I would get up from my chair, and cross the room, and put my hands over her eyes and she reach up to me. The fantasy intensified as the tempo of the music quickened. It became unendurable that I should sit there, dumbly, and endure her message, which, alas, was not for me. That Aldo, though indifferent to the music, was aware of its message I never for a moment doubted, and I wished him joy and her fulfillment; but to share their intimacy thus was at best doubtful pleasure.
Perhaps she sensed my discomfort, for suddenly she slammed the lid and rose. “Well,” she asked, “is the insurrection over and done with? Can we all now relax?”
The irony, if intended as such, was as much wasted upon my brother as her music. He glanced at her, observed that she had ceased playing and was addressing him, and laid aside his notes.
“What’s the time? Is it late?” he questioned.
“Ten o’clock,” she answered.
“I thought we had only just finished dinner,” he said.
He yawned, stretched, and put his notes into his pocket.
“I hope,” she said, “that you’ve completed your opening scene, if indeed that is what you have been working on all evening.”
She offered me more liqueur. I shook my head, and murmured something about getting back to the via San Michele. Aldo smiled, whether at my discretion, or Signora Butali’s lightly-spoken gibe, I could not tell.
“My opening scene,” he said, “which in fact was devised weeks ago, takes place offstage, or should do, if we wish to be discreet.”
“The thunder of horses’ hooves?” I asked. “The Jehu act?”
“No, no,” he frowned, “that won’t be until the end. We must have the excitement first.”
“Meaning just what?” inquired our hostess.
“The seduction of the lady,” he replied, “what my German translator calls ‘the profanation of the leading citizen’s wife.’ ”
Silence was prolonged. Aldo’s quotation from my hastily scribbled notes was embarrassingly ill-timed. I leapt to my feet, my courier’s smile too evident, and told Signora Butali that I had to be at the library next morning at nine. It was, so I thought, the only way to break the pause that threatened to turn oppressive, but after I had spoken I realized that my sudden departure was in itself a reflection on what had just been said.
“Don’t let Signor Fossi work you, or himself, too hard,” said my hostess, offering me her hand. “And come again whenever you feel like music. I don’t need reminding, you know, that this house used to be your home. I’d like you to feel about it in the same way as your brother.”
I thanked her for her graciousness, assuring her that if there were any books she wanted from the library at any time, either for herself or for her husband, she had only to reach for the telephone.
“It’s very good of you,” she said. “Later in the week I shall be in Rome. I’ll let you know.”
“I’ll see you down,” said Aldo.
See me down. Not leave, as I was doing. As we walked downstairs, with the door into the music room still open, I chatted gaily and inanely about the many times he had chased me to the floor above. I did not want Signora Butali to think… exactly what she must be thinking. That, I the little brother, had my cue. The party was over.
Aldo came with me across the garden and opened the gate. The lamp above cast shadows down the street. The stars were brilliant.
“How beautiful she is,” I said, “so sympathetic in every way, so restrained and calm. I don’t wonder that you…”
“Look,” he said, touching my arm, “here they come. See their lights?”
He pointed across the valley far below, where the main roads, entering Ruffano from east and north, were dotted with moving lights. The spluttering burst of vespas filled the air.
“What are they?” I asked.
“The C and E students returning from their weekend break,” he said. “In a moment you’ll hear them roaring up the via delle Mura like a herd of runts. They’ll keep it up for another hour at least.”
The city’s peace was shattered. The Sunday quiet that in old days closed in upon Ruffano like a pall was interrupted.
“You have authority here,” I said. “You could put a stop to it if it worries you so much.”
Aldo smiled, and patted me on the shoulder. “It doesn’t worry me,” he said. “They can fart away all night for all I care. You’re going straight back, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Don’t hang about,” he said. “Go there direct. Be seeing you, Beo, and thank you for today.”
He went back into the garden and closed the gate. A moment later I heard him shut the door of the house. I walked off down the hill to my pensione, wondering what sort of reception he would get when he had climbed the stairs to the music room once more. I wondered also if the girl who had brought in the dinner slept on the premises.
As I descended the hill the returning students were already converging upon the piazza della Vita. Small cars as well as vespas hummed and throbbed. Two coaches choked to a standstill by the colonnade. I caught a glimpse of my young friends the Pasquales laughing and chattering with a score of others. Tomorrow, possibly, but not tonight. Tonight I wanted to digest the day. I walked fast, so as not to be overtaken, and slipping through the open doorway of No. 24 ran upstairs and entered my own room. As I undressed I kept seeing Aldo standing in our mother’s old bedroom with Signora Butali. I wondered, if being so used to the change in the room by now, the piano, the other furnishings, he no longer saw it as we had known it once, and as I saw it still.
The students were laughing and singing in the street outside, and at the far end, near the city center, the gasp and splutter of the homing vespas warned the native Ruffanesi that the philistines had returned.
12
When I went down for breakfast the next morning I was given a rousing reception by the students. They were standing round the table drinking coffee and exchanging gossip about the preceding day. At sight of me there was a general uproar and Mario, whom I remembered from that first evening as being the most obstreperous, waved his roll of bread in the air and demanded how the Arts graduate had spent the weekend break.
“First,” I said, “we librarians don’t get a half-day on Saturday. I was kept sorting books until after seven.”
A groan, half-ironic, half-sympathetic, greeted my remark. “Slaves, all slaves,” said Gino, “tied to an outworn system. It’s typical of the way they run things up the hill. Now our chief, Elia, has some sense. He k
nows we put all we’ve got into a five-day week, and sets us free for forty-eight hours to do what we please. Most of us go home. He does the same. He has a villa on the coast and shakes the dead dust of Ruffano off his feet.”
Signora Silvani, attending to the coffeepot, handed me a cup with a morning smile. “Did you get to Mass?” she asked. “When you didn’t come back for lunch my husband and I wondered what had happened to you.”
“I met a friend,” I said, “and was invited home to lunch and to spend the day.”
“That reminds me,” she added, “a lady called during the late afternoon. A Signorina Raspa. She said, if you returned, to look her up at Number 5.”
Poor Carla Raspa! Having failed twice with Aldo she had turned in exasperation back to me.
“Did someone mention Mass?” asked Gino. “Did I hear aright, or were my ears deceiving me?”
“I went to Mass,” I said. “The bells of San Cipriano summoned me, and I obeyed.”
“It’s all superstition, you know,” said Gino. “The priests get fat on it, but no one else.”
“In old days,” said Caterina Pasquale, coming to join the group, “there was nothing else to do but go to Mass. It was the morning’s entertainment. You met your friends. Now there is so much more. Guess what we did, Paolo and I?” She smiled at me with her enormous eyes, biting a chunk of her roll as she did so.
“You tell me,” I said, smiling back.
“Borrowed our brother’s car and drove to Venice,” she said. “We went like stink and made it in four and a quarter hours. That’s living, isn’t it?”
“It could be dying too,” I answered.
“Ah well, that’s half the fun, taking the risk,” she said.
Mario mimicked the action of Caterina at the wheel, banking, swerving, roaring the engine before a sudden crash. “You should do as I do,” he said to me. “Run a vespa with a hotted-up engine.”
“Yes,” retorted Signora Silvani, “and wake us all with your noise. No one can sleep any longer on a Sunday night.”
“Did you hear us?” laughed the student. “A whole crowd of us were coming back from Fano. Zup… zup… zup… We hoped we’d enliven you all with our orchestration. Frankly, it’s what you Ruffanesi need, a touch of exhaust music to melt the wax in your ears.”
“You should have seen us,” said Gerardo, “circling the city, up and round the via delle Mura, flashing our lights at the women’s hostel to make them open their shutters.”
“And did they?” asked Caterina.
“Not they. They were all tied down to their mattresses by nine o’clock.”
Laughing, arguing, they scrambled off, but not before young Caterina, looking back over her shoulder, called, “See you this evening. The three of us might make a date.”
Signora Silvani smiled after them, shaking an indulgent head. “What children!” she said. “No more sense of responsibility than babes in arms. And brilliant, every one of them. You’ll see, in a year they’ll all take Honors degrees, and then end up in some out-of-the-way provincial bank.”
I left the house en route for the ducal palace, and saw that somebody was waiting for me higher up the street in the entrance of No. 5.
“Good morning, stranger,” said Carla Raspa.
“Good morning, signorina,” I replied.
“I thought,” she said, turning with me towards the piazza della Vita, “that we had discussed the possibility of a Sunday date?”
“We did,” I said. “What became of it?”
“I was in all day,” she shrugged. “You had only to come for me.”
“I was out,” I said. “An impulse drove me to Mass at San Cipriano, where I bumped into no less a person than the Rector’s lady, to whom I had taken some books the day before. I walked home with her and she invited me in for a drink.”
Carla Raspa stopped and stared. “Which of course you accepted,” she exclaimed, “and I don’t blame you for it. One gracious nod from Livia Butali and you’re there. No wonder you didn’t bother to call on me after being given the entrée to her house. Who was there?”
“A flurry of professors,” I said, “and among them my superior, Signor Fossi, with his wife.”
I emphasized the wife. She laughed, and resumed walking.
“Poor Giuseppe,” she said. “I can imagine him on his dignity, puffed up like a pigeon because of the invitation. What did you think of our Livia?”
“I found her beautiful. And charming. Very much more so than Signorina Rizzio.”
“Heavens above! Was she there too?”
“Yes, with her brother. Both a little formal for my taste.”
“Too formal for us all! You’ve done well for a newcomer, Armino Fabbio. There’ll be no stopping you now. Congratulations. I haven’t achieved as much in a couple of years.”
We turned up the via Rossini. The pavement was crowded with morning shoppers and belated students hurrying to early lectures.
“I suppose,” she said, “the Director of the Arts Council wasn’t there by any chance?”
I had cut a good enough figure in her eyes without adding to my stature. Besides, it was better to be discreet. “He looked in for a moment, yes,” I said. “I left before he did. I had a word with him while he drank Campari. He seemed amicable, and less imposing without his bodyguard.”
Once again she paused and stared. “Incredible!” she exclaimed. “Only three days in Ruffano, and you have this sort of luck. You must be charmed. Did he mention me?”
“No,” I said, “there was hardly time. I don’t think he realized who I was.”
“What an opportunity missed,” she said. “If only I had known. You could have given him a message.”
“Don’t forget,” I reminded her, “the whole morning was a fluke. If I hadn’t gone to Mass…”
“It’s your baby face,” she said. “Don’t tell me that if I had gone to Mass and met Livia Butali she’d have bothered to invite me to an aperitivo. I suppose she likes to act the hostess among the university staff with her husband safe in hospital in Rome. Was Aldo Donati paying court to her?”
“Not that I noticed,” I answered. “She seemed to have more to say to Professor Rizzio.”
We parted, I to enter the ducal palace, she to continue up the hill to the university. A future date between us had not been mentioned. I felt, however, that it would come.
My easy Sunday had made me slow on schedule. When I arrived at the library I found that the others had arrived before me, including my boss, Giuseppe Fossi. They were standing in a group, talking excitedly. For some reason Signorina Catti was the center of attention.
“There’s no doubt about it,” she was saying. “I had it from one of the students themselves, Maria Cavallini—she was locked in her room with four companions. It wasn’t until the janitor came this morning to attend to the central heating that they, or any of the others, were released.”
“It’s outrageous, fantastic. There’ll be a colossal row,” said Giuseppe Fossi. “Have they informed the police?”
“No one could tell me that. I couldn’t stay talking, I should have been late here.”
Toni, his eyes on sticks, rushed across the room at sight of me. “You haven’t heard the news?” he asked.
“No,” I replied. “What news?”
“The women’s hostel broken into last night,” he said, “and the students locked in their rooms. No one knows what happened or who it was. The men were masked. How many of them, signorina?” He turned in excitement to the pallid secretary, who found herself so unexpectedly the bearer of strange tidings.
“A dozen or more, they say,” she answered. “How they broke in nobody knows. It happened suddenly, just as all the C and E students were returning home. You know the appalling noise they create with their machines? They served as cover, of course, to let their fellows in. Well, you may call it a rag. I call it an outrage.”
“Come now,” said Giuseppe Fossi, his eyes still bulging with excitement, “as far
as we know none of the girls was hurt. To be locked in their rooms is no great hardship—I’m told it happens all the time. But if the place was burgled… well, that’s another matter. They’ll have to call in the police. In any event, Professor Elia will have to answer for it. Now, shall we get to work?”
He bustled towards the desk, with a nod to his secretary. She followed with notebook and pencil, her chin held high.
“Why blame Professor Elia?” murmured Toni. “It’s not his fault if his C and E students enjoy a rag. I shall get the truth from my girlfriend later today. She’ll know what really happened from her chums.”
We settled to the morning’s labors with lack of concentration. Whenever the telephone rang we lifted our heads and listened, but Signor Fossi’s “Yes” and “No” revealed no secrets. Invasion of the women’s hostel was not the library’s business.
Halfway through the morning he sent Toni and me up to the new library with several crates of books. We took them in the small van which was used for the purpose. It was my first visit to the new library beyond the university, standing at the summit of the hill, close to the other recent buildings, the commercial schools and the physics lab. They had not the grace of the old House of Studies, but their lines were not unpleasing, and the big windows gave light and air to the students who would work within their walls.
“All thanks to Professor Butali,” said Toni, “and the younger members of the university Council. Old Rizzio fought it tooth and nail.”
“Why so?” I asked.
“Degrading the scholastic atmosphere,” grinned Toni, “turning his scholars into factory hands. According to him the University of Ruffano was intended as a teaching university, pure and simple, where serious-minded young men and women would go out into the world after graduation to impart their classical learning to the boys and girls at school.”
“They can do so still.”
“They can, but what a grind! Why, a fellow with an economics degree can get a job in a big firm overnight, and make in three months what a teacher earns in a year. No future there!”