The Flight of the Falcon

  We moved closer, drawn by the terrible instinct that pervades all humanity when witness to disaster. The instinct to be there. The desire to know. Being first upon the scene we had the advantage over our equally curious neighbors, although Aldo and the guests from the hotel who had followed hard upon him partially screened the unfortunate professor from our view.

  Someone cut the thongs, the arms and legs sagged forward. The whole body drooped as though about to fall. The victim raised his head. He was not gagged. He could, had he so desired, have shouted for help before, and been freed the sooner. Why had he not done so? His eyes, without spectacles, searching the faces of those who in sympathy and consternation sought to screen him from the public gaze, gave me the answer. Professor Elia had not called for help because of shame. Shame at the lamentable, shocking and ridiculous figure he would cut before the inevitable strangers who must set eyes upon him first. As it happened, the man who stood before him, who looked down upon him with pity, even with anguish, and was the first to hand down the car rug that an eager helper thrust forward to envelop the naked frame, was his rival, the Deputy Rector of the university, Professor Rizzio, whose sister had been maltreated some forty-eight hours before.

  “Help him to the car,” called Aldo. “Screen him completely. And get all that rabble out of the way.”

  He and Professor Rizzio helped the victim to his feet. For a moment we caught a glimpse of him in all his drab disorder, his ugly white limbs contrasting with his coarse hair; then the merciful rug cloaked him, the protecting arms enveloped him. His friends led him to the shelter of the car, and the bewildered watchers fell back on either side. I left Carla Raspa staring after the rescue party. I went behind one of the newly-planted municipal trees and vomited. When I returned, my companion was standing by the car.

  “Come on,” she called impatiently. “We’ll go after them.”

  I looked across the piazza. The summoned car, pushing through the assembling crowd, had stopped once more before Professor Elia’s entrance.

  “We can’t go to his house,” I said, “we’ve no business there.”

  “Not after him,” she said, swiftly getting into the car, “after the gang. The thugs who did it. They can’t be far away. Hurry… hurry…”

  Once again, those who had cars shared her idea. The victim could safely be left to the ministrations of his friends and a hastily summoned doctor; but for the perpetrators of the outrage the hunt was on.

  Four roads led from the piazza del Duca Carlo, so the choice of route was varied. Those running left swung west and out of the city. To turn to the right would bring us downhill to the Porta Malebranche and the via delle Mura. Another street, running south from the gate, would take us uphill once more to the piazza della Vita and the city center. I chose the route to the right, and heard a second car behind me. We cruised downhill to the gate and then I let the other car pass. It shot east along the via delle Mura. Two students, straddling a vespa, followed it. I had no doubt that other pursuers had gone westward from the piazza del Duca Carlo, and all would eventually meet up on the southern hill beyond the students’ hostels.

  I halted the car on one of the ramparts in the via delle Mura overlooking the valley below, and turned to my companion. “It’s a useless chase,” I said. “Whoever did it has gone to ground. They had only to dive into the side streets and get lost, then saunter out into the piazza della Vita like anybody else.”

  “How would they have taken Elia from the house and to the statue if they hadn’t a car?” she asked.

  “Covered him with rugs and carried him,” I answered. “Everybody was so busy watching the guests arrive at the Hotel Panorama that the piazza del Duca Carlo at the top of the hill was deserted. The culprits knew this, and took a chance. Then they telephoned the hotel from Professor Elia’s house and scampered.” I reached for a packet of cigarettes and lighted one for her and for myself. “Anyway,” I said, “they’ll find them in the end. Donati will have to send for the police.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” said Carla Raspa.

  “Why not?”

  “He’ll have to get Professor Elia’s authority first,” she replied, “and he won’t want his nudity blazoned in the press and everywhere else any more than Rizzio wanted the world to know about the assault upon his sister. I’m willing to bet you a thousand lire that this second rag is hushed up like the first.”

  “Impossible! Too many people saw.”

  “A lot of people saw nothing at all. Only a group of men huddled round a figure covered with rugs. If the powers-that-be want to hush it up, they will. You realize that Friday is Festival day, when the students’ relatives and outsiders come to Ruffano? What a moment to announce a scandal!”

  I was silent. The incident had been well-timed. Short of expelling the students en masse, there was little the authorities could do.

  “It could be one of two things,” continued Carla Raspa. “Either a payback from the Arts and Education lads for the insult to the Rizzios, or a double-bluff from the boys in C and E to throw the blame on their opponents. I don’t know that it matters much either way. As a rag, it was superlative.”

  “You think so?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, “don’t you?”

  I was not sure which had distressed me most—the strained face of Professor Rizzio burying his pride and shaking hands with my brother at the Hotel Panorama, or the tortured, haunted eyes of Professor Elia when his nakedness had been revealed. Both were pathetic figures, shorn of luster.

  “No,” I answered. “I’m a stranger in Ruffano. Both incidents revolt me.”

  She opened the window of the car, laughing, and threw out her cigarette. She seized mine from my lips and threw it out as well. Then she turned and, taking my face in her hands, kissed my mouth.

  “The trouble with you is that you need firm handling,” she said.

  The sudden display of passion caught me off guard. The thrusting lips, the entwining legs, the fumbling hands, were unexpected. The approach that doubtless delighted Giuseppe Fossi repelled me. If this was her moment it wasn’t mine. I pushed her back against the handle of the door and slapped her face. She looked surprised.

  “Why so violent?” she asked, not in the least annoyed.

  “Lovemaking in a car offends my taste,” I told her.

  “Very well, then. Let’s go home,” she answered.

  I started up the car once more, and we drove along the via delle Mura and into the city, and so by a side street to the via San Michele. At any other time I might have been amused, even willing, to follow her lead. Not so tonight. Her advances sprang, not from our casual acquaintance and the lighthearted intimacy of an evening spent in each other’s company, but from another cause—the scene we had just witnessed. I drew the car up with a jerk in front of No. 5. She got out and went into the house, leaving the door open for me. But I did not follow. Instead I got out of the car and made my way uphill to the via dei Sogni.

  I wondered how long she would wait for me. Whether she would go to the window and look down at the parked car, and then, possibly unbelieving still, descend the stairs once more and peer in to see if I were still there. She might even cross the street to No. 24 and inquire of the Silvanis if by any chance Signor Fabbio had entered and gone to his room.

  Then I dismissed her from my mind. I walked past my old home, darkly shuttered, and arrived at my brother’s house. I rang the bell of the porter’s entrance on the left, and after a moment or two Jacopo emerged. He broke into a smile at the sight of me.

  “Could you let me in to wait for Aldo?” I asked. “He’s out, I know, but I want to see him when he returns.”

  “Of course, Signor Beo,” he said, and then, possibly guessing something from my heated appearance, for I had walked fast, he added, “Is anything wrong?”

  “There was a disturbance,” I said, “up in the piazza del Duca Carlo. It broke up the party at the hotel. Aldo’s dealing with it.”

  He looked concerned
, and leading the way across the passage opened Aldo’s door. He switched on the lights. “The students, I suppose,” he said. “They are always excited this week, with the Festival. And then the break-in on the Sunday night. Was it something similar?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Aldo will explain.”

  He opened the door to the living room and asked if I would like something to drink. I told him no. I could pour myself a drink if I needed one. He waited a moment, uncertain whether I was going to gossip with him or not, then, with the tact induced through long years with my brother, decided that I wished to be alone. He withdrew, and I heard him close the front door and return to his own domain.

  I prowled about the room. Looked out of the window. Stared at the portrait of my father. Flung myself in a chair. The peace and the familiarity of home possessions were all about me, but I felt uneasy, sick. I got up again, and crossing to a table picked up the German volume of the Lives of the Dukes of Ruffano. It opened at the marked page, and I ran my eyes over it until I came upon the passage I remembered.

  “… When accusations were made against him by the outraged citizens of Ruffano, Duke Claudio retaliated by declaring that he had been divinely appointed to mete out to his subjects the punishment they deserved. The proud would be stripped, the haughty violated, the slanderer silenced, the viper die in his venom. The scales of heavenly justice would thus be balanced.”

  I closed the book and sat down again in another chair. Two faces were before me. That of Signorina Rizzio, haughty, unbending, hardly deigning to speak to me over her mineral water; and that of Professor Elia, lunching with his friends in the small restaurant off the via San Cipriano, guffawing at the rumor of assault, delighted, self-opinionated, proud. I had not seen Signorina Rizzio since Sunday morning. Whether she was with friends in Cortina or elsewhere hardly mattered. She had carried her shame with her. Professor Elia I had seen less than an hour ago. His shame was with him still.

  The telephone started ringing. I stared at it, doing nothing. The persistent sound continued, and I got up and lifted the receiver. The operator said, “Will you take a call from Rome?” I answered, “Yes,” mechanically. After a moment I heard a woman say, “Aldo, is it you?”

  It was Signora Butali. I recognized her voice. I was about to tell her that my brother was out but she went on speaking, taking my silence for assent, or perhaps indifference. She sounded desperate.

  “I’ve been trying to get you all the evening,” she said. “Gaspare is adamant. He insists on coming home. Ever since Professor Rizzio telephoned him yesterday and told him what happened, he hasn’t rested. The doctors say it would be better for him to return than to lie there, in hospital, working himself into a fever. Dearest… for God’s sake, tell me what to do. Aldo, are you there?”

  I put down the receiver. In about five minutes it rang again. I did not answer. I just went on sitting in Aldo’s chair.

  It was after midnight when I heard the key turn in the lock and the front door slam. Jacopo may have heard the car arrive and gone to warn my brother that I was waiting for him, and then withdrawn to his own quarters, for there was no sound of voices. Soon Aldo came into the room. He looked at me, saying nothing, then went across to the tray of glasses and poured himself a drink.

  “Were you up at the piazza del Duca Carlo too?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “How much did you see?”

  “The same as you. Professor Elia naked.”

  He carried his glass to a chair and sprawled across it, one leg over the arm. “He wasn’t even bruised,” he said. “I called a doctor to examine him. Luckily the night was mild. He won’t have caught pneumonia. Besides, he’s as strong as an ox.”

  I did not comment. Aldo drank, then set down his glass and sprang to his feet. “I’m hungry,” he said. “I haven’t had any dinner. I wonder if Jacopo has left sandwiches. Be back in a minute.”

  He was gone about five minutes, and returned with a tray of prosciutto, salad and fruit, which he placed on the table beside the chair.

  “I don’t know what they did at the Panorama,” he said, attacking the food. “I telephoned the manager to say that Professor Elia was unwell, that Professor Rizzio and I were staying with him, and would the others carry on without us? No doubt they did, or some of them. Most of the professors don’t get a chance to eat up there on their salary, nor their wives. What in the world were you doing?”

  “Watching the guests arrive,” I said.

  “Not your idea, I imagine?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, well, she got her bellyful—that ought to keep her quiet for a couple of nights. Did she molest you?”

  I ignored the question. He smiled, and continued eating.

  “My little Beo,” he said, “your homecoming hasn’t been that easy. Who would think Ruffano could turn out to be so lively? You’d have a smoother passage in one of your touring coaches. Here, keep me company.” He picked up an orange from his tray and threw it at me.

  “I was at the theater yesterday,” I said, slowly peeling the orange. “You are quite a performer upon the drums.”

  He had not expected this. I could tell by the hardly imperceptible pause between his cutting a slice of ham and forking it to his mouth.

  “You get around,” he said. “Who took you there?”

  “The C and E students from my lodgings,” I answered, “who, like the mass of your audience, appeared as impressed by all you said as the elite on Saturday night at the ducal palace.”

  He waited a moment before answering. Then, pushing aside his plate and reaching for his salad, he observed, “The young are pliable.”

  I finished peeling the orange and offered him half. We ate in silence. I saw his eye fall upon the volume of the Lives of the Dukes of Ruffano lying on the further table where I had placed it. Then he looked at me. “ ‘The proud would be stripped, the haughty violated,’ ” I quoted. “What exactly are you trying to do? Mete out heavenly justice like Duke Claudio?”

  Appetite satisfied, he got up, removed the tray to a table in the corner, poured himself half a glass of wine, and stood with it beneath our father’s portrait.

  “My immediate job is to train actors,” he said. “If they choose to identify themselves with the parts allotted to them, so much the better. We shall get an even finer performance on the day of the Festival.”

  The smile, disarming to the world, did not deceive me. I knew it of old. Too often in days gone by he had employed it to get his way.

  “There have been two incidents,” I said, “both highly organized. Don’t tell me a bunch of students could, or did, plan either of them.”

  “You underestimate this generation,” he replied. “They have great powers of organization, if they care to develop them. Besides, they are hungry for ideas. Give them a suggestion, and they’re away.”

  He neither admitted nor denied association with what had happened on Sunday evening and tonight. I had no doubt that he had instigated both events.

  “It doesn’t disturb you,” I asked, “to humiliate two people—three, counting Professor Rizzio—to such an extent that they are bound to lose authority forever?”

  “Authority is bogus,” he said, “unless it comes from within. Then it is inspiration and comes from God.”

  I stared. Aldo had never been religious. Our boyhood attendance at Mass on Sundays and feast days had been a routine affair, commanded by our parents, though frequently employed by my brother as a means to frighten me; the altarpiece in San Cipriano being an example of his powers to distort imagination to breaking point.

  “Keep that for your students,” I said. “It’s the sort of thing the Falcon told his elite.”

  “And they believed him,” he answered.

  The smile, the tongue-in-cheek, were suddenly absent. The eyes, blazing in the pale face, were disturbing. I moved in my chair restlessly, and reached for a cigarette. When I glanced at him again the tension was over. He was finishing his glass of wi
ne.

  “You know the one thing that nobody in our country can endure?” he asked lightly, holding his glass against the light. “Not only our country but throughout the world, and right through history? Loss of face. We create an image of ourselves, and someone destroys the image. We are made to look ridiculous. You talked just now about humiliation, which is the same thing. The man, or the nation, who loses face either never recovers and so disintegrates, or learns humility, which is a very different thing from humiliation. Time will show how the Rizzios develop, and Elia, with the rest of the fry that make up this miniature Ruffano world.”

  I thought of someone who must have been losing face for the past three hours, and that was my companion of the evening, Carla Raspa. Perhaps she was too thick-skinned to admit it. Failure to come up to scratch would be blamed on me, not her. I did not care. She was welcome to whatever inference she chose to put upon my lack of gallantry.

  “By the way,” I said, “you had a telephone call from Rome at about ten-thirty.”

  “Oh?” said Aldo.

  “Signora Butali, and she sounded anxious. The Rector insists on coming home, in connection, so I gathered, with Sunday night’s incident.”

  “When?” asked Aldo.

  “She didn’t say. To tell you the truth, I hung up when she was still talking. She thought I was you, and I left it at that.”

  “Which was stupid of you,” said Aldo. “I thought you had more intelligence.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The information had disturbed him. I saw him eye the telephone. I took the hint and rose.