“What boat?” Ray asked.
“It doesn’t matter. I know one. A friend.” Luigi smiled at Paolo. “We Venetians have to help each other, eh, Paolo? You want to come, too?”
“I am too fat. I walk too slowly,” Paolo said.
“You have a picture of Col-e-man? No,” Luigi said to Ray, registering disappointment in advance.
“I can get one. It was in the newspaper two days ago. I can also describe him to you. He is fifty two, a little taller than you, and heavier, almost without hair…”
20
Coleman, on Friday, 26 November, awakened unrefreshed in his scoop-shaped bed. The bed was even worse than that at Mario’s and Filomena’s, and the mattress seemed to be stuffed with straw which had long ago become hard-packed and now had no resilience whatsoever. His underlip was thrust out from the swelling of the cut inside his mouth, and Coleman hoped he wouldn’t have to have it lanced. He pulled his lip down and looked at it in the mirror. A bright red slit it was, but without any sign of infection.
It was nine-twenty. Coleman supposed the family had been up for hours. He decided to dress and go out for a paper and a cappuccino. He was on his way to the door, when he encountered Signora Di Rienzo coming towards him with a breakfast tray on which he saw besides coffee and milk some cut pieces of bread, but no jam or butter. Of course, he had to stay and eat it, at a round dining-table with a lace square thrown over it. That was an example of the general awkwardness he found at every turn in the Di Rienzo house. His room was cold, and no one offered him any means of heating it, because it was assumed, Coleman supposed, that people were in bedrooms only to sleep, and then they were covered up. The living-room was also frigid, though a portable electric fire—which Coleman was too shy to turn on himself-was standing in it. Last evening when he wanted to use the bathroom (the toilet was there) someone had been in it, bathing. There was a fat maid who looked sixteen, and Coleman thought the Di Rienzos must be getting her free or employing her out of kindness, because she was mentally retarded. When Coleman said anything to her, she only giggled.
There was nothing in the morning papers that day about himself or Ray. He wondered what Ray was doing now, and where he was. The newspapers had not said where he was staying. Coleman wondered if the police would let Ray leave Venice, if he wanted to, or would detain him on suspicion of murder or manslaughter? Once more, Coleman wished that he had a chum who would write to the police about seeing a man rolled into a canal on Tuesday night. Then it occurred to Coleman that Ray could be looking in person for him. And if Inez had mentioned to the police that he’d been to Chioggia once fishing, the police might well come here. Or Ray might.
Coleman, on the street as these thoughts came to him, looked around quickly in the small square in which he stood, and frowned with uneasiness. The fact that there hadn’t been the smallest thing in the paper, such as that the police were still looking for him, made Coleman feel they were going to look in Chioggia, and intended to surprise him. How much had Ray talked, Coleman wondered. Coleman had not before considered that Ray might have told them about being pushed into the lagoon, or about the gun in Rome, but maybe Ray had.
Mestre, Coleman thought, Mestre on the mainland. That was the place to go to. Coleman started to go into a barbershop for a shave, but thought he had better save every lira, and that he could find Signor Di Rienzo’s shaving gear in the bathroom and make use of it. Coleman returned to the house numbered 45, which he had taken note of on leaving it, and pressed the Di Rienzo bell. He decided it would be wise to stay in all day today. Perhaps the Di Rienzos had some books.
Coleman managed his shave, and was lying on his bed reading—he had plucked up courage and asked Signora Di Rienzo if he could have an electric stove in his room, if he paid her a little extra—when at 11.30 a.m., the house began to fill with noisy children, at least ten, Coleman thought, and he opened the door slightly and looked out. Signora Di Rienzo was bringing trays of pastries to the dining-room table, and three children were squealing and chasing one another around her. The doorbell rang, long and loud, and Coleman felt sure more were arriving.
Somewhat angrily, he quit his room and walked towards the bathroom, knowing he would encounter Signora Di Rienzo or the fat maid, answering the door. He met the fat maid and asked:
“What is happening? A party for the children?”
The fat girl covered her pimply chin and mouth with one stupid hand and exploded, bent over, in giggles.
Coleman looked around for Signora Di Rienzo, and saw her emerging from the kitchen, this time carrying a large white cake with turquoise icing. “Buon giorna,” Coleman said pleasantly for the second time that day. “A birthday party?”
“Si!” she acknowledged brightly and emphatically. “The little son of my daughter is three today.” She spoke very clearly for Coleman’s benefit. “We have a party today for twenty-two children. They are not all here yet,” she added, as if she thought Coleman could hardly wait for their arrival.
Coleman nodded. “Very good. Benone,” he said, and resolved to get out of the house as soon as possible. Not that he disliked children, but the din! He refrained from asking the signora how long they were staying. “I shall be going out for lunch,” he said, and Signora Di Rienzo, who had turned from him to go back to the kitchen, acknowledged this with a preoccupied nod.
Coleman went out, sat in a bar-caffé drinking an Espresso and a glass of white wine, and tried to think how he could get his hands on some money. He was wondering also if he dared write a letter himself to the police? He thought he should try. Write it now, post it from Chioggia, then go to Mestre. Coleman got a piece of paper from the barman, cheap paper with tiny blue squares, just the thing. He could buy an envelope at a tobacconist’s. He had his ball-point pen. He sat at his table and printed in Italian:
26 November 19—
Sirs,
The night of Tuesday 23 November near the Ponte di Rialto I saw two men fighting. One man was on the ground. The other rolled him into a canal. I am sorry I was afraid to say anything before.
Respectfully,
Citizen of Venice
It had the right primitivity, Coleman thought, and one or two bits of bad spelling or grammar, he had no doubt.
Coleman got up. He glanced back at the table to see if he had left anything, and noticed that in the light in which the table stood, what he had written was visible on its red Formica surface. But as he stared, a boy removed Coleman’s cup and glass, and wiped the table clean with one stroke of a wet cloth.
He didn’t post the letter. He bought an envelope, then lost the heart to address it. He tore the letter up. It should come from Venice, first of all. His mistakes in the letter were American mistakes and not Italian, he feared. Best not to risk it.
Coleman did not want to go to the restaurant where the young Di Rienzo worked, as he did not want to get into conversation with him. Coleman supposed he had slept late this morning, as he hadn’t seen him in the house, and that he was probably on duty now. Coleman realized he hadn’t a single possession at the Di Rienzos’ and could just as well not go back, except that he had not paid them the five hundred lire for the night. Well, he might drop that into their mailbox. He needn’t see any of them again. That was a nice feeling. Then he felt a pang as he thought of his drawing pads, his sketches, his box of good pastels, his paints and brushes carefully selected in Rome for Venice, in the box at the Gritti Palace. But surely Inez would take care of them, wouldn’t abandon them, if she left. He realized he didn’t care if Inez left for France, even really if he never saw her again, but those five or six drawings—they were good drawings, and he could do at least three canvases from them. He longed to ring Inez, to see what she intended to do, to tell her to guard his drawings, but could he trust her not to tell the police he had telephoned, if he asked her not to? Coleman wasn’t sure of this. Above all, Inez wouldn’t do such a good job of pretending he had really vanished, if she knew he were alive. He tried to imagine Inez beli
eving he was dead. Would she eat the same breakfast at the Gritti, remove her stockings in the same way, standing on one foot and peeling them off inside out? Would her mouth turn a little more down at the corners, and would her eyes be puzzled, or sad? And his friends in Rome, Dick Purcell, Neddy, and Clifford at the F.A.O., would they frown for a minute, shake their heads, wonder what gesture of respect or humanity to pay, and find none, not knowing any of his family? Coleman looked up at the sky, a lovely blue-grey more blue than grey, and tried to imagine not seeing it, and, failing to do this, tried to imagine not seeing it after this instant. My life is finished. Fifty-two years. Not a bad length of time, since many wonderful people like Mozart and Modigliani had less. Coleman tried to imagine his loss of consciousness, not as anything taken away from the world or from space, but as a stopping of identity, and a most dreadful stopping of work and action. For one freezing instant, Coleman imagined his own flesh as dead flesh walking about, a subject for burial, apt soon to putrefy. That was closer to the truth, or what he wished to know, but the experience vanished as soon as he realized he was having it. He was, just now, devoid of ties of any kind. That was the mechanical though not the philosophical essence. A bump from someone behind him, a hurrying adolescent who murmured a ‘scuzi,’ made Coleman aware that he had been standing still on the street. He walked on.
He made inquiries about the boat and train to Mestre, then had a lunch of misto mare in a trattoria. On a scrap of paper napkin, he printed ‘Grazie tanto,’ and wrapped this around a five-hundred-lire note. This he deposited at 2.30 p.m. in the Di Rienzos’ well-polished brass letter-box. He was walking towards the fondamento to take a boat to the mainland, when he caught sight of Ray Garrett with a shorter Italian. They were walking towards Coleman, but were some distance away, and if it bad not been for Ray’s bandage, Coleman thought, he wouldn’t have spotted him. Coleman drifted at once into a narrow street on his right.
But Coleman was not hurrying. Anger began to stir in him as he took five slow steps into the little street, and turned. His coat-tail brushed an orange off a shopkeeper’s pavement display, and Coleman stooped and put it back. He saw Ray and the other man passing the opening of the street now, and Coleman followed. At least, he told himself, he could see when and if they left Chioggia today, or tonight. If they left today, they probably would not be back, Coleman thought, therefore Chioggia would be a safe place for a few more days.
But rational thoughts like these wilted before Coleman’s rising anger and hatred. It was curious, Coleman thought, because since he had been in Chioggia he had felt no hatred against Ray, as if their fight had spent a certain passion. But the sight of Ray brought it all back. Coleman had even been aware of a vague reconciliation, which he never intended to admit to Ray or anyone, with Ray in the last two days. Now that equilibrium, of sorts, was gone, and Coleman knew he was going to boil over, that he would become as enraged as he had ever been, if he continued to look at Ray Garrett. Coleman felt the folded scarf in his pocket, fingers trembling nervously, clutching the silk convulsively, releasing it again. He wished he had the gun now, the gun he had thrown away in Rome that night, thinking that he had hit Ray. Coleman cursed his bad luck that night. He followed Ray and the other man slowly, because they were not walking very fast, and it was difficult for Coleman, because he had a desire to go closer and closer to Ray.
Ray and the other man parted at a street intersection, Ray making a circular gesture as he spoke to the Italian. Coleman watched only Ray. Ray was looking around in all directions, but Coleman was quite a distance away, and there were ten or twelve people between them in the small street. Ray turned left, and Coleman followed him, trotting a few steps at first, because Ray had vanished from sight. It occurred to Coleman that he, Coleman, might disappear utterly, permanently, not even collect his paintings in Rome—just hide himself for ever and make Ray live under the shadow of suspicion for all time—but Coleman realized that he not only couldn’t bear to abandon his paintings, but he’d want to go on painting wherever and whoever he was; and what did the world do about people it suspected of murder, anyway? Nothing much, it seemed. To kill Ray was the only possible thing to do, his only real satisfaction. The instant he thought this, he caught sight of a length of grey pipe lying in the corner between the street and a house-front, and picked it up. It was about two feet long. Ahead of him now, Ray’s head bobbed as he walked.
People glanced at Coleman, and edged a little away. Coleman carried the pipe pointing downwards, and tried to appear more relaxed. But my God, he swore in an agony of repression now, he’d swing this pipe in broad daylight for all and sundry to look at, and in just a few minutes’ time.
Ray turned to the right.
Coleman approached the little street on the right very cautiously, thinking Ray might turn round and come out again, but Coleman saw that he was going on. Coleman felt a bitter but bold realization that his own life might end very shortly after Ray’s, if the crowd set on him, but this fact wasn’t daunting at all, and actually rather inspired him. His right hand took a harder grip on the pipe, thumb locked over fingers.
Ray turned right again, and when Coleman had made this turn he saw to his annoyance that Ray and his Italian friend had met up. Well, what the hell, Coleman thought, advancing slowly. Ray and the Italian were standing still now.
“Tonio! Don’t forget the bread!” a woman’s voice shrieked very near Coleman, from a first-floor window, but Coleman did not glance in that direction.
A woman stepped wildly out of Coleman’s path.
“Hey, what are you doing?” asked a man’s voice in Italian.
Coleman kept his eyes on the back of Ray’s head.
Then Ray turned round, and immediately saw Coleman. They were only six feet apart.
Coleman lifted the bar. People ducked away from him. Ray’s arms were spread, and he was half crouched. And something seemed to hold Coleman’s arms in the air, something that paralysed him. He thought. It’s the Goddam people all around, the people watching! A man shoved both his arms upwards—it was the little Italian with Ray—and, as Coleman’s body was rigid, the shove took him off his feet and hurled him sideways, stiff, to the pavement. Someone was trying to wrench the pipe from his hands, but failed because Coleman’s hands might have been welded to it. Coleman was aware of pain in his left elbow.
“Who is he?”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“You know him?”
“Polizia!”
“Nunzio! Come here!”
A small crowd gathered, all talking, all staring.
“Ed, drop it!” That was Ray’s voice.
Coleman fought against passing out. In his fall, he had hit his head, too. The pain in his elbow was horrible, and he had the feeling he wasn’t breathing, or couldn’t breathe. He snuffled loudly, his nose full of what he realized must be blood. Ray was tugging at the pipe in his hands, but had to give it up, because Coleman was refusing to let go. Then Coleman was lifted up by Ray and a policeman. The policeman jerked the pipe away in an instant when Coleman was holding it with only one hand.
“Edward Col-e-man,” Ray was saying to the policeman.
They began to walk. A few people trailed after them.
“He would have killed you again!” said the Italian walking with Ray, glancing back at Coleman.
They were in a police station. Coleman avoided looking at Ray. Coleman’s overcoat was removed—they had been shouting at him to remove it, but he had ignored them—and, seeing it leave his arms, Coleman fought for it, because the scarf was in it. His jacket sleeve was soaked with blood from the elbow down.
“I want my coat!” Coleman roared in Italian, and it was handed back to him. He clutched it under his right arm.
They lifted his left arm, which Coleman now realized was limp. His jacket came off next. They sat him in a straight chair, and told him that a doctor was coming. He was asked questions, name, place of residence, age.
Ray and his Italia
n friend stood together on Coleman’s left, the Italian staring at him, Ray’s eyes touching him now and then and drifting away. Then Ray whispered something urgently to the Italian, something negative, Ray pressing his hand down again and again in the air. The Italian frowned and nodded.
They went to Venice on a police launch, Ray and Coleman, the Italian friend and three policemen. They landed at the Piazzale Roma, and went to Dell’ Isola’s office. The detective Zordyi was there. Coleman’s nose had stopped bleeding, but he could feel stickiness on his upper lip, and the handkerchief he was using was sodden. He was asked by Dell’ Isola about the fight on Tuesday night.
“He hit me with a rock and tried to push me into a canal,” Coleman said. “Fortunately for me, a man came along and he”—pointing to Ray—“had to stop. He left me unconscious.”
“But did you not begin the fight, signor?” Dell’ Isola asked politely. “Signor Garrett said you followed him with a stone in your hand.”
Coleman took a breath through his mouth. “I wouldn’t know who started it. We met—and we started fighting.”
“Why, signor?” asked Dell’ Isola.
“Why is my affair,” said Coleman, after the briefest hesitation.
Dell’ Isola looked at Ray and Zordyi, then back at Coleman. “The stone, signor. You found the stone, did you not?”
“And struck the first blow?” Zordyi put it in English, and said it in Italian for Dell’ Isola.
The interrogation was irksome to Coleman. He felt a confusion of emotions—insult, abuse, injustice, boredom too, and they were weakening him physically with all this drivel. His arm tortured him now, although the doctor in the station at Chioggia had given him a pill, presumably against pain. “I am not admitting anything about the stone,” Coleman, said to the officer.
“Or the lead pipe in Chioggia?” Zordyi asked in English.
With his right hand, Coleman groped in his coat pocket, still holding the coat with his right elbow, until he found the scarf, but the coat slipped, and he was left holding the scarf alone. It embarrassed him at first, then he shook it at Ray in a clenched hand. “By this I swear what I’m saying!” he said in English. “My daughter’s scarf!”