Michael Pearce - A Dead Man In Trieste

At the end of the canal the women were sitting again on the steps of the church stitching. Occasionally one of them would take her work down some steps on one side of the church. After a while, he thought he had worked it out. There was probably a basement workshop there. The women working there would rather do their stitching outside on the steps.

As he watched, a small procession came out of one of the side streets and stopped in front of the church. It consisted mostly of women. Two held a banner, others gave out leaflets. One woman stood up beside the banner and began to address the women on the steps.

A man came up from the basement and shouted at the speaker, who took no notice. The man hurried away and the speaker went on speaking. The women on the steps listened quietly, no longer chattering.

Suddenly the man appeared once more, this time with a group of policemen. They barged at once into the procession, scattering people, banner and leaflets. Some women fell on to the steps. They picked themselves up, retrieved their leaflets and the banner and regrouped further along the quay.

Unnecessarily heavy-handed policing, thought Seymour, with the critical eye of the professional. Why not just tell them to move on? The other way merely stored up trouble.

The re-formed procession came down the quay towards Seymour but just before it reached him it turned off. There were about a dozen women and one or two shabbily dressed men. One of the women seemed familiar to Seymour but he didn’t see how this could be and thought he must have made a mistake.

The procession came closely enough, however, for him to be able to read the banner. It was a Socialist banner of some sort; the Socialist Workers Party of Trieste, he thought he read.

He felt a twinge of nostalgia. Demonstrations like this were a familiar feature of the East End. Many of the immigrant families had been obliged to leave their original countries because of their political views and they often brought their principles with them. There were all sorts of little radical groups in the East End. They usually were little; most people followed the immigrant strategy of keeping their heads down. But there were always some who wouldn’t, who argued that what was right in Hungary or Poland or wherever was right in England, too.

Seymour’s own sister was one of these. She was a Socialist, too, which was why she came now into his mind. Socialism was quite strong in Whitechapel, especially among the Jews and in the Jewish tailors’ workshops which were common in the East End, workshops like the one at the end of the canal. She had started going to Socialist meetings when she was still at school and that had led on to other things, to fundraising bazaars, to taking part in demonstrations like this one and to standing on street corners distributing leaflets.

That was the bit that had got Seymour. He had no objection to Socialism as such. In the East End you rather took it for granted. It was the things that went with it.

When the children were small, Seymour’s mother had had to go out to work, which meant that his sister had had to look after him. She had taken him to the meetings she attended, which were often in private houses. It was there that he had first met the various languages of the East End. When he had gone home he had mimicked them, and it was hearing him do this that had made Old Appelmann realize the boy’s extraordinary ear.

Seymour hadn’t minded that part. What he had minded was being obliged by his sister to stand embarrassingly on some cold shop corner accosting the passers-by.

He was remembering this, wryly, when it suddenly came into his mind where he had seen before the woman in the group who had seemed familiar. She was Koskash’s wife.

There was nothing unexpected in the medical report. Lomax had died from a single heavy blow to the back of the head. The body had then been thrown into the water. Its condition was consistent with its having been in the sea for a week to ten days.

There was some ancillary bruising but that had probably come from contact with rocks after the body had been thrown in the sea. There were no wounds of a sort to indicate that Lomax had put up a struggle, that he had not been taken completely by surprise. This was a preliminary report: perhaps the final autopsy would reveal more. It was good of Kornbluth, however, to send it him.

He put the report down on the table. It didn’t add much to what he already knew. What seemed clear was what had been clear without the report: Lomax must have been killed near the water. You wouldn’t want to lug a body too far. That meant he must have walked down to the sea after leaving the Edison. Why had he done that? To freshen up after having been in the hot cinema, take a second, late passeggiatta as it were? Or for some other reason: to meet someone, perhaps. For what reason? Pleasure or business? But what business could Lomax have had, down by the docks, probably, so late at night?

The artists were in their usual spot. There seemed, however, to be an argument going on.

‘Now!’ he heard Marinetti’s angry voice. ‘Now he tells me!’

‘Well, I’m sorry,’ said a voice that was new to Seymour. It came from an upright, smart-looking man, new to the group, who didn’t seem a bit sorry. A thin smile played on his lips. It was almost as if he was enjoying Marinetti’s rage. ‘Mr Machnich, however, has had second thoughts.’

‘But he can’t have second thoughts. Not as late as this! When it was all agreed. Look, it’s happening on Saturday! Next Saturday!’

‘It will have to happen somewhere else,’ said the new man, still with his thin smile. ‘That’s all.’

‘But, Jesus, I’ve arranged it. We’d agreed!’

‘And now it’s disagreed.’

‘Machnich can’t do this to me!’

‘You’ll just have to find another place.’

‘There isn’t another place. Not at such short notice. And not as suitable as the Politeama. Look, it’s going to be big. There are going to be hundreds of people there. Only the Politeama will do.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, but Mr Machnich has changed his mind.’

‘Look, there’s money in this. For him.’

‘I doubt it,’ said the new man, sceptically.

‘Money. You tell him that. Money! That’s the only thing that’ll interest that bastard.’

The other artists joined in.

‘Too true,’

‘You can say that again!’

‘This is important!’ said Marinetti, his voice rising. ‘I’ve got people coming from all over Europe.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said the new man, his voice oozing doubt.

‘Yes!’ roared Marinetti. ‘You dumb-headed Bosnian! Can’t you understand? We shall be reading our Manifesto. This is the birth of a new movement. A movement which will change art, and the world, for ever!’

‘Art, is it? I don’t think Mr Machnich is very interested in art.’

‘Well, no, he wouldn’t be. But he is interested in money. Tell him there’s money in this.’

‘Not as much as there is in wrestling.’

‘Wrestling?’

‘That’s what he’ll be putting on instead.’

‘Wrestling!’

‘Yes. Serbia versus Austria. The place will be packed.’

‘Look, this was agreed months ago. He can’t pull out now.’

‘No?’

‘Look. I could run perhaps to just a little more money.’

‘No, you couldn’t. You can’t even run to what was agreed.’

‘Why is he doing this?’

‘Reason broke in. In the end.’

‘You talked him out of it. You bastard!’

‘He needs a little guidance occasionally.’

‘He needs a little guidance about keeping his word. But he wouldn’t be getting that from you, would he?’

The man began to get up.

‘It’s a waste of time talking,’ he said. ‘We’ve made up our minds.’