Michael Pearce - A Dead Man In Trieste

‘No, it is not!’ echoed his mother.

Seymour had caught his sister’s eye, in the complicit shrugging of shoulders that one generation had for another.

But now he suddenly thought that they might have been right. It wasn’t just a toothless bureaucratic fuss about paper, it was a bureaucracy with an edge of steel.

It was part of that other thing that was there, almost in the air, of Trieste; there in the very buildings, in the heaviness and grandiosity of the architecture, in the height of the official rooms, and the width of the staircases and the thickness of the carpeting, in the marble finishing and the walnut woodwork.

There, most of all, in the portraits of the Emperor, in his peaked military cap and white tunic, displayed in every official building and almost in every room, in Schneider’s office, for instance, and in Kornbluth’s, but also in every tobacconist’s shop and in every bar and hotel.

The day before, he had gone to the Maritime, the fine, classical building on the waterfront which housed the Ministry of Maritime Affairs. When Seymour had gone up the flight of stairs and into the marble-floored reception hall, what had struck him was the resemblance to the Foreign Office in London: the same confidence, the same air of superiority, the same grandiloquence.

It was, he realized now, the insignia of Empire. And it told of grip.

When he had entered the hall, Seymour, unused to such places, had stopped for a moment, slightly daunted. But then he had recovered. Was he not, after all, himself the representative of Empire? Even if not in proper person. He told himself wryly that his grandfather would have been proud of him.

Thinking about it now, however, he felt exactly what his grandfather would have felt: the tremor of rebellion.

That evening, going, as had now become as habitual to him as to the rest of the population of Trieste, to the Piazza Grande, he ran into Kornbluth, who invited him to join his table at the other end of the piazza.

As they walked down there, keeping time to the slow movement of the passeggiatta , Seymour thanked him for sending the medical report and asked him how he had been getting on that day.

‘Badly,’ said Kornbluth gloomily. ‘I have not found a single person who saw him after he came out of the Edison. I have asked everyone in the piazza, down to the dog in the taverna.’

‘I find — ’ began Seymour, and then shut up. He was not supposed to be a policeman.

Kornbluth did not seem to notice.

‘Of course, we shall go round again tomorrow,’ he said. ‘And the next day. And probably the next. Spreading out.’

‘Have you tried the docks?’ said Seymour. ‘He must have been killed near the sea.’

‘We tried there first,’ said Kornbluth.

‘It might not have been the docks. Anywhere along the sea front. It could have been the bottom of the Piazza Grande.’

‘Tried there,’ said Kornbluth. ‘And the Molo.’

‘It’s a big area.’

‘And the red-light houses,’ said Kornbluth. ‘We’ve tried them too. You never know with these quiet people.’

He led Seymour to a table at which a plump, grey-haired lady was sitting. She smiled up at Seymour.

‘We always sit here,’ she said.

‘My wife likes the music. And the dance, too, yes, Hilde?’

‘And the dance, too,’ said Hilde. ‘Although preferably with someone lighter on his feet than my husband.’

‘She likes the bandmaster, too,’ said Kornbluth looking round roguishly. ‘Is Lehar here this evening?’

‘I hope so,’ said his wife. ‘Then at least we’ll get some decent waltzes.’

‘Hilde comes from Vienna,’ said Kornbluth ‘and thinks that only in Vienna do they know how to waltz.’

They were sitting at a table close to the bandstand and eventually a heavily pomaded man in military uniform appeared and brought the band to order. It began to play light, jolly music. Beneath the trees couples began to dance.

The band took a short break and then started to play again. This time it was a succession of waltzes. This was evidently what people had been waiting for because suddenly the space beneath the trees was full of couples dancing.

The lift of the music, the swirl of the dresses beneath the coloured lamps along the branches, the clink of the glasses and the laughter at the tables, the sea smell coming in and mixing with the scent of the flowers, drew more and more people to that end of the piazza. Seymour was conscious of Hilde Kornbluth looking at him.

‘I am afraid that someone from London could not possibly match the standards of Vienna,’ he said.

‘But you could try,’ said Hilde, taking him firmly by the hand.

Seymour was not a good dancer but Hilde and the music swept him round in a manner which he thought reasonably satisfactory.

‘You like it, yes?’ said Hilde.

‘Carried away,’ said Seymour.

And, indeed, it would be very easy to be carried away. For Seymour, new to the dance and unused to the style of dancing, there was something infectious and heady about it. The closeness of Hilde’s body, the abandon and gaiety of the rhythm, the heavy scent of the flowers and what seemed to Seymour the general surrender, made it all more than mildly intoxicating.

For Hilde, however, the experience was perhaps less satisfactory and after a few turns on the floor she led him back to the table, where Kornbluth was now surrounded by a group of acquaintances.

Seymour was chatting on the edge of the circle when he felt himself tapped on the back. He turned round and saw Maddalena.

‘So,’ she said, ‘you have abandoned us for Vienna.’

‘Not so,’ said Seymour. ‘I am merely dallying with Vienna. My heart remains elsewhere,’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Maddalena, ‘Vienna invites dalliance. That is what the music says, Lehar’s music, anyway. But do not be deceived. The light foot can wear a heavy boot.’

She linked her arm through his.

‘I have come to take you away,’ she said. ‘I think you are in danger.’

He had expected her to lead him to the artists’ table but she did not. Instead, she took him to the top of the piazza and then out into the streets beyond it.

‘Where are you going?’ he said.

‘Home.’

‘Your home?’

‘Yes. I have one.’

Their way took him through the Piazza Giovanni, where Maddalena stopped in front of the marble figure of the composer, Verdi.

‘Shall I tell you something?’ she said. ‘This is where the Austrians wished to erect a statue of the Emperor. But the Italians here would not have it. They put this statue here instead. Not just because Verdi is Trieste’s greatest composer but because of what his music says. It speaks of protest and revolt. Nabucco is the opera of what we call the Risorgimento, the uprising, the revolt. Rebellion against Austrian rule. It puts into music everything we Italians feel. For Italians, opera is their voice, the only voice of theirs that until recently has been able to be heard. On the Emperor’s birthday we show our protest by singing Nabucco . Oh, the Austrians play other music. They have their bands, their military bands. But the sound of their military music cannot drown Verdi, because Verdi’s music is the music of our hearts.’

She gestured towards the statue.

‘I tell you this so that you will not waste your time dallying with the music of Lehar. Lehar is frivolity, escape, deception. It says that life is gaiety, all dancing beneath the trees. Forget, it says, forget the rest. There is just the moment floating like a bubble. But Verdi says: Remember. Remember, do not ever forget. Do not be tricked, do not be lured away. Remember, always. Remember.’