Michael Pearce - A Dead Man In Trieste

The trouble was that if it was just a question of helping relatively innocent students to escape, Seymour could see no reason why that should have led to Lomax being killed; whereas if Lomax had been involved more deeply in the kind of thing that Schneider was hinting at then Seymour could see quite a few reasons why he might have been.

Yes, there they were again sitting at the table. Didn’t they ever do any work? Or were artists in Trieste al fresco too and just sat around drinking? A good life for some, thought Seymour.

Marinetti was handing round some sheets of paper. He gave one to Seymour. Seymour read:

Coffee

Sweet memories frappées

Marmalade of the Glorious Dead

Roast Mummies with Professors’ Livers

Archaeological Salad

Stew of the Past, with explosive peas in historical sauce

Fish from the Dead Sea

Lumps of blood in broth

Demolition Starters

Vermouth

‘What the hell is this?’ he said.

‘It is the menu for the celebratory dinner after my Futurist Evening,’ said Marinetti. ‘You, too, are of course invited,’

‘Well, thank you. But. .’

He looked at the menu doubtfully.

‘It certainly whets the appetite,’ said Luigi; uncertainly, however.

‘But why does it do so, in a manner of speaking, back to front? asked Lorenzo.

‘Because my Evening will set out to reverse normality,’ said Marinetti.

‘Oh, I see. Silly of me not to spot it.’

There was a little pause. Then Alfredo said:

‘Does that mean that the Future is actually the Past?’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Marinetti, annoyed. ‘It suggests that we enter the Future by embracing disorder.’

‘Oh.’

Then Luigi said:

‘But why, in that case, are you having the dinner after the Evening? Why not have it before?’

‘Because,’ said Marinetti, glaring, ‘there are dozens of things I still have to do before the Evening can get off the ground. Otherwise there will be bloody chaos!’

Seymour stood there, holding a copy of the menu in his hand, nonplussed.

It was no surprise, when he got back to the Consulate, to find Mrs Koskash standing at the door. He let her in. She was dry-eyed and composed and sat down, apparently relaxed, in the chair he offered.

‘Tell me what happened,’ she said.

When he had finished, she sat thinking.

‘Did they go into the Consulate?’ she asked. ‘Was he actually inside when they arrested him?’

‘They went in,’ said Seymour. ‘But then he came out. I think he was actually outside when he was formally arrested.’

Mrs Koskash sighed.

‘The fool!’ she said. ‘If he had stayed inside they couldn’t have arrested him.’

‘I think he may have known that. He said, though, that he had done enough harm to the Consulate as it was.’

Mrs Koskash sighed again. She sat for a moment looking down at her feet.

‘I should not have persuaded him,’ she said.

‘No,’ said Seymour. ‘And you did persuade him, didn’t you? He wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t talked him into it. He is not a Serb, after all. But you are, aren’t you? And I think you were the one who thought it up. You’re practical, aren’t you, and committed. You organize things, not just for the Serbs but for the local Socialists. And perhaps others as well.’

‘I am active, yes,’ said Mrs Koskash. ‘A lot of people aren’t.’

‘And caring, I think. So I think you might well have set up an escape route for dissident Serbs.’

She did not deny it.

‘I am sorry about using the Consulate,’ she said softly.

‘And your husband? What about using him?’

She looked at him hard.

‘That is something I have to work out for myself. Perhaps I shall go to them and say: “You have arrested the wrong person. Koskash is not to blame. I am the one you want.” However, that is no concern of yours.’

She stood up.

‘I have come to ask you for something. It is this. Will you please go and see him in prison? They will agree because you come from the Consulate.’

‘I will certainly go and see him.’

‘Every day,’ she insisted. ‘While you are doing that they will not beat him up.’

Seymour was left alone in the Consulate. It suddenly came home to him. He was the only member of the staff left.

And he wasn’t even, strictly speaking, a member of the staff. A moment of panic seized him. Suppose someone came along wanting the Consulate to do something? Seymour wouldn’t be able to do it, that was for sure. He’d have to fob them off, say the Consulate was closed or something. In fact, he’d better put up a notice to that effect right away

But — just a minute — could a Consulate be closed, just like that? Didn’t diplomatic representation sort of go on independent of hours? And, anyway, who was Seymour to close a Consulate down? Wait a minute, wait a minute, things were getting out of hand. Jesus, he had only just joined the Diplomatic Service and here he was wanting to close half of it down. Well, not quite half of it. Trieste wasn’t quite that important, but it was important, Schneider was not the only one who had said so. Suppose something major blew up? An international crisis or something? Look, hold on, he told himself, you’re just an ordinary policeman, you’re not the bloody Prime Minister, leave it for him to sort out.

And at that moment there was a knock on the door.

A small boy was standing there. Well, not a small boy, a youth, but dressed in uniform. Someone official, anyway.

‘Yes?’

‘Are you the Consul?’

‘Pretty nearly,’ said Seymour.

‘Message for you, sir,’ said the youth, handing him a letter.

Seymour took it. The boy saluted smartly and moved away.

Seymour looked down at the letter stupidly. It was addressed to him.

But how could it be? It wasn’t from his mother or his grandfather and no one outside his family knew he was here. He turned it over and looked at the postmark. Manchester? But he didn’t know anyone in Manchester and certainly no one in Manchester knew him. He broke the envelope open. Violet Smethwick? He had never heard of anyone named Smethwick, let alone Violet. Why should anyone named Violet be writing to him? He turned over in his mind, a little uneasily, the various women he had met recently but couldn’t place this one.

He started to read the letter and for a moment couldn’t make any sense of it at all. And then he realized. Violet. Auntie Vi. Lomax’s Auntie Vi!

He stuffed the letter away in his pocket. He’d look at that later. Meanwhile there were more important things to do. He went back to being Foreign Secretary.

No, the first thing to do was notify the Foreign Office in London and suggest they did something about it. The second was to modify the notice he had been planning to put up. Closed — He crossed that out and altered it. Temporarily Closed for all but Essential Business .

And if any of that came along he would refer it to London. That was it! This was beginning to sound like Senior Management. Much more of this and he would declare himself Ambassador.

He put the notice up on the door. If by any chance some business turned up he would make a careful note of it and leave it for someone else to sort out. And meanwhile, perhaps, he could get on with what he had come to Trieste to do, which was to find out what had happened to Lomax.

First, though, there was a report to write.

It was some time later that he remembered the letter he had stuffed in his pocket. He took it out now and read it through properly.

It was indeed from Lomax’s Auntie Vi and a reply to the letter he had sent. She thanked him for writing. A letter had arrived from the Foreign Office that very same morning, she said, but it was not the same thing. Somehow on a thing like this it helped to hear from someone personally. Seymour had mentioned the pleasure which Lomax seemed to have found in his new posting. She said that something of that pleasure had come through in his letters home.