Michael Pearce - A Dead Man In Trieste

‘About Lomax,’ he said.

He waved an arm and a waiter instantly brought coffee. Machnich waited while he poured it out. Then he looked at Seymour.

‘Signor Lomax was different,’ he said.

‘Different?’

‘Not like the usual consuls. Not like the usual officials here in Trieste. All just paper-pushers.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Paper-pushers! I shit on them. But Signor Lomax was not like that. We were,’ he said unexpectedly, ‘people of the same type.’

‘Really? In what respect?’

‘Heart. We are people of heart. And so it hurt me,’ he said, ‘here,’ he put his hand on his heart, ‘when I heard that he had gone.’

‘You knew him well?’

‘Well, yes. We had worked together.’

‘Over the Irish cinemas?’

Machnich looked surprised.

‘You know about that?’

‘A little.’

‘Finished,’ said Machnich. ‘Long ago. Concluded.’

‘Satisfactorily, I hope?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No. I lost money.’

‘Not because of Signor Lomax, I hope?’

‘Signor Lomax? No. Nothing to do with him. My fault, mine.’ He touched himself in the chest. ‘I should never have gone in in the first place. I let myself be talked into it. By that crazy Irishman. But that was not Signor Lomax’s fault. Mine!’

‘What went wrong?’

‘No one came.’

‘I’m surprised at that. I remember going to the cinema in London — ’

‘London?’ interrupted Machnich. ‘Cinema? Where?’

‘In the East End.’

‘I don’t know of one there.’

‘It’s not there. Not any more. It went bust.’

‘There!’ said Machnich gloomily. ‘You see? Dublin, London — bust!’ He shook his head. ‘And you know why? New, too new for them. Those places are backward! Not like Trieste. In Trieste everyone goes to the cinema. Even those madmen who want to take over the Politeama next week for the night.’

‘The Futurists?’

‘Futurists, my ass! What do they know about the future? Listen, I’m the future, not those stupid bastards. Business is the future. Not art. That’s what I told Signor Lomax.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He said we ought to get together. Business and Art. And the cinema was where it could happen. “No thanks,” I said. “I’ve had enough of artists. Look what one bloody artist has cost me!” Well, he laughed. “Better luck next time,” he said. “Listen,” I said. “There’s not going to be a next time. In future, me and art are going to stay apart,’”

‘From the way you talk,’ said Seymour, ‘you got on well with Signor Lomax.’

‘Well, I did. I found him. . very sympathetic.’

‘And not just over business.’

‘Not just over business?’

‘He helped you with the escape route, didn’t he?’

Machnich looked at him shrewdly but did not reply. Then he said:

‘Perhaps.’

‘He came to see you on the night that he died,’ said Seymour.

‘Yes.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Business.’

‘What business? Not the cinemas. You said yourself that was all over.’

‘Not just business.’

‘The escape route.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘What did you say about the escape route?’

Machnich shrugged. ‘Perhaps that that was all over, too.’

‘Was he saying that? Or were you?’

‘Perhaps we both were. That it was time to stop.’

‘You didn’t disagree over that?’

‘No. We thought alike. We always — nearly always — thought alike. As I say, we were people of the same type.’ He laid his hand on his heart. ‘People of heart. And yet at the same time,’ he put a finger alongside his nose, ‘people of sense. Not airy-fairy. That is what I liked about Signor Lomax. Down to earth but good of heart. Like me,’

‘So you talked,’ said Seymour, ‘and then he left. Do you know where for? Or what he was going to do?’

‘No,’ said Machnich. ‘I only know what happened. He went out of the door and then — then I did not see him again. And in my heart there is a kind of absence.’

As Seymour went out, Machnich, who had accompanied him to the door, said:

‘You will not forget to keep visiting Koskash, will you?’

Seymour wondered, as he walked away, if that had been the whole point of the invitation to the Stella Polare, to reinforce what Rakic had said. But Machnich had said he wanted to talk not about Koskash but about Lomax. What, though, had he said about Lomax? That, tacitly, he had known about (been involved with?) the escape route. But this Seymour had already known. Reinforcement, again? Or perhaps it had been something else: an offer to trade. You keep visiting Koskash, so that they won’t beat the truth out of him, and I’ll keep quiet about Lomax’s involvement.

He was conscious, as he turned towards the Piazza Grande, of his ‘shadow’ slipping in behind him. He had come to take him for granted now, would almost miss him if he wasn’t there. But he was always there. What sort of place was it where you became so accustomed to being followed that you felt uncomfortable if you weren’t being? He shrugged his shoulders. Despite the sunshine there were shadows to Trieste, of all kinds.

Almost deliberately, almost, as it were, in defiance of Trilby, Seymour sat down with the artists. He sat next to Maddalena. As soon as he did so he realized how much he had been missing her. Her strong physical presence seemed suddenly to make him complete again. He almost put out his hand and touched her but that would have been too obvious, give away too much, not least to the others. He could sense, though, that she felt the same. She hurried towards him eagerly. After a moment she put her hand on his hand.

There was activity in the piazza this morning. A procession was coming across towards them. It seemed to be an official one of some sort. First came the lamparetti , fiercely mustachioed and in Tyrolean hats. Then came the band, blowing and banging and in military step. Then came an open carriage containing two splendid figures, epauletted, braided and plumed. The Governor at least? But no. Behind the carriage was another one, in which sat a solitary figure even more heavily drenched in gilt and plumed in even brighter plumes.

And now they saw that a red carpet had been laid between the tables. The first carriage went past the end of the carpet and stopped. The two splendid figures descended and went to the end of the carpet to receive the second carriage. They opened its doors and the even more splendid figure stepped down on to the carpet, where, behind the first two splendid figures, a little group of men were waiting nervously to receive it. They, too, wore uniforms, equally gorgeous, but to the trained eye, they were as nothing.

For these were merely the officials of the Assicurazioni Generale, whose offices occupied the Palazzo Stratti above the Caffé degli Specchi, which the Governor was visiting that day to unveil a plaque. After much bowing and scraping and saluting they led him into the building. The band arranged itself on the steps of the entrance and began to play a military march. When it ended there was a polite ripple of applause from the people at the Caffé’s tables.

‘What’s all this?’ asked Maddalena.

‘I think I read about it somewhere,’ said Luigi. ‘Isn’t he unveiling a plaque?’

‘Who to?’

The Archduchess, I think,’

‘What has she got to do with it?’

‘Perhaps she has got shares in the Assicurazioni?’ offered Lorenzo.

‘I have got shares in the Assicurazioni,’ said Alfredo, ‘and no one is putting up a plaque to me!’

‘You have got shares in the Assicurazioni, Alfredo?’ said Maddalena, astonished.