Michael Pearce - A Dead Man In Trieste

‘Yes. Two. My aunt left me them when she died.’

‘Capitalist!’

The lamparetti had spread out along the edges of the carpet. One of them was just beside the artists. Maddalena looked up at him.

‘What all this about a plaque?’ she said.

‘It’s to commemorate the Assicurazioni’s having been here for fifty years. Fifty years of service to Trieste!’

‘Fifty years of ripping people off!’

‘I’m sorry you see it that way.’

‘What about the Archduchess?’

‘The Archduchess?’

‘I thought she was somehow involved.’

‘Not as far as I know. It’s just the Assicurazioni.’

‘Anyway, I don’t think the Governor should be doing this.’

‘Oh? Why not?’

‘He’s only going there because it’s big. He never goes to people like Simonetti, does he?’

‘Simonetti?’

‘The tobacconist at the corner. I’ll bet he’s been there for fifty years.’

‘Well, hell — ’

‘Or Niccolo.’

‘Niccolo?’

‘The ice-cream seller. He looks very old.’

‘Well, you can’t go and see everybody!’

‘You know why he’s going to the Assicurazioni? It’s because it’s big. And because it backs the Austrians.’

‘Young lady, I don’t like your tone.’

‘Shut up, Maddalena,’ said Lorenzo nervously.

‘If it backed irredentism, would he be going there?’

‘Young woman, are you looking for trouble?’

Luigi intervened hastily.

‘No, she’s not,’ he said. ‘How could you think such a thing? She’s looking for a waiter to bring us another drink, that’s all. Aren’t you, Maddalena?’

‘Of course!’ said Maddalena sweetly, and waved her arm vigorously.

A waiter, who had heard the whole exchange, came up, beaming.

‘Something for the irredentists?’ he said. ‘What will you have?’

They were all at it, thought Seymour, all baiting the Austrians.

There was a little silence.

Then Lorenzo said to Luigi:

‘Actually, it’s not the Assicurazioni that I mind, it’s the music.’

‘Terrible, isn’t it?’

‘Do you think they select them on the basis of their tin ears?’

‘No, I think they’re probably all right when they start. It’s just the training that they’re given.

‘When they go into the army, you mean?’

‘Yes. It makes them sort of deaf.’

‘Well, I think you need to be if you’re working for the government in Trieste.’

‘Listen — ’ began the policeman.

‘Yes, officer?’ said Luigi innocently.

‘I don’t like that kind of talk.’

‘Oh, but we’re only talking about music. I’d be interested to hear your views. What’s your opinion of Lehar?’

‘Or Verdi?’ said Lorenzo.

‘Or Rossini,’ said Alfredo swiftly. ‘Personally, I think. .’ And he moved the conversation deftly, and unequivocally, on to musical grounds.

Koskash was sitting on a bed. He jumped up when he saw Seymour, put his heels together and bowed formally.

‘I wish to apologize,’ he said. ‘I know I have not behaved correctly. I am very sorry,’

Seymour asked how he had been treated.

‘I am well, thank you,’ said Koskash.

There were no signs of ill-usage.

Seymour went to the spy-hole and checked. There was no one listening outside. They were playing fair. Or perhaps they weren’t bothered. He went back to Koskash.

‘Koskash,’ he said, ‘I shall come regularly. You understand?’

Koskash nodded.

‘I think I do,’ he said. ‘And thank you,’

‘There are people outside who are concerned for you. Your wife.’ Koskash looked troubled and seemed about to say something but then didn’t. ‘And others.’ Koskash nodded. ‘These others are, I think, worried about what you might say.’

‘They need not be,’ said Koskash. ‘I shall say nothing,’

‘That may not be a good idea. And it may be unnecessary. They know quite a lot already. The men who came to you were policemen, planted to trap you. You could tell them some things. It might make it easier for you. This is just advice, meant to help you.’

Koskash nodded.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I understand.’

‘You need not tell them everything, of course. That is up to you. But I would be grateful if you could tell me something.’

‘If I can help,’ said Koskash, ‘I would wish to. I owe it.’

‘It is about Machnich. And about Lomax. I gather that they got on well?’

Koskash nodded.

‘Surprisingly well. For two men so different. I think it began when they met over the cinema business. They hit it off and then they began to meet socially. Not all the time but quite often. Usually it was at the Stella Polare but sometimes Machnich came here,’ Koskash caught himself. That is, to the Consulate. I would take in coffee and they would be chatting away like old friends. But then something happened, I don’t know what, and Machnich didn’t come any more. Instead he sent Rakic. You know Rakic? Well, he is very different and I don’t think Signor Lomax liked him. But perhaps that was why Machnich sent him — to show Signor Lomax that they weren’t friends any more.’

‘There must have been some reason for sending him. Other than that, I mean. Some business reason or work reason.’

‘If there was, I do not know it. But suddenly Rakic was here all the time, every day. And Signor Lomax grew more and more unhappy.’

Seymour heard footsteps in the corridor outside coming towards the cell. He stood up.

‘Thank you, Koskash,’ he said. That was most helpful.’

Koskash accompanied him to the door. Just before it opened, he said:

‘Tell my wife that I am well. And that — that she mustn’t do anything. I am afraid that she may blame herself and go to the police. Tell her not to. Tell her it will be easier for me if I know that she is outside. That I can bear it. And that she is not to do anything foolish. She must think of herself, only of herself, and not of me.’

Maddalena called in at the Consulate that evening. Seymour had invited her out to dinner and they had arranged that she should pick him up. She came into the inner room, Lomax’s room, and glanced at the pictures.

‘He was never really sure about them,’ she said. ‘Sometimes he liked them, and said that they were bold and refreshing and new. And sometimes he said that they showed everything falling apart and that that was bad, the world wasn’t like that. It wasn’t that bad.’

She went up to one of the pictures.

‘But the wheel is coming off,’ she said. ‘And that means the car is going to crash, doesn’t it? He was right about that.’

She sat down in one of the chairs.

‘You have come here to find out about Lomax, haven’t you? I don’t believe you are a Messenger at all. I think you may be a policeman.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t care if you are. Not if you’re here to find out what happened to Lomax.’

Seymour said nothing.

‘I have done what you asked,’ she said. ‘I have talked to the students. I asked them if any of them had tried to go to the reception at the Casa Revoltella, had asked Lomax to take them. But they said not. And they said that they wouldn’t have caused trouble at the reception, not just at the moment, anyway, because the Governor would be there and he had it in enough for students as it was, what with all this Bosnian business.’

‘You know that Lomax was helping Serbian students to get out of Trieste? Or at any rate going along with it.’

Maddalena nodded.

‘That is what the students say. They think that may have been why the Austrians killed him.’

‘The Austrians killed him?’ said Seymour incredulously.