Michael Pearce - A Dead Man In Trieste

‘In Trieste,’ said Koskash diffidently, ‘there are many artists. There is something new here, they say. In the world of art. But I’m afraid I don’t really know. .’

And nor, certainly, did Seymour. There wasn’t much call for art in the East End. Artists, there were occasionally, taking advantage of the cheap housing, but somehow he had never seen their pictures. He wouldn’t have known what to make of them if he had. He felt uncomfortable with art, as he did with anything that required you to show your feelings. In Seymour’s hard, tight little world of the police and the docks feeling was something you kept quiet about.

On a small table set back against one of the walls was a pile of scrap metal. There were cogs, bearings, a kind of collar and a small shaft. It could have been a boat engine stripped down. But, no, Seymour was no engineer but even he could see that the bits didn’t fit together. It was just a pile of scrap. Strange place to put it. Or — wait a minute — was it. .? Could it, too, he wondered uneasily, be Art?

He closed the door and returned to the main office. One thing was already becoming clear: Lomax was a bit of an odd bloke.

Koskash had suggested several places where Seymour might go for lunch.

‘A sandwich and a drink is all I need,’ said Seymour.

‘Then why not go down to the piazza? It is nice there. You can see the sea and there is always a little breeze.’

And it would give him a chance, thought Seymour, to meet some of Lomax’s friends: those friends whom Kornbluth had thought so unsuitable and whom he had thought it important to let Seymour know about.

And so he had gone down to the Piazza Grande, and found the Caffe degli Specchi, the Cafe of Mirrors, and now he was sitting at the table at which, Koskash had told him, Lomax used to sit: the table he had sat at and left on the evening that he had disappeared.

A man came up, saw him at the table, hesitated and then sat down at the next table. After a while he caught Seymour’s eye and raised his glass.

‘You are English?’

‘That’s right.’

‘This is your first visit to Trieste?’

‘Yes.’

‘There is much here to see.’

‘Yes. Although actually you could say that I am here on business. There is someone whom I was hoping to meet.’

‘Ah!’ The man sipped from his glass. ‘You are waiting, perhaps, for Lomax?’

‘Perhaps,’

He took another sip and then put the glass down. ‘Lomax won’t be coming,’ he said.

‘So I gather.’

‘You know?’

‘Only a little. Really, only that he has disappeared.’

‘It was last Tuesday. He had been here. Here, at this very table! Earlier in the evening. We only found out the next day. When he didn’t come, we wondered. You know, he was so regular. He always used to be here. It was his place. The best place on earth, he said. He said that at last he had found his niche. So when he didn’t come we thought that perhaps he was ill. A touch of malaria or something. So Lorenzo called in at the Consulate on his way home. And then he found. .’

‘He found?’

‘Well, that Signor Lomax had disappeared.’

‘But surely — ’

‘I know, I know. But he was always so regular. Say what you will, he never missed an appointment. So when he did, Koskash was worried. He went to his apartment. Lomax hadn’t been there at all that night, he hadn’t come home. Well, Koskash was surprised. And not just surprised, concerned. It might be nothing, but … So he dropped in at the police station and had a word with Kornbluth,’

‘Kornbluth?’

‘The Inspector. Everyone knows Kornbluth. He’s a pain in the ass but he’s all right, really. He said not to bother. Lomax was probably just having a lie-in with some woman. Come back if he didn’t show up. Well, he didn’t show up and Koskash did go back. And then. .’

‘Then?’

‘You know Trieste? No? Well, in Trieste, my friend, there are two sorts of police. There are the lamparetti , Kornbluth’s sort, the municipal guard I suppose you would call them. And then there’s another sort. You understand?

Well, you will if you stay in Trieste any length of time. They are everywhere. Anyway, somehow they got to hear about it, and then — Jesus!

The next moment they’re all over the place. An official! An official has disappeared! Not only that, a foreign official! This is serious. If you or I disappear, my friend, that is nothing. But an official! Officials are important in Trieste. Where will it end if officials start disappearing? What will become of the Empire? And so the next moment the secret police are all over the place.’

He looked at his watch.

‘And so this lunchtime everyone is late. They are probably all at the police station.’

A man came hurrying up, coat tails flying, shirt collar undone.

‘Alfredo, Alfredo!’

‘Lorenzo!’

They embraced warmly.

‘Alfredo, I have been in prison!’

‘You have been there before, Lorenzo.’

‘But this time they shouted at me, Alfredo!’

‘You need a drink.’

The waiter put a bottle on the table and then, without asking, half a dozen glasses.

‘Where are the rest of you?’

‘They are in prison, Giuseppi.’

‘There must be something right that they have done, then,’ said the waiter.

He poured out some wine for Alfredo and Lorenzo and was about to pour some for Seymour but then hesitated.

‘Yes, yes!’ cried Alfredo. ‘Some for my friend!’

‘Your pardon!’ cried Lorenzo, noticing Seymour for the first time. He jumped up and threw his arms around him.

‘A friend of Lomax’s,’ Alfredo explained.

‘Any friend of Lomax is a friend of mine!’ declared Lorenzo dramatically.

They drank each other’s health.

Lorenzo sobered as quickly as he had fired up.

‘Poor Lomax!’ he said.

‘Is it poor Lomax?’ asked Seymour. ‘Surely, it is only that he has disappeared? Might there not be some happy explanation? Couldn’t he have just… well, gone away for a day or two?’

‘Lomax never goes away.’

‘But, perhaps, a sudden call of business?’

‘Lomax has no sudden calls of business,’ said Alfredo.

‘Anyway,’ said Lorenzo, ‘this is where he does his business. Here!’

Two people came towards them through the tables.

‘Ah! Here is Luigi! And Marinetti.’

‘The bastards! They made me take my trousers down!’

‘Are you sure it was the police station you went to, Luigi? There is a place down by the docks. .’

‘There is nothing to choose between the two,’ said Marinetti. ‘The police are all whores.’

‘Yes, but they shouldn’t have treated me like that. Who do they think they are? Who do they think we are?’

‘They think we’re just a bunch of Italian layabouts,’ said Alfredo.

‘Well, we are just a bunch of Italian layabouts,’ said Lorenzo.

‘I am not a layabout,’ said Marinetti, taking umbrage.

‘No?’

‘No! I am an artist. And that is important. Artists are the voice of the future. But that’s just the trouble. Those bastards are the voice of the past.’

‘That must be why they’ve got it in for me,’ said Luigi, sighing.

‘Are you all artists?’ asked Seymour. The paintings in Lomax’s room were beginning to make some sense now.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Alfredo.

‘No,’ said Lorenzo.

‘Sometimes,’ said Luigi.

‘Every man is an artist,’ said Marinetti. ‘Every man has the capacity to create. Except for the members of the Hapsburg police,’

Alfredo looked at his watch.

‘Where is Maddalena?’ he fretted. ‘And James?’

‘Still at the police station, I expect,’ said Lorenzo.