Gerald Seymour - The Collaborator

Her clothes were in a loose heap. She heard the immersion heater going, as it did when someone was taking a shower. There was an en-suite bathroom off Immacolata’s room. She went into it, collected her towel from the rail, and wound it round herself, turned her back on the T-shirt, shorts, pants and bra, the socks stained with sweat from the run.

Maybe she was what they called her, a whore…

The towel covered her, except her shoulders and her legs below the knees. She went out of her room. The older one, who had bicycled, had his back to her but sat where he could see the front door to the apartment through the hallway, and did not look up as she glided, almost, over the marble veneer. She could hear the cascade of the water and went to that bathroom, which was off the corridor past the kitchen – the master bedroom was for her, the secondary two bedrooms were for them. Orecchia had not reacted as she went behind him.

She headed for the water. Immacolata thought that Rossi had toyed with her on the run in the gardens, could have passed her, gone ahead, drawn away from her, speeded up till she had sagged – and had not. He had kept his station behind her, had finally called to suggest that enough was enough, but had not succeeded in disguising his superiority, his strength. So fucking patronising. She went through the room and saw the neat pile of clothes, sweat-streaked like hers but folded and laid carefully on the floor beside the bed, which was immaculately made with perfect corners. The holster with the pistol was on the table. She went into the bathroom. This one was half the size of the en-suite attached to her bedroom. She opened the door. She could see his outline behind the screen. Did she want – at that moment – to be what they thought her, a whore?

Two movements, but simultaneous. She tugged back the plastic shower screen, and loosed the knot holding up her towel.

He gawped at her. Water, steaming, cascaded over his forehead, down his face and through the hair on his chest to the tangle of his lower stomach, and she saw the size of him, and the thick thighs. She expected him to blush, but he did not – expected him to jerk up with an erection, but he did not. The gawp had lasted only a moment. She stood naked and the towel was on her feet. It was what she would have done in the terraced house in Dalston, but only when Eddie was in the shower – God, not when any of the other boys was there. Eddie always blushed and always went… His shock was brief. He reached past her. His right arm brushed the curve of her left breast. His hand came back with a towel. He put it round him, and water spilled down it. She didn’t move, make room for him. He had to work his way past her, and when he did, his hip was against her stomach and his chest was against hers. She looked into his eyes, and he into hers. Then he was gone, behind her.

He said quietly, ‘I’m sorry your shower isn’t working, Signorina. We’ll get a plumber in to repair it.’

She stood and regret bloomed.

‘Please, Signorina, feel free to use ours.’

She stepped into the shower, felt the heat of the water, then dragged the screen across. She didn’t know then whether he watched her silhouette. She thought she had, indeed, made a whore of herself.

He said, and she could see the shadow movements as he dried, matter-of-fact, ‘In our training for induction into the Servizio Centrale Protezione, we do role-plays to cover many situations. One concerns the pentita from Naples, Carmela Palazzo, known as Cerasella. She was barely literate, pregnant at twelve, and active in the Spanish Quarter. With the family men in gaol, she controlled their speedball industry, drugs – heroin and cocaine. At a meeting inside the Poggioreale prison visiting room, the men blamed her for huge debts arising from her incompetent dealing in narcotics. She screamed abuse and was slapped across the face. In her humiliation, she went to the carabinieri, offered herself for collaboration. She was taken to a safe-house, had protection. But she was beyond control. Our role-plays involved walking with a woman collaborator on a street of shops. She puts an arm through the guard’s, which is forbidden, pretends he is her lover, her husband. How can she be protected if she holds his hand or links his arm? She goes into stores that sell underwear. She waves items of intimate clothing at the guard – ‘How do you like this, my sweetheart?’ – and the guard is embarrassed. She runs away. She is brought back. She accuses, falsely, a guard of raping her. We did many role-plays, Signorina, that were based on the actions of Cerasella. Yes, she helped in the destruction of the Mariano clan. No, the protection didn’t last. We threw her out, cut her adrift, and she was regarded as a sad, inadequate person, fit only to sell narcotics. In the role-play we’re taught how to respond to erratic personality, as when a collaborator behaves with the modesty of a prostitute. Enjoy your shower.’

The shadow was gone. Water fell. She scrubbed herself with soap. She had heard, of course, of Carmela ‘Cerasella’ Palazzo, had never met her or seen her from a distance.

She switched off the shower, towelled herself. She had wanted to show power over him.

When she came back into the living room, Rossi was dressed and sitting beside Orecchia. Nothing was said, which increased her humiliation.

She wanted arms round her, to be held, to be saved from the shame… Who could have held her? She saw his face – had gloried in betrayal – and knew who would have held her, forgiven her.

In the darkness, Eddie scratched at the chain. He reckoned he had now smoothed some two feet of the rough concrete that made the ridge, but had at least six more to work on.

New thoughts, new attitudes swam in his mind. He must cope with isolation and the fear it induced, and he believed that sawing at the chain, grinding at it obsessionally, focused him away from misery… which led to the next necessity: must try to stay positive. ‘Positive’, to Eddie, had meant advertisements to be sniggered at in which companies quoted some unheard-of American electric-shaver sales guru who would teach – for a fat fee – how to acquire confidence. His mother was a positive thinker – always regarded the glass as half full and ditched the empty bit – and his father had chided him for not having the ambition to go to the furthest limits of ability. There had been so much crap to Eddie Deacon – not any longer. And, because it was a positive reaction, he started to play a word game – took a word, stripped it, jumbled it, found new words. He would have derided it in the staffroom, and the guys in the house would have hooted at him if he’d suggested it as an exercise in mental agility… but he had stored it as an entertainment, with mental arithmetic, meaningless figures… and further down the line there would be physical exercise – maybe he would try squats, press-ups, or lying on his back and lifting his legs three or four inches. Eddie thought that being positive was important, and thought that if he ever broke the chain and freed his hands the agility – physical or mental – would save him… Had to think that.

Once he heard a voice, a whistle of some tune, and footsteps, but they didn’t approach the trapdoor. Once he heard an engine, faint and muffled, as if a car had come close, and then a radio had been switched on and off. The sounds didn’t make a pattern… That was another thing: a pattern was to be observed, noted, analysed, clung to in case the chain broke and… He worked hard, and the sweat was in his eyes, making them smart. The bucket stank worse.

He thought he wanted the bucket taken and emptied more than he wanted fresh food, more even than he wanted water.

Eddie was certain of it now. The link in the chain had a clear indentation. Not wishful thinking, more than mere positive thinking, there was a line in the steel of the chain’s link that his nail could settle in. He went at the work harder, and didn’t care to think of the consequence if he were to break open the chain link and free his hands.