Wu Ming - 54

Cary hears a thump to his right and lowers the book. One of the guards is lying on the ground, and he doesn’t appear to be sunbathing. The reflex action conditioned by thousands of clapperboards: an expression that filmgoers around the world have admired on countless occasions.

Fractions of a second. The other man throws himself down, shielding him with his body, but there is a dart for him, too. Cary finds himself crushed by the dead weight of the brute, and lets out a curse.

He manages to disentangle himself, and with a somersault worthy of Archie Leach he pulls himself up and begins to run towards the rocks.

He just has time to glance behind him: three men in black are coming after him.

There are four of them.

One at the front, one in the middle, the rest behind.

No uniforms now, but they sure as hell aren’t tourists. They are running. Towards the barrier of rocks that separates the two inlets. The inlet they are anchored in from the one where Robespierre is standing.

Vittorio tenses his jaw. Drenched in sweat, apart from the hand clutching the Mauser and the finger pressed to the trigger.

He lowers his head, eye aligned with the barrel, and takes aim.

The loose-limbed man is first to spring from the rocks. He runs with great strides, like a sprinter. The other three struggle to keep up with him.

As they gradually approach, Pierre can see the man’s expression. Tense, frightened. He doesn’t look like an athlete in training. More like someone escaping. And his face is extremely familiar.

The shot has the effect of the starter pistol for the hundred-metre sprint.

He heads for the slope, leaving a cloud of sand behind him.

The second bullet takes the Slav just above the ankle. He goes down, like a slaughtered deer. The third shot whistles a few centimetres past the right ear of Zhulianov, who curses. He hadn’t predicted this. He creeps over to the injured man and helps him to his feet, dragging him to shelter from the gunfire. He switches on his walkie-talkie and speaks quickly: ‘Drop the lobster pot! I repeat: drop the lobster pot! Force 10 gale, come back immediately.’

He clambers over the still sleeping bodies of Grant’s bodyguards, helping the Slav to his feet. They set off up the path among the rocks.

The opium of failure and the adrenalin of flight do battle within his nervous system.

Never underestimate the enemy.

There is a kind of cave at the edge of the beach, quite shallow, just a dent among the rocks. Pierre noticed it on the way down, and now he slips inside, head first.

The loose-limbed gentleman is right behind him. He slips in beside him and sits with his back to the wall, to regain his breath.

Pierre turns round, still electrified by his running.

They look at one another.

It doesn’t occur to Pierre for so much as a moment that he might be seeing things. Too many times he has studied those features in photographs and on the big screen, centimetre by centimetre, trying to work out the secret of perfect style.

‘Fuck me, it’s Cary Grant!’

The emotion dulls his brain, he appeals to his English to help. His jaw refuses to close.

What should he say? What should he say!

‘This is a film. isn’t it?’ he says in English. A Hollywood star on a forgotten beach in Dalmatia, being pursued by three sinister figures. What else could it be?

Grant peers over the rocks. ‘I’m afraid not.’

It isn’t! What the hell is it, then?

Another effort, not taking his eyes off him.

‘What’s. happening, Mr Grant?’

An expression halfway between worry and self-irony. ‘Believe me, I haven’t a clue!’

Glue! What on earth did glue have to do with it? Try again.

‘You don’t know. who are. these men?’

If only Fanti could see him, talking in English to Cary Grant!

‘Absolutely not. And you? Where have you sprung from? Who are you?’

Understanding only half of the last question, Pierre rummages for something from Fanti’s first lesson, and says, ‘Nice to meet you. My name is Robespierre Capponi. I’m twenty-two and I’m from Bologna, Italy.’

Perplexed, the most stylish man in the world studies the hand that the boy is holding out. He shakes it quickly, and turns round again to glance towards the beach.

‘Robespierre. We might as well call Napoleon and Lafayette to save our hide.’ ‘What?’ *

The voices emerge from the cave.

The gunfire did for three of them. The fourth must have captured Robespierre. He’s interrogating him.

Vittorio creeps forward, careful not to make a noise. He skirts the wall that opens on to the cave, until he is a metre from the opening. He concentrates for a second, then jumps forward, Mauser levelled, ready to fire.

‘Stoj!’

The shout resonates, and the echo mixes with Robespierre’s voice. ‘Don’t shoot, dad, I’m with Cary Grant, don’t shoot!’

When they reach the other beach, the bodyguards are still lying there.

Cary patiently listens to the questions of the Italian with the French name, a pleasant young man who has seen lots of his films and wants to learn to smile the way he does

His father, surly and shabby, insists on having a question translated, but the boy doesn’t give him too much encouragement.

In any case, shabby or not, he was the one who fired, putting his pursuers to flight.

Cary is first to hold out his hand, as a gesture of gratitude. The boy asks him not to tell the bodyguards they are on the island.

‘Cross my heart!’ Cary replies, running a finger across his chest.

Behind him, a bodyguard struggles to wake up.

Heavy arms, misty vision. Captain Franko Spiliak tries to get to his feet, but his muscles aren’t responding well. Three men, or perhaps only one multiplied by the narcotic hallucination.

In fact, when he manages to get back on his feet and his eyesight has returned to normal, he sees there is only one man there.

Cary Grant, safe and sound, sitting more or less in the same position as before, the same sunglasses, the same polo-neck and no book in his hand.

Seven hours later, even more confused, Pierre will go down to the beach to inspect it.

‘Fine,’ his father urges him. ‘He didn’t know who those people were. But have you asked him what he was doing around here?’

‘Yes, dad, I told you. They want to make a film about Tito and Cary Grant came to meet him. That’s all, there’s nothing strange going on.’

‘So who were they? They turn up, they knock out the bodyguards, chase after the American and run off after three shots have been fired. All that, when he’s just here for a film. No, Robespierre, something isn’t right.’

‘In any case, you’ve got nothing to worry about. They didn’t come here for you, did they?’

‘You never know. This is the kind of thing that attracts attention. Soldiers could turn up here tomorrow. You’ve got to think hard about what we’d have to do.’

A few feet away from the cave, the dog will bury his nose in the sand and start scratching.

‘Radko, show me, what have you found?’ Pierre will hold out his hand under the animal’s muzzle.

A book. Nine bleeding hearts around the title, gold letters on brown cardboard. Casino Royale , by a certain Ian Fleming. In English.

He will turn it around devotedly in his hands. He will curse the swiftness of events and the Babel of languages that prevented him from prolonging the encounter.

Like winning the lottery and losing your ticket.

He will flick through the pages in the hope of finding some trace of the owner, a surrogate, however small, for an actual autograph.

But Cary Grant will not have written anything: not on the frontispiece, nor at the end, nor anywhere.