John Berger - G.

I want to warn you, said Raffaele, that we are not satisfied with your explanations. You undertook to go to Mother and you failed to do so. What kept you here?

An affair of the heart.

Why did you not inform us?

You know the lady in question, said G.

Raffaele leant back in his chair to suggest the wealth of the possibilities he was considering. May I ask who? He made the question sound as casual as a glove held in the hand.

You may ask them all! said G., laughing.

Raffaele resented the fact that Dr Donato also laughed.

Would you consider helping us in another way? asked Dr Donato. As an Italian from Italy, come here for important commercial negotiations, you are probably in a position to approach certain influential Austrians. Among them there may be one or two who enjoy the confidence of the Governor or the Bishop. Last week a young man — whose Christian name is Marco — was arrested whilst trying to cross the frontier. Would you be prepared to try to use whatever influence you have to persuade your Austrian acquaintances that this young man should be treated as leniently as possible? Best of all we would like to obtain his release.

At a time like this? When the two nations are almost at war?

Wait, wait. The case is an exceptional one. The young man in question is seriously ill with TB; his father, who lives in Venice, is dying; he is exempt on medical grounds from military service; he has no political record, none whatsoever. He tried to cross the frontier to visit his father on his deathbed and he was arrested.

It sounds unlikely.

That is why his case is exceptional. I have all the evidence here — the lawyer discreetly shook his black dispatch case. A campaign for clemency on humanitarian grounds is quite realistic. Polite society everywhere and especially polite Austrian society likes nothing better than a temporary good cause. Women are particularly attracted. A little campaign can be mounted, nothing public of course, a purely social campaign which means dropping the right words into the right ear at the right moment at the dinner table.

I don’t believe in the credentials you brought us, interrupted Raffaele, and it must be clear to you that at a time like this we cannot afford to make mistakes. Either you prove to us that you are trustworthy, and do so quickly, or — slowly he drove one fist into the palm of his other hand. We have our eyes, he added.

Can you find a better cause? asked Dr Donato as though Raffaele had not spoken. You have a young man suffering from TB, accused justly in a legal sense, but too harshly in a wider sentimental sense, of having tried, out of filial piety, to visit his father on his deathbed. It is enough to bring tears to the eyes of a police inspector. And what is more, the idea of a pardon might well please His Highness the Governor. His Highness, at a time like this, would probably welcome the chance to make a theatrical but insignificant concession to Italian sentiment. Several other men were arrested the same night. Some of them were going to Mother. The courts can make an example of them. But clemency in Marco’s case would be an intelligent tactic from the Austrian point of view.

Tactic! said Raffaele.

Why are you so anxious to save him? asked G.

Donato put his hands to his chest in the gesture which announces: And now I shall bare my soul to you, and said: I am a lawyer. I do all I can for my clients. You, you are not obliged to do anything.

But if Marco did receive a light sentence or was pardoned, we would be exceedingly grateful. That is all. I will give you the little dossier I have prepared on this case.

The three men left the café together. Dr Donato took G.’s arm. Our friend Raffaele, he said, drank too much Tokai last night. You can count on me. I shall be extremely grateful if you can help me in the Marco affair. He lowered his voice. You may deny it, but you are a dreamer too.

At the first corner they separated.

Why did you laugh at his jokes? demanded Raffaele. And why did you confide in him about Marco?

Caro , you should have more confidence in me than that. He has no idea who Marco is. True, it is unlikely he can do anything for Marco, but we must try everything. If he is working for the Austrians and they do not know who Marco is, which is quite possible, they may release Marco so that our friend from Livorno can offer us a little present which, they calculate, will increase our confidence in him and hence his usefulness to them. We were not born yesterday, were we? If he obtains Marco’s release I will take it as tantamount to proof that he is working for them. So we shall have achieved two things: Marco’s release, which is more urgent than anything else, and a clear warning about our friend from Livorno. If, on the other hand, the Austrians know who Marco is — and in that case there is no hope for Marco — then the fact that he tries to arrange for Marco’s release will convince the Austrians that he is really working for us, and if they suspect that, I don’t think we shall see him many more times in Trieste. There is a chance, a small chance, that he is going to render us, without realizing it, a last service. What can we lose? He put a hand up to his eyes to shade them from the sun.

G. lay on his bed. Across the windows hung white lace curtains. The leaves of the plants embroidered on the curtains were slightly whiter and less transparent than their background. Through the curtains the house on the other side of the street was visible, its curved classical orders and its stucco thrown into relief by the bright evening sunlight. The stone was the sepia colour of cigar boxes. A woman who had apparently just washed her hair and wrapped a blue towel round her head like a turban appeared in a window of the house opposite wearing a loosely-tied teagown. She Watched the people in the street below; it was the hour of the caminada , when young men from families who consider themselves respectable walk in groups along a route laid down by tradition, to follow and watch the groups of strolling girls from similar families.

At the end of the street a wide canal led into the sea by the main quayside where the liners used to anchor near the Piazza Grande. Before the war scarcely a day passed without a ship, at least as large as the City Hall, closing the fourth side of the square. The canal was a venture which had never been completed. Its entrance was wide and handsome. But two hundred metres from the quayside it stopped. It began as a canal and ended as a dock. The woman who had washed her hair yawned for a full half-minute. She was probably the wife, G. thought, of one of the shopkeepers below. She was quite unaware of being observed. To her, his room behind its lace curtains looked as dark as night. She made as though to go back to her room, hesitated, leant once more on the windowsill and yawned again. A ship blew its hooter, a sound like a seal’s bark indefinitely prolonged. The embroidered leaves on the lace curtains were acanthus leaves.

According to gossip, Marika, Wolfgang von Hartmann’s wife, had had not long ago an Italian lover who was forced to leave the city. He was a musical conductor and he provoked a public scandal by arranging a concert at which the first syllable of the title of each work, as printed in the programme, spelt out an anti-Austrian slogan. Most of the audience were Italians and they soon spotted the message, gave the conductor an ovation, and at the end started shouting VERDI! VERDI! which meant, in the Irredentist code, Vittorio Emmanuele Re d’Italia. As a result, the conductor lost his post at the Conservatoire and left the city.

Lying on his bed, G. smiled as he foresaw himself pleading the case of Marco to von Hartmann in the presence of his wife.