Malcolm Bradbury - Doctor Criminale

And these things work both ways round: if I was increasingly trusting him, he was beginning to trust me. Even though Ildiko had briefly tried to introduce us on the terrace that first night, I knew he had no idea who I was, where I came from, what (thank goodness) I was doing there. One of nature’s great conference-hoppers, he was much too old a hand to waste his time reading lapel badges or conference biogra­phies, especially of those as fameless as myself. He didn’t know my nationality, never mind my name. What seemed stranger was that, even though Ildiko, his Hungarian publisher, had edited several of his books and knew his apartment, he showed no recognition of her either. But if this surprised me, it seemed, when I mentioned it, natural to her. ‘Why should he recognize me? He lives up there in his mind, you know.’ ‘You’ve worked with him,’ I said. ‘Just a little editor for a big man,’ said Ildiko, ‘And I am not even in my right place. I am much too little a someone to be a someone to someone like him.’

Still, maybe because I was generally not far from his elbow, Criminale began talking to me quite often: over breakfast, over drinks, over lunch, over dinner. And presumably because I was young (in fact, just like at the Booker, I was one of the very youngest there) and willing, he started using me for a few small tasks and duties. If he wanted some newspapers or books picked up down at the small shop in the village of Barolo, or thought some post was waiting down in the small post office (there always was; his post was fantastic), or needed, say, a new silk tie on some sudden whim, he often asked me to slip down there for him – always with the greatest politeness and courtesy. As he explained, he was so busy: there was always this lecture to prepare, this seminar to give, this article to write, this international phone-call to await. And of course I was willing. I saw his world-class letters: from governments in the Pacific, corporations in Brazil, banks in Switzerland, newspapers in Russia and America. I began to understand his whims, his indulgences, his expensive tastes.

One afternoon after lunch he asked me to go upstairs to his suite to collect some papers (in fact offprints of the article in which he disputed with Heidegger over irony, which he was distributing as conference favours, pretty much as parents hand out balloons at some children’s party). I went upstairs to his suite, unlocked the door; he had given me his keys. The suite was one of the villa’s best; he was after all a guest of honour, a protégé of the padrona. It was set right over the entrance, with a magnificent view along the central line of the formal gardens and onto the finest angle of the lake. The main room, big and vast, had a Venetian mirror on the wall big as a window at Harrods. Tapestries hung everywhere, there was much fine furniture, and a gilded writing-table with an inkstand – what I think is called an escritoire. This was his Barolo sanctum; once more I was in one of the places where he worked. I looked around.

On the writing-table, just as in the study in Budapest, everything was remarkably tidy. There were several pages of scrawled handwriting; this was no doubt his early morning’s ,. work. I glanced round, then glanced it over; it was in English, and seemed to be an article on Philosophy and Chaos Theory, not yet finished, plainly intended for some learned journal. Apart from that there was little else. There were a few opened letters, some of them letters I had collected from the post office the day before; one in Hungarian, another, strikingly scented, in French, another, a long scroll of financial reckonings, headed in German, and plainly from some bank. No doubt if Lavinia had been here she would have sat down and read everything; but I was not Lavinia, and the last thing I wanted to do now was to spoil my happy congress in paradise. I moved on, saw the door to the adjoining bedroom was open, glanced, without any great curiosity, inside.

I suddenly saw a strange featureless face staring directly at me. Then I realized what it was: a dummy head, with Sepulchra’s great high wig on it. That was how she managed to transform herself so quickly for her dinner appearance in the evening. The wardrobe door hung a little open; inside I saw a wonderful display – a row of Criminale’s excellent silk suits, his equally rich shirts, his splendid silk ties, all doubtless Hermes or Gucci. Otherwise all was neat; luggage and its contents had been carefully put away, either by the punctilious Criminale, the ever-tidying Sepulchra, or the self-effacing Barolo servants, who saw to absolutely everything. Finally there was a study; every Barolo suite had a large and well-fitted study, the ultimate sanctum for the great scholar. Once again, all was neat. A word-processor sat on the desk; Lavinia would have switched it on and started to decode. I didn’t. Stacked by the wall were several locked suitcases; Criminale had already explained that this was where he kept his papers. He had handed me the key to one. I tried them all, knowing that if Lavinia was here she would have been out with a penknife and trying all these locks by now. But I was still not Lavinia. I found the right suitcase, took out the papers, locked up the case and the door of the suite as I left, and returned to the pre-lunch chatter below, where Criminale smiled graciously and took the papers from me.

So, day by day, in every way, I felt I was getting closer to Criminale. However, I did find one serious problem on my hands: Ildiko was growing bored. The seminar meetings, which she only attended on and off, did not impress her. ‘Why do they read papers to each other they have printed already?’ she kept asking. ‘They could send those things in the post.’ ‘And if they did, there wouldn’t be a congress,’ I said. ‘But nothing happens,’ she says, ‘Nobody listens to anyone else. The writers don’t like the ministers, the ministers don’t like the writers. Nothing changes, everything is the same. When we all go away from here, nothing will be different.’ ‘I suppose the important thing is the experience itself, people getting together,’ I said. ‘No, I think they have all just come here for a holiday, and they don’t really like to hear these papers at all,’ said Ildiko, ‘Why don’t they admit it?’ ‘Because you can’t get a grant just for taking a holiday.’ Ildiko sat in her armchair and yawned. ‘Well, I don’t have to listen to it,’ she said, ‘I am just a publisher. And I am bored.’

‘All right, you’re a publisher, why don’t you go and get hold of Criminale?’ I asked. ‘Because I haven’t done what I like yet,’ said Ildiko, ‘I was never in the West before, I like to enjoy it. I want you to take me shopping.’ ‘You went shopping in the village,’ I said. ‘That is not shopping,’ said Ildiko, ‘In Cano at the end of the lake there is Next and Benetton. Tomorrow why don’t you take me there?’ ‘Ildiko, there’s only one boat in the morning, another in the evening,’ I said, ‘It means missing a whole day, and I can’t be away from Criminale that long.’ ‘Do you find out anything?’ asked Ildiko, ‘I don’t think so.’ ‘I admit there must be more to him than I’ve seen,’ I said. ‘Well, I am tired of being stuck in one place all the time,’ said Ildiko. ‘You said it was paradise,’ I reminded her. ‘Yes, and paradise is dull if you stay too long,’ said Ildiko, ‘Now I want to go out of it. I like to see the West before I go back, yes? Please, forget Criminale Bazlo just for one day.’ ‘I daren’t,’ I said, ‘Supposing he disappears again?’

I was crass, of course; but it was my solution to the problem that brought a new stage in the quest for Criminale. Looking for a compromise, what I did was to borrow one of the rowing boats that lay tied up beneath the Old Boathouse, which had not acquired its name for nothing. And the next afternoon, when the now familiar lunchtime storm had exhausted itself, I set out to row Ildiko round the island. The trees dripped with rain, the water churned a little. I steered for the head of the promontory, where the craggy peak above the villa rose to its highest and wildest. There were thickly wooded slopes, and steep rockfalls; it was the part of the Barolo grounds that was hardest to reach. Ildiko sat irritably in the back of the boat, tugging her sweater round her. On the shoreline, there were tiny fragments of beach, no doubt idyllic in the summer, no doubt quite chilly at this time of year. We came round an arm of rocks; and there I caught a sudden new glimpse of Bazlo Criminale.