They were sitting at a table close to the bandstand and eventually a heavily pomaded man in military uniform appeared and brought the band to order. It began to play light, jolly music. Beneath the trees couples began to dance.
The band took a short break and then started to play again. This time it was a succession of waltzes. This was evidently what people had been waiting for because suddenly the space beneath the trees was full of couples dancing.
The lift of the music, the swirl of the dresses beneath the coloured lamps along the branches, the clink of the glasses and the laughter at the tables, the sea smell coming in and mixing with the scent of the flowers, drew more and more people to that end of the piazza. Seymour was conscious of Hilde Kornbluth looking at him.
‘I am afraid that someone from London could not possibly match the standards of Vienna,’ he said.
‘But you could try,’ said Hilde, taking him firmly by the hand.
Seymour was not a good dancer but Hilde and the music swept him round in a manner which he thought reasonably satisfactory.
‘You like it, yes?’ said Hilde.
‘Carried away,’ said Seymour.
And, indeed, it would be very easy to be carried away. For Seymour, new to the dance and unused to the style of dancing, there was something infectious and heady about it. The closeness of Hilde’s body, the abandon and gaiety of the rhythm, the heavy scent of the flowers and what seemed to Seymour the general surrender, made it all more than mildly intoxicating.
For Hilde, however, the experience was perhaps less satisfactory and after a few turns on the floor she led him back to the table, where Kornbluth was now surrounded by a group of acquaintances.
Seymour was chatting on the edge of the circle when he felt himself tapped on the back. He turned round and saw Maddalena.
‘So,’ she said, ‘you have abandoned us for Vienna.’
Chapter Seven
‘Not so,’ said Seymour. ‘I am merely dallying with Vienna. My heart remains elsewhere,’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Maddalena, ‘Vienna invites dalliance. That is what the music says, Lehar’s music, anyway. But do not be deceived. The light foot can wear a heavy boot.’
She linked her arm through his.
‘I have come to take you away,’ she said. ‘I think you are in danger.’
He had expected her to lead him to the artists’ table but she did not. Instead, she took him to the top of the piazza and then out into the streets beyond it.
‘Where are you going?’ he said.
‘Home.’
‘Your home?’
‘Yes. I have one.’
Their way took him through the Piazza Giovanni, where Maddalena stopped in front of the marble figure of the composer, Verdi.
‘Shall I tell you something?’ she said. ‘This is where the Austrians wished to erect a statue of the Emperor. But the Italians here would not have it. They put this statue here instead. Not just because Verdi is Trieste’s greatest composer but because of what his music says. It speaks of protest and revolt. Nabucco is the opera of what we call the Risorgimento, the uprising, the revolt. Rebellion against Austrian rule. It puts into music everything we Italians feel. For Italians, opera is their voice, the only voice of theirs that until recently has been able to be heard. On the Emperor’s birthday we show our protest by singing Nabucco. Oh, the Austrians play other music. They have their bands, their military bands. But the sound of their military music cannot drown Verdi, because Verdi’s music is the music of our hearts.’
She gestured towards the statue.
‘I tell you this so that you will not waste your time dallying with the music of Lehar. Lehar is frivolity, escape, deception. It says that life is gaiety, all dancing beneath the trees. Forget, it says, forget the rest. There is just the moment floating like a bubble. But Verdi says: Remember. Remember, do not ever forget. Do not be tricked, do not be lured away. Remember, always. Remember.’
She laughed.
‘Do you know what the Italians say about Verdi? That even his name is patriotic. What do the letters spell? V for Vittorio, E for Emanuel, Re d’ltalia. Victor Emanuel, King of Italy. Italy. He is our true king, not the Emperor of the Austrians. It is on his birthday that we all wear flowers in our buttonholes. But on the birthday of the Emperor there is nothing, no flowers in buttonholes, no flags on the houses. The only flags are on public buildings. By order.’
She laughed again.
‘And do you know where in the end they had to put the Emperor’s statue? In the Post Office!’
In the morning Maddalena looked out of the window and then beckoned to Seymour.
‘Look!’ she said.
Seymour looked out of the window and saw the man in the trilby hat.
‘He has been there all night. I hope,’ said Maddalena, with satisfaction.
Seymour felt uneasy. It was uncomfortable having his behaviour observed so precisely. There was something distasteful in the thought that someone, Schneider, perhaps, knew so much about him.
Another thought struck him. How would it look if this were reported back to London? He could just hear that older man saying ‘A woman!’ in the disdainful way in which he had said ‘Drink’ of Lomax. He told himself robustly that, actually, they probably wouldn’t care a toss. All the same, he didn’t like feeling that he had given away a certain purchase over himself.
‘Go on standing there!’ instructed Maddalena.
She had taken up a sketch-pad and was sitting on the bed sketching him.
He felt embarrassed and shifted uneasily.
‘Don’t move!’ said Maddalena. ‘It won’t take a minute.’
Down below in the street Trilby, too, stirred uncomfortably under Seymour’s apparent gaze. After a moment he moved away.
‘Stay still!’ order Maddalena.
‘I feel captive,’ complained Seymour.
‘That’s right.’
‘What do you mean: “right”?’
‘That’s how I feel all the time in Trieste,’ said Maddalena.
Despite himself, Seymour, as he walked back to the Consulate, found himself thinking about Maddalena. Despite himself because it was out of character. Perhaps because of his immigrant background — no time off if you’re an immigrant! — Seymour was regrettably single-minded about his work, to an extent that his colleagues found off-putting. He focused on it to the extinction of all else, which was splendid, as his mother frequently pointed out, for his employers but less splendid when it came to other things.
Chief of these in her mind was the all-important issue of grandchildren. As the years went by she became increasingly concerned that she might have another one like her daughter on her hands. It wasn’t that Seymour didn’t like women; it was just that when he was busy they somehow slipped to the periphery of his attention.
Maddalena, however, stubbornly refused to slip. Now, as he walked back through the sun-soaked streets, he was conscious of her physically to an extent that surprised him. He was aware of how she had felt in his arms, the pressure of her body, the smell of her hair. And then there was the impact of her personality, which stayed with him, almost bruisingly, long after he had left her apartment.
Partly it was that she was so different from anyone he had previously met. She was somehow freer. In the East End, or at any rate in the immigrant part of it, girls were surprisingly strait-laced. You were always conscious of the pressure of the community. If you just stopped to talk to a girl in the street, Jesus, the next moment it was all round the neighbourhood and by the time you got home your mother had about ordered the wedding cake!
He had expected it to be much the same in Trieste. Before he had left, old Angelinetti had called him aside. ‘Now, son. .’ and warned him about meddling with wives, daughters, etc. ‘It’s different there, son, it’s the family honour, you see. .’ Nevertheless, he had admitted there were exceptions.