‘Well, of course, they are. In Trieste. Usually.’
‘As a matter of fact, though, there’s one area where I could do with a bit of help. The business side. I thought you might be able to help me.’
‘Well, of course. Only too glad to.’
‘It’s really to do with the cinema.’
‘Cinema!’
‘Don’t you know about it? I thought you might have heard.’
‘Did hear something about it. Jog my memory.’
‘There’s an Irishman who wanted to start up some cinemas in Dublin and persuaded some Trieste businessmen to join him. Lomax gave them some advice. You know, help on Customs, that sort of thing.’
‘Irishman? That man, Juice?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’d steer clear of him if I were you. He’s a bit of a nutcase.’
‘I know, I know. Perhaps that’s the reason why Lomax was helping him. Hold his hand, you know. See he didn’t get into too deep water.’
‘That man would be out of his depth in a bloody puddle,’
‘And he was in it, you see, with some quite sharp people. Do you know a fellow named Machnich?’
The carpet shop?’
‘And cinemas, apparently.’
‘Has trouble with his people. Hasn’t he got a strike on?’
‘Yes. What is it about?’
‘The usual. Wages. Hours. Bringing in people who work for less.’
‘Bringing in? Immigrants?’
‘We don’t call them that. There’s so much coming and going of people in the Empire, and certainly in Trieste. But yes. People he brought in from outside. His own kind usually.’
‘A tough customer, is he?’
‘Too tough for Juice, definitely. But I don’t know how tough he’d be if it really came to it. They say he’s going to settle.’
‘And what about Lomax? Is he up to mixing it with someone like Machnich?’
‘I don’t know that a consul usually needs to mix it,’ said Barton doubtfully. ‘It’s usually just a case of giving advice. Actually, from what I heard, they got on surprisingly well.’
‘Surprisingly?’
‘Well, you know, they used to go off for a drink together. But he never came here for a drink. He’d drink with a foreigner but not with us. I call that surprising.’
It was true about the strike. In the piazza outside the Edison there was surprising activity this morning. Men were spilling out of the taverna and then standing talking. One of them looked up as Seymour went by.
‘Christ, here he is again!’
Seymour glanced at him and thought he recognized him.
‘What is it this time?’ said another voice resignedly.
This time he did recognize the man. He was one of the men he had talked to down in the docks.
‘Hello!’ he said. ‘What are you doing up here?’
‘What do you think we’re doing?’ said the first man bitterly. Seymour had placed him now. It was the most aggressive of the dockers, the one who had threatened to kick him. ‘Giving in, of course.’
‘Giving in?’
‘It’s all over. She’s bloody fixed it. Fixed it with that bastard, Machnich.’
‘The strike? You’re going back to work?’
‘They’re going back to work. We’re bloody not.’
‘I suppose it’s good from their point of view,’ said another man.
‘Well, yes, they’ll be able to start collecting their pay packet again, won’t they? But it won’t be any bigger. Or not much. They ought to have held out. As it is, all they’ve done is lose money.’
‘They say it wasn’t about money. It was about conditions.’
‘It’s always about money!’ said the first man derisively.
‘It seems a pity,’ said another man, ‘after we’d shown solidarity.’
‘That’s it! And that’s the trouble with getting a woman involved. They’re too ready to do a deal. What the hell are we doing, letting a woman represent us?’
‘She’s got the gift of the gab,’ said someone doubtfully.
‘Well, yes, and that worries me sometimes. You never know where these people are leading us.’
‘You ought to be doing that, Benito.’
‘Leading? Me? Christ, no! Stick your head out and yours is the first head that gets chopped.’
‘It doesn’t seem to worry her.’
‘Well, it ought to. And she oughtn’t to be so ready to do deals.’
‘I wouldn’t call her soft,’ said another of the men, who hadn’t so far spoken.
‘Well, I wouldn’t call her soft. But she gets on a bit too well with that bastard, Machnich.’
‘Fowl of a kind, I suppose.’
‘That’s it! That’s just it! The whole point of the Party is to get past divisions of that kind, Italian against Serb, Slovenian against Austrian. But she’s going back to it.’
‘So it’s all over?’ said Seymour.
‘All over. The men at the carpet shop have gone back. They’ve got no need for us now. “Thanks very much, mate.” “Thank you. But what about a bit of solidarity? We showed solidarity with you and it put a bit more in your pay packet. But we haven’t got any pay packets. How about showing a bit of solidarity with us?” “Ah, well, that’s different. .” Too bloody true it’s different. And that’s why they shouldn’t have accepted. And why she shouldn’t have done a deal.’
‘I don’t know what I shall do tonight.’ said another man. ‘Not with no picket line to be on. It gave a bit of point to things.’
The groups outside the taverna were breaking up and dispersing.
‘What shall we do now?’
‘Back to the docks, I suppose.’
‘How about a drink?’ suggested Seymour. ‘I’ll stand you one. I owe you something for your help.’
‘Well
They looked at each other.
‘We sort of know him now,’ said one of the men hesitantly.
‘A drink is real, even if friendship is not,’ said Seymour, finding from somewhere at the back of his mind one of old Angelinetti’s sayings.
‘Well, that is true.’
They didn’t go back into the taverna because it was still full, but chose another up one of the side streets, where they stood at the counter and the bar tender drew the wine from barrels.
‘So it helped you a bit?’ one of them said, looking at Seymour curiously.
‘A bit. Not as much as I’d have liked, but that’s not your fault.’
‘You worked it out, did you?’
‘Slowly. Machnich.’
‘Yes, Machnich. What they were up to in there together, God alone knows.’
‘Another of Machnich’s pies. They say he’s got a finger in every pie in Trieste.’
‘Two big for his boots, that bastard.’
‘They do say, though, that he looks after his own.’
‘Yes, but that’s what I’m complaining of. He looks after his own, but how about everyone else?’
‘Those bastards in the Edison never came out.’
‘I wish Machnich had come out. Come out of the cinema, that is, and tried to cross our line. I’d have given him a mouthful. But he never showed himself. Not once!’
‘He didn’t need to. He’s got another door. A private one. It lets you on to the Piazza delli Cappucine out the back. Not this piazza. He had it put in in case of emergencies.’
‘Just the sort of sneaky thing he would do. Why didn’t he come out and face us man to man?’
‘Well, that’s just the sort of thing these big blokes never do. They always leave that bit to someone else.’
They finished their drink and thanked him politely. However, they refused another one. Seymour, used to the ways of dock people, could understand that.
Going back through the Piazza Grande, he found the artists, as ever, at their table. Did they do nothing but drink? Evidently they did, because Alfredo called up at him:
‘Are you coming this evening?’
‘Coming? What to?’
‘James is giving a lecture.’
‘Oh, really? What on?’
‘Ireland,’ said James. ‘Ireland and Trieste.’
‘Sort of. .’ Seymour hesitated. ‘. . geographical?’
‘Cultural,’ said James. ‘And political.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘What I shall bring out,’ said James, ‘are the similarities between Ireland and Trieste.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Both are oppressed nations struggling to be free.’