‘Sometimes there are things I don’t understand and then I go to the students and they explain them to me. They are very good and usually know more than they pretend.
Sometimes they’re silly, of course. And sometimes they draw me in. That business with the statue, for instance. It wasn’t really an attempt at art. I just said that because I was annoyed with Marinetti. It was just a student prank. I dared them and they dared me.
‘A lot of their jokes are like that. Anti-authority, or against the Hapsburg Government. Especially in Trieste, where there’s a lot of feeling about Trieste becoming part of Italy. Well, I don’t mind that. It seems so obviously right to me. Of course, there are other students too, who don’t feel like that. There are all sorts of students here, from all over the Empire. But that makes it more interesting.
‘Lomax found them interesting, too. He liked to talk to them. He was like me. He had never been to university himself and envied them. “If I had my time again. .” he would say, “I think I would have gone to university.” But he came from a poor family, did you know that? They couldn’t afford it. And, anyway, he said, they’d never heard of it. Wasn’t that funny? Just like me. And yet a consul! He used to like to ask the students questions, about their courses and what they were reading and so on.’
‘About their political beliefs?’
‘Well, you can’t get away from that in Trieste,’ said Maddalena drily. That’s what they were talking about most of the time.’
‘And what position did he take?’
‘Oh, like an uncle. He would listen and laugh, but not nastily. Sympathetically, so that they would go on. But sympathetically only up to a point. “Now, now!” he would say sometimes. “You mustn’t blow the world up, or there’ll be nothing left for me to stand on.”‘
‘Maddalena,’ said Seymour. ‘I’ve come for your help. You said you wanted to help me and I think you can. I have been trying to find, as I think you were trying to find the other day, names. The names of individuals. Or at least an individual. So far I have found nothing. I have a feel for his general sympathies, yes; but what about people? Who did he know, talk to? And especially I have been thinking about what you told me about that reception at the Casa Revoltella. I think that could be important and I’d like to know who the person was,’
Maddalena nodded.
‘I have been thinking about that, too. Over and over. But, I am sorry, I cannot think of any name. I don’t think he ever told me.’
‘Maddalena, the thought occurs to me — you said he talked to students, did he talk to some more than others? Are there any he might have talked to about this reception?’
‘He certainly talked about it at least once. I heard him. They had invited him to come to something or other and he said, no, he couldn’t. He had to go to this reception. He would very much have preferred to go with them, he said, but that kind of thing was unfortunately part of his job. “Go and drink?” they said. “Part of the job?” “Someone’s got to do it,” he said. They all laughed. “Maybe I’ll become a consul,” one of them said. “You’ve got to be born beautiful,” he said. He was like that. He could get on with people very well, fit himself into the way they talked and behaved. So, yes, he did mention it. But — ’
‘Would you ask around among your student friends? You see, from what you say, I think it just possible that they might know the person who wanted Lomax to take him to the reception. It could even be a student.’
Maddalena looked doubtful.
‘Well, I don’t really think they’re the sort who would want to — ’
‘That depends on what they wanted to go for. Suppose they wanted to go for the same reason as you went to the Piazza Giuseppina and messed up that statue? To play a prank? And suppose Lomax found out? That might have been the reason why he didn’t want to take them. And if he was a student he would have had to be taken. He wouldn’t have been able to get there any other way.’
‘Well, it is a thought,’ said Maddalena.
‘Just a thought, perhaps. But worth trying. If you wouldn’t mind.’
‘I would be glad to,’ said Maddalena, pleased.
And then I would have an excuse for seeing you again, thought Seymour. But that thought, too, he suppressed.
He returned to the Consulate. Koskash was working away earnestly. What on earth did he find to work on? Seymour was not aware of much mail coming in. Paperwork to do with the ships, Seymour supposed.
Or the seamen.
He found an excuse, later, to send Koskash out of the office for a moment and, while he was away, glanced at the papers on his desk. They were, as he had suspected, seamen’s papers. There were two sets. He didn’t really have time to scrutinize them and wouldn’t really have known what to look for if he had. They seemed normal enough. Two ordinary British seamen.
But British seamen. He made up his mind to watch out for them when they came to collect the papers.
But then the thought struck him that perhaps he wouldn’t be here when they came for them. Suppose they came, as the other one had, late in the evening?
And then he realized. Koskash was staying on this evening, working late. He made up his mind not to go to the lecture after all.
At around eight he went out, telling Koskash that he was going for a meal. Instead, he walked round the block. The trilby hat fell in behind him. Seymour wasn’t having any of that. He could do without that this evening. It was easy, with his experience, to shake the man off.
He returned to the Consulate and took up a position in a doorway across the street.
It was getting dark but this evening was still heavy with heat. The breeze, which had been such a feature of earlier evenings, bringing to the streets even up here in the city the smell of sea mixed with the smell of flowers, was absent and there was nothing to stir the air. Around the Consulate the streets were deserted.
The moments went by. It was hot in the doorway. He felt himself sweating and put up his hand to wipe his sweat from running into his eyes.
He heard footsteps. Two men were coming up the street. They went to the side door of the Consulate and knocked quietly. The door was opened by Koskash and the two went in.
Seymour stepped out of his doorway and walked across the street towards the Consulate.
And then, suddenly, there was the piercing blast of a police whistle, very close. It was answered by another, and then another, converging on the door.
The door opened and two men rushed out. They didn’t try to run away, however, but stood there, smiling.
The street was suddenly full of policemen. Seymour pushed past them. The door of the Consulate was open and through it Seymour could see Koskash, sitting at his desk, his face buried in his hands.
Chapter Nine
Koskash was taken away by the police; and the next morning Seymour went to the police station to find out what had become of him. He went first to Kornbluth. Kornbluth looked uncomfortable and said: ‘It is nothing to do with me,’ After a moment he added: ‘You will have to see Schneider.’ And Seymour realized that this was one which involved the other sort of police. ‘There are two sorts of police in Trieste,’ Alfredo had said: the ordinary ones, the municipal police, and the special sort that you didn’t have in England.
‘Yes, we are holding him,’ said Schneider.
‘On what charges?’
‘He has not been charged yet,’ said Schneider, ‘but they will include committing acts which are against the interests of the State. These are serious charges. And there are others.’
‘May I see him?’
‘Later.’
‘I shall, of course, be sending a report to London.’
‘And we shall, of course, be lodging a formal protest about the Consulate’s behaviour.’