Pronto (9 page)

"The funivia," Maura said.

"The funivia. If I don't drive," Harry said, "I take the funivia to Montallegro and then walk down the hill to my villa. It's near Maurizio di Monti."

He had gone up this morning to check for leaks following a heavy rain the day before.

"I have my car here," Maura said. "I much prefer to drive from Genova than take the train."

"You were smoking on the funivia," Harry said, wanting to stay on the cable car.

She was smoking a cigarette now with her glass of wine. She seemed always to be smoking, blowing it out in quick gusts, as though in a hurry to finish. She said, "Yes?"

"There was a sign in the funivia, I believe it said no smoking."

"I didn't see it."

"A man kept waving his hand in the air and saying in a loud voice -- I think he was saying -- 'There's no smoking in here.' Very upset. And you said something to him."

"That one," Maura said. "I told him to mind his own business. Listen, I was in Barcelona during the summer to see the Olympics. I'll tell you something if you don't know it. Everyone smokes in Barcelona."

"I quit last year," Harry said.

She inhaled and blew a stream of smoke at him as she said, "So, you saw me on the funivia. All the years I come here, when my husband was alive and now, I never visit the Santuario di Montallegro. So I went there today." She stubbed out the cigarette and sat back against her fur jacket.

"The Sanctuary of the Holy Virgin of Montallegro," Harry said. He paused and said, "At first, when I came back here to visit, I thought I wanted to live in Sant'Ambrogio. You know where it is?"

"Of course. Not far from here."

"Where the poet Ezra Pound lived."

Maura nodded. "Yes, I heard of him."

"During the war, in 1944, the Germans made him move out of his apartment, number twelve Via Marsala. There's a plaque on this side of the building." Harry pointed. "Down there, near the bandstand. He was living there with his wife."

"Yes?"

"The Germans were fortifying against the American Army coming up the coast from Rome. And they made Ezra and his wife move in with Ezra's mistress, Olga Rudge, in Sant'Ambrogio."

"You serious?"

"She had a house there. Olga did."

"His wife and his mistress under the same roof?"

Harry was nodding, yes, that's how it was.

"It could never be," Maura said.

"I don't imagine it was easy."

"The wife," Maura said, "did she kill the mistress or her husband? Or both?"

"They made do."

"I don't believe it."

"The house in Sant'Ambrogio also has a plaque on it that says Ezra Pound lived there. Last year when I was looking for a place the house was being renovated, fixed up, painted. ... It was raining the day I saw it."

"You wanted to live in this house?"

"I thought it might be possible. The first time I saw the house was in sixty-seven, but I wasn't looking to buy it then. Ezra Pound was living here again and I came to see him."

"He was someone you admired?"

That was a good question. Harry said, "I did meet him the first time I was here, during the war. It was in 1945. I was between here and Pisa, back and forth, and I got to meet him."

"Ezra Pound," Maura said. "I know the name, but I don't think I read any of his poetry."

"At the time I met him," Harry said, "they had him in a cage. They called it the gorilla cage. He was being held on a charge of treason. For making radio broadcasts in Rome during the war."

"Yes? What did they do with him?"

"He was brought home.... It's a long story. But, I met him. I talked to him. I saw him here again in sixty-seven. Then last year when I looked at the house in the rain... It was in August and it rained most of the time I was here. The next day I went up to Montallegro for the first time and decided to look for a house around there instead."

Harry paused. The woman was waiting for him to continue and he didn't know what to say, how much he wanted to tell her.

"So you bought a villa?"

"I leased it for two years."

"You rather live where the Virgin Mary appeared to a man four hundred years ago than where this poet lived with his wife and his mistress and somehow wasn't killed. I don't blame you."

Harry saw he was going to let her go, not waste any more effort on her. She was too big for him. Joyce was as tall as Maura but slim, without those tremendous thighs. Still, he asked Maura if she would like to see his villa, not sure why he did. She seemed to think about it, as though she might accept his invitation, then shook her head and said, "Not today." So after that he stopped trying to make conversation and pretty soon the woman from Genova picked up her fur jacket and left the cafe.

Harry wondered about her, a disagreeable woman. He could imagine her husband in the industrial film business having an affair with an attractive dark-haired actress who demonstrates electronic devices and Maura finds out about them. Catches them on a dark set or in the editing room. If the husband hadn't died of a heart attack Maura might have killed him.

Maybe she did.

The woman discounted or disagreed with everything he said. He was glad she didn't want to see his villa; he didn't feel much like going up there, riding the funivia with the woman. Then feel he should ask her to have dinner with him and ride back down again.

As soon as he returned to his suite at the Hotel Liguria, Harry called Joyce and saw her living room in late morning sunlight as he listened to the phone ring.

Chapter
Ten.

He told Joyce right away, "I don't want to say too much over the phone."

"But are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Listen -- remember when I told you that story I've never told anyone else in my life?"

"That's where you are?"

"Yeah, but don't say it. Are you busy?"

"Am I busy? Right now?"

"I mean are you working?"

"The end of the month I'm doing a German catalog, right here. Everybody in the world's using South Beach."

"How would you like to take a trip instead?"

She paused. "You sound different."

"I'm trying not to say too much, just in case. I'll tell you, though, I'm standing here looking out the window... I think you'd like it."

There was a silence as she paused again.

"I don't know if I can. I have to make a living."

"Don't worry about that for now, just think about coming. You wouldn't need anything dressy, but bring a coat. It's cooler than Florida."

"How do I get there?"

"Don't worry about that either. I'll work something out."

She said, "I think I'm being watched."

This time Harry paused.

The Hotel Liguria, on a hillside above the road that followed the coast to Santa Margherita and Portofino, was high enough to give Harry a clear view of Rapallo from this far side of the bay: centuries of gray and sand-colored houses and buildings against steep green hills, palm trees along the seafront, an old resort city more Victorian now than medieval. Learning to live here, he hadn't thought of what he might have left behind.

He said to Joyce, "You mean the police?"

And heard her say, "I hope so." And then say, "I've had visitors, friends of yours and someone who isn't a friend. They all seem to think I know where you are."

He was careful, saying, "Was it Tommy who came to see you? You know who I mean?"

"He tried to. Raylan ran him off. But I don't think it's Raylan who's watching me. He's a pretty nice guy."

Harry said, "I didn't mean to get you involved." Heard himself and knew it sounded lame. "I'm really sorry. I can understand if you don't want to come."

She said, "No, I want to." Sounding sincere.

He said, "You don't think maybe we should wait awhile?"

And she said, "Do you want me to come or not?"

He liked her voice, the familiar sound of it, just then with an edge; but he felt they were talking too much. He said, "Are you nervous?"

"A little, yeah."

He said, "I miss you, I want you to come more than anything. Listen, I'll figure out how to work it and get back to you." Harry paused. He said, "Joyce? You know the aftershave I like?"

"Yeah?"

"Bring me a couple bottles. Okay?"

She said it again, "You sound different."

He said, "I know I do."

Harry stood looking at his view of Rapallo beyond the marina on this side of the bay and the statue of Christopher Columbus, anxious to show Joyce his villa. He believed that with a good pair of binoculars he would be able to pick out the villa from here. Tomorrow was Sunday; he'd look for binoculars on Monday. This evening he could stroll down to his favorite fish restaurant or stay in, have dinner in the hotel dining room with its sterile white tile and potted palms. Hotel literature said the English loved the Liguria. At least at one time they did. Built more than a hundred years ago the hotel became popular with English tourists just after the First World War. The restaurant in town or the hotel dining room ... Harry hated eating alone. The woman this afternoon, the way she smoked, sucking deeply on her cigarettes, had made him want one. He'd almost taken a Salem from her pack on the table. He had told Joyce he wanted her to come more than anything, and it was true as he said it. Right now what he wanted more than anything was a drink, a Scotch over ice. It was that time of day and he was far enough from home that it would be safe here. He wouldn't be drinking and talking, telling stories -- the way he had most often gotten in trouble in the past, overdoing it -- there wasn't anyone he could hold a conversation with here and not sound as though he was explaining a joke.

He had imagined himself strolling in the evening along the seafront promenade, the lungomare, where Ezra Pound had strolled more than a half century ago and again a few years before he died, and where Harry had actually watched him stroll in '67. Pound with his style, his cane, his black hat with the wide brim that was like no other hat, the long points of his shirt collar outside his black overcoat. Harry would imagine Ezra Pound returning from his stroll to have a drink with his mistress at the Gran Caffe. Harry had seen Olga Rudge also in '67, gray-haired, but still a knockout. Most people would probably consider his wife, Dorothy, better looking. Maybe, but in one photograph she appeared pigeon-toed and to Harry that indicated a tight-assed personality, little or no sense of humor. He was convinced Olga would have been more fun, or else why get involved in that kind of situation?

He had never thought of Joyce as his mistress, but now liked the idea as he explored ways of getting her here without being followed.

He could call his travel agent, charge Joyce's fare to his account. It seemed the likeliest way. Work out a few details....

There were North Africans here from Tunis, Benghazi, from places in Algeria, who were called "wannabuys" in English and something else in Italian. They sold cheap watches and jewelry on the walk along the seafront: laid out their goods on blankets and called in low voices what sounded like "Wannabuy?" and waited for the people strolling past to notice them.

Harry stood looking out at the bay, at power boats skimming past the sixteenth-century castle that sat out past the seawall; it was connected to the shore by a concrete ramp, like a driveway, and was much smaller than Harry had imagined castles would be. Four-thirty Sunday afternoon there were only a few people on the beach, some old men playing boccie ball. Harry had taken his blazer off and wore it draped over his shoulders now without putting his arms in the sleeves. He believed he might be taken for a real Italian. Lately he'd been thinking he might have to learn the language.

About ten feet from him one of the North Africans had unrolled a straw mat and was now laying out a display of umbrellas, the collapsible kind in a variety of dark colors. The black guy paused, bringing the umbrellas out of a plastic trash bag, looked this way, and Harry felt himself being sized up, judged, the guy about to spring some Mediterranean con on him. The man was slim, his T-shirt hanging loose on his body; he wore a mustache, a tuft of beard under his lower lip, rings and a gold earring, sandals, a pleasant-looking guy actually, smiling now. He said in English:

"I'm not going to sell you an umbrella today, am I? You made up your mind you not going to need one."

With an accent that was Caribbean, British colonial.

Harry said, "Where're you supposed to be from, the Bahamas, Jamaica, or Tunisia?"

The guy said, "You caught me, huh?" Now in American English without the hint of an accent. "I can get away with it talking to Italians, they don't detect the, you know, the nuances. I should've known, man like you would pick up on it."

"I still don't need an umbrella," Harry said. "Day like this, why would anybody want to buy one?"

"It's the way I look up at the sky. See?" He raised his gaze as Harry watched. "Like I know something from my native intelligence, in my genes, I can tell when it's going to rain."