A Dead Man In Trieste

Chapter Five

Somewhat to his surprise, Seymour found himself after all walking out of the police station with him. There were no grounds on which to hold him and Kornbluth had for the moment finished his questioning. He was a tall, lanky, dishevelled Irishman who looked around at everything and everyone, including Seymour, with bloodshot, suspicious eyes.

‘There’s somebody to see you,’ Kornbluth had announced cheerfully when they entered the cell.

‘Why should I see him?’

‘He’s from the Consulate.’

‘What’s that to do with me?’

‘You’re English, aren’t you?’

‘No.’

‘He’s Irish,’ said Seymour, picking up the accent.

The man looked at him as if he was seeing him for the first time.

Kornbluth shrugged.

‘Anyway, you can go,’ he said. ‘For the time being.’

He shambled out. Kornbluth and Seymour exchanged glances, and shrugs.

Seymour followed him out and found him standing unsteadily on the pavement.

‘Can you manage? Do you want me to see you home?’

‘Home?’ said James doubtfully. ‘No, I need a drink. The piazza.’

They went there together.

‘Who are you?’ he said, after a moment.

Seymour decided he wouldn’t say ‘a friend of Lomax’s’ this time because this man actually was a friend of Lomax’s.

‘I’m from the Consulate,’ he said.

‘A replacement? Already?’

‘No. I’m a King’s Messenger. Just passing through.’

The Irishman nodded.

‘Lomax,’ he said: ‘Kornbluth said they’d found him.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

They walked on in silence.

After a while, Seymour said: ‘You knew him well?’

‘I used to see him nearly every day in the piazza. He helped me a lot over the cinema, too.’

‘Cinema?’

‘Business.’

‘You were in business together?’

‘No, no. He just helped me. When I needed advice.’

‘And it was to do with a cinema?’

‘Yes.’ His attention seemed to waver. Then he pulled himself together. ‘Yes, business,’ he said. ‘I’m a businessman.’ He considered for a moment, then frowned. ‘No, that’s not right,’ he said. ‘I would have been a businessman.’ He thought some more. ‘But that’s not right, either. I was a businessman.’

He looked at Seymour.

‘What is a businessman?’ he demanded.

‘Well — ’

‘A man who does business. And did not I do business? Ergo. ’

‘I thought,’ said Seymour cautiously, ‘that you were a professore?’

‘That, too,’ said James grandly. ‘What are these things anyway? Stops on the way to identity. Bus stops,’ he said, with satisfaction. ‘Businessmen are bus stops. That seems right. I, too, was a bus stop.’

‘Ye-e-s?’

‘For a while. Briefly. The imagination can enter into anything. Even a bus stop.’

‘Ye-e-s? Yes, I’m sure. And this was to do with. . the cinema, was it?’

‘Beacons. I think of them as beacons. Beacons of light in a dark, backward world. Marinetti says that they are outposts of the future. All art, he says, is an outpost. Well, that is true, I think. But is it an outpost of the future? Is not art outside time? Not if it is a cinema. The cinema is definitely in time. Marinetti is right there.’

James stopped in the middle of the road and spread his arms.

‘What I wished to do,’ he said, ‘was to light beacons in my benighted land. I lit one, I almost lit two. And then the money ran out.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Cinemas. “Here in Trieste,” I said, “there are twenty-one cinemas. How many are there in Dublin? One. If O’Riley’s is still going.” That is what I said to Machnich. “There is an opportunity,” I said. That is the thing about the imagination. It sees possibilities. That is why artists should be businessmen. And businessmen, artists. Only I did not say that last bit to Machnich. He might not have understood.’

‘You were going to open cinemas in Dublin?’

‘Going to? I did open them. One, anyway. It was very successful. I was going to open another when the bastard pulled the rug out from under me. “Too big a risk,” he said. “Think of the return!” I said. “What return?” he said. “The one that will come in the future,” I said. “It’s not your money,” he said. “How much have you put in?” “I’ve put in my talent,” I said. It was an unequal bargain, but he didn’t see it like that.’

‘And Lomax helped in this enterprise?’

‘Smoothed the way. The technicalities. Customs, Board of Trade, that sort of thing. It gave Machnich confidence, I think, to have Lomax advising. These things were important to him.’

‘Did Lomax put in any money of his own?’

‘Oh, dear, no! Machnich was the one with the money. He runs a big carpet shop. And the Edison, too. And one or two others. He wanted to run more. But Trieste is already full of them. “Raise your eyes,” I said. “Look outwards. Look to Ireland.” I thought I had persuaded him. But in the end he hadn’t the imagination. The money, but not the imagination,’

From the fact that Kornbluth had released James so readily, Seymour guessed that he didn’t really suspect him of involvement in Lomax’s death. He had probably worked out the kind of man James was. Seymour put him down as a batty professor who was too fond of his drink. He was involved only to the extent that he happened to be the person who had gone to the cinema with Lomax. There was nothing more sinister in it than that.

However, Kornbluth was right. They had learned something. They knew now that Lomax had gone to the Edison that night and that what had happened to him had happened after he came out. Seymour felt again the frustration of having to operate covertly. What he would have liked to do was question everyone in the vicinity and establish if anyone had seen Lomax at that point. But that was exactly what he couldn’t do. He would have to leave that to Kornbluth.

When they got back to the piazza the artists were all sitting there at the table. They jumped up when they saw James and embraced him.

‘There! You see?’ said Maddalena, placing her hand intimately over Seymour’s. ‘It was easy.’

‘What was it for this time, James?’ asked Lorenzo.

James looked bewildered.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Going to the cinema, I think.’

‘But, James — ’

‘Arresting people for going to the cinema?’ cried Alfredo, firing up. ‘Where will it end?’

‘I don’t think — ’ began Seymour.

His voice was drowned in the general protestation.

‘They are standing out against the Future,’ shouted Marinetti.

There was a new face at the table. It belonged to a middle-aged man with tobacco-stained fingers, whom they referred to as Ettore. During a lull in the conversation Seymour asked if he was an artist too. Alas, no, he said: his talents lay in other directions. He worked in the family varnishing business. He would soon, he said, be going to England to set up a factory there. In preparation for this he was taking, God help him, thought Seymour, lessons in English from James. A little later he shook hands all round and left.

After he had gone Alfredo said that although he was not an artist he understood about artists. He was a writer and had written several novels. None of them had got anywhere and he had given up writing; but recently he seemed to have started again.

Perhaps it was the effect of Lomax’s death that they drank heavily. Seymour reckoned himself to have a good head for alcohol but he found it hard to keep level. He wondered uneasily who was going to pay and if he should. Could he put it down to expenses? Almost certainly not, he thought.

When it came to it, they all insisted that he was their guest and that there could be no question of his paying; but as they turned out their pockets it looked rather as if they were going to be his. In fact, however, Ettore had already paid.

As he was going away across the piazza he saw a newspaper seller standing there with his newspapers spread out on the ground before him. He was holding up a newspaper and shouting: ‘Bosnia crisis! The latest.’

Crisis? What crisis? Almost: Bosnia? What Bosnia?

Seymour could never resist a headline. He went across to the man and bought one of his papers.

As far as he could see, there was no mention of Bosnia in it.

‘Hey, what was all that about a crisis?’ he complained to the newspaper seller.

‘It’s still there,’

‘It doesn’t say anything about a crisis here!’

‘It doesn’t need to. I’m saying it. It’s still on. That’s the point. I don’t want people to forget about it.’

‘Yes, but the newspaper isn’t saying anything about it!’

‘It bloody well ought to be. That’s why I’m saying it.’

‘Yes, well, thanks. Don’t you think you should leave editorial comment to the editors?’

‘No. They’re all bloody Austrian. You won’t find a word about this now that it’s happened. They want to keep it quiet.’

‘Look, what’s happened? What crisis is this, anyway?’

‘The annexation.’

‘What annexation?’

‘Christ, where have you come from?’

‘London.’

‘Isn’t it in all the papers there?’

‘No.’

‘Well, it bloody ought to be. It’s a disgrace. More than a disgrace, it’s a conspiracy. All the Great Powers hanging together. And letting Austria hang Bosnia.’

‘Just tell me.’

‘You don’t know? Really? Christ, you’re an ignorant bugger.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Well, you know that a couple of years ago Austria annexed Bosnia. No? You really don’t?’

‘It had escaped me.’

‘What hope is there for the working class when the privileged classes are so bloody ignorant! Well, it did. Just like that. They thought no one would notice. And if you’re anything to go by, they were dead right. All right, you’re an ignorant Britisher. But you’d have thought someone would have noticed and said: “Hey, you can’t do that!” But they’re all in it together, the Great Powers.’

‘Yes, well, no doubt. But it’s all over, isn’t it? You said it was two years ago?’

‘It’s not all over. It’s never going to be all over. It’s going to blow up.’

‘Yes, well, maybe,’

‘It’ll blow up. And blow your world apart.’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘How do you think the Bosnians feel about it? How do you think we feel about it?’

‘We? What’s it got to do with Trieste?’

‘I’m speaking as a Serb.’

‘All right, speaking as a Serb: what’s it got to do with Serbia?’

‘Well, Bosnia’s bloody ours, isn’t it? Or it ought to be. It’s been part of Serbia for a thousand years. Or it should have been. And do you think we’re going to let them get away with this? Not a chance!’

Seymour went to Lomax’s apartment and began making a list of his effects. He was sitting at the small table when Maddalena came in.

‘The concierge let me in.’ She looked at Seymour. ‘But I have a key, yes.’

‘Why have you come here?’ asked Seymour.

‘To see if I could find anything here that would help us.’

‘Help us to do what?’

‘Find out who killed him.’

Seymour sighed.

‘Hadn’t you better leave that to the police?’

‘Are you leaving it to the police?’ she said.

‘No,’ he said, after a moment.

‘Well, I’m not, either.’

‘What were you hoping to find?’ he said.

‘Names.’

‘There aren’t any. I’ve looked.’

‘Do you mind if I look? I know the place better than you.’

‘Go ahead.’

Some time later she came back.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘There aren’t any.’

‘He never put anything on paper.’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Were you looking for any names in particular?’

She was silent for a little while. Then she said: ‘Lomax helped a lot of people. I thought that one time it might have gone wrong.’

‘Do you have any particular reason for thinking that?’

She was silent again. She seemed to be turning something over in her mind. At last she said:

‘It seems silly. Trivial. It is probably nothing. But since — since it happened, since Lomax died, I have been thinking, thinking all the time. How could it have happened? How could anyone have done that to — well, a person like him? I have thought over everything, the people he knew, the things he did. But he never did a bad thing. I am sure he would never do a bad thing. So why would anyone want to kill him? I have thought and thought. And the conclusion I have come to is that it must be because of one of the good things he did. Perhaps it went wrong, or perhaps they wanted more. More than he was prepared to give.

‘Because he was quite strong, really. Stronger than you thought. I know he didn’t seem like that. Not when you first met him. When he first joined us in the piazza — Alfredo, I think it was, or perhaps Ettore, who brought him — we thought, what a funny little man! I mean, he didn’t fit in at all. He knew nothing about art, that was obvious, or about artists. He wasn’t interested in any of the things we were interested in. But he kept on coming. We couldn’t think why he bothered. He never used to say anything. He just sat there smiling, like a puppy wagging its tail. And that’s how we treated him, like a little dog, who had for some reason attached itself to us.

‘He was so grateful to be stroked. And then I saw that he was especially grateful to be stroked by me. I quite enjoyed that, any woman does, giving the occasional stroke from time to time and watching a man wag his tail. It become obvious. “You have made a conquest there, Maddalena,” the others said. I wasn’t very flattered. “Well, I’m not surprised,” I said, “A man like that!” He seemed so silly, you know, with that inane smile and his moustache, and those dog-like eyes. But gradually he grew on me. It is nice to be worshipped.’

‘And so you came to have the key to his apartment,’ said Seymour.

‘Yes. And at one time I used to come here often. Then, not so much. Only when I needed to. A woman on her own sometimes needs someone to go to. The others — Alfredo and Luigi and Lorenzo — are all right, but they are artists. They see me as a model and not always as a person. But sometimes you feel the need to be seen as a person. Well, when it was like that, I would go to Lomax.

‘But it wasn’t just me. We all turned to him when we were in difficulties, when there was some business problem or trouble with the authorities. Whenever James got put in prison, for example. And he always knew what to do. He would always be able to sort it out. In the Austrian Empire it is always difficult if you come up against the officials. They ride rough-shod over you, especially if you are just an ordinary person. But the officials could never fob Lomax off or browbeat him or override him. That is what I meant when I said that he was so strong.

‘And he always used it for others. I have been thinking about him a lot since he died and that is what I have come to see, and what is so wonderful.’

She had begun to cry a little.

‘And that is why I feel so angry. It is so — so unjust. That he should die like this. God is unjust and must not be allowed to get away with it. I will not let that happen. I, Maddalena, will not let that happen,’ she said, fiercely, through her tears.

‘I am sorry. You obviously knew him much better than I did and cared for him deeply — ’

‘No!’

‘No?’

‘No. I cared for him shallowly, too shallowly. It has been over for some time. It is nice to be worshipped but to be up on a pedestal for too long is boring. And wrong, anyway. It is not what I want from a man. It was time to move away. Time, too, for him to move away. I think he had begun to realize that for himself. I was part, you see, of his first days in Trieste, and they were over.

‘When he first came to Trieste, something happened to him. There was a great opening up — art, sunshine, the Mediterranean way of life, it all hit him together. All his life up till then he had been contained, controlled. Now, suddenly, he felt free. Things became possible that had not seemed possible before. Love, perhaps. Me.

‘He found it all in me, you see. Or thought he did. Love, art, release, freedom — everything. Of course, it was not there. I am much less than that. But perhaps for him, for a while, it was there.

‘For a while. But then, you see, I think he began to grow. This opening up did not stop there. He looked at things he had not noticed before, things he had never previously questioned. Things about society. About people. Perhaps he thought: I am free, why cannot they be free?

‘He began to look outwards, to involve himself more with other people. He began to help them. But, you know, in Trieste people are not just people, they are always part of something else. I don’t think he realized that. I don’t think he realized that though you may begin with helping people as individuals, you are soon, in Trieste, drawn on to helping other things. And that, I think, is what may have happened to him. He was drawn on and then it went wrong.

‘You asked me if I had any particular reason for thinking that. Yes, I do. Once — I remember when it was. There was a big reception at the Casa Revoltella and he asked me if I would come with him. Well, I did not want to go very much, it is not my kind of thing, pompous people, stiff uniforms — no, no. But he said: “Oh, do come, Maddalena! If I don’t have someone real to talk to, I shall go crazy! And there will be lots of colour and beautiful things and you can point them out to me.”

‘Well, I agreed. But then, on the day before it was going to happen, he came to me and said: “No, no, I can’t go. It would not be right. Someone else has asked me to take them, and I don’t want to. It would not be right.” “If you’re bothered about me, you needn’t be,” I said. “I’m quite happy not to go. Why don’t you take this other person?” “No,” he said. “It would be better for me not to go at all. That would make it clear.” Well, I tried to persuade him, but he would not have it, and I didn’t try too hard. It was not important to me. But afterwards I thought about it and I couldn’t understand it. Who was this other person? Why didn’t he want to go with them? And why was it so important? I did not find answers, but now the questions come back to me.’

She shrugged.

‘It may be nothing,’ she said. ‘Now when I tell it, it seems trivial. But it was a moment when I felt there was a side to Lomax, a part of his life, that I did not know. And that surprised me, for I felt that I knew everything about him. And now, after thinking about Lomax and searching and searching, trying to find what could have led to this, this is all I can think of. It is trivial, I know, perhaps silly, but it is all that I can come up with.’

‘And so, when you came back here to look for names, this was the name you were looking for?’

She nodded.

‘Do you think it might have been an Italian name?’

‘I hope not,’ she said.

The Mediterranean evening set in early and it was dark by the time Seymour got back to the Consulate. There was a light on. Koskash must still be there. Seymour hoped he had not stayed on because of him.

The front door was locked so he went round to the side door. It opened easily and he stepped in.

Koskash was at his desk. There were two men standing in front of him. They had their backs turned to the door and were blocking Koskash’s view so that for a moment none of them knew that Seymour had come in.

‘I can’t do it,’ Koskash was saying. ‘Not now.’

‘He needs them tonight,’ one of the men insisted.

‘I’m only half-way through doing them and I’ve got to go out.’

‘He needs them. Tonight.’

Koskash looked up and saw Seymour.

‘All right,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Tell him to come later. Not too much later. Between nine and nine thirty. And if he’s not here by nine thirty, it will be too bad, because I’ve got to go out.’

He ushered the men out.

‘Seamen!’ he said feelingly when he got back. ‘They just don’t understand. It’s always got to be done immediately. They can’t see that things take time.’

‘They’re lucky to catch you at this hour.’

‘They wouldn’t normally. It’s just that my wife and I are going out later this evening and this is a good place for her to pick me up.’

Seymour went on into the inner room. It was too early to go to the cinema or to have a meal and Lomax’s office, bare though it was, was more congenial than his hotel room.

He sat down at the desk and began to copy out the list of Lomax’s effects. It would be needed back in London by whoever was winding up Lomax’s estate.

Through the half-open door he could see Koskash working on assiduously. He saw him look at his watch.

‘Nine thirty,’ he said, catching Seymour’s eye, ‘and he’s not come. Seamen!’

There was a knock on the side door.

‘Ah!’

It was his wife, however. She was younger than Koskash and distinctly Slav in looks. She stopped when she saw Seymour, as if surprised, and then came forward, smiling.

‘Koskash had told me about you,’ she said. She called him Koskash. ‘I hope you will enjoy your stay, even though it will obviously be a short one. And comes at such a sad time.’

They chatted for a while and then she looked at her husband.

‘Oughtn’t we to go?’

Koskash had tidied his papers up but was hesitating by his desk.

‘There’s someone coming,’ he said.

‘At twenty to ten? Look, if we don’t leave soon, the meeting will have started.’

‘It’s — it’s for papers,’ said Koskash.

‘Oh! Oh, well, in that case — ’

‘I’ll be here for a bit longer,’ said Seymour.

Koskash looked at his wife.

‘That would be very kind,’ she said, smiling. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’

‘Not at all,’

‘Don’t hang around for him,’ said Koskash. ‘Leave when you want to and if he’s not come, well, too bad.’

He and his wife went off arm in arm.

Seymour went back to his desk. It didn’t take him long to finish his copying. Lomax hadn’t had many effects.

It was getting towards ten now. If he wanted to get to the cinema in time for the evening performance, he would have to leave now. The man had probably decided not to come.

He put the papers he had been working on in the empty drawer of Lomax’s desk, together with the envelope that Koskash had given him. Then he went out into the main office. Koskash had given him a key to the side door. He opened the door and went out.

As he stepped outside, he almost collided with a man about to come in. The man fell back with a surprised gasp.

‘Signor Lomax?’ he said hesitantly.

‘No. Seymour. Have you come for something?’

‘Si. Si.’

Seymour took him in. He was a young man in his twenties, wearing spectacles and in a cheap, dark suit. He brought his heels together and gave a little bow. Then he looked at Seymour uncertainly.

‘I was expecting Koskash,’ he said.

‘He’s just gone.’

‘I am sorry, I am late. They said to be here before nine thirty but I took a wrong turning. I do not know Trieste.’

Reassured by the reference to the deadline Koskash had appointed, Seymour went back into his room and fetched the envelope.

‘Was this what you were wanting?’

The man looked in the envelope and nodded. He seemed relieved.

‘Please will you thank Mr Koskash for me,’ he said.

He spoke in Italian but was not Italian. Nor was he English. This troubled Seymour but for the moment he couldn’t think why.

The man clicked his heels and bowed again, and Seymour let him out.

All day he had been listening to the voices around him: the women haggling in the markets, the men unloading the boats, the newspaper seller in the piazza, the barely comprehensible old woman behind her pile of melons; the little groups of men standing talking in the piazzas — they seemed to stand there all day; the housewives sitting in their doorway to catch a breath of air, calling back over their shoulder from time to time to someone inside, an elderly mother who would occasionally show herself, or a young daughter who would emerge indignant and passionate, holding an even younger child by the hand; the policemen at the police station with their Austrian bittes and the waiters in the Piazza Grande with their Italian pregos. All day he had been taking them in and now, sitting in the Edison, at the time that Lomax had sat there, waiting for the picture to begin, the picture that Lomax had waited for with James, he was listening to them still.

Seymour had an unusual ear for language. It was that that had brought him here, had made him what he was. Growing up in the East End and hearing its various languages he had sometimes mimicked them when he had gone home. Old Appelmann, visiting once, had noticed his facility and encouraged it. Occasionally he took Seymour with him when he was doing his work as the local interpreter, and had talked about the language after. Old Appelmann had once been a teacher and could not resist teaching now. Gradually, with his help, Seymour had acquired the languages of the East End.

Much of Appelmann’s work had been for the police and in that way they had got to know Seymour too. That had led first to his becoming Appelmann’s paid assistant and then to his joining the police force itself.

At first he had not liked the police and had thought about leaving. But acute superiors had spotted his talent, which was not confined to languages, and encouraged him to make use of it. In time he had settled and things suddenly became easier when, unusually for an ordinary constable, he had been transferred to the Special Branch. They had used him a lot in the East End, where so many languages were spoken.

Trieste, from that point of view, was a delight. It was like the East End only more so. It was Europe in miniature, Europiccola, as James had once said fondly, Europe with all its languages brought together in a small space.

Now, in the cinema, his ear trailed, as it were, lovingly over them; but all the time at the back of his mind he was hearing again the voice of the man who had come to the Consulate late to pick up his ‘papers’. Something about it continued to niggle at him.

A piano at the front of the cinema started to play. The show was about to begin. It was the picture that Lomax had seen on the night he died. Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. Seymour felt an anticipating thrill of excitement. This, at any rate, should be a treat.

When Seymour came out of the cinema he found his path obstructed by a line of men carrying placards. In the darkness he couldn’t quite see what the placards said. The men didn’t really attempt to block him. They parted and let everyone through.

‘Socialists!’ said a man beside Seymour, contemptuously.