A Dead Man In Trieste

Chapter Eight

‘Sand.’

‘ — or,’ said Seymour.

The man at the Club’s reception desk raised his head.

‘Or what, sir?’

‘Sandor. That’s the name. S-a-n-d-o-r. Sandor. It’s a Hungarian name. Comes from my mother.’

‘Right, sir. Thank you, sir. Well, Mr Sandor, if you’ll just — ’

‘That’s just my first name. You said you wanted my full name.’

‘Well, yes, sir. If you wouldn’t mind.’

‘Pelczynski.’

‘Pel. .?’

Resignedly Seymour spelt it out.

‘It’s a Polish name. Comes from my grandfather.’

Why did he have to go on like that? He knew why. Ever since he had started going to school he had been self- conscious about his name. Most of the teachers in the East End were used to the assortment of immigrant names but it so happened that his first teacher had not been; and floundered.

‘Pel. .’ Mumble, mumble. ‘Well, thank you, sir, I’ll — ’

‘Seymour.’

And even that had problems. ‘Listen,’ his grandfather had said when he got to England. ‘No Englishman is ever going to get his jaw round a name like Pelczynski!’ And he had changed it to Seymour, retaining, however, Pelczynski as a second Christian name in the family to the chagrin of his descendants ever since.

‘Sandor Pelczynski Seymour,’ said Seymour firmly.

‘Right, sir. Thank you, sir. If you’ll just take a seat, I’ll tell Mr Barton that you’re here.’

So Seymour sat down on the horsehair-stuffed, leather-upholstered sofa in the foyer of the English Club and waited. Seymour wasn’t used to clubs. Ordinary policemen from the East End weren’t. But he had been in one once, taken in by a superior when he was one of the team working on the Ripper case in Whitechapel not long before. Seymour’s job had been to check out some of the royal suspects. Well, that had been a waste of time. He had run straightaway into the same wall of superiority and superciliousness, call it class distinction if you liked, that he had encountered when he had gone to the Foreign Office. The English Club in Trieste wasn’t quite like that but it had something of the same air as the club he had been taken to in the West End. ‘Neutral ground,’ his superior had said. Well, it wasn’t neutral ground as far as Seymour was concerned.

There were the same comfortable chairs, the same discreet, deferential servants. From a room in the back he could hear the click of billiard balls. English newspapers were strewn on the tables and there was a rack of illustrated periodicals hanging from the wall. While he was watching, a man came in and took one. He went into an inner room, where Seymour caught a glimpse of yet more comfortable chairs. ‘Surrey, 231 for one,’ the man said to someone already sitting there.

On the wall were pictures of hunting scenes, together with a portrait of the monarch: not, actually, the present King but the old Queen, Victoria. The English Club in Trieste, like most clubs, in Seymour’s view, was a bit behind the times.

Barton came bustling in.

‘Seymour! Good to see you. Good of you to come.’

‘It was kind of you to invite me.’

‘I thought, just while you’re here — I know it probably won’t be for long, but even so, I thought you’d be glad of the chance to get back to a piece of England occasionally.’

‘I would indeed,’ said Seymour untruthfully.

Barton led him into the inner room, the reading room perhaps, and took him over to a corner, away from the only two other inhabitants.

‘Tea? Or something stronger?’

‘Coffee?’

‘Coffee it is.’ Barton went off to place the order, then came back and sat down opposite him.

‘Well, how are you finding things? And how are you getting on with sorting things out over poor old Lomax?’

‘Oh, reasonably well. People are very helpful’

‘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.’

‘Yes, yes. I suppose you could say that.’

‘Trieste is certainly struggling to be free,’ said Lorenzo. ‘But is it a nation?’

‘Part of a nation,’ said James.

‘But which nation?’

‘Italy, of course.’

‘And Ireland?’

‘Struggling to be free from England,’ said James. ‘And the Church.’

‘Well, that’s a problem here, too, of course.’

‘Exactly! What I shall say is — ’

Seymour began to move away.

‘You will come, won’t you?’ said Alfredo coaxingly.

‘I’ll certainly try to.’

‘The People’s University. At eight.’

When Seymour got to the Consulate, he found Mrs Koskash there as well as Koskash. They seemed to have been having an argument. Mrs Koskash was flushed and tight- lipped, Koskash grim. They both greeted him, however, politely.

‘I mustn’t stay, though,’ said Mrs Koskash. ‘There are dozens of things I have to do.’

She bustled out.

Koskash stood for a moment looking at her retreating back, then turned away.

‘She is always busy,’ he said quickly to Seymour. ‘She does so many things in the community For so many causes.’

‘Bazaars,’ said Seymour, remembering his sister. ‘Cake sales. Street collections.’

‘Why, yes,’ said Koskash, surprised. ‘That’s right.’

The thought of his sister brought to Seymour’s mind the occasions on which he had last seen Mrs Koskash.

‘Your wife’s a Socialist, isn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ said Koskash. ‘Does that matter?’

‘Not at all,’ said Seymour. ‘My own sister is one.’

‘She is? I am one myself, of course, although not as committed as she is. She is the chairman of our branch.’

‘Ah! Then she, perhaps, is the person who has been negotiating on behalf of the strikers at Machnich’s carpet shop?’

‘Yes, that’s right. They had a long session last night. It is being put to the vote this morning.’

‘It’s been put to the vote. They’ve accepted.’

‘Well, that is probably good,’ said Koskash. ‘They’ve been out for a long time.’

‘Your wife is evidently a formidable lady.’

‘Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed.’

He settled himself at his desk.

‘I have quite a bit of work to do,’ he said. ‘I shall probably stay on late this evening, if that is all right.’

Seymour was surprised the work was there. But then, with Lomax missing, Koskash was probably doing his work as well. He wondered uneasily if he ought to be doing something about the general work of the Consulate: but that, he decided, was something for Lomax’s superiors in London to see to. They would have heard of his death by now.

Koskash was hesitating.

‘Will you, yourself, be here this evening?’

‘No, probably not. I may go to a lecture at the People’s University.’

‘Ah, really?’

‘Given by Mr Juice.’

‘I have been to some of his lectures before. He is usually very good. Odd, but good. Different from the other lecturers, anyway. Yes, you should go. You will find it entertaining,’

Seymour was less sure about that but felt a certain degree of curiosity. He might well go.

He went back into the inner room. The heavy and mostly empty appointments book was on top of the desk. He began to go systematically through the pages. What he was looking for was any reference to the Casa Revoltella. There was one, for the day of the reception, and it was underlined. It was one of the few entries that Lomax had made for himself. The entries at the beginning of the book had been made, dutifully, by Koskash, but after a while he had given up, switching instead to the bits-of-paper prompting that Koskash had told Seymour about. The reception had evidently become important to Lomax for some reason: perhaps the reason that Maddalena had suggested, that something in connection with it had disrupted what appeared to be the even flow of his existence.

Some person. In his investigation so far Seymour was very short of individual names. He had been looking for them all the time. This seemed to be a chance of getting one. At least there was an individual here, if Maddalena was to be believed, and he saw no reason why she shouldn’t be.

But the name. That was what Maddalena had come looking for and what he, Seymour, was looking for now. He went through the pages without success and then asked Koskash, who couldn’t help him. If Lomax had made any appointment with whoever it was, that hadn’t been registered in Koskash’s system.

Had Lomax mentioned a name? Koskash couldn’t recall any of particular significance at that time. He showed Seymour his notes, which were, as Seymour had come to expect, detailed and meticulous. The only names were those of officials. Seymour asked about them. It was possible, wasn’t it, that an official might wish to go to the reception, either through vanity or in the hope of an informal way of doing business? But no, the officials Koskash mentioned would all have had more promising means of getting invited to the reception than going through Lomax.

Seymour realized he would have to go back to his starting point: Maddalena.

It suddenly struck him that he didn’t know where to look for her. He could go to the artists’ table, of course, but he wanted to talk to her away from all the others. He was still leaving open the possibility of an Italian dimension to Lomax’s sympathies. Where else could she be? How did she spend her days? She modelled, of course, and might be with some artist or other, but if she was, he wouldn’t have a hope of finding her. Almost on the off-chance, he went back to her apartment, where, slightly to his surprise, he found her.

She seemed pleased to see him; more than pleased, delighted. He felt a twinge of contrition. He really ought to have gone back to her before this, carried things on somehow from where they had been left off. But then, he reminded himself, he had resolved to keep his distance from her. What was all that, he said to himself sternly, about focusing on his work? Why was he here? But this was work, a voice within him said. ‘Oh, yes?’ said another voice, which Seymour firmly suppressed.

He said that he had wondered if she would be out modelling.

‘If only,’ said Maddalena, with a sigh.

‘Not much demand?’

‘Not much money.’

He asked her how she spent her days and had a sudden pang at the thought that she might spend them like this. Here. Perhaps that was why she went down to the artists’ table. What was it that she had said when she was talking about Lomax? That a woman on her own could feel very alone in Trieste.

‘In the library,’ said Maddalena.

‘In the —?’

Maddalena looked embarrassed.

‘Well, I do,’ she said defensively. ‘I go there most days. It’s a very good library,’

‘What do you read?’

She looked self-conscious again.

‘Everything,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to catch up.’

‘Catch up?’

‘I come from Puglia,’ she said. ‘If you knew Puglia, you’d know what I’m talking about. It’s one of the poorest parts of Italy. With everything that goes with that. There’s nothing there for anyone and least of all for a woman who — who doesn’t want to get caught in the trap. You know, five children before you’re twenty, old before your time, your husband loses interest in you. I had to get away. I wanted to get away. I wanted all the things I had missed, education, ideas, art, all the things that I thought other people had. Well, of course, they don’t, but I thought they had. So I came up north. But you can’t go to a college or a university if you’ve had an education like I had. As I found out. I bummed around for a while and drifted into modelling.

‘What I do mostly is read. And listen. Not just to the artists, although they have helped a lot. They are always talking, about ideas and art, things that matter. I talk to students, too. There are a lot of them in Trieste. Usually they go out of town, to places like Bologna, but the cafes are always full of them. And sometimes in the evening I go to lectures myself, at the People’s University. It’s not really a university, not like theirs, it’s for people who can’t go to university, workers, women. People like me. But mostly I read.

‘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.