A Dead Man In Trieste

Chapter Twelve

Seymour was getting a taste for Trieste. When he walked down to the Consulate from his hotel in the morning, he liked to take in the Canal Grande, with its little working boats and the men loading and unloading — all small stuff, but, as Kornbluth had said on the first occasion when he had come here, somehow satisfyingly real, the tavernas up the side streets and the little cafes on the quays, the seagulls pecking for droppings, and the women at the end of the canal, sitting on the steps of the church, sewing.

This morning, as he walked along by the side of the canal, he was surprised to see the trim figure of Rakic. He was standing on the edge of the quay looking down into one of the boats and talking to its captain. Seymour had no particular urge to talk to Rakic and walked on past. His ear, registering language as always, picked up their speech, noticing it especially, perhaps, because it was in a language unfamiliar to him. Not quite unfamiliar, though, because he could work out what they were saying.

‘Two days,’ the captain said. ‘That’s all. We’ll make Sarajevo in two days.’

The name of the place gave him a clue. Bosnian, that was it, that must be the language: close to Serbian.

‘All right, then,’ Rakic said. ‘Be ready.’

He turned and saw Seymour.

‘Ah, Signor Seymour!’

Seymour stopped unwillingly. Rakic hurried across.

‘You are taking an early morning walk? Good for the digestion.’

‘I’m staying at a hotel,’ said Seymour. This is on my way to the Consulate,’

‘Ah, yes.’

Rakic fell in alongside him.

‘You are thinking about the message you will be taking back to London, perhaps? To the King?’

‘Not much thought needed, I would say.’

‘You will be telling him about Signor Lomax?’

‘I think they already know.’

‘Of course. And what,’ he said, after a moment, ‘was their reaction? When they heard?’

‘I think they are waiting to hear more.’

‘Of course. That is natural. It is natural for diplomats to react with caution. But what about the British Government? When all there is to be known, is known, how will it respond, do you think? With anger, that its Consul should be killed?’

‘They regret Lomax’s death, of course — ’

Rakic interrupted him.

‘But will they be angry? With the Austrians, for letting this happen?’

‘Well, I don’t know that it will be quite a question of that — ’

‘He is too small? A consul is, after all, a small thing. To a country like Britain, which has many consuls. And a consul in Trieste! What is Trieste to London? What is the death of the Consul in Trieste? Nothing! It is insignificant, the death of a fly. Or, perhaps, of a mosquito.’

Rakic seemed amused by the thought.

‘Yes, a mosquito,’ he repeated, with satisfaction. ‘Always buzzing around, irritating, being difficult.’

‘You found him difficult?’

Rakic gave him a weighing look.

‘Yes, difficult,’ he said.

‘Others found him easy to get on with.’

‘I found him difficult. You would think he was agreeing with you, going along with you. And then he would dig his heels in!’

Tm sorry you found that,’

‘Ah, well, it is not important. And a consul, you are right, is not important. His death does not make a big splash. I just wondered, that is all. Wondered if it would be enough to make England respond. But no, you are right. Too small,’

He was silent for a moment.

‘But Austria, now, or Russia. How would they respond? If their man on the spot was killed? I think they might respond differently. The British Empire is so big, you see, and. . complacent. It can afford to ignore such things. But the Austrian Empire is. . touchy. It feels more threatened. It would not ignore something like that. No,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘it would not, could not, ignore a thing like that.’

Seymour went to see Koskash. He was pleased to see him.

‘No,’ he said, ‘it is not that they have — No, it is just that one sits here alone for hour after hour so that it is nice to have someone to talk to.’

He looked at Seymour diffidently.

‘While I have been here, I have been thinking. I have been thinking especially about the questions you asked. About Machnich and Signor Lomax. And I know that why you asked them is because you want to know why it was and how it was that Signor Lomax died. You are asking if it was connected with. . with what I was doing. And as I sit here I have been asking myself the same question. I ask myself, could I have contributed, in any way, to his death?

‘But I do not see how I could have done. I do not see how it could have been as you suppose. Machnich is not like that. He shouts and blusters but in the end he does not strike. In the end he is, actually, a coward. He does not like to confront people. He even had a secret door put in — ’

‘Yes,’ said Seymour, ‘I heard that,’

‘- so that he could avoid people if necessary. If they were waiting for him outside the cinema. As sometimes they were.’

The picket line said Seymour.

There were always picket lines with Machnich,’ said Koskash. ‘It was not that he was especially hard, it was that he would get into a position and then be unable to climb down. My wife used to say that he was a fool. He would get into a conflict when it wasn’t really necessary. And then he would stand on his dignity and it would be very hard to get him out of it.

‘So, stupid and obstinate, yes — a typical Trieste bourgeois businessman, in fact — but not. . not someone who would kill. I do not see how he could have done what you are supposing.’

‘So,’ said Mrs Koskash, ‘you saw him?’

‘Yes.’

‘How was he?’

‘He had been thinking.’

Mrs Koskash got up and began to pace about the room.

‘That is bad,’ she said. ‘If he thinks, he will brood: and that will be bad for him.’

She was silent for a moment. Then -

‘I do not think I can leave him there,’ she said.

‘I am not sure that even if you went to the police and gave yourself up, that would get him out,’ said Seymour, guessing what she was thinking of doing. ‘He has committed a crime and they will see it like that.’

‘It is hard,’ said Mrs Koskash, ‘and gets harder every day.’ She came back to the chair and sat down. ‘What did you talk about?’

‘I had asked him some questions, and he had been thinking about them.’

‘What were the questions?’

‘About Machnich and Lomax. They were, essentially,’ he said, ‘the questions I asked you.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He knew why I was asking them; and said that Machnich was not that kind of man.’

Mrs Koskash nodded.

‘Too weak,’ she said. ‘He liked everyone to think he was strong. The Big Man. He liked everyone to think that. Not just here but back where he came from. Perhaps that was even more important. He always had to justify himself in their eyes. Make them think that Machnich, the little boy from round the block, had made good. But, underneath, he was still just a little boy.

‘However, they believed him. When they came to Trieste, they would go to him, thinking that he would be able to fix things for them.’

‘Serbs?’

‘Not always. Mostly, yes. But sometimes others, who had been to Belgrade and heard that he was the man in Trieste to go to.’

‘Rakic?’

‘Perhaps. I do not know otherwise what he is doing here. Or why he should have attached himself to Machnich.’

‘You told me that there was a time when he was acting as go-between. Between Machnich and Lomax. You said that he seemed to be coming all the time.’

‘Yes, that is right.’

‘And then he stopped. And that was the moment when he started pressing Koskash over the two Herzegovinians.’

‘Yes.’

‘Could you tell me when that was? Exactly.’

‘Well. .’

‘Was it, for instance, before the reception at the Casa Revoltella — you remember the reception? — or after?’

‘He was definitely badgering Signor Lomax before. But the Herzegovinians — I think that was after.’

‘Herzegovina?’ said the newspaper seller. ‘Don’t get me started! Look, where do they stand? With us, or with the Bosnians? With the Bosnians. Well, that’s asking for it, isn’t it? All right, they’ve been with them for a long time. A few centuries. But what are a few centuries in the Balkans? Long enough to learn better. You would have thought.’

‘Where exactly is Herzegovina?’ said Seymour.

‘You don’t know? You really don’t know? Christ, what do they teach you in schools in England! Look, you know where Bosnia is? Don’t you?’

‘Roughly,’ said Seymour. ‘Very roughly.’

‘Go across the sea from the north of Italy and you’ll hit it. Roughly. Well, Herzegovina is sort of mixed in with Bosnia. Not clear? Well, it’s not really clear to the Herzegovinians themselves. And that’s part of the trouble. They never know where they stand. And nor do you.’

‘Well, no.’

‘I think of them as being part of Bosnia. So if Bosnia doesn’t like being taken over by Austria, they don’t like it, either. Of course, there are not many of them, not as many as there are of the Bosnians, so in a way they don’t matter much. But in my experience they’re always causing difficulty out of proportion to their numbers. We’ve had a couple of them lately, throwing their weight around.

‘Or, rather, we thought they were going to throw their weight around. We thought that bastard Machnich had brought them over to break the strike.’

‘Break the strike? Blacklegs, you mean? You’d want more than two of them to do that.’

‘Yes, I know. No, we thought he’d brought in a bit of muscle for the occasion. But actually it wasn’t that. He didn’t bring them in until we threatened to duff up that sidekick of his.’

‘Rakic?’

‘Yes, Rakic. You know Rakic? Well, so do we. Machnich sent him to talk to us about going back to work. Talk to us?’ He laughed. ‘Order us, more likely. That’s what it turned out to be. I’ve met his sort before. In the army!

“Here are your orders, my men. Now bloody get on with it.”

‘Well, of course, he got nowhere. “Go and stuff yourself up your Bosnian backside,” we said. And he got shirty. “You men need to watch out,” he said. Well, he took us seriously, or, at least, Machnich did, and brought in those two Herzegovinian apes to act as bodyguard.’

‘When was this?’

‘I’ve been telling you! When we threatened to duff him up.’

‘Yes, but when was that?’

‘During the strike, of course.’

‘Yes, but at what point during the strike? Was it — look, you know that big reception they had at the Casa Revoltella? For the Governor and such? Was it before that?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No. After. I remember that because it was just about that time that Mrs Koskash — she’s our chairman, you know — said we should start thinking about negotiating a settlement. I remember it clearly because there was a lot of argument about it. “We don’t want a negotiated settlement,” some people said. “We want the bastard to give in.” But she said no, and tried to arrange a meeting with Machnich. But he said he wouldn’t, he had this big reception on, and he sent Rakic along instead. And that was when we threatened to duff him up.’

Lately, Seymour had been thinking about his family. In particular, he had been thinking about his mother, which was not a thing the macho policemen of the novels usually did. He had been thinking about her because she came from Vojvodina. ‘Vojvodina?’ his grandfather would sometimes tease his mother. ‘Where the hell’s that?’ It was, in fact, at the top right-hand corner of Bosnia, lying immediately above Serbia, another of those Balkan countries which any reasonable individual could be unable to place. Like Herzogovina.

Like those countries it had a prickly, overdeveloped sense of its own identity and insisted passionately on its need for independence. ‘Independence?’ his grandfather would roar. ‘Vojvodina? It’s like the Isle of Wight demanding independence.’

But Seymour’s other grandfather, his mother’s father, had died in an Austrian jail for Vojvodina’s independence. And even his booming grandfather, who affected to deride petty nationalism, had been thrown out of Poland because of his devotion to it. It was part of their family history. Just as some families have a talent for gardening which crops up in different generations, so Seymour’s family had a talent — or, possibly, the reverse — for dissenting politics.

It was a talent, though, that since their move to England they had tried to suppress. Seymour’s mother never spoke about the past. His father wouldn’t have anything to do with politics. His sister had switched interest to a different, non-nationalist kind of politics. And even Seymour’s booming grandfather confined his interests these days to putting the world right with its newspapers every morning over the breakfast table.

Seymour had followed his father; and his avoidance of politics had been reinforced by his time in the police. For the average policeman, ‘politics’ was a dirty word. It was something those above were always involved in and best avoided. If in the course of your work you ran into it, you shied away. It closed off avenues, as it had done in Seymour’s case when he had been looking at possible royal dimensions to the Jack the Ripper case.

What Seymour had come to see, though, over the last few days, was that politics was not always something to be avoided. It was not always something you could or should avoid. It was too important. Suppose Schneider was right? Or if his testimony was too tarnished, what about Lomax? Lomax, who had at first seemed such a dilettante — the al fresco Consul! — but who had gradually shown himself to have an engagement with the world that was far from frivolous. Seymour was beginning to feel that he ought to know more about politics. Not to engage, no, but not to avoid, either. If politics was this important, you needed at least to be able to grasp what the hell was going on.

And what he was gradually coming to see, too, was that he did have a bit of a feel for such things. ‘He’ll be like a fish out of water!’ the man at the Foreign Office had said contemptuously. Well, maybe. At first. But, actually, these waters were waters that Seymour knew. He had grown up in them, unconsciously been steeped in them. He knew about them from the inside. His mother’s father had, after all, died in such currents. Some things you didn’t have to learn: you knew.

And possibly, Maddalena, in her desire for knowledge, was making a similar progression.

She came to the Consulate later in the morning. Augstein showed her in.

‘I hoped you would be here,’ she said, as she came into the room. ‘I wanted to tell you to look in at the piazza. It’s all beginning to happen.’

‘The Futurists? Marinetti’s Evening? I thought that was tomorrow.’

‘It is. But it’s starting already.’

‘At least it’s starting. I wasn’t sure that it would.’

‘Oh, Marinetti’s more competent than you think.’

‘Is there anything to it, do you reckon? This Futurist business?’

‘I ask myself that a dozen times a day. At one time I was convinced that there was. It seemed so exciting, so bold. So different. And Marinetti was so enthusiastic. I was rather swept away.’

‘And now?’

‘Now I am not so sure. Not so much about the art, I still think that’s very exciting. But about the other claims. You know, changing the world and all that. I used to talk about it with Lomax. He said that the world was changing. What with the new technologies of electricity and steam and oil, and that people would change with it. The question, though, was how people would use them. You know, to lead a better life, or just to make better bombs and bullets,’

‘And what did he think?’

‘He said it was a toss-up.’

She looked up at the pictures on the wall.

‘And that perhaps what art was expressing was potential, what could happen, not what would happen. I don’t know. Lately I have begun to think that art doesn’t express anything at all. It is just marks on the wall. Perhaps I am getting tired of art. Perhaps it is time for me to move on.’

‘What to?’

‘Ah!’ said Maddalena. ‘That’s the question,’

She was silent for a while, and sat there looking broodingly at her feet. Then she looked at him, almost defiantly, and said:

‘Do you know why I go to the library every day?’

‘You said you wanted to know about things.’

‘Yes, I want to know why the Hapsburgs are so awful, and how it is that they can keep Trieste from us, and why it is that people like Lomax should die. I want to know why some should be rich while others aren’t. But do you know why I want to know these things?’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ she said, frowning, ‘I want to be in charge of myself. I don’t want others to be, or things to be. If you were a poor woman from Puglia, you would understand.’

‘I think I can understand.’

Before she left, he asked her to find out something for him.

‘Is this for Lomax?’

‘I think so.’

She nodded.

‘Very well, then.’

Seymour sat at Lomax’s desk, thinking. He knew he had it nearly all now, but there was still something missing, something that would put it all into place. He could see that the reception at the Casa Revoltella was central, but exactly why was it so central? The reception, with all Trieste’s worthies there, the Chamber of Commerce, the consuls, the Governor — And then he saw.

On his way, Seymour passed through the Piazza Grande. It was, indeed, as Maddalena had said, warming up. Although it was only mid-afternoon it seemed quite full. The tables in the cafes were practically all occupied and street performers of all sorts, jugglers, mimers, musicians and tumblers, were busy working them. In some places the musicians were giving impromptu concerts and one or two people were even dancing. There was a general air of suppressed excitement. By evening the piazza would be really buzzing.

Seymour’s artist friends were, as might be expected, already at their table. They hailed him and he sat down, briefly, for a moment.

‘Isn’t that Boccioni?’ said Luigi, pointing to one of the tables.

‘And Severini?’

Seymour could see that the artists were impressed.

Marinetti suddenly shot past them.

‘Hey, Filipo!’ they called. ‘How about a drink?’

‘Can’t stop!’

‘Can’t stop!’ The artists’ heads swivelled. ‘Can’t stop for a drink? Is something wrong?’

‘Everything’s wrong!’ said Marinetti dramatically. ‘We’ve only just been able to get into the Politeama. And nothing’s there! No chairs, no bottles — ’

‘No bottles?’ said James.

‘The banners haven’t arrived. The musicians, who were supposed to be there for rehearsal — ’

‘Why don’t you just sit down, Filipo? Have a drink!’

‘There is no time for drink. There is no time for anything! Everything has to be done!’

He strode off.

‘No time for a drink?’ said Lorenzo. ‘If this is the Future, you can count me out.’

Marinetti suddenly came racing back.

‘I need dwarfs!’

His eye fell on James and Seymour, both unusually tall, and moved on disappointedly. It lit on Ettore.

‘Rehearsal!’

Ettore was dragged away, protesting.

Two men on stilts, dressed as giraffes, began to move through the tables distributing flyers for the Evening. As they passed one of the tables, a man leaped up and stroked them fondly. One of the giraffes sat down on his lap and lifted a leg casually on to the table.

‘Lomax would have loved this!’ said Luigi.

‘Lomax,’ said James, who had already clearly drunk far too much, ‘was Irish.’

He looked around pugnaciously, as if challenging anyone to disagree with him.

There was a slight pause.

‘Ye-e-s?’ said Lorenzo doubtfully.

‘He was all right,’ said James, glaring round.

‘Yes, yes.’

‘He couldn’t help being English.’

There was another slight pause.

‘But I thought you said. .?’

‘I know that!’ roared James. ‘Do you think I’m daft? He was half Irish and half English. So he was both. Both!’ he said triumphantly.

‘We-ll. .’

‘He was half and half. Like a shandy,’ he giggled.

‘Like a. .?’

‘Shandy. An English drink, you ignoramuses. (Or is it ignorami?’ he muttered to himself.) ‘Half bitter, half lemonade. Or possibly ginger. Bitter is beer. The Irish half,’ he said firmly, ‘was the bitter.’

‘Well, it would be.’

‘The English half was the lemonade.’

‘Very true.’

‘Light, slight, blight — Blighty!’ he said, with satisfaction. ‘That’s England for you. The English half,’ he enunciated carefully, ‘held him back. It made him a consul.’

‘Poor Lomax!’

‘The Irish half,’ James roared, ‘made him side with the underdog. It made him fight against injustice!’

‘Good for him!’

‘He was a man divided,’ said James, beginning to weep. His head fell on to the table. ‘Aren’t we all?’ he murmured.

‘I know what I like,’ said Kornbluth, ‘and it isn’t this.’

‘Hadn’t you better wait? It’s not happening until tomorrow.’

‘I don’t need to wait. I know what those layabouts are capable of producing. Giraffes! And’ — he lowered his voice — ‘filth! I saw them this afternoon. When I was working out where I wanted to put my men. Naked women! Well, they weren’t quite naked, there was a little star over — well, you can guess where. I wouldn’t like my Hilde to see it, I can tell you. Fortunately, she won’t be there. She wanted to go, when she heard the Governor’s lady would be there, but I put my foot down. “Listen,” I said, “I’ve got to put up with it, but there’s no reason why you should.” “It’s the Future, they say,” she said. “I’ll tell you one thing,” I said. “It’s not going to be your Future! So, you’re not going.”‘

‘Are you tied up completely tomorrow with policing?’

‘Pretty well. And that’s another thing I’ve got against that lot. It’s taking me away from what I should be doing. Why? Was there something else you had in mind?’

‘I’ve found out something. In fact, I knew it before. Those Socialist strikers told me, but I’ve only just put two and two together. When Lomax left the Edison that night, he didn’t leave by the ordinary way. There’s another door.’

‘Another door?’

‘Yes, Machnich uses it when he doesn’t want to run into people who might be waiting outside. I think Lomax used it that night.’

‘Where is this door?’

‘It opens into the Piazza delli Cappucine. Could you get your men to check if anyone saw him come out? And if anyone was seen waiting for him.’

‘I’ll have them on to that,’ said Kornbluth, ‘right away.’

Seymour hesitated.

‘There’s one other thing. It’s just possible that the men you might be looking for are two Herzegovinians.’

‘Herzegovinians?’

‘Yes. Posing as students. And staying, I think, in a student hostel.’

‘I’ll get someone to go round them.’

‘You don’t need to. I’ve got somebody already doing that.’

‘You have?’

‘Yes, that girl who was with the artists. Maddalena, her name is.’

‘That troublemaker? But — ’

‘I think you might find her,’ said Seymour, ‘in the public library.’

‘The library!’ said Kornbluth incredulously.