Lydgate got home while it was still light. A green and terrifying sunset sky glowered over the Mosque and was kicked and ridden over in the puddles. The fickle electricity supply, cut only twice that day, would fail with the dark because then it was needed most. It was necessary that Lydgate should see what areas of his house were flooded, necessary that, having cursed the plethora of water, he should, blessing the plethora of water, take a bath in the pang. Water was one thing that would not let him down tonight; that was certain. The taxi-driver said, as the wheels hissed up spume from the road, "Today rain. In morning it rain. Afternoon it rain. Now it not rain. But tomorrow it rain. Rain," he said sagely, "water. Water from sky."
The house or casa stage-right of Lydgate's was most still: the father slept, the son had not come home. The son had money to spend; the sole of his left foot had known it all day, folded notes snug in his canvas shoe. But the house stage-left was busy with moving-in. Lydgate remembered, paying off the taxi-youth, that this was the flitting-day of Forbes of Marmion. The unloading from the Roads Department truck went fast; fast flowed in the tide of the evening. A workman carried in a child's chamber-pot, another a pathetically small gramophone. "Quick about it," called Forbes in shorts and Aussie hat from the doorstep. And, "Hallo, Lyddy," he said. "We're nyebours, Lyddy." All about his front door there were plants like strong weeds in pots and sawn-in-half kerosene tins, many of them, unbelievably squalid. "You can have as many of these as you like, Lyddy," said Forbes of Marmion, "cause you're my cobber as well as my nyebour." His two children, quite naked, crawled about the tiny front area very slowly, like small arthritic ghosts in the dying light. "Thanks," said Lydgate, thinking how hopeless was man's condition. "And where," asked Lydgate, "is the wife?"
"She's leaving it all to me, Lyddy," said Forbes. "But I don't mind. The poor little kiddy's real excited at being near town. She couldn't wite to put her new frock on and do herself up a bit and go into town, poor little kiddy. She said she'd have a look at some stuff for curtains. But she wouldn't tike any money, says she's got plenty. Real little siver she is. Anywy, by the time she comes back I'll have everything shipshipe. Kids in bed and pictures on the wall and everything. She'll be real pleased. Oh, my word," he said as a workman languidly brought a jam-jar flower-vase. "They'll tike all night at this rite." Forbes's pictures stood about the front step, like the work of a pavement artist: dimly Lydgate could descry a coloured print of kittens in sweet blue ribbons, a photograph of a battleship firing its guns and, strangely, a steel engraving of 'The Last Watch of Hero'.
"I'll leave you to it," said Lydgate. "If you want to borrow anything – "
"Thanks, Lyddy, old man. I could do with a hammer, some niles, a mop to mop up the rine from the floor, a bucket, and some spice in your fridge to put a pound of butter in. And a couple of cold bottles of beer, if you've got it. That'll help to mike room for the pound of butter."
"I'm going out again," said Lydgate. "The front door's open anyway. Just walk in and take – "
"Thanks, Lyddy, dear old man. You're my cobber."
Dark came completely, but there was electric light. This was proved not only by the sudden flowering of the street lamps but by Forbes's reaching indoors for the switch and finding that the switch responded. Forbes was delighted as the front room became a box in raw yellow, damp-gleaming, a small river on the floor rippling the reflection of the crude bulbs, bundles wrapped in old curtains lying everywhere. "This mikes a chinge," said Forbes. "We had nothing like this in the other plice. No more oil-lamps, no more candles," he said, with pathetic optimism. He switched the light off and on, off and on, a signal of his pleasure.
Lydgate entered his own house eagerly as, on past occasions, in other torrid countries, he had left his house eagerly to catch on his bare body the rare shower, to catch now the rare shower of light. He tidied up a little, took his box of foodstuffs to the kitchen, swabbed at the worst patches of wet. He plugged the outlet of the pong securely, turned on the tap confidently. But there was no water. Amazement swamped annoyance. Why was there no water? The river was bubbling over, the tanks must be full. Perhaps, at the water-works, they were gloating over their hoard, unwilling to spend those ducats. Lydgate noticed that water was flowing in a steady trickle from upstairs, falling to the floor from between two banister-rails, He stripped hastily, offered soap to the thin cataract, foamed his body and let it languidly be sluiced. Mudd, he decided calmly, must definitely die. The people on the hill had water, that was well known; they were fed by a different system. As for the commonalty in the valley – they have no water: let them use beer. In Lydgate's washed belly the tumbrils grumbled. Meanwhile the pool that had gathered all day in the bedroom gathered dust as it marched over the uneven floor upstairs, finally baptising soapy Lydgate as it trickled between the fingers of the banisters. Soon he felt cleaner. He put on a clean shirt and trousers and shoes, combed his grey hair, made a bundle of his dirty linen and set out for the Dunia Hotel, whose laundry service he used. He also wished to eat: a greasy mutton curry rich as red earth, or crackling suckling-pig, or duck so tender it yielded to the chopsticks while basking whole on the dish. But, he knew, there would only be spaghetti, prawns, equivocal meat, specious gravy, wherever he went. Life in Dunia was stripped down to essentials.
But not, tonight, for Paolo Tasca. For him tonight the luxury of quantity: more spaghetti than he could eat, a second helping of sweet-sour prawns, a fish-head in curry gravy, minced liver on a bed of cucumber bleeding with tomato sauce. He said "Aaaaah" occasionally as he ate, looking up to see whether others were envying him. He drank beer with louder smacks than his father. He grinned at the women of the loud dark shop, congratulating them in Italian on their pregnancies, whether but newly evident, newly completed or soon about to be completed. A dog came up to him, cowardly and villainous-looking, its tail thumping like the Anvil Chorus on the spittoon under the table. But Paolo did not shoo it away; instead he addressed it as his father, offering it fish-bones and prawn-armour and a single worm of spaghetti. Paolo was ignorant of Oriental lore, honestly believing that the Chinese had stolen spaghetti from the Italians, for instance, but he had a cloudy notion that some Indians believed that a man's soul could pass into an animal or insect, even into a tree or a stone. His father metempsychosed into a dog: that pleased him. "Come, Nando," he said, "sit up and eat this piece of liver, blast you. It is dipped in a highly poisonous sauce. Eat it all up: it is good for you." The Anvil Chorus came faster.
Paolo paid, left a tip of one decem, and left the shop (unshaven, unwashed since morning, in dirty shirt and shorts, walking from the knees.) The night was all before him, but he was not sure what to do. He stood on the pavement, a tooth-pick wedged between a pre-molar and a canine; he flicked the tooth-pick up and down with his tongue, so that it signalled tinnily; nobody responded. A woman? Where would he find one? Had he not tried hard last night? Nobody could say of him that he did not try hard. Trying hard was one of his great virtues. True, he had met the married Chadi woman whose name was uncertain, and she had seemed to hold out the offer of a promise, but not yet. No, not till her paramour was gone. Paolo stood on the five-foot way, looking out on to the wet road with its drowned lights, tonguing his tooth-pick. Across the road was a cinema hoarding. That was it! He would go to the cinema! There would be some little adventure in the dark, perhaps, some married woman bored with her husband but faithful to him on the side adjoining him, deliciously and wantonly – if but manually – unfaithful on the side next to a handsome Italian boy, exotically irresistible. Or some single girl whose dark shyness would only in the dark allow her to make her urgent needs known, and even then very discreetly. Aaaaah.
Paolo did not know the time. Next to the eating-house was the goldsmith's shop where he had sold. his father's watch. He peered round its door and called, "Eh, what time?" The Syrian replied, "Here many times. Right time is seven ten." Paolo said, "Watch I sell have good time, yes?" The Syrian replied, "Have sold." Paolo said, "Who?" The Syrian replied, "To man and woman. Woman give man present." "Good," said Paolo. Paolo walked through back streets full of hens and refuse to the Chin Chin Cinema. It was hard to tell from the posters what film was on. Cloudy glass cases full of stills (titles in many alphabets, but all heroes and heroines trying to approximate, through barriers of pigmentation, to the Hebraico-Caucasian norm of Hollywood), pasted banners, bill-boards seemed to give a whole year's prospectus of attractions. The vestibule disdained the soft lights and carpets and flunkeys of Europe: there was a pay-desk, a concrete floor, an open lavatory smelling unashamedly of its function. Paolo paid his buck and three decems and went in. A European who had paid for a European seat at the back, he fumbled his way along a row and found himself seated next to a woman. Good. If here there were no prospects he could at least survey with ease other, more promising, rows. Blinded to the audience for the moment, he could see only the screen. But the torch of the attendant had shown definitely a woman next to him, though of what age or degree of attraction he could not tell. He settled to the film. Of peasant stock, brought up to have frugal habits, he did not believe in waste. One did not, after all, pay for dark and possible dalliance; one paid for a film. The chance of dalliance was a divine proffer, like grace.
But Paolo could understand little of the film. It was a Hindustani costume-drama, played in a kind of perpetual twilight in a sort of medieval royal court. Plump dark girls ambled round in a ring. A woman with a fat midriff sang. Bearded potentates bellowed and shook scimitars. There was a long tepid love-scene under a cardboard moon. In the middle of this scene the electricity failed, and there were heartening female giggles in the complete dark. Paolo took a boxer's deep breath and turned to his neighbour.
"N at be frighten," he said.
"I am not frightened," said the woman indignantly. Paolo could not judge of the woman's social status: to him English was just English.
"It is dark," said Paolo, "but I am a good boy." This was meant to be encouraging. The woman did not reply. Paolo was aware in the dark of a stiffening, of a sitting bolt upright, of an outraged indrawing of breath. Poor woman, she was obviously afraid of the dark. But the dark now was shot with struck matches and the glow of cigarettes deeply inhaled, and cheerful comments from row to benighted row.
"I have cigarettes," said Paolo. He had, in fact, a packet of Camels, his first cigarettes for so long, the virgin cellophane unravished. "You feel less frighten if you smoke."
"Really," said the woman. At this moment a youth in the front seats let out a jocular scream as of one who is being robbed or raped. The woman responded with a tremor and a cry. So, now Paolo noticed, did another woman next to this one. He saw, in transitory match-light, the glint of glasses and the sheen of fair hair. And then, darkness, and the woman next to him was still unassessed as to age or beauty. But Paolo gallantly sought to soothe, to take the woman's hand and say again, "Not be frighten."
"I don't think," said the woman, "you realise who I am."
"I not understand," said Paolo. "But I am a good boy."
"Boy!" called the woman. "Boy, boy!"
"Good man, I mean," said Paolo. "Not boy, man." But an attendant had come.
"This man is annoying me," said the woman. She was agitated and her words came breathily. Paolo was unperturbed. He was only twenty-six but he knew all about these gambits, the conventional coyness of the woman when first accosted. "I want the manager," said the woman. The voice came from above Paolo. She and her companion were on their feet. It was hard to see, but in the odd incurious flickers of the attendant's torch the row was disclosed as empty save for these two women and Paolo, and a way out for the women on the farther side was made impossible by the presence of a structural pillar. "I want the manager," said the woman again. "Please let me pass. I," she said, "am Mrs. Tomlin."
"Oh, you married," said Paolo. "Your husband not here?"
"My husband," said the woman, "will have plenty to say to you about this, whoever you are. An African," she said, "an African daring, daring to – "
"I said we shouldn't have come, Mummy," said a younger woman's voice. "I told you it wasn't the right film. Oh dear," she added, and seemed as if about to cry.
"You be quiet, Penelope," said Mrs. Tomlin. "I want to see the manager," she said to the attendant. "Kindly let me pass," she said to Paolo.
"Daddy will be angry, I know he will. Oh dear." By now many members of the audience were interested. The nearest rows were calling encouragement in various tongues. Mrs. Tomlin gave Paolo a smack on the head, a head lit briefly by the attendant's torch. Paolo said, "Why? I am a good boy." But he stood up and Mrs. Tomlin and her daughter pushed violently past. "Why you hit?" asked Paolo, bewildered. The electricity cut was rudely restored, and the screen became dimly alive with unagile dancing girls; the sound-track with loud and barbarous instruments ground into gear. The exit-curtain was open, and Mrs. and Miss Tomlin made for the lighted vestibule. Paolo followed, saying, "Why are you angry?" (One of the evidently useful phrases in the phrase-book which his father, with rare generosity, had given him.) "What I do wrong?"
"I'll show you," said Mrs. Tomlin. "The manager will send for the police. How dare you, an African – " But now she saw Paolo-a goat's face unshaven, minimal working clothes, disreputable but no African. "You're the son," said Mrs. Tomlin, "of that man. Oh, it's a disgrace." Paolo saw a well-fleshed woman in her late forties and was abashed. "I not know," he said abjectly, "you are an old woman. I am sorry." Now the manager appeared, a nondescript Chinese with chopsticks in one hand and a paper napkin in the other, rushed by the attendant from a leisurely meal. "Get the police," said Mrs. Tomlin. "This man insulted me."
Paolo looked around, his tongue between his teeth. His boyhood had been protracted; he had few of the inhibitions of the adult. How many times had he and his boyhood companions – having broken a window or thrown stones at one of the village greybeards – run gleefully when the cry was raised! Now Paolo, suitably shod in canvas, flat-handing the manager out of the way, was off with a loud halloo, leaping the three concrete steps, landing with a splash, then down the main street, past the monstrous car with the official flag, the staring astonished aimless strollers, the shopmen picking their teeth and scratching their armpits, round the corner into the blaze of light of the Dunia Hotel, a blaze whose reflection on the wet pavement he made dance and shimmer with his running feet. But here he paused, looked round. Would he be followed? Would a police car come screaming for him? Would he be apprehended by some ebony vizier, to be clapped in a cell crawling with vipers? The ways of this land were strange. He, a poor Italian boy, had meant no harm, but he had read about Caliphs and carpets of execution, the unjust summary decapitations by barbarous rulers. He would hide till all had blown over. But, wait. Enter the hotel as if nothing is amiss, pass the reception desk with a smile and a wave, then dash up the stairs and hide in the lavatory. Paolo recomposed his breathing and walked in. George Lim sat behind the desk talking to a man with a portfolio under his arm. "Na, Herr Smetana," said George Lim, "wenn Sie mit der Suppe nicht zufrieden sind, so miissen Sie den Teller nicht werfen." The man addressed said, "Everywhere they try to starve me. The world will not let the artist eat." Paolo waved, gave a goat's smile, and ran softly up the stairs. Aaaaah. On the first floor he took in with satisfaction the deserted bar. He squelched in canvas swiftly to the lavatories, opened the main door that led to closets, stones and showers, and met, to his astonishment, his father.
But not his father alone. There was the man of the night before, Maximilian Something-like-a-hiccupp, and, though at first he did not recognise her, the woman too. She was clothed no longer in the alphabet but in flowers. Her milk-chocolate Mary-Tudor-domed face wore lipstick and powder. She was near to tears. Maximilian Hup (that was it) looked frightened. Nando Tasca turned on his son, saying, "What a you a do a ere? Why you not a go ome? But now you a ere you be a witness. I come in a ere per pisciare and a find im kiss a er."
"I was kissing her good-bye," said Maximilian Hup. "I am away tomorrow morning. She is my sister."
"You not a kiss a sister like a that," said Nando Tasca.
"I a see a you. And why a you come ere to kiss er?"
"There was nowhere else," said Maximilian Hup, "It was only for a minute."
"All right, we forget a that. This a much a more worse. Guardia," he said severely to his son. He pointed at Maximilian Hup's left wrist (thin, sinewy, brown). "He wear a my watch. I know it a my watch. I know it because it ave a paint a missing from a and. I know it a my watch from a strap. Like a my own child I know it a my watch. You a thief," he said.
"She gave it me," said Maximilian Hup, treacherous as his first ancestor. "As a farewell present."
"That a true?" asked Nando Tasca. Paolo translated.
Nando Tasca turned on him suspiciously. "Ow a you know what language she a speak? You meet er before?"
"She bought it in a shop," translated Paolo. "As a farewell present for her brother."
"E not a er brother," said Nando Tasca, concerned with justice and hence clinging to English. "But that not a point a now. Point a now is this. She not a buy, she a steal from me when in Kool a Kaffi."
"She says she bought it," said Paolo.
"I was there when she bought it," said Maximilian Hup.
"We were together, brother and sister."
"You a liar too," said Nando Tasca. "You I not see a before. I see a man with a face like a you, but you I not a see. You not a thief," he said, "but you a liar. You a liar two times. You not er a brother."
Eileen cried. "I not tike your watch," she said in Australian. “I py for it. I py one hundred buck."
"One hundred," cried Paolo. "He is the bloody robber." Then he, just in time, clamped tight.
"That a good a watch," said Nando Tasca. "It a worth a many undred a bucks. It a present from a very old a friend." Paolo snorted. "Why a you a laugh?" glowered Nando Tasca. "You tell er she a thief. Better you elp a father not a laugh at what a e a say."
"She did not steal it," said Paolo. "I am certain."
"Ow you a so a sure? I know a er, I know a er usban? I tell er usband. Ow she a like a that?" The automatic time-flush of the urinals flushed the urinals. It was an ominous sound. "She understand," said Nando Tasca grimly. "She know a what I a say. She a crying."
"She did not steal it," said Paolo in the most manly Tuscan. "That I know. I know because it was I who stole it." By rights angelic trumpets should have sounded through the privies, cherubim should be sailing about him Botticellianly, trailing endless festoons of medicated paper.
"It was I," said Paolo.
Nando Tasca was calm. "You," he said to Maximilian Hup. "Give a me a my a watch."
"It was a present," said Maximilian Hup gamely, "from my sister."
"Give it a back to a er," said Nando Tasca. Maximilian Hup hesitated, but he caught an image of himself in the mirror above the wash-basin, small and bird-like as his brother, threatened by marble-worker's bulk, formidable though decayed. He obeyed. Eileen tried to press it on him again, but he would not have it. It was charming mime, hand-movements graceful, eyes melting. "Now," said Nando Tasca, "you a tell a er a give it a me." Maximilian Hup coughed some Chadi.
"One hundred buck I py," said Eileen. She was pathetic in her flowered frock and smudged lipstick, her powder the wrong shade. Paolo's heart liquefied. Eileen handed over the watch. Nando Tasca said gravely, "Thank a you."
And then, to Maximilian Hup, "Ow a much she really pay?"
"Fifty," said Maximilian Hup promptly. "I gave her the money to buy it. After all, she is my sister."
"I a tired you a keep a say a sister," said Nando Tasca with loud and sincere weariness. "My son steal a watch and sell a watch. Every very bad a boy. But e ave a money if e not a spend it. Money e give a to er."
"But I gave her the money to buy the present," protested Maximilian Hup. "It is not fair."
"She buy a other present for a you," said Nando Tasca.
"If you a gone she a send a present. Now," he said formidably. "You a go, she a go. You trust a me. My son give a you a back what a e a owe. I a talk a to im now. It a very very serious. But I a talk a im alone. Noi due soli," he said. The words had a final sound, as of a liturgical dismissal. Eileen cast soft but troubled eyes on Paolo, Maximilian Hup looked like a man who was thankful soon to be leaving Dunia. They went.
"Now," said Nando Tasca. It was a signal.
From ancient drains and sewers of the language (maritime inns and brothels, soldiers' tents of the days of the Empire's decline), from scrawls in the catacombs, graffiti dug up from beneath the preservative lava, from parodies of religious ritual, whoremasters' chapbooks, with slang of the craft, low terms of the byre and stable, the vocabulary of tavern brawls, with a richness of precise gesture and rudimentary dance they tore into each other. The automatic flush of the urinals stopped, obeying the lever at the water-works, the lights went out and came on again, and still it continued – the recapitulations of past crimes, the threats, the feints, the pursuits, in the narrow home of visceral relief. Until at length a man walked in – Fredericks, the miniature stage colonel from Bootle-to say, "Let the dog see the rabbit." Nando Tasca came away from the step of the urinal, whither his son had pushed him, to say, "I a beg a pardon." To his son he said, "It a not right a talk a like that to a your a father in a ere. You come ome."
Paolo Tasca danced on swift feet. "Al inferno," he said.
"It not a right a go on like a this in a gabinetto."
Fredericks looked round from his slow task. "What's he been doing now, Tony boy?"
"You not a worry what e a do. I take aim ome. I arf kill a im in the ouse."
Suddenly Paolo stood deflated. His goat's face made longer by a jaw dropped in distress, his eyes growing misty, his arms falling limp, he saw himself in the mirror and felt sorry for that unkempt and ragged image. What had he done wrong, he, who had always tried to be a good boy? Why was the world against him? He only wanted his rights. The wave of the stress of the evening broke. He began to cry. Nando Tasca said, “Ah, now a e a cry. E a cry more worse when I a finish with aim."
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