Death of a River Guide (18 page)

‘When he came up to the counter to pay, he reached in his pocket and then his face flushed. “Not enough money,” he said in halting Italian. Sonja looked in his dull eyes, but she noticed that they had already fallen to the rack of cakes below.

‘His cheeks were pinched. Sonja knew that hunger had not only a look but a strong odour. Sonja remembered how her mother and her sisters had stunk of hunger during the war. Harry didn't stink but he did smell pretty bad. She reached into her pocket and slid some money across the glass counter to Harry's hand. Their fingers touched. Harry looked up into Sonja's face, perplexed, worried. Sonja smiled, and then laughed. “Which cake, sir?” she asked.

‘Harry ordered four, then, upon examining the money, decided against rashness and ordered two, keeping some change in reserve. He paid for the coffee and the cakes, thanked Sonja profusely and promised to repay her as soon as possible.

‘Sonja became embarrassed, what with the other customers and staff now looking up. She took the correct change out of Harry's palm and began serving a group of loud GIs. When she next looked up, Harry had gone.

‘Katharina, the manageress, was one of three hundred thousand Italians who had abandoned their homes and villages and memories in Fiume, Istria, and Dalmatia to live in old capitalist Italy, rather than the new socialist Yugoslavia. She had a traditional and hearty contempt for Slovenians that was reinforced by the knowledge that they now lived in her old family home, and this contempt rose like fresh gnocchi in boiling water whenever her temper flared, which was frequently. She stage-whispered to another waitress in Italian, “Stupid
vlacuga
- as if she'll ever see him again,” giving particular emphasis to the Slovenian word for whore.

‘Days passed, then a week, then another week. The manageress made jokes about how she should keep all Sonja's pay, and use it to give coffee and cakes to every dopey half-starved southern Italian who wandered in. Late one afternoon Harry returned. He no longer wore the old threadbare coat. He no longer carried a sewing machine and he no longer smelt of hunger.

‘He walked up to the counter and, in front of the manageress, opened up a wallet bulging with money and gave Sonja a thousand lira. She refused the money but accepted the carnations he had brought. The manageress watched with interest. Harry ordered an expresso and two cakes and when he came to pay, passed an envelope along with the correct change to Sonja.

‘In the envelope were two 500-lira notes, a dried edelweiss, and a note written in bad Italian asking her if she would meet him some evening. He would be in the café at the railway station between seven and nine each evening for the next week.

‘When Sonja read the note by the yellow light of the electric bulb in the grimy toilet of her café, she was not to know that Harry went to the railway café not only for warmth but also because it was an ideal place from which to conduct his new business activities.

‘Not wishing to appear hasty in her interest, Sonja waited four days before deigning to visit the railway station café. At her work she mixed up orders, gave out the wrong change and generally found it difficult to concentrate. The manageress abused her and said it was only because of the manageress's good heart that she kept Sonja on, stupid and useless Slovene that she was, whereas both Sonja and the manageress knew that Sonja was there because no Italian would work for as low a wage as a Slovene without papers would.

‘On the fourth day Sonja lit the brass petrol stove that her mother had found among the gear of a dead German soldier, put a dented aluminium mug on top and proceeded to melt a cake of soap. When the soap became molten she beat an egg into it using the fork with which she ate and cooked. With the mixture still warm and frothy, she took the dented aluminium mug off the stove. She placed the mug on the floor in the centre of her room, next to a jug of water and an enamel dish that had red roses painted on its side and a blue-edged rim. She knelt in front of the dish and there, with the soap-and-egg mixture and the water, she washed her wiry hair then rinsed it with cider vinegar she had stolen from the café. She filled the basin a second time and washed her body with a coarse pumice stone, then looked at her flesh glowing red from the scouring and the cold. She paused before dressing, and went over to the broken mirror that leant against the plywood wardrobe in the corner.

‘She looked at her reflection with interest, ran her hands round the glory of her pot belly, strong and round, defined on the sides by her hips, and from below by her public hair. She looked at her breasts with their still-girlish nipples, and ran her hands from her breasts down to the small of her back where she rested them, then turned her hands outwards so that her knuckles pressed inwards and her elbows stuck out. She threw her chin back and laughed at what she saw.

‘Il Duce stared back at her from the glass in the guise of a naked woman.

‘“The Slovenian people must realise that they have a destiny only in so far as and for as long as they merge their identity with that of the great Italian people,” she said, imitating the bombastic tones of Mussolini. Then, taking a step back, she lifted her right hand off her buttock and used it to placate an imaginary Roman crowd. “Until they have learnt this fundamental lesson of history, until they understand this fundamental lesson of history, they cannot complain if, because of their own arrogance, they suffer,” she continued. Her left hand rose from her other buttock to join her right hand in quelling the tumultuous applause that greeted this profound announcement. “And until then, and not before then, stupid
vlacugi
must realise that strange men offered kindness will simply take it and never return.”

‘A knock at the bedroom door. It is Maria Magadalena Svevo with the dress she has borrowed from a friend and just ironed for Sonja.

‘“A man that would lead you to go to so much trouble over yourself can only lead to trouble,” she admonished Sonja. But before she left she sprinkled the inside of the top and the waist of the dress with ground cloves. And cackled, “Fruit is best eaten seasoned.” Never again would Harry be able to eat apple strudel without feeling the most terrible desire.

‘The dress was made of cotton and printed with a floral design. It had two broad shoulder straps, was gathered at the waist, and fell to mid-calf. Sonja tried it on and her small, muscular body slipped easily into the scented fabric. She looked at herself again in the mirror and wiped the brown clove dust off her face with a towel. The dress was a size too big, but standing in front of the mirror, Sonja felt good in it.

‘At the railway café she saw Harry engaged in deep conversation with another, considerably older, man with a large moustache and heavy black bristles. She knew him from the past. She became nervous and decided to leave, but just as she went to depart, Harry spied her and jumped up from his table with a large grin.

‘“Hello,” he said, then faltered, because he still did not know her name. His eyes fell but he quickly recovered, saying, “Harry Lewis. I am so glad you came.” His grin returned.

‘“Hello,” she said. “My name is Sonja Cosini.”

‘The man with black pig bristles stared at Sonja's breasts and his nostrils twitched. He looked worried. Then he made excuses that he must leave, saying in a somewhat forced manner that he would meet Harry tomorrow at the post office, placing particular emphasis on the final two words. After he had left, both Sonja and Harry relaxed.

‘“Business associate,” said Harry, just in case she should think he may have been a friend.

‘“Sewing machines?” asked Sonja.

‘“No,” laughed Harry, lighting two cigarettes in his mouth and passing one to her. “Well, yes,” he added. For the first time she noticed that he had no thumb on his right hand. Then he said, “Not exactly sewing machines.” And again he grinned. “Actually, I am trying to give them up. Trieste seems as good a place to do it as anywhere.”

‘“Sewing machines?”

‘Harry laughed. “Yeah. Them too.”

‘For a while neither spoke. Then Sonja went to say something just as Harry began to speak. Both stopped, then nervously laughed.

‘“I am not Italian,” Sonja said.

‘“Nor am I.” Harry drew in smoke.

‘“That much was obvious,” said Sonja and she smiled again, nervously, affectionately. “Almost as obvious as your new job.”

‘Harry pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, his smile gone, and looked at her intently. “Is it that obvious?”

‘“My father worked as a smuggler between Austria and Yugoslavia before the war. So I know. But it's a lot more dangerous now. Now they shoot to kill.”

‘Harry said nothing.

‘“What are you taking over?” she pressed him.

‘Harry looked furtively around, then leaned forward and whispered in her ear.

‘Sonja burst out laughing. “Sewing machines!”

‘Harry looked somewhat aggrieved. “Nobody but nobody has got sewing machines in Yugoslavia. They're worth a fortune. Drago - that man who was here before - he has the contacts in the Party.” He raised a finger and waggled it at her. “We sell only to the top - generals, high-ranking Party officials - and they pay in American dollars.” He put the cigarette back in his mouth and leaned back. “It's very safe.”

‘Sonja looked at him and just shook her head, and wished she didn't feel the desire for him that she did.'

Maria Magadalena Svevo stopped for a moment. Couta Ho raised an objection. ‘The problem with these stories is that they presume there are one or two moments in your life that define what you are for the rest of it. Life's not like that.'

Maria took the cigar out of her mouth, smacked the grey salmon flesh of her tongue around her lips to moisten them, and said, ‘What if it were?'

‘It's not. My life doesn't feel that way anyhow. It feels just the opposite - rushed. Always having to decide this or that. Countless decisions.'

Maria watched the languid rise of the smoke from her near-dead cigar toward the ceiling. ‘What if it is? As I get older and older I think perhaps there is a great truth in such stories. I used to be quite confused about such things. Now I think that maybe the confusion is what we use to not hear the silence. To not see the emptiness.' Maria Magadalena Svevo paused, but Couta Ho said nothing. Maria Magadalena Svevo decided to tell another story.

‘I knew a young girl once and she fell in love with a young man, a nice young man, from her village. She must have been … well, at least eighteen. And she fell pregnant. And the young man, because he was a good man, said he would do the right thing, as they say, and marry her. And she refused him. They sat together in her bedroom for two days, crying. She said she would not marry him because of the baby, because the baby was the wrong reason to get married. And because he was a good man he countered that he loved her and that he believed in the idea of their marriage. They could not agree on what was to be done, and because they did love one another with all their hearts they ended up crying at their own tragedy. They cried so much that their tears stained the bedspread upon which they sat. Her family listened to the couple crying and wondered what would happen. When they finally came out of the bedroom it was for her to announce that they would not be getting married and that she was going on a short holiday to the nearest town. At the town she had an abortion - by what means I don't know, because this was a very long time ago, when such things were done in secret. On her return journey home her cart ran off the road into a tree and she was killed. After her death there was a funeral, and a respectful time after the funeral they cleaned out her room in preparation for a boarder. There was not much there, because they were a poor family. The tear-stained bedspread they took off the bed and washed, but the tear stain would not wash out. Try as they might they could not wash the tear stain away. They bleached the bedspread several times, and in the first few years following her death washed it frequently, but none of it made the slightest difference. The tear stain remained. I suppose it troubled them in the end, this bedspread, for they gave it to the young man who had been her lover.'

‘And then what happened?' asked Couta Ho. ‘To the young man, I mean?'

‘Oh. Nothing. Nothing at all really. He married, many years later. Not a happy marriage, nor an unhappy one. His wife bore him four daughters. And when the eldest turned nineteen he gave her the bedspread and told her this story.'

‘And then?'

‘Then nothing.' Maria pulled a cigar out of the double-headed eagle box and tapped the double-headed eagle on one of its two beaks with the cigar end.

‘
Es ist passiert
,' she said ruefully. Her head was bowed, and just for a moment, though only for a moment, Couta Ho thought the craggy old voice quavered. ‘It just happened like that, that's what the old Austrians used say.
Es ist passiert
.' She stopped again, as if her thoughts were interrupting her speech. Then, as abruptly as she had halted, she recommenced talking. ‘Now the daughter sleeps under that bedspread every night, and as she falls asleep she looks at that stain and wonders about the strangeness of life and what she would be, if anything, if her father's lover had not made that fateful decision.'

Maria looked at her cigar for some time, as if minutely examining it for flaws. Then she lighted it, inhaled and, holding her breath, spoke in a husky voice. ‘Would you like to see it?' she asked Couta Ho. She swallowed spittle. Then exhaled a dragon breath of smoke.

 the fifth day