Those Who Walk Away (15 page)

“In this weather?”

Ray hesitated, then said, “Thank you,” and walked on.

Dog dung on the pavement, in a square of light that fell from a window, looked like a deliberately vulgar display, and Ray wondered why he stared at it, until he realized it had swollen, because of the rain, to the size of human excrement. He looked away from it, and thought, “I’m not Ray Garrett tonight, I haven’t been for days. Therefore I should be in a state of freedom such as I’ve never known before.” For a few seconds, he recaptured his sensations of the morning after the night in the lagoon, the morning when he had awakened in the hotel room and stared out the window And thought, “The view could be the view of a dozen Italian cities, and I could be anyone, because I’m no one.” Now he hadn’t the anxiety he had felt that morning. He was no one again, without Peggy, without guilt, without inferiority (or superiority either), without a home or an address, without a passport. The feeling was easeful, like a letting up of pressure. Ray supposed many a criminal in hiding could have such a feeling, too, but it would be partly spoilt by their knowledge that they were in that state for the purpose of concealment and escape from the law. His state was a bit purer and happier. Perhaps identity, like hell, was merely other people.

He turned around. No gondolieri on the water, no one in sight. He wondered if he should go back to the diurnal hotel for a while? He decided to approach the man on the barge again.

“May I ask you something? Do you know the gondolieri around here?”

“A few.”

“I am looking for a man who comes by way of the lagoon. He has a gondola and he carries oil and vegetables every morning from the railway station. He is about this high”—Ray indicated with his hand a stature of five feet six or less—“with grey and black hair cut short. He speaks in dialect. Not shaven.” Ray was encouraged, because the Italian was obviously trying to think.

“About fifty?”

“I suppose.”

“Luigi? He curses about dragons in the sea?” The man laughed, then asked a bit cautiously, “Why do you want him?”

“I owe him four thousand lire.” Ray had thought this out beforehand.

“Sounds like Luigi Lotto, I don’t know. He’s a man with a wife and grandchildren?”

“I don’t know,” Ray said.

“If it is Luigi, he’s maybe sick, maybe doesn’t come tonight. Sometimes he works, sometimes not.”

“Where does he live?”

“Guidecca back of the trattoria Mi Favorita,” replied the man promptly.

“Where is that? What stop?”

The man shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. Ask anybody.” He chafed his hands at the stove.

“Grazie,” Ray said.

“Prego.”

Ray caught the next vaporetto into the Grand Canal. At Riva degli Schiavoni, he changed for a boat to Giudecca. By now it was after 1.30 a.m. He supposed it was a wild-goose chase, the hour could hardly have been less favourable, but at that moment, Luigi Lotto—who might be a total stranger, and whom he might never find anyway—seemed the only friend in Venice.

On Giudecca, he entered the first bar he saw and asked for the trattoria Mi Favorita. The man behind the bar did not know, but a customer did, and told him where it was.

“It may be too late to eat,” the man said.

“Non importa,” Ray said, going out. “Grazie.”

Mi Favorita was set back in a court, with frigid-looking plants in front of its glass facade. Ray went in. He asked a woman who was mopping the floor if she knew of the family Lotto behind the trattoria. She said no, but there was a house just behind where fifteen families lived. Ray went there.

The house had a five-digit number followed by the letter A, and he could not see any street names anywhere. Worse, there was no name but Ventura on the downstairs bells, though there were two vertical rows of bells. Ray shivered and looked at his watch. Two o’clock. It was all wrong, he thought. He was doing things all wrong. The front of the house showed no lights.

Ray started at the gritty sound of footsteps on his left. A man was approaching—Ray thought at once of Coleman, but this man, though not tall and with a rolling gait, was younger. He had even a cigar in his mouth like Coleman. Ray stepped to one side of the door, his back to the building, braced to run or to fight. The man came directly towards him, looking at him, then turned into the doorway beside which Ray stood.

“Pardon me, sir,” Ray said. “Do you know a family Lotto living here?”

“Lotto, si,” the man answered matter of factly, not removing from his mouth what Ray now saw was a cigarette. “Fourth floor.” The man opened the door with a key.

“Do you know if it is possible they are not sleeping at this hour, because—”

“Si, probably. He goes with his gondola. They are up at all hours making noise. I live below. Are you coming in?”

Ray came in, thanked the man, and climbed the stairs behind him. The halls were cracked and eaten with moisture and neglect. The interior of the building felt like a deep freeze, colder than outdoors.

“On the right at the back,” said the man, gesturing upward, and bent to unlock his own door.

Ray climbed the last flight with his heavy suitcase.

There was a light under the door, and at the sight of it, he sighed. It seemed a good omen. Ray knocked on the door, and thinking the knock had been too gentle, knocked again.

“Who is it?” called a woman’s voice.

Ray stammered inwardly, and produced, “Giovanni. Posso ve-dere Luigi? Sono un amico.”

“Un amico di Luigi,” the Italian echo came, reflexive, neutral. The door did not open. “Un momento.”

Ray heard her footsteps fading in the apartment, and knew she was going to ask Luigi if he knew an American named Giovanni.

A moment later, a man opened the door, square-headed, in a grey vest and black trousers. He was the gondolier.

“Buona sera,” Ray said. “I am the American whom you helped out of the water. You remember?”

“Ah, si! Si! Come in! Costanza!” he called to the woman, and in rapid dialect explained who Ray was.

His wife’s face slowly melted, then shone with friendliness.

Ray wondered if they had seen the
Gazzettino
, and if so, had Luigi recognized him? Ray gave appropriate greetings to Luigi’s wife. The sum he had given Luigi, Ray thought, was about thirty thousand lire or fifty dollars, which no doubt they had appreciated.

“My wife thought I was making up a story when I told her,” Luigi said, drawing on a sweater over his underwear. “I am always making up stories about what I find in the water, you see. Sit down, signor. Would you like a glass of wine?”

A faint grumble from Costanza, then to Ray, “He is sick, but he insists on going to work.” A child’s cry from another room made her throw up her hands. “While we argue, he could at least be sleeping! Permesso!” She went off, through a door at the rear of the bleak room.

“Luigi, I am sorry for the hour, but—”

“Your picture was in the
Gazzettino
this morning,
non e vero
?” Luigi interrupted him, speaking softly. “I was not sure, but—yes?”

“Yes, I—” Ray was reluctant to blurt out his request, but better to Luigi alone than in his wife’s presence. “I came to ask if you know of a room I could rent, anywhere in Venice. You see, Luigi, I must speak to a girl here—a girl I love.” Ray hoped he was not blushing with shame. “And I have a rival. The rival pushed me off the boat that night. You see?”

Luigi saw, and quickly. He put his head back and said, “Does your wife know about the picture in the
Gazzettino
? I prefer that she does not know.”

“Oh, she is all right. Don’t worry. One word from me! I showed her the paper today. Before that, she didn’t believe I saved anyone. She thought I won the money gambling. She doesn’t like me to gamble, but I don’t gamble. Some husbands gamble!—I thought maybe you had collapsed that night! That you fell into a canal! I am happy to see you!”

Ray nodded. “You see, I must not go to an hotel. The rival would find me. I want only to speak to the girl I love. I want a fair chance.”

“Yes, I understand,” said Luigi, glancing at the door through which his wife had disappeared. “Where is the girl?”

“At an hotel in Venice.”

“And the rival?”

“I don’t know. At another hotel, I think. He is looking for me,” Ray added, feeling desperate, false as a corny tragedy, yet the words came.

“You should get rid of him.” Luigi rubbed his palms together, then blew on them. The house was cold. “Let’s have a glass of wine. Or a coffee. Which do you prefer?”

“About a room, Luigi, do you know of any?” Ray asked, because Luigi’s wife was coming back.

“Luigi, you should not be up at this hour. Either you go to work or you go to bed,” his wife said.

At least, this was what Ray thought she said, and there followed a rapid conversation between them as to whether Luigi would go to work or stay home, but either way would he sleep a little now, and Luigi protested that he had slept all afternoon and so had the baby, and that was why they were both awake.

“No, I will not go to work this morning, I’ll send a message via Seppi, because I have a favour to do for my American friend,” Luigi said to his wife. “This night, you sleep here,” he said to Ray. “After we have a wine. Pay no attention to the confusion tonight, this house is always a confusion. This baby is my son’s. He has too many in his house now, his wife’s parents are visiting, so we get the oldest baby.”

There were faint moans from his wife during this. Her black-bunned hair was hectic, and she was too thin.

Ray was shown into the kitchen, made to sit down, and Luigi poured three glasses of red wine.

“If my wife doesn’t want hers, we’ll drink it,” he said.

“You think you know of a room?” Ray asked. “It’s important for tomorrow.”

Luigi was sure he knew of a room, maybe two, maybe three.

“I must keep my name a secret,” Ray said, unwilling to mention his name, because Luigi might forget it, if he didn’t mention it. “I must have another like Giovanni—John Wilson. To everybody. In case your wife, for instance, talks to neighbours—” Ray looked hard at Luigi, trying to convey the seriousness of it to him. “Has your wife already talked to neighbours?”

“Oh, no, I showed her the paper tonight when I came in at seven.”

“Did you talk to anyone?”

“I opened the paper here. It was in my pocket since noon. No, all right, you are Giovanni Weelson.” Luigi planted a foot in a chair, sipped his wine, and rubbed his stubbly chin thoughtfully. “We shall win. I suppose she is a pretty girl? American?”

At least an hour later, when Ray was lying half asleep on a lumpy bed in a small cold room, which an electric stove in a corner seemed to make no warmer, he heard someone come in, and there was a short, explosive conversation between Luigi and another man. Luigi had said something about a second son who lived with him and worked in the bar of a big hotel, or maybe the Grand Hotel. This was probably the son, coming home after his night’s work, and he probably had the son’s room. Ray felt guilty about this, but he might be able to make it up by paying them something.

11

T
he next morning—a bright, sunny, cold morning—Luigi and Ray set out to go to a house of a friend of Luigi’s a ‘mezzo kilometro’ away. The friend was called Paolo Ciardi, and Luigi had sent a boy on earlier to say they would be coming, he told Ray. It was 10.30 a.m. On the way to the house, they stopped, at Luigi’s suggestion, for a glass of wine.

“I tell you, life is a confusion, but it is very interesting, is it not?” Luigi philosophized. His daughter was about to have her first baby, and was not sure she loved her husband, but Luigi was certain everything would work out all right. “She is only worried about giving the light of day to the baby, but meanwhile it is a hell,” said Luigi. He insisted upon paying the bill.

Ray was concerned about getting more money. But he spent the next minutes of their walk convincing Luigi that it was best for him to have an alias at Signor Ciardi’s, too. Luigi was of another mind, arguing that there was safety in telling Paolo the truth and so explaining why he wanted privacy, but Ray said that the fewer people who knew meant the fewer people who might talk, and Luigi at last gave in. Ray was to be John Wilson at Signor Ciardi’s.

“If I give you a Traveller’s Cheque,” Ray said, “do you know where to cash it for me? Without a passport?” Luigi was bound to know someone, Ray thought.

“Yes, I do. He will take a little. Not much. Maybe five per cent.”

Ray had expected that. He rested his Traveller’s Cheque book on the top of an ornamental stone pillar in the middle of a narrow lane, and signed two cheques for one hundred dollars each. “Can you do this much? Two hundred? I’d be very grateful for even one hundred.”

“Two hundred.” Luigi’s eyes widened, but it wasn’t an astronomical figure, either, and he nodded and said with an efficient air, “Si. Due cent’ dollari, si.”

“You can get it today perhaps?” Ray asked as they walked on.

“Si. Maybe I don’t deliver today. But tomorrow.”

“That would be all right. I’ll give you five per cent, too, for that.”

“Ah, no,” Luigi said, pleased.

“You are doing me a favour.”

“I deliver it tomorrow at Paolo’s. If I can’t come in, I put it in an envelope for Giustina.”

“Who’s Giustina?”

“Paolo’s cook.”

Ray bought a
Gazzettino
, scanned the first page before tucking it under his arm, and was relieved to see there was nothing about him, at least not on the front page. He hoped his parents were not anxious.

“Also,” Ray said as they approached the red stone house that Luigi said was Signor Ciardi’s, “it is better if Signor Ciardi thinks I have not too much money with me.” He hated saying it, but he thought it would be safer if Signor Ciardi thought he had little.

“Sissi, d’accordo,” Luigi said.

“But I am willing to pay extra for a stove in my room—because I’ve just been sick. That bad cold, you know.”

“Si, capisco.”

Luigi pulled a ring in the wall, which made a bell ring inside the house, and in time the door was opened by a smiling, plump man in a sweater and an old suit.