Two Weeks in Another Town (52 page)

“It’s been quite a day all around,” Holt said. “I suppose Mother told you about the Italian lady who has kindly offered to allow us to adopt her child when it…” He cast around for a modest description of the event. “When it…uh…arrives.”

“Yes,” Jack said, “she told me. Congratulations.”

“We can have it immediately,” Holt said. “That way Mother can really feel that it is all hers. She’s going to go out shopping tomorrow morning for baby clothes and a baby carriage. It will make a great change in her life, don’t you think?” There was a note of pleading in his voice.

“Without a doubt,” Jack said.

“For the better,” Holt said, hastily, fearful of leaving the suggestion of an alternative in Jack’s mind.

“Of course,” Jack said.

“I am going to write to various educators in the United States about the boy,” Holt said. “Taking a chance that it will be a boy…” He laughed slyly. “I would like him to go to the best schools. Groton or Andover, or one of those. I understand you can’t apply too early. I want him to feel that he has all the advantages…”

Then, past Holt’s shoulder, Jack saw Veronica. She was making her way around the edge of the floor, behind the headwaiter, who was leading her to a table on the other side of the room. There was a tall blond young man bulking beside her, holding her by the elbow.

Of course, Jack thought agonizedly, I should have expected it. Where else would honeymooners go if they had only one night in Rome? Sit in a dark corner, Jack prayed. Sit where no one can recognize you. He looked down the table at Bresach. Bresach was turned toward Barzelli now, speaking intently.

Veronica and the blond man sat down at a small table. It was just around the corner of the room. Jack sighed with relief. But then he saw Veronica’s profile appear out from the edge of the wall, softly lit by one of the projectors. He realized that she had leaned forward, just enough to be seen from Jack’s side of the room. Then the dancers swept across his line of vision and he couldn’t see her for the moment.

“In the years to come,” Holt was saying, still on the subject of the education of his son, who had not yet been born to the dark Neapolitan lady, “whether we Americans like it or not, we’re going to be called upon to lead the world—or our half or quarter of the world.” He was very earnest and he put his hand on Jack’s wrist in emphasis, the big, rough, capable hand formed by years of labor and not yet softened by wealth. “What we have to do is to try to keep the world—recognizable. It’s going to change, sure, but it’s up to us to make the changes recognizable in the terms of what we’ve had and liked up to now. And we’ll never do it by fighting for it. One more war and this world won’t be recognizable to our dear God Who created it. We’ll have to do it by work and example and persuasion. It’s a funny thing,” he said, shaking his head, “we’re a nation of lawyers and yet we can’t persuade a single foreigner to piss downwind unless we bribe him or threaten him with the hydrogen bomb. But that doesn’t mean we should stop persuading. No, sir,” he said with emphasis. “All it means is we have to learn to persuade a damn sight better. And if a man is well educated and he behaves like a gentleman, he can be much more persuasive, more useful. I am no gentleman myself, I grew like a weed, as the saying goes, so I can say these things without offense…And if the boy happens to come from this…uh…robust common stock, and he is European by blood, and if, as we intend, he does not break his ties with his own country…Well,” he said diffidently, “maybe Mother and me, well have contributed something valuable…”

“Excuse me,” Jack said. He had seen the man who was with Veronica come out from behind the wall, on his way past the bar toward the men’s room. “I’ve just seen a friend,” Jack said, standing up. He knew that Holt must be hurt by what must have seemed to him Jack’s rudeness, but there was no time to lose. “Excuse me for a minute, please. I must say hello.”

As unobtrusively as possible, Jack went along the edge of the dance floor, in the direction of the bar. Bresach didn’t even look up as Jack passed him. Then Jack, with the dancers between him and the Holt table, made his way back to where Veronica was sitting, alone, with a glass of champagne before her, and the bottle in a bucket of ice on a stand within reach. She was wearing a dress of cream brocade that left her shoulders bare and she had pulled her hair into a knot to one side. The whole effect was of sophistication and cool beauty that made her seem almost a stranger to Jack. Whatever anguish she had suffered earlier in the evening had been carefully erased from the cool, lovely face she was presenting to the world and her husband now.

“Veronica,” Jack said in a low voice, as he came up to the table, “what the hell are you doing here?”

She looked up, startled. “Oh, Jack,” she said. She glanced worriedly past him at the doorway through which her husband had gone. “Please. My husband will be back in a minute. I can’t talk to you now.”

“You’ve got to get out of here,” Jack said. “Right now.”

“Now, Jack,” she said, “please don’t start anything. You’ve hurt me enough tonight. I don’t want to have to introduce you to my husband. We’ve been with some of his friends until now, and it’s been bad enough, trying to answer their questions about people I know in Rome…”

“Listen to me,” Jack said harshly, grasping her hand. “Bresach’s over there. On the other side of the room.”

“I don’t believe you,” Veronica said, nervously eyeing the doorway. “Robert never came to a place like this in his life.”

“Well, he came tonight,” Jack said. “I’m telling you this for your own good.” Now he regretted the martinis and the champagne. He was not saying what he wanted to say. He didn’t want to talk to her about Bresach. He wanted to talk to her about himself. He would have liked to be able to say, “Now let us go back to the moment this evening in the hotel when you kissed me and I counted to six and you said, ‘Like human beings. With generosity!’” He had a sudden distasteful vision of himself as an onlooker and intermediary, the observer of others’ passions, the agent of their hatreds and desires, the recipient of their confessions, the channel of their communications, but never the actor, never the giver, never wholly involved, always ready to break off.
Involved,
he remembered from the night with the Morrisons,
involved,
he remembered from the accusation of his wife.

“What am I going to do?” Veronica said. Her voice was low but almost hysterical. “I told my husband I wanted to go dancing. He didn’t even want to come. And we haven’t been here ten minutes. We have a whole bottle of champagne, and…”

She stopped. A little dry sound like a sob escaped from her. Her husband was coming through the door and making his way through the dancers. He came up to the table and stood there, smiling politely at Jack, waiting for Veronica to introduce him. Tucino and Bertha Holt danced by slowly.

“Yes?” Veronica’s husband said, a little uncertainly, because Veronica hadn’t said anything yet. He was a tall, wide-shouldered blond man, young and sharply handsome, with probing, careful blue eyes. “Veronica?” He looked steadily at Jack, the question mark at the end of his wife’s name very marked.

“Oh,” she said, breathily, “I’m sorry, Georg. I…This is Mr. Andrus. A…a friend of mine. He came over to congratulate me. My husband, Georg Strooker…”

“How do you?” Strooker said. He had a heavy voice and, for those three words, at least, no accent. He put out his hand. Jack shook it. The hand was hard and powerful.

“I…I hope you and Veronica will be very happy,” Jack said. He felt confused. He had drunk too much that night, and too much had happened.

“Thank you very much,” Strooker said formally. “I am sure we shall be.” Now the accent of Zurich was detectable, but not comically. There was nothing light or comic about this large, hard young man with the sharp blond face and the glacial blue eyes. Strength through Joy Department, Jack thought, Swiss Division. Strooker did not sit down, nor did he ask Jack to sit down.

“I…I sent Mr. Andrus an announcement,” Veronica said, too loudly. “From Zurich. He’s…” She stopped, and Jack saw her eyes widen and her mouth tighten as she looked past him.

“Well, now,” said Bresach’s voice at Jack’s shoulder. “Look who’s here. With a new hair-do. Welcome to the Eternal City.”

“Robert,” Veronica said. She was trying to look sprightly and matter-of-fact, but even in saying Robert’s name a note of desperation trembled in her voice. “I never expected to see you in a place like this.”

“Great changes have taken place,” Robert said, keeping his eyes fixed on Veronica, “since I saw you last…”

“Veronica,” Strooker said, “will you introduce me to the gentleman, please.”

“Yes, of course,” Veronica said hastily. “I’m so sorry. I haven’t come back to earth yet.” She laughed falsely. “This is my husband, Robert, Georg Strooker…”

“Enchanted Georg, old man,” Bresach said, without turning, still staring down at Veronica. “How was the wedding? Fun?”

Then Jack knew that Bresach was not going to let anyone off from anything. “Come on now,” he whispered and took Bresach’s arm. “Don’t be a fool.”

Bresach shook his arm loose, roughly. Strooker was watching him coldly, puzzled, suspicious, unpleasant.

“What I think,” Bresach said, still staring at Veronica, “is that we all ought to be invited to drink to the health of the bride and groom.” With a sudden movement, he reached past Jack and picked the champagne bottle out of the ice bucket. He stood with it in front of him, cradling it against his shirt front, not heeding the damp spot that was spreading on his shirt from the wet bottle. “I now dub thee Cuckold Premier,” he said loudly and slowly. He raised the bottle high in the air above him and solemnly tilted it and poured the wine onto his head. It foamed in his hair and ran down into his collar. All this time he kept staring unblinkingly, his face expressionless, at Veronica.

“Stop that,” Jack said sharply, getting ready to leap between Bresach and Strooker if Strooker made a move. But for the moment Strooker was too surprised to say or do anything. He just stood where he was, regarding Bresach doubtfully, trying to decide whether Bresach was a harmless drunk or somebody who would have to be dealt with harshly in a moment or two.

“Now, friend,” Bresach said, turning to Strooker, “we must not omit you from the ceremony.” Before Jack could make a move to stop him, he had raised the bottle once more and was pouring champagne over Strooker’s neatly brushed blond hair.

“Robert!” Veronica screamed.

“I hereby dub thee Cuckold the Second,” Bresach was saying. For a moment nobody moved. The music and the dancing had stopped, and the room had fallen into a deep hush. People all over the room sat still, expectant, watching Bresach and Strooker. Strooker himself appeared bemused, disbelieving, as he stood there looking mildly at Bresach, for a second or two seeming to be a willing participant in the ceremony. Then he moved so quickly that there was no time to save Bresach. Strooker’s hand snapped up, slashing at Bresach’s arm. The champagne bottle hurtled through the air and broke with an explosive noise on the dance floor. Then Strooker slapped Bresach twice, with a sharp, cracking noise, across the face. Bresach’s glasses splintered and blood appeared immediately around his eyes. He made no gesture to defend himself. He merely stood there, grave and immobile, as though the whole scene were rehearsed and inevitable. Jack grabbed him around the shoulders and started to pull him away, but Strooker came after Bresach, punching him in the face. As Jack struggled clumsily in the narrow space between the tables to get Bresach out of harm’s way and at the same time ward off Strooker’s blows, Max magically appeared between the two men, grabbing at Strooker’s arms. Strooker, who was by far the larger man, pulled one arm free and hit Max in the mouth. Max fell back against another table, which kept him from sinking to the floor. But the distraction had been enough. Waiters sprang upon Strooker and held him, making placating Italian noises. Holt and Tucino came up and led Max and Bresach away, while Jack stood in front of Strooker, prepared to fight him off if he broke away from the restraining arms and tried to go for Bresach again. The band had started to play loudly again and Veronica was weeping with her head down on the table.

Strooker suddenly stopped struggling. He said something in German, but the waiter didn’t understand him. “All right,” he said in English, “now let me go.”

Warily, the waiters stepped back. Strooker was pale and his hair was soaked with champagne, but he went around the table and sat next to Veronica, without looking at her. He stared coldly out at the roomful of people who were watching him. His hand was bleeding from Bresach’s broken glasses, but he paid no attention to the blood staining the wine-soaked tablecloth. “I believe we will need another bottle of champagne,” he said to the headwaiter, who was standing nervously over him. Jack couldn’t help but admire him at that moment.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Jack said to Strooker, “about my friend. I imagine he’s had a little too much to drink tonight.”

“Yes,” the man said flatly, “I imagine he had.” Then he turned to Veronica. “Sit up,” he said, without expression. “Do not be a child.”

Slowly, her eyes stained with tears, she sat erect. “Please…” she whispered.

“Sit up,” Strooker said evenly, staring out across the room, beginning her lifelong punishment.

There was nothing more to be said or done at that table, and Jack turned and went across the dance floor, conscious of all the eyes watching him.

Jack said he would take Bresach and Max home in a taxi. He had washed the blood off Bresach’s face in the men’s room of the night club and had made sure that no bits of glass had cut into his eyes. Bresach submitted to everything that was done to him with the tranced, passionless expression of a sleepwalker. He didn’t say a word to Jack and he didn’t say goodnight to the Holts and Tucino and Barzelli, who were waiting on the street in front of the club to see if Bresach was all right before going home.

“It’s too bad, it’s too bad,” Holt said worriedly. He was holding his wife’s arm protectively, as though the fight in the night club had reminded him all over again how violent the world was and how frail and vulnerable was his wife. “What a way to end an evening like this.” He shook his head sadly. “It’s hardly the sort of thing you’d expect in a place like this. In Rome—in the best place in Rome. In America, of course, you expect it, it doesn’t come as a surprise…”