The Dividing Stream (2 page)

‘‘You might have.’’

‘‘No!’’ Suddenly serious, the boy raised one fist as if to strike the American in the face; but instead he gripped his arm, his eyes neared his.

‘‘No. I’m not a thief. Not a thief,’’ he repeated. ‘‘Never.’’

‘‘All right,’’ Max said drily. For a moment he still felt angry; then he realized how absurd the scene had been, and a smile broke on his heavy, vaguely Teutonic features, making the green eyes almost disappear under the red brows and showing a large triangular chip in one of the yellow teeth at the side of his mouth.

Rodolfo at once smiled back. ‘‘Do you want to take a photo of me?’’

‘‘Not very much.’’

‘‘Like this,’’ Rodolfo suggested, posing with his hands on his hips.

‘‘No, thank you.’’

‘‘Why don’t you want to take a photograph of me?’’

‘‘Why should I? … Oh, I’ll take one if you like. If it’ll please you.’’ Max combined two of the dominant characteristics of the American abroad; suspicion of the foreigner, who apart from being likely to prove more astute, was certain to want something, probably dollars; and at the same time a longing for ‘‘madness’’, for acceptance in a society in which he never felt wholly at his ease. The boy was a guttersnipe and at best he would cadge a cigarette, at worst steal something; yet his impudence appealed to Max and, in his loneliness, the American responded.

‘‘I’ll wake my friend, shall I? Then you can take us both together. You’d prefer that, wouldn’t you?’’

‘‘I’m sure he’d rather sleep.’’

But Rodolfo had already leapt down the incline to where the Florentine lay and was prodding him in the stomach with the toes of one foot. Enzo stirred, grunted and rolled over on his back, his hands going down to adjust his slip in a gesture of modesty; but still he did not wake. Scooping some water out of the river Rodolfo scattered the drops over the outstretched body and laughed as his friend shot up.

‘‘What the hell?’’ the Florentine asked, as with one hand he rubbed his eyes and with the other massaged his back.

‘‘Come, come, come!’’ Rodolfo beckoned with both hands. ‘‘The American wants to take a photograph.’’

‘‘What American?’’

Rodolfo pointed, Enzo looked round; and it was typical of the Florentine’s nature that as soon as he saw Max his surliness at being woken should melt into a smile. He jumped to his feet.

They posed against the water, their arms round each other’s bare shoulders, and Max photographed them, not once, but three times—he would never risk failures. Rodolfo lacked all self-consciousness, but Enzo, who was shy, spoiled the first snap by shifting suddenly from his left to his right foot, and the second by covering his face with one hand as he was seized with uncontrollable giggles. On both occasions Rodolfo, who held himself erect and motionless, shouted angrily at his friend in a slang which Max, perhaps fortunately, could not understand. The Florentine, his skin gold against the deeper, less glowing brown of his friend, had the better physique, with wide shoulders, a narrow waist, and a straight, sturdy stance, but his self-consciousness denied him the Arab grace of Rodolfo. Max noticed how his body was covered with a number of small, white scars.

When he had finished, the American wondered why he had bothered. The photographs would be developed and printed, and then stuck in an album or left in a drawer or perhaps accidentally thrown away. Back at home when he showed guests his snaps of the trip someone would ask ‘‘Who are those?’’ and he would answer, probably truthfully, ‘‘I can’t remember.’’ And in a sense all the photographs, so carefully planned and posed, which he had taken in Europe would be equally futile. ‘‘What is that?’’ ‘‘That? Oh, that’s the Uffizi, and that’s San Miniato, and that’s Santa Croce—or it may be Santa Maria Novella.’’ He would know the names, or approximately know them, whereas already he had forgotten the names of the two Italian boys; but in both cases the photographs would evoke no real response, no quickening of the pulse, no agreeable rush of memory. For too long he had been emotionally dead to anyone but one person, to anything but one thing.

As he packed away the camera, he asked: ‘‘ What did you say your names were?’’

‘‘I’m Rodolfo. Rodolfo Valentino. You remember him? … My friend is Enzc—short for Lorenzo.’’

‘‘Lorenzo the Magnificent,’’ put in Enzo, in allusion to an exhibition being held that year in Florence; he giggled at his little joke.

‘‘Have you a cigarette?’’ Rodolfo asked simply.

‘‘Sorry. Not here. I don’t smoke myself.’’

‘‘At the hotel?’’

‘‘Yes, at the hotel.’’

‘‘Which is your hotel?’’

‘‘That one. Just opposite.’’

Rodolfo whistled and nudged Enzo. ‘‘He lives at the Palazzo D’Oro. How much would they rook him for there?’’

Enzo was embarrassed by a question which it obviously had not embarrassed his friend to ask. ‘‘Four thousand lire a day,’’ he muttered in a husky voice which always made it seem as if he ought to clear his throat. ‘‘ Full
pensione
,’’ he added.

Again Rodolfo whistled, shaking his right hand loosely from the wrist in a gesture which he used to express any superlative. ‘‘Enzo’s mother works at the Palazzo D’Oro. In the laundry.… When are you going back to the hotel?’’

‘‘Soon.’’

‘‘If we come with you, will you give us a fag?’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘If we come back with you——’’

‘‘Yes … all right.’’

A year ago Max would never have dreamed of taking two half-naked urchins into the best hotel in Florence; but wasn’t it one of Karen’s chief complaints against him that he was so conventional, so ‘‘ stodgy”, as she put it? These days he was always catching himself trying to ‘‘show’’ her by some action which was wholly untrue to his real self; an admission, if any were needed, that that self had long since ceased to be satisfactory in her eyes.

But, in truth, the reception-clerk at the Palazzo d’Oro saw stranger things in the course of a day and, in spite of Max’s fears, their entry passed without comment, probably without notice. They stood in silence as the vast iron and glass cage, flushed to a uniform rosy glow, swung them up and up to the sixth floor, and then, single-file, they clattered their way down a marble-paved corridor. From time to time Rodolfo looked over his shoulder to smile at his friend in triumph at their admission into this exotic world, but the Florentine made no response, thinking at that moment of how through seven layers of masonry, with antique furniture, concealed lighting and all the other expensive, incredible apparatus of civilized living between, somewhere, under his feet, his mother was at this moment touching the iron with a moistened finger to see if it sizzled, was swathed in steam as she lowered one padded half of the trouser-press or (the job of which she complained most) was sorting and counting the soiled heaps of laundry thrown haphazard by the chamber-maids on to the sweating floors. What would she think if she knew that her son was walking above her—was at this moment standing outside one of the terrace suites while the American fumbled with his keys before they could enter? A strange feeling of pity, combined with resentment, shook him momentarily through his whole frame.

While the boys went round the room, whistling their astonishment, Max unlocked his case, fetched out some Camels and threw them to Enzo. The Florentine clumsily drew out two cigarettes, one of which he gave to his friend, and then returned the packet.

‘‘Keep it,’’ Max said.

‘‘What?’’

‘‘Keep it, keep it,’’ said Rodolfo irritably. Finding his friend slow, he tended to bully him.

‘‘
Grazie, grazie
.’’ Enzo pushed the cigarettes into one pocket of his shorts but at once they descended down the trouser-leg. Rodolfo guffawed, Enzo blushed and stooped to recover the gift.

‘‘His only pair of pants,’’ Rodolfo explained. ‘‘And he spent all this morning sewing them up. Look.’’ He turned his friend round like a dummy and showed the place where a rent in the seat had been untidily drawn together with a few large stitches. ‘‘Too small for him,’’ he said. ‘‘He never stops growing.’’ Suddenly his eye was caught by the open suit-case, in which lay Max’s passport and a heap of foreign money. He fingered a note:

‘‘French?’’

‘‘No, Swiss.’’

‘‘And this?’’

‘‘A florin.’’

‘‘How much is it worth?’’

‘‘About two hundred lire.’’

Max shut the case and locked it.

‘‘He doesn’t trust us,’’ Rodolfo said to Enzo in an aside which none the less reached the American’s ears. He laughed:

‘‘I don’t blame him, with all that money.’’ He turned to Max: ‘‘You’re rich.’’ It was a statement, not a question, and of course it was true. But Max had never applied that word to himself, being, like most rich people, a little afraid of it. He now shrugged his shoulders, no less embarrassed than if the Italian had suddenly announced, ‘‘You’re good.’’

‘‘Nice stuff.’’ Rodolfo had begun to finger the material of the suit which, an hour previously, had been pressed by Enzo’s mother in the hotel laundry. He rubbed it against his cheek. ‘‘How much?’’

‘‘How much?’’ Max echoed.

‘‘How much did it cost?’’

‘‘Twenty-five guineas. It was made for me in England.’’

‘‘In lire?’’

‘‘Oh, I really don’t know,’’ Max said impatiently. For some reason he had already lied about the suit; it had, in fact, cost forty, not twenty-five, guineas.

‘‘And these brushes?’’ Rodolfo picked them up and began applying them to his hair which, according to the fashion of the moment, had been cut
à l’Américain
and stood up in a dense, coarse mat, black and slightly scurfy at the roots.

‘‘Please don’t use those.’’

Rodolfo went on brushing his hair.

‘‘I said please don’t use those.’’

When Max attempted to grab the brushes, the boy slithered away, with a giggle, and at once began to brush the hair of his friend. But seeing Max’s displeasure, Enzo grabbed Rodolfo’s right arm and slowly twisted it until the Tunisian squirmed and squealed in pain; the two ivory-backed brushes clattered to the floor. The Florentine picked them up, dusted them between his hands, and returned them to the dressing-table.

‘‘I think you’d better be going now.… And please don’t put your cigarette-end down the wash-basin,’’ Max added irritably.

‘‘Give it to me.’’ The Florentine took the cigarette from the Tunisian, went out on to the terrace, and there ground it beneath his heel. Evidently it had never occurred to either of the boys that the two crystal and gold dishes over which they had whistled when they had first come in, might really be ash-trays.

‘‘What are you doing there?’’ a voice demanded in English. ‘‘ Why are you in my son-in-law’s room?’’

An old woman who had been sleeping in a wicker chair at the other end of the terrace, her straw hat tilted so far over her nose that only her chin was visible, had suddenly awoken, pushed the hat off her face, and tottered to her feet. She was terrifying, and Enzo fled back into the bedroom.

‘‘Max, Max! … Oh, you
are
here! What was that boy doing out on the terrace? What’s going on?’’

Mrs. Bennett was a woman of over six feet, with large hands and feet, untidy grey hair worn in a bun, and a face whose main features were a long, thin, indeterminately shaped nose, a skin which, except in moments of stress, lacked any of old age’s wrinkles, and a pair of eyes remarkable both for the paleness of their blue and the absence of either lashes or eyebrows. She wore a faded blue cotton-dress, shapeless except for the belt which gathered it at the waist, white plimsolls on her stockingless feet, and dark glasses which dangled round her neck on a piece of knotted twine. ‘‘Who are these people? I was woken up by one of them, on the terrace. He frightened me,’’ she added with a sudden smile.

‘‘I met them on the beach and they asked for a cigarette. I hadn’t any on me so I brought them up here.’’

‘‘Oh, I see. It was silly of me to be frightened,’’ she said, turning to Enzo. ‘‘But I was having such a strange, confused dream, and then I woke with a start and saw you.… Now that I’m old, I’ve become silly about sleep—always a little afraid to go to sleep, in case I don’t wake up, and when I
do
wake up, I always think that perhaps I may be dead.… You wouldn’t understand that because you’re young.’’

Enzo had not understood it; not merely because he was young, as she had suggested, but because the whole speech had been delivered in English. He was still regarding her with terror.

‘‘They don’t understand English,’’ Max put in. ‘‘But that one speaks a little French
patois
—he’s from Tunis.’’

‘‘This one? Yes, I’ve been looking at him. Partly Arab, I suppose.… He’s a fine-looking boy.’’

Hearing the word Arab, Rodolfo leapt up from the bed where he had been squatting. ‘‘Me—Arab?’’ he exclaimed in French. ‘‘ Not on your life!’’

‘‘He didn’t like that.’’ She smiled at him, putting one hand on to his shoulder and gently pushing him back on to the bed. Once she had him there, she stared down at him with her strange, faintly blue eyes, and he, with a sullen hostility, stared back, his palms clasped behind his head. Suddenly she bent down and caught one of his wrists. ‘‘ He’ll do. I want to draw him.’’ She began to pull him to his feet and such was her personality, that Rodolfo, mystified and unfriendly, nevertheless rose. ‘‘I’ll take him to my room,’’ she announced, beginning to drag him to the door, and commanding at the same time in an appalling French accent. ‘‘
Venez—venez! Venez avec moi
!’’

‘‘
Mais, je ne comprends pas
——’’

‘‘
Venez, venez
!’’

Enzo began to shamble after them, but she waved him away, crying in English. ‘‘ No, I only want the one. Do explain, Max.’’

‘‘You stay here, Enzo,’’ Max said.

‘‘But——’’

‘‘Stay with the Englishman,’’ Rodolfo commanded. He was not sure what was desired either of him or his friend, but of one thing he was sure; it always paid to do what foreigners asked of one. ‘‘Stay with the Englishman,’’ he repeated.

‘‘But——’’ Enzo began again.

‘‘Stay!’’ Rodolfo shouted. ‘‘Keep the Englishman company.’’

Enzo crossed over to the bed, sat stiffly down on it, and began undoing and doing up the top button of his shirt with one large, clumsy hand. His face was red and he was sweating profusely.