The Honeyed Peace (20 page)

Although it did not seem to Moira an attractive flat, it looked very expensive. Signor Chiaretti rang for a servant; no one answered.

'
Accidenti
,’ he said, 'I forgot. It is their day to go to the cinema.' He had not forgotten. When his wife was away and he lived luxuriously as a free man, he sent the servants out every day at five. 'We will have to drink, instead; I cannot make tea.'

'Oh, I could.'

'I would not allow it. Do you mind very much? A whisky?' He needed one himself; he was beginning to feel depressed; he wondered briefly about his virility.

The kidney-shaped couch, in front of the fire, was comfortable despite the tufted mustard upholstery. The whisky was good, the fire was warm, the room was quiet; Signor Chiaretti pulled the curtains to shut out the rain. Moira tucked her feet up and prepared to be specially sympathetic, which was her manner with men. Signor Chiaretti had no need of sympathy and rarely talked of himself; he had no problems; he wanted no help; to a large extent he understood himself and did not wish anyone else to do so. It was an automatic part of his technique to urge women to recount their past history. He liked to catalogue and classify his material.

He could hardly believe Moira's words; everything was lovely or, if not, it was dismissed as bad luck or something one could not complain of. He learned that her family's house in London had been bombed in the blitz but really it did not matter, they wouldn't want a town house any more; her brother had been killed in the war, poor darling, but think of all the other men who had died; her parents lived in the country, rather a sweet place, it had always belonged to her mother's people, it was an old manor house, of course; the gardens were rather run-down now, but even without servants it was comfortable for Daddy and Mummy; she had tried various jobs since the war but did not seem madly competent and they were rather dull, which of course was natural, she couldn't expect without special training or ability to find anything very interesting; life was somewhat tedious in London owing to the war and rationing and everyone poor all of a sudden, but she could not complain, she was so lucky to be having this lovely long holiday with Enid. To Signor Chiaretti, who made his life with fierce purposefulness, who would not have allowed history to interfere with his needs and hopes, the aimlessness, the placid resignation of Moira's life were revolting. She seemed to have no idea of what she wanted; she waited around; nothing much happened; she thought, Oh well, bad luck. He did not feel sorry for her; he felt the same distaste he felt for the sick.

He steered her on to men. Moira said, 'I do think the Poles were wonderfully gallant during the war, don't you?' She said, 'I see a great deal of my old friends in London, men I've known all my life; it really is marvellous to have people you can count on.'

At last, ready to slap her, to shout, to take her home at once, Signor Chiaretti said, 'But you have been in love?' Dio Santo, he thought, what has this sexless creature been doing her whole life?

'I thought I was,' Moira said timidly. 'But the war, you know; it broke everything up. People are moved, stationed somewhere else, and then there was not much time, and things rather drifted off.'

If they are all like this, Signor Chiaretti thought coldly, it is no wonder that so many Englishmen are pederasts. Perhaps it was not too late to telephone Lulu Boisvain; she might by miracle be free for dinner, for caressing talk, for the subtle tentative game of advance and retreat they had been amusing themselves with for months.

'Did it make you sad?' he asked, with a tenderness he could offer as readily as cigarettes or drink.

Moira turned to him, her large flat blue eyes tear-filled, and said, 'Yes.'

So Signor Chiaretti murmured, 'Poor little one, it has all been very hard for you,' and kissed her. Moira did not know how this had happened, apparently without movement and surely without decision on her part. She was astonished, but like all sure and graceful action, the gesture seemed right. The kisses changed from soft consolation into something else. Moira, who had never roused such passion, felt herself suddenly beautiful. Signor Chiaretti knew she was off balance, struggling to keep a foothold on orderly ideas: This is too soon, I hardly know him, what does he mean, does he love me? With intense intellectual pleasure, Signor Chiaretti gauged this struggle; Moira was not responsive, but melting. He saw possibilities, and was charmed that she was distracted between fear, nerves, and the claims of her body. He knew that he must not proceed too fast; this was a scene to be played in two parts. He would call an intermission at the exact moment when her balance was gone and consequences of no importance. With great talent and silently, he moulded a new personality for this banal woman. She saw herself as at once powerful and helpless. Unhinged by these emotions and by this electric languor, Moira thought: I do not care what happens, only to go on ...

Signor Chiaretti said, 'I am selfish, I am thoughtless. It is late. You will be tired and hungry. Come,
cara
, I am going to take you to a small quiet place and feed you nice things and look after you,' and he watched the shock and the beaten disappointment spread over Moira's face until these faded into her usual well-bred look of nothingness. A face as bare as a plate, he thought.

Moira said she would have to telephone Enid. Signor Chiaretti listened with admiration. Even the stupidest women were brilliant liars; Moira managed to give the impression, without definite words, that they had had a companionable afternoon of sight-seeing, were now a bit weary, and meant to round off the day with an early dinner at a trattoria. It was, Signor Chiaretti thought, valuable to be English; they always said so little that no questions were likely to be asked when they said less. Is it possible, he asked himself, that their talk is a lie to hide something? No, that was too hopeful; Moira's conversation was dreadfully sincere. It was nothing and hid whole interior seas and mountain ranges and deserts of nothing.

Moira's horror of the personal now came in handy; Signor Chiaretti could not have borne to discuss, at dinner, the ins and outs, the meaning, the future of their sudden intimacy. He was hungry, although Moira said she ate little at night (high tea with the girls as a rule), and ordered the dreariest sort of veal. But there was red wine and she was again her enthusiastic self, saying that the trattoria was too sweet, so typical, there were so many adorable little places to eat in Rome. Signor Chiaretti had chosen this restaurant because he was sure to meet no one he knew; his vanity could not accept Moira's utility suit.

The rain had stopped but the night air was wet and chilly; the restaurant was unheated. Moira had observed that Italians ate at length and slowly but never lingered after the table was cleared. Where did they go? Will he take me home now? she thought, and felt cheated and again had the sense, more intolerable than before, that nothing in her life was decided, started, going straight towards something.

'This is disgusting weather,' Signor Chiaretti said as he helped Moira into the car; 'I can think of no pleasant place to take you. In Rome, we do not admit it is winter until November; there are two months of the year when one has to stay at home to be comfortable. What do you think of going back to the fire for a brandy?'

'That would be nice,' she said.

During dinner he had talked indifferently of his work, asked questions about England, listened to her effusions on Rome and Italy (they had gone to Sorrento for two weeks in the summer, just the girls and Enid and she, to a divine little hotel where one ate out of doors). He perhaps meant simply come home for a brandy? He had been overcome by passion and now regretted it? He realized he should not have behaved in that way on such slight acquaintance? She would never mention it of course; it was an accident and better that they should drink in a friendly way and meet again next week. Due to Signor Chiaretti's superb management, Moira felt siren-lovely and sorry in a complacent way to have wreaked such havoc with the poor man's emotions.

The room, lighted by one lamp, was mercifully vague. Signor Chiaretti had counted on the recent memories of this place, and was right. Lulled by the warmth and the flickering fire, the brandy, the soft cushions of the monstrous sofa, Moira said, 'Have you loved many women?'

'Never.' This was strict truth and a condition of being which Signor Chiaretti intended to maintain. He had no use for love, no time for it, and saw it as a disagreeable handicap, like being kept in bed by fever or doomed to follies from a need for drugs. Moira took him to mean 'never before', which he guessed she would do. He disliked using words at all. Anyone could lie any woman into doing anything; there was no style to that.

Like a man who continues to invest money in a feeble business venture, because he has put in money before, Signor Chiaretti was determined not to let this sluggish afternoon and evening go to waste. His curiosity had been numbed by boredom but he would get what he wanted even if he no longer wanted it. He recognized that some sort of tyranny was operating in him, vanity being stronger than taste or fact, but he did not care; he was however he was and he would not let a limp Englishwoman change his habits.

'I have never known a woman like you,' Signor Chiaretti said. This again was strict truth, only the voice lied.

Moira flushed with pride; the sense of power was returning. The pride was not entirely personal; her upbringing helped her to feel that an English person must be rather an experience, rather a privilege, for an Italian.

'But I am alarmed by you,' Signor Chiaretti went on, 'I do not know how to please you.'

Stricken, Moira believed she must have seemed unappreciative. 'But you've given me the most lovely time. You've been so kind.'

'You are very polite.'

No one had been kind, Moira thought, suddenly filled with resentment for all the people who had ignored her; only this man had seen her as a person, as a woman, as an attractive woman, Moira added defiantly in her mind. She laid her hand on Signor Chiaretti's. 'No, I'm not,' she said, 'no, I'm not.'

He kissed the palm of her hand, his head bent in humility. Moved by this supplicant gesture, as if he had asked her for gentleness and reassurance, Moira reached out to stroke his hair. Then she was again held in those certain arms and kisses were drawn from her and there was nothing she had to do, but all she did was perfect. She was the object of adoration: the adoration was ecstasy to receive and was her due. She had never felt more at home in the world and more aware of herself. She hardly noticed when Signor Chiaretti led her, bemused, dreaming, down the dimly lit hall to a dimly lit bedroom. She understood that a force stronger than either of them, belonging to her, long hidden in her, guided them both.

Moira awoke in her dingy, false Louise-Seize bedroom on the interior court, and thought; I don't even know his first name, I must have been absolutely tight. She did not dare think any more; if one started introspecting, who knew where it would end? there was too much to think about and all of it unhealthy; she would wait and see. She got up, brushed her hair, washed her face, scrubbed especially hard at her teeth, and went to Enid's room prepared with a candid lie to explain her late night out.

Signor Chiaretti woke and rang for breakfast. He drank three cups of good, heavily sugared coffee and thought about the night, as was his custom. He went over it accurately, for he had a decision to make: go on or give up. Moira could not be more ignorant and unimaginative, he must remember to find out her age, although age had nothing to do with it. He had never been to England but understood that all English gentlemen spent their evenings in male clubs and drank too much and he did not blame them. On the other hand, there was a kind of triumph in this which was new to him; that numb lifeless body could be brought to life, that vapid mind could be forced to suspend all its idiot rules; with time, with care, it would be possible to create hungers and needs and talents which now were non-existent. It was a challenge to his skill. And it would be a great help to the poor girl, he thought; afterwards she might have some chance of snaring a husband; she certainly had none now.

Then, in sequence, he remembered taking Moira home. She stood before the high iron-studded door of the palazzo and thanked him as coolly as if he were bringing her back from the movies. The impervious correctness of the English taunted him. What was it anyhow, where did they find, how did they invent such a mask? That sterile mask, made of colourless words, muted gestures, succeeded in humiliating all the rest of the world. They forced you to feel in the wrong; somehow their behaviour was right; somehow you were always eating with your knife. That this girl, this one specially, should have been able to snub him without effort at three in the morning after such a night, angered him unbearably.

She would be taught; he would teach her. It was a form of condescension the English practised with impunity on everyone else, and there was no excuse for it and he was going to change this grotesque state of affairs. You are a snob, he told himself; what difference does it make how the English behave? the English can make everyone else feel inferior because everyone else is a snob, that is all; why allow it to irritate you? I am irritated, he answered himself. He felt he had brought down his bird and the bird hadn't realized it. Signor Chiaretti began reading the morning papers. Stupidity on every hand, stupidity everywhere, stupidity here in this room, he jeered. It was Moira's good night that decided him. For the honour of all inferior races, he told himself in mockery, I am going to make one English person act the way the rest of us do.

Signor Chiaretti allowed three days to pass, devoting his spare time meanwhile to Madame Boisvain, who was gratifyingly tricky. Three days, he calculated, would be enough to fill Moira's mind with doubt; she would be thankful, after that period of self-questioning, not to be despised by the man who had so rapidly possessed her. Moira agreed to meet him and told Enid she was going to see a girl she'd worked with in London. During dinner at the same trattoria, Moira observed Signor Chiaretti nervously. Had she been all wrong, was he playing with her, was he thinking she was a common tourist and could be had by any man who tried? She would have liked to make a declaration of her fastidiousness; she wished that foreigners understood about people and knew, without being told, what sort of person they were dealing with. It was impossible, naturally, to inform him she was a lady and not a casual pick-up accustomed to going to bed with strangers. She realized that she was making rather snobbish conversation about the people who came to the Langdons', but he had to get her straight. Signor Chiaretti was delighted; he had already shaken that infuriating English confidence.