‘All right, speaking as a Serb: what’s it got to do with Serbia?’
‘Well, Bosnia’s bloody ours, isn’t it? Or it ought to be. It’s been part of Serbia for a thousand years. Or it should have been. And do you think we’re going to let them get away with this? Not a chance!’
Seymour went to Lomax’s apartment and began making a list of his effects. He was sitting at the small table when Maddalena came in.
‘The concierge let me in.’ She looked at Seymour. ‘But I have a key, yes.’
‘Why have you come here?’ asked Seymour.
‘To see if I could find anything here that would help us.’
‘Help us to do what?’
‘Find out who killed him.’
Seymour sighed.
‘Hadn’t you better leave that to the police?’
‘Are you leaving it to the police?’ she said.
‘No,’ he said, after a moment.
‘Well, I’m not, either.’
‘What were you hoping to find?’ he said.
‘Names.’
‘There aren’t any. I’ve looked.’
‘Do you mind if I look? I know the place better than you.’
‘Go ahead.’
Some time later she came back.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘There aren’t any.’
‘He never put anything on paper.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Were you looking for any names in particular?’
She was silent for a little while. Then she said: ‘Lomax helped a lot of people. I thought that one time it might have gone wrong.’
‘Do you have any particular reason for thinking that?’
She was silent again. She seemed to be turning something over in her mind. At last she said:
‘It seems silly. Trivial. It is probably nothing. But since — since it happened, since Lomax died, I have been thinking, thinking all the time. How could it have happened? How could anyone have done that to — well, a person like him? I have thought over everything, the people he knew, the things he did. But he never did a bad thing. I am sure he would never do a bad thing. So why would anyone want to kill him? I have thought and thought. And the conclusion I have come to is that it must be because of one of the good things he did. Perhaps it went wrong, or perhaps they wanted more. More than he was prepared to give.
‘Because he was quite strong, really. Stronger than you thought. I know he didn’t seem like that. Not when you first met him. When he first joined us in the piazza — Alfredo, I think it was, or perhaps Ettore, who brought him — we thought, what a funny little man! I mean, he didn’t fit in at all. He knew nothing about art, that was obvious, or about artists. He wasn’t interested in any of the things we were interested in. But he kept on coming. We couldn’t think why he bothered. He never used to say anything. He just sat there smiling, like a puppy wagging its tail. And that’s how we treated him, like a little dog, who had for some reason attached itself to us.
‘He was so grateful to be stroked. And then I saw that he was especially grateful to be stroked by me. I quite enjoyed that, any woman does, giving the occasional stroke from time to time and watching a man wag his tail. It become obvious. “You have made a conquest there, Maddalena,” the others said. I wasn’t very flattered. “Well, I’m not surprised,” I said, “A man like that!” He seemed so silly, you know, with that inane smile and his moustache, and those dog-like eyes. But gradually he grew on me. It is nice to be worshipped.’
‘And so you came to have the key to his apartment,’ said Seymour.
‘Yes. And at one time I used to come here often. Then, not so much. Only when I needed to. A woman on her own sometimes needs someone to go to. The others — Alfredo and Luigi and Lorenzo — are all right, but they are artists. They see me as a model and not always as a person. But sometimes you feel the need to be seen as a person. Well, when it was like that, I would go to Lomax.
‘But it wasn’t just me. We all turned to him when we were in difficulties, when there was some business problem or trouble with the authorities. Whenever James got put in prison, for example. And he always knew what to do. He would always be able to sort it out. In the Austrian Empire it is always difficult if you come up against the officials. They ride rough-shod over you, especially if you are just an ordinary person. But the officials could never fob Lomax off or browbeat him or override him. That is what I meant when I said that he was so strong.
‘And he always used it for others. I have been thinking about him a lot since he died and that is what I have come to see, and what is so wonderful.’
She had begun to cry a little.
‘And that is why I feel so angry. It is so — so unjust. That he should die like this. God is unjust and must not be allowed to get away with it. I will not let that happen. I, Maddalena, will not let that happen,’ she said, fiercely, through her tears.
‘I am sorry. You obviously knew him much better than I did and cared for him deeply — ’
‘No!’
‘No?’
‘No. I cared for him shallowly, too shallowly. It has been over for some time. It is nice to be worshipped but to be up on a pedestal for too long is boring. And wrong, anyway. It is not what I want from a man. It was time to move away. Time, too, for him to move away. I think he had begun to realize that for himself. I was part, you see, of his first days in Trieste, and they were over.
‘When he first came to Trieste, something happened to him. There was a great opening up — art, sunshine, the Mediterranean way of life, it all hit him together. All his life up till then he had been contained, controlled. Now, suddenly, he felt free. Things became possible that had not seemed possible before. Love, perhaps. Me.
‘He found it all in me, you see. Or thought he did. Love, art, release, freedom — everything. Of course, it was not there. I am much less than that. But perhaps for him, for a while, it was there.
‘For a while. But then, you see, I think he began to grow. This opening up did not stop there. He looked at things he had not noticed before, things he had never previously questioned. Things about society. About people. Perhaps he thought: I am free, why cannot they be free?
‘He began to look outwards, to involve himself more with other people. He began to help them. But, you know, in Trieste people are not just people, they are always part of something else. I don’t think he realized that. I don’t think he realized that though you may begin with helping people as individuals, you are soon, in Trieste, drawn on to helping other things. And that, I think, is what may have happened to him. He was drawn on and then it went wrong.
‘You asked me if I had any particular reason for thinking that. Yes, I do. Once — I remember when it was. There was a big reception at the Casa Revoltella and he asked me if I would come with him. Well, I did not want to go very much, it is not my kind of thing, pompous people, stiff uniforms — no, no. But he said: “Oh, do come, Maddalena! If I don’t have someone real to talk to, I shall go crazy! And there will be lots of colour and beautiful things and you can point them out to me.”
‘Well, I agreed. But then, on the day before it was going to happen, he came to me and said: “No, no, I can’t go. It would not be right. Someone else has asked me to take them, and I don’t want to. It would not be right.” “If you’re bothered about me, you needn’t be,” I said. “I’m quite happy not to go. Why don’t you take this other person?” “No,” he said. “It would be better for me not to go at all. That would make it clear.” Well, I tried to persuade him, but he would not have it, and I didn’t try too hard. It was not important to me. But afterwards I thought about it and I couldn’t understand it. Who was this other person? Why didn’t he want to go with them? And why was it so important? I did not find answers, but now the questions come back to me.’
She shrugged.
‘It may be nothing,’ she said. ‘Now when I tell it, it seems trivial. But it was a moment when I felt there was a side to Lomax, a part of his life, that I did not know. And that surprised me, for I felt that I knew everything about him. And now, after thinking about Lomax and searching and searching, trying to find what could have led to this, this is all I can think of. It is trivial, I know, perhaps silly, but it is all that I can come up with.’