Maddalena, Seymour supposed, was one of the exceptions. That was probably because she was an artist, or moved in those circles. Seymour didn’t know much about artists, had never really met any before he came to Trieste. From what he had seen, they were all right, if slightly crazed, but, on the whole, people it was best to steer a little clear of.
And that probably went for Maddalena, too. He could see that she wasn’t exactly the sort of woman a British Consul should be pally with. Nor a Special Branch officer seconded on special duty, either.
Yet he couldn’t get her out of his mind. She challenged him. She wasn’t at all what he expected a woman to be. He could see, in his more detached moments, that this was as much to do with what he was as with what she was, and with his own background in a strongly traditional, rather rigid immigrant community in which the role of a woman was heavily circumscribed. But, hell, he was moving beyond that kind of community, that was the past, he wasn’t like his Mum and Dad; it couldn’t just be that.
Anyway, he ought not to be giving her too much attention. This was just a fling, something on the side, taking place, fortunately, where no one knew him and couldn’t report back. (Except that goddamned ‘shadow’ that was perpetually behind him, but, luckily, this was not the sort of thing he and his superiors would be interested in, and if report got back, it certainly wouldn’t be to his mother.)
No, the important thing, he told himself sternly, was that he should be concentrating on his work. This was a career opportunity for him, the first real one that he had had; and he must not let it slip. This, of all times, was not the one to allow himself to be distracted.
There was, besides, a strong particular reason for not allowing himself to get too close to Maddalena. It was abundantly clear that she identified herself strongly with the Italian cause in the maelstrom of national politics that was Trieste. And if Lomax, as was beginning to seem not at all unlikely, had come to grief because he had allowed his sympathies to carry him too far, then the most likely object of them that Seymour had seen up till now had been the Italians.
On his way back, he went past the Edison and that brought into his mind his visit there the other evening. The pickets were no longer in evidence. Of course they would only be there in the evening, when there was a showing. The thought came to him that because of that Kornbluth might have missed them. Anyway, it was worth a try.
The newspaper seller was there at his post.
‘Still here, then?’
‘I am always here.’
‘Always? Even when the cinema comes out?’
‘That’s bloody midnight! I’ve got a wife, you know. Or will have, if we get round to the church some time. It’s got to be a church, she says. No registry office for her! And she’s a good Socialist too! I tell you, it shocks me.’
‘So you’re not here, then, when the cinema comes out?’ said Seymour, disappointed.
‘I go home when the pickets come.’
‘You don’t picket, yourself?’
‘Well, I do, as a matter of fact. But only when people are going in. After that I go home, because Maria cooks a good meal for me and if I’m not there to enjoy it, she kicks hell out of me.’
‘Do you know someone I could speak to who is normally there at the end?’
‘You could try Pietro, I suppose,’ said the newspaper seller.
Pietro was in the local office of the Socialist Party; and the office was in a shabby street where women sat in the doorways and waif-like children stared at him with bucket eyes. It consisted of a single room. Newspapers such as the newspaper seller sold, that is, radical ones, and leaflets such as Seymour had seen being distributed at the Canal Grande, were piled everywhere. The Trieste Socialists were strong on paper if not on much else.
Pietro sat behind a small table, smoking.
‘You could try Paulo,’ he said.
Paulo was to be found down at the docks. Several other men, equally shabby, were to be found with him, sitting in the shade with their backs against a wall. Evidently the port’s prosperity had not extended universally.
‘Yes, I’m Paulo,’ he said defiantly. ‘And yes, I was on picket at the Edison.’
‘And so was I,’ said someone else. ‘And what has that got to do with you?’
‘It means you may be able to help me,’ said Seymour.
‘Why should we help you?’
‘What does it cost to help?’ asked Seymour.
It was a saying from the Triestino. They registered it but, coming from someone like him, it made them uneasy. ‘Who are you?’ one of them said.
Seymour thought for a second, then said:
‘I am English.’
There could be advantages, given the usual Trieste tensions, in not falling into the usual Triestian categories. They drew away from him however.
‘We cannot help you,’ one of them said.
They looked away with studied indifference.
Seymour, though, had grown up among docks people. He squatted down beside them with his back against the wall.
After a while, someone said:
‘Are you going to go away?’
‘No.’
The man shrugged.
‘Stay, then.’
It made them uncomfortable, however. He knew they wouldn’t be able to stay silent for long.
‘Aren’t you afraid you will dirty that posh suit?’ someone taunted him.
‘No.’
‘Look, why don’t you just push off?’
‘I need your help.’
‘Well, we’re not going to give it you.’
Seymour continued to sit there.
One of them got up and came and stood in front of him.
‘Bugger off!’ he said threateningly.
Seymour looked up at him.
‘When you have told me what I want,’ he said; watching the man’s boots, however.
‘Shall I kick his head in?’ the man asked the others.
‘What does it cost to help?’ Seymour said again.
‘This man’s getting on my nerves.’
‘He’s getting on all our nerves.’
‘Just who the hell are you?’
‘I’ve told you. I’m English. And I want some information about an Englishman who died.’
‘You’d better go to the police, then.’
‘Would you go to the police?’
There was a short silence and then, as Seymour had counted on, a general laugh.
‘Yes, but why come to us?’
‘I think you might be able to help me. You see, the Englishman went to the Edison the night he was killed. It was one of the nights you were picketing on.’
‘We don’t know anything about it.’
‘Well, I think you might. He went in with a friend. A tall Irishman. Now, what I want to know is what happened when they came out. I think you could have seen them.’
‘A lot of people came out.’
‘Two foreigners.’ He had a moment of inspiration. ‘Talking.’
There was a slight flicker of amusement.
‘Everyone talks,’ said Paulo, though.
‘Not like this. They were talking like professori. And they would have been talking in English.’
‘They shouldn’t have been there. What the hell do you think we go picketing for?’
‘They were foreigners. It wasn’t their business.’
‘Well, they’re not our business.’
‘A dead man is everyone’s business.’
It was another Triestino saying; and here, again, was the one he had used before.
‘What, after all, does it cost to help?’
‘What do you want to know?’ someone said.
‘What happened when they came out.’
‘Nothing happened. They talked, like you said.’
‘And then?’
‘The Irishman went away.’
‘We know the Irishman,’ someone said.
‘He teaches at the People’s University in the evenings.’
‘It’s the other one I want to know about. What did he do? Did he go off by himself? Did he meet someone? Was he going to meet someone?’
‘He didn’t need to.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘He didn’t need to go anywhere. The person he was meeting was inside.’