During his walk to Assisi the hope had occurred to him that he might perhaps meet Ervin. In their youth, when Ervin was dominant in the group, they had read everything they could about the great saint of Assisi. Ervin must surely have joined the Franciscan order. But Mihály did not meet him, nor could the Franciscan churches revive the religious fervour of his youth, not even Santa Maria degli Angeli, built around the Portiuncula where the saint died. He decided not to wait around there until nightfall, fearing that anyone looking for him might well find him in such an obvious venue for tourists. He moved on, and by evening reached Spoleto.
Here he dined, but did not enjoy the wine at all. These Italian reds sometimes end up smelling of methylated spirits, or onions, God knows why, when at other times they can be so unaccountably fine. He became even more depressed when he realised at the counter that, despite every economy, the money he had cashed in Perugia would soon run out, and he had no idea what he would then do. The outside world, which he had been so happy to forget in Perugia and its plain, began here to breathe once more down his neck.
He took a cheap room in a cheap albergo—there really wasn’t much choice in this tiny place — and then set off for one more little stroll before dinner round the back streets of Spoleto. Clouds veiled the moon. It was dark and the narrow lightless alleys of the sombre town closed around him, but not in the welcoming way the little pink streets had in Venice. Somehow he ended up in the sort of district where, with every step, the lanes grew darker and more menacing, the stairways led to ever more mysterious doors. He could see absolutely no-one about — he had quite lost his way — and then he suddenly felt sure that someone was following him.
He turned. Just at that moment the person loomed round the corner: a huge, dark-clad form. An unnameable fear seized him, and he stepped hurriedly into an alleyway that proved darker and narrower than any so far.
But the alley was blind. He could only turn back to where the stranger was already waiting at the narrow exit. Mihály began a few hesitant steps towards him, but, catching a better view of the man, he stopped in horror. The stranger wore a short, black, circular cape, of the sort common in the last century, and over it, a white silk scarf. On his ancient, soft, oddly crumpled face was a sort of indescribable smile. He spread his arms in a little gesture towards Mihály, and screeched in a thin, neutered voice, “Zacomo!”, or some such name.
“Not me,” said Mihály. The stranger considered this, and a hasty apology passed between them. Mihály could now see that the indefinable smile on the old man’s face was quite witless.
The fact that his escapade had arisen out of a purely irrational fear and had ended on this somewhat comic note, did nothing to reassure him. Rather, given his readiness to find symbolic significance, he concluded from this foolish episode that he was indeed being pursued, and that someone was indeed close on his tracks. In growing panic, he sought out the way back to his lodging, hurried up to his room, shut the door and blocked it with a chest. Even so, the room remained an alarming place. First of all, it was far too big for one person. Second, Mihály couldn’t bear that fact that in Italy the smaller hotels have tiled floors. He felt like a child who had been banished into the kitchen, a harsh enough punishment in itself (though one that in practice could never have happened to him). Third, the room was on the very edge of the hill town. Below the window the cliff fell sheer some two hundred metres, and, defying comprehension, a glass door had been cut beside it into the wall. Perhaps it had at one time opened onto a balcony, but the balcony had either been removed centuries before, or had collapsed from neglect. Only the door remained, opening into the sky two hundred metres up in the air. For any potential suicide this room would have been certain death. The door would have been irresistible. In addition to this, the vast wall was hung with a single picture, an illustration from some picture-book, of a hideously ugly woman dressed in the fashion of the last century, holding a revolver.
Mihály decided that he had slept in more reassuring places. What worried him even more was that his passport was downstairs with the grim-faced, but no less sly-looking, proprietor, who had resisted his cunning suggestion that he fill in the registration form himself on the pretext that his passport was written in an incomprehensible foreign tongue. The innkeeper insisted that the passport should remain in his keeping as long as Mihály continued on the premises. It seemed he had had some bad experiences. The inn was indeed just the sort to guarantee its owner his fair share of those. During the day, Mihály reckoned, probably only down-at-heel revellers frequented the place, while in the evening horse-thieving types guffawed over cards in the so-called sala da pranzo, an eating area pervaded with kitchen smells.
But in whoever’s hands, for whatever reason, the passport was a potential threat to him, betraying his name to his pursuers. Just to make off, leaving the passport behind, would have been as distressing as going out without his trousers on, as we do in our dreams. He lay on the questionably clean bed, feeling very tense. He slept little. A mixture of sleep, dozing and anxious wakefulness blended themselves together into the all-pervasive night-time feeling of being closely followed.
He rose at the crack of dawn, sneaked downstairs, roused the innkeeper after a long struggle, paid his bill, reclaimed his passport, and hurried off to the station. A half-awake woman made coffee for him at the bar counter. After a while, some sleepy labourers came in. Mihály’s anxiety would not leave him. He was in constant terror that someone would arrest him. The appearance of every soldier or policeman fuelled his suspicion, until, at last, the train pulled in. He began to breathe more freely and prepared to abandon his cigarette and climb on board.
Just then a very young and startlingly handsome little fascista stepped up to him and asked for a light before he threw down his cigarette.
“Ecco,” said Mihály, and offered him the cigarette. He was entirely off his guard. Especially now that the train had come.
“You’re a foreigner,” said the fascista. “I can tell from the way you said ‘ecco’. I’ve a sharp ear.”
“Bravo,” said Mihály.
“You’re Hungarian,” the little man beamed up at him.
“Si, si,” said Mihály, smiling.
In that instant the fascista seized him by the arm, with a strength he would never have thought possible in such a small person.
“Ah! You’re the man the whole of Italy is searching for! Ecco! This is your picture!” he added, producing a piece of paper. “Your wife is looking for you.”
Mihály jerked his arm away, pulled out a calling card, and quickly scribbled on it, “I am well. Don’t try to find me,” and gave it, with a ten lire note, to the little fascista.
“Ecco! Send this telegram to my wife. Arrivederci!”
Once again he tore himself away from the man, who had renewed his grip, jumped onto the moving train, and slammed the door behind him.
The little train went up to Norcia, in the hills. When he disembarked the Sibilline mountains stretched out before him with their two-thousand-metre peaks. To the right lay the Gran Sasso, Italy’s highest range.