I knew him at once then. Instead of the chauffeur I saw a ragged little urchin with a broad grin and a white American sailor’s hat. He’d been in this car park to greet us every time we’d come out here in that spring of 1944. ‘I know you,’ I said in English.
He came towards me. ‘Me watchee,’ he said, grinning all over his face.
That had been his business slogan. He would jump on the running board or run beside the trucks shouting, ‘Me watchee. Me watchee.’ I had never heard him say anything else in English. He and his gang had kept the parking place clear of thieves and as long as you paid for your protection you could leave anything in the truck and know it would be safe. When I had come back to the restaurant in 1945 there had been the same cry of ‘Me watchee’ but the boy who ran beside the truck had been smaller. It had been his younger brother. Roberto, the original ‘Me Watchee,’ had made enough to buy a boat and we had found him jostling the fishermen at the foot of the steps.
‘What happened to the boat?’ I asked him in Italian.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘The American and English soldiers go, signore. There is no trade, so I sell and buy a truck. Then that fall to pieces and I become a chauffeur.’
‘Come and have a drink,’ I suggested.
‘Grazie, signore. Grazie.’
We went down to the restaurant and I had a bottle of vino brought out to a table on the balcony. The reflection of the sun on the sea was blinding. We talked of fishing and the tourist trade. Then we got on to politics and I asked him about the Communists. The corners of his lips dragged down. ‘Only the Church saves Napoli from the Communists, signore,’ he said. ‘But the Church cannot fight arms.’
‘ How do you mean?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I know nothing. It is all talk. But the arms come in and disappear to the south. They say there is a Communist army in Calabria.’
‘There’s always an army in Calabria,’ I said. When I’d left Naples there had been rumours of a brigand force of 20,000 fully armed with field pieces, even tanks.
He nodded. ‘That is so, signore. But it is different now. It is all organised. I have heard the Conte Valle speak of it with Comandante dell’ Armate del Sud. He is in the Governo and he say arms are arriving all the time and everything go underground.’
‘Did you say the Conte Valle?’ I asked.
‘Si, si, signore. Il conte is in the Ministero della Guerra.’
His mention of the Conte Valle took me by surprise. Somehow I’d got the impression she was a widow. ‘Is that the husband of the Contessa Zina Valle?’ I asked him.
His eyes narrowed. ‘You know the Contessa, signore?’
‘I met her in Milano,’ I said. ‘Conte Valle is her husband?’
‘Si, signore.’ He was frowning and his brown fingers had tightened round his tumbler. ‘Where do you meet the Contessa?’ he asked.
‘At the house of a business man named Sismondi,’ I answered.
The scowl was still on his face. ‘Was any one else there with her?’ His voice sounded thick and angry. It seemed strange for a chauffeur to show such interest in a member of the aristocracy and I said so. He gave me a quick shrug and then grinned. ‘It is all very simple, signore. I am chauffeur to the Contessa. I like to swim. When the Contessa is away I can come out here and enjoy the sea. But I am always afraid she will come back too soon and be angry because I am not there at the Villa Carlotta. She is very bad when she is angry. She telephone that she arrive this afternoon. Did she tell you anything about her plans?’
‘She was staying the night in Florence.’ I answered his question almost automatically. I was thinking what a strange coincidence it was that I should meet her chauffeur like this and find I knew him from the war days. It was almost as though I had conjured him here. He had finished his wine and was getting to his feet. ‘Scusi, signore. Now I must have my swim.’
I nodded. ‘Will you give the Contessa a message? My name is Farrell. Tell her I propose to call on her at the Villa Carlotta this evening at six-thirty and that I would like her to have dinner with me.’
Again I was conscious of that slight narrowing of the eyes and the beginnings of a scowl. ‘I will tell her, signore,’ he said, ‘Molte grade.’ He gave me a little bow which seemed strange, dressed as he was in nothing but his bathing trucks. ‘A rivederla, signore.’
‘A rivederci.’ I watched him as he disappeared down the steps. I felt as though somewhere a string had been pulled, tightening my contact with Zina Valle. A moment later I saw his brown body cleave the brazen surface of the water below me with hardly a splash. He swam with strong, powerful strokes straight out to sea. The soles of his two feet beat the surface like a propeller. I got up quickly and went into the restaurant.
That evening, just after six-thirty, a taxi deposited me at the entrance of the Villa Carlotta. It was a big, white house approached from the Via Posillipo by a long curving drive overhung with the trailing fronds of palm trees. Through a little group of firs I caught a glimpse of the frowning rock arches of the Palazzo Don Anna, golden brown against the blue backcloth of the sea. A manservant showed me into a room on the first floor. My only impression of it is one of soft, powder blue with glass doors open to a balcony that had for background the picture postcard blue of Naples Bay with Vesuvius in one corner and Capri, looking remote and mysterious, in the other. Zina Valle came in from the balcony. ‘It is very kind of you to visit me so soon,’ she said in that soft, husky voice. She was dressed in a black evening gown. Her bare shoulders were covered by a white ermine wrap, which hung loose as that I could see that the top of the gown barely covered her breasts. A shiver ran down my spine as I took her hand and kissed it.
A servant brought in drinks and she handed me one. ‘Is it business or pleasure that bring you to Napoli?’ she asked, raising her glass to her lips.
‘A holiday,’ I replied.
‘So you take my advice, eh?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘That day I come to see you at the Excelsior — I advise you to take a holiday. Remember?’
‘Yes, I remember,’ I answered. She’d said something else, too. ‘You told me Milan was bad for me. Why?’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘In Milano it is business, always business,’ she answered evasively. ‘You work too hard.’
But I knew she hadn’t meant it like that. Milan is not good for you. She had meant it as a warning. ‘You were right, you know.’
Her brows lifted. ‘How so?’
‘That night at the Albergo Nazionale when you took my glass — you didn’t drink it, did you?’
She shook her head.
‘Why?’
She shrugged her shoulders again. ‘I think perhaps the flowers want a drink, too.’
‘It was drugged, wasn’t it?’
‘Drugged?’ She laughed. ‘Now you are being melodramatic. And they say the English—’
‘I’m not being melodramatic,’ I cut in. ‘About three-thirty in the morning someone came to my room. If I’d had that drink — I don’t think I should be standing here now. You saved my life.’
‘Oh, come now, you are being ridiculous. It was all a joke.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘I will be honest. I thought you very attractive. I wanted to make you think me mysterious. That is all.’
‘Someone tried to murder me.’ My voice sounded obstinate.