‘We must get to the cars.’ Zina started to push past him, but he caught hold of her arm. ‘I tell you, it’s hopeless. You’ll only get lost if you go out. I’ve told Roberto to start the light plant. We’ll have to stay here till the ash lets up a bit.’
Zina sagged against the wall as though all the stuffing had been knocked out of her. Agostino’s wife had joined us now, passive as a buffalo, one hand holding a candle and the other fingering the beads of her rosary. Her lips moved as she reiterated again and again, endlessly, ‘Mamma mia! Mamma mia!’ as though that in itself would keep the ash at bay. The little girl I’d seen when we arrived clung to her skirts, her eyes enormous in her white, frightened face.
The bulbs in the chandelier glowed into life, flickered and then brightened. We stood blinking at each other in the sudden brilliance. Sansevino was almost unrecognisable, he was so caked in ash. The air was thick with dust. A white film covered everything. We might have been in a building that had just been hit by a bomb.
Roberto came in then from the servants’ quarters. His hair and face were powder-grey and pellets of cinder slid from the shoulders of the leather jerkin he’d flung on over his singlet. Zina clutched at him. ‘We must get the car, Roberto. If we can reach the autostrada we—’
But he threw her off. ‘Impossible,’ he grunted.
‘But it must be possible,’ she blazed at him. ‘It must be.’ She caught his arm and shook it. ‘Will you stand there and let us all be buried here alive?’
He shrugged his shoulders, dragging down the corners of his mouth and spreading his hands in that inevitable Italian gesture of resignation.
‘Go and get the car!’ she ordered him.
He stood there, staring at her.
‘Go and get the car!’ she shouted. ‘Do you hear? I want my car.’ Then as he didn’t move: ‘You are a coward. You are afraid to—’
‘If you want the car, go and get it,’ he said sullenly.
She stared at him as though he’d struck her. Then she turned to Sansevino who was standing by the table, his fingers stroking his upper lip. ‘If the car is no good, there is still the aeroplane. Where is Ercole?’
‘He went into Napoli in the jeep,’ Sansevino replied. ‘It’s no good, Zina. We’ve just got to stay here.’
I thought for a moment she was going to break down. Instead she went towards him and in a quick whisper said, ‘Then give me some morfina.’
‘Later,’ he said quickly. ‘Later.’ His eyes had glanced in my direction.
She began to plead. Her voice was an abject whine and now I knew what that feverish, starved look in her eyes meant. He had started to move towards the stairs when suddenly there was a violent banging on the front door. Somebody was calling out, asking us to open.
It was Sansevino who opened it. A man staggered in with a blast of hot air and a rolling cloud of choking dust. He had his arm flung up to guard his face. He was white with ash, and cinders as big as peas rolled off the shoulders of his overcoat. As Sansevino flung the door to I had a momentary glimpse of a world that was black like a pit, a world that stirred and moved and was alive with an ugly hissing, sifting, drifting sound. The man shook himself like a dog. ‘I sure am glad I found your house,’ he said to Sansevino. And as the ash fell away from him I saw who it was. ‘You’ve had a lucky escape, Mr. Racket,’ I said.
He stared at me. And then his face creased in a smile. ‘Well, if it isn’t Mr. Farrell. Well, well — we just don’t seem to be able to keep away from each other, do we? And the Countess. Wonderful!’ He was coughing and beaming at us at the same time. I introduced him to Sansevino. ‘A fellow countryman of yours,’ I added and tried hard not to sound sarcastic.
‘Glad to meet you, sir.’ He wrung Sansevino’s hand. ‘I motored up to Santo Francisco. They told me it was the best place to see Vesuvius at night. Well, I certainly seen something. The folks at home will never believe me when I tell them. I was right there in Santo Francisco when it started.’ He shook his head in wonderment. ‘Stupendous! Just stupendous! I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. No, sir! And I’ve been down to see the volcanoes in Mexico.’
‘Is it possible to get away by car?’ Zina asked him.
He shook his head. ‘Not a chance, lady. Countess, I mean. When it started all the villagers came out into the streets. At first I thought they were rubber-necking, same as me. But then they started loading up their carts and I only just got out before the road was blocked with screaming horses and bullocks and humans. I’d got the idea by that time that it was going to be dangerous and I started to drive back down towards the autostrada. Then the ash began to fall. Couldn’t see a damn thing. Not a damn thing. It was like trying to drive along a pit shaft just after they’ve blown the coal face. Black as hell!’ He turned to me. ‘Remember those two people we saw at Pompeii — a man and a girl?’
I nodded.
‘They were out there. I ran slap into the back of their convertible.’
I glanced at Zina. She was looking at Sansevino. ‘What were they doing?’ she asked.
‘Just looking at the mountain, I guess. They were parked outside the gates to your place. They told me there was a villa up here so I came along. Didn’t fancy the hood of my little beetle-car would last long if the ash got hot.’
‘Who are these people, Zina?’ Sansevino asked.
‘Remember John Maxwell?’ I asked him.
His eyes flicked to my face. They were narrowed and wary. He didn’t say anything, but he nodded. ‘If it is the two people we met at Pompeii this afternoon,’ I added, ‘it will be John Maxwell and a girl called Hilda Tucek.’
‘Hilda Tucek!’ His voice had a sudden note of surprise. ‘No — I don’t think I know her. But I remember Maxwell, of course.’ The speed with which he covered up was amazing. ‘Well, since we can’t do anything we’d better have a drink.’ He opened the door of the room where we’d faced each other only a few minutes ago.
But Zina caught hold of his arm. ‘Walter! Are you going to do nothing? Do you wish to be buried here in your villa?’ The urgent, panicky note was back in her voice.
Sansevino shrugged his shoulders. ‘Tell me what I ought to do and I’ll do it. In the meantime you’d better have a drink to steady you.’ He had caught hold of her arm. But she flung herself free. ‘You want me to die. That is it.’ Her eyes were blazing. ‘You think I know too—’
‘Shut up!’ His eyes slid to my face.
‘I tell you, you cannot do this to me. I do not wish to die. I will—’
He had hold of her arm again and she cried out as his fingers dug into her flesh. ‘Shut up — do you hear? What you need is one of your injections.’ He turned quickly to the drink table and poured her a stiff cognac. ‘Drink that and get a hold on yourself. What about you, Mr. Hacket? Cognac?’
The other nodded. ‘So you’re an American, Mr. Shirer?’
‘Italian by birth, American by nationality,’ Sansevino answered, handing him his drink. ‘After the war I bought this place and settled down to producing wine. Would you care for another cognac, Farrell?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘And what part of America do you come from?’ Hacket asked him.
‘Pittsburgh.’
‘You don’t say. Well, isn’t that a coincidence! I’m from Pittsburgh myself. Do you know that little eating-house off Dravo Street — Morielli’s?’
‘Can’t say I do.’
‘Well, you go right over to Morielli’s when you’re next in Pittsburgh. Wonderful hamburgers. I thought all Italians knew Morielli. And that other place. What’s its name? Pugliani’s. Just inside the Triangle near Gulf Building. You remember Pugliani’s?’
‘Seltz?’
‘Er — yes, make it a long one, will you. Of course, Pugliani’s has changed hands now. They’ve put a dance floor in and—’