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CHAPTER SIX

It was Zina who expressed the mood of that room. She suddenly switched to the Damnation of Faust and the angry, violent music throbbed through the room. No one was talking now. We were all watching her. Her eyes were fixed on her hands and her hands expressed all the bitterness and hate that was in her and us. I shall always remember her sitting there, playing that damned piano. Her face was white and shiny with sweat and there were lines on it I hadn’t noticed before. Her hair was damp and sweat marks began to show at her armpits, and still she went on playing and playing. She was playing the same piece over and over again as though condemned to play it for the rest of her life, and she was playing it as though her very life depended upon it, as though if she stopped she was doomed.

‘I think your Contessa is going to break soon,’ Maxwell whispered to me.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. It was as though the music had mesmerised me. It seemed to clutch at my nerves, stretching them, yet holding them at the same time.

Then suddenly it happened. She looked up. For a moment she was staring straight at me. Then her eyes roamed the circle of our faces while the notes of the music died under her fingers. ‘Why do you all stare at me?’ she whispered. And when none of us answered she crashed her hands on to the keys and through the thunder of the chords she screamed out, ‘Why do you stare at me?’ She bowed her head over the piano then and her shoulders shook to the violent gust of passion that swept through her.

Sansevino started towards her and then stopped, glancing over at me. I could see his dilemma. He wanted to quieten her and the only way he could do that was to give I her the drug her nerves were screaming out for. At the same time he didn’t dare leave me alone in the room with Maxwell.

And then, as though he had been waiting for his cue, Agostino came in. He stood blinking in the doorway, his old peasant face beaming and his eyes alight as though he’d seen a vision of the Blessed Virgin. ‘Well, what is it?’ Sansevino snapped at him.

‘The ash, signore. It is finished. We are saved. La Madonna, ci ha salvati!’

Sansevino went over to the window at the far end of the room and swung back the shutters. Agostino was right. The ash had stopped falling and now we could see Vesuvius again. A great glow burned in the crater top, igniting a pillar of gas that writhed up over the mountain and spread in a black cloud across the sky. And down the slopes ran three wide bands of fire. The hot glare of the lava flow invaded the room with a lurid light.

Sansevino turned to face us. ‘Maxwell — you and Miss Tucek better get back to your car right away. You, too, Mr. Racket. The sooner we’re out of here the better.’

‘It sounds like good advice, Mr. Shirer.’ Hacket was already moving towards the door.

I glanced at Maxwell. He hadn’t moved. He was watching Sansevino. ‘I’ll come with you,’ I told him.

Hilda Tucek moved close to me. Her hand gripped my arm. ‘Please, Mr. Farrell — is he up here?’ Her eyes were fixed on the horrid glare of the mountain slopes. ‘I must know.’ I could feel her trembling and I began to think of Tucek. Was it possible that he was here in this villa?

But before I could decide what to do Zina had rushed forward. ‘Quick!’ she said, clutching hold of my hand. ‘We must get out of here. Roberto! Roberto, where are you?’ Her voice had risen to a note of hysteria. ‘Get the car. Presto, Roberto — presto!’

Her fear seemed to paralyse the others. They stood rooted to the spot, staring at her. I could see her breasts heaving at the thin silk of her dress, smell the sweat of her fear through the strong scent of her perfume. Her eyes were bulging as she tugged frantically at my hand. She swung round on Roberto who was standing quite still, staring at us, his face sullen and passionate. ‘Don’t stand there,’ she screamed at him. ‘The car, you fool! The car!’

Sansevino moved then. He moved very quickly. ‘Control yourself,’ he hissed at her in Italian. Then he was at the door. ‘There is no hurry. We can make an orderly evacuation. Maxwell, will you take Miss Tucek to your car. Hacket, you go with them, too.’

But Zina’s terror was too great to stomach any delay. She dragged at my hand, screaming at Roberto to get her car. And I went with her for my one desire was to get out of the villa where I could talk to Maxwell alone. Roberto was moving towards the door now. The three of us were converging on the door and Sansevino stood there with his hand on the handle, his eyes narrowed to two angry slits that seemed to bore into me as though he were saying — ‘ You will have no anaesthetic. First the knife, then the saw. …” I felt the blood hammering in my ears. And I knew suddenly that this wasサthe moment that all that night had been leading up to.

Sansevino shut the door in our faces. ‘Pull yourself together, Zina.’ He took her by the shoulders and shook her. Then he whispered something to her. I heard the word morfina. She seemed suddenly to relax and I felt her fingers slide out of my hand. His eyes were staring into her face, willing her to be calm, hypnotising her into a state of relaxation. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘go and get the car, Roberto. You can go with him, Zina.’ He had the door open and I was about to follow Zina when he stopped me. ‘You will come with me, Farrell.’

All my fear of the man returned as I stood there staring into his eyes.

‘No,’ I said, and I could hear the tremor in my voice. ‘No, I’ll go with Zina. I think she needs—’

‘I am the best judge of what she needs,’ he snapped. ‘Kindly stay here.’

But Zina had turned and caught hold of my hand. ‘Come quickly, Dick,’ she said.

Sansevino caught hold of her hand and with a twist forced her fingers to release their hold on me. ‘Go to the car, Zina,’ he ordered. ‘Farrell comes with me.’

‘No, no,’ she cried. ‘I know what you are going to do. But I will not—’

‘Shut up!’

‘Then let him come with me. You want him to stay with you so that—’

‘Shut up — do you hear?’

‘I will not go without him. I will not let you—’

He caught hold of her and pushed her roughly back into the room. ‘Very well, then. Stay here until our guests have gone. Hacket. Will you please go now. And you, Maxwell. I am afraid the Contessa is not herself.’

I saw her face set hard. ‘You cannot do this thing. Do you understand? I will not be responsible—’

‘You are not responsible for anything. You can stay here with him, since that’s the way you want it.’

Her eyes widened in sudden fear at his tone. ‘I know what you are going to do,’ she screamed at him. ‘You will let us all be buried alive up here. You can do that to the two you have at Santo Francisco. I do not care about them. But you cannot do that to—’

‘Shut up — damn you!’

Zina stamped her foot. Her mood had slid from fear to anger. ‘I tell you you cannot do this to me. I do not wish to die. I will tell these—’

Sansevino hit her then, hit her across the mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Shut up, will you,’ he hissed. His ring left a streak of blood across the pallor of her right cheek.

There was a sudden, stunned silence. I felt my fist clench. A desire to smash his face to pulp, to hammer him to bloody pulp welled up inside me.

But before I could move Roberto had hit him. He hit him with all the force of pent-up passion. His face was bestial with the desire to kill. It wasn’t human. It was something primitive and violent. I heard the crack of bone breaking as Roberto’s fist smashed into the centre of the man’s face. The force of the blow flung Sansevino across the room. He stumbled against Hacket and fell sprawling on the floor.

For a moment he lay there, staring across at Roberto. The young Italian was breathing heavily and licking his bloody knuckles. Then he began to move in on Sansevino. He came forward deliberately and with relish, his face coarsened by some urge that was akin to lust. Sansevino saw him coming and reached into his jacket pocket. His hand came away with a glint of metal. There was a spurt of flame, an earsplitting crash and Roberto checked as though he’d been stopped by a blow in the stomach. His mouth fell open and a look of surprise crossed his face. Then with a little choking cough his knees folded under him and he crumpled up on the floor, his eyes open and staring.