You were just a signature to me, linked with the name Heinrich. And then I read that Heinrich Stelben was associated with a dancer named Carla Rometta. I meet you within a few hours of reading that. And then, next day, I find you prepared to pay a fantastic sum for Col da Varda, a property that was once owned by Heinrich Stelben. You must admit, I could hardly fail to be interested in such a strange sequence of events.'
She did not speak for a moment. She stood there, looking at me, her cigarette forgotten and a puzzled frown on her face. She seemed to accept the story, for all she eventually asked was, 'And the picture — how did you obtain that?'
I said, 'I have explained my interest. The only thing I haven't explained is how I came by the picture. Before I tell you that, perhaps you would be willing to satisfy my curiosity and tell me why you were prepared to pay as much as four million lire for Col da Varda? I am sorry,' I added. 'I have no right to ask — it is just that I am intrigued. It all seems so extraordinary.'
'I understand,' she said. 'You make a bargain — I tell you why I wanted Col da Varda, and you tell me how the picture walked into your pocket. That is not gallant of you, for you are asking me to expose my heart. You have no right to ask me to do that. Whereas, I think I have a right to ask you about the picture — a picture I gave a long time ago to a very dear friend.' Her voice had dropped almost to a whisper.
I began to feel uncomfortable. After all it was none of my business. She had presumably been Heinrich Stelben's mistress. And she had a perfect right to go around buying up slittovias at absurd prices as often as she wished. And I intended lying to her anyway about how I had come by the photograph, just as I had lied to her already about my interest in the matter.
I was on the point of apologising and suggesting we continue down to Cortina, when she said, 'But I do not mind. So long as you tell no one. You promise?'
I nodded.
'The picture was taken just before the war. I was a dancer in Berlin. Heinrich was of the Gestapo. He was already married. We had to be careful. But we were in love and we were happy. Then the war came and I stayed with him always. We were in many countries — Czechoslovakia, France, Austria, Hungary and then Italy. It was lovely.' Her voice was soft again now and her big dark eyes were looking past me into the sombre depths of the firs. Then Germany collapsed. Heinrich was arrested in a village on Lake Como. But he escaped and soon we were together again. He bought Col da Varda because—' Her eyes suddenly switched to my face searchingly. 'I wonder whether you will understand? You English are so cold. He bought it because that was where we had first met each other. It was January 1939 — it was a warm sunny day and we sat out on the belvedere for hours, drinking and talking. For the rest of our holiday we met up there every day. And then, later that year, I followed him to Berlin, where he had arranged for me a contract to dance at one of the best night clubs in the city. For nearly three months we owned Col da Varda. It was heaven. Then those filthy carabinieri arrested him whilst I was in Venice. When he was sent to the Regina Coeli, I went to Rome to arrange his escape. But then he was handed over to the British. That was the end.' Her voice was no more than a breath, a sigh for something irrevocably lost.
She shrugged her shoulders and when she spoke again it was in her normal deep husky tones. 'That part of my life is finished. I shall not be faithful to Heinrich. I am not the faithful type. I have had too many men in my life. Even when he was alive, I was not faithful. But I loved him. That will sound strange to you — that I can sleep with several men and yet love only the one. But there it is. And that is why I wanted to buy Col da Varda. We had planned to convert the rifugio into a lovely little villa in the mountains. He had started on the alterations when he was arrested. Now that he is dead, I wanted it for my own. I have plenty of money. Heinrich did well in the Gestapo. He left me money in nearly every capital in Europe — real money — houses and jewellery — not bank accounts and worthless paper currency.' She looked up at me. 'There, now I have told you everything.'
I could not meet the reproachful gaze of her eyes. I felt embarrassed. She need not have told me everything in such detail. I sought refuge in a straight-forward question. 'Why did you have Stefan Valdini bid for you at the auction?'
'Why, why, why!' She laughed at me. 'You are so full of questions. Why? Because I wished no publicity.'
'Of course,' I said. 'But why Valdini? He is — I don't know — he looks a crook.'
She laughed. 'But of course, my dear. How would he look otherwise? He is a crook. Poor Stefan! I am so sorry for him. And he is so faithful to me.' She was looking at me with a roguish smile now. 'You do not like Stefan, eh? He dresses too cheap — too loud. Oh, but you should have seen him before the war. He had a wardrobe of sixty suits and he had three hundred ties. Every suit, every tie more brilliant than the next. But now he has not so much. It was the Germans — they took many things from him. You will hear all about it. Now he has only twenty suits and eighty ties. He will tell you. He is not the man he was. He was quite a figure, you know, in the Eastern Mediterranean at one time.' She put her head quickly on one side and glanced up at me. 'Would it shock you to know something? Once I was one of his gairls.' Her imitation of the way Valdini said 'gairls' was perfect. 'There, now I have shocked you,' she said with a soft gurgle. 'But I have told you so much about myself, there is no reason why you should not know that. But he fell in love with me. Imagine — he was fool enough to fall in love with one of his own girls. Poor Stefan! He has never got over it. And now he is — how do you say? — on the down-slope. That makes me sorry for him.' She shrugged her shoulders and laughed quite gaily. There! I have answered all your interminable whys. Now you shall answer mine. How did you get my picture?'
'You will not believe it,' I said. 'It is too improbable. It was given me just before I left London,' I told her. 'We were in a bar, drinking. A friend of one of the party joined us. He had drunk a lot. When he heard I was returning to Italy, he gave me the photograph. He said he had got it from a German prisoner. He said it was of no interest to him now he was back. I was welcome to it. And if it intrigued me as much as it had intrigued him, he hoped I'd meet the girl. He never had. And that is all there is to it,' I finished lamely.
She looked at me searchingly. 'What was his name?' she asked.
'I don't know,' I replied. 'He was just a stray that joined our party.'
There was silence between us for a moment. The story seemed very thin. But perhaps its very thinness convinced her. 'Yes, it is possible. It was the British who questioned him after his arrest on Como. And why did you keep the picture with you? Did you like it so much?' She was laughing at me.
'Perhaps I thought I might meet the original,' I told her.
She smiled. 'And what do you think, now that you have met the original?' She laughed. 'But that is unfair. You have only just left your wife, is that not so? And you have met the Scarlet Woman. You are so English, my dear — so delightfully English. But we are friends — yes?' She took my arm happily. 'And you will be kind to my little Stefan, eh? Poor Stefan! He is such a frightful little man. But he cannot help himself. And when he likes people he is kind. I hope you will find him kind, Neil?' I don't know whether she was amused at her use of my Christian name or at the possibility of my finding poor Stefan unkind. 'Avanti!' she said. 'We have talked so long, we must go fast to Cortina. I am having tea with a lovely Hungarian man.' And her expression as she said this was the equivalent of sticking out her tongue at me and my English ideas.